Washing days only occur in large French households once a quarter, or at the most monthly, so when the moment arrives the whole establishment is in a ferment. An orgy of soap-suds takes place, and coaling ship in the Navy is scarcely more disturbing to the even flow of daily affairs.
Conversation, where people seldom paid a visit to Paris, ran always in a groove in the _châteaux_ and lesser houses described by the young American. The subjects were the woods, the hunting, the schoolmaster, the _curé_, local gossip, and much about the iniquities of the Republic.
_Château_ life is too frequently dull. It as often as not is as out of touch with the realities of modern life as many English country houses where there are no young folk, and where there is no active connection with London and the busy world. The hunting season and shooting parties bring life and activity for a time, but "twice-told tales of foxes killed" do not carry any fertilising intellectual ideas into the byways of upper-class life. An excess of formality pervades every portion of the day, from the conversation on a new novel to the afternoon drive or the solemn game of _bézique_ after dinner. There is a tendency for politics to bulk largely in conversation, even among women, while among men heat is easily generated on this topic, the French being naturally bellicose. Subjects outside France, and matters that do not directly concern the French, rarely come up for discussion, unless the occupants of the _château_ are _intellectuels_. It is mainly due to political controversy that duels arise, nearly all the recent encounters having been between journalists and politicians. At the present day, honour is commonly satisfied when the first blood has been drawn, and when pistols are used, hits are infrequent. To show how lightly he took the matter, Ste. Beuve fought under an umbrella. Thiers fought a duel, and so also did the elder Dumas, Lamartine, Veuillot, Rochefort, and Boulanger. Even to-day (1913) septuagenarian generals are not too old to challenge one another, General Bosc (seventy-two) having sent his second to demand satisfaction of General Florentin (seventy-seven) for an unfounded charge of encouraging the use of illegal badges in societies formed for the training of boys in military duties! It is astonishing that the French should maintain duelling when it is well known how opposed was Napoleon to the absurd practice. "Bon duelliste mauvais soldat," he used to say, and when challenged by the King of Sweden, his reply was that he would order a fencing-master to attend him as plenipotentiary. But the French have a keen sense of personal honour, and one remembers that Montaigne said, "Put three Frenchmen together on the plains of Libya, and they will not be a month in company without scratching each other's eyes out."