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 work-woman 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 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 forgiven our country-women; and I think they take
a special pleasure in the legend of the northern quarter of the
town, called L'Anglade, because there the English free-lances were
arrested and driven back by the potency of a little Virgin Mary on
the wall.
From time to time a market is held, and the town has a season of
revival; cattle and pigs are stabled in the streets; and
pickpockets have been known to come all the way from Lyons for the
occasion. Every Sunday the country folk throng in with daylight to
buy apples, to attend mass, and to visit one of the wine-shops, of
which there are no fewer than fifty in this little town. Sunday
wear for the men is a green tailcoat of some coarse sort of
drugget, and usually a complete suit to match.
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