One more huge, and now clearly almost forgotten aspect of provincial life that Robb outlines is who did the work. I thought of the Parisienne who told me “cutting wood isn’t women’s work” when reading of how “in the mid to late 29th-century, almost everywhere in France, … at least half the people working in the open air were women. In many parts women appeared to do the lion’s share of the work…. Some tasks, like fetching water, were considered exclusively female. Very little was considered exclusively male.” Often their men folk were away for long periods - working as pedlars, as fishermen, on the high pastures, so women were in charge. And often they stuck to their own lives - 19th-century census show that over a third of all women were single and 12% of women over 50 had never married.
Robb reports how women in many areas were subject to horrible abuse and treated as little more than working animals, but he also makes it clear that they didn’t always accept this, and that female solidarity could go to considerable lengths. He quotes the Breton peasant Deguignet on a custom in Brittany (an area known for its strong patriarchy) about a game played by women at midday, when the men were asleep. Four or five women would find a man on his own, pin him down, and stuff his pants with mid or cow dung. Furthermore, if the game got rougher, “the woman left free would split the end of a thick stick, then with her two hands she would pry it apart the way you open a trap, and fit it onto the organis generationis ex pace par hominis… It was done in full daylight and right out in the fields in front of everyone, in front of gangs of children clapping and screaming with laughter.”
But of course change had to, we now know, arrive. The tourists, local and foreign, did start arriving in the 19th century, with the usually messy results. “Two friends” published an artistic guide to the Pyrenees in 1835 - they noted in one village that a hospitable cobbler let them sleep on the floor of his shop. The book gave his name and address, with the results familiar to any user of a Lonely Planet guide. Sometimes, though, the benefits could be mutual: around Provence town dwellers would open a little cubicle in the corner of their house and sell the leavings to the manure collector. This spread to the countryside, where competitive signs would draw coach travellers to little huts adorned with flowers: “Ici on est bien (It’s nice in here”), Ici on est mieux (It’s nicer here).”
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