Democratic Sentinel, Volume 19, Number 27, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 July 1895 — The Tourainers. [ARTICLE]

The Tourainers.

The Touralners themselves are comforting to behold—a stalwart, brownfaced people, with contentment deep set in them. The women In their blue cotton gowns, white mutches, and uqwleldy wooden shoes, are picturesque enough for anything, If their sloeliko eyes and ready smiles be also taken Into account. Ono sees fair faces among the younger girls—Madon-na-like faces. It wore easy to fancy that Agnes Sorel, “the fairest of the fair,” resembled the best of them when she too was young and had not yet caught the eye of a king. As for men, they are what one would expect them to be In such a natural garden—a hardworking class, prone to rejoice in all the festive leisure they can obtain. They love their native province passionately; it is difficult to realize what they must have felt when, a quarter of a century ago, the Prussian soldiers trod their fields and vineyards under foot and burned their homesteads. “I do not believe," said one of them to mo the other day, “there can be any other country in the world better to live In than Touralne. We have so much sun even in winter. The climate is so mild, and all things grow In it.”—All the Year Round.