Digitized by the Internet Archive in 2007 with funding from IVIicrosoft Corporation http://www.archive.org/details/francefrenchwithOOdawbrich FRANCE AND THE FRENCH FRANCE AND THE FRENCH BY CHARLES DAWBARN WITH SIXTEEN ILLUSTEATIONS NEW YORK THE MAGMILLAN COMPANY 1911 JJ .D TO MY FATHER THIS BOOK IS AFFECTIONATELY INSCRIBED 228615 PREFATORY NOTE THIS has no pretension to be a monumental work, dull and didactic, laying down the law and instruct- ing the French in the art of living. It is an attempt to present a moving picture of this intellectual and brilliant people, a picture founded upon personal observation and inspired by strong sympathies. We have had books in quantity of a statistical sort: minute descriptions of French institutions, and an analysis of their differences from the English. We have had, also, books that deal frivolously with the French, as with a people who are infantile and have no right to the name of serious men and women. Such books are legion, too. If they trans- late French, it is literally done ; and we are asked to laugh, not at the crudities of the performing clown, but at the folly of his subjects of ridicule. The French are not a frivolous people — I hope I show it in this book ; I hope, also, that I demonstrate some of their other qualities, too often disregarded by their portraitists and historians. The personal view is always presented, but, in certain of the more serious sections of the book, I explain, in detail. viii FRANCE AND THE FRENCH organisation and conception, as in the chapter on edu- cation. It remains for me to thank my kind friends, French and English, who have helped me in the work with suggestion or in other ways. First and foremost, my thanks are due to Mr. Herbert de Beer, whose aid has been in- valuable both in discerning criticism and in the careful reading of MS. Also for kind advice I would thank G. L. H., Mrs. L. Macdonald, M. Buisson, etc. etc. V CONTENTS The Modern Development of France A Study in Comparative Moralities Tendencies in Literature and Art New Social Influences . Some Further Social Aspects The Role of Political Parties. The Church and Clericalism . Paris and Provincial Society . Paris To-day and Yesterday . A Political Picture France and Her Foreign Relations The Romance of Colonial Empire French History in Gothic The French Woman and the Vote The Stage and its Problems . The Press and Public Opinion French Education The French Judicial System . Discontent and its Causes PAGE I 25 54 72 81 91 109 127 141 155 168 187 208 225 238 251 268 286 304 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Thk Quai (^ahds ▲uGUsmfs, showihg Tower of Notre Damb. Fnm tke watcr-cokar fay J. F. RalEiaii . Fr m ui^a u »P.YiBMaB| FACmC PAGB IK A Latin Quarter STrmio 54 COIir Di'RXTRiMS GcADCHK. IimRPKIXATIOIC DaT IK THK CHAMBER cr Dkpvtusl Fraa Ak dnwing by A. Eloy-Vincent . 92 Old Hoosis, Soobs ... 132 Tbb IIbr-: a Frkkct Stac -hum t uw Sckhk nc the Forest or CamrAeasm, Vack Iniled fay the Maiqds de I'Aigie . 136 Cascades db i.'ofiKD Ketrovch . . . 1S8 Palms at Bkn-OoHiF, Aubmmia . ... 200 ■an) JOAV or Arc at the Croitkimg or Charles Vn at Rheims. FniB tte fascD fay Leaepvca m die Fuith^oB . . 3o6 CPfcMl WlWlIlM «gH» IJ5T OF nXCSimATKHIS fMMwms warn, -not *"Fj rmat Timmt Suami. or Tmmb Mat Dat, Rjms ok ul FRANCE AND THE FRENCH CHAPTER I THE MODERN DEVELOPMENT OF FRANCE TEN years' continued residence in a country may explain even if it does not condone a book on the subject. A decade is all too short, but it has this advantage, that one has not lost the outsider's point of view or become insensible to peculiarities. I have had the privilege of mixing with all classes of French people by reason of my professional occupations, which have taken me everywhere and given me the entree to the most interesting as well as the most varied society. In the course of a decade, I have come to regard the French with much sympathy, and, I hope, with insight. Such errors as I have committed should not be set down to dis- inclination to credit them with the many virtues they possess. But their very brilliance and quick-silvery character make them difficult to photograph. There are shades in their individuality which elude the ruder in- tellect of the Anglo-Saxon — fine points in the mental make-up which do not appeal ; ways of thought and an attitude towards life which are sometimes inexplicable. But the foundation of intent remains, that intent to make the most of the present world, to catch the last ray of the sun, to utilize every moment as an opportunity for life I 2 ' FRANCE AND THE FRENCH and, perhaps, for love, for the two words are almost inter- changeable in this fascinating country, where intellectual existence presents the variety of the kaleidoscope. No comprehension of the present French people is possible without due appreciation of the causes which have gone to the building up of the national character and the formation of the national institutions. Modern French history seems to begin at the great Revolution. It was the foundation of liberties ; it represented the terrible " cri du coeur " of a people struggling to be free, roused into fierce hatred of the aristocracy. And yet, much that is wonderful and beautiful in France is thrown back to the splendid days of the Roi Soleil and his patronage of arts and letters. Before that, France was obscure and tangled in her destinies, slowly emerging from the Middle Ages, bearing no worthy part with England in her steady progress towards enlightenment and personal liberty. But the Sun King dowered France with noble avenues, with splendid chateaux, with all the decorative paraphernalia of kingship. The Fourteenth and Fifteenth Louis have left glorious architectural vestiges of their presence in the radiant avenues of Paris and in the monuments of the neighbourhood. Yet the callousness of kings was re- sponsible for weaning a loyal people from their loyalty. An absolute indifference to the welfare of the subject stands revealed in the famous phrases : " L'Etat, c'est moi," and " Apres moi, le deluge." The French Revolu- tion was rendered possible by Richelieu's policy of abas- ing the rich. And, after the Fronde — the Civil War be- tween the Court party and the Parliament, during the minority of Louis XIV — the chateaux of the nobles were destroyed, thus detaching them from the soil. Louis XIV accentuated the movement by summoning the grand seigneurs to Paris as his entourage at Court. THE MODERN DEVELOPMENT OF FRANCE 3 It became a disgrace and tantamount to exile for a lord to remain on his "terres." Absentee landlordism further estranged the peasantry, already exasperated iby poverty and the exactions of the " fermiers generaux." The people lived in the utmost misery and degradation, whilst the monarch gave freely to his nobles and favourites any part of the national riches that he did not want for himself. And a Minister, to whom the observation was made that " the people must live," replied in the true spirit of his Royal Master, "I do not see the necessity." Poverty, then, and the indifference of their rulers brought on the great cataclysm ; nor, of course, were matters helped by the notorious incapacity of Louis XVL If the Fourteenth Louis had brilliant notions of government, notwithstand- ing his defects, the looseness of the Regent prepared the way for the licentiousness of Louis XV, one of the greatest egoists who ever lived, whose thoughts were centred in indulgence. Of the city of Paris it was said : " Les murs murant Paris rendent Paris murmurant," the reason being that the walls brought in the Octroi and increased the burdens of the people. Nor must we accept the easy optimism of certain historians, who protested that, despite appearances, the people were not as poor as they pretended. Though the Revolution left, as a rich and abiding legacy, the Declaration of the Rights of Man, its blood- thirsty character appals. Leaders of the movement con- templated with equanimity the slaughter of 4CXD,ooo people. Imagine such a thing ! Imagine the wantonness of it! Imagine, also, the effect upon the human charac- ter of a glut of blood such as that entailed by the destruc- tion of the fine flower of French nobility ! Are there no traces of the spirit left? Is there nothing in the mental atmosphere of Paris to suggest that this sanguinary 4 FRANCE AND THE FRENCH period in the national history has not been utterly effaced? On the contrary, it would seem to have a sinister influence upon present-day manifestations. The Parisian love of sensation and the love of certain ex- tremists, such as demagogues and revolutionaries, to "^pater la bourgeoisie" are signs of this spirit. The May Day demonstrations which bring about such vast assemblages of troops, all point the same way : that there is a sullen creature waiting to spring at the throat of wealth the moment it no longer fears the policeman. When, for any reason, there is an absence of protective measures, this dangerous residuum comes to the surface. I have seen it many times revealed in strange outbursts of violence, sudden attacks upon property and persons : the revolt of the disinherited against the possessors. Part of the Apache difficulty is attached to this very problem — to this curious undercurrent and subterranean sea of class- hatred, of jealousy, of a desire to obtain the good things of the world without the sustained struggle of the labourer. Often there are visions of this cleavage of the classes. In Paris, it seems strangely conspicuous by reason of proximities. At a great race-meeting, in the Bois de Boulogne, you have a gathering of the masses side-by- side with an astonishing array of elegance and plutocratic arrogance. In a sumptuous limousine, the woman of fashion speeds her way to the course and, alighting, be- comes an object of envy, doubtless, to the vast throng, which remarks her costly dress and sparkling jewels. There are causes that breed this spirit of discontent in the town itself. Often the Baron and the banker and professional man occupy the lower floors of the house, whilst upon the sixth lives, in a squalid chamber, the little " midinette " or humble workman. The artisan rubs shoulders with wealth on the staircase, and is it not likely THE MODERN DEVELOPMENT OF FRANCE 5 that such propinquity gives especial acuteness to any study in comparisons ? It has often been said that the fear of the spectre at the feast, the thought of some worn and hungry face looking in at the window of the restaurant where Pives eats, has been the cause of limiting the expenditure of the rich man upon his pleasures. The Bourgeois is a timid soul in France, and is perpetually compelled by his fears to pay backsheesh to the Social Revolution. The guillotine, in the days of the Terror, did its work so thoroughly that little remains that can consistently be accounted aristo- cratic. All hatred of the class has passed. The anarchist, led to execution for his outrage upon established society, does not cry " Death to the Aristocrats," but "Death to the Bourgeoisie." The Bourgeoisie certainly is to be the aim of anarchistic effort in the future, and, if once thq mob gets out of hand, middle-class prosperity will be the first victim. This knowledge colours politics in France ; elsewhere in these pages I enlarge upon the theme, and endeavour to show that legislation is engaged in discounting revolution by forestalling, in some sort, the demands of the people. It is clear, then, that past deeds of blood have left their mark on men and manners, on methods of thought, on the style of propaganda. The most common instrument in furthering policies to-day is intimidation ; it is the weapon of the "syndicats," or trade unions. The workmen use it against their "patrons," and they use it against their fellows, who refuse to join the professional corporations. No more sinister sign of the tyranny of trade unionism could be found than the outrages perpetrated by the " rouges " or syndicated workmen upon the " jaunes " or independent workmen, known, in the jargon of the shops and factories, as the "renards." Evidently, then, under the thin veneer of civilization is brutality and a thirst for 6 FRANCE AND THE FRENCH violent experiment, which bodes ill for the security of the public if once the safeguards are relaxed. A somewhat hasty, time-serving, propitiating legislation must result from efforts to ward off the evil day. One wonders how far concession can go before the bed-rock is reached, when it is no longer possible to give way without material sacri- fices, and without the evacuation of positions hardly won. M. Paul Bourget in his striking play, " La Barricade," insists on the principle that the middle classes must merit their situation in the world by their superior energy and intelligence ; yet to-day they bow before the demagogue. If the walls of the social Jericho fall at the first blast of the trumpet, then, obviously, nothing remains but defeat and devastation. Common sense, which distinguishes all French people, saves them from the worst excesses of their own lively imaginings. A man of twenty-five does not think as a man of forty-five. In the same way the politician who begins with wild, impracticable dreams of social equality and emancipation, quickly finds, when called to office and weighted with the responsibilities of material interests, that his political aspirations cannot be realized without too great a sacrifice of national dignity and expediency. So much for an "apergu" of political tendencies in France. The Third Republic is often referred to in the "chaleur communicative du banquet," to use a phrase originating with a Minister's after-dinner confidences, as a direct symbol and child of the great " bouleversement " of a hundred and twenty years ago. But, as a matter of strict historical fact, it is somewhat otherwise. Thiers, when he founded the Third Republic, had clearly in mind the return of a limited monarchy. The second President, Marshal MacMahon, was really elected by the National Assembly as a sort of Monk preparing the way for the THE MODERN DEVELOPMENT OF FRANCE 7 Restoration. Examine the Constitution of 1873, and you will find that in the purely representative and politically colourless role of the President there was evident intention to give him the character of an uncrowned constitutional King. He plays a part which is effaced and appears to have no real weight in the country. Whilst it is perfectly true that the President cannot even recall a Sous-Prefet of a department on his own initiative, he is, at the same time, invested with sovereign powers in the making of treaties, and, had he the necessary individuality and strength of character, he could play an interesting and decided social role. Few of the early Presidents, and none of the recent ones, have emerged from the inconspicuousness which the party caucus that elects them seems determined they shall have ; at the same time, the real reason underlying this selection of a neutral Chief of Executive is fear of a Dictator. The "coup d'etat" which turned the Third Napoleon from a Prince-President into an Emperor, would, perchance, find imitators if, instead of appointing men purely for their safe and colourless personality, the combined Chambers were to elect Republicans of physical vigour, capable and anxious to lead in their country's destinies. For this reason the brilliant man likely to be possessed of ambition to wear the cloak of a Caesar, is invariably rejected in favour of Presidents of the type of Loubet and Fallieres, who, descended from good peasant stock, have no other wish than to carry out their duties with simple and unostentatious devotion. Yet one must regret that so brilliant a people as the French are forced by political exigencies to limit their choice to the " safe " man. Sadi Carnot had the bearing and demeanour of an aristocrat : he was, and he looked, a man of family. The poignard of the assassin ended his days. Casimir Perier, another Republican of good birth and antecedents, resigned 8 FRANCE AND THE FRENCH ofifice after six months ; no one will ever know why, since his secret is buried with him. After that, Felix Faure, the immediate predecessor of M. Loubet, showed something of the temper of an Imperialist Pretender. It was he who invented what state there is in the progress of a President : the "daumont" with its postillions and outriders. His death, though clearly to be attributed to his ill-health at the time, is persistently interpreted in some quarters as an act of precaution by the dominant party in the State against his assumption of the role of dictator. All the tendencies, therefore, of modern France are towards the preservation of the Republic, because men of mark are speedily pulled down and their progress hindered ; thus the dead level of mediocrity is not disturbed. In that delightful play, " Le Bois Sacre," by MM. de Caillavet and de Flers, the Minister of Fine Arts says : " Talent ! What do you want with talent in a Republic ? It is undemocratic for one artist to paint better than another." Any commander of marked ability is watched jealously by the Republic lest, in the success and enthusi- asm engendered by his victories, he become a dangerous aspirant for high authority. In the dead level of democracy may be found, perhaps, one of the reasons why Parliamentarism has a tendency to become sterile. The absence of real leaders is of the essence of Republicanism ; such a soil is unkindly to the growth of qualities needful to distinction. Hence, it may be assumed that the failure of Parliament, of which I speak in these pages, is largely due to that nice balance of mediocrities, which brings about stagnation. Then, again, big issues are necessary to Parliamentary progress ; there must be a vast governmental energy, a legislative hasten- ing to remedy abuses and to institute refoims. But, in France, at the present day, you can have, practically, none THE MODERN DEVELOPMENT OF FRANCE 9 of these things. The great questions have already been settled. There is no House of Lords to throw down ; the aristocracy was abolished a hundred years ago ; in the same way, the land question was for all time solved by a seizure of the property of the nobles and by a minute subdivision of all estates amongst the peasantry. Whether we approve or not of confiscation in these condi- tions — though compensation, or restitution, was afterwards made — wc have, as a result, a peasantry settled upon the land and deeply attached thereto, possessing instincts that arc conservative, like those of all agrarian peoples, and whose one thought is to add field to field. In Russia, the conditions (if we except the ignorance of the peasantry) are very much the same. There is no aristocracy properly so called. Thanks to the institution of the Mir, the peasant holds the land. He has no political aspirations ; he cares nothing for revolutionary outbreaks and never rises in revolt against police and administrations. His ambitions are bounded by his fields. He thinks in pastures, and dreams in corn lands. God, the Tsar and the Peasant : that is his hierarchy. He has no feeling except that of homage towards the Little Father ; all his enmity is directed against the Intelligenzia or black-coats in the towns. It is they who make the hubbub, who inspire revolutions and get themselves talked about in newspapers ; so that the world thinks that Russia is coming to an end — crumbling to pieces in a vast social cataclysm. With certain qualifications, these remarks apply to France. Here you have the peasant working upon the land — two-thirds of the population live in the villages and hamlets. The one-third in the towns may sway things momentarily, but not "all the time." The great Revolution, it is true, was the work of Paris and the large towns, which imposed their will on the country. But lo FRANCE AND THE FRENCH times have changed, and with them the rural dweller. He is no longer the country bumpkin, ignorant and credu- lous. He has a mind of his own, though he must still take his politics from Paris to a large extent. Yet he knows the quality of the men who speak for him, and judges them much more dispassionately than the towns- man, who is a hot-headed and often foolish partisan. A revolution of a kind might well be brought about by dis- contented workmen in the towns, but the landed, settled country — the blue-bloused peasant — would refuse to follow. This is the conservatism of France, the great passive force resisting innovations and brusque changes of regime. It is not for me to prophesy with certitude the continued existence of the Republic, but the signs certainly are in that direction. Monarchy would appear to be dead, hope- lessly dead, and it has scarcely a voice left at the elections. So fully is this realized that Bonapartists and Royalists disguise their real political identity, either under the name of Nationalists, which covers a variety of political creeds, or of Moderate Republicans. Each succeeding General Elec- tion confirms the decision of the people to be governed as a pure democracy. Yet it is always possible to imagine some great personality arising who would wave the tri- colour and flaunt the " panache " before the eyes of the people. It is a man with the stomach of a great organizer who would lead and acquire power in France, some one with the traits of Boulanger, but of fibre instead of clay. Had the General been a man of decision he would have found his way, no doubt, to the Elysee. Yet, even sup- posing the power assumed and the people hypnotized momentarily by the splendour of fine deeds and the re- nown of a " beau nom," it is difficult to believe that the Dictator, so rudely imposed, could retain the allegiance and inspire the devotion of the French people. History THE MODERN DEVELOPMENT OF FRANCE ii establishes the French love of change, their brusque methods of reform. But illusions have gone with ad- vancement in philosophy and all the arts of civilization. The twentieth-century Frenchman, of ordinary culture, refuses to believe any more in the legislative miracle, just as he refuses to be stirred by the threat of revolution. His scepticism has produced a sort of cynicism and a determination to count only on himself. This attitude is well reflected in the calm that descends upon the country when the Chamber is in recess. It is apparent that its very existence is something of a bore, in any case, a very potent cause of trouble. And the French have become an irreverent people, caring little for forms and cere- monies. They have thrown down the Altar ; why should they set up the Throne ? Again, aristocracy is necessary as a support to royalty, and the " vieille noblesse " exists no more. For this reason, a permanent return to monarchical in- stitutions is not only problematical, but almost impossible. If a king were installed in the palace of Madame de Pompadour, they would " tutoyer " him on the Boulevards, and lampoons would appear depicting him in all manner of undignified postures — unless a press censorship were established, as in the old days of the Second Empire, which is hardly to be thought of in a century where the liberty and even the licence of the Fourth Estate is accepted as inevitable. The restrictions upon public writers, imposed by the Third Napoleon, are partly responsible for the present unbridled spirit of mockery ; contrast and love of contradiction are guiding impulses with the Parisian. These things, taken together, make me think that, ephemeral phases of ill-health notwithstanding, the Republic is of sound constitution and likely to live long in the land. A throne cannot be set up to stand by 12 FRANCE AND THE FRENCH itself: it must have its concomitants : its aristocracy, the elements of a brilliant Court, its traditions, ceremonials and usages, and finally, it must live in the hearts of the people. There are many to tell you that the Frenchman is, at bottom, monarchical. Especially in country parts, you will find people of the older generation sighing for the days when an Emperor reigned and there were State pageants in some other shape than those given by a bourgeois President. These people will tell you that manners and morals have declined under the present regime; that parents are frightened at their children's lack of respect ; that the wise restraint of religion exists no longer ; that the Mass, muttered through perfunctorily, has come to mean a social ceremony and nothing more, and that there is general decadence since the Church ceased to be a vital influence in the lives of the people. The negligence, almost the penury of the Presidential household, is the common theme of some critics. Horses are said to be hired to draw the Presidential barouche on State occasions. Are not the receptions at the palace in the Faubourg St. Honore functions to which one sends one's concierge and bootmaker ? Were not President Grevy's fetes so beggarly that people laughed for a week after at the appearance or the guests ? at their tawdry or grimy equipages ? Unques- tionably, there is little eclat in Republican ceremony and circumstance. Chiefs of the State have not been distinc- tively decorative — on the contrary, they may be described as commonplace. Though Felix Faure dreamed, it is said, of Napoleonic splendour, his successors have carefully refrained from giving any such impression. Obviously, there is no glamour and tinsel in this Republic, but it suits the present temper of the people, even though they are monarchical and love the glitter of Royal display. THE MODERN DEVELOPMENT OF FRANCE 13 Along a certain omnibus route in Paris is a section of aristocratic mien, and another section, situated at the extreme end of the line, industrial and even squalid in character. When the conductor is taking fares in the aristocratic quarter, his manners are impeccable. He assumes an easy smile and asks politely for h^s fares. But, when his well-dressed passengers have departed and the vehicle is filled with the clerk and workman, his mood changes. He is no longer subservient, for he is no longer hopeful of an extra sou in response to his insinuating smile. He knows he will receive the hard fare and nothing more, and so his demands are gruff, and his replies as laconic as possible. There has entered into him a spirit of the " fonctionnaire " with his habitual disdain of the " pekin." This is typical of France. Napoleonic wars have left their scars upon the nation, just as has the Reign of Terror. France is a military nation, but she is a military nation turned pacific. She is like the robber who becomes a respectable householder. There are days when the yearning for the old unholy occupation comes strong upon him. He looks out of doors and remarks the fat and prosperous passer-by, wondering vaguely what would happen to himself if he ran after his hypothetical victim, knocked him down, and took his watch. In the same way, the French sometimes look out of doors to see the "pantalons rouges" go by — vivacious " petits soldats " of France, as merry after a long day's march as when they left barracks in the morning, And martial ardour comes upon them as they salute the flag. For a moment, their thoughts take a reminiscent turn. They remember that they were soldiers once, and that there have been great warriors in the family : men who thought more of glory than of money, men who fought for country and added territory and rich 14 FRANCE AND THE FRENCH treasure to the national patrimony. These things put the breath of war into them and, in imagination, they tramp behind the bugles and the drums. " Panache " reigns, atavism speaks, long centuries of military glory grow to a sudden eloquence. But solid prosperity has made Jacques Bonhomme a pacific person ; his victories to-day are won upon the European money-markets, whereas, formerly, they were gained upon the field of carnage. He lends money to all the world and receives good and safe interest for it. When Russia felt the necessity of war with Japan, to settle the nightmare of Manchuria, she went to Paris to get the money. Islam grown proud and combative in the new turn of events at Constantinople, wishes to build a fleet to overawe the Greeks ; she, too, makes request to the Protectors of the Christians in the Orient for the wherewithal. The "bas de laine" of the peasants of France has become the money-box in which governments bent on industry or enterprise dip their hands. It seems as inexhaustible as the Widow's Cruse. You have, theui two divergent influences at work : the old spirit speaking in accents of military genius, and the small prudent voice of the obsequious shopkeeper. France is a consummate shopkeeper, yet this does not prevent her from leading in aeroplanes and other romantic things that, prima facie, have little monetary value in them. There is something significant in the fact that the period between the First Republic and the Second began with Napoleon, peer of Hannibal and Charlemagne, and ended with the son of Philippe Egalite, Louis Philippe, the bourgeois king, whose symbol of office was an umbrella, and whose sons attended a lycee. It is not surprising that in those days of the good citizen king there was evolved, as emblem of the nation, the figure of Joseph Prudhomme, THE MODERN DEVELOPMENT OF FRANCE 15 sleeker and slyer even than John Bull, of whose corporeal features I have never been particularly proud. Joseph Prudhomme represents a typical Frenchman of what English people call the early Victorian era. He is a creature pompous and self-satisfied, who is perpetually counting his money. . If we bridge another period, a period which includes the brilliant epoch of the Third Napoleon, and the Empress Eugenie, there emerges a figure which has for me much of the semblance and personal characteristics of the national Prudhomme : it is Thiers, the saviour of the country, the man who secured the redemption of France after the War of '71, and its First President. A most worthy man, filled with a true and noble patriotism, who spared himself no pains to draw his country from the abyss of misfortune, and who not only liberated the territory from the yoke of the indemnity, but also divined Bismarck's new Machiavellian schemes and sought and obtained the intervention of the Tsar Alexander II. This man, I say, has something of the "tournure" of Joseph Prudhomme, and I am not surprised that he left the Louvre copies of old masters, or that he should have declared, when driven forth by an ungrateful Republic to his own fireside, that he returned, thankfully, to his " cheres etudes." Those who have read the bulky result of those studies (excellent, however, in their military aspect) will understand the smile with which the " mot " is always received in France. Here, then, is a bourgeois thread link- ing us with the House of Orleans. As to the Revolution itself, was not that the work of the bourgeoisie? Were not Danton and Robespierre, Marat and the others so many middle-class men? It is not so astonishing, therefore, if, in the process of time, this very class should be menaced by a lower stratum surging \6 FRANCE AND THE FRENCH to the top. Is it not rather the logic of events ? Yet it is singular that there should be none to reap the succession of the great middle class in Parliament. Who is to succeed Clemenceau, L6on Bourgeois, Poincare, Henri Brisson, Alexandre Ribot ? No man from this social rank is visible on the horizon as a likely candidate. There is M. Paul Deschanel, polished, erudite, speaking the lan- guage of real oratory, but he is condemned in advance for supposed Reactionary leanings. Therefore, the problem poses : Where is the champion of the Middle Classes? The process is perpetual from below upwards. Jean Jaures, Socialist orator, is, by his theories, the predestined leader of to-morrow — or, at least a follower of his school. True, his origin is also bour- geois, but his doctrines are of the proletariat. Aristide Briand has conquered Moderate suffrages by a denial ot his past and is, to-day, the last of the great Bourgeois leaders. Thus, in the natural course of things, the Middle Classes will be submerged by the classes underneath. To avoid such a fate, energy and resolution and courage beyond the wont must be exhibited. Napoleon, with deep knowledge of his countrymen, gave the Constitution a rigid frame in its Ministries. He took care that though Cabinets might come, and Cabinets might go, the great Departments of State should flow on for ever. The Minister has almost regal power and position. He moves like a sovereign through the country on official tours. His arrival is heralded by telegraph and punctuated with brass bands, official delegations headed by the Prefect and " vins d'honneur." An English Cabinet Minister quietly descends at the station, bag in hand, addresses the assembled burgesses at the Town Hall, and as quietly departs, without a mobilization of the local corps of THE MODERN DEVELOPMENT OF FRANCE 17 volunteers or even of the firemen — to quench inflammatory language perhaps — or so much as an obsequious hand- shake by the Lord-Lieutenant of the county. The President, as the apex of the Constitution, is also more royal than a king in his journeyings. Everywhere his progress is marked by fanfares blaring the Marseillaise, by banquets and gatherings of public officials and by the distribution of crosses and decorations of all sorts. Though, in the public eye, the symbol and representa- tive of the Republic, the President is much less directly powerful than a Minister. The Minister is the real fount of honour, and his patronage means the blossoming of button-holes with a garniture of ribbon. The great Corsican, in his wisdom, saw that the French needed masters, and gave departmental omnipotence to the members of the Government. They represent rigidity and permanence in a country which, till recently, was famous for its floating politics. Waldeck-Rousseau's Ministry of three years established a record for longevity ; since that day there have been others to equal it, within a few months, in the tenure of their rank. Yet, as I show above, the conditions of democratic government in France are such as to prevent a great legislative accomplishment. The nice balance of momen- tum with inertia produces equipoise — a sort of sterile stability, a stable infecundity. It is simply progress round a circle, an orbit marked and measured, the swathe of the governmental scythe. It becomes those who are con- cerned at the stagnation to prescribe a remedy. It is for this reason that the " scrutin de liste," or list-voting, has come to the fore, since the appeal to a department, instead of to a small community, gives a greater choice of candi- dates. There is chance for real distinction to emerge in the broad area of a county, whereas election by i8 FRANCE AND THE FRENCH arrondissements gives currency and emphasis to local pre- judices and brings into undue prominence the intrigues of localities to forward their own interests. Thus M. Dupont, deputy for " un petit trou pas cher," found favour with his electors and obtained renewal of his Parliamentary mandate by voting for the use of public moneys in the construction of a canal or hippodrome affecting chiefly his own constituency. Many a man, elected under the old system, has found that to propose expenditure, which expenditure would fall upon the national purse, was the surest and speediest means of ensuring popularity. The disregard of the ordinary deputy for national interests is one of the conspicuous defects of the democratic regime in France, and, indeed, everywhere on the civilized globe. This extension of the Parliamentary constituency is thought to be of value in reforming Parliament ; but it is not quite clear whether the result aimed at will be realized. In any case, it is a melancholy state of affairs when Parliamentarism has to be galvanized into life, or some appearance of life, by the constant injection of new political serums. It points to serious malady in the body politic, a certain unhealthiness of the constituent organs of public opinion. These experiments to encourage patriotism, are they not symp- toms of a decay in representative government ? Do they not mark a period of uneasy calm, presaging a violent and early change in regime ? As I have said, elsewhere, in this chapter, no return to the old Monarchical institution can be anticipated, that is, no permanent return, but that does not preclude the possibility of some adventurous reformer clutching at the reins of power and momentarily occupy- ing the seat of driver of the Republican coach. Develop- ment will come, perhaps, in " a series of little tragedies," as M. Alfred Capus happily expressed it, in a conversation THE MODERN DEVELOPMENT OF FRANCE 19 with the writer. There will be a constant rectification of the frontier line as one class moves upwards and encroaches upon the territory of the other. If there is decadence, it is unaccompanied by iri- descence: the bright unnatural glow which persons in a fever show, often regarded as health by the. unpractised eye. There is, certainly, no brilliant dawn in France suggesting the days of poetic realizations. On the other hand, there is no sunset, flaming red and orange, as of a nation sinking to the evening dark. The light remains steady, with opalescent effect. France of to-day is faced with problems that every nation, however strong, will sooner or later, have to solve. She has fought and settled all those thorny matters, which, at this moment, fill the British prophets with great doubt as to their nation's safe emergence therefrom ; but there are others of a vaster potentiality and, perhaps, of a graver import. Take, for instance, the dwindling population ; how shall it be met ? Here is a public matter and here is a private matter : which view shall prevail ? If it is a private business, this rearing of children, who shall intervene save in the name of the Scriptural injunction, " Increase and multiply," given in the early days of the world's history and having, in any case, lessened significance in a country which has broken largely with established religion and with conventional belief? But, if child-bearing is of value to the community, shall not the community pay, shall it not render itself liable for the rearing and education and sustenance, during years of minority, of the children that are brought into the world at the dictates of an altruistic patriotism? The Frenchman of to-day, with the cold logic that distinguishes him, is apt to argue in this way. " If the State require me to have children," he says, " then the State must compensate me for the extra 20 FRANCE AND THE FRENCH burden it places on my shoulders." Part ot the reluctance of French parents to give hostages to fortune is the feeling and tradition, deeply rooted, that they must leave their offspring in as good a position, financially, as they were themselves at the moment of bringing those children into the world. It is a complicated system of self-protection and a highly scientific thought for to-morrow which keeps the birth-rate down and threatens the very continuance of the race. H. G. Wells, in a remarkable article, asks : " How do you propose to employ the children ? As food for powder, or food for capitalists ? " Clearly it is not sufficient to fill the quiver: you must know whither the arrows are destined in their flight through the world. I believe that the great problems, with which France will have to deal in the immediate future, will have intimate connection with this haunting alternative : food for capital- ists or food for powder. Anti-militarism — we have heard much of it, more than is at present warranted, perhaps — is a question that will have to be faced as the world grows more enlightened, higher education more widely dissemin- ated, and armaments and means of destroying fellow-men less in consonance with civilized opinion. Another result of modern life is the enfeebling of the human body, rendering a man less apt for war. As the complexities and refinements of existence increase, the hard- ships of military campaigning become insupportable to the race. The theory that intellectual achievements and physical exercise are diametrically opposed weighs with the French parents in their attitude towards sport. They are convinced that one cannot be carried on without injury to the other. In a different order of ideas is the Socialism existing in Germany as well as in France, which likewise weakens the military arm. Recent elections and the admissions of a high military officer have given point to the suggestion THE MODERN DEVELOPMENT OF FRANCE 21 that the citadel of Imperialism is undermined by Social Democracy. The army is admittedly attacked. Does the future offer prospects of peace by reason of the union of the proletariat to prevent war ? Will the Monster be de- throned whose dragon shape upon the horizon casts into the black shadow of onerous fiscal conditions and a grind- ing blood-tax a hundred and twenty millions of laborious peoples ? Socialists in France and Socialists in Germany are reaching out to the Universal Brotherhood which, when it comes — if ever it does come — will usher in the reign of Universal Peace and concord upon earth, when swords shall be turned into plough-shares and spears into pruning-hooks. A millennium of this sort is evidently not of to-day, nor of to-morrow — perhaps not of any morrow. We must accept things as they are, and we must recog- nize, even if we be Pacifists — conscious to the full of the horrors and absurdities of war — that the military regime has done this much good to France, that it has brought home to the people the wondrous lesson which we may call " la charge de la communaute." Whenever the Man in the Street sees the regiment go by he must recognize it as the embodiment of -the national spirit, the symbol of self-sacrifice, calling upon him, if need be, to leave his fire- side and his personal affairs to defend the national soil. He realizes the value of such a lesson to people given up, as modern communities are, to an engrossing commercial- ism, to an all-absorbing interest in the accumulation of the " bien etre." He realizes that he is part of a great defen- sive army which is bound to risk its life and give its physical and mental best to the protection of the country against the invader. These things have an inestimable influence upon the formation of the national character. They replace Jingoism by a practical patriotism, and they make each man conscious that in his person is some 2 2 FRANCE AND THE FRENCH portion of the national flag, some intimate, integral part of the great national existence. In its physical aspects the universal call to arms has an immense and increasing effect. Quite recently the French have adopted the two years' military service system. At the time of introducing this change they resolved, in order to compensate for the loss that such an innovation en- tailed in the effectives of the army, to suppress all exemp- tions. Up to that moment a little political influence went a very long way in excusing young men of unmilitary ambitions from the " corvee " of the three years' service with the colours. Those who passed their baccalaureate were by right excused two years of the term, and enjoyed the privileged position of one-year soldiers. These ex- emptions, indeed, were widespread. The only son of a widowed mother was placed in the same category as the " bachelor " ; young seminarists were excused service, as were future officers attending the military academy of St. Cyr and the other special schools which furnish com- missions in the French army. The halcyon days of this privileged community are now over ; every young man, even the senator's son, must complete his full term in a regiment, and, moreover, authority is less indulgent to- wards any absence from drill. These hardships, if they are hardships in the real sense, have wrought an infinite physical good to the nation. The rising generation, which is inclined to be self-indulgent in the pursuit of a quiet life in the country, has been strengthened in body and mind by discipline and by service in the rough school of the barrack square, with its sharp commands as sharply answered. Route marching over long distances under the weight of rifles and knapsacks is a severe physical train- ing which has effected the greatest good in upbuilding the physique and in accustoming men to fatigue and resistance THE MODERN DEVELOPMENT OF FRANCE 23 to climatic changes. Judged from this point of view, the constant fear of invasion by a foreign army is most salutary in preventing people like the French, inclined to exaggeration in all things, from becoming emasculated and physically degenerate. That excellent writer, Norman Angell, whose "Great Illusion " is one of the most suggestive of books, calls attention to the great role of the money markets of the world in the maintenance of peace. The more compli- cated those relations grow, the less likelihood there is, he thinks, of an outbreak of hostilities. Whether we accept this extremely interesting theory with the confident optimism which he bestows upon it, at least we must realize that France, during the last few years, has come to play the part of peacemaker in Europe, because of her vast and superabundant wealth. Is it not remark- able that, whilst the conqueror of forty years ago is feeling, to a distressing degree, the obligation to provide for a vast army and a vast navy, the victims of her military predominance, with half the population and half the industrial development, have become the great money- lenders of the world ? Nations can hardly wage war without the consent of wealthy Marianne. The late autumn of 1910 offered a curious example of a French Minister of Foreign Affairs dictating terms to would-be borrowers. When the Government of Constantinople asked for ;f 6,000,000 from French pockets to acquire a navy, the French Minister (M. Pichon) replied : " If we give you the money, you must give us undertakings as to the spending of it." In the same way, when Hungary approached France for a loan of ;£"22,ooo,ooo, the proposal was refused because the produce was to be used in a direction inimical to French interests and for the advancement of the offen- sive policy of the Triple Alliance. In both cases the 24 FRANCE AND THE FRENCH money was obtained with difficulty elsewhere, but here was a new, and perhaps, dangerous diplomatic demonstra- tion of the power of gold. We have traced rapidly the development of modern France from the stirring and terrible times of the great Revolution through the Directory and Consulate, to the brilliant and yet disastrous epoch of the First Empire ; thence, to the unsatisfactory period of the Restoration and the rapid end, with the Bourgeois King, of the legitimate line, and the reappearance of the Napoleonic legend — eighteen years of meretricious Empire. We have pointed to the timid and almost Monarchical beginnings of the Third Republic and, in the pages that follow, we attempt to prove that France has eventually arrived at the steep wall, beyond which is an uninviting country : a howling wilderness of untried and perilous political theories. We show that the Bourgeoisie which has enjoyed forty years of Bourgeois government, is in danger of the domination of a class which has had no experience in the handling of responsible interests. So much for the internal situation and policy of France. In the wider field of " welt-politik," she realizes that the phase of conquest is over. No more shall she issue to trembling Europe the lofty challenge of a Continental System ; no more [save, perhaps, in Morocco, where she is the policeman of Europe] shall she wrest the desert from nomadic tribesmen ; no longer shall she plant the Tricolor on distant continents, on the vast and peopled plains of Asiatic dependencies. These days of glory and military "panache" are ended. She must be content to draw what advantage she can from the possession of unbounded wealth, which enables her to dictate a policy to those who seek her financial aid. She possesses the power of the purse ; is it not as potent as that of the sword ? CHAPTER II A STUDY IN COMPARATIVE MORALITIES THERE is nothing more difficult or delicate to dis- cuss than morality. What do we mean by morality? It has different interpretations in different lands. Some cynic declared that it was purely a question of latitude. The French, certainly, have ideas of morality different from the English. As to whether they are worse or better, that is fit subject for discussion, but I make no attempt to settle it here. I have heard French people object to the "Geisha" on the ground that it was immoral, though to most English people it seems the most innocent of musical comedies. To the cold, logical French mind, the " Geisha " meant a certain thing, and nothing else : nor could there be any romance or prettiness in it. In the same way, I have heard disapproval of the high-kicking of English "danseuses." It is indelicate as well as inartistic, say the critics, yet in establishments in Montmartre the provocative exhibition of linen is anything but refined or moral. How do you account for this apparent inconsistency, this sudden access of prudery ? I take it that the French like to keep their entertainments in water-tight compartments : the decent rigidly decent, whilst the indecorous may be astoundingly improper. This desire to mark respectability from its con- verse is seen in the plainness with which the "jeune fille" of bourgeois family dresses, in distinction, doubtless, from 25 26 FRANCE AND THE FRENCH the splendours of the " demi-mondaine." In the same way the literature given to children in respectable houses in France is astonishingly insipid and cannot compare in matter or treatment with the English or American child's story — again a desire to erect a barrier between the highly-spiced literature of later years. The strict- ness with which girls are brought up in France con- trasts all the more vividly with their liberty as married women. In what are called the "lieux de plaisir" of Paris there is certainly no nice regard for decency. Ribald gaiety and manifestations of the grosser spirit prevail. It is true that these places are not, as a rule, frequented by Parisians. The English and American bulk largely in the summer population of the city, and there is, at all times, a vast in- gathering of foreigners and provincials sufficient to keep going a dozen establishments of doubtful " genre." The chief upholder of the objectionable spectacle of the gay restaurant is the visitor and not the Parisian. When the Boer War was in progress and English people abstained from Paris by reason of the Anglophobia of the Press, and from a reluctance to adopt the festive air whilst their country was passing through a crisis, the Moulin Rouge — historic home of the can-can — closed its doors. It could not live without the English. Here, again, is a problem in morality or expediency. The Parisian who visits such spectacles is a " rara avis." The chief supporter of all shows of the kind is the Anglo- Saxon who, rigidly correct in his behaviour at home, un- bends abroad. He does not realize that his patronage of vulgar pleasures is misconstrued into approval. I have met distinguished Frenchmen, Paris-bred, who, even in student days, have never seen the inside of a " cabaret artistique." It is possible to find numbers of respectable A STUDY IN COMPARATIVE MORALITIES 27 French who never visit cafes, regarding the practice as a waste of time incompatible with a serious career. There is, I know, another reason which is less praise- worthy. Young men of the present day often decline the cheap comforts and easy environment of a cafe simply because they are accessible to everybody artd signify — or seem to signify — that one is without social relations, and, therefore, dependent on such institutions. Such a class of man will not be seen, even in the better sort of restaur- ants, for fear of the accusation that he has no friends to invite him to dinner. All this comes within the borders of expediency — the larger area of morality. Take, again, the marriage ques- tion. The Frenchman shows cold-blooded calculation in the choice of a wife, which is guided to some extent by the value of her " dot." Most careful attention is given to the question of fortune, and the ideal marriage is supposed to be the union of a man and woman whose fortunes are identical. Certainly, so careful a commercial arrangement prevents many of the disappointments that await married life in England. In France a man knows exactly what he is going in for and what he has to expect. Marriage with- out love is fairly common in England, and less common than one would suppose in France. By a merciful dis- pensation of Providence, the love seems to come after marriage, after common life has begun and given to each the knowledge of the other's temperament. By virtue of her "dot," the woman has a certain economic indepen- dence, which renders her a partner in her husband's undertakings, since she has contributed as much as he to the capital. If the French law is far from according to woman her just rights, in the matter of guarantees, she has, at least, the satisfaction of knowing that the frequent distressing scenes over housekeeping and dress accounts, 28 FRANCE AND THE FRENCH which dog the footsteps of many a wife in England, are obviated by the reason that she is spending her own money. It is difficult, no doubt, on moral grounds, to defend the selection of a future mate in life by circumstances of for- tune and suitability rather than the natural instinct of a man, which is supposed to prevail in England ; but the custom of marrying where money is, is not unknown with us, nor does it tend to married unhappiness where it does exist. There is something to be said for the system which gives security to the "bien etre" and safeguards the dignity of the household from the disaster and even moral degradation that so often follow the loss of fortune. Then, again, the close union of families which, in France, results from intermarriage, imposes certain moral restraints which, however irksome to the marital temperament, do not, as far as I can judge, turn out badly. The freedom of the married woman is, certainly, sharply contrasted with the constant parental surveillance of the young girl. Though (as I show elsewhere) there is a tendency to break down the Chinese Wall of convention, it is not as general as some would have us believe. The saving habit, early inculcated, is another cause which, whilst it leads to unlovely economy, has a binding and, in a certain sense, restraining influence in family life. It has been said that everything is preordained in France except the traffic, whilst in England nothing is preordained except the police control of the highways. History cannot be left out of any consideration of a people, with the complicated civilization of the French, and their in- tense thriftiness may be said to be the direct result of the grinding poverty, which weighed upon them in the eighteenth century. It was this poverty which provoked the Revolution — a poverty accentuated by the escape of a A STUDY IN COMPARATIVE MORALITIES 29 numerous privileged class from taxation. Economic con- ditions have played the leading role ever since, in insurrec- tions in this and other countries. As a rule, a prosperous people are immune from dynastic disturbances, and the long and comparatively calm rule of constitutional mon- archy in England results from the fact that the British working classes have been, until lately, in a comparatively better position, materially and morally, than their neigh- bours on the Continent. That this is no longer true, to- day, or much less true than formerly, provides one of the greatest problems for the future governance of the people in the United Kingdom. The presence of a large mass of unemployed and of unskilled workers, a prey to the un- certainties of existence, may be a reason why an atmo- sphere of discontent has grown up for which a remedy is sought in various empirical ways. Obviously, unemploy- ment is one of the most important problems with which a Government can deal, and there is nothing more dangerous for the tranquillity of a community than poverty in its most hopeless and degraded form. Outward circumstances change the character of a people to an extraordinary and unexpected extent. It cannot be doubted that a profound change in the temperament of the French has resulted from their reverses in 1 870. They lost their light-heartedness and gaiety of spirits at Sedan and they have not recovered them since. The modern Parisian has neither the expansiveness nor the good humour of his forbears. A Frenchman of the older school is a totally different being in character from his successors to-day. The stranger is struck with the reserve that meets him everywhere in Northern France, and, if the Meridional has kept something of his exuberance, he has, in the process, estranged himself from the rest of his countrymen, with the result that there is as great a 30 FRANCE AND THE FRENCH temperamental difference between a Northern and Southern Frenchman as between a German and a Southern Italian. Frenchmen are no longer as communicative and as free in conversation as before the War ; they have imbibed some- thing of the phlegm of the Briton and Teuton. The modern German is much more boastful and aggressive than the modern Frenchman. Reticence towards the stranger has contributed to a loss of charm in France, and one is struck by the seriousness of the people. On the other hand, the English appear to have grown more frivolous, more addicted to pleasure, than aforetime, whilst they have added immeasurably to their outward graces. Real politeness is much more common in England than in France. This is not to say that the Frenchman has grown impolite, but that he keeps his manners and his ceremonial usages for his own kith and kin. His treat- ment of a lady to whom he has not been introduced is often curiously casual. The stranger is no longer welcomed with effusiveness and, indeed, is chilled sometimes by an apparent lack of appreciation of his society. The native- born Frenchman is inclined to distrust everything. He is suspicious. This is seen in his business operations, which are safeguarded with astonishing precautions. Non-specu- lative and un-enterprising by instinct and training, he in- vests his savings only in gilt-edged securities ; Government bonds of all denominations attract him. For this reason he has become the money-lender of the world. Com- paratively few of his savings go in enterprises at home or abroad where the slightest risk exists. His own industries often languish for want of funds. There are undeveloped tracts in France containing mineral wealth which might, reasonably, be exploited if there were more adventure among the commercial and moneyed classes. But this very exaggeration of prudence has caused Prudhomme to A STUDY IN COMPARATIVE MORALITIES 31 turn banker for the more industrially-developed nations or for the smaller States whom he can dominate with his capital. Thus, France has a voice in the affairs of the world, because of her solid interests in other people's con- cerns, and apart from her own political position. Her influence is in no small measure due to the expatriated wealth of the " rentier." In England, the tendency is to concentrate large masses of capital in few hands. This is apparent in all bond issues. British Consols can only be held, except as Post Office savings, in packets of ;^ioo, which fact is largely responsible for their low price, whereas one-fourth of a ;6^20 Municipal Bond is a common form of investment among the saving poor in France. To such a length is this principle carried that a person subscribing for one to five shares in France in any concern of high guarantee is certain to receive his allotment. The tendency of French finance is to increase the number of shareholders instead of limiting it as in England, where preference is given to the applica- tion of the wealthy capitalist. A Frenchman's supiciousness betrays itself in all social \ and commercial relations. If a man is invited to dinner ' by a host whom he does not know intimately, he will immediately suspect an ulterior motive. " What does he ^ want to get out of me ? " he asks himself He does not comprehend the open-handed hospitality of the English, who throw wide their doors to strangers with the facility with which a Frenchman leaves his card upon you. Foreigners of long residence in France, even if they are personally liked, rarely have an opportunity of seeing a French home, and this strange exclusiveness is still persisted in, notwithstanding the great growth of business relations between the two countries and a large exchange of official and semi-official civilities and entertainments. 32 FRANCE AND THE FRENCH Unless the Englishman marries into a French family, or is able to serve a Frenchman in some way, he rarely sees him in his own private and intimate surroundings, but must be content with rather superficial and perfunctory entertainment either at a large At Home or in a restaurant. The Frenchman's reluctance to take strangers into his confidence and introduce them to the society of his wife and children is based largely on his instinctive rule to do nothing without guarantees and substantial pledges of bona-fides. The absence, to a large extent, of advertisements in newspapers is due to the knowledge of the tradesman that his public is sceptical and cannot be reached in that way, and, above all, resents the assumption that it is naive or a " poire." The self-praise that is no recommendation raises in the breast of the ordinary French reader a feeling that chicanery or fraud is afoot. The louder the "reclame," the more certain is he that the goods are worthless or inferior. This is one of the reasons why "American methods," as they have come to be called, make little headway in the native business world of Paris. The French Thomas Didymus must have his doubts set at rest by material proof. The pictorial poster has a certain vogue, but here the appeal is different — the artistic side predominates, more especially when the work is signed by some well-known draughtsman. There remains the question which we set out to discuss : the comparative morality of two peoples. Are the French more moral or less moral than the English? A recent play by Brieux, entitled " La Frangaise," castigates the foreigner who supposes that every Frenchwoman is " facile," ready to be debauched from loyalty to her husband. Though there is no greater libel on the large mass of Frenchwomen, the existence of this assumption is not wholly the fault of A STUDY IN COMPARATIVE MORALITIES 33 the foreigner. The inhabitants of France take a morbid pleasure in detracting from their own virtues, and in painting themselves black. Whereas the Englishman is apt to assume moral qualities that he does not possess, out of a hypocritical regard for his neighbour's opinion, the Frenchman is just as anxious to show himaelf " a bit of a dog," because this is a passport to popularity amongst certain of his compatriots. He boasts of his conquests, real or imaginary, with the gusto of a sportsman recount- ing his bag or the fisherman his tally of fish. But this, of course, is not the case with the best class of man. Such braggart estimates in the one field or the other are to be taken with more than a grain of salt; sometimes they are wholly illusory. The most quiet Frenchman will, under certain circumstances, avow himself a perfect demon for pleasure of a questionable sort, though appearances, as well as his private reputation and consistently laborious life, are evidence to the contrary. His habit to represent himself worse than he is and to laugh, as if in sympathy, at the follies of others is partly inspired by a wish to vary the monotony of the Realities by fiirting with the For- bidden. He is a child playing with moral fire and liking to appear brave. Yet, in his ordinary conduct, he is, probably, no worse a man than the citizen of any other country. Elsewhere I have remarked on his coldness ; his lack of sickly sentiment places him in another category from the English. Who can read the cheaper English fiction with- out coming to the conclusion that there is a mass of our countrymen and women, whose tastes are most rudi- mentary, whose perceptions of life are nil, and whose insistence on pleasant endings, in defiance of all proba- bilities, marks a state of mind wanting in artistic sincerity? Whilst there is a number of French publications, whose 3 34 FRANCE AND THE FRENCH coarseness and obscenity arc matter for wonderment in so cultivated a community, there are periodicals such as the " Annales Litteraires et Politiques," which have a high general tone and, in the literary nature of their contents, are far beyond anything of the kind produced in England. Even in the worst of the illustrated hebdomadal Press, there is the excuse of wit. There is, happily, for the country, no snippets public in France. The height of St. Paul's Cathedral and the weight of its roof gutters ; the length of the great North Road ; how to grow cabbages on flannel aprons and other strange information may be quite harmless, morally, but its weekly consumption by the British reader must surely contribute to the growing insanity. The entertainments given in French music-halls — par- ticularly in the Provinces — are often unspeakably gross, and must be a source of contamination to the young. Here, again, there is segregation of the sheep from the goats, and, generally speaking, the young girl, as well as her young brother, is debarred from these spectacles. The freer life of the English girl would hardly be possible in Paris, to-day, even impregnated, as it is, with Anglo- Saxon influences ; but there is growing up a tendency to provide a middle sort of entertainment, which is com- parable with the fare provided by the London music-hall, and contains nothing of offence to the young person. In course of time, doubtless, the unmarried French lady will be as enfranchised as her married sister — able to move without remark through the streets ; this is already true to a certain extent, though demanding considerable cir- cumspection on the part of the lady, especially if she is young and attractive. A contributory cause to this wider freedom of the sex is the wish and necessity of unpro- vided females, or even of the dowered girls of the A STUDY IN COMPARATIVE MORALITIES 35 Bourgeoisie, to earn their own livings and carve out their own careers. The ordinary " piece a these," as well as the novels of the most fashionable writers, gives the foreigner the impression that chastity and fidelity in the domestic circle are the rarest virtues. It is singular that scarcely any6ne of talent has arisen to paint the ordinary Frenchwoman, the woman of the country : laborious, thrifty, a model wife, concerned exclusively with the up-bringing of her family and the affairs of her husband, entering with zest into his business life and superintending, with minute care, the expenditure of the household, as well as every operation of the counting- house. The most capable woman in Europe, Madame Dupont — the type of the middle-class — is amongst the most virtuous. Nor has one ever challenged her devotion to husband and children. Even on the question of divorce, there is much to be said for the French point of view. Is it better to continue to cohabit when there is no love, or to separate in an attempt to reconstitute one's life? French people, except those who are consistent Catholics, adopt the latter view and say (just as do many Americans) it is preferable to recognize, frankly, the impossibility of a domestic situation and make a fresh start instead of con- tinuing an arrangement which condemns two people to a life of subterfuge, and provides the spectacle of a menage disunited upon all essential points. The frequency of divorce in France and America so often deplored by religious people may be — may it not ? — a sign, not of lower morality but of higher perceptions. An undoubted reason is the incxpensiveness of the process in both countries, whereas in England the cost of separation, in the full legal sense, averages ;^200 — a figure quite impossible for the lower middle class. The Church people, of course, will not admit of the possibility of divorce, marriage being a 36 FRANCE AND THE FRENCH sacrament in their eyes ; but Church leaders either in France or England have never been distinguished for a frank recognition of the difficulties of everyday existence, but have contented themselves with applying formulae whether they represent a real remedy or not. An English bishop, lecturing on the declining birth-rate, tells the men to shoulder parental responsibilities — on ;^i a week? — and the women to abjure political aspirations and return to their home circles. Such words exhibit a certain courage in the twentieth century, but they cannot be said to offer a real solution of a great difficulty. Having tasted the larger life of political action and the freedom that comes from professional careers, in which men have hitherto been dominant, women are not likely to content themselves with the restricted horizons of their own homes, having, for the sole occupation of their intellects, the varying whims of their husband, or the measles of their children. Evidently, a new Gospel is required, less flattering to masculine complacency. French public opinion recognizes, more intelligently, the right of women to emancipation, and each day new triumphs are pinned, like rosettes, to the Phrygian cap of Marianne. The moral aspect is inseparable from the question of the sexes. Elsewhere I attempt to prove that the Frenchman is more carnal in his manner of looking at women ; the Englishman is more correct and colder in his appreciation of feminine charms. The latter leaves his wife largely to her own society, whilst he betakes himself to his club ; the former cannot imagine existence without woman — some woman — though his fidelity to the marriage bond is probably less pronounced than that of the Englishman. Still, he is a delightful companion to the sex, and is too clever a man to adopt that curious A STUDY IN COMPARATIVE MORALITIES 37 attitude of superiority to which Englishmen are prone in conversation with the " weaker vessel." The Latin is a more imaginative creature, more adaptable, better able to place himself in the position of another ; the Englishman, on the other hand, is more rigid in his principles, unbend- ing, kind but firm, the genial master, but th^ undoubted master of his own household. Judged, exclusively, from the point of view of the race, it may be well that a woman should take second place, occupying herself largely with domestic duties and the care of the household ; it is this acknowledged inferiority of the sex which has contributed, in some measure, to the dominance of Germany to-day. At the same time, it has its dangers, this calm egoism — dangers which outweigh the advantages that seem to come from unchallenged masculine supremacy. The Americans, whose progress in the world is made with giant steps, treat their women with greater gallantry and deference than the English, and yet they have not lost, apparently, their virtue of virility. There are signs, however, of matriarchy in America, where, practically, the education of the country is in the hands of women ; there are also signs of it in France, but here it is complicated by the thousand shadings of an old civilization. The great difference between the French- woman and any other is her insistence on remaining feminine. Nothing can be more regrettable from the sex point of view than the strong-minded creature who has lost all charm or attraction for man ; but women with the same advanced views in France will have retained that secret of their sex which is more powerful than argument and defies analysis. It is their magnetism that makes them invincible. The unruffled hair of the " caissiere " in a French shop, the perfect manners of the " patronne " of one of the many establishments run by women, are 38 FRANCE AND THE FRENCH fascinating and puzzling phenomena in the rise of women to economic independence. And yet justice compels me to say that the loss of feminine charm in England, to which I have just alluded, is directly traceable to the stupidity of my own sex. The Englishman is hard to convince ; a charge of dynamite is necessary to let in the new idea. If proof were needed, you have it in the strange reluctance of political parties in England to face facts — glaring facts as to the necessity of a continental army, and of dealing with overwhelming destitution by adopting a fiscal system in consonance with universal experience. The party which is nominally the most advanced in England is more conservative than any other in its adherence to an exploded political thesis — exploded, not because of its inherent falsity, but because the circumstances in which it was born have radically altered. The Englishman, then, is a stubborn creature, and requires strong argument for his brain, just as he requires strong drink for his palate. The Suffragettes declare that a woman must die for the cause before it is really established ; in any case, it is clear that in no other country but England would such strange and forceful methods have been necessary to set up a new elective principle. Actors in the movement have been affected by the difficulty of their task, and instead of relying upon their own potent and highly effective weapons of womanly persuasion, have sought the primitive club in the arsenal of man. In considering the economic position of women in France, we are faced with this inconsistency, that whilst, as I show later — in a chapter dealing particularly with this question — Parliamentarians and the elite of the nation are favourable to the Women's Cause and write eloquent articles in the newspapers in support of it, there is a A STUDY IN COMPARATIVE MORALITIES 39 reluctance to pay the female worker a living wage, or at least one equal to that paid to man for the same class of work. This is particularly true in industries connected with luxuries. The work-girls in the dressmakers' estab- lishments are notoriously ill recompensed. Two francs fifty centimes, the scale for the ordinary seeing woman, cannot be considered adequate remuneration for a working day of from eight to ten hours. The question of the / emancipation of the sex can never be settled until women ^ are paid in proportion to their services, or, at least, on a footing of equality with man. Without going as far as the Socialists, who claim wages for the wife engaged in house- hold work, one must feel that if the sex is to continue to make progress, it must be fairly dealt with in the labour market. And this question concerns conduct. How is a girl to be moral, to preserve her dignity as a woman, if honest labour yields her an insufficient livelihood ? The reply of employers of labour, when faced with this problem, is that they employ girls who are not wholly dependent upon them and who live with their parents or are otherwise provided for. But this is a hypocritical disclaimer. Only those who wilfully disregard facts can fail to see that the semi-prostitution which exists in Paris, to an extent unknown in London, is directly due to the failure of young women to obtain independence by honest labour. The " ami," the " amant " becomes an economic necessity. The subject is complicated by other considerations. Amongst the Latins the call for intercommunication and companionship amongst the sexes is much more strongly felt than amongst the Anglo-Saxons. The idea of celibacy is abhorrent even to the most intellectually enfranchised Frenchwoman, suggesting a life of incredible loneliness and, also, reflecting upon her personal charm 40 FRANCE AND THE FRENCH and her ability to inspire the admiration of the opposite sex. She does not understand the bachelor existence of so many Englishwomen — an existence not forced upon them by the material fact of being unable to marry, but from deliberate choice and from a wish to lead an indepen- dent life. The biggest " bas bleu " in France never supposes her intellectual attainments to be any bar to marriage, to a common life with the man she loves. Here is a vast difference in the sentimental attitude of the two nations. The one can, apparently, live without the companionship of the opposite sex, the other cannot. Such a fact affects the mental outlook of the people, their disposition towards life. Glance out of your window at the crowds in Paris, and you see more couples than is ever the case in London. The man who forms a self- conscious escort to his wife or sweetheart or sisters in London is the exception ; women do their shopping alone. Who ever heard of an Englishman offering to help his wife in the choice of a hat or furbelow ? He would be laughed at, as effeminate. Even she would despise him and tell him to play golf. But intimate co-operation of the sort is frequent in France, where the man is called in to decide nice points of colour, to approve the correctness of line, to testify to the proper fall of a skirt. If he is not more effeminate, the Frenchman is vastly more in touch with the concerns of his wife ; he enters into her little joys and sorrows, her feminine perplexities, with an acuter knowledge of the feminine mind and its special require- ments than is ever possessed by the sturdier John Bull, who has never got out of his head that woman is slightly inferior and only brought into the world as an afterthought by the Creator. Frenchmen cannot live alone ; there must always be an Eve in their paradise. The bachelor party, which is a A STUDY IN COMPARATIVE MORALITIES 41 common feature in English social life, is unthinkable in France. How can men enjoy themselves without women ? Woman is their enjoyment. It is only the cold English- man who wants to leave his wife at home, whilst he banquets or plays golf. The Frenchman's first essays in the royal and ancient game are always accompanied by a feminine retinue : his wife, his aunt, and his mother-in- law. It is only when he makes progress in the game and realizes the niceties of its etiquette, that he consents to separate himself for an hour or two from feminine society. Unless he plays advanced golf, he will always prefer his wife's society on the links to that of a man. This is why club life is impossible in Paris, except club life of a special sort, involving baccarat for high stakes, and appealing to a rich and leisured class. Yet, here, compensations are offered to the offended goddess, momentarily abandoned, whilst her husband goes to the " tripot." She is invited to weekly theatrical entertainments at the clubs — enter- tainments provided for, by the way, by the card-money squandered by the men. And the exhibitions of all sorts that flourish at the clubs — nearly every one has some artistic mission — are so many occasions for the mingling of the sexes. This explanation of the perpetual inclination of French- men and women towards each other is necessary when we are considering morality. We, in England, are apt to associ- ate purity with coldness, but the absence of desire is no virtue. It points to something abnormal, to a lack of mental en- dowment, to a paucity of imagination. The rich creative- ness of the French people, their glorious achievements in art, expressed in the embellishments of their beautiful capital, are so many signs and symbols of exuberant sex relationship which finds expression in plastic and pictorial forms. Art and life are inextricably bound — there can be 42 FRANCE AND THE FRENCH no art without love, and scarcely a temperament without the sense of the fuller life. The people who suggest that France might now turn to Protestantism and possibly to Nonconformity, since they have broken with the Catholic Church, fail to realize what a wide hiatus there is between the Anglo-Saxon and the Latin,betwecn the essentially Pro- testant and the essentially Catholic. One might go further and show the close relationship of religion, in its outward forms and symbolism, with art : the art of the early days •of piety, when a Christian enthusiasm showed itself in the construction of beautiful and God-given cathedrals, when a Raphael and a Michael Angelo transferred the face of angels and heavenly cherubs to their canvas. In the same way, there is distinctively a rich creative period in England when new religious impulses were stirring, and a dull and repellent period, when those impulses seemed to be disappearing, leaving only a deposit of religious in- tolerance and sectarian bitterness. Art and a narrow nature cannot go together : the Puritan horror of art is proof of it. Hence, bound up in the particular tempera- ment of the French, their regard for sex, and their ex- aggerated worship of the human form is their pre-eminence in artistic matters. This pre-eminence, however, seems challenged at the present time by England and Germany, if not, to some extent, by America. To the growing materialism, of which I treat in the pages of this book, may be due the decline in those qualities in the French, which made them produce wonderful things, and the same causes, which contribute to the social and political stagnation, may, and undoubtedly do, operate unfavourably upon art, exalting the clever and mechanical above true inspiration. The unspiritual conception of women, which belongs to the Frenchman's reading of sexual difference, sometimes A STUDY IN COMPARATIVE MORALITIES 43 grates upon the sensitiveness of colder northern minds. Yet, familiarity with the other sex protects from those abysses into which the rash and inexperienced feet of the Englishman may lead him. By dint of practice, the Frenchman can walk with surer steps upon the precipices of a passion which tends to overwhelm the Englishman. The melting of snows upon the mountain top causes a torrent which sweeps away every obstacle in its path. Obviously, the inner life of the Englishman, who can exist without feeling any urgent necessity for female companion- ship, must differ vastly from that of the Frenchman who, at the dawn of manhood, provides himself with female society. Some idea of the conception of the two nations on delicate matters of this sort may be gathered from reading the pages of "Sapho," which was certainly penned by Alphonse Daudet with no idea that he was writing an improper book. " A mes fils quand ils auront vingt ans." Evidently the author, when he wrote that dedication, felt that the moral of the book would be useful to every young man. An English parent would have preferred that his children should have lived in ignorance of such questions until, at least, much later in life. From conversation at table, from the fact that he is always with his parents and overhears their daring discussion of all topics, rarely checked because of his presence, the French boy early becomes acquainted with those problems of life — and provides his own precocious solution of them — upon which blue-eyed English children look with un- seeing innocence. The fact that so few doors are marked " Private " in France makes social intercourse alluring and stimulating, awakens trains of thought and forces the talent ; at the same time this very openness of discussion, this tendency to " tout dire," is dangerous to the unprepared. Virgin soil, if it produces richer fruits, also produces 44 FRANCE AND THE FRENCH ranker growths than land which has been tilled a thousand years. Business ethics cannot be dissociated from any dis- cussion of moral behaviour. Have the French a less nice sense of honour and strict honesty when they are dealing with affairs, with questions that involve money interests ? Comparisons are odious ; a too pronounced desire to probe may become invidious ; at the same time, truth constrains me to say that the mass of French business people, whilst perfectly honourable in keeping engage- ments — the French Government through all its vicissitudes has always fulfilled its obligations — are, at the same time, less mindful of their word than the Englishman. It used to be said that an Englishman's word was as good as his bond. Though I fear there is some deterioration from this high standard, it is still apparent to all who know the two nations well that the Englishman will abide by an unlucky bargain when he has given his word, whereas the Frenchman is apt to revise his opinion on the morrow — if his agreement has not been put into writing. In the past, before the days of the Entente Cordiale, English Ambassadors in Paris had constant difficulty in settling the preliminaries of any diplomatic instrument, for the reason that the Foreign Minister of the day was apt on the morrow to go back upon his expressed intention of the day before. To the French mind, this is not dis- honesty or want of strict honour ; it is merely a business habit which must be understood as such. The English- man is reluctant to give his word even when it means mere politeness. He hesitates long before he makes a promise ; but when he has made it, he hesitates longer before he breaks it. With a Frenchman, to speak is as easy as to breathe; he is naturally expansive when discuss- ing a business affair — it is his method of arguing it out, of A STUDY IN COMPARATIVE MORALITIES 45 getting all round it. But unless he gives his signature, his verbal undertakings amount to very little. He does not mean to convey a wrong impression ; the habit is con- stitutional, it springs from a chronic inability to make up his mind. A famous Frenchman said recently, in reference to his retirement from a high public office : " Whatever decision I take, I know I shall regret it on the morrow." That is characteristic of the national habit ; it is a mental bias that has to be accepted by those who wish to do business in France. Again, there is an unfortunate tendency, especially among the smaller " commer9ants," to cheat the foreigner, to get as much as possible out of him. One is immediately struck with that on arriving in France. There are two prices in the shops : one for the English and Americans, the other for other people. The first figure is twice as high as the second. The foreigner is often annoyed by attempts to get the better of him, exhibited by waiters, "cochers" and kiosk keepers, who charge him double, give him bad money, or render incorrect change. One likes to think that these things do not happen in England ; they are less general, but I am afraid they do happen. A French lady, knowing no English, told me that recently she took a cab from Charing Cross to an address at Earl's Court — a fare of half-a-crown. She gave the cabman a sovereign and awaited the change, explaining what she wanted by signs. The cabby gave a sharp look at his fare, whipped up his horse, and disappeared round the corner. A distinguished Japanese, coming to London for the first time as a poor lad, bought bread at a baker's shop in the East End, near the Docks, and tendered a sovereign. The tradesman kept the sovereign and hustled the lad out of doors with his penny loaf. I have said that the Frenchman delights in painting 46 FRANCE AND THE FRENCH himself blacker than he is. He takes a rhetorical interest in being perverse. His attitude may be compared with the Socratian method of asking questions, not so much to hear the answer as to debate the subject in one's own mind. The French Intellectual is always a rhetorician, setting up academic ninepins to knock them down. He loves the general principles, whereas your more positive Englishman has " no use " for them. He wants facts and a concrete instance, whilst the Latin mind tends towards the general theory : he must state a case and argue about it. This fondness for discussion, this perpetual eagerness for analysis, this desire to probe things to the bottom, to carry a matter to its logical conclusions make conversation extraordinarily interesting and life in France a perpetual feast to the intellectually alert. At the same time it has its dangers, particularly to the not over-bright person who takes everything " au pied de la lettre," and imagines that he is in the midst of the most disquieting symptoms of decadence. The mocking spirit is very near in any Frenchman's conversation. He indulges in " persiflage," in the bandy- ing of words, in the examination of all aspects of a question with the relish and enthusiasm with which the young generation in England gives itself to sport. To him it is a needed exercise to get rid of his superfluous energy : he finds new strength and refreshment in these passages of arms, in these conflicts with words. Thus, he gives utterance to opinions which are not really his, merely for the pleasure of shocking, to hear the remonstrance, the excited disclaimer. This acts as a stimulus to his own brain ; he finds nothing more enjoyable. The mental habit explains a great deal, explains much in books and plays that grieves the superficial observer of the French. "What? Is it possible that a people can hold such A STUDY IN COMPARATIVE MORALITIES 47 theories and be accounted respectable, or even sane ? " The critic fails to observe the undercurrent of satire or the pure mischief of the writer, who is out to relieve his summer energy with a little idol-smashing. Intellectual iconoclasts abound in France. They are ever busy with axe and hammer destroying the cherished images of the past; and the greatest of them all was Voltaire, who died, miserably, as we know, watched over, as a prisoner might be, by two avaricious relatives, who were afraid that his fortune should escape them and were determined that his person should not. Here you have the tragedy of a great " moqueur," the man who made everything the butt of his ridicule, who dulled the bright surface of religion, of the kingly power, of the things that men had held sacred. He is the great Sower, the great Apostle of the Revolution, and yet he dies like this, on his own Quai Voltaire, like a rat caught in the trap of the most demoralizing passion of man. In Zola's "La Terre'* we have a terrible picture of the peasant " grippe-sou," who will squeeze out life and love for the sake of money. And yet one must not lose sight of his almost sublime passion for the rich brown soil, which is to him Fecund Nature. He will hold and keep his land against all comers, and it is this determination which gives him a savage courage to labour the year through. Avarice, however, is the curse from which the French, with all their extraordinary in- tellectual resources, their brilliance of mind and real achievements in the arts and sciences, are unable to escape. It colours many of their actions, otherwise inconceivable. And yet, side by side with the unlovely ^^^ miser, the economizer at all costs, is a lower middle class distinguished for much kindness of heart, much comprehension of the neighbour's position, much practical sympathy. 48 FRANCE AND THE FRENCH Then, again, where is the people whose recognition of talent, unaccompanied by worldly wealth, is more gener- ous ? " My respect rises with every step I mount," said a famous Frenchman when visiting Guizot, then a Minister of France, and inhabiting a fifth floor. A distinguished French Admiral of European reputation lives as near the roof as that, and with an entire absence of ostentation. Simplicity and elegant poverty often accompany real intellectual distinction in this country. " I have to leave England to find my self-respect" would never have been uttered by a French scientist ; he is always respected. So, you see, there is a complexity in the French charac- ter that is not easily defined. I think you must not divorce it from any consideration of French morals. The French- man is a complicated creature and has a complicated moral system. He thinks it wrong or, at least, useless to flirt. The " demi-vierge " or " allumeuse," not unknown in English latitudes, is castigated by Marcel Prevost, who expressed the judgment of his countrymen when he wrote his famous novel. Honest Frenchwomen do not play with the passions. They are either swept off their feet by a sudden great love or they deliberately enter upon a certain course from want of principle or because it provides an easy life. They do not understand the point of view of the woman who sets out to make conquests, to break men's hearts, merely to while away a summer's day. When they enter upon the field of amatory experience, they are either blinded to the results by an overwhelming passion or their eyes are open, foreseeing the end and counting the cost. It is from the lack of comprehension of the Anglo-Saxon view that Frenchwomen often refuse to credit the English or American woman with virtue, and, indeed, accuse her of a cold hypocrisy because her evident object is to enjoy herself to the utmost in masculine society, always with the A STUDY IN COMPARATIVE MORALITIES 49 determination to save herself at the last ditch. Such an attitude of final reservation is not possible in the case of a Frenchwoman, who, however, is prepared to go to lengths undreamed of by Englishwomen, when her affections are really engaged. The women who have lovers, however, the women of the novels and the plays, are those of a certain set in large towns and are not typical in any way of provincial France. The ordinary Frenchwoman should be defended from literary calumny. In the desire to give us life with a big L, authors often submit travesties of the truth and the grossest libel upon their countrywomen. Costume, though it is not generally recognized, plays its part in the moral Cosmos. Paris fashions are alluring, " provocateur," troubling in the " line," the accentuation of the silhouette. An undefined challenge is thrown down by the Parisian " elegante." You never find the same sensa- tional appeal in Englishwomen's clothes. The absence may mark a greater modesty — at any rate, a less daring attempt to catch the eye. Marcel Prevost, in one of his delightful articles, declares that the object of feminine garb is to awaken the interest of distrait man. The male is an absent-minded beggar who, absorbed in his own egotistical ambitions, is unmindful of the female and her embellish- ments, unless his eye be attracted thereunto by the " misf en scene," the constant change of frame. There is, thus, a closer relationship between morality and clothes than is indicated by the circumstance that in the days of inno- cence and purity our first parents wandered unclothed in Eden. French fashions are seductive because they heighten women's charms. The Englishwoman's large indifference to fashion — the little time she spends before the mirror, her absence of coquetry — comes possibly from a moral objection to female vanity and from a desire to make her 4 50 FRANCE AND THE FRENCH appeal to man intellectual — a question, perhaps, of mental attachment, or, at least, a wholesome physical attraction depending in no wise upon arts and wiles and meretricious aids. But the Frenchwoman is differently constituted. She thinks in clothes, and passes long hours in the confection of her toilette. The result, certainly, is something that puts to blush the Englishwoman's efforts in the same direction. It is not the clothes she wears, but the manner of her wearing them, that is so striking, so characteristic, so full of message to the male. Clothes, then, play a large part in this question of rela- tive morality. I do not say that the Frenchwoman is less moral than the English because she spends more time on the arrangement of her toilette, but I say that, rendering herself more attractive, she exposes herself to a greater danger; she heightens the stimulus with consequences that may threaten her peace of mind, whilst, at the same time, they will flatter her desire for conquest. Herein appears another aspect of the question. Homage to women of the two nations is differently expressed. To an Englishwoman of respectable upbringing there is some- thing frightening in being followed in the street ; she has a horror of the overture. It seems to her to show a lack of respect, to place her on a level with the " facile," the too easily approached. It is an insult to her womanly pride, a detraction from her virtue. Not so the Frenchwoman. Homage is homage, and, though she will equally repel the stranger, she will not feel her " amour propre " injured thereby ; on the contrary, she will experience a secret glow of pleasure at the thought that her charms have been suffi- cient to evoke this unsolicited tribute of the street. You observe the point of view ; how different it is. It tinges everything. It is the arbitrator in this great question of clothes. Englishwomen dress because they must, with just A STUDY IN COMPARATIVE MORALITIES 51 a vague impression that this or that colour, this or that hat will please the male upon whom their happiness in life partially depends. The Frenchwoman makes no secret of her concern when her best sartorial efforts are unap- preciated by her companion in life. To her, admiration is as essential to existence as breath in the nostril, as sunshine to the flower. Then there is the morality of politics. In her international relations, France has always been singularly high-minded. Governments may succeed one another, dynasties fall and be replaced by other regimes, but the French national honour is unassailable. And France shows courage, too. Take, if you will, the rehabilitation of Dreyfus. Here was a man whom half the country still believed to be guilty ; but Parliament resolved to annul his condemnation, to restore technically his good name, and to reinstate him in the army. And it had the courage of its convictions. French- men usually have ; they are ready, in the habitual phrase, to stand behind a barricade in defence of their principles. And so public honour was done the man who had been publicly dishonoured, whose hair had been whitened by a horrible accusation and by false imprisonment. And yet, considered individually, the French deputy is not conspicu- ous for high moral courage or for a deep sense of respons- ibility. Mingle with his kind in the Salle des Pas Perdus, or in the corridors of the Chamber, and you will hear many expressions and see many significant smiles in the haze of cigarette smoke, which suggest that the elect of the people does not always take his duties to his country very seriously. He is a sort of local servant, sworn and well-paid, to carry out the wishes of the electorate. It was this indifference to the public weal — particularly illustrated in the growth of the " fonctionnaire " — which inspired the cry for Proportional Representation and led 52 FRANCE AND THE FRENCH to the substitution of the " scrutin de liste " for the " scrutin d'arrondissement." It was the feeling that perhaps loftier motives would be instilled into the breast of the people's representative if his election depended upon departmental influences rather than upon the "esprit du clocher " or parochial caucus. Though as member of the family of nations France is nearly irreproachable, I think that, man for man, her members of Parliament will not compare in political morality with their British confreres at West- minster. The deputy has his peculiar conception of the role. He is there, first and foremost, to serve the people who sent him to the place ; he must urge the local interest above the patriotic interest, and he often does, with the result that budgets grow larger and larger, the National Debt increases by leaps and bounds and the area of political corruption spreads. In the same way, the newspaper proprietor in France regards every corner of his property as a gold mine, in which no possible piece of quartz is to be omitted from the crushing machine. Thus, those parts of a newspaper which in England are regarded as disinterested — at least it was so until quite recently — the financial and the editorial columns, are delivered over frankly to a money-making speculation. A most fruitful source of publicity in a French journal is the Stock Exchange information which, conveyed in the form of notes to the investor, is so much paid " reclame " for such and such a company or trading corporation. Many of the " critiques " of the smaller theatres are also paid for. The French are perfectly sensible of the value of good criticism and enjoy it, but they think that the puff " compte rendu " of an obviously second-class entertainment does no harm to anybody. The public must know that it is not " serious," they say. The argument of the newspaper proprietor is : A STUDY IN COMPARATIVE MORALITIES 53 " Why should I give an advertisement for nothing ? This sort of show is not art, but mere money-making." Again, a new conception of the role of the newspaper — another point in morality. What, then, is the general result of these reflections? Are the French worse, morally, than the English ? Do they have a less lofty standard of right and wrong ? Are they less set upon perfection in human conduct? Are they less inspired by a sense of responsibility towards their fellow-men, duty towards their God? These are questions difficult to answer — again because of the point of view and because of the difficulty of arriving at conclusions. Most people acquainted with France will say that the code of personal honour is less high to-day than it was thirty years ago, but is it not true of other nations? These things can only be established after long and exhaustive inquiry — if they can ever be established. I think it may be said that whilst the individual Frenchman is just as mindful of his honour as the inhabitant of any other country and as the British, he displays symptoms in his mental make-up — and signs of it are everywhere in the nation — that are dangerous and point to deterioration, rapid and sure, un- less checked by wholesome reaction. My principal object, however, in this chapter was not to state invidiously that this was moral and the other immoral, but rather to let the reader see that there are two points of view even in the moral code and that the Frenchman holds to one and the Englishman to another. If I have succeeded in doing that, I have done a partial justice to the French people, whose apparent levities and inconsistencies are so little understood by the outsider. CHAPTER III TENDENCIES IN LITERATURE AND ART EACH year the Salons of the Artistes Frangais and Societe des Beaux Arts fill the spacious building of the Grand Palais. The exhibition is tremendous. There is something brain-whirling in the contemplation of this enormous output of pigment, this colossal annual effort towards the coloured presentation of the age. Five thousand works of art appear in the " official " Salon, as the exhibition of the Artistes Fran^ais is called, and about half that number in the rival society- founded by Meissonier some twenty years ago. As one walks through these endless galleries one is oppressed by the feeling of so much labour, so much thought, so many ambitions, expended upon expressing the personality and point of view in terms of paint. What does it all amount to ? What is the upshot of it all ? Even to paint badly, to paint without inspiration, as a dull and deadly exercise of the hand — a mere experiment in technique, with no real virtuosity — is a difficult performance, and there are hundreds, even thousands, of young people whose work may be thus characterized : work without genius, laborious sometimes, but lacking all spark of the sacred fire. They are the products of the innumerable schools and ateliers which flourish in Paris as in Athens of old. They repre- sent that tendency towards the pictorial and plastic which is the characteristic of to-day. It is a sign, no doubt, of 54 TENDENCIES IN LITERATURE AND ART 55 decadence that the rising generation should expend so much effort on canvas and in stone and so little in those intellectual directions that make no appeal to the senses. It is a sign, doubtless, of the pagan spirit that so many precious hours are given to the cultivation of the Muses of painting, of sculpture, and of music — the pictorial arts and the art of sound — instead of being consecrated to science and literature of the higher sort. Paris, indeed, is the pagan city, as witness its sculpture. Part of the vogue of the fashionable lecturer of to-day is to be attributed to the desire of people to instruct themselves without trouble, to tread the path of knowledge as a smooth and bright highway — no longer the laborious, rugged ascent of a bare, forbidding mountain. So we have this monstrous exhibition of mediocrity in those two Salons housed in that grandiose vestige of the Great Exhibition of 1900. There is, certainly, a great lack of freshness, of real talent and originality in much of this display. Low as the British Academy may have sunk in the estimation of the artistic, it can scarcely be more banal, more uninspiring than this exhibition by the Seine. The old pillars of French art are there, yearly represented by their tedious pictures — the instructors of the young painters — but there is a commonplace excellence, a placid rotundity and smoothness about their work, which is irritating because featureless, and pleasureless because deadly monotonous. This man, you may be sure, will choose for ever classical subjects : nymphs bathing in the lake, dryads hiding behind trees, gods and goddesses sheltering in remote forests of antiquity. This other master will assuredly paint landscapes of a languorous sort ; eternal moors with eternal heather in eternal bloom ; another will persist in military pictures, in compositions of a clever sort, well-arranged but strangely lifeless; yet 56 FRANCE AND THE FRENCH another will turn his wooden talents to depict the inner scenes of a dressmaking establishment — fit subject for his palette. A portraitist adopts as sign and symbol of success the society woman. Strange and lissom she is, will-o'-the-wisp-like and looking most unearthly, fiendish with a sort of hot conservatory wickedness — a marvellous piece of painting, but, nevertheless, unreal and meretricious. His rival in the trade of advertising snobs will precipitate portraits of celebrities : a duchess thinly veiled as X or Y, an American millionairess, a bishop much in request in Parisian drawing-rooms, a soldier or a diplomat, x^nd they will wear the same fixed smile and be as impeccably dressed as they are impeccably painted. It is all im- peccable, but it is not Progressive Art. There is much to weary and precious little to stimulate in this terrible round of pictures, these miles of paintings through endless corri- dors. Now and again one is tempted to wonder why a picture is there, it is so good, so striking. One looks at the catalogue : an Anglo-Saxon name, or, perhaps, a Russian. Americans when they come to Paris often succeed in doing better than their teachers by reason of their virility and enthusiasm. They succeed because of much trying. And there is reason to think that America will be one of the great art lands of the future; first, because so many masterpieces are going there, so many gems from European galleries bought by the rich connoisseur ; and secondly, because of the unflinching zeal and devotion shown by the American student in Europe when he comes to study the galleries or to settle, permanently, in such an art centre as Paris or Munich. Paris has been shaken, somewhat, in her proud confidence of being the art centre of the world, by the discovery that German students are evolving new formulae in art, new expressions in architecture and design, if not in painting TENDENCIES IN LITERATURE AND ART 57 itself. But, to return to Paris, it would not be fair, of course, to suppose that there is no life or movement in French art because of the want of it in the official and "officieux" salons, because of the deadness of many of the well-known painters. But the really new and living and sincere, as opposed to the mechanical and "pot-boiler," are to be found in the smaller exhibitions rather than in those which receive the visit of the President of the Republic. People who do not like Republics, declare that they necessarily entail mediocrity, that you cannot expect any real patronage of art or letters, since such things demand taste and aristocratic appreciation, which are to be found in kings and not in presidents. They will tell you that neither art nor religion can flourish in a Republic. How- ever that may be, Bourgeois Presidents are not, probably, the most discerning in the arts, and their opinion on the pictures of the day is, as a rule, only worth remembering as a joke upon the impossibility of officialdom and talent. In these lesser exhibitions, you will often find disquieting originality — symptoms of a desire to express the in- expressible, coupled with a wanton wish, perhaps, to "epater la bourgeoisie." But I admit a liking for the strange eruption of the Autumn Salon. In the same apartments of the Grand Palais, each winter, there is hung a collection of pictures so unusual that the Parisians, in the earlier years, had every reason for regarding them as jokes upon the public. Houses tortured and twisted into mottled mushrooms ; trees that have the look of human beings, and human beings of trees : the strangest mixture that childish brains devised. Is it a nightmare, the output of a disordered mind ? a hungry cry for bread, or a daring bid for notoriety? One does not know. These young artists hunger, literally, no doubt; they must strike the public eye or they are lost — with no hope of paying the 58 FRANCE AND THE FRENCH rent. And so they paint these strange pictures : these crude examples of a naive soul, childish outbursts in which reds and greens and purples are all mixed as if the purpose were some monstrous salad to make the common stomach ill. They feed on noxious diet these young people, and turn from wholesome food. The high priest of this new school is Henri Matisse, one of the most disquieting of them all. He paints red hob- goblins on a ground of green, dancing some strange exotic round. And yet that same painter can contrive to give to a bunch of flowers such sensation of life that it seems to grow, and you pass near to inhale the perfume, and fear to brush the petals. There is something evidently in the formula. One has little right to quarrel with the artistic point of view ; it is the vision that is wanted, doubtless, and not the thing itself, which may be merely vulgar and obscure, with no appeal. And yet, can we say that in these weird manifestations is any new insight into matter, any glimpse of heavenly truth ? Personally, I doubt it ; but it may be true. At any rate, I have been told that visitors to a leading Impressionist's studio have seen a series of studies in which evolved slowly, and by evident design, the grotesque figures that were afterwards presented as the revelation inspired and distinctive of the artist. Does it not look like trickery, instead of clarified intelligence ? There is an exhibition only a little stranger than the Salon d'Automl^e ; it is the Salon des Independants. Here you have rank insanity, mixed with perception. To the " Independants " a man sent a picture with the inspiring legend : " Sunset on the Adriatic." An un- suspecting donkey at Montmartre was the real author of that picture. A brush was fastened to his tail, and in the neighbourhood of the tail was placed the canvas. Each time the donkey flicked its caudal member the canvas TENDENCIES IN LITERATURE AND ART 59 received a smear of paint ; a collection of these smears formed the scene which afterwards awakened the admira- tion or, perhaps, the consternation of the public. In- dependent by name and nature, the Salon is equally so by constitution. There is no Jury and, for a fee of ten francs, all the world may send a masterpiece. The pictures sometimes show an indecency which is past blushing for, and, indeed, these young men put no restraints on their eccentricity. An exhibition of another sort is the Salon des Humor-/ istes, which justifies its name by giving most amusing examples of the work of caricaturists and comic draughts- men. There is, also, much humour wrought in wood and wax. Such ingenuity is displayed that one is pained by the thought that much of it can find no market. These manifestations would indicate a state of mind incompatible with sound art, were it not for one consideration : that by such search and bold experiment the new formula is found. The new school of Impres- sionists has given us a brilliant galaxy of young men, and amongst them might be mentioned Henri Martin, whose stencilled sunlit decorations are admirable specimens of their kind. By trying, we discover, and by discovery we arrive at great results — sometimes at the renovation of art itself Thus, hope need not be lost for the future of painting in France. The younger product of the painting school exhibits an almost fiendish desire to break with traditions and with the worn theories of professors, to define fresh paths across experience — paths that lead to lightsome glades and elevated spots, where sun and air play upon the world. Without experiment, without a courageous "elan" into the upper atmosphere there can be no progress. British art grows old, so very old ; it crumbles and mumbles in its mute expression of Nothingness. French 6o FRANCE AND THE FRENCH art, if it does not grow old, grows tricky and merely- clever. The pillars of the Salons are examples of it — men who paint without a soul but with a mastery of leger- demain. This is not the sort of thing that makes for progress, that traces new lines across the unknown. Youth and courage and high endeavour, the new con- ception and new ideas must be encouraged. That is why strange outbursts in art are not hopeless. On the con- trary, they are full of tidings of a new time — full of the spirit that belongs to To-morrow, not resting, merely, upon Yesterday. In England, the new idea is rigidly shut out unless it bears some certificate of authority, some label of respectability. In France they care less for these signs of authenticity. The new avenue is opened to the Pioneer if he will step that way, brave to meet the critic on his own ground. The Impressionists and the wild young daubers of the untrammelled school are the advance guard of the army of To-morrow. They appear ridiculous to the veterans of Yesterday, but they are full of confidence and courage. He who laughs last laughs best. Official art is deadly. The painting of portraits of Presidents and the depiction of monster mayoral banquets are depressing, representing the negation of all true art. These remarks apply, with equal force, to the world of literature. The day of great emotions is past: we are getting almost tired of our revolutions. Nothing touches us any more. We refuse to be shocked ; we refuse to take things " au grand serieux." Nothing matters ; that is the prevailing tone. Since this is our mental outlook, can we wonder that those who write our books deal with tiny themes that amount to nothing ? It would be an exaggera- tion to say that there is no literature in modern France ; but it is no exaggeration to say that the literature of the last half of the nineteenth century will not for a moment TENDENCIES IN LITERATURE AND ART 6i compare with the literature of a bygone age, with the literature of a Balzac. Elsewhere I deal with plays. The play is the thing which reveals the conscience of a people, and the play speaks in terms of actual life, living, palpitating, whilst a book is often a dead thing — ideas imprisoned in a tomb. The play has driven out the book in France. The former appeals to jaded men and women ; it strikes home ; its lessons are instant ; it needs little pondering over because the moral is there, short, sharp, and decisive. But with a book the action is slow, long, and involved. And this generation of aeroplanes and automobiles votes it pedestrian and uninspiring. Immoral to an intense degree, dealing with perversion, are certain modern efforts to instil interest in the novel. But literature of this sort can, happily, leave no permanent mark, or effect a lasting injury upon the people. It is a passing phase, a symptom of morbid restlessness, rather than a studied effort after popular corruption. Sometimes these books are poisonously true to life, are written with great skill, and attract by the pure beauty of their form. But such things cannot be, they cannot endure, and the taste which tolerates them changes with great speed into something else. It is fortunate that the French are no more steadfast in their vices than in their virtues. Nor, as I prove elsewhere, are people as black as they are painted or as they paint themselves. Being "pot-au-feu" and " terre a terre," the Frenchman loves to imagine himself a Don Juan, a Marquis de Priola, and books of a certain category give him the sensation and illusion he requires. Great books are dead. Amongst living masters are writers such as Anatole France, whose style is perfect even if his message to the people is no longer vigorous. One can imagine some great artist combining, say, the perfect manner of Anatole France with the curious anatomical 62 FRANCE AND THE FRENCH accuracy and brilliant introspection of Henry James. This would be a perfect combination ; but none such exists in contemporary literature. Neither has France a Joseph Conrad, a Kipling, nor scarcely a Granville Barker. Zola lived, and is dead : a great workman capable even of great artistry, though hiding it beneath a laborious, for- bidding style that suggested nothing so much as the implacable intensity of a godless piece of mechanism. Zola is dead, and with him the school of Realists. Romanticism and Realism — the two play " chasse-croise," in France ; sometimes the one has it and sometimes the other, in the theatres and in the books. Victor Hugo, with his rhodomontade, his sentimentality and his jingling measures, is driven out of doors by some image-breaker with a Voltairean twist. But he comes in again at the window, when the public wearies of the materialism of the usurpers. Action and Reaction is the law in any country of intellectual progress. Balzac stood in between, extra- ordinary, monumental. Titanic in his immensity, in his expression of the primitive emotions, of Love, of Jealousy, and of Passion. The days pass and, with them, the authors, and some declare that there is none to write as well as nothing to write about. Jules Lemaitre and contemporary masters of the French language have turned themselves into polite essayists. Marcel Prevost writes agreeably of feminine psychology. Paul Bourget gives us cases of conscience in his books and plays ; Rend Bazin writes of the " le ble qui leve " — full of the feeling of the earth and of the old spirit of patriotism transplanted ; Maurice Barres keeps alive the old French sentiment, the racial spirit of the lost Provinces. These are good and praiseworthy things, but they do not palpi- tate ; they do not touch the nation as a whole. None can do that. The novelists themselves, realizing the force of TENDENCIES IN LITERATURE AND ART 63 the theatre, try to turn their books into plays as the more vivid way of literary expression. And it must be said that the very speed and mechanical genius of the times are the enemy of imagination, the enemy of those delicate romances which George Sand produced with such amazing fecundity. The eighteenth century was the time of contemplation and mellifluous experience. They were mellow times, times before steam and explosion engines hurtled us through the air, roaring their way through peaceful country-sides, disturbing the echoes of lone woodlands, frightening the peasantry out of their primitive ways. Can you imagine, nowadays, a Corinne — Mme de Stael's poetic heroine? She is clearly out of date. No, the romance departs, leaving little that is old — only the new that no one understands. Perhaps writers like Gabriele d' Annunzio have best seized the spirit of the age. They comprehend contem- porary feeling, and so they write about flying-machines and pitch the hero into mid-air, where he may soar to- wards the sun and experience his untranslatable emotions. These men, at least, appreciate the longing of the mortal to escape from this too solid earth, from this stale reality into the blue where are space and air and sunshine, and the cold silent light of stars. That is the literature of To-morrow : the poetized side of machinery : Jules Verne mixed with imagination : H. G. Wells, philosopher, united to a poet. The French public tire visibly of the romance. They look for their reading to historical events, lightly treated and luminously embroidered by the clever student. Books are in a bad way. Of the classics, Balzac sells ; Moliere is used for school prizes and recitations ; Hugo is out of fashion, and there is none to succeed. The Academie Frangaise, with its forty immortals, seems only to emphasize the void. The Academicians 64 FRANCE AND THE FRENCH labour perpetually at their dictionary, polishing and re- polishing the language, but its vitality has gone : a poor, bloodless anaemic thing, feebly struggling in beautiful phrases to convey beautiful nullity. Style killeth. Writers are stifled with style. They manage to say nothing at all with stylish simplicity, when true simplicity would keep quiet. Charles Geniaux is one of the foremost of the young men who have something to say, and he says it with Zola-esque sincerity. His " Cite de Mort " is a remarkable piece of work, vibrant with reality and with the things that make for writing ; possibly he may emerge from the indifference of the age. I think the most expressive modern move- ment in letters is attributable to women. Some of the best writers are of the sex of Madame de Sevigne and Madame de Stael. One of the cleverest romanciers is Daniel Lesueur (Madame Henri Lapauze). Another with real insight into feminine aspiration and problems of the hour, and with artistry at her command, is Madame Marcelle Tinayre. Then we / have Madame Myriam Harry, remarkable for her pictures of the East and for the strange charm with which she has enveloped the secluded life of the harem. Women realize their oppor- tunities, and are making progress in letters as they will make progress, probably, in the other branches of human endeavour. And why not ? The delicate sensibility and the elegant perceptions of many women endow them with just the qualities for novel-writing. Perhaps the very literary character of the Frenchman's education conspires to keep down talent or, at least, to render less conspicuous the " chefs d'oeuvre." Every Frenchman seems an orator or a writer, and sometimes both. Grace of language belongs much more to the French than to the English letter-writer. The girl of the TENDENCIES IN LITERATURE AND ART 65 middle classes, writing to her friend, expresses herself agreeably, whereas the same young person in England, if amusing in her fresh girlish way, has vastly less facility of phrase. One marvels, sometimes, and is almost afraid of the tremendous wealth of language, of the real literary skill shown in the drawing up of Parliamentary reports and other documents of official sort, which are apt to be so arid in Anglo-Saxon hands. Here is expended a wealth of good writing, and the result is a book that makes excellent reading, oftentimes as interesting as a novel of adventure. The whole tendency and training of the Frenchman is literary, and, in the schools, what we should consider as remarkable essays are penned by quite young pupils. The result is a high general level of literary expression and a sad vulgarization of precious old classical phrases, which seem to lose their significance by mere force of repetition ; but these things do not make great books. Because the vast mass of the people know how to express themselves well, they are not thereby equipped with the inventive faculty necessary for the construction of a creative work. One must touch the heart ; one must inflame the mind before one can produce that mysterious chemical compound known as a Great Book. The French have momentarily become exhausted in their literary ex- pression, and have little left to say. All human emotions have found their biographer ; there is so little virgin soil left for exploration and analysis. That is, doubtless, why books no longer sell and why there is this literary "slump," which is called " La Crise du Livre." Young Oxford and Cambridge students, who come to Paris to complete their literary studies, often surprise their French teachers by their inability to write an essay. Every French lycean is taught the uses and necessities of the three syllogisms, but the English undergrad knows 5 66 FRANCE AND THE FRENCH little of such mysteries, and writes sometimes with a naiveU that is disconcerting, and a paucity of ideas that seems strange to those habituated to the lively imagina- tions of the younger generation in France. In England, therefore, the writer of a great book has a much bigger chance to be heard and seen since he rises instantly and conspicuously above the common mass. Not so in France, where the common level is much higher, as I have said. You must soar higher to obtain the same result. And yet comparing literature with literature, one cannot pretend that French exceeds the English in the quality of the talent displayed. Rather should I say — if weighing in the scales were possible — that the balance went in favour of Great Britain. Taine acknowledged the superiority of English poetry over French, and I imagine that an equal authority would give precedence to English fiction, taken in the mass. As to the dramatists, there is certainly no Shakespeare. Moliere, wonderful as he is, has not the wide appeal of the man who wrote of all human nature. Nor is there a French Milton. We could go farther and say that Tennyson and Swinburne are lack- ing, as well as Keats and Shelley. Yet in questions of comparison many elements exist, of which it is necessary to take note : manner of expression, sentiment and subject involved, and a hundred other points. We will leave this controversy with the declaration that England more than holds her own in any comparison with the French in the subject-matter of her books. But if one takes the actual writing, the form and manner — not the matter — we must give the palm to the French writer. His composition is much superior, and then again he has a greater freedom to say what he will : he is less afraid of convention. He has not before him the hateful vision of the Censor with his blue pencil and TENDENCIES IN LITERATURE AND ART 67 suburban prejudices, striking out the passages that would be hurtful to Peckham. His range is larger, his flight unbroken by the shot that brings to earth. Mrs. Grundy has had a terrific influence on the writing of all English books. Supposing Dickens could have dealt in larger style with the themes of love and passion, his books would, as human documents, have become more valuable, though in their present and more restricted form they are still the most cherished literary possessions of his country- men and of the English-speaking world. Very little attention is given to form in writing English. A man, as a rule, says what he has to say in a plain un- varnished way, with few graces. I confess I consider it a less evil than the French way of saying nothing, but saying it with perfect art. This undue attention to form is seen, not merely in literature, but in other regions of artistic expression. We have already noted that in the yearly Salons clever- ness of hand often supersedes sincerity of inspiration. One sometimes wonders whether much study has not made the French artist mad for mere form. In archi- tecture, some twenty years are often absorbed in equipping a man for a career in which he produces, not, alas ! master- pieces, but a terrible jumble of the pseudo-classical. And twenty years have been exhausted in preparing for and passing through the Beaux Arts, as well as those final years in the Villa de Medici in Rome — assuming that he has won the coveted " prix," which carries him to the Eternal City and lodges him for three years at the expense of the State. How often is talent killed by so dreadful and persistent a pressure from antiquity. How shall the human inspiration survive all these weighty invocations of a dead past ? A man climbs over the backs of the great Masters to a weary realization of his 68 FRANCE AND THE FRENCH own imperfections and limitations. Or it may be that, mounted upon the shoulders of his father, he may declare with childish nawete, " See, I am taller than you." The twentieth century, if it boasts in this nursery manner, has as little warrant for it as the child. If the present decade gives signs of a renaissance and of superiority to the last century, it will surely never compare with the eighteenth. Nor is there any portraitist or painter of to-day capable, for instance, of ranking with Chardin, La Tour, Fragonard, Reynolds, Lawrence, Gainsborough, Romney, if we except Sargent in his most brilliant mood. Supposing we apply tests to current literature, tests of the past, we find no Balzac, no Victor Hugo, even ; but a cen- tury is not barren in its first decade when rf can produce a Rostand and a Maeterlinck. Maeterlinck is not French, having been born in Ghent, but his quarter of a century of work has been passed upon the soil of France in his splendid Norman retreat, where he has produced master- pieces of imagination, of delicate and graceful craftsman- ship, of subtle introspection, of deep observation and com- munion with nature. Whether he speaks of the Bees or the Flowers, his reflections have the cast of the great mind, bending to a great task : the study of the sub- conscious world. And again, when he leaves the mystery and haunting fear of his earlier days and plunges into " Wisdom and Destiny," one feels that here is a man qualified to teach, imbued with the science and philosophy of life, and worthy to examine into its mainsprings of action. His is a message sober and austere, touched with mystery, deep with hidden meaning, and with face turned towards the Eternal Verities. Whether he introduces us, as in his " Blue Bird," to the symbolism of existence in its search for the unattainable, or deals, as in " Pelleas et M^lisande," with inexorable fate, or whether he talks of TENDENCIES IN LITERATURE AND ART 69 death, claiming that the weakness of the moribund is the cause of its terrors, he has always the sure and profound touch of the deep thinker, not harsh with science like a Herbert Spencer, but gilding his psychic discoveries with the radiant colour of the poet and with the largeness of view of the superman. A comparison between Rostand and Maeterlinck is scarcely possible, since essential difference divides them. Both are comparatively young men, from whom one may expect further works of power and illumination. Rostand's " Chantecler " is as brilliant a piece of writing, as full of satire, biting and forceful, as Aristophanes' " Birds," or any of the old Greek satirists of the Golden Age of poetic plays. To-day he startles and amazes by the brilliance of his verbal power, by his astounding command of language, the pyrotechnics of his French, the thunder of his periods, his cascades of falling stars. Birds and beasts talk philo- sophy in his great animal play, and, though some may scoff at the stage production and find it wearisome and wanting, there is none that shall not say it is as wonderful a piece of literary workmanship as ever was. As a pageant and panorama it is glorious, fit to waken in the breasts of all beholders the feeling that here is the man possessing the rich gift of speech to express chivalry in an un- chivalrous age, the philosophy of material times, the glit- tering folly of fools and pundits. Certainly he struck a lofty, patriotic note in " Cyrano de Bergerac," which, for sheer elegance of diction, beauty of expression and mag- nificence of parade, has scarcely been equalled by any play- wright dead or living. Rostand appeared in the firmament just when he was most needed. The world had sickened of the crudities of the Zola regime, of his hard, relentless exposure of the sordidness of life (though in " La Faute de I'Abbe Mauret " and " Le Reve " he shows ability to touch 70 FRANCE AND THE FRENCH and gild with poetic, idealistic brush). Yet, in the main, his work has been disintegrating, exhibiting with ferocious, relentless pride the weaknesses of his country and his epoch. The public, I say, wearied of these things, and hailed with a joy rarely seen in France the advent of a new literary figure, clothed in the romantic costume of days when the " panache " existed and life was not — or seemed not to be — a mere question of ways and means. Rostand came with golden oriflamme, speaking of brave deeds and high achievements, blowing the trumpet of a wild sort of heroism, speaking gay words of high renown and lofty colouring, waking the echoes with a triumphant cry of men who took the great view of Life, who trod upon the earth like gods and waved their swords on high and cried, " Halt and tremble, all ye knaves, and look upon the Sun." It was in heroic phrase he talked and made his actors talk, enveloping the common action with a web of gold, transmuting the dull clay of our existence into something grandiose that seemed to be of Heaven and of the sacred Palladium. Rostand's mission has been to beautify, to exalt, to cause the world to say, " This is the France of other times, made glorious by poets, and electrified by a magician." Magic and mystery belong to Maeterlinck, but magic also to Edmond Rostand, who, with a mastery such as few contemporaries have of his own rich and varied tongue, invests his characters with an imagery that one has not seen since the days of Shakespeare and the Elizabethan dramatists. Yet neither one nor the other is typical. What is true, as we have said, of painting, of literature, and of architecture, is true in other branches of art — music and its themes. " Pelleas et Melisande " may serve as an illustration of the new school founded by Debussy, TENDENCIES IN LITERATURE AND ART 71 which supplies a wild, descriptive background of strange and unconventional sounds to the subject it is called upon to treat. Though there is much cleverness in the compo- sition, and much daring in the conception, it is difficult to say what the judgment will be a hundred years from now. Will the new music wear as has done the old ? That is the only test. In any case Debussy's *' L'Apres-midi d'un Faune " is a remarkable piece of work, as poetic in treat- ment as it is in title. If the epoch is not interesting in the strict sense of art, at least it represents an era of experiments. There is a desire to find new paths, to unearth new secrets, to listen to new songs from the White Mountains of experience, to lay firmer hold of life, to enlarge the borders of perception, and to say : " Nothing shall be inaccessible to my sym- pathies." The result has not been great, but it is not hopeless. France, least of any nation, need not feel the tragedy of despair, that experience is exhausted, that there is no morrow, no sequel to the story of man's achievement. No doubt we are far from the time when Hugo's dis- ciples fought in the pit at the Comedie Fran9aise with the classical school, though occasionally a band of students at the Odeon or elsewhere will hiss the innovator in the classic grounds of Corneille and Racine. But, in the general trend of things, there is no great enthusiasm for these glories of the past, but rather an impatience to attain to new ends and to leave the dead to bury its dead. Such an attitude may be good or it may be bad ; I do not dogmatize. Happily, signs exist that youth is not exhausted, and there is still stimulus to artistic exertion in the great white plain stretched out before every earnest student in the arts, literary, pictorial, or plastic. CHAPTER IV NEW SOCIAL INFLUENCES WHILST it is perfectly true that the Entente Cordiale has had a considerable social influ- ence on France, inspiring the young genera- tion to sport, enlarging the horizon of parents, encouraging them to bring up their children, especially the girls, on larger English lines, the traditions of the Roman parent still maintain to a large extent. Though that admirable and enlightened priest, the Abbe Lemire, who sits in the Chamber of Deputies, has added to the Statute Book a law facilitating marriage, it is still the custom for young people to wait for the consent of their parents before leading the partner of their choice to the altar. Until quite re- cently, neither young man nor woman could marry with- out the consent of parents until the age of thirty had been reached ; but the latest legislation has reduced the period of incapacity, for both contracting parties, to twenty-one years. However, it is necessary, between that age and thirty, to address an " acte respectueux " to the parents, informing them of an intention to marry. This " acte re- spectueux " is now limited to a single summons calling upon parents to show cause for the objection. It is be- coming more and more rare for the Courts to support parents in their opposition. A case in point is the mar- riage of M. Casimir-Perier, son of a former President of 72 NEW SOCIAL INFLUENCES 73 the Republic, with Mme Simone, the divorced wife of M. Le Bargy of the Comedie Frangaise. The Courts refused to intervene on the prayer of Mme Casimir-Perier, the mother of the young man. Yet it requires considerable courage on the part of a son to brave his parents' anger and marry the lady of his own selection. Cases are not infrequent where the door has been closed to the daughter of the family who has persisted in allying herself with a young man whose position or prospects were not considered good enough by the family, or who was objected to for some other reason. In a case which I have in mind, the " dot " was not withheld, but, after the ceremony, the father called a family council and decreed that the name of the offending child should never be mentioned before him. Notwithstanding, or, perhaps, because of the affection they lavish upon their children, French parents find difficulty in forgiving them for an act of disobedience which weakens parental authority. They cannot understand their children's want of appreciation of plans for their own happiness. Yet, certain new forces are at work, undermining the old order of things — perhaps even loosening the bonds of that wonderful institution, the French family. It is becoming more and more common for a young girl to refuse to marry the young man selected by her parents for social or family reasons and to answer the dictates of her own heart. There is a revolt among the daughters of France against these old customs which bind their will and deliver them into a species of marital bondage. But the " mariage de convenance" is still the rule in society ; the term "mariage d'inclinaison " is used and proves what an exception a love marriage is. The marriage contract is made with the same care and is subject to exactly the same argument as an ordinary I- 74 FRANCE AND THE FRENCH deed of partnership. There is no sentiment in it from start to finish. The tendency, nowadays, especially in the upper circles, is to give the woman direction of her own property. This is secured by a " regime " or series of rules known as the " separation de biens." It may be compared with the Married Women's Property Acts. The wife has complete management of her property and enjoyment of the income. Such a privilege is not hers under any of the other systems ; the husband has usually extraordinary powers to dissipate the wife's property without rendering any account of his stewardship. The community system ("regime de la communaute") is very common. It implies the creation of a separate fund, distinct from the patrimony of either spouse, and composed for the most part of the personal property possessed by the parties at the time of marriage, the income accruing during the marriage, and all real estate purchased within that time. The husband alone administers the property and the law gives him full power to do what he will with it. Then there is the " regime de non-communaute," in which each party retains his or her own property as a separate entity. The rights of the wife, however, are illusory since the husband has sole control, only subject to a liability to account for the property upon the dissolution of the marriage. Finally, there is the most drastic system of all, known as the " regime dotal." The wife brings all her property to her husband, who enjoys peculiar rights in its disposal. Though the wife remains, nominally, the owner, the husband has power, not only over the personalty, as in the community system, but over the realty as well. He has, therefore, wide opportunities for squandering the property, the wife's only protection being to petition the Courts for a separation of goods on the ground that her dowry is in peril. NEW SOCIAL INFLUENCES 75 It will thus be seen that, unless a " separation de biens " is expressly stipulated, the wife's property remains at the mercy of the husband. This is so in law, but in practice it may not be quite so. There is the lady's family to reckon with, as well as the lady herself, who probably has a very good head for business, like the majority of her sex in France. Though "mariages de convenance" are clearly out of spirit with the age, there is something to be said in their favour. The French believe heartily in the truth of the old proverb : " When poverty comes in at the door, love flies out oP^the window." The distressful cases of improvident marriages so common in England are practi- cally unknown in France, where every girl, even in the poorest circumstances, contrives to gather a " dot " before she unites her fortunes to those of a man. Also, as I insist elsewhere, a certain economic independence is secured to the " weaker vessel " by the fact that she has a considerable stake in the business enterprises of her husband. Whilst it is quite true that restricting conventions are less strong in the middle classes than heretofore, the higher "Bourgeoisie" and the aristocratic remnants of the " Faubourg " still resist the inroads of modern ideas. " Society," as the word is understood by the " Gaulois," is just as narrow in its treatment of girls and just as rigid in its exclusiveness as ever it was. The liberal movement comes exclusively from below. Ninety-five per cent of the marriages are arranged. The engagement lasts six weeks, and the fiances never see each other alone. One may often hear in Paris " salons " the remark, applicable to a charming young girl who is present : " She is very pretty. What a pity she cannot marry, but she has not a centime." Though there are democratic features in French life that do not exist in England, it is rare to find the 76 FRANCE AND THE FRENCH members of one social caste intermarrying with another. The aristocrat does not become the husband of the actress. The principal divisions of " society " are " le Monde," that is to say, the more or less authentically ennobled class : the old Faubourg Saint Germain ; the " Haute Bourgeoisie," and the " Petite Bourgeoisie." The " fonctionnaires " may be said to constitute a fourth class. The Civil Service regards itself as superior to the rest of humanity, though, nowadays, it includes many diverse elements, such as the staffs of the great departments of State, the Prefects and sub-Prefects, the army of school-teachers, who adopt the odd pose of anti-militarism and Socialism ; the enormous postal staff, the police and the railway workers on the two systems controlled by Government. If you add to these the " douaniers," municipal employes and inspectors called into existence by new social legislation, you will have no diffi- culty in arriving at the total of a million, or one in forty, engaged in the task of administrating the other thirty-nine. Between the Bourgeoisie and " le Monde " is a great gulf fixed. The Bourgeoisie includes all those engaged in pro- fessions or commerce, and is analogous to the middle classes in England. The profession of the law, for instance, is entirely recruited from bourgeois elements on account of the objection of the aristocracy, or the highest society, to serve under the Republic. Prejudice of this sort is slowly disappearing, but there is some real movement in that direction. It is in the literary, artistic, and Bourgeois France that one finds mental stimulus and real social enjoyment. The drawing-rooms of the old " noblesse " are dull to the point of tears. The only service in which the aristocracy will engage is the army and navy, and, to some extent, diplomacy. The officers of the smart cavalry regiments are men of good family. In other branches of the defence forces, however, the spirit is NEW SOCIAL INFLUENCES 77 democratic. One of M. Pelletan's achievements, when ruler of the Republic's navy, was to elevate the dockyard hands at the expense of officers of the old and aristocratic school. In other respects, the enemies of the actual " regime " find their position difficult, as when called upon to aid the civil arm in driving out the Religious Sisters under the operation of the Associations Law. The most potent cause working for change in the social customs of France is the Girls' Lycee. During the twenty years that secondary education for both sexes has been developed on equal lines, numbers of women have decided that there are other occupations open to them than " the trade of marriage." They realize that, from an educa- tional point of view at least, they are as qualified as their brothers to follow the liberal professions. Women now occupy high posts in the educational world. Numbers graduate each year from the Sorbonne and the universities in the provinces. A certain number of women has become qualified to practise at the Bar, though it cannot be said that, at present, the experiment has been attended with much success, and a still larger number has embraced the profession of medicine. The women, however, who prac- tise the healing art are generally of foreign extraction, Jewish Poland supplying a large number of female students in the medical schools. There is still a prejudice existing amongst women of the better classes in France against adopting a career of this exacting character, which appears, at first sight, to be incompatible with feminine sensibility. However that may be, the sex shows a greater and greater tendency to break away from the old narrow conventions, which prescribed housework and the care of the children as its exclusive duty. On the lines familiar to England, the Suffiragette move- ment hardly exists in France, but its counterpart is a 78 FRANCE AND THE FRENCH solid and defensible thing. It is called " F^minisme," and insists on the right of woman to follow any avenue of employment that may seem desirable to her. It is the claim of woman to work on conditions equal to those of the male. One of the most striking books on the subject, which has had a profound influence, is " La Rebelle," written by Mme Marcelle Tinayre. It describes the career of a woman journalist who determined to carve out a position for herself, and to be no longer dependent on the other sex. She came to this resolution as the result of bad treatment received at the hands of her lover. Daniel Lesueur's " Nietzscheenne " also deals with the revolt of women from unjust restrictions. " Elizabeth Davenay," by Mile Claire de Pratz, published in 1909, gives a very good picture of the ideals of advanced womanhood in France. Only a small section claims the vote. The franchise has not the same charm for the Frenchwoman as it appears to possess for some noisy partisans in England. The Frenchwoman feels that, already, her influence in politics is very great — greater, perhaps, because of being concealed and indirect. Yet most of those concerned in the movement will tell you that their ultimate aim is to remove the sex disqualification for the franchise. The Napoleonic code, they maintain, shows the disdainful attitude of the Emperor towards the other half of humanity ; women, children, and idiots are placed on the same level of civic incapacity. It is this disability that will disappear once the sex has accustomed man to equality in other directions. It may be the more logical way of attacking the problem ; at least, it is more insidious, and feminism gains new conquests every day. These things have great social consequence. They tend to the breaking down of those barriers of convention and Bourgeois prejudice which still enclose the French NEW SOCIAL INFLUENCES 79 family. The stranger, be he ever so well recommended by- natural gifts, and by birth and education, still finds great difficulty in penetrating to the French " interior." As I have already said, the Frenchman will invite his English or American friend to a dinner at the restaurant, but rarely, if ever, extends that invitation to the home circle, where the stranger would come into contact with his wife and children. As the word is understood in England, the Frenchman is not hospitable. France is the country of no spare bedrooms. Members of different families do not stay with one another as is the pleasant custom in Eng- land. The " week-end " habit of interchangeable hospi- tality has not been engrafted on French stock, though the entertainment of the foreigner has become more common in the country than in Paris. It is hardly an exaggeration to say that each family is the enemy of all others. The family is the explanation of many things in France. The patriarchal idea is always dominant. The view-point of marriage is the family. It is the strongest tie that exists. The attachment of the Frenchman to his mother is proverbial. To the robust Anglo-Saxon mind it appears exaggerated to the point of effeminacy. Yet, in spite of Pierre de Coulevain, who, in " LTle Inconnue," emits the theory that the English are a masculine and the French a feminine race, we are not prepared to say that the French are effeminate, or that they are decadent. It would be much truer to say that the British are self- complacent. The French are holding their place particularly in the sciences. Some of the most wonderful inventions of the present day owe their initiation and development to the French. In education they make sound and continual pro- gress, and it would not be inaccurate to say, as I repeat elsewhere, that the general level of instruction is higher 8o FRANCE AND THE FRENCH than in England. It may be asked in what direction matriarchy acts adversely on the nation. The answer is not easy to give. I presume that the greatest fault, spring- ing from the adoration of and reliance upon the mother, is a certain want of sturdiness and an extraordinary reluctance to leave the home circle. This, of course, has a deplor- able effect on colonial affairs ; at the same time, it has not been bad, perhaps, for the development of the country itself. Emigration, as a solution for social sores, may retard the proper development of the mother country. The drawing-ofif process for the benefit of the colonies has not been without its hurtful effects on the island kingdom. There is no country, not even the United States, with its high cost of living, where the common people are as well off as in France. The division of property, the thriftiness of the people, the fact that the woman works as well as the man, and that she brings a certain sum of money, at the moment of her marriage, to the common fund ; also her equipment in household science such as her knowledge of cooking, and her clever general ideas on the subject of clothes and management, contribute in no small measure to make life worth living and to raise the standard of self-respect in the lowest strata of society. It is always difficult to establish comparisons, but I believe the state- ment that the very poor in France extract much more pleasure from life than the very poor in England can hardly be contested by any one having more than a superficial knowledge of the two peoples. CHAPTER V SOME FURTHER SOCIAL ASPECTS THE addiction to sport of the present generation in France is an amazing sign of the times. In particular, French youth has taken up football with an extraordinary enthusiasm, and the day has already arrived when it is able to meet, almost on equal terms, the best talent in England. Apart from the central organiza- tion which supplies international players, the Racing Club de France and the Stade Frangaise furnish teams which their English opponents find difficulty in beating. In tennis also, French prowess is admitted, and aptitude is shown in aquatic sports, in boxing, in golf, and a dozen directions. Five years from now, one may certainly expect to see a great development. There are at least two daily papers in Paris devoted to athletic matters, independent of horse-racing, and sports of all kinds have a surprising number of organs in the weekly Press. The renaissance is striking. This new liking for out-of-door exercise, coupled with compulsory military service, is doing a great deal for young France. The race of Frenchmen is growing taller, particularly the wealthier class. Even now, in physique, the inhabitants of the large towns compare favour- ably with those of London or Manchester, The rural popu- lations are probably stronger in France than in England. There is a widening-out, generally, in the French charac- ter. It is very noticeable in the young men. The exagger- ated cult of pleasure, which existed in the Second Empire 6 8i 82 FRANCE AND THE FRENCH and has given us some extraordinary books of memoirs and revelations of social secrets, has passed or is passing in favour of the saner joys of sport and of the more virile occupations of politics. The school of rising stars in the political firmament is the university. Youths of twenty become fired with generous, if impracticable, ideals. In their adolescent imagination every ill to which the world is heir can be conjured by some political nostrum invented by Karl Marx or other of the German philosophers. These enthusiastic young men are a welcome rather than a disquieting sign. They learn wisdom later, when they see the futility of theories that have but little relation to the facts of every day. Of necessity, they find that their dreams must take on a more sober colouring. It has been urged that this cult of things English by the French will prove inimical to their individuality, causing them to lose their special virtues and substitu- ting others of a foreign sort, for which they are ill adapted by nature and tradition. I do not think this is likely. The French have individuality of their own, and it is likely to be a proof against imitation of an exaggerated section of the community. At the same time, a little mingling of the Anglo-Saxon virtues with the more imaginative temperament will not be a bad thing. And we English are the better for contact with a people who stand for ideas, and who possess the saving grace of intellectual honesty. In an earlier chapter I treat of the eternal question of the comparative morality of peoples. Are the French more immoral, as the phrase goes, than the English ? It may be assumed without, I think, the possibility of con- tradiction, that the Englishman lives more chastely than the Frenchman during the period of his youth. It has often been remarked with astonishment by French teachers and others having opportunity of observation in England, that the English schoolboy or college graduate scarcely SOME FURTHER SOCIAL ASPECTS 83 allows his mind to dwell upon the opposite sex. The older boys in their prefectorial studies rarely discuss the eternal feminine ; she is outside their life or but vaguely outlined, somewhere, as a romantic possibility for after years. With the French boy, unless wholly devoted to sport — and consequently "half English" in