The Discovery of France Quotes

“The paysans had no flags or written histories, but they expressed their local patriotism in much the same way as nations: by denigrating their neighbours and celebrating their own nobility.”
― Graham Robb, The Discovery of France: A Historical Geography from the Revolution to the First World War

“Further west, on the edge of the Iraty forest, a naked, hairy man who could run like a deer, and who was later thought to be the remnant of a Neanderthal colony, was spotted several times in 1774, indulging in his favourite pastime: scattering flocks of sheep. On the last occasion, when the shepherds tried to catch him, he ran away, giggling, and was never seen again.”
― Graham Robb, The Discovery of France: A Historical Geography from the Revolution to the First World War

“To many foreign travellers, the characteristic sound of the French Revolution was the constant crepitation of muskets in the countryside exterminating the animals that had once enjoyed aristocratic immunity.”
― Graham Robb, The Discovery of France: A Historical Geography from the Revolution to the First World War

“Boredom was as powerful a force as economic need. It helps to explain so many aspects of daily life, at all times of the year, that it could form the basis of an academic discipline: cottage industries and hibernation, bizarre beliefs and legends, sexual experiment, local politics, migration and even social aspiration. In small, suspicious communities where neighbour competed with neighbour, boredom was one of the main elements of social cohesion. It brought people together and counteracted the effects of poverty and class rivalry.”
― Graham Robb, The Discovery of France: A Historical Geography from the Revolution to the First World War

“effects of her husband’s lovemaking, but only one reliable method exists, and anyone who has come home after dark on the back road by the pond has heard the sad croaking of the Night Washerwomen who are condemned to wash the shrouds and corpses of the children that they killed.”
― Graham Robb, The Discovery of France: A Historical Geography from the Revolution to the First World War

“For the rest of her life, she lives in a low, dark house of white stone. It has a wide tiled roof and a hawthorn bush to ward off lightning. Outdoors, she wears a full green flannel skirt and a pointy hood. She is more prolific than the fields, which produce a crop of barley or rye only once every two years.”
― Graham Robb, The Discovery of France: A Historical Geography from the Revolution to the First World War

“MEN AND WOMEN who did almost nothing for a large part of the year tend not to figure prominently in history books. Studies and museums naturally highlight enterprise and undervalue the art of remaining idle for months on end.”
― Graham Robb, The Discovery of France: A Historical Geography from the Revolution to the First World War

“Invalids were habitually hated by their carers. It took a special government grant, instituted in 1850 in the Seine and Loiret départements, to persuade poor families to keep their ailing relatives at home instead of sending them to that bare waiting room of the graveyard, the municipal hospice. When there was just enough food for the living, the mouth of a dying person was an obscenity.”
― Graham Robb, The Discovery of France: A Historical Geography from the Revolution to the First World War

“highly codified and formal foreign language known as French – a language which, according to many French-speakers, almost no one speaks correctly. In the land of a thousand tongues, monolingualism became the mark of the educated person.”
― Graham Robb, The Discovery of France: A Historical Geography from the Revolution to the First World War

“above all, simplify the French language and abolish irregular verbs – a measure that would have rescued countless schoolchildren from the despotism of pernickety pedagogues.”
― Graham Robb, The Discovery of France: A Historical Geography from the Revolution to the First World War