% 
 
 o w 
 
 
 
 
 o N o 
 

 % 
 
 
 
 v^^ 
 
 ^^S" 
 
 
 
 
 
 (/> \>*' t*^ 
 
 4 O 
 
 •" • °. 
 
4 
 
France of the French 
 
UNIFORM WITH THIS VOLUME 
 
 Countries and Peoples Series 
 
 Each in imperial 16mo, cloth gilt, gilt top, 
 
 with about 30 full-page plate illustrations, 
 
 6s. net. 
 
 Italy of the Italians 
 
 By Helen Zimmern 
 Spain of the Spanish 
 
 By Mrs. Villiers-Wardell 
 Switzerland of the Swiss 
 
 By Frank Webb 
 Germany of the Germans 
 
 By Robert M. Berry 
 Turkey of the Ottomans 
 
 By Lucy M. J. Garnett 
 Belgium of the Belgians 
 
 By Demetrius C. Boulger 
 Servia of the Servians 
 
 By Chedo Mijatovich 
 Austria of the Austrians, and 
 Hungary of the Hungarians 
 
 By L. Kellner, Paula Arnold 
 and Arthur L. Delisle 
 Russia of the Russians 
 
 By H. W. Williams, Ph.D. 
 Greece of the Hellenes 
 
 By Lucy M. J. Garnett 
 Holland of the Dutch 
 
 By Demetrius C. Boulger 
 Japan of the Japanese 
 
 By Prof. J. H. Longford 
 
 Volumes in Preparation on 
 " Scandinavia " and " America " 
 
M. RAYMOND POI^XARE 
 
 President 
 
France of the French 
 
 By 
 
 Edward Harrison Barker 
 
 Author of 
 "Wayfaring in France," 
 "Wanderings by Southern Waters," 
 " Two Summers in Guyenne," 
 jfec. 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 
 
 597-599 Fifth Avenue 
 1918 
 
^■^ 
 
 >^^^^ 
 
 <P^c^^ 
 
 Printed by 
 Sir Isaac Pitman & Sons, Ltd., London, England 
 
PREFACE TO THE FIRST 
 EDITION 
 
 The interest felt by English-speaking people — at all events 
 by those of Great Britain — in whatever relates to France has 
 received of recent years a stimulus the effects of which have 
 been manifest in a variety of ways. The complete disappear- 
 ance of those political causes of discord which for so long a 
 period fostered reciprocal distrust has had, among other conse- 
 quences, that of greatly strengthening in the two nations the 
 wish to know one another better and therefore to clear their 
 minds of all false impressions and engrained prejudices. A 
 book that responds strictly to the title " France of the 
 French " seems therefore to be a need of the day. My qualifi- 
 cation to write such a work is the time that I have lived in 
 this country in close intimacy with the French of Paris and 
 of the provinces. It is a period that covers three decades, 
 and one which has been singularly full of the materials of 
 history as well as amazingly prolific of new movements of mind 
 in relation to the arts, the sciences, and even the social order. 
 The future may class it with the greatest of all epochs of 
 French intellectual activity. 
 
 When a writer has spent a long course of years in a foreign 
 country he needs to have his interest awakened in many things, 
 which by force of custom or familiarity may have ceased to 
 stir his curiosity or surprise. In writing ** France of the 
 French," I have found this interest return to me, such as I 
 knew it in the days when I was a " wayfarer " on the roads 
 and by the rivers, through forests and in desert places, of this 
 pleasant land, and before such wandering to gather knowledge 
 and impressions had to yield to official duties. 
 
 A— (2398) V 
 
VI PREFACE 
 
 I think it will be recognised that the ensuing pages have 
 been written without prejudice, as also without any intention 
 to soften shadows that exist, such as must be indicated in 
 true pictures of any nation's life and customs. 
 
 A glance at the contents of this small volume will suffice to 
 show that the subjects of which it treats would fill many 
 volumes if exhaustively dealt with. Lacunae are therefore 
 inseparable from the work. Nothing more has been attempted 
 than to produce a book of general information concerning the 
 life and genius of the French people, with especial reference 
 to contemporary France. An endeavour has moreover 
 been made to avoid the danger of dullness by giving to no 
 subject treated an amount of attention that might appear 
 disproportionate to the scheme of the work as a whole. 
 
 E. HARRISON BARKER. 
 
 Le TRfipORT, France, 
 September, 1908. 
 
PREFACE TO THE THIRD 
 EDITION 
 
 Owing to the war, there has been an exceptional demand 
 for the books of this " Countries and Peoples " Series, and, 
 in order to meet this, it has been necessary to reprint at once. 
 Moreover, it has been found impossible to ascertain in all 
 cases whether the persons mentioned in these volumes are 
 still living or not, as so many of them are or have been in 
 action. It must, therefore, be understood that, so far as the 
 names of persons are concerned, they must be, to a large 
 extent, read as correct only up to the outbreak of the war. 
 Care, however, has been taken in France of the French to 
 indicate, in cases where information was obtainable, that 
 certain persons named in the book as living when it was last 
 issued are now dead. 
 
 vu 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAP. PAGE 
 
 I. FRENCH CHARACTER AND ITS INFLUENCE. . 1 
 
 II. FAMILY LIFE ..... 6 
 
 III. STATESMEN AND POLITICIANS . . .26 
 
 IV. LITERATURE UNDER THE REPUBLIC . . 54 
 V. THE PRESS ...... 91 
 
 VI. ARCHITECTURE . . . . . 116 
 
 VII. PAINTERS . . . . . .127 
 
 VIII. SCULPTORS. ..... 154 
 
 IX. DRAMATISTS ...... 163 
 
 X. PLAYERS . . . . . . 183 
 
 XI. MUSICIANS AND SINGERS . . . . 198 
 
 XII. SCIENCE AND INVENTION . . . 204 
 
 XIII. RURAL FRANCE ..... 226 
 
 XIV. LIGHTS AND SHADOWS .... 241 
 CONCLUSION ...... 273 
 
 IX 
 
ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 ^M. POINCARE ..... 
 
 ••BOULEVARD DES ITALIENS 
 
 ^ARIS MARKETS IN THE MORNING 
 
 ^M. LOUBET . . . 
 
 vM. FALLI^RES . . . . . 
 
 ^M. CLEMENCEAU . . . 
 
 ^CHAMBER OF DEPUTIES 
 
 v'A BRETON PARDON 
 
 «M. ROSTAND . . . . . 
 
 'iU. ANATOLE FRANCE 
 
 /"GYP" 
 
 t M. ROCHEFORT .... 
 
 * CHURCH OF ST. OUEN (ROUEN) 
 
 ^NORMAN MOULDINGS, CINTHEAUX . 
 
 vNOTRE DAME DU PORT (CLERMONT-FERRAND) 
 
 {CHATEAU DE BONNET ABLE 
 ^ CHATEAU DE CHAMBORD 
 
 .FABIOLA ..... 
 
 4M. BONNAT , . . . , 
 
 Frontispiece 
 
 FACING 
 PAGE 
 
 4 
 
 18 
 
 . 30 
 
 34 
 
 . 36 
 
 40 
 
 . 52 
 
 68 
 
 . 80 
 
 86 
 
 100 
 
 116 
 
 . 118 
 
 120 
 
 . 124 
 
 130 
 
 . 136 
 
 140 
 
 ?ci 
 
Xii ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 FACING 
 PAGE 
 
 M. DETAILLE ....... 146 
 
 -LE RfeVE (DETAILLE) ..... 148 
 
 M. AUGUSTE RODIN . . . . . .158 
 
 QUAND M^ME (mERCIE) ..... 160 
 
 MME. REJANE. ...... 192 
 
 MME. JEANNE GRANIER ..... 194 
 
 M. JULES MASSENET ...... 200 
 
 DR. ROUX ....... 206 
 
 MME. CURIE ....... 214 
 
 BRETONS MAKING WOODEN SHOES IN A FOREST . 238 
 
 A PARIS CARNIVAL ...... 242 
 
 A MUSSEL-GATHERER ..... 254 
 
 GRAND STAND, LONGCHAMPS (GRAND PRIX DAY). . 262 
 
 THE CASINO AT MONTE CARLO . , . 266 
 
France of the French 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 FRENCH CHARACTER AND ITS INFLUENCE 
 
 There is no nation whose national character is more strongly 
 
 marked than that of the French. Whatever else may be 
 
 reasonably argued against them, it cannot be said that they 
 
 have not a character distinctively their own. They have 
 
 exercised upon the world an influence too far-reaching and 
 
 deeply penetrating for this to be denied them. In politics, 
 
 in literature, in art, in science, in philosophy, in war, they 
 
 have been great movers and stimulators of mankind. Some 
 
 of the incentives and shocks they have given to the world 
 
 offer the most violent and amazing contrasts ; as, for example, 
 
 the Crusades, which stirred the Christian enthusiasm of the 
 
 Middle Ages, and the Revolution at the close of the eighteenth 
 
 century, which gave the decisive impulse to the modern 
 
 tendency of thought with its positivism, its scientific and 
 
 democratic spirit. There are in this people wonderful 
 
 springs of enthusiasm, of ingenuity, of intuition, of artistic 
 
 fire, of scientific watchfulness, and sudden apprehension of 
 
 meanings that hover over the human mind. They have a 
 
 genius which disturbs the world, whether it stirs admiration, 
 
 or feeds prejudice and foments suspicion. Their history 
 
 has been one of almost incessant turmoil both within and 
 
 outside their frontiers. It has been their destiny to draw 
 
 to themselves and to repel, to inspire warm sympathy and 
 
 also fierce antipathy ; never to be treated with indifference 
 
 by other nations. There is an indefinable something running 
 
 through the psychology of the French people, which gives 
 
 1 
 
 I— (2398) 
 
2 France of the French 
 
 to their character the pecuhar tone and temper that make it 
 what it is. 
 
 And yet the description of the French as " a race " does 
 not bear analysis. The Bretons, the Gascons, the Normands 
 and the Burgundians are as distinct in origin 
 ^^^^.^^^y as are the Enghsh and the Irish. No one 
 can travel through the country from north 
 to south, or from east to west, with observant eyes without 
 being struck by the marked differences in the physical type 
 of the people of different provinces, and even divisions of 
 provinces, especially among the agricultural population. The 
 rule with the peasantry is to remain on the same soil 
 for many generations, in fact until they are driven from it by 
 the violence of an invader or some other public catastrophe. 
 The large-boned, often tall, florid and frequently fair-haired 
 Norman is quite a different type of man from the dark- 
 haired, generally undersized, small-boned and lithe Provencal. 
 The one is a Scandinavian, a man presenting really no 
 points of physical difference from the Yorkshireman or 
 East Anglian; the other is composed of an indefinable 
 medley of the races of Southern Europe, including the Greek, 
 with a dash of the Arab added. 
 
 What is also worth notice is that people of undoubtedly 
 Celtic origin, who have remained Celts of almost pure 
 blood to this day, namely, the inhabitants of Western 
 Brittany (Armoricans) and those of the highlands of Central- 
 Southern France (descendants of the Arverni and Cadurci) 
 have but little in common except their greater attachment 
 to religious observances and greater respect for ancient 
 practices and traditions than the rest of the modern French. 
 The change of language may have done much to bring these 
 highlanders of Auvergne and the Quercy into line in various 
 senses with the inhabitants of the great plains ; for although 
 they spoke a Celtic idiom for centuries after Caesar's time, 
 their dialect has been a Romance one from the dawn of the 
 Middle Ages. The Bretons of Finisterre and the Morbihan 
 
French Character and its Influence 3 
 
 retain the Celtic tongue with a tenacity only to be compared 
 
 to that of the Welsh in the same matter. Moreover, the 
 
 language of these two peoples, separated as they have been 
 
 for so many ages, is essentially the same. 
 
 What is the leaven or ferment which, working throughout 
 
 the nation's conglomerate mass of originally distinct elements, 
 
 has produced the French spirit, genius, or 
 
 What IS the character ? Whence comes it ? Is it a 
 Leaven r 
 
 legacy of the old Celtic or Gaulish stock, or 
 
 of the Roman, whose blood in the French people is nearly 
 
 as doubtful a quantity as the same blood is in England, but 
 
 whose civilization and drift of mind produced results 
 
 incomparably more lasting and penetrating in Gaul than in 
 
 Britain ? Or does it come from the Normans, or the Franks 
 
 and other Germans ? To such questions there can be no 
 
 answer. All that we know is that there is a something like 
 
 a subtle ferment working throughout the mass that makes 
 
 the strong distinctiveness of the French national character. 
 
 It has long been the boast of the Parisians that it is their 
 
 spirit which leavens the multitude, animates _ the provinces 
 
 with the yeast of fresh ideas, infuses, as it 
 p T . were, a psychic force throughout the nation, 
 
 making its diverse elements blend and flow 
 into the moulds of thought, feeling, taste, beliefs, aspirations, 
 political and social, which are fashioned for all on the banks 
 of the Seine. It is true that a marvellously penetrating 
 influence radiates from this centre. But who are the 
 Parisians ? They are a population that is constantly chang- 
 ing, undergoing renewal from the inflow of provincials and 
 even foreigners, just as the Roman population underwent 
 incessant renewal from the drawing in of all the strange 
 elements of the Empire. If he goes to Paris in his youth 
 and settles there, the Norman, the Breton, the Gascon, the 
 Picard, the Burgundian, the Provencal, the Basque, becomes 
 in a few years thoroughly Parisianized. The genius of the 
 spot holds him firmly if he has that in his nature which 
 
4 France of the French 
 
 responds to the influence. If he has it not, he will probably 
 drift elsewhere. It is by this process that Parisians are made. 
 Old Paris families are not frequently found. If Paris is the 
 brain of France, the provinces furnish a considerable part 
 of what constitutes the intellectual faculties. Without going 
 farther back than the history of the Third Republic, we find 
 that of those Frenchmen who have forced their way into 
 the front ranks of intellectual workers, whether in connection 
 with literature, politics, science or the arts, the proportion 
 of Parisian-born is far from overwhelming. Most of the 
 others, however, have been very much Parisianized. To 
 become so was almost a condition of their success. Paris 
 is the furnace into which the ambitious young Frenchman 
 usually yearns to cast himself. In any case he will be almost 
 certainly drawn into it if he is destined to reach any high 
 distinction. This is one of the many aspects of that strong, 
 and in some respects regrettable, tendency towards centraliza- 
 tion which has done so much to destroy the distinctive life 
 of the provinces since the Revolution. 
 
 The readiness with which foreign elements are absorbed 
 
 and assimilated by the French nation often makes one marvel. 
 
 It opens the mind to the conviction that 
 
 Absorption of ^^le formation of national character is much 
 Elements. more the result of environment than of race. 
 There are no two European peoples between 
 which the lines of distinction — not merely physical, but 
 mental and moral — are so strongly marked as the English 
 and the French ; and yet a child of English parents, brought 
 up in France with French children, becomes so like them in 
 all respects, that in manners, character, modes of expressing 
 and communicating feelings and affections there is nothing 
 to indicate a difference of origin. If the child grows to adult 
 age in France, and there are no circumstances to interrupt 
 the influence of this environment, he or she may be pretty 
 safely reckoned upon to acquire the characteristics commonly 
 attributed to people of French blood. 
 
French Character and its Influence 5 
 
 This astonishing faculty of absorption and assimilation of 
 foreign elements, which seems to belong to the French in a 
 more marked degree than to other nations of Europe, 
 compensates in an appreciable measure for the manifest 
 failure of the people to compete with rival races on the score 
 of fecundity. There is a constant inflow of aliens from 
 without, and a large proportion of these remain in the 
 country. 
 
 In the next generation there is usually nothing to denote 
 a foreign origin, unless it be in name. Gambetta was a very 
 typical Frenchman in spite of his Italian blood. This is 
 only one among scores of such illustrations that might be 
 given, including not only men belonging to the so-called 
 " Latin races," a term absurdly misapplied when not confined 
 to language — but also Germans, Flemings, Scandinavians, 
 Poles and Jews. 
 
 There is matter for reflection, too, in the fact that of those 
 who, as Frenchmen, have won distinction and eminence in 
 every field of intellectual and artistic activity during the 
 last few decades, a very notable proportion cannot be spoken 
 of as belonging to the French race. They are examples of 
 absorption and assimilation, and as such have proved in the 
 most convincing manner the success of the experiment. It 
 IS a little curious that this success of the alien by origin 
 is not resented in France on account of that origin, 
 although the French are by no means free from prejudice in 
 regard to foreigners. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 FAMILY LIFE 
 
 French family life is but little understood outside of France, 
 and there are people from beyond the frontiers and the sea 
 who, after living a long while in the country, are still very 
 ill-informed on the subject. In lieu of the actual knowledge, 
 there are false impressions that have been going the round 
 of the world from the time that everybody living can 
 remember. These are transmitted from one generation to 
 another, and those who have once accepted them as truth 
 rarely trouble to enquire further and observe for themselves. 
 But it must be allowed that the subject is not an easy one 
 to grapple with. The short cut by means of the stage and 
 the novel to satisfy curiosity saves trouble, but it may be 
 very misleading. The French family is not a corner of life 
 open to everybody's inspection and study. The French are 
 truly hospitable, and yet very exclusive as regards their 
 family life. The Englishman is far more ready than the 
 Frenchman to invite a casual acquaintance to his home. In 
 France the cafe and the club are the places for casual 
 acquaintances ; the home is reserved for the family and very 
 intimate friends. Visits may be exchanged year after year, 
 on receiving days, without the relations thus maintained 
 going any farther than mere politeness. The same politeness 
 may even be extended to balls and parties, and yet the family 
 life be kept distinct and apart. 
 
 In Paris there is very considerable freedom of intercourse : 
 doors are opened readily — too readily ; but Paris is the worst 
 place for studying the French at home. In 
 a multitude of cases the sentiment of home 
 and the ideal of the family are submerged by mondanites. 
 This may have given rise to one of those false but widespread 
 impressions in England concerning the French — that they 
 
 6 
 
Family Life 7 
 
 lack the sentiment of home. Ingenuity has gone so far as 
 to connect this supposed want of the feeUng with the absence 
 of a word in the French language equivalent to " home " ! 
 Such reasoning is too absurd to be worth refuting, because an 
 idea can be strongly and perfectly expressed otherwise than 
 by a single word. But there is one word which the French 
 use whenever they wish to make the chord of home-sentiment 
 vibrate with a deeper and more subtle spirit than would be 
 awakened by any term of common currency ; this is foyer 
 (hearth), which sums up all that the mind and heart of man 
 at their best can express on the subject. 
 
 Paris, let it be repeated, is the worst place for studying 
 
 the French at home. Simple and characteristic French life 
 
 is to be found there above the working and 
 
 Parisians lower middle class, but one must know where 
 
 Provincials, to look for it. The population belongs less 
 to France than that of any other city in the 
 country. The proportion of foreign residents and visitors, 
 as compared to the rest of the inhabitants, has increased so 
 steadily and enormously since the middle of the nineteenth 
 century, that Paris of the present day is certainly the capital 
 of which the social hfe has been the most profoundly 
 penetrated and modified by extraneous influences. The 
 " provincials " whom the Parisians are so ready to scoff at 
 are much more French than themselves as regards customs, 
 respect for traditions, habits and views of life, together with 
 its duties, obligations, recreations and pleasures. The 
 aristocratic class, nominally so much associated with Paris 
 life, is becoming less and less French. The old Legitimist 
 families, so intimately connected with the Faubourg St. 
 Germain under the Second Empire and a good while after- 
 wards, who at one time held so aloof even from the 
 Bonapartist nobility, have greatly changed their habits and 
 views of social intercourse. The two nobilities now inter- 
 marry without apparent hindrance on the score of prejudices, 
 and mingle without any suspicion of class divisions. But 
 
8 France of the French 
 
 all this society helps to form what is called " le Tout-Paris,*' 
 which is almost as cosmopolitan as French. 
 
 It is among the middle class that manners, customs and 
 tendencies have especially to be studied, if we wish to under- 
 stand the home life of the nation. It is this 
 
 Middle Class ^^^^ ^^^^ tvIqs in every sense. Upon its 
 ideals and tendencies depends the progress 
 or decline of French influence in the world. Those who are 
 below it must join it before they can have real influence. 
 The bourgeoisie holds the country in its grasp. Practically, 
 everybody who gets on at all belongs to it, whether he is the 
 workman or the small employe who becomes a trader in a humble 
 way, the peasant-proprietor who by increasing the area 
 of his land becomes a power to those who admire or envy 
 his success, the soldier who rises from the ranks to be an 
 officer, the son who is enabled by the self-sacrifice of laborious 
 and humble parents to enter the profession of medicine or the 
 law ; in fact, everyone who can claim to live by a profession 
 or trade, or upon the revenue of capital, however small. 
 This great class contains remarkable contrasts and extremes, 
 such as leading manufacturers and merchants whose capital 
 embarked upon industry and commerce procures for the 
 possessor great social and political power, and the small shop- 
 keeper who has no higher ambition than by industry and 
 economy to be able to retire at about the age of fifty on 
 savings just sufficient to satisfy his modest needs. 
 
 AU occupations by which people earn money are officially 
 
 termed " professions " in France, and the Lines of social 
 
 cleavage which are often so strongly marked 
 
 Lines of ^ ^j^g EngUsh middle class are less so among 
 
 Cleavage. the French. It frequently happens with 
 
 them that, while some members of the same 
 
 family are officers in the army or navy, or follow learned 
 
 professions, others are engaged in ordinary commercial 
 
 pursuits ; and it is considered quite natural and reasonable 
 
 that there should be such diversity of aims and tastes. The 
 
Family Life 9 
 
 number of trades that encounter social prejudices is much 
 fewer in France than in England. The merchant who 
 carries on his business by negotiation {negociant), and the 
 tradesman who has a shop (commergant), are spoken of equally 
 as being engaged in commerce, and their relative social 
 position depends upon the state of their fortune and their 
 known connections. Although the haute bourgeoisie holds 
 aloof from the petite bourgeoisie, the latter need never despair 
 of becoming merged with the former if it has the ambition, 
 for this end can be directly and surely reached by signal 
 success in business, unless there are serious social impediments. 
 
 In order to give any satisfactory picture of the French 
 family, it was necessary to clear the way by dealing briefly 
 with the general constitution of the great middle class, which 
 for the main intent and purpose of social study may be 
 regarded as France. 
 
 The positivism which is so marked a tendency of the French 
 mind — practical in the ordinary affairs of life beyond all 
 comparison with the English mind, although 
 How Marriages ^^ France the common belief is precisely 
 the contrary — takes every precaution to 
 leave no margin for romantic and sentimental intervention 
 in matrimonial arrangements. Of all the business trans- 
 actions of life there is nothing so essentially businesslike as the 
 ordinary middle-class French marriage. To those who still 
 see the relations of the sexes through the idealizing atmo- 
 sphere of the north, whose influence easily combines with 
 the Christian exaltation of human sentiment and motive 
 in respect of these relations, the French marriage as it is 
 planned and accepted often appears sordid and mercenary. 
 
 Marriages that are nothing more than business contracts 
 are not peculiar to France. They are well known in England, 
 and opportunities for admiring or condemning them there 
 are by no means rare ; but whereas they are the exception 
 with the Anglo-Saxon race, they are the rule with the French, 
 leaving aside the class so ill-furnished with this world's goods 
 
10 France of the French 
 
 that they act upon their natural impulses, not deeming it 
 worth while to be calculating. It is so well known that it 
 is hardly necessary to lay stress upon the fact that most of 
 the marriages which take place in the middle-class families of 
 France are brought about by the influence of parents and 
 friends, that love before marriage is looked upon very much 
 as the dream of a too romantic imagination that should not 
 be fostered, the foundation of the family happiness being 
 material security. Pallisades are set up as high as they can 
 be raised and as enduring as possible, so that the wolf shall 
 never get a chance of coming near the door. Again and again 
 the whole system of precautions and defences falls to pieces, 
 like those structures in certain countries where the main 
 timbers are secretly hollowed out by the white ant until the 
 shell at length gives way and all collapses. Nevertheless, 
 the general belief in the soundness of the system remains 
 firm and steady, and it must be allowed that the degree of 
 success which commonly attends it brings much confusion 
 to those who, starting from very different ideals, expect from 
 such marriages nothing but disaster. 
 
 Is this marriage system the one that is best suited to the 
 French character and temperament ? Does it depend on 
 
 some inalienable atavism, or is it the 
 Problems consequence of arbitrary and artificial 
 
 conditions, social and political ? A series 
 of trying questions, in answering which one is thrown largely 
 upon hypothesis. It is very probable that the Roman 
 civilization — far more than Latin blood — has much to answer 
 for as regards the angle of vision from which the typical 
 Frenchman looks at woman : a subject that will be dealt 
 with later. For the moment, it is enough to say that certain 
 inherited or acquired ideas dispose him easily to accommodate 
 his personal preferences to the reasoning of others who point 
 out to him all the material advantages of the union which 
 they press upon him as a bon parti. That the conditions of 
 modern life may have gone far to favour and develop to 
 
Family Life 11 
 
 excess an inherited tendency to make ideal satisfactions 
 surrender to the positive prospect of material well-being 
 may be granted without a moment's hesitation ; but we 
 must not forget that these very conditions are chiefly, if not 
 wholly, the work of men, who reap what they sow. The 
 laws of succession and the whole elaborate administrative 
 structure tend to the canalisation of the sexual instinct 
 along lines marked out by extreme prudence and calculation. 
 The most potent factor in restricting the legitimate increase 
 of population has probably been the lack of testamentary 
 liberty. The reform of the law under which it was impossible 
 to marry in opposition to the wishes of parents, irrespective 
 of the age of those chiefly interested, without vexatious and 
 almost prohibitive formalities — sommations respedueuses, 
 repeated after intervals legally prescribed — ^belongs to the 
 legislation of yesterday. But national custom, when it has 
 had time to push its roots deep into the subsoil of society, 
 is stronger than law. In theory everybody who has reached 
 the age of twenty- one may, under the new law, be free to 
 marry as he or she pleases, without vexatious delays and 
 formalities if parents or guardians oppose ; but in practice 
 things will go on as before, with rare exceptions. Prudence 
 as regards marriage seems to be deeply ingrained in the 
 French character, and the submissiveness of children to the 
 wishes of their parents in this all-important matter is ever 
 wonderful to the English observer. 
 
 And here it may be remarked that the sense of filial duty 
 
 is very strong in France, and that the relations subsisting 
 
 between parents and their children in all 
 
 Simplicity periods of life are marked by frankness and 
 
 Affection. simplicity of affection. No false shame is 
 
 allowed to disguise, or diminish, in the 
 
 presence of others the natural movements of family love : 
 
 when a sentiment is known to be worthy, the heart is not 
 
 ashamed of showing it. That affectation of coldness — it is 
 
 only affectation — so often noticed between members of an 
 
12 France of the French 
 
 English family, especially the male members, when they are 
 under the eyes of strangers, is unknown among the French. 
 They have not that kind of self- consciousness which makes 
 the fear of ridicule repress the good and natural movements 
 of the human heart whenever there is a reason for yielding 
 to an affectionate impulse. At the time of the Boer war, 
 French newspaper correspondents who watched the parting 
 between English fathers and their sons were much struck 
 by the " stoicism," as they termed it, of the farewell. A 
 grasp of the hand, a few parting words, and then the 
 separation with all its heart-harrowing possibilities. The 
 French cannot understand the reason for such reserve, and 
 attribute it to the coldness of the most phlegmatic of races. 
 They themselves would have exchanged embraces under the 
 same circumstances, and probably have shed tears. It is 
 possible that the EngUshman suffers more at such partings 
 than the Frenchman, because of the restraint that he puts 
 upon his feelings by his dread of appearing weak and his 
 exaggerated sensitiveness — which often clothes itself with 
 bluntness — when under observation. 
 
 It must be allowed, then, that the sentiment of filial 
 submission has something to do with the general readiness 
 
 of the young in France to be influenced in 
 
 „ T^^ . a very large measure by the experience, 
 
 Market. judgment, and wishes of their parents when 
 
 there is a question of their marriage. In 
 this disposition, and in the practice that results from it, there 
 are both good and evil. The good is in the diminished risk 
 of reckless and improvident marriages. The evil is in the 
 too frequent degradation of the ideal of marriage, the placing 
 it upon the mercenary level of a business contract. It is 
 not going too far to say that the middle-class marriage in 
 France is more often than not a mere business contract. 
 The man marries to " settle down," to follow seriously some 
 profession or trade. If he has any capital, his expectation 
 is that his wife wiU bring him at least as much. Frequently 
 
Family Life 13 
 
 it happens that he has no capital, and that his views of 
 success and his social ambition are regulated to a large extent 
 by what he and his family consider him to be worth in the 
 matrimonial market. Those who follow such professions 
 as the army, the navy, the law and medicine, have the 
 recognized right to put a higher price upon themselves than 
 others who have adopted callings less flattering to feminine 
 ambition. Every marriageable man may be said to have 
 his price. To put it crudely, he has to be bought. He often 
 expects to get more than he is worth, and then he or those 
 who act for him meet with rebuffs ; but as there is little 
 sentiment in such negotiations, feelings run small risk of 
 being wounded by a disappointment. The rejected suitor 
 is simply in the position of the trader who makes a dash at 
 something going in the open market, and misses it. The 
 rule is to feel the ground cautiously before opening fire. 
 
 It is well known that the French middle-class family of 
 to-day is rarely overburdened with offspring. When there 
 
 are more than three children, and the 
 The Problem p^j-ents are not exceptionally favoured in 
 
 the way of fortune, such progeniture is 
 regarded as a severe trial, if not a positive affliction. Let it 
 be supposed that there are three, one boy and two girls. 
 The boy is sent to one of the State lycees or colleges, of which 
 there is at least one in every important town of France, and 
 where an excellent general education is given. The lycee 
 ranks before the college, and is to be looked for in the larger 
 centres. The boy is well crammed, and if he is studious and 
 fairly furnished with brains he may obtain the university 
 degree of bachelier-es-lettres at the age of eighteen, or even 
 earlier. To get this degree or that of bachelier-es-sciences 
 no residence is required in any particular place. The whole 
 matter is simplified to the passing of an examination. It 
 seems almost needless to add that as a credential of learning 
 this diploma is not to be compared in value to the B.A. degree 
 of a British University. It is little more than a certificate 
 
14 France of the French 
 
 which the French youth must obtain before he can with any 
 chance of success become a candidate, even for so modest 
 an employment under Government as that of clerk in a post 
 ofhce. He cannot qualify as a chemist in trade without it. 
 The next university degree after that of bachelor is licentiate., 
 the examination for which is severe. Armed with his diploma 
 of bachelier, the youth may enter himself at any of the 
 Faculties either in Paris or in the provinces, or, if his tastes 
 lead him to the army, he may obtain admission ^to one of the 
 military schools, of which the principal are the Ecole St. Cyr. 
 and the Ecole Polytechnique, the latter being especially 
 designed for the training of engineers, military and civil. 
 Whether he becomes a lawyer, a doctor, or an officer, his 
 equipment for the career that he has chosen represents a 
 certain capital which may or may not have imposed a heavy 
 strain upon the home finances. In a very large proportion 
 of cases it is severely felt, and the young man is then expected 
 to make a " good marriage." The social position which he 
 is able to offer a wife is taken to be worth a substantial dot. 
 This may be £2,000 or much more, according to the social 
 standing and ambition of the family. On his marriage he is 
 supposed to have received his full share of parental assistance 
 during the lifetime of his parents. His sister or sisters, to 
 whom no profession has been given, have their marriage 
 portions set aside for them, and just as this is much or little, 
 their settlement in life is calculated. It is not so much the 
 man as his position and prospects, that they are expected to 
 marry. 
 
 And wonderfully docile and tractable the French girl 
 
 usually is when a marriage scheme is unfolded to her. It is 
 
 quite possible for her to have a mind, a will 
 
 How the a.nd preferences of her own. She may even 
 
 Marries. be restive and recalcitrant ; but how rarely 
 
 this happens ! Influences too subtle to 
 
 analyse, but which belong both to the present and the past, 
 
 to the ideas of her time and generation as well as to tradition, 
 
Family Life 15 
 
 have gradually and unconsciously trained her adolescent 
 mind to look upon marriage in a way that differs profoundly 
 from the Anglo-Saxon view of it. The great majority of 
 French girls of the well-to-do middle class, and of the higher 
 ranks of society, marry without love, as the ordinary English 
 mind understands the word in this relation. They marry 
 with the hope of love, which is not quite the same thing. 
 
 More often than not the girl finds herself engaged to be 
 married to a man whom she has scarcely seen and of whose 
 character she can only form an opinion from hearsay. If 
 she has no special reason to be strongly prejudiced against 
 him : if his manners are agreeable, his appearance not 
 objectionable, and she sees before her the prospect of a grati- 
 fying social position and a pleasant home, she easily allows 
 herself to be persuaded to accept him. She may be married 
 to him a few weeks later, and without having been given a 
 single opportunity of a really intimate conversation with 
 him. When he calls to see her, her mother or some other 
 person of judicious and mature years usually shows a 
 disturbing anxiety to be present at the interview. He may 
 kiss her — on the forehead — in the presence of a qualified 
 witness, but if he should propose a walk of only a quarter 
 of a mile with her unaccompanied by a safe chaperon, he 
 might be stared at as if he had said or done something 
 symptomatic of an unsound mind. He therefore runs no 
 risk of the sort, but is content with the brief and formal 
 interviews, during which his chief concern is to show nimble- 
 ness of mind in paying compliments and talking pleasantly 
 about nothings. This, however, can scarcely be termed love- 
 making, although it is really courtship of its kind. Now, 
 although this sketch of French marriage preliminaries is 
 capable of some modification and variation, accordingly as 
 families may have been subjected by travel or otherwise 
 to outside influence, or have developed independence and 
 originality, it is strictly traced upon national customs and 
 manners. 
 
16 France of the French 
 
 Of late years rather remarkable changes have been working 
 in the ideas of what must be termed the fashionable class, 
 in default of a better word. English example has without 
 doubt had a great deal to do with it. Manners have moved 
 with the spread of lawn tennis and golf wherever society 
 gathers. The young of both sexes mingle much more than 
 was formerly the case, and more liberty is allowed to engaged 
 couples. But the provincial French, whose situation in life, 
 and above all whose prudence anchor them, so to speak, to 
 local conditions, including ideas of what is correct and 
 incorrect, have changed but little during the last twenty or 
 thirty years in respect of social rules and prejudices, and the 
 provincial French who are not fashionable are the most 
 representative part of the nation. 
 
 The Frenchman understands the art of making himself 
 agreeable to his wife, and this often goes far to compensate 
 
 for the lack of strong affection at the outset 
 T,'^^ d ^^ ^ wedded partnership. There is a marked 
 
 general tendency for husband and wife to 
 become good friends and comrades, and to keep up this 
 relation to the end in spite of occasional spells of domestic 
 bad weather. She begins by not expecting over much from 
 him, and there is a very fair probability that he will stimulate 
 her affection by frequent acts of kindness and though tfulness. 
 In this respect he is a more successful husband than the 
 Englishman, who is apt to take too much for granted and to 
 neglect the little attentions that are so valued by the feminine 
 mind. The Frenchman, for example, will not forget his 
 wife's birthday, or her fete day. If he does not make her a 
 more substantial present, he is pretty sure to buy some 
 flowers for her. The same at the New Year. Although he 
 may distribute etrennes at that time in quarters where the 
 neglect of the courtesy might be to the advantage of the 
 family, he does not forget the New Year gift to his wife, 
 although it may be only a bouquet or a bonbonniere. But 
 apart from such acts, which belong to custom and are imposed 
 
Family Life 17 
 
 to some extent by the force of it, he takes the trouble to be 
 thought an amiable and companionable husband. He finds 
 a pleasure for himself, too, in cultivating the idea that he is 
 an exemplary specimen of the married man. It is quite 
 the exception when he is not a good and affectionate father. 
 He makes sacrifices for his children willingly and cheerfully 
 in accordance with the French family tradition, and the 
 tenderness of feeling between fathers and their children keeps 
 many a home together until the critical years are passed. 
 
 However the matchmaking and pre-matrimonial customs 
 of the French may be open to criticism on the part of those 
 who have been reared under the influence 
 The Wi e. ^^ ^ different direction of ideas, nothing is 
 more certain than that the French wife stands out in high 
 relief among the women of the world by her domestic 
 qualities, her good judgment, her energy of character and 
 her capacity of self-denial, and that she constitutes one of 
 the most precious of the national forces of France. The 
 falsest notions have long been current throughout the world 
 on the score of her frivolity. " The frivolous Frenchwoman " 
 is a saying ever ready to rise to the lips in some countries. 
 How absurdly misleading it is when used in a general sense, 
 all who have studied the French in France, even superficially, 
 are well aware. According to the legend, the innate frivolity 
 of the Frenchwoman blossoms after marriage when it cannot 
 do so before. What is a frivolous woman ? Assuredly one 
 who neglects her home and her children for her own pleasure 
 and amusement, who makes a selfish or trivial use of the 
 present hour without thought of the morrow. No description 
 could be less applicable to the typical Frenchwoman. Her 
 attachment to her home and solicitude for her children more 
 often than not make the one absorbing passion of her life. 
 In her the conjugal attachment is as a rule far weaker than 
 the maternal one ; but this finds a facile explanation in the 
 passionless first chapter which is so often that of her married 
 state, or in the cruel disillusion which may be hers on discovering 
 
 2— (3398) 
 
18 France of the French 
 
 that she was not married for herself. Occasionally the 
 awakening of a new nature within her, or what she supposes 
 to be one, joined to a feeling of vindictiveness towards the 
 man whom she blames most for the ennui which oppresses 
 her, causes her to revolt against her destiny with consequences 
 such as the novelist and dramatist have worked up into every 
 imaginable plot and intrigue of romance and comedy. In 
 fact, it is the pictures of French life drawn by French writers 
 that are mainly responsible for the widespread impression 
 concerning the legerete of the French married woman. 
 
 And here it may be remarked that the French have a 
 singular disposition to use the resources of art in spreading 
 exaggerated notions of their own frivolity and depravity. 
 It should also be observed that the Parisian novel or comedy, 
 even when it gives true pictures of Paris life, may be only 
 distantly applicable to provincial manners, or scarcely at all. 
 Then again, the provincial French are often misjudged 
 owing to the tendency to regard well-known studies of hfe 
 and character by gifted writers as though they were applicable 
 to a whole class, or typical in a far more general sense than 
 was intended by the author. Madame Bovary, for example, 
 may not be a type of married woman more frequently met 
 with in a French country town than in the country towns 
 of other lands. This terrible portrait by Flaubert, drawn 
 with such a Teniers-like passion for realism, is simply a study 
 of human nature that ignores all frontiers. 
 \ The distinguishing quality of the Frenchwoman is her 
 strong common sense, and this would be a sufficient reason 
 for dismissing as unsound certain impressions 
 
 woml/lt nSme. ^^^^^^^^^S ^^^ ^^^^^ ^^^^ ^^^^ circulated 
 with the world's currency of ideas. She is 
 - not a sentimentalist, but is eminently practical. She is 
 a far better manager of her household than the English- 
 woman. If there is so much comfort, substantiality and 
 security among the French middle class, exclusive of those 
 who belong to the higher grades and are reckoned with the 
 
Family Life 19 
 
 wealthy, the woman can take the larger share of the credit 
 for it. All her domestic affairs are regulated by the strictest 
 prudence, carefulness and foresight. The domestic instinct 
 is so strong in her that the safety of her home is apt to become 
 to her an object too absorbing, too exclusive, and to lead 
 to the defects and drawbacks which attend all exaggeration. 
 It is not the Frenchman so much as the Frenchwoman who 
 " fills the stocking " with small savings — a little economised 
 here, a little there — and who has thus built up a position of 
 some substance for many a family who commenced humbly 
 and knew hardship. It is the woman who holds the secret 
 of that widely distributed fair measure of prosperity, which 
 in the aggregate signifies resources of hoarded wealth such as so 
 surprised the world during the years of recuperation which fol- 
 lowed the war of 1870. But it is a debatable question to what 
 extent the parsimonious habit adds to the happiness of life. 
 What may be gained in one direction may be lost in another. 
 By dint of saving fuel the fire may go out on the hearth. 
 
 Besides being a good household manager, the Frenchwoman ' 
 is a woman of business of the first order. In bartering and 
 
 selling and in the keeping of accounts she is 
 ^^wfmfn.^^^ not to be equaUed by any other. She is 
 
 generally endowed with much constitutional 
 strength and power of endurance as well as industry, and 
 courage to face difficulties and an overflowing measure of 
 shrewdness and tact. Over any bargain, when the matter 
 is one she understands, she is fit to break a lance with the 
 stronger In commercial transactions she is no slave to 
 abstract principles, but considers herself perfectly justified 
 to act upon the rule : ** get what you can." In such matters 
 she is less conscientious than the man. In a multitude of 
 small businesses in France the woman plays the leading part, 
 although her husband may have his name over the door. His 
 zeal to increase the savings is less keen than hers, and at 
 certain hours he feels drawn irresistibly to the cafe, where a 
 friend or two in like circi;nistances as his own may be 
 
20 France of the French 
 
 expecting him to join them in a game of manille or piquet, 
 while she, the wife, sits enthroned at the counter with an eye 
 equally vigilant for customer and assistant. How many 
 a Frenchman has been saved from financial disaster by his 
 businesslike wife ! 
 
 What has been said on the score of the middle-class French- 
 woman, especially when her place is in the lower ranks of the 
 bourgeoisie, is applicable within the reasonable 
 
 The Working jij^j^g marked by material conditions to the 
 Woman. -^ 
 
 woman of the working class. Her power of 
 
 patient industry is scarcely less admirable than her sobriety, 
 
 industry, and self-abnegation. Her qualities stand out more 
 
 saliently than those of the hourgeoise, because of her inferior 
 
 opportunities and greater trials. In a moral sense the man 
 
 with whom her lot is cast is rarely her equal Neither habit 
 
 nor instinct has fashioned him to the same ideas of self-denial. 
 
 But for his wife's labour and energy, bravery in the battle 
 
 for bread and spirit of self-sacrifice, his children would often 
 
 starve, or be thrown upon public charity, which in France 
 
 means mendicity unqualified by any official euphemism. 
 
 The drunken woman in sordid rags, who makes her home 
 
 horrible to her husband and grows indifferent to the suffering 
 
 of her children, is not unknown in France, but she is a social 
 
 quantity so seldom observed that it may practically be left 
 
 out of the reckoning. When one considers the wages that 
 
 are earned by the working class in France, and the cost of food 
 
 — much higher in all centres of population than it is in 
 
 England — one marvels at the degree of comfort to be found 
 
 in their homes and the well-looked-after appearance of the 
 
 children. This could never be without the solid qualities 
 
 of the women. On behalf of the men of the same class, 
 
 who give less of themselves to the family than the women 
 
 give, may be argued the temptations of companionship and 
 
 in many cases the arduous and unhealthy labour they have 
 
 to perform. Moreover, the parental and home-preserving 
 
 sentiment is not generally so strong in men as in women. 
 
Family Life 21 
 
 The French girl of the middle class, especially of the upper 
 
 middle class, still more of the topmost class, is not supposed 
 
 to go out of doors unless she is accompanied 
 
 _ ^!?®^. , by a parent or other near relative, or in 
 French Girl /j. ^f r .■, -, , . ■, 
 
 Out of Doors, deiault ol these by a trusted servant. 
 
 Particularly is this the case in Paris and all 
 large towns, but the rule may be said to hold good generally 
 throughout the country. One of two things is assumed : 
 either that she needs to be guarded with lynx-like eyes, or 
 that the tongues of malignant gossip have to be guarded 
 against at any cost of personal comfort and freedom. A 
 footman, unless he were a veteran servitor, would not be 
 trusted very far in charge of mademoiselle. But it often 
 happens that she is escorted by a very young maid, whose 
 garb sufficiently indicates her condition and office, although 
 her age renders her function absurd. It is impossible to 
 maintain that this vigilance is needless : it is intimately 
 related to the lax views of Frenchmen, taken in the mass, 
 concerning women who are not apparently protected and 
 are not respected on grounds of friendship or personal 
 knowledge. It would be ridiculous to imply that such laxity 
 is peculiar to Frenchmen ; but however the fact is to be 
 explained, a woman in France is not as a rule respected 
 because she is one, and has therefore a claim upon all men 
 for protection. There is a great difference between polite- 
 ness and respect. Too many Frenchwomen are either not 
 sufficiently alive to the distinction or are indifferent to it. 
 
 The child is getting more and more scarce among the 
 French in easy circumstances, still scarcer among those in 
 
 .-,-',-. uneasy circumstances, if we except the class 
 
 Children. t_i • ^ , ■,- r ■, K 
 
 wh may be said to live from hand to mouth, 
 
 such as the fisher people and the peasants of the poorest and 
 
 most " backward " parts of the country ; for example, 
 
 Lower Brittany and certain tracts of Central and Southern 
 
 France. Those who urge the Government to offer rewards 
 
 by the diminution of taxation, etc., for large families on 
 
22 France of the French 
 
 patriotic grounds are compelled to recognize that the most 
 patriotic in this particular sense are among the poorest and 
 most ignorant of the community. Among all those who have 
 a proprietary interest in the country, or who aspire to reach 
 this social condition, law and custom, as already stated, 
 tend to the restriction of the family. The law enforces the 
 equal division of property among children, thereby curbing 
 the natural ambition to create an indestructible patrimony 
 and secure it to future generations ; custom makes it necessary 
 to provide marriage portions for daughters. Here are two 
 forces that work towards the restriction of the family. There 
 are others which are heavily felt in Paris and all centres of 
 population by those who are perplexed and care-ridden by 
 the problem of living within their income. [And how the 
 number of these is ever increasing !] Rent, food, clothing ; 
 what a multitude of people who look comfortably oH are 
 tormented by the solicitudes expressed by these three words ! 
 In the case of thousands of underpaid officials, for instance, 
 who grow bald and grey while waiting for promotion, society, 
 endeavouring to organize on the basis of the barely necessary, 
 leaves children quite out of the reckoning. To the reasons 
 already given to explain the causes of the declining or 
 stationary population of France should be added another : 
 the weakening of the Christian sense of duty and its attendant 
 sacrifices which are here involved. In those parts of the 
 country where the influence of the clergy is strongest — 
 Lower Brittany for example — the birth-rate is highest. 
 
 The child, doubtless because it is so often regarded as an 
 expensive and hazardous luxury, is commonly given too 
 
 important and prominent a place in the 
 Influences French middle-class family. The intelligence 
 Childhood. ^s unduly forced by the excessive attentions 
 
 of indulgent parents, and the child is apt 
 to become unpleasantly precocious. Moreover, the limita- 
 tion of the family to one or two children, which is rather the 
 rule than the exception in towns, tends to frustrate that 
 
Family Life 23 
 
 design of nature which is to develop character and stimulate 
 originality in children by their reciprocal influence and 
 action one upon another. 
 
 At a later period, in the case of youths, the same causes 
 continue their injurious action upon the race and nation. 
 
 Parents are over anxious to keep their sons 
 Leading ^^^^ them, and make their careers smooth 
 
 and safe. The spirit of enterprise and 
 adventure which is natural to healthy, well-constituted youth, 
 and to which initiative and resourcefulness are so closely allied, 
 is thus systematically and rigorously checked, and the young 
 Frenchman of the class to which all these remarks especially 
 apply generally finds himself thrust into a groove where he 
 must remain for life, which more often than not has been 
 chosen for him with little regard for taste or special aptitude. 
 
 One of the consequences of this state of things is excessive 
 competition for all official and administrative employments, 
 
 the advantages of assured pay and an 
 A Discontented ultimate pension being greatly exaggerated 
 
 in the public mind. Administrative offices 
 of every description have continued to increase under the 
 pressure brought to bear by politicians who expect to be 
 propitiated, while the salaries in all the middle and lower 
 grades are so inadequate as to create an official class at once 
 inconveniently large and discontented, who are persuaded 
 that their lives are being wasted, while realizing the hopeless- 
 ness of essaying a fresh career, and who often seem to seek 
 relief for their bitter humour by giving as small a measure 
 of civility and satisfaction to the public as they can. 
 
 These observations on the French family cannot well be 
 closed without some allusion to a question which has stirred 
 
 up much controversy in France of late, and 
 
 Effect of Qjj -^hich opinion is deeply, and, according to 
 
 the Family. 3,11 indications, hopelessly divided ; namely, 
 
 the consequences which the legalization of 
 divorce has had upon the family. Nobody questions that 
 
24 France of the French 
 
 the consequences which have fallen upon the children of 
 divorced parents have been sometimes disastrous and 
 generally cruel. That they pay a heavy penalty for their 
 parents' mistake in getting married, or inability to resist 
 the facilities offered by the law since 1884 to obtain divorce 
 and marr}' again, is in the logic of things. Divorce and 
 re-marriage during the last twenty years have followed 
 a ratio of progression in respect of the population that has 
 scared the sociologist and given matter for serious reflection 
 to the legislator. M. Paul Bourget, whose novel Un 
 Divorce, and its stage adaptation with the same title, set 
 forth his views on the question, holds the divorce system as 
 it is now practised in France to be a form of '' successive 
 and regulated polygamy," and that the country is being 
 hurried on towards this dilemma : a return to the traditional 
 and indissoluble marriage or a frank acceptance by society 
 of the " free union " as reasonable and justifiable. There 
 are others who maintain that the principle upon which the 
 law is based, namely, the relief of individuals from a situation 
 of grievous hardship to them is radically wrong, because of 
 the widespread social consequences resulting from such 
 legislation for units. 
 
 It is to be noted that the practice of divorce has pene- 
 trated the working class in France to an extent that has its 
 democratic significance. " Judicial assistance " is paid for 
 out of the French public pocket on behalf of those who claim 
 to be too poor to pay for legal advice and advocacy. Among 
 the working class, however, it is usually the much battered 
 and otherv/ise ill-treated wife whose earnings are confiscated 
 by a reprobate husband, who seeks relief from the divorce 
 court. It should be added, however, that the battered wife 
 is much more known to the public authorities in England 
 than she is to those of France. 
 
 In the higher regions of French society a divorce always 
 causes great scandal, especially when it is followed by re- 
 marriage. By a recent amendment of the law a two years' 
 
Family Life 25 
 
 separation of the parties, judicially recognized, suffices to 
 create a reason for divorce, which is at once pronounced 
 without further inquiry. In one respect, at all events, the 
 divorce system as it is practised in France gains by com- 
 parison with that of England : the pleadings are heard in 
 camera, and all the miserable details of conjugal dissension 
 being withheld from the press, public curiosity is not uselessly 
 fed with them. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 
 STATESMEN AND POLITICIANS 
 
 If it were possible to apply any test to the world's curiosity 
 respecting the French, and ascertain the main set of its 
 
 Changes in current in regard to those among them who 
 French have risen to prominence in the various fields 
 Pohtical Life. ^^ thought and practical work, the result 
 would probably not be very flattering to contemporary states- 
 men collectively. There are, nevertheless, still a few engaged 
 in active politics whose names in the course of years have 
 gathered associations in respect of which the public mind 
 beyond seas and frontiers cannot be indifferent. The truth 
 is, the political life of France is by no means so agitated, or 
 so dramatic as it was. It is not merely that party passion has 
 calmed down, although it cannot be denied that the pro- 
 gressive triumph of the Republican form of government since 
 the coUapse of the Second Empire in September, 1870, has 
 deeply discouraged Royalists and Bonapartists ; the dis- 
 appearance from the stage of politics of nearly every great 
 actor in those intensely dramatic struggles between rival 
 parties and influences, which caused the eyes of the world 
 to be fixed so intently upon France during the first fifteen or 
 twenty years of her history under the Third Republic, has 
 helped to bring about this change. 
 
 With quieter days has come a decline of world-wide interest 
 
 in French politics, as well as a manifest decline of that 
 
 Parliamentary eloquence which was formerly 
 
 ?h^^^R^^f"^f ^^ such brilliant quality in France, responding 
 
 Talent. i^ "^he fullest measure to the stimulus and 
 
 needs of more turbulent times. The occasion 
 
 produces the man more perhaps in the political than in any 
 
 other field. The peculiarly electric atmosphere of France in 
 
 26 
 
statesmen and Politicians 27 
 
 the closing years of the Empire, and the intense and dolorous 
 excitement of 1870 and 1871, together with the mighty con- 
 flicts of opinion which ushered in a new order of things, served 
 to fashion gladiators for the parliamentary arena. They were 
 men who, having emerged from a vast national catastrophe, 
 seemed in some sort the product of blood and war, carrying 
 into the tribune the passion, the ardour, the brilliancy which 
 have been so often the legacy of a great public disaster. 
 
 During those early years of the Republic eminent statesmen 
 and veteran politicians, such as Thiers, Jules Favre, Louis 
 
 Blanc, Jules Simon, Buffet, de Broglie, and, 
 
 The Past among the younger men belonging to the new 
 
 the Present, epoch, Gambetta, Jules Ferry, Clemenceau, 
 
 SpuUer, were all fighting in the breach, so to 
 speak, in defence of their political creeds and aims. There 
 were also men who, without being in any sense great, either 
 in oratory or statesmanship, were nevertheless picturesque 
 parliamentary figures, whose turbulent natures had obtained 
 for them a wide celebrity. Such a one was Paul de Cassagnac, 
 the Bonapartist deputy and journalist. How many now 
 remain of those battlers for ideas and flags, whose names were 
 rendered so familiar to all Europe by the tumultuous and 
 dramatic events in France during the period to which we are 
 now looking back, when nobody could feel absolute confidence 
 in the solidity of the new political order, when the fierce 
 passions ignited by the acts of the Commune and the san- 
 guinary repression of the insurrection were still burning, 
 and the dread of a new war being forced by Germany upon 
 France before the latter was prepared for the struggle, festered 
 in every mind ? M. Georges Clemenceau is the only one of 
 them who to-day plays a prominent part in the arena of 
 politics and public affairs. Most of the men who were 
 redoubtable combatants during that historical period are dead. 
 Others have so nearly disappeared from the stage that they 
 may be said to have passed out of mind. With these Henri 
 Rochefort must be classed. There is no denying that the 
 
28 France of the French 
 
 pamphleteer of the Lanterne in the last years of the Empire 
 did not a little to prepare the ground for the Revolution of 
 September, 1870. Although he has sat among the deputies, 
 it is not, however, with legislators, but with journalists that 
 his place properly belongs. A politician whose principles 
 have veered from those of the Commune to those of the 
 plebiscitary Boulangists, while remaining one of the hardest 
 of hard hitters who learnt their pen-craft under the Empire, 
 he has outlived most of his generation and has outstayed his 
 vogue. The old Marquis de Lugay, with aggressive tuft of 
 hair and eyes like a bird of prey's, is no longer terrible. 
 He represents a type of newspaper and pamphlet politician 
 that belongs to the past. 
 
 There are many pohtical writers in France to-day capable 
 on occasion of showing strength and brilliancy. Where, 
 however, among those classed with later arrivals, who really 
 belong to our times, are the statesmen the mention of whose 
 names causes a little thrill of interest in London, Berlin, 
 Vienna, and other European capitals ? Where are the politi- 
 cal personalities that thoroughly stir the imagination and 
 curiosity of the wider world ? Are there half a dozen such ? 
 Are there three ? Are there even two ? These are questions 
 that may be easily put, but are with great difficulty answered. 
 The wider world may be to blame for the little interest it now 
 takes in the men who are to the fore in the politics of the 
 planet. 
 
 But speaking of France only it is certain that the conditions 
 here are no longer favourable to the making of great states- 
 men. However bountiful nature may have 
 The Blight been to the politician, still young and energetic, 
 Intrigue. ^ the chances are that he will soon be 
 stranded upon a lee-shore by intrigue and 
 jealousy. The more brilliant his " parts," as the older 
 writers phrased it, the greater the risk to him of becoming a 
 speedy failure from lack of time and opportunity. The 
 present form of government has long appeared to be the only 
 
Statesmen and Politicians 29 
 
 possible one in France. It offers safeguards which the nation, 
 although naturally conservative of old customs and traditions, 
 and with a very marked weakness — if it be weakness — for 
 pageantry, ceremonial, and all imposing display, has after 
 many deceptions cried out for with a voice which, judged by 
 the test of nearly forty years, can have no doubtful tone or 
 meaning. 
 
 No system, however, for the government of men is a perfect 
 
 machine, and the Republican constitution, as it was put 
 
 jjjg together and set up by the National Assembly 
 
 Parliamentary in 1 875, has been proved by the manner of 
 System. j^g subsequent working not to be a successful 
 incubator of great statesmen, such as by their powerful grasp 
 of public affairs and the confidence they inspire appear 
 indispensable to the nation that they serve, influence its 
 destiny, and become a part of its history. The younger 
 politicians of the Republic are rarely given time and encourage- 
 ment to develop their faculties in office, or prove the statesman- 
 ship of which they may be capable. The facility with which 
 a government can be overthrown by a cabal, and the little 
 confidence to be placed in any majority owing to the factions 
 and " groups " of which it is composed, and the spirit of 
 intrigue that is always rife within it, are conditions httle 
 favourable to an ascent above the plane of mediocrity. It 
 should be noted, however, that there has been a marked 
 increase of ministerial stabihty during the present century. 
 As compared with earlier years there have been fewer changes 
 of Government since 1896. 
 
 A ministerial crisis causes no public disturbance in France 
 as it does in England, because the faU of a Government does 
 not entail under the constitutional laws of the Republic an 
 appeal to the country. It usually means nothing more than 
 a fresh shuffling of cards by the players who form the majority, 
 and whom of late years it has been the fashion to describe 
 as the " Bloc republicain," this term being the invention of 
 M. Clemenceau long before he accepted office. During the four 
 
30 France of the French 
 
 years for which the Chamber of Deputies is elected there may 
 be several different cabinets. In fact there is no limit placed 
 by the constitution. For several years the average number of 
 cabinets in each parliament was six. In 1902 this was 
 reduced to four. Men who have come rapidly to the front, 
 and who have been regarded beyond the French frontiers as 
 exceptionally endowed and as statesmen with a brilliant 
 career before them, have suddenly returned to obscurity, or 
 at least to the cold shade of indifference and neglect, almost 
 as soon as they fell from office. It is therefore not surprising 
 that some statesmen have shown dread of office, because they 
 feared the fate of the moth that has had its wings scorched or 
 hopelessly burnt by flying to the light which proved too hot. 
 
 Since Marshal MacMahon's withdrawal from the Elysee in 
 
 1878, under a pressure of public opinion which he was no 
 
 longer able to resist, no President of the 
 
 The President Republic has essayed the dangerous policy of 
 
 the Republic, personal government in France. Each, com- 
 mencing with M. Grevy, has endeavoured to 
 avoid as much as possible all active intervention in the affairs 
 of State, leaving responsible ministers free to pursue their own 
 poHcy uninfluenced by the Presidency, and doing nothing to 
 cover them from the consequences of their acts, though it was 
 said that M. FeHx Faure was encouraging the Nationalist 
 party when they threatened the Parliamentary Republic. 
 When the Congress, composed of the Senate and the Chamber 
 of Deputies, meets at Versailles to elect a President^ for seven 
 years, its chief concern is to pick out a safe man, one who will 
 fill the office with dignity, urbanity, and tact, and at the 
 same time be satisfied with the rank of Chief Magistrate of 
 the State without ostentatiously exercising the authority 
 which one naturally associates with so high a position. Since 
 the triumph of repubHcan ideas after the fall of MacMahon, 
 family and historical prestige has counted for something in 
 the election of only two presidents, namely M. Sadi Carnot, 
 
 ^ For an account of M. Poincare, the present President, see p. 47. 
 
Photo by 
 
 Nadar 
 
 M. LOUBET 
 
Statesmen and Politicians 31 
 
 and M. Casimir-Perrier. The others were men who could 
 claim to be entirely the makers of all the consideration and 
 prestige attaching to their names. M. Emile Loubet, a 
 late President of the Republic, is the son of a peasant- 
 proprietor and horse-dealer of the Lower Rhone Valley, and 
 the grandfather of M. Armand Fallieres, lately President of the 
 Republic, combined the occupations of horse-shoeing and 
 wine-growing. Gradually the smithy was overshadowed by 
 the increasing importance of the vineyard, and the President's 
 father, while working as a land surveyor and filling the modest 
 post of Clerk to the local juge de paix, considerably extended 
 the patrimony. 
 
 M. Fallieres is therefore a son of the soil and of the people. 
 To describe him as a " self-made man " would not be strictly 
 correct, for had it not been for his father's ambition to give 
 him a higher social position than his own, and his sagacity 
 in providing him with that most useful ladder for scaling all 
 heights in France, the profession of the law, the world would 
 probably have never heard of President Fallieres. Among the 
 French, how many men of note have owed their success in life 
 and their rise from very modest, if not humble, surroundings, 
 to their parents' industry, simplicity of hfe, and spirit of self- 
 denial ! Those who see the students of law and medicine 
 who pour into the Latin Quarter from the provinces, more or 
 less determined to win the degree granted by one or other of 
 the Faculties of Paris, might be incredulous if they were told 
 that the fathers of not a few of them in the distant homestead 
 were going about their daily manual work in a blouse and 
 sabots. Such contrasts, however, between the fresh generation 
 and the immediately preceding one, are common enough in 
 France, and nobody is wonderstruck. It is all taken as simply 
 by those who look on as by those who act the parts. More- 
 over, there is little or no false shame on the score of a humble 
 origin. The man who has risen from the peasantry to a high 
 place among the bourgeoisie by honourable means, so far from 
 taking any trouble to conceal his origin or throw a false light 
 
32 France of the French 
 
 upon it, very frequently shows a tendency to speak of it as 
 something to be proud of. These are national traits of 
 character, and the present place seems appropriate for laying 
 stress upon them, because they have a bearing upon the 
 rather remarkable fact that since the establishment of the 
 Republic two of its Presidents, M. Fallieres, M. Emile Loubet, 
 have belonged to the peasant or working class. M. Felix 
 Faure was the son of a tradesman, but learnt the business of 
 a tanner as a workman. It is interesting also to note, as an 
 illustration of what has been said about the law as a ladder 
 to eminence in France, that three of the Presidents practised 
 as advocates, namely, M. Jules Grevy, M. Loubet, and M. 
 Fallieres. 
 
 Born in 1841 at Mezin, near Nerac, in that Gascon country 
 where Henri IV spent his early days, M. Fallieres owes his 
 
 political success to the fact of his having in 
 F jj-*^^^" his ardent and rather tempestuous youth 
 
 thrown himself into the Republican move- 
 ment much to the displeasure of his family, who for a while 
 had grave misgivings concerning his future. Others took a 
 more favourable view of him, and his political activity made 
 him very popular among the RepubUcans of his district. 
 Solid rewards came after the fall of the Empire. While 
 practising as an advocate at Nerac he was made mayor and 
 in 1876 elected deputy. A man of tact and strong common 
 sense rather than an eloquent speaker or doughty fencer in 
 debate, he possessed the talent of seizing chances of improving 
 his position and making himself necessary to his party without 
 appearing dangerously ambitious. In 1883 he was Prime 
 Minister for a few weeks, but he was afterwards contented 
 with subordinate posts in several ministries until he succeeded 
 M. Loubet as President of the Senate in 1899. Had he been 
 endowed with more shining, but less pliable work-a-day 
 talents, he would have had far less chance of reaching the 
 eminence to which he was hfted in 1906 on the retirement of 
 M. Loubet from the Elysee. The truth is he was hoisted to 
 
statesmen and Politicians 33 
 
 the Presidency, not so much for the sake of himself as to keep 
 others more ambitious away from it, about whom electric 
 storms of suspicion and intrigue had long been raging, but 
 which gave forth only an occasional lightning flash and 
 thunder-growl. 
 
 The choice of the Congress fell upon M. Fallieres primarily 
 because as President of the Senate he was the second person 
 
 in the Republic, as M. Loubet had been at 
 ^Presidents^^ the time of his election ; and secondly, 
 
 because he was considered safe, which was 
 the motive that determined the election of his predecessors 
 from the time of MacMahon. Political talents of a high, and 
 especially of an enterprising order, would disqualify a man 
 for the Presidency of the French Republic. If there is any 
 lesson that the Republicans of France have learnt thoroughly 
 from their modern history, it is the danger of placing a person 
 who is too clever to be trusted or too strong of purpose to be 
 easily controlled at the head of the whole administrative 
 system. M. Jules Ferry, M. de Freycinet, and Waldeck- 
 Rousseau were all too conspicuously able to have any chance 
 of being elected by the Congress when they were candidates 
 for the Presidency. 
 
 Little is expected of a President in France beyond tact 
 and discretion, a certain bonhomie for the purpose of keeping 
 
 Republicans together, and healing wounds 
 
 ^^^\ ^^ which the dignity of individuals may have 
 
 President. sustained in Ministerial scuffles, and a sound 
 
 and experienced political judgment in sur- 
 mounting a Government crisis. He is also expected to 
 possess the personal qualities needed for the official represen- 
 tation of France on ceremonial occasions and high social 
 functions, such as the reception of ambcissadors and all 
 immediate relations of courtesy with the Sovereigns or chiefs 
 of other States and their families. It might seem that such 
 duties would be the most difficult and trying of the Presidential 
 position to men whose early days were spent in rustic society, 
 
 3— (2398) 
 
34 France of the French 
 
 and who did not suppose until late in life that they would ever 
 need to be familiar with the etiquette of courts and the 
 official ceremonial inseparable from the work of whomsoever 
 represents the Republic at the Elysee. The Frenchman, 
 however, has a natural gift for adapting himself to all such 
 needs with facility. The easy and simple courtesy which is 
 natural to him carries him more than half the way through 
 the lesson that has to be learnt when he becomes President 
 of the Republic. For the rest, the Government provides him 
 with a competent instructor — Chef de la Protocole — who puts 
 him through his paces whenever this is necessary. It is he 
 who introduces ambassadors and marks out the mise- en- scene, 
 when democratic simpUcity — much more theoretic than real 
 — has to give way to semi-regal grandeur and ceremoniousness. 
 So far all the Presidents of the Third Republic have acquitted 
 themselves well of the ceremonial functions belonging to 
 their position. The President of the Republic is not expected 
 to make money out of his office, 
 
 M. Georges Clemenceau is by his links with the past the most 
 interesting political figure in France of to-day. He may 
 
 be said to have associated with himself 
 M. Clemenceau. a considerable amount of dramatic modern 
 
 history. He is a man who has lived with 
 his times so thoroughly that his times live in him. What he 
 is apart from the strife of politics and polemical journahsm 
 few men know. Perhaps no man knows. His character has 
 always been enigmatic. Even when he has appeared the 
 most open, there has been the impression that the true man 
 was shut up and the door double-locked. The real measure 
 of his heart, his human sympathies, his character in a word, 
 are likely to remain the secrets of the sphinx, except perhaps 
 to a very few intimate friends. 
 
 Mockery, mordant humour, and the spirit of opposition 
 have always appeared to be the foundation of his character. 
 To this must be added a strong intellectual grasp of facts and 
 things opportune. He can hardly be termed a great orator, 
 
Photo by 
 
 Pii'oii 
 
 M. FALLIERES 
 
statesmen and Politicians 35 
 
 because he has not enthusiasm, the power of raising himself 
 into regions of the ideal, nor the ardour of nature that is 
 capable of self-deception ; but he is a parliamentary wrestler 
 who can throw a dozen adversaries in quick succession. He 
 has the biting sarcasm, the trenchant repartee always ready 
 the moment it is wanted. The strategic movements by which 
 he overthrew so many ministries made him bitter enemies 
 among those less brilliantly gifted. This for a long series of 
 years would have rendered the task of leading the Republican 
 majority an extremely difficult one had he been prevailed 
 upon to accept it. 
 
 Born in 1841, M. Georges Clemenceau studied medicine in 
 
 his youth and practised it for a while at Montmartre, but 
 
 militant politics and journalism had more 
 
 At the Time charm for him than the healing art. His 
 Commune hatred of the Imperial regime was intense, 
 and the Revolution that immediately 
 followed the capitulation of Sedan gave him opportunities 
 which he made the most of. During the siege he was mayor 
 of the i8th arrondissement. The Commune was declared on 
 the 1 8th March, 1871, and he remained in office until the 27th, 
 when he sagaciously resigned. While in office, he used his 
 influence upon the Central Committee to prevent those 
 extreme measures which resulted in the most frightful civil 
 war of modern times, in which 25,000 French people are said 
 to have perished, the retaliation of the Versailles troops 
 having been even more sanguinary than the acts of the 
 Communards. Summary executions in a multitude of 
 instances were carried out upon the most trivial evidence of 
 guilt. M. Clemenceau was not compromised by the Federal 
 outburst of 1871, but was now launched definitely upon the 
 political career, and in the first Chamber elected under the 
 Constitution of 1875 he began to pit his Radicalism against 
 Gambetta's Opportunism. For a while it was doubtful which of 
 these two bitter adversaries would prevail in the long duel that 
 they fought, and which was ended byGambetta's death in 1882. 
 
36 France of the French 
 
 M. Clemenceau's chance of showing his strength at the 
 head of a Government was so long delayed, mainly by his 
 
 opposition to the poUcy of the Opportunists, 
 The Policy commencing with Gambetta and ardently 
 Expansion. continued by Jules Ferry, of extending 
 
 French possessions and influence in other 
 continents as some compensation, at all events to the national 
 pride, for the loss of Alsace-Lorraine. M. Clemenceau very 
 nearly succeeded in obtaining the abandonment of the Tonquin 
 campaign by France, and his influence counted for much in 
 the rupture of the Anglo-French Condominium in Egypt. 
 For this latter work very many of his countrymen long bore 
 him fierce resentment, for every year brought fresh con- 
 firmation of the magnitude of the blunder then made by 
 France, although the arrangement for dividing the Egyptian 
 house contained in it fatal seeds of discord. 
 
 M. Charles Louis de Freycinet has played too prominent a 
 part in the history of the Repubhc for him not to be mentioned 
 
 among the foremost of living statesmen in 
 M. de Freycinet. France, although age has now forced him to 
 
 settle down to the life of a senator who is 
 content to watch the political game at a little distance from 
 the table. Born in 1828, he is a cultured and very refined 
 Republican of the old school. A man of wide technical 
 acquirements (he commenced life as a Government engineer 
 under the Empire), he had much to do with the reorganization 
 of the army on the German system, and also initiated a vast 
 scheme of pubHc works, such as roads, railways, and canals, 
 materially affecting the economic conditions of France. 
 Extremely supple and tactful, very adroit, too, in debate 
 without being eloquent, he has several times been President 
 of the Council. It was while he was at the head of affairs 
 that the French squadron under Admiral Conrad steamed 
 away from Alexandria. It was he, too, who assumed the 
 responsibility of expelling from French soil all Pretenders to 
 the throne of France and their immediate heirs after the 
 
Photo by 
 
 Nadar 
 
 M. CLEMENCEAU 
 
statesmen and Politicians 37 
 
 iQcidents associated with the Marriage of the Princess AmeHe 
 d'Orleans, daughter of the Comte de Paris, to the Duke of 
 Braganza, afterwards King of Portugal, of tragic destiny. 
 He has not held a portfolio since 1899, but he has worn the 
 uniform of an Academician since 1890. M. de Freycinet 
 has long been engaged in writing his Souvenirs. The first 
 volume which covers the period 1848-1878 was published 
 in 1911. 
 
 There is no ministerial portfolio so likely to burn the hands 
 of the holder in France as that of Foreign Affairs. He who 
 holds it must be one of the most skilful of 
 . e casse. navigators amidst sunken rocks and shifting 
 sands. Added to the difficulties and embarrassments which 
 he expects to meet from those beyond the frontiers whose 
 business is to work against his diplomacy, he has to be 
 constantly prepared for the surprises and machinations of 
 adversaries at home who, merely to score some petty gain 
 in the scramble of parties and " groups," will not hesitate to 
 drag, if they can, the minister's best secret into the world's 
 blazing noonday. If there are certain things which in the 
 interest of his country he cannot make public without giving 
 away the game, he may have to choose between resignation 
 and a less dignified manner of retiring. M. Delcasse was the 
 only Minister of Foreign Affairs in France since the war of 
 1870 who dared to lay out in his own mind a vigorous foreign 
 policy, and with the help of events to apply it with method 
 and esprit de suite ; but while it served to strengthen the 
 international position of France enormously, it brought a 
 crisis upon himself. He was bom in 1852, and therefore as 
 a statesman he belongs exclusively to the Republic. He was 
 Minister of Foreign Affairs from 1898 to 1905, when he 
 resigned in consequence of the wave of panic that broke over 
 the Chamber of Deputies owing to the attitude of Germany 
 in his regard, and for which a pretext was found in Morocco. 
 Without realising, apparently, the principle of national 
 dignity involved, the Chamber yielded under the influence of 
 
38 France of the French 
 
 M. Rouvier, then President of the Council, to foreign pressure 
 on ground where such pressure is not usually tolerated. 
 k German official pubhcations have placed beyond doubt 
 that M. Rouvier (1842-1911) during the crisis of 1905 was in 
 correspondence with Berlin unknown to the Minister of 
 Foreign Affairs. After this incident M. Delcasse held himself 
 aloof from foreign politics for several years, watching events, 
 but never intriguing against successors. At rare intervals 
 he came out of his tent to make a speech in Parliament on 
 some international question when there appeared to be a 
 strong patriotic reason for doing so, but his language was 
 carefully measured in order that no difficulty should be in- 
 creased, or perplexity rendered more perplexing by injudicious 
 intervention. Thus from being thought by many — chiefly the 
 timorous — the most dangerous man of the Republic, he 
 re-built for himself the confidence of the majority — which 
 had been broken or shaken by the dread of a great conflict, 
 much more than by disapproval of his policy. At length 
 he returned to office, not at the head of Foreign Affairs, but 
 at the head of the Navy. The need of a man of such energy 
 and clear perception of national needs as M. Delcasse to 
 recover the ground lost by France as a naval power and to 
 make her strength at sea equal to the requirements of a new 
 European situation was felt more than it was expressed. The 
 terrible disaster to the Liberie at Toulon in 191 1 did not 
 shake public confidence in M. Delcasse, because it was realised 
 to be a consequence of old errors and abuses for which he 
 could not be held responsible. 
 
 The influence of M. Emile Combes upon the course of 
 legislation during the last few years has been such that 
 
 history will be compelled to give him a 
 Combes prominent place among Republican statesmen 
 
 of the present day. As far as one can read 
 the signs of the times, however, the part he played in the 
 political firmament was only transitory. Born in 1835, he 
 was little known to the public until 1902, although he had 
 
statesmen and Politicians 39 
 
 long been a senator, and was Minister of Public Instruction 
 in 1885. In 1902 he formed a Cabinet whose chief mission 
 was to continue the work of " secularising " France, which 
 was pursued for years with tenacity and subtlety by Waldeck- 
 Rousseau (1846-1904), who himself continued the anti- 
 clerical policy of Jules Ferry (1832-1893), especially in breaking 
 up the rehgious communities in France, either by way of 
 expulsion on the ground of their being unauthorized, or by 
 the imposition of taxation designed to cripple them financially. 
 There was a certain suppleness, however, in Waldeck- 
 Rousseau's methods which was foreign to the character of 
 his successor. M. Combes applied Waldeck- Rousseau's 
 measure in regard to *' associations " — which really meant 
 religious communities — with a rigour, not to say fanaticism, 
 that drew protests even from the author of the law ; but 
 the hand of death was alieady upon Waldeck-Rousseau, 
 and he had to withdraw from active politics. M. Combes 
 received an education in view of the priesthood. He even 
 took minor orders and was a professor in a seminary, but he 
 forsook the ecclesiastical career and became a country doctor. 
 This is not the place for more than a superficial notice of 
 the long and embittered conflict between the ecclesiastical 
 and the secular spirit in France — the term 
 Anti-Clericalism. qj^^j.(,j^ ^^^ g^^^^ ^^^s ^ot express the true 
 
 significance of the struggle. The subject is inseparable, 
 however, from the attempt to make the important part 
 played by M. Combes in recent politics intelligible. On him 
 lies the main responsibility of the diplomatic rupture 
 between the Republic and the Vatican, the abrogation of the 
 Concordat, with its consequences : — the freedom of the French 
 clergy from the control of the State, the necessity imposed 
 upon the people of directly interesting themselves in the 
 cause of religion, or, as an alternative, accepting the extinction 
 of observances and practices interwoven by the work of ages 
 with their traditions of family life and social decorum. It is 
 impossible to forecast the eventual outcome of this trenchant 
 
40 France of the French 
 
 policy, the whole weight of which M. Combes laid upon his 
 
 shoulders, but it is most certain that the immediate results 
 
 have not been such as were anticipated by him and others. 
 
 The dispersion of the religious orders and the secularisation 
 
 of their establishments, a work upon which M. Combes 
 
 expended an extraordinary reserve of energy for a man of 
 
 his age, have, apart from any religious view of the question, 
 
 proved mainly destructive by driving away capital and in 
 
 some cases industry — the expulsion of the Carthusians from 
 
 the Grande Chartreuse for example — to the advantage of 
 
 other countries. In an intellectual and historical sense it 
 
 has also been destructive, by breaking picturesque and 
 
 sentimental links connecting France of the present day with 
 
 France of the Middle Ages — a connection of the richest 
 
 interest to those whose sympathy takes in the past as well 
 
 as the present of mankind, and who, like Terence, are not 
 
 indifferent to anything human. 
 
 Of the facility with which politicians rise to positions of 
 
 great eminence and influence, the rapidity with which they 
 
 emerge from comparative obscurity into the 
 
 M. Anstide £ || blaze of celebrity in France of to-day, 
 Bnand. , , ^ . . -, ^^ . , . , m • / 
 
 M. Aristide Bnand is a strikmg example. 
 
 Born in 1862, he was almost unknown to the public at the 
 commencement of the present century. A very astute 
 lawyer, subtle-minded, but also supple, a Freethinker with a 
 profound contempt for all religion, having apparently but one 
 ideal : the complete and definitive separation of the Govern- 
 ment and Republican institutions from entanglements of 
 creed and traditions of a superstitious origin — the adjective 
 is used here to indicate the exact point of view taken by 
 M. Briand and others who share his opinions — the posture 
 of philosophic moderation is, nevertheless, a favourite one 
 with him, and in no one has the conviction sunk deeper 
 that political victories are won more often by suppleness, 
 real or feigned, than by tactics which allow no room for 
 compromise. He was Premier from July, 1909, to Feb., 
 
Statesmen and Politicians 41 
 
 1911, and returned to oflEice in 1912 as Minister of Justice 
 in the Poincare cabinet. 
 
 It was the struggle with the Church that brought M. Briand 
 into pubHc notice. It was he who, as a private member of 
 
 the Chamber of Deputies, framed what has 
 
 The Separation come to be well known as the Separation Law, 
 
 and State. which, after breaking the connection between 
 
 Church and State based upon the Concordat, 
 contained a scheme for the continuation of the religious offices 
 in the parish churches by the Catholic clergy, subject to the 
 control in temporal matters of local lay associations elected 
 for the purpose. The Pope refused to accept this law, with 
 the almost unanimous concurrence of the French clergy. 
 One result has been the confiscation of aU Church property 
 by the State, including bishops' residences, presbyteries, 
 seminaries for ecclesiastical students raised with private funds, 
 and aU endowments for pious purposes. The capital thus 
 realized, after being put in and taken out of the melting-pot 
 of legal procedure — its tendency to remain in the melting-pot 
 drew protests from M. Combes himself, when he was no longer 
 in office — is to be applied to local secular purposes, charitable, 
 instructive, and useful. Although threatened with police 
 proceedings, the clergy continued to use the churches as they 
 did before the separation and the Government, fearing a 
 reaction of public feeling if these edifices were turned from 
 the object for which they were built, passively accepted a 
 situation opposed to the spirit and intention of the measure, 
 which rendered the rupture inevitable, because according to 
 the view taken by Leo X and the French episcopacy, it 
 constituted an invasion of the spiritual domain by the secular 
 authority. This toleration, however, rests upon nothing 
 more solid than expediency, and the whole question may be 
 revived ; but the signs of the times indicate no immediate 
 return of that anti-clerical agitation which absorbed far too 
 much of the mental energy of the nation during the first 
 thirty-five years of the Republic. The churches are better 
 
42 France of the French 
 
 attended than they were before the separation and the influ- 
 ence of the clergy has increased. On both sides useful lessons 
 in moderation have been learnt. 
 
 Jean Jaures was not trained like M. Briand to an acute 
 
 understanding of all the meshes of the law. Born in 1859, 
 
 the career of a professor under the University 
 
 Jean Jatires.^ was his first ambition. Having duly qualified 
 at the Ecole Normale Superieure, he became 
 a professor of philosophy in a State lycee. With a 
 real gift of eloquence such as moves masses of men, and 
 a southern exuberance of nature such as one might 
 expect from a native of Castres in the Albigeois, he was drawn 
 more and more towards militant Socialism, until at length 
 politics absorbed him. His appearance in the Chamber of 
 Deputies dates from 1885. He had more of that passionate 
 and magnetic eloquence connected with the tribune, which 
 was the strength of Gambetta, than any other politician 
 of the day in France, but his Collectivist Socialism was either 
 an abomination or an absurdity to the bourgeoisie and the 
 peasant landowners, whose hope is to increase what they 
 possess. In a country where property is so widely distributed 
 as it is in France, and in which the instinct of acquisition 
 by work and economy is stiU so strong, the conditions are 
 unfavourable to Socialism, although signs are not wanting of 
 a decline of courage in industry and thrift, which last, when 
 not corrupted by avarice, is the courage of self-denial. M. 
 Clemenceau, who is an individualist Radical, had no more 
 virulent adversary in the Chamber of Deputies than the 
 Socialist leader, Jaures. Jaures' burly figure and his 
 weight of fist — which he used rather unmercifully on inanimate 
 objects when the oratorical fury was strong upon him — fitted 
 better with the notion of a tribune of the people than 
 with that of a professor of philosophy sent forth with all 
 the training in the " humanities " and other intellectual 
 equipment of the Ecole Normale. 
 
 ^ Recently assassinated. 
 
Statesmen and Politicians 43 
 
 To mark out a few of the more salient figures from among 
 
 the politicians of contemporary France is all that can be 
 
 attempted here. Considerations of com- 
 
 Obl parative merit, or value in statesmanship 
 
 based upon past services, have to be left very 
 
 much on one side. Figures well to the fore only a few years 
 
 ago are already caught in the mist of oblivion, from which it 
 
 does not seem likely that they will emerge. It sometimes 
 
 happens, however, that this impression is quite effaced by an 
 
 unexpected turn of events. Thus M. Clemenceau, whose 
 
 political career was supposed to have finished, rose to the 
 
 surface in 1906 with a buoyancy even less surprising than 
 
 the time that he was able to keep himself at the head of 
 
 affairs. 
 
 M. A. Ribot, born in 1842, has played a prominent part 
 on the political stage of the Republic, but is now a fading 
 figure. This is explained by the fact that he represents 
 a prudent and moderate Republicanism 
 * ^ ° ■ that has long ceased to keep time with the 
 pendulum which is moved by popular pressure. A gifted 
 orator, with a courageous honesty of character, inspiring even 
 adversaries with respect, he was often able to throw into the 
 same scale the votes of the moderate deputies both of the 
 Right and the Left. He defended the Republic vigorously 
 against the dishonest movement of Boulangism. He has 
 been three times Prime Minister, and he became a member 
 of the Academy in 1906. 
 
 M. Henri Brisson (1835-1912) belonged to the generation of 
 Republicans whose early youth was passed under the Mon- 
 archy and the first period of manhood under 
 ^ris^^^" the Empire. The Avenir National, which 
 he founded in 1869, was not intended to 
 revive the failing lustre of the Napoleonic star. Although 
 he had much ministerial experience, including that of 
 Premier, the office that always had the greatest attraction for 
 him was that of President of the Chamber of Deputies — a very 
 
44 France of the French 
 
 comfortable one, with a solid stipend attached to it, together 
 with one of the most splendid of official residences, the Palais 
 Bourbon. Here Gambetta, during his presidency of the 
 Chamber (1879-81), gave a memorable fete, the magnitude 
 and prodigality of which have not been emulated by any 
 successor. M. Brisson is regarded as one of the most austere 
 of Republicans. He took a prominent part in favouring the 
 revision of the Dreyfus case. 
 
 M. Paul Deschanel must be numbered with politicians who 
 
 have grown up under the Republic. He was born in 1856. 
 
 Highly educated and accomplished, including 
 
 M. Paul ^Yie art of presenting the best possible 
 
 appearance with what nature has bestowed 
 
 upon him, he can be very effective in debate, but is not 
 
 really popular. He has been President of the Chamber of 
 
 Deputies. He belongs to the reserve of statesmen that the 
 
 Republic holds among those whose talents have thrust them 
 
 into notice since 1870, but he may never be called upon to 
 
 take the helm of State. His father, the late Emile 
 
 Deschanel, a professor of the University, was so ardent a 
 
 Republican that he was a proscript of the Empire, and 
 
 lived long in exile. M. Paul Deschanel is a member of the 
 
 Academy. 
 
 Few of those who only think of M. Meline as the foremost 
 
 of Protectionists under the Republic, and as a man chiefly 
 
 made up of figures and cold reasons, with the 
 
 M. Jules £g^^g q£ ^^ austere magistrate of the Empire 
 
 got adrift upon democratic waters, not at all 
 
 to his taste, would be ready to believe that he was a member 
 
 of the Commune in 1871. He, however, very quickly leapt 
 
 out of that fire. He was deceived by early appearances and 
 
 led into danger by patriotic enthusiasm, as were others also 
 
 in whose heart there was a great revolt when the news came 
 
 of the terms of peace with Germany. This ideahst of 187 1 
 
 afterwards discovered in himself a violent taste for agriculture 
 
 and political economy. From the time he entered the Ferry 
 
statesmen and Politicians 45 
 
 Cabinet in 1883 as Minister of Agriculture, he became the 
 protector of the peasant-proprietor from the competition of 
 foreign produce. He rendered it possible for the country to 
 continue to grow, even under the system of limited means 
 and appliances inseparable from small holdings, the bulk of 
 the wheat needed for home consumption. His protectionist 
 policy has been continued, but his lack of sympathy with 
 Radicalism has since 1898, when as Prime Minister he was 
 strongly opposed to the reopening of the Dreyfus case, 
 excluded him from the stage of active politics. He consoles 
 himself by criticising the late comers in the Repuhlique 
 Frangaise, which since 1899 has been the organ of himself 
 and his dwindling partisans. The institution of the Order 
 of Agricultural Merit — disrespectfully termed the " Order 
 of the Leek " — is due to M. Meline. It added a fresh bit of 
 coloured ribbon for the decoration of French button-holes. 
 M. Meline was born in 1838, and has long been a member of 
 the Senate. 
 
 It is not easy to decide whether M. Edouard Lockroy 
 
 should be classed with statesmen or journalists. The work 
 
 of his life has been chiefly done with the pen, 
 
 L kro ^^ ^^^ ^^ ^^ ^^^° figured very prominently in 
 the parliamentary arena under the Republic. 
 His political views may perhaps be best described as of a 
 genial and therefore old-fashioned Radicalism. The ferocity 
 of the new Radicalism does not harmonize with his intellectual 
 training and his long experience (he was born in 1838). Of 
 an impulsive and adventurous nature, he took part in the 
 Garibaldian expedition of i860. He has held several port- 
 folios under the Republic, the last and most important being 
 that of the Marine, which he had to yield to M. Camille 
 PeUetan in 1899. Naval questions have absorbed much 
 of his mental activity of late years, and for a landsman 
 he has shown a remarkable grasp of them. M. Lockroy has 
 not yet been swept up with the debris of political struggles 
 for office and influence. He may come out of his corner again. 
 
46 France of the French 
 
 M. Camille Pelletan is another ex-Minis ter who is proud to 
 remember that after an experience mainly joumaHstic and 
 
 Parisian he was placed at the head of the 
 M. Camille French fleet. Although only separated by 
 
 a shade or so in politics from M. Lockroy, he 
 found much satisfaction in undoing as far as he reasonably 
 could his predecessor's work, while the retired admirals 
 sitting in council over the affairs of the navy in the Rue 
 Royale either lashed themselves to indignation or exploded 
 with laughter as they were being worried by the theories 
 of this pair of rival land-lubbers. It has been said of 
 M. Pelletan that he did not know what the sea was like 
 until he was obliged to pay it an official visit after his 
 acceptance of the Naval portfolio ; but as he had represented 
 in the Chamber a Mediterranean department, there was 
 obvious exaggeration in this. M. Pelletan was born in 1846, 
 and in 1881 he entered the Chamber of Deputies by the door 
 of journalism. 
 
 Although he belongs strictly speaking to the army, General 
 Picquart by the dramatic incidents of the Dreyfus case 
 
 became a politician. There is no reason to 
 General suppose that he had any ambition at that 
 
 time to enter the political field. On the 
 contrary, his action in accusing Esterhazy and Henry, and 
 declaring documents read in the Chamber of Deputies by the 
 late M. Cavaignac, then Minister of War, to be forgeries, 
 exposed him to the gravest dangers, with but little hope of 
 eventual justice, the state of the public mind in 1898 being 
 considered. He was tried by court-martial and struck off 
 the active list of the army. After some years passed in 
 obscurity and official disgrace, the triumph of the Revisionists, 
 Scheurer-Kestner and others, hastened by the unexpected 
 appearance in the arena of Emile Zola, as the accuser of 
 General Mercier and subordinate officers, whose names need 
 not be again mentioned, of conspiracy against Dreyfus, made 
 it a matter of the clearest justice to reward the man who had 
 
statesmen and Politicians 47 
 
 paid so dearly for his moral courage, appearing as he did 
 almost in the light of a traitor to the army which had already 
 opened brilliant prospects to him, rather than allow a Jewish 
 captain, generally hated, for whom he had no personal 
 friendship, to perish slowly on a rock as the scapegoat of 
 others. If the world had not grown so weary of the Dreyfus 
 case and all its ramifications, it would have been more 
 impressed than it was by the dramatic circumstances under 
 which the disgraced lieutenant-colonel reappeared in the 
 bright light of publicity as General Picquart, Minister of 
 War. He made no vindictive abuse of his triumph. In 
 his official capacity he has shown sufficient strength without 
 parade. General Picquart was bom in 1854, ^^^ saw active 
 service in Tonquin and Annam. 
 
 M. Leon Bourgeois, who was born in Paris in 1851, is a 
 cautious, hard-working, deep-ploughing statesman, who has 
 
 filled numerous and important posts under 
 B^urgeors. ^^^ RepubHc, including that of President of 
 
 the Council (1895-1896), and has held port- 
 folios in various ministries. He represented France with 
 much tact, combined with zeal, at the Peace Congress at The 
 Hague, and he is a member of the permanent court of inter- 
 national arbitration. Although he has come to be regarded 
 as the chief of the Radical Party, his views and political con- 
 duct are marked by moderation. He was President of the 
 Chamber of Deputies in 1902 and 1903, and was Minister of 
 Foreign Affairs in 1906. He returned to office in the Poincare 
 ministry (19 12) as Minister of Labour. 
 
 M. Raymond Poincare is considered one of the safe and 
 tactful statesmen of the Republic who have more aptitude 
 
 for dealing with difficult situations by personal 
 PoincS^." influence than for contending with a storm in 
 
 debate. He was born in i860 and the profes- 
 sion for which he trained was that of the law. After some 
 ministerial experience from 1893 to 1895 he played a minor 
 part in political affairs for several years, but as a senator (h^ 
 
48 France of the French 
 
 took his seat at the Luxembourg in 1903) he increased the 
 consideration in which he was held for the quahties ahready 
 indicated and which caused him to be remembered when the 
 Caillaux Government resigned in January, 19 12. At the 
 invitation of the President of the Repubhc he set himself the 
 task of forming a ministry, and having succeeded, became Pre- 
 sident of the Council, with men much more notable and 
 experienced than himself holding subordinate positions. We 
 have here another illustration of what has already been 
 said or suggested about the safe, or level-headed man, and 
 the brilliant man in the whirlpool of French politics. M. 
 Poincare is a member of the Academy. 
 
 M. Joseph Caillaux (1863) is classed with the younger states- 
 men of the Republic who, when they are not in office, represent 
 the reserve that can be fallen back upon in case 
 M. Caillaux. of need for the constitution of future ministries. 
 After qualifying for the Bar and filling a 
 professorship at the School of Political Science, he entered 
 the Chamber of Deputies in 1898, and the year following he was 
 Minister of Finance in the Waldeck-Rousseau Cabinet. He 
 was at the head of the Government during the thorny negotia- 
 tions with Germany in 19 11, and incidents connected with 
 these negotiations brought about the resignation of his Ministry 
 in January, 19 12. M. Caillaux is chiefly known to the public 
 as the most zealous promoter of the reform of direct taxation 
 based upon the adoption by France of the principle of Impot 
 sur la revenue (income tax) and as the framer of a Bill having 
 this object in view. The principle of the reform has been 
 adopted by the Chamber of Deputies, but it encounters strong 
 opposition in the country. 
 
 M. Millerand is another lawyer by profession — early pro- 
 fession, for he long since abandoned the Bar for the legislative 
 arena. Born in i860, the rose of youth (in 
 
 M. Millerand. politics) still blooms upon him. He is a pro- 
 fessed Socialist, who has no illusions concern- 
 ing the width of the gulf separating theory from the possibihty 
 
Statesmen and Politicians 49 
 
 of realisation. Therefore he is moderate, and the opportu- 
 nities he has had of tasting the honey of office have made him 
 much more so than he promised to be when he was merely a 
 champion of Labour. To him belongs the honour of being 
 the first Socialist who attained the rank of Minister in France. 
 He owes it to the late M. Waldeck-Rousseau, whose confidence 
 in him was not deceived. He was then Minister of Commerce. 
 Afterwards in M. Briand's Government he was Minister of 
 Public Works and in 19 12 this most pacific man accepted the 
 portfolio of Minister of War in the Poincare Cabinet. 
 
 The Baron d'Estournelle de Constant is the full name and 
 title of the diplomatist and politician who earher in the present 
 
 century took such an active and important 
 ^*d^'c^*°t^"t^^^ part in the furtherance of peace between 
 
 nations, and whose large comprehension of the 
 higher needs of the times and of his own country was shown 
 by his zeal in the furtherance of a cordial understanding 
 between France and England on a lasting basis. After being 
 for twenty years in the diplomatic service, during which period 
 he was long connected with the French Embassy in London, 
 he entered poHtical Hfe as a member of the Chamber of 
 Deputies, where he identified himself conspicuously with the 
 policy of peace. In 1904 he became a senator. He is a mem- 
 ber of the Permanent Court of Arbitration at The Hague. 
 In 1909 he received ex cequo with M. Auguste Beernaert 
 (Belgian) the Nobel " Peace " prize. His age was then 
 fifty-seven. 
 
 There are few now either in the Chamber of Deputies, or 
 in the Senate, who, as the representatives of the Monarchical 
 
 cause can bring a strong personal influence 
 
 Monarchist ^q y^Q^s Upon the House. The eloquent 
 and Conservative , . ^ , . , rr i £ 
 
 Leaders. champions who remam have sunered irom 
 
 the ravages of time and the weariness of an 
 
 ineffectual struggle. The form of government has long been 
 
 left out of discussion by the wise, but the members of the 
 
 Right have always defended the interests of the Church, have 
 
 4— (2398) 
 
50 France of the French 
 
 upheld the rehgious orders in their long and always losing 
 struggle with Republican politicians, and have resisted lay 
 control of the primary schools with the utmost energy : all 
 this to very little purpose. The Comte Albert de Mun (1841), 
 a cavalry officer in 1870, ever since 1876, when he was elected 
 a deputy, was fighting in the breach for the Catholic cause, 
 but not for royalty since 1892, when Leo XIII urged French 
 Catholics to refrain from placing themselves in opposition to 
 the Republic. Endowed with eloquence of a high order, he 
 resisted with remarkable ability, but with no success, the 
 earher measures which led the way to the complete seculariz- 
 ation of the system of public instruction. lU-health had with- 
 held him much from politics of late years. He was one of 
 the few of his party whose sagacity, or honesty, kept them 
 aloof from the Boulangist movement. He has been much 
 spoken of as a promoter of ** Catholic socialism," but the 
 term is misleading. His strenuous efforts in the organization 
 of Catholic-Republican clubs for working men have been 
 rewarded with but scant success. It is needless to say 
 that his exertions received no official encouragement. M. de 
 Mun, lately deceased, was an Academician. 
 
 One of the most prominent figures of the Right in the 
 Chamber of Deputies since 1889 is M. Denys Cochin, who has 
 fought valiantly in many a fierce parliamentary battle for 
 the Conservative and religious principles which he holds to 
 be of paramount importance. He speaks with knowledge 
 and authority on foreign politics. He lately became one of 
 the forty " Immortals " of the Academy. 
 
 The *' groups " into which the Republican majority in the 
 
 Chamber of Deputies and the Senate have been divided for 
 
 years past are often a severe puzzle to those who have not 
 
 grappled with the subject. Most people who 
 
 ^^ Gr^p"!^^^ are not keenly interested in it leave it alone, 
 
 or persuade themselves that they have rightly 
 
 guessed all that is worth knowing about it. Such guessing, 
 
 however, is a bewildering by-way and does not lead to clear 
 
Statesmen and Politicians 51 
 
 ideas. A " group " is more often than not a little centre of 
 self-seeking, of which those who compose it say to one another, 
 " You push me along, and I will push you." Groups unite 
 constantly with a common object, but this does not prove 
 that they love one another. They may even strive to poison 
 one another's coffee, although they are fractions of the " Bloc 
 Republicain," united by a general political affection. 
 
 These groups have grown and blossomed gradually under 
 the Republic. In the National Assembly elected after the 
 War, the governing majority was composed of the Right 
 Centre (nominally Republican, but doubtful), the Right 
 (Legitimists and Bonapartists, susceptible of influences), 
 and the Extreme Right (uncompromising Royalists). The 
 minority, or Opposition, was composed of the Left-Centre 
 (moderate, but firm Republicans), of the Left (Republicans, 
 less moderate and accommodating), and the Extreme Left 
 (Radical Republicans). But only two policies really divided 
 Parliament at that time : the permanent establishment of 
 the Republic, which was the work of all the Gauches united, 
 and the restoration of the monarchy, which was the work of 
 the Droites. The Orleanists sat in the middle of the see- 
 saw without any fixed principles. Of the Empire then there 
 could hardly be any question. The immense disaster to the 
 Napoleonic star at Sedan was too fresh in the public mind. 
 In the new Chamber of Deputies elected in 1876, Gambetta 
 was the paramount influence, and his " opportunism " became 
 the tent within which all Republicans willing to adjust their 
 ideals and hobbies to the necessities of the times, took shelter. 
 It was he who formed the ** Union Republicaine," made up 
 from different Republican groups, and to some extent from 
 the ranks of the Orleanists, who were not of one mind to play 
 into the hands of the Legitimists and help the Comte de 
 Chambord to the throne, as Henri V. It was this union of 
 the Gauches, numbering 363 deputies, which defeated the 
 Royalist machination in 1877, known in history as the " i6th 
 May." After the fall of Marshal MacMahon, M. Clemenceau 
 
52 France of the French 
 
 formed a Radical group which included the members of the 
 Extreme Left, and was in opposition to Gambetta and his 
 " Union Republicaine." The Right Centre disappeared and 
 became absorbed by the Right. For some years the struggle 
 in the Chamber lay chiefly between Opportunism and 
 Radicalism, the respective champions being Gambetta and 
 Clemenceau. The tactics of the Right were to join issue on 
 occasion with the Radicals, and in this way Governments 
 were brought to grief in rapid succession. In 1885 the 
 Radicals separated from the Extreme Left and formed a 
 group apart, which they still maintain. The Extreme Left 
 has come to be composed of Socialists of different shades, 
 more or less acknowledging for general purposes the leadership 
 of Jaures. The common danger raised by Boulangism 
 brought about a *' concentration " of Republican groups. 
 After the death of Boulanger, the debris of his party in the 
 Chamber kept the name of " Nationalists," and there are 
 still a few representatives of this " group." In 1893 a new 
 group, the "Union Liberale," or "Moderate Left," was formed 
 under M. Ribot, and at the same time the Progressists, 
 another fraction of the Republican majority, began to be 
 spoken of. On the Right a fresh group came into existence, 
 which professed to follow the advice of Leo XIII, and to 
 " enter the edifice," i.e., the Republican Party, and to defend 
 the cause of religion from that position. They were called 
 the " Rallies," and their chief was M. J. Piou. The experiment 
 had no perceptible influence on the course of events. To-day 
 there are groups even among the Socialists. The endeavour 
 of every Cabinet of late years has been to work with the 
 " Bloc Republicain," or a majority made up from all Re- 
 publican groups, with a specific programme of measures 
 and general policy as a basis of agreement. 
 
 The Parliamentary groups now officially recognised in 
 electoral lists are the following : Groupes des Republicains 
 Progressistes, des Republicains Radicaux-Socialistes, des 
 Repubhcains Socialistes, de la Gauche Democratique, de la 
 
o 
 
 o 
 
 H 
 
 < 
 
statesmen and Politicians 53 
 
 Gauche Radicale, des Droites, de rUnion Republicaine, de 
 I'Action Liberale and du Parti Socialiste. There are also 
 some fifteen deputies who belong to no "group." This list 
 includes M. Maurice Barres and the Abbe Lemire. 
 
 Prior to the General Election of the Chamber of Deputies 
 
 in 1906, senators and deputies had a stipend — euphemistically 
 
 termed an " indemnity " — equivalent to £365 
 
 The Stipend a year. Subsequently they voted for them- 
 
 of Legislators, selves an increase of pay, which brings up 
 
 their indemnity to the much more satisfactory 
 
 (to them) figure of £600 a year. The effect of this measure 
 
 will be to make the political career more than ever attractive 
 
 to men who discover that the professions for which they have 
 
 been trained do not offer sufficient scope for their abilities. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 LITERATURE UNDER THE REPUBLIC 
 
 Nothing more is attempted in this section than to touch 
 Ughtly upon what is most striking and characteristic in 
 French Uterature during the closing decades of the nineteenth 
 century, and so much of the new century as belongs to the 
 past. This will be done in the form of rapid notes on those 
 authors who have figured, or who still figure, prominently 
 in the literary life of the period indicated. 
 
 The ghastly convulsions of 1870 and 1871 very nearly 
 coincided with the commencement of a new epoch in French 
 literature. It has been stated, and probably with some 
 truth, that the disasters and horrors of that time influenced 
 the formation of character, the tone and direction of mind in 
 the young whose physical development was incomplete, and 
 even in the child unborn. One or two generations with 
 more or less morbid tendencies were the consequence, if 
 this theory is to be accepted. But the morbid tendency of 
 so much that is modern in French literature left its mark 
 upon the nineteenth century earlier than 1870. It was the 
 " maladie du Steele " that used to be talked about long before 
 the century began to be conscious that it was growing old. 
 It was a melancholy pessimism, often mawkishly sentimental 
 as well as affectedly cynical, and to a large extent was a 
 literary pose. It reached a climax of perversity of the 
 imagination in Fleurs du Mai, by Charles Baudelaire 
 (182 1- 1867). There was nothing of the Voltairean spirit of 
 buoyant scepticism in it, and still further was it removed 
 from the scepticism of Montaigne, which was marked by 
 the graces and robust health of the Renaissance. This 
 
 54 
 
Literature under the Republic 55 
 
 literary current had changed considerably in character before 
 the term ''Fin de Steele,'" came into use to express something 
 vaguely deliquescent in faith, morals, and everything 
 respectable, but which was not melancholy. The old century 
 before dying had quite thrown aside the tom-and-tattered-soul 
 attitude of Byron, de Musset, Lamennais, Baudelaire, and 
 others whose names can be easily recalled. 
 
 When the French mind began to settle down after the war 
 
 with Germany and to take up again the various threads 
 
 of intellectual and artistic interest, the living 
 
 Influence of influences then uppermost in literature were 
 
 Positivism. those of Realism and Positivism. The craze 
 for scientific methods applied to work of 
 the imagination, as well as to the observation of natural 
 phenomena, stirred the intellectual part of society to its 
 depths throughout the whole range of art. The luminous 
 mind of Pasteur, the most patient and unassuming searcher 
 for clues that were desperately wanted in the domain of 
 useful and philanthropic science, of him who became more 
 and more impressed by the limitations of man and more 
 awstruck in the presence of the Infinite the deeper he pene- 
 trated the labyrinths of the Infinitely Small, quietly protested 
 against this folly. But Pasteur's influence at that time 
 upon the philosophic drift of ideas was only like a star 
 shining through a rift in the cloud-rack. Those who 
 knew little, or nothing, of science were among the most 
 fervent believers in the sufficiency of its message to 
 mankind, the most dogmatic preachers concerning its 
 potentialities. 
 
 In philosophy the influence of Auguste Comte was still 
 very strong, and it ruled in the literature of higher criticism. 
 Like Sainte-Beuve (1804- 1869) of the genera- 
 ^*"®* tion immediately preceding his own, Taine 
 
 (1828-1893) was a Positivist. He believed in the possibility 
 of constructing a science of human conduct on a basis of 
 positive laws ; but such a philosophy can only lead to pessimism. 
 
56 France of the French 
 
 Man was to Taine a " ferocious gorilla," wearing a varnish 
 of artificial manners and furnished conventionally with 
 notions restraining instinct, or else a maniac, the victim of 
 his hallucinations. 
 
 Ernest Renan (1823-1892) was another literary product 
 of the second half of the nineteenth century fashioned and 
 thrown up by the great wave of Positivism. 
 Ernest Renan. j^.^ influence Upon critical literature after 
 1870 was stronger than that of any other writer. It pene^ 
 trated deeply also into the spirit of imaginative literature. 
 He launched a literary and philosophic creed, less sincere 
 and more modern than Positivism, to which the name Dilet- 
 tantism has been given. Renan had not the speculative 
 originality nor the strength of conviction to be classed with 
 leaders of men in the higher regions of thought. As regards 
 his destructive action upon religious ideas, his role was rather 
 that of a scarecrow than of a destroyer. He was, however, 
 a great literary artist — one of the greatest of modern times. 
 To this quality was added an arsenal of learning, but his 
 erudition did not make him a pedant. Had it done so, his 
 life's work would have left but little trace, for it would have 
 destroyed the simple charm of his style, or rather would have 
 prevented him from acquiring it. He combined in himself 
 the critic and the poet, and some of the most poetic prose in 
 the French language is to be found in Renan's writings. 
 Such was the seduction of his literary art, that it is not 
 surprising he captivated younger minds and inspired them 
 with his own dilettantism, the nature of which is suffici- 
 ently indicated in the following passage from his Dialogues 
 philosophiques : — 
 
 " As for me, I taste of the whole universe by means of 
 that kind of general sentiment which makes us sad in a sad 
 town, and gay in a gay one. Thus I enjoy the pleasures of 
 the voluptuous, the debauches of the debauched, the worldli- 
 ness of the worldly, the holiness of the virtuous man, the 
 meditations of the seer, the austerity of the ascetic. By a 
 
Literature under the Republic 57 
 
 sort of tender sympathy I imagine that I am their conscience. 
 The discoveries of the savant are my property ; the triumphs 
 of the ambitious are to myself a festival." 
 
 As old age approached, Renan appeared to break away 
 from the last moorings of respect that held him to the shore 
 of Christian morals. VAbbesse de Jouarre is a lamentable 
 exhibition of the enthralment of a great intellect by a per- 
 verted senile imagination. Nevertheless, the fascination and 
 authority of this wizard of letters was such that his influence 
 was great to the last, and continued after his death. It 
 had much to do with the direction taken by several writers of 
 note under the Republic, if it did not actually switch them 
 on to the rails. 
 
 The influence of realism was not identical with that of 
 
 Positivism, although nearly allied to it. The former was 
 
 more directly concerned with art, the latter 
 
 The Realists, with philosophy ; but the two are not to be 
 separated. Those who are at all familiar 
 with the history of modern literature have general notions 
 of the struggle between romanticism and realism in France, 
 which became acute towards the middle of the last century, 
 but apparently by a natural process of evolution ended in 
 the triumph of realism. Stendhal, Balzac, and others who 
 commenced their journey in romanticism ended it in realism. 
 George Sand, in her later years, was drawn to depict with a 
 conscientious fervour for exactness in drawing and colour 
 the rustic life of the province to which she was most attached 
 by sentimental ties — the Berri. Victor Hugo also moved 
 somewhat with the times, although he stood aloof upon his 
 rock, raising his voice above the roaring of the sea with the 
 certitude that it would be heard afar. At the time of the 
 fall of the Empire the influence most felt by all the later 
 writers of fiction was that of Flaubert. The brothers Edmond 
 and Jules de Goncourt, Alexandre Dumas the younger, and 
 Theophile Gautier, were also among those who helped to set 
 the current of realism running at irresistible speed, although 
 
58 France of the French 
 
 they were not responsible for the abuses in which it culminated 
 under the name of " naturalism." 
 
 Gustave Flaubert (1821-1880), the large-limbed, full- 
 blooded Norman, who physically seemed more marked out 
 to sail the seas in quest of adventures like 
 Flaubert. ^^^ Scandinavians of old, from whom he 
 was probably descended, than to become a patient gold- 
 beater of words and phrases and a virtuoso-like observer of 
 the merits and flaws — especially the flaws — of human nature, 
 had a romantic imagination and disposition ; so much so 
 that he was capable of any excess in this direction. And 
 yet he was destined to be regarded as the father of the later 
 realists. The passion of travel, the yearning for vast 
 horizons, the sensuous ardour to bathe in sunshine and colour 
 far away on classic ground of romance and poetry overflowed 
 his mind in his younger days ; but the fate that lay in wait 
 for him was the making and undoing, or retouching of 
 sentences, the beating out of the period under the hammer with 
 infinite pains, only perhaps to put it into the melting-pot 
 again. Year after year the great artificer bent over his 
 task, scarcely moving from it except by day. The boatmen 
 on the Seine at Rouen were as familiar with the light of his 
 lamp shining from a certain room over the river all through 
 the dark hours as they were with any beacon set up for their 
 guidance. That he belonged by temperament to the romantic 
 and imaginative school of writers is proved by his choice of 
 such subjects as Salammbo and Herodias, and the success 
 with which he resuscitated a dead past. Nevertheless, he 
 had evidently persuaded himself early in his career that 
 to paint reality rather than to suggest it was the object to 
 be aimed at by the literary artist. These are his words : 
 " Keep the model in view always, and nothing else. Distrust 
 that kind of warming up which is called inspiration, and in 
 which there is often mere nervous emotion. I know those 
 masked balls of the imagination from which one returns with 
 death in the heart — exhausted, ennuye, having seen nothing 
 
Literature under the Republic 59 
 
 but what was false." He thus attacks imagination in its own 
 language. Few men believed more than he that the mission 
 of art is to lend a charm of its own to reality, in fact, to 
 embellish it with the ideal ; but the studied realism of so many 
 of his pictures of life, elaborate in detail to a degree that 
 sometimes leaves upon the reader a painful feeUng of tension 
 due to over- concentration of mind upon small surfaces, had 
 an enormous influence upon the literature of fiction under 
 the Republic. No work called a " romance " by a nineteenth 
 century writer, and in the French language, is more a classic 
 than Madame Bovary, not because of the realism with which 
 the characters are drawn, although this is the very best 
 literature of its kind, but because of the polish of style and 
 imaginative vigour — kept in restraint, so that the means 
 never go beyond what the purpose demands — which combine 
 to produce the effect of consummate art, from the inception 
 to the completion of the structure. 
 
 With the brothers Edmond (1822-1896) and Jules (1830- 
 
 1870) de Goncourt, the realism of Balzac and Flaubert 
 
 descended rapidly towards the " naturalism " 
 
 The Brothers ^f ^ola. The brothers were little else than 
 
 de Goncourt. . . 
 
 realistic chroniclers of their times — note- 
 takers of the society in which they moved ; shrewdly observant, 
 vigorously and concisely descriptive, with artistic sense too, 
 and expert in the use of language, but with very limited 
 imagination. Their pretended application of scientific 
 methods and principles to the making of fiction, as well as 
 the crude and daring descriptions scattered throughout their 
 work, stimulated imitators not only to employ the same 
 literary process, but to leave these pioneers of naturalism 
 far behind them on the road. Before continuing to follow 
 the course of this movement under the Republic, and then to 
 speak of the principal prose writers of the present day, it is 
 fitting that something should be said about the poets of 
 contemporary France. 
 
 As in the case of prose literature, it would be almost 
 
60 France of the French 
 
 impossible to touch the subject of poetry under the Repubhc 
 
 without going back a httle farther and marking off the poets 
 
 whose influence was most felt towards the 
 
 Poetry ^^^^ close of the Empire, or which was beginning 
 to be felt then, and to become a heritage to 
 be handed over to the succeeding epoch. As a poetic 
 influence, that of Victor Hugo was paramount for at least 
 ten years after the Franco -German war, and as regards 
 the multitude of people of ordinary education and ordinary 
 taste who have a few of the standard poets represented on 
 their bookshelves, but whose impressions of verse belong 
 chiefly to their schooldays, it is probably so still ; but long 
 before his death, the poet of the Legende des Siecles, notwith- 
 standing the splendour of his imagination and his faculty of 
 making the most of all the resources of the French language, 
 was taking up a position more and more isolated. Where 
 the literary movement was intense he was becoming demode, 
 like Alfred de Vigny, who was only a few years his senior, 
 but who died in 1863. Hugo, who was born in 1802, lived 
 on to 1885. 
 
 In 1866, thirty-seven poets, most of them young men, among 
 
 whom were some quite unknown to fame, but who, helped by 
 
 talent, perseverance, and friendship, reached 
 
 ParnasSans ^^ course of time celebrity, laid their lyres 
 together, and collectively presented to the 
 world a volume of poems entitled Le Parnasse Contemporain, 
 According to the plan it was only an instalment of a work 
 which was to be completed in eighteen parts. Among the 
 contributors were Lecomte de Lisle, Theophile Gautier, 
 Theodore de Banville, Francois Coppee, Catulle Mendes, 
 Jose-Maria de Heredia, Louis Menard, Emile Deschamps, 
 Leon Dierx, and Paul Verlaine. The Parnasse Contemporain 
 did not make its second appearance until 1871, and its third 
 and last was in 1876. The word " Parnassiens " came to be 
 applied to this group of poets as though they represented 
 some particular school of poetry, whereas in reality there 
 
Literature under the Republic 61 
 
 was much divergency of thought and aim among them. The 
 
 Parnassian movement was, however, connected with that 
 
 new " cult of form " which will be dealt with presently. 
 
 Lecomte de Lisle (1818-1894) touched a lyre which gave 
 
 forth very different sounds from those of the young Francois 
 
 Coppee, and the difference was much more 
 
 Lecomte marked in the case of Heredia. Lecomte de 
 de Lisle. . ,.,.,, 
 
 Lisle had won his place m literature long 
 
 before the Parnassians were heard of. To that sentimentality 
 
 to which the French have given the term lyrisme, he added a 
 
 philosophic pessimism which was the maladie du siecle when 
 
 it came to put on a scientific pose. This poet had examined 
 
 all religions, and had sifted all the civilizations of antiquity, 
 
 and his cry was : — 
 
 Que de sanglots perdus sous le ciel solitaire ! 
 
 Apart from his pessimism he was too learned, too instructive, 
 
 to be popular ; for the soul of the people can only respond to 
 
 poetry that is simple, and which moves the feelings as the 
 
 wind moves the leaves. 
 
 The poet of the scientific and philosophic wave on which 
 
 the literary life of France floated more or less buoyantly in 
 
 the middle of the nineteenth century, and 
 
 Sully- which only beeran to lose itself in the soil a 
 
 Prudhomme. jo 
 
 few years since, was Sully-Prudhomme (1839- 
 
 1907). Others rose on the same wave, but did not identify 
 themselves with it in the same degree. The philosophic muse 
 that inspired him was not a happy one, for under this influence 
 he drew from his lyre the saddest sounds that have ever issued 
 from the strings of a phantom instrument given to all poets 
 for their consolation, and sometimes for the torture of man- 
 kind. Although the tone of his mind was so woe-begone, 
 and its tendency analytic to such an extent that one might 
 have supposed, prima facie, that this would have disqualified 
 him for the work which was the chief occupation of his life, 
 his place is among the foremost of the French poets of 
 
62 France of the French 
 
 later times. The task that he set himself to do, which was 
 that of compelling the scientific spirit to take an imaginative 
 and poetic form, was one of incredible difficulty, and it 
 must be allowed that the measure of his success was wonderful, 
 although his poetic flame only now and again yields more 
 warmth to humanity than the wintry sun gives to the earth 
 from which it is hidden by dense and piled-up snow-clouds. 
 The abstract and metaphysical thoughts, coloured with 
 the dreariest pessimism, which he managed to cast into 
 delicately chiselled and generally melodious verse, even 
 when the nature of the theme placed it on the level of prose, 
 were an insuperable barrier to popularity in the case 
 of Sully- Prudhoinme. As an analytical lyrical poet he 
 often unites the most sombre thoughts with beautiful 
 images taken direct from nature and expressed with an 
 art that makes the words live in the memory. As an 
 example, the following extract from one of his sonnets will 
 suffice : — 
 
 La tdche humaine est longue et sa fin decevante. 
 
 Des generations la derniere vivante 
 
 Seule aura sans tourmente tons ses greniers combles, 
 
 Et les premiers auteurs de la glebe feconde 
 
 N'auront pas vu courir sur la face du monde 
 
 Le sourire paisible et rassurant des bles. 
 
 Here we have ideas, not necessarily true, but profoundly 
 sad and perfectly expressed. 
 
 When the scientific, or philosophical, mood was not on him, 
 and he was simply human. Sully- Prudhomme could express 
 feeling with infinite tenderness and deep notes of sadness. 
 Quite recently a short poem, Pardon, written nearly half a 
 century before his death, was published posthumously. The 
 subject was too personal, and in a sense too sacred, for the 
 poet to take the public into his confidence respecting it. 
 The story he tells is that of a youth in love with a woman, 
 probably older than himself, and who must have amused 
 
Literature under the Republic 63 
 
 herself at his expense rather wantonly to have called forth 
 
 such verses as these : — 
 
 Pour peu que votre image en men ame renaisse, 
 
 Je sens bien que c'est vous que j'aime encore le mieux. 
 
 Vous avez desole I'aube de ma jeunesse, 
 
 Je veux pourtant mourir sans oublier vos yeux, 
 
 Ni votre voix surtout, sonore et caressante, 
 
 Qui penetrait mon coeur entre toutes les voix ; 
 
 Et longtemps ma poitrine en restait fremissante 
 
 Comme un luth solitaire encore emu des doigts. 
 
 Ah ! j'en connais beaucoup dont les levres sont belles, 
 
 Dont le front est parfait, dont le langage est doux. 
 
 Mes amis vous diront que j'ai chante pour elles, 
 
 Ma mere vous dira que j'ai pleure pour vous, 
 
 J'ai pleure, mais deja mes larmes sont plus rares ; 
 
 Je sanglotais alors, je soupire aujourd'hui ; 
 
 Puis bientot viendra I'heure ou les yeux sont avares, 
 
 Et ma tristesse alors ne sera plus qu' ennui. 
 
 Oui, pour avoir brise la fieur de ma jeunesse, 
 
 J'ai peur de vous hair lorsque je serai vieux . . . 
 
 —Que toujours votre image en mon ame renaisse ! 
 
 Que je pardonne a Tame en souvenir des yeux ! 
 
 The meeting of poetry with the scientific movement of the 
 nineteenth century, of which there are suggestions of subtle 
 tenderness and sublimity in Tennyson's 
 ine uuit j^ Memoriam, was in its later phases inti- 
 mately related in France to an absorbing 
 and somewhat fastidious cult of " form/' in opposition to 
 the romantic poets, their rhapsodical flights, and their assumed 
 negligence in the art of verse chiselling. By giving more 
 critical attention to the value of words and the richness of 
 rhymes, a strong endeavour was made to produce greater 
 effects within narrower limits ; not so much by the strength 
 of the ideas themselves as by the perfection reached in the 
 art of expressing them. Theophile Gautier, Sainte-Beuve and 
 Theodore de Banville did much to set the fashion in this 
 direction. The tendency was to cause over- condensation in 
 expression, and the multiplication of ** picture words," which 
 often resulted in vagueness. The movement naturally led 
 
64 France of the French 
 
 to an extensive revival of the sonnet, which was cultivated 
 with the most painstaking assiduity. 
 
 Among the later sonneteers, more remarkable as artists in 
 the structure and finish of their poems, than as message- 
 bearers to mankind from the depths where ideas originate, 
 was Jose-Maria de Heredia (1842-1905), 
 J. M. de H^r^dia. ^^^hor of Les Trophees, published in 1893, 
 and which obtained for him a seat in the Academy. In his 
 sonnet on the Master Goldsmith, we have a very accurate 
 portrait of himself as a poet : — 
 
 Le vaillant maitre orfevre a Toeuvre des matines 
 Faisait de ses pinceaux d'ou s'egouttait Temail, 
 Sur la paix nieillee ou sur I'or du fermail 
 Epanouir la fleur des devises latines. 
 
 One admires the exquisite finish of such sonnets very much as 
 one admires a piece of goldsmith's work, cunningly engraved 
 and enamelled by a Benvenuto Cellini. 
 
 Francois Coppee (1842-1908) probably produced more 
 verse than any other French poet whose literary activity 
 
 must be referred to the same period. His 
 Frangois Coppee. connection with the career of letters was 
 
 formed under great trials and difficulties, and 
 nothing reveals so strongly the superiority of his character as 
 the steady courage and manfulness with which he preserved 
 his ideals, and yet proved equal to his duties in those early 
 years. As a youth his education was interrupted at the 
 Paris lycee, where he had not been very long, by family 
 misfortunes, and he had to leave the "humanities" to earn 
 money as a clerk. Then he lost his father, and the strain 
 of duties laid upon the young Fran9ois, copying clerk in a 
 public office, was extremely severe. Nevertheless, he found 
 time to accomplish prodigies of self-instruction, and also to 
 cultivate his gift for versification. At length, at the age of 
 twenty-two, he succeeded, by what efforts may be imagined, 
 in getting a small collection of poems, Le Reliquaire, published. 
 Its merit attracted notice, and extended the circle of his 
 
Literature under the Republic 65 
 
 literary friends. In 1869, Le Passant, a piece in verse, was 
 produced at the Od^on with Sarah Bernhardt, then twenty- 
 five years of age, but very httle known, in the principal part, 
 and its success ensured for him a recognized place in the 
 literary world, and for her the admiration of the critical 
 public. There are verses in Le Passant so gracefully turned, 
 and so charming in thought, that they became quickly popular 
 and have remained so. Here is a familiar example : — 
 
 Mignonne, voici ravril, 
 Le printemps revient d'exil. 
 Tous les nids sont en querelle, 
 L'air est pur, le ciel leger, 
 Et partout Ton voit neiger 
 Des plumes de tourterelle. 
 
 Frangois Coppee joined the Parnassians, but was never 
 labelled a " decadent " like some of his youthful associates 
 in that movement. His poetry is wholesome and free from 
 mannerisms, but it often runs perilously near prose. He 
 cultivated the realistic muse in direct relation to the lives 
 of the humble and unpretentious (Les Intimites, 1868, Les 
 Humbles, 1872), and for this reason his poems are far more 
 familiarly known in France than those of Sully-Prudhomme, 
 although they show less imaginative power. The trying 
 circumstances under which this Parisian of Paris grew to 
 manhood, his intimate knowledge of the heroism and virtue 
 of a multitude of small people who make an unselfish and 
 noble fight through life with adversity and various afflictions 
 influenced greatly the direction of his sympathies and gave 
 to many of his poems their charm of feeling. In these 
 are to be found true and pathetic pictures of the struggles 
 and hardships of the working class, and the petits bourgeois 
 of Paris. By his sympathies he is a kinsman of Crabbe, 
 although the scenes described by both, and their methods, 
 are so dissimilar. Coppee stands unrivalled as the poet of 
 the Paris faubourgs and crowded suburbs, with the joys and 
 sorrows of the populace. He could find poetic inspiration 
 5— (2398) 
 
66 France of the French 
 
 in such subjects as The Little Grocer of Montroiige. His fame 
 will rest much more on his simple and forcible treatment of 
 that Parisian hfe, which is anything but fashionable, but is 
 full of human interest, than on his later pieces for the stage : 
 Severo Torelli, Les Jacobites, and Pour la Couronne, all of 
 which are in verse. It is to be regretted that during the 
 last ten years of his Hfe he allowed his patriotism and his 
 religious fervour to draw him into the malodorous swamp of 
 politics. He was elected an Academician in 1884. 
 
 M. Jean Richepin's life has been a protest against conven- 
 tion and all restraints, social and intellectual. A hater of 
 harness and bit, he has been one of the wildest 
 
 ^'J^^^ of wild riders on the savannas of hterature, 
 Richepin. , .. . , , , , , , 
 
 and if m these later days he has come to be 
 
 so far tamed as to wear a cocked hat and sword, and green 
 coat with black braid — the uniform of an Academician — we 
 may be sure that only the necessity of working, and the 
 cooling down of the blood with advancing years, would 
 have brought him to this highly civilized state of mansuetude. 
 His owm explanation of his character is his passion for 
 independence and freedom. There is a legend, which he has 
 himself encouraged, that there is some gypsy blood in his veins, 
 and his wanderings all about France, when a young man, with 
 a company of nomads, sleeping a la belle etoile, or in a caravan, 
 according to the weather, and exhibiting his accomplishments 
 as an athlete at the fairs, for which profession nature has 
 well fashioned him, are a sufficient proof that the vagabond 
 spirit, of which he is proud, is not a vain boast. It might 
 well be supposed that a man with such tastes must have 
 greatly neglected his intellectual training ; but the notion 
 would lead wide of the truth. The dark-skinned, curly- 
 haired young "Hercules of the fair" had already estab- 
 lished his reputation by the university test as the best latinist 
 of his generation in France. To his familiarity with the Latin 
 classics, his firm grasp of the parent idiom of the French 
 language, much of the conciseness and vigour of expression 
 
Literature under the Republic 67 
 
 to be noted in his poetic work is attributed. After his 
 gypsying, and when he had settled down to work with his pen, 
 in Paris, the vagabond spirit would imperiously sieze him from 
 time to time and carry him far away to strange adventures. 
 There is a story, that being one day in London, very empty in 
 pocket and otherwise, he was attracted by the blandishments 
 of a recruiting sergeant, from whom he managed to get a 
 dinner ; but the British army did not get this recruit. 
 
 M. Jean Richepin was born in 1849, and may therefore be 
 claimed by the Republic as one of its own poets, the more so 
 as his sympathies are entirely democratic. In his Chanson 
 des Gueux, to which he owes a literary celebrity, made by a 
 tour de main like a pancake, he stepped forward as the poet- 
 brother of all the tramps and ragged- Jacks in France. Had 
 a " Cour de miracles " still existed, he would have made 
 himself its accredited poet, with or without a stipend. His 
 daring use of language in this work — only made tolerable by 
 the consciousness of his artistic power over words — had 
 much to do with its quick success. He appeared to give 
 himself the mission of rescuing language from the gutter, 
 and bestowing upon it the rights of literary citizenship. Of 
 his subsequent works, La Glu and Les Blasphemes are the 
 best known. He has never been guilty of weakness in 
 composition, but he is often fatiguing by the exaggeration 
 of his sympathy in directions where it is mostly wasted, and 
 by a cynical realism that sometimes touches the morbid. 
 
 A poet of undoubted originality within a limited horizon, 
 and who expressed the feeling of certain moods with a depth 
 
 of sadness and a sincerity only possible in a 
 Paul Verlaine. man who has suffered much by his own 
 
 flaws and failings, was Paul Verlaine (1844- 
 1896). He started on his literary course with the Parnassians, 
 but when the movement was becoming rather one of words 
 than of ideas, and under the pretext of attaining greater 
 perfection of form, too much beryl, amethyst, and chrysolite 
 was introduced into the sonnets with which the first ten years 
 
68 France of the French 
 
 of the Republic were flooded, Paul Verlaine led the reaction 
 against rules and the cult of form, and employing greater 
 freedom, endeavoured to suggest rather than express the 
 vague and the mysterious in human sentiment. Mawkishness, 
 or hopeless obscurity, was more often than not the conse- 
 quence. It was not long before most of these " symbolistes," 
 as they were at first termed, or as they described themselves, 
 were given the less flattering name of " decadents." Although 
 Verlaine was generally inspired by an unhealthy muse 
 indicative of his own sad ending in a hospital, the accents 
 of his moral distress found expression at times in true poetic 
 form, and these utterances of a soul in pain have, since his 
 death, awakened sympathy and pity, of which he had but 
 scant experience during the closing period of his forlorn 
 career. His principal poems were published under the titles, 
 Sagesse (1881), and Jadis et Naguere (1885). 
 
 A bust of Verlaine by Rodo has been in the Luxembourg 
 Gardens since 19 1 1. There is now a society for the study of the 
 works of this strangely modern poet and the spread of his fame. 
 
 The right place for M. Edmond Rostand in this book would 
 be in the chapter on Dramatists, if he were not a poet above 
 
 M. Edmond any other claim to distinction. Born in 1868, 
 Rostand. his celebrity dates from the year 1897, when 
 his comedy in verse, Cyrano de Bergerac, was produced on the 
 Paris stage. The polish of style, the delicate touch, the 
 graceful fancy, the musical charm of the verse, together with 
 the mingled humour and pathos in the treatment of the 
 subject, led the public captive at once. The spell was 
 irresistible. M. Rostand had, however, produced earlier 
 work : Les Musardises (1890), Les Romanesques (1895). 
 Since 1897 he has written one other piece in verse, L'Aiglon, 
 the interest of which is almost wholly concentrated upon 
 that ghost-like figure in modern history, the young Duke of 
 Reichstadt, son of Bonaparte and Marie-Louise. The success 
 of this work, both in a literary and theatrical sense, was far 
 from equalling that of Cyrano de Bergerac. 
 
Photo by 
 
 Nadar 
 
 M. ROSTAND 
 
Literature under the Republic 69 
 
 M. Rostand's next work was Chantecler, a dramatic poem 
 produced at the Porte-Saint-Martin Theatre in 1910. It 
 fell far short of expectations, which was partly due to inju- 
 dicious puffery in the Press extended over the long period of 
 the work's incubation. It was quickly perceived that M. 
 Rostand's idea of making the hfe of a poultry yard with a dog, 
 a blackbird and a hen pheasant added, serve as an allegory 
 of human life, was not a working one for the stage. Men and 
 women feathered and bewattled so as to resemble, as far as 
 may be, fowls can be nothing but caricatures of fowls, and as 
 such they are only fit figures for a piece so fantastic as to 
 exclude the notion of a philosophical and polished poem, which 
 Chantecler reaUy is. The example of Aristophanes does not 
 remove the objection. There are passages of great poetic 
 beauty in Chantecler and the pathos contained in the final 
 disillusions of the cock — a typical Gascon in his bold self- 
 worship — is felt by any sensitive reader of the poem, but 
 when the verses are declaimed by an actor spurred and fea- 
 thered, even by one so qualified as M. Guitry, the sense of 
 incongruity overbears the poetic impression. The elder 
 Coquelin would have played the part of " Chantecler " had 
 not his career been suddenly closed by death. The piece had 
 but a short run in Paris compared to the phenomenally long 
 one of Cyrano de Bergerac. 
 
 One who has had a singularly mixed celebrity is M. Paul 
 
 Deroulede, who was born (1846) with literary salt in his blood 
 
 M. Paul — at least one may suppose so — his mother 
 
 Deroulede. being a sister of Emile Augier. He was a 
 student in the Latin Quarter when the war of 1870 broke 
 out, and his patriotism, both ardent and combative, led him 
 at once to shoulder the rifle. His young brother of seventeen 
 followed his example. Both were at Sedan, where the younger, 
 being dangerously wounded, was carried out of action by 
 the elder. Paul Deroulede went to Germany as a prisoner. 
 By inspiring his gaoler's daughter with the tender passion, 
 he prompted her to connive at his escape. After a series of 
 dramatic adventures he reached Bohemia, then Vienna, 
 
70 France of the French 
 
 and returned to France by Turin. He joined the army of 
 the Loire, and before the end of the war he had been in twenty 
 engagements, distinguishing himself by reckless bravery. As 
 an officer his career would have been a brilliant one, but 
 peace having been concluded he chose that of letters. He 
 became the poet of the Revanche, and under the influence 
 of his intense patriotism and martial ardour, he wrote lyrics 
 marked by a poetic fire and energy of expression, by com- 
 parison with which most of his work done in calmer moods 
 seems strangely weak and colourless. He must be at white 
 heat for the muse to inspire him. After a very agitated 
 political career, including some years of exile at San Sebastian 
 in consequence of his having endeavoured to provoke a 
 seditious demonstration of troops in Paris when the Dreyfus 
 fever was at its climax, he has quieted down, and his time 
 is mostly spent now upon his land near Angouleme, where he 
 leads inoffensive days, like Horace on his Sabine farm. 
 
 Contemporary France is rich in the number of her poets, 
 but this is a kind of wealth that does not threaten to lead 
 the public mind into dangerous flights of exultation. One 
 
 of the most interesting of poetic figures 
 MiSSr ^^ Frederic Mistral, who was born in 1830, 
 
 and who devoted more than half a century to 
 the ideal of reviving the literary reputation of the Proven9al 
 language ; but although the dignity and charm of his char- 
 acter, uniting a rustic simplicity of life and tastes with a most 
 cultured mind, is widely appreciated (he was awarded the 
 Nobel prize in 1904), nothing is more certain than that his 
 dream can never be realized otherwise than in the work of a 
 few enthusiasts like himself. Their Romance dialect will 
 remain as much a foreign tongue as Italian and Spanish to 
 the vast majority of their own countrymen, who, instead of 
 giving to it the study due to a language, will continue to 
 speak of it contemptuously as a patois. Besides his poetical 
 works, of which the most important is Mireillo, the subject 
 of which has been made popular by Gounod's opera Mireille, 
 he is the author of a Provencal dictionary. 
 
Literature under the Republic 71 
 
 M. Henri de Regnier may be considered the prince of the 
 
 poetic coterie known as the " Symbolistes," who cultivate a 
 
 kind of suggestive obscurity of idea and 
 
 de^R^nier expression, but this does not disguise the 
 
 charm that Hes in the musical flow of his 
 
 verse. The following quatrain from La Cite des Eaux may be 
 
 taken as an example of his subtle power of suggestion by 
 
 the mere music of verse — 
 
 II faudra que le bruit des divines abeilles 
 
 Qui volent dans I'air tiede et pesent sur les fleurs 
 
 Ait longuement vibre au fond de vos oreilles 
 Sa rustique murmure et sa chaude rumeur. 
 
 A fresh collection of poems, Le Miroir des Heures, was 
 published in 1911, and M. de Regnier was soon afterwards 
 received a member of the Academy. 
 
 Among other poets who have found sincere admirers while 
 remaining doubtfully known to the public, are M. Catulle 
 Mendes (died 1909), M. Edmond Haraucourt, 
 Other Poets. M. Leon Dierx, M. Maurice Rollinat, M. Jean 
 Aicard, M. Jean Lorrain, M. S. Mallarme 
 (1842-1898), and Armand Silvestre (1837-1901). The last- 
 named, after writing many sonnets and other lyrics of great 
 merit, almost abandoned the muse in later life, and then 
 became popular as a writer of contes and gaudrioles, the 
 unclean humour of which obtained him the reputation of a 
 modern Rabelais. M. Haraucourt and M. Aicard are 
 Academicians. 
 
 After this rapid glance at the poetic literature of France 
 under the Republic, we will now return to the prose writers 
 who have flourished during the same period. 
 
 The brightest, the most original, the most captivating, 
 
 and at the same time the most healthy literary genius — the 
 
 word genius, which should be usedwith great 
 
 Daudet^ circumspection, seems in this case rightly 
 
 applied — that has shone in the intellectual 
 
 atmosphere of the Third Republic, was Alphonse Daudet 
 
72 France of the French 
 
 (1840-1897). He belonged partly to the Empire, but the 
 most prolific period of his literary life was after the war. 
 Nevertheless, some of his very early work should rank with 
 his best. His Lettres de mon Moulin, for example, a collection 
 of contes — a word that can only be awkwardly translated 
 " short stories " — most of them full of the life, the colour, 
 the humour of his native Provence, is one of the most exqui- 
 site pearls of modern literature. Apparently artless, several 
 of these contes are the perfection of art. If anything of 
 the literary output of the last half century should live, 
 Lettres de mon Moulin should be with it ; but this output 
 has been so prodigious that with the truth before us that 
 the human mind, like any common vessel, can hold but a 
 certain quantity, and not a drop or scruple more, it is 
 hazardous to make any predictions as to what will live in 
 our later Hterature. 
 
 It is a misfortune to literature that Daudet, who had such 
 great qualities of his own, should in his younger days have 
 fallen so much under the influence of the ultra-realists, 
 notably of the brothers de Goncourt. He caught their 
 frenzy for note-taking, and wherever he went after his place 
 was fixed among the literary workers of Paris, he had a 
 little book in his pocket in which he jotted down impressions. 
 In this way he gathered materials for his series of books 
 reflecting as in a mirror numerous phases of Paris hfe, as 
 well as typical characters that were to be met with on the 
 boulevard and in the drawing-room, or in the depths of the 
 great Parisian whirlpool as far as he could penetrate them. 
 Such works were Le Nabad, Les Rois en Exil, Numa Roumestan, 
 and Sapho. Notwithstanding his acquired faith in the 
 documentary method applied to fiction, the imagination of 
 the poet, and the charm belonging to personality so over- 
 flowed his self-imposed task, that these and other books 
 did more than interest the public for a season ; the pathos, 
 the tenderness, the indefinable charm of the writer sank 
 deep into many hearts. The true Daudet was a pathetic 
 
Literature under the Republic 73 
 
 poet and humourist who wrote in prose. One feels that he 
 was much more in his natural element while writing about 
 Tartarin of Tarascon, with an imagination quite free from 
 the shackles of " documents/' than he was when working at 
 his elaborate pictures of Paris life, which were too much 
 " composed," in the painter's sense of the word. He was 
 much more at home with his foot on the bridge of Tarascon 
 than when it was on the pave de Paris. Daudet's sense of 
 the comic is always closely related to pity and pathos. The 
 three books containing the adventures of Tartarin make a 
 work of imaginative satirical humour which should be ranked 
 with the productions of the great masters in this branch of 
 literature. 
 
 If genius was a curse to any man, it was so to Guy de 
 
 Maupassant (1850-1893). Whether it be considered high or 
 
 low, the literary power that he possessed was 
 
 Maupassant. S^^^^^' ^^ ^^ ^^^^^ P^^^°^ ^^ ^^^^^^ ^ 
 morbid tendency in a certain ferocity of 
 
 sensuality, from which it passed on to a dismal misanthropy, 
 
 and then from madness to death in an asylum at the age of 
 
 forty- three. Had he remained a government clerk, which 
 
 was the position he was occupying at the age of twenty- five, 
 
 after having done military service as a volunteer during the 
 
 war, and had not the clamorous encouragement of the public 
 
 after the appearance of Boule de Suif rendered it impossible 
 
 for him to be anything else than a successful author, it is 
 
 safe to say that Guy de Maupassant would not have ended 
 
 so young and so miserably. As a government clerk in the 
 
 Naval Department he was earning {60 a year. A few years 
 
 later he was in receipt of a large income from the sale of his 
 
 books, which were turned out of hand under the excitement 
 
 of a veritable literary frenzy. This frenzy was fatal to him. 
 
 The genius of the writer was not so much in the freshness 
 
 of his conceptions, in the originality of his ideas, as in his 
 
 literary sense, which was truly marvellous. He had the 
 
 power of making a thought luminous with a peculiar glow of 
 
74 France of the French 
 
 expression, often a very sinister glow. A nephew of Flaubert, 
 he considered himself a disciple of the author of Madame 
 B ovary, but he developed a style that was truly personal. 
 He threw himself into the " naturalist " movement with 
 ardour, swung the thurifer to Zola with other young inen of 
 his time, and was one of the contributors to Les Soirees de 
 Medan. It was, in fact, in this collection of short stories 
 by members of the coterie that Boule de Suif made its 
 appearance. 
 
 The great quality of Guy de Maupassant is descriptive 
 intensity. It placed him above Zola, for he could give in a 
 few words the whole picture and all the sensations of a scene, 
 which the former presented in cinematographic fashion, 
 detail after detail. Not that Maupassant abhorred detail, 
 or flinched from the horrible and revolting ; but he knew 
 instinctively how to winnow in order to produce the fullest 
 literary effect. He was a great artist with low ideals, or 
 with others that got drowned early and whose corpses he 
 could not throw overboard, but was condemned to carry to 
 the end of his voyage. This may explain the great change 
 in him after a too exuberant youth to a maturity embittered 
 by increasing melancholy and pessimism, which fostered a 
 morose and unhealthy tendency to throw into relief cruelty, 
 selfishness, lust — all that is most damning in human nature, 
 with an intensity of purpose and interest much more artistic 
 than moral. Notwithstanding their generally depressing 
 effect, such works as Bel Ami, Fort comme la Mort, Une Vie, 
 and Notre Cceur, will long be read on account of their literary 
 brilliancy. 
 
 The case of Emile Zola (1840-1902) is one that should offer 
 matter for reflection to authors who succeed in hypnotizing 
 the public, and are apt to conclude from 
 this that their fame has been established 
 for ever. The greater part of his work is fast becoming little 
 else than a literary curiosity. It is difficult to say whether 
 the best or the worst of it will be the more attractive ten 
 
Literature under the Republic 75 
 
 years hence to the generation that is now cutting its names 
 on school desks, but according to the signs of the times the 
 readers who are coming will not crave for any of it. And 
 yet, some twenty years ago and later, all France was talking 
 of Zola and his naturalism, and most of the literary critics 
 were quarrelling over him. As a maker of books for sale his 
 success during his flourishing period was greater than that 
 of any of his contemporaries. The clerk in Hachette's 
 publishing house shot up from obscurity like a rocket, filling 
 the firmament with strange sparks and disquieting odours. 
 He carried naturalism to its perfection, but also to its death. 
 His strenuous efforts to set forth the workings of the assumed 
 law of moral heredity in the Rougon-Macquart series proved 
 nothing, because there is no such law known to man. The 
 theory which he propounded with such scientific unction 
 rests upon hypothesis. His scientific scheme merely pro- 
 vided him with a plausible pretext for satisfying depraved 
 curiosity by drawing to the surface all that lies deep in many 
 a pool of vileness foully human. To suggest that his success 
 did not rest on remarkable talent and power would be absurd. 
 The whole question here is the direction of talent and power. 
 That the direction was wrong is proved by his complete 
 failure to hold the public after having captured it by exciting 
 and gratifying its curiosity. When the literary motive is 
 morbid and vitiated, the work that it produces is condemned 
 to death. Who has read UAssommoir, or La Bete Humaine 
 twice ? Once is enough for anybody of sane mind. No 
 lovers of literature are scared by mere coarseness and gross- 
 ness. Most of the great humourists have been very coarse ; 
 but Zola had no spark of humour. He worked with the muck- 
 rake in a sort of grim frenzy, without any moderating sense 
 such as belongs to the just perception of human incongruities. 
 Therefore his pictures are full of false tones. A critic of 
 no less authority than Jules Lemaitre has said that Zola's 
 talent was really that of the epic poet, because by sheer 
 force of imagination he could throw extraordinary life into 
 
76 France of the French 
 
 such things as a great shop and a great railway station. It 
 is not easy to picture a poet in the boots of an egoutier, but 
 the intense feeling of living reality that Zola threw into 
 many of his descriptive passages, as, for instance, in the 
 whole story of Sedan (La Debacle), indicates a prodigious 
 faculty of imagination. 
 
 The remains of Emile Zola received the honour of sepulture 
 in the Pantheon. This decision of Parliament, however, was 
 much more related to the writer's civic courage in connection 
 with the Dreyfus affair than to his work as a man of 
 letters. 
 
 Emile Zola split on the rock of his physiological theory, 
 and the view of his declining star may have stimulated 
 
 M. Paul Bourget to persevere in the direction 
 M. Paul Q^ psychology. He was bom in 1852, and 
 
 began to be known about the age of thirty 
 as a vigorous writer with fresh ideas on psychological problems, 
 but only as an essayist and critic. A few years later began 
 to appear the succession of psychological novels : Crime 
 d' Amour, Andre Cornelis, Mensonges, Le Disciple, Un Cceur 
 de Femme, Cosmopolis, L'Etape, etc., on which his fame rests. 
 There is more than a trace of naturalism in M. Bourget' s 
 work, especially in his earUer productions. In his youth its 
 influence was very much in the air, and he could hardly 
 escape it. But as his powers ripened, and he felt the ground 
 growing firmer under his feet, he became more and more 
 fascinated by the problems of the human mind, and pursued 
 the study without the cumbersome baggage of pseudo- 
 science and hypothetic laws of heredity. Mental and moral 
 analysis of the most delicately subtle sort became woven 
 with his stories of modern life and society. M. Bourget has 
 often been spoken of, and sometimes with a suggestion of 
 contempt, as the favourite author of the woman of fashion. 
 Without doubt his talent has obtained for him much success 
 among ladies who live chiefly to shine in society ; but his 
 work does not by any means appeal to the frivolous-minded 
 
Literature under the Republic 77 
 
 In fact, his tendency is rather to overdo psychology and to 
 interrupt the interest of a story by excursions along misty 
 paths of moral analysis — an intellectual exercise that the 
 novel-reading woman usually abhors ; but it is only natural 
 that the sex whose psychological problems have absorbed 
 his interest and stimulated the searching activity of his 
 mind to a degree so little flattering to men, should respond 
 by taking an exceedingly keen interest in his work, especially 
 in the social regions whose labyrinths he has explored with 
 an almost exclusive passion. But his experiments in that 
 ever fascinating alchemy, which consists of penetrating the 
 impenetrable mysteries of the feminine soul, are not always 
 flattering to wornen. It is the interest that he takes in the 
 subject which is so. And then he is very indulgent, having 
 nothing in common with the woman-scourging critic, with 
 a lingering affection for such good old institutions as the 
 ducking-stool. When he is cruel to women, he makes them 
 feel that it is only to be kind ; which is another proof of 
 his exceeding cleverness. Gathering years have deepened 
 and broadened his human sympathies, and taken off the 
 unpleasant edge of a too eager spirit of analysis and over- 
 confidence in its penetration. Moreover, like several other 
 eminent French writers, he has undergone during the last 
 twenty years a very marked philosophical evolution from 
 scepticism to belief in the supernatural origin of religion. 
 His successive works are an interesting psychological study 
 of the movement in himself towards Christian idealism. 
 M. Bourget entered the Academy in 1894. His novel, Un 
 Divorce, and its stage adaptation are mentioned in the chapter 
 on " Family Life." In recent years the theatre as a means 
 of addressing the public has had a growing attraction for 
 him. (See " Dramatists.") 
 
 M. Maurice Barres, who was bom in 1862, followed M. Paul 
 Bourget along the seductive paths of psychological fiction, 
 and became also enamoured of the nebulous ideal of ex- 
 plaining the eternal enigma, woman. There is, however, 
 
78 France of the French 
 
 much more mere dilettantism in his work than in his senior's, 
 and therefore a good deal less earnestness. In his three 
 
 earlier novels, published as a '' Psychological 
 ^'sfrrL"''^ Trilogy " under the general title Le Culte du 
 
 Moi, but distinguished as Sous I'CEil des Bar- 
 bares, V Homme Libre, and Le Jardin de Berenice, his paraded 
 lack of all convictions suggests too much a literary pose. The 
 following words are his : " Dogmas and codes have put pity 
 and justice into our blood. Now that we have assimilated 
 the greater part of them, their formulas are only a source of 
 embarrassment to us." The obvious reflection upon this is : 
 If the stream no longer flows from the mountain, dryness and 
 death will settle upon the valley. M. Barres has, however, 
 been moved by a much healthier spirit in his later work, 
 for example, in his " Social Triology " : Les Deracines, 
 L'Appel au Soldat, Leurs Figures. His strength lies not in 
 his analytical psychology, which is apt to be tedious and 
 obscure, but in his grace of style and poetic sense, whenever 
 he chooses to be simple. His talent as a literary artist is 
 set forth in nothing more forcibly than in his descriptions 
 and impressions of Spain and Italy collected under the rather 
 alarming title : Du Sang, de la Volupte et de la Mort. M. 
 Barres was elected to the Academy and also to the Chamber 
 of Deputies in 1906. The less he meddles with politics the 
 greater will be the gain to literature, but it must be allowed 
 that to an overworked writer an occasional hour spent at 
 the Palais Bourbon may be an agreeable and amusing change, 
 especially when £600 a year is paid as an " indemnity." 
 M. Barres is now a champion of Conservatism and religion. 
 M. Pierre Loti (Julien Viaud), the most poetic and romantic 
 of naval officers, is a writer who cannot be easily ticketed 
 
 as belonging to any school, or coterie, of 
 (Julien ^Viaudf noveUsts. He is a school unto himself, and 
 
 that passion for freedom which made him 
 sail the seas and maintain his connection with the navy, 
 notwithstanding his early and brilliant literary success, is 
 
Literature under the Republic 79 
 
 reflected in the independence of his style and his methods 
 as a writer. He was born in 1850. After the pubhcation 
 of his first book, Le Manage de Loti (1880), there appeared 
 in rapid succession, Le Roman d'un Spahi and Mon Frere 
 Yves. A few years later came Pecheur d'Islande (1886), the 
 best known of all his books, and the one in which the peculiar 
 quality of his imaginative power is shown to greatest advan- 
 tage. Nothing could be more vividly depicted than this 
 struggle of the Breton cod-fishers with the forces of nature 
 in the Polar seas. Pierre Loti has but little skill as a con- 
 structor of plots : his talent lies in his sense of the picturesque 
 and the poetic force that enables him to give life to his im- 
 pressions and to fix them with a few strong dashes upon the 
 literary canvas. He is an author who never fails to interest, 
 because he feels so intensely what he writes, but he is not a 
 great novelist or a deep thinker. Some of his works, Le Desert 
 and Jerusalem, for instance, are really books of travel, but 
 it is precisely in these that his talent appears to find its most 
 genial and brilliant mode of expression. He entered the 
 Academy in 189 1. 
 
 M. Anatole France, who was born in 1844, is the acknow- 
 ledged chief in the domain of fiction of those living French 
 
 writers who, owing to a certain tendency of 
 ^Fr^n^e^^^ thought or studied mental attitude, have 
 
 come to be termed " dilettantists." Allusion 
 has already been made to the movement in the remarks on 
 Renan — the strongest of all influences working in this 
 particular direction. It is, however, closely related to the 
 scepticism of Montaigne. The philosophy of M. Anatole 
 France and his followers — if it may be termed a philosophy — 
 rests on premisses which are merely negations. Thus we 
 know nothing absolutely to help us to understand the mystery 
 of life and its origin, the human mind being incapable of 
 separating the true from the false in abstract ideas. All is 
 vagueness and incertitude, and to try to see on the other 
 side of veils of impenetrable thickness is waste of time and 
 
80 France of the French 
 
 intellect, also waste of abundant opportunities of cultivating 
 the pleasures of the mind, which we may seize and enjoy 
 not a whit less, because all our idealism is mere pcLStime and 
 vanity, except in the present satisfaction that it brings to 
 him who cultivates it. All literary and artistic sensations, 
 all zeal for learning, all enthusiasm for the beautiful, whether 
 concrete or abstract, are mere phases of sensualism. One 
 man is enchained by the baser satisfactions of the senses, 
 another is enthralled by artistic aspirations and the loveliness 
 of the visible ; but these are only differences of degree, or 
 direction, not of kind. The peculiarity of this dilettantism 
 is that it professes to be opposed to pessimism. Because 
 nothing endures and everything is uncertain, is no reason, 
 in the opinion of M. France, why people should not be happy 
 while life lasts : their duty to themselves is to indulge freety 
 in all sports of mind and body. In his own mind there is 
 no revealed melancholy. He appears to revel in his own 
 artistic and intellectual sensations. They belong to his 
 nature, and he considers that he has made the most 
 of them — for himself. Dilettantism cannot be anything 
 else but selfish. It is the philosophy of self- gratification 
 and self -worship. 
 
 As a writer, M. Anatole France takes one of the highest 
 places occupied by living Frenchmen. As a thinker the same 
 distinction should not be allowed him, for his dilettantism, 
 stripped of its literary ornaments, is surely one of the most 
 forlorn and naked of beggars. Among the best kno\\Ti works 
 of fiction by M. France are : Thais, Le Lys Rouge, Monsieur 
 Bergeret a Paris, and Les Noces Corinthiennes. That, however, 
 on which his fame should chiefly rest is one of his earliest 
 works : Le Crime de Sylvestre Bonnard, published in 1861. 
 
 The caustic and satirical wit of this author has found an 
 outlet in such works as L'lle des Pengouins and Les Femmes de 
 la Barbe-Bleu et autres Contes Merveilleux (1910), in which he 
 affects to be the apologist of Blue Beard, a much-mahgned 
 gentleman of France. 
 
Photo by 
 
 Ghautier 
 
 M. ANATOLE FRANCE 
 
Literature under the Republic 81 
 
 Although the literary reputation of the late M. Ludovic 
 Ludovic Halevy (1834-1908) belongs more to the 
 Halevy. stage than to what is termed in France ** la 
 librairie," the appearance of his novel, L'Abbe Constantin, 
 toward the close of the nineteenth century was an event of 
 considerable importance. Its healthy tone and strong effect 
 of character drawing, produced by simple means, came like 
 a gust of cool storm-wind to a sultry, miasmic city. It 
 had a marked influence on turning the tide of naturalism. 
 La Famille Cardinal is another well-known novel by this 
 author. M. Halevy entered the Academy in 1884. His 
 famous collaboration with Henri Meilhac for stage purposes 
 is noticed elsewhere. 
 
 M. Georges Ohnet is another novelist who gave a vigorous 
 
 impulse to the same reaction. Too much Zolaism had 
 
 brought about a sickness of the mind, and 
 
 ^*Ohn°t^^^ the appearance of Le Maitre de Forges 
 happened most opportunely for its author. 
 It is a plain story of middle-class life, with a good deal of 
 dramatic interest, of which the phenomenal success of the 
 stage adaptation is a proof, and coming when it did it was a 
 refreshing one. M. Ohnet's literary success was, however, 
 not maintained by his subsequent works. He was born in 
 1848. 
 
 M. Marcel Prevost has for a good many years been one of 
 
 the most popular of French fiction writers. His ambition 
 
 has been fully rewarded, for throughout his 
 
 M. Marcel work there is evidence of consummate 
 Prevost. 
 
 cleverness m attainmg success, without any 
 
 cumbersome baggage in the way of ideals. He was born 
 
 in 1862, and is therefore still reckoned with young writers. 
 
 He has the reputation of being a great favourite with the 
 
 novel-reading Frenchwoman, which goes to support the 
 
 notion that women fall in love with their least flattering 
 
 critics, at all events in literature. He is a subtle and ruthless 
 
 analyst of the society woman, and his contempt for women 
 
 <3— (2398) 
 
82 France of the French 
 
 in general may be inferred from his work without much 
 risk of doing him injustice. If his pictures of French society, 
 and especially Paris society, are to be taken as studied from 
 the life, either the author's experience has been singularly 
 unfortunate, or the state of morals among the extensive 
 class who have time and means to cultivate pleasure and 
 idleness is deplorable. But the Hterary parti pris, and 
 exaggeration for the needs of sensationalism, are so obvious 
 in his work, that this should save the French women from 
 much of the reproach which he inferentially casts upon them. 
 His Demi-vierges, which had an immense succes de librairie, 
 is an example of the little reliability that can be placed 
 upon his pictures of contemporary life in France in any but 
 a very restricted sense. M. Prevost censures the deadly 
 sin which is the everlasting resource of the crowd of French 
 novelists and dramatists, but most of his literature turns 
 round it, and while he affects to abhor the gangrene, his 
 pathological details concerning it are unnecessarily minute, 
 and serve no useful purpose. In reality all this is no more 
 than the art of making books to sell. Whatever may be 
 thought of this author's influence and the direction of 
 his mind, his skill as a writer cannot be questioned. One 
 of his later works. La Fausse Bourgeoise, is a scathing 
 criticism of that middle class to which he, in common 
 with most people in France, who do not live by manual 
 labour, belongs. Pierre et Therese (1910) is a story alert in 
 style and dramatic in movement. It was followed by 
 Femininites in 1911. M. Marcel Prevost is a member of 
 the Academy. 
 
 M. Paul Hervieu is another writer who has given himself 
 the mission of describing modem society, especially the 
 "seamy side" of it. He is a deft satirist, 
 Hervieu ^^^^ ^ leaning towards caricature ; neverthe- 
 less, some of his pictures of ridiculous rasta- 
 quoueres, dangerous adventurers of exotic origin with 
 fictitious or doubtful titles who figure in Paris clubs and 
 
Literature under the Republic 83 
 
 drawing-rooms, are drawn with a line-engraver's precision. 
 His style often lacks equipoise, and his ideas are sometimes 
 so tangled that it is not easy to unravel them ; but the 
 lancet of irony and mockery that he uses has a keen edge. 
 Peints par eux-memes, Flirt, and U Armature, are am.ong his 
 well-known society novels. He is also a dramatist. M. 
 Hervieu was born in 1857. 
 
 A writer of real talent and very strange contrasts of 
 
 character, which were fully reflected in his work, was the 
 
 late J. K. Huysmans (1848-1907). His earlier books are 
 
 stained by ultra-naturalism and disregard of 
 
 J. K. decency, but in later years he became very 
 
 ri.uvsms.ris 
 
 much of a religious mystic, put on an Oblate 's 
 habit, and led for some time a semi-monastic life, while 
 continuing his literary work. This, however, underwent a 
 complete change of direction, of which the best illustration 
 is La Cathedrale. Here he enters into the spirit of Gothic 
 architecture and Christian symbolism with extraordinary 
 fervour. In En Route he describes the circumstances under 
 which he entered a Trappist monastery, and the conflict of 
 his thoughts while there. His originality as a writer is 
 marred by eccentricities of style and expression. Although 
 born in France, he was of Dutch origin. 
 
 M. Pierre Louys is a writer of the fleshly and erotic school 
 who has come much into notice of late. He professes un- 
 bounded admiration for everything Hellenic, 
 
 M. Pierre ^^^ prefers the frank aesthetic looseness of 
 Louys. . ^ , , - ^ 
 
 antique morals to the manners of modern 
 
 society, which he considers loose enough but h5^ocritical. 
 His Hellenism makes him appear sometimes an apologist of 
 licence, and leads him to indulge the depraved curiosity of 
 readers while endeavouring to persuade them that he is 
 instructive and edifying. He is the author of Aphrodite and 
 Chansons de Bilitis. When scandal was caused by the 
 appearance of naked women on the stage of Paris music- 
 halls, he came forward in the press as an apologist of nudity 
 
84 France of the French 
 
 for scenic and choregraphic purposes. He cannot be charged 
 
 with inconsistency. M. Pierre Louys was bom in 1870. 
 
 The French, as a nation, are but feeble lovers of nature 
 
 and rural life, although they have produced such painters as 
 
 Millet and Corot. They revel in dejeuners 
 
 Writers of ^^^ Vherhe, and fetes champetres, but their 
 Rustic Stones. ' / f ' 
 
 ideal pictures of rustic enjoyment are still 
 
 very much after Watteau. Mr. Thomas Hardy, had he been 
 
 a Frenchman, would have appealed to too restricted a public 
 
 to have made the reputation that is his in England. 
 
 The late Andre Theuriet (1833-1907) had a very fine 
 
 sensitiveness to impressions from nature, and he wrote a 
 
 series of stories of which the best known are 
 Andre Theuriet. La Maison des deux Barbeaux, Sauvageonne, 
 
 and Le Refuge. They are marked by elevation 
 of thought and pure idyllic charm. But although he had many 
 enthusiastic admirers, he had the sagacity not to cut himself 
 adrift from his administrative employment. For the high 
 merit of his literary work he was, however, rewarded with a 
 seat in the Academy, which means income as well as honour. 
 M. Emile Pouvillon (1840-1906) devoted his literary life 
 to describing in the form of fiction the manners and customs 
 
 and scenery of that most romantic, but little 
 Emik known, part of France, the Quercy and the 
 
 Rouergue. And this was done with the 
 realist's sense of exactness as well as with the feeUng of a 
 poet. There is delightful delicacy of touch in his pictures 
 of rustic life. His principal works are Jean de Jeanne and 
 Les Antihel. 
 
 M. Rene Bazin has done for the provinces of La Vendee 
 and Anjou what the writer just named has done for the 
 
 Quercy and the Rouergue. But M. Bazin 
 Baz^n^ has gone farther afield and has woven with 
 
 his romances fascinating descriptions of 
 Alsace, Sicily, and Spain. In La Terre qui Meurt he analyses 
 and exalts the sentiment that attaches man to the soil. 
 
Literature under the Republic 85 
 
 A later work of which the scenes and characters are also 
 rustic is Le Ble qui Leve. In this, as in the preceding story, 
 is to be noted a deep and full-hearted sympathy with the 
 toiler upon the land, whether in the fields or in the woods. 
 The author's pictures are vivid, his language is clean cut, 
 and keen observation combined with broad thoughtfulness 
 abounds everywhere. The land attracts him precisely 
 because his mind is not terre a terre. There is a good deal 
 of sadness in his work, but no pessimism. He believes in 
 the necessity of spiritualizing influences to sustain and 
 develop the virtue of human nature. His tendency is to 
 deal with sociological questions through the medium of 
 fiction, but he does not enforce his own views to the disturbance 
 of the interest of a story, and although reckoned with Catholic 
 writers, he shows a wise moderation and a philosophic aloof- 
 ness from politics which some others in the same field would 
 have done well to practise more. 
 
 In Manage de Mile. Gimel, Dactylographe (1910), M. Bazin 
 leaves the country for the city. Here we have a close and 
 sympathetic study of that Paris life which is honest and 
 wholesome in the midst of difiiculties and vicious contact. 
 M. Bazin is a member of the Academy. 
 
 Frenchwomen are not busy in the broad fields and narrow 
 
 lanes of literature to anything like the same extent as are 
 
 Englishwomen of the present day. This, 
 
 Women and however, is largely explained by the very 
 firmly rooted and widespread opinion in 
 France that the right and respectable destiny of woman is 
 to " occupy herself with her interior," which means to concern 
 herself with the affairs of her house. Throughout the 
 bourgeoisie in easy circumstances, more or less ambitious to 
 increase its influence by marriage and money, women who 
 follow an independent profession are regarded with prejudice 
 which may blend with pity or reprobation, as outward 
 circumstances and the intelligence of the critic decide. The 
 woman who writes or paints for money is very liable to get 
 
86 France of the French 
 
 tarred with the brush of Bohemianism by her friends and 
 connections, although in reality she may not have crossed 
 the frontier of Bohemia. Of course, the stage is considered 
 altogether out of the question in France as an outlet towards 
 which feminine talent and energy can be decently turned. 
 In the best circles of French society, where culture is real, 
 where broad ideas are inherited and snobbishness is almost 
 unknown, there are no narrow prejudices against women 
 who work, because they work ; but those who live in this 
 atmosphere are not many, and the tide of the new bourgeoisie, 
 with all its worship of success and, one is bound to add, 
 vulgarity of thought, is rising higher and higher. Nevertheless, 
 the number of women engaged in literary work is rapidly 
 increasing in France, and their influence upon the direction 
 of thought is, with few exceptions, elevating and 
 beneficial. 
 
 Madame Adam (Juliette Lamber, born in 1836) should be 
 first spoken of in treating of the literary women of France 
 
 under the Republic, on account of the number 
 Adam^ of years that she has been busy with her 
 
 industrious pen, and the position she has 
 occupied as a woman of high culture. She is one of the 
 few of her sex — if we except the forlorn social renovator 
 and idealist, Louise Michel, and others of that stamp — who 
 have acquired political influence during the period mentioned. 
 An ardent Republican herself, her salon in Paris was in the 
 early years of the Republic frequented by many notable 
 politicians, who with her were waging bitter war against the 
 traditions of the Monarchy, the Empire, and the Church. 
 She became styled, rather in mockery by those who resented 
 her activity, the " iEgeria of the Repubhc." At one time 
 her friendship with Gambetta and his belief in her sagacity 
 were such that it is known he often consulted her on affairs 
 of State. Then they quarrelled, on what ground is still a 
 matter of conjecture, but whatever the reason, the broken 
 harp was never mended. It is needless to speak here of 
 
Photo by 
 
 GYP 
 
 Otto 
 
Literature under the Republic 87 
 
 Madame Adam's political writings, either in the Nouvelle 
 Revue, which she founded in 1879, or in other publications, 
 for v/hatever objects were furthered by them they do not 
 belong to literature. As a writer of fiction her cultivated 
 sense of language and imaginative power have brought forth 
 desert fruit through the errors of a judgment out of equipoise. 
 Her neo-Hellenism is an absurdity. Greek ideals and views 
 of life cannot be restored for modern use. If Europe is to 
 become pagan again, it will have its own kind of paganism, 
 not that of the Hellenes, adapted and flavoured for its use by 
 Madame Adam. Payenne and Voyage Autour d'un Grand PiUy 
 are the books in which Madame Adam's ideas are clothed in 
 their most attractive garb. 
 
 The most popular lady novelist among contemporary 
 French writers is the Comtesse de Mirabeau-Martel — far 
 
 better known by her nom de guerre, " Gyp.' 
 "^yp " Gifted with a very shrewd perception of 
 de Martel). character, a quick sense of the ridiculous, 
 
 and an inexhaustible fund of vivacity, she has 
 written many stories of Paris life, which are satires as well 
 as novels. A society woman herself, she is well qualified for 
 the kind of work she has made especially her own, which is to 
 sketch and satirize the bores, humbugs, whited sepulchres, 
 wolves in sheep's fleeces, smiling ambassadors and ambassa- 
 dresses of the Devil, who are the pest of Paris cosmopolitan 
 society. She has a taste for slang, and being well bred can 
 indulge it boldly. She excels in sprightly dialogue, but is 
 capable of descriptive passages lit up with flashes of humour 
 and pathos. Her literary reputation was made by Petit Bob, 
 and this clever story is still its firmest foundation. " Gyp " 
 is much of a journalist as well as a novelist, and she made 
 the mistake of bounding into the inkiest part of the arena 
 of politics when the Dreyfus question was red-hot. She 
 evidently enjoyed the sport of pulling all Israel by the beard, 
 but she would have done better to have reserved her energy 
 for work in which her talents would have shown to greater 
 
88 France of the French 
 
 advantage and yielded a more lasting return. Madame de 
 Martel was bom in 1850. 
 
 There are several other women writers of note in France of 
 to-day. Conspicuous among these by the charm of unaffected 
 
 graceful style, and a delicacy of sentiment 
 ^^'wri^rs'^^^ that is the gift of high-strung feminine 
 
 sensibilities, is Madame Alphonse Daudet. 
 Her literary work is of modest bulk, but it is full of charm. 
 UEnfance d'une Parisienne, in which she gives us the impres- 
 sions of her childhood in Paris, is exquisite. Madame Pierre 
 de Coulevain has, during the last few years, taken a very 
 prominent place as a writer of clever and interesting stories, 
 marked by much insight into character and observation. 
 L'lle Inconnue, a study of English life, went far to strengthen 
 her position in the opinion of her own country-people, as 
 well as to make her better known in England. Sur la Branche 
 is another of her successful novels. 
 
 Among other women of notable talent, who take a con- 
 spicuous place with femmes de lettres of the present day, 
 are Mesdames Judith Gautier, daughter of Theophile Gautier, 
 and the first woman member of the Goncourt Academy, 
 Daniel Lesueur (Mme. Henry Lapange), Comtesse Mathieu 
 de Noailles, Marcelle Tinayre, Gabrielle Reval, Arvede Barine, 
 Georges de Peyrebrunne, Gerard d'Houville (Mme. Henri de 
 Regnier), Rosemonde Gerard (Mme. Edmond Rostand), and 
 Mme. Adolphe Brisson (Yvonne Sarcey). Mme. Rostand has 
 attracted some notice as a poetess. She has moreover 
 published verse written in collaboration with her youthful 
 son, M. Maurice Rostand. 
 
 A branch of literature formerly much cultivated in France, 
 and which afforded a literary refuge to men of brilliant 
 
 intellectual faculties and attainments, namely, 
 
 history, is becoming more and more neglected. 
 The causes of this, however, are not hard to find. It is 
 the past that usually provides material for the historian, 
 and the past has been ransacked by writers of all nations in 
 
Literature under the Republic 89 
 
 search of it. Then there is this grave discouragement to 
 those who, if they Ustened to their own disposition, would 
 be fascinated by historical research : literature that does 
 not trip with a light step and make amusement its object 
 rather than instruction finds so few readers to-day that 
 publishers show complete lack of eagerness to bring out any 
 sort of ** heavy work." Michelet's manuscripts might very 
 well have gone begging now had the date of his birth been 
 pushed a good distance on, and he had not risen to fame in 
 the last century. Although he, Mignet, and Thiers lived 
 into the new epoch, that is the Third Republic, their work as 
 historians virtually finished with the Empire. Among 
 historians who have won distinction in later times are 
 Albert Sorel (1842), author of U Europe et la Revolution 
 Frangaise, and Histoire Diplomatique de la Guerre de 1870 ; 
 M. Ernest Lavisse (born 1842), author of Allemagne Impe- 
 riale, who brought to a close in 191 1 his colossal Histoire de 
 France in eighteen volumes ; M. Henry Houssaye (1848), 
 author of Histoire de la fin du Premier Empire, etc. ; M. G. 
 Hanotaux, the historian of Richelieu ; and Albert Vandal 
 (died 1910), author of UAvenement de Bonaparte and other 
 works. 
 
 Mgr. Duchesne, who was elected to the Academy as the 
 successor of the late Cardinal Mathieu, is an ecclesiastical 
 historian. His chief work is Les Origines du Culte Chretien 
 (1884). His recently published Histoire Ancienne de I'Eglise 
 has entailed difficulties with Rome. Mgr. Duchesne is 
 supposed to have been influenced of late years by the 
 " Modernist " movement in the Church. He is an honorary 
 doctor of Oxford University. 
 
 Ten years or more before the death of Taine in 1893, the 
 
 late M. Ferdinand Brunetiere (1829-1906) had reached 
 
 distinction in the domain of higher criticism. 
 
 * *^^* In addition to his brilliant contributions to 
 
 the Revue des Deux Mondes, he produced a literary history 
 
 and a philosophical work, VEvolution des Genres, which 
 
90 France of the French 
 
 was published in 1894. La Faillite de la Science fell among 
 the scientific sceptics like a bomb, because the author until 
 then had been regarded as one of the living pillars of Free 
 Thought. Its appearance, however, did not synchronize 
 with his return to Christian doctrine. He simply burnt his 
 ships in public so far as his former belief in science as a 
 substitute for rehgion was concerned. He declared science 
 to be bankrupt by reason of its hopeless limitations in relation 
 to the phenomena of life and the mysteries of the universe. 
 This movement of mind at length culminated in his acceptance 
 of the doctrines of the Church of Rome. His example had a 
 great influence upon contemporaries, notably upon M. Jules 
 Lemaitre, who likewise abandoned his sceptical attitude, and 
 with it much of that '* dilettantism " which marked his 
 earUer writings. 
 
 Jules Lemaitre (bom 1853) long held a prominent place 
 among French literary critics. His Les Contemporains is 
 of unequalled strength and brilliancy in the particular field 
 that it covers. He was a master of polished irony. Among 
 other critics whose work belongs to contemporary Uterature, 
 are Jules Claretie, Academician, who also contributed 
 much to fiction, M. R. Doumic, Academician, M, E. Rod 
 (died 1910), M. de Vogue (died 1910), M. E. Faguet, the Abbe 
 Klein, M. PeUisier, and M. A. Brisson. 
 
 Among philosophical writers of contemporary France, 
 movers of ideas in a region distinct from practical poHtics, 
 as also from rehgion in that sense which 
 M. Henri Bergson. implies acceptance of transmitted doctrine^ 
 M. Henri Bergson, who was born in Paris 
 in 1859, has made his influence the most widely felt of recent 
 years. His psychological and sociological studies are marked 
 by sufficient vigour and freshness for the term " Bergsonism " 
 to have forced its way into use wherever the latest tendencies 
 of philosophical speculation are discussed. A well-known 
 work is his Essai sur les donnees immediates de la conscience. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 THE PRESS 
 
 The line of separation between literature and journalism 
 in France has always been very indistinct, but as time goes 
 
 on it is becoming more distinct. French 
 
 The Old and journahsm is fast losing the literary salt that 
 
 Journali^. ^^ once had, and the standard of style 
 
 adjudged suitable and sufficient for news- 
 paper readers is in every salle de redaction allowed to fall 
 lower every year. One only has to look over the files of half 
 a dozen of the leading Paris papers of twenty years ago and 
 compare them with the same number of to-day to be convinced 
 that the change is not superficial, but deep. Although it is 
 true that many writers for the Press who acquired much more 
 than a Parisian reputation have disappeared during the last 
 two decades, the explanation does not He here. It is not a 
 mere question of individuals and personal qualities. The 
 true cause is in the evolution — not in the sense of improve- 
 ment — that French journalism has undergone in response 
 to the new requirements of the public and the stress of 
 competition to meet them. The manufacturer who will only 
 turn out cloth made of good wool, and who is consistent in his 
 respectable abhorrence of mixing with it either cotton or 
 shoddy, will probably not have long to wait for the dignity 
 of heroic ruin. He will realize that he has either to move 
 with the times, or move out of the way. Paris journalism, 
 speaking collectively, has moved prodigiously with the times 
 of late years, and the consequence is that it is not the same 
 article at all that it was. 
 
 The Paris Press has become much more enterprising : it 
 gives full news now of everything sensational that happens 
 in every part of the world. It has its own correspon- 
 dents in foreign capitals, who are authorized to use the 
 
 91 
 
92 France of the French 
 
 telegraph — with discretion ; it has even been known in 
 quite recent years to go to the expense of sending war corre- 
 spondents to distant parts of the earth. In 
 More Enterprise : ^ word, it has reahzed that what the pubHc 
 ^^^^ Sau!'^^'^^ expects from the daily Press now is interesting 
 news, as sensationally dished up as possible. 
 The taste for criticism as a literary art, for the chronique 
 showing knowledge of the world and familiarity with letters, 
 light and rippling in form, but polished in style, with its 
 deftly managed transitions from one topic to another, also 
 for the elegantly written political article, venomously mordant 
 perhaps, but of fine metal dexterously worked and capable 
 of producing artistic sensations, if it has not become quite 
 blunt, has lost so much of its keen edge that it is largely left 
 out of account now by those who carry on newspapers as a 
 business, and aim above all things at popularity and a big 
 circulation. Experience has proved again and again that 
 whereas a hundred persons will read with avidity a spicy 
 " interview " with a leading actress, or a picturesque and 
 humorous report of a sensational trial, it is doubtful if half 
 a dozen will find an equal pleasure in the literary flavour 
 of a critical article, however brilliantly written. 
 
 The occasion seems to be a fitting one for introducing here 
 some personal recollections. When the writer of this book 
 came to Paris in 1878, to stay and to work, 
 '^S^^E^ ^P^^^ eagerly curious in regard to the literary, 
 political, and artistic life of France, all the 
 prominent figures connected with the Paris Press were men 
 who had received their training under the Empire .^ It must 
 have been a splendid school that of the Empire, considering 
 the number of gifted and altogether remarkable writers it 
 fashioned in the mill of journalism. The Republic owes 
 probably more than it will ever admit to the help that the 
 Empire rendered it in this way, but certainly with no inten- 
 tion of performing any such service. The greater number of 
 these writers who belonged to two epochs derived much 
 
The Press 93 
 
 of their proficiency in the art of interesting the public to 
 the difficulties under which they were placed in saying all 
 that they wished to say. The struggles of the Press to 
 obtain freedom of expression went far to force the best talent 
 to the side of the Opposition, and thus the young Third 
 Republic found at once a ready-made Press of great brilliancy 
 and strength. Without doubt, many who called themselves 
 Republicans then would quarrel seriously with their political 
 bedfellows if they were under the same blanket with them 
 to-day. Most of them, however, are not exposed to such a 
 trial, for the sufficient reason that they are dead. 
 
 That liberty of the Press, which was regarded by all the 
 valiant champions of human progress under the Empire as a 
 
 glorious ideal, may have benefited society 
 '^^o^f fron "^^ since it has been achieved, although the 
 
 rapidity with which this freedom brought 
 unbridled licence in its train may justify some doubt on the 
 point ; but apart from all considerations touching morals, 
 it is most certain that the far stricter censorship imposed 
 upon the Press by the Imperial regime was excellent discipline 
 for the young writers whose style was formed by it. By 
 dint of being constantly compelled to pick their words, they 
 attained that literary skill in the use of them which marks 
 the real superiority of the journalists of that epoch. In 
 polemics there was plenty of hard hitting and plain speaking, 
 but the means employed were rarely vulgar or brutal. Irony 
 was the favourite weapon used in journalistic assults upon 
 the Government and the men in power, who had long arms 
 for defending themselves and attacking if the obnoxious 
 critic was so unwary as to disclose a vulnerable spot. But 
 irony, "to be used adroitly and effectively, must not be clumsy : 
 the more highly tempered the steel and the finer the polish 
 it wears, the greater the dread that it inspires. The political 
 writers, journalists, or pamphleteers who were trained in the 
 school of the Second Empire were accomplished ironists. 
 When they wanted their meaning to be read between the 
 
94 France of the French 
 
 lines, they knew how to place it there and to give a deadly 
 glitter to their phrases, without running much personal risk 
 beyond perhaps a duel on " the Belgian frontier " — as it was 
 customary in those days to announce the event, because 
 the Empire was much less tolerant of duelling than the 
 Republic has been. Towards the close of this period, how- 
 ever, the attacks of the Press upon the Government became 
 bolder and more truculent, and Henri Rochefort, with his 
 periodical pamphlet, the Lanterne, led the vanguard of a 
 coarser and more vituperative style of journalism. Never- 
 theless, there was much more literary flavour in his writing 
 than when some years later, after his escape from New 
 Caledonia, he wrote from Geneva, and later still when the 
 Amnesty brought him back to Paris and he found the 
 censorship virtually extinguished. 
 
 The first ten years or so after the Franco-German war were 
 a very brilliant period in the annals of French journalism, 
 because the Republic received as a legacy all the younger 
 writers who had fought their way to prominence under the pre- 
 vious regime and had survived the disasters of 1870-71, and not 
 a few veterans who had smelt the powder of the old political 
 conflicts of the " July Monarchy " and the Revolution of 1848. 
 
 Among these was John Lemoinne (1815-1892), whose 
 
 EngUsh blood, derived from the maternal side, was supposed 
 
 by his contemporaries to have accounted for 
 John Lemoinne. .i- r j^i ^ i i • ^ • 
 
 sometmng of that calm and rigorous logic 
 
 which ran through his articles, but was held in perfect 
 
 combination with the qualities that gave to his polished style 
 
 a savour that was infinitely relished by French readers, 
 
 especially by those of his own generation. When one thinks 
 
 of the eagerness with which his articles — generally on foreign 
 
 or international politics — in the Journal des D chats — were 
 
 looked for and read some five-and-twenty years ago, and 
 
 still later, one realizes how great the change is that has taken 
 
 place during the interval in the mental attitude of the French 
 
 towards journalism, 
 
The Press 95 
 
 John Lemoinne, however, was only one of these notable 
 journalists. Most of them were more than journalists ; they 
 
 were men of letters in a wide sense of the 
 
 About and term by their intellectual acquirements and 
 
 Sarcey. their accomplished work. Such a one was 
 
 J. J. Weiss (1827-1895), who died as a State 
 librarian at Fontainebleau. Another, with a wider reputa- 
 tion, v/as Edmond About (1828-1885), who founded the 
 XIX^ Steele in 1871, after becoming well known as the author 
 of Le Rot des Montagues, and other works. He, like his con- 
 temporary, Francisque Sarcey (1828-1899), who for so many 
 years wrote the dramatic feuilleton of the Temps, passed 
 through the Ecole Normale Superieure, and appeared to be 
 marked out for the routine of a professorship under the 
 University. Both caught the writing fever early, and 
 abandoned the security of the pedagogic career with its 
 ample prospect of distinction for the superior excitement 
 of trusting to their pens to reach Parisian heights of fame. 
 The interest then taken by Paris, and in a lesser degree by 
 the provinces, in dramatic criticism was such that the Temps 
 had to provide for an increased circulation on the day that 
 it published Sarcey's weekly feuilleton. 
 
 The public had not yet learned to expect its dish of 
 criticism on the morning after the general rehearsal of a 
 
 new piece, or at least after the premiere. It 
 Dramatic g^^g ^^ served Up very hot now, but the sauce 
 
 is much less artistic. The grands chefs 
 who made a special study of that kind of cookery at the time 
 when it brought substantial rewards are mostly gone, or 
 have hung up their aprons and linen caps. That brilliant 
 dramatic critic, Theophile Gautier, was still at work after 
 the war, but only for a little while. He died in 1872. Jules 
 Janin (1803-1874), equally celebrated in this field, soon 
 followed him. His place was taken on the Journal des 
 Debats by Paul de Saint- Victor (1827-1881), who continued 
 to contribute his dramatic feuilleton — so literary in form — 
 
96 France of the French 
 
 to this paper until early in the 'eighties. After him came 
 Jules Lemaitre, then a young man, but who by his 
 familiarity with the ancient and modern classics and the high 
 cultivation of his critical faculty was soon regarded as a 
 worthy follower of such predecessors. He must now be 
 allowed the first place in France among living critics of the 
 drama. M. Henri de Lapommeraye (1839-1891) held his 
 position as an eminent dramatic critic during the first twenty 
 years of the Republic. He wrote chiefly for the France — now 
 only a recollection. Among others of note who belong to the 
 present day are M. Adolphe Brisson, who succeeded the late 
 Francisque Sarcey on the Temps. But, as already indicated, 
 the public taste for this literary form of journalism having 
 sensibly declined during the last decade or so, writers of this 
 class are by no means the power that they were in the in- 
 t ellectual life of Paris ; or rather, the life is far less intel- 
 lectual than it was in a general sense, the subjects of interest 
 having become so multiplied, and the common tendency 
 being to spread curiosity over an ever-widening surface. 
 The disappearance of all criticism worthy of the name from 
 the newspaper, strictly considered as such, seems to be only 
 a question of a few years. 
 
 The mention of the France recalls to mind Emile de 
 Girardin (1806-1881), a very interesting figure in French 
 
 journalism, and a man who played an active 
 de Girardin P^^* ^^ ^^^ political history of his country. 
 
 He was the pioneer of the cheap press. In 
 1836 he founded the Presse, which by means of advertisements 
 he was able to publish at a price that quickly obtained for it 
 a circulation which dumbfounded competitors. Here it may 
 be observed that only quite recently has the French public 
 taken to the newspaper system of commercial advertising 
 with anything like confidence, and this movement is due 
 to foreign influence like much more that has changed the 
 complexion of the Paris Press. The violent polemist who 
 killed Armand Carrel, editor of the National, in a duel, and 
 
The Press 97 
 
 who as deputy voted for the election of Prince Louis 
 
 Napoleon to the Presidency, was nevertheless a fiery thorn 
 
 in the side of the Empire. A man all nerves and activity, 
 
 he founded the Liberie in 1866, bought the Petit Journal in 
 
 1872 and the France in 1874. From this date until the end 
 
 of his tumultuous career his articles were always looked for 
 
 in the France, and the interest that attached to them only 
 
 ceased with himself. From being a Liberal Imperialist he 
 
 had become a moderate Republican, but he was always 
 
 combative. It was in his nature to be so ; in fact, the same 
 
 was in the nature of nearly all journalist-politicians of his 
 
 age and generation. Their business had no meaning to them 
 
 unless they were in a constant state of white heat, real or 
 
 assumed. The type is dying, but is not yet dead. Henri 
 
 Rochefort and Edouard Drumont tried to keep up the 
 
 tradition, but like well preserved muskets, they became 
 
 more interesting as curiosities than formidable in battle. 
 
 An article would have to be written by some journalist 
 
 of the planet Mars to set all the Boulevard agog to-day. The 
 
 world has grown colder, or perhaps simply busier with its 
 
 own affairs. 
 
 Personal journalism has had a long and splendid run of 
 
 success in France, but its day appears to be nearly over. A 
 
 personal style went with it, as a necessity. 
 
 Personal Some affectation arose from the effort to 
 Journalism. ... . „, . 
 
 make it distmctive. Emile de Girardm 
 
 cut his sentences so that there was sometimes a string of them 
 with barely half a dozen words in each. Every one of these 
 short sentences was supposed to be extraordinarily pregnant 
 of meaning : wisdom in a crystallized and highly concentrated 
 form. To emphasize this they were frequently given a 
 separate line without any other reason. Even Victor 
 Hugo was not above employing the same bill-posting trick. 
 Whatever Emile de Girardin wrote, however, was raven- 
 ously read, and the sale of the France depended upon his 
 articles. 
 7— (2398) 
 
98 France of the French 
 
 It was the same with the Univers in the time of Louis 
 Veuillot (1813-1883). He was the sledge-hammer journaUst 
 
 of the poHtical, miHtant CathoHcs — the 
 Louis Veuillot. Ultramontane Party as they were then 
 
 termed. Although he was capable of 
 snatching the laurels from Rochefort in vituperative 
 journalism, this cooper's son who had strayed from the 
 neighbourhood of casks into the Republic of Letters, could 
 be, when he chose, a more polished writer than the Marquis 
 de Lugay. His articles were eagerly read for the sake of 
 their peculiar savour even by his adversaries, and when his 
 work was done the paper with which his name had so long 
 been associated fell to be little else than a recollection in the 
 turmoil of politics. 
 
 No less remarkable an example than either Rochefort and 
 Louis Veuillot of the value of personal journalism as an easy 
 
 means of opening various social locks and 
 de cls^sagnac. rapidly attaining notoriety, if not exactly 
 
 fame, was Paul de Cassagnac (1842-1904), 
 although as a writer he was inferior to the former and did 
 nothing which in literary strength could be measured with 
 Veuillot's Les Odeurs de Paris. Nevertheless, he managed 
 to take up one of the most prominent places in polemical 
 journalism and to keep it for many years. His sword did 
 at least as much to gain for him this renown as his pen. Had 
 he been bom an Irishman, he could not have been more 
 habitually eager for a fray. With such a temperament and 
 following such a profession, duelling was to him an essential 
 part of the business of life, and for some years, apparently, 
 the most exhilarating. He did not share M. Clemenceau's 
 taste for the pistol, nor emulate his skill with it, but with 
 his favourite weapon the sword he was a redoubtable 
 antagonist. His duels which are best remembered now 
 were those with Rochefort, Lissagary, the Communist, and 
 a virulent journalist himself, Flourens and Aurelien ScholL 
 He never killed an adversary, and had remarkable luck 
 
The Press 99 
 
 himself in escaping severe damage, considering the number 
 of his encounters and the fact that he was sometimes very 
 equally matched with fines lames like himself. Possibly 
 there was some dilettantism and desire on both sides not 
 to spoil the business. In any case, the duelling game was 
 played with wonderful spirit and success by Paul de Cassagnac, 
 who by this means as well as by the tumultuous scenes which 
 he was constantly causing in the Chamber of Deputies by his 
 violent speeches and interruptions during the first twenty 
 years of the Republic, made his name known far and wide. 
 He was sincerely devoted to the Bonapartist cause, but his 
 two papers, Le Pays, which long since disappeared, and 
 VAutorite, which still exists and is carried on by his two sons, 
 were more useful to himself than they were to the dead 
 body which he strove to galvanize into new life. He was a 
 thorough-going hater of all Republicans who had helped 
 to fix the foundations of and give stability to the present 
 regime, and his favourite term for the Republic was the 
 opprobrious one of *' La Gueuse " (the drab). He rattled 
 off his daily thunder with admirable facility, and it was this 
 diurnal dose of ereintement of " La Gueuse " signed " Paul de 
 Cassagnac," that sold his paper throughout the country. 
 There were many people, especially in the provinces, to whom 
 it was more necessary and stimulating than the indispensable 
 cup of coffee. The story of the gouty old gentleman who 
 found his own opinions so exactly expressed every day by 
 M. de Cassagnac, and was so grateful for the comfort thus 
 afforded him in his physical trials, that he remembered the 
 pen-and-sword journalist handsomely in his will has been 
 told often enough. 
 
 The most typical representative of the old style of sledge- 
 hammer personal journalism was, perhaps, Henri Rochefort, 
 who came to be regarded as chief of the 
 R ^hT^ t school — facile princeps. The interests of a 
 new generation and the ravages of time have, 
 however, gone far to strike him off the active list. The 
 
100 France of the French 
 
 Intransigeant, the paper he founded in 1880 and which rarely 
 appeared without one of his characteristic articles, bristling 
 with full-flavoured epithets aimed at adversaries and which 
 were often comic by their boundless malignity combined 
 with a tortured sense of the picturesque, lately passed into 
 other hands. Even when one reads one of his latest articles, 
 it is hard to connect such alertness of language, such energy 
 in hurling poisoned spears with a man born in 1830. His 
 public life proved a tangle of mistakes, contradictions, and 
 inconsistencies, but the stormy polemics and dramatic 
 political adventures with which he was so actively and 
 prominently associated for nearly half a century, invested him 
 with a real interest to the historian of modern France. He 
 was a living link between the past and the present, representing 
 as he did a very characteristic phase of the mentalite of an 
 epoch which yesterday still belonged to us, but is not ours 
 to-day. 
 
 Edouard Drumont might be mentioned as another 
 example of a newspaper's existence depending upon the 
 
 individuality of a single man, who uses it as 
 Drumont ^^^ mouthpiece and makes it as it were a 
 
 part of him. Without a doubt Drumont 
 is the life and spirit of the Libre Parole, the paper that gave 
 to itself the special mission of preaching a crusade against 
 Israel generally, and especially against the Jews who, under 
 the Republic, have in such a very large measure increased 
 their influence, in connection with finance, politics, and 
 newspaper enterprise. Drumont, who was born in 1844, 
 was one of the younger journalists who were making a mark 
 on their times when the Empire was waltzing to its death, 
 the sounds of the outer world being drowned by the then 
 inebriating strains of the Offenbachian fiddle, and he fully 
 profited by the rarefied and intensely exciting literary 
 atmosphere of Paris. Although he took up the vituperative 
 style of journalism later under the spur of his Jew-baiting 
 frenzy, which carried him rapidly away from rational 
 
From the painting by 
 
 Baschet 
 
 M. ROCHEFORT 
 
The Press 101 
 
 discussion to methods of persuasion too deeply tinged with 
 fanaticism and degraded by their direct appeal to popular 
 prejudices and ignoble passions of human nature, he lacked 
 neither literary instinct nor culture for the career of letters, 
 as some of his early writings, such as Mon vieux Paris, 
 amply testify. Moreover, when the humour seized him, 
 and he forgot for an hour or so his vicious hobby-horse 
 whose diabolic springs were always capable of taking him 
 on Mazeppa-like rides, he threw off an article full of 
 clean-cut thoughts and suggestive reflections, seasoned with 
 the old Attic salt instead of that fiery mustard the abuse 
 of which has made most of his later dishes so trying to the 
 palate. 
 
 Edouard Drumont's anti-Semitic crusade may be said to 
 date from the appearance of La France Juive in 1889. 
 
 The prodigious impression produced upon 
 
 ,.^^^ .,. the public mind by this fierce indictment of 
 
 Campaign. the Jews, who were represented as so many 
 
 tentacles of greater or smaller size and power, 
 of an immense octopus that, with the connivance of the 
 French Freemasons, was drawing the vitality out of France, 
 destroying the national character, and sapping the foundations 
 of all that was respectable, was such that the success of the 
 v/ork had the unfortunate effect of making the author a man 
 with a fixed idea — Jew-baiting — by which his intellect has 
 been imprisoned ever since. La Fin d'un Monde followed, 
 and in 1892 he started his newspaper, the Libre Parole. The 
 needs, or supposed needs, of this special form of journalism 
 led him to pay decreasing attention to that moderation of 
 language which is one of the best fruits of mental culture. 
 Henri Rochefort, with all the ardour of his fantastic character, 
 threw himself into the same anti-Semitic campaign, which, 
 whatever its original object, came to be directed more against 
 the men who work the Republican ship than against the 
 Jews. Rochefort had previously managed to reconcile his 
 Communism with Boulangism, which after the suicide of 
 
102 France of the French 
 
 General Boulanger, in 1891, was continued under the name 
 of Nationalism. Throughout the Dreyfus agitation, during 
 which the judgment of many thousands of French people 
 seemed to be quite unhinged by prejudice and the fury of 
 political partisanship, Rochefort and Drumont vied with 
 one another in the virulence of their attacks upon the Jews, 
 as well as upon all those who without having any marked 
 tenderness towards the modern representatives of Israel, 
 had the moral courage to clamour for justice and enquiry 
 in the case of a Jewish officer, who from being obscure was 
 thrust suddenly and violently into a singularly unpleasant 
 blaze of notoriety. This page of recent French history is one 
 that few people in France now care to talk about. It is to 
 be noted, however, that all those who, under the influence 
 of political, religious, and social prejudices, allowed their 
 judgment to be warped during that amazing agitation — and 
 among these were men of high character and brilliant talents 
 — have lost consideration according to the importance of the 
 stake which they laid on the table. Nothing has tended so 
 much to put the guns of the anti-Semitic propagandists in 
 France out of service as that deplorable state of mind which 
 they reached of seizing upon any means to attain their end, 
 without putting it first to the test of the critical sieve, or 
 pausing to enquire whether it was just or honest. 
 
 Journalism, from the time that the Press became a power 
 to be reckoned with, has in France been much more person- 
 ally connected with politics, or — if the word 
 '^^^ Ladde^^^^^^^ ^^ preferred — statesmanship, as a career 
 than in England. The number of French 
 politicians, more or less eminent, who have made use of it as 
 a ladder to the kind of success which was in a special manner 
 the object of their ambition, would make a very long list 
 indeed. In fact, the difficulty would rather be to pick out, 
 from the list of those who have figured as French legislators 
 in the memory of the living, the men who have not made use of 
 it to reach positions that they coveted. The generally personal 
 
The Press 103 
 
 character of journalism in France makes the newspaper both 
 a weapon and a self- advertising contrivance always ready 
 to the politician's hand. There is also this to be taken 
 into account, that almost every Frenchman, who has any 
 gift for oratory and the science of politics, can write at 
 least as well as he can speak. He can often write much 
 more forcibly than he can speak. It is by no means un- 
 common for an Englishman who can make a very good and 
 telling speech to suffer tortures when he undertakes to write 
 an article, or even a letter to a newspaper that is intended to 
 set forth an argument in a lucid, concise, and effective manner. 
 Not so with a Frenchman. He has much more of what may 
 be termed the instinct of composition than the Englishman. 
 If proof of this be asked for, let anyone compare the form in 
 which the most trivial information is presented to the French 
 newspaper reader and the form in which similar news is 
 ordinarily given to the English one. In the latter case, no 
 style is held to be necessary, and words are improperly used 
 constantly ; in the other case, the style goes with the craft, 
 indeed with very little apparent craft. There is a sense of 
 the value of language, an ease in the choice of the right word 
 or phrase to fit the idea, which is confidence — the first con- 
 dition of success in making an impression upon the reader. 
 Classical traditions and the great attention given to composition 
 and style in all French schools may have much to do with 
 this, but some subtle fluid that circulates like blood in the 
 national constitution has probably still more to do with it. 
 The Celtic strain must be remembered. It is to be noted that 
 the Irish are more ready and fluent writers than the English. 
 Comparative literary excellence, however, between races 
 where the work of genius is in question, is another matter 
 altogether. This may seem to be a needless digression, but 
 it has its reason, if one only considers the enormous influence 
 that the pen has had and continues to have upon the active 
 politics, the strife of parties in France. 
 
 Things have changed a little since the time (under the 
 
104 France of the French 
 
 Republic) when prominent and ambitious politicians with 
 
 large designs held it necessary to have their own newspaper 
 
 to reflect their personal views and extend 
 
 Statesmen- ^-j^q scope of their influence : but the system 
 
 Tournd.lis'ts -^ •/ 
 
 is not yet dead. It may blossom forth again 
 with renewed vigour. The question is really one of men. 
 Gambetta was a man of splendid energy and vast ambition, 
 and the Republique Frangaise, which he founded in 1871, 
 was the advocate of his opinions and policy until his death 
 in 1882. His most formidable rival in the Republican 
 camp, M. Georges Clemenceau, for a series of years had 
 his own newspaper, the Justice, for which he wrote articles 
 innumerable. Other examples of the kind might easily be 
 given. Journalism, moreover, often appears to serve as a 
 place of refuge to French statesmen who after ghttering for 
 a while on a pinnacle, in the full blaze of public interest, 
 have been forced by circumstances to return to the ground. 
 Thus Jules Simon found welcome hospitality in the Temps 
 for several years before his death in 1896, and M. Gabriel 
 Hanotaux, since he ceased to be Minister of Foreign Affairs 
 in 1898, has been a very assiduous writer for the daily Press 
 on foreign politics. 
 
 Many are the cases in which men who have risen to high 
 distinction in practical politics and diplomacy were joumaUsts 
 
 first. Among those who have so successfully 
 
 The Press used the Press in this way as a means to an 
 
 and Diplomacy, end is M. Pichon, who more than once has 
 
 been Minister of Foreign Affairs. In return 
 for services rendered to the Republic with his pen, he was 
 given a diplomatic post. He had the good luck to be French 
 Minister at Pekin when he and other diplomatists were 
 besieged in the British Legation (1900). The career of 
 M. Camille Barrere, now ambassador of France at Rome, 
 is even a more remarkable example of how the Press brings 
 men forward and gives them brilliant chances in life. As a 
 young Paris journalist, he was implicated in the Commune,. 
 
The Press 105 
 
 and after the stirring events of 1871 he could not return to 
 France until the amnesty of 1879 brought him back. The 
 next year he was a secretary of Embassy. 
 
 One often hears of the " Boulevard Press," but the term 
 has lost a good deal of its old meaning and application. It 
 
 was originally employed to denote papers 
 ^^^ Press^^^"^^ that dealt almost exclusively with topics 
 
 of Parisian interest, such as the theatres, 
 the gossip of the cafes and clubs, the latest society scandals. 
 The Boulevard paper aimed at being frivolous, but it aimed 
 still more at being bright, witty, satirical, and amusing. 
 Esprit was the quahty of qualities sought for, and it must 
 be allowed that for a long course of years there was an 
 extraordinary output to meet the demand. 
 
 Villemessant (1812-1879) did more than any other man to 
 launch this kind of journalism and to ensure its success. 
 
 He founded in 1854 the Figaro, and its place 
 "The Figaro." ^ ^^^ public mind is still that of the leading 
 " Boulevard paper," although in the evolution that it has 
 undergone while adapting itself to a changed society, it has 
 lost much of that character, and has put on the more serious 
 airs of a general newspaper. Villemessant had the genius 
 of journalism without being a writer of talent. He was a 
 remarkable man on account of all that he succeeded in doing 
 by the adroit use of other men's brains. He was a famous 
 Parisian character, but his only real superiority was his acute 
 perception, his flair of talent floating in the atmosphere of 
 the Boulevard and Bohemia, which could be caught and 
 conducted like electricity along the wires he had set for it, 
 and which seemed a part of his own nature. Without a 
 doubt he was a great stimulator as well as a utilizer of 
 talent, and while working for himself, was infinitely service- 
 able to the generation of young writers who, in the early 
 days of the Empire, were groping to find an outlet for their, 
 as yet, ill-defined craving to do something of note with 
 their pens. 
 
106 France of the French 
 
 There were but few of those well-equipped journalists, 
 
 bequeathed by the Empire to the Republic, whose wits had 
 
 not received some sharpening on Villemessant's 
 
 grindstone. His experience as a founder of 
 
 Villemessant's newspapers went back to 1840. The 
 Grindstone. ^ , ^ ^ /r,^^ r it-- 
 
 Evenement (1865) came after the Figaro, 
 
 but the only one that survives is that which 
 by a happy inspiration was given the name of the most 
 strongly-drawn of the worthless characters in Beaumarchais' 
 immortal comedy. Most of the political writers, critics, and 
 novelists who were helped onward by the Figaro moved into 
 some other sphere of activity when./their wing-feathers were 
 long enough to give them confidence^ — Rochefort for instance — 
 but some died in its service. 
 
 Among these was Albert Wolff (1835-1891). He came 
 from Germany, like Jacques Offenbach and others who played 
 
 an influential part in the political, social, 
 Albert Wolff. and artistic life of France during the Empire. 
 
 He was, however, a naturalized Frenchman, 
 and having passed his early days in Paris, he was adopted 
 by the genius loci, and became as much a boulevardier in 
 spirit cLS any boulevardier. He is an example of that power 
 of assimilation which is, in French surroundings and its 
 absorption of foreign elements, elsewhere alluded to. He 
 made his mark chiefly as a chroniqueur and art critic, and 
 during the first twenty years of the Republic he was one of 
 the celebrities of the Boulevard. 
 
 Although it cannot be said that he belonged to the Figaro, 
 inasmuch as his literary fecundity enabled, if it did not compel, 
 
 him to sow his ideas broadcast, Henry 
 Fouquier Fouquier (1838-1901) worked in its harness 
 
 to the last. He succeeded Auguste Vitu 
 (1823-1891) as its dramatic critic, but it was his chroniques, 
 with their worldly wisdom, subtle reflections, and seemingly 
 ingenuous sparkle of superficial wit, that chiefly made his 
 reputation. He had all the gifts to produce lasting work in 
 
The Press 107 
 
 literature, but he was devoured by journalism. The Academy, 
 
 however, recognized his superiority by making him one of 
 
 the Forty. Before settling down to the life of the most 
 
 hard-worked of houlevardiers, he shared the excitement and 
 
 risks of the Garibaldians in Italy. 
 
 The Boulevard Press was to some extent the result of the 
 
 restrictions imposed by the Imperial Government upon the 
 
 expression of opinion in the domain of 
 
 The Pressure politics and the affairs of State. It stimu- 
 of the ... 
 
 Censorship. lated all the powers of journalistic frivolity 
 
 for the amusement of the public, for the same 
 reason that the State spent money on fireworks with 
 unprecedented liberality, and encouraged the pyrotechnic 
 artist in believing that his time for fortune making had really 
 come. But so much talent and malicious esprit got mixed 
 up with the frivolity that the end in view was not served : 
 it was the contrary that happened. With the exception of 
 chroniclers of genial humour like Auguste Villemot, Charles 
 Monselet, and Arsene Houssaye, who were litterateurs rather 
 than journalists, it helped to fashion and launch a particularly 
 inconvenient and mischievous type of writer for the Press, 
 who brought the art of the spiteful chronicler, the forger of 
 the mot cruel to perfection, because of the literary power 
 which he was encouraged by the state of society to direct not 
 only upon individuals, but upon all that the instinct of 
 humanity recognizes as respectable. 
 
 In this art of wounding and demolishing with caustic wit 
 no journalist among his contemporaries, not even Henri 
 
 Rochefort, was to be compared with Aurelien 
 Aurelien Scholl. SchoU (1833-1902). He was one of the 
 
 young men whom Villemessant helped to 
 fame and fortune — or what might have been fortune had not 
 the boulevardier humour to get the most out of the time 
 present been constantly uppermost. Bordeaux had the 
 honour of presenting him to Paris, or rather, he presented 
 himself to Paris when a mere youth, after slipping the parental 
 
108 France of the French 
 
 chain, which he found too galling. He has told the story 
 of his early escapades with much humour and satisfaction 
 to himself. While his education was supposed to be progress- 
 ing at the loccil lycee, he was improving it outside, unknown 
 to his family, in the capacity of dramatic critic for a 
 Bordeaux paper that was quick to recognize his precocious 
 skill with his pen. One day an actress called at his parents* 
 house and nearly took his mother's breath away by asking 
 to see her gifted son. The visitor was sternly questioned 
 respecting her business with " that child." She said she had 
 merely come to thank the critic for all the kind things he had 
 said of her. Thus the cat was let out of the bag, and from 
 that day forth young Scholl's life at home was made 
 unpleasantly exciting to him, any connection with journalism 
 being regarded in those days by the bourgeoisie with social 
 ambition, especially in the provinces, as highly dangerous 
 and rather disreputable. As his father was unyielding in his 
 refusal to encourage the literary aspirations that had suddenly 
 brought dismay and the worst apprehensions into the family, 
 Aurelien ran away from home with the connivance of a sister, 
 who believed in his genius and who lent him her few hundred 
 francs of pocket-money which she had long been saving up. 
 Armed with this capital he boldly marched to the assault of 
 Paris. In point of fact, he took the diligence from Bordeaux, 
 but the metaphor correctly reflects his state of mind when he 
 set forth upon his daring expedition. As prosperity is the 
 reward of the brave as well as of the wicked, he got on rapidly 
 and amazingly. The hospitable Figaro soon made room for 
 him. Villemessant had not only a keen scent for all new 
 talent in the market, but he paid well for it when it suited his 
 purpose. Scholl's biting wit, united to supreme impertinence 
 and daring, led to duels, but that was a part of the game. 
 In a few years he was one of the most famous and certainly 
 the most dreaded of the chroniclers, who endeavoured to keep 
 up the fiction that the world — or the only part of it worth 
 speaking of — is bounded on the West by the Madeleine and 
 
The Press 109 
 
 on the extreme East by the Porte Sam t- Martin, with a little 
 spare playground extending northward towards Montmartre 
 and southward towards the Palais-Royal. This Bordelais 
 of doubtless Germanic or Jewish origin, fastened himself to 
 the pave de Paris like a limpet to a rock. Although his pen 
 was usually dipped in gall, and he had no respect for any kind 
 of decency, it was impossible not to admire the keen edge of 
 his devilish wit and his literary sense of language, which made 
 his writing at once concise and singularly incisive. There 
 was scarcely a Boulevard paper of which he was not at one 
 time a contributor, and his duels must have numbered about 
 a score. Aurelien Scholl's mantle has fallen upon no one. 
 
 It may seem that undue prominence has been given here 
 to this writer, inasmuch as his work belongs from its nature 
 to the most perishable of all literary work — jeux d' esprit on 
 small events and scandals of the hour ; but it should be borne 
 in mind that he was a singularly typical specimen of a 
 peculiar journalistic growth, at once brilliant and mischievous. 
 Among the men who have figured prominently in the Paris 
 Press of late years, Henri Harduin (1850-1908) seemed to 
 
 possess Scholl's concise style and caustic wit 
 Rarduin TcvQVQ than any other. The art of saying 
 
 much and suggesting still more in a few 
 words was often brought to perfection in his short articles 
 of about fifty lines, in the Matin, which were generally cut 
 like cameos ; but his sarcasms were not seldom disfigured by 
 bad taste and frivolous profanity. 
 
 A journalist that can use his pen like a very keen rapier is M. 
 Henry Maret, who like most of the newspaper writers who 
 
 formed their style under the Empire, has 
 ^Maret!^^ drunk deep of the Voltairian fountain. He is 
 
 a strong Radical, but a lettered one, and his 
 Atheism, or Agnosticism, is not aggressive, but is generally 
 tempered by a philosophic insight into the nature and needs 
 of humanity. This placed him out of sympathy with the 
 Radicals of a later couche, notably in regard to the policy of 
 
110 France of the French 
 
 sweeping away by a rapid series of legislative measures religious 
 institutions, the work of centuries, which the profoundly 
 political and eminently practical mind of that Roman of 
 modern times, Bonaparte, realized the necessity of protecting 
 for reasons of State. M. Maret's case is like that of many others 
 who, from having been regarded as among the most dangerous 
 and subversive of Radicals, have lived to find themselves and 
 their ideas treated as vieux jeu by those who have come after 
 them upon their own track, but have gone far ahead of them 
 as demolishers of the past. He was long a deputy. His real 
 strength, however, lies in journalism. This little, mouse-like 
 man, so quiet in manner and inoffensive to the eye, can be a 
 scathing ironist, but so delicate is his method, and so good- 
 natured his humour that those whom he has ripped open are 
 sometimes ready to believe that he has done them a good turn. 
 M. Emile Bergerat is another Paris journalist who stepped 
 over the border, marked by fire and blood-pools, between the 
 
 Empire and the Republic, the year of his 
 Bergerat birth being 1845. He married a daughter 
 
 of Th^ophile Gautier, has lived most of his 
 life in the atmosphere of journalism and the stage and of those 
 who still follow the dying art of the chronicler in the modern 
 French sense of the word, is the best equipped, because in 
 addition to a literary talent, irregular, fantastic, and brilliant, 
 he has a memory well furnished with recollections and 
 impressions of people and things that are gone — journalistic 
 stock-in-trade, which with an irony that has its cruelty, 
 always increases in value as the energy of the writer fails. 
 The young often do not know what to write about that will 
 interest the public ; whereas those who have been long 
 gleaning in many fields may have good store of grain, but 
 lack the spirit to thresh it out and put it into sacks. M. 
 Bergerat, or " Caliban " — his favourite nom de guerre — is a 
 dramatist too, and the dream of his life has been to score 
 a theatrical success that would enable him to live easily, and 
 perhaps obscurely, the rest of his days. He has not yet made 
 
The Press 111 
 
 this " hit," and has been obliged to follow the fate of a 
 successful journalist, throwing off with apparent ease abun- 
 dance of originality, and taking umbrage at all sorts of 
 scarecrows, real or imaginary. Who among readers of the 
 Figaro is not familiar with the wrath of " Caliban " ? 
 
 A veteran journalist of the type that ponders much, never 
 makes mistakes, and whose ambition is to influence opinion 
 
 by astute judgment much more than to 
 
 e rar . dazzle by any literary glitter is M. Hebrard, 
 
 who for so many years has been the director of that paper 
 
 of long reflection and digestion, which was never known to 
 
 have a fit of frivolity, the Temps. 
 
 Two well-known journalists were recently removed by 
 death, Arthur Ranc (1831-1908) and Emmanuel Arene 
 
 (1856-1908). Both were intimate friends 
 rt ur anc. ^^ Gambetta, and were greatly helped on in 
 life by him. The former, however, was an adviser, whereas 
 the latter was a protege — the Benjamin of the Opportunist 
 coterie. Ranc had a strong taste for conspiracy, which soon 
 after the turbulent events of '48 procured for him several 
 months of leisure in the prison of Mazas, which, he was wont 
 to say, he passed both pleasantly and profitably reading 
 Balzac's romances and other literature that he might other- 
 wise have been obUged to neglect. He was badly entangled 
 with the insurrection of 1871, but managed to clear himself, 
 although not without difficulty. A strong and virulent 
 political writer, he died in the bed of a senator, which was 
 to him better than the lit en paradis whose vision consoled 
 the dying crusader after much sleeping on hard ground. 
 
 Emmanuel Arene was a deputy at twenty-five, and he 
 also died a senator, but it was in the stokehold of Paris 
 
 journalism that he used up his life. He suc- 
 Emmanuel ceeded the late Henry Fouquier as dramatic 
 
 critic of the Figaro ; but he was an all- 
 round writer who turned out " copy " as a spinning- jenny 
 turns out yarn. The breaking away from friends at the 
 
112 France of the French 
 
 last minute allowed before the article had to be thought 
 of and inwardly commenced, the jump into the cab, fresh 
 cigar in mouth, head thrown back for a little rest and 
 inspiration for the subject ; the printing office, diabolic 
 grindings and groanings of machinery, heated, vitiated air, 
 compositors waiting and sniffing for copy Uke famished 
 wolves for flesh, scissors ready to cut each folio into two or 
 three as soon as scrawled over — ^lastly, cerebral anaemia, etc. 
 Such was his life and its ending. 
 
 The Academy has lately proved that it can still recognise 
 the literary claims of journalism by admitting as one of the 
 
 chosen Forty M. Henry Roujon, whose 
 yL Henry Chroniques in the Temps and other papers 
 
 have appealed by their rare literary flavour — 
 rare in the journalism of to-day — to the cultured and discerning 
 class of readers. 
 
 In taking this rapid glance at French journalism from 
 the establishment of the present Republic until our own day, 
 only the most prominent and characteristic personalities 
 have been mentioned. Many others who have had an 
 influence on their times through the medium of the Press, 
 or who as products of their times present an interest to the 
 student of social and intellectual movements in France, 
 might be added to the list, if such a list were desirable. It 
 might be extended, for example, by the addition of most of 
 the writers who are mentioned in the chapter on literature, 
 for in France the literary life and the journalistic life have 
 almost constantly run into one another, and it has been very 
 usual to speak of all writers as " gens de lettres," although 
 the term is becoming less and less applicable to those who 
 contribute to the daily Press. Then there is the almost 
 bewildering category of political writers and reviewers, such 
 as M. A. Mezieres and M. Francis Charmes, both Academicians, 
 and in a less philosophic sphere, the late Jaures and Camille 
 PeUetan, both prominent as journalists, but stiU more so as 
 legislative politicians. 
 
The Press 113 
 
 The cheapening of the Press has done much to lower the 
 hterary quality of journalism in France. Until the nineteenth 
 The Cheap century was well near its end, the price of 
 Press. most of the Paris papers that the public 
 
 reckoned with was 15 centimes. Now one would have to 
 think and search to find more than four that continue to keep 
 up this price : the Figaro,'^ the Temps, the Gaulois, and the 
 Gil Bias. They affect to appeal either to the rich in pocket 
 or rich in brains and culture, and to treat the crowd poorly 
 served by fortune as regards these advantages, but who hunger 
 for the daily paper, as a negligible quantity. Nevertheless, 
 it is probable that they will have ultimately to surrender or 
 die proudly, although the choice of evils does not threaten 
 them at present. Some years since the Journal des Debats 
 descended half-way towards the democratic sou by publishing 
 at 10 centimes. But it is the 5 centimes papers that now 
 have the big circulation and are those read by the vast 
 majority who read journals at all. The first of these was 
 the Petit Journal, founded in 1863. It was followed by the 
 Petite Republique Frangaise, founded by Gambetta in 1875, 
 and by the Petit Parisien, in 1876. Among the earliest of 
 these halfpenny papers was the Soleil, well understood then 
 to be the organ of the Comte de Paris and the Orleanist 
 cause, and which under the direction of Edouard Herve 
 (1835-1899), a veteran journalist of the best school, who 
 closed his career in the uniform of an Academician, acquired 
 some popularity. Now the halfpenny papers flutter about 
 the boulevards like ma3rflies over a good trout-stream, and 
 nowhere else do the fish rise more readily. 
 
 The great extension which the system of advertising in 
 newspapers has undergone during the last few years is 
 directly connected with the revolution of French journalism 
 in the direction of cheapness. 
 
 It is becoming every day more difficult to mention a cheap 
 paper that is not to some extent illustrated. The marriage of 
 
 1 Since this was written the Figaro reduced its price to 10 centimes. 
 
 8— (23q8) 
 
114 France of the French 
 
 journalism with photography, whatever one may say on 
 
 the score of its morality, has proved amazingly prolific. 
 
 The sensational reporter, who has nearly everywhere pushed 
 
 out of the field the literary journalist, works 
 
 Illustrated ^^±\i the sensational photographer, when 
 he does not unite the two characters in 
 the same person. There are, however, published in France 
 some good illustrated papers which aim at artistic excellence, 
 and are not in competition with the daily press. Even in 
 these, it is easy to note how much art in this branch of 
 pictorial work has suffered from the invasion of photography 
 of late years. The photograph will serve the purpose of a 
 cheap representation of things as they are, but a machine 
 can never be anything more than a bad substitute for the 
 living artist, who having a mind can present the same scene 
 as truly as the machine, but far more suggestively. It is to 
 be feared that the art of sketching from the life will meet 
 with the same fate in France as that of wood engraving, or 
 only be practised for the purpose of studies by painters, who 
 understand the limitations of photography. The Illustration, 
 founded in 1843, is still the leading illustrated paper in France, 
 and the Monde Illustre, founded in 1857, takes the next place 
 among publications of the same class. There are others less 
 general in interest, such as La Vie Illustree, La Vie au 
 Grand Air, which last deals exclusively with sports and 
 outdoor amusements ; and among ladies' papers, devoted 
 mainly to dress, home decoration, etc., is Femina, a 
 fortnightly publication elaborately illustrated. 
 
 There is a lingering impression in England — it would be 
 
 hard to say how it originated — that the French have the gift 
 
 of wit, but not of humour. Perhaps the 
 
 Comic and notion arose from this that John BuU's 
 
 Papers. excellent humour takes sometimes a bovine 
 
 turn that is not sufficiently understood abroad 
 
 to be appreciated. On the other hand, French humour must 
 
 have been a good deal relished in England, judging from the 
 
The Press 115 
 
 liberal manner in which the work of the vaudevilUstes, the 
 librettists of operetta, and other dramatic writers in France 
 have been laid under contribution for the British stage during 
 the last fifty years or more. In the comic and satirical 
 papers of Paris, all of which are illustrated, there is certainly 
 no lack of humour. Its quality, however, has this great 
 drawback : it renders the publications that provide a market 
 for it unfit for home use. At any rate, the French mother, 
 who has a lively sense of her responsibilities, considers such 
 papers dangerous to Madeleine and Marguerite, and it must 
 be allowed that she ought to know. There is no paper of 
 clean humour and wit to be compared to Punch, published 
 in France. Those that attempt to be amusing while respecting 
 good morals are simply childish. The whole subject is 
 intimately related to the gauloiserie — the word is a conve- 
 nient one to use — which is deeply embedded in the French 
 character. There may be a certain frankness combined with 
 it which the psychological analyist can set against the decent 
 hypocrisy sometimes to be observed elsewhere ; but decency 
 in the expression of thought has its high social value, because, 
 whether sincere or not, it is one of the ways in which the 
 nobler ideals of life are worked out, or at least respected. 
 
 The history of the comic and satirical Press is inseparable 
 from that of the caricaturist's art, which, however, cannot 
 be dealt with here. The oldest paper of this class now 
 published in France is the Charivari, founded in 1832, and 
 whose name was borrowed for Punch's sub- title, nine years 
 later. It is ludicrously inappropriate, for it could never 
 enter Punch's Britannic soul to raise a charivari. The 
 Charivari of Paris is rich in associations, but is much less 
 seen than formerly. The Journal Amusant is less circumspect 
 and more popular. The Rire, of more recent origin, obtained 
 a notorious success by notorious means. It represents the 
 decadent style of French satirical journalism as well as the 
 decadence of the caricaturist's art. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 ARCHITECTURE 
 
 In connection with no other of the Fine Arts has French 
 genius in the course of centuries done such enduring, such 
 instructive, such glorious work, as in architecture. " French 
 genius," however, as used here, is merely a convenient 
 expression. If we come to analyze the matter we must 
 perceive the absurdity of talking about French genius as 
 though it were a national force, intellectual or spiritual, 
 or both that had blossomed forth in stone, age after age, 
 from the North Sea to the Mediterranean, from the Vosges 
 to the Atlantic, and with a variety no less striking by its 
 contrasts than that offered by nature with its physical 
 features and diversified vegetation. In all that is now 
 classed with French architecture we have to recognize several 
 distinct currents of genius, or shall we call it originality ? 
 In different provinces, styles have been developed and brought 
 to their highest perfection under influences mainly local 
 or provincial, and with much of accident probably too in 
 the primary cause or causes which directed the aim towards 
 an ideal, indefinable, but of which the mind of the workers 
 became more and more conscious as they strove, in the 
 tracks of their predecessors, to body it forth. Here we have 
 the explanation of the immense, the inexhaustible interest 
 of French architecture, and why France of to-day, even 
 though Alsace, that treasure-house of art in stone and wood 
 be cut off, is of aU countries the most bewilderingly rich in 
 architectural examples and instructive to the student of 
 this branch of the Fine Arts, whose inspired silence contains 
 the whole story of mankind. 
 
 The Gothic style is the one that has been chiefly employed 
 in ecclesiastical architecture throughout the northern half of 
 
 116 
 
^*ji^^-*^i*^ -' 
 
 CHURCH OF ST. OUEN, ROUEN 
 
Architecture 117 
 
 France, Normandy excepted. The buildings anterior to 
 
 the introduction of the pointed arch in the twelfth century 
 
 mostly disappeared before the new style, 
 
 o*i?° or were so modified — modernized accord- 
 
 Style. 
 
 ing to the ideas of those days — as to lose 
 all, or nearly all, of their distinctive Romanesque character. 
 Very interesting traces of this origin are, however, to be seen 
 here and there, especially in the capitals of columns and in 
 towers, which, instead of being pulled down, were patched up. 
 There are portions of the Church of Saint-Germain-des-Pres 
 in Paris, which are believed to date from the time of Dagobert. 
 Speaking generally, however, the Gothic style wherever it 
 became firmly planted, swept away the church buildings 
 that were simpler in construction and less florid in ornament. 
 Whether the cradle of this pointed, or ogival style, so 
 misleadingly and yet suggestively termed " Gothic," was 
 Northern France or Germany, is a very debatable point. 
 In either case it took firm root in the same century on both 
 sides of the Rhine, where it embodied the secular spirit in 
 church building rather than the monastic one, and gradually 
 identified itself with the ideal of freedom from a too oppressive 
 control, both feudal and ecclesiastic. The early blossoming 
 of the style is made beautifully manifest in the Church of 
 Notre-Dame de Paris, which is not Transition, but a primitive 
 Gothic edifice of glorious conception and perfect taste. The 
 style, when it reached its complete development, is to be 
 studied in such buildings as the cathedrals of Amiens, 
 Chartres, Rouen, Rheims, the church of St. Ouen at Rouen — 
 much " restored " but admirable in style — and many other 
 noble structures elaborately artistic. No absolute uniformity 
 of style must be looked for in most of these buildings ; indeed 
 it is usual to find in them very marked divergence of taste, 
 directly traceable to the philosophic truth that the human 
 mind is constantly moving in its tastes and shifting its 
 ideals for better or for worse. The building of these Gothic 
 churches was frequently the work of several generations, 
 
118 France of the French 
 
 and many whose towers were designed to carry spires have 
 gone without spires to this day, probably because such 
 constancy of purpose as men have was unequal to the strain 
 of so prolonged an effort. The disturbance of mind, the 
 scarcity of money, and the difficulty of obtaining skilled 
 labour which followed in the train of war, must also have 
 done much to arrest the execution of vast architectural plans. 
 The Hundred Years War doubtless left many more marks 
 than have been traced upon the great Gothic churches of 
 France, in the sense of interruption of design and effort. 
 
 But finished or unfinished, uniform in taste and inspiration, 
 or an agglomeration of idea-crystals precipitated by changing 
 currents of artistic fancy during the tumultuous, or contem- 
 plative moods of the Middle Ages, what delight, what romance, 
 what sensations of beauty, of the idealized fantastic, of 
 human struggle, of life and death, of torment and beatitude 
 there is in it all ! What conflicts and contrasts of mind are 
 revealed in the demon ugliness symbolizing the grosser 
 human instincts and the purity and angelic sweetness of 
 faces and figures in these gargoyles, corbels, and storied 
 archivolts ! The Gothic architecture of France is much 
 more living than that of England. It is more human, and 
 breaks forth into a far greater variety of expression. It 
 has in church architecture, with comparatively few exceptions, 
 adhered to the basiHcan prototype in the semi-circular termina- 
 tion of the choir, or chancel, and the imposing effect of the 
 high window at the square east end, so characteristic of the 
 style in England, is more than counterbalanced by the religious 
 and artistic effect of the vaulting that retreats and passes 
 away into the mystery and dimness of the apsidal chapels. 
 
 The Norman style, which is merely a variety of the 
 
 Romanesque, is almost confined to Normandy and England, 
 
 to which latter country it was introduced by 
 
 ^^^St^°e!"^" the more enlightened Normans who followed 
 
 the buccaneering horde that accompanied 
 
 William on his expedition to Hastings, so momentous in 
 
NORMAN MOULDINGS, CINTHEAUX 
 
Architecture 119 
 
 its consequences. Normandy is rich in examples of it, some 
 of which are truly magnificent, as for instance the Church 
 of the Holy Trinity at Caen ; but even in this province the 
 style fought a losing battle with the Gothic, when the latter 
 became well established in Northern France and Germany. 
 The architectural pride of Rouen lies in its Gothic, not in 
 its Norman, buildings. Indeed, it is a moot question whether 
 the Normans were not the originators of the pointed style of 
 Northern Europe, they having picked up many fresh ideas 
 in their adventurous voyages, among others possibly that 
 of the Arabian pointed arch in Sicily. The chief features 
 of the Norman style are simplicity of plan, sobriety, and 
 moderation, and the exquisite finish of certain details, notably 
 the mouldings of arches and archivolts , the capitals of columns , 
 and the elaborate, but tasteful, decoration of towers. More- 
 over, the semi-circular apse, which the Anglo-Norman style 
 at length abandoned, conveys a sentiment of religious repose 
 and solemn peace which appears in church architecture to 
 be the very perfection of means applied to an end. The same 
 remark apphes equally, if not with greater force, to the 
 southern Romanesque, which is a nearly allied growth of art 
 grafted upon that most vigorous and fruitful of parent 
 stocks, the Roman basilica. 
 
 The Southern half of France is even a more captivating 
 
 field of exploration to the lover of architecture than the 
 
 Northern half, although its treasures are far 
 
 Architecture of ^^^^ being SO well known. So many of them 
 
 Southern lie in places which travellers in an age that 
 
 France. j^gj^g fQj- gQ f^]] ^ measure of luxury and 
 
 comfort are disposed to describe as " inac- 
 cessible," that the reason of this neglect of so much that is 
 capable of causing wonder and stirring enthusiasm seems 
 pretty obvious. The facilities which automobihsm now 
 affords to those who cannot urge lack of money as a reason 
 for leaving unstudied works of rare art and beauty, should 
 cause all the dim passages and devious ways of that vast 
 
120 France of the French 
 
 museum, Southern France, to be far better known to the 
 travelling world than they were some years ago ; but so 
 far as we can judge from various signs, newer and more 
 rapid means of locomotion do not appear to have a very 
 stimulating effect upon the state and temper of mind which 
 draw towards such things as old buildings. Moreover, the 
 habit of rushing is apt to excite nothing but the most super- 
 ficial curiosity, and when this is the mood the tourist might 
 just as profitably seek for Ezekiel's " Valley of Dry Bones," as 
 for those monuments of the past slowly raised by men while 
 under the influence of aspirations and ideals, the under- 
 standing of which is the philosophic motive for studying 
 the pages of these books of stone. 
 
 The secret of the immense charm of Southern French 
 architecture lies in its originality and variety. Unless 
 previously informed, the sentimental wanderer never knows 
 what new and delightful architectural surprise the next 
 small town, or even village, may have in store for him. 
 Although a particular style may be the chosen one of a wide 
 district, it may be very variously treated and be used to 
 convey very distinct impressions of art and inspiration. 
 
 Take Auvergne for instance. A kind of Romanesque has 
 
 been developed here which is almost a style apart. It might 
 
 be termed the Auvergnat style, for it has 
 
 Churches in its Own character, not less than the Norman. 
 Auvergne. There are not many examples, and they appear 
 to have been all more or less studied from 
 Notre Dame du Port at Clermont-Ferrand, which dates 
 from the eleventh century. It was quite close to it that 
 the open-air council was held which gave the first impetus to 
 the great movement of the Crusades. The chief features 
 are the impressive and beautiful arrangement of arcades in 
 the apse, and the exterior ornamentation of this part of the 
 building. In the same town the cathedral church is pure 
 Northern Gothic, mainly of the thirteenth century — an 
 illustration of those contrasts lying close together which 
 
Architecture 121 
 
 lend so much to the picturesque, as well as to the architectural 
 interest, of the French provinces. 
 
 In Perigord we meet with Byzantine-Romanesque churches 
 
 of which there seems little doubt that the local prototype 
 
 was the five-domed church of St. Front, at 
 
 Domed Perigueux, much of whose archaeological 
 
 Churches of interest was lost when the structure was 
 Pengord. rebuilt on the original plan. The general 
 design is that of St. Mark's at Venice, with 
 which it was originally almost contemporaneous, although it 
 differs from it in some important details, notably the use of 
 the pointed arch in the vaulting beneath the domes — a very 
 curious feature considering that the church was finished 
 before the middle of the eleventh century. 
 
 There are very few of these Byzantine buildings dating 
 from the early Middle Ages, and the impression that they 
 
 The Southern leave is that of a few exotic plants mingled 
 
 Romanesque, with those that appear natural to the soil. 
 For in this charming Perigord country, as well as in the 
 neighbouring Limousin and in the great plains that stretch 
 through Languedoc to the Mediterranean, and through 
 Guyenne and Gascony to the Pyrenees and the Bay of Biscay, 
 the style that one meets most frequently and which gives 
 the greatest pleasure to the traveller in search of the picturesque 
 is that Romanesque of Southern France already spoken of. 
 [t is a style essentially French, and of all the varieties of 
 Romanesque that have grown upon and about the semi- 
 circular arch, it is that which casts over the soul a thraldom 
 at once the sweetest and the most solemn. As a religious style 
 in the Christian sense there is none but the Gothic that can 
 be weighed in the balance with it. It is far more artistic 
 than the Norman-Romanesque, even when it belongs to an 
 earlier age, on account of the intensely human interest which 
 is almost invariably present in it, and is to be directly referred 
 to the figures of men and women in the sculptured details 
 and the use to which the human form is put to represent 
 
122 France of the French 
 
 the beings of Heaven and Hell as they were conceived and 
 took shape in the mediaeval imagination. The Norman 
 style lacks this warmth of artistic fancy, rel3dng as it does 
 mainly upon ingenious combinations of lines and patterns 
 to relieve the stern simplicity of the organic design ; which 
 it succeeds in doing, but only in a cold and ascetic manner, 
 more appropriate to the monastic life than to the needs of 
 the people to whom these church carvings were as books 
 in those illiterate ages. No doubt the reason of this great 
 distinction in the styles was that the northern sculptors 
 were making but very timid efforts to represent the human 
 form in stone, while those of the south had attained 
 considerable proficiency in the art. 
 
 The figures that one sees in the storied capitals, between 
 the mouldings of archivolts, mingling with the exterior line- 
 ornaments of the apse, or as bass-reliefs in the elaborately 
 composed Last Judgments, etc., with which the tympanum 
 over the recessed doorway of a Romanesque church in Southern 
 France is so often encrusted, may be frequently out of pro- 
 portion and uncouth, throwing into the light of modem 
 criticism all the submerging power of the Northern barbaric 
 influx upon Roman civilization and culture ; but how 
 expressive, how pregnant of meaning, how instinct with 
 life they are ! What a curious medley of ideas , too, of heaven 
 and earth, of the divinely spiritual and the grossly material ! 
 The human interest is in the naivete of such contrasts, inti- 
 mately related to a new birth of art, and the passionate 
 eagerness of new life to enjoy and to express sensations with 
 a freedom of spirit not yet captured and disciplined by 
 academic rule. 
 
 These beautiful and ever interesting Romanesque churches 
 are scattered all over the Southern provinces of France, 
 some in a state of ruin, but many of them wonderfully pre- 
 served throughout the stormy ages, and the furious clashing 
 of creeds which reddened the South with blood; and they 
 are frequently to be found m remote villages where their 
 
Architecture 1 23 
 
 magnificence bewilders by its contrast with the poor little 
 hives of humanity for whose spiritual needs these elaborately 
 sculptured buildings are supposed to exist. As with flowers 
 of rare loveliness blooming in the desert places, he who may 
 discover them will take greater pleasure from it because of 
 the charm that is in such surprises. These out of the way 
 churches have the fascination, too, that belongs to beautiful 
 islands which the great ocean traffic neglects. 
 
 The Romanesque style includes those fortress -like churches 
 of Southern France so interesting to the archaeologist, and 
 
 so instructive of the life and manners of the 
 Ch^^^^h^' times in which they were raised. They are a 
 
 most curious illustration of religious art 
 adapting itself to the defensive needs of an age when people 
 had to be constantly prepared for deadly surprises by armed 
 bands against whom a church offered no sanctuary. Some 
 of these churches still show the portcullis chamber forming 
 a heavy mass of masonry above the single entrance. The 
 windows are very narrow, like loopholes, high above the 
 ground, the main walls carried above the roof, and in the 
 best specimens embattled and machicolated. The square 
 massive tower served as a keep where the final resistance 
 was made if the enemy forced an entrance elsewhere. The 
 most ancient of these buildings, dating from the ninth and 
 tenth centuries, were doubtless designed as places of refuge 
 for the inhabitants in the event of sudden attack by marauding 
 barbarians, and they are to be looked for chiefly near the 
 Mediterranean shore, which was especially exposed to the 
 risk of a descent of Saracenic freebooters. Others are of 
 later construction, and were brought into existence by the 
 long and bloody wars between CathoHcs and Albigenses 
 which desolated Languedoc in the thirteenth century. The 
 Cathedral of Albi is a magnificent example of a style which 
 may be said to have taken a distinctly original form and 
 expression under the influence of public danger. Although 
 it was raised quite at the close of the troubled times, the 
 
124 France of the French 
 
 fierce and distrustful spirit of this period was still in the air. 
 It is one of the great Romanesque churches of the South, 
 but quite different in design and treatment from the simpler 
 basilican form of an earlier age which spread its tendrils 
 and blossoms of art even on the outer wall surfaces in the 
 confidence of religion and peace. 
 
 In France the Renaissance movement in architecture 
 
 which spread over Western Europe from Italy, shaped for 
 
 itself at once a distinct and original character 
 
 The French ^ ^^ ^^ g^jg^ ^^ England, but with this 
 
 Renaissance. o ' 
 
 noteworthy difference : whereas m the latter 
 
 country its originality was only shown in domestic architecture 
 — buildings like St. Paul's being mere imitations of the 
 Italian Renaissance — in France some very remarkable 
 churches were raised during the best period of that great 
 outflow and turmoil of new ideas which shattered the whole 
 thought-system of the Middle Ages. The Church of St. 
 Eustache, in Paris, is a typical example. It combines the 
 loftiness and elegance of the Gothic vaulting with the revived 
 Roman arch, and the neo-classic taste is revealed much more 
 in the ornamentation of subordinate parts than in organic 
 structure. The style, however, soon lost its distinctive life 
 and spirit, and became submerged by the debased classic, 
 or Rococo style, that in the seventeenth and eighteenth 
 centuries left hideous traces of its passage in the " restora- 
 tion " to which many an ancient church was barbarously 
 subjected. This deplorable practice of patching up with 
 discordant applications of entablatures with twisted columns 
 and absurd garlands, without regard to uniformity of style, 
 was continued into the nineteenth century, when a strong 
 movement in favour of protecting ancient monuments from 
 modern vandalism set in. Its most illustrious champion 
 was the architect Viollet-le-Duc, under whose enlightened 
 direction many a mediaeval church, as well as some feudal 
 fortresses, were preserved from ruin and restored in accordance 
 with the original design. 
 
Architecture 1 25 
 
 The last century also saw a most salutary innovation in 
 
 the establishment by Government of a permanent Committee 
 
 for the preservation of historic monuments. 
 
 The Preservation When a building has been " classed " as an 
 
 of Historic " historic monument," it is safe from the 
 
 Monuments, danger of being " improved " by ignorant 
 or utilitarian minded local authorities ; but 
 throughout the country there are many churches and other 
 edifices rich in archaeological and historic interest which have 
 not been so classed, and are therefore exposed to constant 
 risk of being mischievously tinkered or put to degrading 
 uses. Amazingly rich as France still is in works of mediaeval 
 and Renaissance art, time and indifference and miserable 
 motives are taking away something of this wealth every 
 year. Only a few years ago the old windmill which had 
 stood on the hill above the village of Crecy for some six 
 centuries, inasmuch as Edward III watched the battle through 
 a little opening in the wall, was pulled down by the peasant 
 owner in a fit of misguided patriotism, the relations between 
 France and England not being quite so cordial then as they 
 became soon afterwards. It was not a work of art, but it 
 was an historic monument, and the French Government 
 might easily have secured its preservation. 
 
 There is no dearth of able architects in France to-day, men 
 
 who thoroughly understand the technique of their business 
 
 and are quite capable of working out any 
 
 Architecture style that may be given them to reproduce ; 
 of To-day. but they have no style of their own. This, 
 however, is a pretty general state of things. 
 Architectural genius has either exhausted itself, or the social 
 conditions no longer offer a sufficient stimulus to originality 
 in this domain of art. The architect has become very much 
 of an artificer. Church architecture is nearly a dead art, 
 for the all-sufficient reason, in France at any rate, that 
 there are more churches at present than church-goers 
 require. Many are falling into ruin because what has 
 
126 France of the French 
 
 been spared by the rage of war and revolution is perishing 
 by indifference. 
 
 Whereas the French country mansion, or chateau — to use 
 the word invariably applied in France to a country house of 
 exceptional size or pretentiousness — when built in the 
 Renaissance style, and especially when ingeniously grafted 
 upon a feudal fortress, is an object that fascinates the eye and 
 lends to a landscape a picturesque and romantic charm, 
 the modem chateau is generally ugly and often vulgar in 
 taste. Instead of elegant lightness we get a pompous display 
 of ill-assorted elements designed to subjugate by the massive- 
 ness which counterfeits grandeur rather than to please, or, 
 if not this, an affected elegance and a lightness that strikes 
 a false note — in fact cuckoo-clock architecture. As for the 
 typical French villas of to-day, they are mostly suggestive 
 of elaborately carved and coloured toy-houses. The modern 
 suburban villas in the London district are incomparably 
 more artistic and tasteful than those which, by their tawdry 
 pretentiousness and irritating ugliness, are on the beautiful 
 landscape round Paris like aggressive paint-spots with which a 
 mischievous hand has bespattered a picture full of luminous 
 and tender charm. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 PAINTERS. 
 
 One must not talk of a French School of Painting to-day 
 any more than of a school of tailoring. There is no prevailing 
 
 academic influence, but the tendency is for 
 ^o^^Ar^^^ every artist with originality to make himself 
 
 a new and distinct influence, if he can. The 
 utmost latitude for the expression of individuality and 
 eccentricity is taken without reference to any recognized 
 standards, or respect for any authority. At every Salon 
 one gets vivid and curious impressions of art gone mad, but 
 happily there are always others of art in its right mind, 
 penetrated with the just and true ideal, which is to do 
 something that in some strong manner breaks in upon the 
 secret harmonies of mind and nature, and brings forth a 
 sensation which humanity claims and feels to be true and 
 delightful by virtue of something that transcends the mere 
 imitation of form and colour. Thus understood, the art of 
 painting is something different from mere skill in drawing 
 and colouring, and those whose admiration glows before the 
 perfect image on canvas of a warming pan, or any useful 
 utensil, are on the same mental level with others who suppose 
 that a true picture in writing of something commonplace, 
 or worse, must necessarily be literature. 
 
 French painting during the last thirty years or more has 
 violently reflected the realism and naturalism by which 
 
 literature was invaded in the earlier part 
 Modern ^£ ^j^g same period, but it should be added 
 
 that this responsiveness to a current of 
 thought opposed to idealism has not been general. Many 
 of the younger men were affected by it, being perhaps 
 oppressed by the necessity of moving with the times, or 
 
 127 
 
128 France of the French 
 
 more anxious than conscientious in their struggle to reach 
 fame by a short and easy way, instead of by the rough and 
 rugged mountain path, which is the one to prove the breath 
 and staying power of the cHmber. Some of these, however, 
 found out in time that they had mistaken charlatanism for 
 art. Meanwhile, men who had made their position by their 
 artistic gift while resting upon the firm ground of patience, 
 laboriousness and honesty, together with respect for the 
 experience and teaching of masters whose work in the public 
 museums and private collections keeps centuries aUve that 
 are chronologically dead, pursued their way calmly, and 
 were not deserted by the discerning public. They had, 
 moreover, no lack of pupils and disciples. The young who 
 were feeling their way, if endowed with good judgment, which 
 of all intellectual faculties is the most valuable, perceived 
 that to attract public attention does not always mean success 
 to an artist. A picture that by its plain indecency, gross 
 suggestiveness, or daring vulgarity in the choice of subject 
 fixes attention upon itself and the painter, or attains the 
 same end by the mere defiance that it casts at the academic 
 principles and notions which have been evolved from the 
 experience of generations, may set the crowd who flock to 
 the Salon in search of the sensational, all chattering, without 
 inducing anybody to inquire the price that the artist puts 
 on his work. People before they hang up fresh wall paper 
 examine the pattern and colour critically with a view to 
 their own taste and requirements. It is the same \\ith a 
 picture, which to the multitude of buyers is merely a piece 
 of furniture. 
 
 The innovator without art is the scourge of art. We have 
 seen a good many such in France while we have been growing 
 older under the Republic. The social atmosphere has been 
 most favourable to the quick hatching and passage of these 
 ephemercp,. They still rise in the air and flutter before the 
 eyes of the crowd. The most recent Salons, both of the 
 Societe Nationale and of the Artistes Frangais, have been rich 
 
Painters 129 
 
 in specimens. What these artists strive for most is to compel 
 the pubhc to notice them, and to achieve this end all means 
 are good. 
 
 The name Impressionism has been given to the most 
 
 characteristic movement in art among French painters 
 
 under the Republic. During the eighties 
 
 Impressionism. ^^ ^^^^ ^^^^ ^^ much heated discussion among 
 
 artists and critics, and supplied a theme that promised never 
 to lose its freshness to the babblers about art. It was a 
 revolutionary movement, and like many other such in a 
 different order of ideas resulted in the worst excesses. A 
 sweeping condemnation of Impressionism as something too 
 contemptible to be discussed, would imply prejudice and 
 perhaps some ignorance. The struggle to express sensations 
 in a new way, or to convey impressions received from nature 
 in a more direct and realistic manner than has hitherto been 
 accomplished by conventional means is not to be condemned 
 in itself. Art cannot remain still ; it must be always changing 
 in manner and aim, because it depends upon the human mind, 
 which is ever restless, ever feeling for fresh ways and means 
 of expressing itself. Impressionism was a revolt against 
 formalism and academic rule. The influence of great 
 landscape painters, notably Corot and Turner, was not 
 foreign to it. Their efforts to render effects of light and 
 atmosphere, with a certain intense truthfulness, led others 
 of inferior breadth of wing to fly higher and attempt the 
 impossible. The blinding rays of the sun can only be 
 suggested in colour, they cannot be depicted. The inability 
 of Impressionists to perceive the boundaries of art led them 
 to indulge in the wildest vagaries of colour, with results that 
 shocked all sense of moderation and the fitness of things. 
 The worst period of this aberration of artistic aim appears 
 now to have been left behind, but even in the latest Salons 
 there have been pictures which would have been much less 
 trying to the eyes if seen through smoked glass. 
 
 Nevertheless, the Impressionist movement is based on 
 
 9— (2398) 
 
130 France of the French 
 
 certain scientific principles, and those who criticise it without 
 understanding these are improperly armed. The solar 
 
 spectrum contains only three pure and ele- 
 Impressionism. "^^^tal colours : red, blue, and yellow. Its 
 
 other hues are merely the result of the 
 blending of the fundamental colours. Now the method of 
 artists from time immemorial has been to blend their colours 
 on the palette just as nature apparently blends hers without 
 a palette. Manet, although he carried Impressionism by no 
 means so far as his followers, became convinced that there 
 was something essentially wrong and opposed to nature in 
 this manner of going to work. He began to employ pure 
 tones on his canvas, and strove to bring his gamut of colours 
 as nearly as possible up to that of nature. Instead of working 
 in accordance with the academic tradition in a studio lighted 
 from the north, he endeavoured to bring as much as possible 
 upon his canvas the direct Hght of the sun. He perceived 
 that even in the deepest shadows there was light, either 
 direct or reflected, and this also he imitated in painting. 
 Others tried to be more scientific than Manet. Perceiving 
 that much of the brilliancy of pure tones was lost by blending 
 them one with another, they proceeded to place them in 
 juxtaposition ; for example, a blue and a yeUow side by side, 
 in order to give the effect of bright green when seen from a 
 certain distance, depending upon peculiarities of vision. 
 Furthermore, it was contended by the innovators that the 
 eye does not perceive objects clearly outlined, but always 
 more or less blurred. The great developer of these principles, 
 and one who has been able to apply them with real talent, 
 whereas not a few others have brought upon the new 
 manifestation of art little besides a revolutionary fury breaking 
 forth in painted blood and flames, is M. Claude Monet (1840). 
 The misty air of London has had a strong fascination for him, 
 perhaps because it helps the theory of indistinctness, and he 
 has painted some striking and singular pictures of the Docks, 
 Houses of Parliament, etc., which to many give the impression 
 
p 
 o 
 
 pq 
 
 < 
 
 o 
 
 w 
 p 
 
 <: 
 w 
 
 H 
 « 
 
 u 
 
Painters 131 
 
 of delirious Tumerism. His " Cathedral of Rouen " is also 
 an amazing performance, really wonderful as a dream- vision. 
 It is strange that these Impressionists see things as the 
 common of mortals are unable to see them except when 
 they are very iU, or asleep. Alfred Sisley (1839-1899), 
 another painter of the same school, attained, it must 
 be admitted, great skill in what is now known as the 
 " division of the tone," that is, placing its constituent colours 
 in juxtaposition. 
 
 Gustave Courbet (18 19-1877), as well as Edouard Manet, 
 worked towards Impressionism. Manet, who was a pupil 
 
 of Courbet, marked, however, a much more 
 
 Courbet advanced stage on this road than the gifted 
 
 and Manet, painter of " Le Combat de Cerfs," whose 
 
 connection with the Commune caused him 
 to die in exile. Manet himself was no more than an ultra- 
 realist, who sought to reproduce striking effects by new 
 methods. A strong painter, he worked largely with a 
 sensational object, as the choice of his subjects indicates. 
 When yet unknown to fame, he made all Paris talk of him 
 by a startling picture that was considered too bold a challenge 
 to decency. His absinthe drinker and his beer drinker (" Le 
 bon Bock ") are well-known pictures, and are typical examples 
 of his low-pitched realism. That success of sensationalism 
 which attended him obtained for him many imitators, who 
 svere not, perhaps, sincere admirers. Like the gifted painter, 
 Henri Regnault, who was killed at the age of twenty-eight 
 in the attempt to break through the German lines at Buzenval, 
 and other artists who shared the fate of Paris during the 
 siege, Manet in 1870 laid down the palette and the maulstick 
 and took up arms. He joined the artillery of the Garde- 
 Nationale, and his commanding officer was Meissonier (1811- 
 1891). In a sense Meissonier also was a realist, for he 
 reproduced every detail with the most scrupulous exactitude, 
 but the new realism, with its leaning to vulgarity and its 
 poverty of imagination, was something very different. 
 
132 France of the French 
 
 A realistic painter of mark who reflected the better aspects 
 of the movement briefly indicated here, was Bastien-Lepage 
 
 (1848-1884), whose career was closed by 
 Bastien-Lepage. death at an early age. His landscapes with 
 
 rustic figures, " Les Foins," " L' Amour au 
 Village," etc., are interesting examples of painstaking art 
 that has lost its way by over-striving after truth. His rustic 
 figures have nothing of the poetic sentiment of Millet's ; 
 they are merely details of the un-ideal life of the fields and 
 the village as it is visible to all. 
 
 The realistic trend of mind has made itself felt even in 
 religious painting, with results that have been generally 
 
 lamentable. The dead Christs, the Cruci- 
 
 Realism in fixions and kindred subjects which modern 
 
 PairSng! French artists have attempted to paint, 
 
 with no other object apparently but to show 
 that the great masters who had already dealt with them 
 were in error, because instead of keeping close to the real 
 they persistently idealised, have responded to nothing, not 
 even to curiosity, in modern life. The piously disposed are 
 satisfied with the traditional treatment, and the sceptics are 
 absolutely indifferent to the whole matter. St. Peter may 
 have been much more like some fishermen of Brittany or 
 Normandy — who will willingly pose for two francs an hour 
 or less — than the apostle as he appears in the works of the 
 early Italian and Renaissance painters ; but it is only the 
 modern artist who considers the question one of interest and 
 importance, and he, as a rule, works much more with the 
 spirit of an innovator than with the one that can approach 
 ideal success in this class of composition — the most difficult 
 of all. 
 
 The tendency of realism when applied to religious painting 
 is to eliminate religious feeling by the violence done to 
 generally accepted ideals. If a painting of a sacred subject 
 has not that which harmonizes with religious feeling and 
 tradition, there is no reason for its existence. It is not 
 
Painters 133 
 
 impossible, however, to reconcile realistic treatment within 
 
 certain limits with an idealistic purpose. We have examples 
 
 of this in works of M. James Tissot (1836-1902), who in 
 
 dealing with the scenes of sacred story draws strong and 
 
 highly interesting effects from his patient studies in Palestine ; 
 
 but he put genuine enthusiasm into his work ; moreover, 
 
 it was the love of the archaic, rather than the realistic in 
 
 the conventional sense, that so influenced his art in this 
 
 direction. 
 
 Many of the modern painters of note in France have tried 
 
 their skill in reUgious painting. Most of them have failed 
 
 completely ; few have persevered. One who 
 
 William ^^^ persevere, and who cannot be said to have 
 Bouguereau. ^ ., ^, tttm,- t-. / o x 
 
 failed, was William Bouguereau (1825-1905). 
 
 He worked on the old academic lines quite unaffected by 
 
 modern realism ; but although he often moved the sense of 
 
 beauty, he did not awaken that interest which goes towards 
 
 the bearers of new messages. Mythological subjects had 
 
 for Bouguereau a nearly equal attraction with religious, at 
 
 all events in his earlier period. One of his strongest and 
 
 most characteristic works is the " Funeral of St. Cecilia in 
 
 the Catacombs," which was bought by the State for the 
 
 Luxembourg more than half a century ago. 
 
 Historical painting has become in these days very much 
 
 what the writing of epic poems is in literature. There is so 
 
 little demand for it that the supply is furtive 
 
 Historical and ^.nd the quality generally feeble. There is 
 
 Decorative small use for it beyond the furnishing of 
 
 Painting. museums, or when united to the decorative 
 
 manner, for the embellishment of large 
 
 wall surfaces of public buildings. Fortunately there is this 
 
 need, otherwise one of the noblest branches of pictorial art 
 
 would be condemned to hopeless decay. 
 
 Those painters who still treat historical subjects, apart 
 from a distinctly decorative object, show wisdom in not 
 indulging the ambition that imagines glory to need an 
 
134 France of the French 
 
 extensive frame. Of these, the veteran M. J. P. Laurens 
 (1838) holds the first place among the living in France. No 
 
 other among his contemporaries has shown 
 M. J. P. Laurens, equal power in seizing upon some dramatic 
 
 incident or historical episode of the Middle 
 Ages, and presenting it to the modern vision with the passion, 
 mentalite, and colour of the period and place to which it 
 belongs. The spectator feels that the scene is true, although 
 he has to take it largely on faith and trust the artist. Great 
 imaginative strength is needed to produce such an impression. 
 Few painters have conveyed with an intensity equal to that 
 of M. Laurens the sense of tragic horror and of gloomy and 
 fanatic passion, and yet with such a sense of measure and 
 discreet use of means. The art of this painter consists in 
 raising just a corner of the veil that hides the life of a bygone 
 age, and giving us a glimpse of some picturesque and 
 dramatic reality that tells all we seem to need for our 
 instruction and curiosity. His terrific picture, exhibited in the 
 Salon of 1872, of Pope Stephen VII solemnly accusing his 
 predecessor Formosus, whose corpse he had had exhumed and 
 robed in pontifical vestments, placed the high quality of M. 
 Laurens' talent as an historical painter beyond all question. 
 There is a truly awful energy in the face and figure of this 
 accusing pontiff of the darkly passionate tenth century. 
 The scene is Dantesque in its vigour as well as in its horror. 
 In the pages of modem history this artist has found little 
 to stir his imagination, but his picture of the death of the 
 unfortunate Due d'Enghien, who was so foully dealt with 
 by Napoleon, is well known. In decorative historical 
 painting M. Laurens' great work is his contribution to the 
 " Life of St. Genevievre " at the Pantheon. 
 
 In the same work on the walls of the Pantheon, as in others 
 
 at the Sorbonne and the Hotel de Ville in Paris, 
 de Chav^n ^^^ ^^ studied the vigorous drawing and 
 
 harmonious colouring of the late Puvis de 
 Chavannes (1824-1898), a great master of this decorative art. 
 
Painters 135 
 
 He drew upon vast surfaces with an ease and breadth of 
 style truly admirable. A pupil of Ary Scheffer and of 
 Couture, he was reared in respect of academic traditions, 
 but was no formalist. The realistic movement did not 
 influence him ; he was always an idealist, but while he gave 
 to his figures an antique grace, he never lost sight of the 
 truth that art is only nature that has passed through the 
 discriminating processes of the human mind. Early in his 
 career mural painting had for him an irresistible attraction 
 and the number of his works that decorate the public 
 buildings of France shows how far this ambition was realized. 
 Among his principal compositions, besides his work at the 
 Pantheon are " Concordia et Bellum " (painted before the 
 war of 1870), " Ave Picardia nutrix " (Amiens Museum), 
 " Le Bois Sacre " at Lyons and " L'Ete " at the Paris Hotel 
 de Ville. His influence upon French decorative art has been 
 very great. 
 
 Paul Baudry (1828-1886), whose name has been made so 
 
 familiar to the cosmopolitan pubUc by his mural paintings 
 
 at the Paris Opera House, was an artist 
 
 Paul Baudry. whose figure stands out saliently among those 
 who have contributed something of them- 
 selves to the aesthetic and intellectual life of France during 
 the closing period of the Empire and the opening period of 
 the Republic. A strong man in character, as well as by his 
 talent, Paul Baudry raised himself from a very humble 
 origin — his father was a sabots maker in Vendee — to a very 
 eminent one by his own exertions. In the first pair of 
 wooden shoes made for him by his father were put gifts not 
 so visible as bonbons, but destined to be of more splendid 
 significance when unfolded. In 1850 he and Bouguereau 
 obtained the Prix de Rome, and the two young artists, whose 
 talent afterwards developed such a widely different individu- 
 ality, left Paris to pursue their studies together at the ViUa 
 Medici at the expense of the State. While in Rome, Baudry 
 studied especially the works of those masters most renowned 
 
136 France of the French 
 
 for their sense of beauty in woman, such as Raphael, Titian , 
 and Corregio. Their influence is to be traced in the French 
 painter's works. It was not long after his return from Rome 
 that his Salon pictures began to attract attention, notably 
 a very fine portrait of the actress Madeleine Brohan. 
 Although he had a remarkable gift for portraiture, his 
 ambition soared much higher. His mind was bent on large 
 compositions and decorative painting. With this purpose 
 in view he returned to Rome, especially to study Michael 
 Angelo. The breadth of his understanding is revealed here. 
 He felt that he needed still wider and higher training. The 
 man who is sufficient unto himself never does great work. 
 It was thus that Baudry prepared himself for his vast under- 
 taking, the decoration of the Opera — that building more huge 
 and ingeniously planned than pleasing as an artistic whole, 
 which the architect Charles Garnier (1835-1898) was bringing 
 to a completion when the war with Prussia feU upon the 
 artistic life of France like the blasting breath of a roused 
 volcano upon the luxuriant valley. The Opera was not 
 opened until 1875. Baudry 's decorative compositions, upon 
 which he had been working assiduously for eight years, 
 outlined with so masterly a hand, so captivatingly fanciful 
 and graceful in idea, but so strong in treatment, drew upon 
 the artist a storm of admiration. 
 
 An imaginative artist, skilful in grouping and with a fine 
 sense of colour, Benjamin Constant (1845-1902) promised 
 
 in the early part of his career to build up 
 Benjamin j^^ reputation mainly upon his work as an 
 
 historical painter. His " Entrance of 
 Mahomet II into Constantinople," exhibited in the Salon 
 of 1878, was a revelation of new power in this field. It was 
 bought for the museum of Toulouse, and his subsequent 
 work, '* Entrance of Urban II into Toulouse," a masterly 
 revival of a stirring page of local history, is to be seen in the 
 Capitol of the southern city, which is so jealous to maintain 
 its old reputation as a patroness of the Arts. But the 
 
From a painting by 
 
 Henner 
 
 FABIOLA 
 
Painters 137 
 
 sumptuous draperies and voluptuous colours of Oriental 
 interiors captivated his talent much in middle and later life, 
 and in common with so many other gifted artists the certain 
 and substantial rewards of portraiture in return for a 
 comparatively small outlay of intellectual effort had for him 
 an increasing attraction. He, moreover, excelled in this 
 branch of art which provides for future generations so much 
 instruction and interest. His portraits of the late Queen 
 Victoria and the present Queen of England, when Princess 
 of Wales, are among his best. He also entered the lists 
 with success in decorative art, and among the mural paint- 
 ings at the Sorbonne, the Hotel de Ville, and the new 
 Op^ra-Comique in Paris are those by Benjamin Constant. 
 
 The nude has been and is one of the branches of painting 
 that French artists have cultivated with the greatest fervour. 
 They have often done so ad nauseam. The 
 human form, well -developed and proportioned, 
 with all the muscles, in the case of the man, large and 
 prominent without hypertrophic exaggeration, which may 
 arise from the constant use of certain muscles at the expense 
 of others, is one of the splendid objects of creation ; the 
 woman with all her flesh tints and curves, if she approaches 
 the symmetry of the ideal type, is one of the most beautiful. 
 But no kind of beauty depends so much upon the ideal for 
 the sensations that it conveys as that of the human form. 
 Whence comes the ideal is one of the mysteries of the mind, 
 but that it is not derived wholly from cultivation is certain. 
 It is difficult to satisfy, violence is easily done to it, and it 
 loathes the commonplace. Now it is the commonplace that 
 we generally get in pictures and statues of the nude. As a 
 reply to this revolt of public taste, daring efforts have been 
 made both in painting and statuary — notably by the 
 sculptor Rodin — to give to the nude the life of passion to 
 the extent of drawing away the interest from the purely 
 aesthetic and placing it, at all events in part, upon the animal 
 level. For the present, however, the subject to be dealt 
 
138 France of the French 
 
 with is painting. In all the Salons, for a long series of years, 
 there has been much nudity and little beauty in the nude. 
 The tendency to unmitigated realism and grossness of 
 suggestion has gone on increasing. French painters belonging 
 to our own times have, however, known how to treat the nude 
 so as to leave a pure and strong impression of ideal beauty. 
 
 A magician in this art was the Alsatian, J. J. Henner 
 
 (1829-1905). A painting of Adam and Eve finding the body 
 
 of Abel obtained for him at the age of twenty- 
 
 j. J. enner. ^.^^ ^-^^ p^^ ^^ Rome. His range of art 
 
 was not wide, but within the limits he marked out for it 
 his work was often exquisite. Like some of our modern 
 sonneteers, he concentrated all his talent upon the perfection 
 of expression and form, leaving a certain vagueness of ideas, 
 conveying a most subtle poetic charm, which, however, is 
 only exasperating to those who want to have the meaning 
 of everything set down for them as plainly as in a butcher's 
 bill. He acquired a style and manner so entirely his own that 
 any work by him could be distinguished among a multitude 
 of other pictures with the greatest ease. The subject that 
 he delighted to paint, and which he painted again and again 
 without much variation, was a nude female figure against 
 a sombre and mysterious background of foliage and above 
 it a patch of sky of an intense and deep blue. Those who 
 have not noticed the effects of clear-obscure in Southern 
 Europe might say that these Henner pictures were not true 
 to nature. They are true, but it is not every evening after 
 sunset that such contrasted effects of light and shade are to 
 be seen even in the south. Henner gave to his nude figures 
 an ivory-tinted glow in the midst of deep shadows, and made 
 them work upon the imagination with a fascinating charm. 
 He knew how to give the true spirit to a pagan fancy while 
 keeping it perfectly chaste. But his talent also found a con- 
 genial outlet in Christian and Biblical idealism. His nymphs 
 in the luminous shade of Southern pines could be changed 
 without much difficult}/ to Magdalens and chaste Susannahs. 
 
Painters 139 
 
 Alexandre Cabanel (1823-1889), like Henner, was trained 
 
 under the Empire, and was also one of the most successful 
 
 painters of the nude during the period covered 
 
 Cabanet^ by his hfe's work. His '* Birth of Venus," 
 
 bought by the State for the Luxembourg 
 
 Museum, a work of remarkable strength and beauty, is well 
 
 known to the public interested in art. He was less successful 
 
 in his mural paintings of a religious and historical order, as for 
 
 example his " Life of St. Louis " at the Pantheon, which is 
 
 much below the height of the subject ; but his allegories of 
 
 the months at the Hotel de Ville are of a better inspiration. 
 
 M. Jules Lefebvre, born in 1836, has now (1912) fallen out 
 of the ranks of contemporary painters. He had a much- 
 admired picture in the Salon des Artistes 
 Lefe^bvre Frangais of 1908. He did not make the 
 nude his exclusive study, but he gave to 
 it his best efforts, and it is by his treatment of the female 
 form and flesh tints that he is chiefly known. In this work 
 he has generally brought marked refinement and idealism 
 to bear, but there are those who perceive too much " elegance" 
 in this, and prefer his earlier style, in which an exuberant 
 animal beauty is depicted without any softening of purpose 
 or mitigation of meaning. Such an example of the nude 
 was the splendid, but sensual, " Femme au Divan Rouge," 
 exhibited in 1868. M. Lefebvre was attracted by the story 
 of Lady Godiva, and he treated it with considerable hardihood. 
 The picture is in the Museum of Amiens. His mural paint- 
 ings at the Hotel de Ville in Paris are more pleasing than 
 his panel of " St. Denis Preaching " at the Pantheon. 
 
 Jean Leon Gerome (1824-1904) was perhaps more than any 
 
 other painter influenced by the light thrown upon antique 
 
 pictorial art by the excavations at Pompeii. 
 
 J. L. Gerome. For this reason he has been styled a n6o- 
 
 Pompeiian. The antique inspiration is easily 
 
 recognized in that picture which of all his works is the best 
 
 known to the public on account of its long stay at the 
 
140 France of the French 
 
 Luxembourg Museum, ** Combat de Coqs," in which we have 
 two young Greeks, a youth and a girl, watching a cock fight. 
 The work was first exhibited in 1847, ^^^ ^^ was perceived 
 at once to be something strong, fresh, and studiously archaic. 
 In the years that followed Gerome painted numerous subjects 
 taken from ancient history and mythology, such as the 
 " Century of Augustus " (Amiens Museum), " Bacchus and 
 Love Drunk " (Bordeaux Museum). Then later history and 
 even modern life began to use his talent. Thus he painted a 
 " Death of Marshal Ney," and " Sortie de bal Masque," 
 a duel between masqueraders in the quiet snow, away from 
 the heated room and in the presence of the woman, the cause 
 of the fatal quarrel, all dressed in the frippery of the masked 
 ball. It would not be easy to name a picture with three 
 figures more poignantly dramatic. Gerome was a pupil of 
 Delaroche, whom he accompanied on a sentimental and 
 artistic journey in Italy. Although he painted much under 
 the Republic, his best work was done under the Empire. As 
 he grew older, his style became harder and drier, and his 
 imaginative faculty weakened. 
 
 Even more than Gerome, Elie Delaunay (1828-1891) 
 belonged to the Empire, although he lived far into the new 
 epoch. His " Peste de Rome," which is in 
 . e aunay. ^^^ Louvre, is an admirable painting, full 
 of power and the feeling of terror. Most of his pictures are 
 mythological, allegorical, or religious. He held fast to the 
 academic traditions in which he was nurtured, and the new 
 movements in art passed over him like waves over a rock. 
 He was working at the decoration of the Pantheon — where 
 his " St. Genevievre exhorting the inhabitants to resistance," 
 may be studied — when overtaken by death. In addition to 
 his other claims to distinction, he ranks among the best 
 modern portrait painters. 
 
 As a painter of myths, Gustave Moreau (1826-1898) had 
 few rivals who could approach him. A solitary man, with 
 a horror of crowds and especially of the spirit of coteries, he 
 
Photo by 
 
 Pierre Petit 
 
 M. BONNAT 
 
Painters 141 
 
 passed his life struggling to fix on canvas the pictures of 
 a teeming imagination that had long fed upon the poetic 
 
 dreams and fancies of the antique mind, 
 MoreatT gracefully beautiful and mysteriously awful. 
 
 He outstayed the interest of the public 
 in such subjects as ** (Edipus and the Sphinx," " Hercules 
 killing the Hydra," " Prometheus," and " Galatea " ; but 
 the work that he has done lives, and the taste for this classicism 
 in painting may rise again, although at present there is no 
 sign that it will. One of Moreau's most vigorous pictures 
 is that of Europa on the back of the bull, familiar to multi- 
 tudes from all lands who have passed through the Luxembourg 
 Museum. 
 
 M. L^on Bonnat is one of those modem painters who have 
 not confined their efforts to any particular field or direction in 
 
 art, but whose ambition, or prudence, has 
 BonnT ^^^ them into various pastures. So many 
 
 are like him in this respect that it is becoming 
 increasingly difficult to classify painters under such headings 
 as " History," " The Nude," '' Genre," " Portraiture," etc. 
 And yet there never was a time like ours when the intensity 
 of competition rendered success so dependent upon the 
 concentration of the faculties upon a small segment of man's 
 intellectual horizon. M. Bonnat has for many years ranked 
 with the leading portrait painters of France. But he is not 
 only a portrait painter ; he has done much work of a higher 
 order in his time — historical, decorative, religious, etc. His 
 artistic life has already covered a long period. His early 
 days were spent at Bayonne, where he was born in 1834, ^.nd 
 this probably explains why his first master was the Spanish 
 painter Madrazo. Although he passed afterwards into the 
 studio of Leon Cogniet, his manner has always retained 
 something of that asperity as well as that voluptuous sense 
 of colour which is characteristic of the Spanish School. In 
 his youth he spent much time at Rome, and the picturesque- 
 ness of Italian life and surroundings inspired not a few of his 
 
142 France of the French 
 
 earlier pictures. Oriental and religious subjects also attracted 
 him. In 1874 he painted a " Christ on the Cross " for the 
 Palais de Justice, but this was subsequently removed from 
 its original place, when the practice of raising the hand 
 towards this Christian emblem, equivalent tp " kissing the 
 Book " in England, was finally abolished in the French 
 courts, and the oath was stripped of all religious meaning. 
 Later his rather startling " Job " appeared in the Salon, 
 and was afterwards given a place at the Luxembourg. This 
 was a masterly painting as painting, but it suggested no 
 ideas that furnished a reason for its production ; it makes 
 one think rather of some poor old wreck of a chiffonnier , 
 whose shrivelled nakedness was reproduced by M. Bonnat 
 with scrupulous realism. This artist has also essayed the 
 decorative style ("St. Denis " at the Panth6on and the 
 " Genius of Arts " at the Hotel de Ville), but his touch is too 
 heavy for it. His massive manner, however, mates well with 
 portraiture, and some of the most striking and lifelike 
 portraits that have appeared in the Salons of the last twenty 
 years have been signed by him. One of the best of these is 
 that of Cardinal Lavig^rie (1825-1892). The head is wonder- 
 fully expressive of the vigorous and practical character of the 
 Primate of Africa, and the scarlet cassock gave opportunities 
 for a brilliant effect of colour which M. Bonnat was not one 
 to miss. The picture was bought for the Luxembourg. 
 This artist is a valiant worker, notwithstanding his age. 
 His portraits are looked for every year in the Salon des 
 Artistes Frangais. 
 
 Almost contemporaneous with M. Bonnat, M. Carolus 
 Duran, who was born in 1838, has likewise found in 
 
 portraiture the more solid rewards of an 
 ^* ^*''°^"^ artistic career, unless it be agreed that a 
 
 substantial and congenial appointment under 
 Government is the most solid of all. Since the commence- 
 ment of 1905, M. Carolus Duran has been director of the 
 French Academy at Rome, installed like a Prince of Art at 
 
Painters 143 
 
 the Villa Medici (or Medicis, as the French with their mania 
 of GaUicising the world's orthography prefer to spell it). 
 What more could be desired, unless it were a slice of Mont- 
 martre near at hand to give the savour of Paris when the need 
 of it was felt ? He became known in 1866 by a very large 
 Salon picture, " L'Assasine " — a vigorous page of old Roman 
 manners on canvas, and which has long been in the museum 
 of his native town, Lille. It was his portraits, however, that 
 caused his name to be repeated in all the salons, and thus he 
 was compelled to be a portrait painter. It could not have 
 been an unpleasant occupation, inasmuch as the most charm- 
 ing and vivacious women got the idea into their heads that 
 no one could do justice to their beauty like Carolus Duran. 
 He has not only the power of making the most of what nature 
 has given to the sitter, while retaining the likeness ; he 
 has a rare cunning in the use of colour. Nevertheless, in the 
 opinion of some his effects of colour in draperies are too 
 arrogant. He was influenced by Velasquez, whom he studied 
 in Spain. 
 
 M. Aime Morot, who was born in 1850, is in the front rank 
 of painters who have found their way under the Republic. 
 
 He is one of those who cannot be classified, for 
 M. Aime Morot. he has been by turns a religious, an historical, 
 
 and a military painter. He has also excelled 
 in portraiture. The most masterly work he has yet produced 
 is by general consent allowed to be " Reischoffen," which 
 may be seen in the museum of Versailles. He depicts with 
 remarkable spirit and feeling of intense action the historical 
 charge of the cuirassiers, which MacMahon ordered to cover 
 the retreat when the day at Woerth, or Reischoffen, was 
 lost by the French. This charge was one of the glorious 
 exploits of French cavalry. Its hopelessness, regarded as 
 an offensive movement, made it the more heroic. It was a 
 noble sacrifice of life to stem the tide of pursuit. This 
 episode of 1870 has been depicted by no other artist with 
 equal strength. 
 
144 France of the French 
 
 An artist with much diversity of talent and power, but 
 who of late years has been almost absorbed by portraiture — 
 
 so apt to prove the grave of a painter's imagin- 
 ameng. ^^j^^^ ^yy the facile and tempting rewards that 
 it offers to the man who has made a name, while it rarely helps 
 one to rise — is M. Francois Flameng, who was bom in 1856. 
 He has great power over the picturesque, and also the rarer 
 faculty of entering into the spirit of the past. Thus he has 
 been able to produce some historical works full of a living 
 interest, as for example his " Appel des Girondins " and " Les 
 Vainqueurs de la Bastille." If his talent as a colourist were 
 equal to his gift of composition, he would have made a greater 
 name. He has attained signal success in the decorative 
 style, notably in his mural paintings at the Sorbonne and 
 the Opera-Comique. 
 
 One of the younger painters of the day among those who 
 have attained a wide reputation, is M. Georges Rochegrosse, 
 
 who was bom in 1859. Endowed with true 
 Roche^rSse originality and a marked disposition to 
 
 produce coups de theatre in painting, his Salon 
 picture of 1882 of ** Vitellius dragged through the Streets 
 of Rome " was for some weeks the chief thing talked about 
 by the art-gossips of Paris. Loathsome as the almost naked 
 figure of the debauched and swinish Emperor was, his 
 hopeless terror was depicted with a fearful realism that 
 fascinated ; moreover, an intense impression of life and truth 
 was conveyed by all the surging street mob of soldiers and 
 idlers of that outflow of brutish passion, such as the history 
 of the frequent tumults of decadent Rome throws into 
 sanguinary and darkly dramatic relief. This picture is now 
 in the Sens museum. The artist, encouraged by his success, 
 pursued his studies of antiquity, but in much of his work 
 the effort to produce tremendous and extraordinary effects 
 of tragedy and horror is too obvious. This criticism, how- 
 ever, does not apply to " La Curee " (1889), which depicts 
 the death of Julius Caesar. The sudden rush of the small, 
 
Painters 145 
 
 compact band of conspirators, each with one arm out- 
 stretched and hand grasping the knife which a moment 
 later will drip with blood, is rendered with a tragic and 
 realistic strength of which there are not many examples in 
 contemporary art. The idea of composition is submerged 
 by the sense of reality. Surely this is the end and aim of all 
 art in historic painting, provided that a certain nobleness, 
 even the nobleness of a displaced ideal, be given to the reality. 
 But M. Rochegrosse has not in his subsequent work risen 
 to the expectations that were founded upon this and other 
 of his earlier paintings. His imagination has become more 
 and more fixed upon the sensuous and archaic details of anti- 
 quity, especially Asiatic, a temper of mind which if not resisted 
 leads on to the atrophy of the inventive faculty. In drawing 
 the remote and obscure past from its grave, he is less 
 concerned now with its life than with its clothes. The 
 ornaments that he puts upon the corpse may be those that 
 were really worn, but this is not breathing fresh life into the 
 body. Looking at various signs in different fields of 
 intellectual activity, one asks if there is anything in the 
 social atmosphere of these days that prevents the most 
 promising talent from realizing its maturity. 
 
 A talented and versatile painter — so versatile that it is 
 
 impossible to classify him, was Charles Cazin (1841-1901). 
 
 Much of his life was spent in various countries, 
 
 ^Cazin^ including England, in his early days. He 
 became known before the close of the Empire 
 as a painter of Biblical subjects, simple in method but strong 
 in effect. He discovered that in order to convey just 
 impressions of the landscape of Palestine, within the limits 
 required for his groups, it was not necessary to travel farther 
 than the dunes on the Western and Northern coasts of France. 
 His " Ishmael and Hagar " (Luxembourg Museum) may be 
 regarded as the finest example of his work in this order of 
 ideas. In course of time he left Biblical subjects for those of 
 ancient Greece, and produced such paintings as the " House 
 
 10— (2398) 
 
146 France of the French 
 
 of Socrates." Then he struck what was, perhaps , the best and 
 truest note of his talent by giving his mind to landscape 
 painting. Into this work he threw a deep poetic feeling. 
 " Cazin's hour " is known to mean in France the time 
 when the sun, about to set, gilds the mist that rises as the 
 temperature falls and the struggle with night begins. 
 
 M. Dagnan-Bouveret (1852), whose realistic treatment of 
 
 rustic and other subjects, much in the manner of Bastien- 
 
 Lepage, brought him into notice in the early 
 
 M. Dagnan- eighties, and whose style afterwards acquired 
 greater breadth and promised much, has of 
 late years given the best of his art to portraiture. A work 
 remarkable for observation and truth is " Le Pain Beni," 
 bought in 1886 for the Luxembourg. There was a time 
 when the painter was drawn to Biblical subjects, and during 
 this period he produced one of his most admired paintings, 
 " The Pilgrims of Emmaus." 
 
 M. Alfred Roll (1847) has made himself chiefly remarkable 
 
 by his vigorous paintings of outdoor Ufe, and in conveying 
 
 very just and strikiner impressions of labour 
 M. A. Roll. . -% 11 .... A 1 u u £ 
 
 m full activity. A workshop, or wharf, 
 
 crowded with busy life interests some people much more than 
 
 an idyllic scene ; they perceive a grandeur in human toil 
 
 and violent exertion, while others remain unmoved by such 
 
 subjects and marvel at an artist's wasted effort upon the 
 
 commonplace. The former are generally delighted with all 
 
 representations of popular gatherings and spectacles 
 
 intensely reflecting life and reahty. For such M. Roll has 
 
 worked more successfully than any hving French artist. 
 
 Among his best works of this order are " Le Chantier de 
 
 Suresnes, 1885," " La Fete du 14 Juillet " (in the museum 
 
 of the Paris Hotel de Ville), " Centenaire de 1889 " (Museum 
 
 of Versailles). But M. Roll has not confined himself within 
 
 the limits of such subjects. His picture of a Normandy 
 
 woman carrying a pail of milk from the cow, " Manda 
 
 Lametrie, Fermiere," which was bought for the Luxembourg, 
 
Photo bv 
 
 RmtUnger 
 
 M. DETAILLE 
 
Painters 147 
 
 conveys with singular force the feeUng of rusticity that has 
 not, however, been ideaUzed. M. Roll can delight the eye 
 with the charm of freshness, greenness, and healthy life, but 
 he says nothing to the soul in his treatment of rustic figures, 
 in which matter an abyss separates him from the painter 
 of the " Angelus " and the " Gleaners." He is a realistic 
 artist having something of the manner and very much of 
 the disposition of Manet. 
 
 Alphonse de Neuville (1836-1885) was one of the best 
 painters of military subjects under the Empire, and during the 
 
 first ten years of the Republic his precedence 
 d^Neu"me ^^ ^^^^ branch of art was not questioned. The 
 
 war with Germany appeared to inspire him ; 
 indeed, for years after the disasters to France in 1870-1871 
 there was enough sentiment of the battle-field in the air to offer 
 exceptional opportunities to any painter capable of composing 
 a spirited battle piece with a sufficient sense of the recently 
 actual. De Neuville rose at once to the situation with 
 " Les Dernieres Cartouches " (his most vigorous and his 
 best known painting), *' Le Cimetiere de Saint-Privat " 
 and " Le Bourget." Prior to 1870 he had been much 
 absorbed by illustrating, but the terrible realities of war 
 drew from a reserve of power in him a succession of 
 pictures as remarkable for their talent as for their rapid 
 production. 
 
 Since the death of Alphonse de Neuville and Meissonier, 
 Edouard DetaiUe, who was born in 1848, has without 
 
 dispute taken the first place among French 
 E. Detaille. military painters. Indeed, long before his 
 
 death, in 1891, Meissonier had practically 
 retired from the field. Detaille was one of Meissonier 's 
 pupils, and although the work of the two men differs widely, 
 it is easy to perceive the influence of the elder upon the 
 younger. Detaille was a painter rather of the episodes of 
 war than of battle pieces. He very rarely attempted to 
 depict masses of men in action, although he was quite capable 
 
148 France of the French 
 
 of vast compositions, in illustration of which we have his 
 " Reception of the Troops in 1806," an historical work 
 showing much animation and breadth of style. The painting 
 is at the Hotel de Ville in Paris. De Neuville always felt 
 sure of himself in realizing on canvas the fury of battle ; 
 Detaille appears to have placed much less confidence in 
 this power in himself. Nevertheless, his " Charge of the 
 Cuirassiers at Morsbronne " is a very spirited work. But 
 his peculiar strength is better seen in the " Faron Division 
 Defending Champigny," where the men are shown busily at 
 work loopholing walls, raising defences with everything that 
 came to hand ; in fact, hastily preparing for the expected 
 onslaught of Germans — which did not fail to come. Such 
 pictures, when studied in every detail, as those of Detaille 
 are, give a more realistic impression of war than others which 
 show the struggle of opposing masses of all arms in the open 
 country. Moreover, it must be borne in mind that war has 
 lost much of its old picturesqueness, if such an expression 
 may be used here. The furious melees of cavalry that speak 
 so much more to the imagination than infantry and artillery 
 spread over vast surfaces working out mathematical problems 
 like machines, answering the telegraph and telephone, can 
 now be only minor episodes of battle. Detaille learnt 
 early from Meissonier not to put over much into a military 
 picture, and he was thus in advance of the changes that were 
 to come in the science of war. This artist had a weakness 
 for putting allegorical figures into paintings otherwise marked 
 by powerful realism. Thus in his Salon picture (1908), 
 " Le Chant du Depart," he places in front of the young 
 soldiers who have commenced the march that may be to 
 death, a figure of Victory on a winged horse. Such spectral 
 allegorical figures strike a jarring note. 
 
 In the Salon of 1910 he had a canvas that fixed immediate 
 attention by the intense sense of life and also of death with 
 which was depicted a brief but sanguinary fight at a barricade 
 in the Rue du Petit Pont during the Revolution of July,^ 1830. 
 
Painters 149 
 
 Other artists of conspicuous talent among military painters, 
 including those who have given their attention especially to 
 naval battles, are M. A. Binet (1854-1897), whose pictures 
 of the siege of Paris are at the Hotel de Ville ; M. Fouqueray, 
 whose " Battle of Trafalgar " conveys an intense impression 
 of deadly energy ; and M. Orange. 
 
 pilProminent among living painters of rustic life, distinct 
 
 from landscape, is M. Leon Lhermitte (1844) and M. Henri 
 
 Lerolle (1848). The former is a native of 
 
 Rustic Life. Champagne, which is not a picturesque part 
 of France, but he, nevertheless, found 
 inspiration there for some of his earlier works. His picture 
 of reapers receiving their wages (bought by the State for the 
 Luxembourg in 1882) brought him prominently into notice. 
 Other pictures in the same order of ideas followed, such as 
 "The Vintage" and "Death and the Woodman." The 
 latter is in the Amiens Museum. A draughtsman of remark- 
 able vigour and truth, M. Lhermitte is less successful as a 
 colourist. His group of harvesters in the Salon (Soci^t6 
 Nationale) of 1908, should rank with his best work. 
 
 M. Lerolle has also a full and joyous sympathy with out- 
 door life, and he has painted many rustic scenes, idyllic in 
 sentiment and realistic in treatment. One of his best works, 
 " Dans la Campagne," is in the Luxembourg Museum. 
 There is much in the work of M. Albert Besnard that places 
 him in this category of painters, although the imaginative 
 has had at least as much attraction for him as the real. But 
 whether he paints a milkmaid or a nymph, he throws a 
 charm into the figure which is closely related to his delicate 
 art as a colourist. The mairie of the first arrondissement in 
 Paris is decorated with three of his finest compositions, 
 " Le Matin de la Vie," " Le Midi," and " Le Soir." 
 
 However opinion may differ on the question whether 
 modern French art has advanced or fallen back in some 
 important respects, its achievements in landscape and 
 rustic figure painting have been too remarkable for any 
 
150 France of the French 
 
 doubt to be possible as to the progress it has made in this 
 direction. Without going back to Millet and Corot, who 
 rank with the most illustrious of all inter- 
 ^^^^^cape preters of nature on canvas, and passing over 
 Figures. several other gifted landscape painters, there 
 has been no lack of richly-endowed artists 
 who, belonging to the Republic either wholly or in part, 
 have brought to bear upon this branch of art a strong indi- 
 viduality and a pure love of nature which have gone far 
 to redeem grosser ambition in other directions, and to uphold 
 the reputation of French painters in the estimation of the 
 world. In the early days of the Republic, veteran landscape 
 painters of the Monarchy and Empire, such as Harpignies, 
 FleuryChenu, Lansyer, Lambinet, Sege, Busson,and Hanoteau 
 were still busy with the brush ; some, like Harpignies, giving 
 much attention to water colour, and excelling in this most 
 delicate method of seizing and fixing the spiritual moods of 
 nature. Nor must Rosa Bonheur (1822-1899) be overlooked, 
 for although it is as a painter of horses and cattle that her 
 fame has its most solid foundation, she has the feeling of 
 the landscape painter also. 
 
 As a painter of rustic figures combined with landscape, 
 Jules Breton, who was born in 1828 and who came to Paris 
 to seek his fortune at the tumultuous birth of the Republic 
 of 1848, reached the summit of his success under the Third 
 Republic, and there are not many zealous watchers of 
 contemporary art who have not seen some of his pictures in 
 the Salon. Realists of the day accuse him of having idealised 
 rustic life. It may be granted that he did this to some 
 extent, but never to the degree of offending possible truth. 
 The sordid and grossly material aspects of peasant life 
 repelled him, and he would certainly not have made a 
 successful illustrator of Zola's " La Terre." In choosing his 
 subjects he looked for beauty in reality, suggesting, if not 
 realizing, ideal beauty. He put his mind into his work, 
 thus producing delightful effects of sentiment. He was not 
 
Painters 151 
 
 a photographer, but an artist of fine sensibilities capable of 
 discerning what sensations of nature were worth preserving 
 upon canvas and those that were not. Among other qualities 
 in his work is an exquisite sense of the harmony of colour. 
 Among his well-known paintings are '* The Return of the 
 Harvesters " and the " Blessing of the Corn," bought for the 
 Luxembourg Museum. 
 
 Emile Breton (1823-1902), although of a more Umited 
 artistic range than his brother Jules, was nevertheless a 
 painter who possessed the secret of putting an irresistible 
 charm into his work. The effects of nature which had for 
 him a peculiar attraction, and which he rendered with much 
 poetic feeling, were those of winter and late autumn, such 
 as snow-clad houses and bare trees in the quiet moonlight, 
 dreary fields and naked hedges touched with the weak glow 
 of rainy or snowy sunsets. 
 
 Madame Demont-Breton, daughter of M. Jules Breton, is also 
 a talented painter of rustic figures and landscapes, but especially 
 successful in depicting sea-shore effects with fisher-folk. 
 
 French painters are many, and this book has to cover much 
 and various ground. Therefore, with all the wish to be just, 
 it is impossible not to omit the mention here of numerous 
 artists of merit and originahty. To the landscape and rustic 
 figure painters already spoken of, the following names may 
 well be added, which are those of exhibitors whose works in 
 the two Salons of 1908 were very noticeable in connection 
 with this ever delightful branch of the Fine Arts : A. G. 
 Rigolot (Effect of autumnal evening), G. Costeau (Provence : 
 effect of sunrise on water, hills, and pines), A. Dagneau, A. 
 Buffet, L. Cable (Effect of mist on woods and water), G. P. 
 Dieterle (Landscape, with figures and sheep), A. Girard 
 (Woodland effect, autumn), A. Delaistre (Sea-shore at low 
 water under cliff), Marie Duhem (Sunset and moonlight with 
 figures), J. E. Crochet, and Mile. V. Pepe (Noctum : landscape 
 with figures). 
 
 M. Eugene Carriere (1849-1906), whose active and fruitful 
 
152 France of the French 
 
 life was so recently extinguished, was a gifted and original 
 
 artist. His best talent was shown in familiar subjects, 
 
 Interiors ^^^^ ^ " ^^ Famille," " La Matemite " 
 
 Portraiture, (both at the Luxembourg). As a painter of 
 
 ^^^' home life, he does not fail to touch upon true 
 
 notes of feeling. He also painted admirable portraits of 
 
 Alphonse Daudet, and others. 
 
 M. Emile Friant (1863) is also well to the front as a painter 
 of interiors and homely subjects. " La Legon du Cure " 
 (Luxembourg) is an example of his work. M. Raffaelli 
 (1850) and M. A. Renoir are both painters of the Impressionist 
 school, with a strong taste for genre subjects of that picturesque 
 vulgarity which appealed so strongly to the Flemish painters. 
 This in course of time throws an interesting although not 
 flattering light on bygone manners. Such a work is M. 
 Renoir's '' Le Moulin de la Galette " (Luxembourg). M. 
 Henri Gervex (1852) is a painter of varied powers who appears 
 to have settled down to portraiture. His picture of a woman 
 clothed only with a small black mask over the upper part 
 of the face gave rise to much scandal at the time of its exhi- 
 bition in the Salon, and law-court incidents several years 
 afterwards. It was suspected of being a portrait, and the 
 tongues of gossips in Paris were rife as to the identity of the 
 poseuse, who was said to be " in society." M. Jean Beraud 
 excels in depicting interiors seen by gas or lampUght. For- 
 merly he was much drawn by the charm of such effects in 
 bars and places of light amusement. His " Soiree " (Salon, 
 191 1) is a very animated and life-like drawing-room scene 
 after dinner, with strong effects of hght and shadow. 
 
 Among the younger portrait painters of note is M. M. 
 Baschet. His portrait of M. Henri Rochefort was one of the 
 most striking of the Salon pictures of this class in 1908. 
 Another rising artist is M. L. Jonas, who with a genre subject 
 obtained the Salon prize for painting in 191 1. 
 
 Women painters are now numerous in France. Those 
 with whose names the public is most familiar are Mile. Louise 
 
Painters 153 
 
 Abb^ma (1855), who has had much success in portraiture, 
 and Mme, Madeleine Lemaire (1845), who for many years 
 has held the leading place in France among 
 ^sZZ flower painters. 
 
 A lady whose talent has shone forth con- 
 spicuously of late in a department of art that women have 
 rarely entered, namely, allegorical and decorative painting, is 
 Mile. C. H. Dufau. Her decorative pieces ordered by the 
 State and illustrating "Astronomy," " Mathematics," " Radio- 
 activity," and " Magnetism," exhibited in the Salon des 
 Artistes Frangais, 1908, show great imaginative power and 
 a fine sense of colour. 
 
 Mention should also be made of Mile. Lucien Heuvelmans, 
 who in 191 1 obtained the Grand Prix de Rome for painting a 
 remarkable, well-composed work depicting Electra watching 
 over the sleep of Orestes. This was the first time that the 
 department of Fine Arts had bestowed such a distinction upon 
 a woman. It confers among other advantages that of four 
 years' free residence at the French School of Art at Rome. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 SCULPTORS 
 
 In modern sculpture, or statuary — which is, perhaps, the 
 better word — French artists have ranked with the first in 
 
 Europe. The word " modern " is here 
 Past and intended to mean from the beginning of the 
 Present. Renaissance to the present time. If we 
 
 were to go farther back and speak of the 
 Middle Ages, it would be difficult indeed not to give the 
 sculptors both in stone and wood of what is now called France 
 the first place in Europe. Where else was church architecture 
 embellished with such living forms in lifeless matter of beings 
 divine, holy, human, and diabolic ? But the Renaissance 
 brought much Italian influence into France. The Medici — 
 those of them who became French by marriage — contributed 
 greatly to this movement. The competition of Italian artists 
 became severe, and French sculptors had to move with the 
 times or disappear. They preferred to move ; they culti- 
 vated the neo-classic style and Gothic statuary with its 
 uncouth sense of the plastic, but marvellous power of 
 expression, went the way of all that gets worn out in the 
 fullness of time. Philibert Delorme, the architect of the 
 Tuileries, and his contemporary Jean Goujon, the sculptor, 
 whose work may be studied in the Fontaine des Innocents 
 and in various details of the Old Louvre, are examples of 
 the ease and brilliancy with which Frenchmen adapted 
 themselves to the new taste in the sixteenth century. 
 
 But what has to be dealt with here is French sculpture of 
 the present day. It may be stated without hesitation that it 
 
 has not lost anything of the high place that 
 
 in France. ^^ ^^^ ^^^S ^§^ ^^ ^'^ Opinion of the critical 
 
 public throughout the world. This enviable 
 
 position is largely due to the enlightened encouragement and 
 
 154 
 
Sculptors 155 
 
 material assistance given to the sculptor in France. If he had 
 been thrown mainly upon private patronage for the hire of 
 which the labourer is worthy, his art would have perished, or 
 crawled feebly along in such manner as to give his country 
 small cause for pride ; but France, whether Monarchical, 
 Imperial, or Republican, has always had a full and generous 
 sense of what is due to art as an educator of the people, and 
 as the most delicate and refined protest of the human mind 
 against the merely animal life of man. Some ridicule has 
 in these later days been cast upon what has been regarded 
 as a statue-raising mania in France. It is shallow ridicule, 
 for every statue that is raised in a public place gives work 
 to a sculptor and helps to stimulate ambition in this noble 
 sphere of art. The selection of individuals so honoured 
 might sometimes be determined by higher motives and 
 considerations, but an excess of art that is not in the service 
 of vice is the last thing that any country need fear. Too 
 many statues in squares and street carrefours may be an 
 encumbrance, but this is better than a dearth of them. Time 
 may be entrusted with the work of removing those that may 
 get too much in the way, or when new ideas can no longer 
 tolerate them ; meanwhile, they serve a good purpose. 
 
 The ugliness of figures in modern clothes is no reason why 
 
 politicians and other '* worthies " — even if they were chiefly 
 
 wotthy of being hanged — should not have 
 
 ^M^T^ ^" their effigies set up in marble and bronze. 
 
 Clothing. for art derives a stimulus from the public 
 
 taste for such things. Illustrious men of 
 
 antiquity, distrustful perhaps of clothing and its fashions, 
 
 preferred sometimes to be represented by the sculptor in 
 
 unrobed nature for the admiration of contemporaries and 
 
 posterity, but although a certain movement on the stage 
 
 and in literature is working wonders in the direction of what 
 
 has been termed " Corinthianism," those now living are not 
 
 likely to cherish the ambition that their likeness will some 
 
 day be raised on a pedestal in the costume of Apollo. The 
 
156 France of the French 
 
 sculptor, who is largely dependent upon commissions from 
 the State, municipalities, and committees, cannot hope to get 
 away from frock-coats and trousers. His art largely consists 
 of making the modern man look well in modern garments. It 
 is hard to deny that the modem man, aesthetically, cuts a very 
 poor figure on a pedestal, and is made rather grotesque when, 
 as is so often the case, allegorical figures exhibiting in freedom 
 all the lines of nature are grouped around him. 
 
 Although the statuary's art was very prolific during the 
 first twenty years of the Republic, and highly gifted artists 
 who are now dead, together with others who are living, were 
 then in the full vigour of their creative power, signs of a 
 decreasing public interest in statuary were noticed. The 
 cause of this was supposed to be in the too frequent repetition 
 of the same ideas, or the lack of power to invest them with 
 a new life. It must be allowed that it is very difficult for 
 a sculptor to show striking originality in the treatment of a 
 Diana, a bacchant, a nymph, or a faun — figures that have 
 been multitudinously repeated more or less after the antique 
 models since the beginning of the Renaissance. But such 
 statues have abounded in every Salon within the memory 
 of the living, as they certainly did before. On the other 
 hand, subjects immediately related to modem life and its 
 needs afford little scope for the imagination. Let it be 
 remembered that the sculptor in treating the commonplace 
 has not the painter's resources to help him. He cannot 
 pass off a weak or useless idea as something of worth by the 
 aid of colour. The sense of colour is quite distinct from that 
 of form. It has led many a painter to success who without 
 it would have made but little way in life. The sculptor to be 
 really original needs such a sense of form and life in form as 
 amounts to genius. If he has not this " divine afflatus," 
 he is a mere imitator of academic models. The prodigious 
 difficulties with which the modem sculptor has to contend 
 should therefore be borne well in mind. When one comes 
 to a just comprehension of what these difficulties are, then 
 
Sculptors 157 
 
 the work of some sculptors of our own times appears truly 
 admirable. 
 
 Dalou (1838-1902) who, like Courbet the painter, got into 
 trouble by his misplaced sympathy with the Commune — 
 merely arising from the enthusiasm of the 
 artistic temperament, that is so apt to make 
 a mental muddle of politics — and who for a while was a 
 proscript, was, nevertheless, the sculptor of the " Triumph 
 of the Republic " in the Place de la Nation and of the 
 Gambetta monument, touched by the shadows of the Louvre 
 and raised in the midst of associations somewhat out of 
 harmony with the eloquent tribune's ideas. This last is a 
 rather theatrical piece of work, but a simple statue would 
 not have given satisfaction to the nation, and considering 
 his difficulties, Dalou did all that could have been expected of 
 him. It is a bad service, however, to a man, great though he be, 
 to give him such an elaborate monument in which various 
 figures are introduced, for independently of the question of taste, 
 the time will surely come when the public will wish it out of 
 the way, if it takes up too much room in a city. Posterity 
 is a ruthless destroyer of the magnifying glass through which 
 a political celebrity is seen by his friends and partisans. 
 
 Falguiere (1832-1900) was also a sculptor of power and 
 versatility, but in his elaborate pieces the effect was some- 
 times marred by the lack of antique simplicity, 
 aguiere. There was a tendency to overcrowd with 
 
 figures, and produce in statuary suggestions of the stage 
 apotheosis. Here, however, we touch upon the weak side 
 of French art. As time goes on, it becomes less observable. 
 Among Falguiere's most successful works are his statues of 
 Balzac, Diana, and the " Dancer." 
 
 Another sculptor who left the mark of his strong individu- 
 ality upon modern statuary was Barrias (1841-1905). He 
 and Fremiet complete a group of the dead of 
 ^"*^- whom the Repubhc has good reason to be 
 proud. In grouping his figures, he had the sense of a great 
 
158 France of the French 
 
 master of his art, and he possessed also in a high degree the 
 power of expressing noble sentiments. His " Premieres 
 Funerailles " — the first burial solemnity that man was called 
 upon to perform — a work that might otherwise be described 
 as the funeral of Abel, is by its grandeur of conception and 
 sentiment one of the finest examples of modern French 
 sculpture. Another admirable work by the same artist is 
 his " Defence of Paris," a composition that tells its story 
 with strength and eloquence. 
 
 No sculptor has been so much talked of and written about 
 of late years as M. Auguste Rodin (1840). To the more 
 
 enthusiastic of his admirers he leads and 
 R d^^^^^ embodies a new Renaissance of sculpture, and 
 
 is the greatest plastic artist the world has 
 seen since Phidias ; to others he is a revolutionist, a pursuer of 
 notoriety at any price, and a panderer to the grosser instincts 
 in man. To judge his work fairly, one must not be drawn 
 into either of these currents of controversy. This much is 
 certain ; he is a power, and one of the most actively influen- 
 tial in these days wherever there is any distinct movement 
 of mind concerning the aim and end of sculpture. No man 
 without strong original talent could have reached such a 
 position. Forces of character and of life have kneaded 
 together the artistic qualities that make M. Rodin what he 
 is. He unites in himself the spirit of modern reaHsm and 
 that of classic paganism. He does not apparently recognize 
 those ideas which in the modern world distinguish the pure 
 from the impure, the chaste from the unchaste. Regard 
 for what he doubtless considers the prejudices of an artificial 
 and hypocritical society compels him to show some measure 
 of respect for prevailing opinion ; but from various groups 
 that have come out of his studio, for example : " The Kiss," 
 " Spring," the '' Eternal Idol," and " Amor Fugit," it is not 
 difficult to divine what his freedom in art would have been 
 had no restraint been placed upon it. The first-named of 
 these groups {" Le Baiser," at the Luxembourg) was originally 
 
Plwio by 
 
 Kyvatizky 
 
 M. AUGUSTE RODIN 
 
Sculptors 159 
 
 designed by M. Rodin for his " Gate of Hell," and was intended 
 to represent Paolo and Francesca di Rimini. Here we have 
 the keynote to the sculptor's meaning. The remarkable 
 vigour and also the hardihood with which the subject is 
 treated have made the work famous. 
 
 M. Rodin's power over inanimate matter is such that 
 he has sometimes abused it, and exhibited work unfinished 
 and uncouth enough to scandalize a novice. Probably the 
 unmeasured admiration of enthusiasm may have made him 
 forget that he also is a man, and that as such he must be 
 ever critical of himself. The foot of his " Muse " in the 
 Salon de la Societe Nationale (1908) was Httle more than an 
 " impression." But impressionism in statuary is rather 
 too much for the eye to bear. 
 
 No work of art has been so much wrangled over of late 
 years as M. Rodin's statue of Balzac, which has been set up 
 in Paris. While some maintain that it is a splendid triumph 
 of life-Uke statuary, others say it is a grotesque caricature 
 of the author of the " Human Comedy." It is to be regretted 
 that Balzac has been unable to give his opinion on the matter 
 and settle the dispute. No one has yet said that the portrait 
 is flattering. The head is rugged enough for the shoulders 
 of Pan, but amazing life and energy are expressed in the 
 whole figure. 
 
 In the expression of energy and action, Rodin is a great 
 artist. He misses, more often than he seizes, ideal beauty ; but 
 what he does seize is human passion and all that belongs to 
 the animal in man. He can express with remarkable vigour 
 the energy of war as well as the energy of love, as this was 
 understood of old, when the highest law was that of nature. 
 An example is that animated group, "L'Appel aux Armes." 
 What expression in the clenched hands of the demon-like 
 winged figure that appeals to the fighting passion in human 
 nature ! This sculptor, by the bye, excels in the art of 
 putting expression into hands. His " Hand of God " is an 
 illustration of his power. His work has included a great 
 
160 France of the French 
 
 variety of subjects. One of his eariier successes was his 
 group of the " Burgesses of Calais " going forth to meet the 
 English king with ropes round their necks — a dramatic page 
 of history, the veracity of which has been questioned. A 
 work at once beautiful and masterly is " Le Penseur " in 
 the Place du Pantheon. The idea of though tfulness is finely 
 expressed in this admirable statue. 
 
 Although of living French sculptors M. Rodin has of late 
 years obtained an unrivalled succes de publicite, there are many 
 
 who recognize in M. Antonin Mercie (1845) 
 ^Merdr^" the most highly endowed statuary of the day. 
 
 His art does not break forth volcanically ; 
 if he fixes his impressions hastily in clay, these are not for 
 public exhibition, but for private use. Judging by some of 
 his work, or rather so much of it as he has thus far produced, 
 he beUeves that in no branch of the Fine Arts is there so great 
 a need of finish and scrupulous attention to detail as in 
 sculpture. M. Mercie's best known work is his " Gloria 
 Victis," a protest against the opposite sentiment, " Vae 
 Victis," which the Roman world, with its ferocious positivism, 
 could alone understand in connection with the vanquished. 
 The woe was positive ; the glory was an absurdity. Senti- 
 ment, however, has authority in the modem world where 
 every thumb would be raised to spare the life of the defeated 
 gladiator. Nevertheless, it is striking a rather false note to 
 celebrate one's glory in discomfiture. There was too much 
 of this kind of sentiment in the years that were near the war 
 of 1870 ; but with the passing of time has come that partial 
 obliviousness which is often equivalent to calmer judgment. 
 The figure of Napoleon on the summit of the Vandome column 
 is by Mercie, as is likewise the statue of Thiers at St. Germain- 
 en- Laye. 
 
 A much grander and more imaginative work, one that 
 expresses undaunted patriotism simply and nobly, is the 
 group " Quand Meme ! " designed to commemorate the 
 resistance to the invader in the war of 1870-71. In fine, no 
 
1^sfxmratig):^gm'ntiim<' ''nm s ^mm - iv - j ' - > »i>«»w »»i t»" < " i i» awwiMMP'tnnw WWWwp.WKiiigl* ' ';i' i ■il'> *»' 
 
 'IMMi^ip 
 
 P 
 
 Statuary by 
 
 Mercie 
 
 QUAND MEME 
 
Sculptors 161 
 
 other sculptor has done so much for the decoration of pubhc 
 places and the celebration of worthies under the RepubUc as 
 he. He can deal with homely and familiar subjects, as well 
 as with those that are especially marked out by convention for 
 the statuary's ambition. One of his Salon pieces for igo8 was a 
 very pleasing group of Auvergne peasants dancing the hourree. 
 
 A veteran belonging partly to the Imperial period, M. E. 
 Fremiet, who was born in 1824, continued for many years 
 a prolific worker under the Republic. Not- 
 remie . vv^ithstanding his advanced age, he was an 
 exhibitor in the Salon (des Artistes Frangais) very nearly to 
 the time of his death, which took place in 1910. He is a 
 sculptor of many notable works, of which his statues of 
 Jeanne d'Arc (Place des Pyramides) and Duguesclin, and the 
 delightful group " I^e Faune aux Oursons," in the Luxembourg 
 Museum, are the best known. 
 
 Other French statuaries classed with modern masters, or 
 holding a high place in public estimation, are Paul Dubois 
 (1829-1905), whose St. John, so long at the Luxembourg, 
 and Jeanne d'Arc are celebrated works; M. Injalbert (1845) ; 
 St.Marceau (1845), sculptor of the ''Communicant," and busts 
 of Renan and Meissonier ; Bartholdi (1834-1904), sculptor 
 of the colossal statue, *' La Liberte eclairant le monde," at 
 the entrance of New York harbour, the " Lion de Belfort," 
 ** Vercingetorix," etc. ; Bartholome (1855), sculptor of 
 the much admired ** Monument to the Dead " at Pere la Chaise. 
 Jacques Robinson, sculptor of a monument commemorating 
 the " Resistance of Belfort," recently unveiled in the same 
 cemetery, Raoul Verlet, sculptor of "La Douleur d'Orphee," 
 " La Fille Prodigue," etc., and whose group " L'Art " helps 
 to decorate the fa9ade of the Grand Palais in the Champs- 
 Elysee ; Paul Gasq, who obtained the medal of honour for 
 statuary in 1910 by his group " Aux Volontaires de la Revolu- 
 tion (1792) " ; M. G. A. Maillard, sculptor of an admirable 
 group of the brothers Coquelin at Boulogne-sur-Mer, their 
 native town ; L. Maubert, sculptor of the monument to 
 II— (2398) 
 
162 France of the French 
 
 Queen Victoria at Nice, and Denys Puech, artist of the 
 lifelike statue of King Edward VII as a yachtsman at 
 Cannes. 
 
 Some twelve hundred pieces of statuary are annually exhi- 
 bited at the Palais des Beaux Arts, the great majority being 
 by French artists. The figure conveys a sufficiently forcible 
 idea of French activity in this department of the Fine Arts, 
 and also of the encouragement and support given by France 
 to the sculptor. It should, moreover, be borne in mind that 
 he is an artist who cannot find, with anything like the same 
 facility as the painter, a market for his work. Of the many 
 men of talent who compete for public favour in this arduous 
 and difficult field of ambition, it is only possible here to 
 speak of a few others. M. Eugene Baffler (185 1) has pro- 
 duced among other work much admired statues of Charlotte 
 Corday, Marat, and Serve tus. This last was recently unveiled 
 in^the Place de Montrouge. M. Gardet is the sculptor of 
 animal life, and as such reigns supreme. M. Jean Boucher 
 is prominent among the younger sculptors. His '' Victor 
 Hugo at Guernsey " was with the most noticed of new works 
 in 1908, and his bust of Mme. de Segur, the authoress, was 
 added to the statuary of the Luxembourg Gardens in 1910. 
 M. H. Bouchard's " Man Ploughing " was one of the strongest 
 groups in one of the Salons. There are women sculptors also 
 who have risen above the ranks, conspicuous among whom 
 is Mile. Debienne. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 DRAMATISTS 
 
 When the Third Republic commenced its history it could 
 reckon upon a remarkable number of highly gifted and 
 highly trained dramatic writers and players for the amusement 
 and instruction of the public. For the present, only the 
 writers^ will be spoken of. Conspicuous among dramatists 
 were Emile Augier, Alexandre Dumas, the younger (the 
 elder died during the war of 1870), Victorien Sardou, Edouard 
 Pailleron, Eugene Labiche, Meilhac, and Halevy. To this 
 list may be added the name of Frangois Coppee, although his 
 light was only beginning to shine at the close of the Empire, 
 and it was always more poetic than dramatic. 
 
 Of the multitude of comedies produced on the French 
 
 stage since the middle of the last century, the one that has 
 
 best withstood the test of time is Le Gendre 
 
 Emile Augier. de M. Poirier, by Emile Augier (1828-1889). 
 It was brought out in 1854, ^^^ Y^t there are 
 few playgoers of to-day who are not familiar with it. It is 
 one of the favourite stock pieces in the repertory of the 
 Comedie-Frangaise, and those who have seen it played a 
 score of times have often the courage and inclination to seek 
 a renewal of the first sensations. It is good literature as well 
 as an amusing comedy of society, in which the principal 
 characters have too much human nature to get old-fashioned. 
 Little has changed during the succeeding half century except 
 the costumes. The mixture of classes in Paris society during 
 the early days of the Empire, which Augier uses for the 
 humorous situations of his comedy, is the same now, only 
 more mixed. Is not the idle and broken-down marquis who 
 marries the daughter of a rich parvenu in order to regild his 
 scutcheon, or rather to fill his hungry pocket — coats of arms 
 
 163 
 
164 France of the French 
 
 being less considered now than they were — a figure that has 
 been much talked about in the most modem French society ? 
 Realism, in the sense of very close observation of Ufe, is the 
 characteristic mark of Augier's comedies, of which the best 
 known to-day, after the one already mentioned, are probably 
 L'Aventuriere and Les Fourchambault. His influence in 
 making the comedy of modern society what it is was stronger 
 than that of any dramatist among his contemporaries. 
 
 The younger Alexandre Dumas (1824-1895) belongs 
 equally to the Empire and the Republic. Although he 
 
 seems to most of us quite a modern spirit in 
 Alexandre literature, some of his work dates from the 
 
 middle of the last century. Being the son of 
 the author of Les Trois Mousquetaires, he left the impression 
 on the public of being much younger than he was. The truth 
 is, he was only twenty-one years younger than his father. 
 His dramatic influence dates from the appearance of La 
 Dame aux Camelias, in 1852, the success of which caused the 
 story to be quickly adapted to the theatre and also to the 
 lyric stage with Verdi's music {La Traviata). The public 
 admiration was out of all proportion to the merit of this 
 explosion of youthful passion in a direction which should have 
 robbed it of its romance ; but it long held the stage, and its 
 popularity was not reached by any subsequent work by its 
 author, although he produced several that were incomparably 
 more intellectual. In all his later pieces he was a moralist 
 in the disguise of a dramatist, a pathologist of what he con- 
 sidered the worst ulcers of society : the invasion of the 
 demi-monde, marriage for money, the insatiable craving for 
 luxury and pleasure in the typical society woman and her 
 imitators from a distance, also the lax morality and low ideals 
 of men moving along the same paths of life. He avoided 
 dullness by the pungency of his criticism and the brilliant 
 flash of his ironical wit. In his later period he originated 
 what came to be termed la piece a these, a comedy of which the 
 characters were studied from the life in Paris society, and 
 
Dramatists 165 
 
 in which some puzzUng question of morals or conduct was 
 raised as a thesis. By the manner of his denouement Dumas 
 answered his own thesis, but sometimes not at all conclusively 
 in the opinion of many of his critics. The first representation 
 of one of these pieces was always a great Parisian event, 
 but the vogue passed away with the author. Among his 
 pieces produced since 1870 were : La Femme de Claude, 
 VEtrangere, La Princesse de Bagdad, Francillon, and Denise. 
 The younger Dumas was long a member of the Academy. 
 His father, who was a more original and imaginative writer, 
 was not admitted to it. 
 
 The fame of Edouard Pailleron (1834-1899) will rest mainly 
 on his satirical comedy of Parisian manners. Le Monde ou 
 ^ I' on s'ennuie, produced in 1881. Not that it 
 
 P iuTon ^^^ ^^^ ^^^y remarkable piece that he wrote : 
 Les Faux menages, VA ge ingrat, Les Cahotins, 
 to mention three more of his later period, wear an exceedingly 
 bright glitter of epigram and literary polish, but the staying 
 quality of dramatic work, so far as the stage is concerned, 
 does not depend only upon intellectual and literary strength. 
 The public will have what it wants in the way of amusement, 
 and when money is paid at a theatre door the motive in 
 paying is generally to be amused : the studious people are 
 the exception, and they, having as a rule to think of their 
 money, can get instruction cheaper and perhaps better from 
 lectures at the Sorbonne. There is this in favour of Pailleron 's 
 comedies ; they will bear reading, for they are distinctly 
 literature. After the appearance of Le Monde oil Von s*ennuie, 
 his name was somewhat of a terror to the bores of society, 
 especially to that too familiar kind of raseur, who talks 
 literature, science, or art out of season, and has nothing 
 to say worth listening to. Pailleron has been charged 
 with, cruelty in regard to mildly obnoxious people. No 
 doubt he had a caustic pen, and also a tongue to match in 
 private life. 
 
 The collaboration of Henri Meilhac (1830-18Q7) and 
 
166 France of the French 
 
 Ludovic Halevy (1834-1908) produced most of the work that 
 made it so famous in the later years of the Empire, but 
 
 the popularity of the Offenbachian series 
 
 Meilhac and of operettas, of which they wrote the fantastic 
 
 Halevy. libretti, continued long after 1870, although 
 
 it received a rude blow in France. This 
 literary partnership has been spoken of under " Literature," 
 and with especial reference to Halevy. It is to be noted 
 that although the public taste for operetta continued after 
 the war, and was fed by such deft musicians as Charles Lecocq 
 (1832), whose Fille de Madame Angot, produced in 1873, met 
 with a success scarcely inferior to that of La Grande Duchesse 
 de Gerolstein. Audran (1842-1901), composer of La Mascotte 
 and Miss Helyett, and Robert Planquette (1850-1903), 
 composer of Les Cloches de Corneville, the libretti were 
 inferior as regards literary salt to those that owed much of 
 their vogue to the joint parentage of Meilhac and Halevy. 
 
 Death in 1908 removed the veteran dramatist, Victorien 
 Sardou. The monumental pile of comedies and dramas due to 
 
 his marvellously industrious and prolific brain 
 Victonen |g such as might make any contemporary feel 
 
 humble and abashed who should dream of 
 comparing work with him. Enfant de Paris, his Parisian 
 recollections commenced almost with his life, which began 
 in 1831. He could remember the first Hachette of the great 
 publishing and bookselling house working with a single 
 clerk ticketing his own books, his frock coat prudently covered 
 with a grey blouse. The elder Sardou was a teacher of book- 
 keeping, an occupation that had no attraction for his son, 
 who, however, kept his own accounts well enough to amass 
 a fortune. After dabbling somewhat with medicine, and 
 worrying his friends by his assiduity in what they thought 
 wrong directions, he was encouraged to persevere in the 
 literary career, which now absorbed all his ambition, by a 
 commission from Firmin-Didot to write a short article for 
 the Biographie Universelle. He has said, perhaps with a 
 
Dramatists 167 
 
 grain of exaggeration, that it cost him some months of research 
 and brought him thirty-five francs. Meanwhile, his ambition 
 to write for the stage became the superior passion. His 
 first accepted piece. La Taverne des Trabans, was played at 
 the Odeon, but failed dismally. Then he wrote a Candide in 
 five acts, and having obtained permission to call on D^jazet, 
 courageously did so and took the manuscript. He found 
 the great actress, who was to him a goddess who had strayed 
 from Olympus, with her hands covered with plaster. To the 
 dumbfounded young man who tells us that he stood with 
 his mouth wide open, as mute as a fish, she said with a laugh, 
 " I have just been mending a wall." This simplicity went 
 far to put him at his ease. ■ He interested her in himself, 
 and although she did not accept his Candide, she set him on 
 the road to fame and success by playing the leading parts 
 in his vaudevilles, Monsieur Garat, and Les Premieres armes 
 de Richelieu. 
 
 But Sardou's reputation was destined to rest on something 
 more solid than the vaudeville. He became recognized as a 
 dramatist of wide capabilities, and with a marvellous faculty 
 of amusing the public after the appearance of that most 
 Parisian of light comedies, Pattes de Mouche, It was a 
 revelation, too, of his adroitness in all the artifices and tricks 
 of the stage for keeping an audience in a state of voluntary self- 
 deception and uncertainty, which means sustained interest. In 
 this matter Sardou was perceived to be more ingenious than 
 Scribe and his imitators. And then the sparkle of the dialogue, 
 the wit, the humour, the frequent grivoiserie of allusions, so 
 dexterously turned as not to inflict upon the fair playgoer, 
 however versed in all the nimble subtleties of the French 
 language, the necessity of blushing ! All these qualities 
 obtained for Sardou a most enviable position among dramatic 
 writers. 
 
 After producing a series of these Parisian comedies, of 
 which Divorgons (1880) ranks with the most successful, he 
 turned his attention to spectacular pieces more or less 
 
168 France of the French 
 
 historical, and with especial regard for the histrionic gifts 
 of Mme. Sarah Bernhardt, for whom the leading parts were 
 written. The world-wide success of such pieces as Theodora 
 and Fedora need not be dwelt upon. In this kind of work, 
 however, it is clear that the author wrote much more for 
 immediate results than for his fame. Indeed, his appreciation 
 of the substantial and his indifference to shadows has always 
 been characteristic of his keen sagacity. V Affaire des 
 Poisons is the title of his last piece. 
 
 No dramatist during the last seventeen years of the nine- 
 teenth century made surer and firmer progress towards fame 
 than Henry Becque (1837-1899). And yet 
 
 Henry Becque. his success was not easily made ; far from 
 it. The first piece that brought him before 
 the public, and the one that in the opinion of many critics 
 is his best, Les Corbeaux, was written in 1872, but did not 
 receive the hospitality of the stage until 1882. For ten 
 years the manuscript was paying visits and returning to 
 its owner. Like Noah's dove it could find no place of rest. 
 It is known to have been refused by six Paris theatres. If 
 the bitter and splenetic irony characteristic of Henry Becque's 
 work were not found in Les Corbeaux, already in full bloom, 
 one might suspect that these peripatetics of a manuscript 
 had something to do with its luxuriance. Henry Becque 
 was not an industrious writer, and besides the piece already 
 mentioned, his reputation rests mainly upon La Parisienne. 
 He was an unsparing critic and satirist of society, in the 
 wider sense of this word. His scathing humour sometimes 
 reaches ferocity. He saw so much rascality among men, 
 and so much heartless frivolity and selfishness among women, 
 that his pessimism would have been too depressing for the 
 theatre, but for the consummate skill with which he delineates 
 his characters while making them speak, and the epigrammatic 
 conciseness and sparkle of the dialogue. That he was one 
 of the most intellectual of writers for the stage under the 
 Republic must be readily granted, but his cynicism is not 
 
Dramatists 169 
 
 sufficiently gay to conceal the misanthropic current which 
 does not always run below the surface. 
 
 Jules Lemaitre had taken a leading place as a literary 
 and dramatic critic before he began to write for the stage. 
 
 The impulse in this direction was given not 
 Lemaitre ^^ much by the disposition of mind that 
 
 forces men to write for the theatre, and to 
 persevere although they may stumble and come to grief 
 again and again, as by the resolution of a highly intellectual 
 man to find an outlet for the expression of ideas by this 
 channel which, by its direct communication with the public, 
 and the substantial rewards that it offers to the successful, 
 is one of the most alluring of the many objects that attract 
 and stimulate ambition. His dramatic work was marked by 
 the strength and the weakness of this mental posture and 
 purpose. He had not enough of that communicative fire, 
 or instinctive grip of what appeals to the public and stirs 
 its interest, which is the gift of the predestined dramatist. 
 Lemaitre was born in 1853, and his first piece, Le Depute 
 Leveau, was not produced until 1890, but it was quickly 
 followed by Manage Blanc, VA ge Difficile, and others. Among 
 his later pieces are La Massiere and Bertrade. This author 
 has done much to give a certain vogue to what is termed the 
 " psychological comedy." La Massiere is so human that it 
 is of really exciting interest, and it contains scenes and 
 situations which are comedy of the best kind. The subject 
 is one never before treated in the same way, and with such 
 strength of psychological analysis. It is that of a man — 
 a painter who has reached fame and fortune — now a good 
 way past middle age, who by degrees takes a too sentimental 
 interest in a girl who as massiere is brought more into contact 
 with him than others who are pupils in his atelier. She 
 takes the first place, and is the representative of the others 
 in all questions between them and the " master." He is a 
 well-meaning man with a solid affection for his wife, and he 
 does not admit to himself that his growing interest in this 
 
170 France of the French 
 
 girl is more than a fatherly and artistic one until he gets 
 pulled up short and suddenly by the revelation that his son 
 is in love with her, and wants to marry her. Then there is 
 an explosion of indignation and resentment, which is merely 
 jealousy in disguise. Finally, the comedy is ended by the 
 artist being brought to reason by his wife, and consenting 
 to his son's marriage with the massiere, whose youthful 
 charms were such a disturbing influence in this excellent 
 family. M. Lemaitre's pieces are so literary that those who 
 have read them are best fitted to appreciate them on the 
 stage. 
 
 M. de Porto-Riche is also classed with writers of the 
 
 psychological comedy. Love is his favourite theme and 
 
 the passion on which he centres his subtle 
 
 ^* Rkhe^^^' ^2-Cul^y ^^ analysis. Born in 1849, critical 
 opinion awards him a high place among 
 dramatic writers of the day. He has, however, not been 
 very prolific. His Amour euse, the work that made him 
 really known to the public, and which is considered his 
 masterpiece, was not produced until 1891. In this he deals 
 with all the troubles and perplexities that befall a middle- 
 aged man who marries a woman provokingly seductive and 
 turbulently young. He depicts the absolute subjugation of 
 intellect and energy of character to a feminine influence 
 that is not elevating, and the pitiable struggles of this victim 
 of misnamed love to free himself from an enthralment that 
 renders him useless and ridiculous. The daring originalicy 
 of this comedy, combined with the dexterous treatment of 
 a hazardous subject has given to it what appears to be lasting 
 popularity. After being played at the Vaudeville and the 
 Renaissance, it was lately placed in the repertory of the 
 Comedie-Frangaise. Le Passe is another comedy by the 
 same author. 
 
 The most brilliant dramatic success of the closing nine- 
 teenth century was without question Cyrano de Bergerac^ by 
 M. Edmond Rostand, whose high place among contemporary 
 
Dramatists 171 
 
 poets has been noted elsewhere. It was indeed the poet, even 
 more than the dramatist, who triumphed in this work of 
 lasting literary excellence. The public has 
 ^R ^f"^ j"^ been waiting since 1897 for an equally capti- 
 vating poetic drama from M. Rostand's pen, 
 but it has not yet been given. Chantecler, produced on the 
 stage in 1910, is mentioned under " Literature." 
 
 The last two or three lustres have witnessed a reaction 
 from the naturalism introduced by the Theatre -Libre, and 
 also a revolt against the comedie de m<xurs, 
 ^' ^^"^ as planned by Augier and the younger Dumas, 
 who, in putting together their scaffolding, 
 were influenced not a little by their predecessor Scribe, and 
 the vogue that so long attended his comedies. To get away 
 from all the well-worn grooves and ruts, and the familiar 
 situations leading up to the foreseen denouement, has been 
 largely the aim and ambition of dramatic authors born 
 under later influences. Among these, M. Paul Hervieu (1857) 
 has taken up a distinct place. He felt the incongruity of 
 the comedy that is at once tragic and comic. There is not 
 much scope for laughter in his pieces, to which the description 
 tragedies bourgeoises has been not inaptly given, heavily 
 charged as they are with sombre colours. Those who like 
 to be harrowed and disgusted with the brutality and ferocity 
 of human nature, to be depressed by the cruelty of fate that 
 draws into vice and wretchedness those who started on the 
 journey of life with a solid outfit of good qualities, and to be 
 convinced of the mistake of having been bom into a world 
 so hopelessly bad, derive great pleasure from M. Hervieu's 
 pieces, of which the principal are, La Course du Flambeau, 
 L'Enigme, Le Dedale, and Le Reveil. There are many people 
 among playgoers to whom such sad pictures of life are 
 stimulating and refreshing. 
 
 M. Hervieu's realism is generally painful, but it is not 
 naturalism. He merely throws into relief the more distressing 
 aspects of life. He has had the courage to show, in La 
 
172 France of the French 
 
 Course du Flambeau, that the pivot upon which all that is 
 most ignoble, cruel, and vicious in modern society turns, is 
 not criminal love, which has furnished the central motive 
 to such a multitude of dramas and comedies, but the lust of 
 money. In other respects he has gone counter to the thread- 
 bare methods and cobwebbed traditions of the stage, with 
 the result that he has fixed attention upon his work as that 
 of a vigorous innovator. 
 
 Connais-toi, produced at the Comedie-Frangaise in 1910, 
 was somewhat disconcerting to those who expected the author 
 to be consistent with his reputation as a writer of sombre 
 pieces. Connais-toi is a Uvely comedy of domestic 
 misadventures and perplexities, approaching at times the 
 vaudeville. 
 
 A dramatic author who has come rapidly to the front since 
 1890, and who now ranks with the most successful of the day, 
 is M. Maurice Donnay. He was born in 
 M. Maurice i^(yQ and Paris did not beerin to know him 
 until after the production of his Lysistrata, 
 in 1892. Other pieces followed in quick succession, but it 
 was not until Georgette Lemeunier was produced in 1898 
 that the author stood upon really firm ground. The strength 
 of this comedy is not in its plot, for it can hardly be said to 
 have one, but in the drawing of character and especially in 
 the analysis of motive and sentiment in the case of a man who 
 is in love with his wife and another woman at the same time, 
 and who wishes to act kindly to both. The wife, however, 
 gets to understand the situation, and as she has not learnt 
 her ethics in the school of the Mormons, she goes off to her 
 mother in high dudgeon, and thus spoils M. Lemeunier's 
 plans for making everybody happy, beginning with himself. 
 One may be permitted to suppose that the situation of M. 
 and Mme. Lemeunier must be far from uncommon to explain 
 the interest which the piece immediately aroused. But 
 M. Donnay excels in the art of keeping up the effervescent 
 attention of an audience with the talk of subsidiary characters. 
 
Dramatists 173 
 
 who are of the world very wordly. Their tongues rattle on 
 in a tone of gay cynicism, and they have that trick of sailing, 
 in a conversational sense, as close to the wind — the last 
 fraction of the last point — as is adjudged by some undeter- 
 mined standard possible in the matter of morals and good 
 taste. This, more than any other stage condiment, stimu- 
 lates the somewhat jaded palate of the Parisian playgoer. 
 Occasionally, M. Donnay allows the meanings which such 
 finesse only cloaks to escape in too gross a form ; not that 
 from the point of view of morals the frankness of the sixteenth 
 century in such matters is not better than the hypocrisy 
 of the twentieth. In the way of ideas, Paris society of to-day 
 is probably harder than ever to shock, but there is an art 
 in expressing ideas not too crudely, yet with sufficient direct- 
 ness and point, which to the sprightly intelligence brings 
 its glory, just as certain exploits in the air draw honour upon 
 gymnasts of the circus. 
 
 A well-remembered piece of later date by this author is 
 Le Retour de Jerusalem. The choice of subject, a liaison 
 between a Jewess and a Christian, both en rupture de mariage, 
 suggests the intention to tap the interest already made in 
 France by the Semitic question. In his treatment of the 
 subject, M. Donnay appears to have no other object than to 
 show that between the Hebrew and the European races there 
 are lines of divergence in character too deeply scored for any 
 arrangement between Jew and Gentile resting on sentiment 
 to be more than transient. It is needless to say that the 
 fact of the Frenchman " returning from Jerusalem " proves 
 nothing. The system of " free union " is rather notorious for 
 its fragility. During the last few years M. Donnay has 
 produced U Autre Danger, VOiseau de Passage (in collabora- 
 tion with M. Lucien Descaves), and Paraitre. The last-named 
 was brought out in 1906, at the Comedie-Fran^aise, where 
 also Le Menage de Moliere by M. Dounay was produced 
 in 1912. 
 
 During the early years that immediately preceded and 
 
174 France of the French 
 
 followed the divorce legislation of 1884, writers of light 
 comedy, notably M. Sardou {Divorgons, 1880) and M. Alexandre 
 
 Bisson {Les Surprises du Divorce, 1884), 
 ^' ^^^^® found in the subject new springs of gaiety 
 
 and material for droll situations. Paris 
 laughed for a decade or more over divorce, and then the 
 laughter began to " turn yellow " — to employ a picturesque 
 French saying. The fruits of divorce were more abundant 
 than satisfactory. On all sides vexatious and perplexing 
 situations had arisen, chiefly on account of children. The 
 time had now come for the dramatist to deal with the grave 
 social consequences arising from the legal facilities afforded 
 to the ill-married to act upon the impulse of resentment and 
 render irreparable what time might have mended. One of 
 the first to seize this opportunity was M. Eugene Brieux, who, 
 in Le Berceau, produced in 1898, placed the whole question at 
 once on the right footing, and laid out the action of his piece 
 from the point of view most intimately connected with French 
 sentiment : the situation of the child. Laurence Chantrel, 
 convinced of her husband's infidelity, and having substantial 
 grounds for the conviction, obtains a decree of divorce with 
 the utmost expedition, and makes a second marriage in order 
 to forget the first. But there is a child, whom she by right 
 retains, and this boy is unfortunately a most disturbing 
 portrait of his father. The second husband cannot bear the 
 sight of him, because of the jealousy of the living predecessor 
 thus awakened. He cannot conquer the feeling ; a law of 
 nature makes him jealous, and he loathes the presence of 
 the child which sets it in movement. Then the boy falls 
 very ill, and when in danger of death the father claims his 
 right to see him. Thus the divorced couple meet again by 
 the child's bed. The strong sentiment that both have in 
 common re-unites them. Words of regret escape him, and 
 she forgives. They are to one another as husband and wife, 
 but"^there is a formidable obstacle in the way — the legal 
 husband whom she married more from spitefulness than 
 
Dramatists 175 
 
 preference, and under the influence of friends who were evil 
 counsellors. The child recovers, and the denouement can 
 be foreseen. In real life the re-marriage of divorced couples 
 is not unknown. 
 
 Other pieces by the same author were written with a 
 social purpose. Thus Les Trois Filles de M. Dupont points 
 out the baneful consequences that may and do arise from 
 the French marriage system, which renders it so difficult for 
 a portionless girl above the working class to find a husband. 
 Resultat des Courses throws into relief the mischief that the 
 betting habit, which has so vastly increased in France during 
 the last twenty years, is now doing among people who have 
 to work for their living. The lay sermon is also to be found 
 in the author's later pieces, Les Avaries, and Maternite. 
 
 M. Henri Lavedan is a satirist of the life and manners of 
 
 his times in the sense that Juvenal was one. Not that he 
 
 imitates the manner of Juvenal or draws his 
 
 M. Henn pictures with the same ferocious display of 
 
 Lavedan. ^ xt • i , i i 
 
 Violent colours. He is, nevertheless, a hard 
 
 hitter, without being a gay one. He conveys the impression 
 of hating with much thoroughness most of the characters 
 that he has studied in drawing-rooms and other not inacces- 
 sible places, and has put on the stage. He does not belong 
 to the familiar series of French dramatists who laugh while 
 they satirize, and perceive a humorous side to almost every 
 evil propensity, every phase of meanness, dishonesty, and 
 malice entering into the comedy of life. It is easy to divine 
 that he would have been a " hanging judge " if a destiny 
 different from his had given ample opportunities of stringing 
 up all sorts of culprits in the old days, when little time was 
 wasted on judicial psychology. M. Lavedan was bom in 
 i860, and his first piece of any value, Mem'zelle Vertu, was 
 produced in 1885. As the work of a young man of twenty-five 
 it showed much promise. The author is still classed with 
 young dramatists, but the tendency of the public is to keep 
 the label of youth on people of note until it is time to change 
 
176 France of the French 
 
 it for another much less consoling. There is no middle age 
 for a man of brilliant parts ; still less for the woman. Le 
 Marquis de Priola is one of M. Lavedan's best known pieces, 
 and it belongs to the present century. In the principal 
 character he has drawn the portrait of the modern Don Juan 
 of society. His familiarity with this kind of hero is shown 
 in every touch of the pencil. Without doubt he concentrated 
 in one type the leading characteristics common to many 
 that had come under his observation. He is not tender to 
 his marquis, and he has none of the indulgence for Don 
 Juanism which some great poets and many dramatists have 
 shown. In it the selfishness of the animal is united to some- 
 thing that is not of the brute — something devilish, because 
 where the mischief possible to be done is greatest, there lies 
 the chief motive and attraction. This is a perversion of 
 nature, which makes " love " as thus understood only a phase 
 of cruelty, and cruelty is the worst form of sensuality. Circe, 
 ancient and modern, is in this association of ideas perhaps not 
 less ruthless than Don Juan. M. Lavedan's marquis has 
 not the dashing devilry of the old-fashioned stage type of 
 seducer who has only to spread his net for a woman to be 
 sure of catching her, nor has he the daring that went with 
 the business. It is with design that the author has made 
 his up-to-date Don Juan more contemptible than monstious. 
 He despises all women, and is incapable of loving one. If 
 he seeks their society so much vanity is the chief motive. 
 To him the sweetest flattery is to hear that he has made this 
 or that fresh conquest, or to know that it is being said. This 
 reputation is dearer to him than any other, and he lives to 
 uphold it. It is easier to understand such a character as 
 this than the women to whom M. Lavedan introduces us. 
 Le Marquis de Priola gives anything but pleasant pictures of 
 contemporary life. The author lashes all round, but this is 
 not enough to bring conviction that society is quite as bad as 
 he paints it. There are scenes of rasping crudity in the piece, 
 which was nevertheless produced at the Theatre- Fran? ais. 
 
Dramatists 177 
 
 It is impossible to draw any line now as to what may be said 
 and acted even on the stage of leading theatres. 
 
 In he Duel, produced in 1904, M. Lavedan does not deal 
 with the morality of the unwritten *' Code of honour," or 
 use a duel between two men as either the mainspring or 
 denouement of a plot. This is a duel between two antagonistic 
 currents of thought and feeling, the one pagan and the other 
 Christian. A duchess, ill -mated — the old story — to a man 
 of her own class, but a bundle of vices and degeneracy, and 
 to whom the abuse of morphine is the last straw that breaks 
 down the little mind he has left, finds in the doctor of the 
 private asylum — an establishment to which the euphemistic 
 term, maison de sante, is always applied — in which the duke 
 is placed, a man after her own heart. Those who look on 
 marvel a little, for independently of the difference of station, 
 there is a deep gulf between the two, as regards the whole 
 range of ideas, beliefs, and conceptions of life. She, like 
 most Frenchwomen of aristocratic birth and fortune, has 
 been reared in an atmosphere of intense Catholicism, and 
 although she is not a devote, all her idealism is intimately 
 woven up with Christian morals and aspirations. She is, 
 moreover, a woman of refined and delicate feelings. He is 
 an atheist, and a coarse-grained one, whose views on the 
 relations of the sexes are thoroughly pagan. He has, there- 
 fore, not the slightest respect for her scruples, but sets himself 
 to the task of overthrowing them with ruthless pertinacity. 
 At times the balance becomes so even that no sign is given 
 as to how this duel will end, but it does end in the most 
 virtuous of compromises, by the duke considerately jumping 
 out of a window of the asylum, and leaving his widow free 
 to marry the doctor. Much of the psychological interest of 
 this piece — which is powerfully kept up — is derived from sub- 
 sidiary characters and their influence upon the parties to the 
 duel. It should be added that M. Lavedan is a strong writer 
 capable of expressing much alertness of thought in language 
 that rivets attention and stays in the memory. 
 12— (2398) 
 
178 France of the French 
 
 In Le Gout du Vice, produced at the Comedie Fran9aise in 
 1911, we have a vivacious study of a young girl who is ex- 
 tremely modern, one " dans le train/' and who continues to 
 be so as a wife. Her husband is quite of her way of thinking. 
 The young couple do not want humdrum happiness and for 
 a while they are served according to their taste, but by flirting 
 with vice and despising all that is conventional they very 
 nearly poison their lives. On the brink of domestic disaster 
 they are converted to wholesome views of life and its duties. 
 M. Lavedan entered the Academy in 1908. 
 
 The way in which the House of Moliere has been keeping 
 
 " open house " of late years has no more striking illustration 
 
 than its reproduction of M. Frangois de 
 
 ^de CuiS*^ Curel's Les Fossiles, which was brought out 
 some time previously at the " Museum of 
 Horrors," as some people termed M. Antoine's Theatre-Libre. 
 The naturalism or Zolaism — which seems the better word — 
 of this piece is very marked. The whole action turns upon 
 the question whether a man or his son is the father of a 
 certain child. The opportunities that this lead off offers to 
 the study and exhibition of peculiar manners are obvious. 
 Other works by the same author are La Nouvelle Idole, Le 
 Repas du Lion, and La Fille Sauvage. They are more or 
 less marked by the same defects of taste, the same attempt 
 common to writers of this school of stoking the fires of 
 mischievous curiosity under the pretext of serving a moral 
 and salutary purpose. M. Frangois de Curel was born in 
 
 1854. 
 
 M. Octave Mirbeau, who was born in 1850, and who for a 
 
 short time had charge of a Scus-Prefecture — an experience 
 
 that did not agree with him — has led a 
 
 Mirbe^^ very busy life as novelist and. journalist, and 
 
 more recently as dramatist. His quarrel 
 
 with M. Coquelin (the elder) over a violently scornful article 
 
 that he (M. Mirbeau) wrote on the profession of the comedian, 
 
 beaded " Le Pitre " (buffoon) is still remembered " on the 
 
Dramatists 179 
 
 Boulevard." M. Mirbeau probably did not foresee then the 
 likelihood that he would write for the stage, and have need 
 of actors. His Mauvais Bergers was produced in 1898, 
 and this was followed in 1903 by Les Affaires sont les Affaires. 
 This is a subject that touches responsive chords in the heart 
 of modern society. To say that the world of to-day is absorbed 
 by the greed of money is not stating the case correctly, 
 because the passion of avarice was perhaps never weaker than 
 it is now. On the other hand, it may be confidently asserted 
 that the love of what money procures : amusements of all 
 sorts, luxurious living, display of costly ease ; in a word, of 
 ostentatious idleness free from all fetters of ways and means 
 and grinding duties, was never so absorbing or so wide- 
 spread as it is now. One might add that the philosophy of 
 what constitutes happiness was never so misunderstood. 
 The consequence of the prevailing state of mind is to give a 
 powerful incentive to the desire of making or getting money 
 fast and abundantly. In Les Affaires sont les Affaires, 
 M. Mirbeau has ploughed afresh ground already turned over 
 by Balzac {Mercadet), the younger Dumas {Question d' argent), 
 and others, but he has given to it a more up-to-date treat- 
 ment. The parvenu and snob, mean, arrogant, unscrupulous, 
 and ostentatious, who believes in nothing but the power ol 
 money which he has hastily acquired by crooked means, is 
 here laid upon the dissecting table and subjected to a scalpel 
 whose edge is uncommonly keen. 
 
 A dramatic author whose power of interesting and amusing 
 has brought him much into notice during the present century 
 
 and made him one of the most popular of 
 M. Alfred those who now write for the Paris stage is 
 
 M. Alfred Capus. His activity in this 
 direction is not of recent date, but it is latterly that he found 
 a straight path to success, which he has since been able to 
 follow easily. La Veine, which was produced in 1901, is a 
 sparkling light comedy, ingenious without being complicated, 
 and thoroughly Parisian in spirit. It marks a return towards 
 
180 France of the French 
 
 the light comedy of fifty years ago, and this is even more 
 suggested in La Chatelaine, produced the following year. 
 The vaudeville-comedy of Scribe, and the farce of Labiche, 
 may reconquer their old place in public favour, Paris 
 having grown rather tired of experiments and gropings of 
 recent years. Among still later work by this author are the 
 comedies, VAdversaire (written in collaboration with M. E. 
 Arene) and Notre Jeunesse. A later work of interest is Les 
 Favorites, produced at the Varietes in 1911. M. Capus was 
 born in 1858. 
 
 Since the production of Le Trihun in 191 1 M. Paul Bourget 
 has had a place well marked among dramatists, but fuller 
 M. Paul information respecting him will be found in 
 Bourget. the chapter on " Literature." The piece was 
 evidently written with a strong political bias. The chief 
 character in Le Trihun is an honest Socialist, with a great 
 gift of eloquence, and a sincere enthusiast for the realisation 
 of democratic ideals. He is at the head of affairs and there 
 was never a more popular Premier, for the people believe not 
 only in his abihty, but in his probity. In this they are right, 
 but although he can be what he is without more to rest upon 
 than moral ideals humanly evolved from the consciousness 
 of right, the case is not the same with those about him. 
 This idealist who, in theory, is a rigorous justiciary towards 
 those who betray their trust, discovers that his own son, 
 associated with him in the work of the ministry, is hopelessly 
 compromised by acts of dishonour and that a great scandal is 
 inevitable. The father's first impulse is to treat his son as a 
 felon, have him arrested or hand him the pistol " pour se 
 faire justice " ; but he is softened by the entreaties 
 and arguments of his wife, who recognises in what has 
 happened the insufficiency of her husband's philosophy for 
 the moral guidance of others. Their son is to her in a large 
 measure a victim of training and environment. The successful 
 pohtician jdelds to evidence and baffled by the logic of facts, 
 withdraws from public life. Political allusions perceived in 
 
Dramatists 181 
 
 this piece gave rise to heated polemics. La Barricade, by the 
 same author, produced in 1909, is an interesting study, drama- 
 tically treated, of social divisions and the war of classes in 
 France of to-day. 
 
 M. Jean Richepin is so much more a poet than a dramatist, 
 
 that, notwithstanding the success of his piece in verse, Le 
 
 Chemineau — mentioned in the section on 
 
 Dramatists Literature, it is needless to dwell here upon 
 this side of his work. 
 
 M. Catulle Mendes, another poet, who was killed by a rather 
 obscure railway accident in 1909, also essayed to adapt his 
 talents to the theatre {Scarron, 1905, Chatigny, 1906, and 
 La Vierge d'Avila, 1906), but with no great success. In 
 La Vierge d'Avila, the Spanish saint Teresa was brought on 
 the stage and impersonated by Mme. Sarah Bernhardt. He 
 had finished a three-act piece in prose, L'Imperatrice, a few 
 days before his violent death. 
 
 A dramatic author, still young, who has come rapidly into 
 notice and who promises much, is M. Henry Bernstein. A 
 cabal fomented against him, the first stimulus to which was 
 given by the fact of his Jewish origin, forced him to withdraw 
 a piece which was being played at the Comedie Fran9aise ; 
 but what with his address with the duelling sword and his 
 strength as a dramatist, he has conquered a leading place 
 among the plajrwrights of the day. L'Assaut, a recent work, 
 exhibits him as a brilliant and resourceful writer for the stage. 
 
 M. Emile Fabre, another of the younger dramatists who have 
 made themselves known to the public during the present 
 •century, flourishes the satirical whip to some purpose. La 
 Vie Publique, produced in 1901, is a clever and caustic satire 
 on political life, especially in connection with the great 
 electoral comedy that is everlastingly repeated. In Les 
 Ventres Dores he satirises those who are good enough to take 
 charge of other people's money and make it fructify, and 
 who, in France, are brought under the denomination of 
 ** financiers " — one of most commodious elasticity. 
 
182 France of the French 
 
 M. Pierre Wolff, who was born in 1870, has had several 
 pieces produced on the Paris stage, the first of which, Celles 
 qu'on Respecte, dates from 1892. Of those that followed, Le 
 Beguin (1900), Le Secret de Polichinelle (1902), L'Age d' Aimer 
 (1905), and Le Ruisseau (1907), are the best known. The last- 
 named piece is the story of a women who is raised from " the 
 gutter " by a man who discovers in her a *' gem of purest 
 ray " encrusted with mud. 
 
 M. Henry Bataille made much headway with his pathetic 
 piece. La Vierge Folle (1901). His libretto of La Lepreuse 
 (Opera-Comique, 1912), is excellent work, but the subject is 
 repellent. 
 
 MM. Caillavet and R. de Flers, authors of Le Bois Sacre 
 (1910) must also be mentioned with the successful dramatists 
 of the day, and among others who have produced work on 
 which expectations of greater results may well be founded, is 
 M. Paul Hyacinthe Loyson, son of the late M. Hyacinthe 
 Loyson, formerly a Carmelite monk and celebrated preacher 
 at Notre Dame. 
 
CHAPTER X 
 
 PLAYERS 
 
 The histrionic aptitude is so natural to the French that 
 
 there is no great exaggeration in saying that most French 
 
 people are born actors. Their tendency is to 
 
 The French and show more feeling than they feel. Their 
 
 the Theatre, earnestness, their interest, their emotionalism 
 generally, even when unreal, add soxnething 
 to the graces of life. The art of being interesting to others 
 is no mean social accomplishment, although it may be only 
 art. The inference that the French are not fundamentally 
 as sincere and in earnest as any other people is by no means 
 suggested. If they are apt to err on the side of a false expan- 
 siveness, forcing the note until it jars on the sense of fitness, 
 the affectation of indifference, the shame of appearing 
 surprised at anything, the contempt of all that savours of the 
 demonstrative are more disagreeable. 
 
 The French can dissimulate perfectly when they have a 
 motive for doing so, but they do not dissimulate without a 
 motive, and are not ashamed of showing their feelings, unless 
 they have a reason for shame. This leads to great force as 
 well as simplicity of expression, mobility of the features and 
 emphasis of the idea by fitting gesture ; in short, an artlessness 
 which is perfect art of its kind. 
 
 They are an artistic nation : their literature, their painting, 
 their sculpture, and above all their architecture, prove this. 
 Their dramatic sense is singularly strong and active. Almost 
 every little town of a few thousand inhabitants has its theatre. 
 Throughout France the theatre is intimately identified with 
 the life and genius of the nation. It has also exercised 
 an immense influence upon the stage of other European 
 countries. 
 
 183 
 
184 France of the French 
 
 At no period since the theatre has been a recognized insti- 
 tution intimately allied to literature has there been a dearth 
 of histrionic talent in France. Even the Revolutionary epoch 
 had its Talma and Mile. Mars, only to mention two theatrical 
 stars whose light shone in the chaos of that period. Never 
 were living French actors and actresses so much talked about 
 and written about everywhere as they have been since the 
 war of 1870. 
 
 The stage in France is included in the general scheme of 
 
 Public Instruction, and it is the Minister of this Department, 
 
 which is united to that of Fine Arts, who 
 
 The State and exercises supreme control over it. No new 
 the Stage. piece can be produced without his authoriz- 
 ation, but the censorship is now understood 
 in a spirit of very wide benevolence. Practically, it is only 
 put in force when a dramatic work deals with a subject that 
 might give offence in another country, and disturb inter- 
 national relations. If certain limits of decency were over- 
 stepped the permission to produce a piece might be refused, 
 but nobody has more than a vague notion where this boundary 
 lies. Obscenity on the stage is a punishable offence, but 
 here again very divergent views may turn round the word. 
 The censorship in Paris is entrusted to four inspectors who 
 are supposed to read the manuscripts of new pieces and songs. 
 In the provinces the responsibility of sanction rests with the 
 Prefects. The State's connection with the stage is not only 
 one of control, it is also one of support. The Conservatoire 
 in Paris is a pubhc institution for the training of aspirants 
 to the dramatic and musical professions, who, if they can 
 qualify for admission, obtain free instruction from the best 
 professors. Moreover, certain Paris theatres are, on grounds 
 of public utility, regularly subventioned by the State. These 
 are the Opera (Academie-Nationale de Musique), the Opera- 
 Comique, the Comedie-Frangaise, and the Od^on. The 
 sum voted annually for this purpose is no less than £57,600, 
 of which the two opera houses receive ;f44,ooo. The Gait6 
 
Players 185 
 
 belongs to the city of Paris, and is officially described as 
 the Theatre-Municipal. 
 
 The life of Madame Sarah Bernhardt, who was born in 1844, 
 is to a great extent the history of the French stage of the 
 
 last forty years. Even critics who cannot 
 
 Madame Sarah forget her caprices, her self- advertising tricks, 
 
 Bernhardt. and all the little mistakes of judgment which 
 
 she crowded with rather unpleasant obtru- 
 siveness upon public notice in the years long since dead, 
 must allow that during the period named no such original 
 and altogether remarkable example of histrionic talent as 
 herself has been given to the world by France. In her is 
 that mixture of blood which so often produces startling 
 effects of originaUty. By her father she is of Jewish race, 
 and by her mother French. In her character, her Hebrew 
 descentTs not easy to distinguish, but in her physical power 
 of endurance under exhausting and long-sustained efforts, we 
 may perhaps detect the privileged constitution of the Chosen 
 People. This capacity of resistance to wear and tear is in her 
 united to an intense aestheticism, which at one time overflowed 
 the dramatic channel into other arts. Sarah Bernhardt was 
 never under the influence of the Synagogue. She received 
 her education in a convent at Versailles, and there was a time 
 when the religious life had for her so strong an attraction 
 that it is said the born actress nearly became a nun. It is 
 impossible to decide whether the gain to religion would have 
 been greater than the loss to the stage had she persevered 
 in that direction. What we know is that the theatrical 
 vocation became stronger than the other. She passed out 
 of the Conservatoire with a second prize only, but was engaged 
 at the Theatre-Fran^ais at the age of eighteen. She soon 
 left the " House of Moliere " for the Gymnase ; thence she 
 went to the Porte-Saint-Martin theatre, and she was at the 
 Odeon when, in 1869, Le Passant, by Francois Coppee, was 
 produced there. The importance of this event to him and 
 to her has been spoken of under " Literature." As the 
 
186 France of the French 
 
 page Zanetto, the charm of her voice and diction, and the 
 expressiveness of her features, made such an impression that 
 from being an almost obscure young actress she became 
 suddenly a Parisian celebrity. She returned to the Comedie- 
 Frangaise, and for nearly ten years after the war her light 
 there was such that all others paled before it, notwithstanding 
 the number of great reputations with which her own was then 
 mingled. Paris talked incessantly of ** Sarah," as if there 
 were no other Sarah in the world. It is a name that she 
 gave to herself, for she was registered Rosine. She left 
 nothing undone calculated to stimulate public curiosity in 
 regard to Sarah's doings. Her balloon ascents by day, and 
 at night her descent into a coffin lined with white satin, as an 
 antidote to frivolity ; her flashing inroads upon the domains 
 of painting and sculpture ; her passion for snakes and wild 
 beasts ; her quarrels and attachments ; the historic chase of 
 Marie Colombier round her dining-room table, after this 
 actress, with whom she had been associated in America, had 
 written a disgraceful book entitled, Sarah Barnum (which 
 was seized by the police) — all these and other doings fell 
 like journalistic manna to the Paris Press in the seventies 
 and eighties. 
 
 But Madame Sarah Bemhardt's greatest achievement in the 
 art of setting all Paris by the ears, was her breaking away 
 from the Comedie-Frangaise in defiance of the rules and 
 powers of this august corporation. She did not care for 
 penalties she incurred by the breach of her bond as a 
 societaire. Like another Eve she allowed herself to be 
 tempted, but the fruit was not an apple ; it was the " almighty 
 dollar," and the serpent was Uncle Sam. That was in 1880. 
 America was then Tom Tiddler's ground for the stars of the 
 European stage. It is less so now. Madame Sarah Bernhardt 
 was offered unprecedented terms : £100 for each representation, 
 a third of the gross receipts, if under £600, and if above this 
 figure, one half of such excess ; all her expenses to be paid. 
 Here was a prospect of living within her income and evading 
 
Players 187 
 
 the wolves that had gathered about her door, until she could 
 throw them their meat. Away she went to America, where 
 she snapped her fingers at the verdict of £4,000 damages 
 obtained by the Comedie-Fran^aise against her. During her 
 long series of tours there, and in other parts of the world, 
 she had in Sardou a confederate of inestimable value. 
 She was not long in discovering that the Americans, although 
 they applauded her frantically, understood very little of what 
 she said. It became clear to her that the classical repertory 
 which had made her famous at the Theatre-Frangais was 
 ill-suited to them. She wanted pieces that would tell their 
 story plainly by the action, and would be dramas with one 
 central character of absorbing interest. Sardou prepared 
 these dishes : Fedora, Theodora, etc., with consummate art. 
 But for Sarah Bernhardt they would never have come out 
 of his kitchen. Both were well satisfied with the results. 
 From time to time she returned to Paris and obtained either 
 in her own name, or in that of her son, M. Maurice Bernhardt, 
 the use of various theatres, until at length all difficulties 
 with the Comedie-Frangaise having been arranged, and 
 much money having been harvested by tours, she crowned 
 her ambition by taking the old Theatre des Nations, in the 
 Place du Chatelet, renovating it, and giving it the name of 
 the Theatre Sarah Bernhardt. Here she now reigns, and 
 her light continues to shine on the French stage with 
 power. Her superiority as an actress is largely due to her 
 melodious and sympathetic voice, and her literary sense of 
 the value and rhythm of language. In 1882 Mme. Sarah 
 Bernhardt married an actor of Greek origin, M. Damala, who 
 died in 1889. 
 
 Here it seems necessary to say something of that 
 " House of Moliere/' which is so frequently mentioned in 
 connection with the lives of the leading actors and actresses 
 of France. 
 
 The foundation of the Com^die-Frangaise dates from 1680. 
 The statutes of the corporation now in force are those laid 
 
188 France of the French 
 
 down by Napoleon, in 1812, in what is known as the " Moscow 
 decree," but somewhat modified by later decrees. The State 
 
 subvention to the theatre, which ranks 
 
 The Com6die- officially as the " Premier Theatre-Fran9ais," 
 
 Frangaise. is £9,600 per annum. This raises it above 
 
 the plane of mere speculation, and guaran- 
 tees a secure future to those who become members of the 
 society, and who have the strength of character and tact to 
 resist temptations from without, and intrigue from within, 
 in order to reap the solid ultimate advantages which a mem- 
 bership offers. The rank of societaire carries with it, besides 
 the salary agreed upon, a direct interest in the net proceeds. 
 These are divided into twenty-four " parts," each of which 
 is again subdivided into " twelfths." The number of these 
 twelfths allotted to members depends upon the vote of the 
 majority of societaires, length of service being an important 
 factor. The maximum number of twelfths that any member 
 can obtain is twelve, equivalent to one of the twenty-four 
 parts. Retiring pensions are also provided for. All members 
 have the right of vote on any question affecting the corporation, 
 but the general business is transacted by the " administrator " 
 or director (who since 1885 has been M. Jules Claretie) assisted 
 by a committee. Pensionnaires are salaried and have no 
 interest in the profits. Pupils of the Conservatoire who obtain 
 a first prize either in tragedy or comedy have the right to make 
 their debuts on the stage of the Comedie Frangaise. It has 
 frequently happened that they have continued the connection 
 thus begun with the " Maison de Moliere." 
 
 Sons of a baker and pastrycook of Boulogne, familiar 
 enough in their young days with the art of kneading dough 
 
 and making the paste of a vol-au-vent, the 
 The Coquelins. brothers Coquelin preferred to feed the public 
 
 with the bread of comedy rather than follow 
 their father's more prosaic calling. In which matter they 
 seemed very wrong at first. The lightest pastry is generally 
 a more solid thing to rest upon than the stage. The elder 
 
Players 189 
 
 brother (Constant), destined to become world-known as 
 Coquelin aine, was born in 1841, and he set the younger 
 one (Ernest), born in 1848, and whom fame has caressed 
 under the name of Coquelin cadety a dangerous example by 
 forsaking the baker's oven for the actor's furnace. He 
 obtained an engagement in the local theatre, and soon found 
 popularity. This turn for histrionics in the family alarmed 
 the father more than it gratified his pride, especially when 
 the younger son, disturbed by his brother's brilliant example, 
 began to quarrel with the kneading trough and yearn for 
 the footlights. A few years passed, and then the two brothers 
 were at the Comedie-Fran9aise, the joy of all Parisians. The 
 elder with his broad mouth, small nose, and malicious eyes, 
 was physically the ideal comedian for some of the well-known 
 characters of Moliere. He had also the ringing laugh, the 
 impudent intonation and the comic gesture to match the 
 physique. As the valet of the classical repertory, he had 
 no rival in the memory of the living. But his ambition went 
 beyond the parts allotted to him at the Theatre-Frangais, 
 and his imagination was no doubt disturbed by the golden 
 harvest reaped by his old comrade, Sarah Bernhardt. He 
 also broke away from the Comedie-Frangaise, and he joined 
 her on some memorable tours. His most famous impersona- 
 tion of later times was that of " Cyrano de Bergerac," in 
 M. Rostand's poetic and pathetic comedy. His refined 
 acting and cultured rendering of the verses marked a wide 
 separation from the comedy parts of earlier years. 
 
 This gifted actor, who was also a man of considerable 
 intellectual range, thoroughly versed in the dramatic literature 
 of his country and possessing a fine critical faculty, died 
 unexpectedly in the beginning of 1909. Not long before his 
 death he had founded a charming home and place of retirement 
 at Pont-aux-Dames, near Paris, for unfortunate members of 
 the theatrical profession disabled by age or other causes from 
 pursuing their calling. 
 
 The younger Coquelin was an actor of much less breadth 
 
190 France of the French 
 
 of wing, but irresistibly comic in the parts for which he was 
 suited, and which require a certain phlegmatic drollery. 
 M. Ernest Coquelin remained faithful to the Comedie, but he 
 made much money out of doors by reciting comic monologues 
 of his own composition, which had an extraordinary success 
 until his health failed. He suffered from a very distressing 
 illness that first attacked the nerves and then the mind. He 
 became an inmate of one of those private asylums which 
 in France are euphemistically termed maisons de sanfe, and 
 there he died only a few days after the death of his brother. 
 He made his debuts at the Odeon in 1867 in L' Anglais, ou le 
 fou raisonnable. 
 
 M. Jean Coquelin, son of M. Constant Coquelin, is also a 
 comedian. He left the Comedie-Frangaise and became 
 concerned in the management of the Porte St. Martin Theatre. 
 
 M. Mounet-Sully is the strong and faithful pillar of the 
 Comedie-Fran^aise. He is also its father in point of age, 
 for he was bom in 1841. The impression that a great 
 many people still keep of him is that of the tragic actor, 
 almost youthful in the full volcanic activity of his nature ; 
 but birth-dates are facts that sometimes pull the imagination 
 up with a violent jerk. We must expect 
 M. Mounet-Sully. to hear before long of his retirement from 
 the stage. The loss will be great, for the 
 really tragic actor is getting very rare. The great passions, 
 as expressed in art, do not find enough oxygen in these days 
 to keep their fire burning easily. Perhaps it is the very 
 seriousness of modern life and its problems that makes us 
 turn more and more to frivolity for recreation. Whatever 
 the reason, the tragedian appears to be passing away like 
 the poet. No actor, as far as we can see, will be able to fill 
 the place of M. Mounet-Sully at the Theatre-Frangais. 
 He was born at Bergerac, on the banks of that captivating 
 river the Dordogne, but like so many other people of talent 
 who felt the first sensations of life in the Southern provinces, 
 he was drawn to Paris early. He entered the Conservatoire, 
 
Players 191 
 
 but whereas he took a second prize in comedy, he was only 
 an accessit in tragedy. He was but beginning to get known 
 at the Odeon when the war broke out. He then went 
 soldiering as an officer of mobiles. He was engaged at the 
 Theatre-Frangais in 1872, and then for a course of years 
 his movement upward in public estimation was uninterrupted. 
 In pieces of the classic repertory, and in the tragic parts 
 {Le Cid, Phedre, (Edipe Roi, etc.), he was unapproached 
 by any contemporary. His acting, however, is not confined 
 to the classic tragedy. He has won high distinction also in 
 the romantic drama, notably in Hernani and Ruy Bias, and 
 in such pieces as V Etrangere and VA venturiere. But although 
 his versatility is great, it is as the tragic actor that his reputa- 
 tion has been mainly built up. He has been a societaire of 
 the Comedie-Frangaise since 1874. By the retirement of those 
 excellent comedians, Got (1822-1901) and Delaunay (1826- 
 1903), the mantle of oldest societaire fell upon him. This 
 mantle of seniority after a certain age is not like a crown won at 
 the Olympian games, but M. Mounet-Sully wears it gracefully. 
 Mademoiselle Bartet, who was born in Paris in 1854, has 
 been one of the most prominent and popular actresses of the 
 
 ComedJe-Frangaise during the last twenty 
 Mile. Bartet. years.- She became a member of the Society 
 
 in 1880. Always to be relied upon to acquit 
 herself of responsible parts both in drama and comedy, the 
 list of her successes is very long. 
 
 Madame Segond- Weber, after much varied experience 
 on the Paris stage, was engaged at the Theatre-Frangaise 
 
 in 1900. Her power lies chiefly in tragic 
 
 ^"^Web^er°"^' P^^^' ^^^^ ^^ Cassandra and Iphigenia. 
 
 She was bom in Paris in 1867. 
 
 Mademoiselle Sorel is another of the later acquisitions ot 
 
 the Society. She was born in 1872, and after 
 
 Mile. Sorel. making her debuts in operetta, relinquished 
 
 this for vaudeville and light comedy. After 
 
 essaying higher comedy with success, she passed from 
 
192 France of the French 
 
 the Gymnase to the Odeon, and thence to the Comedie- 
 
 Frangaise. 
 
 M. Silvain has been a member of the Society since 1883, 
 
 and among actors is one of the best known. He is an all- 
 
 romid good actor of larsfe experience and 
 M. Silvain. ,. . P ,. , . *== ^ , 
 
 discnmmation, and is, moreover, a professor 
 
 at the Conservatoire. He has announced his intention to 
 retire from the Comedie-Frangaise. He was born at Bourg, 
 in 185 1. 
 
 M. J. C. Trufher has played in a long list of comedies 
 produced at this house, and has created severa] well-known 
 parts. He is a dramatic author as well as 
 an actor, and has written some fciirly success- 
 ful pieces. He was born in Paris, in 1856, was engaged at 
 the Comedie-Frangaise in 1875, and became a societaire in 
 1888. 
 
 M. Raphael Dufios is one of the younger societaires, having 
 been elected in 1896. He was born at Lille in 1858, and 
 after his debuts at the Odeon in 1882, 
 established his reputation as an actor of 
 strength and resource, especially in tragedy and drama. 
 One of his most successful parts is that of the king in Henri 
 III et sa Cour. He is the best Laertes that has appeared on 
 the French stage in recent times. 
 
 M. Le Bargy, who was born near Paris in 1858, and became 
 
 a societaire in 1887, lately retired from the House but not 
 
 from the stage. He is a professor at the Conservatoire. 
 
 Other players of note at the Comedie-Frangaise are Mile. 
 
 Jeanne Delvair (born in Paris, 1877), M. de 
 
 aTthe Thfftre ^^^^^^Y (^^^^ ^^^^ P^"s in 1859), M. Albert- 
 Francais. Lambert (born at Rouen in 1865), M. George 
 Berr (born in Paris in 1867), who is also a 
 professor at the Conservatoire and a dramatic author ; 
 M. J. P. Mounet (born at Bergerac, 1853), M. Leitner, M. 
 Debelly, M. Louis Delaunay, Henri Mayer, Jacques Fenoux, 
 Grand, and Siblot ; Mesdames Pierson (an actress of long 
 
PJioto by 
 
 MME. REJANE 
 
 Boyer 
 
Players 193 
 
 experience and varied powers), du Minil, Lara, Marie Leconte, 
 Therese Kolb, Pierat, Cerny, Delvair, Geniat, Louise Silvain, 
 Fayolle, and Madeleine Roch. The last-mentioned, lately 
 elected a societaire, is a young actress who promises to attain 
 much distinction in tragedy. 
 
 It is interesting to note what a large proportion of the 
 actors and actresses of the Comedie-Frangaise were born in 
 or near Paris. No other illustration is needed of the influence 
 of surroundings upon the development of histrionic talent. 
 
 A Parisian-born, and a very typical product of the soil 
 and atmosphere, is Madame Rejane, who has been in the 
 world since 1856. How few would suppose 
 me. ejane. ^^ , ^ charming and fascinating woman, as 
 well as a singularly bright and vivacious actress, Gabrielle 
 Charlotte Reju (her real name), after taking a second prize 
 for comedy at the Conservatoire, made her debuts at the 
 Vaudeville in 1875. Her success was immediate. In the 
 years that followed she has figured very conspicuously at 
 most of the Paris theatres, and the mention of her name 
 recalls impressions of such pieces as Les Dominos Roses, Clara 
 Soleil, Decore, Sapho, Amoureuse, Madame Sans-Gene, and 
 DivoYQons. Austere parts have never offered any attraction 
 for this daughter of Melpomene ; but skating on the thinnest 
 ice that will withstand the pressure between saying and 
 suggesting is an exercise in which she exhibits consummate 
 nimbleness, that is not devoid of grace. She married M. 
 Porel, director of the Vaudeville, but the knot was cut with 
 those scissors which are now kept so busy in the temple of 
 Themis, where they have become not less symbolical than 
 the scales. 
 
 Madame Theo has succeeded in keeping the date of her 
 
 birth from profane curiosity. It was in the neighbourhood 
 
 of Paris that she made her entrance upon the 
 
 me. eo. g^g^gg Qf jjfg^ ^^^^ jj^ ^^7^ she was engaged by 
 
 Offenbach at the Renaissance, where, as "La jolie Parfu- 
 meuse," she delighted the city, which was recovering its 
 13— (2398) 
 
194 France of the French 
 
 gaiety after the shocks of war. Her varied experience of 
 life commenced early, for at the age of fifteen and a half she 
 left the convent, where she was being educated, to get 
 married. Not long afterwards she was singing at the Eldorado 
 music-hall, where she attracted the attention of Offenbach, 
 who noticed that she was an actress as well £ls a singer. It 
 was indeed as an actress of surpassing verve that she made her 
 way to renown by the fantastic path of operetta. Her 
 charm helps to preserve alive impressions of Orphee aux 
 Enfers, Madame I'Archiduc, Rataplan, La Mascotte, and how 
 many more pieces inspired by the muse of ungirdled mirth 
 and easy morals ! Of late years, Mme. Theo has done a great 
 deal of touring in America and other parts of the world, 
 and Paris has seen but little of her. 
 
 Madame Jeanne Granier, one of the most amusing and 
 
 popular of actresses who have figured in vaudeville and 
 
 operetta under the Republic, was born in 
 
 ^ Granier "^^ 1852, and in Paris. She scored her first success 
 when one night she had to double her part 
 at the Renaissance, and play " La jolie Parfumeuse," in the 
 place of Mme. Theo. Her next part was in Girofle-Girofla 
 (1874). Then comes a long list : Le Petit Due, Les Premieres 
 armes de Richelieu, Madame la Diable, Mademoiselle Gavroche, 
 Madame Satan, Le Vieux Marcheur, only to mention a few of 
 the pieces whose success was identified with herself. On 
 the stage she has all the piquancy and droll impertinence 
 of the typical gamin de Paris, and in every part she has 
 played she has been Mademoiselle Gavroche. 
 
 Madame Jane Hading may well be termed " une enfant de 
 la balle," for she made her debuts on the boards at the 
 immature age of three. That was at Marseilles, where she 
 was born in 1861. The first part she played was that of a 
 doll, which did not severely tax those talents 
 Hadine^^ of the accomplished actress that were re- 
 vealed later. On adopting the profession of 
 the stage, she changed her name from Jeannette Hadingue 
 
Photo by 
 
 Boyer 
 
 MME. JEANNE GRANIER 
 
Players 195 
 
 to the one by which she is so widely known, and whose 
 English look, when printed, has deceived many with regard 
 to her origin. She has appeared on the stage of all the leading 
 theatres of Paris, including the Comedie-Fran9aise, and her 
 name is identified with the success of a long list of pieces 
 produced during the last twenty years. Her range of talent 
 is very wide, her stage career being associated not only with 
 such pieces as Froufrou, Nos Intimes, L' Aventuriere, but with 
 Les Jocrisses de l' Amour, and other vaudevilles. She has 
 been married and un-married — in all things a brilliant, 
 up-to-date woman who moves with the tide. 
 
 M. Albert Brasseur, who was born in 1862, is the son of 
 
 Brasseur of the Palais-Royal, who founded 
 Brasseur ^^^ Nouveautes theatre ; consequently, il 
 
 chasse de race. His career has been one of the 
 most successful of Paris actors, because he never fails to 
 amuse those who feel the need of laughing. These are 
 probably about ninety per cent, of the population of the 
 world. The man who can make his contemporaries laugh, 
 and uses the gift sagaciously, holds popularity in the palm of 
 his hand. It is a more direct road to fortune than that 
 marked out by any other kind of genius. If life is a vaude- 
 ville, M. Brasseur has thoroughly caught the spirit of the 
 piece. 
 
 M. Andre Antoine is not a great actor, but he is so energetic, 
 so full of ideas, and his influence upon the stage under the 
 
 Republic has been so strong that considerable 
 
 ^' 'n^th^"^ prominence must be given to his personality 
 
 Theatre-Libre. ^^ ^^Y retrospect of theatrical life and its 
 
 movements in France during the last quarter 
 of a century. The beginning of his career was humble and 
 fraught with difficulty. He was born in 1859, ^^ Limoges, 
 where his father was a shoemaker, but not one of those who 
 are prepared to supply the world with boots, and who build 
 for themselves mansions with many turrets. At an early 
 age the boy set forth from home and searched for a living. 
 
196 France of the French 
 
 He went to Paris, where he danced on waxed floors with a 
 frotteur's brushes on his feet, rubbed brass plates, and did 
 other work that did not seem to point to the destiny that 
 awaited him. Like most youths fresh from the provinces, 
 Antoine felt all the magnetic attraction of the theatre, but 
 he had to stay outside, longing as a hungry child does with 
 nose flattened against the window of a pastrycook, until 
 one day a friend who had happy thoughts, told him how he 
 might see the inside of the Theatre-Frangais without paying. 
 Some young " supers " were wanted there ; Why not apply ? 
 Both applied, and they were taken on. Thus Antoine was 
 able to study closely. Got, Mounet-Sully, Coquelin, and other 
 great people of the famous house. There he discovered 
 that his destiny linked him to the stage, but he had to sur- 
 mount prodigious difficulties before he became an actor. 
 After five years' military service he was a clerk in Paris, 
 on £6 a month, when he was taken one night to an amateur 
 theatrical club, the Cercle Gaulois, whose members exhibited 
 their histrionic talent to their friends in a building roughly 
 knocked together with deal planks, and to which they had 
 given the unassuming name of the Theatre de I'Elysee des 
 Beaux Arts. These players did not venture beyond well- 
 known comedies and vaudevilles. " Why not new pieces ? " 
 asked Antoine. ** Ah ! if you know any," was the reply. 
 The energetic young man had a bright idea. He would try 
 to obtain the help of known authors, and induce them to 
 write short pieces for this gimcrack theatre, which, he was 
 convinced, would work out a splendid destiny if it were given 
 a chance. His enthusiasm gained for him what he wanted. 
 A start was made with four short but new pieces, two of 
 the authors being Paul Alexis and Leon Hennique. Antoine 
 was appointed stage manager, and he was also allowed to 
 take the financial risk upon himself. He fixed the date of 
 the performance on the last day of the month when, his 
 150 francs being due, he would be able to meet the expenses. 
 Invitations were sent out to all the critics and notable people 
 
Players 197 
 
 in Paris interested in theatricals. Some of the leading 
 critics actually responded. The next day Antoine's original 
 experiment was the gossip of the Boulevard. Emile Bergerat, 
 writing in the Figaro, described the wooden theatre as " Le 
 petit Odeon," meaning by this that it would open the door 
 to new talent, and inspire fresh departures. It certainly 
 did so, but under the name of the Theatre-Libre, and no 
 longer as a building of planks. For several years the attention 
 of Paris was fixed upon it, and the scandals that arose from 
 the production of ultra-realistic pieces under the auspices 
 of M. Antoine, now a Parisian celebrity, had much to do 
 with this success. The stage of the Theatre- Libre was 
 intended to be a revolutionary one in a dramatic sense. The 
 pieces produced were not always objectionable, but not a 
 few were quite subversive of morals and decency of expression. 
 The crudity of language startled even the boulevardiers. 
 The abuses of this freedom wore themselves out, but the 
 impulse given by the Theatre-Libre in the direction of fresh- 
 ness and originality remained. It should also be noted that 
 the Theatre-Libre, which became the Theatre- Antoine of 
 to-day, did much to arouse curiosity and interest in the 
 modern dramatic movements of other countries, for example, 
 Ibsenism. M. Antoine is now director of the Odeon ; conse- 
 quently, there was something prophetic in the name that 
 M. Bergerat gave to the little wooden theatre. 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 MUSICIANS AND SINGERS 
 
 But for foreign influence, French music would have made no 
 brilliant figure on the lyric stage of the world, for it distinctly 
 
 lacks a quality that may be termed national. 
 National Even in the way of songs and ballads, the 
 
 country in the course of centuries has 
 produced very little national music, although in various 
 provinces old popular airs with a charm and character of their 
 own have lingered ; but these bear the provincial mark, 
 not the national one, and the words are mostly in the local 
 dialect. The old religious music, those Christmas hymns, 
 for example, called Noels, and of which the origin in some 
 cases is very remote and obscure, is more in the sentiment 
 perhaps of national music than any other, because these 
 airs when they had struck a distinct note of feeling that 
 awakened interest or stimulated piety, were spread far 
 and wide by the religious communities, secular clergy, 
 and pilgrims, who were alone capable of creating sym- 
 pathies in common between distant provinces in the far-off 
 times. 
 
 As regards French opera, or the lyric drama, there is little 
 to be said of it prior to the nineteenth century, although as 
 a musical curiosity of the eighteenth century, J.J. Rousseau's 
 Devin du Village was produced not long since on the 
 Paris stage. Lulli, who was a power until Gliick 
 eclipsed him on his own ground, was long ago forgotten, 
 except by searchers in books. Speaking generally, French 
 opera has always swayed between German and Italian 
 influence. 
 
 In 1870 the works of Berlioz (1803-1869) were still 
 popular, and his best known productions, for example, 
 
 198 
 
Musicians and Singers 199 
 
 La Damnation de Faust and Romeo et Juliette, have not 
 yet been packed away in the old curiosity museum of music. 
 
 The most popular work by Georges Bizet 
 ^°%"perr''*'^ (1838-1875), Carmen, was not produced until 
 
 1875. It was the song of the swan. Bizet 
 ranks as a great musician, and France can claim him entirely. 
 Ambroise Thomas (1811-1896), composer of Mignon, Hamlet, 
 Frangoise de Rimini, etc., and Charles Gounod (1818-1893), 
 whose greatest work for the lyric stage is Faust, produced in 
 1859, ^Iso maintained under the Republic the traditions of 
 what may be termed the French school, although the growing 
 influence of Wagner (1813-1883) was a great disturber of 
 ideas and aims. 
 
 This influence would have been far stronger than it was in 
 France during the first twenty years that followed the war, 
 
 but for the deep resentment of the French 
 
 Influence of towards the great innovator ; not merely 
 
 Wagner. because he was a German, but much more 
 
 because of certain letters that he wrote, and 
 which were printed, about the Gallic people when they were 
 in the throes of the sanguinary struggle. If the French are 
 ardent lovers, they are also very strong haters. For a good 
 many years Wagner's influence could only enter France by 
 stealth. Even as late as 1891, an attempt to produce 
 Lohengrin in Paris was met by a cabal that the Govern- 
 ment thought so serious, in the sense that it might give rise 
 to a diplomatic incident, that the piece was withdrawn, after 
 a very exciting first night. When Parisians of to-day think 
 of this, they realize what great changes have taken place 
 in themselves in less than two decades. Wagner is now 
 received in the city with all the honour due to his genius. 
 The memory of Gounod calls for more than a passing notice. 
 
 His operas do not by any means comprise the 
 
 Charles work of his life. In him were two very distinct 
 Gounod. -^ 
 
 currents : one that expressed itself freely 
 
 in all the voluptuous emotions of profane art, the other 
 
200 France of the French 
 
 that found its voice only in religious sentiment and mysticism. 
 One side of his nature revelled in all the sensations of the 
 stage, the other remained that of the religious enthusiast 
 which made him in his youth a disciple of Lacordaire and a 
 theological student at the Seminary of St. Sulpice. His 
 oratorios and other sacred music rank with the most widely 
 appreciated work of this class of composition that the 
 nineteenth century has bequeathed. It is only necessary 
 to mention La Redemption and Mors et Vita for these works 
 to call up ample recollections among English-speaking people. 
 Of the later composers who have thrown lustre upon the 
 French lyric stage, must be mentioned in the first place 
 
 Jules Massenet, who was born in 1842. Very 
 Jules prolific and industrious, his list of works is 
 
 a long one. Manon, produced in 1885 at 
 the Opera Comique, is probably the opera most calculated 
 to have a long life among those that he has given us. It is 
 remarkably vivacious and human, and is in keeping with the 
 best traditions of comic opera — which is not comic in the 
 ordinary sense of the word. Massenet's work takes in 
 a wide range of style and subject, as may be judged by the 
 titles of some of his principal operas : Les Erynnies, Le Roi 
 de Lahore, Herodiade, Le Cid, Werther, Thais, and Sapho. 
 Cherubin, produced in 1905, is not one of his best. Roma, 
 a tragic opera produced at the Grand-Opera in 1912, ranks 
 far higher. Massenet must be given a leading position 
 among the musical composers of France. 
 
 In the opinion of many, M. Camille Saint-Saens, who was 
 
 born in Paris in 1835, is the foremost of 
 M. Camille livinff musicians. That he is a master of 
 
 musical science, consummately skilled in 
 all things appertaining to technique, must be granted without 
 any hesitation ; but if the object of music be to stir and 
 express the deep human passions as weU as the more delicate 
 and cultivated emotions, M. Camille Saint-Saens lacks 
 something essential to the fulfilment of the ideal. He reflects 
 
Photo by 
 
 Pierre Petit 
 
 M. JULES MASSENET 
 
Musicians and Singers 201 
 
 the dilettanist movement in music. The predominating influ- 
 ence upon him, after BerUoz, has been that of Wagner, but 
 he has never approached the elevation of the great German. 
 Bizet, had he not been struck down so early in life, might 
 have stemmed this Wagnerian current in France, which 
 responds far less to the national character than the " Latin 
 Lyrical Drama," the spirit of which was so well caught up 
 by the composer of Carmen and L* Arlesienne, but to which 
 he lent a fresh and vibrating individuality. Among the 
 later works of M. Saint-Saens are the following operas : 
 Samson et Dalila, Phryne, Fredegonde, Les Barbares, and 
 Helena et Paris (1904). 
 
 The musical composers of operetta have been dealt with 
 to the extent compatible with the scope of this work under 
 the heading " Dramatists." 
 
 Although he was not a composer for the lyric stage, Cesar 
 Franck (1822-1890) was a musician who must be placed in 
 
 the front rank of those who have cast lustre 
 C6sar Franck. upon the arts in France under the Republic. 
 
 A Belgian by birth, he became a natural- 
 ized Frenchman in 1870. He produced the oratorio Ruth 
 so far back as 1846, but his fame rests chiefly upon his much 
 later works : La Redemption, Les Beatitudes, Rebecca, and 
 Psyche. By their originality, their science, and the elevation 
 of their sentiment, his compositions, which include many 
 short pieces coming within the category of " musique de 
 chambre," have won unbounded admiration from competent 
 critics. For many years Cesar Franck was the organist at 
 the Church of Sain te-Clo tilde, in Paris. 
 
 L^o D^libes (1836-1891) was the composer of La Source, 
 Coppelia, Sylvia, and Lakme, works deficient in colour, 
 
 but with a certain graceful lightness not 
 L60 Delibes. without charm. Lakme, which was produced 
 
 in 1883 at the Opera-Comique, had a long run 
 of success with Mile. Marie Van Zandt in the title role. 
 
 M. Andre Messager, who was bom in 1853, ranks prominently 
 
202 France of the French 
 
 with the composers of light opera. Among his later works 
 
 M. Andre are La Basoche, Madame Chrysantheme, and 
 
 Messager. Miss Dollar. 
 
 The late Edouard Lalo (1823-1892) is chiefly remembered 
 
 by his successful light opera, Le Roi d'Ys, produced in 1888. 
 
 M. Gustave Charpentier, who was born in 
 
 Other composers, ^g^^^ ^^^ ^^^^^ ^ ^^^^ position among the 
 
 younger musical composers since the production of his 
 opera Louise in 1900. 
 
 Among others who have earned distinction as musical 
 composers, and whose influence is more or less felt by the 
 contemporary life of France, are MM. Thedore Dubois 
 {Xaviere, 1895, etc.) ; Alfred Bruenau (Messidor, L'Ouragan, 
 etc.) ; Paul Vidal {Les Bourgondes, 1901) ; Vincent d'Indy 
 {Wallenstein, Le Chant de la Cloche) ; Gabriel Faure, Xavier 
 Leroux {Astarte, 1901) ; Victor Masse (1822-1884), composer 
 of the still popular comic opera^ Les Noces de Jeannette ; 
 Alberic Magnard, composer of Berenice, produced at the Opera 
 Comique in 1911 ; Lucien Hillemacher (1860-1909), composer 
 of Orsola, produced at the Opera in 1902 and of Circe, produced 
 at the Opera-Comique in 1907 ; Benjamin Goddard (1849- 
 1895) ; Ernest Reyer (1823-1909), the composer of Salammho 
 and Sigurd ; and the late Augusta Holmes, who was one of 
 the very few instances of a woman attaining eminence as a 
 musical composer. Her work, La Montagne Noire, was 
 produced at the Opera. She was of Irish parentage. 
 
 France is not a land of song like Italy, nor even like 
 Germany. Speaking generally, the French voice is rather 
 thin. Considering what encouragement is 
 Singers. offered by the State to the cultivation of 
 vocal music, better results would have been obtained had 
 the gift of song been more distributed among the people. 
 The province, however, has much to do with the singing 
 disposition and power to be found among the inhabitants. 
 This is easily explained by differences of racial origin. In 
 Languedoc, especially in Toulouse and the surrounding 
 
Musicians and Singers 203 
 
 country, strong and rich-toned voices, often with a magnificent 
 timbre are common, and this district has been much drawn 
 upon for the lyric stage. Among its singers of note, Toulouse 
 can claim Capoul the tenor. 
 
 Although the official designation of the Paris Opera is 
 " L' Academic Nationale de Musique," to maintain its position 
 it is obliged to have recourse to vocal talent other than 
 French. The same holds good with regard to the Opera- 
 Comique, which is also a subventioned house. It is usual, 
 however, for singers who aim at being engaged at either of 
 these establishments to receive some training in France. 
 
 The following are among the principal singers who have 
 been intimately associated either with the Paris Opera or 
 the Opera-Comique in recent years : — 
 
 Mesdames Emma Calve (born at Madrid in 1864), Rose 
 Caron (born near Paris in 1857), Aino Ackte, Pauline Agussol, 
 Laure Beauvais, Lucy Berthet, Rosa Bosman, Brejean- 
 Silver, Carrere-Zanroff, Chretien- Vaguet, M. de Craponne, 
 Marie Delna, Deschamps-Jehin, Mary Garden, Julia 
 Guiraudon, Louise Grand] ean, Jeanne Hatto, M. H^glon, 
 Landouzy, Lureau-Escalais, Jane Marcy, Jane Mariquau, 
 Juliette Pierron, Sibyl Sanderson, Marguerite and Jeanne 
 Ugalde, Marguerite Carre, Chenal and Cecile Simonnet. 
 Messieurs A. Affre, M. Chambon, F. Clement, L. Delaquerriere, 
 J. Delmas, Pierre Engel, R. Fournets, L. Fougere, A. Gresse, 
 Imbart de la Tour, Marechal, Victor Maurel, J. Note, G. 
 Soulacroix, Vigneaux and A. Vaguet. 
 
 Singers of foreign origin have in some cases changed their 
 names for others more French to the eye and ear. 
 
 A famous singer of former days intimately connected with 
 Paris died in 1910. This was Pauline Viardot {nee Garcia). 
 She was a sister of Malibran and of Manuel Garcia, and mar- 
 ried M. Viardot, director of the long-extinct Theatre Italien. 
 She ended her life in Paris at the age of eighty-five. 
 
CHAPTER XII 
 
 SCIENCE AND INVENTION 
 
 The lamp that France has held aloft in the vast, mysterious, 
 and shadowy forest haunted by the uncaptured truths of 
 
 nature, has during the last half century been 
 
 The Battle one of the most brilliant and searching. 
 
 with Death. It has flashed new and strong ideas upon the 
 
 mind of man, while increasing the comfort 
 or mitigating the suffering of humanity. In no other period 
 of the world's history has science done so much for mankind, 
 especially in preventing disease and combating death — not 
 conquering, but in prevailing upon this hard creditor, who 
 will have his money sooner or later, to renew his bill and 
 thus postpone the inevitable settlement. 
 
 Pasteur and Lister are two names that will always be 
 linked together by the fact that their great work, directed 
 along two parallel lines towards one object — that of saving 
 life — has been of more far-reaching benefit to humanity than l- 
 aU else revealed and demonstrated in the previous history 
 of science. If Lister, by promulgating the doctrine of the 
 antiseptic treatment of wounds, whether accidental or the 
 result of surgical operations, has been such a benefactor to / 
 the race, it was the light that broke on him from Pasteur's 
 researches and discoveries that confirmed his theory of 
 ambiant germs which until then rested on hypothesis and the 
 intuition of a subtle intellect, and by explaining the phe- 
 nomena of cause and effect, gave him all the confidence of a 
 scientific revolutionist. The antiseptic treatment led the 
 way to the aseptic treatment, which is the steriUsation of 
 instruments, etc., by fire, and in practice the two are now 
 combined. The prodigious advance of modern surgery 
 upon the domain of disease has not been brought about by 
 increased skill in the use of instruments, but by the science 
 
 204 
 
Science and Invention 205 
 
 of vanquishing germs of death in the form of micro-organisms. 
 The surgeon goes to work with so bold and sure a hand to-day 
 because so much of the old risk of complications from septic 
 poisoning has been removed. 
 
 When, on the occasion of the Pasteur jubilee at the Sorbonne 
 in 1895, Lord Lister left the group of foreign scientists and 
 clasped in his arms him who had thrown so much light upon 
 his path, the grandeur of the scene, so human and deeply 
 touching, left the most enduring impression upon that his- 
 torical gathering. Both men are dead, but their lives are 
 continued in their work. 
 
 It is no small glory to be the pioneer among nations in 
 this science of bacteriology, which has revealed a new world 
 of research in relation to the prevention of disease, and has 
 already rescued a multitude of lives from the grasp of frightful 
 disorders ; it is a glory that France owes to the biological 
 chemist, Louis Pasteur (1822-1895), a man of the most 
 simple life and modest character. He was constantly humble 
 before the great problems of the Infinite, which science can 
 never solve, while he endeavoured to unlock with the key 
 of patience chambers microscopically small, yet holding 
 what his penetrating intellect told him were levers of most 
 compelling power to move away many a heavy load and 
 perplexing enigma from the mind of man. 
 
 The French have much more of the scientific temper of 
 mind than those who judge them by exteriors — and these 
 
 the most accessible — are apt to suppose. 
 ^I^ a^"*^ ^^^ space that even frivolous journals give 
 
 to reports of the proceedings of the Academy 
 of Sciences is an indication of this, but what is still more so is 
 the splendour of the scientific institutions of France, and what 
 the large and small museums scattered all over the country 
 reveal of private interest, research, and industry, the fruits 
 of which are at length made over to the public. But the 
 most important of all scientific institutions, on account of the 
 influence that continues to radiate from it and the work that 
 
206 France of the French 
 
 it has already done, is the Pasteur Institute. It cannot but 
 be regarded as the alma mater of bacteriologists, not only on 
 account of the name of its illustrious founder which it bears, 
 and whose tomb is in its crypt, but because it may be said to 
 centralize the activity of the human mind in this particular field 
 of research. Here the work of the great chemist and biologist 
 is continued by disciples trained in his school, and who with 
 the patience of alchemists, but with an ideal immeasurably 
 higher than theirs, search for the clues that science knows 
 to exist, and which when found may break down the 
 most solid ramparts of the diseases that chiefly afflict the 
 world. 
 
 On the death of Pasteur in 1895, Dr. Pierre Roux (1853) 
 was appointed Director of the Pasteur Institute, the first in 
 the order of succession to the founder. For 
 r. oux. yea^j-s previously he had been the trusty 
 assistant of the man who had conquered rabies after proving 
 the impossibility of spontaneous generation, rescuing from 
 poverty thousands of people in Southern France dependent 
 upon the silk-worm industry, and showing how the diseases 
 of fermented liquors might be met by destroying the micro- 
 organisms which are the cause of them. As Pasteur had 
 never gone through the course of medicine and taken a 
 degree, because as a scientific chemist he had no motive for 
 doing so, he could not legally perform even the simple 
 operation of injecting under the skin the vaccine of rabies. 
 He therefore needed a medical assistant, and Roux, who 
 had aided him in his laboratory at the Ecole Norma le, before 
 taking his doctor's degree, performed many operations 
 afterwards under the eye of Pasteur, during the period when 
 the world's faith was not yet fixed upon the value of the 
 treatment. After the foundation of the Institute, while 
 assisting the founder, he took up an independent position 
 by his researches in bacteriology. Thus, in 1894, he was able 
 to announce that he had discovered, thanks to Behring's 
 and his own labour along the same line of investigation, a 
 
Photo by 
 
 Pierre Petit 
 
 DR. ROUX 
 
Science and Invention 207 
 
 preventive and curative serum for diphtheria and croup, 
 which are caused by the same microbe. It is needless to 
 dwell upon the importance of this discovery to the world. 
 France benefited probably in the largest measure, because 
 croup had long been one of the most frequent and malignant 
 of the diseases of children throughout the country. Mortality 
 from this cause has since been reduced to a figure of relatively 
 small importance. Dr. Roux has also given much attention 
 to the microbe of tetanus, and his researches in connection 
 with it have led to the adoption of a serum in the curative 
 treatment of this fell disorder. The use of serums as distinct 
 from vaccines (the attenuated virus) in the war with diseases 
 which have been traced to a microbe or bacillus, is largely 
 due to Dr. Roux's method of using hypodermically in the 
 treatment of diphtheria the serous part of the blood of horses 
 which have been rendered by inoculation proof against the 
 disease. In 1903 the Institute of France awarded Dr. Roux 
 the Osiris prize of ;f4,ooo. 
 
 The Pasteur Institute, being founded on a wide and liberal 
 basis, is open to students and investigators of all nations. 
 
 Dr. E. Metchnikoff (1855), who has been 
 
 Metchnikoff working there for years, and whose experi- 
 
 and Marmorek. ments upon apes of the chimpanzee tribe 
 
 have attracted the attention of the scientific 
 world, is a Russian, while the Austrian, Alexander Marmorek, 
 another Pastorian identified with Paris, has produced anti- 
 tuberculous and antistreptococcic serums, the value of which 
 has not yet been determined. 
 
 Dr. Andre Chantemesse (185 1), a high sanitary authority 
 in France, studied at the Pasteur Institute, and afterwards 
 
 in the laboratories of Koch and Bollinger, 
 c^n emesse. jj^ j^^ made important bacteriological 
 researches in connection with epidemic dysentery and the 
 infection of water by the microbes of disease, especially of 
 typhoid. He has, moreover, proved that flies are exceedingly 
 active agents in the transmission of epidemics, notably 
 
208 France of the French 
 
 cholera. He has produced an antityphic serum, the efficacy 
 of which remains at present somewhat doubtful. 
 
 One of the younger bacteriologists of note is Dr. Yersin, 
 who was born in Switzerland (1865) and became a naturalised 
 
 Frenchman after studjring in Pasteur's 
 Dr. Yersin. laboratory. He discovered the bacillus, 
 which is supposed to be that of bubonic plague, almost 
 simultaneously with Kitwasato, who was working quite 
 independently. Yersin' s serum for the treatment of this 
 frightful disorder, when tried in China, is said to have reduced 
 the mortality from 75 to 48 per cent. If these figures are 
 accepted, the saving of life is very important, but there 
 remains plenty of scope for increasing the efficacy of the 
 serum. 
 
 Dr. E. L. Doyen (1859) is a professional surgeon rather 
 than a bacteriologist, but having taken up the position of a 
 
 specialist in cancer, he was led to pursue 
 
 Dr. Doyen independent researches and experiments with 
 
 Cancer. ^ ^iew to isolating the microbe of cancer, 
 
 and proceeding thence in accordance with 
 the principles of bacteriological science, as already determined 
 by experiments, to the production of a curative serum or 
 vaccine. He isolated a bacillus which he maintains to be 
 that of cancer, and which he has named micrococcus neo- 
 formans. From attenuated cultures of this virus he produced 
 a vaccine, not a serum, although it is often so termed, and 
 he inoculated cancerous patients with it. The results of this 
 treatment have been the subject of much difference of opinion 
 and envenomed discussion. In 1908 Dr. Doyen made an 
 interesting communication to the Biological Society in 
 Paris in support of his theory concerning the parasitic origin 
 and processus of cancer. After referring to Dr. Metchnikoff' s 
 researches and discoveries concerning phagocytic cells in the 
 human organism, whose function is to defend it from the 
 infectious invasion of noxious germs by absorbing these, he 
 stated that in studying the microbe of cancer he perceived 
 
Science and Invention 209 
 
 that it was not absorbed by the phagocytic cell itself, but by 
 its nucleus, which rapidly digested it. This led him to make 
 further investigation concerning the cancerous cell itself, 
 and by employing the process known as coupes cL V argent, he 
 became convinced that it was in the nucleus of this cell that 
 the microbe was lodged. Thus invaded, the normal cells 
 developed abnormally, substituting themselves for the 
 healthy tissue they destroyed. He concluded : (i) That 
 nuclei of cells play an active part in whatever relates to 
 bacteriology ; (2) That cancer is a parasitic disease that 
 commences in the nuclei of the normal cells, thus explaining 
 that anarchy in the development of cells so characteristic of 
 the disease. This view of the mechanism of cancer has not 
 been generally accepted and although hope is strong that the 
 cause of the malady will be made clear and that science will 
 then discover the preventive and curative method of deaHng 
 with it, the world is still waiting for the fulfilment of this 
 hope. Dr. Doyen has latterly been much absorbed by the 
 problem of combating foot and mouth disease, so devastating 
 to hve stock in France. 
 
 An ardent and active worker in the field of biological 
 
 research is Dr. Calmette, director of the Pasteur Institute at 
 
 Lille. He has given special study to the 
 
 B t r T "t problem of finding an anti- tuberculous remedy 
 
 based on attenuated or modified virus of 
 
 the tuberculous bacillus administered not subcutaneously, 
 
 but by the digestive channel. 
 
 Others are pursuing researches with the same object — 
 the conquest of tuberculous disease, the ravages of which 
 have greatly increased in France of late years, especially in 
 large centres of population and along the Northern and 
 Western seaboard. Prominent among these scientists is 
 Professor Arloing, who at the Veterinary School of Lyons 
 has been carrying out important experiments upon calves 
 with tuberculous vaccine, or serum. At Alfort, Professor 
 Vallee has been experimenting with the bovo-vaccine of 
 14— (2398) 
 
210 France of the French 
 
 Behring, or rather, endeavouring to improve upon it so that 
 the effect shall be durable. Both these investigators have 
 received grants from the fund (Caisse des Recherches 
 Scientifiques), which was founded in 1907, when Parliament 
 voted a sum of ;f9,ooo for the furtherance of scientific 
 enquiry. 
 
 The efforts of Dr. Gustave Martin in Africa, to discover by 
 bacteriological science an efficacious means of treating the 
 sleeping sickness, which has become such a scourge in vast 
 regions of the Congo, should also be mentioned. In fact, 
 on all sides the zeal and energy of the French as practical 
 biologists are remarkable. 
 
 The contamination of rivers and streams having become 
 a very great evil in France, gravely affecting the public health 
 as well as threatening to bring about the total destruction 
 of fish in many districts, Dr. Calmette, M. Miintz, of the 
 Academy of Sciences, and M. Trouard-RioUe, director of the 
 important School of Agriculture at Grignon, are studying in 
 common the problem of destroying the noxious properties 
 of drainage water, as well as that which issues from many 
 factories and works. A sum of £3,400 has been granted 
 from the fund already mentioned in furtherance of these 
 researches. 
 
 Claude Bernard (1813-1878) scarcely belongs to the epoch 
 of which this book especially treats, and yet he was a pioneer 
 
 p, . , of modern physiological science ; his 
 
 * influence is strong in many a laboratory to- 
 
 Claude day and upon the mind of many a searcher 
 ernar . ^^^^ natural phenomena. Claude Bernard 
 went far to revolutionize the science of medicine. His 
 scepticism concerning the empirical system of the healing 
 art commenced when as a chemist's assistant at Lyons, his 
 employer, who had a good deal of veterinary practice, told 
 him to keep all the horse drugs that were not used or had 
 gone bad, for these when mixed with other pharmaceutical 
 refuse would make a perfect theriaque — an antidote for 
 
Science and Invention 211 
 
 poisons and hydrophobia, as well as a remedy for all sorts of 
 internal disturbances. Bernard resolved thenceforth to 
 accept nothing on faith. By what arduous efforts he won 
 all the honours obtainable from medicine and physiology 
 cannot be related here. The fact to be borne in mind is that 
 he was the pioneer in France of modern experimenual 
 medicine based on a more intimate knowledge of normal 
 and pathological physiology. More than any other man 
 he rendered medicine and surgery tributary to vivisection. 
 Paul Bert (1833-1886), whose name is hateful to anti- 
 vivisectionists, was his disciple. 
 
 In regard to metaphysics, Claude Bernard was not arrogant 
 or dogmatic. His business, he said, was to determine all 
 that was determinable from phenomena in the physical 
 order, and he maintained that it did not belong to the domain 
 of science to search for primary causes. He described his 
 method as the negation of all systems, and simply the science 
 of ascending to the proximate causes of phenomena in relation 
 to healthy and also morbid states. 
 
 In chemistry, distinct from bacteriology, the intellect 
 
 of Marcelin Berthelot (1827-1907) was the most searching 
 
 Chemistry ^^^ revolutionary of France during the 
 
 nineteenth century. Such were the services 
 
 Berthelot. ^j^a.t he rendered the industrial arts by the 
 application of experiments made in his laboratory, that had 
 he taken out patents for the commercial working of his 
 discoveries, he might easily have amassed a colossal fortune. 
 But a man of really scientific genius is rarely a man of business, 
 and with Berthelot's passion for disentangling the mysterious 
 combinations of substances, building them up again, and 
 composing new combinations was mingled no craving for 
 money. It was in building up with the results of analysis 
 that the greatness of his scientific achievements chiefly lay. 
 The title of his work, published in i860. Organic Chemistry 
 founded on Synthesis^ already indicated the direction of 
 his efforts, which were destined to produce a vast revolution 
 
212 France of the French 
 
 in the chemical laboratory. Like Claude Bernard, Berthelot 
 was a clear and forcible writer, as well as a man of science, 
 and his contributions to the literature of subjects that 
 interested him are very important. He thus defines the two 
 spheres in chemistry of synthesis and analysis : " The special 
 function of S5mthesis is to make us understand the general 
 laws which govern chemical combinations. Judged from 
 this point of view, it reveals a peculiar fecundity. In fact, 
 whereas analysis necessarily confines itself to natural 
 composite bodies and their derivatives, synthesis proceeding 
 by virtue of a generative law, produces not only natural 
 substances, which are particular cases in the operation of 
 this law, but also an infinite number of other substances 
 which would never have existed in nature." Guided by 
 this reasoning, and the results of experiments, Berthelot 
 gave to the science of chemistry a creative function under 
 the action of human intelligence such as it had never before 
 known. His chemical aniline dyes soon beat the vegetable 
 dyes out of the field, to the great loss of the madder growers 
 in Southern France ; but what is gain to one industry is 
 generally loss to another. The benefit to the public was 
 undoubted. By the artificial production of organic bodies, 
 Berthelot brought a new life into various trades, even that 
 of the perfumer, who learnt from him how to counterfeit 
 the breath of flowers. He showed the rapid way to reach 
 objects that could only be otherwise attained by long and 
 toilsome journeys. He enriched the pharmacopoeia also 
 with fresh drugs which were the result of his synthetic method. 
 He is largely responsible for the new medicines that work 
 mysteriously upon heart and brain and nervous system, and 
 to which strange names that tell nothing, except to those 
 familiar with the arcana of the modem laboratory, have been 
 given. 
 
 The disasters that befell his country in 1870 led Berthelot 
 to place his science at the service of the Government in the 
 manufacture of new explosives. In this way he came to 
 
Science and Invention 213 
 
 be the principal instrument of the mighty change that has 
 
 taken place during the last thirty years in the explosive 
 
 agents used by the armaments of the world, 
 
 ^plosiv« ^^^ ^^ which the new weapons were to a large 
 
 extent the adaptation of mechanical science 
 
 to a fresh chemical power. The black gunpowder which 
 
 had done service in all the battles of Europe since Crecy, and 
 
 whose smoke added much to the picturesque terrors of war, 
 
 was by the wizard Berthelot changed to smokeless powder. 
 
 Its adoption by the French Government was the beginning 
 
 of the revolution in explosives. 
 
 In one of his gay humours, towards the close of his life, 
 Berthelot predicted, half seriously, that the great food 
 problem which to so many people is an exceedingly trying 
 one, would one day find its solution in 
 The Food chemistry. A tablet cunningly composed of 
 Problem Solved carbon derived from carbonic acid, hydrogen 
 by Tablets. taken from water with azote and oxygen, bor- 
 rowed from the atmosphere, so conveniently 
 small as to be easily carried in the waistcoat pocket, would 
 amply suffice for a man's daily nourishment. One cannot help 
 thinking that if this system were tried in France, we should 
 hear more about creux de Vestomac than we do at present. 
 Berthelot was also the founder of thermo-chemistry, 
 which may be briefly described as the science of estimating 
 the energy of movement in atoms, or 
 Chemistrv niolecules, during action or reaction, by the 
 amount of heat set free, or absorbed. Thus 
 heat and motion have become to the chemist synonymous 
 terms. In philosophy, Berthelot was a Positivist, but of 
 somewhat broader ideas than those of Auguste Comte. His 
 funeral was a civil one, and he was given sepulture at the 
 Pantheon, which bears on its frieze the words " Aux grands 
 hommes la Patrie reconnaissante." Mme. Berthelot, who 
 had been his constant companion for so many years, and who 
 died only a few days before himself, was allowed a place in the 
 
214 France of the French 
 
 same crypt, in obedience to a sentiment that commands respect. 
 The precedent, however, may raise difficulties hereafter. 
 
 The series of great discoveries in chemistry and aUied 
 biology, which gave such splendour to the scientific movement 
 
 in the second half of the nineteenth century, 
 
 Pierre Curie was enriched with yet another that came 
 
 and Mme. Curie, almost at its close, like the brilliant corrusca- 
 
 tion of a luminous epoch that was passing 
 away. It was in 1898 that Pierre Curie (1859-1906), proceed- 
 ing by the analysis of uranic radiations in collaboration with 
 his wife, discovered two new metals, polonium and radium. 
 M. Curie was a scientific chemist. His earliest researches, 
 relating to crystallized bodies, were carried on jointly with 
 his brother, M. Paul Curie (1855), also a chemist. In 1880 
 Pierre Curie discovered the phenomena of piezo-electricity, 
 and on the occasion of his receiving his doctor's degree 
 (sciences) in 1895, he presented a memorandum on the 
 magnetic properties of bodies at various temperatures. 
 After the discovery of polonium and radium, he devoted all 
 the time that his duties as Professor of General Physics at 
 the Ecole de Physique et de Chimie left him to the ardent 
 investigation of the radio-activity of the two mysterious 
 and allied substances which had placed the scientific world 
 in possession of a new energy, the nature of which is not yet 
 well understood. He WcLS also the inventor of several 
 scientific instruments of value in the laboratory. The life 
 of Pierre Curie, so intensely concentrated upon the latent 
 forces of nature, and so full of promise of further great 
 discoveries, was suddenly extinguished by the wheel of a 
 waggon in a Paris street in the spring of 1906. His mind 
 being doubtless absorbed by the problems of the new science 
 which he had presented in all the nakedness of its birth to 
 the world, he overlooked the trivial daily need of watching 
 over his own body, and before any one had time to stop the 
 horse that was the immediate, but irresponsible, cause of the 
 disaster, the man who had given such a mighty shock to 
 
Photo by 
 
 Pirou 
 
 MME CURIE 
 
Science and Invention 215 
 
 scientific principles and " laws " supposed to be fixed in 
 nature, was annihilated by a little brute force. 
 
 The salts with which radium is combined having been 
 purified, the atomic weight of the element itself has been 
 ascertained. While the mystery of its origin and purpose 
 in nature has not yet been cleared up, researches and 
 experiments in connection with radio-activity and its 
 applications are pursued in France, as elsewhere, with 
 eager yet patient assiduity. 
 
 Madame Curie (Marie Sklodowska) was born at Warsaw in 
 1867, and like so many other Polish women of superior 
 intellect, came to Paris to study. She had a passion for 
 chemistry, and she studied at the Sorbonne with brilliant 
 results. She was, therefore, well equipped to assist the man 
 whom she married, and whose zeal to penetrate the mystery 
 of the radiations of uranium (a metal found in certain clay), 
 discovered by Becquerel in 1896, she fully shared. Their 
 long work of patient observation and manipulation in the 
 laboratory was rewarded with results already stated. Curie 
 gave his wife full and equal credit with himself for what 
 they had accomplished in common. After the discovery 
 she obtained the degree of Doctor of Sciences. In 1903 the 
 Nobel Prize for science was divided between M. and Mme. 
 Curie and Becquerel. After the death of her husband, a chair 
 at the Sorbonne was created for Mme. Curie — the first time 
 that such an honour in connection with the higher studies had 
 been bestowed upon a woman in France. In recognition 
 of her independent experiments and researches, a result of 
 which was the isolation of the pure metal radium, a Nobel 
 Prize was again awarded her in 1911. 
 
 There is little to be said of the late Henri Becquerel (1852- 
 
 1908) beyond what has been stated in the preceding remarks 
 
 on M. and Mme. Curie. He was a man who 
 
 Be^^uerel lived a very retired and simple life, devoted 
 
 to the study of natural science. His early 
 
 raining was that of a civil engineer, and he followed this 
 
216 France of the French 
 
 profession for some time. His intense interest in natural 
 phenomena led him to make important researches respecting 
 atmospheric polarization and the influence of terrestrial 
 magnetism on the atmosphere. Then his attention was 
 absorbed by the problem presented by the radio-activity 
 of certain bodies, which led to the discovery of uranium. 
 He had been appointed life-secretary to the Academy of 
 Sciences not long before his death. 
 
 A modest worker in the cause of physical science, Professor 
 
 Branly, who was born at Amiens in 1846, was Uttle known 
 
 to the public before his election to the Aca- 
 
 Edouard Branly (Jemy of Sciences in 1911, and even then 
 
 ^TelegraSiy. it was because Mme. Curie Wcis made by her 
 friends a candidate for the same distinction, 
 and he perforce became her rival. Yet this quiet, unobtrusive 
 man is regarded as the immediate pioneer of wireless tele- 
 graphy. He invented the radio-conductor which rendered 
 it possible to apply to practical purposes the theory of Hertzian 
 waves. Signer Marconi acknowledged his indebtedness to 
 Professor Branly by making him the recipient of the first 
 wireless message. This system of telegraphy has been 
 brought to great perfection in France. From the Eiffel 
 Tower messages are sent to ships far out at sea, giving them 
 the hour and the longitude. 
 
 By the stereo-chemistry of Lebel and Van THoff, based 
 
 upon the atomic conception of bodies and what has been 
 
 described as the " veritable architecture of 
 
 ^^•^r°' molecules," the exact knowledge of the 
 
 chemical constituents of various natural 
 
 bodies has facilitated the production by synthesis of such 
 
 substances as sugar and indigo. These processes are becoming 
 
 more and more identified with manufactures, and we may be 
 
 getting near the time when they will be applied to the chemical 
 
 constitution of foods to an extent that at present appears 
 
 fantastic. 
 
 The liquefaction of gases has been mainly realized by the 
 
Science and Invention 217 
 
 researches and experiments of the French chemists, Armagat, 
 Cailet, and Pictet. 
 
 Although France cannot take credit for the greatest 
 discoveries in connection with electricity, it must be remem- 
 bered that A. M. Ampere (1775-1836), the 
 
 Electricity and chemist and mathematician, brought a very 
 
 Electro- 
 
 Chemistry. penetrating intellect to bear upon electro- 
 dynamic phenomena, as well as upon those 
 of electro-magnetism, and that his treatises went far to clear 
 the way towards those various applications of dynamic 
 electricity which have produced such prodigious changes 
 in modern life. His name is currently employed for the 
 measurement of electro- dynamic force, in connection with 
 which he established a code. 
 
 In the practical application of the principles laid down 
 by Ampere, Marcel Deprez figures prominently as a pioneer. 
 His experiments in connection with the transmission of 
 electric energy based upon Gramme's dynamo did much 
 to further the utilization of water-power for the lighting of 
 towns, etc., and the distribution of motor force by electricity. 
 
 Electrolysis, a more recently discovered field for the 
 appUcation of electricity to industrial purposes, is largely 
 the result of the chemist Moissan's experiments with Violle's 
 electric stove. By its means he was able to obtain a large 
 number of new bodies and to greatly simplify preparations 
 from various metals. Electrolysis appears destined to play 
 an important part in the cheapening of certain natural 
 products. For example, aluminium by its means has been 
 separated from the minerals with which it is commonly 
 combined, and has thus been brought within easy reach of 
 the manufacturer. Copper is also being produced by a 
 similar process. By another application ol the same 
 principles complex bodies are formed. 
 
 In mathematics and astronomy, passing over such 
 celebrated Frenchmen, belonging to the early or middle part 
 of the nineteenth century, as Frangois Arago (1786-1853) and 
 
218 France of the French 
 
 Urbain Le Verrier (1811-1877), we come to the names of 
 four notable men whose work belongs to the period with 
 
 which this book is especially designed to deal, 
 
 Mathematics namely, Felix Tisserand, J. H. Poincare, 
 
 and Astronomy. Pierre Janssen and Camille Flammarion. 
 
 The first, Tisserand (1845-1896), not only 
 rendered valuable service to science by the light he threw 
 upon the method of ascertaining the comparative substanti- 
 ality of celestial bodies, he was also a lucid and attractive 
 writer on subjects of astronomical interest. Tisserand's 
 method of calculation, which differed essentially from that 
 of Laplace (1749-1827), was only partly known to the public 
 during his lifetime. J. H. Poincare (1854) was the most 
 distinguished of living Frenchmen in the domain of pure 
 mathematics. Among algebraists, his light has been a 
 leading one since 1876. He was the author of La Science et 
 VHypothese (1905). 
 
 Although his name leaves no doubt as to Scandinavian 
 origin, the late M. Pierre Janssen was bom in Paris in 1824. 
 
 Having earned distinction in connection 
 Pierre Janssen. with the physical sciences, he was despatched 
 
 to India in 1868 to observe an eclipse of the 
 sun, and his observations led to the discovery of the nature 
 of the solar protuberances. During the siege of Paris, he 
 left the city in a balloon with the object of observing on 
 Algerian soil another ecHpse of the sun, and he succeeded in 
 carrjdng out his purpose. In the following year an ecHpse 
 drew him to Asia, and it was then that he observed a new 
 gaseous envelope round the sun, to which he gave the name 
 atmosphere coronate. In 1876 he was commissioned by the 
 Government to establish an observatory of physical astronomy 
 at Montmartre, but it was soon decided to remove it to 
 Meudon, in the vicinity of Paris, where it now occupies the 
 site of the old chateau. In 1891 was commenced, under 
 his direction, the construction of the smaU observatory on 
 Mont-Blanc \\ith which his name is associated. Here for 
 
Science and Invention 219 
 
 a series of years he spent much time, often during the most 
 furious Alpine weather. It was an ideal retreat and watch- 
 tower for such a student of the forces of nature. Janssen 
 invented an aeronautic compass, which has been of much 
 service to balloonists. But, as already indicated, his studies 
 were especially directed upon the sun. His solar photographs 
 are a unique collection of the highest value. He was the 
 author of various scientific treatises and communications 
 to the Academy of Sciences. 
 
 M. Camille Flammarion is the most attractive and con- 
 sequently the most popular French writer of the day on 
 astronomical science. He possesses in a 
 
 FlanunSon "parked and admirable degree the faculty 
 of making subjects, which if left in their 
 scientific nakedness would be forbidding to minds that had 
 not received the culture constituting a ready-made interest 
 in them, captivating to the imagination of all endowed with 
 an intelligent curiosity. The fact that M. Flammarion 
 combines with the qualities that make an astronomer an 
 exceedingly vivid fancy, explains his power over the 
 imagination of others, and consequently his literary success. 
 No doubt, to the stern and austere scientist, he mingles a 
 little too much of the element of romance with his pictures 
 of far-away worlds and their possible life, and of possible 
 catastrophes in the universe. He may draw too freely upon 
 hypothesis, but it should be remembered that his literature 
 is not intended for those who have had a scientific training, 
 but for the great majority who move outside that small 
 circle. Nevertheless, he must not be regarded as a Jules 
 Verne among astronomers. All his pictures and theories, 
 even his fancies, rest on some basis of ascertained truth. He 
 knows all that is to be learnt from astronomical observations 
 up to date. Born in 1842, he became attached to the Paris 
 Observatory in 1858, and afterwards passed four years in 
 the Bureau des Longitudes, which for abstruse calculations 
 is one of the severest of schools. In 1862 appeared La 
 
220 France of the French 
 
 Pluralite des Mondes Habites, which brought him at once 
 in contact with the public, and was the beginning of his 
 popularity as a writer. In 1868 he made several balloon 
 ascents to study the direction of air currents and hygrometric 
 conditions of the atmosphere. In 1880 the Academy awarded 
 him the Prix Montyon for his Astronomic Populaire. He 
 is an authority on the rotation of planets, and has put forward 
 a theory to the effect that this movement is directly related 
 to their respective densities. His published works make a 
 long list. Among those that have appeared since 1880 are : 
 Le Monde avant la Creation de rHomme^ Dans le Ciel et dans 
 la Terre^ Les Cometes^ and Contemplations Scientifiques. 
 
 The Abbe T. Moreux, director of the Bourges Observatory, 
 has for many years been a patient student and observer of 
 
 the heavens, and he occupies a place of 
 hi^Astronom^^ authority among the astronomers of France. 
 
 At the Paris Observatory that immense 
 undertaking, " The map of the heavens," which was com- 
 menced some years since by MUe. Klumpke, has been con- 
 tinued by Mme. Flemnig, who has made a catalogue of 10,351 
 stars classed in accordance with the revelations of spectral 
 analysis. The experiment of employing women in this 
 department of astronomical work has fully justified 
 expectations. 
 
 The study of natural history finds in France of to-day 
 fewer enthusiasts than it does in England, although there are 
 
 French specialists who write with authority 
 mstorv ^^ every branch of animated nature. The 
 
 greatest of recent French naturalists was 
 undoubtedly Henri Fabre, an entomologist without rival 
 within the range of his observations. For more than sixty 
 years he had been studying the insect world around his home 
 in Provence, and had entered into the lives of these small 
 beings with a sympathy and eager curiosity which give to his 
 work a literary charm quite apart from its immense scientific 
 value. His Souvenirs Entomologiques are rich in genial 
 
Science and Invention 221 
 
 philosophy as well as in startling revelations. Darwin many 
 years ago spoke of this naturalist as an " inimitable observer." 
 It is to be noted, however, that Fabre was not a theorist or 
 searcher for solutions in the abstract ; he simply observed 
 and was ever fascinated himself by the marvels that he 
 sees. 
 
 During the last twenty years exploration in Africa has 
 
 received much encouragement from the French Government, 
 
 and various missions, termed " scientific," 
 
 Exploration. ^^^ having also political objects, were 
 despatched into regions of the Dark Continent where it 
 was held expedient to extend the influence of France. The 
 mission of Captain Marchand, who ascended the valley of 
 the Congo and reached Fashoda within the watershed of the 
 Nile in July, 1898, furnished a dramatic chapter of recent 
 diplomatic history. In still later times France has found an 
 enthusiastic explorer of the Antarctic regions in Dr. Jean 
 Charcot, son of the celebrated specialist in nervous diseases, 
 whose experiments on hysterical subjects at the Salpetriere 
 Hospital gave so great an impulse to the enquiry concerning 
 the phenomena of hypnotism. Dr. Jean Charcot, the 
 younger, was born in 1867, and was himself attached to the 
 Salpetriere for a while. Then he abandoned the practice 
 of medicine and threw himself with extraordinary ardour 
 into scientific enquiry respecting the unexplored Antarctic 
 regions. In 1905 he left Havre in the Frangais, and after 
 an absence of many months he brought home charts of the 
 Palmer Archipelago, the Briscoe Islands, portions of Graham's 
 Land, etc., besides many scientific notes on natural history, 
 etc., made by the specialists who accompanied him. In August, 
 1908, he left France again on another expedition towards the 
 South Pole in the Pourquoi-Pas ? and returned in 1910 well 
 furnished with scientific observations. 
 
 Quite a new science, or scheme of observations, is associated 
 with the name of M. Alphonse Bertillon (1853), who, after 
 making ethnography his special study, elaborated a system 
 
222 France of the French 
 
 of human measurements having for its object an infaUible 
 
 means of identifying individuals once arrested on any 
 
 charge of sufficient seriousness to warrant 
 
 ropome ry. ^.j^^jj. \)Q[^g subjected to a rather humihating 
 
 ordeal. The system was adopted by the French Government, 
 and M. Bertillon was installed at the head of an anthropo- 
 metric Bureau at the Paris Prefecture of Police in 1880. The 
 system is not strictly confined to measurements : it includes 
 photographs, impressions taken in wax of the under surface 
 of the thumb ; in fact, the whole art of accumulating evidence 
 for purposes of speedy physical identification, which can defy 
 the lapse of time. It has been brought to great perfection 
 by M. Bertillon. 
 
 Motoring, regarded as a sport, is dealt with under " Lights 
 and Shadows." France may take credit for having towards 
 
 the close of the nineteenth century given 
 Automobihsm. ,v , • , , , , -i- -i- -i -l 
 
 that impetus to automobihsm which has 
 
 made it the form of locomotion a la mode that it now is. The 
 
 inconvenience suffered from this cause by the majority for 
 
 the pleasure of the minority is probably greater in France 
 
 than it is in any other country. The highways, national and 
 
 departmental, and in many places even the routes vicinales, 
 
 or those that tie village to village, have lost nearly 
 
 all their attraction to those who walk, drive, ride, or bicycle 
 
 for their pleasure. The fine, well-kept roads have been taken 
 
 possession of by the new comer, who stifles with dust his 
 
 fellow-creatures, whom he treats generally with a very short 
 
 measure of consideration. All regulations as to speed, 
 
 except when towns are reached, and supervision becomes 
 
 a possible reality, are set at nought. Thousands of people 
 
 who Uve near certain highroads have during the summer 
 
 months little chance of breathing air free from dust except 
 
 at night. Such is the state of things that automobihsm 
 
 has brought about in France. It presents a difficult problem 
 
 to the legislator on account of the interests at stake. 
 
 Automobihsm was not first thought of in France, but it 
 
Science and Invention 223 
 
 was the French who seized the ball at the bound after the 
 invention of the carburettor, which rendered it possible to 
 produce as it was required a gas from essence of petroleum 
 to take the place of coal-gas previously employed for the 
 explosive engine. 
 
 Among those who figure most prominently in laymg the 
 foundations of the great French industry of motor-car 
 construction was M. Albert de Dion (now marquis), who was ^ 
 bom in 1856. In 1883 he founded at Puteaux, near Paris, 
 works originally designed for boiler making, but which in 
 an incredibly short time became an immense factory for the 
 construction of various types of automobiles. In 1895 
 M. de Dion founded the Automobile Club of France, and with 
 M. Pierre Giffard gave the movement now being considered 
 its sporting and fashionable impetus, the consequences of 
 which have been so vast. International motor-car races 
 were organized with the primary object of advertising 
 automobiles of French manufacture, and secondly to stimulate 
 the interest of the rich and well-to-do in the new means of 
 locomotion. The first of these races was Paris-Berlin (1901). 
 A fresh impetus was given by the institution of the Gordon 
 Bennett Cup. Of late years, the international motor-car 
 race organized by the Automobile Club has taken place in 
 France, on a " circuit " marked out months beforehand. In 
 1907 and 1908 it was in the department of the Seine- 
 Inferieure. On the first of these occasions the honours were 
 taken by Italy and on the second by Germany. The study, 
 energy, and capital given to the motor-car industry in other 
 countries have thus caused the French manufacturers to 
 lose some of the ground that they had gained in a field where 
 for a few years it appeared their supremacy was not to be 
 seriously disputed. 
 
 France has kept her lead in aU that relates to the construc- 
 tion of balloons from the year (1783), when the brothers 
 Montgolfier made their first ascent with an aerostat filled 
 with heated air. The problem of building an air-ship that 
 
224 France of the French 
 
 would answer to its helm and not be at the mercy of the 
 winds, had long stirred the spirit of invention before 
 
 Lieutenant-Colonel Renard (1847-1905) made 
 Dirigible ^j^^ ^^.g^ practical experiments in this direction 
 
 at Meudon under the auspices of the French 
 Government. In 1884 the Parisians were much surprised 
 to see a cigar-shaped object in the air, and especially when, 
 instead of continuing upon its course with the wind, it turned 
 round and was steered towards the point from which it had 
 apparently risen. It was believed that France was in 
 possession of a dirigible balloon that might prove of great 
 service in time of war. But the hope was disappointed, or 
 was not realized until long afterwards. The Renard balloon 
 was a faDure, mainly because the propelling power was so 
 weak that it could make no headway against a wind of any 
 force. It was not until the beginning of the present century 
 that public interest was again aroused in what was termed 
 aerial navigation by the experiments in France of the 
 Brazilian, M. Santos-Dumont (1873). He realized to what 
 an extent the powerful, yet light, motors which had been 
 constructed to meet the demands of automobilism aided the 
 solution of the problem of producing a practical air-ship. 
 In 1901, by doubling the Eiffel Tower and returning with 
 his dirigible balloon to the spot near St. Cloud from which 
 the ascent was made, he won the prize of ;f 4,000 offered by 
 M. Deutsch. From that date the progress made in this branch 
 of aerostatics has been swift and remarkable. In various 
 countries the dirigible balloon has come to be regarded as 
 a military accessory that cannot be dispensed with. The 
 French Government found a valuable auxiliary in M. Paul 
 Lebaudy, who devoted large sums of money to the construc- 
 tion of dirigible balloons upon the plans of the engineer, M. 
 JuUiot, and for the exclusive use of the military authorities. 
 Motors of forty horse-power are employed for these balloons, 
 which can now make long voyages and be steered in any 
 direction in moderate weather. 
 
Science and Invention 225 
 
 M. Santos-Diimont was the first in France to solve the 
 
 problem of aviation, which in this sense is understood to mean 
 
 the power of a person to raise himself in the 
 Aviation. - ■, i, • i x* -j.!. i.* 
 
 air by mechanical action with a machine 
 
 heavier than the atmosphere. In 1906 he won the Arch- 
 deacon Cup by the convincing manner in which he accom- 
 plished this end, so far as the principle involved was concerned. 
 Nevertheless, it is well known that the American brothers, 
 Messrs. Wright, had previously solved the problem, and that 
 they were really the pioneers in practical aviation, the 
 machines used in France being merely modifications of the 
 one invented in the United States. During the last few years 
 the progress of aviation, especially in France, has been 
 something unparalleled in the history of invention, but it has 
 taken terrible toll of human life, and unless the risks attending 
 it can be greatly lessened it is hard to see the practical use 
 it can be made to serve apart from its application to the needs 
 of war. No other government has been so quick as that of 
 France to realise its importance for military purposes. 
 
 IS— («398) 
 
CHAPTER XIII 
 
 RURAL FRANCE 
 
 More than two centuries have passed since La Bruyere 
 drew his lamentable picture of the wretchedness and degrada- 
 tion of the French peasantry : wild animals with human faces, 
 digging with invincible obstinacy , living in dens, and subsisting 
 on black bread and roots. Everybody is familiar with it, 
 and it is commonly regarded as a fairly accurate description 
 of the state of the French peasantry prior to the Revolution. 
 Nevertheless, that it was an exaggerated picture, or one 
 much more applicable to certain parts of the country than 
 to others, may be taken as certain. The enormous changes, 
 however, that have come to pass in the material condition 
 of the peasantry since the Revolution, their rise from a 
 state of dependence very like serfdom to one of substantiality 
 and political power, are mighty facts. Is not the propitiation 
 of the peasant one of the chief concerns of statesmen and 
 successive Governments ? We have this apparent anomaly : 
 although more conservative of old customs and traditions 
 than any other class of the community, with minds in which 
 still live the ferments of ideas transmitted by far away 
 generations and belonging to what is often flippantly spoken 
 of as the dead past, the peasantry are indebted to the Revo- 
 lution for the measure of substantial comfort, security, and 
 independence they possess to-day, more than all the other 
 elements of which the French nation is composed. The 
 peasants have reaped most of the social benefits that were 
 sown in blood at the close of the eighteenth century, and 
 nurtured in an atmosphere heated by class antagonism. 
 It was the Revolution that made the peasant landowner. 
 The justice of the operation is not to be considered here. 
 It was a prodigious social experiment, and whether right 
 
 226 
 
Rural France 227 
 
 or wrong, just or unjust, it has succeeded. Peasant- 
 proprietary is the sheet-anchor of the nation. A people, 
 
 conservative by temperament and ingrained 
 L^^ d* wn^r ^ habit, but so torn by faction fighting as the 
 
 French are, have a peculiar need of a numerous 
 peasantry attached to the soil by the all-potent tie of owner- 
 ship, which creates and continually fosters that affection foi' 
 the land which is the beginning of patriotism as well as its 
 best safeguard. Unimaginative, with ambition limited to 
 the horizon of his hamlet or village, the peasant who is able to 
 call himself a " proprietor " arrives at the essential social 
 truths without philosophy or learning, but by a sort of instinct 
 which his interests awaken. 
 
 It would be a great error, however, to suppose that there 
 is an3rthing approaching uniformity throughout the various 
 provinces of France in the material condition of the peasantry 
 and their relationship to the soil. The small landowner is, 
 no doubt, to be found everywhere ; that is, the true peasant- 
 proprietor who works his two, three, or several acres with 
 his own hands, aided by wife and children, if he has a family ; 
 but in some parts of the country the land is cut up into these 
 small estates much more than it is in others. There is no 
 law to limit the quantity of land that a man may own, or 
 to compel him to drive the plough, scatter the seed, or prune 
 the vine himself because he owns it. He can sell what acres 
 he possesses to his neighbour, who thus becomes a landowner 
 of more importance than he was before. Where the land is 
 most valuable the tendency is for the number of owners 
 to diminish rather than to increase. It is not rare for the 
 capitalist to be evolved in course of time from the peasant 
 stock, and we then get the " gentleman farmer," or the land- 
 owner, who is so far above the peasant that he either leases 
 his land to the practical farmer, as is the rule in England, or 
 prefers the metayage system, which is the division of results, 
 regulated by certain conditions and customs determined by 
 local usage. 
 
228 France of the French 
 
 There are no indications that France is getting nearer the 
 
 realization of the Revolutionary ideal of a fair division of 
 
 the land among those who cultivate it ; the 
 
 The Division signs rather point the other way, notwith- 
 
 of the Land, standing the law relating to succession, which 
 in theory secures the equal treatment of 
 children after the death of parents, and the consequent 
 division or morcellement of the land. Everybody knows that 
 there are ways of getting round the law — an art that is 
 nowhere understood better than in France. 
 
 It must not be supposed that the peasant -proprietor is a 
 man without grievances, that he lives in a little Arcadia 
 because he has no rent to pay for his land, 
 o rca la. ^^^ owns enough to give himself and all his 
 family plenty of occupation. He may be prosperous, or so 
 poor that an English agricultural labourer would not care to 
 exchange lots with him. He, like men who have no estate, 
 is largely at the mercy of circumstances. His soil may be 
 generous and bountiful, or it may be niggardly and ungrateful. 
 It may be near towns where the produce can be easily and 
 profitably disposed of, or it may be so inconveniently situated 
 that the owner is obliged to sell at prices which make him 
 no less a slave of society than the town workman who main- 
 tains that he is one because his earnings barely suffice to 
 procure him necessaries. Indeed, if this condition of working 
 hard for a bare subsistence is slavery, then the peasant 
 landowners of France may count among their number a very 
 large proportion of slaves. To work from the first ray of 
 sunrise until far into the afterglow of sunset all through 
 months where there is outdoor work to be done, eating little 
 besides bread and vegetables made into soup, and drinking 
 only water, except on festive occasions, widely spaced out, 
 would not be considered by the Paris artisan an existence 
 fit for a human being. Nevertheless, there are many 
 thousands of French peasants owning the land that they till 
 who live like this ; not from parsimony, but because they 
 
Rural France 229 
 
 know exactly what nature insists upon having in return for 
 
 what she gives. And the gift is not always to be relied upon. 
 
 But if the peasant's bread is at times bitter, it is sweetened 
 
 by independence and hope. His struggle is hard, but it is 
 
 healthy, and he is less exposed than other 
 
 ^ anT Hope!^^ men of the same social level to degrading 
 
 vices. The plainness of his food and the 
 
 actual deficiency of his nutriment in certain districts do not 
 
 appear to shorten his life. In a word, his lot has its manifest 
 
 advantages and compensations, even when in a material 
 
 sense he is among the least favoured of his class. 
 
 Locality affects enormously the question of his well-being. 
 The peasant landowner in rich and bountiful Normandy, 
 within easy reach of Paris on the one hand, 
 and seaports on the other, by which all 
 superfluity of many kinds of produce can be shipped to the 
 facile markets of the United Kingdom undefended by those 
 fiscal palissades, customs, and octroi tariffs, is wealthy com- 
 pared to the peasant of Brittany moors or the rugged highlands 
 and stone-strewn plateaux of Central and Southern France, 
 although the extent of his land may be much less than that 
 of the men with whose lot his own is being now contrasted. 
 In Normandy the farmer who does not own the land is very 
 frequently found, for the reason that the soil there is capable 
 of being a -pa.ymg investment to the capitalist. Moreover, 
 when the peeisant moves up in the social scale by the ac- 
 quisition of capital, there is a tendency in his case, or rather 
 in those who come after him, to relinquish rural life and 
 the primitive occupation of husbandry. Social ambition 
 frequently quarrels with the sources of its own satisfaction ; 
 a phenomenon not only observable in France. 
 There is much reason for looking upon the peasant land- 
 owners of the prosperous agricultural dis- 
 Spoilt by tricts, such as the rich corn-growing plain of 
 the Beauce, and certain parts of Normandy, 
 as a spoilt peasantry — spoilt by success. Too often are 
 
230 France of the French 
 
 they found to be high feeders, copious drinkers, keenly, if 
 not sordidly, acquisitive, unimaginative and coarse in their 
 ideas and tastes. Material prosperity, when its effects are 
 not corrected by mental, and especially by moral, culture, 
 has an almost fatal tendency to develop habits that are 
 degrading and qualities that repel. The man who enjoys 
 too easily, and is without ideals, is a factor of degeneracy 
 and a potential destroyer of his own family. It is to be 
 noted as a social symptom that among the class of prosperous 
 agriculturists in France the birth-rate is exceptionally low. 
 
 Nothing, however, would be more misleading than to suggest 
 that the peasant landowner in France is, as a rule, what is 
 understood by the term a prosperous man. It is probable 
 that no man works harder than he for a living, and a very 
 bare one too. Prosperous ease only falls to the lot of a 
 few who live by the land, and there are extensive districts 
 where it is almost unknown ; such, foi instance, as those 
 tracts of the Correze, the Ardeche, and the Lozere, where 
 land and climate combine to produce very little besides 
 chestnuts, buckwheat, and potatoes. To the peasants 
 here, chestnuts and potatoes are their principal food, and 
 their drink water — sometimes flavoured with juniper berries. 
 
 By far the greater number of the peasant landowners only 
 
 employ the simplest implements of husbandry. Few people 
 
 in most of the French provinces have ever 
 
 misSndr^ seen a steam plough or a mowing machine, 
 although in some favoured districts agriculture 
 has become much more scientific of late years, and the use 
 of machines designed to save labour has much increased. 
 Nevertheless, the rule is otherwise, and must continue to 
 be so, because the land being divided up into such a multitude 
 of petty estates, the problem which the peasant-proprietor 
 has to solve is quite different from that of the capitalist who 
 has hundreds of acres to deal with. Whether this state of 
 things promotes the general well-being or not is an economic 
 question of the highest interest, but beyond the scope of 
 
Rural France 231 
 
 the present work. If the continued use of the scythe, the 
 sickle, the flail, and the bullock-drawn plough (on the stony 
 causses of the southern uplands the wooden share of the 
 Romans is still employed), stirs the contemptuous pity of 
 the up-to-date agriculturist, those who look upon rural life 
 with an eye to the picturesque, and who feel the strong 
 idyllic charm of the ancient methods of drawing from the 
 earth the bounty whereby all men live, find in the primitive 
 rusticity of France sources of inexhaustible pleasure and 
 interest. This rusticity has been preserved by the peasant- 
 proprietor. The flail, however, is disappearing except in 
 the poorest and least populous districts. Its rhythmic beating 
 has elsewhere almost ceased to be counted with the rural 
 sounds. In its stead we have the hum of the threshing 
 machine, which travels about the country on the hiring 
 system. In some parts, particularly in Normandy, the 
 horse is much used to drive a threshing machine instead of 
 steam power, and a very droll figure the animal makes on 
 the treadmill. Apples are crushed for cider in the same way. 
 The metayage system of farming land calls for more than 
 a passing mention, because it is still practised on a large scale 
 ^^ in France. Like a great deal more in the 
 e ayage. customs of the country, it depends much on 
 locality. In the south-western departments, except where 
 wine -growing is the agricultural industry, it is the method 
 generally adopted by landowners who do not belong to the 
 peasant class. Many such live in a country house almost 
 invariably spoken of as a " chateau " — and which is often 
 enough a patched-up feudal castle, or castellated manoir, to 
 which, perhaps, two or three small farms are attached, and 
 in each a metayer is installed. These farms are then termed 
 metairies. The tenant pays no rent, but is almost as much 
 master in his own house and on the land he works as if he 
 had paid for their occupation. Both he and the landlord 
 depend upon results, and both have, therefore, a direct 
 interest in co-operating for the mutual good. The conditions 
 
232 France of the French 
 
 differ somewhat according to locality, but what is usual is 
 for the landlord to provide the implements of husbandry, 
 seed for sowing, and animals needed for labour. Sometimes 
 there is joint ownership in respect of these animals ; oxen, 
 for instance, which are needed for ploughing. With regard 
 to live stock reared on the metairie, no general rule is followed 
 respecting the division. When the tenant takes less than 
 half of the crops, he is usually termed a colon. When the 
 landlord is casting about for a suitable metayer or colon, he 
 seeks for a married man with healthy, useful children. The 
 farm is, as a rule, so small that such a family is able to do all 
 the work upon it, except at times of extraordinary pressure, 
 when the extra expense follows the arrangement as to results. 
 
 It is easy to understand that such a complicated system 
 as this, and one whose success depends so much upon fair 
 dealing necessitates the near presence of the landlord or 
 his steward. In spite of objections, which in theory seem 
 rather formidable, it must have worked out on the whole 
 satisfactorily, for it to have resisted so long the practical 
 test, and to show at the present day no sign of dying out. 
 It should be noted, however, that it prevails chiefly in districts 
 where the agricultural methods have changed but little in 
 the course of centuries, — as, for example, in Perigord, the 
 Limousin, and the Quercy. 
 
 Most of the landowners who have recourse to it, have 
 
 neither the capital, nor the enterprise to work their land 
 
 themselves in accordance with modern notions 
 
 ^Peasanfs"" ^^ agricultural efficiency. Many are gentil- 
 hommes campagnards — which does not mean 
 quite the same thing as country gentlemen. They may be 
 gentlemen who rank, as their ancestors did for centuries, with 
 the small nobility, but who, by the Revolution or other 
 vicissitudes of fortune, have long lived in daily contact with 
 the peasantry, and have thus adopted a great deal of their 
 simple tastes and habits and frontier-lines of thought, even 
 to speaking their patois, sometimes with more ease and 
 
Rural France 233 
 
 facility than academic French. One may well question 
 whether they and those who depend upon them, and who are 
 in some sort vassals wearing the varnish of political liberty, 
 would be better off if the slow, and may be stupid, routine 
 of the past were swept away and the land which, like those 
 who live on it, has so far fulfilled its destiny on easy terms 
 with human intelligence, were brought under high cultivation. 
 This could only be effected by the influx of capital into rural 
 districts and the application of centralizing methods whose cer- 
 tain result would be to drive the peasant still more towards the 
 towns when the land on which he works does not belong to him. 
 The gentilhomme campagnard is one of the most interesting 
 of French characters, and one whose disappearance would be 
 an irremediable loss to the student of manners and life. 
 Having at least as much book learning as the ordinary middle- 
 class Frenchman, there is often something superior in his 
 education which may perhaps be best described as the spirit 
 of his class, transmitted by successive generations. His 
 rusticity is therefore free from vulgarity, and is generally 
 united to a frank and easy cordiality. His lack of enterprise 
 and poor adaptability to the commercial ideas and scientific 
 methods of an age in which he appears like a bewildered 
 man standing aside on what used to be the quiet country 
 road, while the stream of new motor traffic rushes past, is 
 balanced by frugality and simplicity of life. He is frequently 
 a remnant of the old territorial nobility. It may well be 
 asked if there is not more nobleness and dignity in the lives 
 of such poor and rustic gentlemen than in an aristocracy 
 that seems to be fast abandoning all gods but the golden 
 calf, and is vastly more solicitous to re-gild its scutcheons 
 than to maintain the race. 
 The wine growers are a distinct class of agriculturists, 
 
 and a very important one in France. In 
 Wine Growers, speaking of them we must set aside at once 
 
 those wealthy people to whom a vineyard 
 of note is a hobby and a distraction as a yacht might be. 
 
234 France of the French 
 
 To own a wine of high repute, and to have the power of with- 
 holding it from other men, has long been one of the familiar 
 forms of human ambition. It is one that appealed much 
 to kings, as well as to ecclesiastical dignitaries in old time. 
 In these days it is the invariable rule in France of those who 
 own the vineyards of celebrated wine-chateaux, but who 
 seldom see them, to draw what revenue they can from the 
 investment — which in the case of not a few is another way 
 of saying, lose as little as possible by it. Nevertheless, these 
 proprietors of " grands crus," cannot properly be termed 
 wine growers. At all events, they do not belong to the class 
 of cultivators to be dealt with here as representing one of 
 the industrial forces of the nation. 
 
 The wine grower may be taken to be a man who lives on 
 his vineyard or near to it, who knows everything concerning 
 its treatment, and also understands the art of wine making. 
 Such a man may be a very small peasant-proprietor, or 
 one in every way equipped for moving in general society, 
 and even occupying a position of influence and authority. 
 Throughout the very extensive Bordeaux wine district, 
 which may be taken as an illustration, whether it be in the 
 Medoc, the St. Emilionais, the Sauternais, or the Blayais, 
 such proprietors are found \vith their extensive vineyards 
 touching those of the peasant-growers who plough and prune, 
 prepare the vats, and fill the hogsheads with their own hands. 
 Everywhere the majority of growers are men of smaU means 
 and humble views. 
 
 Prior to the war of 1870, no class of agriculturists in France 
 
 was so comfortably off as the wine growers. Since then 
 
 they have been fighting their own long war 
 
 Troubles of the with a succession of hostile forces : the 
 
 Wine Grower, phylloxera, mildew, oidium, etc. Science 
 and tenacity may now be said to have over- 
 come these enemies, or to have worsted them to such an 
 extent that they no longer spread utter desolation over 
 the vine-covered hills and plains. But a new adversary 
 
Rural France 235 
 
 has arisen ; one that was quite left out of calculation when 
 after all the ruin wrought by the phylloxera in those far- 
 southern departments extending across the Mediterranean 
 Basin from the Alps to the spurs of the P5n-enees — a vast 
 region known as the Midi — the discovery was made that 
 varieties of the American vine resisted the pest, and the 
 stocks were planted with all possible haste in order that 
 those who were the first to suffer from the destroying scourge 
 might be the first to profit by the dearth of wine. The new 
 adversary is over-production. Much more land was 
 planted with vines in the Midi than was put to the same use 
 before, and the new vines produced more abundantly than 
 the old French vines. But the new wine was far from having 
 the same commercial value as that which the Midi had yielded 
 in other days. The anticipations of the wine growers of 
 the south were not fulfilled, or were so for only a brief period. 
 The vineyards of theGironde (Bordeaux district), of Burgundy, 
 and Champagne were not devastated by the phylloxera to 
 anything like the same degree as were those of the Midi, 
 chiefly because in these parts of France the growers were 
 given time to profit by the experience of others. Moreover, 
 the extension of wine cultivation in Algeria caused a large 
 quantity of cheap wine to flow thence into France, in com- 
 petition with the chief product of the Midi, and this helped to 
 bring about a crisis of abundance. 
 
 These explanations are needed to throw light on the true 
 cause of the " wine-growers' revolt " in 1907, which led to 
 
 street riots and loss of life at Narbonne, 
 
 The Wine- and a state of administrative anarchy in 
 
 Growers' Revolt, several of the Mediterranean departments 
 
 causing grave uneasiness, but was met and 
 at length overcome by the tactful measures of the Clemenceau 
 Government. The popular outcry of those who suffered 
 from the mevente — the inability to find a market for the 
 accumulated stock of wine on the growers' premises — was 
 fraud ; but although fraudulent practices were no doubt 
 
236 France of the French 
 
 responsible in some degree for the distress of the population, 
 
 production beyond the commercial and remunerative demand 
 
 for such light wine as is now yielded by the Mediterranean 
 
 departments was alone a sufficient explanation. ^ 
 
 The wine grower, who has contributed, and still contributes, 
 
 so largely to the national wealth, because he exports the 
 
 most valuable kind of natural produce 
 Protection. •uji.-r:* i_ jr 
 
 yielded by 1^ ranee, has some ground for 
 
 believing that he is not assisted and protected by legislation 
 
 as are others who live by the soil. Protection, however 
 
 stringent, in regard to the importation of foreign grown 
 
 wines, could not possibly affect the interests of the French 
 
 wine grower in anything like the same degree as the existing 
 
 Customs Tariff favours the grower of corn and beet, and the 
 
 raiser of live stock. But however protected by tariffs, the 
 
 whole agricultural class complain bitterly of taxation. It 
 
 appears certain that if the protection of the agriculturist 
 
 were done away with, and France were to open her ports 
 
 freely to foreign produce, the legislature would have to make 
 
 a sweeping reform in the system of land taxation, or accept 
 
 the grave political consequences of impoverishing and 
 
 exasperating the rural population. The dilemma is not likely 
 
 to be faced. 
 
 In France the agricultural labourer plays a less conspicuous 
 
 part in rural Hfe than he does in England. The explanation 
 
 is not hard to find : it is mainly in the system 
 
 A "^^H ^^ peasant-proprietary, which goes so far to 
 
 Labourer. remove the need of hired labour in the fields. 
 
 The extent to which metayage is practised 
 is a further explanation, for the metayer cannot be properly 
 
 ^ The destructive riots in Champagne in 1911 were due to very 
 different causes. The vintage of 1910 had been a disastrous one, and 
 the peasant-growers, who had no wine to sell, were exasperated by the 
 practice of certain champagne houses of buying white wine wherever 
 they could find it suitable to their needs, and treating it in their own 
 cellars as they would that produced in neighbouring vineyards, with 
 the intention of selling it as champagne. The rivalry of two 
 departments included in the ancient province increased the agitation. 
 
Rural France 237 
 
 termed a labourer. He has entered into a sort of temporary 
 partnership with the landowner. The rural labourer is a 
 man who might perhaps find matter for a justifiable quarrel 
 with society, if he were one to rebel against his lot ; but, as a 
 rule, he is not so. He is too lethargically patient and too 
 ignorant of the life of the energetic, active world from which 
 he is cut off, to be equipped for the fray ; or may be he has, 
 despite his ignorance, a philosophic insight of the truth that 
 he might benefit his condition materially and yet be more 
 unhappy in mind, and much less healthy in body by a change. 
 He is generally a man who takes things easily, asks for little, 
 and lives long. He is perhaps not so hardworked as are some 
 other labourers, but his food does not deviate much from 
 the minimum that keeps body and soul together, and the 
 amelioration of his lot by his own exertions is well-nigh 
 hopeless. He, at all events, has not been much benefited 
 by the Revolution : he might as well have lived before it, 
 when the times were not too bad. The lord of the soil for 
 whom he would then have toiled might have taken more 
 care of him than his peasant taskmaster of to-day, but he 
 would not have had the liberty which is his to-day, nor the 
 same educational advantages. When the love of still greater 
 liberty grows strong in him, and when the knowledge that 
 possibilities lie before him of earning more money and drawing 
 more enjoyment from life breaks upon his intelligence, he 
 quits the fields, the woods, and the mountains, if he is still 
 young, and takes the road to the town, where, if his muscles 
 are good and his zeal for work strong, he becomes another 
 sort of labourer, living fairly well — meat and wine every 
 day, and perhaps coffee and eau-de-vie — when jobs are to be 
 had, and as long as they last, but half starving or begging 
 when they fail. Who has the courage to say when a man 
 is better or worse off ? No sphinx ever had such a secret 
 to keep as this. 
 
 If there is any branch of agriculture in which the French 
 excel after wine growing — wherein they are pre-eminent — it is 
 
238 France of the French 
 
 \^ in market gardening — la petite culture, as it is often termed. 
 Nowhere is the industry of those who have adopted this 
 occupation so successful as in the neighbour - 
 Market hood of Paris ; nowhere probably — unless it 
 (Petite Culture), be in China — do we see the problem of draw- 
 ing the maximum yield and profit from the 
 square yard of land so wonderfully worked out. Here we 
 find families, not only living upon a piece of ground no bigger 
 than many a kitchen garden attached to a country house, 
 but living well and saving money. Moreover, these small 
 cultivators of vegetables and fruit can afford to pay for hired 
 labour better than many a peasant who owns far more land, 
 but grows field crops. Of course, success depends mainly 
 upon the situation ; it is the facilities for selling that so 
 stimulate the industry and intelligence of the market gardeners 
 round Paris. There is nothing more profitable and more 
 reliable than the cultivation of winter and early spring salad, 
 such as lettuce and all the varieties of chicory. In this work 
 the simple invention of the movable bell-glass or cloche, has 
 been of the greatest service to mankind. Every ray of 
 sunshine is, by its means, utilized at a season when solar 
 heat is so precious to all forced vegetation. Although the 
 winter salads and early vegetables are grown under glass, 
 the work is done on such a scale and so methodically that the 
 produce is brought within easy reach of most people. 
 Luxuries of former days have come to be regarded by 
 thousands as necessaries. The Paris market gardener needs 
 to start with some capital, for the hundreds of bell-glasses 
 \ that he requires represent a considerable outlay. 
 
 Although a return to the Protectionist policy, which was 
 
 almost abandoned by the Empire, undoubtedly helped to 
 
 mitigate the agricultural crisis which was so 
 
 Agricultural severe in France duriner a rather long series 
 
 Syndicates . _ . ° -r% i t i 
 
 and Banks, of years under the present Republic, other 
 
 forces have been at work to help those who 
 
 live by the land, notably the formation on an extensive scale 
 
f#5«^YlR- 1 
 
 
 "ff ^ 
 
 ■ ^ ^ 
 
 
 L ' » . '^ 
 
 h«: •. "f ^ a 
 
 ^ , » ; b 
 
 '* /'< ' .' 'S 
 
 
 ^t *' / "i^ ^ 
 
 HkLi' 
 
 § 
 
 ■ <l^*J^i 
 
 
 
 ^ 
 
 
 
 
 s 
 
Rural France 239 
 
 since 1884 of agricultural syndicates for mutual support and 
 assistance, and of Societ^s de Credit Agricole, which are 
 simply banks for the advance of funds to agriculturists 
 crippled by the want of capital, but whose situation offers 
 certain guarantees. The syndicates have done much to 
 spread the use of chemical manures and of agricultural 
 machinery ; in fact, to familiarize the peasant landowner 
 with the latest methods of treating the soil and teach him 
 the science of the subject. Although little impression could 
 be made upon the fixed opinions and habits of the elder 
 generation, the younger men, especially in the more wide- 
 awake districts, have moved somewhat with the times. Much 
 progress in ideas may also be attributed to the establishment 
 of agricultural schools and colleges under the Third Republic. 
 To grow tobacco is a privilege in France, because every leaf 
 that is grown is assumed to be Government property before it 
 is cut. The state buys every man's crop at 
 Tobacco -^g ^^^ price, when it has been harvested 
 and properly dried in sheds built for the 
 purpose, and wherever it is grown there are officials who give 
 out the seed, count the number of plants, see that these are 
 destroyed when they have sprouted afresh after the cutting, 
 and in all other respects protect the Excise from fraud. 
 Like other State privileges, that of tobacco growing is only 
 granted to those who are above suspicion in a political sense. 
 This branch of agriculture is carried on in a few of the depart- 
 ments where climatic conditions are favourable. It is in 
 the south-west that the plant is chiefly cultivated, and especi- 
 ally in the warm valleys of the Garonne and Dordogne, 
 and their tributaries, where there is rich alluvial soil, and 
 sufficient moisture. The quality varies greatly in different 
 locaHties, and is paid for accordingly, the finer leaf being used 
 for cigars, and the rest for smoking- tobacco and snuff. Half 
 a franc a pound for the dried leaf is considered the full price. 
 The best is bad in the opinion of those whose taste for tobacco 
 has not been acquired in the French school, but the French 
 
240 France of the French 
 
 themselves have by habit learned to be well pleased with 
 one or other of the qualities prepared in the State manu- 
 factories, and their grievances in respect of their home-grown 
 tobacco are the high price at which it is sold by the Regie, 
 and the too liberal allowance of sticks and chumps that is 
 often found in a packet. 
 
CHAPTER XIV 
 
 LIGHTS AND SHADOWS 
 
 The French have the reputation out of France — and they 
 
 themselves are half inclined to believe that it must be true — 
 
 of being the most frivolous and pleasure- 
 
 ^ pSf '"^ ^^^^^S people in the world. In reality, they 
 are among the most industrious, the most 
 prudent, and the most calculating. They even calculate their 
 pleasures, or rather their means of indulging them, to a 
 nicety. The majority taste rarely of that pleasure which 
 finds its motive and expression in the pubUc places, but when 
 an opportunity of the kind comes to them, they generally 
 make the most of it. No people enjoy themselves more 
 thoroughly while they are about it. They bring a certain 
 philosophy to bear upon their pleasure, which is a gift of 
 character. This is why so many who do not understand 
 them come to wrong conclusions. 
 
 French people of the working and lower middle-class are 
 apt to make a great deal of noise, and to yield freely to the 
 impulse of movement when they are happy, because when 
 this feeling is strong upon them they like to show it. There are 
 others who prefer to keep their happiness to themselves, or 
 strictly for family use ; a question of temperament and bringing 
 up. One sees more of this reserve now in France than 
 formerly, but it is not characteristic of the people. Perhaps 
 sunshine has much to do with the development of joyous 
 and expansive natures ; at any rate, the inhabitants of the 
 southern half of France wear their happiness outside, when 
 they have any to wear, more than do those of the northern 
 half. 
 
 France is a land of strong contrasts. This is singularly 
 
 16— {2398) 241 
 
242 France of the French 
 
 so in the physical order ; it is not less so in the moral and 
 social order. There are wonderful facilities for choosing a 
 climate in France. Along the northern 
 seaboard the conditions are hyperborean 
 enough to please the most infatuated lover of the " brave 
 North-Easter," while on the Mediterranean litoral the 
 climate is in sheltered places sub-tropical. As regards 
 the French people, one may say the differences of light 
 and shade in their character, as well as in habits and 
 views of life, are continually producing the most violent 
 contrasts. 
 
 The statement that the French are among the most patient 
 people on earth may be a little startling to those who have 
 formed general impressions from the most 
 dramatic pages of their history. We all 
 know that they have had fits of impatience, and very bad 
 ones, too. The severest paroxysm of the sort is described 
 in their annals as the Terror. Other things have happened 
 since which have also tended to spread the notion abroad 
 that they are anything but a patient people. It is a wrong 
 impression. Their political convulsions may in a large 
 measure be traced to the fact that they are too patient. 
 They give themselves too little trouble to remove abuses of 
 all sorts, to free themselves from the grinding annoyance 
 of stupid formalities, to correct the insolence of Jacks-in- 
 ofhce, to bring their own force — that of public opinion — to 
 bear upon work of legislation for the practical and general 
 well-being. They allow much to be done by legislators of 
 which they do not see the need, and which neither their 
 conscience nor their reason approves ; but when politics are 
 not their business, and their own material interests are not 
 so disagreeably affected as to compel them to move, they 
 are apathetic and little prone to bestir themselves and 
 agitate, after the manner of English people, for the sake of 
 principles. Here is a small illustration of a state of mind that 
 is applicable to matters of weightier import : A Frenchman 
 
Lights and Shadows 243 
 
 buys a box of matches of his Government for a penny, 
 and finds again and again that at least ten per cent, of these 
 are worthless. This means that he and others pay ten per 
 cent, more than the price at which the Government pretends 
 to sell its wares. The private trader who uses false weights 
 or measures is prosecuted by the Government ; but as the 
 Government cannot prosecute itself for doing what in principle 
 is the same thing, the abuse has come to be accepted as 
 irremediable. What wonder if most people buy contraband 
 matches whenever they get a chance ? These are not only 
 cheap but reliable. To cheat the Regie, by which term is 
 understood that part of the administration which relates 
 to inland revenue from indirect taxation, is regarded as almost 
 virtuous, which is a sad state of things, but perhaps the Regie 
 is largely responsible for it. It has not won a good name 
 for fair dealing, and it is in the position of the tradesman 
 who has no fear of competition. If the French were not 
 patient to a fault, they would either get rid of their State 
 monopolies, or, as these are a profitable source of public 
 revenue, have the system improved beyond all recognition. 
 They prefer to think improvement impossible, and to accept 
 their fate. 
 
 What follows is written from experience of the southern 
 
 half of France. In the dusk the figure of a man, or woman, 
 
 creeps along as near to the waU, or garden 
 
 Contraband hedge as possible, and soon contrives to make 
 
 Traffic. signs, that are understood, at the kitchen 
 
 window. The mysterious comer, on receiving 
 
 another sign, takes out of a sack bundles of matches, which 
 
 are really little blocks of fir or pine wood that have been split 
 
 into many bristling parts down to the base. The tops of the 
 
 split wood have been dipped first in sulphur and afterwards 
 
 in red phosphorus. These matches always do their duty, 
 
 and, by comparison with the Government's matches, they 
 
 seem to be given for nothing. Places could be mentioned 
 
 where everybody uses them, including the officials, from 
 
244 France of the French 
 
 the mayor downward. When matters are thus understood 
 en famille, those engaged in the traffic do not run much risk ; 
 but now and again the gendarmes catch a contrebandier, 
 and he or she gets a few weeks' imprisonment, during which 
 time some other member of the family carries on the business. 
 A good-tempered people, loving a quiet, easy-going life, 
 happy over their work, if it is not too trying, and especially 
 
 if it affords a margin of money to be saved, 
 
 Indifference qj. spent on amusement, the French are too 
 
 Dangers. ready to let themselves be governed, and to 
 
 treat with indifference the work of their 
 legislators until causes of dissatisfaction accumulate. Then 
 violent explosions are apt to occur, of which the shock may 
 be terrific. The patient, long-suffering, and amiable people 
 can, under the influences of political excitement, become 
 cruel and sanguinary to a degree that reaches frenzy. While 
 the paroxysm lasts their normal character can hardly be 
 recognized. The volcano, whose eruptions have been so 
 disturbing in the past, is not extinct, although it has long 
 ceased to be threatening. The increasing tension between 
 capital and labour indicates where the weak point in the 
 crater now is. 
 
 There is a good deal of puzzling psychology in French 
 views of liberty and justice, or rather in the manner in which 
 
 the concrete meets the abstract on these 
 
 Liberty and alluring heights of thought, which to the 
 
 Justice. cynic must often appear to be the chief 
 
 playground of human ideas. In spite of 
 revolutionists and philosophers who, together with political 
 and social upheavals have made the French populace very 
 prone to imagine that liberty is something that they invented, 
 it is ever matter of amazement to note by the light of passing 
 events how little progress ideal freedom has made in France 
 even during the last hundred years. There is the same fear 
 of liberty under the Republic that existed under previous 
 regimes ; differing in degree, no doubt, and modes of 
 
Lights and Shadows 245 
 
 expression, but essentially identical. Sufficient proof of this 
 to be found in the extraordinary precautions that are still 
 taken to prevent a defeated political party from regaining 
 power and influence — ^precautions which are carried through 
 all the administrative ramifications. Not only prefects 
 and sub-prefects, but the multitude of lesser officials, such as 
 communal schoolmasters, tax-gatherers, even postmasters, 
 are expected to reflect the ruling tint and tone of political 
 opinion. There are always those who watch them and 
 report upon them, and if they are suspected of having 
 "reactionary" syrripathies, the road to their promotion is 
 barred, or seriously incumbered, with frivolous obstacles. 
 For years past it has been enough for an official to be noticed 
 frequently at church, unless there are special reasons to plead 
 as excuses, such as marriages and funerals, for him to be 
 suspected. The fear that his name may for this reason be 
 struck off the list of those to be helped on, makes him avoid 
 any act that malevolence may report as a sign of " clericalism." 
 Prudence for the sake of the family leads many such officials 
 to allow themselves to be classed with Freethinkers, although 
 they are not so. The wives and children of these generally 
 go to church, but discreetly and furtively. In official circles 
 religious services are just tolerated as a pastime for women 
 and children. A large number of anti-clerical legislators 
 are obliged to show such toleration in their own family, 
 because they have to reckon with their wives, and women 
 generally in France respect religious traditions ; moreover, 
 they often bring the money. The magistracy and the army 
 (the cadres) are by no means free from official pressure in the 
 domain of conscience. Judges and officers who have attained 
 a high position, and cannot be removed on a frivolous pretext 
 without scandal, can enjoy an ample measure of liberty, but 
 all the younger men who aspire have to sail with the wind, or 
 pretend to do so. Failing this, they may be made to realize 
 that they have taken a wrong course in life. If they get 
 passed over in the order of promotion, they soon become 
 
246 France of the French 
 
 classed as fruits sees. There is little left for them then to do 
 but to get drier. The misfortune is that the system rests 
 upon ingrained political habit and administrative traditions 
 with fibres and roots that defy all operations. If a legislature 
 of " Reactionaries " were to succeed the present one, the 
 same system would be continued, with this difference, that 
 those who persecute to-day, and their irresponsible agents, 
 would themselves be persecuted to-morrow. The best hope 
 for liberty and justice is in the development of a spirit of 
 moderation that will be stronger than the views of political 
 rancour and prejudice. 
 
 It is in the provinces that one realizes how France is 
 divided up into hostile camps and coteries, and what is very 
 
 peculiar is that this hostility, which is 
 
 Camps and fundamentally political, exists and makes 
 
 Coteries. ^on menage with large indifference in regard 
 
 to questions that are supposed to agitate 
 public opinion, while doing little more than make ripples on 
 its surface. People living in country towns may be abhorrent 
 to one another on political grounds, although they may never 
 read a parliamentary debate. Where questions of national 
 importance often fail to awaken any real interest, those of 
 local politics, although they are always marked out on the 
 main lines of party division which run through the nation, 
 usually excite a spirit of bitter partizanship, because they 
 are associated with individuals who are known and can be 
 seen. A little burg may work itself into a state of white 
 heat over the election of municipal councillors, and show very 
 moderate zeal over the election of a deputy for the circum- 
 scription. Those whose political sympathies separate them 
 from one another contrive to have as few dealings in common 
 as possible. Cafes take a political colour from those who 
 frequent them, an arrangement that prevents many quarrels. 
 A lady with monarchical or conservative traditions in her 
 family, which there are reasons for upholding, would rather 
 do without boots or gloves than buy such things of a local 
 
Lights and Shadows 247 
 
 tradesman with the reputation of an advanced Republican. 
 In the larger towns and cities, the meaner aspects of political 
 rancour and partizanship are much less perceptible ; but there, 
 as elsewhere, the whole administrative network of society is 
 controlled by ministers and their subordinates with a view 
 to the extinction of dangerous influences. After the scandal 
 in connection with " delation in the army," when General 
 Andre was Minister of War, it is impossible to affirm that the 
 system of separating from the sheep those who are suspected 
 of being goats is confined to the services under the Minister 
 of the Interior. 
 
 * Politics are a blight on French life and character, because 
 of their tendency to descend to mere intrigue, faction-fighting, 
 
 and Byzantinism. They are not only a 
 OuaHttes lasting obstacle to national unity, but, as 
 
 already indicated, go far to prevent social 
 intercourse among French people, except within those pens 
 which they make to rail themselves off, or into which they 
 allow themselves to be driven. And yet there are no people 
 whose social qualities are more supple, adaptable to circum- 
 stances, more fit to lend a personal grace and charm to the 
 amenities of life. Thus it is that the foreigner in their midst 
 is apt to find those who hate one another equally pleasant, 
 and to marvel that such an agreeable people should so often 
 be afflicted with the mania of persecution in regard to their 
 fellow-countrymen (and women), or act as if in some occult 
 way they had received certain information of other people 
 being pestiferous. Kindness, good fellowship, and hospitality 
 are to be found everywhere in France, and these are qualities 
 that flourish in perfect independence of all the separating 
 influences of politics, class, and religion, or the negation of it. 
 They belong to the nature of the people. But it is very 
 much a part of their character also to be incapable of seeing 
 any good at aU in the political adversary, the Catholic, the 
 Protestant, the Freethinker, as the case may be. The 
 Catholic perceives nothing but iniquity in the Freemason, 
 
248 France of the French 
 
 and the latter nothing but superstition and the malignity 
 of bigoted ignorance in the Catholic. 
 
 A word of explanation may here be needed with 
 
 regard to Freemasonry in France. It is not, as in England, 
 
 a non-political friendly organization, with 
 
 Freemasonry Conservative tendencies because of the 
 social class from which it is mainly recruited ; 
 it is a militant, political organization, with anti -religious 
 objects that admit of no contradiction. The ideal of French 
 Freemasonry is a State absolutely secularized, one in which 
 only the forces and virtues inherent to human nature have 
 any recognized authority and merit. This ideal has been 
 officially brought as close to the point of reaUzation as the 
 sentimental respect for traditions, which is not dead in the 
 nation, will at present permit. Many of the legislators who 
 have figured prominently in the long battle with " Clericalism" 
 were or are Freemasons. It was through the indiscretion, 
 or infidelity, of an official of the Grand Orient Lodge in Paris, 
 that the public became aware of the elaborate system of 
 secret inquiry concerning the political opinions and religious 
 practices of officers in the army, which had been organized 
 at the head-quarters of the French Freemasons for the 
 information and guidance of the Minister of War. The 
 strong movement of reprobation which these revelations 
 occasioned somewhat damaged the prestige of the Society. 
 
 It is well known to French legislators that the number of 
 
 officials of all categories has gone on increasing, and is now 
 
 much larger than it need be. But although 
 
 G^overnmenr needing out continues for pohtical reasons, 
 there is no cutting down of the staff. Much 
 of a deputy's or senator's time is taken up in struggling or 
 fencing amiably with political friends who want to get a son 
 or nephew started on some career as a Government function- 
 ary. The meagreness of the salary, which is the rule, does 
 not deter applicants. Any bit of shelter under Government 
 is inordinately prized on account of its security and the 
 
Lights and Shadows 249 
 
 pension at the end of the long service. Many a man of 
 ability and initiative, capable of much under favourable 
 circumstances, has bitterly regretted his parents' excessive 
 desire to see him started in the safe groove of some official 
 career, where he is condemned to spend his best years 
 desperately strugghng to make both ends meet, and waiting 
 for the promotion that may not come. 
 
 In France people are not worried by the tax-gatherer at 
 the door. He is quite an important personage called a 
 . Percepteur, sitting in an office — usually very 
 
 dark and dingy — with or without the round 
 of leather on his chair which has caused him and kindred 
 officials to be described generally, and rather disrespectfully, 
 as " ronds de cuir." He does not go about gleaning taxes, 
 not even vicariously ; he makes them come to him. The 
 ordinary tax on the house, or apartment-holder, called the 
 taxe mohiliere, is one with which the public is most furiously 
 familiar. It is regulated on the basis of rental. The collector 
 gets the money in by a system of sending notices through 
 the post on different coloured papers, each colour indicating 
 the degree of intensity with which the payment is expected. 
 There are three papers : the first is polite, the second is 
 impatient, and the third is threatening. Many people wait 
 until they get the aggressive colour before paying, but those 
 who cultivate a life free from embroilments, which is just 
 what most of the French do sincerely and devoutly, endeavour 
 to avoid disagreeables with the diabolic Fisc. It must not 
 be supposed that this is the only direct tax levied in France. 
 Far fromx it. There is the land tax ; there is another on 
 doors and windows (usually paid by the landlord) ; others on 
 carriages, carts, bicycles, dogs, and so on. Each commune 
 levies a tax for keeping up the roads, to which the name 
 prestation is given, meaning thereby that those who do not 
 wish to pay can put in three days' work on the roads instead, 
 breaking stones or cleaning the ditches, as the case may be. 
 It is a curious thing that those to whom this work in the 
 
H 
 
 250 France of the French 
 
 open air would be more beneficial than any course of medicine, 
 or any cure at Vichy or Cauterets, are precisely the people 
 who prefer to pay the money. All taxes connected with the 
 registration of deeds have to be paid at an office called the 
 Bureau de I'Enregistrement. Direct taxation will be consider- 
 ably modified if the principle of income tax, to which the 
 present legislature is committed, be incorporated in the laws. 
 The taxation that weighs most heavily on the French nation 
 is indirect ; it affects not only luxuries, but nearly all the 
 necessaries of hfe. This is aggravated by octroi dues, levied 
 by towns upon all produce and merchandise entering them. 
 Customs and excise duties are incorporated with the heavy 
 burden of indirect taxation. 
 
 The cost of every kind of food affected by customs tariffs 
 and Protection is greater in France than it is in England, 
 
 and if the strain is borne by the working 
 
 Effect of g^j^^ struggling middle class with so little 
 
 Cost of Living, outside evidence of hardship within doors, 
 
 it is because of the transmitted French habit 
 of economy, and especially the talent of the housewife in 
 making a little go a long way, together with her innate horror 
 of needless expenditure. If meat, poultry, eggs, and butter 
 are cheaper in out-of-the-way rural districts than they are 
 in English villages, there is no advantage to be gained in the 
 price of such food in the larger centres of population by 
 comparison with the cost of living in English towns. The 
 price of bread generally in France is higher than it is in 
 England, but the difference is not sufficiently marked to be 
 dwelt upon. Where the contrast is shown in a really violent 
 manner is in connection with all groceries. The reduction 
 of the tax on sugar (nearly the whole of that consumed in 
 France is made from home-grown beet) has brought the 
 retail price down to about 3jd. the pound, to the great relief 
 of the public, but the cost of coffee — a beverage so generally 
 used by the people — is, when roasted, from is. yd. to 3s. the 
 pound. The sale of tea is increasing rapidly in France, but 
 
Lights and Shadows 251 
 
 the cheapest obtainable costs over 3s. the pound. This, 
 however, only affects the classes whose situation in life is 
 considered fortunate. Very different is the case with regard 
 to the many indispensable articles that have to be bought 
 of the grocer, who, next to the baker, is the tradesman who 
 feeds the multitude. Indeed, much more of the people's 
 money is spent in his shop than in any other. There would be 
 no exaggeration in saying that groceries generally are 20 per 
 cent, dearer in France than in England. Clothing, also, is 
 much more expensive when value for money is considered. 
 To the Anglo-Saxon, the French appear to be a people over- 
 administered — an impression that is produced by the 
 
 multiplicity of wheels in their administrative 
 ^"^ WhelS*'''^ machinery. One is administered in France 
 
 from the cradle to the grave, and some time 
 afterwards. From the hour that a new arrival has had his 
 coming into the world registered at the mairie — and it must 
 be done within twenty-four hours — until he is entitled to 
 nothing more than a grave, the same Argus of administration 
 has all his eyes upon him. This at any rate is the ideal that 
 the official monster, composed of innumerable wheels within 
 wheels, tries to live up to. Since the war of 1870 every male 
 member of the community, whether in swaddling clothes 
 or not, has acquired fresh importance in the eyes of the 
 administration. The infant is at once put on the list of green 
 fruit that the conscription expects to pick when ripe. The 
 other sex receives the honour of being registered, but all 
 through life is regarded as somewhat of a negligible quantity, 
 unless a woman should develop talents which disturb society 
 — ^like the notorious Mme. Humbert, for example — and so 
 make herself worthy of being regarded as a man. Occasion- 
 ally a little mistake is made about the sex at registration of 
 birth, and when this happens it entails, some twenty years 
 afterwards, a very unpleasant fuss. Officialdom, which has 
 the fullest belief in its own infallibility, says, petticoats or no 
 petticoats, the young man is a soldier. It is a very essential 
 
252 France of the French 
 
 part of the whole administrative system to stifle all objections 
 by heaping formalities upon them ; and as the supply of these 
 is unlimited, it is hoped apparently that the obstinacy of the 
 young man who is prepared to swear most solemnly that he 
 is not one will at length be overcome. 
 
 Lest the foregoing remarks should be interpreted too widely 
 and not merely as indicating a prevailing state of mind 
 associated with official traditions, it may be well to say that 
 advantages, opportunities, and honours are now offered to 
 women in France from which they were debarred in days 
 not long past. For example, they are admitted to the Legion 
 of Honour, and can practise both medicine and the law. In 
 the post-offices women are employed precisely as they are 
 in the United Kingdom. There is nothing at present, 
 however, to indicate that the right of vote, either in municipal 
 or in parliamentary elections, will be extended to them. Only 
 in the case of a very few does their ambition point towards 
 the franchise. For this reason a " suffragette " movement 
 of any importance seems impossible in France of to-day. 
 
 All that is officially noted respecting a French citizen 
 forms his etat- civil, and it is of high importance to him that 
 it should be a clean bill. If he has been deprived of any of 
 his rights as a citizen by a judicial sentence passed upon him, 
 or a simple act of bankruptcy, he is a man with a bad mark, 
 and cannot show satisfactory papers. Everyone who seeks 
 employment must be prepared to show official " papers." 
 Also, the traveller never knows when he will be called upon 
 to produce what he may have in this way. Every member 
 of the police and the gendarmerie (whose functions are those 
 of county police on a military footing) has the word " papier s " 
 stamped indelibly upon his brain by repeating it so often. 
 There is a real worship of " papers " in France, which goes 
 with the veneration of formalities, enabling in this wise the 
 Government to keep so many more officials connected with the 
 various branches of public administration than it really needs. 
 
 Anybody can obtain a very fair notion of the expedition 
 
Lights and Shadows 253 
 
 with which public business is transacted by entering a French 
 post-office and sending a money order to somebody, and it 
 will be all the better understood if a few more people are 
 already waiting their turn to do the same thing. Let him 
 watch the hard-worked damsel — who is pretty sure to be 
 curt and ill-tempered because too much is expected of her — 
 filling up all the little papers, and he will come away deeply 
 impressed with the beauties of French organization. The 
 plague of petits papier s in France is permanent. The French 
 excel in organization. It has always been allowed that they 
 have a genius for it. What is to be regretted is that they have 
 so much. They double the necessary number of wheels and 
 quantity of work, in order to make the sure doubly sure. 
 This is called in England waste of time and money, but the 
 English do not claim to possess the genius of organization. 
 
 In one respect French organization is more expeditious than 
 it need be, namely, in hustling people underground when 
 
 they are certified to be dead. The person 
 B IrM ^^^ ^^^^ to-day is expected to be buried the 
 
 day after to-morrow. If any extension of 
 time is asked for, a reason must be given, and there are trying 
 formalities. Very rarely is it asked for. From time to time 
 public uneasiness is caused by painful discoveries ; never- 
 theless, the impression soon wears off, and a practice upheld, 
 so it is argued, by the interest of the many, although unfair 
 to a few, goes on as before. Some rather harrowing statistics 
 have lately been published on this gruesome subject ; but, as 
 they must have been mainly based on gravediggers' stories, 
 it would be wise — at all events it would be comforting — not 
 to place absolute reliance upon them. 
 
 Here may be the place to say that there is a marked 
 difference between French and English sentiment in the 
 
 matter of funeral customs, and the question 
 Funeral ^^^ religion has nothing to do with it. The 
 
 English are instinctively disposed to keep 
 their private sorrows to themselves, their family, and their 
 
J 
 
 254 France of the French 
 
 very intimate friends ; the French, on the other hand, find 
 consolation at such times in the sympathy of mere acquaint- 
 ances. With this feehng, however, is intimately mingled 
 the belief that the more imposing the ceremony, the greater 
 the number of people attending it, the more honour is done 
 to the memory of the dead. Consequently, when anybody 
 dies in France, it is customary to send out invitations {lettres 
 de faire part), not only to friends but to all acquaintances, 
 to be present at the funeral. It is considered a point of 
 politeness to do this. In the printed letter appear the names 
 not only of near relatives, including little children, but of 
 kindred far removed. The invitation is generally accepted, 
 and often at the cost of much personal inconvenience. In 
 no other way is the readiness of the French nature to offer 
 sympathy more strikingly shown. Moreover, the custom 
 proves the strength of family sentiment in France. There- 
 fore, however much this ceremoniousness and effusiveness in 
 relation to funeral observances may be distasteful to the 
 Anglo-Saxon, let him not think lightly of it, and attribute it 
 to superficiality of character. 
 
 The French have this constant incentive to charity : their 
 poor are always with them. There are no Boards of 
 
 Guardians to look after them, and no work- 
 
 The French houses into which they can be put out of 
 
 and their Poor, sight. There are a few almshouses, or 
 
 hospices, like those at Bicetre and Nanterre, 
 near Paris, among charitable public institutions, but what 
 are such drops of dew to the thirst of the desert ? To the 
 penniless multitude who cannot, or will not, work, there is 
 nothing but private charity or the prison. The blind, the 
 paralysed, the armless and legless plead for alms at church 
 doors and in the public places. Mendicity in public is 
 officially forbidden and is punishable, but it is officially 
 recognized that the cheapest way of dealing with the problem 
 of pauperism is to leave private charity to deal with it. 
 The State cannot afford to be generous with its prison 
 
^^^m^ 
 
 %^ 
 
 Photo by 
 
 Neurdein Freres 
 
 A MUSSEL-GATHERER 
 
Lights and Shadows 255 
 
 accommodation, which is very inadequate. The tramp who 
 steals something, or breaks a window, in order to get food and 
 a roof over his head in winter, is regarded as an inconvenient 
 humorist. Life in common, which is the rule of French 
 prisons in the case of petty offenders, makes the treatment 
 much the same as that of an English workhouse — possibly 
 more genial ; but the honest beggar cannot, by merely wishing 
 it, get himself arrested and admitted as a guest in a State 
 hotel, where there is nothing to pay. He must in some 
 way make himself a public nuisance in order to enforce his 
 claim. 
 
 To the honour of the French be it said that they have a 
 large stock of private charity for daily use. They are easily 
 moved by the appeals of misery that come before their 
 eyes, and there is a strong sentiment throughout the country 
 against driving a beggar from the door, who only asks for 
 bread. Such a thing as a poor-rate would be bitterly resented 
 by the public, who would never believe that the money so 
 raised would find its way to those in greatest need of it. They 
 would suspect the official machine of oiling its wheels too 
 freely. It is sad to note that the confidence of the French 
 in administrative probity is far from unbounded. In the 
 way of official charity there is the permanent organization 
 of Public Assistance under State direction. This keeps up 
 hospitals, takes charge of foundlings and abandoned children, 
 most of whom are placed with peasants and are brought up 
 to agricultural work, buries the pauper, and in other ways 
 performs those unavoidable offices of charity which every 
 State is bound to accept. If the Assistance Puhlique depended 
 upon voluntary gifts, it would not get much ; therefore, in 
 addition to what the Budget allows it, it takes a good deal 
 with or without leave. A rather heavy toll, amounting to 
 nine per cent., is levied upon the gross receipts of all theatres 
 (subventioned or not) and other places of amusement. The 
 money that changes hands at racecourses, under the legalized 
 system of betting known as " Le pari mutuel," is also 
 
256 France of the French 
 
 laid under contribution by the Public Assistance, and in 
 this way bad habits are made to serve philanthropic 
 purposes. 
 
 Religion has always been in France the principal driving 
 force of charitable work. It formed habits of private charity 
 among the people by its influence in the course of ages, and 
 many of those who now repudiate all religious doctrine are 
 faithful to transmitted habits which were a gradual deposit 
 of religion upon the sentiment of generations. The religious 
 orders that devote their efforts mainly to practical charity, 
 such as Les Filles de Saint- Vincent de Paul (popularly known 
 as Sisters of Charity) and the Little Sisters of the Poor, have 
 done a vast work in the past to reUeve human suffering and 
 wretchedness, and this is still continued on a reduced scale, 
 and within the narrow limits now tolerated. The series of 
 measures directed against religious orders of late years, 
 inspired in the main by the motive of political reprisals, has 
 had, among other effects, that of increasing the sufferings 
 of the poor, who, victims of evil chance or of their own 
 mistakes, flaws, and vices, have no hope left but in human 
 charity. In all churches collections are regularly made for 
 the poor, the distribution of the money thus obtained being left 
 to the discretion of the cure, and in most of the communes 
 throughout the country there is a lay organization called 
 a Bureau de bienfaisance, under the superintendence of the 
 mayor, for the alleviation of local distress. In Paris there is 
 one in every arrondissement. 
 
 Strange as it may seem, the pawning system in France is 
 
 in a general sense one of the branches of PubHc Assistance, 
 
 although under the direct control of local 
 
 The Philan- authorities. The pawnbroker, strictly speak- 
 
 °Shop.^^ ing, does not exist in the country. If he 
 
 tried to ply his trade in the English manner, 
 
 he would be prosecuted as a usurer. The Mont de Piete, the 
 
 estabhshment where money is advanced on pledges under 
 
 official control, is in theory a philanthropic one and a 
 
Lights and Shadows 257 
 
 continuation of the charitable banks which, under the name 
 of Monti di pietd, appeared in Italy in the fifteenth century. 
 In every town of importance there is a Mont de Piete, the 
 capital needed for making advances on pledges being derived 
 from loans, donations, and occasionally subventions. The rate 
 of interest charged throughout the country is not uniform. 
 In Paris it is nearly eight per cent., whereas at Rouen it is 
 more than nine, and at Angers only ij per cent. When the 
 interest is so low as in the last case, it is obvious that the 
 working expenses are charitably provided for. The theory 
 is that the charges should never exceed the interest on money 
 borrowed and what is sufficient to cover working expenses. 
 Should there be a margin to the good, the poor must benefit 
 by it. The system reduces the evils inseparable from pawning 
 facilities to a minimum, and is incomparably better than 
 the English one, which is an abusive traffic upon distress and 
 improvidence. Not that the French system is free from 
 abuses. The rule of the Mont de Piete is never to advance 
 more than two-thirds of the realizable value of the articles 
 pledged, and as the corporation of official valuers (commissaires- 
 priseurs) connected with the Mont de Pi6te are liable for the 
 consequences of their errors, their appraisement of the 
 value is usually so low that outside speculators whose 
 business is to buy pawntickets have long been in existence. 
 They undertake to sell the tickets again to the owners of 
 the pledges after a stipulated lapse of time, but the interest 
 they charge for the accommodation is very different from 
 that of the Mont de Piete. In point of fact, those who have 
 recourse to these traffickers rarely redeem. ^ 
 
 ^ In France the slang term for the pawnshop in most common use is 
 " my aunt," whereas in England it is " my uncle." Why the humour 
 of the people on both sides of the Channel should have so nearly 
 coincided in this particular direction is a subject of enquiry 
 recommended to those who have plenty of leisure. The research 
 might be extended to those sayings the turn of which is reversed on 
 each side of the Channel, such as " Taking French -leave " in England, 
 and " Filer a I'Anglaise " in France. 
 
 17— (2398) 
 
258 France of the French 
 
 There is an excellent tradition in France, which now-a-days 
 is much more respected than observed, namely, that nothing 
 . stronger than sugared water should be drunk 
 
 between meals. The eau sucree of other 
 days, which was considered almost an extravagance when 
 sugar was a luxury, has quite gone out of fashion, and it is 
 very rare to see anyone but a lady whose views belong to the 
 past now indulging in this innocent form of dissipation. 
 Women who are at all in the fashionable movement, or whose 
 aspirations are this way pointed, have taken to afternoon 
 tea — another result of the corrupting influence of British 
 manners ; while the men fill up the blank spaces of the day 
 between meals, or between spells of work, very much as the 
 majority of Englishmen do, allowing for certain differences 
 of taste. 
 
 The truth is that sobriety and frugality in France are not 
 what they were. The peasant, except in a few places, where 
 his circumstances have been greatly favoured by modern 
 conditions, has changed little or not at all in his mode of life ; 
 but it is otherwise with the working class of the towns and 
 the lower bourgeoisie. Their tastes and needs, real or supposed, 
 now include a great deal as indispensable which a few decades 
 ago was dispensed with, or only used exceptionally. The 
 food is less simple and inexpensive in character — without 
 reference to the general increase of cost — than it was in the 
 memory of many who are not yet centenarians, while the 
 use of alcoholic drinks has extended in a manner very 
 formidable to the public health, although this undoubted 
 evil has been of great assistance to Ministerial equilibrists 
 harassed by the problems of the budget. The excise duty 
 on all alcohol has been greatly increased of late years, but 
 this has had no appreciable effect in arresting the upward 
 movement of the consumption. An inevitable result has 
 been to stimulate the demand for cheaper and more 
 deleterious spirit. The sale of all alcohol, from whatever 
 substance it may be derived, is practically free in France. 
 
Lights and Shadows 259 
 
 provided that the duty be paid on it, and this is more than 
 the cost of the spirit itself, such as it is, consumed by the 
 masses, and which is mainly obtained from beet -root. Brandy 
 or spirit derived from the distillation of wine is too expensive 
 for ordinary use. The same applies to the spirit obtained 
 from cider, and to which the name calvados is given, for the 
 reason that it is chiefly distilled in the department of Calvados, 
 although only when apples are plentiful. According to 
 recent returns, the annual consumption of pure alcohol in 
 France amounts to about one litre and a quarter per 
 individual. 
 
 There is a Bill before Parliament having for its object to 
 
 restrict the number of debits or shops in which alcoholic 
 
 liquors are sold, by making them propor- 
 
 '^^^^stem!'"^ tionate to the number of inhabitants in 
 a commune or arrondissement, as the case 
 may be. As matters now are, anyone may take out a licence 
 for retaihng wines, spirits, and other alcoholic liquors, 
 the payment being regulated according to locality. The 
 multiplicity of debits and cafes, which are really the same 
 thing with another name, in all towns, proves that the outlay 
 does not stand in the way of enterprise. The licence is 
 distinct from the patente, a tribute that every tradesman 
 pays as direct taxation for the right of carrying on a business. 
 The amount of this also depends upon locality and the 
 assumed amount of trade done. Wine, beer, and cider are 
 officially termed " hygienic drinks," and a law was passed 
 some years since to favour the sale of these by removing or 
 reducing the octroi dues. (In Paris wine on entering is now 
 free from octroi.) The primary motive was to help the wine 
 grower, and it was supposed that the cheapening of wine 
 would cause a decline in the sale of spirits and the various 
 artificial drinks of which alcohol is the basis. But expecta- 
 tions were not realized. That a forced diminution in the 
 number of debits will impose a check on the further increase 
 of alcoholism in France, is a question on which opinion is 
 
260 France of the French 
 
 much divided. What appears most Ukely to happen, should 
 such a measure be adopted, would be an increase of business 
 to the houses remaining open. The principal source of the 
 mischief is the traffic in liquors so little " hygienic " that 
 they are really poisons. 
 
 A very considerable part of the 532,500 hectolitres of 
 
 alcohol, or thereabouts, consumed annually is sold in 
 
 combination with vegetable essences, under 
 
 Absinthe and the name of aperitifs. These are mostly 
 other " aperitifs. " absinthe and bitters variously composed. 
 The habit of taking an aperitif at least once 
 a day has come to be regarded by a multitude of Frenchmen, 
 especially among the inhabitants of towns, as almost a 
 necessary one. Custom gives its sanction to this aid to 
 appetite a little before the dinner hour, and it is usually 
 sought for at the cafe. Most people are familiar with the 
 animated appearance of the Paris boulevards at the heure 
 d' absinthe — a rather elastic hour, but somewhere between 
 six and half -past seven. If the aperitif were only taken at 
 that time no great harm would come from it, but the use 
 of these drinks at various hours of the day has spread of late 
 years in a manner that has caused many a cry of alarm to go 
 up. The Academy of Medicine has repeatedly condemned 
 the habit of drinking alcohol combined with essences which 
 have a direct and agitating action upon the nervous system, 
 and thus become veritable nerve poisons, and has urged upon 
 the Government the absolute prohibition of their sale. 
 Absinthe has been especially denounced on account of the 
 maniacal impulses that have been so often traced to its use. 
 The intoxication that it produces is liable to take the form 
 of furious excitement, and when the habit of absinthe drinking 
 has been set up, it is one of the most difficult to overcome. 
 Belgium and Switzerland have already in the public interest 
 taken rigorous measures to prevent the manufacture and 
 consumption of absinthe within their frontiers ; but although 
 no country has suffered so much as France from the modern 
 
Lights and Shadows 261 
 
 use to which wormwood has been put, it is still waiting 
 for an act of legislative courage that can hardly be long 
 delayed. 
 
 The taste for sports and outdoor games of all kinds has 
 grow^n much stronger in France during the last twenty years. 
 
 Long before this period, however, horse- 
 Sports and racing was a favourite pastime with the 
 Games. Parisians. The passion for the turf and 
 
 the appearance of the book-maker in France 
 — mixed blessings some people say, whilst others deny that 
 they are blessings at all — were among the first-fruits of that 
 Anglomania which was talked of some decades before the 
 Third Republic came forth from the incubator of national 
 disillusion and resentment. The movement received a great 
 impetus from the foundation of the society " pour T ameliora- 
 tion de la race che valine," in 1833. The races at Longchamps 
 and elsewhere round Paris are under the auspices of this 
 Society, which from its fortress, the Jockey Club, lays down 
 rules and decides all questions concerning the turf within 
 the wide latitude that the law leaves to it. Horse-racing 
 and betting are inseparable. The French contracted the 
 betting taste and habit under earlier influence than that of 
 the entente cordiale. It became such an evil in Paris that 
 special legislation had to be employed to curb it in recent 
 years. It was placed under official control, and the business 
 of the book-maker, which must have become very lucrative, 
 judging from the number of experts that it drew to France 
 from across the Channel, received a crushing blow. The 
 system of ** Le pari mutuel," which is officially sanctioned, 
 does not prevent betting, but it renders the traffic of the 
 book-maker difficult and dangerous. 
 
 Open-air games, such as lawn tennis and golf, are now 
 played by the French to an extent that points an almost 
 violent contrast to the social habits of twenty years ago, 
 when clubs for such pastimes were hardly dreamt of, whereas 
 they are now to be found wherever society gathers, and are 
 
262 France of the French 
 
 very often Anglo-French. Formerly one saw nothing of 
 the kind to bring the young of both sexes together but the 
 game of croquet. Even more remarkable is the progress 
 that has been made in regard to the rougher athletic sports 
 of boys and men. Cricket, although known, has not yet 
 become naturalized in France, but football has. The coming 
 in of the bicycle had previously done much to create a zest 
 for outdoor life and exercise, and we have a fresh generation 
 of Frenchmen, more athletic, more vigorous, and less prone 
 than the preceding one to spend hours of leisure in mere 
 sauntering, or in cafes and billiard rooms. These remarks 
 apply to the middle class throughout its ramifications. 
 Among the working class there is little taste for athletic 
 games and sports. As for soldiering, for the mere pleasure 
 of the training and exercise, the bare notion of such a thing 
 hardly comes within the range of the conceivable. The 
 same might well be the case in England if military service 
 were made obligatory. 
 
 The way in which the French belonging to the ever-increasing 
 class who seek fashionable amusements have taken to golf, 
 and especially the dexterity they have acquired in it, have 
 astonished their teachers, France having furnished a world's 
 champion golf player in M. Armand Massy. A game 
 introduced originally by English and American residents 
 and visitors for their own amusement at such places 
 as Pau, Biarritz, Cannes, and Dieppe, has evidently 
 taken root in the soil, promising not only to stay, but to 
 spread. 
 
 Out-of-door games that may be termed national, such 
 as bowls, skittles, jeu de paume, are now rarely played by 
 men except of the peasant or working class. In the Basque 
 country, which only occupies in France the south-east corner, 
 marked by the Pyrenees and the coast as far north as Biarritz, 
 jeu de pelote, a variety of tennis, is very generally played by 
 the inhabitants irrespective of class. 
 
 Motoring is regarded in France as a sport, and with the 
 
Lights and Shadows 263 
 
 wealthy, or well-to-do classes, over a very wide social range, 
 it now takes precedence of all others. Its influence upon 
 
 national habits and modes of life has 
 it°*Inflifence^ ^^^^ enormous, and not altogether salutary. 
 
 It has led to extravagance in expendi- 
 ture among a great number of persons who can ill bear 
 the strain they have thus placed upon their resources. 
 It appears to be modifjdng national characteristics. The 
 growing taste for outdoor excitement which, in connection 
 with motoring, has become a passion, is rendering the French 
 mind more superficial in various ways. The influence can 
 be noted in the arts, in literature, and in conversation. The 
 automobile industry in France, as well as the public 
 inconvenience arising from the abuses of this new 
 means of locomotion, are spoken of under *' Science and 
 Invention." 
 
 The old jokes at the expense of the French sportsman, 
 wonderfully coated, capped, and gaitered, with gun en 
 
 bandouliere, going forth to slay anything 
 
 The French f^ixed and feathered that cannot be classed 
 Nimrod. . . . , , ,, . . 
 
 as a domestic bird or beast, regardless of its 
 
 size and posture, resolute to take advantage of it if possible 
 
 in moments of contemplation, or digestion, have had their 
 
 day. It is hardly fair to judge French sportsmen in general 
 
 by the petit bourgeois of Paris, who goes out into the 
 
 country on Sunday in grand Nimrodic array and expects 
 
 to give a pleasant surprise to his family, if he is so fortunate 
 
 as to bring home a tomtit that paid the penalty of excessive 
 
 confidence while it was swinging on a naked branch. There 
 
 is no lack of Frenchmen who can shoot well, who observe the 
 
 rules of the game, and who do not dress themselves like 
 
 sportsmen of operetta. If they do not hesitate to shoot a 
 
 fox when they get the chance, it is because the fox is simply 
 
 regarded in France as a noxious animal Hke the wolf and the 
 
 otter, and much more so than the boar, which, although 
 
 destructive, can be eaten. 
 
264 France of the French 
 
 Much has changed in French notions of sport in the social 
 regions where the general movements of the world are watched, 
 
 and ideas are regulated accordingly, but 
 
 A Hard there still remains the typical Nimrod of 
 
 Country for the soil who kills everything and eats almost 
 
 Wild Life. everything furred or feathered. To him 
 
 small birds of all kinds are simply " petits 
 oiseaux," and when threaded on a spit, with bits of bacon 
 to keep them company, are easily raised to the dignity of 
 ortolans. To the rustic gunner the magpie and the squirrel 
 are likewise savoury morsels. But the revolution that has 
 taken place in firearms has gone far to lessen the destruction 
 of small birds by this means The cost of a cartridge gives 
 matter for reflection. In the days when the percussion cap 
 was in general use, there was much less consideration for 
 wild life. Of late years legislation has moved a good deal in 
 the direction of protecting many wild birds that were formerly 
 delivered over to the netter and fowler to work their will 
 upon ; but the net, if not the gun, is still very busy in com- 
 passing their destruction, especially when they are on their 
 passage or are fleeing before a snowstorm from the north. 
 The scarcity of the larger song birds in France — blackbirds 
 and thrushes — is well known. Unfortunately, it is not only 
 the coarser kind of rustic who values them much more as 
 food than as melodists. 
 
 There is very little preservation of game in France by 
 landowners. An ordinary gun licence, which costs little 
 
 more than £i, generally gives the one who 
 Shooting Yi2iS paid for it plenty of ground to shoot over, 
 
 but with what result depends of course upon 
 himself and the locality. In the wilder parts of the country, 
 partridges (red-legged), hares, and woodcock are fairly 
 plentiful, but in the more populous and cultivated districts, 
 those who go forth to shoot must be prepared to expend 
 much patience in obtaining small results. Strictly speaking, 
 a gun licence is only serviceable in the commune in which 
 
Lights and Shadows 265 
 
 it is taken out, but the rule is not rigorously enforced. A 
 part of the money paid is a local toll, and the rest goes to 
 the State. If a landowner objects to his ground being shot 
 over, he must put up a notice, but this is rarely done unless 
 the game is really preserved. The open and close seasons 
 vary in different parts of the country, and the dates are fixed 
 every year, according to the state of the crops and the game, 
 by Presidential decree. 
 
 The gambling propensity is no more characteristic of the 
 French than it is of the rest of human nature. All races are 
 
 well tarred with this brush. The extent to 
 
 Lotteries and which the disposition becomes a national vice 
 
 Gambling. depends upon the facilities that are afforded, 
 
 or tolerated by the law : these are the 
 microbe's bouillon de culture. There can be no doubt that 
 the Government of late years has extended the most benevolent 
 protection to a great number and variety of lottery schemes, 
 although lotteries are not, strictly speaking, legal in France. 
 One cannot be organized without the sanction of the Executive. 
 The object being philanthropic, the unfailing argument is 
 that the end justifies the means. Exceptionally it may do so, 
 but the multiplicity of these schemes for raising money by 
 the facile device of appealing to the propensity already spoken 
 of threatened to make the habit in France what it is in Italy, 
 when in 191 1 the Government announced that no more lotteries 
 would be authorised. The symbolical stocking for savings 
 offers a better guarantee of national security. 
 
 It is undeniable that one of the social symptoms that 
 cannot escape notice, and which should be noticed very 
 
 seriously by those whom it concerns, is the 
 A Tax on increase of gambling in all its forms in France 
 
 of recent years. The phenomenon is to be 
 observed in every class of society. The State takes toll of 
 the gambling habit, and fosters what it affects to condemn. 
 Gambling establishments are theoretically illegal, but they 
 abound everywhere under the name of clubs and casinos. 
 
266 France of the French 
 
 Every little place of pleasure and recreation has now its 
 
 casino, and at the more important of these large sums of 
 
 money are left annually at the tables. The State, having 
 
 qualms of conscience in respect of petits chevaux, roulette, and 
 
 baccarat at these innocent establishments, hit upon the 
 
 convenient moral solution not long since of putting its own 
 
 sop in the pan. The tax-gatherer was required to attend 
 
 and see that the State was not cheated of its just share of the 
 
 gravy, which is expressed arithmetically by the words 15 per 
 
 cent. No other games than those mentioned may be played 
 
 in the casinos, not even ** bridge," of which the vogue in 
 
 France is fast increasing. It has been officially stated that 
 
 the money derived from the tax on gambling will, after 
 
 deducting the expenses of collection, be appUed to " useful 
 
 works." 
 
 The gambling woman has multiplied in France within the 
 
 memory of many people. She exhibits her graces on all 
 
 the racecourses, but is especially a curious 
 
 ^^^„^^"^^^'"S study at the seaside casinos. She is not 
 Woman. -^ r -,• ■, -, r, -, -, 
 
 necessanly of light and flexible views on 
 the score of respectable principles. She is often enough a 
 rentiere who puts by a certain sum regularly for her annual 
 dissipation, which is to sit at the gambling table of a seaside 
 casino several hours a day, laying down and sometimes 
 gathering in money, quite convinced that this is the most 
 delightful way of understanding " hains de mer." Or she 
 may be the wife of a hard-working business man in Paris, 
 who can only leave his shop, or office, for a " week-end," 
 but who is consoled by the thought that his family are bene- 
 fiting by the cool, salt breezes on the coast. He arrives 
 from Paris on Saturday evening by the " husbands' train," 
 yearning for the refreshment of the sea and a brief, restful 
 time in the bosom of his family. Then he learns, by instal- 
 ments, that during the week his wife has put all the ready 
 money on " little horses," or la boule, and lost it ; or he may 
 not learn it ; she may prefer to say nothing about it, but to 
 
Lights and Shadows 267 
 
 borrow of a friend and try her luck again. He may know 
 a good deal before the end of the month. There is usually 
 a baccarat-room at these casinos, where those can find it who 
 like play more exciting than is provided by the salle de jeux 
 for the crowd. 
 
 The word pornographie came into current newspaper 
 use in Paris not many years ago, to describe a certain kind 
 of literature and journalism the reverse of 
 The prudish. It is needless to indicate more 
 
 Tide. plainly the character and drift of this litera- 
 
 ture. It is not an article of exclusively 
 French manufacture, but it cannot be denied that the relax- 
 ation of the censorship in France, which has whittled away 
 restriction upon the liberty of the Press almost to nothing, 
 has made matters very easy for those writers who for the 
 sake of gain are ready to pander to depravity. Such writers 
 spring up like mushrooms in all countries where there is a 
 demand for them, or rather, where they can work without 
 fear of consequences, for the demand is universal. 
 
 The Parisians object to the comparison that has been 
 
 made between their capital and antique Babylon in the 
 
 matter of laxity of all kinds, and they have 
 
 Where is the the *' retort courteous " always ready; that 
 
 new Babylon ? jf other Babylons did not overflow into Paris, 
 
 the moral atmosphere of their own city would 
 
 be almost pure. In this they are sufficiently right to make 
 
 others wrong, which is as much as can be expected of any 
 
 argument. The most outrageous amusements of Paris find 
 
 in foreign money their chief source of revenue, and of the 
 
 total output of pornographic ** art" and literature a very 
 
 large percentage is either sent or taken out of the country. 
 
 The hoof of Satyrus is under many tables that are not of 
 
 French make, and aU the lax divinities who have taken to 
 
 fashionable clothes are of the " world " that knows no 
 
 frontiers. The whole mischief moves round a question of 
 
 law and poHce. That French legislators have almost ceased 
 
268 France of the French 
 
 to perceive the need of any protection of public morals 
 from the licentious productions of the press, both literary 
 and pictorial, the eyes of all can see by too conspicuous 
 evidence ; but the legislator's indifference to the matter is 
 half excused by that of the public. Saints have never shown 
 ambition to enter Parliament, and the men who are there 
 are neither better nor worse than the many-headed body 
 they represent. The Republic cannot take credit to itself 
 for having favoured austerity in public morals. It is hard 
 to believe by contrast with what we know to-day of con- 
 temporary literature and the drama, that, under the Second 
 Empire, so much criticised for its frivolity, Madame Bovary 
 and La Dame aux Camelias both entailed prosecutions on 
 the ground of their immorality. 
 
 It must be allowed, however, that there is at least one 
 exception in the Senate, namely, M. Berenger, who for a good 
 many years has been fighting valiantly for 
 The Crusade ^]^g « decency of the street," and preaching 
 Indecency. 3, crusade against all the thrones and domi- 
 nations of pornography. More than this, he 
 keeps a whip for feminine nakedness on the stage, and he 
 used it with effect not long since when, instead of employing 
 statues to fill up backgrounds in choregraphic spectacles, 
 the nude female form was introduced in several Paris music- 
 halls. But for all this the public has done him little honour 
 beyond giving him the nickname " Father Modesty " (" Pere 
 la Pudeur "), and so few men of influence share his zeal that 
 one asks what will happen when this excellent watch-dog of 
 public morals, who was born in 1830, disappears. A little 
 incident says much with regard to the licence of the press 
 of to-day. A few months since proceedings were taken against 
 a Paris printer for employing apprentices under sixteen 
 upon a new edition of M. Pierre Louys' book. Aphrodite. 
 It was on account of the illustrations that the intervention of 
 the law was asked for. The court decided that the illustra- 
 tions in question were dangerous to boys younger than 
 
Lights and Shadows 269 
 
 sixteen, and the inference to be drawn from the judgment 
 was that after this age an aesthetic sense might be expected 
 to come to the rescue of the young imagination. 
 
 The relations between masters and servants in France are 
 not quite what they are in England. In the first place, the 
 
 law regulating these relations is somewhat 
 
 Masters and different in the two countries. Domestic 
 
 Servants. servants in France are engaged by the month, 
 
 excepting in certain rural districts which have 
 their own customs, whose antiquity gives them the force of 
 law ; but eight days' notice suffices on both sides. " Madame, 
 I give you my eight days," or the more polite third person 
 form, " I give Madame my eight days," is an announcement 
 v/ith which the ears of most ladies who employ servants in 
 France are familiar. If a servant is forced to leave without 
 notice, he or she can claim eight days' wages only, but there 
 are cases of bad conduct that annul this right. Thorny 
 questions arise on the point, and the juge de paix, a magistrate 
 who is seldom far off, and whose chief function is to pour oil 
 on troubled waters and prevent litigation going further finds 
 in listening to the quarrels between mistresses and servants 
 much of the pleasant occupation which is given him in return 
 for a stipend often calculated, apparently, with the object 
 of fostering the virtues of a frugal life. The maid-servant in 
 France is not quite the proud and independent citoyenne that 
 she is in England, although living under a Republic the 
 contrary might be more in the logic of things. She is, 
 especially if country-bred, just a little influenced by the 
 feudalism of the past, which has drifted like mist across the 
 revolutionary chasms, and she accepts the trappings and the 
 suits of servitude as if they were a part of the eternal order. 
 Moreover, the ordinary honne of the small French household 
 recognizes the justice of the view that her talents must be 
 versatile ; therefore her time is well fiUed up with general 
 work under her mistress's eye. The Frenchwoman who 
 has not the courage to look into her own kitchen is a very 
 
270 France of the French 
 
 rare person, except in the small class of the wealthy and 
 luxurious, and even then it is not the courage but the interest 
 that is wanting. It is the good management and capacity 
 to direct others, so characteristic of the French bourgeoise^ that 
 accounts for this, that a family that would need three servants 
 in England can manage very well with two in France, and 
 it is a very common thing for a single one to be kept where 
 two would be considered indispensable in England. With 
 regard to her servants' morals, provided that her interests do 
 not suffer from them, the French mistress, at all events in 
 towns, practises a blandly philosophical indifference. Her 
 handmaiden is expected to furnish work, not virtue. The 
 French domestic has good qualities, but those who expect 
 to find for the asking in France, servants worthy of the 
 Montyon Prize of Virtue, which has been awarded to a few 
 by the Academy, expect too much. 
 
 The tenacity of the duelling custom in France surprises 
 many who are not French. The question always asked is : 
 Why does the law virtually sanction such a 
 survival of barbarism ? That the law treats 
 the practice with indulgent indifference is obvious. The 
 liberty to settle quarrels in this way was never greater than 
 it is now under the Republic. The Second Empire was far 
 less accommodating to duellists. That the custom is a remnant 
 of barbarism is a proposition open to controversy ; that it is 
 anti-Christian is indisputable. In theory it upholds polite- 
 ness of manners and the " point of honour " between men, 
 and prevents many disputes of a private and personal nature — 
 the details of which, if known, would bring ridicule upon the 
 parties, and perhaps scandal upon others — from coming before 
 the courts. Mitigated as its attendant evils are by various 
 precautions, and the almost invariable absence of an intention 
 on the part of principals to do grievous injury, the consequences 
 of duelling as a national custom are not considered sufficiently 
 grave to warrant rigorous measures of repression, so long as 
 the public does not ask for them in an unequivocal manner. 
 
Lights and Shadows 271 
 
 The public has hitherto shrugged its shoulders whenever 
 there has been a question of agitating in this direction. The 
 civil law puts a very effective check on duelling au grand 
 serieux. When a man kills another in a duel, he is prosecuted 
 for homicide, but unless he has been guilty of some flagrant 
 irregularity according to the " Code of Honour," his acquittal 
 may be taken as certain. But the matter does not end here. 
 The widow or family of the dead man claims damages, and 
 the civil jury may then be expected to make the victor pay 
 dearly for his victory. Supposing the prospect of vengeance 
 to be sweet, nothing leads to reflection upon its real value so 
 much as the thought of having to pay a round sum for it. 
 Thus, considerations of lucre may foster fair morals and soften 
 the manners of men, who without this persuasive voice of a 
 practical conscience might yield to ferocious impulses. 
 During the last twenty years there have probably not been 
 so many as a dozen fatal duels in France, and most, if not all, 
 of these were the result of accident or inexperience. Quarrels 
 that are settled by an appeal to arms are now very rare, 
 except among politicians and journalists. M. Clemenceau has 
 figured in several duels ; a remarkable one, although it was 
 bloodless, being with M. Paul Deroulede. His favourite 
 weapon is the pistol, which makes him rather disconcerting 
 as an adversary, especially as he has the reputation of being 
 an excellent shot. 
 
 The French are not a cruel people, but their indifference to 
 the sufferings of animals has often surprised strangers in 
 
 their land. Sympathy with animals is largely 
 Men and ^ matter of culture and refinement. In 
 
 England it has spread downward from the 
 social regions where the higher sensibilities have long been 
 cultivated, and respect for the feeling has been enforced by 
 law. Thus the masses have been educated to understand 
 the baseness and cowardice of cruelty. Little or nothing 
 similar has taken place in France. There is a law (la loi 
 Gramont) which theoretically protects " domestic animals " 
 
272 France of the French 
 
 from cruelty, but it is practically allowed to remain a dead 
 letter, notwithstanding that there is a society for the repression 
 of cruelty under the powers conferred by this statute. In 
 the case of private individuals there is great dread of all 
 the inconvenience and worry attending a prosecution, and 
 the indifference of the police to acts of cruelty is sadly general. 
 Beasts of burden are frequently worked when in a state that 
 renders this use of them barbarous ; but a protest is seldom 
 raised, and still more rarely is there any active interference. 
 Animals are commonly killed in the open market, and before 
 the eyes of the buyer in a manner that should be prohibited. 
 Rabbits, for instance, are slowly bled to death, and in a way 
 particularly atrocious. One is compelled to ask what has 
 become of the sensibility of women who are witnesses of 
 such acts and morally participate in them — women whose 
 social position often makes it impossible to admit the plea 
 of ignorance. The refining influences of modem hfe appear 
 in France to have passed over or around this question of 
 man's duty towards his humble servants, the animals that 
 are placed in his power. The official sanction given of late 
 j^ears to bull-fighting after the Spanish manner in the south 
 of France, under the threat of electoral reprisals if it were 
 refused, indicates positive retrogression in this particular 
 sense, and is disturbingly suggestive of that repeated cry 
 of the Roman populace after the necessity had arisen for 
 keeping it in good temper with sanguinary amusements, 
 " Panem et circenses ! " But the southern French do not 
 yet expect to have these things for nothing. A taste for the 
 sports of the amphitheatre was lately carried so far at 
 Marseilles that a bull and tiger fight was offered as a public 
 spectacle, but it is satisfactory to add that this was dis- 
 countenanced by the authorities, although police intervention 
 did not come until the two much worried beasts had declined 
 the encounter in their own interest. 
 
CONCLUSION 
 
 It will have been perceived that no attempt has here been 
 made to present pictures of France all brightness without some 
 shadows for contrast. Where, however, is the country in 
 which there are no shadows in respect of habits, practices, and 
 common tendencies that need correcting and refining ? This 
 book has not been written by one who believes that his own 
 race and country have a monopoly of the human virtues, or 
 have reached approximate perfection in public or in private 
 life. There can be no such perfection anywhere. But the 
 nations can all help themselves in working towards the ideal 
 by studying one another thoughtfully, without prejudice, with 
 justice and kindness. Everyone of them has something to 
 learn from each of the others. There are no two nations in 
 Europe with such community of aims, views, aspirations, and 
 poHtical interests as have the French and the EngUsh. By 
 studying, and also criticizing, one another, frankly but without 
 ill-nature, they cannot but draw from so much that at present 
 unites them greater and more lasting profit. 
 
 18-K2398) 273 
 
INDEX 
 
 ABBfeMA, Louise, painter, 153 
 About, Edmond, writer, 95 
 Absinthe and other aperitifs, 260 
 Ackte, A., singer, 203 
 Adam (Juliette Lambert), novel- 
 ist, 86 
 Administrative employments, 
 23 
 
 wheels, 251 
 
 Advertising in the Press, 96 
 Affection : Strength of filial 
 
 duty in France, 11-12 
 Affre, A., singer, 203 
 Agricultural labourer, The, 236 
 
 syndicates and banks, 238 
 
 Aicard, Jean, poet, 71 
 
 Aid to art in France, 154 
 Anthropometry, 222 
 Anti-clericalism : The rupture 
 
 between the Republic and the 
 
 Vatican, 4 1 
 Antistreptococcic serums, 207 
 Anti-Semite campaign, 101 
 Antiseptic treatment, 204 
 Antoine, Andre, actor, 195 
 Architecture, Genius of French, 
 116 
 
 styles : Gothic , 117-118; 
 
 Norman, 118; Romanesque, 
 
 120 
 
 of to-day, 125 
 
 Arene, Emmanuel, journalist 
 and politician, 111 
 
 Arguosol, Pauline, singer, 203 
 
 Arloing, Professor, bacteriolo- 
 gist, 209 
 
 Assistance Publique, The, 255 
 
 Astronomy, 218 
 
 Augier, Emile, dramatist, 163 
 
 Auvergne, Architecture of, 120 
 
 Automobilism, 222 
 
 Aviation, 225 
 
 Bacteriologists, 204-210 
 Baffler, Eugene, sculptor, 162 
 Banville, Theodore de, poet and 
 
 prose writer, 60, 63 
 Barine, Arvede, novelist, 88 
 Barrere, Camille, diplomatist, 
 
 104 
 Barres, Maurice, novelist, 78 
 Barrias, sculptor, 157 
 Bartet, Mile., actress, 191 
 Bartholdi, sculptor, 161 
 Bartholome, sculptor, 161 
 Baschet, M., painter, 152 
 Bastien-Lepage, painter, 132 
 Bataille, Henry, dramatist, 182 
 Battle with Death, The, 204 
 Baudry, Paul, painter, 135 
 Bauvais, Laure, singer, 203 
 Baudelaire, Charles, writer, 54 
 Bazin, Rene, writer, 84 
 Becque, Henri, dramatist, 168 
 Becquerel, scientific chemist, 
 
 215 
 Beraud, Jean, painter, 152 
 Bergerat, Emile, journalist, 110 
 Bergson, Henry, philosophical 
 
 writer, 90 
 Bernard, Claude, 210 
 Bernhardt, Sarah, actress, 185 
 
 referred to also on pp. 65, 168 
 Berlioz, composer of music, 198 
 Bernstein, Henry, dramatist, 
 
 181 
 Berr, Georges, actor, 192 
 Bert, Paul, 211 
 Berthelot, Marcelin, scientific 
 
 chemist, 211 
 Berthet, Lucy, singer, 203 
 Bertillon, Alphonse (Anthro- 
 pometry), 221 
 Besnard, Albert, painter, 149 
 Binet, A., painter, 149 
 
 275 
 
276 
 
 Index 
 
 Bisson, Alexandre, dramatist, 
 
 174 
 Bizet, Georges, composer of 
 
 music, 199 
 Bloc Republicain, The, 29, 52 
 Bonheur, Rosa, painter, 150 
 Bonnat, Leon, painter, 141 
 Bosman, Rosa, singer, 203 
 Bouchard, H., sculptor, 162 
 Boucher, Jean, sculptor, 162 
 Bouguereau, William, painter, 
 
 133 
 Boulangism, References to, 43, 
 
 47, 49, 102 
 Boulevard Press, The, 105 
 Bourget, Paul, novehst, 76, 180 
 Bourgeoisie, The, 8 
 Bourgeois, Leon, statesman, 47 
 Branly, Edouard, scientist, 216 
 Brasseur, Albert, actor, 195 
 Brejean-Silver, singer, 203 
 Breton, Jules, painter, 150 
 
 , Emile, painter, 151 
 
 Briand, Aristide, statesman, 40 
 Brieux, Eugene, dramatist, 174 
 Brisson, Mme. Adolphe, author- 
 ess, 88 
 
 , Adolphe, critic, 90, 96 
 
 , Henri, statesman, 43 
 
 Broghe, de, statesman, 27 
 Bruenau, A., composer of music, 
 
 202 
 Brunetiere, Ferdinand, critic, 89 
 Bubonic plague. The bacillus of, 
 
 208 
 Buffet, A., painter, 151 
 
 , statesman, 27 
 
 Busson, painter, 150 
 
 Cabanel, Alexandre, painter, 
 
 139 
 Cable, L., painter, 151 
 Caillaux, Joseph, statesman, 48 
 Caillavet, dramatist, 182 
 Calmette, Dr., 209 
 Calve, Emma, singer, 203 
 Cancer researches, 208 
 Camot, Sadi, statesman, 30 
 
 Caron, Rose, singer, 203 
 Carre, Marguerite, singer, 203 
 Carrel, Armand, joumaHst, 96 
 Carriere, Eugene, painter, 151 
 Carriere-Zanroff, singer, 203 
 Capus, Alfred, dramatist, 179 
 Casimir-Perrier, statesman, 31 
 Cassagnac, Paul de, journalist, 
 
 98 
 Catholic-Republican clubs, 50 
 Cavaignac, statesman, 46 
 Cazin, Charles, painter, 145 
 Censorship. Its effect upon the 
 Press, 107 
 
 of plays, 176 
 
 Cerny, actress, 193 
 Chambon, M., singer, 203 
 Changes in French political life, 
 
 26 
 Chantemesse, Dr. Andre, 207 
 Charcot, Dr. Jean, 221 
 Charmes, Francis, political 
 
 -woriter, 112 
 Charpentier, G., composer of 
 
 music, 202 
 Chateaux of the past and 
 
 present, 126 
 Chavannes, Puvis de, painter. 
 Cheap Press, The, 113 [134 
 
 Chemistry, 211 
 Chenu, Fleury, painter, 150 
 Children, Influences which go to 
 restrict the number of, 
 21-22 
 
 , Parental leading strings, 
 
 23 ; Education, 13 ; Effect of 
 divorce, 24 
 Claretie, Jules, critic and novel- 
 ist, 90, 188 
 Clemenceau, statesman, 34 ; 
 journalist, 104 ; other refer- 
 ences, 27, 30, 42, 51 
 Clement, F., singer, 203 
 Cochin, Denys, politician, 47 
 Colonial expansion, 36 
 Combes, Emile, statesman, 38 
 Comedie Frangaise, The, 188 
 Composers of music, 198 
 Comte, Auguste, 55 
 
Index 
 
 277 
 
 Comic and satirical papers, 
 
 114 
 Conscription, 251-252 
 Conservative leaders in Parlia- 
 ment, 49 
 Conservatoire, The, 188 
 Constant d'Estourelle, diploma- 
 tist and statesman, 49 
 Constant, Benjamin, painter, 
 
 136 
 Contraband traffic, 243 
 Contrasts, A land of strong, 242 
 Coppee, Fran9ois, poet, 61, 64, 
 
 157 
 Coquelin, Constant and Ernest, 
 actors, 188 
 
 , Jean, actor, 190 
 
 Corot, painter, 150 
 Costeau, G., painter, 151 
 Coulevain, Mme. Pierre de, 
 
 novelist, 88 
 Courbet, Gustave, painter, 131, 
 
 157 
 Craponne, de, singer, 203 
 Cretien-Vaguet, singer, 203 
 Crochet, J. E,, painter, 151 
 Cult of form in poetry. The, 63 
 Curel, Francois de, dramatist, 
 
 178 
 Curie, Pierre and Mme., scien- 
 tists. 214 
 
 D 
 
 Dagnan-Bouveret, painter, 
 
 146 
 Dagneau, A., painter, 151 
 Dalou, sculptor, 157 
 Daudet, Aiphonse, novelist, 71 
 
 , Mme. Aiphonse, writer, 88 
 
 Debelly, N., actor, 192 
 Debienne, Mile., sculptor, 162 
 " Decadents," The, 68 
 Decorative painting, 133 
 Dejazet, Reference to, 167 
 Delaistre, A., painter, 151 
 Delaquirriere, L., singer, 203 
 Delaunay, Elie, painter, 140 
 
 , M., actor, 192 
 
 Delcasse, statesman, 37 
 
 i8a— (2398) 
 
 Delibes, Leo, composer of music, 
 
 201 
 Delmas, J., singer, 203 
 Delna, Marie, singer, 203 
 Delorme, Philibert, sculptor, 
 
 154 
 Delvair, actress, 192 
 Demont-Breton, Mme., painter, 
 
 151 
 Deprez, Marcel, scientist, 217 
 Deroulede, Paul, poet and politi- 
 cian, 69 
 Deschamp, Emile, poet, 60 
 Deschamps-Jehin, singer, 203 
 Deschanel, Paul, politician, 44 
 Detaille, Edouard, painter, 
 
 147 
 Dierx, Leon, poet, 60, 71 
 Dieterle, G. P., painter, 151 
 Dilettantism, 56-79-80 
 Dion, Marquis de {see Automo- 
 
 bihsm), 223 
 Diplomacy and the Press, 104 
 Dirigible balloons, 224 
 Division of land, 228 
 Divorce : Its effect on family 
 
 hfe, 23 ; M. Paul Bourget's 
 
 novel, 24 
 Domestic animals, Treatment of, 
 
 271 
 Donnay, Maurice, dramatist, 
 
 172 
 Doumic, R., critic, 90 
 Doyen, Dr. E. L., 208 
 Dramatic criticism, 95 
 Dramatists, 163 
 Dreyfus, References to the case, 
 
 43, 44, 46, 102 
 Drumont, Edouard, journalist, 
 
 97, 100 
 Duchesne, ecclesiastical histo- 
 rian, 89 
 Dubois, Paul, sculptor, 161 
 , Theodore, composer of 
 
 music, 202 
 Duelling, 98, 270 
 Dufau, Mile. C. H., painter, 153 
 Dufios, Raphael, actor, 192 
 Duhem, Marie, painter, 151 
 
278 
 
 Index 
 
 Dumas, Alexandre (fils) , drama- 
 tist, 164 
 Duran, Carolus, painter, 142 
 
 Education, 13 
 
 Electricity and electro-chem- 
 istry, 217 
 Engel, Pierre, singer, 203 
 Exploration, 221 
 Explosives, The new, 213 
 
 Fabre, Emile, dramatist, 181 
 
 , Henri, entomologist, 220 
 
 Falguiere, sculptor, 157 
 
 Faguet, E., critic, 90 
 
 Fallieres, Armand, President of 
 
 the Republic, 31-32 
 Family life, 6 
 Faure, Felix, statesman, 30 
 , Gabriel, composer of 
 
 music, 202 
 Favre, Jules, statesman, 27 
 Fayolle, actress, 193 
 Fenoux, J., actor, 192 
 Feraudy, actor, 192 
 Ferry, Jules, statesman, 36, 38 
 Figaro, The, 105 
 Flammarion, Camille, astrono- 
 mer, 218-219 
 Flameng, Francois, painter, 
 
 144 
 Flaubert, Gustave, novelist, 58 
 Flers, R. de, dramatist, 182 
 Fortified churches, 123 
 Fouqueray, painter, 149 
 Fouquier, Henry, journalist, 
 
 106 
 Fourmets, singer, 203 
 Fougere, L., singer, 203 
 Foreigners, Assimilation of, 5 
 France, Anatole, novelist, 79 
 Franck, Cesar, composer of 
 
 music, 201 
 Freemasonry in France, 248 
 Premier, E., sculptor, 161 
 French girl, The {see also 
 
 Marriages), 21 
 
 Frenchwoman, r, ijmestic an<i 
 practical qualities of, 18, 19 ; 
 the working woman, 20 
 
 Freycinet, Charles Louis de, 
 statesman, 36 
 
 Friant, Emile, painter, 152 
 
 Funeral customs, 253 
 
 Gambetta, statesman and jour- 
 nalist, 17, 36, 48, 49. 104 
 Gambling, 265, 266 
 Garden, Mary, singer, 203 
 Gardet, sculptor, 162 
 Garnier, Charles, architect, 136 
 Gasq, Paul, sculptor, 161 
 Gautier, Theophile, poet and 
 dramatic critic, 60, 95 
 
 , Judith, novelist, 88 
 
 Geniat, actress, 193 
 Gentlemen-Peasants, 232 
 Gerard, Rosemonde (Mme. Ros- 
 tand), authoress, 88 
 Gerome, Jean Leon, painter, 139 
 Gervex, Henri, painter, 152 
 Giffard, Pierre {see Automo- 
 
 bihsm), 223 
 Girard, A., painter, 151 
 Girardin, Emile de, journalist, 
 
 96, 97 
 Giraudin, Julia, singer, 203 
 Goddard, B., composer of music, 
 
 202 
 Goncourt, de, the brothers, 56 
 Goujon, Jean, sculptor, 154 
 Gounod, Charles, composer of 
 
 music, 199 
 Grand, M., actor, 192 
 Grand] ean, Louise, singer, 203 
 Granier, Mme. Jeanne, actress, 
 
 194 
 Gresse, A., singer, 203 
 Grevy, Jules, statesman, 30, 32 
 " Gyp " (Comtesse de Mira- 
 beau-Martel) , novelist, 87 
 
 H 
 Hading, Mme. Jane (Jeannette 
 Hadingue), actress, 194 
 
Index 
 
 279 
 
 Halevy, Li Ac, author and 
 
 playwright, 81, 166 
 Hanotaux, Gabriel, statesman, 
 
 historian, and journalist, 89, 
 
 104 
 Hanoteau, painter, 150 
 Haraucourt, Edmond, poet, 71 
 Harduin, Henri, journalist, 109 
 Harpignies, painter, 150 
 Hasty burials, 253 
 Hatto, Jeanne, singer, 203 
 Hebrard, journalist. 111 
 Heglon, singer, 203 
 Henner, G. J., painter, 138 
 Heredia, Jose-Maria de, poet, 
 
 64 
 Herve, Edouard, journalist, 113 
 Hervieu, Paul, novelist and 
 
 dramatist, 82, 171 
 Heuvelmans, Mile., painter, 153 
 Hillemacher, L., composer of 
 
 music, 202 
 Historians, 88 
 
 Historic monuments. Preserva- 
 tion of, 125 
 Historical painting, 133 
 Histrionic talent in France, 183 
 Holmes, Augusta, composer of 
 
 music, 202 
 Home, French ideas of, 6 
 Hospitality of the French, 6 
 Houssaye, Arsene, journalist, 
 107 
 
 , Henry, historian, 89 
 
 Houville, Gerard d', authoress, 
 
 88 
 Hugo, Victor, Reference to, 97 
 Huysman, J. K., writer, 83 
 
 I 
 
 Illustrated papers, 114 
 Imbart de la Tour, singer, 203 
 Impressionism in painting, 129 
 Indecency, Crusade against, 268 
 Indifference : Its dangers, 244 
 Indy, Vincent d', composer of 
 
 music, 202 
 Inj albert, sculptor, 161 
 Irony in journalism, 93 
 
 J 
 
 Janin, Jules, dramatic critic, 95 
 
 Janssen, Pierre, astronomer, 218 
 
 Jaures, Jean, Socialist leader, 
 42, 52, 112 
 
 Jews in France : The anti- 
 Semitic campaign, 96 
 
 Jonas, L., painter, 152 
 
 Journal des DSbats, 94 
 
 Journalism, Literary decline of, 
 91 ; as a political ladder, 102 
 
 Judicial assistance, 24 
 
 K 
 
 Klein, Abbe, literary critic, 90 
 Kolb, Therese, actress, 193 
 
 Labiche, Eugene, dramatist, 
 
 163 
 Lalo, Edouard, composer of 
 
 music, 202 
 Lamber, Juliette {see Adam), 86 
 Lambert, Albert, actor, 192 
 Lambinet, painter, 150 
 Landouzy, singer, 203 
 Landscape painters, 145 
 Lansyer, painter, 150 
 Lapommeraye, Henri de, dra- 
 matic critic, 96 
 Lara, actress, 193 
 Laureau-Escalais, singer, 203 
 Laurens, J. P., painter, 134 
 Lavedan, Henri, dramatist, 175 
 Lavisse, historian, 89 
 Le Bargy, actor, 192 
 Lecomte de Lisle, poet, 61 
 Lefebvre, Jules, painter, 139 
 Legislator's salary, 53 
 Leitner, actor, 192 
 Lemaire, Madeleine, painter, 153 
 Lemaitre, Jules, critic and dra- 
 matist, 90, 96, 169 
 Lemoinne, John, journalist, 94 
 Lerolle, Henri, painter, 149 
 Leroux, X., composer of music, 
 
 202 
 Lesueur, Daniel, novelist, 88 
 Lhermitte, Leon, painter, 149 
 
280 
 
 Index 
 
 Liberty and justice in France, 
 244 
 
 Licensing system in France, 259 
 
 Lights and shadows, 241 
 
 Lisle, Lecomte de, poet, 61 
 
 Lister, Lord, 204 
 
 Literature under the RepubHc, 
 54 
 
 Lockroy, Edouard, journaUst 
 and politician, 45 
 
 Lorrain, Jean, poet, 71 
 
 Loti, Pierre (Julien Viaud), 
 writer, 78 
 
 Lotteries, 265 
 
 Loubet, Emile, statesman, 31 
 
 Louys, Pierre, novelist, 83 
 
 Loyson, Paul Hyacinthe, dra- 
 matist, 182 
 
 Lugay, Marquis of {see Roche- 
 fort), 28, 94, 97, 99 
 
 M 
 
 MacMahon, Marshal, states- 
 man, 30 
 
 Magnard, Alberic, composer of 
 music, 202 
 
 Maillard, G. A., sculptor, 161 
 
 Mallarme, S., poet, 71 
 
 Manet, Edouard, painter, 130- 
 131 
 
 Marcy, Jane, singer, 203 
 
 Marechal, singer, 203 
 
 Maret, Henry, journalist, 109 
 
 Marignan, singer, 203 
 
 Market gardening, 238 
 
 Marmorek, Alexander, bacterio- 
 logist, 207 
 
 Marriages, Business basis of, 9 ; 
 Influence of parents, 10 ; 
 Legal formalities, 11 ; The 
 matrimonial market, 12-13 ; 
 Influence of tradition, 14 ; 
 Husband and wife, 16, 17 
 
 Martin, Dr. Gustave, 210 
 
 Masse, Victor, composer of 
 music, 202 
 
 Massenet, Jules, composer of 
 music, 200 
 
 Masters and servants, 269 
 
 Mathematics, 218 
 Maubert, Louis, sculptor, 162 
 Maupassant, Guy de, novelist, 73 
 Maurel, Victor, singer, 203 
 Mayer, Henri, actor, 192 
 Meilhac, Henri, dramatist, 166 
 Meissonier, painter, 131, 147 
 Meline, Jules, statesman, 44 
 Menard, Louis, poet, 60 
 Mendes, Catulle, poet and dra- 
 matist, 60, 71, 181 
 Mercier, Antonin, sculptor, 160 
 Messager, Andre, composer of 
 
 music, 202 
 Metayage system, The, 231 
 Metchnikofi, E., bacteriologist, 
 
 207 
 Meziere, A., political writer, 112 
 Middle class. The, 7 
 Millerand, statesman, 48 
 Minil, actress, 193 
 Millet, painter, 150 
 Mirbeau, Octave, dramatist, 178 
 Mistral, Frederic, poet, 70 
 Modern currents of thought 
 
 reflected in art, 127 
 Monarchist leaders, 49 
 Monet, Claude, painter, 130 
 Monselet, Charles, journalist, 107 
 Mont de Piete, The, 256 
 Moreau, Gustave, painter, 141 
 Moreux, Abbe T., astronomer. 
 
 220 
 Morot, Aime, painter, 143 
 Motoring : Its Influence, 263 
 Mounet, J. P., actor, 192 
 Mounet-SuUy, actor, 190 
 Mun, Comte Albert de, politi- 
 cian, 50 
 Muntz, scientist, 210 
 Music, National, 198 ; mu- 
 sicians and singers, 1 98 
 
 N 
 " Naturalism," in literature, 
 
 75 ; in art, 127 ; in the 
 
 drama, 1 72 
 Neuville de, Alphonse, painter, 
 
 147 
 
Index 
 
 281 
 
 Noailles, Comtesse Matthieu de, 
 
 novelist, 88 
 Nobility, Legitimist and Bona- 
 
 partist, 7 
 Note, J., singer, 203 
 Nude, The, in French art, 137 
 
 O 
 
 Ohnet, Georges, novelist, 81 
 Official employment, 23 
 Opera, Modern French, 199 
 " Opportunism," 51 
 Order of Agricultural Merit, The, 
 
 45 
 Origin of the French, 2 
 
 P 
 Pailleron, Edouard, dramatist, 
 
 165 
 Painters, 127 
 Parisiens, The, 3, 7 
 Parliamentary system, 29 ; 
 
 groups, 50 
 Parnassians, The, 60 
 Pasteur, Louis, scientist, 204 
 
 Institute, The, 205 
 
 Patience of the French, 242 
 Pawning, System of, in France, 
 
 256 
 Peasants, Material condition of 
 
 the. 227 
 Pelletan, Camille, journalist and 
 
 politician, 46 
 Pellisier, M., critic, 90 
 Pepe, Mile. V., painter, 151 
 Perigord, The domed churches 
 
 of, 121 
 Personal journalism, 97 
 Peyrebrunne, Mme. Georges de, 
 
 novelist, 88 
 Phylloxera, The, 236 
 Physiology, 210 
 Pichon, journalist and states- 
 man, 104 
 Picquart, General, 46 
 Piece a these. La, Origin of, 164 
 Piera, actress, 192 
 Pierron, Juliette, singer, 203 
 Pierson, actress, 192 
 Players, 183 
 
 Poetry under the Republic, 60 
 Poincare, J. H., mathematician, 
 
 218 
 Poincare Raymond, statesman, 
 
 and President, 47 
 Politicians, 30 ; political camps 
 
 and coteries, 246 ; political 
 
 intrigue, 28 
 Poor, The problem of the, 254 
 Population, The decline of, 22 
 Pornographic tide. The, 267 
 Porto-Riche, de, dramatist, 170 
 Positivism, its influence in 
 
 literature, 55 
 Pouvillon, Emile, writer, 84 
 Presidents of the Republic, 30 
 Press, The, 91 
 
 Prevost, Marcel, novelist, 81 
 Primitive husbandry, 230 
 Psychological novels, 76, 77 
 Puech, Denys, sculptor, 162 
 
 R 
 
 Raffaelli, painter, 152 
 
 Ranc, Arthur, journalist and 
 
 politician. 111 
 Realism in art, 137 ; in litera- 
 ture, 57 
 Regie, The, 243 
 Regnault, Henri, painter, 131 
 Regnier, Henri de, poet, 71 
 Rejane, Mme., actress, 193 
 Religion and charity, 256 
 Religious communities, 39-40 
 Renan, Ernest, writer and philo- 
 sopher, 56 
 Renard, Lieut. -Col. (dirigible 
 
 balloons), 224 
 Renaissance Architecture, Ori- 
 ginal character of the French, 
 124 
 Renoir, A., painter, 152 
 Reval, Gabrielle, novelist, 88 
 Reyer, Ernest, 202 
 Ribot, A., statesman, 43 
 Richepin, Jean, poet and dra- 
 matist, 66, 181 
 Rigolot, A. G., painter, 151 
 Robinson, Jacques, sculptor, 161 
 
282 
 
 Index 
 
 Roch, Madeleine, actress, 193 
 Rochefort, journalist and poli- 
 tician, 28, 94, 97, 99 
 Rochegrosse, Georges, painter, 
 
 144 
 Rod, E., critic, 90 
 Rodin, sculptor, 158 
 Roll, Alfred, painter, 146 
 Rollinat, Maurice, poet, 71 
 Rostand, Edmond, poet and 
 
 dramatist, 68, 171 
 Roujon, Henry, journalist, 112 
 Rouvier, politician, 38 
 Roux, Dr. Pierre, 206 
 Rural France, 226 
 Rustic life in art, 149 
 stories, Writers of, 84 
 
 Sainte-Beuve, writer, 55, 63 
 St. Marceau, sculptor, 161 
 Saint-Saens, Camille, composer 
 
 of music, 200 
 Saint-Victor, Paul de, dramatic 
 
 critic, 95 
 Sanderson, Sibyl, singer, 203 
 Santos-Dumont (aviation), 225 
 Sarcey, Francisque, journalist 
 
 and critic, 95 
 Sardou, Victorien, dramatist, 
 
 166, 187 
 Satire in drama, 175 
 Satirical papers, 114 
 Scholl, Aurelien, journalist, 
 
 107 
 Science and invention, 204 
 Sculptors, 154 
 Secularising France, 38 
 Sege, painter, 150 
 Segond- Weber, Mme., actress, 
 
 191 
 Sensationalism in art, 131 
 Separation of Church and State, 
 
 41 
 Servant problem, 269 
 Shooting facilities, 264 
 Siblot, actor, 192 
 Silvain, Louise, actress, 193 
 , actor, 192 
 
 Silvestre, Armand, poet, 71 
 Simon, Jules, statesman and 
 
 journaHst, 27, 104 
 Simonnet, singer, 203 
 Singers, 203 
 Sisters of Charity, 256 
 Sobriety in France, 258 
 Social demarcation lines, 8 
 qualities of the French, 
 
 247 
 Sorel, Albert, historian, 89 
 
 , Mile., actress, 191 
 
 Soulacroix, G., singer, 203 
 Sports and games, 261 
 Spuller, politician, 27 
 Stage, State control of the, 
 
 184 
 Statesmen, 27 
 Statuary, 154 
 Stereo-chemistry, 216 
 Stipend of legislators, 53 
 Sully-Prudhomme, poet, 61 
 
 Taine, writer, 55 
 Taxation, 249, 250, 265 
 Theatre, The French and the, 
 
 183 
 Theatre-Frangais, Players of the, 
 
 190 
 Theatre-Libre, The, 195 
 Theo, Mme., actress, 193 
 Thermo-chemistry, 213 
 Theuriet, Andre, novelist, 84 
 Thiers, statesman, 27 
 Thomas, Ambroise, composer of 
 
 music, 199 
 Tinayre, Marcelle, novelist, 88 
 Tisserand, Felix, scientist, 218 
 Tissot, James, painter, 133 
 Tobacco growing, 239 
 Trouard-Riolle, scientist, 210 
 Truffier, J. C, actor, 192 
 
 U 
 
 Ugalde, Marguerite and Jeanne, 
 
 singers, 203 
 Union Lihirale, The, 52 
 Union Ripuhlicaine, 52 
 
Index 
 
 283 
 
 Vaguet, a., singer, 203 
 Vallee, bacteriologist, 209 
 Vandal, Albert, historian, 89 
 Vandalism in France, 125 
 Veuillot, Louis, journalist, 98 
 Verlaine, Paul, poet, 67 
 Verlet, Raoul, sculptor, 161 
 Viardot, Pauline, singer, 203 
 Viaud, Julien (Pierre Loti), 78 
 Vidal, Paul, composer of music, 
 
 202 
 Villemot, Auguste, journalist, 
 
 107 
 Vigneau, singer, 203 
 Vigny, Alfred de, poet, 60 
 Villemessant, founder of the 
 
 Figaro, 105 
 VioUet-le-Duc, architect, 124 
 
 Vitu, Auguste, critic, 106 
 Vogue, de, critic, 90 
 
 W 
 Wagner, Influence of, 199 
 Waldeck-Rousseau, statesman, 
 
 33, 39 
 Weiss, J. J., journalist, 95 
 Wild Life in France, 264 
 Wine growers. The, 233-236 
 Wolff. Albert, journalist, 106 
 
 , Pierre, dramatist, 182 
 
 Women : Writers, 85 ; painters, 
 
 152 ; sculptors, 156 
 
 Yersin, bacteriologist, 208 
 
 Zola, Emile, writer, 46, 74 
 
 THE END 
 
 Printed by Sir Isaac Pitman & Sons, Ltd., Bath 
 (2398) 
 
\) -55 
 
m 
 
 F R / 
 
 KILC 
 
 Railways t 
 Chief Steamsh 
 
 stance 
 
 N D 
 
0' 
 
 ^^^^ 
 
 V ■^^ %■ ■ 
 
 O N O 
 
 
 o " o 
 
 i 
 
 ^°-n*, 
 
 y • 
 
 
 „o' ^0" 
 
 . i * 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 .f^ 
 
 
 
 ' ^V^^^^^ Deacidified using the Bookkeeper proc< 
 
 ^ ^^Ccl/'^ ^ Neutralizing agent: Magnesium Oxide 
 
 <' a , -1 » "* Treatment Date: . pp 2001 
 
 \ _ . _ . . . 
 
 
 Treatment Date: . p^ «««« 
 
 PreservationTechnologi 
 
 A WORLD LEADER IM PAPER PRESERVAT 
 
 111 Thomson Park Drive 
 
9 I 1 
 
 
 .*^^.<^ 
 
 V « * • o. 
 
 c, -^ »J^^ t// kS \n * A » •>{* 
 
 
 
 
 
 ^"^^ 
 
 
 ^ « . o ^ .0 
 
 3BBS BROS. INC, 
 
 r. AUGUSTINE *^X^* <^ C^ ♦ 
 
 ^^ FLA. « <^r^^ - X'^ * 
 
 ,^0^