Excerpt from French and Belgians IN going to Europe in the spring of 1878, my aim was, in part, to describe the citizen of Paris and the farmer of France. Endeavoring to act upon the principle that five lines upon the spot are worth pages of recollections, I brought back to this country a great quantity of notes. From these I have already prepared two brief articles for Harpers' Magazine; and in this volume I offer at much greater length the substance of my observations during my stay in France and brief visit to Belgium. Not often have I been obliged to rely on memory alone for my statements; but I crave indulgence for any faults that are found in this book, trusting that, as a picture of common life in the places that I visited, it will be found to be at least as accu rate as the productions of the average tourist, and more complete. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.