However, from information gathered only yesterday, we learn that ’house rent bears favourable comparison with many English provincial towns; that servants’ wages are not high, and that provisions are comparatively cheap;’ also that the climate is ’very cold sometimes in winter, but more inclined to be damp; and that there is no good inn.’

Again,—­’if any quiet family demands fine air, a lovely position, cheap house-rent and servants, easy and cheerful society, regular church services, and, above all, first-class education for boys, and good governesses and masters for girls, it cannot do better than settle down here.’

And again (from another point of view) that, ’after a year’s residence in Normandy, I can see but little economy in it compared with England, and believe that sensible people would find far greater comfort, and but little more expense, if resident in Wales, Ireland, or some of the distant parts of our own country; if they would but make up their minds to live with as few servants, and to see as little society as is the custom abroad.’

These varying opinions are worth having, coming as they do from residents, and giving us the latest information on the subject; but our friend whom we have quoted last seems to put the case most fairly, when he says, in so many words, ’English people had better live in their own country, if they can.’

Life at Avranches is a strange contrast to Granville.  In a few hours we pass from the contemplation of fishermen’s lives to a curious kind of civilization—­an exotic plant, which some might think was hardly worth the transplanting.  A little colony of English people have taken possession of one of the finest and healthiest spots in Europe, and upon this vantage ground have deposited, or reproduced as in a magic mirror, much of the littleness and pettiness that is peculiar to an English country town:  they have brought insular prejudices and peculiarities, and unpacked several of them at Avranches.

Do we overdraw the picture?  Hear one more resident, who thus tersely, and rather pathetically, puts his grievances to us, viva voce:—­

‘We quiet English people,’ he says, ’generally dine early, because it is considered economical—­which it is not!

’We live exclusively and stiffly, because it is considered proper and necessary—­which it is not!

’We go to the expense and trouble of bringing out our families, because living is supposed to be cheaper than in England—­which practically it is not!

’We believe that our children will be well educated, and pick up French for nothing—­which they do not!’—­&c, &c.

An amusing book might be written about English society in French towns; no one indeed knows who has not tried it, with what little society-props such coteries as those at Avranches, Pau, &c., are kept up.  It varies, of course, every year, and in each place every year; but when we were last at Avranches, ‘society’ was the watchword, we might almost say the war cry; and we had to declare our colours as if we lived in the days of the Wars of the Roses.