THE FRENCH PEOPLE.*
ME. HAMA'S. has lost a golden chance. With such a title as The Preach People he might have given us a fresh and -valuable book. He might have regarded our neighbours from a psychological point of view, and attempted to sketch the character of the most highly complex nation in Europe. He might have sought an explanation for that savage vivacity and miraculous intelligence which make France difficult to understand and almost impossible to govern. But he has not done this ; he has been content to tell once more the familiar story of France's development; and it is only here and there that we cap disengage some traits which distinguish the people (or the peoples) of France.
The political history of the French people is not interesting. It never displayed the smallest talent for self-government; its Parliamentary institutions have never formed an integral part of its life ; and but for such insensate outbursts of fury -as the Revolution and the Commune, it might be said to have played a small part in its country's drama. Now and again Kings have flattered it to check the power of too arrogant nobles. Louis XL, for instance, made the best use he might .of popular feeling; he saw most clearly that the energy of the people might easily be opposed to the arrogance of the feudal lords ; nor can we agree with Mr. Hassell that he "had no sympathy with democratic views." The great Monarch, again, Louis XIV. himself, exalted the people at the expense of the nobles, who under his predecessors had acquired an almost kingly power, and it is not a mere paradox that this absolute Monarch prepared the way for the Revolution. But the people has affected the government of France merely by interludes. It has trusted or endured its rulers with patient consistency, displaying enthusiasm before them if they are picturesque, and a willing submission when they are strong. For the rest, the French people has lived its life in a state of -amiable and thrifty enjoyment; it has remained true through many centuries to its essential character; and despite un- numbered changes of blood and state, it is to-day very much what it was in the time of Caesar.
Above all, it loves ease and gossip. It is never so happy as when it loiters on a boulevard, and reads the journal with a glass of absinthe at its elbow. The Gauls, said Caesar, are always hungry for news, and believe whatever story the last stranger has to tell; nor is that any less true to-day than it was when Caesar wrote. Indeed, it is precisely this love of gossip and news, even when it is false, which reconciles the many contradictions of the French character. Yet Mr. Hassell does not estimate very highly the influence of the Press. "Party and personal influences dictate the tone of the articles in the journals," says he, "which consequently have little value and are seldom read by the majority of Frenchmen." That the journals have little value none will -deny, but that they "are seldom read" is an amazing state- ment. France is the journalist's paradise. Not only does it support an infinite number of news-sheets ; it was the first country in Europe to show what might be accomplished by an immense circulation. Go where you will, you will see the halfpenny paper in every man's hand, and were it not that one nail drives out another, all the lies of all the journalists would find a ready credit. The agitation which has for so long divided France was the work of newspapers, and we cannot understand upon what facts Mr. Hassell has based his singular statement.
The French people, then, loving its ease and its amuse- ments, is perfectly content to be governed by a strong man. Its devotion to Caesarism is by this time a commonplace whose truth is not disturbed by changing dynasties. A Republican form of government has not turned the current of French sympathy. The free electors of France ask nothing more than to be firmly and autocratically ruled. "Liberty, Equality, and. Fraternity" is a sound legend which may safely be chalked upon the wall, but it conveys little sense to the brain of the French people. A firm hand is always more highly esteemed than an open mind, and the Third Republic, when it has not been an idle procession of displaced Minis- tries, has been the triumph of despots playing with the forms of democratic government. The popularity of M. Waldeck- Rousseau was established upon the same sentiment upon * Tho French People. By Arthur Haesall, MLA. London : W. Heinemann. kesa which rests the admiration of Napoleon, arid it differs only in degree. In other words, the Frenchman loves his life so well that he likes to have his government carried on by an expert, which is logical enough, even though it be anti-democratic. But the newspapers will not permit the Frenchman to be constant to his hero. Under the in. fluence of a free, untrammelled Press, to which the last enormity of insult is permitted, no reputation can last very long. In other words, the French, who take their cue from the journals, use up their best men with incredible celerity. Of course, when M. Lemaitre and his friends charge M. Wal- deck-Rousseau with embezzling the millions of Madame Humbert, they know that they are not telling the truth. But the lie is read by hundreds of thousands of citizens, and repeated in thousands of cafés. And the bravest statesman may be forgiven if he gets tired of a daily calumny. Here, then, is the first paradox : the French people, sworn to preach the doctrine of the Revolution en bloc, still idolises a tyrant; and yet it cannot refrain, even in the act of adoration, from insulting its idol. There is one puzzle which the state of France asks us to resolve, and the solution is not easy.
Again, for many centuries France has aimed at a policy of expansion, and she is manifestly incapable of colonisation. But failure does not completely baffle her, and the men who would not for the world leave their ilative boulevard clamour that their compatriots should establish an Empire across the sea. Louis XIV. would have carried the civilisation of France to the uttermost parts of the earth. He founded colonies everywhere, and wherever there was a French colony there were also the lessons of Catholicism. The great King did not succeed, and failure has dogged the steps of his successors, But France is not abashed, and still there is much talk of Africa, of Siam, of Tonquin, and of Madagascar. Here, then,- is another paradox : the act of colonisation is distasteful to the French people, which nevertheless pursues an ungrateful ambition (in the newspapers) with all the energy and eloquence it can command.
So, too, France, Catholic at heart, is persistently Anti-Clerical in her policy. Despite the recent reaction of the Church, the Ferry laws have lost none of their force, and M. Waldeck- Rousseau's laws against the Association are not unpopular. But the same France which would secularise her life and her education is both Anti-Semite and Anti-Protestant. Again we are confronted by a contradiction which it is difficult to explain. Nor are we at the end of our paradoxes, which might be doubled or trebled with very little ingenuity. And the strangest paradox of all is that France, for all her political in- certitude, for all her contradictory aims, is the mother of art and intelligence. Madame Metternich called Paris the cabaret- of Europe ; it is also the atelier of the arts and sciences. Logic, lucidity, a perfect sense of style,—these are the endowment ol the greatest of Frenchmen, and they appear to the superficial observer' the antithesis of French life and French politics. And how shall we explain the fact that the thriftiest nation in Europe will readily invest its money in Panama, or in the least gilded of gold mines ? In brief, to think of the French people is to pose a hundred riddles, and perhaps we have no right to blame Mr. Hassell for not attempting an answer to any of them.
Previous page
