Next to the redundant manifestations of grief, the thing that most impressed us was the rigid economy practised in even the smallest details of expenditure.  Among the lower classes there is none of that aping of fashion so prevalent in prodigal England; the different social grades have each a distinctive dress and are content to wear it.  Among the men, blouses of stout blue cotton and sabots are common.  Sometimes velveteen trousers, whose original tint years of wear have toned to some exquisite shade of heliotrope, and a russet coat worn with a fur cap and red neckerchief, compose an effect that for harmonious colouring would be hard to beat.  The female of his species, as is the case in all natural animals, is content to be less adorned.  Her skirt is black, her apron blue.  While she is young, her neatly dressed hair, even in the coldest weather, is guiltless of covering.  As her years increase she takes her choice of three head-dresses, and to shelter her grey locks selects either a black knitted hood, a checked cotton handkerchief, or a white cap of ridiculously unbecoming design.

No French workaday father need fear that his earnings will be squandered on such perishable adornments as feathers, artificial flowers, or ribbons.  The purchases of his spouse are certain to be governed by extreme frugality.  She selects the family raiment with a view to durability.  Flimsy finery that the sun would fade, shoddy materials that a shower of rain would ruin, offer no temptations to her.  When she expends a few sous on the cutting of her boy’s hair, she has it cropped until his cranium resembles the soft, furry skin of a mole, thus rendering further outlay in this respect unlikely for months.  And when she buys a flannel shirt, a six-inch strip of the stuff, for future mending, is always included in the price.

But with all this economy there is an air of comfort, a complete absence of squalor.  In cold weather the school-girls wear snug hoods, or little fur turbans; and boys have the picturesque and almost indestructible berets of cloth or corduroy.  Cloth boots that will conveniently slip inside sabots for outdoor use are greatly in vogue, and the comfortable Capuchin cloaks—­whose peaked hood can be drawn over the head, thus obviating the use of umbrellas—­are favoured by both sexes and all ages.

[Illustration:  Mistress and Maid]

As may be imagined, little is spent on luxuries.  Vendors of frivolities know better than to waste time tempting those provident people.  On one occasion only did I see money parted with lightly, and in that case the bargain appeared astounding.  One Sunday morning an enterprising huckster of gimcrack jewellery, venturing out from Paris, had set down his strong box on the verge of the market square, and, displaying to the admiring eyes of the country folks, ladies’ and gentlemen’s watches with chains complete, in the most dazzling of aureate metal, sold them at six sous apiece as quickly as he could hand them out.