The peasant is the suntanned farmer who helps Gabriel Syme, the Professor, Dr. Bull, the Marquis (Inspector Ratcliffe), and Colonel Ducroix escape the Secretary’s black-clad army after Syme’s duel with the Marquis. Whereas the detectives think that the peasant is poor and miserable, Ducroix points out that he is actually wealthy because French peasants own their land. He treats the peasant as a dignified equal, and they strike an amicable deal: the peasant helps the detectives escape in their cart. Chesterton uses this comic scene to comment on how out-of-touch anarchists (and their passionate opponents) are from ordinary people’s everyday struggles, as well as to suggest that society would be better off if land were distributed more equally. Later, the peasant joins the Secretary’s army to help bring the detectives, whom he believes to be criminals, to justice.
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The French Peasant Character Timeline in The Man Who Was Thursday
The timeline below shows where the character The French Peasant appears in The Man Who Was Thursday. The colored dots and icons indicate which themes are associated with that appearance.
Chapter 11: The Criminals Chase the Police
...powerful millionaires who don’t want the government to rule over them. The group runs into a suntanned French peasant —the kind of man Syme thinks would never be an anarchist. But Colonel Ducroix points...
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The peasant brings the group out of the woods to an inn near Lancy. They watch the...
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Chapter 12: The Earth in Anarchy
...men see “a dark and roaring stream of humanity” following them onto the beach. Even the peasant who carted them to the inn is in the crowd. “We are the last of...
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