Delenda est Britannia.
Delenda est Britannia.
He used to accuse England of smothering the human race with her breath, and would compare her to the octopus, that hideous and sticky mass whose tentacles have the property of creating a vacuum around them.
⁂
"The world will never have any peace," said he, "until that brute has ceased sucking the blood of other nations, and been sunk at the bottom of the sea. Old as I am, I would go for a drummer, so that I might lend a helping hand in subduing the nation that has violated the most sacred laws of humanity."
All the scourges that visit the earth were put down by him to the credit of that traitress of a neighbor; earthquakes, volcanic eruptions, inundations, cholera, the plague; even down to his own colds in the head, all were attributed by him to the baneful influence of the breeze that had passed over England.
He did not hesitate to declare that the air of the Champs-Elysées in Paris was polluted bythe presence of the English colony in its midst. Every time he passed through it, he fumigated himself as soon as he reached home.
Poor Marquis de Boissy, what would you have said, if you had lived long enough to receive invitations tofive o'clocquer?
The old Anglophobist was sincere in his epic outbursts, and at the same time very amusing, for he was as full of wit as he was of Anglophobia.
He is dead, leaving no successor; France is at present without a declared Anglophobist.
A worshiper of grace and beauty, the Frenchman has given to woman a place which she occupies in no other nation.
Since the days when Aspasia inspired Socrates and advised Pericles, in no other country has woman's sovereignty been so supreme as it has always been, and still is, in France.
The Frenchman is keenly alive to woman's influence, and woman is an ever-present, a fixed, idea with him. Whether he study her from the artistic, physiological, or psychological point of view, his interest in her is never exhausted.
It is a case of woman worship. Parodying Terence's lines, he says:
"I am a man, and all that concerns woman interests me."
Nothing is more absurd in the eyes of the English than this ever-present idea of woman in the mind of the Frenchman, and as our dear neighbors do not know us any better than if an ocean, instead of a silver streak, separated us and them, they indulge in a thousand and one commentaries upon the puerility of our character.
However, it is to our education, and to that alone, that this weak but charming side of our national character must be attributed.
If, from the tenderest age, we were used to liberty and the companionship of children of the other sex, we should grow up thinking very little about liberty and women, and we should succeed in acquiring thatsangfroidwhich is the foundation-stone of the prosperity and the greatness of the Anglo-Saxon race.
When we were schoolboys, and a rumor spread through the class rooms that the sister of So-and-So was in the parlor, do you remember, my dear compatriots, what a commotion it created throughout the whole establishment? Do you remember how we climbed on tables and chairs, and how happy we were if we could but catch sight of the corner of a petticoat at the other end of the courtyard? No wonder, for, to us, a girl was quite an extraordinary being, something almost supernatural. The scream of the young ladies of Miss Tomkins' Seminary, on hearing that "a man is behind the door!" is nothing, compared to the magic cry, "Une fille!" in a French school.
Is not the object of man's worship always something unknown, extraordinary, ideal? Is it not always clothed in mystery? Have we ever bestowed unlimited admiration upon those whose society we frequent every day? Habit kills admiration,[2]as it kills all sentiments that live upon illusions. If, from our childhood, woman were the companion of our daily games and walks, should we not look upon her with different eyes?
To us Frenchmen, woman is a being whom we consider greatly superior to ourselves, because we have made an ideal of her.
To the Englishman, woman is a creature whom he looks down upon as a frail and frivolous being, greatly inferior to himself. With what an air of sovereign condescension the English schoolboy tells his young girl friends all about the game of football or cricket, in which he has taken part! His manner seems to say: "Is it not awfully kind of me to take the trouble to enter into these details with poor, puny creatures like you, who cannot appreciate them?"
⁂
In France, whatever a woman does is right; even her errors almost turn to her advantage. If she breaks her marriage vows, it is not she who is covered with shame, it is her husband who is covered with ridicule; and people immediately look for defects in him, and excuses for her.
A society thus governed by women may lack firmness, but its salient points are sure to be good taste, delicacy, tact, wit, and amiability.
It is impossible not to mention here the ascendancy which women took over French literature in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, and during the early part of the present one, through the influence of thesalons littéraires. Does it not seem, in fact, as if the history of French literature might be summed up by naming the Hôtel de Rambouillet, and thesalonsof Mme. des Loges, Mlle. de Scudéry, Mme. de Sablé, Ninon de Lenclos, Mme. Scarron, the Duchesse du Maine, the Marquise de Lambert, Mme. du Deffand, Mme. d'Epinay, Mme. de Caylus, Mme. de Vintimille, Mme. Récamier, Mme. de Staël, and Mme. Girardin? Do we not know the courts of Louis XIV., Louis XV., Louis XVI., and Napoleon I. by the letters and memoirs of this splendid legion of women belonging to "la société polie" who have taught us the art ofcauser, that art of which we French have the monopoly?
This woman worship, from which chivalry sprang, is the source of another trait characteristic of the French nation, a trait which we have a right to be proud of. I speak of our respect for the weak. I engage that the lowest quarter of any French town would be roused into revolution at the sound of a man having ill-treated a woman or child. It is a sentiment innate in the Celt, and which would be found in the Englishman, if the Germanic element had not gained the ascendancy in England.[3]
Is there any prettier sight than that of our public gardens filled with well-dressed, bright-faced young mothers, whose husbands come, when business is over, to listen to the band at their side, and to take them to their homes,from which care is banished as far as possible, and where they are made sharers in each joy of their husbands?
Can we imagine a pleasure party of any kind without the presence of women? And when I saywe, I mean all classes of society. When our workman sets out, on Sunday mornings, for the Jardin de la Muette or the Bois de Meudon, with provisions for the day, he takes his wife and children with him; and even his old mother, if he have one, must go too, or the party is not complete.
I confess that those world-famed English dinners which are not brightened by the presence of ladies have but little charm for me.
"Those English people enjoy themselves as we bore ourselves to death," once said Mme. Vigée-Lebrun.
When I say that women are rarely seen at the great public dinners, which are the distinguishing feature of English society, I exaggerate. They are sometimes admitted ... to the galleries, from thence to contemplate thelords of creation consuming their prodigious repast.
Gallantry could surely go no further.
Looking from the gallant knights of the trencher to the pretty faces in the gallery, I have more than once exclaimed to myself: "Nobody can say that an Englishman's eyes are bigger than his stomach."
The various religions in existence were founded by men of different nations to suit their own character.
The French, impressionable and fond of pompous pageants, adopted a mystical religion, which addresses itself to their senses; the English, cool and argumentative, preferred a religion which addresses itself to their reason. This is why churches in France savor of the theater, and churches in England savor of the lecture-room.
⁂
Calvinism did not take root in France, and never will, because it is not amiable. Romanism will never flourish in England again, because it says: "Believe, without seeking to understand."
The Roman Catholic religion aims at gaining a hold over the heart, the Protestant religion aims at gaining a hold over the mind. The first attracts women by its poetry and mysticism and governs through them; the second attracts men by sometimes offering them food for their intellectual appetites.
Finally, the first is under the control of a foreign power, the second is national.
⁂
We French people worship a tender, merciful, almost familiar, God, whom we are wont to callsweetSavior.
The English worship the God of the Jews, that God Who commanded His chosen people to exterminate their enemies, and spare neither man, woman, or child, and Whom they callawfulGod.
The manner in which we speak of the Divinity shocks the English; the manner in which the English worship Him leaves us cold and indifferent.
To the Frenchmen who say that religion is incompatible with liberty, I would simply reply: England and America are the freest nations in the world, and at the same time the most religious—I mean the most church-going.
To the English who say that there is no religion in France, I would reply: Our churches are not, like yours, full only from eleven to half-past twelve; they are thronged from six o'clock in the morning to one in the afternoon by a crowd whose fervor is second to that of no other church-goers, and this French piety is all the more admirable because, in our country, religion is not an indispensable garment, as it is in England.
⁂
It would be as imprudent to judge the religion of the English from the French point of view, as it would be to judge the religion of the French from the English point of view. This being granted, something more is requisite, if we would judge fairly, and that is tostart with the principle that all convictions that are dictated by conscience are worthy of respect.
But such is not the usual manner of setting about it. To call one's neighbors "idolaters," and hear one's self called "marchand de Bible" in return, is certainly much more lively.
⁂
The English have given the name of Mariolatry to the homage paid to the Mother of Christ, and it is a deep-rooted belief in England that the French pay to Mary a worship equal to that which they pay to God.
Like ourselves, they too often judge by appearances.
The divine honors paid to the Virgin Mary have nothing to do with adoration; the prayers addressed to her are for intercession. It is a poetical homage rendered chiefly by women, who would fain have the holiest of women plead with a beloved son on their behalf. It is to her that the young girl turns who hasjust engaged her heart; it is to her that the young mother prays as she bends over the cradle of her child.
"Horrible!" cry the Protestants, "as if God were not just, as if He wanted to be told what He should do!"
But since you pray to Him yourselves, it is clear that you think it advisable to remind Him sometimes of your needs.
Then the Frenchman (excuse a comparison which, to my mind, appears to be strikingly true), the Frenchman, I say, who has the love and respect for his mother inborn in him, cannot help believing that God could not find it in His heart to refuse him anything, if Mary, His mother, would only undertake to intercede on his behalf.
The homage paid to the Virgin is nothing short of a worship to Purity, and the most ignorant Irish peasant girl has the conscience of her value when she feels she can kneel down before the white-robed statue. The influence of this worship on morality is enormous.
Take figures.
In Scotland, the proportion of illegitimate children is 16 per cent. In Protestant Ireland (County of Antrim, etc.) it is 7 per cent. In the poorest parts of Roman Catholic Ireland, the proportion is only ½ per cent.
⁂
A religion is materialized that is practiced in temples adorned with statues and pictures, images of the dwellers in the realms of the blest. The uncultured mortal does not know what abstraction is. He believes in what he sees. When our peasant folk think of God, they picture Him to themselves as an august personage in a blue robe with flowing sleeves, who keeps the accounts of our good and bad actions and receives in private audience every morning certain saints, dressed in various colors (St. Peter invariably in bottle-green), who come to talk of theirprotégés, and recommend them to His mercy.
This materialism of the other world helpsthe ignorant to understand, and explains why the poor crowd our churches, in the provinces at all events. I sayin the provincesespecially, for it would be as wrong to judge France by Paris, as it would be to judge England by Regent Street and the Haymarket. This is a remark that I should like to repeat at every page.
"What is it that these English people worship?" is the question invariably asked by the French who visit English churches and chapels. The fact is, there is nothing to be seen there but whitewashed walls, benches, an organ, and an enormous Bible. Tell them that, in the eyes of the English, a crucifix is a profane object, that would be looked upon with as much horror as a statue of Vishnu, and they will have their doubts whether the name of Christian really ought to be applied to an English person.
In religion, everything is spiritualized in England and America. A crucifix recalls the fact that Christ became man.
The English will have neither crucifix,statue, nor picture in their churches, because they adhere to the Bible, and there they find, among the commandments of God, given on Mount Sinai:
"Thou shalt not make to thyself any graven image, or any likeness of anything that is in the heaven. Thou shalt not bow down to them, nor worship them."
The Roman Catholic Church has suppressed this commandment. It is not for me to criticise her; but as she has adopted a certain number of commandments, which she has even translated into verse in order to fix them more easily in the minds of the faithful, she would have perhaps done better to adopt them all. At any rate she has done wisely in interdicting discussion among her followers, and in telling them:
Ce que je dis tu croirasSans raisonner auparavant.
Ce que je dis tu croirasSans raisonner auparavant.
⁂
The Protestant religion is more practical and better adapted to modern life than theCatholic one; but if the Protestant faith may help you to live, I believe the Catholic faith may better help you to die.
Whereas the materialization practiced by the Roman Church attracts the lower classes, the spiritualization of the Anglican Church tends to estrange them. The great unwashed of England would not understand the service of the Anglican Church. This is partly why cornets and drums are being resorted to, to draw them out of their slums.
Everyone takes his religion where he finds it.
⁂
Does not the frequentation of French cemeteries show how attached we are to the body? Does not the solitude of English cemeteries show how little our neighbors share this feeling?
⁂
The Catholic is no theologian. He does not discuss the sermons that are preached to him;he may criticise the language of the preacher, but dogma is not in his line. All that is spoken from the pulpit is gospel to him.
The Protestant is essentially a theologian. He sifts most carefully all that he hears in church. He is not of opinion that man was made for religion, but that religion was made for man. I have seen more than one storm in a teacup aroused, in little country towns, by a certain sermon that had appeared to the congregation to be unorthodox. The local newspapers would be full of letters containing the bitterest and most violent recriminations. The clergyman, attacked like a mere politician who had changed his colors, would defend himself by writing letter after letter to the paper. Bible in hand, he refuted the arguments of his adversaries, who were his own flock, be it understood.
No demi-gods in England; everyone has to pass through the Caudine Forks of criticism.
A young country curate, finding that histradesmen's bills were taking larger proportions than his modest income could stand, resolved one day to thunder from the pulpit against the thirst for riches.
He prepared his thunderbolts.
Never did Horace or Bourdaloue utter such anathemas against the vices of the day.
"My dear brethren," he cried, "is it possible that you can thus place the love of filthy lucre above the love of virtue?"
And, after a few generalities, he came straight to the point; he accused the tradesmen of making too large profits, and of caring more for the things of this world than for the things of the next.
A few days later, it being the 5th of November, the curate was burnt in effigy.
His parishioners having rendered his life not worth living in the pretty little town of X——, the young reverend gentleman lost no time in packing up his traps and quitting the neighborhood, with the firm resolution never to preach any more sermonsad hominem.
The Anglican, or State Church of England is a Tory institution, that is to say, an eminently Conservative one. It is also a great school of discipline for the people. As an Englishman of much good sense said to me one day, the clergyman of a small town advantageously replaces half a dozen policemen.
The Anglican Church is the Church of English good society.
In my quality of Frenchman, I confess to having a partiality for this church, and of dreading the time when she will be separated from the state.
This is why.
If we have many sympathizers in England, they must not be looked for, as a rule, among the bigots of all the little conventicles, who vie with one another in presenting the most striking appearance of virtue and piety.
By these pretentious, narrow-minded folk, the French are more or less looked upon as children of the Evil One. The intelligent Englishmen of good society, who know andoften admire us, generally belong to the Anglican Church, which takes care of their future "by special appointment," and allows them to relax a little from their natural austerity.
Nature has made the Englishman a Puritan. Churchman or not, stir him up, and it is the Puritan which rises to the surface. The day on which the Church of England is disestablished, England will be all Puritan.
Nothing is done for mere glory in England, every undertaking has a practical aim.
In France, every intelligent boy of the middle class goes through his classical studies; even though he may only be intended for a commercial career, his father makes him try to pass his B. A. or B. Sc. In England, boys learn Latin and Greek in order to pass examinations, which lead to certain positions. With us, education is an indispensable ornament; here, it is a means to an end. Thus, though primary education may be much more widely spread in England, higher education is much more widely spread in France.
It is at school that young England begins to learn to make genuflections before the Golden Calf. The best prizes awarded in the largepublic schools are prizes of money. These establishments grant exhibitions of from £40 to £100 a year, during four or five years, to the best of the pupils who leave them to go to the Universities of Oxford or Cambridge.
This scholarship system would be admirable if its object was to help the sons of poor[4]parents to continue their studies at the Universities; but such is not the case; these scholarships are constantly awarded, either through competitive examination, or through the personal interest of a governor, to sons of rich parents. And yet, these scholarships were founded by charitable persons, who bequeathed money to be applied to the education of the intelligent sons of poor parents. At present, the scholarships of the great schools of the City are at the disposal of the City Companies, who have monopolized them for their families and friends, for charity is organized on an immense scale in England, especially that well-ordered kind which begins at home.
The consequence of this state of things is that John Bull, that unsurpassed payer of taxes, is obliged to keep up Board schools in London at an enormous expense. If the great City schools fulfilled the purpose for which they were established by their "pious founders," school rates would be reduced by one-half.
"No money, no Englishman."
The Royal Academy is closed on Sundays; no free day.
The now annual exhibitions at South Kensington are closed on Sundays. No free entry during the week.
The Zoölogical Gardens are, as a matter of fact, open free on Sundays ... but only for the well-to-do classes, who may obtain special orders from the Fellows of the Zoölogical Society.
All the museums are closed on Sundays.
There is no place for the poor at the banquet of life in England. For them, beer and Bible, only.
They take beer.
Not even at church is there room for them; for I maintain that the man or woman whose clothes were not what is called heredecent, would be turned away from the door; what the pastors want are sheep who will take a pew by the year, and put silver pieces on the plate.
And people marvel, or rather lament, that the workman, who has worked all the week, and has no home fit to spend his Sunday in, spends it at the public house.
But where is he to go? The English, who are generally so sensible, are curiously inconsistent in this matter.
⁂
I have seen, in English illustrated papers, pictures of Sunday in London and Sunday in Paris. The first represented a dirty mob ofmen and women, drinking, quarreling, and fighting; the second, groups of workmen, accompanied by their wives, their children, and their old parents, in contemplation before the pictures in the Louvre Museum.
This was doing us justice for once.
Intelligent and liberal England is moving heaven and earth to get the museums thrown open to the people on Sundays. The Prince of Wales, and the leaders of all the aristocracies of the country, are at the head of the movement; but all the little narrow-minded and bigoted world is leagued against them, and it is not probable that they will succeed. Meanwhile, the London taverns remain open, which proves that the English bigots consider gin and beer more powerful moral stimulants than the masterpieces of great artists; such appears also to be the decided opinion of the bishops, who never fail to attend at the House of Lords in full force when the subject is coming on for discussion.
England erects her statues to the nobility and to finance. You see, England's great literary men were so numerous, that they had to be relegated to a corner of Westminster Abbey, for fear they should hinder circulation in the streets. With the aid of a guidebook, you may succeed in discovering the tablets erected to their memory by a not too grateful country.
Thackeray, the immortal author of "Vanity Fair," is rewarded with a tablet about a foot square. But, then, if you will take a walk around the Stock Exchange, you will see the third statue of the Duke of Wellington, and one of Peabody, the millionaire. In a little narrow City street, a bust of Milton, in an obscure niche, reminds the passer-by that the author of "Paradise Lost" was born in that place. It is comparatively unnoticed. In the wild, headlong, guinea chase, there is no time for trifling! Paris has aRue Miltonto make up for it.
Yet this thirst for gold has been the greatest civilizing power of modern times. It is this which has opened up new markets for commerce in the remotest corners of the world. This British Empire, which has been called a brazen colossus with feet of clay, is the greatest empire it was ever given to man to found.
In a hundred years' time, Australia will probably be a strong and independent Republic, a second America; but the separation will mean no loss of prestige or of profit to England; her commerce will not suffer; her steamboats will continue to ply between London and Sydney, as they do between Liverpool and New York.
⁂
Who would dare to compare the greater number of England's conquests to those sterile ones that only survive in man's memory by the tears and blood that they have caused to flow?
"We are a wonderful people," cries General Gordon, in hisDiary at Khartoum; "it was never our Government which made us a great nation; our Government has ever been the drag on our wheels. England was made by adventurers, not by her Government; and I believe she will only hold her place by adventurers."
This is true enough.
They were adventurers, who were the first to set foot on the soil of those remote regions which have been added one by one to the lists of England's colonies; but if England is a great nation, it is thanks to heroic deeds, such as thine, great advanced sentinel of modern civilization, who for months couldst unaided keep hordes of barbarians in check; it is thanks to heroes of thy stamp, poor Gordon!
⁂
England conquers by the railway. She imposes her civilization and her commerce in thecountries she subdues, puts the natives in the way of earning money, and sensibly takes care to make her yoke felt as little as possible. Her commercial power makes her indispensable to the rest of the world, including the shareholders of the Suez Canal Company, to whom she pays more than three times as much as all the other powers put together.
That which makes the strength of this colonial empire, is that each colony, like each child in the mother-country, serves the apprenticeship of life in the enjoyment of liberty.
As each colony becomes rich enough to suffice unto itself, and strong enough to defend itself, England says to the colonists: "You are now big enough to manage for yourselves, it is time you learnt to do without my help." This is what the Englishman says to his sons, as they come to man's estate. The colony forms its government, chooses its ministers, and its parliament; sends representatives to England to watch over its interests there, and becomes, as it were, a branch house of thatimmense firm, known in every latitude, under the name of "John Bull and Company."[5]
All forms of worship will lend themselves to exaggeration and develop eccentricities, and most certainly it is not the worship of the Golden Calf that is an exception to the rule. Let us look at the question from this side as well as the other.
You never run the risk of offending an Englishman by offering him money.
Everyone must remember the lamentations of the Madagascar missionary, Mr. Shaw. The reverend gentleman had been parted from his flock, and obliged to take pot-luck on board the late Admiral Pierre's vessel. What meant those jeremiads? Was it apologies he wanted? Not a bit of it! This apostle wanted cash. From the day that he received $5000 from the French Government not aword more was heard from him. He was quiet and happy.
$5000 for having eaten a few bad dinners! It does not fall to everyone's share to dine so satisfactorily as that.
Although the labor of preparing the posthumous works of Victor Hugo for publication will be enormous, his literary executors have refused to accept the profits, sure to be immense, which the poet meant should be the reward of their arduous task. But the thought of receiving money for such a labor of love is odious to them. English people may look upon this as sentimentality, but it compares very favorably with the highly practical proceedings of Thomas Carlyle's literary executor.
M. H——, the Frenchdéputé, who obtained 10,000 francs damages the other day, in Paris, from an individual who had insulted his wife, gave the money to the poor the very same day. It is a fact that, in France, no man, jealous of his honor, would pocket such gains.
"But," you will say, "surely the Reverend Mr. Shaw gave his $5000 to the poor, or to some good cause——?"
You little know the type.
In England, it is only too much the fashion to carry everything to the bank—an insult, a kick, the loss of a lover, the faithlessness of a wife, all possible inconveniences; the almighty guinea consoles for every wrong, and may be offered to anyone.
On his wedding day (January 28, 1885), the Rev. Stephen Gladstone, Vicar of Hawarden, and son of the Prime Minister of England, received, among his numerous wedding presents, a check for a hundred pounds from Dr. Sir Andrew Clark, and another for the same sum from the Duke of Westminster. The thing was so natural that not a single English paper commented on the fact.
In France, such a wedding present could only be offered to a domestic who had served us faithfully for some time.
I was in France, spending a few days with a farmer in the heart of the country.
Dressed in a blouse and a large straw hat, I was one day taking a walk on the main road, when an Englishman, accompanied by a young lad of fifteen, accosted me, and asked which was the shortest way to the village of M——.
Delighted to see an Englishman, I volunteered all the information that was at my command. I even offered to accompany him as far as the lane which led to M——, and he willingly accepted.
After racking my brains to give my Englishman every detail I could think of, concerning the interesting village he was about to visit, I proposed to turn back.
He, after having uttered a formidable "Aoh" for all thanks, went on his way.
I had spoken in French. I always like to make Englishmen speak French when I meet them in France. It is my little revenge.
I will admit that, in my rustic attire, I couldnot have looked much of a dandy; but, in France, we have still preserved that good old habit of saying "Thank you," even to our inferiors.
The Briton had simply treated me as he would have a City policeman who had told him his way.
I called him back.
"Excusez-moi," I said.
"Aoh! mon ami, oui ... je savé ce que vo—volé ... je demandé pardonne."
And, without another word, he drew from his pocket a fifty-centime piece, which he slipped into my hand.
As you must always keep what an Englishman gives you a chance of pocketing, I did not hesitate to put the fifty-centimes in a safe place.
This done, I said to him in decent English:
"My dear sir, let me give you a piece of advice. When you have got a Frenchman to talk himself hoarse to explain to you your way, just thank him."
"Why, sir, you speak English——"
He was immediately all apologies.
"Above all," I continued, "never offer money in this country before you are quite sure it will be acceptable. You might have it thrown in your face," I added laughing.
My Englishman held out his hand, as if to receive back his fifty centimes.
"Oh! with me," I said to him, "there is no danger. I have lived a long while in England, and I am pretty businesslike by this time. I never throw money out of windows or in people's faces ... I put it in my pocket."
My practical ideas won me his esteem. We laughed heartily over the adventure, and parted the best of friends.
⁂
After having beaten the Ashantees, in 1874, brought home the umbrella of their king, and burnt their capital, a feat not requiring much talent, the dwellings being built of wood and straw, General Wolseley, on his return to England, had a grant of £25,000 made to him. Eight years later, on his return from Egypt, this same general received a peerage and £28,000. Lord Alcester, his companion in arms, who had operated on the walls of Alexandria, while he was operating on the backs of the Egyptians, also obtained a peerage and £30,000. When I consider that, during the siege of Alexandria, the English had only three men puthors de combat, it occurs to me that doubtless these rewards were granted to Lord Alcester at the suggestion of the British Royal Humane Society.
And yet General Roberts, the history of whose celebrated march to Candahar will remain written in letters of gold among the records of the great military feats of the present century, had to content himself with the Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath.
General Wolseley, now Baron of Cairo, a name so grotesque that he has never yet cared to assume it in public, was one day sent back to the Soudan to deliver Gordon, that modernchevalier sans peur et sans reproche. The perspective was tempting; there was every prospect of an ample harvest of honors and banknotes. Unfortunately, the Mahdi cut the grass under the general's feet, and he arrived too late. Poor Gordon had to die, not to save his country, but to become, and forever remain, a specter at England's feast, the victim of her vacillations, a standing reproach to her indifference.
Gordon and Wolseley! to think that, by the irony of fate, these two names should have been associated in the same campaign! The soldier saint, and the noble millionaire, whose victories are sounded with the clink of guineas.
"Look, here, upon this picture, and on this."
And you, O heroes of antiquity, arise from your long sleep, and see the progress that military art has made! Veil your faces, O Fabricius, Cincinnatus, and all you Romans, who, after you had subdued your country's foes, and drawn fettered kings behind your triumphal chariots, returned to cultivate your fields,and died so poor that you had to be buried at the public expense.
It has long been England's practice to reward with money those who had rendered services to the country.
After the battle of Waterloo, the Duke of Wellington received, as a present from the nation, £400,000 and a palace at the entrance of Hyde Park.
With reference to the grants to the famous Duke of Marlborough, that great general, who filled the hearts of his enemies with terror, and the pockets of his family with the money of his countrymen, and whose descendants still receive from the state the sum of £4000 a year, Swift compares, in theExaminer, the generosity of the Romans with the generosity of the English:
For frankincense, and earthen pots to burn it in,$22.50A bull for sacrifice,40.00An embroidered garment,250.00A crown of laurel,.05A statue,500.00A trophy,400.00A thousand copper medals, value half-penny apiece,10.20A triumphal arch,2500.00A triumphal car,500.00Casual charges at the triumph,750.00Total,$4972.75
Woodstock,$200,000.00Blenheim,1,000,000.00Post-office grant,500,000.00Mildenheim,150,000.00Pictures, jewels, etc.,300,000.00Pall Mall grant,50,000.00Employments,500,000.00Total,$2,700,000.00
John Churchill, Duke of Marlborough, was pocketing these $2,700,000 about the time when Fléchier, comparing Turenne to Maccabæus, was able to say of him, "that he would never accept any other reward, for the services he rendered to his country, than the honor of having served her."
It is not at the Abbey of Westminster, it is on the façade of the Bank of England that there ought to be written:
HERE ENGLAND SHOWS HER GRATITUDE TO HER GREAT MEN.
HERE ENGLAND SHOWS HER GRATITUDE TO HER GREAT MEN.
Everyone accounted for our disasters of 1870 after his own fashion. The most ingenious theories were brought forward, and we very well know why we believe it to be indispensable and patriotic to learn German.
"Ah!" cried some, "if we had only known German, we should not have been defeated." And forthwith instruction in German was decreed obligatory.
"That is not it," said others, "it is our geography, of which we did not know even the rudiments, that has been the cause of all the evil. On leaving Paris, our officers, ignorant of the meanders of the Seine, thought that they were beating a retreat each time they came to a fresh bend of that river." And the study of geography received a fillip.
Others again would have it to be that if the visors of our soldier'sképishad not been lifted upward in front, the Prussians would have had a warm time of it. Down came the visors without delay.
I pass over the pious people, who saw in our disasters only the just chastisement of our faults, and will only give the opinion of Thomas Carlyle. This philosopher, whom the hazard of birth had made English, but who was a perfect German, cried out that "Germanic virtues had triumphed over Gallic vices."
Some few worthy folks, perfectly destitute of genius, but possessing an ounce or two of common sense, attributed our defeats to the fact that the Germans had an army of 1,200,000 men, whereas our own forces scarcely numbered 350,000. I fancy it is these latter that history will show to have been in the right.
The virtuous Germans that vanquished us, were they, after all, so clever at geography and French? This is how they learnt the geography they required, and how they made themselves understood in French:
A few Uhlans would approach to within a respectful distance of a village. There they would seize upon the first peasant, old man, or child, that passed, place a pistol to his throat, and after asking, "Are there any French soldiers in your village?" would say: "Show us the way to such and such place, and tell us the names of all the people around here, who have wine in their cellars, or hay in their barns. And you had better take care to tell the truth, or we will blow your brains out, and set fire to the four corners of your village."
Loaded pistols and lighted torches are magical quickeners of slow intellects; a deaf man would understand such arguments as these. If I took by the collar the first lad I came across in Germany, and, lifting my stick to his head, shouted into his ear: "You young rascal, I will knock your head off," I will warrant he would understand me as quickly as if I spoke the purest German.
If we have any spare time, let us learn German that we may be able to read Goethe and Schiller; from the practical point of view, the utility of German is but secondary. If we should ever demand of Germany the provinces that she wrenched from us, we shall find we have enough German-speaking mouths, if we can only put into the field as many mouths of cannon as Wilhem II.
"If," as M. Rénan says,[6]"those nations which have an exceptional fact in their history expiate this fact by long sufferings and pay for it with their national existence—if the nations that have created unique things by which the world profits often die victims of their achievements," England may hope to live a considerable time yet, for everything that she undertakes is national, never universal. She works for herself and herself alone. Whenever she is asked to co-operate in the execution of a great project of universal interest, she refuses pointblank, unless it appears quite clear to her that she alone will reap the profits and honors of the undertaking. AnEnglishman's sphere of action is always England and her colonies; his only aim, British interests—two magic words to his ears.
If the Channel Tunnel could be made so that it could only be used by the English, it would be commenced to-morrow.
Lord Beaconsfield pronounced patriotism to be the most rational form of egotism. Would to Heaven it might be so interpreted in France!
When shall we, in France, cease to strive after the extraordinary and the universal? When shall we cease to concern ourselves about the happiness of the whole human race and, minding our own business, undertake only the possible and the practical? When shall we cease to become inventors and be men of business?
There is not much discovered in England nowadays, except new ways of dodging the arch-enemy.
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Yet it was Newton who discovered the infinitesimal calculus and the laws of universalgravitation. Yet it was England that produced Shakespeare, the sublimest example of the Creator's handiwork. Yet it was Harvey who discovered the circulation of the blood. But now England is entirely given over to business; she has no time to throw away upon inventions.
For that matter, why should England go in for inventing? She has money and a genius for commerce, and, possessing these, can do without inventors, who, as a rule, die in the workhouse, with the satisfaction of knowing that shrewd men of business have made fortunes out of their discoveries.
This has always been so. Even the sublime and Divine Thinker expiated with an ignominious death the invention of a theory which, but for the meddling of speculators, would have insured the happiness of the world. To-day He can contemplate from His celestial throne, the bishops coming out of their palaces in luxurious carriages to go to the House of Lords and vote against the opening of museums on Sundays, or on their way to the Mansion House to feast with the Lord Mayor, who gives better dinners than were to be had in Galilee, I assure you.
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The world is made up of fools and knaves, such was the judgment passed upon mankind by Thomas Carlyle, the great English historian, a rough and dyspeptic philosopher, who himself, however, was neither a knave nor a fool.
This writer, who passed his life in insulting his countrymen one after another, who could make love to his wife by correspondence when she was far away, but who never found an amiable word to say to her when she was near, this same Thomas Carlyle has calumniated the world. Where should we be without the few disinterested heroes who have devoted themselves to the amelioration of their fellow-creatures, and who, in return, have receivedbut poverty and prison, torture and death? The men who have suffered for country, religion, science, liberty; are these Carlyle's fools?
How is it that the French are such vandals with regard to their country and their institutions, seeing that the love for their family, respect for their parents, and veneration for souvenirs, are such marked features in their character? The fact is that France is towed unresistingly by Paris, and that we often have to say "the French," when in reality we only mean "the Parisians."
We are accused of no longer having much respect for anything. Alas! that it should be impossible to deny such an accusation!
A country, just like a family, lives by its traditions, its souvenirs, even by its prejudices. Destroy these souvenirs, some of which serve as examples and others as warnings, destroythese traditions, and you break the chain that binds the family together, and the past, though never so glorious, has been lived in vain. Is a country less dear to her sons because of her prejudices? Do we not love to find them in a dear old mother?
Do not the very prejudices and weaknesses, the thousand little failings of our friends, often endear them to us?
Then why are we not content with France as she is? Why be always wanting to change her? Is it possible that we Frenchmen, the most home-abiding men in the world, can be attacked by this ridiculous mania for change?
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The study of the French language furnishes of itself plain proof of our spirit of destruction, and theDictionnaire des Significations, which, is shortly to be published, and is awaited with impatience by the learned world, will show, by the history of the changes of meaning that our words have undergone, that the character ofthe French people can be recognized to this very day by the descriptions that were given of it two thousand years ago.
The French wordbenîtformerly meant "blessed."
Thanks to the jokes of the old Gauls, our ancestors, it now means "silly." Our forefathers heard in church: "Benedicti stulti quia habebunt regnum cœlorum."[7]Bénis seront les pauvres d'esprit, car ils auront le royaume des cieux. Now, in French,pauvre d'espritmeans "silly," and, on their way home, the old jokers would indulge in merry remarks at one another's expense. When anyone gave proof of want of wit, he was congratulated on having his entry into the kingdom of heaven secured:
"You arestultusenough to bebenedictus"; and the first adjective soon came to have the meaning of the second.
It will soon be impossible to pronounce thewordfillein good society, except to express relationship.
Why are we obliged to make use of this word to designate a child of the feminine sex? Simply because the feminine ofgarçonbegan to be used in a bad sense in the seventeenth century. Before the feminine ofgarçon—which the French had to give up, as they will soon have to give up the wordfille—they had a word which is, in the present day, a horribly coarse expression.
Such is the march of the spirit of destruction.
The Gauls have always been rich in wit, but wit often of a bantering and sarcastic kind, which disparages and covers with ridicule, and of which Voltaire was the personification.
People who eat sausages on a Friday,[8]in France, think they are doing a smart thing, and rebelling against a form of tyranny, forgetting that Lenten fasts had originally a sanitary reason. To give rest to the stomach, such was the aim; and a French physician said to me one day: "If there were no Lent in the spring, I should order my patients to fast two or three times a week, through that season of the year."
The Talmud forbids the Jews to eat pork, because that meat is heavy and indigestible; the Koran forbids the use of wine among the Mussulmans, because of its intoxicating properties; in fact, have not all these religious edicts a foundation of common sense, and do we not give proof of common sense in conforming to them? Truly, he is but a pitiful hero—not to use a stronger term—who boasts of not following a salutary counsel, that he does not know how to appreciate, because he does not understand.
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The English, unlike us, cling to their past, and because a custom is old, that is a sufficient reason, in their eyes, for holding it sacred. Ifeel sure that there is not an Englishman, who does not religiously eat his slice of plum pudding on Christmas Day, let him be in the Bush, at the Antipodes, on land or on water, and no matter in what latitude.
It is a veritable communion.
The English observance of the Sunday is tyrannical, I admit, but it is an ancient institution, and, if kept in an intelligent way, should command respect.
If the people of Great Britain do not build anything in a day, they have, at any rate, the good habit of not demolishing anything in a day.
The Englishman has an innate love of old walls that recall to him a historical fact, a departed grandeur, a memory of his childhood.
I have been present at many a touching scene, that has proved to me how deeply thereligio lociis rooted in the heart of every true-born Englishman.
Here is one.
An old City School, dating from the fifteenthcentury, had just been transplanted into one of the suburbs of London.
The new building is a palace compared with the old.
Yet it was with profound sadness that old scholars learnt of the removal of the school from its time-honored home. If they could have had a voice in the matter, the change would not have taken place. The splendor of the new school was nothing to them; the name was the same, but it was their old school no more. On the day of the farewell ceremony in the City, I saw gray-headed men, who had come from distant parts of the country, on purpose to bid farewell to the venerable walls, to have one more look at them.
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If England, who only dates from the eleventh century, lives on her souvenirs and turns to them for inspiration, with what souvenirs might we inspire ourselves—we who have been a nation for twenty-three centuries?
There was no England when we were the terror of Rome. There was no England when our brave and generous ancestors went to battle to deliver or avenge an oppressed nation, or welcomed a poor stranger as a friend sent by the gods. There was no England when Vercingetorix made Cæsar tremble, nor was there yet an England when, eight hundred years later, the exploits of Roland were inspiring the poets of the whole of old Europe.
Ah! let us cling to our past, we who have such a glorious one! Where is the nation that can boast such another?
Obedience is the watchword of England.
The Englishman revolts only against injustice, and that but figuratively. Brought up to respect the law, it is in the name of the law that he demands redress for his grievances, and by the law that he obtains it.
Dieu et mon droit, such is his device; notwithstanding that he has rather monopolized the first, and that his definition of the second is a trifle vague, it is certain that by them he is stimulated to do great deeds.
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Take the schoolboy, for instance.
In most of the great public schools of England, the refractory schoolboy is still chastised by means of the rod, but do not imagine thatpunishment is administered in an arbitrary fashion. The young offender is brought to judgment. The head master hears the evidence against him, and listens to his defense. If he is found guilty of the offense with which he is charged, the head master pronounces his condemnation and the boy is corrected on the spot. He submits without a murmur. The system may be bad, but what is good about it is that it generally proves a thoroughcorrectionfor the child.
Under similar circumstances, a French schoolboy would probably seize an inkstand, or the first thing he could lay hands on, and menace his judge or his executioner with it.
Do not ask me which of the two I prefer, but let me tell you that the only punishments I have any objection to are unjust or arbitrary ones, and that severe ones, administered with discretion, are generally salutary. At all events, I ask you not to believe that the young Englishman is cowardly because he knows how to endure pain, and is submissive,for a few minutes later you will see him rejoin his comrades at their play, and perform veritable acts of heroism. It almost seems to me that a child gives proof of courage in submitting to a punishment which he knows he has deserved, and that a spirit of submission to discipline is more to be commended in him than a spirit of rebellion. In resigning himself to his fate, and enduring his punishment, the English schoolboy learns to master a passion; the French schoolboy, in rebelling, allows a passion to master him. If the English system is bad, the French one must be worse.
Since I have pronounced the wordrebellion, allow me to show you how differently the thing is understood in French and English schools.
Let us suppose that some privilege, which the pupils have long enjoyed, and looked upon as their right, has been withdrawn, rightly or wrongly, no matter which. What will the French schoolboys do? They will probably retire to a dormitory, there to sulk and protestvi et armis. They will barricade themselves, victual the intrenchments for a few hours, and prepare for a struggle. Rebellion has wonderful charms for them; they are insurgents, therefore they are heroes. If the cause be a bad one, that matters little, it will be sanctified by the revolution; the main thing is to play at thepeuple souverain. These hot-headed youths will stand a siege as earnestly as if they had to defend their native soil; dictionaries, inkstands, boots, bedroom furniture, such are the missiles that are pressed into service in the glorious battle for liberty.
But, alas for youthful valor! it all fades before the pleadings of an empty stomach; the struggle is abandoned, the citadel forsaken, and arms are laid down. The misguided ones are received back into the fold, to be submitted to stricter discipline than ever, the heroic instigators of the littlefêteare, in the end, restored to the tender care of their mammas, or, in other words, expelled from the school. And for a boy to be expelled from aFrenchlycéeis no light matter, for the doors of all the others are closed to him, and the pleasure of playing at heroes for a few hours is often bought at the price of ruined prospects.
They manage these things differently in England. Under the same circumstances, this is what the schoolboys of old England would do. A dozen of the most influential and respectable among them would promptly form themselves into a committee, and organize an indignation meeting of all the pupils of the school. This meeting would be presided over by the captain of the school, or even by one of the masters, and the grievance would be discussed, not with any display of temper, but with the calm dignity of the free citizen. Propositions made by the boys, and duly seconded in a parliamentary manner, would be put to the vote, and the president would be charged to transmit such resolutions to the proper authorities. The meeting would then break up in a perfectly orderly manner and without a murmur, everyone going his way,like a good Republican who had just performed a civic duty of the gravest importance.
Such a meeting as this has never been interdicted by the authorities, for the very simple reason that such a meeting never endangered the good discipline of a school.
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Has it indeed fallen to our lot, to us who live under a Republic, to see a people living under a Monarchy enjoying every form of liberty; liberty of thought, liberty of speech, liberty of the press, liberty to meet together, in fact the right of grumbling in every form imaginable; to see them able to get redress for all their grievances, without having recourse to violence?
Do you remember the great manifestations in favor of the abolition of the House of Lords?
The Lords had refused to sanction the Franchise Bill—a bill which was to give electoral rights to two millions of Englishmen, who hadbeen deprived of them up to that time. Two hundred thousand persons meet and quietly-pass through the great arteries of London. Not a voice is lifted. The immense crowd makes for Hyde Park and there divides itself into twelve groups around twelve improvised platforms. Speeches are made, resolutions passed, and the meeting breaks up in an orderly manner.
But, you will say, the police were there, of course, to see that these people did not break the law.
The police, indeed! Yes, most certainly they were there; but it was to protect the people's right of meeting, and not to hinder them, or oppose them, in the exercise of their privileges.
It was really a wonderful sight for a foreigner, to see this crowd, bent upon overthrowing the Constitution, preceded, flanked, and followed, by mounted police, whose duty it was to see that these subjects of Her Majesty were allowed to protest unmolested! Andthat which afforded me some amusement and more instruction still, was the sight of the Prince of Wales and some friends of his, installed on a balcony at Whitehall,[9]and evidently there to see the fun; to see at Pall Mall windows the faces of lords, apparently much amused in watching these people, who had taken a holiday, and who, if they did not gain their point, had the satisfaction of feeling that they lived in a country where they could air their grievances freely.
The House of Lords exists still, but its members passed the Franchise Bill.
The Lords are wise persons.
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Ah! how quickly our anniversary-keepers would draw in their horns, if the Minister of the Interior spoke to them somewhat in thismanner: "You wish to hold your demonstration, my friends ... I beg your pardon, citizens; why, certainly! Demonstrate away, to your heart's content; there is nothing to hinder you. You want to carry a red flag about the streets? Carry it by all means—red, yellow, blue, any color of the rainbow that you like best. I will put as many policemen at your disposition as you may require to protect you in the free exercise of your rights."
How small the revolutionary would look if he were talked to in this way! How mortified he would be! But draw your sword, and he is happy. He goes about crying:
"The people are being slaughtered!"
It is the very worst course that could be adopted. The proper cure for the mania for demonstrations is not the sword, but a little cold water.
Try how many followers you will get for a standard of revolt raised with the cry:
"The people are being syringed?"
Ah! where is the Government that will havefirst the strength, and then the good sense, to leave the people alone, instead of doing its best to irritate them into adopting therôleof martyr? Monarchy or Republic, what matters the name of this Government, so that it gives us what we are in search of—our liberty.
The English newspapers love to fill their columns with the sayings and doings of French Anarchists, so as to try and prove to their readers that France "is still navigating on a volcano," although they know very well that our revolutionary mountains are incapable of bringing forth even a mouse, as the ridiculous failure of the proposed Anarchist demonstration at Victor Hugo's funeral proved. The English know perfectly well that in the year 1867, thanks to the inopportune meddling of the police, there was a riot, in Hyde Park, which was likely to have proved very serious. The English know all this; but the pot always had a trick of calling the kettle black.
Our lower orders are a thousand times more intelligent than the English ones; and whenthe French police force cease to be the symbol, the instrument, of an arbitrary power, in order to become, in some sort, the protection of the people, our workmen will astonish the world with their good behavior, as they did on the day of our immortal poet's apotheosis.
The Frenchman is impressionable, excitable; but he is gentle, and easy to govern. The Parisians never raised any riots that could not be traced to the want of tact, or the malice, of the Government; and we all know that if M. Thiers had not been so bent upon putting down a small revolution, he would not have stirred up a large one; the Commune would have been nipped in the bud at the Buttes-Chaumont on the 18th of May, 1871. The harmless folk who were looking after the famous cannons would have been only too pleased to go home.
A nation does not learn the proper use of freedom in a day. It does not understand at first sight that obedience and respect for the law are two virtues indispensable to everyonewho wishes to get on tolerably under a democracy; it is for the Government to teach it its lesson. To do this properly, an authority is wanted which shall be vigilant, while making itself felt as little as possible.
This liberty should be the monopoly of no one, but the privilege of each and all. Every time our police officers pounce upon a red flag and tear it up, every time they suppress a Catholic school, or force open the doors of a convent, the fruits of many a month's lessons are lost. We go back; but the cause of the white or red flag is advanced.
Why is Roman Catholicism perfectly powerless in England, politically speaking?
Because Protestant England allows the Romanists to open as many churches, schools, and convents as they please.
All that England demands from those who live on her hospitable soil is respect for her laws. Monarchs exiled by their subjects, and Communists, Nihilists, Socialists, exiled by their monarchs, may jostle one another in herstreets any day; the individual liberty of the revolutionary subject being held as sacred as that of the ex-monarch.