What a beautiful but sad story, in the pure French tradition of TV series taking place in the deep countryside during the nineteenth century, as were JACQUOU LE CROQUANT, L'ENNEMI DE LA MORT, FABIEN DE LA DROME and I suppose many more tv shows of this kind and period ( shooting and story ). Realistic and glooomy in the same time. It also can be seen as a sort of documentary of how peasants lived in those days: farmers, sheepmen using stilts to walk on any kind of ground - mud, swamp, wet grass - or any other craftsmen . But we never see how they get, climb on their stilts.... The story of a poor man lost in a cruel and ruthless world. What a painful story, in the line of SANS FAMILLE, from novelist Hector Malot. Or even get down. Anyway, this is a tremendous TV series, with an unusual lead character; he never speaks French but only local dialect. Very sad but beautiful story. I hope to watch more of those series from the late sixties to the early eighties. It is slow, very slow, but never never boring; at least from my point of view.