Peasants into Frenchmen: The Modernization of Rural France, 1870-1914France achieved national unity much later than is commonly supposed. For a hundred years and more after the Revolution, millions of peasants lived on as if in a timeless world, their existence little different from that of the generations before them. The author of this lively, often witty, and always provocative work traces how France underwent a veritable crisis of civilization in the early years of the French Republic as traditional attitudes and practices crumbled under the forces of modernization. Local roads and railways were the decisive factors, bringing hitherto remote and inaccessible regions into easy contact with markets and major centers of the modern world. The products of industry rendered many peasant skills useless, and the expanding school system taught not only the language of the dominant culture but its values as well, among them patriotism. By 1914, France had finally become La Patrie in fact as it had so long been in name. |
Contents
| 3 | |
| 23 | |
| 30 | |
| 41 | |
| 50 | |
| 67 | |
France One and Indivisible | 95 |
The Working of the Land | 115 |
Schools and Schooling | 303 |
Dieu Estil Français ? | 339 |
The Priests and the People | 357 |
The Way of All Feasts | 377 |
Charivaris | 399 |
Markets and Fairs | 407 |
Veillées | 413 |
The Oral Wisdom | 419 |
Give Us This Day | 130 |
From Subsistance to Habitat | 146 |
The Family | 167 |
THE AGENCIES OF CHANGE | 193 |
Roads Roads and Still More Roads | 195 |
Keeping Up with Yesterday | 221 |
Rus in Urbe | 232 |
Peasants and Politics | 241 |
An Industry of the Poor | 278 |
Military Service | 292 |
Fled Is That Music | 429 |
Le Papier Qui Parle | 452 |
Wring Out the Old | 471 |
Cultures and Civilization | 485 |
Appendix | 498 |
Notes | 505 |
Bibliography | 573 |
Index | 599 |
Common terms and phrases
Allier Archives Ardèche Ardouin-Dumazet areas Ariège Auvergne Aveyron became Bourbonnais bourg bourgeois bread Breton Brittany Cantal charivari church classes communes conscripts Corbin Corrèze Côtes-du-Nord countryside Creuse culture dances département Dordogne economy especially fairs farmers feast Finistère Folklore français France Franche-Comté French Garneret Gers girls Haute-Loire Haute-Vienne Hérault Histoire Hte.-Vienne Isère July labor land language learned less Limoges Limousin lived Loire Louis Lozère Mâconnais marriage mayor Morvan Nièvre nineteenth century noted official Paris parish patois pays Paysans peasants percent Pérot Pierre police political poor popular population practice prefect priest primaire proverb Puy-de-Dôme Pyrenees Pyrénées-Orientales Pyrs.-Ors quoted railway regions Revue roads rural Saint Savoy Second Empire siècle social Société society songs sous-préf speech survived Tarn-et-Garonne teachers things tion town traditional turned urban veillées Vendée village Vivarais Vosges wine women workers Yonne young
Popular passages
Page 220 - Chiefs! Our road is not built to last a thousand years, yet in a sense it is. When a road is once built, it is a strange thing how it collects traffic, how every year as it goes on, more and more people are found to walk thereon, and others are raised up to repair and perpetuate it, and keep it alive...
Page 9 - Two nations ; between whom there is no intercourse and no sympathy ; who are as ignorant of each other's habits, thoughts, and feelings, as if they were dwellers in different zones, or inhabitants of different planets ; who are formed by a different breeding, are fed by a different food, are ordered by different manners, and are not governed by the same laws.
Page 146 - O happy, if he knew his happy state, The swain, who, free from business and debate, Receives his easy food from nature's hand, And just returns of cultivated land ! No palace, with a lofty gate, he wants...
Page xv - ... clear The night we went to Bannockburn by way of Brighton Pier. My friends, we will not go again or ape an ancient rage. Or stretch the folly of our youth to be the shame of age, But walk with clearer eyes and ears this path that wandereth, And see undrugged in evening light the decent inn of death; For there is good news yet to hear and fine things to be seen. Before we go to Paradise by way of Kensal Green.
Page 9 - Egremont was silent, but looked inquiringly. ,Yes', resumed the younger stranger af ter a moment 's interval. ,Two nations; between whom there is no intercourse and no sympathy; who are ignorant of each other's habits, thoughts, and feelings, as if they were dwellers in different zones, or inhabitants of different planets; who are formed by a different breeding, are fed by a different food, are ordered by different manners, and are not governed by the same laws'.
Page 245 - A small holding, a peasant and his family; alongside them another small holding, another peasant and another family. A few score of these make up a village, and a few score of villages make up a Department. In this way, the great mass of the French nation is formed by simple addition of homologous magnitudes, much as potatoes in a sack form a sack of potatoes.
Page 370 - ... the world of the living and the world of the dead, such as exist in native forms of spiritism.1 After death every spirit goes to the nether world in Tuma.
Page 112 - nationality" is far less ambiguous than "nation" and is most commonly and can be most properly used to designate a group of people who speak either the same language or closely related dialects, who cherish common historical traditions, and who constitute or think they constitute a distinct cultural society.