WITH MONSIEUR BRIAND AFTER THE WASHINGTON CONFERENCE
Thegreat liner warped into the quay. Hushed expectation poised itself over the multitude. A dumpy figure, almost incredibly small against the vastness of the ship, appeared at the head of the accommodation ladder, and waddled slowly down the side, followed, at a respectful distance, by obsequious midgets. It approached nearer, resolving itself into a small round-shouldered man with a heavy, pale face, distinguished eyebrows and prodigious moustaches. His eyes were grey and meditative; his hair a shaggy, black mane, bursting irrepressibly from under his hat. He strode ashore, and prostrated himself on the soil of his beloved country.
“Ah, la patrie,” he cried in his thrilling, resonant voice, rising from his knees as he spoke, and lifting his right hand in solemn invocation. “Ah, my country, thy faithful Aristide, thy humble servitor salutes thee. He returns, inflated with no Imperialism, but none the less from the depths of his heart proud to have upheld, in thy name, before all the assembled conscienceof mankind, those principles of liberty, those imperishable ideals of justice, of international comity and brotherhood, that fine spirit of self-abnegation in which it has ever been the boast of France to lead the world. Oh, liberty, what sacrifice would we not willingly offer in thy behalf? Oh, freedom, where is thy source if not in France? Oh, humanity——”
I tapped him on the shoulder.
“I’ve been waiting for you,” I said.
“Vous dites, M’sieur?” he asked indignantly.
“I’ve been waiting for you,” I repeated sternly. “What do I hear that you’ve been saying in Washington about British warships and sardine-hunting, French submarines and botanical expeditions, and the unknown X?”
He showed his teeth in a grim smile.
“The unknown X?Qu’est-ce que c’est ça? M’sieur veut dire peut-être ‘La femme X’?”
“No evasions,” I warned him. “I am here in the interests of the British public. They are pained, Monsieur, pained! They know nothing of international politics, and very little about politicians—even their own. But they know that, in their quiet way, they’ve grown to be fond of your people. They see that you misunderstand them. And it hurts them to think that the Entente Cordiale——”
He flicked his fingers impatiently.
“L’entente cordiale! Ah, M’sieu, l’entente cordiale!... Are you understanding French?”
“Not noticeably,” I confessed.
“Alors!Well, I shall tell you in English.... What is it, this Entente Cordiale?Hein?An understanding of friends,n’est ce pas? What the Americans call a ‘gentleman’s agreement.’ You make it because you trust so much, that you will not care to have a Treaty. Well, then, but you must trust yourvis-à-vis. You must not put all the bad construction on his doing. Not even a Treaty will stand that. You cannot have Entente, and then go on nag, nag, nag, like an old peasant woman with the toothache. Oh, it is impossible,M’sieu, impossible!”
“Angora?” I hinted.
“Angora....” He shrugged bluffly. “Well, yes, Angora. That is, perhaps, a pity. We are—we are in the soup with Angora.” He passed it off with a disarming grin. “But,après tout, what can you expect of Bouillon? We shall settle all that.... And it is not Angora that threaten our Entente, M’sieu. Ah, no! That is a small thing. A few Kemalist do not imperil Anglo-French relations. Pouf!...”
His face grew troubled and sad.
“M’sieu, you know perfectly. It is Germany. Yes. You talk a lot of the separate peace with Turkey. In the letter that is so; but in thespirit you make a separate peace with Germany. Oh, yes. This is not epigram—it is truth. Germany, she does not intend to pay. Perhaps she cannot pay. I do not know. It is possible she cannot; but you in England pretend to her that shecannotpay and to us that shewillpay.Ménager la chèvre et le chou!Is that entente cordiale?...”
“You see,” I endeavoured to explain, “this is a subject on which there are two views in England. One side holds that Germany can pay something—the precise sum varies according to the knowledge and dispassion of the thinker. The other party contends that she can pay nothing at all—that it would be wiser in the general interest of Europe to cancel the whole debt; and that view, not widely held, is gaining ground——”
“At the expense of France,” he interjected sharply. “Yes. Not at your expense, my generous friend, but at the expense of France.”
“That,” I answered, “is partly true; but not entirely true. Viewed in its immediate context, it may be so; but taken in perspective, the trade revival in Germany——”
“Ah,” he cried, “Ah, ça, M’sieu!The trade revival in Germany. And then,M’sieu, and then? The political revival of Germany. The military revival of Germany. The Germanhegemony. Mittel Europa.Merci, M’sieu!And France, what of France?”
“France,” I began, “is a member of the League of Nations.”
“And Germany,” he replied, “is not. And America is not. And Russia, with her army of two millions, is not. Thank you for your League of Nations,M’sieu. What will it be in ten years? Perhaps the great co-ordinating harmoniser of the whole world. Perhaps not. What is America wishing since I leave Washington. They will have a new League, with no Covenant.C’est à direnothing that binds—nothing that give security to such as France. Just a lot of amiable pleasantry, that you interpret as you please. Much of your Press are support them. Do that give confidence to France?... First we are to have the Tripartite Treaty—England, America, France. Then that is not ratify. And our English friends say, ‘Never mind. You have it all in Article 10. The League of Nations will protect you.’ Now, perhaps, the League will follow the Tripartite Treaty. Oh, yes, I know they say the Association will be side by side with the League. But how can you have that? It is a rival system. They say it will be found upon The Hague Tribunal. Then what comes to the International Court? It is to make of international politics a kind ofbouillabaisse....Non, M’sieu!I am head of a Government. I am responsible to a nation. Do you seriously advise me to trust in the League of Nations?”
“I advise you,” I answered, “to trust more in ideas, and less in things. Ideas let loose in the world cannot be destroyed. The League of Nations is an idea—not an office at Geneva. Civilisation is an idea; religion is an idea. What banded the nations together for the Great War? The strength of an idea.”
“Self-preservation,” he muttered, cynically.
“Monsieur le Président, that is unworthy.” (He bowed ironically at the rebuke.) “It is the contemptible argument of the materialist. What drew our young men to fight in 1914? Self-preservation. Never! I doubt if half of them knew the meaning of it. It was the conviction that an evil thing was being done, and the belief that it was their duty to prevent it.”
“Some of your Statesmen,” he continued, as if my remark had not been made, “are so kind as to teach my Government his business. They stand up in public and lecture us, warn us. Italy go wild with rage, because some lying journalist attribute to me what I have not said. England and America link arms and get drunk on formulas of disarmament, that perhaps mean nothing in the light of science to-day. Japan disguise herselfas a mandarin and go behind the scenes in China ... and Germany and Russia look on with sardonic satisfaction to see the isolation of France, and prepare for the next ‘Day’! That give one great encouragement to disarm. And all the time to be uncertain—uncertain of one’s friends.... You say your people, they have love for France.Ma foi, they take a strange method to show it!... I do not understand. No, I do not understand.”
“Must one,” I asked him, “must one always understand? Cannot one have faith in a friendship, tried and proved?”
“You say to have faith,” he mused. “Yes, but that is not so easy. For every belief there must be a foundation—the rock on which the Church is build. Where is my rock?”
“The English dead,” I murmured.
His voice suddenly softened.
“Ah, M’sieu, those dead. I was forgetting.... We have all lived at so much pressure since the Peace, that we forget too often the fundamentals. We live for so many such strenuous years steeped in sentiment, that now we have a reaction.... Those dead in their quiet graves in the North of France—sleeping there till the end of time.
“Yes. We have been too impatient, and we say things that we do not mean. It is not onlyhere in France; your Ministers, too, have been at fault. But,au fond, it means nothing.
“Listen. I shall tell you. Let us speak no more ofL’Entente Cordiale. It is a phrase of politicians and tradesmen. We shall say in futureLa Grande Amitié. It shall be—it is—a great love between two peoples, sanctified in a bitter struggle for a common aim.... I am glad to have talked with you,M’sieu. Perhaps our conversation can be having good results.
“Do not be too hasty with us. Remember, France have much to fear on the Continent. If we do what seem to you wrong, then be patient. It is not perversity, always.”
He clambered into the car that waited, and drove away through the cheering ranks of his fellow-countrymen....
And I wondered.