Public opinion during the nineteenth century was arguably better informed on the customs of the Red Indians in North America than on those of the peasants in its own countryside. The inhabitants of the big cities never doubted their rêve devant les paysans, which owed more to the pastorals of classical literature than to contemporary life in the villages. Living and working conditions amongst the working classes in the towns excited a great deal of interest, from a mixture of humanitarian concern and fear of political upheaval. Those of the peasantry were largely ignored, in deference to the presumed superiority of the rural way of life. And if the plight of Jacques Bonhomme was largely terra incognita, that of his children was even more shrouded in mist. The image proposed by the bergeries was a seductive one: what, on the surface, could appear more idyllic than the society of young shepherds and shepherdesses, with its innocent diversions and closeness to nature? Reality in the fields was another matter. There were advantages to being employed on the land rather than in industry. But the writings of those who experienced this childhood during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries reveal the many hardships also.