Front Matter

Preface

It often happens that those of us who live in great cities do not know our next-door neighbours. In the great world it is very much the same, and we know little or nothing about our neighbours.

Hundreds of years ago a French writer called us his "next neighbour." It was impossible, he said, to write about France without also writing about England. That is very true, for during hundreds of years the history of the two countries mixed and mingled. Yet in spite of that Jacques Bonhomme and John Bull have gone on living side by side, knowing little of each other's history, understanding little of each other's ways. For during hundreds of years France and England were deadly enemies, and Englishmen cared little about the history of France. They thought they knew enough about Frenchmen when they knew how to fight them. But those days have long gone past, and now Jacques Bonhomme is not only our next neighbour but our very good friend. That being so, British boys and girls are no longer content to know nothing about this friend, and several years ago I got a letter from a little English boy. "I like that book," he said, "and I wish you would write one just the same, only about France, because we can't find anything nice about France." Since then I have received many such letters both from British boys and girls and from their cousins in America. I promised them all that "some day" they should have the book they asked for. They were not very pleased with that promise, I think, for they all knew that "some day" has a horrid trick of never turning up at all. However, this time "some day" has come and here is the book. I hope my friends are not tired of waiting for it, and if they get half as much pleasure from reading it as I have had in writing it we shall all be pleased.

H. E. Marshall.

Paris,  1911.