Publisher's Synopsis
Excerpt from French Traits: An Essay in Comparative Criticism
The apparent contrast between modern French men and the crusaders, between the cafe-haunt ers and the cathedral-builders, stimulates specula tion as to whether the present interest of France is commensurate with her historic importance. The noblest monuments in the world attest the part she once played in the drama of civilization. Were Rheims and Amiens, Bourges and Beauvais, the em bodied aspiration of the race whose activities one observes along the Paris boulevards to-day? Are there any signs in the actual Normandy of the spirit which dotted the North coast with the stone temples beside which their differentiation across the Channel seems often ?imsy and superficial? Or, at the other end of France, as one descends the magnificent thoroughfare which consoles the Marseillais for the greater general splendor of Paris, does any linger ing reminiscence reach one of the instinct which covered the Midi with the massive monuments of Provencal Romanesque? As one observes the audi ence which listens to Guignol, it seems fabulous that the Frank ever crossed the Rhine. As one notes the gayety, the bonhomie, the bright gracioush.
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