nd concert, in which their whole art of war was
afterwards found to consist. Nor was their intimacy confined to their
sports. The peasants resorted familiarly to their landlords for
advice, both legal and medical; and they repaid the visits in their
daily rambles, and entered with interest into all the details of their
agricultural operations. They came to the weddings of their children,
drank with their guests, and made little presents to the young people.
On Sundays and holidays, all the retainers of the family assembled at
the chateau, and danced in the barn or the court-yard, according to
the season. The ladies of the house joined in the festivity, and that
without any airs of condescension or of mockery; for, in their own
life, there was little splendour or luxurious refinement. They
travelled on horseback, or in heavy carriages drawn by oxen; and had
little other amusement than in the care of their dependants, and the
familiar intercourse of neighbours among whom there was no rivalry or
principle of ostentation.

From all this there resulted, as Madame de L. assures us, a certain
innocence and kindliness of character, joined with great hardihood and
gaiety,--which reminds us of Henry IV. and his Bearnois,--and carries
with it, perhaps on account of that association, an idea of something
more chivalrous and romantic--more honest and unsophisticated, than
any thing we expect to meet with in this modern world of artifice and
derision. There was great purity of morals accordingly, Mad. de
L. informs us, and general cheerfulness and content in all this
district;--crimes were never heard of, and lawsuits almost unknown.
Though not very well educated, the population was exceedingly
devout;--though theirs was a kind of superstitious and traditional
devotion, it must he owned, rather than an enlightened or rational
faith. They had the greatest veneration for crucifixes and images of
their saints, and had no idea of any duty more imperious than that of
attending on all the solemnities of religion. They were singularly
attached also to their cures, who were almost all born and bred in the
country, spoke their _patois_, and shared in all their pastimes and
occupations. When a hunting-match was to take place, the clergyman
announced it from the pulpit after prayers,--and then took his
fowling-piece, and accompanied his congregation to the thicket. It was
on behalf of these cures, in fact, that the first disturbances were
exci