Whenever they can they leave the country and spend their time in Paris or on the Riviera.

This love of travel is so strong in them that a law was passed compelling them to spend a certain portion of the year in their own country or else pay the penalty of a higher tax.

The country people, in their sad poverty, form a great contrast to the enormously wealthy _Bojars_.

Although very backward in everything relating to culture, the Roumanian peasant is a busy, quiet, and easily satisfied type, unpretentious to a touching degree when compared with the upper classes.
Social conditions among the upper ten thousand have been greatly complicated owing to the abolition of nobility, whereby the question of titles plays a part unequalled anywhere else in the world.

Almost every Roumanian has a title derived from one or other source; he values it highly, and takes it much amiss when a foreigner betrays his ignorance on the subject.