On their way to Charleroi, after passing through Mons, they traversed the great Belgium iron and coal country, where the people speak a patois but understand French.

And did he not know the ways of the company, and could not he talk a French patois which enabled him to be understood at the stations?

"S'nore, si," answered Raoul, adopting the patois of the country as well as he could and disguising his deep mellow voice by speaking on a high shrill key.

JASMIN, JACQUES, a Gascon barber and poet, who by his romances, burlesques, and odes, published between 1835 and 1849, raised the patois of the S. of France to the status of a literary language, and created a wholesome influence on French life and letters (1778-1864).

I have succeeded tolerably well in French; for I understand not only patois, but even patrician, governess French.