Woman and Artist

The English, whose knowledge of France consists in a fair acquaintance of that part of Paris lying between the Madeleine and the Faubourg Montmartre, affirm that family life is unknown on our side of the Channel, putting forward as proof the fact that the French language cannot boast of possessing the word home, that appeals so strongly to the British heart. Their conclusion is sublime: Since the French have no such word, they say, it is very evident that they have not the thing. As to the word itself, I am inclined to think they may be right; we have not, or rather we have no longer, a perfect equivalent for the English expression, as our pretty word foyer is only used in pretentious or poetical language. In ordinary conversation the Frenchman does not refer to his foyer. Il rentre à la maison, chez lui. M. Perrichon, alone, returns to his foyer. Our old French possessed an equivalent for the English word home. It was a substantive that is still with us, but we have it to-day in the form of a preposition—I mean the word chez, which is no other than the word case.