find the French home closed to you. You won't even meet any of the French, with the exception of those who wait on you. But if you settle down in France, take a house or apartment, learn the language, then you will find another people. The Frenchman who has had the tourist pouring over the boundaries of his country for centuries has built up a barrier to them. He suffers them, because he must since France's largest single industry is tourism. But he keeps them at a distance so far as his personal life is concerned. He is another man when you settle more permanently. The French as a people probably take more trouble to achieve the good life than any other in the world. Unless pushed by poverty, they wouldn't dream of eating poor food, wouldn't dream of sleeping in less than a comfortable bed, wouldn't dream of not looking the best in regards to clothing. It has been no mistake that France has become the luxury nation of the world. Once you have made friends of a French family, you will find them honest and hospitable, very good friends but very bad enemies. You'll find they have as great a love of country as any nation in the world and an attitude, even stronger than we Americans have about the States, that there just is no other place to live in the world but France. § MONEY. The French franc is one of the most fouled up currencies on earth. Not even the French trust it and when a Frenchman accumulates a bit of money he is more apt to buy gold with it and bury the metal under the floor than he is to put it in the bank. And for good reason. During this century the franc has dropped from its original value of about 254 to the point where now you can get between 450 and 500 per dollar on the free market exchange. The legal rate is 420 to the dollar but French law allows you to bring any amount of French francs into the country so the smart operator, be he tourist or more permanent visitor, buys his francs in New York, Switzerland or Tangier and reaps the benefits. One warning in changing dollars into francs. If you run short of francs, dealing with the black market (the noir, they call it) is
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