d the most remarkable
spendthrift on record. How he set about it, in a place where there are
no luxuries for sale, and where the board at the best inn comes to
little more than a shilling a day, is a problem for the wise. His son,
ruined as the family was, went as far as Paris to sow his wild oats; and
so the cases of father and son mark an epoch in the history of
centralization in France. Not until the latter had got into the train
was the work of Richelieu complete.

It is a people of lace-makers. The women sit in the streets by groups of
five or six; and the noise of the bobbins is audible from one group to
another. Now and then you will hear one woman clattering off prayers for
the edification of the others at their work. They wear gaudy shawls,
white caps with a gay ribbon about the head, and sometimes a black felt
brigand hat above the cap; and so they give the street colour and
brightness and a foreign air. A while ago, when England largely supplied
herself from this district with the lace called _torchon_, it was not
unusual to earn five francs a day; and five francs in Monastier is worth
a pound in London. Now, from a change in the market, it takes a clever
and industrious workwoman to earn from three to four in the week, or
less than an eighth of what she made easily a few years ago. The tide of
prosperity came and went, as with our northern pitmen, and left nobody
the richer. The women bravely squandered their gains, kept the men in
idleness, and gave themselves up, as I was told, to sweethearting and a
merry life. From week's end to week's end it was one continuous gala in
Monastier; people spent the day in the wine-shops, and the drum or the
bagpipes led on the _bourrees_ up to ten at night. Now these dancing
days are over. "_Il n'y a plus de jeunesse,_" said Victor the garcon. I
hear of no great advance in what are thought the essentials of morality;
but the _bourree_, with its rambling, sweet, interminable music, and
alert and rustic figures, has fallen into disuse, and is mostly
remembered as a custom of the past. Only on the occasion of the fair
shall you hear a drum discreetly rattling in a wine-shop or perhaps one
of the company singing the measure while the others dance. I am sorry at
the change, and marvel once more at the complicated scheme of things
upon this earth, and how a turn of fashion in England can silence so
much mountain merriment in France. The lace-makers themselves have not
entirely f