WHEN MADAME

Northern Advocate, 19 June 1926, Page 10

WHEN MADAME

In England one’s 'hosts have a rather pleasant way of appearing to forgot that one is there until there is something really thrilling to do. But the French hostess never forgets her guests. They weigh on her mind even in the night watches. . The French guest is never allowed out by himself. His host and hostess beset him —perfeetlj r charming—at every turn, and on all ocasions he must manifest the prefervid interest expected of him. Do his hosts keep pigs'? On the first night he will plead passionately to be shown the pig farm. The English guest would simply say, "Ah, you keep pigs? How interesting!” and hastily fix up a game of golf. Never would he consider it his duty to display enthusiams for pigs. In France you aro no sort of a hostess if you let your guests do anything alone (writes Dorothy Buck in an English exchange). If fie murmurs that he thinks he will just go down to the village and look at the old church his hosts respond automatically that they won’t be a moment putting oh their hats, and all his fellow-guests instantly rush to put on theirs. A party of twenty then set out to see the church. If they were English they would contrive to look like a school treat, but, being French, and quite aans-gene, they carry it off perfectly. In England your hosts may set before you. the most perfect meal in the world, and it is de rigucur to cat it as if it were cold mutton and pickles. In France you wax more and more lyrical with every course that is set before you. You pay well-turned compliments to Madame’s chef and to Monsieur’s cellar. And you should be able to speak with the appreciation of the gourmet —not like the barbarous Saxon, who eats but to live!

The English guest in the house of really French people feels after a brief stay with them as if he were being persistently dogged by Mndly detectives. If he is adaptable he will enjoy himself hugely, but if he isn’t woe betide him!—as there will certainly be no faintest opportunity of sending that urgent telegram recalling him to town which we know so well in England,

The fact is that all nations but our own like to take their pleasures collectively and methodically. But the Englishman is the cat-thlat-walks-by-himself, and will be to the end of the chapter.