A French Peasant's Supper
gleaned by Laurence Windham

While perusing through a used bookstore (one of my favorite past times) I came across the story included in this article. Consider how beautiful eccentricity can be, how wonderful to be strange in this strange land.

The family consisted of an old gray-haired man and his wife, with five or six sons and sons-in-law and their several wives, and a joyous genealogy out of them. They were all sitting down to their lentil-soup; a large wheaten loaf was in the middle of the table, and a flagon of wine at each end of it promised joy throughout the stages of the repast; 'twas a feast of love. The old man rose up to meet me, and with a respectful cordiality would have me sit down at the table; my-heart was set down the moment I entered the room, so I sat as speedily as I could, I instantly borrowed the old man's knife, and taking up the loaf, cut myself a hearty luncheon: and as I did I saw a testimony in every eye, not only of honest welcome, but of a welcome mixed with thanks that I had not seemed to doubt it. Was it this that made the morsel so sweet; and to what magic I owe it, that the draught I took of their flagon was so delicious with it, that they remain upon my palate to this hour? If supper was to my taste, the grace which followed it was much more so.

When the supper was over, the old man gave a knock upon the table with the haft of his knife, to bid them to prepare for the dance. The moment the signal was given, the women and girls ran together into a back apartment to tie up their hair, and the young men to the door to wash their faces and change their sabots; and in three minutes every soul was ready, upon the esplanade before the house, to begin. The old man and his wife came out last, and placing me betwixt them, sat down upon a sofa of turf by the door. The old man had, some fifty years ago, been no mean performer upon the vielle: and at the age he was then of, touched it well enough for the purpose. His wife sung now and then a little to the tune, then intermitted, and joined her old man again as their children and grandchildren danced before them.

It was not till the middle of the second dance, when, for some pauses in the movement, wherein they all seemed to look up, I fancied I could distinguish an elevation of spirit different from that which is the cause of the effect of simple jollity. In a word, I thought I beheld Religion mixing in the dance; but as I had never seen her so engaged, I should have looked upon it now as one of the illusions of imagination which is eternally misleading me, had not the old man, as soon as the dance ended, said that this was their constant way; and that all his life long he had made it a rule, after supper was over, to call out his family to dance and rejoice; believing, he said, that a cheerful and contented mind was the best sort of thanks to Heaven that an illiterate peasant could pay. Or a learned prelate either, said I.