"[338]
Another generation of peasants had grown up since that first
revolutionary generation of her youth, and equality, as its reign
proceeded, had not deteriorated but improved them.
"They have advanced greatly in self-respect and well-being, these
peasants from twenty years old to forty: they never ask for anything.
When one meets them they no longer take off their hat. If they know you
they come up to you and hold out their hand. All foreigners who stay
with us are struck with their good bearing, with their amenity, and the
simple, friendly, and polite ease of their behavior. In presence of
people whom they esteem they are, like their fathers, models of tact and
politeness; but they have more than that mere _sentiment_ of equality
which was all that their fathers had,--they have the _idea_ of equality,
and the determination to maintain it. This step upwards they owe to
their having the franchise. Those who would fain treat them as creatures
of a lower order dare not now show this disposition to their face; it
would not be pleasant.
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