Excerpt from France of the French

The interest felt by English-speaking people-at all events by those of Great Britain-in whatever relates to France has received of recent years a stimulus the effects of which have been manifest in a variety of ways. The complete disappearance of those political causes of discord which for so long a period fostered reciprocal distrust has had, among other consequences, that of greatly strengthening in the two nations the wish to know one another better and therefore to clear their minds of all false impressions and engrained prejudices. A book that responds strictly to the title "France of the French" seems therefore to be a need of the day. My qualification to write such a work is the time that I have lived in this country in close intimacy with the French of Paris and of the provinces. It is a period that covers three decades, and one which has been singularly full of the materials of history as well as amazingly prolific of new movements of mind in relation to the arts, the sciences, and even the social order. The future may class it with the greatest of all epochs of French intellectual activity.

When a writer has spent a long course of years in a foreign country he needs to have his interest awakened in many things, which by force of custom or familiarity may have ceased to stir his curiosity or surprise. In writing "France of the French, " I have found this interest return to me, such as I knew it in the days when I was a "wayfarer" on the roads and by the rivers, through forests and in desert places, of this pleasant land, and before such wandering to gather knowledge and impressions had to yield to official duties.

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