charcoal fires were lighted in the magnanerie, until the little black caterpillars, having transformed themselves into repulsive flabby white worms, these worms became obsessed with the desire to increase the world’s supply of silk, and to gratify them, twigs were placed in the trays for them to spin their cocoons on.  The cocoons spun, they were all picked off, and baked in the public ovens of the town, in order to kill the chrysalis inside.  Nothing prettier can be imagined than the streets of Nyons, with white sheets laid in front of every house, each sheet heaped high with glittering, shimmering, gleaming piles of silk-cocoons, varying in shade from palest straw-colour to deep orange.  If pleasant to the eye, they were less grateful to the nose, for freshly baked cocoons have the most offensive odour.  The silk-buyers from Lyons then made their appearance, and these shining heaps of gold thread were transformed into a more portable form of gold, which found its way into the pockets of the inhabitants.

The peculiarly French capacity for taking infinite pains, of which a good example is this silkworm culture, has its drawbacks, when carried into administrative work.  My friend M. David, the post-master of Nyons, showed me his official instructions.  They formed a volume as big as a family Bible.  It would have taken years to learn all these regulations.  The simplest operations were made enormously complicated.  Let any one compare the time required for registering a letter or a parcel in England, with the time a similar operation in France will demand.  M. David showed me the lithographed sheet giving the special forms of numerals, 1, 2, 3, and so on, which French postal officials are required to make.  These differ widely from the forms in general use.

I have my own suspicions that similar sheets are issued to the cashiers in French restaurants.  Personally, I can never read one single item in the bill, much less the cost, and I can only gaze in hopeless bewilderment at the long-tailed hieroglyphics, recalling a backward child’s first attempts at “pot-hooks.”

The infinite capacity of the French for taking trouble, and their minute attention to detail, tend towards unnecessary complications of simple matters.  Thus, on English railways we find two main types of signals sufficient for our wants, whereas on French lines there are five different main types of signal.  On English lines we have two secondary signals, against eight in France, all differing widely in shape and appearance.  Again, on a French locomotive the driver has far more combinations at his command for efficient working under varying conditions, than is the case in England.  The trend of the national mind is towards complicating details rather than simplifying them.