But as I rode out of Paris that bright May day it seemed Monday all along the way; for dames with baskets balanced on their heads were making their way to the waterside, followed by troops of barefoot or sabot-shod children.  There was one fine young woman with a baby in her arms, and the innocent firstborn was busily taking its breakfast as the mother walked calmly along, bearing on her well-poised head the family wash.  And a mile farther on, as if she had seen her rival and gone her one better, was another woman with a two-year-old cherub perched secure on top of the gently swaying basket, proud as a cardinal about to be consecrated.  It was a study in balancing that I have never seen before nor since; and I only ask those to believe it who know things so true that they dare not tell them.  As the day wore on, I saw that the wash was being completed, for the garments were spread out on the greenest of green grass, or on the bushes that lined the way.  By ten o’clock I was nearing Fontainebleau, and the clothes were nearly ready to take in—­but not quite.  For while waiting for the warm sun and the gentle breeze to dry them, the thrifty dames, who were French and make soup out of everything, put in the time by laundering the children.  It seemed like that economic stroke of good housewives who use the soapy wash-water for scrubbing the kitchen-floor.  There they were, dozens of hopefuls on whom the fate of the nation rested—­creepers to ten-year-olds—­being scrubbed and dipped, or playing parlez-vous tag in lieu of towel, as innocent of clothes as Carlyle’s imaginary House of Lords.

And so I passed off from the road that traced the Seine to a road that kept company with the canal.  I followed the towpath, even in spite of warnings that ’t was ’gainst the law.  It was a one-horse canal, for many of the gaily painted boats were drawn only by a single, shaggy-limbed Percheron.  The boats were sharp-prowed and narrow; and on some were bareheaded women knitting, and men carving curious things out of blocks of wood, as they journeyed.  And I said to myself, if “it is the pace that kills,” these people are making a strong bid for immortality.  I hailed the lazily moving craft, waving my hat, and the slow-going tourists called back cheerily.

By and by I came to a great, wide plain that stretched away like a tideless summer sea.  The wheat and lentils and pulse were planted in long strips.  In one place I thought I could trace the good old American flag (that you never really love unless you are on a foreign shore) made with alternate strips of millet and peas, with a goodly patch of cabbages in the corner for stars.  But possibly this was imagination, for I had been thinking that in a week it would be the Fourth of July and I was far from home—­in a land where firecrackers are unknown.

Coming to a little rise of ground, I could see, lying calm and quiet amid the world of rich, growing grain, the town of Montargis.  Across on the blue hillside was Montargis Castle, framed in a mass of foliage.  I stopped to view the scene, and the echo of vesper-bells came pealing gently over the miles, as the nodding poppies at my feet bowed reverently in the breeze.