The Piety of the French People [pp. 76-84]

76 TBE PIETY OF TIlE F~EKcIl PEOPLE. [Oct.,
THE PIETY GF THE FRENCH PEOPLE.
I HAVE recently travelled through France from Dieppe to
Marseilles; I have seen the French people in city, town, and
country; at home, in church, in caf6s, and in places of public
amusement, and here are the impressions which that tour has
left upon me.
The government of France is infidel, but the French people
are true to the faith of their fathers. Literature, art, and science
are generally anti-clerical, but they represent only a yery small
portion of the thirty-five millions of French people. The press,
with some brilliant exceptions, is either infidel or indifferent to
all religion, but it does not influence the convictions of one in a
thousand of French readers. The piety of the French people is
deep, solid, strong. It enters into their daily life. It is a part
of their national life. Paris is said to be bad, seductive, dangerous. I did not seek for its wickedness, and therefore did not
find it, for it is not of that rampant and reckless kind that disgusts the eye and saddens the heart in the streets of London. It
has been said that French vice loses half its wickedness by losing
all its grossness. We certainly are not shocked on the streets of
Paris, as in London, by drunken men and women, ay, and children, making night hideous.
Beneath the superficial gayety of Paris which fascinates the
stranger there is a true spirit of Catholic piety and charity.
Enter any one of the hundred churches that stand as enduring
monuments of the pious generosity of the French people, and see
the devout worshippers kneeling before the grand high altar or
the numerous side-chapels and shrines-the lady in velvet by
the laborer in his blouse, the gentleman in broadcloth by the
poor servant-girl. Long before the votaries of pleasure have recovered from last night's dissipation the pious Parisians are at
early Mass. The following paragraph, by a clever American
journalist who wrote under the name of "Aguecheek," applies to
the French people to-day:
"The parish churches of Paris, the churches of the various religious
orders and congregations, and those numerous little temples which are so
thickly scattered through the city. attract me in a manner especially fascinating. There is an air of cosiness and at-home-ativeness about them
which cannot be found in the grander fanes. Some of them seem by their