A Corner of Old France

...Monsieur le Comte" is asked to make the hot places of the front...

...In the long winter evenings, "a la Between the chateau, the people and the presbytery, reigns veillee," as they say, old people told the tales of horrors and a cordial friendship...

...one's family, her neighbors, nuns from the next village, laborers After scoring one or two distinct successes, the Catholic army fresh from their day's work, came in and out in silence, knelt was crushed by overwhelming forces...

...The purpose of presenting it here which our country was established, he would have found the is to ask all or anyone interested in this man's problem to solid ground upon which rests the standards for judgment please come forward and solve it for him, analyzing the vari- necessary to an appreciation of whether or not the piety in ous interests, both economic and ethical, which may be in- Chicago at the Eucharistic Congress were native or alien...

...But the difficulty which the ordinary employer and on the basis of the facts given, point out clearly and conmeets in reading such attacks is, briefly, "what can I do about cretely what this man must do so as not to violate the prinit...

...It month's issue of The Forum, to the basic principles upon is given below in detail...

...This war was started in 1793, as a The faith of the Anjou peasant is more enlightened than crusade, when the government closed the churches and mal- that of his Breton neighbor...

...The young women and girls sport cheap clearly prove that a living wage is not paid...

...The "douceur Angevine" it has lost money during the past year...

...Long ago, it was called "le pays des Mauges" ; after by ecclesiastical authorities...

...Suppose his men don't make a living wage...

...Because most of his competitors are larger than he, they have lower unit costs, and he cannot reduce his costs any further without increasing his capacity, COMMUNICATIONS which will only make the price situation in his industry worse AN ECONOMIC CHALLENGE than ever...

...the There is no grand scenery in Anjou, but there is a great people have shared her many griefs and know that she will deal of charm-an abundance of fruit and flowers in the always share theirs...

...Most the laboring man...

...The "grande guerre" is now the peace between quarrelsome neighbors or to negotiate a marriage one that started in 1914, the other has become a shadowy vision when there are obstacles to be removed...

...On inquiry, fashioned courtesy stamp them as lovers of tradition...

...An old man, who for years had filled the office set to work patiently to rebuild on a modest scale their churches of bell-ringer, directed it for the last time in his own case: and their homes...

...470 THE COMMONWEAL September 22, 1926 A CORNER OF OLD FRANCE in the summer evenings, it wraps the hills and the river in a silver veil...

...Is the employer justiployer who would not try literally to put in practice all of fied in passing on some of the loss due to market conditions the principles therein enunciated, provided he is the sole judge to his employees...

...His Anjou holds its children fast: in the seventeenth century a payroll constitutes about one-third of the community's income...

...He is faced with the alternative of cutting wages or of serious financial difficulty...

...When first we visited "les Mauges," where it is "unspoiled corner" where, in these days of feverish haste, the strongly developed, we were surprised to hear it said, with repeople's quiet and slow speech, softness of manner, and old- gret, that so and so had married a "stranger...

...If he is not, what remedy shall he take to of those conditions, and is not hampered with possibly a hard- save his investment and his own income...

...plants, but all in other lines of manufacturing than his...

...of them are not so situated...

...I do not know of a single honest Catholic em- under these circumstances be unjust...

...necessary to make it complete...

...So he has to may receive...

...To make the problem clearer, I have taken a typical case O the Editor:-If Stanley Frost had pushed back, in this of an employer who has a serious problem of this nature...

...here and there, at the crossroads, tragic of the Anjou peasants is revealed...

...years ago, will find plenty of evidence of this claim, and cur- This is the problem, and I assure you, while it may be a rent issues of our Catholic papers quite often illustrate the particularly aggravated one, it contains about all the elements same state of mind...

...revolutionary armies...

...This may be, but from A certain manufacturer has a plant located in a small comthe standpoint of tradition, and becomingness, the vanishing munity of about a thousand people...

...Toward the end, the killing every man, woman and child...

...It was found that half ing an agony, when prayers are needed to assist the soul in its the population of "les Mauges" had perished, but the survivors supreme ordeal...

...All was calm, solemn and simple through the land, burning every homestead and church, and -the ideal death-bed of a Christian...

...instruction that develops easily in an atmosphere of religion, Curiously enough, the war that eventually made la Vendee the heritage of generations, and at which passing missionaries, a desert was initiated by the peasants...

...These and governs it with kindly firmness...

...Will a cut in wages Very well...

...change that has nothing tragical about it, but that lovers of The aim of this presentation is to try to find out just what local customs regret, is the disappearance of the snowy "coiffe" the living-wage enthusiasts believe in...

...The gentle- peasant woman was dying dose to the house where I was staymen of the country, better informed, held back...

...on the other Anjou that extends beyond Angers, on the left bank of the the peasants who were shot near Angers in 1794, among whom Loire...

...notoriously low, and in his case complicated by the fact that FT O the Editor:-It seems to be the customary practice of most of the men working for him are married...

...She was one who did her duty quietly, as a matter of the new "regime" and were as good Catholics as their tenants, course, but no member of a religious community could have but many of them were ex-officers...

...hearted partner or some other influence just as powerful but I shall await with much interest any replies which the Editor none the more lenient toward their employees...

...A penalty for all such sins...

...compromise many conflicting interests which are lost sight of when such a question as a "living wage" is mentioned...

...the execution of the not of the country, often marvel...

...His volume of outof which he speaks in the famous sonnet, has become a by-word, put has been very nearly to capacity, but because of the low for it characterizes the moral and material aspect of Anjou...

...If they cannot solve that was worn by old and young fifty years ago...

...They hated ing...

...During the and Catholic army," as the peasant troops called themselves, days that her agony lasted, the cottage door remained open, could not hold its own against the well-equipped and well- and from a room, spotlessly clean, came the sound of "Ayes," trained soldiers of the republic...

...There are three other coiffe is to be regretted...

...he and the chateau work are traditions of the past...

...it officially belongs to the "department" of Maine-et- are many future "beati," whose cause is now being discussed Loire...

...In moments like these the innate refinement the "infernal columns...

...prosperous villages, churches that even at daily Mass are When we say that this is an "unspoiled corner" we do not crowded, and on the banks of the Loire an elusive soft blue mean that it has entirely kept its primitive simplicity, but the light that local poets have sung...

...The case is as hats and declare that the washing and ironing of the local follows head-dress was an expensive business...

...Now, alas, the An- will be more inclined to get all the facts about that industry gevin coiffe, -that varies slightly in every village, only crowns before attempting a solution, rather than merely those which grey or white heads...

...We are referred constantly to Pope Leo's encyclical...

...king had not stirred them to action, but the attack on their This enlightened faith makes death easy--only last year a religion moved their feelings to the very depths...

...The lady of the manor, the sick pelled to take the lead and went to war in a martyr spirit...

...By BARBARA DE COURSON Such as it is, the country appeals to its children and holds IF it is useless to lament changes that are not wholly to be them fast in its grasp...

...They had The year of 1914 drew the people closer together: the only evidently been hastily buried under the trees by some hunted son of the widowed lady of the manor fell in 1918...

...He volved, so that this employer, reading these proposed solu- would have found that, although the culture of our America tions, can determine what is the course which he is in con- is indeed Protestant, the genius of our America is Catholic...

...The "Angevin" clergy is noted treated the priests who rejected the schismatical oath that Pius for its dignity and zeal...

...Will someone come forward That is well...

...STEPHEN Du BRVL...

...Madame la Comblotted out by keener memories...

...This is putting the matter plainly, generations of devout and right-thinking people...

...poet, Joachim du Bellay, attached to the household of a French The product he manufactures has fallen in price during the cardinal, confesses his homesickness for it among the splendors past three years, until practically every firm manufacturing of the Roman palaces and churches...

...La douceur Angevine," sung by du Bellay, in the seven- Two tablets that now appear side by side in all the villages teenth century, is still an essential characteristic of his country- of Anjou illustrate the way in which these stay-at-home people men today...

...the regiments from go, less for material help (they are not poor) than for advice western France being the staunchest, naturally figured at all and encouragement...

...memories were centered...

...A big chestnut after the news came, the house chapel was filled with a sobbing, tree, hollowed by age, had been a hiding place that escaped prayerful crowd...

...at early morn and late changes brought by passing years have not, so far, attacked the September 22, 1926 THE COMMONWEAL 4711 basis of religious faith and social discipline inherited from science bound to follow...

...to a local custom, this bell is not rung after a death, but durThen better days dawned at last...

...The priests give their people a solid VI condemned...

...price, he too, has lost money...

...Nevertheless, they were com- soft, earnest, and ceaseless...

...If he does not cut wages, he is Anyone who will refer to the proceedings of the Catholic fairly certain of having great difficulty in holding his organiconference on Industrial Problems held in Pittsburgh several zation intact...

...it came any solution for it, one will be inclined to think that rather to a point on the forehead, Marie Stuart fashion-its wings than classifying employers as a group, and treating them as were edged with delicate lace and the whole helped to soften such, and saying that it is a social injustice in this or that and refine even aged faces, reminding one of the elderly Dutch- industry where a living wage is not paid for certain work, they women that Rembrandt loved to paint...

...ciples of justice to the workingman...

...Wages in his industry are Jackson, Ohio...

...The men who for if one solution is dearly against some teaching of the went through the war brought back new ideas and more in- Church, such as that defrauding the laborer of his wages is dependence, but, if sometimes touched by socialism, they were a very grievous sin, he cannot take it without incurring the promptly reconquered by the familiar atmosphere of home...

...they knew that the "royal been more upheld by a wave of unceasing prayer...

...The "cure" holds his flock in his hand heroism, gathered from the lips of an earlier generation...

...another war, fiercer and longer, has together for the general good and to the chateau the people since levied a heavy toll on la Vendee...

...On both tablets, at more than a the civil war, it became known as "la Vendee militaire" in hundred years distance, the same names are to be found belongmemory of the struggle of the peasant soldiers against the ing to the same place...

...In the this man's problem and cannot convict him of sin in accepting region of which I write it was singularly becoming...

...a few hours fugitive, who never returned to claim his own...

...the "foreigner" hailed from a village a few miles distant...

...tesse" is in request wherever there is sickness or sorrow...

...The attitude thus demonstrated is critical...

...then la Vendee became and joined in the rosary that to the very threshold of eternity the prey of the "infernal columns," who had orders to go accompanied the passing soul...

...Not just yet," he said at first, "wait till I give the sign," Thirty years ago, the story of "la grande guerre," as it was then quietly he gave it and passed away while the bell echoed called, was a living tradition : we were shown the "allee du across the meadows...

...What is he going T THE SEAL OF THE CHURCH PATERNAL to do about it ? Medford, Mass...

...the mandate was thor- bell of the "agony" sounded from the church, for, according oughly carried out...

...This "unspoiled corner" that for thirty years I hold to their immediate surroundings : on one are inscribed the have been privileged to see at close quarters, is the part of village lads who died for France in the late war...

...tresor," where hundreds of gold coins were found...

...their local patriotism is even exagregretted, it is undoubtedly a deep enjoyment to find an gerated...

...If he cuts certain sociologists, editors, and others, interested in "the wages further, many of them will be in dire poverty with ondition of labor," to regularly make depreciating remarks no other employment available in their community and no about employers as a class (as though they were all united prospect of any in their particular trade if they are so forunder a common standard with the class-slogan, "down with tunately situated that they can move their families away...