France

has sprung, their extraordinary capacity of assimilation seems to have endowed them generally with those national characteristics popularly labelled the genius of the French. This process, discernible all through the pages of history, seems as vital to-day as ever.

To any one familiar with the French people, it is a matter for astonishment that the average Briton fails in the most profound fashion to realise the most obvious of the national characteristics of his neighbours across the Channel. The popular notion is that the French are a frivolous people, devoted to pleasure; they are supposed to be veritable Miss Mowchers for volatility; to speak with extreme rapidity; to have a taste for queer dishes which the same Briton regards with abhorrence; and are, generally speaking, a people with the lowest of morals. All these ideas are more or less erroneous, and only as the average Englishman comes to learn the truth can the French character be better understood. In the first place, the French, far from be