MASTER NEGATIVE NO 92-80465-9 MICROFILMED 1992 COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES/NEW YORK as part of the "Foundations of Western Civilization Preservation Project" Funded by the NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR THE HUMANITIES Reproductions may not be made vv^ithout permission from Columbia University Library COPYRIGHT STATEMENT The copyright law of the United States -- Title 17 United States Code - concerns the making of photocopies or other reproductions of copyrighted material... Columbia University Library reserves the right to refuse to accept a copy order if, in its judgement, fulfillment of the order would mvolve violation of the copyright law. AUTHOR: GUERARD, ALBERT TITLE: FRENCH CIVILIZATION IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY PLACE: NEW YORK DA TE : 1914 COLUMBI/V UNIVERSITY LIBRARIES PRESERVATION DEPARTMENT BillUOGRAPHIOdlOiOFaR^^ Master Negative # Original Material as Filmed - Exisling Bibliographic Record 944 G935 Guerard, Albert Leon, 1880-1959. French civilizaUon in the nineteenth century; a historical introduction. New York, The Cen- tury CO., 1914. 312 p. aibliographies at end of each chapter. Restrictions o:i Use: 1. France - Soc. condit. 2. France - Pol. & govt. CONTINUED ON NEXT CARD TECHNICAL MICROFORM DATA _ » FILM SIZE_ ^^iTvT-ro, RFDUCTIOW i^ATrn f ^^ < IMAGE PLACEMENT: I A~lTr~i 13 /jIB ^^^^^^^^^^ ^^^^^^r DATE FIL JED: 7j2±^\_ INITIALS ^ ^ ^^^^^^^'^ ^^^^S^AIiCHPUBMCAT^^ c Association for Information and Image Management 1 1 00 Wayne Avenue. Suite 1 1 00 Silver Spring. Maryland 20910 301/587-8202 Centimeter 12 3 4 im 10 11 12 13 14 15 mm 7 8 9 iiiiliiiiliiiiliiiiliiiiliiiiliiiiliiiiliiiiliiiiliiiiliiiiliii yim[m^^ Ml Inches yTTTT 1 TTT .0 I.I 1.25 Ui 2.8 156 3.2 2.5 2.2 163 ■ to _ It |4£ »- .- hi 1-1. 2.0 1.8 1.4 1.6 TTT I MRNUFfiCTURED TO flllM STRNDfiRDS BY fiPPLIED IMAGE, INC. 1^ w 1-^ LIBRARY ■•*. r3V^ : f..-.|i'V u FRENCH CIVILIZATION IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY FRENCH CIVILIZATION IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY A HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION k I r n BY ALBERT LfiON GUERARD AGR^:Gt DE l'uNIVERSITE AUTHOR OF "FRENCH PROPHETS OF YESTERDAY" .'. ••• • • • • • • • • • • • •• • • • • • • • • • • a • > • • • • « t « • • ••. • • • • • t • • NEW YORK THE CENTURY CO. 1914 t c ♦ » . • - ■ • • « • * • • • * » • • • • I • • • * • • • ' • • • • > TO CHANCELLOR DAVID STARR JORDAN {All rights reserved.) % ■ tT NOTE W ' The present work is the outcome of a course of lectures delivered at Stanford University, California, during the second semester of the academic year 1912-13. The original purpose of this study, and its main object, was to supplement the usual University courses in French literature. But I trust it may be found of some use for the general reader who wishes to follow with intelligent interest the tangled problems of modern French life. I need hardly say that within the short compass at my disposal I could barely give the outlines of my immense subject. I tried to eschew unnecessary details, but, in order to avoid vagueness, and to make the book a practical instrument of study, each section is preceded by its synopsis, chronological and genealogical tables are added to all the historical parts, and working bibliographies are appended. The aim of these, as of the whole book, is not to be exhaustive, but to point out the next step — the most available and clearest account of the subject, and especially the bibliographic instruments for further investigation. For practical purposes, only French and English authorities have been directly quoted. The plan adopted in- volves repetitions: but this artistic defect was found to be atoned for by pedagogical advantages. \ CONTEXTS CHAPTER I THE FOUNDATIONS The Country— The Race—The Tradition PAGK 17 § 1. The Country.— The theory of environment — France : situa- tion— Size— Historical connection with the Mediterranean world —Geographical affinities with Northern Europe— Mountainous regions and basins— Extreme variety of aspects and climates : the main regions— Natural unity : the role of the depression of Poitou- But unity chiefly a historical achievement— Resources : fertility overrated ; harbours, rivers, and mineral wealth mediocre— But many-sided, well-balanced- The human factor predominant. § 2. The Race.— (a) La^i^t^/;^.— Romanic or Neo-Latin— Flemish Breton, Basque-North and South, langue d'oil and langue d'oc'; supremacy of Northern French undisputed— French beyond the limits of France— Restricted significance of language affinity. (b) Historical Ethnogra2)hy.~Celtibenakns, Gauls, Romans, Franks —Minor elements: Greeks and Arabs— Constant infiltration — Polish and Italian refugees— The Celtic problem as an example of ethnographic confusion. § 3. THERACE(co)i^in?^erf).—(c)^n^;irqpo%z/.— Criteria— Limitations —The Nordic, Celto-Slavic, and Mediterranean races in France— The French a racial medley— Their unity an act of will. (d) Psychology of the French people.— Collective psychology may be a delusion— But has formative influence— (1) Cheerfulness— (2) Nervous temperament— True of Paris and the South, not of France as a whole-(3) Sociability— (4) Intellectualism — These traits the result of France's natural heterogeneity and self- conquered unity— They veil, but do not destroy, the common human substratum. (e) Note: Race from tlie Eugenic Point of Fi^u;— Racial decay?— The alleged lowering of the stature— The falling birth-rate. I 4. The Tradition : Ancient Regime and Revolution.— Dra- matic character of French history— Real continuity. 9 I ) iO CONTENTS CHAPTER II Napoleon Growth of Napoleon's power — Three main elements : glory, efficiency, tyranny. § 1. Military Globy.—" L'Epop^e "—Napoleon as stage manager — The army : its variety of gorgeous uniforms — Pageants— Monu- ments of triumph : columns, arches, temples — Pretorianism : Napoleon -worship in the army — Its limits — The seamy side of militarism : looting on the heroic scale — Reluctant heroes — Growing indifference of the country. The burden— Financially light— Conscription drains the blood of the nation. § 2. The Reorganization op FRA^sCE^—Adinijiistrativc Reorganiza- tion.— E^icient but hasty— Was over-centralization inevitable? — The Concordat and the University : their failure— The Civil Code : its merits, influence, and limitations — The Prefectoral administra- tion — " A free career open to all talents" — Privilege soon creeping back. Political Reconstruction. — Democracy conjured away — Napoleon the arbiter of all parties, the prisoner of none— The four Assemblies : elaborate impotence — Universal suffrage : the list of notables, the plebiscites— The Press gagged— Bastilles restored — " The Emperor's pleasure" — Baleful influence of Napoleonism. § 3. Society and Culture under Napoleon.— Society.— Settling down after the Directoire— The Consular Court — The Imperial Court— The new nobility— The old nobility— The Austrian marriage — Growing disaffection in all classes. Material prosperity — Great public works — Agriculture in progress — Industry and commerce encouraged — Disastrous effect of the Continental Blockade. ^ Culture. — Transitional — "Pompadour culture" dying out Sciencejj extremely brilliant — Popular literature. // France grew with the Capetian dynasty— Character of its power : autocratic but national — Eighteenth century : the King captured by the nobles — Progress of radical ideas, failure of reforms, sharp reaction at the close of the regime. The Revolution— (a) Completes the work of the Capetians— (h) Transfers sovereignty from the King, theoretically to the people, practically to the Third Estate (bourgeoisie)— (c) Transfers vast amount of landed property from clergy and nobility to bourgeoisie and peasantry — (d) Temporizes and compromises more than is usually thought. Did France need a " saviour '* in 1799 ?— Conditions not desperate — Bourgeoisie wanted to make its conquests secure — "Close the era of revolutions " — The army as final arbiter. PAGE 55 1 1 IV, contents The Epigoni of claBsioism-GrjBco-Roman revival-Dullness of hteraturo-Stiffness of art-Insignificance of thought The dawn of romanticism-Medievalism and the Troubadour Style-Infiuonce of foreign Uteratures-Melancholy-Re SsUv ?a;r/hrself°' °' P'--e«ess-BomanL .U^Tn CHAPTER III Constitutional Monarchy Unity and divisions of the period § 1. The Cbisis (1814-16).-The first Restoration-Failure of th« Bourbons The Hundred Days; Waterloo-Embfttr the feud between Prance and Europe-Give the start to the NapoLnk democratic legend-The Second Restoration: the White Terror ^ Lazl' mlTrf ''^'?--'^°'«'''*« Liberalism v^der iJecazes 1816-20- Reaction under Viliye, 1821-28-Clericalism • the Jesmts, the .' Congregation "-Revival of liberauTrn in Eur^o and ,n France-Return to liberalism with Martigna^ 1828-29 Reaction under Polignac, 1829-3(^Fall of the Boufbon § 3. Loois-Philippe (1830-48). -The Orleanist compromise-In basis-Casimir P^rier and a strong govemment-Thiers Guizot Broglie-Parliamentary intrigues : Thiers, Guizot. UoiLqIZI'- ^ uncompromising resistance-Pall of Louis-Philippe § 4. Genebal Chabactbribtics op the Politicai. nvr-,»^ Peaceful policy: under the Restoration; uSe LouislhU p^I Peace at any price coupled with Napoleon-worship ^^ Bourgeois oligarchy : first consequence : the peonle driv«n fo secret societies and insurrections-Second consequent : S ton: of political oratory— The Press ^ lirS^^i^r^^'^'i ^""^" ^''"'^y '^ * ■^°<"™«°' = ">«"'= and srtnlT'LturSe -^^''^LTt ''' ■^^'°'^«- ' Philippe's Court-The Se 2 lo^ Wg^r Us t^ nesses and solid virtues-Commerce and industryiAgriculture JI^ST?'^-"'^'"^"'"^""-"^ origins-Its four%har-Sur vlval of classicism-Popular art and literature-Eclecticism CHAPTER IV Napoleon III, 1848-70 • • • . ' * l84^''ni"'' ^°='T°*"- "^ REPUBLic-The Revolution of 184^r)emocracy-Socialism-The Constituent Assembly- The a^Iu?m:rnt?""°°-^^""°° °^ Lo«is-Napoleon : its^cau^ 11 PAGE 89 124 V I' 12 CONTENTS § 2. The Coup d'etat and the Empire.— The coup d'etat : its causes and significance— Influence on French thought— Character of the Second Empire— Spiritual gloom— Did the Empire stifle intellectual life ? The Roman Question. § 3. Society.— Documents : literature ; the Press ; graphic docu- ments—Material activity : the Saint-Simonian spirit — Solidity of this prosperity — Glitter. Old French society— The exiles— The Court — The pleasure- seekers—" L'homme fort " : de Morny. § 4. Culture.— Reaction and materialism — Apparent failure of idealism— The second " mal du si^cle "—Gloom not due to the progress of science and industry. Realism : brilliancy of art and literature— Science : the new spirit— Positivism and evolution— Three moments : 185G, 1860, 1867. CHAPTER V The Third Eepublic, 1870-1913 . . • . PAGX I' J 150 § 1. The "Terrible Year," 1870-71.— Causes of the Franco- German War— The principle of nationalities— The policy of com- pensations or "tips"— Responsibility of the whole nation in the declaration, preparation, and conduct of the war— Sedan— Fall of the Empire. Government of National Defence- Trochu— Gambotta— Fall of Paris— Peace — National Assembly. The Commune: causes, character, evolution — Repression- Influence. § 2. Recuperation. Foundation of the Republic. Conquest of THE Republic by the Republicans.— Financial recuperation : Thiers and the liberation of the Territory— Public works— Military and diplomatic recovery— 1878 : the Exposition and the Berlin Congress ; France resumes her position. Constitutional reconstruction : monarchical majority, but divided —MacMahon— Legitimist Pretender refuses to compromise— Con- stitution of 1875 : provisional and "omnibus." The crisis of the 16th of May, 1877— Failure of the conservatives —Resignation of MacMahon— Conquest of the Republic by the Republicans. § 3. The Opportunist Republic, 1879-99. — Result of the 16th of May : annihilation of the Presidency, paralysis of the Executive —The Opportunists— The group system— Shifting combinations and coalition Ministries— Crises : Boulanger— The colonial expan- sion — The Russian alliance. The Freycinet plan of public works — Popular education— Anti-clericalism. CONTENTS S 4. The Dreyfus Case and the Radical Block, 1899 seq.—The Dreyfus case-Meaning of the '' affair "—Intensity of the crisis— VValdeck-Rousseau, Galliffet, Millerand: the Ministry of Republican Defence— Anti-clerical reprisals— Weakness of constructive policy- Rupture of Radicals and Socialists. § 5. Society. —Continuation of the July monarchy— The aristocracy : an impotent survival— Democracy not yet in control— Rule of the bourgeoisie— Extent and subdivisions of that class— Social prejudice against producers— Its dangers and advantages. § 6. Culture.— Continuation of realism— Influence of the Terrible Year: pessimism (Taine) ;— irony (Renan)— Decadence ?— Revival of mysticism— Cultural aspects of the Dreyfus crisis— Empirical idealism. CHAPTER VI The Social Question .... § 1^ Formation and Deformation op Bourgeois Liberalism, 1789-1830.— The Revolution— Property a sacred right— Suppression of feudalism— Importance of that precedent— Absolute individualism (Chapelier law). The Empire: liberalism degenerates into class legislation- Napoleon restores bourgeois corporations— The " livret "—Article 1781. Survival of the Compagnonnages— The mutual help societies § 2. The July Monarchy, 1830-48. Growth of Modern Socialism. —First development of mechanical industries— " Resistances "—The Lyons insurrection— Republican secret societies and their socialistic tendencies. The Utopian Socialists: Saint-Simon — Fourier— Cabet— Louis Blanc — Proudhon . § 3. From 1848 to 1871.— Socialism in 1848-The national work- shops—The Days of June-The Red Fiend— The coup d'etat - Persecutions— Saint-Simonian policy of Napoleon III— Hostility of the industrial workers to the Empire— Liberal legislation after I860— Prince Napoleon and labour— The working men delegates to London— Origin and development of the International Working Men's Association. The Commune, n. Socialism under the Third Republic— Revival of socialism —Jules Guesde and Lafargue— Division into sects— Millerand and Jaur^s— The Dreyfus case ; impetus it gave to socialistic ideas— Mil- lerand in Cabinet-Unification in 1904— Rupture with the Radicals. Social policy of the Radicals : mutualism, rs. Syndicalism, Etc.- Syndicalism— Waldeck-Rousseau law, 1884 —Hostility of the employers— Direct action— The "conscious minority "-The general strike-Kinship to anarchism- Violence. Syndicalism and the State Employees. The Rural Classes. 13 PAGE 186 41 u CONTENTS CONTENTS 15 CHAPTER VII Education . PAGF, . 222 § 1. Revolution and Empire.— Relation of educational problem to religion and politics— Education on the eve of the Revolution- Ruin of the old system— Abortive plans— The Central Schools. Napoleon : elementary education ignored— The Lycees— The Facultes — The University : its nature and purpose. § 2. Constitutional Monarchy.— The Restoration— The University preserved— The clerical question— The Sorbonne trio— Elementary education": mutual and simultaneous systems— The July monarchy- Heyday of the University— The College de France trio— Attacks of the Catholics against themonopoly— Guizot law on elementary education. § 3. Second Republic and Second Empire.— The Revolution of 1848— The Falloux law on the liberty of education— Clerical influences under Napoleon III— Reaction under Fortoul- Admirable work of Victor Duruy. ^§4. The Third Republic: Elementary Education.— Law of 1875 on the liberty of superior education— Jules Ferry, Paul Bert and the national school system— Anti-clericalism : about 1880 —Revival after the Dreyfus case — The neutrality problem- Achievements of the Republic— Shortcomings. The crisis of primary education, material and moral— Socialism and syndicalism among the teachers. § 6. The Third Republic : Secondary and Superior Education. —Secondary.— The Church holds her own— Reorganization of the course— The reform of 1902. Superior education.— Cresktion of local universities, 1896— Univer- sity of Paris: its material importance and prestige— The provincial universities— Their activities— Alleged excess of the scientific spirit —General culture outside the universities : literary lectures, etc. Note on the Popular Universities. CHAPTER VIII The Religious Question . . . , . 256 § 1. Reaction, 1800-30.— The war of the Church against evil- Three main lines of conflict— Religious situation in 1800— Reasons of Bonaparte for negotiating the Concordat— Fosters Ultramon- tanism— Conflicts arising from the Consjordat— Napoleon excom- municated and the Pope imprisoned. Revival of Catholicism in French thought and literature- Chateaubriand, de Maistre, de Bonald, Lamennais. Alliance of the Church and the Ultra-Catholic party— Clericalism and anti-clericalism under Charles X. § 2. The Great Schism, 1830-70.-1830: Liberal Catholicism- Failure of Lamennais— Lacordaire at Notre-Dame— Montalembert \('^^ in the House of Peers-Attacks against the University and counter- ttl::!Zi:^ ^^ ^^^ ^-^ romanticists 1848 : Temporary reconciliation between the Church and democracy-Immediate rupture-The Roman expedition at home- The coup d'etat endorsed by the Catholics-Slow agony of liberal - P:Sfr^^^^^^^ '' ^^- IX--TheUbusJ § 3. The Third REPUBLic.-Religious revival after the war-Checked Mav Tn •' 1 '^'r "'^ intrigues-Anti-clericalism and the 16th o1 May-Anti-clericalism and the school question-Leo XIII and thp policy of reconciliation with the modern world-The RaU^s and he 'New Spirit "-The Dreyfus case and religion- Anticlerical legislation of Waldeck-Rousseau-Emile Combers (Note on Free masonry)-The Concordat breaks down-Rupture-The Separation law-Hostility to the Separation due to the Roman Curia ^ oi ^^flTT'^'^'^V''^ ^^^'''^ ^"^^^"^^ forerunnersl-Revival of Catholic thought and sentiment in the nineties-Vagueness o the Modernist attitude -Encyclical Pasc^n^i-Christian df^ocracy AbW Lemire-Marc Sangnier and the ''Furrow" (Note on Count . uo Mun'a social activities). v^^uni, § 5. I'«OTESTANTiSM, Exc-Protestantism reorganized under Napoleon -The two estabhshed Churchcs-The Revival and the Free Evan Conflict between orthodox and liberals: Coquerel and Guizot-The Sof'prt . ; °' ''P ' ^'^•"^■"-Honourable but unimportan part of Protestantism in French life afif S'' ZZl""^ ""/'' Nap;ieon-Complete emancipation rZJ 1^ " "*"•* ^■"""'^ """""S F^«°<=h Jews -Anti- Scmifsm : Drumont and La LH»-e Paroi.-The Dreyfus case • m,nor .mportance of anti-Semitism (Note on the Jews in AlgerTaV Ch^ r,.?,^'^'^"'-'""'"^'^ °' "°" Churches: Gallicamsm (a" bi Chatel Father Hyacinthe Loyson,-Saint.Simonianism-PoTiti^sm clasr^iTotf T '"/'^^ "-'-''' -"gion" of the mrddTe Classes— Its long-continued influence. Intense interest of modern France in religious questions. PAGE CoNCIiUSION * Taking siocV-Li^bilities : (1) The falling birth-rate - (2) War 5ri ^^^^^ -^^^^-;-H3) Alcoh^^^ Bourgeois plttin! Msets: The heritage-(l) European France-(2) The Colonial Empire-(3) Hoarded capital-(4) Cultural tradition8-(5) pSige -(6) Evidences of undiminished vitality. ^ 292 Index . 302 ,i \ I CHAPTER I THE FOUNDATIONS THE COUNTRY— THE RACE— THE TRADITION § 1. The Country. The theory of environment — France : situation — Size — Historical connection with the Mediterranean world— Geographical affinities with Northern Europe — Mountainous regions and basins — Extreme variety of aspects and climates : the main regions — Natural unity : the role of the depression of Poitou — But unity chiefly a historical achieve- ment — Resources : fertility overrated]; harbours, rivers, and mineral wealth mediocre— But many-sided, well-balanced — The human factor predominant. That the habitat has a profound influence on the individual and especially on the race was a favourite conception fifty years ago with such historians as Taine and Buckle. Renan went so far as to make geographical conditions responsible for the religious beliefs of a people: '*The desert," he said, "is monotheistic.*' Over a century before, Montesquieu made the ** theory of climates " one of his guiding principles in the interpretation of history, and we are told that this notion can be traced, througli Jean Bodin, as far back as Hippocrates himself. The present tendency is to shift the emphasis onto the concept of race. The growth of Anglo-Saxon communities preserving their essential traits under the most various skies, the coexistence of widely different races in the same country, seem to show that physical environment is only one of the factors in the formation of a people, and probably not the most determinative. On the other hand, it may be said that colonial migrations are compara- tively recent, and that the wanderers have kept in touch with 2 18 FRENCH CIVILIZATION IN XIXth CENTURY the main body of their race, which preserved its traditions and maintained its standard: what a millennium of separate exist- ence would do for them we do not know. Furthermore, even though environment may not radically influence the character of the race, it undoubtedly affects its destiny and policy. Had the English lived for centuries in the centre of a massive continent, devoid of coal and intensely hot, their racial qualities might have been the same as at present : but the manifestations of their genius would obviously have been different. Let us therefore see what Nature has done for the region we call France, and to what extent geography controls or explains its destinies. France is a country of Western Europe, comprised between 51° 5' and 42° 20' of latitude N., and in longitude between 4° 42' W. and 7° 39' E. It is thus almost exactly half-way between the North Pole and the Equator. Practically the whole of the British Isles lies north of France. Germany is on the average 5° farther north : the northernmost point in France is on the same latitude as Dresden, the southernmost point in Germany on the same latitude as Dijon. Within the same zone in the Northern Hemisphere we find Central and Southern Germany, Austria-Hungary, Southern Russia, Turkestan, the deserts of Mongolia and the greater part of Manchuria ; in America, Oregon and Washington, the Great Lakes, New England, and the part of Canada which was once New France, from Connecticut to Labrador. On account of the influence of the Gulf Stream and of the prevailing west winds, the greater part of France is more temperate than its latitude would suggest. France is in the heart of the region best suited to the develop- ment of the white race. European France, without its North African provinces and its huge colonial dominions, is a small country compared with such giants as the Russian Empire (41 times larger), the United States or Brazil (16 and 17 times), Australia (13) or even Russia in Europe (lOi). Texas is considerably larger, and California not much smaller. In comparison with other Western European States, France does not look so insignificant. It is decidedly inferior only to Austria-Hungary. The difi*erence THE FOUNDATIONS 19 in favour of the German Empire is negligible (Germany, 208 780 square miles; France, 207,170). The British Isles are barely three-fifths the size of France. France is thus too large ever to fear that powerful neighbours will absorb her or turn her into their satellite, as might be the case with Denmark, Holland or Belgium ; but it is not a huge, self-contained continent or sub- continent, capable of evolving an independent culture. It is an organic, essential part of a larger unit, Western Europe. By far the most important point in this connection is that France, and France alone, borders at the same time on the Mediterranean, the Atlantic, and the North Sea. Thus she is both a Northern and a Southern Power, but not in the «ame degi-ee. Historically, the whole of France belongs to the Mediterranean world, of which Rome was so long the centre. The valley of the Rhone and tlie isthmus of Gascony afforded easy access to the north and the west, as far as the Seine, the Rhine and the Atlantic Ocean. Thus Gaul was early conquered by Roman arms, Roman law, and the Latin language. But this conquest was due to the overwhelming superiority of Roman civilization, not to any natural unity of the so-called Latin world Geogi-aphically, France is primarily a Nortliern country like England and Germany. It turns its back on the rest of the Romania. From Italy it is separated by the highest mountains in Europe, the Alps ; from Spain, by the lower but less acces- sible Pyrenees. It has less than 400 miles of coast on the Mediterranean, against 700 on the North Sea and the Channel, and 8G5 on the Ocean. The western half of that Mediter- ranean coast is marshy and feverish ; the eastern half is cut off- from the rest of the country by abrupt and barren hills or even by mountains. The highroad from the Mediterranean to the North, the Rhone Valley, is fertile enough, but exceedingly narrow ; the river is abundant and picturesque, but impetuous and almost untamable—*^ a mad bull rushing southward," as Michelet called it. On the contrary, between France, North Germany, and Belgium there are no natural obstacles. The Moselle, the Mouse, the Scheldt, have the upper part of their course in France. The north-eastern boundary of France is purely artificial. The heart of French power, Paris, is far 20 FRENCH CIVILIZATION IN XIXth CENTURY to the north. France was thus destined to be the country where North and South would meet and blend. A first glance at a relief map of France will show that all the mountains and high plateaus are found south and east of a line drawn from Bayonne, on the Gulf of Gascony, to Givet, where the Meuse enters Belgium. However, this first impression is deceptive. It does not take into account the fact that Brittany is a mountainous region too, but worn down to a tableland of moderate height by centuries of active erosion. With the help of geology we get a truer conception of the structure of France. In the north-west, a mass of granite, ]3rittany, with its satellites, Vendee, Maine, and a part of Normandy.* In the centre, a huge triangular mass of extinct volcanoes and eruptive rocks — the Central Mountains (Massif Central ; Mont Dore, 6,188 feet), buttressed by the long chain of the Cevennes (Lozere, 5,584). To the south, the abrupt and jagged wall of the Pyrenees (Vignemale, 10,820). In the south-east, the Alps (Mont Blanc, 15,800), and, north of the Alps, two minor ranges, the wave-like Jura (5,500) and the Vosges with their character- istic domes (4,480). These masses leave between them room for three main basins of varying importance : in the north, the Parisian basin, which comprises all the watershed of the Eiver Seine, plus the middle course of the Loire ; in the south-V^tfi^; the basin of Bordeaux, in the plain of the Garonne, vast and rich, but less extensive and less fortunately situated than that of Paris; in the south-east, the long and narrow valley of the lower Rhone and the Saone, a great highway of commerce, but so cramped between the Cevennes and the Alps that it could not become the centre of national existence. These four mountain regions and these three basins, with their innumerable subdivisions, present a remarkable variety of aspects, infinitely greater than could be found on a similar area cut out of some vast geographical unit like the valley * This affords a curious and perhaps fanciful case of correlation between geographical and historical facts. The great civil war in the West during the Bevolution raged almost exclusively on primary rocks. THE FOUNDATIONS 21 of the Mississippi or the Russian plains. France is both a maritime and a continental country, one in which mountains and level stretches alternate in constant contrast. It is an epitome of the whole of Europe, a microcosm. Too often judged by the old domain of the Capetians— the Seine and the Middle Loire— France is defined as an amiable land of well-tilled fields, and gardens, not strikingly picturesque, moderate in all things, essentially sociable and civilized in the character of its landscape as well as in that of its inhabitants. This tells only one part of the tale. It leaves out Brittany, with its tormented rocks ever assailed by a wild ocean ; the Central Mountains, whose weird beauty was discovered by Ruskin and Stevenson, and the titanic wall of the Pyrenees. The highest summit of the mighty Alps, Mont Blanc, is on French soil, and the purely French Alps of Dauphiny tower as high and are even more sheer and formidable than the most famous Swiss mountains. The Rhone Valley, less commercially rich, less plentifully advertised than that of the Rhine, surpasses it in rugged grandeur. Amenity, harmony, are not more characteristic of France as a whole than uncouth impressiveness and romantic beauty. In this case, as in many others, the Isle-de-France, Paris, and the garden of Touraine fail to give a true picture of the rest of the country. Varied in its aspects, France is no less varied in its climates. French geographers generally recognize seven. The Parisian or Sequanian region, under the influence of its northern latitude, mitigated by its proximity to the Channel, has a cool climate (mean temperature 50°), equable in the main, but offering constant variations : a climate of samples, which fanciful meteor- ologists liken to the proverbial fickleness of the Parisian mind. Rains are light but frequent ; they often make winter slushy rather than severe, and summer as cool and wet as spring. The Breton or Armorican climate, under the influence of the Gulf Stream, is a little warmer (51-8°) and decidedly maritime : cool summers that do not allow the vine to thrive, very mild winters, frequent mists and rains. The Girondin climate reigns over Poitou and the basin of the Garonne. It is also a maritime climate, mild and seldom too dry, but, on account of its more I 22 FRENCH CIVILIZATION IN XIXth CENTURY southern position, warmer and sunnier than that of Brittany (53*6°) ; it is ideally suitable for wine, fruit, and cereals. The Central Mountains vary in climate according to their exposure, altitude, and geological formation ; on the whole, the Auvergne climate is cool (51°) but extreme ; summers may be locally scorching, winters are almost invariably very hard. Snow, rare and light in the West and South of France, here falls heavily and covers the ground for months. The Vosgian or eastern climate, embracing northern Franchc-Comte, eastern Burgundy and Champagne, and the whole of Lorraine, is typically continental, with long sharp winters, brief and hot summers which enable the vine to prosper on favoured hill-sides (average 48'2o). The Rhodanian or Lyonnese climate, farther south and on a lower altitude, but uninfluenced by the sea and hemmed in by moun- tains, is warmer (51*8°), extreme, changeable, with abundant rains. The Mediterranean climate, by far the warmest (57*5°), offers mild winters, long, dry summers, when nature assumes that appearance of deadness so characteristic of Northern Africa or the South-Western United States; a *' choleric " climate withal, as Michelet would have it, with sudden downpours and thunderstorms, with winds raging from the Mediterranean or down the air-shaft of the Rhone Valley. Sheltered by the Alps, the Riviera in winter is a paradise. In spite of this endless diversity, France presents an undeniable character of unity. The seven or more great regions which we have sketched would have formed separate geographical entities, had not communications been comparatively easy between them. From the Mediterranean to the Ocean, the pass of Naurouze (640 feet) offers such convenient access into the Garonne Valley at Toulouse that a canal was built through it as early as the days of Louis XIV.* There are only a few miles from the Rhone to the Upper Loire, while the Saone has long been connected by waterways with the Middle Loire, the Upper Seine and the Rhine. Most important of all is the depression of Poitou : had it not been so wide and so level, * Its transformation into a ship canal, " Canal dcs Dcux-Mers," has even been repeatedly proposed. THE FOUNDATIONS 2. the Garonne Valley and the whole South-West, as rich and for a long time more cultured than Northern France, would have maintained or recovered its independence, which it lost through the crusade against the Albigensians. The fate of France was often decided on the fields which stretch between Orleans, Tours and Poitiers (Attila ; Clovis ; Charles Martel ; Hundred Years War; 1871, etc.) Thus the country, such as we know it, seems to us remarkably well-balanced, and Strabo came to the same conclusion many centuries ago. Its rich contrasts do not amount to antinomies. There are practically no centrifugal tendencies : even Brittany, manifestly different, but too small to live apart and with no other neighbour but France, has no desire to secede. However, we should not exaggerate the ** natural " unity of France. It is easy to see a posteriori how the different regions came together and remained together — but would not other formations have been possible ? This not only in the North-East, where the arbitrary political frontier takes little account of natural or linguistic boundaries, but even in the South-East and the South-West. \ France is the result of physical geography, no doubt, but also of an equilibrium between contending influences of races and cultures, and perhaps still more of a definite long- continued policy. What holds France together is the Capetian tradition first of all, then the principles and souvenirs of the Revolution and a strictly centralized form of government. This centralization system we take to be one of the causes, rather than the result, of national unity. The Convention, which had so deep an instinct of French tradition, fought like grim death for the indivisibility of the Republic, against all federalists. France is the product of the human will — the will of kings at first, then the will of the people. It remains for us to examine what resources France offers to its inhabitants. In spite of a widespread and flattering prejudice, France was by no means bountifully endowed by nature. Barren mountains cover nearly one-third of her territory. Except for her narrow golden belt, Brittany is sterile. The Landes are vast tracts of shifting dunes, partly * » 2,4: FRENCH CIVILIZATION IN XIXth CENTURY reclaimed under the Second Empire. There are traces in Sologne and the Dombes of the marshes that once covered a large portion of the country. Almost at the gate of Paris, Champagne Pouilleuse (beggarly) is a bare, bleak plain. No part of France compares in rank luxuriance with the tropics, or in inexhaustible agricultural wealth with the Chinese loess, the Russian tchemo- zion, the valleys of the Nile and of the Po. Much of the present fertility of France is due to unremitting labour : hence the peculiar love of the French peasant for that soil which requires such efforts, but repays them without stint. Neither is France ideally well favoured for commerce. Its position on four seas is advantageous. But, compared with England, Japan, Italy or Greece, its shape is massive, its coast- line small in proportion to the total area, and, in consequence, its coast-wise trade comparatively unimportant. The most maritime province, Brittany, is the most un-French. There are few good natural harbours. Brest, the best in spite of a dangerous pass, is far from all centres of production. Le Havre is ever on the defensive : the sea, it was aptly said, is British at heart : it scours the English coast, deepens its harbours, and chokes with silt their French rivals. As a highway of commerce, the longest river, the Loire, is almost useless ; the most abundant, the Rhone, is too much of a torrent ever to rival the Rhine or the Elbe; the Garonne is worse than mediocre ; the unassuming Seine alone is excellent and capable of almost indefinite improvement. Already as smooth and regular as a canal, 11 feet deep as far as Paris, it could easily be made accessible to large sea-going vessels. France is poor in minerals. Precious metals are almost non-existent; coal, ''the bread of industry," is found only in a few districts, especially in the North, in geological formations more broken and more expensive to work than in England. The total output amounted in 1911 only to 38 million tons, against 455 in America, 268 in England, 234 in Germany. Iron is more abundant, especially since the discovery of the rich basin of Briey in Lorraine. But iron and coal are not found side by side, and there is no cheap way of conveying the one to the other. The proposed North-Eastern Canal, between THE FOUNDATIONS 25 the metallurgic basin of Lorraine and the coalfields of the North, would be an extremely difficult and costly piece of engineering. These facts may explain both the small density of the French population, lower than that of all its neighbours except Spain, and the thrifty, hardworking, cautious character of the people. France is a country where gambling and large ventures, as a rule, do not pay. There is no doubt that the French are unduly conservative and even timid in business ; but the less rapid growth of their conmierce and industry within the last thirty years, compared with the substantial progress of England and the giant strides of America and Germany, is due primarily to natural causes which they have done wonders to overcome. On the other hand, France is well-rounded in its economic life, almost self-supporting, at tlie mercy neither of foreign supplies nor of one exclusive national staple. It offers a sufficiency of all essentials— bread, vegetables, fruit ; the French would add, wine— all of excellent quality. Beef and mutton can hardly compare with the English products: but poultry is plentiful, and "la poule au pot," which good King Henry wished every one of his subjects to enjoy of a Sunday, is a tooth- some dish. Long centuries of civilization have given France industrial treasures as precious as coal and iron : an artistic tradition and generations of skilled craftsmen. Owing to the immense variety of her resources, although each in particular may seem mediocre, France weathers industrial crises better than her more venturesome and reckless rivals. In other words, nature in France is not oppressive. It did not lay upon man too heavy a curse, nor did it demoralize him through excessive bounty. The result is that in France the human factor is all important: there are no geographical influences that can be traced inevitably. It has been said that the oppressive splendour of Indian nature was "pantheistic"; that the awful simplicity of the desert was "monotheistic":' if we wanted to express in the same fanciful style the well- balanced, almost negative quality of nature in France, "rationalism" is the word that would immediately come to our mind. 26 FRENCH CIVILIZATION IN XIXth CENTURY THE FOUNDATIONS 27 § 2. The Race. (a) Language. — Romanic or Nco-Latin— Flemish, Breton, Basque- North and South, langue d'oil and langue d'oc ; supremacy of Northern French undisputed— French beyond the limits of France — Restricted significance of language affinity. (b) Historical Ethnographij.—Celtihormns, Gauls, Romans, Franks — Minor elements : Greeks and Arabs — Constant infiltration — Polish and Italian refugees — The Jews — Same basic elements as in England — Proportions undefinable — The Celtic problem as an example of ethno- graphic confusion. The study of European races has been likened to a quagmire. In hardly any other question has such havoc been wrought by loose thinking applied to insufi&cient or conflicting data. *' Anthroposociology " has in many cases been naught but the pedantic glorification of popular prejudices. The brilliant and suggestive works of Vacher de Lapouge, Gustavo Lebon, Houston Stewart Chamberlain, for instance, are often marred by the asser- tiveness common to pseudo-sciences and to sciences in the making. The very term **race" is exceedingly vague. When we speak of Aryans, Semites, Mongolians ; of Slavs, Celts, and Teutons ; of Latins and Anglo-Saxons, we have three or four widely different conceptions in our minds. Race is often used for linguistic group : a pernicious confusion to which we owe the myths of *' Aryan" and ** Latin" races. Anglo-Saxon is a purely historical term, which denotes but two elements in the make-up of an extremely complex population. Celt and Teuton may refer to linguistic dilierences, but also to somatological differences, such as stature, pigmentation, and the shape of the skull. Finally, the French or the Spanish '' race," for instance, means nothing but France or Spain considered as an ethnic unit. Three thousand years of migrations, wars, and peaceful inter- course have tangled European conditions to such a point that linguistic, ethnic, anthropological, and political boundaries are seldom, if ever, found to coincide. (a) Language. The French speak a Romanic or Neo-Latin language, like the Italians, the Spaniards, the Portuguese, and the Kumaniaus. w Let us note that France has not yet achieved the degree of linguistic unity she is often credited with. First of all, there are three allogenic groups. The Flemings in the North use a Low- German dialect, in almost every respect similar to Dutch. Brittany, after adopting Latin like the rest of Gaul, was re- Celticized in the fifth century by invaders from Cornwall, and Bas-.Breton is but slowly receding before French. The Basques, astride on the Western Pyrenees, still preserve their mysterious language, Euskara or Euskaldunac, apparently unrelated even to the other agglutinative tongues in Europe, Finnish and Magyar. These heterogeneous elements are of no great significance in French national life. Within the Romania proper, the dialects of Nice and Corsica are undoubtedly more closely related to Italian than to Northern French, thus lending some colour to the claims of the '* Irredentists " ; whilst Catalan, spoken in French Pyrenees Orientales as well as in the most industrial part of Spain, is no less evidently akin to Proven9al rather than to Castilian. More important is the fact that French is still divided into Northern and Southern, Langue d'oil and Langue d'oc, Francien and Provencal. The boundary, broadly speak- ing, starts from the Gironde and ends near Berne in Switzer- land, by w^ay of Angoulomc, Montmorillon, Montluyon, Lyons, and the crests of the Jura ; but many border dialects are of such mixed character that no very definite line can be drawn. At every turn we meet this profound difference between North and South, with Poitou as a debatable borderland between them. But this linguistic division is not the cause of any political difficulty. The official status of Northern French is nowhere challenged, and there is no threat of national or cultural disrup- tion in the revival of Provengal literature. In spite of Mistral's genius, one may doubt whether there be any future for the eclectic and artificial literary medium which he and his friends created, by ransacking the lore of many provinces and many centuries. While French is not the sole language spoken in France, its domain extends beyond the French boundaries. In Belgium the southern provinces speak Walloon, a French dialect, with Liege as its stronghold and Brussels as its northern limit. 28 FRENCH CIVILIZATION IN XIXth CENTURY About half of German Lorraine, round Metz, and a few villages in Alsace are French of speech as well as French of heart. French is the language of some 700,000 Swiss in Neuchatel and Vaud, as well as parts of Fribourg and Valais. The upper valley of Aosta, in Italy, also speaks French. Even in the Flemish parts of Belgium and in Alsace, in spite of political hostility on the part of *' Flamingants" and Pangermanists, the upper classes are bilingual. The same is true of Luxemburg, of large sections of Switzerland, and especially, until recent times, of Rumania. But this leads us into the cultural diffusion of French, which has nothing to do with race, and will be discussed in its place. Language affinity is a bond the historical, sentimental, and practical importance of which we have no desire to minimize. Yet, in the nineteenth century at least, French thought and French life were much more deeply influenced by England and Germany, and even by Scandinavia and Russia, than by Spain or Italy, and it can be shown that England, during the same period, kept in closer touch with Italy than France did. The use of related languages need not imply any moral or mental similarity. To bracket together as '' Latin " traits the fortitude and impassiveness of ancient Rome, tlie artistic joyousness of modern Italy, Spain's gloomy pride and mysticism, France's wit and logic, would be, to say the least, venturesome. Still less are kindred tongues the evidence of descent from the same stock. The common *'Latinity" of a Rumanian and a Portuguese proves no closer blood relationship than could be traced between a Lowland Scot and an Alabama negro— who both speak English dialects. ^ Language is a historical and a cultural, but not properly a racial, factor. (b) Historical Ethnocjmphij. Shall we come to a more correct conception if we attempt to o-ive the '* ethnic formula" of a nation, in other words, if we enumerate the ingredients which contril^uted to its formation in the course of history ? In France we tind layer upon layer of invaders. France is attractive and accessible ; it is the western extremity of the immense series of plains which stretch across THE FOUNDATIONS 29 the north of Europe and Asia ; and it ever was the easiest high- way from North to South. The Gauls, whate jr they may have been, were neither aborigines nor even, perhaps, the first con- querors of the land. The primitive inhabitants are often referred to — darkly — as Celtiberians, and the Basques are sometimes held to be a remnant of these early occupiers of the soil. After the Gauls came the Romans, who subdued the south of the country from 154 to 121 B.C. (Gallia Braccata or Narbonensis, modern Provence) and the rest, as far as the Rhine, under Julius Caesar, from 58 to 51 B.C. Four centuries later, after a long period of gradual infiltration, sometimes checked, sometimes encouraged by Rome, Gaul was flooded with migi-ating Barbarians. The Visigoths, the Burgundians, and the Franks took up their abode in the land. The invasions, properly so-called, ended with the repulse of the Huns and of the Avars. In the ninth and tenth centuries the Northmen harried the coasts, penetrated far inland along the valleys of the Seine and of the Loire, and finally secured the rich province which still bears their name (Normandy). The prehistoric and shadowy Celtiberians, the Gauls, the Romans, the Franks, and the Northmen, such are the main elements of the French people. All other historical influences are so small as to be almost negligible. The Greeks founded several cities on the Mediterranean shore — Nice, Monaco, Antibes, and especially Massilia — Marseilles. The Arabs, defeated by Charles Martel, occupied Aquitania for some time, and to their sojourn some ethnogi-aphers ascribe the sporadic existence of Saracenic types among the Southern peasantry. There is practically no trace of the protracted English tenure of Guienne, nor of Spanish rule in Franche-Comt^. All invasions of France since the Hundred Years War were so short and of BO purely military a nature that they could not affect the popula- tion in any perceptible degree. More important than all spectacular crises are the constant and silent migi-ations which have never completely ceased in modern times and continue to the present day. Throughout the nineteenth century France has attracted Poles, Russians, and Italians, driven from their countries by the tyranny of the Tsars or of Austria. The number of these refugees was never very large, but they were an 30 FRENCH CIVILIZATION IN XIXth CENTURY THE FOUNDATIONS 31 'g elite, and Polish names in particular are not ^^fr^f J^^n French writers and scientists. The imm>gi-at>on of "^^ labourers is surprisingly small, in view of the facts th t Fran^^^ is both richer and more sparsely populated than l>"J«f ^"^^^^ and that there is no legal restraint to the -Ao^f f J^^;^ Workmen. Belgians, Italians, and Poles, however, are an ever ncreS. factor even in rural districts at harvest-time, and esnec^aU; in industrial centres. The fear that Germany nnght especially in champagne, and Franche-Comte TyTpLes: otndlm'osis seems unfoUd. Modern^Germany in spite of the tremendous increase m her population, has no In to spare • and in German as well as in French Lorraine, it baTbeeSnd necessary to call in ^^^.^^^^^^^ • rffitl ^:Z^^J'Z^^^r^ rpresr of a Itdtd tl— G:::ans. in Paris is a factor of lasting peace between the two neighbours.^ ^, . Shall we count the Jews among these foreign elements ? That won d he an error as well as an injustice, for the French Je.s lome 60 000 altogether, do not in any way stand apart Iro n he eTof the population. This was not exactly the case with the Ilttfan Jews before 1871 ; this is not tbe -se eiUier w,h t^e oxtremelY small international aristocracy of finance .Algeria ^c^::tas her own problem ; and we are told that witlun^^^^^^^^^^^^ fpw vears Paris has been developuig a Ghetto in the baint SlrSstrict. But the Franco-Jewish families of old standing fre a a u e well-to-do rather than wealthy, and less promment Hhe comm rcial world than in the professions, literature and science Even the well-known racial type has become so attenu- : las- to be barely perceptible. In the ^^f-p^l;^^ shall see, Antisemitism proper played a minor part, and Diumont T ihr,' Parole is a vox damantis in dcserto. "^ C rfoully enough, the ethnic components of the F-ch peop^ are exactly the same as those of the English viz., pnm itive Celt Roman conquerors, German invaders. The community o origin was made all the closer by the Norman eonq-s • The armv of William, made up of adventurers from all Northern France was not Scandinavian, but French. This may account for the brown eyes of a large proportion of the British aristo- cracy, recognized by the Teutomaniac Chambp-lain. We must say that in both cases, Britain and France, we do not know in what proportions the original elements were mingled. Moreover, as Lapouge and Ammon were able to prove, a very slight differ- ence in the prolificity or mortality of these various elements would be sufficient radically to alter their numerical relation within a few centuries. The French are in the main Gallo-Romano-Franks : but we cannot give any exponents to the terms of this formula. Furthermore, the present tendency among historians is to minimize the importance of invasions. These movements, which loom so large in chronicles and traditions, seem to have affected only a small proportion of the population. The Gauls were only a ruling class. The Romans, north of the Alps, were very few ; even the veterans and traders who settled in the country were not necessarily of Roman blood. The Franks proper were but a tribe. Even the cultural influence of conquest is often overstated. Gaul was evolving a stage of culture very similar to that of Rome when its development was absorbed by that of the Imperial City. Fustel de Coulanges tried to prove that the Germanic invasions were not responsible for the rise of feudalism. In history as well as in geology, cataclysmic theories are more and more abandoned. For a century and a half, from Boulainvilliers to Augustin Thierry and even to Henri Martin, the attempt was repeatedly made to use ethnography as a key to history. Sieyes cried out against the French aristocracy : '*Let us send them back to their German marshes, whence they came ! " Many considered the Revolution of 1830 as the final emancipation of the Gallo- Romans held in subjection by the Franks since the sixth century. These theories are fanciful in the extreme. Long before the end of the Middle Ages the nobility had been racially assimilated to the rest of the population. Nay, it had probably been renewed in its entirety, not once but several times, and particularly during the Crusades. There is no sign that at the time of the Revolution the nobility had any purer ** Frankish " blood in their veins than the bourgeoisie. Let us note finally that the historical migrations of peoples * 32 FRENCH CIVILIZATION IN XIXth CENTURY are not always a clue to the present distribution of types and races. This difficulty is best exemplified by the Celtic question. The ancients, Caesar in particular, described the Celts or Gauls (for they used the terms almost indiscriminately) as a tall, ruddy race. This description corresponds to our present conception of the Teutons. Chamberlain considers the original Celts, Slavs, and Germans as all equally Teutonic. The very Teutons who joined the Cimbri were possibly a Celtic tribe. Linfjuistically, Celtic denotes a number of languages driven to the extreme verge of Western Europe — one just dead in Cornwall, others dying or fighting for life in Brittany, \yales, Ireland, and Scotland. Racially, there are few peoples standing farther apart than those who speak Celtic languages : the Bretons are much more akin to the Auvergnats, the Bavarians, and the Prussians than to the Irish or the Scotch. § 3. The Race (continued). (c) Anthropology. —Cntev'vd — Limitations — The Nordic, Celto-Slavic, and ^Mediterranean races in France — The French a racial medley — Their unity an act of will. (d) Psychology of the French People. — Collective psycholog>' may be a delusion, but has formative influence — (1) Cheerfulness — (2) Nervous temperament — True of Paris and the South, not of France as a whole — (3) Sociability — (4) Intellectualism — These traits the result of France's natural heterogeneity and self-conquered unity — They veil, but do not destrov, the common human substratum. (e) Note : Race from the Eugenic Point of View. — Racial decay ? — The aUeged lowering of the stature — The falling birth-rate. (c) Anthropology. So we now turn from historical ethnography to anthropology, which with callipers, measuring tape, and colour scale, ought to give us definite data. Many tests can be applied : stature, build (stocky or slender), pigmentation (skin, hair, and eyes), shape of the skull and face (facial index, facial angle, cephalic index), form of the nose, texture of the hair, etc. For the distinction of races, stature, pigmentation, and the cephalic index combined are the criteria generally adopted.* * Cephalic index : simply the breadth of the head above the cars expressed in percentage of its length from forehead to back. As the head becomes pro- THE FOUNDATIONS S3 We should bear in mind from the outset that there are extremely few pure specimens, i.e., individuals in whom all the characteristics of a given type are actually found together. The ** races" defined by anthropologists are more or less ideal con- ceptions. Ammon wrote to Ripley that out of thousands of heads he had measured in Baden, a stronghold of the Alpine race, he could not find a single perfect specimen of that type. The truth is that if the difi'erent varieties of Europeans are con- sidered as races, we are all mongrels. This is truer of rich and accessible comitries than of '* centres of isolation" like Scandinavia and Corsica ; truer of the aristocracy and the profes- sions, easily cosmopolitan, than of the common people. That no excessive faith can be placed in the cephalic index alone is made evident by a curious fact : the Basques and the Jews are among the most strongly individualized races in the world, isolated, the former in their mountainous habitat and their mysterious language, the latter as a result of their religion and of the universal popular prejudice against them. As types, they are unmistakable. Yet their cephalic index varies with that of the surrounding populations. Spanish Basques are considerably longer-headed than French Basques. Algerian and Portuguese Jews are longer-headed than Polish Jews. Any relation between the cephalic index and intelligence is disproved by the fact that the longest heads are found among the degraded Australian aborigines, and that the negro race as a whole is more dolicho- cephalic than the Teutonic* Most anthropologists recognize three main races in Europe. The Nordic, or Scandinavian, is dolichocephalic, tall and blond. The Mediterranean is also dolichocephalic, short, but slender, and dark. The Alpine, or Celto-Sla\ic, is brachycephalic, short, inclined to stockiness, with brown hair and brown or grey eyes. All three exist in France — the first in the North, the second in portionately broader, that is, more fully rounded, viewed from the top down, this cephalic index increases. When it rises above 80, the head is called brachycephalic ; when it faUs below 75, the term dolichocephalic is applied to it. Indexes between 75 and 80 are characterized as mesocephalic (Ripley). * The index of the late Henri Poincare, philosopher and mathematician, was over 83. Cf . Dr. Toulouse, Henri Poincari, 8 34 FRENCH CIVILIZATION IN XIXth CENTURY the South, the third in the areas of isolation, Brittany, Central Mountains, Alps. In no other country are more than two of the main races fully represented.* Some of the French of Savoy are actually the broadest-headed population in the world, and some districts in Auvergne have as short a population as any in Europe, the Lapps excepted. But the gi-eat majority of the French are exactly what the layman would expect them to be : they offer few extremes, an immense diversity, and a mean average about equal to that of Europe as a whole. They are neither tall nor short, neither very fair nor very dark, neither very long- nor \ery round-headed. In other words, there is no French race properly so-called. The French, from the anthropological point of view, are in every way similar to the other inhabitants of Central and Western Europe. Environmental and social differences are in their case of much more importance than race. You can tell a peasant from a mechanic, and both from a city clerk, much more easily than a Rhinelander, a Bavarian, and a Saxon from a Champenois, a Parisian, or an Orleanais. Yet there is a French people, different from all others. What time cosmopolitan or internationalist would dream of denying the fact ? But this unity, which implies neither homogeneity nor uniformity, is the product of environment and histor}'. All national groups which have enjoyed centuries of separate exist- tence form literally huge families, ever bound closer together by long-continued intermarriage or '' in-breeding " on a large scale. There is no Frenchman who has not in his veins some blood of the three, four, or tive '* primary races" which, according to • Brinton makes a fourth race, the Kymric, brachycephalic, but tall and reddish, and states that it also is found in France. Deniker has six " primar>' " races, of which five are Uving in France : the usual Nordic, the Cevenole, which corresponds to the .Upine or Celto-Slavic, ataU Atlanto-Medit^rranean, a short Ibero-Insular, both dark and dolichocephalic, and which are sub- divisions of the orthodox Mediterranean ; finally an Adriatic or Dinaric race, brachycephalic but taU, which other authorities consider merely as a Nordic- Alpine hvbrid. All these divisions fail to take into account a curious group of peasams in the South-West ^Dordogne), fairly taU, dolichocephalic but broad-faced, with high cheekbones and dark hair. This type, which recurs also among the Berbers, has been identified \s-ith the prehistoric Cro-Magnon race, occupjing the same habitat. THE FOUNDATIONS 35 anthropology, inhabit France at the present day. Thus ethnic races are artificial, and none the less real. They are incessantly in the making, approximating to a certain national ideal, or at least to a certain national average. But more potent far than blood-relationship is the bond of unity provided by tradition A thousand years at least of common life, the leadership of the same kings, the treasure-house of the same literature, the moulding influence of the same customs and the same laws, all these, and not common descent, have given the French their *' like-mindedness'* — even when they are most fiercely at odds with one another — their national individuality. And even more than tradition, the common aspira- tions of the race are the true basis of its unity. And these factors cannot be gauged by means of the callipers. This is recognized even by those \mters who make the most extravagant claims for race in the physiological, the breeder's acceptation of the term. Thus Chamberlain finally abandons all anthropo- logical tests, and holds that Teutonism is not a physical fact, but an ideal. Whoso thinks *' Teutonically " is a Teuton, be his cephalic index what it may. He whose soul is French needs no other credentials. This, be it said in passing, is the impregnable principle on which France bases her claims to Alsace-Lorraine. Whether, as some would have it, racial complexity is a condition of culture, is more than we can aflton. At any rate, in the case of France, this complexity is of profound significance for the future of the country. France is a racial medley, an epitome of Europe : if ever the natural increase of her popula- tion should fail to keep pace with economic opportunities, she could draw almost indefinitely from her neighbours without losing her s}Tithetic identity. The incarnation of French patriotism in 1871 was the son of an Italian, and the roll of French worthies in the nineteenth century contains many a German name. So long as her soil is tilled, her language spoken, and her ideal kept alive, the nation cannot die. (d) Psychology nf the French People. Thus our problem, the definition of the French people, can be solved neither by linguistics, ethnography, nor anthropology, but I 36 FRENCH CIVILIZATION IN XIXth CENTURY by collective psychology. This kind of study, of which Taine, Boutmy, Fouillee, Lebon, Demolins, Bodley/ Brownell, Barrett Wendell have left us brilliant or popular models, is as dangerous as it is attractive. The collective mind, if it exist at all, is so many-sided and unstable that no delineation can ever be more than a working hypothesis of very doubtful and provisional value. Where is the dreamy, unworldly, metaphysical and sentimental Germany of yester-year ? Where the solid, matter-of-fact, law- abiding, tradition-loving, antisocialistic England so dear to l»ourgeois economists and politicians of the last generation ? W^here is the France whose radical unfitness in the colonial field was a by-word a few short years ago? Where is the un- changing Chinese? We shall have to challenge many such generalizations in the course of this chapter and of this book. We do not profess to know whether there is any ultimate justification for ^* national psycholog}\" But there is at least one tangible element in it : the image of a people in their own minds and in the minds of their neighbours is one of the ideal forces which help frame their destiny. The traits of the French character on which most observers, French as well as foreign, seem to agree, can be summarily analysed as follows : Most obvious perhaps is a certain cheerfulness, not exuberant and spasmodic, but gentle and sufi'used through the daily routine of life. It neither implies nor excludes true happiness and genuine good-nature. There is no mixture of sentiment in it, and it has a decided bend towards mockery. In all these respects it is different from Italian joyousness, English good- humour or German Gemuthlichkeit. Most of all does it differ from the outbursts of sheer animal spirits which alternate in the Anglo-Saxons with long stretches of intense earnestness. The French cannot indulge in rollicking nonsense, but they cannot repress a smile in the midst of the most serious discussion. This tendency, combined with common sense, is the basis of French wit. Applied to spiritual problems it may be called Voltairian- ism ; in moral questions it often leads to ** Gallic levity" or bantering c}Tiicism. Lafontaine, Voltaire, and to a certain extent Renan, are its highest representatives in literature, THE FOUNDATIONS 37 while Gavroche, the heroic gamin, may be taken as its clearest symbol. A second trait, no less apparent, is a nervous temperament, high-strung, excitable, expansive and explosive, quickly moved to enthusiasm and to despair. This was ascribed of old to their Galhc ancestors, and it remains true in the nineteenth century. The constant fermentation of the Parisian mind, the fickleness of Parisian fashion, the instability of political regimes until 1870 and of Ministries after that date, are offered as instances of this tendency. Before proceeding with our analysis, let us note that these two traits are correlated : the first acts as a corrective to the second. Excitable as they are, the French need the check of their hght-hearted scepticism. WTiatever they take seriously they take tragically. Songs and jests, after all, are better than civil wars and persecutions. But when in the preceding paragraphs we used the word ** French," we were conscious of its inadequacy. These two traits, gaiety and excitability, are not characteristic of France as a whole, but of certain parts only— Paris and the South. The other provinces are earnest, persevering, conser^-ative, wUh a tendency to stolid gravity and even to melancholy! Whoever is acquainted with French peasants will never hear without a smile the usual talk about French liveliness. But Paris obscures the rest of the country, except the irrepress- ible South. Some spectacular events in French history, some minor characteristics of French literature, may be explained by these traits, but they hardly affect the main tenor of French life. France has known a dozen regimes within eighty years : this was a crisis in the life of the nation, similar to the one England went through in the seventeenth century. But for eight hundred years the French had remained obstinately loyal to the Capetian dynasty. Napoleon restored much of the ancient regime under different names, and France, after a hundred years, has hardly changed anything in the adminis- trative institutions he created. Ministerial instability is more apparent than real : in most cases, a change of government means only a reshuffling of the old pack. Each general 38 FRENCH CIVILIZATION IN XIXth CENTURY election for the last forty years has shown the steadiness of the electorate, moderate as a whole, slowly moving towards the Radical Left, without any of those sudden '' swings of the pen- dulum " and * landslides" so frequent in British and American politics. In the same way, the so-called Gallic or Parisian strain in French literature, with its easy wit and smiling scepticism, is but one of the elements of French thought— the most unique, perhaps, but by no means the most important. It may boast, with the unknown authors of Renart, the fabliaux and farces of the Middle Ages, of Rabelais, Montaigne, Lafontaine, Moliere, Voltaire, Renan, Anatole France— in some of their aspects. But the more numerous and the greater masterpieces at all epochs are of a more earnest nature. The mediaeval epic, the poetry of the Renaissance, the drama and Christian philosophy of the seventeenth century, Jean-Jacques and Buffon in the eighteenth, the Romanticists and the Realists in the nineteenth —where is the Gallic levity of all these ?— Calvin, Pascal, and Alfred de Vigny are no less French than Meilhac and Hal^vy. The two tendencies coexist and are equally French. Their blending— gravity relieved by a smile— gives a unique charm to the conversation of many French priests and scholars.* A third characteristic of the French is their sociability. By this we do not mean mere good-fellowship, but the predominance of the social over the individual elements in every form of human activity— and, as a consequence, the predominance of the formal over the spontaneous. We find this in society life, in which French tact, diplomacy, savoir-vivre and etiquette have become so many by- words. The ransom for these admirable qualities is a propensity to circuitous conventionalities, a certain lack of bluntness which less polite people are apt to misunderstand. In art, the same turn of mind leads to the worship of taste and style, in which the French are passed masters ; it may also lead to superstitious reverence for set rules and canons, to pseudo- ♦ Cf. Kenan's Souvenirs d' Enfance et de Jeunesse, Anatole France's Hlstoire Cmtemporaine. The peculiar cheerfulness and excitability of the French have not seldom been ascribed to the long-continued drinking of light wines. THE FOUNDATIOXS 39 classicism and all its evils. In the moral world, the same ten- dency is reyea.led in the potency of social sanctions-honorific rewards, popularity, applause, infamy, ridicule. Honour is the Frenchman s conscience. From the injustice of men he would appeal not to the everlasting God revealed in his soul, but to posterity; that is to say, to public opinion in the future. In this supremacy of the collective mind we cannot fail to recognize a victoiy of will over instinct. Heavy are the losses that such a triumph entails. We may doubt whether it is worth while. Yet the greatest causes the world is fighting for social justice and universal peace, cannot be won except through such a curbing of primitive individual instincts. The French Ideal, artificial though it be, means a striving from chaos to order, from barbarism to civilization. The fourth cardinal featm-e of the French mind we might call intellectuahsm." The French are not pre-eminently niystical, sentimental, or imaginative, and they yield the palm of practica sense to the " Anglo-Saxons." Their domain is logical thought. This IS intimately connected with the preceding characteristic, sociability. Since the individual is subordinated to the collec- tivity, common sense," or conformity with the general experi- ence and judgment of the race, is held supreme. " Common sense is but the popular name for " reason," still the goddess of many a French mind. The French are passionate reasoners and rationalists They love abstract ideas with an intensity which their neighbours can hardly realize. Mysticism, sentiment imagmation, unchecked by reason, seem to them individualistic' that IS to say, erratic and unruly. Even facts are despised as disorderly until they have been reduced to logical laws. The trim avenues of Versailles, the historical theorems or the literary syllogisms of Taine, are evidences of this turn of mind The love of the French for abstract ideas is one of their ennobling features. It imparted to their revolutions, and even to individua cases like the Dreyfus affair, a universal significance. In personal matters the French may be tempted to veil the truth for the sake of politeness : but on questions of principles their intellectual sincerity is uncompromising. They are fear- lessly honest thinkers, and so averse to comfortable self-delusion 40 FKENCH CIVILIZATION IN XIXth CENTURY that they take a sort of bitter pride and pleasure in believing tain tb ° n ''f '"*^"'="^^' ^''''^'''''- ^'--t «y--I strain in their hterature. This is not a thing of yesterday • nrnw ^ T"!''' T*^ complement, which is a reaction or a con traL^^Tf \ ^\' ''''^ P^'^'"'^ '' '^' '^^^^^ o{ these con rasts. Thus French cheerfulness has always had a back- groimd of pessimism and misanthropy. The French love of change is ever fighting against the French love of routine outward checks are removed. French indulgence for polite fictions ,s redeemed by intellectual courage Ld candou'r n matters of principles, and the fierce radicalism of the French mmd IS corrected by its sensitiveness to ridicule. The sociability and logicalness of the French are not " racial " traits, since there is no French race. They are not found fully developed in remote districts or among the lowest strata. It is m urban centres, in Paris especially, that we find them full French'". "m°' 'l''"'''^' ^"°"°" '''''"^^^^ -- ^^er t French ideas-Max Nordau, Novicow, Jean Finot. These traits are not racy of the soil ; they are the product of education- a collective education continued for two thousand years. But m'ddle cl! ^'""''''''^ 7'^ -J-P- France has an immense middle class, in conscious touch with the life of the country. And these traits have passed into the language, which has thus become a school ol urbanity, logic, and abstraction, so that it is not possible for a young peasant to be taught standard French Voltaill '^'^'^'"^ indirectly some of the spirit of Moliere and These essential qualities are the natural result of France's heterogeneity. They are the qualities indispensable to smooth intercourse among foreigners. The many peoples, the several races which inhabit France have little in common, except what is common to all men. In sentiment and imagination they differ so radically that they cannot understand one another • abstract reason is the one universal bond of union \t the THE FOUNDATIONS 41 same time, and this is the paradox, the miracle of French history, these heterogeneous and often warring elements want to remain united : that is why everything that might lead to disruption is immediately outlawed. Woe to minorities, woe to individuali- ties ! In a country where the indispensable degree of like- mindedness is maintained only by constant exertion of will- power, nonconformity, dissent, is the worst social sin. But these traits are merely collective, superimposed. Origi- nality of thought, intensity of feelings, power of imagination, may be veiled under conventionalities and abstractions: thev are not destroyed. An accomplished American lady told the author one day that all the tragedies of Eacine seemed to her identical : the smooth and pompous verse prevented her from discerning the depth and infinite variety of passion depicted in these masterpieces. As one becomes better acquainted with Racine's technique, it recedes into the background, and one realizes that Racine is closer akin to Shakespeare than to Campistron. In the same way, under the polished veneer of French society and the attractive generality of French thought, we should remember that there are men and women with the same feelings as their brothers and sisters all the world over. The part of "collective psychology" is not so much to offer positive explanations as to remove causes of misapprehension. (e) Race from the Eugenic Point of View. There is still another sense of the word " race " : i.e., the " breed " or " stock" considered from the point of view of its physical fitness. The aUeged " racial decay" of the French as weU as their moral degeneration was freely and frequently discussed some fifteen or twenty years ago. We shall study in a later chapter the curious fit of pessimism and self -depreciation which was the basis of much of this talk, as weU as the herald of a vigorous revival. Prance suffers from all the ills of the modern world : alcoholism, tuberculosis, venereal diseases, and nervousness. But two facts were generaUy put forward as irrefutable evidence of this physical decay : the lowering of the minimum height required of French recruits and the steady decrease of the birth-rate. The first fact, however, implies no diminution in the average height of con- scripts ; it simply means that France, wishing not to faU too far behind Germany in military strength, whilst her population is increasing at a vastly slower rate, was obliged to call in an ever greater portion of her young man- hood. Should France reduce her army to the same ratio of the total popu- lation as in Germany, she could immediately raise the required minimum 42 FRENCH CIVILIZATION IN XIXth CENTURY As a matter of fact, the average stature of the French, which as far as we know had remained the same throughout the twenty centuries of their history, in now decidedly on the increase, as the yearly reports of the Conscription Committees will show. And the vitality of individuals is also improving in the country as a whole. There are local areas of de- generation, the result of alcoholism (parts of Normandy) or selective emigration (parts of Auvergne). But the morbidity and the death-rate are lower than they ever were. The decline of the birth-rate, which began, we are told, in the sixteenth century, has now become such a regular and universal phenomenon among the most civilized nations that the French are no longer singled out as an awful example. New England and Australia are as infertile as France. The Germans are as inferior in this respect to the Poles, whom they despise, as they are superior to the French. This decline seems to be inseparable from our stage of civilization, for causes which cannot fully be discussed in this place. Suffice it to say (1) that the population of France is still increasing, albeit slowly : the deficit of certain years has always been more than made up within the quinquennial period between two censuses ; (2) that there seems to be no room for a vast and rapid increase in population, on account of the fairly high standard of living combined with the comparative scantiness of natural resources (undeveloped lands, coal, and metals). This is made evident by the fact that thousands of Central Europeans cross France every year without stopping and proceed to America. § 4. The Tradition : Ancient Regime and Revolution. 1. Dramatic character of French history— Real continuity. 2. France grew with the Capetian dynasty— Character of its power : autocratic but national— Eighteenth century : the King captured by the nobles— Progress of radical ideas, failure of reforms, sharp reaction at the close of the regime. 3. The Revolution {a) completes the work of the Capetians ; (6) trans- fers sovereignty from the King, theoretically to the people, practically to the Third Estate (bourgeoisie) ; (c) transfers vast amount of landed property from clergy and nobility to bourgeoisie and peasantry; (d) temporizes and compromises more than is usually thought. 4. Did France need a " saviour " in 1799 ?— Conditions not desperate —Bourgeoisie wanted to make its conquests secure—" Close the era of revolutions "—The army as final arbiter. The political history of modern France is intensely dramatic. Within less than a century (1789-1870) the country has tried eleven regimes. None, except the present Republic, has sur- vived the generation of its founders, and every one, even the most powerful at the heyday of its splendour, felt itself threatened by irreconcilable opposition and at the mercy of THE FOUNDATIONS 43 an incident. Each revolution was no mere pronunciamiento, which brings in only a new personnel and at most a new vocabu- lary : each attempted to introduce new institutions, new prin- ciples, and a different ideal. The formidable crisis of 1789-94 left France rent in twain, and the two nations have lived ever since in a state of open or latent warfare. One part of France still holds as a dogma that the country was born anew during the fateful years of the Revolution and the Empire. The old order, based on prejudice and privilege, passed away, and from its ruins there sprang the new order' based on Reason and Justice. This is the democratic view! singularly attractive in its broad optimism and its dramatic simplicity ; it is the orthodox doctrine taught in State schools and found at its best in Michelet's glowing pages. For another set of Frenchmen— the conservatives, the pessi- mists, the disciples of Rivarol and Taine, of Burke and Carlyle,*, the body politic is not a spontaneous, still less a voluntary, aggregation, which can be dissolved and reformed at will. It is at the same time anti-natural and organic : whilst it holds in check the evil, or at least the anti-social tendencies of natural man, it is the fruit of immemorial and unconscious efforts, the wonderful and fragile growth of centuries. Any rationalistic tampering with its development is bound to end in disaster. Authority, so painfully reared, collapses into chaos. The wolf in man— or, as Taine would say, the gorilla— is let loose. Civilization itself would be engulfed were it not rescued— but at what cost !— by the strong arm of a despot. These men believe in the gospel of authority and tradition. They hold fast to the institutions which have survived the great upheaval: the Fatherland, the Church, and Property. The others would carry the ** immortal principles" of liberty, equality, and fraternity to their logical ends; and this not merely in the political field, but in the domains of international relations, economics, and religion as well. Each party is to the other a power of Darkness, and no reconciliation between the two is conceivable. • The earliest and clearest presentation of this point of view can be found in Rivarol's Journal Politique Natio7ial, August 2, 1789. THE FOUNDATIONS 45 44 FRENCH CIVILIZATION IN XIXth CENTURY Yet it would be an error to consider this conflict as peculiar to France : it is but an extreme case of the antinomy between conservation and progress which is found all the world over. The logical turn of mind of the French, their aversion to com- promise when principles are involved, have led both parties to the adoption of definite, consistent, and radical doctrines. The Revolution polarized, as it were, the opposing elements within the nation. But this absolute opposition is more theoretical than real. The vast majority of the people are conservative without fanaticism. In many of the most advanced thinkers radicalism is tempered by Parisian scepticism and irony. The permanent and ineluctable necessities of life have never allowed principles to be carried to their extreme consequences : even the Convention temporized and compromised. If we look below the stormy surface of French political life, we find a deep, slow, and steady stream unaffected by the winds above. However sudden and tragic French revolutions in the nineteenth century may have been, it remains a question whether in point of actual performance any of them meant much more than an average general election in Great Britain. The great Revolution itself, that " titanic birth of a new world," is less of a break in French traditions than is commonly believed. Early in the eightefenlli century, Saint-Simon was conscious of the levelling, anti-feudal- , istic, and bourgeois trend of the Bourbon monarchy. Chateau- briand was justified in his paradox that ''the Revolution was made long before it broke out." De Tocqueville and Albert Sorel have shown conclusively that the theories and methods of the ancient redme were continued almost unaltered under the new, as well in home aflairs as in diplomacy. In spite of appearances, French history is continuous. The Monarchy of Louis XIY, the Empire of Napoleon, the Republic of Gambetta, are parts of the same tradition. Whoever ignores or despises the past cannot fiilly understand the present. France was moulded, if not actually made, by the long line of her Capetian kings. None of them was a genius, and only one was a saint. Yet, through eight centuries, they managed to romid out their domain and establish their authority. The country grew in extent and in self-consciousness with the power i of her rulers. In 1789 their work was almost complete. The boundaries of France reached almost everywhere the limits of the French speech. The vast process of consolidation, unification, organization, which was to turn feudal chaos into the modern State, had been hastened by Richelieu and Louis XIV. No privilege with any political significance was suffered to exist The King was no longer merely the first of the nohles— primus inter pares. He was the Lord's anointed, endowed with miraculous powers, and the etiquette of his Court was almost a ritual Yet he was not an Oriental despot, but rather the heir of the Roman Emperor — the State personified, the embodi- ment of law. All authority was vested in his officials, appointed by him, responsible to him, and whom he selected freely from the lower nobility and the bourgeoisie. Thus the ancient regime was an autocracy indeed: the independence and traditions of the judiciary barely tempered that absolute character. But it was an autocracy guided by and exercised through democratic elements. It seiTed the interests of the people at large, and was directed against all privileges and intermediate authorities. It was, in fact, a levelling, simplifying, rationalizing agency. So long as the King remained on the whole true to this national character of his power, the French were obstinately loyal to his d}Tiasty. Individual faults were condoned with surprising indulgence. And even when decades of war, waste, and open profligacy had ruined affection and respect, the great mass of the people, while despising Louis the Great and hating Louis the Well-Beloved, still pinned their faith to the Bourbon monarchy. But throughout the eighteenth century the regime was untrue to its inner principle. Louis XIY had effectually ruined the power of the nobility, and Versailles was merely a place of gorgeous servitude : the King, surrounded by the host of his captives, became their prisoner in his turn. There was a radical difference between the monarchy of Henry IV, and even of Louis XIV when Colbert was in office, and that of Louis XV, the King of the nobles, absolutely out of touch with his people. Louis XVI, hailed as a new Henry IV, was too weak to resume the true tradition of his race. Privileges were retained 46 FRENCH CIVILIZATION IN XIXth CENTURY whilst the services they once corresponded to had long ceased to be performed : meaningless, burdensome, vexatious, they became intolerable with the progress of radical ideas favoured by the nobles themselves. The aristocracy applauded Voltaire, Rousseau, Diderot, and even the direct and destructive attack of Figaro^s monologue : they lionized Franklin and were filled with genuine enthusiasm for American liberty; but at the same time a sharp reaction perpetuated injustice, made it more hopeless. At the close of the ancient regime, Chevert, Catinat, Fabert, could not have become generals or marshals,* Bossuet, Massillon, Flechier could not have become bishops. t ** Never were more manorial registers made (for the exaction of feudal dues) than after 1786 ; feudal taxes were heavier than they had ever been since the sixteenth century." | The result was inevitable : the financial straits of the government, driven to bankruptcy by its extravagance and maladministra- tion, provided the opportunity for sweeping reforms. In three months (May 5 to August 4, 1789), with compaj-atively little bloodshed and amidst universal rejoicings, the ancient regime was destroyed. But the Constituent Assembly was simply crowning, in a few weeks, the patient work of the Capotian line. The suppression of all surviving privileges, whether they belonged to a caste, an order, a corporation, or a province ; equality before the law; uniformization of territorial divisions, jurisdictions, weights and coinage, taxes and local government— all these measures, hasty though they were, and illiberal at times under their apparent logic, would have secured the hearty endorse- ment of Francis I and Richelieu. Even tlie so-called Civil Constitution of the Clergy, the stumbling-block of the Revolution, was strictly in accordance with the Gallican policy of the French kings, suminea up by Bossuet in tlie Declaration of 1682. That there should be no intermediate powers or Edict of Saint-Germain on the status of officers, 1781. t Cf. A\m6 Cheret, La Chute de VAncicn mgiyne. \ Ph. Sagnac, " La Propriete Fonci^re et les Paysans,'" in L'CEuvre Sociale de la Revolution (p. 229) ; also J. Loutchisky, L'Etat dcs Classes Anrkolc^ m France a la veille de la RH'olutioii. THE FOUNDATIONS 49 influences between the individual subject and his sovereign was the guiding principle of autocracy as it was that of the Rousseauists. Although they had "learnt nothing and for- gotten nothing," the restored Bourbons, in 1815, were only ^0 g ad to preserve many of the administrative reforms of the Revolution, Yet it is obvious that the Revolution was no mere return to the national tradition of the old kings. The weakening of that very notion of tradition, the substitution for it of abstract " reason," were indeed among the chief characteristics of the movement. And although the "reason" of eighteenth- century Frenchmen was bound to move along certain lines predetermined by their history, the difference between the two principles soon became evident. The authority of the sovereign" remained as absolute as ever, but sovereignty was transferred from the prince to the nation. Election look everywhere the place of heredity or arbitrary choice, and was soon app led even to the army and to the clergy. This meant nothing less than the recasting of a worid. By ruining the concep of traditional authority in matters political, the Revolutionists, disciples of the Philosophers, shook the basis ot historical religion as well, and henceforth "abuses" and • 'S*1!J,*"1 " ^'^'^ denounced in the same breath. Although m 1792-93 the terms " democrat " and " patriot " were synonv- mous the historical Fatheriand, with its mystic appeal to sacrifice, would not for ever stand in the light of modern rationalism. Ihe universal Republic was already an ideal of the, Revolution, i^inaily the condemnation of privileges and heredity in the political State, the wholesale confiscation of long-established property as a measure of national expediency, pointed to a more radical revolution in the economic and social field. Ibis danger did not appear for many decades : the con- spiracy of P.ab(Euf can hardly be called the dawn of modern socialism Private property was one of the "sacred rights" recognized by the Declaration, and death was later decreed against whoever should dare to propose an "agrarian law."* llie sale of "national property," composed of the confiscated * A Bouvenir of the Gracchi. xvRENCH CIVILIZATION IN XIXth CENTURY domains of the clergy and of emigrating nobles, changed the course of the Eevolution, and by some writers is held to be the whole of the Eevolution. The most numerous and most conservative classes, the peasantry and the lower bourgeoisie, had at last free access to the ownership of land, their im- memorial dream. This immense redistribution of property by the collectivity was in deep agreement with the basic principles of the Revolution, but in flat contradiction to the prejudices and professed beliefs of the very men who voted it. It was an emergency measure, founded on the old raison d'etat — sains i^opuli. Although it was by its very nature an expedient, an exception, it overshadowed for a generation all the other aspects of the movement. Although it was practically an act of socialism, it created that most powerful antisocialistic interest, an innumerable army of small landed pro|)rietors. In thus substituting one dogma for another, the sove- reignty of the people for the right of divinely ordained rulers, the authority of reason for that of tradition, there is no doubt that the Revolution abandoned the safe ground of experience and indulged in abstract theorizing. ** Perish the Colonies rather than a principle!": this oft-quoted phrase is sup- posed to sum up the shallow rationalism of the Jacobins, fanatically blind to living realities. Yet this is but one face of the truth. Historians with a systematic turn of mind, like Taine, fail to see the sane, cautious, solid side of the great Assemblies. There is much more '' opportunism " in the Revolution than some of its critics would have us believe. Until the 10th of August, 17ii2, the constitutional monarchy of Louis XVI was an attempted compromise between tradition and principle. Not only was hereditary monarchy retained, but manhood sufirage was not introduced, and the provisions of the Constitution of 1791 in this respect were less liberal than the last concessions of the old regime in 1788. After Thermidor D, 1794, there was a sharp reaction against intolerant Jacobinism ; the Thermidorian Convention and the Directoire were bourgeois regimes, trimming their sails pretty close to the wind. But even during the height of the crisis the Montagnards and the Terrorists themselves were prompt to I THE FOUNDATIONS 49 recognize the limit of immediate applicability of their principles. No sufticient attention is generally given to the fact that two at least of the most important, wisest, and most liberal measures ol the Revolution were passed under the rule of the Jacobins whom we were taught to consider as raving fanatics. It was Bouqnier, a prominent member of the Club, the friend and mouthpiece of Robespierre, who induced the Convention to reject the theoretical and unworkable plans of public education proposed by Romme and Lepeletier de Saint- iargeau: his own system established absolute liberty for any one to open a school, under the supervision of local voluntary associations. Not even priests or nobles were debarred from that right, and subsidies were to be given to all institutions, in proportion to the number of their scholars. By the decrees of September 18, 1794, February 21 and Jlay 80, 1795, the Convention, tired of persecutions, schisms, and newfangled emits, decreed the absolute separation of Church and State. Ihis was under the Thenaidorian reaction : but before the rtownful of Robespierre, and under his inspiration, a halt had been called to religious persecution.* Thus the Revolution as an " indivisible blocl^ " is a legend be It said with due respect for the veteran statesman who made that catchword famous.! fWe can distinguish at least four main elements: continuation of the national or Capetian tradition ; application of philosophical principles ; vast transfer of property due to the stress of circumstances ; and, in every detail ol administration as well as in many capital decisions, a remark- able willingness to listen to experience and to compromise with necessity. .Whence comes it that the Revolution ended in apparent lailure and led to a despotism worse tlian that of Louis XIV? Had It been a mere nightmare, a carnival of mob violence coupled with philosophical fanaticism, it would not have lasted so long, achieved so much, and created such a powerful tradition. A dark picture has often been drawn of the situa- tion on the eve of the Consulate-an empty treasury, disorder everywhere, a victorious coalition closing upon exhausted and • Decree of Frimaire IG, Year II. f M. Clemenoeau. I' 50 FRENCH CIVILIZATION IN XIXth CENTURY demoralized France — such is the ahysmal chaos from which Napoleon is supposed to have rescued the country. But the picture is overdrawn ; the situation was by no means so desperate as in 1793. The victories of Brune and Massena soon retrieved the early disasters of the war. The royalist insurrections in the West and in the South could not compare in intensity and in organization with those of five years before ; the w^ork of Hoche in Vendee had been well done. Persecutions had practically ceased , royalists were openly active and Catholic worship was free. The economic condi- tion of France was not to be measured by the hopeless financial troubles of the Government. War was self-supporting, tribute being levied on friend and foe. Conscription was a safety valve, a remedy to uneniploynicnt. Iny fo " nnpotent oligarchy of the Directoire. They were not ave.-se o ' autocracy; ten centuries of absolute monarchy, the c^i tive ' dicMo^hip of the Convention, had prepared them for C^ a t. 1 exp c r/ "tT ' '■"" f' "■"'^- '''■'' ^"'^■^^'- -- to be ' toTn b„t Hi-r"' '™' ^f ' ^"^''"'""" professional and pre- 01 an, but It still represented patriotism, efticiency, success. It had created organized republics abroad, from Holland to Naples- why should It not attempt the same task at liome ? It wa tie very embodnnent of national strength : the civil government 1 comparison, seemed a mass of corruption and factious str ib doomed to inii,otence and failure. It was, then, natural tliat clea : Mghtcd politicians should cast their eyes about for some ener<^etic ami unscrupulous general, willing to put tlie Directoire out of s misery. Augcreuu, Hoche, Joubert, Moreau, many others nc uduig such esser personalities as Hedouvillc, wei/though^ and mioat have been a convenient instrument in skilful hands. Hoche was one of the noblest characters as well as one of the ablest commanders of the time, and might have been a French Washington. Hut Idstory cannot indulge in might-have-beenV trator, through his no less unique power of histrionic self-adver- ambition the Corsican imposed himself as the man of the situa- Talevr.n, i'" ! J*^*^ , P^t'-^"^ ^^i accomplices-Sieyes, Barras, Tallevrand-still attempted to use him as a cat's-paw, with the moomfortab le suspicion growing upon them that the; wer hi nd-e '; "rr °' '^™'" ^^'^''^ 9' 179'i after tla.t f H \ T ' ^'^"""^ '■''''' ^'^'^''"^ «<^"4arte, at the age of thirty, became the master of France. > r" BIBLIOGRAPHY I. GENERAL. 1. GENERAL. A. Rambaud. Histoire de la Civilisation Fran^aise au XIX^™« Siecle. 18mo, 840 pp. Eighth edition. Armand Colin, Paris. 1909. (Biblio- graphies.) J. E. C. BoDLEY. France. 2 vols. Svo. Macmillan, New York and London. 1898. A. FouiLLEE. La Psychologie du Peuple Franyais. Svo, 391 pp. 2^™e edition. Alcan, Paris. 1898. La France au point do vue moral. Svo, 416 pp. 2'™« edition. Alcan, Paris. 1900. Barrett Wendell. The Franco of To-day. Svo. Scribncrs, New York. 1908. Pierre FoNCiN. Le Pays de France. (Edited by A. IMuzzarolli.) 257 pp. American Book Company. 1902. (Very convenient text-book.) II. Taine. Los Origines de la Franco Contemporaine. U vols. 16mo. -f Index. Twenty-fifth edition. Hachette, Paris. 1907. E. Levasseur. Histoire des Classes Ouvrieres et dc I'lndustric en France de 1789 a 1870. 2 vols. Svo, 719, 912 pp. Second edition. A. Rousseau, Paris. 1903-4. Questions Ouvrieres et Industrielles sous la Troisieme Republique. Svo, 968 pp. A. Rousseau, Paris. 1907. 2. ICONOGRAPHY. A. Dayot. L'Histoire de France par rimagc. E. Flamraarion, Paris. (Five albums on the nineteenth century.) A. Parmentier. Album Historique. 4th vol. Ito. A. Colin, Paris. 1907. P. L. Moreau. Le Musee d'Art au XIX' ™« Siecle. 4to. Larousso. 1007. Collection du Touring-Club; "Sites et Monuments." 32 vols. 4to. 1902-1906. L' Illustration from 1843. 3. BIBLIOGRAPHY. H. P. TiiiEME. Guide Bibliographiquo de la Litterature Franvaisc dc 1800 a 1906. Svo, 510 pp. H. Welter, Paris-Leipzig. G. Lanson. Manuel Bibliographiquo de la Litterature Franraisc Modcrno — IV-XIXcmo Siecle. Svo. Hachette, Paris. E. Levasseur. In Seances et Travnux dc 1' Academic des ScienccK Morales et Politiques. II. THE FOUNDATIONS. ^ 1. THE COUNTRY. E. Reclub. Geographic Universelle, La France. Svo. Hachette, Pans. 1877. THE FOUNDATIONS 53 0. Reclub. Le Plus Beau Royaumc sous le Ciel. Svo. Hachette. 1899. J. Michelet. Tableau de la France (Notre France, sa geographic, son histoire). 12mo. Flammarion. 1886. ViDAL DE LA Blache. Tableau Geographique (first volume of Histoire de France, edited by E. Lavisse). Svo. Hachette, Paris. Vidal de la Blache and Cameina d'Almeida. La France. Colin. 1897. Marcel Dubois and Bernard. La France. Masson. 1894. P. Schrader and Gallou^dec. La France. Hachette. 1898. Atlases. Vidal-Lablache. Atlas de Gf'-ographie. Colin, Paris. F. Schrader, F. Prudent and E. Anthoine. A. de Geographic Moderne (especially Map No. 9, map and notice). Hachette, Paris, 1907. F. Schrader (editor). Atlas de Geographic Historique. Hachette, Paris. 1907. § 2 and 3. THE RACE (a) Language, Kr. Nyrop. Grammaire Historique de la Langue Franyaise (biblio- graphies). Svo. Copenhagen. 1899 seq. F. Bruxot. Histoire de la Langue Franyaise des Origines k 1900. Svo. Colin, Paris. 1905 seq. A. Dauzat. La Langue Fran(,'aise d'Aujourd'hui : Evolution, problemes. ISmo, 275 pp. Colin, Paris. 1908. Congres International pour I'Extension et la Culture de la Langue Franyaise. I'^'-e session, Liege, 1905. Svo. Champion, Paris. Pub- lished 190G. 2-^^m« session, Arlon-Treves-Luxembourg, 190S. Svo. "M. Weissenbruch, Bruxelles. Published 1908. (b) Ethnology and (c) Anthropology. \V. Z. RiPLKY. The Races of Europe. Svo, 624 pp. D. Appleton, New York. 1899. The Races of Europe, Supplement : A Selected Bibliography of the Anthropology and Ethnology of Europe. D. Appleton, New York. 1399. {d) Psychology of the French People. (Cf. Fouill6e, Barrett Wendell, op. cit.) W. C. Brownell. French Traits. 411 pp. Scribncrs, New York 1908. G. d'Avenel. Les Fran(;'ais de mon Temps. 350 pp. Eighth edition. Nelson, Paris. 1910. § 4. THE TRADITION : ANCIENT REGIME AND REVOLUTION. H. Taine. Les Origines de la France Contemporaine, L'Ancien Regime. A. de Tocqueville. L'Ancien Regime et la Revolution. Levy, Paris 185G. Albert Sorel. L'Europe et la Revolution Francj'aise (I. Les Moeurs Politiques et les Traditions). 8 vols. Svo. Plon-Nourrit, Paris. 1885-1904. E. Faql'et et al. L CEuvre Sociale dc la Revolution. 4G0 pp. Fonte- moing, Paris. i N >, CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE I. THE REVOLUTION 1789 May 5. Summons of the States General. June 17. National Constituent Assembly. June 20. Oath of the Tennis Court. July 14. Storming of the Bastille. August 4. Voluntary surrender of feudal rights 1791 June 20. Flight of the King to Varennes. October 1. Legislative Assembly (to September, 1792). 1792-99 War between France and the Coalition. (1) Prussia and Austria 1792 June 20 and August 10. Insurrections. The Tuileries invaded. Louis XVI suspended. September 2-7. Massacres in the prisons of Paris. September 20-21. Victory of Valmy. Meeting of the Convention. First Republic. 1793 January 21. Execution of Louis XVI. War against England, Spain, Sardinia. Civil War in Vendee and the South. Com- mittee of Public Safety. Reign of Terror. ^Marat. Dictatorship of the Jacobins and Robespierre. 1794 July 27 (Thermidor 9). Fall of Robespierre. 179i-95 Thermidorian Reaction. 1795-99 Directoire (cf. Table II). \ CHAPTER II NAPOLEON Growth of Napoleon's power— Three main elements : glory, efiSciency, tyranny. § L Military Glory. ♦' L'Epopd'C "—Napoleon as stage-manager- -The army : its variety of gorgeous uniforms — Pageants— Monuments of triumph : columns, arches, temples — Pretorianism : Napoleon-worship in the army — Its limits — The seamy side of militarism : looting on the heroic scale — Reluctant heroes — Growing indifference of the country. The burden— Financially light— Conscription drains the blood of the nation. The 18th of Brumairc marks the beginning of a prodigious adventure. The fate of the nation became identified with that of one man, and that man, in spite of all his realistic genius, was intoxicated with his own vertiginous ascent. Napoleon's name stands alone during those fifteen years. It irresistibly evokes the ideas of martial glory, political tyranny, and adminis- trative reorganization. For the sake of clearness, we shall con- sider separately these three aspects of the Bonapartist regime. But we need liardly say that in Napoleon the conqueror, the efficient ruler, and the despot were one and the same. The reader should also bear in mind that Napoleon's unlimited autocracy did not spring full-grown into existence. Posterity knows that the 18th of Brumaire meant a new departure in the course of French history, but the contemporaries were unconscious of any por- tentous change. France received the news with curious apathy. There was i)ractically no opposition ; but neither was there any sign that the country, in a frenzy of enthusiasm, was consciously / 55 / 56 FRENCH CIVILIZATIOX IX XlXiri CEXTURY hurliiipr itself into servitude. A coup d'etat was no striking novelty ; the Directorial machinery had three times already been thrown out of gear. Five unpopular Directors were superseded by three - Provisional Consuls," that was all. One of these, Koger-Ducos, was insignificant enough. Another, the former Abbe Sieyes, oracle of the Constituent Assembly and political philosopher, was the incarnatinn of moderate, pacific, and, in a sense, liberal ideas. Bonai)arte was u young general famed no less tor his administrative and diplomatic achievements than for his victories on the battlefield. All were apparently loyal to the cause of the Revolution. There is no reason to doubt that, for a few months at least, the ideal of France and tlie ideal f,f Bonaparte were the same : at home, order without reaction ; abroad, peace with honour. One of the first acts of the youn- Consul was to put away his military uniform. He made at once public overtures of peace to England and Austria. The treaties of Luneville and Amiens were his best titles to the grateful admiration of the French. When hostilities were resumed as much through England's fault as through his own, he was skilful enough to throw the whole burden of responsibilitv upon the enemy. On the 18th of Brumaire, losing his self-control at a critical moment, he had relapsed into the turgid style of his youth and called himself '' the God of Fortune and War." But this strangely prophetic utterance was not taken seriously at the time. In Bonaparte some Frenchmen would see a Generai Monk, s..nit' a Washington,* many a Cromwell, few, as yet, a Cj^sar-none, not even himself, could anticipate Napoleon. Bonaparte's ambition knew no internal check: he had no scruple, a limited culture, and boundless contempt for " ideoloo-y " and *' imponderable" forces. The miracles of the Revolution and those of his early career had left the word *' impossible " without a meaning. Circumstances made him, in France, the arbiter of all parties and the servant of none ; in Europe,' the autocratic head of the most powerful State, flushed with victory drilled in ten years of war, a generation ahead of its opponents m national spirit and revolutionary tactics. Thus his apparent • The ceremony in honour of Washington, early in the Consulate, seemed to imply a promise. ' XAPOLEOX 57 power grew year by year, and his ambition with it : until the sane ruler of 1800 turned into the monstrous self-idol of 1812, and the whole crazy fabric collapsed like a house of cards. Napoleon's rule was essentially despotic, but it found its justification in its popular origin, its glory abroad, its efficiency at home. Of these, glory, in popular imagination, is by far the most potent. Although the French have recovered from their latest attack of Xapoleonitis, the campaigns of the First Empire are still referred to as *' L'Epop^e," the French Iliad, the epic of war par excellence : and tew men indeed, even in England, even in America, can resist the intoxication of that unexampled series of triumphs. It was the time when the battery of the Hotel des Invalides boomed incessantly, spreading throughout Paris the news of some dazzling victory— Austerlitz, Jena, Friedland, Wagrani ; the time when the French armies entered one foreign capital after another — Rome, Madrid, Vienna, Berlin ; when the Empire, with its allied and feudatory States, spread from the Tagus to the Vistula ; when Napoleon's brothers wore crowns in Westphalia, Holland, Naples, and Spain ; when at Erfurt the Emperor had Talma, his favourite tragedian, play before an audience of kings ; when soldiers said of some old comrade of theirs— Berthier, Bernadotte, or Murat— of plebeian origin and risen from the ranks like themselves: "He has been prouwUd Grand Duke, Prince, or King," as in our hum- dnni] days they would say: ''He has been made Major- General." Even in the prose of Thiers — the incarnation of Philistine common sense— the story of the Empire reads like a fairv-tale. But although plain truth was stranger than fiction. Napoleon was not yet satisfied. The art of self-advertisement and lavish display has ever been an essential element of statecraft : the new Cicsar could have out-Barnumed Barnum and given useful hints to our popular journalists. His bulletins and proclama- tions are masterpieces in that line. It was he, and not Desaix, who received credit for the battle of Marengo ; Jena has cas^ into the shade the parallel and more meritorious success of Davout at Auerstaedt ; the useless slaughters of Eylau and Essling are still counted by the French among his victories. N y 58 FRENCH CIVILIZATION IN XIXth CENTURY All his failures, and the achievements of everybody else, are glossed over with consiniimate skill. Foucht'.s inipardoiiable oftence was his independent and energetic attitude at the time when Napoleon was hemmed in by the Austrians in the Lobau Island and the English had landed at Walchereii. No . theatrical star ever engineered her success with more skill and care and monopolized more jealously the limelight than Bonaparte. •'^ The army was no longer merely an instrunu'nt of defence and conquest : it was a gorgeous pageant for the entertainment of his innumerable subjects. The austere Republican trocps of Kleber and Hoclie, barefooted, with their plain ],lne uniforms threadbare and tattered, were succeeded by regiments of all kinds, origins, and colours. Famous to the present day are the Grenadiers and Voltigeurs of the Line; the Hussars,' each of their ten regiments with some distinctive detail of dress or equipment ; the twenty-six regiments of Mounted Chasseurs, a dashing light cavalry ; the Dragoons, the Lancers, the Cuirassiers, the splendid Carabiniers, with red-crested helmets and a golden' sun on their steel breast-plates. To these French troops, old and new, were added foreign auxiliaries of all nations, reably the most far-reach iiig and typical part of Napoleon's reorganization was the administrative side, the Bureaucracy. France's officialdom became a grand machine, of perfectly symmetrical design, iwrtl in which the minutest wlieels received their impulse from the central motive power in Paris. The civil service of the Kings had been hampered in two ways: the privileges of provinces, towns, corporations, parliaments, nobility, and clergy oftcii made the enforcement of regal law extremely difficult ; and the central government, capricious as well as despotic, discouraged efficiency. The Revolution had swept away all privileges, and even during the rule of Terror had kft some autonomy to the local elective assemblies. Put these bodies, ill-prepared for their task, unchecked from above, failed in many cases to maintain order and decent government. That they were capable of improvement under closer supervision of the national authorities is infinitely probable: Napoleon preferred to take away from them any particle of real influence and to vest all power in the hands of his representatives, the Prefects. The immediate result was brilliant. Napoleon had m a high degree the gift of the born ruler : that of selecting tlie yuM men, irrespective of their origin. His Prefects wen . most of them, able administrators, and devoted, for the tinu' beiu'^, to his person and his system. He kept them up to a high standard of efficiency by his own example of tireless industry ;ind by his constant supervision. Even now, French " Bureaucrats " are conscientious and painstaking, renuirkably honest, and, until recently, comparatively independent of political patronage. But the huge machine, without tlie nnister mechanic who j)ut it together and kept it in perfect trim, is growing sluggish and waste- ful. Initiative is discouraged; routine rules supreme; mediocrity is a condition of regular promotion, and favouritism is rife. No red-blooded Frenchman has ever come into personal contact with ^'les bureaux" without being temporarily converted to anarchism. The evils of the system are evident. But it has become a bad habit which cannot be shaken otf. Miuvover, it is an admirable instrument of mild and legalized tyranny, which no Government is strong or disinterested enough to 'discard. Thus every successive regime, tlie democratic and social NAPOLEON 69 Republic of 1818 as well as the Catholic and feudal Restoration 01 18lD, has piously preserved the legacy of Louis XIV and Napoleon. At any rate, this permanent Bureaucracy absorbed the shocks of repeated revolutions, and gave the national life of France a continuity that political history would not lead us to expect. The best feature of Napoleonic rule was, as we have said, that tlie right man was put ui iho right place, irrespective of his origin: emigr. uiul regicide were o.jnally wclcjiiie if they were wilhng and able to serve. The master kept his magnificent promise: a free career open to all talents." Just as every private had a Marshal's baton in his knapsack, the humblest clerk could dream that he too some day would rule the civil ^^lia.rs of a department or even of a vassal kingdom.* The Empire did not last long enough to mar this fine beginning. But Napoleon dul not rest satisfied with his legitimate titles ■ the crowned servant of the Revolution, the Emperor of Parvenus. He wanted to reconcile to his regime the old aristocratic and bourgeois families, and with this end in view he promoted their sous, lu court, d,pl„matic, and military positions, and even in the civil service, with scandalous rapidity. Thus in the latter part of 1..S reign the worst evil of the eighteenth century, class privilege, was creeping back. The third way in which Napoleon veiled or iustified his despotism was to present it as the outcome and embodiment of untr/«0-- t!' "'"''^ "T^'^l-W-" di'l not completely disappear ""t 1 180.. There was the .shadow of a Constitution, a show of elections and even the personal authority of the First Consul ''"a ol the Lmperor rested on plebiscites. Napoleon's power ffrew by degrees : in 171*9 it was far from absolute, and no less legitimate after all, than that of the Directors whom he super- seded. Ibe other two Provisional Consuls were not reduced at farst to absolute impotence, and in the diti'erent assemblies room ^as found lor men of note and in.lepeudence, like Gregoire, ^U.-J. Chemer, Benjamin Constant-even for personal enemies 1 70 FRENCH CIVILIZATION IN XIXth CENTURY of Bonaparte. But, placed as an arbiter between conflicting parties and classes, Napoleon played them off" against each other witli admirable skill. The bourgeois were averse to direct universal suffrage and genuine democracy, because they sincerely believed that the people were not prepared to rule, and because they wished to preserve their own social and economic privileges. They were in favour ot a strong executive because they were eager for material order. So they raised no serious objections when Napoleon anniliilated universal suffrage in fact, whilst maintaining the name. But tliey would have liked to retain for themselves some political rights, more than n semblance of constitutional government: their ideal was nlreadv tliat of the bourgeois monarchy of Louis-Pliilippc. On the other hand, the people were indillerent to parliamentary forms in whi. )i tliey had no part. Their sympathies went, not to the bourircois liberals, but to the ruler of revolutionary origin, crowned by victory, confirmed by a plebiscite, and who represented m their eyes patriotism and .lemocracy. Both bourgeoisie nnd people were willing to put up with some degree of dictatorial government as long as the war should last, and in order to prevent a return to the old monarchy. Thus, leaning sometimes on the people, sometimes on the conservative elements, always on the army. Napoleon suppressed every opposition and destroyed every rema'ining dwrk. There were four assemblies: a Senate, '* guardian" of the Constitution," a Council of State to elaborate laws, a Tribunate to discuss them, a Legislative Body to pass upon tlien, without saying a word. But all the nuMubers of these assemblies were the Emperor's nominees. The Tribunate was reduced from one hundred to til'ty members, so as to elimiuati' whoever had sliown any independence; and in 1807 it was linally suppressed because '' it still preserved some of that restless and democratic spirit which had long troubled France." The Council of State was a useful body of specialists and administrators but not a deliberative assembly. The Legislative Body had no authority ihe Senate, richly endowed, was a model of subserviency and even ot servility-until the day after Napoleon's dowiifall \\ith his Imperial Decrees and his - Senatus Consulte " ^apoIcon could legislate without let or hindrance NAPOLEON 71 Universal suffrage was disposed of in the same clever manner : it became a hollow shell. '' Confidence should be at the basis of the social pyramid," said Napoleon after Sieyes, '' and authority at the apex." In virtue of this principle, all electors were to select one-tenth of their number; these names formed the communal or district lists, from among whom the district officials were appointed— by the central government. One-tenth of these first names formed the departmental list ; one-tenth of these the national list, whence all national officials were taken. These lists were to be made once for all, and vacancies filled up at long intervals. Lut tliey were not even completed : it was a mere parody of universal suffrage. As for the plebiscites, they were taken on open registers, without any check or guarantee. The records of some parishes contain nothing but the total number of 'Sayes " ; others have long lists of names all in the same handwriting. Anyway, tlie Consular Constitution was put in application long before the returns of the plebiscite were known. Thus relieved from any parliamentary check. Napoleon pro- ceeded to silence every other possible form of opposition. All political newspapers— and the Bevolution had yielded a plentiful crop of them— were suppressed except thirteen, and even these could be .suspended or snufied out of existence at will. Madame de Stael was kept exiled from her beloved " ruisseau de la rue du Bac"* for the crime of having some social infiuence, and her book on (Icrnniny was confiscated and destroyed without any cxplaiiati..n. After Wagram, the Emperor ordered Fouclie to take the sons of the ten most prominent families in each depart- ment ind train them for the army. *' If they protest," he added, ** answer that such is my pleasure." Flight State prisons were created ** for criminals who did not fall under any definite article of the law, or whose trial would be dangerous for the State, or whom it was desirable to save from the death penaltv out of consideration for their families." This amounted to the restora- tion of the Bastille and the •' lettres de cachet." f The murder ol the Duke of Enghien, captured in neutral territory, and • The gutter of Ferry Street. t Arbitrary warrant of imprisonment. / 72 FRENCH CIVILIZATION IN XlXxn CENTURY shot with the scantiest apolog;^^ for a trial, is the hest known, but not the worst, of Napoleon's high-handed deeds.* We have dwelt at some length on the military, administrative, and political activities of Napoleon, because they had on the whole of French, and even of Em-opean, civilization a baleful mtluence which is not yet spent. Not only is he in a large degree responsible for the slangliter of three million youn- men whose death left Europe permanently weakened ; not only did he create, or at least revive, modernize, and strengthen, a tradi- tion of anti-liberal, compressive government which even the present Republic is not able to shake off; but he fostered throughout Europe a spirit of violence, a feeling of international diffidence and hatred, which has not yet been dispelled. If Germany, for instance, has not always been true to the liighcst ideals of lier own poets and philosophers, the fault lies chietly with Louis XIV and Napoleon the Great. § 3. Society and Culture under Napoleon. (a) Sociffr^.-BcttUng down after the Directoirc-The Consular Court- The Imperial CoQrt-ThG new nobility-Thcold nobility-The Austrian marriage— Growing disaffection in all classes. Material prosperity-Great public works-Agriculture in progress- Industry and commerce encouraged~Di..astrous etlect of the Conti- nental Blockade. (b) C^^/^^irc.-Transitional-" Pompadour culture - dyin^ out- Sciences extremely brilliant— Popular literature. The Epigoni of classicism-Greco-Koman revival-Dullness of litera- ture— btiffness of art— Insignificance of thought. Tho^ dawn of romanticism-Media^valism and the "Troubadour btyle -Influonco of foreign literatures-Mclancholy-Ueligiosity- The army as a school of picturesqueness-Romantic elements in Napoleon himself. (a) Societij. Social life in France suffered a total eclipse durin^ Uw fateful months of the Terror. But immediately after the Ml of Kobes- pierre it resumed its former activity. Yet a great chan-e has come over it. The exquisite aristocracy of the old re^n^ie had disappeared. Many were dead, others in concealment^ the rest • Cf. his dcaliuo. with the Pope and with the Koyal Family of Spain. NAPOLEON 73 scattered abroad. Their places were filled by the unscrupulous gang that economic upheavals always bring to the fore : army contractors, stockjobbers, laud speculators, "rotten" poli- hcians,* all eager to enjoy their newly-gotten .wealth. The Thermidonan reaction ami the Directoire rank with the Eno^'(v. ttt iv. . i i the popularity of his grandmother. ^ ^'^ ^'''" ^"^^^"^ '^ NAPOLEON 77 were undertaken every wji- re. "^ The transfer of property to the peasants themselves, and the suppression of vexations privileges, liad renovated France ; taxation, so nnjust, chaotic, and loosely collected hefore the Revolution, now seemed wonderfully equit- able and light. So the progress of agriculture was striking. Industry and commerce were encouraged. The eihcient manage- ment of the Treasury, the creation of the Bank oi France, gave financial stability, liichard Lenoir, Pliilippe de Girard, Ober- kiunpf, Jacrpiard, among inventors and captains of industry, received moral or material support from the Government. Unfortunately, the grandiose and mad policy of the Continental Blockade entailed heavy sacrifices. France and her satellites were closed against English and colonial goods. A system of licensed smuggling had to be introduced to mitigate the hard- ships of total exclusion ; but in spite of that, many products reached fabulous prices, and France had lost her best customer. Cofi'ee and cane sugar became rarities. Many substitutes were offered for the former, and the beetroot industry was created — a permanent acquisition. It must be said that many parts of France did not suffer so heavily from tliis rabid protection as did the maritime regions, and especially Holland, which was reduced to bankruptcy. On the whole, there is no doubt that France was then more prosperous than she had been for ages, ami some at least of the credit was due to the Government. Whether this nuiterial prosperity was not purchased at too high a cost is another question. (b) Culture. ^ From the point of view of culture, the Empire is a tran- sitional period, without any defiuite cliaracteristics of its own. The Epigoni of classicism and the forerunners of roman- ticism are found side by side, anau IS of unlawful love. The sins of that time are still with u.; tuey are eternal. Bat the culture which gave them the ^fcmoires, ed. Bire, iii. 6-7. t Cf., however, do Bjutflcib, 1738-1810. NAPOLEON '9 >• glamour of exquisite elegaiice is a closed chapter in European history.* In one respect, on the contrary, the culture of the Empire continues that of the preceding age, without interruption, with- out decadence, even with increased brilliancy: it is in the scientific domain. In 1794 Condorcet was executed because he was a Girondist, and Lavoisier because he was a tax-con- tractor (fermier-general) . Coffinhal is reported to have said: '' The Republic has no need of scientists." But these were exceptions, and the monstrous sally of Coffinhal was contrary to the principles and practice of the Convention. As a matter of fact, the Revolution and the Empire honoured scientists, who, in their turn, served the country in every capacity, as investigators, as technical advisers in military and industrial matters, as teacliers, and even as administrators. Scientists, who do not live in the past, showed little regret for the ancient regime. As a rule they were not averse to an '' enlightened tyranny." They appreciated a ** tyrant" who understood them and took pride in calling himself one of them ; Bonaparte was a member of the scientific section of the Institute of France,! and took a large body of scientists with him in his Egyptian expedition. [Many famous men have been accused of servility in their relations with Napoleon; the decadr nee of literature, the silence imposed upon the political and social world, brought the favour enjoyed by science into ])()lder relief. P.ut it brought out also the brilliancy of its acliievements. Then lived and Nvi-rkcd Lagrange, LuiJace, Legendre, Lalande, among mathe- maticians ; Gay-Lussac, Monge, Arago, Thenard, G^uiton de ^lorveau, .Berthollet, Fourcroy, Vau.iuelin, among physicists and^ chemists; Lacepede, Lamarck, GeofFroy-Saint-Hilaire, Cuvier, among natural pliilosophers ; Broussais, Corvisart[ Laennec among physicians; Larrey and Dupuytren among surgeons. Carnot, who was a great mathematician as well as a military engineer and the renovator of modern tacti^'s, lived In European, not exclusively in French history; for the Pompadour culture was that of all aristocracies about the middle of the eighteenth century. t Kquivalent to the former, and present. Academy of Sciences. so FRE.NTH CIVILIZATION IX XlXxn TEXTURY in retireinent ; Imt practically all the others held the bi<.hest Sr 1 '■"?" '' r^"''"' departments, in.pec^rs, senatoi . Lacepecle was President of the Senate, CnvL- wa Cound or o State. Napoleon encouraged foreign sceutists a ^^e 11 not only those Mho, like Volta, were his Italian subjects or the subjects of his allies, but even enemies; a prize of skh thousand francs was presented to Huinphrv Daw in 1807 In many respects this was the golden age of French science! _ \\e need hardly say that neither pseudo-classicism nor uicip.ent romanticism gives a true idea of the life and taste of he average Frenchman under tlie Empire. The broadly Gal he romances and farces of Pigault-Lebrun, which are still /^"., the melodramas of Pixerecotirt and Duval, which are n.terestmg hnks m the history of the French sta^e we .unnense y popular. The songs of Desaugiers are br^it and racy, perhaps truer to type, as Professor Babbitt would sav than the more famous ones of Beranger, whose career l,e.a„' under would be the inuutings and coloured prints of Boillv,* and the comedies ot Picard. These are wholesome and Jnterta n ! productions, cleverly though sin.ply constructed, without an^- pretension to philosophy and style, but full of easv wit, truthful observation, ami common sense. Picard is a dramatist of the ame class as Dancourt and Labiche, far superior to the cleverer but less sincere p aywrights of the Scribe-Sard.u tvpe. Hi Pronncial loan, for instance, well repays perusal ' But 111 the upper spheres classicism still held swav, and that classicism was decidedly more classical than at th tin Boileau. During the closing years of Louis X\ there lad been a movement of return to antiquity, which continue tbi-oughout the reign of Louis XVI and became irresist under the Republic and the Empire. Of this tendency .S n Genevieve s Church ube Pantheon), by SoufHot, is an ead; sicoi The painters A len and David had routed the pupils of ^VattS and i^ouchcr before the Revolution broke out.' l"..].. the Con! mition, R.unan simplicity, R.nian patriotism. Roman civic Also the portraits of Isabev. NAPOLEON 81 r* \ virtue were the order of the day, and the names of Greek and Roman heroes took the place of the banished saints ; the fore- runner of socialism called himself Caius Gracchus IkboBuf. Under the Consulate, everything Roman was deliberately pas- tiched; the political terms— Consul, Emperor, Senator, Tribune —show the trend of thought. Costumes and furniture bore the same mark. Architecture especially showed Roman influences, not only in the triumphal monuments already alluded to, but in office buildings and in private residences.* The art critics of the time went so far as to duride the work of seventeenth- century architects as '* barbarously modern " and '* not in con- formity with the eternal models of antiquity."! In literature, Laharpe's Lj/cee was the standard authority, and Geoffroy was the growling guardian of dramatic traditions. The tragedies of M.-J. Chenier, Baour-Lurmian, Arnault, Brifaut, Laharpe, Legouve, Luce de Lancival were models of insignificance; lack of genius, timidity of taste, and a ri^^orous censorship con- tributed to maintain that dead-level of mediocrity. Epic poetry on a munumental scale was abundant ; for whatever faults Imperial literature may have had, improductivity and lack of ambition were not among them. Rut in spite of ofdcial encouragement, neither epic nor heroic poetry would flourish in those epic and heroic times. The olu "Pindar" Lebrun, who sang mechanically one regime after another, was still an easy first. The most typical, most successful kind of literature during a period when most of literature was devitalized was '* descriptive poetry," sometimes humorous, mostly didactic. The veteran Abbe Delille was considered the greatest poet of recent times— a skilful versifier, he was not without merit in his craft, and unrivalled in the art of describing ingeniously the commonest objects without ever using the proper term. In philosophy, the last " Sensualists "—or rather Sensationists— the ld-{ disciples of Condillac, Destutt do Tracy, Morellet, Garat. N'nlney, Laromiguiere, even Degerando and cVoanis, con- tinued the tradition of the Encyclopedists, not unworthily. But • ^.^., extension of the Palais-Bourbon for the Legislative Bodv, Palace* of the Quai d'Orsay, Exc hange, etc. t SaiDt-Victor, Tableau de Paris. ^\ 82 FEEXCH CIVILIZATION IX XIXth CEXTURY their political independence had called upon them the hostility of the Master, who made the word *' ideologist " a term of contempt. These Epigoni of the classical age were of widely different merit. In literature they are past redemption. In philosophy they are undistinguished. In architecture, some of the huild- ings begun under Xapoleon had a certain appropriate majesty ; Chalgi-in's triumphal arch is better than any of its Roman models, whilst the work of Percier and Fontaine was not devoid of elegance. In painting David is a great master in spite of his ultra-classical bend, and as the official painter of Napoleon he left us some admirable compositions.* The furniture and costumes were not beautiful in themselves: but they have a distinctive style, the last style modern France has known. So there is some justification for their repeated revivals of favour. '' The dusk of the old order fought with the dawn of the new," if we may borrow from M. Merlet one of his characteristic phrases. The Eomantic revolution was not to break out, in France, until 1820 : l^ut it had been under way for wellnigh half a century. One of its essential elements wa> the return to the Middle Ages, those centiu-ies of chivalry and faith con- temptuously ignored by Boileau. But Voltaire ^in his Zain\ in his Taiicndr, had already gone back to the times of the Crusaders, the knights, the tournaments. Vmlvv ihr Fmpire, in spite of the predominance of classicism, the germ had deve- loped. Creuze de Lesser paraphrased the Iiumancero and wrote an immense medley— some tifty thousand lines!— on chivalry. About 1810. d'Arlincourt and de Marchangy began to popularize mediaval lore. Michaiul commenced his Jlistnn/ o/thr Cnimdcs. Raynouard was rediscovering Provencal literature, and in his enthusiasm ascribed to it an influence it never had. For this Pre-Romantic love vf the mediaeval has been coined the expres- sion " Troubadour style," which connotes false heroism, silly sentimentality, incongruous local colouring, combined with the insipid elegance of pseudo-classicism. Of this, the song "Partant pour la Syrie " ^ is perhaps the most perfect type. It is easy to be • Especially the famous " Coronation." f With music by Queen Hortense. Almost a national anthem under Napokou III. XAPOLEON 83 i 1 i s severe with these first attempts. But it was under such influences that Hugo, Thierry, Michelet were brought up. A second element we shall find in romanticism is '' concrete cosmopolitanism "—the knowledge and appreciation of foreign literature, as opposed to the abstract universalism of the classics. This was already well developed. Letourneur, Ducis, under the ancient regime, had translated or adapted Shakespeare. Ossiamsm was a craze, and almost a disease, which did not spare Xapoleon himself. Delille published a version of Para- dise Lost. Klopstock, Gessner were already known ; Schiller was given the title of French citizen, and Benjamin Constant translated his IVallenstcin. Creuze de Lesser, Raynouard were calling attention to the earliest monuments of the Southern literatures; Sismondi, to tlie history of the Italian republics. And It was in IblO that Madame de Stael attempted to publish her epoch-making work on Germany, which was suppressed by the Imperial police. Molancholy is another Romantic trait. The wide popularity enjoyed by Yonn-'s Xir,ht Thour,hts, Rousseau's Nourellc Hcldise and Goethe's Werther before the Revolution shows that the trivolity and also the sanity of the classical age were already (Ui the wane. Byronism was full-blown m Chateaubriand's Rene (1802) when liyron was a mere schoolboy. Nor was Chateau- briand alone. Bernardin de Saint-Pierre was still alive, a link between Rousseauism and romanticism proper. His brother- in-law, Cousin de Grainville, wrote a sombre prose epic, Tlie Last Man, full of ma-miicent passa^res ; then, appropriately enough, he committed suicide. The elegies of the time are far superior to the odes, epics, descriptive or didactic poems, and tragedies. It was his dreaminess and melancholv that com- mended Ossian to the French public. Millevoye^ Chenedolle are worthy precursors of Lamartine. Even Fontanes, most frigid of ofiicial versifiers, found inspiration in AH Souls' Lay, and Parny, among his licentious erotic pieces or his anti- Christian mock-heroics, has passa^res full of tender sadness. Senancour's Obermaun a«04; is particularly tvpical ; solitude, melancholy, religiosity without religion, incessant brooding that paralyses action, all the elements of the famous '' disease of the ■\ f \ S- ^"WSIKl^gfc.^ 84 FRENCH CIVILIZATION IN XIXth CENTURY century " are found in that book, in the early dawn of the Empire. A reaction against intellectualism and abstract logic, a return to sentiment and faith on the one hand, to tradition and authority on the other ; a will to believe and even to make- believe — in a word, a revival of Catholicism under many dififerent aspects, was also characteristic of the period. Of this revival, Eoyer-Collard, Maine de Biran, de Bonald, and especially de Maistre and Chateaubriand were the leaders. This tendency did not bear all its fruit until after the Restoration, which it prepared ; but its beginning with the accession of Bonaparte in 1800 and its growth throughout the Consulate and the Empire are unmistakable. Finally, whilst that age of brutal energy and picturesque achievements, that **age of ancestors" which shaped the world anew, was apparently satisfied with the canons of an obsolete tradition, the romantic glamour of real life could not fail to influence its art and literature in spite of all classical prejudices. Even David could not help putting colour and movement in his modern scenes — the "Coronation," the "Distribution of Eagles,'* etc. ; and his pupils, Gerard, Gros, went even farther in that direc- tion. Gros, in particular, in his *' Plague at Joppa," in his '^ l^attle of Aboukir," in his '' Battle of Eylau," shows all tlie ([ualities which the romanticists will later on prize so highly ; and it was under the Empire, in military subjects, that Gericault began his career. The new Ciesar was fast supplanting Greek and Iionian heroes as the centre of an epic cycle. Napoleon himself, in spite of his Italian ancestry, his classical features, his Roman aspirations, and the practical character of much of his wurk, was in certain respects a romanticist. The contrasts and dangers of his adventurous career ; his constant hankering after the elusive and gorgeous East ; his fatalism and superstition; the gloom and isolation of omnipotence : all these were either the signs or the causes of a Romantic turn of mind. And this would lind expression in his love for Ossian, or better in sudden outbursts of unacademic eloquence, which give him a brilliant place in French literature. The character of tlie Imperial period is therefore more NAPOLEON complex than is generally thought. The personality of Napoleon, his incessant wars, his immense work of reconstruction, his ever-growing tyranny, fill the centre of the stage. The graces of the old world are dead, but its conventionalities, in the form of pseudo-classicism, are more oppressive than ever. Genius is in exile or in opposition. Thus the first impression is one of artificiality and tedium. But, even apart from the absorbing personality of the Emperor, there are redeeming features in this period of fifteen years. The foundations of modern France are laid, not for her best interests, but with majestic symmetry and solidity ; the country is tranquil and prosperous ; science is unusually brilliant; and the first rays of the Romantic dawn whiten the distant hill-tops. .ir. t BIBLIOGRAPHY 1. FRENCH HISTORY IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY IN GENERAL Lavisse and Rambaud (editors). Histoire G^nerale. Vols. IX, X, XI, XII. 8vo. Colin, Paris. 1897-1901. Cambridge Modern History. Vols. IX, X, XI, XII. Macmillan, London, New York. 190G-10. Ch. Seignobos. Histoire Politique de TEurope Contemporainc. Svo. Colin, Paris. 1897. Macvane (translator). Seignobos's Political History of Modern Europe. 8vo. Holt. New York. 1900. Paul Wiriath and J. E. C. Bodley. Art. "France," in Encyclopedia Britaniiica, 11th ed, (Particularly good.) Vast and Jallifieb. Histoire Contemporainc, Cours de Philosophic. Garnier Freres, Paris. 1907. (Excellent classical textbook.) J. Jaures (editor). Histoire Socialiste. Svo. Rouff & Co., Paris. 1899. (Extremely unequal. Large portions worthless. Jaures's and Thomas's are best.) 2. NAPOLEON. W. M. Sloane. The Life of Napoleon Bonaparte. 4 vols. The Century ^ New York. 1901. (Illustrated. Readable and scholarly. Biblio- graphy.) P. BoNDOis. Napoleon ct la Soci^t^ de son Temps. Svo. 415 pp. Alcan, Paris. 1895. G. Merlet. Tableau de la Litterature Franvaisc, 1800-15. 3 vols. Svo. Didier, Paris. 1878-83. Lanzac de Laborie. Paris sous Napoleon. 8 vols, Plon Nourrit, Paris. 1911 seq. (Innumerable Histories and Memoirs, Cf. particularly Thiers and Masson.) SG Paris (the CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE II. NAPOLEON 1769 August 15. Born at Ajaccio, Corsica. 1793 Contributes to recapture of Toulon. 1795 October 5 (13 Vendemiaire). Suppresses a rising in " whiff of grape-shot "). 179G March 9. I\Iarriage with Josephine de Beauharnais. 179G-97 Italian Campaign. 1797 October 17. Peace of Campo-Formio. 1798-99 Egyptian Expedition. 1799 November 9 (18 Brumaire). Coup d'Etat. Provisional Consul. 1800 Second Italian Campaign. :\Iarengo. 1801 Peace of Luneville with Austria. lSOl-2 Concordat and Organic Articles. 1802 Peace of Amiens with England. 1802 August 2. Consul for life. 1804 December 2. Crowned Emperor. Civil Code. 1805 King of Italy. Third Coalition. Ulm. Trafalgar. 'Austerlitz. Peace of Presbourg (with Austria). 180G Protector of the Confederation of the Rhine. Battles of J^ia and Auerstaedt. 1806 November 21. Berlin Decree (Continental Blockade). 1807 Eylau, Friedbind. Peace of Tilsit. ISuS Spanish War. Creation of the Imperial University. 1809 Fifth War with Austria. Essling. Wagram. Peace of Vienna. 1810 Marries Marie-Louise of Austria. 1811 Birth of the King of Rome. 1812 Russian Expedition. Moscow. Beresina. 1813 The War of Liberation. Battle of Leipzig. 1811 Campaign of France. Paris taken by the Allies. April 11. Abdication. May 4. Elba. Return of the Bourbons. 1815 :\Iarch 1. Lands near Cannes. March 20. Arrives in Paris. The Hundred Days. June 18. Waterloo. ^ . . June i22. Abdication. October: Saint Helena. i\t^ ^tVC^ci ^^khr»f/ . 1821 ;^Iay 5. Death of Napoleon. 'iiC /^4 ^4 c!^ K S7 Vr athy witli the men who controlled the Church " party. Willi the people of tlie cities the Jesuits were a bog}', as they are to tho ])resent day ; and the peasantry were afraid that the ascendancy of the clergy would mean the re-establishment of tithes. Clericalism theii, rather than absolutism, proved the ruin of the Restoration. Curiously enough, the fear of clericalism at home, and CONSTITUTIONAL MONARCHY 99 Catholic sympathies in foreign affairs, led to the same result : the revival of liberalism. The Restoration of the Bourbons in France was part of the general system of the Holy Alliance, which everywhere defended conservation, authority, legitimacy! Now it happened that three Catholic countries were at that time agitating for their rights: Ireland with O'Connell, Belgium subjected to Protestant Holland, Poland oppressed by the Tsar. The Greeks, a Christian nation, were fighting heroically against the enemies of their race and of their religion. In all these cases the Catholics had to side with the people against estab- lished governments, and this was bound to sliake their faith in conservatism and absolutism at home. The conversion of the leading Romanticists to liberal ideals is due in no small degree to their interest in the Greek cause and the heroic example of Byron. A wave of liberalism was now sweeping over Europe. The wars of 1813-15 had been in the eyes of the peoples wars of national independence ; in the eyes of tlieir sovereigns, wars of conservation, to crush a power of revolutionary origin. The nations had rallied round their dynasties in tlie holy crusade against the oppressors: now that the nightmare was gone, they were clamouring for the promised reforms, for the rights wliich they had come to know through those very French invaders they had so stoutly driven back. The same evolution was taking place in France. Napoleon was dead ; his tyranny was no longer foared, his glory shone all the more brilliantly in contrast with the absence of prestige of a government imposed by the enemy. Bonapartism, liberalism, and democracy went hand in hand. Meanwliilc Villele had further weakened his position by woundnig the pride of Chateaubriand, hitherto one of the most influential clianipions of the regime. So his task vras growin^^ ever more difliciilt : the National Guard, reviewed by the King"^ greeted him with cries of '' Down with the Ministry! " Villele at bay dissolved the National Guard, dissolved the Chamber of Deputies, and tlirough a fresh batch of peers reconquered the majority in the Upper House. But the elections went against him, and he was forced to retire. With the greatest reluctance Charles X foimed a neutral 100 FREXCII CIVILIZATION IN XIXth CENTURY Cabinet, with liberal tendencies, headed by a former lieutenant of de Villele — a moderate and skilful statesman, a persuasive orator, Martignac. Unfortunately, Martignac was not heartily supported by the Liberals, whilst the Ultras assailed him with unremitting violence and the King manifested his dislike of his policies. In 1829 he was succeeded by the Prince of Polignac. The knell of the Bourbons had sounded. The very name of Polignac was hateful to the French since the days ot Marie-Antoinette. The Prince himself was a mystic, a blind believer in absolutism, at the same time obstinate and frivolous. To the remonstrances of the Chamber he replied by a decree of dissolution. New electioiis were held, and the hostile majority (f^ r ew from 221 to 279. Then the King, interpreting according ' ' to his own desires an ambiguous article of the Charter, annulled the second elections, and modified of his own authority the electoral and the Press laws. It was a coup d'etat, and no adecpiate military preparations had been made to sustain it by force. The lii)eral bourgeoisie refused to submit. By closing tlieir shops, they practiciilly forced the people into the streets. The narrow, winJin^^ ill-paved thoroughfares of the time were favourable to the insurgents. Confusion prevailed in the councils of the monarchy. In three days, the ''three glorious days" of July, the throne of the Bourbons was overthrown and the tricolour flag waved once more over the Tuileries. § 3. Louis-PiiiLiPPE (1830-48). § 3. Louis- Philippe, 1830-48.— The Orleanist compromise— Influence of English precedents— The " legal country " : its narrow basis— Casimir Perier and a strong government— Thiers, Guizot, Broglie— Parliamentary intrigues : Thiers, Guizot, Molu— Guizot : uncompro- mising resistance — Fall of Louis-Philippe. § 4. General Characteristics of the Political Regime.— 'Pedicetul policy : under the Restoration ; under Louis-Philippe— Peace at any price coupled with Napoleon-worship. Bourgeois oligarchy : first consequence : the people driven to secret societies and insurrections— Second consequence : high tone of political oratory — The Press. The Revolution of 1830 was an ambiguous victory: the liberal middle class had started the resistance, yet the final ^ONSTITUTIOXAL ^CV^^A^Q.F.Xxr CONSTITUTIONAL MONARCHY 103 I I success was due to the intervention of the people. Who had sown, and who should reap ? The Bonapartists had no leader, for the dying ''Eaglet" was but an insignificant Austrian prince ; Napoleon's brothers lacked energy and prestige ; Louis Napoleon, who believed in the destiny of his race, was an obscure young man without any immediate claims. The Republicans were distrusted by the ruling class : not only were the imperishable memories of the Terror working against them, but, for the last fifteen years, they had been unable to assert their existence except through riots and conspiracies. Only if Lafayette had lent them the authority of his long experience and of his immense popularity would they have had any chance of success ; but Lafayette preferred the role of a Monk to that of a Washington. Those constitutional monarchists who resisted the ordinances on purely legal grounds should have been satisfied with the abdication of Charles X, tlie accession of the boy-king Henry V, and the regency of the Duke of Orleans. There w^ere a few days of uncertainty. To what extent the Duke of Orleans had carried his intrigues before the Revolution ; to what extent Thiers and other Liberals were com- mitted to his cause, is not yet fully known. But one point is certain : the influence of English precedent ; the memories of the Revolution of 1G88 were potent in the minds of these Parliamentarians, great students and admirers of the British Constitution. The parallelism between the histories of the two nations, at an interval of a century and a half, was indeed strik- ing. In both a legitimate king was beheaded and a military leader rose to supreme power; in both the old line was restored and a first king, good-natured and sceptical, managed to die peacefully on the throne; in both the bigotry of a second king determined a crisis, which led to the setting aside of an incorrigible race. All this seemed to call for the last term of the evolution : the substitution of a new branch of the royal lamily, whose power would be indubitably of constitutional origin. This was a case of deliberate historical plagiarism. As in every French revolution (1792, 1848, 1870), whilst the moderates were trying to minimize the consequences of the change, the radicals were setting up a Provisional (jovernment of ^ . FKE:\(Jri CIVILIZA'l i(;.\ lA XiXra CENTURY their own at the Paris City Hall. The Duke of Orleans took a bold and diplomatic step, and went to that stronghold of republicanism, to receive, as it were, the investiture of the populace. Thanks to the protection of Lafayette, who stood on a balcony with him and recommended him as "the best of Republics," the Duke, Lieutenant-General of the Kingdom since the abdication of Charles X, became constitutional King of the French, with a revised Charter and the tricolour flag. But the July monarchy, established through a series of skilful in rigues ratified by a minority of deputies without any consti- tutional rights, never submitted to the vote of the country as a whole, rested on insecure foundations. From first to last it was called by good ob,servers "a compromise," a "truce," a bridge —anything but a permanent settlement. The Legiti- mists could not but feel that Louis-Philippe had tricked°his young cousin out of his throne. The Bonapartists were able to claim that Napoleon's Constituticm alone had been ratified by the people. The Republicans realized that their blood had been shed lor a cause not their own. Had the Duke been satisfied with a regency, he might have prepared the reconciliation between modern France and her ancient dynasty. Had he dared to lace a plebiscite, he might have founded a truly national monarchy. As it was, he was the elect of a handful of bourgeois pohticums. The heredity of the peerage was abolished, the amount ol taxation necessary to obtain the franchise reduced to ^UO rancs, and unvarnished plutocracy prevailed. Li the eyes of the law, 200,000 electors were the whole country (Ic pays legal), and the .July monarchy steadily refused to ciilar.^c tlicsc narrow limits. " ^ For a tew months Louis-Philippo had to pay for ],is elevation by stooping to Hatter, not merely the bourgeoisie, but the populace. It was the time when any rabble of loafers could call their new King to his balcony and have him smile, bow, and sing the Marseillaise "-abominably out of tune; the time when the Church of Suint-Germaiu-rAuxerrois and the -\rch- bishop s palace were sacked by the mob, and wlien priests hardly dared to show themselves in the streets. But the CONSTITUTIONAL MONARCHY 103 I King was waiting for his opportunity ; he soon got rid of his radical Ministers, and Casimir Perier assumed control. Casirair P6rier's ministry was cut short by death, but it remains the type of the ** government that governs," or, as the French put it, "the government with a grip." The victors of 1830 had already split into two factions, the party of resistance and the party of movement. The one considered the Revolution as closed, and meant to restore discipline ; the other looked upon the *^ Three Glorious Days " of July as merely the beginning of indefinite reforms. Casimir Perier belonged emphatically to the former. Eminently successful in spite of his overbearing manners, he perished a victim of the cholera in 1831. The King, whom he had reduced to a mere figure-head' whilst making his throne secure, wondered whether the loss of such a masterful servant were not a blessing in disguise. Then followed, after an interregnum of a few months, and under the nominal leadership of " illustrious swords," Marshals of the Empire, another efficient Cabinet in which Thiers, Guizot, de Broglie formed a trinity of talent, ably supported by specialists like Humann and de Rigny. It was during this period that the Republicans made a last desperate stand •*' and that the romantic dash of the Duchess of Berry from Marseilles to Vendee ended in failure, betrayal, and the unsavoury scandal of the prison of Blaye. But on the whole order was maintained, the ruins of 1880 repaired, and progress resumed its normal course. The most creditable achievement of this Ministry was Guizot's law on primary education, the first determined effort in that line. From 183(i to 1810 the political see-saw was at its worst ; Thiers, Mole, Guizot alternate in power, fighting tremendous word-battles in which their personal positions alone were at stake, striking immoral alliances, t and resorting to every kind of political trickery. Finally, when the Eastern imbroglio proved fatal to the second Cabinet of Thiers, Guizot became the actual head of an administration destined to last as long as the monarchy. • Barricades of Saint-Merry in Paris, June, 1832, and April, 1831. t The Coalition of 1839. 104 FRENCH CIVILIZATION IN XIXth CENTURY Guizot is a commanding figure in French history. ** Jour- nalist, professor, historian, administrator, Cabinet Minister, Premier, dictator of the Huguenots, there is hardly any branch of human activity in which he did not play a pro- minent part. But he was as unpopular as he was admired and respected ; as selfish for his class as he was disin- terested for himself; as blind to the state of the country at large as he was clear-sighted in his bourgeois Parliament ; austere, but relying, like Walpole, on political conscience- jobbing; high-minded, but flourishing before the electorate the motto ' Enrichissez-vous ! ' * a great historian, but a poor prophet, who explained with assumed infallibility the progress of civilization, and, not long before the Revolution of 1848, declared, * The day of universal suffrage will never come * ; a great intellect, but with blinkers ; a great heart, but out- wardly cold ; a great leader who wrecked his party ; a great conservative who, through sheer blundering and obstinacy, plunged his country into a revolution." ^ For over seven years Guizot worked in closest harmonv with Louis-Philippe — without any subsemency on his part, for both were agreed on a policy of conservation : peace at any price abroad, inertia at home. The oppositiorf summed up the achievements of the Ministry in the oft-quoted " Rien, rien, rien ! " I Lamartine complained that France was *' bored to death." The regime was threatened with ** the revolution of contempt." But Guizot manipulated his 250,000 electors and the State oflScials in the Chamber who were entirely at his mercy. General elections and parliamentary debates gave him handsome majorities. This upper bourgeoisie was legally the whole country ; the rest of France be would ignore. § • Get rich ! t From French Prophets of Tcst^day. I Three times nothing. § A serious blow was dealt to the dynasty when the heir apparent, the Duke of Orleans, was thrown out of his carriage and died in a few hours. This remarkable prince, a thoroughgoing Liberal and a true "son of the Revo- lution,' left a son who in his manhood displayed the same qualities, although not quite the same ci^arm and brilliancy. But the Count of Paris was then a child, and the prospective regency was entrusted to the Duke vf Nemuurs. the least popular of Louia-Philippe's children. CONSTITUTIONAL MONARCHY 105 Meanwhile scandals were breaking out in the closed oligarchy of wealth : a peer was condemned for murder, two Ministers arraigned for corrupt practices. Yet the extension of the franchise to lesser capitalists (paying 100 francs in direct taxes) and to men who had received a superior education * was syste- matically refused. A campaign of political banquets created an extraordinary stir in the country. Lamartine, hitherto un- attached to any party, took the lead in the reform movement. His History of the Girondists idealized certain aspects of the Revolution and was as popular as any novel. The last of these banquets was interdicted by the Government. A demonstration ^ took place, however, which soon assumed ominous proportions. A timely sacrifice could still save the regime. Whilst the King, long wavering, finally dismissed Guizot, the first shot had been fired, the agitation had turned into a riot, and the riot into a revolution. With creditable humanity, the old King refused to fight for a crown which the Paris populace had let him pick up and had the right to take away. He, like Charles X, abdi- cated in favour of his grandson, and with less dignity than the last Bourbon, hastened on his way to exile. § 4. General Characteristics* of the Political Regime. The Restoration and the July monarchy were systematically peaceful in their foreign policy. Small credit is due to the Restoration on that score, fur France was exhausted, sick of military glory, and closely watched by a formidable coalition. The expeditions in Spain, in Morea, the battle of Navarino, and the conquest of Algiers failed to create any popular enthusiasm for the white flag. It has been asserted that Charles X w.i:. preparing by a diplomatic campaign the recovery of the Rhine provinces ; if this be the case, he fell none too soon. The pacif.sm—it was a principle with him— of Louis-Pliilippe was much more creditable, fur, after the Revolution of July, France was eager to tear up the treaties of 1815, avenge Waterloo, and support the democratic uprisin<^s thruu^rhuut i:.urupe. It touk all the King's patience and sanity to quiet the excitement uf the country withuut ruining at once and irreme- • •* Adjonction des capacitts." I» I i I 106 FRENCH CIVILIZATION IN XIXth CENTURY diably his own position. Several times, in colonial ditliculties with England, or when Thiers wanted to fight all Europe on behalf of Mehemet Ali, it was the King's own intervention that preserved peace — perhaps not with all the appearances of honour. Louis-Pliilippe knew he had to govern a skittish nation, proud of its epic victories, chafing at the memory of recent disaster, and, after a generation of calm, more eager than ever for 11 ic fray. There are in France, perhaps more than in other countries, a Don Quixote and a Sancho Panza. The French bourgeois, as Doudan, the cleverest of them, once said, want at the same time to doze cosily by their glowing fireside ;ind to be roaming, barefooted heroes, on all the battlefields of Europe. Louis- Philippe took the side of Sancho Panza. To Don Quixote he gave as a sop the strictly limited expedition to Antwerp, and especially the dashing and picturesque campaigns in Algeria, safe from diplomatic complications or dangers to the unity of European France ; the young princes, the Duke of Orleans, the Duke of Aumale, won their spurs on African soil. He also gave quixotic France a gorgeous pageant of Napoleonic glory. The monuments in commemoration of the Imperial wars were completed ; Napoleon's Marshals w^ere covered with honours, made peers, ambassadors, prime ministers. The remains of Napoleon himself were brought from Saint Helena by the sailor prince, Joinville, and laid to rest with theatrical splendour under the gilded dome of the Invalides. This policy was apparently successful; on the day of the ** return of the ashes" (December 15, 1840) the King was wildly cheered, and no one seemed to remember that the Emperor's nephew and heir was a political prisoner. But duplicity is a dangerous game. Louis-Philippe fostered the military spirit and gave it but ludlow satisfactions. Had he had the courage of his opinions, had he dared to preach as well as to practise the gospel of peace, France might have been spared the wars of Napoleon III. Political life under the constitutional ninnarcliv ofl'ered certain peculiarities mainly due to the small number oi electors. The worst and most obvious of these was that the majority of the people had no lawful mode of expressing their opinions ; denied a vote, they prepared revolutions. The Restoration and K ■ \ CONSTITUTIONAL MONARCHY 107 the July monarchy were honeycombed with secret societies. Fortunately for France, military conspiracies, so common in Spain, never had any success north of the Pyrenees; * a number were attempted in 1822, and the memory of the four sergeants of La Rochelle is still preserved in popular tradition. The failure was just as dismal wjien the Emperor's own nephew, at Stras- bourg in 183G and at Boulogne in 1840, came to place himself at the head of his supporters. '' Carbonarism," imported from Italy, was a counterblast to the secret organizations of the Jesuits and the Congregation. Many liberal bourgeois, and even Lafayette, belonged to these political bodies, whose influence was great in the preparation and direction of the revolutionary movement in 1830. Under Louis-Philippe the secret societies were republican, with vague socialistic tendencies, and prepared many an insurrection; some of them, the '* Seasons," the '^ Families," the ** Rights of Man," represented an immense efi*ort which might have been used to better ends. Barbes and BlaiKjui were the two principal heroes of these daring and foolish ventures: Barbes, rich, handsome, generous, the Bayard of eternal rebellion; Blanqui, small, dark, mysterious, a mono- maniac of conspiracy, who spent half his political life in the prisons of four diiTerent regimes.f As a rule the secrets of these societies were m the hands of the police, through spies and traitors like de la Hoddc. Attempts against the life of the sovereign were frequent, but isolated individuals, or at worst very small groups of fanatics, were responsible for them. It is signi- ficant to note that the advent of universal sufi"rage practically ruined the inllucnce of these agencies. On the other hand, the limitation of the franchise to a small, well-to-do, educated class had its advantages. Never was the tone of political discussion so high as under the Restoration. The statesmen of those days had broad principles to discuss, and they treated them with an earnestness, a loftiness of Both on the ISth of Brumaire and the 2nd of December the army was a tool, but not the prime mover. t He conspired against the second and the third Republics, as well as against Louis-Philippe and Napoleon III. Cf. G. Geflroy, L'Enferim, a biogfitphy ab entrancing us any novel. « 108 FRENCH CIVILIZATIOX LV XlXru CENTUR". S'ltl/ "'"'? °^'"f--'-«-- -hich, in spite of a cer- tan stiffness and pedantry, did great credit to the Frenc> mJ :r":?the D:T- '""^ '^^'^^ "' Royer-CoHard, the Gra.u lesson irf'^ O.""^'?'' ''''^ °"' '^ ''^''^ «P<=««J^«« -'-^ a lesson in constztutional law ; of de Serre, Marti'uac Camilj.. Jor a„ de Barante, de Broglie, Casimir Perier, ^ o a'tteZ^^^^^^ mT T T ''''"" '^'"•^^" *^° P"-'P'- of authority^ d I«sni. The deJS o^I'^lJ plt ^s irleTo Ij r 162 ( were uiagmficent.* Under Louis-Philippo the talent of the orators was uudoubtcdlv us great but the plane of debate was lower. Bcrrycr a thJ noble defender of a lost cause, that of the legitimate no Ihy Montalenibert, "the young peer," as he wis then " d vas' the aggi-essive chau.pion „f Catliolicisn. a..unst tli! teachin' mon,.poly of the State ; La.uartine remained a . t e" ,i sen Trr "'"' "vf'f """ ^''^' ^■'-■^-^"'^ed common- sense of a Thiers. + But these were "outsiders." \mon.' the actual leaders, Thiers, with his keen though narr„w i.iw "en t proDitms as clear and as eiitertainiiur o^ ., i..,„^., ,. ,, t le gieatest speakers in the House. Gui.ot ha,I scholarshin strength, and above all di .X ,-' O cj Q "5 o uO Vj O CO o a. Cm "5 o t- S-i :3 Q '5 O . -1 ■^ t- L^ 'X3 > 00 to o 04 -C ^ '5 o O 00 'So I CO c 05 r-J P o ^ - S q 00 P-i '-s'd en O C5 -4.3 f-l -a Q^d CO^' CO ;-! O 00 O O CO ;; C (— 1 c3 »— 1 O p> T^ O •4-1 O 1 n a ■ r- 1 j« ra =!Ph p - CO d y. en o ►-1 CO Q o CO "5 O l-i -^ J Coo 1^' «4-( tD - 2 o "^ - C r^ C CO ^ 5 --3 z3 ::: '-' 00 ^-^^^P •^ 00 o . X > X CO - CO O " ""^ I—I »^^ o -13 I— • '— * ^ O c3 123 CHAPTER lY NAPOLEOX III, lS4S—?0. § 1. Political Conditions. 1. Political Conditions: the Republic— The Revolution of 1S18— Democracy— Socialism— The Constituent Assembly— The Days of June — Reaction — Election of Louis-Napoleon : its causes and its meaning. 2. TJie Coup d'Etat and the Empire.— The coup d'etat: its causes and significance— Influence on French thought— Character of the Second Empire— Spiritual gloom— Did the Empire stifle intellectual life ? The Roman Question. The Revolution of 1848 was an accident. Tlie insiirrectiuns of Lyons and Paris, in 1831, 1832, and 1834, were better concerted and more formidable. They were not repressed without hh)()dshed, but the Government issued stronp^er from the battle. In 1848, more tact on Guizot's side, more decision on the part of the King, Bugeaud called earlier and given a free hand, and monarchy might have been saved, at least for a season. Perhaps a single random shot on the boulevard des Capucines was responsible for the catastrophe. But the fact remains that after eighteen years of a .wise) peaceful, and prospcri^us reign, Louis-Philippe was at the mercy of an accident, and that fact is significant. The July monarchy, the result of a compromise, perhaps of an act of trickery, had lived on sufferance, without striking root deep in the soil. Legitimists, Catholics, Bonapartists, Republicans, Socialists, all were against it. It represented and satisfied no one except a portion of the bour- geoisie. By monopolizing power for nearly eight years and refusing any electoral reform which might endanger his political position, Guizot divided the forces of the middle cla^is, which, even 124 / ! ^^» A NAPOLEOX III, 1848—70 125 united, was a narrow basis for a political regime. Thus Louis- Philippe fell, unpitied, unregretted in France and in Europe, except by a few personal followers. The Revolution of 1830 seems to have been hailed in France with genuine enthusiasm : it was a great battle between the old and the new, a confirmation of the principles of 1789. The Revolution of 1848 was received with mixed feelings. Some of the victors were ashamed of their victory. The masses in the provinces were astonished rather than gratified. But the demo- cratic elements in the cities were triumphant. It was understood, among Republicans, that in 1830 the Duke of Orleans had tricked them out of the fruit of their labours. This time, they meant not to be so easily duped. And circumstances favoured them. The Revolution had come as a surprise. No single party was known to have a majority in the country. A republic, at least as a temporary expedient, seemed the only possibility. All opposition parties had agreed in branding Louis-Philippe's government as that of a minority, every party expected from the people at large a verdict in its favour; thus for a moment Legitimists and Catholics joined with the Bonapartists and Republicans in their advocacy of universal suffrage. This formed a motley crowd : the divine rio:ht of kincfs, the divine right of the people, international and social brother- hood, military supremacy and glory— all these ideals could not easily be reconciled. But all had this character in common, that they were ideals, and appealed, not to common sense and self- interest but to imagination and sentiment. Thus democratic romanticism prevailed for a time, because of its vague, generous appeal, and because no other solution was ready; and the most harmonious and vaguest of poets, Lamartine, became the fitting representative of an unpractical and idealistic revolution. The evolution which commenced in 1824 was now complete : the very poet who sang the coronation of Charles X was at the head of a democratic republic. This triumph had been delayed by eighteen years of clever, shifty, materialistic government, but it had come at last. It was, indeed, as the Germans called it, ''ein hciliges uud tolles Jahr." A year? In France, it was only a season. In a fuw weeks the dream was shattered. 126 FRENCH CIVILIZATION IN XlXm CENTURY The Constituent Assembly was at first imbued with the same spirit of generous optimism as the Provisional Government. But as early as the 15th of May, on a futile pretext, Barbes, Blanqui, Raspail and the Revolutionists, their followers, invaded the leorislative hall. The affair was a miserable failure, but it was sufficient for breaking the charm. Diffidence, fear, hatred, ban- ished for a while, reasserted their empire. Lacordaire, who on the 4th of May had fraternized with the people, sent in his resignation after the 15th. Socialism was no longer looked upon with sympathetic tolerance. The unreasoning dread of the '4ied Fiend'' was growing among peasants and bourgeoisie alike. National workshops had been organized, both as a recognition of the socialistic right to employment and as a measure of relief for the intense economic crisis which the Revolution had brought m its train. Well meant, but poorly organized, they soon became the parody rather than the realization of Louis Blanc's scheme. An ever-increasing number of men of all descriptions were paid forty cents a day for digging trenches in the Champ de Mars and filling them up again. The national workshops were suppressed with as much clumsiness as they had been managed. The result was the most formidable insurrection that l^iris had yet seen. General Cavaignac was made Dictator. He suppressed the rising with the ruthless energ}' of a soldier trained in Algerian campaigns. Thousands of insurgents were summarily judged and sentenced to transportation. There was both in the struggle and in the repression an element of implacable ferocity which had been absent from French history since the darkest days of the Terror. The Days of June are an all-important date in the evolution of French thought. Optimistic romanticism was ruined. Its utopian ideas were supposed, not with full justice, to have been tried and to have failed. Its representatives were set aside as dangerous or unpractical : in December, Lamartine, once the idol of the people, polled 17,000 votes out of an electorate of eight millions. The conservative classes trembled retrospectively at the thought of the danger they had just gone through. They craved lor authorities that would maintain material order, and moral order as one of its conditions. The Church and a strong government ! Such was the cry of the frightened bourgeoisie. ** Let us throw ^ NAPOLEON III. 1848—70 127 ) ourselves at the feet of the bishops! " said Duvergier de Hau- ranne, a former member of the liberal opposition. It is often asserted that in December, 1851, Louis-Napoleon strangled the harmless, generous, idealistic Republic of 1848. As a matter of fact, political and social reaction began immedi- ately after the Days of June. The true character of the following twenty years was determined before their political form. Had the Republic survived, it would, for many years, have been as conser- vative as any Empire, and possibly more cruel. In June, 1848, and in May, 1871, it was shown that repression under a collective and anonymous government could attain a degree of severity which would l)e unsafe for the strongest autocrat. The Assembly, swept by the eloquence of Lamartine — it was his last and most fatal victory — decided that the President should be elected directly by universal suffrage. After some hesitation, it refused to make former pretenders, i.e., Louis-Napoleon, ineligible. Representative Thouret made a motion to that effect, but he withdrew it after hearing the Prince speak a few words : *'I thought this man was dangerous," he said ; ''I was mistaken." General Cavaignac was still chief executive, and official pressure was everywhere exerted in his favour. He was an honest and able man, a true republican, and the actual '* saviour of society." But, for the conservatives, he was too incorruptibly republi- can, whilst the democrats could not forget his role in June. So, in spite of his great services, he was passed over. The Royalists could not agree on a candidate of their own : the two branches of the house of Bourbon were never fully re- conciled. In 1830 and in February, 1848, the people had strongly expressed its aversion for both, and the memories of these two catastrophes were still too fresh for an open mon- archical campaign to be immediately possible. Advised by Thiers and Montalembert, the conservatives decided to vote for Louis-Napoleon. Such a policy, on the part of Orleanists and Legitimists, seems at present suicidal ; it was, to say the least, tortuous. Thiers and his friends wanted to use the pretender as a cafs-paw. These bourgeois politicians, so matter-of-fact themselves, had failed to gauge the force of Napoleonic sentiment in the country. Louis-Philippe himself, it will be remembered, 128 FHEXCH CIVILIZATION IN XIXth CENTURY had toyed with it, fostered it, in the hope that it would satisfy in a cheap, safe manner the people's craving for glory. It was the same clever, dangerous game that the conservatives wanted to play m 1848. "Let the people satisfy, in a harmless manner, their fancy for a Bonaparte. The pretender was known to be a dolt ; in less than four years he would reveal his utter incapacity and ruin his own cause. While making himself impossible, he would accustom the public mind to the idea of a true restoration. In the meantime, Thiers would be the power behind the throne." Thus Louis-Napoleon received the support of the conservative elements. He had already in his favour the vast majority of the country-folk, among whom the "Legend" had been spread by Marco-Saint-Hilaire, Dumas, Beranger, and less directly by Thiers himself and Victor Hugo. Even among the democrats he had many supporters; they preferred liim to Cavaignac, the " butcher of June," and they remembered that lie had written a vaguely socialistic pamphlet on the extinction of pauperism. On the 10th of December, 185if, he was elected President by 5,434,000 votes to Cavaignac's 1,448,000. Ledru-Eollin and Easpail, the democratic candidates, Jiad le.^s than 500,000 between them. Lamartine, in whom the spirit of February, 1848, was embodied, received only 17,000. It was an overwhelming triinuph. Njipoleon III, in after years, always claimed that his true title to power was neither lieredity nor the coup d'etat, but the popular election of the 10th of December. There could be no doubt as to the sincerity of the vote or its meaning. In choosing Louis-Napoleon simi-ly because he was a Bonaparte, tiie people did certainly not express their wish for a parliamentary republic. On December 10th the Empire was virtually made. Thiers's prophecy, often quoted as a wonderful instance of political foresight, came three years later —three years after Thiers himself had helped to make its fulfil- ment inevitable. The coup d'etat, the "crime" of 1851, was but the natural consequence of the presidential election. The long delay astonished and disappointed the peasants, who had voted, not for a republican magistrate, but for a Napoleon. Louis-Napoleon's term of office was to expire in 1852. Accord- ing to the Constitution, he could not be re-elected. An attempt I NAPOLEON III, 1848—70 129 was made to have this provision altered, but it failed. The whole Constitution was impracticable. Alone the authority which the President derived from his Imperial origin and his large popular majority gave some unity and some outward peace to the political life of the country. In 1852, with his retirement, this precarious peace would come to an end. Everything would be put in question again. The situation was in some respects as threatening as in 1848. The Constituent Assembly, with all its confusion and lack of experience, was well-meaning, generous, optimistic, and, on the whole, moderate. Its successor, the Legislative Assembly, was sharply divided between a dominant conservative party and a strong minority of advanced democrats. The good old "Re- publicans of 1848" had disappeared. Neither party bore any love to the existing form of government, and it was well understood that neither would be stopped by constitutional scruples. The conservatives wanted to make their present hold of the country permanent ; the democrats wanted to reconquer the Republic, which was no longer theirs since the Days of June. A restoration and a new revolution were in sight— either entailing bloodshed, an economic crisis, and the dreaded "leap in the dark." The loyalists confessed that they did not "hope to reach the Promised Laiul without crossing the Red Sea." Revolutionary societies were growing everywhere. Thus, in a country which as a whole i was panting for peace and stability, political parties were almost ;V openly carrying on two conspiracies. '^ The Prince-President had his own hopes : but he alone seemed to stand for the nation at large instead of special interests. He liad skilfully disentangled his cause from that of any party. He was the nominee of the conservatives no doubt, but of the conservatives in the broadest sense, and he was the elect of the whole people. He had no programme but his name : it made him the traditional representative of strong government, but also of the mitional will ; a prince, but of a revolutionary dynasty and known for his democratic sympathies. He allowed the conser- \ vative majority to take measures for curtailing universal suffrage, M: the great conquest of 1848 ; when they had thus committed ' themselves, he opposed them, and stood as the defender of the nation's right. By the coup d'etat of the 2nd of December 9 dte- 130 FRENCH CIVILIZATION IN XIXth CENTURY 1851, he dissolved the Assembly, ** restored*' universal suffrage, and appealed to the people as to the supreme arbiter. Thus the revolution expected for 1852 was averted by another of a different kind — an act of violence, no doubt, a piece of illegality, a perjury, but not more so than all other revolutions. Of all the many sudden changes of regime in France, this was one of the freest from innocent blood, and the only one which was immediately and formally ratified by the country. An unworkable Constitution, which had made its own revision almost impossible, was doomed to a violent death. § 2. The Coup d'^^tat and the Empire. Louis-Napoleon's hope was to make himself the grand arbiter between parties, and to achieve a work of national reconciliation and reconstruction similar to that of his uncle in 1800. Unfor- tunately the coup d'etat was spoilt, and made very different from what the gentle dreamer expected. Violence to a Consti- tution which no one meant to respect much longer was more justifiable than the revolutions of February, 1848, and Sep- tember, 1870 ; but the massacre on the Boulevards, the whole- sale arrest, transportation, or exile of Republicans, Socialists, members of secret societies, ticket-of-leave men and dangerous criminals, pell-mell, all that was without excuse, even on the score of policy. That was the true ** crime of December." It justified irreconcilable opposition, like that of Victor ITngo. It partly invalidated the result of the jilebiscite of 1851, which, Republicans were able to claim, was inlluenced by terror and tainted with fraud. Who was responsible for this perversion of the coup d'etat? Perhaps Saint-Arnaud, Magnan, and the other generals, who wanted, by this display of savage energ}% to magnify the danger from wliich they had saved society. Perhaps Morny and the financiers, who were anxious to reassure conser- vative interests and to deal a crushing blow to social democracy. Perhaps the unscrupulous adventurers who surrounded the Prince wished to bind him to them by ties of complicity in a crime : the Emperor was heard to complain that he had to drag Persigny and Morny like a convict his chain and ball. Perliap^ they meant to take precautions against his socialistic lennings. NAPOLEON III, 1848—70 131 Perhaps there was as much blundering as Machiavelianism in all this useless rigour : the mysteries of the coup d'etat are not all cleared up even yet. One thing is certain, and this is why we have dwelt at such length on those critical days : the coup d'etat gave its stamp to the Second Empire. The whole regime, like its initial act, bore the mark, not only of the kindly, well-meaning Prince whom no one ever approached without loving him, but also and chiefly of Saint- Arnaud, Persigny, Morny, Maupas. By one of its aspects at least, what was meant to be a truly national government seemed the filibustering adventure of a few middle-aged men of doubtful morality. Popular ratification, unheard of prosperity, victorious wars, could never wash off the stain. The seven million votes cast in favour of Louis-Napoleon only served to chill democratic feelings in the hearts of poets and thinkers. Even the great Romanticists grew discouraged and pessimistic. The new generation despised the '* rabble " as much as their elders had glorified the '' people." They wanted to avoid any contact with the populace and to conceal from them all their emotions. Vigny's attitude of aloofness and stoic i silence, exceptional twenty years before, became more generah K Men like Taine, Renan, Leconte de Lisle, Flaubert, were, or! tried to be, indifferent, ** impassible," *' objective." ' J Such was the origin of the Second Empire, and such remained ^ its character : the triumph of force and of material interests, j^ Bonapartism stood for glory abroad, order and progress at home ; but it was the glory which is assured by a large and well-drilled army ratlier than by a righteous cause ; the order that an efficient police force can maintain ; the kind of progress which is measured in miles of railroads. In achieving these ends, Napoleon III was for a few years eminently successful : he had nobler aspira- tions, which he failed to realize. The uneducated masses and a clique of self-seekers supported his government : the elite of all kinds, with a few notable exceptions, distrusted it and him. Hence the note of sadness which prevails in literature throughout these twenty years. Romantic idealism was hope- lessly defeated, and the whole world was darkened.* The new Cf. P)aiK]olaire's sonnet, " Le Coucber du Soleil Romantique." 132 FRENCH CIVILIZATION IN XIXth CENTURY « O generation received in its early manhood the bitter gift of experience. They tried, above all things, not to be dupes ; they guarded themselves against the ennobling illusions of their elders. The frivolous were cynical ; the serious-minded stoicall}^- pessimistic. For this note of bitter discouragement the Empire is partly responsible. But we should not lay everything to the charge of the political regime. Democratic politicians like Camille Pelletan* accuse it of creating an oppressive atmosphere in which literature was stifled, and of restricting by open fcu'ce the liberty uf thought. They would have us believe that the Spirit of France was then in exile with Quinct and Victor Hugo. These are wild exaggerations: the *' Tyranny" was not so thoroughgoing. Most great writers, after a while, lived on fairly good terms with " Tiberius." Merimee and Sainte-Beuve were Senators ; About, Augier, Renan, Taine, and even the Socialists Proudhon and George Sand, were the friends of tlic Emperor's first cousins. Prince Napoleon and Princess Matilda : Vigny was thought of for preceptor of the Prince Imperial ; Leconte de Lisle, known to be a Republican, was secretly pensioned by Napoleon III. The one thing the Empire stifled, at least for seven or eight years, was political life. The Governnu'nt could very well have dispensed with its unfortunate method of interfering in elections and occasionally tampering with the returns : it was absolutely sure of an overwhelming majority. The privileges of Parliament had been curtailed ; only a summary report of its sessions was made public. The i^ress was " nnizzled." Home politics had thus lost all interest. But this was no disadvantage to thought or literature ; it gave authors leisure and a public. The " Silence of the Empire," so oppressive to a generation of debaters and journalists like Thiers, gave quieter men a better chance. Under a different regime, Leconte de Lisle or Flaubert might have been lured from their proper task; Taine, Kenan, Sclierer would perhaps have found it more diillcult to secure a hearing. It was a good thing for Victor Hugo not to be any longer a Peer of the Realm or a member of the Legislative Assembly : his political * Cf. Camille Pelletan, Victor ITiigo Iwmmc politique. Also Ed. Scht'rer, •' L'Ere Imp^riale," Etudes sur la Litt^rature Contemporaine. iv. ) NAPOLEON III, 1848—70 133 duties in exile were light and intermittent ; they left his energy intact for his greatest works. The period of the Second Empire is by no means the most brilliant in the nineteenth century, but it holds an honourable rank. It would be ludicrous, as tlie Bonapartist writer Augustin Filon confesses, to speak of an '* Age of Napoleon III " ; it would be an injustice to call the whole period barren, and to make the regime responsible for such sterility. Nor is it any more exact to pretend that the Empire sought to restrict the liberty of thought. We hold no brief for Bona- partism, but we must dwell for a moment on this point, which of course is of commanding interest to the student of culture. tJnder Napoleon III the Press was not free : at least, pieces of news were often coloured or suppressed, which was an evil ; and scurrilous abuse was sternly discouraged, nnich to the benefit of good journalism : masterpieces of allusive irony, in the style of Prevost-Paradol, are all too rare nowadays. It nnist also be said tliat Vaclierot lost his position at the Normal School, Miclielet and Quinet tlieirs at the College de France, that Jules Simon had to resign after the coup d'etat, that Taine's academic life was made intolerable, that Renan 's course was suspended and eventually suppressed. In spite of all these facts, we believe that in all essentials thought and speech were as free then as they arc now. The regime was not liberal; but,,^. materially irresistible, it was powerless in all spiritual affairs.,'^ The tliiuking classes in France were divided into rjldically opposed camps, each too strong to be silenced by its opponents, even with the assistance of the Government. That Government, being a liybrid, a monarchy '' by the grace of God and the will of the people," a reactionary power of revolutionary origin, could not side wlioloheartedly with either party ; and, especially after the Italian campaign, it frequently sought the support of the free-thinkers against tbe Church. This conflict existed even within the Imperial family : the Empress was a stanch Catholic, Prince Naj)oleon was " anti-clerical," the Emperor was every- thing aiul nothing. As a result, not of any enlightened tolerance on the part of the rulers but of conditions beyond the reach of any political regime, thought, especially religious thought, was / 134 FRENCH CIVILIZATION IN XIXth CENTURY actually freer in France than in England, where the liberty of the Press was officially unbounded. There, writes Hilaire Belloc, **a sort of cohesive public spirit glued and immobilized all individual expression. One could float imprisoned as in a stream of thick substance : one could not swim against it." The French public spirit was not cohesive : the Empire had no con- sistent doctrine which it might attempt to impose by force. Such was the political background at home ; * with foreign affairs we have little to do, except in one respect : the Roman question was ever present under the Empire; it marked its beginning, its climax, and its end ; it reacted on home politics, it influenced religion, thought, and literature. Pope Pius IX inaugurated his pontificate with liberal reforms which roused the enthusiasm of Europe ; he seemed destined to be the evangelical, democratic Pope after the heart of Lamennais and Victor Hugo; his popularity had much to do with the religious attitude of the Revolution of 1848. But in November, 1848, after the assassination of his Minister Rossi, he fled to Gaeta, and a Roman Republic was created. Cavaignac held French troops in readiness, should intervention prove necessary. It was part of the compact between the conservatives and Louis- Napoleon that these troops should be employed to restore papal authority. Thus France, still nominally a Republic, suppressed a sister Republic, and this was the prelude to reaction in France * For seven years after the coup d'etat the Empire remained an unmiti- gated autocracy (I'Empire Autoritaire). Popular elections were held in 1852 1857. and 1863, but the Government, undoubtedly supported by the immense majority of the people, repressed even the mildest forms of opposition From 1869, and especially 18G3 to 1369, we can trace a somewhat jerky and reluctant progress from - authority " to " liberty " (I'Empire Liberal). The Senatus-Consulte of September 8, 1869, and April 2, 1870, transformed the ^mpire mto a parliamentary monarchy of the English typo However the Emperor remained the responsible head of the State, and through plebiscites he could enter mto direct communication with the people at large, over the heads Ministers and deputies. This last avatar of the regime, submitted to popular suffrage, was endorsed by over 7,000,000 votes against 1,500 000 ii^mile Ollivier, the new Premier, a converted Republican and a great orator" was a lover of peace and liberty, and there is little doubt that the experiment was, on the whole, satisfactorily received. The tragic adventure of 1870 did not give It time to fulfQ its promises. NAPOLEON III, 1848—70 / 135 herself, '* a Roman expedition at home," in the words of Montalembert. With short intermissions, the Pope remained under t'^e pro- tection of French bayonets until after the fall of the Empire. It was the price paid by Napoleon for the support of the Church. The price must often have seemed heavy to him, for he was at heart an Italian patriot, had taken pai't in his youth in an insurrection against papal domination, and had probably been a Carbonaro. He would at least have liked to use his influence for securing liberal reforms in the Roman States ; but the Pope, supported by the French conservatives, refused to listen to any suggestion. The Emperor was *' caught"; he could not with- draw his troops, for that would have weakened his position in France and strengthened that of Austria in Italv. In 1859 Napoleon III, after secret negotiations with Cavour, engaged France in a war against Austria in favour of Italian independence. The war was immensely popular with the masses, and Napoleon was never so near gaining the loyal support of the Parisian working men ; the revolutionary Fau- bourg- Saint- Antoine hailed him with enthusiasm as he left for the front. But the Franco-Italian victory opened the question of Italian unity. In spite of some political shilly-shallying, Napoleon did not put any serious obstacle in the way of Piedmont, and within one year modern Italy was made, with the exception of the Venetian province and what remained of the Pope*s dominions. The French Catholics held the Emperor responsible for the partial dispossession of their pontiff. Napoleon was attacked with such bitterness that he had to suppress the great Church paper, UUnivers^ and to seek for supporters among the more advanced elements. But he did not dare to change the whole basis of his power ; he tried to reconcile his sympathy with Italy and the Liberals on the one hand with his traditional alliance with the Church on the other. It seems now proved, as Prince Napoleon had afl&rmed long ago, that the Roman question alone prevented Victor Emmanuel from joining the French side in 136 FRE,.^.H CIVILIZATION IN XIXth CENTURY 1870.* :. fortnight after the fall of the Empire, the Italian troops entered Kome. For twenty years Rome was the pivot of French politics, at home and abroad. For ten years at least it was the chief ' centre of interest of French intellectual life. The number of books and pamphlets which it elicited is prodigious. The Roman question was considered as a test of conservatism in all things. When the great preacher Lacordaire became a candidate to the French Academy, Guizot, a Protestant, Thiers, an unbeliever, objected to him as not sufficiently ''Roman.'* The temporal power of the Pope was a battleground and a symbol. § 3. Society. § 3. Society.—Docnmcnts : literature ; the Press ; graphic documents- Material activity: the Saint-Simonian spirit -Solidity of this pros- perity—Glitter. ^ Old French society-Thc exiles-The Court- The pleasure-seekers- •'L'homme fort": de Morny. § 4. Culture.— Iiea.ction and materialism— Apparent failure of ideal- ism-The second "mal du si^cle "-Gloom not duo to the progress of science and industry-Realism : brilliancy of art and literature- ISbTlm'imi 'P^'^^^°'^^^^^^°^ ^^^ evolution-Three moments : Of social conditions under the Empire we shall say little because there is too much to be said. The period still lives in the memory of our parents, and there remains a mass of historical material which has not yet been sifted and classified. It has left us no single collection of documents comparable m value to Balzac's Comedic Ilumaine. But many dramatists and novehsts of lesser range have attempted to portray their own times with at least an effort towards scientific objectiveness and accuracy. The plays of Augier, Dumas, Theodore Barriere, bardou, Meilhac and Halevy are of great value for the historian of manners. So are, if due caution be exercised, some novels ol the Goncourts, Feuillet, Erckmann-Chatrian. After the fall of the regime we had Zola's mighty and coarse twenty-volume series, Les Eougon-Macquart: a sordid, pessimistic, one-sided • Cf . Bourgeois and Clermont, Rmne and Najjolem III, NAPOLEON III, 1848—70 137 view of life, with an excessive wealth of accurate details, and, in spite of all its heaviness and vulgarity, an undeniable breadth of epic treatment. Less powerful, less repulsive, less systematic, lighter, truer, finer, are Baudot's somewhat hasty sketches, such as The Nabob, I The newspapers were comparatively few on account of the stringency of the Press law ; but they maintained, on the whole, a very high standard: Lc Journal des Debats, the organ of the liberal-conservative opposition : Le Temps, also moderate in tone, but more advanced than the Dcbats ; L' Univers (for a time Le Monde), Veuillot's ultra-Catholic paper; Havin's Steele, Voltairian, bourgeois, carrying on a sort of licensed semi- opposition ; Gueroult's Opinion Nationale, tinged with Saint- Simonism, democratic, but not irreductibly hostile to Bonapartism, and supposed to represent the ideas of Prince Napoleon. The official Press was by no means so brilliant, and Le Moniteur and Le Constitutionnel are at present remembered only on account of Sainte-Beuve's collaboration. Among the reviews, Buloz's Revue des Deux-Mondes retained its primacy. It was, like Les Debats, an organ of the parliamentary opposition — Orleanist or moderate Republican. But it was rather more advanced, and, in philosophical matters, freely open to bold critics of the Church or even of Christianity : Lanfrey, Scherer, Havet, Renan, for instance, were among its contributors. The liberal Catholics had their magazine, Le Correspondant, with de Falloux, Montalembert, Pontmartin, de Laprade : a small group, but influential in Academic elections. Beside the political papers and the great magazines, there swarmed what was justly called ** la petite Presse," which, debarred from treating the burning questions of the day, enjoyed on all the rest almost excessive freedom. It gives a good idea of one small section of Parisian society, and good instances of one minor aspect of Parisian wit. Le Figaro then stood almost at the limit between the ** legitimate " and the '* small " Press. It was one of its chroniclers, Ptochefort, who, by applying the methods of the professional humourist to political matters in his weekly Lanterne, won such immediate and undeserved popu- larity. Strange to say, great and grave men were occasional 138 FRENCH CIVILIZATION IN XIXth CENTURY JSain Jaune are found eloquent and intensely earnest criticisms of contemporary poets by Leconte de Lisle Ta ne was the SSr: "t"^"*^ l^' T'''' P^^'^^^P'^^^ -°te his Thomas stin in r ' . V' ■P'^'-^'^"'""^ «a» be seen some of Con- tm±jTc "'"^"^"' '^'"'''''' ^^■^'''^' -^i> tl^e spirited ideT of he f '". ' ""T'"' ^'^•^ ^''«'^>' ^^^ "« « -^^orf vivid dea of the times than the photographs of Nadar and Disderi SLu;:!!""' """"^ "' '™"' °'- ^^----'« brilliant •*{.f SmTteriafli^^r^'Tt'' "' *'^" '"''''y "^ "- ^^--ty se!meV ^ ^r ^'"P"'" ^^''' ^™« ^ «»'i'l^". '^nd, as it then seemed boundless expansion. The trunk lines w^re hastUv comp e ed and added to ; steam navigation was delTped an MosU tt -1 r? •*' """'"'^ '' " *''^°^^ undertaking. Most ot the great cities were practically rebuilt • at Marseillp! i or instance hills were levelled, whole districts torn down S a new harbour conquered on the Mediterranean The bes^ ta ttltof'p""* ^^r*""'^^ "''"^''^ -1--' transformation Sv fe„u/"" ""'" ^^"^--"" = truly a formidable work hast J faulty n many respects, but in spite of errors-excesses and shor comings-one of the wonders of the nineteenth cent" ome TSr\r'^^ ^'''' ^'''^ 'J-^^ during certain yeafs expansion-the spirit of Bismarckian Germany, or of the American North-West at the present day-no loi^.er p/evaSs in contemporary France. ° prevails 4^oIxiw'S:I -r' ""?""' development was so intense. /so e.xubeiant that it assumed a sort of poetic graudcui— the enic ■of productivity and wealth. In the case of Napoleon m hunself, materialism had undoubtedly its mystic side.' and th^ such men as the Pereires. We must remember that the NAPOLEON III, 1848—70 139 I ''Neo-Christian" and socialistic disciples of Saint-Simon, the very men whose mania, as it was then called, had amused Paris in 1830-32, were believers in the Gospel of Industry, and at the time of the Second Empire had become shrewd and successful business men, bankers, and railroad magnates. The Compagnie Generale Transatlantique, with the Pereires, re- mained for a long time one of their strongholds. Michel Chevallier, the economist who with Cobden secured some measure of free-trade between France and England, had been a Saint-Simonian ; the '* father" of the Church himself, Prosper Enfantin, in spite of incurable illusions mixed with charlatanism, was a capable railroad official and a pioneer promoter of the Suez Canal. There is, we must confess, something strangely [ attractive about the material activity of the Empire : its reckless I daring, its breadth of inspiration, the undeniable generosity of le^ — some of its motives, appeal to us much more than the cautious | solidity of Louis-Philippe. Much of the material prosperity enjoyed by the country atj large was the reward of hard work, enterprise, and foresightj^'v And the compressive paternalism of the Government had its counterpart in a series of beneficent measures. The '' Credit Foncier," a national mortgage bank imitated everywhere, was Napoleon's earliest creation. Mutual help and co-operative associations were encouraged. Strikes ceased to be a crime in the eyes of the law. Vast stretches of marshy territory were reclaimed in Sologne and the Dombes, whilst the desolate Landes of Gascony became a huge plantation of pine. Re- afforestation was carried on with efficient energy. New breeds of horses and cattle were introduced. Local and national agri- cultural expositions contributed to the spread of better methods of cultivation. Taine was not a Bonapartist, and when not blinded by political passion he was a keen observer : after exten- sive journeys through the length and the breadth of the land, his verdict was : ** One must confess there is in this country a suddeiK- expansion of public prosperity, similar to that of the Renascence or of the time of Colbert. . . . The Emperor understands France and his centui-y better than any of his predecessors." * • Caniets de Voyage, p. 112 (1863). 140 FRENCH CIVILIZATION IN XIXtii CENTURY This prosperity was by no means all glitter : the way in which the country recovered after 1870 showed that the economic con^t.ons were fundamentally sound. Nothing, therefo^ 3d be more unjust than to see in the Second Empire a re^nme of stockjobbers, card-sharpers, swashbucklers, and prostiS^s But tl^ere was much glitter and many dark points. To Gu zoS ee^To :dd"<."/f P^^''^^* ''''''■ '"^^ Second Empi seemed to add : And get rich quickly ! " The whole redme ^iJ^ spi"t of recklessness, luxury, and pleasure was evident everv- .-.Viere and displayed itself with a universality and a cynic sm unnvalled except under the Regency and the Dire" Impenal corruption - has remained a by-word and eTn .^ |after discounting the natural hostility of RepubHcan and RoyaS historians there is much truth in the cenLe. Th^ bouZeo L the Pvil wn,,ii «• ^"^Pire. The Government, aware of cuLd ir 7. ''''''^' ^' ^^^^>'^"^ ^^^^^^^^"-^^ and prose, cuted Maclame Bovanj^ which, to the jaded taste of our own Oh F ; ^^'""^ """"^^ 'P^^^^ ^^^^^^^ of receding. Old French society, of course, was not dead In the nnhip v~a^^^^^^^^^^^ '^^ Government! wa^ed against it their clever and harmless warfare of epi bohemians, ^amblerq ur^A - \.x. \ ^' adventurers, a perpetual world's feiV « I 7 ^, ^' P'^**''^*' assertive, visitor! the virtlV rtrntrl"?*^^^ ^°^ '""^ «»•-- denounce, after exDerien.; fi. ' . '^"''eigner anxious to These ci;cles ex sted and ««'• '"''^ >' ""'"" ^"'^'""• but in In^perial Paris they shaded off T ""'"" '^'^P'*"'^ = f nd unexpected ways. Ztltt fhi wt Tf ^'- T ^"^"^ Of pleasure, ever morp rar.;^ a- .^^^ ^^ a feverish round symbolized bv Carnp«nv'o T^. , *^ ^ami(?nn^, and dancing Bacchant? 'nY Stt ^T '^'°'^ '""^ «?- •• centre, the mysteriour Ko r T *"'' '"''"<'»' ""d, in the Mephistophel^r/et Tith th!^f f " "' ^ ^^'"■-- *--' The hero of thfs soe^V was < 1 f "^ "'.''^'"^ *^^''^^- man-a sceptical heartW 7 a """"^ ^°'*'" ^^^^ strong and business D; Snv V , "''''™P"'""^ """^ '^ pleasure was the ideal ''CZTLv'^cT l"*^^"""^^^ ''"^^-'-*^-' Juan who gambled on thT.i i ' f »''"*' '"P^"^'' J « ©on wires in his^Cd Twi J r? """^1 '^"'' '^^^'^ '^^ P^'^tical aifected to treat a naa t'Vf^^ "^ ^-hion, who manner and to conce" h s ItVl' T'"^' ''''''^''' a cravat, he was one of ft ' f " " ^^'■<'^' « '"enu, or einating men in the en ^^ 71 Tb T ^^ ''' '"°^' ^- when he chose he mad; «T , .\ *'*'™'' *"^*^"1- courteous lative Body; ^^^IL^" £''^^^^1^ ^^ f^ ^^^s- probably responsible for the ,1% 7.f ? '' "°"''' ^*^ ^'"^ corrupt to the core, hlsold Is -/r ''' "^ *^' ^""P '^'^^''t' millions, and thus ^o h ! * "'°'' '" '^"'^^'- ^^' " ^^w -^rt^cSi^^^^^ ----red. S.-- :^fh-bth^lV^^^^^^^^^^ \ NAPOLEON III, 1848—70 143 a bar sinister.* In literature, we have a number of ** hommes forts.' The two extreme types are perhaps Monsieur de Camors, slightly idealized, who retains not only tact and taste, but a sense of honour, and a heart open to a great passion, and d'Estrigaud, one of the deepest-dyed villains that ever graced the French stage. § 4. Culture. The Second Republic after June, 1848, and the Second Empire from beginning to end, form a period of reaction, characterized -"^by pessimism and materialism. The Government rested on brutal force — either the sheer might of bayonets, or the no less unreasoning power of the masses, directly represented by one man and drowning the voice of the elite. It was neither, democracy nor monarchy by divine right, but an empirical hybrid, meant to restore and preserve material order. The world of production was industrialized; the working man lost i his individuality ; the personal relations, the almost familial I bonds, the sense of responsibility and loyalty between employer / and employee were vanishing ; fast disappearing also was the/ old spirit of the good craftsman, who was not a machine on the servant of a machine, but an artisan, almost an artist, prouc^ of his traditions, of his tools, of his skill. The power of th^ -^ Church was greater than ever, but it was as a bulwark of reaction; Spurious miracles, degrading superstitions, the crushing out of every velleity of liberalism, the scurrilous tone of the Catholic Press, the dictatorship of a powerful but vulgar journalist, Veuillot, war declared on modern civilization by the Syllabus, Papal Infallibility proclaimed by the Council of the Vatican— these were so many signs of the hardening, materializing, coarsening influences at work within Catholicism. In art reigned / realism, and Flaubert's novels, with their minute notation of' sordid details, are typical of the prevailing state of mind ; in'-- science, the experimental method ; in philosophy, positivism, no< even the positivism of Comte, in which mystic elements were not lacking, but the unvarnished materialistic agnosticism of Littre. • Cf. Fr^d^ric Loli^e, Le Due de Morny ; Alphonse Daudet, Le Nabab Daudet bad been one of the Duke's under-secretaries). / 144 FRENCH CIVILIZATION IN XIXth CENTURY ■ This reaction was due, first of all, to the apparent failure of ideahsm m all ,ts forms. For eighteen years the political principles so ably defended by the austere doctrinaire Guizot and the natural religion of the eloquent eclecticist Cousin, had been used as a mask by a small and selfish class, whose hypocrisy France had long found out. No wonder the French shrugged their shoulders when " liberty " or " the true, the beautiful, and the good"* were mentioned. The religious exaltation of the Saint- Simonians and the liberal Catholics had led to nothing. Romanticism in literature had grown tiresome before 1848 ; romanticism in politics, or utopian j socialism, had come to a tragic end in June, 1848. Doctriries and principles as well as flights of fancy or gushes of emotion, had all proved deceptive. So the cry was for " facts, facts facts, as the only true guides. At any rate, this materialistic if' !f' ? ]". ' '"'" °^ ^^^ shallowest of its representatives like About, did not fall into the damning sin of self-satisfaction. It preserved in its positivism the haunting regret of vanished jdreams : hence the melancholy or despair of all thinkers and poets-of Flaubert, Leconte de Lisle, Madame Ackermann, Amiel, Tame. It is the second "mal dn siecle," less va-ue less sentimental, and deeper than the first. " ' j With this disenchantment of the French mind coincided a sudden expansion of material activity, due to the creation of •> railroads, popular banking, large public works, and all the ^economic instruments of the modern world. On account of this coincidence, material progress was often made responsible for the harsh and cynical tone of the time. This is only partly true. The arraignment of locomotives as agents of demoraliza- tion and vulgarization is sheer nonsense. Were men guided by a living faith, they would bless the locomotive as a good and faitlitul servant. It was not prosperity that bred scepticism and cynicism ; it was pre-existing disenchantment that checkej^ or tlarkoned the joy men would naturally have fell la material pr..-ress. The time of the Keformation wns also one of economic expansion, and Ulrich von Tliitten cried : "O tem- • Title of Cousin's famous book, a popular epitome of the philosophy he had been preaching for thirty years. "opuyne I [ NAPOLEON III, 1848—70 145 pora! seculum! es ist eine Lust zu leben!'' The same holds true of science. Darwinism did not make the world meaner or sadder ; the world, morally depressed by other causes, into'preted Darwinism in terms of its own pessimism. ^Jl this, however, is but the dark side of the picture. In- dustrialism, fostered by the Imperial Government, increased the material comfort of the working classes and led to a wider diffusion of education. There was much that was harsh and gloomy in realistic art and literature ; yet we must remember that the greatest names in 1860 are hardly less famous than those of the glorious generation of 1830. In art we have the great sculptor, Carpeaux; admirable landscape painters, Theodore Rousseau, Daubigny, Dupre; Courbet and MaHet, the most typically naturalistic ; and the two extremes, Corot, so full of poetic gi-ace. Millet, with his quiet and almost tragic simplicity.* Lefuel and Visconti were not unequal to the task of completing the. Louvre, and Charles Garnier's Grand Opera has been imitated all over the world. In literature, besides the great survivors of romanticism, Hugo, Michelet, George Sand, Dumas pere, Gautier, de Vigny, we have Flaubert, Leconte de Lisle, Augier, Dumas fils, Baudelaire, Banville, Veuillot, the Goncourts, Meilhac and Halevy, a list of which any time or nation would be proud. Criticism, and history based on criticism rather than on imaginative sympathy, were > perhaps the most typical products of the realistic age ; then j it was that Sainte-l^euve completed his Port-Royal and wrote his Monday Talks, Taine his Essays and his English Litera- ture, Renan his Studies and the first volumes of his Origins of Christianity, But science was the chief glory of the time. There had been! periods when France could boast as many glorious names in theL scientific field ; the first quarter of the century, in this respect r^ was fully equal to the third. But under Napoleon I science was merely one of the branches of human activity, co-ordinate with others — literature, philosophy, religion. Under Napo- leon III the absolute supremacy of science was evident. • Beside a host of other artists, Cabancl, Paul Baudry, Ribot, Fromentin, Troyon, Henri Keguault, etc. 10 \^ 146 FRENCH CIVILIZATION IN XlXrn CENTURY Literature with Flaubert, criticism with Sainte-Beuve, philo- sophy with Comte, Littre, Taine, religion with Kenan, bowed before the scientific spirit. This scientific spirit was no longer the same as during the eighteenth century and the first half of the nineteenth. Its ideal was no longer mathematical, mechanical, or static, but .: organic and dynamic. The notion of absolute and simple laws, ;| analogous to geometrical axioms, and from which consequences ^^ could be deduced by a logical process, had been supplemented I by the idea of adaptation and growth— in a word, of evulution. This idea was not introduced by Darwin ; the inception and success of Darwinism on the contrary were a sign of the times. The fearless criticism of the eighteenth century, the commotions ^^ of the Revolutionary Age, the philosophical enorts of Kant and Hegel, had shaken the faith of men in the old absolute authori- ties. Universal relativism, the constant flux of phenomena, the ''category of becoming" were substituted for eternal stability, the '' category of l)eing." In the words of Kenan, the stin}j/ of any subject became the historj/ of that subject. Now the historical spirit was the chief contribution of the Komantic .Age to culture. Childish though it might seem to the following generation, the love of Hugo and Dumas for vanished civiliza"^ tions and local colouring was an early striving towards the doctrine of evolution. The chief dillerence between the Komantic spirit and the scientific spirit of 1850 is one of method. Ke)nianticism was essentially subjective. Positivism studies the facts of nature objectively. Sainte-Beuve, Taine, and later Zola, pretended to be ''naturalists," "physiologists." Observations, and, whenever possible, experimentation, are the main avenues to knowledge. Leverrier's mathematical discovery of Neptune in • 1846 was, in popular imagination, the last and most brilliant achievement of abstract science, based on logic and mathe- matics ; the new type of scientists are men like Claude Bernard, the physiologist, Berthelot, and especially Pasteur, the chemists, who are indefatigable laboratory workers. Public opinion, in France and abroad, has not yet learned to judge the Empire fairly. After eighteen years of insolent NAPOLEON III, 1848—70 147 prosperity, it ended in disaster : Vce victis ! But it would be a slander on human nature to maintain that a great nation was duped, bribed, or cowed into submission, for eighteen years, by an utterly worthless regime. The Second Empire had its moments of genuine usefulness and legitimate splendour. If we want to see it at the zenith of its power, we should consider it in the years 1855-56, blindly supported at home, triumpliant abroad, still in the freshness of its hopes and enthusiasm, strengthened by the success of the Exposition and the birth of the Prince Imperial. In 1860 the picture is even more brilliant ; a second victorious war, more popular than the first, and led by the Emperor himself; new provinces added to France ; the working classes almost reconciled ; a general amnesty extended to political ofi'enders. But there w^as one dark side to this picture : the Koman imbroglio. In 1867 we have a mixture of splendour and misery which struck even the contemporaries and remains typical of the whole period. The reconstruction of Paris, in its main lines, w^as completed ; the Exposition, admirably planned by Le Play, w\as a great success. Princes, kings, emperors, entertained three and five at a time, seemed to pay their court to their overlord. Wealth and strength were manifest everywhere. Yet there was gloom in all that magnificence, as in a golden autumnal landscape. The Emperor prematurely old and sit:k ; abroad, Sadowa, Luxem- bourg, Queretaro, a series of rebufls and disasters; at home, the growing alienation of the Catholics, the irreconcilable and threatening attitude of the new generation. The new Paris was fine, but its creator, Haussmann, w^ould soon have to be sacrificed for confessed extravagance and suspected peculation ; the Exposition showed immense industrial development, but it was surrounded with pleasure resorts which made material progress seem futile or even dangerous. Everywhere a sense of uneasy satiety, of restless torpor, of undefinable dread. Hello, the prophet, wondered that the Tuileries were not yet ablaze and that the Barbarians should so long delay their coming. The splendours of 1867 are still unforgotten, but to thoughtful contemporaries they seemed entrancing and oppressive, like some gorgeous and feverish dream. \ CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE BIBLIOGEAniY Taxile Delord. Histoire du Second Empire. 8 vols. 8vo. Bailli^ro [Alcan] . 18G8-75. (Journalistic in thought and stylo, but of some value as a contemporary document. The same is true of Larousse's Grand Dictionnaire Universel.) P. DE LA Gorge. Histoire do la Soconde R/'publiquc. 2 vols. 8vo. Plon 1887 ; and Histoire du Second Empire. 7 vols. 8vo. Plon LSOl-lOOs' (An admirable piece of work not sufficiently known. Somewhat wordy and decidedly conservative.) Emile Ollivier. L'Empirc Liberal. Garnicr, from 1804. (Most of the chapters appeared in the Rcvuc des Dcux-Mondcs. A personal apolo-v unreliable, but of commanding interest.) A. Thomas. Histoire Socialistc : Lo Second Empire. Rouff. (One of the best volumes in that popular series. Hasty and partisan, yet scholarly and often illuminating.) [Professor C. Seignobos is preparing a Political History of the Second Empire which cannot fail to be exceedingly valuable J Emile AuGiER. Dumas fils. Theatre Complet. 6 and 8 vols Levy ^OLA Les Rougon-Macquart, Histoire Naturellc et Socialc d'unc Famillo sous le Second Empire. 20 vols. Charpentier, Paris. 1871-93 Paris-Guide. 2 vols. Lacmix. 18C7. (Preface by Victor Hugo. Con- tributions by all the prominent writers of the day.) 148 IV. SECOND REPUBLIC AND SECOND EMPIRE, 1848-70. 1848 February 22-24. The Revolution of February. Second Republic. Provisional Government (Lamartine). May 4. Constituent Assembly. June 23-26. The Days of June. Cavaignac Dictator. November. Constitution promulgated. December 10. Louis-Napoleon elected President (proclaimed December 20). April to August. Roman Expedition. Reaction in France. May. Legislative Assembly (Conservative). December 2. Coup d'Etat. December 20. Coup d'Etat confirmed by Plebiscite. December 2. Napoleon III, Emperor of the French. Marries Eugenie do Montijo y Teba. Crimean War. Siege of Sebastopol. Treaty of Paris. Exposition. Birth of the Prince Imperial. Attempt of Orsiiii on the life of the Emperor. Napoleon and Cavour prepare the — War against Austria. (Magenta. Solferino. Peace of Villafranca. Nice and Savoy joined to France. Liberal Evolution of the P^mpire. INIexican Expedition. Exposition. Luxembourg Question. Quoretaro. Constitutional Evolution. General Elections. January 2. Liberal Ministry (Emile Ollivier). May 8. Constitutional Reforms ratified by Plebiscite. July 15. Declaration of Franco-Prussian War. September 1. Battle of Sedan. September 4. Fall of the Empire. January 9. Death of Napoleon III.] 1849 1851 1852 1853 1854-56 1855 1856 1858 1859 1860 1860-64 1861-67 1867 1869 1870 [1873 149 CHAPTER V THE THIRD REPUBLIC, 1S70-1913 § 1. The ''Terrille Year," 1870-71. ^^ 1. The Terrible Ft'ar, iS70-;i. -Causes of the Franco-German War— The principle of nationalities— The policy of compensations or "tips" -Responsibility of the whole nation in the declaration, preparation and conduct of the war—Sedan— Fall of the Empire. ' Government of National Defence— Trochu-Gambetta— Fall of Paris— Peace— National Assembly. The Commune : causes, character, ovolution—Repiession— Influence. § 2. Recuperation. Foundatioji of the Republic. Conquest of the Republic by the Republicans.— ¥hisinc\^\ recuperation : Thiers and the liberation of the territory-Public works-Militarv and diplomatic recovery— 187S : the Exposition and the Berlin Congress; France resumes her position. Constitutional reconstruction : monarchical majoritv, but divided— Mac:\rahon— Legitimist Pretender refuse, to compromise— Constitu- tion of 1S75: provisional and "omnibus." The crisis of the 16th of May, 1877— Failure of the Conservatives- Resignation of MacMahon— Conquest of the Republic by the Repub- licans. We do not believe in the fatalistic delusion o{ '' inevitable wars," but we must confess that no conllict was ever more difficult to avert than that between France and Prussia. "From the dav of Sadowa the two nations were like two locomotives rushin^^r towards each other on a single track." All j.arties in France and all generations, the old monarchy, the Kepublic, the Empire, held that the ITnine, the north-eastern boundarv of ancient Gaul, should by right be that of France. This vague dream of centuries had become a reality from 17lh) to 1814. . In the minds of the French the annexation of the Khme provinces wa, not an ordinary coni|uest nor even the resumption of a lust 150 s THE THIRD REPUBLIC, 1870—1913 151 domain^ but the free reunion of brothers : for tbe France ol 1795 meant, ideally, liberty, equality, and fraternity. It must be said that the local population did not offer any resistance, and that for twenty years the Republic and the Empire had no more loyal citizens and no more devoted soldiers than the Rhinelanders. Hypnotized by the memories of that period, democrats, humanitarians, pacifists like Hugo and Quinet, still cherished the belief that France would some day tear up the hateful treaties of Vienna and reconquer her '' natural frontiers." Germany, on the other hand, after a long eclipse and a whole century of upward elYorts, had at last grown to the full conscious- ness of her national unity. She would not any longer be the favourite battlefield of all the princes in Europe ; she would not allow anv more part of Deutschtum to be distracted from the common fatherhind ; nay, turning her eyes back to the time of her glory, before the century of religious wars, she wanted her lost })rovinces to return to the ancestral home : and by this Alsace was meant. The Munster of Strasbourg was a national lieirloom, the loss of which in 1G81 was deeply felt even by the disunited, oppressed, and decadent Germany of that time. Thus the ambitions of France and those of Germany were in contlict. It would have taken patience rather than cunning and generous sympathy rather than force to compose these differences and allay these inveterate suspicions. The two countries, for- getting piedia'val dreams and obsolete traditions, should have realized that within the last hundred years the debatable border- lands between them had become culturally assimilated to their respective masters. The Rhine provinces, indifferent to German • unity in 1815 and in closer sympathy with Paris than with Berlin, had become as patriotic as any part of the Confederacy.* I Alsace had preserved her Teutonic vernacular, but she had gone, through the new birth of the Revolution with the rest of France/ and was now French to the core. \ * Napoleon III might have been the instrument of this difficult reconciliation : it was in harmony with his sentiments and his principles. He hated war: war was contrary to his Saint- • Of. an admirable presentation of this development in Clara Viebig's novel, \Vac}U am RJiein. 152 FRENCH CIVILIZATION IN XlXrn CENTURY Srrth '^t 1 '"'^"'"■"' r^°''-^'"ty .uul abhorrent to his heart, whose kindness no qualified witness has ever ehallen^ed He was sincere when he proclaimed in October, Wr>2- -Tie Empire means peace." Tlie horrible spectacle of the battlclield of Solfer.no was one of the causes that led him to end the Italian campaign in such an abrupt and unsatisfactory manner a1 e S7 rT "", ''"' °" ^''^' l--P'-f natLudities ; all ethnic or historical groups which wanted to live free and nnited under their own Hag should be allowed to do oar expressing their desire through plebiscites : a wise and .^ener,^ conception, which is irresistibly coming into its own in p t of he jeers o fledgeling Machiavellis and ^vould-be Mett ich'ln this espect Tsapoleon III will some day be honoured as a prccurso," free 1 let" Tl' "" T'. ""'"^*°"'^' ""^ '"^ "^ ""^ -- utopi!t th,; ' ''"7':i ^"'' ''"' ""'^'''^ '^'■'' luimanitarian tradition and the captive leader of the conservatives. An u„.t,.t -vereign, he was bound to be constantly and brHliantly su c - M 01 lose his power as suddenly as he had conquered t. Now rrt ;;"'"•""• Y'f ^"^-^ '^"' -"rlcted,'had nothing^: gain by the principle of nationalities and was bound to lose in relative importance if Italy and Germany became powerfu national units. Nap.,,eon could not furthc. his dreamT o a loyal > to his own country. This inner conflict, the hcsitaiu-v and haziness of purpose peculiar to the Imperial Handet lo Plots" m'^f'"'^:"''"' '" ''" ''- ^^^•^"*>' ^-- "*■ --t plotting, made his pohcy an inextricable puzzle, which satisHed no one and threatened everybody. He was driven bv t Tr ;^f :^''V-^--"V° ^^•r"!^'^^' '-• "i-t Jiismarck biunt ly Italj Mainz, Luxembourg, Belgium were to be the luice of Ins friendly neutrality in German aflairs. Disinterestedness is rare among nations : the French are still reproaching the r be and their worst kings, Louis IX and Louis XV, for aW made peace " like kings, not like merchants." * Bi^narck u"s^ THE THIRD REPUBLIC, 1870—1913 lo. of course, unwilling to yield '* a single inch of German soil." In 186() ho secured Napoleon's indispensable neutrality by vague promises : Sadowa enabled him to deny France any compensa- tion. In 18G7 he thwarted Napoleon's designs on Luxembourg. He believed that France would not renounce her claims to the left l)ank of the Pihine without a war. This war he prepared w^itli admirable eiliciency, and at the favourable moment he sprang a trap in which Napoleon was caught. But not Napoleon alone : it is customary wutli Republican orators and tlie authors of official text-books to lay the whole responsibility on the Emperor. This is absolutely contrary to facts. The Empire in 1870 was a constitutional monarchy, not essentially different from that of England. A Liberal Ministry led by a former Republican, a Chamber of Deputies elected by universal sutTrage and comprising a numerous opposition, were swept c»iT their feet by the wave of popular chauvinism. The newspapers were unanimously and bitterly in favour of war. The Parisian mob thronged the boulevards shouting ''To Berlin!" Even at the height of his power Napoleon would have found it no easy task to resist such an explosion of public sentiment. It wouhl have required the old dictatorial methods, the gagging of Parliament, the muzzling of the Press, and the strict enforcement of order in the street. That the country as a whole, more stolid than Paris, was averse to war ; that, on the other hand, the reactionary clique of the Empress exerted its influence in favour of it, may be taken for granted. But the fact remains that the responsibility for the whole ])iece of criminal folly on the French side rests with the Government, Parliament, the journalists, the populace — all the official or self-appointed spokesmen of national opinion. Lebceuf had boasted : " We are ready, more than ready. There is not a gaiter-button missing." Nothing was ready. The army was in a deplorable state. Favouritism and corrup- tion were undoubte' '''' '^'Vt away on the 10th of August: SIX weeks later, the advance of he enemy wis checked at Valmy, and France was saved. The sam I .- o Gamb ta was inferior to Danton, Chanzy and Faidherbe to Dumour ez and Kellermanu, the mobiles and sharp-slu,oters of 1870 to the volunteers of 1792. But circumstances were dhlcrent it Th "f H^ ^?^-- *'■-"-' =-J ""1-v-ed troops'more telling. Then, if the Prussians retreated after a sli.^ht r. pulse in beptember, 1792, it was chiefly because the impen.HnVf lii of Poland drew much of thou- attention. The doo^ ' S .nfortmiate country gave France some breathing t.me F L- same. There was no degeneration : but in 1792 the French take !"',>; r'^ '"' '^•i"""'^' I" i«^o t'->- >-'--i to stake their all for the continuation oi a desperate war tl,P r^tljuottr rfr ''''- "-^^^'"^^ ™t!tyt.\:::;t;- degree, but not their daily hves. France was ever rich in heroes • but here never was a whole nation of Don Quixotes The elections sent to the Assembly a conservative" and monar- chical n^j..,ty. The Pepublic was emphatically disownedTt e polls. The country that had so recently endorsed the iMnnire resented Puns s pretensmns of changing every few years the form THE THIRD REPUBLIC, 1870—1913 157 ^ of government without consulting the provinces. Moreover, the triumph of Gambetta's friends would have meant the continuation of the war. Then broke out the most terrible insurrection of modern times, the Cummune. In spite of an inveterate tradition to that effect, neither the name nor the origin of the Commune had anything to do with socialism. The name was borrowed from the great municipal assembly which, under the first Revolution, had long imposed its law upon the Convention itself. It meant ''com- munal " or municipal autonomy, the refusal of Paris to be governed by the reactionary provinces. Its causes were patriotic, economic, and local. Paris had just gone through a long siege without being able to save the country. A dull and not unjusti- fiable feeling prevailed that there had been incompetence, if not actual treason, on the part of mediocre and disheartened leaders. Paris received no thanks for its heroic resistance ; it was not spared the triumphal entry of the German troops. The conservative Assembly at Bordeaux took away its title of French capital, and gave it, not to Bourges or Tours, which might have been justified for strategic reasons, but to Ver- sailles, the city of Louis XIV, the symbol of the ancient regime. It was a deliberate insult. Debts and rents, long suspended, were made immediately exigible. The scanty pay of the National Guards, which alone kept many of them from starvation, was suddenly stopped. It seemed as though Thiers and his partisans wanted to humiliate and to vex in every way the noble city which had long thought her destiny identical with that of France. The insurrection of the 18th of March, made in defence of the Piepublic, v/as no more unjustifiable than that of the 4th of September. The Second Empire, confirmed by three plebiscites, was as legitimate a government as that of M. Thiers. In the minds of exalted patriots, the capitulation of Sedan and the acceptance of a shameful peace deserved to be visited with the same penalty. The first elections of the Commune showed that the Parisians were fairly unanimous in their support of the new regime, which, considering the circumstances, was then curiously moderate. M. Thiers made no eftbrt to come to an understanding with 158 FRENCH CIVILIZATION IN XIXth CENTURY Paris. He at once withdrew to Versailles, gathered an army with the assistance of the Prussians, and proceeded to reduce the insurrection by force. He refused to recognize the insurgents as belligerents, whilst Lincoln had granted that privilege to the Southern rebels. Captured Communards could be summarily shot. It is in answer to this savage procedure that the Commune seized hostages, pure and venerable victims for whose deaths Thiers's obstinacy and ruthlessness is mainly responsible. The rule of the Commune, until the last week, was free from theft and violence. However, when the insurrection had become a civil war when It was known that the uprisings of the other great cities had been suppressed, and that Thiers had the situation well in hand the Commune lost the support of the moderate elements and became the prey of professional revolutionists, some of them dis- reputable boheniians, others dangerous fanatics, many foreioii refugees, the scum of a cosmopolitan city. Even then the policy of the Commune was democratic rather than socialistic. The act generally considered most typical and most reprehensible of those two months, the felling of the Vendome column on a dung- heap, had been prepared by the anti-Napoleonic campai Felix 1-aure may be called tlie " Opportunist " Republic. There 1 was a sph m the victorious Kepul,lican party. The Radicals kept true to the old programme of the opposition under the Empire; of these M. Clemcnceau was the most brilliant represen- ta lye. The Opportunists, led by Gambetta himself, wished to settle each problem in its turn "as opportunity offered." But the presence of a monarchical opposition, and the memory of long campaigus waged in common, prevented the Republicans trom dividing into real homogeneous parties of the Anglo- Amcncan type. Most of the administrations formed during tW years were "concentration" or coalition Cabinets, in wh,ch all fractions of the Republicans were represented, although the more conser^-ative, the Opportunists, were generally the predominant element. These parliamentary combinations were exceedingly unstable, and Ministries which lasted two years, like those of .Jules Ferry (1883-5) and Jules Meline (18iW-8) were regarded as instances of wonderful longevity. These constant changes did not affect the country quite so disastrously as might have been feared. A permanent Perier could not appeal to public opinion, and was compelled to resign in a few months. F^lix Faure was a man of humble origin, undistinguifhed in every respect, whose fondness for monarchical etiquette r;minded the French of the famous " Bourgeois Gcntilhomme." Of the living, nil nUi bcnum 166 FRENCH CIVILIZATION IN XIXtit CENTURY bureaucracy, not submitted, as in America, to the spoils system, carried on 'the business of nrovernment with exasperating slow- ness and want of foresight, but with tolerable thoroughness and undoubted honesty. And in the ministerial kaleidoscope each new combination was made up of old elements. As ^^. Cle- menceau was reproved for overthrowing so many Ca])in('ts he answered, '' I never combated but one: they are all the same." In spite of appearances due to a faulty Constitution, France in the eighties and nineties of the last century was not a seething mass of political experiments, but a democracy of peasants and small shopkeepers, cautious and averse to change. But these divisions of the Republicans, and the disrepute into which their squabbles had caused them to fall, l>rought about repeated crises. In 1885 the Monarchists reconipiered numy seats in Parliament. In 1886 the Bonapartist and Orleanist pre- tenders acted with an indiscretion which led to their expulsion. In 1888-89 General Boulanger, handsome, popular, unscrupu- lous, started a great movement in favour of the revision of the Constitution. His plan was to substitute a llepublic of the American type, with a strong Executive elected directly by the people, *^for the' helpless parliamentary regime established by the compromise of 1875. This attracted to his party many democrats and some of the noisiest Socialists (Rochefort), whilst patriots athirst for " revenge" saw in him the future deliverer of Alsace-Lorraine. The conservatives worked in conjunction with him in so far as his elforts tended to the overthrow of their common enemies. This adventure, a mixture of legitimate aspirations and shady intrigues, of sane principles and raw demagogy, collapsed before the united and spirited defence of the parliamentary Republicans. The conservatives had their revenge in the Panama scandals, which broke out in 1890-92, and in which as many as one liundred and four politicians were said to be involved. But in spite of divisions, attacks, and scandals the Republic was unshakeable. The centennial cele- bration of the great Revolution was a triumph, and in 1893 the Pope himself, Leo XIII, advised French Catholics to ''rally" to the existing Government. Beyond the frontiers this period was marked by two develop- T THE THIRD REPUBLIC, 1870-1913 167 ments, colonial expansion and the Russian alliance. The move- ment of colonial expansion meant that France, whilst giving up the immediate hope of reconquering the lost provinces, had become again a self-confident, aggressive nation. In twenty years an immense empire was added to the scanty oversea dominions of the Republic. Tunis was conquered in 1881, Tonquin in 1885, Madagascar in 1885 and 1895, the Ivory Coast and Dahomey in 1887, and in 1893 Brazza won for his adopted country a vast share of the Congo basin. The old colony of Senegal was extended as far as the Niger. The mys- terious city of Timbuctoo passed under the tricolour, and the Sahara became mainly **a French desert." With Lake Tchad as a point of junction, all the Western African possessions of France formed a solid whole. The only set-back in this trium- phant progress was the unfortunate withdrawal from the Anglo- French condominium in Egypt (1882). The Marchand mission was an ill-considered attempt to reopen the Egyptian question, and led to the Fashoda crisis (1898). Jules Ferry was prominently identified with the colonial expansion of France. Unpopularity was the first reward of his efforts, and few states- men were ever more bitterly assailed than the '* Tonkinese." Next to Jules Ferry, Bismarck is entitled to the gratitude of the French. The Iron Chancellor encouraged his Western neigh- bours in their exotic ambitions, probably in the Machiavellian hope of embroiling them in difficulties with Italy and England. The conquest in two decades of an oversea domain second to that of England alone is an achievement of national energy and perseverance which even anti-colonialists cannot fail to admire. The alliance with Russia was a necessity. France needed an ally against Germany, and that ally could not be England, still faithful to her policy of splendid isolation, and in keen rivalry with France in the colonial field. Russia had been duped by Germany at the Congress of Berlin, which postponed by a third of a century the rightful settlement of the Balkan question. The triple alliance of Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy made an association of Russia and France indispensable to the preservation of equilibrium in Europe. There is something shocking at first in this '' marriage of convenience " between the 5*?«^^«Si^RS3iS^^S^^ 168 FRENCH CIVILIZATION IN XIXtii CENTURY land of the Revolution and a semi-Asiatic, autocratic Empire. The Tsar orders his soldiers to shoot down the strikers who sing the " Marseillaise," the song of militant democracy, while he listens bareheaded to the strains of the same *' Marseillaise," the national anthem of his " friends and allies." After a few years of half-ludicrous, half-touching enthusiasm the Russian alliance is no longer popular with the masses ; but it has for a while dis- pelled the nightmare of renewed aggression, and no one seriously proposes to do away with it. In the economic field a great effort was made to complete the network of roads, railways, and canals. The Freycinet scheme, all too inclusive, frittered away countless millions on local public works, according to what Americans call the ''pork-barrel system," whilst the main arteries of commerce were not im- proved so rapidly as in neighbouring countries.* The miti- gated form of free-trade imposed by the Emperor in 18G0 was finally given up in 1892. M. Meline, the chief representative of the agricultural interests, secured the vote of a protective tariff, which is still in force, with little prospect of immediate relief. The development of popular education is by far the most creditable achievement of the Third Republic. From 1880 to 1882 Jules Ferry had a series of laws enacted which made elementary education gratuitous, compulsory, and non-sectarian. In twenty years illiteracy was almost wiped out ; for a country predominantly rural, France compares favourably vMh any European nation. These laws were by no means anti-religious. Moral teaching was to be based on the existence of God, the immortality of the soul, and the sacredness of duty. A day was set apart in which children could receive religious instruction from their respective priests and ministers. But the Republican party had not forgotten that the clergy had been their worst enemy from 1849 to 1877. Jules Ferry wanted to debar * Le H&vre, for instance, is still unable to admit the largest steamers in the Atlantic trade, which dock at Southampton ; and the Paris Ship Canal, planned by the most competent engineers— Belgrand, Bouquet do la Grye— was submitted to Parliament in 1886, endorsed by a sort of referendum lu 1892, and is not yet authorized in 1913. 1 I THE THIRD REPUBLIC, 1870-1913 169 unauthorized Order, like the Jesuits from teaching. The Senate refused, him its sanction. Then by a series of decrees which were enforced with some ruthlessness the Minister dissolved and expelled these illegal corporations. Besides, the Catholic Church had not yet given up her claims to absolute control over education. The i> I III r'l x' 176 FRENCH CIVILIZATION IN XIXth CENTURY money, but little genius, served only one year in the army, whilst the majority of their poorer compatriots had to give tivJ and three years of their young manhood. The sodal line between smock-frocks and frock-coats is much sharper than in America, where many a wealthy man remembers his blue-jean days. But there is no question of a conflict between the *' masses" and the ^* classes." The bourgeoisie itself is legion. Any one who wears decent clothes and uses decent French is a bourgeois. The ruling class is so huge that it has to be sul)diviaed'i the French distinguish the lower, the middle, and the upper bourgeoisie. The lower stratum is not within easy reach of the toilers themselves : a grimy face, horny hands, and a rough tongue, are serious disqualifications ; but it is freely open \o their sons. Peasants and mechanics all over the country work themselves to death and deny themselves everything that their son may study and become a " monsieur "~an underpaid State official or teacher. It takes more money, ambition, or luck- generally a second generation— to prepare a professor, a lawyer, or a doctor. To these all hopes are open : the Presidency of the Republic, the Academy, and even, if they have more cleverness than backbone, the sacrosanct gates of the Faubour^r Saint-Germain; for aristocratic traditions are in need o^f' talented plebeian defenders. French social life is still ruled by the old feudal prejudice that manual labour is servile, and even that any gainful occupation IS demeaning. The French ideal is not so much wealth as freedom from ignoble toil. We need hardly sav that this con- ception does not spring from laziness, fur 'Prem-h industry is proverbial. Throughout the nineteenth century every small manufacturer or tradesman aspired to the moment when he could abandon his business, which he really loved, and, on a minimum competency, set up as a gentleman. This trait is by 1,0 means new: M. Jourdain, two hundred and fiftv vears a-o was ashamed of his father's trade. But until thc^ Pcvolut^ioii this tendency was checked by the very hierarchization of society, which made the upper reaches almost unattainable to the greatest number; so that there were bourgeois dvnastics, not only THE THIRD REPUBLIC, 1870-1913 177 resigned to their position, but proud of their traditions in their hereditary line of business. After 1789, everybody's secret ideal was to rank among the spenders. This social prejudice against producers has far-reaching con- sequences. First of all, the limitation of the offspring ; every one wants his son to be a gentleman as soon as posstble, and one gentleman in the family is all that an average household can afford. The eldest son's privilege has thus been restored, in spite of the law, through the preventive suppression of younger sons. Then, as State offices and the professions are the most direct avenues to bourgeois respectability, they are encumbered with aspiring young men, whilst agriculture, commerce, industry, and labour are deprived of their natural leadership. The work of material production, thus despised, is too often left to narrow- minded and sordid petty capitalists, thrifty and hard-working enough, but deficient in foresight and enterprise. Meanness may bo as bad a source of extravagance as reckless daring ; the business as well as the national affairs of France, since the triumph of the middle class, have too often been conducted in a ** petit bourgeois" spirit which is at the same time stingy and wasteful. On the other hand, there is much to be said in favour of the French turn of mind. The excessive caution shown in economic activities gave France wonderful financial stability, even in the midst of the worst crises. The more go-ahead nations—.Ajnerica, England, Germany— have all been compelled, in time of stress, to borrow from the inexhaustible '' woollen stockings " of the French peasants. This cautious method is tolerably well adapted to an old country which has few natural resources still untapped. Socially, there are advantages in the aristocratic prejudice which ranks the spender higher than the toiler. There is in France an immense class which is keenly bent on money- getting, but which considers money as a means for securing independence, not as an end in itself. The disinterested and cultured public is unusually large, and, as H. G. Wells pointed out, a French bookshop, by the side of licentious literature, will offer a wealth of thoughtful works hard to match in any country : this is the bright side of the " gentlemanly ideal." 12 ^ 178 FRENCH CIVILIZATION IN XIXtii CENTURY Finally, it must be said that these conditions show sirrns of rapid and accelerating transformation. The development of scientific industry, the keenness of international competition are driving out the dull and plodding capitalist of old, as well as the would-be gentleman of leisure ; and they are giving rise to a new race of energetic business men proud of their business. The corresponding drawback is that industry and commerce on the large scale will no longer be accessible to the sons and grandsons of the people, and that a new feudalism is fast arisincr. On the other hand, the best of the labourers, no longer lured by the possibility of entering the bourgeoisie, will devote their energies to the interests of their own people. In a keen war of the classes, rather than in the present svstem of pernu^able hierarchy, may be found the salvation of twentieth-century France. § 6. Culture. The realistic spirit which we have attempted to define in a preceding chapter remained the dominant influence during the first twenty years of the present Republic. But the influence of the ^'Terrible Year" must be noted. It brought about a recrudescence of pessimism and scepticism. Towards the close of the Empire idealism was reviving under new forms : faith in science; the peace movement, with Passv, Gratrv, Loyson Dunant; even the International Working Men's Association," were signs that the age of pure materialism and moral depression would soon be over. But the war broke out : after the downfall of their ''aggressor" Napoleon, the Germans continued their relentless advance; victorious, they idundered and slandered their foe, ascribing the brutal victory of sheer numbers to moral rectitude and intellectual superiority. Then came the Commune and the carnival of arson of the bloody week : it seemed as thou-h society were rocking on its foundations. Paris had twice been conquered, and Paris was the New Jerusalem of democracy. Worst of all, perhaps, was the fact that no immediate rcgenera-' tion followed the disasters. France recovered, she was not born anew. The nation continued its humdrum existence, amid the squabbles of parties. The hopes of revenge had to be driven ., THE THIRD REPUBLIC, 1870-1913 179 up.* When the dreams of palingenesis through Catholicism, or monarchy, or democracy, or socialism, or military victory, grew fainter and vanished, France was left a sadder nation— and a wiser one, if true wisdom can exist without a lodestar. Taine and Renan, the leaders of French thought, were deeply affected. Neither had been a democrat : both became reactionists. Tame spent the last twenty years of his life on his bulky and powerful arraignment of modern France, Lcs Origincs de la France Conteinporaine. His morbid imagination, the result of an indomitable will hampered at every turn by an ailing body, found full scope in this gloomy masterpiece. In a crescendo of darkness he described the ancient regime as rotten to the marrow, the Jacobin Revolution as a combination of intellectual foolishness and tigerish rage. Napoleon as a monster of selfish- ness and ferocity. This sombre turn of mind is exactly the same that we find in '' naturalistic " literature, in *' slices of life " and the '' cruel " plays of Henri Becque, in the pathological romances of Zola. If some of the strongest and best-intentioned writers wallowed in filth and called it '^ science " or ^'nature," this delusion was evidently a form of disease, the result of repeated shocks. Not only because her eastern frontier is gaping, but because her very soul is veiled with gloom, can modern France be called a "wounded nation." A second form of disease, more insidious, was the amiable Pyrrhonism affected by Renan in the last fifteen years of his life. Cynicism, however courteous and smiling it may be, is but a mask for despair. Renan had renanized before 1870: but earnestness was still predominant in him ; after 1871 he seemed to sink deeper and deeper into universal indulgence and irremedi- able flippancy. He apologized to B^ranger's " God of Good Fellows," a "good, easy-going little god," whom he had bitterly denounced twenty years before. His " transcendental disdain " assumed the shape of continuous irony, which spared neither goodness nor truth, and seemed to respect sensuous beauty and Even at present one still hears occasionally of " la revanche," especially east of the Rhine, where it is a bugbear carefully preserved by the militarist. Note that "revanche;" does not mean strictly " revenge," but rather " getting even," or stm better " getting back one's own." I lit Ml 180 FREXCH CIVILIZATION IN XIXtit CEXTIRY pleasure alone. Renanism, we sincerely believe, was superficial in Renan himself. He remained faithful to his heavy, self- appointed task of scholarly research, and published just before his death his *' thoughts of 1848," The Future of Science, his first and last confession of faith. ]^ut tlie disease, sli<^^ht iu the master, spread to minds of less resisting texture, and laid them waste. In Anatole France and Jules Lemaitre, Renanism had exquisite graces, and did not permanently stitle conscience. In the first works of :\lanrice Barres it is simply exasperating, and it became positively nauseous in numberless literary anarchists, whose brood is not extinct. This pessimism, either sombre or fiippant, found its expression in^ the popular delusion of decadence, which the French enter- tained and spread abroad during the twenty years of Opportunist rule. There is a prodigious literature in France, denouncing or taking for granted the hopeless decay of the country and'the race : a group of poets even assumed the name with a sort of inverted pride. Hardly anything in the facts of national life justified such a verdict. Military defeat, licentious literature, parliamentary scandals, and even a falling birth-rate are not special to France.* Education was spreading; hygiene fast improving ; the death-rate decreasing steadily ; the average span of life was lengthened ; the stature of conscripts showed constant progress. Wealth was expanding, new colonies were acquired, the Government was free at last from the constant menace of coup d'etat or revolution, whilst art, science, literature were not unworthy of France's glorious traditions. These years of national discouragement were in many fields a period of very creditable activity. "Decadence" was a mere catchword, used with some com- placency by a small cosmopolitan set in Paris, and which did not describe even that set accurately : for corruption under the Republic is hopelessly mediocre and *' petit bourgeois" com- pared with that of Byzantium, London under Charles II, or the Regency of the Duke of Orleans. Others caught the infection, simply because decadence was fiishionable, or because they would * Cf. Jena, the Restoration in England, the rule of Walnole, the birth-rate in New England or Australia. THE THIRD REPUBLIC, 1870-1913 181 rather slander themselves than keep their mouths shut. Patriots also took up the cry : looking backward, they regretted the days of bygone supremacy, in the old selfish delusion that the progress of our neighbours must needs injure our own interests. Some, saner and more generous, simply made use of that ready whip to lash their compatriots into greater activity. This phantom of decadence was exorcised during the Dreyfus case. France was rent asunder, but each party became conscious again of high principles and inexhaustible energies.* In the early nineties, as the patriarchs of realism were dis- ajipearing from the scene, a new spirit arose, which was simply a reaction against excessive positivism, a return to mysticism— with its usual train of iestheticism and sentimentality. Darwin and Spencer lost ground ; the influences of Wagner, Ibsen, Tolstoy were syncretically combined. The Pre-Raphaelite craze spread over tlie Continent. Even Emerson was pressed into service, f Anything to get away from 'Hhe troughs of Zolaism " ! The Neo-Catholics, with Paul Desjardins and de Vogiie ; the Rosicrucians and Neo-Magians with Sar Josephin Peladan ; Maeterlinck in his early plays and poems ; the Symbolists, the Decadents, with their ancestor Baudelaire and their immediate forerunner Villiers de ITsle-Adam : all these offered a curious blend of mystic aspirations with anarchistic or reactionary pose, and one can hardly blame Dr. Max Nordau for detecting in them' all the stigma of degeneration. Yet it was essential that the rights of the ideal should be reasserted. Dr. Max Nordau's criticism is irrefutable, but, taken absolutely, it would destroy the music of life at the same time as a few morbid afi"ectations. This neo-romantic movement was still the privilege of a few, when the Dreyfus crisis interrui)ted its normal development.! The Dreyfus crisis was not a new departure, but an epitome of •^ Cf. the anthropo-sociological studies of Vacher de Lapouge, in which the majority of the French were declared racially inferior to the English ; Tlie Psydwlogical Laws of the Evolution of Peoples, by Gustave Le Bon ; later, the Causes of tlie An{jlo- Saxon Suprcnmcy, by Deraolins. -f Abbe Victor Charbonnel. t An important symptom of the reaction against positivism, in a man of the dogmatic type in whom no sign of looseness or degeneration could be found, was Brunetiere's famous phrase : "the bankruptcy of science.'' I«! 182 FRENCH CIVILIZATION IN XIXth CENTURY all previous struggles between authority and liberty. France lived over again the fight against Charles X and the " Congela- tion," the Roman Question of 1849, tJie battle for and a-ainst Duruy at the close of the Empire, the two conllicts known as the Moral Order" and "the Sixteenth of May" under MacMahon. All the forces of conservation, as we have said- property, patriotism as embodied in the army, reli-rion as em- bodied in the Catholic Church-were arraved against all the forces of Revolution-Protestantism, Fr^ethought, science, socialism. This glorious conflagration of ideas and passions this dramatic review of France's cultural history for the l-,st hundred and fifty years, had a unique educative value • but it brought no new message. On the contrary, its retrospective charac er was shown by the revival of half-forgotten fossils : even old V oltaire was galvanized on behalf of the Cause. * When the actual strife was over, it was realized tliat individualistic democracy of the Clemenceau brand, ur materialistic, psoudo- scientific free-thought, were no longer the powers for pro-a-esg they thought themselves to be. It took several disn.al vears to disentangle the temporary aijian.'es made during the Dreyfus case: years of disheartening squabbles and slowly sinking hopes. Is ow French life seems to be resuming its nonaal course. And this course may be defined as the resultant of the two tendencies: positirism, but divorced from dogmatic materialism • and the neo-mi/sticism of the nineties, but freed from the aflect'i- tions and excesses inevitable in a new movement. The tone of French thought at present is curiously anti-rationalistic : it .'s a blend of realism and faith, which gradually approximates "the Anglo-baxon standard. Of this tendency, WiUium .Fames and Henri Bergson are the prophets, and if labels are jud-e.! indis- pensable, empirical Urali.vn, or pragmatism, will do" as well as any. The same spirit prevails in the Modernist school among the Neo-Traditionalists of " L'Action Franeaise," the social-Catholics of Sangnier's "Furrow," the Protesiant group ■ Faith and Lite " ; it is particularly clear in the philosophy of ine teyndicaiist movement as expounded by G. Sorel. Eacli byVorSt'CL^'""'"" °' -gh.eeu.h.century .print, wa. published ^^ THE THIRD REPUBLIC, 1870-1913 183 school, each period in the past, has had a watchword or a catch- word : for Voltaire, this was *' reason"; for Rousseau, '' nature " ; for Robespierre, *' virtue " ; for Napoleon, "• glory " ; under the Restoration, '' tradition " ; for the Romanticists', ''passion," and later *' human brotherhood"; for the mid- century Philistine, ''common sense" and "progress"; from 1850 to 1890, in the writings of Taine, Renan, Zola, in official speeches under the Republic, on the lips of Homais's successors, it was ''science." At present it is "life." Everything is a "life"; not something to be thought or felt about, but spon- taneously acted. There are dangers in this new doctrine. It makes for loose thinking: "life" is the easiest justification ever devised for inconsistencies and prejudices. It is the essential privilege of man, even though it be his curse— that he lives consciously, and believes that he can alter his course, in some measure, according to his thought. Practical Roman- ticism is an admirable instrument to free men's minds from artificial fetters : yet liberation is but half the task of philosophy, and it remains to be seen what discipline the new spirit will provide.* « ♦ The author is keenly conscious that this rough sketch of political, social, and cultural conditions in present-day France cannot satisfy any thoughtful reader. His intention— i)t'o volente—is to develop several of the points barely alluded to iu this chapter in a subsei|uent study of "Problems of Contemporary France." 8vo BIBLIOGEAPHY G. Hanotaux. Contemporary France Tr T C Tn>^r.. a 7 E.ZEVORT. Histoire de la 3-e R,.p„bIiquo. 4 vols. 8vo. Pari, E. A. ViZETELW. Republican France, 1870-1912. Her president, stato, men, policy, vicissitudes and .social life. Small. 1913 ^"'''^'"''^ ^'''"=^- J. C.. JJRACQ. France under the Kepublic York. 1910. (Naively partisan.) J. Reixach. Histoire de I'Affaire Dreyfus Pasquelle. 1901-5. ''' "parT;.''l9or"™- "^'"'^ ""'"" '" '^ ^'""- ''^^ 18™- Cha^nerot. Le. Tronvons du Glaive. La CornuV. ! ^''p:;^'^^^^^'^'' d"or; I.T'''' ^T''^^-'"'"'' ■■ I-'Orme^du^£l, Lf^,^ l,,,,. JsS'l^f """ 'rAmethyste, M. Bergeret a Paris. 1 vols, l' v " 37G pp. Scribnors, New 5 vols. Revue Blanche and »r-A Moral Order. De Broglio 184 CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE V. THE THIRD REPUBLIC, 1870. l^'?^t™"28■ ^;;"°l''^''E„.pirc. Government of National Defence. NltiofalAsSr ''^'^- ^''^''-^^'-^ °^ P-- ''"telV'''''' '"" ^^'^'^""«- (May 22-28. The ..Bloody May 10. Treaty of Fr.ankfort. lS<3-,9 MacMahon 2nd President. The Government of Attempted restoration. 1875 Constitution. ?«77 ^'''"°°'^^ Senate divided, House Republican. \ Inist v"rI''T 'r'?" '™°" (Republican), .e .regno vSo cs at n""^". "''^■''- ^'^""^ °' ^'^'«^' New Republican Mctories at the elections. 1878 Kxposition. 1379'81 V^ul^^""" r''^"'- ^""' ^'"'^■^ ^'^'^ ^'^^'^■'^'^"t (1879-86-87). 1879-81 ^^'J-a^tK.n^^.a.^ Anti-eleriealism. Beginning of colonial expan ^ 18SG Expulsion of French Pretenders. 1887-91 Boulangcr Agitation. 18S9 f:'"L'"'=^'f ^ (Wilson scandals). Sadi Carnot4th President, 1887-94 1890 90 T^ ®^' ""' '^"""P-^^ °' Boulangism. Exposition. I8JJ-93 Panama scandals. Jsgt ran! '^"''T "f ''^^'"■^'e'3- Casimir-Perier 5th President. lbJ4 Captain Dreyfus condemned for treason. 897 Offida!" P ^'f"^'-^^'^'' ''^''Sns. F.Hix Paure 6th President, 1895-99 iqoq no n f 1 ™eIamat,on of Franco- Russian Alliance. 1899 FSaTrlS™;:^''""''^"^'" ^^ ^"'^"^-^'^ ^—nts. 189%19of IJ^.M^^rp''"' '"^'^°"'^- ^"""^ ^°"'^'=' 7th President, 1899-1906. 1900 .7. ^y''''^'^f.''-R°"=^^eau Ministry. Association law. ^nLT ' -^''"'■'^"•y • Anti-clerical policy. 1J03 iranco-British Arbitration Treaty, 1904. Entente Cordiale (Delcasse). 1905 Separation of Ciiurch and State, i^nv*? t"^'""^ Fallieres 8th President, 1906-13. . 900 FiriT '^'i^^'^^y -i'l^ Germany. Algeciras Convention. ( JOb Fmal decision on Dreyfus Case. Clemenceau Ministry. IJll Renewed difhculties with Germany. Morocco-Congo Agreement 1913 Raymond Pomcard 9th President. agreement. 18S Anglo-French Agreement. CHAPTER VI THE SOCIAL QUESTION § 1. Formation and Deformation of Bourgeois Liberalism. The Revolution-Property a sacred right-Suppres<.ion of feudalism -Importance of that precedent-Absolute individualism (Chapelier The Empire : liberalism degenerates into'class legislation -Napoleon restores bourgeois corporations— The " livret "—Article 1781. Survival of the Compagnonnages— The mutual help societies. The Revolution of 1789 was even wore radical iu its economic and social reforms than in pure polities, f The old regime was r characterized by arbitrary paternalism in tlic central frovernment ■ by innumerable traces of feudalism in the tenure and exploi- tation of land ; by a complicated system of guilds regulating and monopolizing each craft and trade. Authority, heredity, privi- lege, were thus its foundations. Although it had victoriously resisted the onslaught of Turgut in 1776, this econ,,mic order was visibly crumbling into decay : the central government was as inefficient as it was meddlesome, feudalism had lost every semblance of justification, and the guilds hampered industry and commerce. On August 4, 1789, the nobility and the clcr-y gave up their feudal rights and privileges : it was, in theory at least, the end of the ancient regime. On August 23rd bv the Declaration of the Rights of Man, the new order was formally established on the basis of equal individual riyhts. But i^roperty was expressly declared to be one of those "inalienable and sacred rights." The Constituent Assembly refused to follow the philosophers who, after Rousseau had maintained that " exclusive property was a theft in a state of J8£ 4^ THE SOCIAL QUESTION 187 nature." * Nor can it be said that the Legislative Assembly and the Convention were any more inclined to doubt the abso- ute character of individual property. The Government held the vast forfeited estates of the clergy and the emigrant nobles • but permanent collective ownership was not seriously thought of Pree distribution of land to the poor ("the agrarian law") was severely discountenanced, death being the penalty of whoever should propose such a measure. In 1796-97 it was rumoured that Cams Gracchus Babo^uf and his " Club of Equals," the organized Communists, had secured the support of 17 000 working men in Paris. But this was a demagogic rather than a socialistic movement, a last effort of the Jacobin populace of the suburbs against the Thermidorian and Directorial reaction ""'Ul^T'ltr' "'" "^^^ ''^"- "^^'"'''^ ^'^'J ^^^ Constitution oii.,J-6. -Whatever may have been the number of secret adherents, the conspiracy was easily foiled, and when Babccuf was executed Paris did not stir. Messrs. Lichtenberger and Jean Juures, who have studied the period from this special point of view, come to the conclusion that socialism, at the time of the Revolution, was practically non-existent. Property was considered as a m//,<, not as a privilege, because, it was held to be freely accessible to all, and not to limit the liberty of others./ This view was in the main perfectly correct at the time. Before the advent of expensive machinery and world-wide trade, agriculture, industry, commerce were local individual, ru.limentary affairs, flny peasant, any working man, endowed with energy, thrift, and foresight could acquire the tools necessary to his labour as well as the skill to use them. What the ancient regime denied him was the chance of using his tools and his skill independently and for his own beneht. Although there were a number of peasant proprietors betoro ItS'J, the ownership of land was chiefly the privilege of the nobility and clergy. The guilds had become exclusive and hereditary aristocracies, so that it was exceedingly difficult for an artisan to become a mastcr.J The Revolution gave thei peasant the possibility of acquiring as much land as he could/ '.,^'T,°V^- ^^"'■"'' ■ ^''''^'■''<^' Philosophiques sur le Droit de Pro- pnm et le Vol, 17.0. Cf. also Morcllj- Fauchet, Mably, and even Mirabeau" \ 188 FRENCH CIVILIZATION IN XlXxn CENTURY J till, and the workman the rinfht of opening a small shop on his jown account. It thus sought to create a regime of equal opportunity and fair competition, the ideal of the '' laissez- faire" school. In their fear lest the abolished guilds should rise again in a new guise, the members of the Constituent Assembly went to the extreme of forbidding any kind of asso- ciation among people engaged in the same trade '' for the defence of their alleged common interests." * J No corporation of I any kind should stand between the individual and the State. f But whilst the Revolutionists were firm believers in economic jliberty and private property, some of their most important 'measures can be used as precedents by niodtrn socialists. iThe (wholesale confiscation of estates belonging to enemies of the Revolution is not the clearest case in point : it was an act of war, and in war the ordinary principles of justice are suspended. The assumption by the State of all Churcl/ property was nought but a desperate expedient. The plea that the clergy couhrno longer hold any possession, since it had ceased to exist as a separate order, was a bold piece of sophistry: for individual churches, abbeys, and monasteries still existed, and were the natural heirs of the abolished '-'order." PMany feudal rights were immediately suppressed without compensation, because they were traces of the domination of one class over another (feodalite dominante) ; yet, whatever their origin, they were in 1789 the property of individuals whose interests were greatly injured by their removal^ Other rights, like per])etual gnjund- rents, were the result of a contract between landowner ami tenant (feodalite contractante) ; they were to be redeemed at a fair price. But, under the Convention (July 17, 1793), they were purely and simply abolished, and the very deeds on which they were based had to be surrendered and destroyed. The lesson of French history, therefore, in contradiction withi the principles of French law, is that private property can be 1 confiscated and redistributed, when it no longer justifies its ( existence by actual services to society. | The innumerable peasant proprietors, retail dealers and small manufacturers of France, conscious of the revolutionary origin of their rights, * Chapelier law against coalitions, 1791. THE SOCIAL QUESTION 189 lived for many years in the dread of a feudalistic reaction. Since 1848 their dominant fear has been that labour in its turn should challenge the legitimacy of their title. The pre- cedents of 1789-93 have not been lost on the French pro- letariate : no wonder that they are still haunted with dreams of a new upheaval in which capitalistic property will be treated with the same disrespect that was shown to feudal property a hundred and twenty years ago^ The consequences of this economic revolution are still felt. <^ France is socially more conservative than England or Germany,' because the immense class of petty capitalists considers the regime created in 1789 as final j But socialism is more radical, more aggressive than anywhere else, because every year, on the 14th of July, the people are reminded that '' direct action " did, once before, change the face of the world.*' J ^^ The regime of individualistic liberalism established by the Constituent Assembly ignored class distinctions, and was theoretically fair to all. Employers as well as employees were] forbidden to form trade associations, and the labour contract wasi to be freely debated between man and man. This was fair ! enough when each master had only a few working men in his '^ pay, and perhaps only one skilled in each special line.^ If the master had more reserves, he was also likely to have more obligations, and he was less free to move to a difi*erent part of the country. In large shops the case is difterent : each indi- vidual workman represents but a fraction of the labour element engaged in the business, whilst the owner or manager represents the whole capital. None but a grim ironist would dare to main-^ tain that Tom, Dick, and Harry can discuss on equal economic ' ♦ The rural populations were the chief beneficiaries of the Revolution • (a) feudal dues were abolished without compensation ; (6) a vast amount of property was thrown into the market ; (c) farm rent, taxes, and the price of btate property acquired by the peasants were paid in "assignats" (paper money) at their face value, since assignats were legal currency. But in payment for their produce, the farmers accepted assignats only at the current rate, which fell to 1 per cent, of the nominal value. Thus a peasant whose years rent, fixed before the crisis, was only 600 livres, could sell a smgle sack of wheat for 1.200 livres. The old landed proprietors were of course, ruined by these conditions. ' 190 FEENCH CIVILIZATION IX XIXth CENTURY ) terms with Schneider, Krupp, orvCarnegie. Collective bargain- i ing aloue could restore equality between the two factors capital (| and labour. Thus with the development and concentration of ^ industry, the scales were automatically tipped in favour oi the masters, i Under the Napoleonic reaction, equality was deliber- - jately destroyed. The Constituent Assembly had suppressed' all .professional associations : Napoleon restored all those whose piembers belonged to the bourgeoisie. Theclerg}% the judiciary, public education, were reconstituted into hierarchized and closed porporations. Lawyers, attorneys, notaries, bailiffs, stock- brokers, auctioneers, were organized into monopolistic ** orders." The practice of medicine and midwifery, and a number of trades— druggists, herbalists, butchers, bakers, printers, book- sellers, theatre directors, and manufacturers of arms— were regulated by law and protected by. privileges. The Chambers of Commerce were revived. Thus the strict prohibition of industrial combines was no longer a natural consequence of a general policy, but an exception, and therefore an injustice. \ Furthermore, whilst the combination (** coalition ") of working- men for raising wages fell under the law without any exception or qualification, the combination of employers for lowering wages was punishable only if it were found '' unjust and abusive." And the men who were to decide upon that point were not popularly elected judges, as under the Revolution, but magistrates appointed by the central government, and belonging, one and all, to the upper classes.* Each working man had to carry with him a book (*Mivret"), and wherever he was employed he had to get his livret signed by the head of the police or by the mayor ; he was thus under constant supervision, as if he had been a ticket-of-leave man. The livret was an instrument of servitude, for the master wrote down in it the sums advanced on the wages; and as long as these were not repaid in full, the labourer could find no other employment. A stroke of bad luck, an accident, an illness could thus place him at the mercy of his master, and permanently prevent him from seeking to better his position. ; Whilst the rich were taking such elaborate precautions against • Arts. 414, 415, 416 of the Penal Code, 1810. / <^» THE SOCIAL QUESTION 191 the dishonesty of the poor, the poor, if cheated by the rich, had ; no legal means of redress ; for Article 1781 of the Civil Code (1804) provided tliat *'the master's word is taken : for the rate of wages ; the payment of the salary of the previous year ; and the advances on the salary of the current year." The subordin- ation of the working classes was thus oificially established. In spite of the law, however, the labourers did not remain abso- \ lutely isolated. The old '* Companionships " or Brotherhoods I (compagnonnage) had survived.) As they were secret societies, the Government was almost powerless against them. They did not include the whole of the industrial and commercial world, like the old guilds, but only certain trades, and, in those trades,' only itinerant unmarried working men, who went from town to town and made '' the tour of France." The companions pre- served jealously their ancient rites and insignia, handed down, if not from the architects of Solomon's temple, at least from the craftsmen of the late Middle Ages. In 1808 Angouleme was the scene of a bloody battle lasting a whole week, due to the fact that a drunken tanner had betrayed the secret of the order to the shoemakers. Brawls were not infrequent between members of rival societies— ** Children of Solomon" and "Children of Master James," '^Gavots" and ** Devoirants "— and even between different trades of the same rite. The companions tr^ted the probationers or '' foxes " * with brutal injustice. By the side of these antiquated ceremonies and mediaeval prejudices, the brotherhoods had many social advantages. The companion found everyw^here comrades ready to help him on his way, to find work for him, to sing and carouse with him when in health, and to tend him in sickness. So these secret orders were benefit societies of a primitive type. fThey were at the same time thej-. prototypes of our labour unions, for occasionally the companions! would, in spite of the law, combine in order to secure higher! wages. Firms which, for one reason or another, had incurred*^. their displeasure were '' damned," i.e, boycotted. \ It must be added that the' brotherhoods kept up a certain professional and moral standard : a worthless workman could not become a com- • This term *' renard " has recently been revived with the meaning of *' scab." ^ 1 .1 \.^ 192 FRENCH CIVILIZATION IN XIXth CENTURY panion. This is probably the chief reason why, in spite of their occasional turbulence, these societies were not more ruthlessly persecuted by the different Governments.* I Under Napoleon, and especially under the Restoration, it was Seriously proposed to revive the old guilds ; but the new prin- iples of individualism and economic liberalism were still too trong to allow of such a backward step. One form of pro- fessional association, however, was tolerated and even encouraged, although it fell under the Chapelier law : the friendly, or mutual help, societies. They took no part in the preparation and sup- port of strikes : yet they provided rallying-points for the working classes : they are, much more than the brotherhoods, the link between the guilds and the modern unions. In 1806 their rapid extension seems to have made the Imperial police uneasy : mutual help societies among men of the same trade were con- demned. But these associations seemed so harmless that the police soon relaxed its rigour. In 1823, out of 160 Mutualites in Pans, 132 were professional groups, with 11,000 adherents, t § 2. The July Monarchy, 1830-48. Growth of Modern Socialism. First development of mechanical industries-- Resistances "-The Lyons insurrection-Republican secret societies and their socialistic tendencies. The Utopian Socialists : Saint-Simon, Fourier, Cabet, Louis Blanc, Proudhon. * The influence of machinery in industry was not seriously felt until the end of the Restoration : France was in this respect two generations behind England.l Butfunder Louis- Philippe I the transformation proceeded apace ; a single workman, an appren- j tice, a woman, a child, could now do the work of several artisans. ^ As this increased capacity of production was not coupled with a ; commensurate development of consumption, great hardships fell J..^i ftlf '°^ Perdiguier (Avignonnais la Vertu) : Lc Livre du Compagrwn. i^ge, 1841 ; Martin Saint-L6on, Le Compagnonrui^e, 1901 ; George Sand. Le Compagnon du Tour de France, 1840. ! f ''".I'^n ""^u' ^^^'■^ '^'^ Mouvement Syndical en France, p. 77. Alcan, 1907. ♦ In 1810 there were only 15 steam-engines in the country, all but one working at low pressure. \ THE SOCIAL QUESTION 193 to the lot of the labourers : wages came down, and whole popu-t lations were pauperized. Discontent assumed three forms:! strikes, secret revolutionary societies, and Utopian schemes, j The July monarchy was a great era of " resistance." By this was meant the banding together of the working people in order to prevent any further lowering of their wages : a purely defensive movement, to ward off the evil effects of the introduc- tion of machinery. | Of these '' resistances," the most successful was the Printers' Union, which in 1843 secured a reasonable tariff, revisable every five years. The silk weavers of Lyons were not so fortunate. Their industry, keenly' sensitive to political disturbances, had been greatly injured by the Revolution of 1830. In October, 1831, reduced to absolute starvation, they asked for a tariff of wages that would enable them to keep body and soul together. The Prefect thought he could endorse their claims, and some employers agreed to a minimum tariff. But the others refused to abide by the decision, and appealed to the central government, which took their side. This disappoint- ment caused a .terrible uprising of the weavers : for ten days they were masters of the city. Marshal Soult and the Duke of Orleans were sent to restore order. This insurrection, the first of that magnitude due to purely economic causes, placed the modern social problem before public opinion with dramatic effectiveness. France rang with the threatening motto of the Lyonnese : ** To live by our labour, or to die fighting." The republican secret societies, which were planning a new democratic revolution, were deeply tinged with socialism. The Society of the Rights of Man, for instance, in 1833, gave as its programme *'the sovereignty of the people, universal suffrage, the emancipation of the working classes." Whilst the first Lyons insurrection had been due solely to economic sufferings, the second, in 1834, was democratic and social in character. A survivor of Babouvism, guona^rotti^ influenced the arch- conspirators of the time, Barbes and Blanqui. A movement planned by them failed miserably in 18397 their ''Society of the Seasons" was dissolved, and many of its members fled to London; there they met refugees of all nationalities, among whom was formed, in 1840, the Communists' federation. Karl 13 t94 FRENCH CIVILIZATION IN XIXth CENTURY Marx joined this association a few years later. The historical Tdel So Tr *'' '™"*^^ *'^^^"- ^' 1793 and he modem Sociahst movement is undeniable I No relief was expected from the Government, entirely in the jh nds o the bourgeoisie. The franchise was ;estricted o h richest taxpayers, and there were only 200.000 electors in ! /country o 30,000,000 inhabitants. This rding class scouteS the Idea of free-trade, which was contrary to their^reTudi es and immediate interests; but to all the dlands of^he working f^tl'X^HT' 'V''^''''^ P-'^^'P^*^ of "economif echo of Jli t'^^°: ^\' ^f ' astronomer, made himself the waf covered with an^ il:SoL"''"^^ ^'''"'" ''' ''''' naZuo'l w" ^l^'"'^^''^^^'' of the liberal school had ^cts, and stony fatahsm. Before the manifest evils of the iTstnedt; heSn .!^r"\'°"^'"'°° °^ ^'"P"*--- So they listened to the Sociahsts, who promised the thing most needful 1825 to 1848 there was in France an extraordinaiy cropTf Utopian schemes. Let us note that this was also the heyday o romanticism: sentimental and imaginative socialism simplv the manifestation of the Romantic spirit in the economicTeM Eocialisti; ideas.' " ^and-were deeply influenced by noble pare^^ge, at sixSher atl= untr^vthiZ:' Revolu ion bn ^P.^'="^^^^°'^« ^^^ stock-jobbing under the Kevolution, but was imprisoned at the time of the Terror There it was hat he saw in a vision his ancestor, Crarlemare who revealed to him his Messianic destiny. Afer his rS' he studied and travelled, married, lived exLvagantly dhtced' and spent the rest of his life in philosophic poverty, 'unlbe to THE SOCIAL QUI^JTION 195 write with any method, he could not reach the general public, until he won to his cause Augustin Thierry, then twenty years of age. The future historian became his " adopted son " and collaborator. They published a number of periodicals, Le Poli- tique, L'Organisateur, Le Systhne Industriel, Le Catechisme Indastriel. One article alone attracted some notice. In a famous " Parable " (1819) he drew a comparison between the hypothetical loss to France of her 8,000 best scientists, artists, and artisans, and that of the Duke of Angouleme, the Duke of Berry, the great officers of the Royal Household, all cardinals and archbishops, and the 10,000 richest landowners. His point was that society was topsy-turvy, since service and honour did not go hand-in-hand : a discovery for which he was duly prose- cuted. He died in 1825, having achieved nothing, and leaving the reputation of a crack-brained Bohemian. We reserve for another chapter the discussion of his religious message. Suffice it to say that he asserted, against classical economists, that no society could stand if its spiritual principles and its economic organization were not in harmony. When brotherly love and pitiless competition are taught side by side, discord and hypocrisy are bound to prevail. ] Saint-Simon chose fraternity rather than liberty. In his system, the world was to be governed by a hierarchy of priests, scientists, and "indus- trialists" (producers of all kinds); but science and industry, devoted to the service of mankind, were holy, so that every pro- fession was essentially religious. The cardinal principles of the new order were tersely stated on the front page of the Globe, which, from 1830 to 1832, was a Saiut-Simonian paper : — 1. All social institutions must have for their aim the improve- ment of the moral, physical, and intellectual condition of the most numerous and poorest class. 2. All birthrights and privileges, without any exception, are abolished. 3. To every man shall be given according to his capacity, to every capacity according to its works. These principles, the social correlatives of his mystic humani- tarianism, were generous, but singularly vague. There was, however, a practical side to Saint- Simonism. The master, at a N i 1^6 mmm c^IYIlization m xixth century «1\ «T-^'° ^"""'f 'f'''^'^ ""^ ^«" ^° ^t« infancy, had a ment and its unlimited capacity. He communicated his . fle r^xTe Sat: 'r''^^"'^-* f ^^^^ — saw himln tt ^!i' Saiiit-Simonians preached the gospel of great public thS *J ;*^^^^^^'=°'",l'''^-tion of the seer and the charlatan, trator. The Pereires became high barons in the new aristocracy atlantic Company. The future Napoleon III, although he never was formally a Saint-Simonian, shared most ;f their ideas hs pamphlet on The Extinction of Pauperisn, might have been signed by one of them, and his reign was their reign. To the" credit be it said that these men, at the height of materk science Lb! I. f.^ ?^'' °^" '^'' ^^' ^'^^t*>° °^^ocM ' sc ence, for he had discovered that the law of universal attraction nd sta^rT^Tf "' '""^" "•^^^^"^^^ - -" - " ts and stars. H s whole system rested on sensualism : man has manner. The first task of the reformer, therefore, is to analvse human passions, and to study their combh.ati ns. Fouri discovers twelve major passions, which can be combined in 810 charactenstic types His psychology is fanciful to a degree j rest on a comprehensive conception of human nature The great shortcoming of classical liberalism was that it had reduced ts /.o„;o econom^cus to a mere machine whose sole pass on wasi to buy m the cheapest market.) No one of these 810 types can be fully himself nor rean H,« geatest benefit from his labour, in a state of isola on I n the state of permanent warfare which we call free comp^tit on In our present inorganic condition, legitimate desires cla'sh and may often be called vices. In the free and communistic rerime the future, they will all be harmonized. IProdu Ln'Su be increased a thousandfold by the association of efforts • De Lesseps was directly influenced by the Saint-Simoni.ns. II ■; THE SOCIAL QUESTION 197 Labour will no longer be a curse, for it will become attractive through the free choice and constant shifting of one's occupa- tions. Fourierism is merely an extreme and Utopian form of naturalism," the doctrine of Rousseau : abolish artificial restric- faons, trust to the instincts, and you will restore the golden andon-Origin and de,.k»in«t of the International Working Men's Association. '«™<*™n» me The Commune. Thus socialism, in a general sense, was rife about 1848 Even (conserrative minds and members of the priyileged classes were Itojing with the idea. Capit^stic industry was still young in THE SOCIAL QUESTION 201 France. Its enormous powers had not yet fully asserted them- selves, whilst its worst features were already apparent. It did not seem unreasonable, then, that a reform of the economic regime should go hand in hand with the radical transformation of the methods of production. When the throne of Louis- - Philippe was swept away the Parisian populace insisted upon getting their share of the spoils. And the idealistic democrats who assumed control in February were not systematically hostile/ to these claims. ^ The Republic was to be '* democratic and/ social." To the bourgeois politicians of the Provisional Govern- ment were added Louis Blanc, one of the best-known theorists of socialism, and Albert, a working man. ** The organization of labour," **the right to employment" (droit au travail), demanded by Arago and Louis Blanc in 1840, were promised, albeit vaguely, in official proclamations. A commission, with Louis Blanc as its chairman, was to meet at the Luxembourg Palace and investigate the social question in all its aspects. In order to relieve the distress caused by the political crisis, national workshops were created. But it soon became evident that Paris had far outrun the » rest of France. The dense mass of petty shopkeepers, small ] manufacturers, independent artisans, and peasant proprietors, ! whose small capital represented years of toil and self-denial, saw nothing in socialism but ^ the equal division of property, and shuddered at the thought. ( The rift between the victors of February soon became irremediable. Lamartine refused to discard the glorious tricolour for the red flag of socialism. The elections sent to the Constituent Assembly a majority of Republicans who, although well-meaning and progressive, were committed to the defence of individual o^vnership. The Lux-* embourg commission was given no authority, and its labo remained purely academic. The national workshops were organ- ized by enemies of their first promoter, Louis Blanc. Useless and costly, they grew like an ulcer; as many as 119,000 men were on the pay-roll. i They were a *' club of loafers, a reserve army of insurrection, a perpetual strike supported out of public money." Their sudden suppression was the occasion of the rising of June. The real cause was the desire, on the part of, " 202 FRENCH CIVILIZATION IN XIXth CENTURY Hhe Socialists, to resume the direction of the Republic, which I they felt slipping away from them. The Days of June thoroughly roused the conservatives to a sense of their danger. Hence- prth the fear of the -red fiend " (le spectre rouge) will be their Vulmg passion. After the victory of Cavaignac and the ferocious repression which followed it, companies of national guards organized throughout France, poured into Paris, eager to defend society against the barbarians from within. The leaders of socialism could barely get a hearing in the Assembly The most ^active propagandists, if they had escaped the bullets of the army of order," were imprisoned, exiled, or transported. ^ ^However, the ground won in February was not totally lost in /June. The Second Republic encouraged working men^s associa- tions of all kmds, especially mutual help and co-operative teocieties There was an admirable development of these, even (during the period of dull reaction in 1849 and 1850 This much more than the sensational election of the pseudo-socialist i^ugene Sue in Paris, showed the vitality of the labour move- ment. } Unfortunately, this auspicious growth was cut short by the coup d'etat of December, 1851. Eager to suppress every Lpossible centre of disturbance, the government of Louis Napo- peon placed every kind of working men's associations under the Iban. Harmless co-operative societies were treated with sus- picion, as though they had been revolutionary clubs. Their managers and secretaries were arrested, and in many cases kept m prison or transported for no indictable offence. At Lyons, General de Castellane simply ordered every society to be dissolved. All known Socialists were kept under close police supervision ; the proletariat was shorn once more of Its natural leaders, and, for ten years, ''society knew peace." We reiterate that Napoleon IH had constantly for his aim "the improvement of the material, intellectual, and moral con- dition of the most numerous and poorest class." The immense public works encouraged by him, and often due to his own far- sighted initiative, were meant to redeem the promises of his pamphlet On the Extinction of Pauperism. They were, in fact, national workshops, but of a more permanent and more THE SOCIAL QUESTION 203 efficient kind than those of 1848. Many institutions were developed or created which, directly or indirectly, were to benefit the working classes : model tenement houses, hospitals, con- valescents' homes, baths, State pawnshops, popular loan associa- tions, etc. Out of the property confiscated from the Orleans family, 10,000,000 francs were given to social charities. No\ other Government has so consistently attempted to serve I the best interests of the people ; it was indeed " Caesarian J socialism. I' Yet the Empire failed to secure the support of the working^ men. All its best eftbrts were marred by the narrow, compres-. sive paternalism which made the officials impatient of every; spontaneous activity.*! The bureaucracy could not brook inde- pendence ; the French hated nothing so much as tutelage. Whatever Napoleon offered them they took without thanks, aware that it was their birthright. Moreover, the transformation of industry was proceeding at such a rate that the progressive measures of the Government could not keep pace with it. In • spite of all efforts, and whilst the standard of life was undoubt- ! edly raised, the poor were getting proportionately more numerous i and poorer. I One after another the avenues from the proletariat to the capitalistic class were being closed. The scandalous luxury of the cosmopolitan pleasure-seekers, even the splendour of the new Paris and the wonders of the international exposi- tions, had the effect of embittering the labourers. Until 1859 the Empire was an efficient autocracy ; after that j date the regime became markedly more liberal. | Napoleon needed the support of the advanced elements against the Catho- lics in his Italian policy, and he felt that sheer compression was growing impossible in France. ^ number of progressive measures were passed. It will be remembered that whilst strikes as such were not punishable by law, any concerted action on the part of the working men was an indictable offence ; this anomaly was removed in 1864. Mutual help and co-operative societies were not only authorized but encouraged. A central *' Bank of Credit to Labour " was created in 1863. Article 1781 of the Civil Code, obnoxious to wage-earners as a stigma of legal inferiority, was repealed in 1868.^ \ _ .X i\ 204 FRENCH CIVILIZATION IN XIXth CENTURF The Emperor's first cousin, Prince Napoleon, was the centre of an active group of Caesarian democrats and Saint-Simonians • Gueroult was known to be the representative of that group in the snirlZ fp •• ^ 'tx'"' °^ P^P'^^^'' ''''''' P""i«^^d "°d-r the in- spiration of Prince Napoleon's friends, failed to dispel the anti- Bonapartist prejudice of the labourers. I But it was through the efforts of Gueroult and Prince Napoleon that a certain number of n ISfif Tt. "r! '1' 'f ^'^'^'''' *" '^' ^^P°«i"on of London Inf ,7? I '™^ P°'''y "^**^" ^""^^^ Government in times of strikes, the power of the trade unions, opened the eyes of the French visitors to the backwardness of thefr own land More- lover, It made them realize of what importance international •co-operation would be to the labour world. In 1863 working men of several nations met again in London Pol nd'fr ^' ^°"^''"'^ "' ''""'''''^ ^-^t'o ' - I'ehalf of 1^7 ^I'fh \"''""f "'''''*'*' Russian oppressors. »Thismeet- ng although purely political, led to the formation of the I International Working Men's Association" in 1864 ThS international soon assumed in the eyes of the public an import- ance which was justified neither by its membership nor by ts theatened to engulf present society. The truth was that the International was powerless for lack of funds and for lack of common principles. At first the mutualistic conceptions o the collectivists secured control of the association. They had next to fight against the anarchists, led by Bakounine, whom the M rxists did not manage to expel until 1872. iMelnwhile cordftof f / ' '^ '^' ^"P"^ ^^^ ^"« t« the unsettled condition of the country-agitated by political reform, violent conSr Thf it' T'T. ''-'''''' '^' ™-°- «^ ^ conflict The International is a creditable but prematiJe a tempt, symptomatic rather than influential P'^'"**"^ .^n-fwlT^"^""'" ^^^ "^"^^ *h" "^''^^^^ of striking an alliance /with the bourgeoisie of the liberal opposition. U 1863 they had THE SOCIAL QUESTION given up their plan of having special labour candidates. In 1864 Tolain stood independently and gathered a ridiculously small number of votes (424). In 1869 the labourers elected anti- Imperialists like Gambetta and Eochefort rather than members of their own class. They believed that if only the tyranny were overthrown, they would get their own way. I But the Empire seemed to take a new lease of life ; the plebiscite of May, 1870, proved that France was opposed to any thought of revolution. The Franco-Prussian War changed the conditions of the problem.. The Empire fell as a result of military defeat. Labour questions ' r receded^intO the background y the immediate task was to save the country. Then thfiJCLommune broke out. We have attempted to show how this insurrection was, at first, patriotic and not socialistic. But, before its defeat, it had gradually assumed a strong tinge of internationalism and class struggle. The Versailles Government undoubtedly considered it in that light. Conservative France felt j again the shudder of June, 1848 ; once more the solid earth had/ quaked. Hence the ruthlessness of the repression, which partook\ of the atrocious character of a class war and a religious persecution. *' Democracy was bled for a generation," and with democracy socialism. Thus the original mistake of labelling the Commune socialistic has become a fact potent for evil. The tragic memories of 1871 gave the struggle \of the classes in France a bitterness unknown in more fortunate lands. § 4. Socialism under the Third Republic. Revival of socialism — Jules Guesde and Lafargue — Divisions into sects — Millerand and Jaur^s — The Dreyfus case: impetus it gave to socialistic ideas — Millerand in Cabinet — Unification in 1904 — Rupture with the Radicals. Social policv of the Radicals : mutualism. After the Commune there was a lull in the labour move- ment. The International, everywhere looked upon with suspicion, rigorously prohibited in France,* torn between the Marxists and the Bakouninists, emigrated to America and slipped quietly into oblivion. Most of the leaders of the . / French proletariat had disappeared in the storm of 1871. ♦ Dufaure law, 1872. FRENCH CIVILIZATION IN XIXth CENTURY The struggle against monarchical and clerical reaction absorbed the energy of the rest. There was apparently a return to mutualism and co-operation, a revival of the ideas of Proudhon. The working men's congress of Paris in 1876 was strikingly moderate. But socialism was growing unperceived. In 1872 a French translation of Marx's Capital had been published. Jules Guesde, a young fanatic, keen and rigid like a sword, was starting upon his lifelong apostolate of Marxian orthodoxy. With Lafargue, another unswerving, indefatigable propagandist, he expounded in his paper, UEgalite, in innumerable pamphlets and lectures, the pure coUectivist doctrine. Condemnations only served to spread his influence. Strikes and the agitation in favour of an amnesty for the Communards favoured the growth of revolutionary sentiment. The Government refused to allow an International Working Men's Congress which was to be held in Paris in 1878. This illiberal step contributed to the success of the radical elements in the next national convention, at Marseilles in 1879. There the delegates of the working classes formally endorsed col- lectivism. The Moderates, although outnumbered at Marseilles, were still able to defeat the Revolutionists at Le Havre in 1880 and to drive them to secession. But the Socialist party was bom. Thenceforward the policy of the new party has been to steer a middle course between anarchism and mere ''reformism." On the one hand, the Socialists severed all connection with the anarchists, whether those of the moderate Proudhonian type, or those of the revolutionary brand, taking their inspiration from Bakounine and Kropotkine. On the other hand, they guarded against entangling alliances with bourgeois democrats, even of the most radical stripe like Cl^menceau. They are supposed to take part in election, and yet to remain a foreign, inassimilable element in the political organism. It takes all the impassioned dialectics— or casuistry— of a Guesde to justify this sinuous course between total abstention and frank co-operation. Hence endless debates and numerous divisions. Until 1904 the Socialists were split up into many shifting groups. The Blanquists, demagogues rather than Socialists,* ♦ As was shown by their participation in the Boulanger adventure. THE SOCIAL QUESTION ever dreaming of a successful insurrection, without any cii notion of what the day after that would bring, were a dwindling survival of the Second Republic and the Commune. The Possi- bilists (Broussists), on the contrary, considering Marxism as outgrown, the last of the Utopian schemes, wanted to proceed to immediate reforms on the basis of the existing State and municipal services (1882). But, in 1890, a certain number of Possibilists grew tired of the cautious method of their leader, and seceded, forming the Allemanist group. Meanwhile, Guesde and his friends, excommunicating all heresiarch^, kept the Marxian faith pure and undefiled. With aU their violence and narrowness, these little sects presented a tolerably united front to the bourgeois world, and contrived to educate the public. In 1891 and 1893 their cause won two brilliant recruits : Millerand, an able lawyer, a born administrator, firm, clear-sighted, moderate ; Jaures, a professor of philosophy, an idealist, an orator of rare power and wonderful range of adaptability, and a practical politician of no mean order. - At the general elections of 1893, fifty socialists were returned, and V . among them Jaures, Guesde, Millerand. They at once started "' in the Chamber of Deputies one of those grand academic debates of which the French are so fond. It was a magnificent tourna- ment of oratory, in which the conservative view was ably defended by Count de Mun, Deschanel, Aynard, Rivet. From an obscure ^ revolutionary movement socialism had become one of the main \ \ , currents in French national life. In 1896, Millerand, at Saint.^J \ Mande, stated with his usual clearness and authority the three essential points of evolutionary socialism : nationalization of all means of production and exchange, as soon as each becomes ripe for such a transformation ; conquest of public powers by means y of universal suffrage ; international understanding among working people. This programme was endorsed even by the Guesdists, at least as a minimum. The Dreyfus case was a godsend to socialism. This purely individual affair developed, as we have seen, into a general battle for the sake of justice and truth, and the Socialists happened to be on the right side. The Guesdists, adhering strictly at first to their class prejudice, took no interest in this quarrel among NCH CIVILIZATION IN XIXth CENTURY "igeois. But even they could not fail to see what advantage It gave them in their campaign against the present regime. The accumulated mistakes of the ^'pillars of society "—Church, army, nobUity, capital— were so many points scored by the RevJlution! More generous and wiser in the end was the attitude of Jaures. The Dreyfus case, he said, is a question of justice. Socialism, in our minds, is sj-nonymous with justice. Therefore every Socialist , ought to consider the cause of Dreyfus as his own. Thus, after i \fifty years of dismal materialism, French socialism was brought \ back into its traditional channel— broad humanitarianism. For many Frenchmen in 1898, as in 1848, socialism was, not an economic theory, not a political party, not a class organization, _but an aspiration and a faith. The author, who has lived through these stormy, unforgotten days, can testify to the extraordinary influence of Jaures. Students and working men, united as of old, hailed him as their prophet. It was then that the rising genera^ tion of teachers went over to socialism. Anatole France, the deHcate epicure and sceptic, de Pressense, of Huguenot descent and a contributor to the capitalistic paper Lc Temps, Emile Zola himself were carried by the tide. Without the support of the Socialists no Government favourable to the cause of Dreyins could command a majority in the Chamber of Deputies. So Waldeck-Rousseau, a conservative Republican but feariess and far-sighted, struck an alliance with *^the enemies of social order." He brought together in his cabinet General de Galliflfet, an anstocratic soldier famous for his share in the pitiless repression of the Commune, and MiUerand, who, in his Saint- Mande speech, had stated the essentials of socialism. Millerand made a remarkably efficient Minister of Commerce and Industry Hampered in his legislative action by the social conservatism of both houses, he secured a number of improvements by means of decrees, which his successors did not dare to repeal. His presence in the strongest administration that France had seen lor a generation made a deep impression at home and abroad Socialism had come to stay. But even the most rabid conservatives did not attack Millerand with such bitterness as his feUow Socialists. Was the theory of class antagonism to be abandoned ? Was Marxism to join the THE SOCIAL QUESTION Phalanstery and Icaria on the scrap-heap of outgrown Utopias ? Was the hope of a sudden catastrophe, the **red dawn" heralding the millennium, to be laid aside as a myth ? The Guesdists could not bear the thought. The elements of violence and envy which a revolutionary party cannot fail to attract were dis- appointed in the cautious, legal, temporizing method of the parliamentary Socialists. In 1900 Jaures had managed to ward off the excommunication which threatened Millerand. In 1904, at the Amsterdam congress, the participation of Socialists in bourgeois governments was formally condemned. At the same time the union, or rather the unification of the French Socialist parties, was at last realized. Jaures remained within the ranks. Those leaders who believed in parliamentary methods were excluded. Few in number, but exceedingly able, the Indepen- dents have all held high positions : Millerand was twice again Cabinet Minister, Briand twice Premier, Viviani Minister of Labour, Augagneur, a professor of medicine and Mayor of Lyons, was Minister and Governor-General of Madagascar. Cautious and conservative as they have often proved to be, these men have neve- abjured socialism. Mt-anwhile the electoral progress of the party was striking. In 1906 the Unified Socialists, exclusive of the Independents, polled 894,934 votes; in 1910, 1,107,369. A large fraction of the Radical party, whilst remaining attached to the principle of private ownership, was willing to go very far in the way of State socialism, and even tagged the word '' socialist " to its name (parti radical-socialiste). Thus a number of social laws were passed : the Millerand-Colliard law, in 1900, limiting the day's work to 11 hours; a law on the compulsor}' assistance of the aged and incurable (1905) ; a Sunday rest law, bitterly assailed by the conservatives, who as a rule are the chief supporters of the Church (1906) ; a system of old age pensions (1906). As a sign of this increased interest in social legislation, a Department of Labour was created in 1906. The Radicals, however, feel how weak their position would be if they had no doctrine but reluctant, mitigated socialism. Pure ** laissez-faire," with its brutal individualism, has few supporters left. Only a few Catholic employers and the disciples of Le 14 // r pin:x:;H civilization in xixth century Play still adhere to the old conceptions of class subordination, patronage, and charity. Fortunately, M. Leon Bourgeois, for a long time the nominal leader of the Radical party, rediscovered the doctrine of '* solidarity." * This principle is now the basis of moral education in the State schools. It forms a sane and safe compromise between the extremes of individualism and socialism. Translated into economic terms, solidarity spells co-operation and mutualism.) Co-operation has developed but little, in spite of the efforts of Professor Gide : it would affect the interests of the innumerable retail dealers who are such a powerful factor in French politics. But mutualism is encouraged with almost ludicrous solicitude. There are national celebrations, and special medals are struck, in honour of mutualism. Three presidents — MM. Loubet, Fallieres, and Poincare — have claimed the proud distinction of being the first, second, and third Mutualists in the Republic. No one would deny M. Deschanel the fourth place ; and the actual leaders of the movement, MM. Mabilleau and Cave, are undoubtedly clever and successful propagandists. But, with the exception of ofiBcial orators, no one affects to believe that this expurgated edition of Proudhonism contains the secret of the social sphinx, t § 5. Syndicalism, Etc. Syndicalism — Waldeck-Rousseau law, 1884 — Hostility of the em- ployers — Direct action — The " conscious minority " — The general strike — Kinship to anarchism — Violence. Syndicalism and the State employees. The rural classes. When the Socialists brought to an end their alliance with bourgeois politicians in 1904, they were not impelled by a mere theoretical belief in class antagonism, they were in danger of losing the leadership of the labour world to a new and formidable rival, syndicalism. Whilst collectivism had grown respectable and harmless, the elements of uncompromising * The interdependence of all human beings advocated forty years previously by Pierre Leroux. t This is true of other commendable expedients, like profit-sharing (Le- claire ; Familist^e de Guise ; Boucicaut's Bon MarM, etc.). THE SOCIAL QUESTION 211 discontent and irrepressible disorder had rallied round that new flag. " Syndicats " or trade unions were strictly prohibited from 1791 to 1864; under the Chapelier law no association among working men for the discussion and defence of their '* alleged common interests" could be formed, and the ''societies of resistance," although fairly numerous and sometimes successful under Louis-Philippe, were of a more or less temporary, secret, and illegal nature. When concerted action (" coalition ") was permitted in 1864, syndicates, the necessary instruments of such action, were not yet formally authorized. But the Imperial Government pledged itself to a policy of toleration, which was continued by the Kepublic until 1884. It was then that Waldeck- Eousseau, the brilliant young lieutenant and ablest successor of Gambetta, gave the labour unions their legal status, and instructed his prefects to make easy for them the fulfilment of all required formalities. Waldeck-Rousseau would have liked to foster in France the development of powerful, highly organized unions of the English type, which he considered as an element of progress and stability. His statesmanlike policy was not understood. The employers clung to the prejudice that every working men's association was a revolutionary agency, bent upon depriving them of their legitimate share of profit and authority. They succeeded in frightening away from the syndicates all the ** good " men, i.e., those of a conservative, respectful, and timid turn of mind. These associations remained, therefore, the rallying-point of the agitators and the malcontents. Their ranks would swell in times of crisis, and be depleted when normal conditions prevailed. In ' short, labour unions have never been fully acclimatized in France. The Government outwardly favoured them. It sub- sidized labour exchanges,* which, among other fields of useful- ness, were to provide a home for the syndicates. At the same time, the old spirit of diffidence and secret hostility had not vanished. Whilst the State encouraged the labourers of private industries to form unions, it never formally granted the same right to its own employees, just as the kings of old favoured the • The one in Paris was opened in 1887. \ V 212 FRENCH CIVILIZATION IN XIXth CENTURY communal movement everywhere except in their own domains. Many unions refused to comply with certain formalities which they considered vexatious, useless, and even dangerous. M. Dupuy took advantage of the conflict to close4he Paris Labour Exchange in 1893. In fact, this official home of the syndicates in the capital has repeatedly been tprfcjd u|to a sort of insurrectional fortress which the police had to capture, not without bloodshed.* The labour unions were supposed to be purely economic associations and to stand aloof from politics. As a matter of fact, their neutrality never was more than nominal. For a long time they were considered as mere branches of the Socialist party. Socialist deputies and journalists pleaded their cause in Parliament and in the Press, Socialist orators came to encourage them with fiery speeches^ Jn times of conflict. In 1902 the General Confederation o7 Labour, created in 1895, practically absorbed the earlier Federation of Labour Exchanges and became the leading factor in the situation. From that time on Syndi- calism, fully organized, has become more and more independent of the Socialist party. But it retains the essentials of the Socialist doctrine — the war of the classes, the emancipation of the wage earners, collective ownership of all instruments of production. The diff'erence between the Socialists and the Syndicalists is one of method and spirit. The Socialists believe in political action. The moderate elements among them even believe in parliamentary methods and try to secure immediate social improvements through co-operation with the bourgeois parties. The more radical branch pooh-pooh such attempts, but expect to carry out socialism in toto as soon as they have captured the political machinery. In a country like France, governed by manhood sufirage, their aim and their method are not essentially revolutionary. The Syndicalists, on the contrary, have no faith in politics. They ignore the State, which is merely an organiza- tion for the defence of capital. They ignore the Fatherland, a * However, it must be said that a few s}Tidicates were conducted in a less violent and more businesslike method. The Federation of the Printing Trades, ably led by Keufer, has a fine record of efficient service. The Miners' Union, with Basly, and the Railwa>TQen's Union, with Guerard, secured favourable legislation for their respective industries, on account of the electoral THE SOCIAL QUESTION 213 f influence which their numbers gave them. delusion kept up by the governing classes in order to perpetuate their power. Social legislation is a snare. Socialist politicians are mostly professional men, bourgeois by birth, education, asso- ciation ; in a bourgeois assettibly, they lose touch with the actual problems of the workings classes. Laws with high-sounding labels, but amended by the||^o!^^?^tive Senate, hemmed in by restrictive interpretations of the Minister and the Council of State, enforced with reluctance or partisanship by the prefects, the police, the courts, bring !io relief to the labourers. The role of Parliament is not to initiate reforms : the best it can do is to register them in the Statute-book when they have been con- quered by direct action. The war of the classes is not political, but economic ; it should be waged not in assemblies, but in the streets or in workshops. Its chief instrument is the strike. Not only can the strike secure definite advantages — shorter hours, higher wages, recognition of the unions, etc. — but it has a high educative value. For it makes the antagonism of capital and labour manifest ; and it prepares men's minds for the final con- summation—the revolution of folded arms, the general strike, which, paralysing the whole bourgeois world, would usher in the new order. What that new order would be is not perfectly clear. This, at least, is certain : mere geographical organization would be subordinated to professional organization, the labour union, rather than the city, would be the social unit, the federation of labour would be more important than the State ; in other words, the ** political hierarchy would be replaced by economic federalism." Strikes are open war. But the silent war of the classes goes on relentlessly, even in times of apparent truce. So direct action continues, even when working men are at their posts. They can retaliate against employers hostile to organized labour by doing systematically poor work (" sabotage "), or by taking as long as they possibly can to finish a certain job ('' fignolage "). They can thus show their determination to sacrifice the interests of their employers, whenever these interests are in conflict with their own. They can enforce their will through street demon- strations and public meetings, by a display of sheer number if that be sufficient to overawe their adversaries, by open violence • I '■^7 I V 214 FRENCH CIVILIZxlTION IN XIXtii CENTURY in case of need. Thus was secured the closing of objectionable private employment bureaux. The Syndicalists know that '' orr^anized labour" forms but a small fraction of the active population in France. Furthermore, within that minority, the advocates of direct action and constant warfare are themselves a minority. They have steadily refused, in their congresses, proportional representation, which might place the big and comparatively conservative syndicates in control. They were hostile to the Millerand bill for the com- pulsory arbitration of labour disputes, which would require all working men to vote, by secret ballot, before deciding on a strike. Their argument is that democracy, the rule of mere numbers, is a fallacy? Only the few clear-sighted and energetic men who are conscious of their rights and willing to run risks are entitled to leadership. A handful of adventurous pioneers must blaze the trail for the rest. The amorphous mass should follow, and, in fact, does follow. Such is the law of progress.* Syndicalism is the direct offspring of anarchism : Proudhon is the ancestor of the moderate Syndicalists, Bakunine and Kropotkine the intellectual leaders of the more radical. But anarchism has a double aspect : free association as an ideal, and the violent destruction of the existing order. Violence rather than association is the keynote of the present movement. ITliere has undoubtedly been, within the last sixty years, a rc-barbariza- tion of Western Europe which the spread of education has failed to check. Bonapartism and Bismarckism, in some respects, represented the insolent triumph of brute force. The repression of the Commune has tilled the brains of the working classes with tragic visions. Darwinism was made to mean '' struggle for life and the survival of the fittest." Imperialism and military * This philosophy, in which can be traced Nictzschcian and Bergsonian influences, has been copiously expounded by an involved, paradoxical, and stimulating thinker, Georges Sorel, mainly in The Delusions of Progress and Rerfectio7is m Violence. One curious point of this doctrine is the theory of myths. Men need some hope of sudden and complete salvation, a myth era- bodying all their aspirations. The second coming of Christ was such a myth for the early Church. The general strike is the myth of Syndicalism. It3 potency is not to be mea;.ured by its practicability : it i. a dynamic or creative idea. THE SOCIAL QUESTION 215 patriotism are doctrines of violence. Nations have been living on the principle that might is right. The moral effect of these influences can now be seen. ^' ' There is, of course, in syndicalism, as in all gospels of war, Bomething superior to mere brutality. There is a sense of the value of energy and individual responsibility. Dr. Gustavo Le Bon and others affected to believe that State socialism would be the refuge of wornout, effete races: syndicalism preaches the strenuous life. There is no tiabbiness about it. It seems as though the worst of the first syndicalist crisis were over. In 1906-10 France, in the opinion of many thoughtful observers, was on the verge of a revolution. The 1st of May, lUOG, was expected to open the era of conflagration. The postmen's strike, the rebellion of the winegrowers in the south, the general railroad strike, were signs of deep social unrest. No radical change has taken place ; but there is a lull in the strife, due partly to the revival of military nationalism. The old machines, parliamentary government and capitalistic indiistrv, continue their course without excessive jerks or friction, jiut the outlook is by no means reassuring. The most unexpected development of syndicalism was its success among the State employees. They had always been considered as the mainstays of order, discipline, and the hierarchy. Direct action was the last thing these '* knights of the red tape " seemed capable of. They had already what other hibourers strive in vain to secure : short hours, steady employ- ment, old age pensions. Their alliance witli the revolutionists seemed sheer madness. But they had economic grievances : their wages had not increased so fast as the cost of living.* The only method of improving their condition was through Parliament ; but '' lobbying " is a slow, uncertain, and above all a humiliating method. The officials grew weary of importuning deputies and senators for favours instead of discussing the terms ^ : V • The rate of letter postage had been reduced from 15 centimes to 10; hence a rapid growth of pobtal business, whilst the staff remained about the same and complained of overwork. The teachers had been expected to devote their evenings to social work (mutual help societies, etc.) and extension classes without anv remuneration. 216 FRENCH CIVILIZATION IN XlXxri CENTURY of a contract like free men. They resented especially the gi'owing interference of politicians in matters of appointments and promotions. The French civil service had never been run on the spoils system : the same functionaries, appointed for life, served all Ministries, Governments, or even regimes with the same zeal or the same indifference. The bureaucracy was until recent years an autonomous power in the State. Now, after the Dreyfus crisis, the Radicals thought it was a scandal that the Republic should be served by Monarchists whilst so many good Republicans were kept out in the cold ; so they set themselves to the task of ** republicanizing " the different public services. This policy had some justification ; there had been in the past instances of flagrant anti-republican favouritism. But the abuses did not disappear; they merely changed sides. The friends of Radical deputies were advanced with scandalous rapidity. Young private secretaries were promoted over the heads of tried and faithful specialists. It was against this growing evil, this multitudinous tyranny, that the officials rose in their wrath. Syndicalism was in fashion ; so they formed syndicates and sought affiliation to the General Federation of Labour. Not that they were anarchists ; all they wanted was that a certain measure of democracy be introduced into the old Napoleonic hierarchy, and guarantees that promotion would bo the reward of professional merit rather than of political intrigue. A law defining the status of State employees has long been promised but is ever deferred. It would allow them to form associations, but not syndicates. Some method would be devised for adjusting their difficulties without resorting to strikes. When such a law is passed, if it be broad enough, and generously interpreted, the syndicalist danger will disappear. At present, France offers the paradoxical situation of State employees as a body supporting the General Confederation of Labour— an organization openly at war with the State.* * It is probable that State employees will be divided into three categories with slightly difierent rights : (1) Purely industrial services, arsenals, ship' building yards, gun foundries, match and tobacco factories, etc (2) Industrial services which cannot be interrupted without inflicting damages on the general life of the country (telephonic, telegraphic, postal, and i THE SOCIAL QUESTION 217 Sixty per cent, of the French population live on the land, and landowners form more than one-half of the rural classes ; there are 3,500,000 peasant proprietors (12 to 15,000,000 with their families). Here we have, therefore, the conditions which the leaders of the ** Back to the Land" movement are so eager to restore in Great Britain. This is the main result of the Revolu- tion, which confiscated and sold the estates of the nobility and clergy. The Napoleonic Code gave stability to the new regime, and through elaborate inheritance laws prevented the reconstitu- tion of large domains. As a matter of fact, throughout the nine- teenth century there has been no tendency towards concentration ; Marxian prophecies are here absolutely at fault. The division •f property has undoubtedly gone to an extreme in France. Each peasant owns but a few acres, which are scattered in small and irregular fields all over the territory of the parish ; this is why the French country-side ofi'ers such a curious patchwork. Thanks to the obstinate toil of the peasant and to his thrifty habits he can manage to subsist on his diminutive farm. He can even hoard up a few ecus in the traditional woollen stocking, until he gets a chance of purchasing another patch of ground. This class is said to be the backbone of France. No one will deny their perseverance and frugality. Under this regime, the country is practically self-supporting and almost free from severe economic crises ; and its faculty of recuperation after great disasters is truly marvellous. But one may wonder whether the price paid for these advantages was not excessive. The scattered fields entail an enormous waste of labour ; modern methods require larger areas, more capital, more education, a broader outlook, than the plodding French peasant can possess. If he were left unprotected, he could not compete with the large and up-to-date producers of America. This would lead to a recasting of the agricultural system — a terrible crisis, but one which might be followed by an era of indefinite progress. Such a revolution, however, is not to be expected ; the peasants are the controlling factor in the political life of the country. On railroad services). (3) Administrative officers, tax-collectors, and other clerks, police, teachers, etc. But the distinction is by no means easy to draw. \ i 218 FRENCH CIVILIZAIIO.N 1.N XIXth CENTURY almost every subject they follow the lead of the cities ; but when thexr immediate interests are at stake they know h^w to Take care of themselves. The one hope of salvation for the country lies in agricultural associations. Whilst the peasants ar« radically opposed to the collective o,vnership of la'nd They a e beginning to realize the possibilities of co operati"; Thek syndica es-which have nothing but the name'in common wHh he syndicates of industrial workers-will help them to comWne t^e advantages of capital, expert advice and scientific manage property * """"" "'" '''' -dependence of privfL France, on the whole, is the country where socialistic ideas equal! divided tVT ''' ''''' "'^"^ P'^P^'^ ^ --* equa ly d mded. To the huge masses of peasant proprietors etai dealers, and independent artisans should bemadded the tliat harnJ' "^^-''"/--'--for rare is the French f nS; St on ' Tb/ I <^°"«f vation is therefore overwhelmingly strong. The drawback of this system is mediocrity. In spite of all industry and thriftiness, the wealth of France is not increasing so fast as that of her more daring rivals. The polky dlrsSshiteT" ""'^ r'^°" '^""-^ ^'^ bound t'/ro I disastrous in the long run. Mouey-making on the lar-e scale has Its redeeming features; but there is no hope of salvlon term'tf'Se'Sc £)'t'"'".°,V'^ ''""^'^ agrarians, and during his power. ^ ^'^^^ ^' '''"'^ '^'" '">'"«='« by every means in his BIBLIOGEAPHY E. Lkvassedr. Histoire des Classes Ouvri^res et de rindnstrie en France de 1789 a 1870. 2 vols. 8vo, 749-912 pp. Second edition. A. Rousseau, Paris. 1903-4. Questions Ouvridres et Industrielles sous la 3^™« R^publique. 8vo, 968 pp. A. Rousseau, Paris. 1907. (Exhaustive, old-fashioned, but scrupulously fair.) G. Weill. Histoire du Mouvement Social en France de 1852 k 1910. 8vo. 531 pp. Second edition. Alcan, Paris. 1911. (Remarkably lucid and objective. Good bibliography.) Louis Levine. The Labour Movement in France. 212 pp. Columbia University, New York. 1912. (A convenient introduction to the subject. Bibliography.) Jean Jaures (general editor). Histoire Socialiste. (Extremely unequal. Vast amount of new material.) Of some literary interest are the following : — L. Reybaud. J^r6me Paturot a la Recherche de la Meilleure des R^publiques. 4 vols. Levy. 1848. The same L. Reybaud had treated the subject more seriously in his Etudes sur les R^formateurs ou Socialistes Modernes. 2 vols. Guillaume. S. Charlety. Histoire du Saint-Simonisme. 12mo. Rachette. 1896. (More sympathetic than the study of G. Weill on the same subject.) G. Geffroy. L'Enferme (Blanqui). Charpentier, Paris. 1896. (Intensely lifelike.) The rural classes: — M. Aug6-Laribe. L'Evolution de la France Agricole, Bibliothequc du Mouvement Social Contemporain. ISmo. A. Colin, Paris. 219 I THE SOCIAL QUESTION 221 1789 1791 1793 1796-97 1804 1825 1831 1832 1834 1837 1837-39 1840 1841 1847 1848 1861 1859 1861 1863 CHEONOLOGICAL TABLE VI. THE SOCIAL QUESTION August 4. (Theoretical) Suppression of Feudalism and reform of Guilds. November 3. Abolition of Feudal Regime. Some of the rights to be redeemed. March to June. Laws abolishing Guilds, and Chapelier law prohibiting professional associations of any kind. March 18. Death penalty enacted against whoever should propose an "agrarian law " (for the equal division of property). July 17. All forms of feudal property abolished without com- pensation. Campaign., conspiracy and execution of Caius Gracchus Babceuf. Civil Code (based on bourgeois conception of property and liberty of contract. Cf. Art. 1780-81). Death of Saint-Simon. November, and 1834, February. Lyons Insurrection. Dispersion of the Saint-Simonian School. Society of the Rights of Man (socialistic). Death of Fourier. Society of the Seasons (Barb^s and Blanqui). Communists' Federation founded in London. Cabet's Icarxa. Louis Blanc : On tJie Organization of Labour. Proudhon : What is Property ? Manifesto of the Communist party, Marx and Engels. February. Revolution in Paris. Democratic and Social Republic. Luxembourg Commission on Labour Problem. Creation of National Workshops. June. Suppression of National Workshops. Socialistic Insurrection. Leaders deported or shot. September 9. Law limiting day's work to twelve hours. December 2. Coup d'Etat. Reaction. Socialists deported. Societies dissolved. Right of reunion curtailed. Era of great public works and industrialism. Amnesty. Return of many exiles. Working men's delegates sent to the Exposition of London. Prince Napoleon tries to form a Bonapartist Labour party. General Elections. Manifesto of the Sixty. 220 1864 Prohibition of " coalitions " repealed. The International Working Men's Association. 1865 Death of Proudhon. 1867 Publication of Marx's Capital (translated into French, 1872). 1868 International Association ruined in France by two public prosecu- tions. Communists triumph over Mutualists at the Brussels Congress. Repeal of Art. 1781 of the Civil Code, and other Liberal measures. Numerous strikes, 1867-70. 1871 March to May. The Commune. 1872 Congress of the International at the Hague. Marxists expel Bakouninists. 1877 Jules Guesde's first campaign on behalf of Marxism. 1879 Marseilles Congress. Socialists assume direction of Labour Move- ment. 1884 Waldeck-Rousseau Law on Trade Unions. 1887 Paris Labour Exchange open. 1889 International Socialist Congress, Paris. 1892-94 Anarchistic outrages. Repressive measures. 1892 Law limiting day's work to eleven hours for women and children. Federation of Labour Exchanges. 1893 Paris Labour Exchange closed by Government. 1895 General Confederation of Labour created. 1896 Millerand's Speech at Saint-Mande, defining Political Socialism. 1898 Employers' Liability Act. 1898-99 Dreyfus Crisis. Millerand Minister of Commerce and Industry in Waldeck-Rousseau Cabinet. Numerous Socialistic decrees (1899-1902). 1899-1900 Numerous strikes. 1900 March 30. Millerand-Colliard Law, limiting day's work to eleven hours for men employed in the same shops as women and children . International Socialist Congress in Paris. 1902 General Confederation of' Labour absorbs Federation of Labour Exchanges. 1904 Amsterdam Congress. Participation of Socialists in bourgeois govern- ments condemned. Unification of French Socialist party. 1905 July 14. Law on the Compulsory Assistance of the Aged and Incurable. 1906 May 6. General Elections. Unified Socialists, 894,934 (exclusive of Independent Socialists). July 6. Law on the Weekly Day of Rest. October 25. Creation of Department of Labour and Social Welfare (Viviani). 1909 March to May. Two postal strikes. 1910 Briand, Millerand, Viviani— three Socialists in Cabinet. April 6. Old Age Pension Act. General Elections. Unified Socialist party, 1,107,369 votes. October. Railroad Strikes. Briand calls out the Reserves. CHAPTER VII EDUCATION § 1. Revolution and Empire. Relation of educational problem to religion and politics— Education on the eve of the Revolution— Ruin of the old system— Abortive plans— The Central Schools. Napoleon: Elementary education ignored— The Lycees — The Facultes— The University: its nature and purpose. The problems of French education cannot be understood except in the light of political and religious history. This is the inevitable result of the rift in the country's tradition. Educa- tion is meant to spread knowledge and to fit men for life : but to discern true from false knowledge, to tell rightly what kind of individual and social life is worth living implies a criterion, a philosophy, a faith. In America there are innumerable eddies in the broad stream of national consciousness : there is but one main current. Christianity and eighteenth-century rationalism, individualism, and democracy have been harmonized, or at least blended, for over a hundred years ; hence a comparatively simple conception of what education should be. The guide knows whither he is leading : the road and the pace alone are in question. In other terms, the principles of education are beyond dispute, the problem is mainly one of pedagogy. All over Europe, on the contrary, and particularly in France, con- flicting faiths clash furiously — conservatism against radicalism, Christianity against freethought. The school is a strategic position as keenly fought for as Parliament itself. Before 1789 education was entirely under the control of the clergy. The State had direct authority only over few special EDUCATION 223 institutions, such as the Eoyal College (College de France) . In villages the parish priest taught a few promising lads ; in the cities the elementary and secondary schools were mostly in the hands of friars. Girls were brought up in convents. The Jesuits had been particularly successful in the education of the upper bourgeoisie and the aristocracy. Rich families had ecclesiastical preceptors. Latin and mathematics were the essential parts of the curriculum. The twenty-two old universities were moribund. It cannot be denied that the upper classes of that time were intellectually bold, alert, logical, tolerably well informed, and cultured in the broadest sense of the term. Through a large number of scholarships and charitable institutions the sons of the people had access to a liberal schooling. Minor cities took pride in their learned bodies, their " academies." Education on the eve of the Revolution was, it may be granted, obsolete, lopsided, chaotic in the extreme ; but it was not so inefficient as modern democrats would have us believe. If it had been, the universal diffusion of philosoiMcal ideas revealed in the Cahiers of 1789 would be inconceivable.* The Revolution ruined this ancient order : the universities ceased to exist, the colleges lost their income, the convents were dispersed, the priests were banished or under constant suspicion. The new regime had a lofty conception of national education. Plan after plan was proposed and discussed at length, but the results were disappointing. The first reason is that some of the schemes, like those of Condorcet and Lepe- letier de Saint-Fargeau, were grandiose but impracticable. Even the more modest required vast resources which were not forthcoming at a time of civil and foreign war. The local authorities were as poor and powerless as the central adminis- tration. There was a dearth of competent teachers : the clerics were not available, the laymen of some culture had more bril- liant careers open to them. Thus illiteracy increased, and the generation which grew to manhood in the last decade of the eighteenth century was undoubtedly more ignorant and probably less intelligent than its predecessors. • Cahiers : the lists of grievances and proposed reforms drawn by the primary assemblies before the elections to the States General. y 224 FRENCH CIVILIZATION IN XIXth CENTURY In secondary education the humanities, in spite of the craze for classical antiquity, suffered most heavily. The central schools, which after 1795 took the place of the old colleges offered a system of elective courses : the great majority of students took science and drawing, whilst history, legislation, and *' general grammar " were neglected. The immediate prac- tical value of the sciences was realized by the State as well as by private citizens ; if Lavoisier's services to chemistry failed to save his life, other scientists enjoyed the enlightened protec- tion of the Government. The most interesting creations of the Convention — the Polytechnic School, the Bureau des Longitudes, the reorganized Museum of Natural History, or the Conservatory of Ai'ts and Crafts — were scientific, and more especially technical institutions. On the other hand, the famous French Academy lost its prestige with its identity, and survived as a mere section of the new Institute of France. The alleged antagonism between democracy and disinterested culture was already apparent. No attempt was made to provide an equivalent for the old universities. There were only two law schools and three medical schools left for the whole of France. Even these were not well attended : for whoever cared to set himself up as a lawyer or a physician could do so without a degree. There soon was a scarcity of trained and skilful practitioners. Enormous was the task awaiting the First Consul in this as in all other fields. Unfortunately he was totally unprepared for this side of it. He was a born administrator ; in legislation he saw with great clearness a few essential points ; but he was no educator, and his suggestions were often chaotic and imprac- ticable to a surprising degree.* His advisers, Chaptal and Four- croy, were great chemists, but their minds lacked philosophic breadth. Something was achieved, of course. With the return of normal conditions education was bound to progress. But the intellectual development of France was handicapped rather than promoted by the creations of Napoleon. Elementary education was simply ignored. A paltry subsidy of 4,250 francs to the Catholic schools was all the contribution * Liard, L' Evseignevieni Su^^ieuVt etc., II, 22-3. EDUCATION 225 of the State to that essential service. Teachers were instructed not to go beyond the three R's and the Catechism, wherein '* our duties towards our Sovereign Napoleon the Great " were properly emphasized. Prefects were at liberty to create normal schools in their departments, but only one, Lezay-Marnesia, in the lower Ehine, availed himself of the permission. In secondary education the central schools disappeared. Some of them had met with indifferent success : little wonder during a period of upheaval and regeneration ! but many were flourishing. Experience had revealed many imperfections: they did not properly articulate with any other grade; they were '' suspended in mid-air"; their system of electives was detrimental to literary culture. But, compared with the colleges of the ancient regime, they were remarkably practical, democratic, open to modern ideas. Their courses on '' the history of free nations '* and comparative legislation — the first to be suppressed by Bona- parte — could have provided an adequate preparation for citizen- ship in a modern State. Experts agreed that a reform was needed : hardly any one advocated a return to the pre-Revolu- tionary methods. Yet the lycees were hardly anything but the old colleges, with their interminable Latin course, their emphasis on rhetoric and formal logic, their neglect of history and natural science, their monastic discipline. The central school student enjoyed excessive freedom in the selection of his courses : now uniformity prevailed, enforced throughout the Empire by a centralized bureaucracy. The boarding system, too, was restored in all its rigoui'. For eight or nine years, and for ten months in the year, boys were to see little or nothing of their families. Every one of their movements would be regulated by the rolling ♦ of drums. They had to wear a military uniform. Their head- masters resided in the schools and were celibates like the monks of old. The lycee was a combination of the cloister and the barracks. Its aim was to drill obedient subjects : individuality was constantly repressed. The lycees were supposed to provide all the general culture needed for life. Consequently, superior education was entrusted, not to universities, but to technical schools, in which disinterested science had no place. The professions were no longer free of 15 \ 226 FRENCH CIVILIZATION IN XIXth CENTURY access as under the Revolution: a degree was necessary to qualify as a physician or a lawyer. The granting of this degree, which created a privilege for its holder and constituted a guarantee for the State, thus became the chief end of superior education. A rigid system of examinations was established, so that the degrees of the new facultes might not become a farce like those of the old universities. There was a gain in effi- ciency. But formalism and cramming always go with the examination method, and they still prevail.* No less than twenty-seven facultes of Letters and as many facultes of Sciences were planned. This very abundance should warn us that they were but in name similar to the pro- fessional schools of law, medicine, and divinity. They were at best a sort of undergraduate department. As a matter of fact, most of them had a purely nominal existence ; they had no teaching staff and no buildings of their own, but borrowed both from the lycees. With the advancement of learning they had little to do. Their role was threefold. In a sense they were professional ; they prepared teachers for secondary education. Essentially they were examining bodies, stamping with official approval the products of the lycees and guarding the entrance to the professions. Accessorily, they were institutes or athenaeums, centres for popular lectures opened to the general public. These characters they have retained throughout the nineteenth century and are but slowly losing at present. Uni- versity professors still waste much time examining high-school students, and the old-fashioned literary course, full of wit, eloquence, and allusions, is still occasionally given for the benefit of fashionable ladies and retired magistrates. In France, therefore, there were no genuine universities, since the different facultes of the same region did not form a group, but were absolutely unrelated and often located in * In addition to three medical schools and nine law schools, Napoleon organized two schools of Protestant and nine schools of Catholic theology. This was the consequence of the official association between the State and the Churches. The Catholic schools were always viewed with suspicion by Rome: they disappeared in 1885 unregretted. The Protestant schools became independent of State control in 1905. / EDUCATION 227 different towns ; and there was no Philosophische Fakultat worthy of the name, nothing even that we might call a College of Liberal Arts. The results of these deficiencies were disastrous enough ; they would have been much worse but for the exist- ence in Paris of a certain number of institutions which partly supplied the need. First of all, two relics of the ancient regime, the Royal College and the King's Garden, reorganized by the Convention as the College de France and the Museum of Natural History. The College, founded by Francis I to promote the study of classical languages, is an admirable centre of disinterested investigation, preparing to no career, requiring and granting no degrees. The Museum, annexed to a zoological and botanical garden, is also an organization for teaching and research ; it is unequalled for the number of famous scientists on its roll. The Normal School and the Polytechnic School were created by the Convention, but did not assume their final form until later. In the Normal School, the severe selection of a competitive entrance examination, and the small number of students, all boarders, have created an atmosphere and a tradition of no small importance in the history of French literature and science. The Polytechnicians are also a picked body of young men ; more numerous than the Normalians and subjected to strict military discipline, they show less individuality, a more rigid esprit de corps. The curriculum is so encyclopedic, the studies so thorough, that the school has turned out not only artillery officers and govern- ment engineers, but scientists, philosophers, and even poets. These and other survivals or creations such as the Paris ObseiTatory, the Bureau of Longitudes, and the School of Modern Oriental languages, counteracted the sterilizing influence of Napoleon's system. This system was completed by the creation of the Imperial University, decided upon in 1806, but not effected until two years later. The general problem was to reconstitute the unity of the nation, to reconcile the old France and the new. The Concordat and the University were means to that end. The University was to include every form and degree of public education throughout the land. No one could open a school 228 FRENCH CIVILIZATION IN XIXth CENTURY or become a teacher without entering its ranks and conform- ing to its regulations. The University represents the omni- potent State in its educational capacity. In Napoleon's intention, it was to remain to a certain extent independent of the State. Liberty of education was contrary to Napoleon's principles : to him it meant anarchy ; a monopoly directly exercised by the secular power would have been intolerable to the Catholics, whose support was essential to his plans ; give over education to the Church he would not and could not, for it was impossible to undo so openly the work of the Revolution, and besides he was jealous of his own preroga- tives. So he devised this intermediate organ, this curious entity, this separate corporation, endowed, privileged, and yet nou-political. Laymen and priests were to find place in it, under the authority of a Grand Master appointed by the Emperor. He hoped to make it a real ** Order," submitted to rules of celibacy and life in common ; the very name Grand Master pointed in that direction. He hoped especially that this ''Order" would hold, preserv^e, and teach the prin- ciples of the regime created by him, and bring up the new generation in the reverence of his dynasty. He tried to manufacture a tradition in a decade. The undertaking was grandiose and not wholly selfish : for Napoleon considered his power, his interests, as identical with those of the new France. But it was doomed to failure ; the new regime had no principles of its own broad enough to be acceptable to all Frenchmen, and definite enough to provide a firm basis for national education. The apparent unity secured by the University was the result of compromise and compulsion : it was conformity, not harmony. Like the Concordat, the University was a constant cause of discord. But it did not endure so long. Barely forty years after its inception it was a thing of the past (1850). To-day hardly anything remains of the Napoleonic conception, except its administrative framework.* * The University of France was then divided into educational districts or ** academies " (there are sixteen at present). The rectors of these academies are the equivalent of State Superintendents or Commissioners of Education, at the same time as university presidents. f EDUCATION 229 § 2. Constitutional Monarchy. The Restoration-The University preserved-The clerical question- The Sorbonne trio-Elementary, education ; mutual and simultaneous systems-The July monarchy-Heyday of the University-The CoUte de France trio-Attacks of the Catholics against the monopoly- (juizot law on elementary education. The University was so entirely Napoleon's work that it was not expected to survive his downfall. In 1814-15, Royer-Collard and Guizot were commissioned to draw up an ordinance which created seventeen regional universities, thereby destroying the single, centralized organization of the Empire. The return from Elba caused this plan to be set aside. With the Second Restoration, the attack on the University was i-enewed with great ardour. The Catholics, the Ultra- Roy alists, denounced it as a centre of ** Jacobinism." But more pressing problems called the attention of the Govern- ment and the University was ** provisionally " maintained.* For the Grand Master and the Superior Council were sub- stituted a Committee of Five, in which Royer-Collard and Cuvier played the leading parts. After six years of this temporary regime, the constitution and privileges of the University were purely and simply confirmed, and the position of Grand Master revived (February 27, 1821). Once more It was apparent that Louis XVIII was the successor of Napoleon I and not. of Louis XVI. The centralized institu-^ tions of the Empire were so convenient, they represented so > clearly the ideal which the old French kings were slowly attempting to realize, that the restored monarchy could not afford to discard them. Thus the prefectoral administration was preserved, in spite of a strong sentiment in favour of provincial franchises; thus it was not found possible to dis- pense with the Concordat; thus the University was saved. This does not mean that the genius of Napoleon had created the indispensable framework of modern France : it means that his autocracy had spoiled his successors, who, naturally • A few facult^s of sciences and seventeen facult^s of letters were suppressed. 230 FRENCH CIVILIZATION IN XIXth CENTURY enough, were reluctant to give up any of the prerogatives he had enjoyed : self-denial is even less to be expected of a government than of individuals. The University was retained as instrumentum regni. It would have to bring up the new generation in the love of legitimate monarchy and the Catholic Church. Every eflfort was bent in that direction. Cousin, Guizot, whose teaching seemed too liberal, were dismissed. The Normal School had already been suppressed for the same reason. The Grand Master was a priest, Mgr. de Frayssinous. In 1824, when the Ministry of Public Education became a Cabinet position, it was significantly linked with the Department of Ecclesias- tical Affairs. The bishops were empowered to visit all the schools in their dioceses. They were at the head of the com- mittees for the appointment of teachers. Yet the Church was not satisfied with such tremendous influence : what she wanted was direct control. The University stood in the way ; although permeated by the clergy, it was in principle a lay institution. So the Catholics did not disarm, and Lamennais, at that time a thoroughgoing Ultramontane, accused the State schools of teaching ** practical atheism and the hatred of Christianity." It is interesting to note that, nearly a century ago, the Bourbon monarchy was attacked exactly in the same terms as the Republic of Jules Ferry, Paul Bert, and Emile Combes. It proves that nothing short of absolute domination will satisfy the Church. Unable to secure that, she attempted to break down the monopoly enjoyed by the State. The preparatory seminaries, since 1814, were no longer under the jurisdiction of the University ; they were gradually turned into ordinary high schools, and enrolled more students than the official lycees and colleges.* The Jesuits, under the name of Fathers of the Faith, were developing their institutions. The plan of attack was well concerted. But the reactionary De Villele administration was driven from office. The Liberals came in with De Martignac, and the '* encroachments of clericalism " were checked. As a * In 1828, 50,000 against 35,000 in the public high schools and 28,000 in the private high schools under University supervision. EDUCATION 231 measure of protection against the Jesuits, all teachers were required to sign a declaration that they did not belong to a religious order not legally authorized in France. The pre- paratory seminaries were reduced to their proper sphere, the education of future candidates for the priesthood, and the maximum number of their students was fixed at 20,000 (June 16, 1829). Cousin and Guizot were reinstated in their University positions. They and Villemain attracted crowds to the old Sorbonne. Cousin, a genuine philosopher with a dash of the mountebank— Plato-Scapin, as Sainte-Beuve called him — denounced materialism and preached with admirable eloquence his eclectic idealism — Plato, Kant, Hegel com- pounded to suit the taste of the Liberal bourgeoisie. At that time, Cousin believed that philosophy transcended religion, that it was religion purified from popular prejudices; and he came dangerously near what the orthodox are pleased to call the ** abyss of pantheism.*' Guizot expounded with lofty gravity the philosophy of French civilization. The ultimate triumph of safe and sane liberalism, as represented by the middle class, was the underlying principle of all his courses. Villemain was not a man of the same calibre. Yet he lec- tured with brilliant success on the literature of the eighteenth century, rightly insisting on the comparative study of French and foreign authors. These three professors, Mignet aptly said, had France for their audience. A time when the triumphs of educators eclipsed those of opera singers is not to be despised. Yet it may be said that the influence on the development of French education was not wholly good. Admirable work was done at the Sorbonne, the College de France, the Museum, by men like Cauchy, Leclerc, Biot, Ampere, Thenard, Daunou, Quatremere de Quincy, Silvestre de Saci, Abel R^musat, Boissonade, J. L. Burnouf, Gay- Lussac, Geofi'roy Saint-Hilaire, Cuvier. Cousin, Guizot, Ville- main themselves were scholars as well as orators. Cousin, flashy though he was, did excellent service in editing important texts,* and he actually created in France the historical study of philosophy. Guizot was an indefatigable and conscientious • Proclus in six volumes, Pascal, etc. \^ 232 FRENCH CIVILIZATION IN XIXth CENTURY investigator, and it was under his direction that in afle^% years the great collection of documents relative to French history was commenced. But it was not these substantial achievements that their disciples and rivals admired or envied ; it was the exhilaration of swaying an assembly in which the aristocracies of birth, beauty, wealth, intellect and political power were represented. The great trio of 1829 are partly responsible for Bellac — for the many elegant, witty, and shallow courses which have so long been the bane of French universities.* A For primary education the Bourbon monarchy showed no more generosity than the Empire. It was left entirely to the Church, to the local authorities, and to private initiative. Thousands of villages had no school whatever. In many others, ** teaching** fell to the lot of some person otherwise unemploy- able — pauper, cripple, Napoleonic veteran. Oftentimes the school was annexed to some shop — the wine-shop not ex- cluded. When the master himself was illiterate, as it occasionally happened, his duties were perforce limited to the herding of the village ragamuffins whilst their parents were at work. In the cities, however, some progress was made. The ** mutual** or ** monitorial ** system, applied with success in England by Bell and Lancaster, was then introduced. The Society for Promoting Elementary Education founded a number of schools, for adults as well as for children. But political and religious difficulties were grafted on the pedagogical prob- lem. The mutual system was admirably adapted to a country where everything had to be done, and done with limited resources. On the other hand, according to the conservatives, it ruined discipline and transformed the school house into a congeries of unruly republics. In the institutions of the Brothers of the Christian Doctrine, the master did not commit to any of his pupils a particle of his authority : the proper habits of order and subordination were thus instilled. So the mutual schools were favoured by the liberals whilst • The revived interest in mediaeval history, due to romanticism and political reaction, resulted in the creation of the School of Charters, 1821, for the training of librarians, record-keepers, and paleographers. EDUCATION 233 "simultaneous instruction** remained the rule with the religious orders. Neither method was practised or practicable in the smaller rural communities: there the master devoted his attention to one pupil at a time, with extremely unequal results. The revised charter of 1830 promised the liberty of educa- tion, i.e., the end of the monopoly established by Napoleon. But this promise was not kept. Lamennais, Lacordaire, and Montalembert, who, on the strength of it, had opened an independent school, were prosecuted. The Voltairian Liberals who assumed power were great admirers of the Emperor, and therefore of the University, one of his most personal creations. They cherished it all the more because it was obnoxious to the Church. The constitutional, anti-clerical, theistic, and bourgeois spirit which prevailed in it was theirs. Like the advisers of Louis XVIII, they were loath to deprive themselves of such an admirable means of domination. The reign of Louis- Philippe represents the heyday of the University. Under Napoleon it was still in its formative stage; under the Eestoration it was treated with suspicion, governed by men like Mgr. de Frayssinous, who, ** hopeless of getting any good out of it, was merely trying to prevent as much harm as he could." After 1830, with such Ministers and Grand Masters as Guizot, Cousin, Villemain, and even Salvandy, it reached its fullest development. However, it was weakened by its very triumph : it lost to politics some of its best-known masters, whose places were filled year after year by less famous— and underpaid— substi- tutes. The College de France, instead of the Sorbonne, became the centre of attraction ; there Michelet, Quinet, and a Polish refugee, Mickiewicz, preached to eager audiences the gospel of democracy. In the forties, the old college was indeed a church, and Quinet was justified in likening his mission to that of an Emerson or a Channing. It was greatly through these three warm-hearted poets, historians, and prophets that the rising generation was permeated with romantic humani- tarianism. They heralded the Revolution of 1848, with its beautiful Utopian spirit. From the scientific point of view 234 FRENCH CIVILIZATION IN XIXth CENTURY their courses did not count : they did not even have the incentive value of Cousin's, Guizot's, and Villemain's ; theii- message was to the people. It was at the Normal School, and especially at the Archives, that Michelet did his admirable work as a scholar and a teacher. This was also the time when the University was most consistently and most bitterly assailed. Canon Desgarets, Montalembert, Veuillot, led the attack. Cousin, Villemain, defended their position with ability and authority. Quinet, Michelet, made a counter-campaign against the Jesuits. Guizot was caught between his party allegiance and his professed principles. Thus the fight went on, and Louis-Philippe fell before any conclusion was reached. But the Catholics had not wasted their efforts. The bourgeoisie, grown conservative now that it was in power, was beginning to look with less favour upon the University, and to seek an alliance with the Church. Cousin himself had lost much of his assurance : he now offered his philosophy rather as an introduction to religion than as an improvement upon it. Guizot dealt with the Jesuits with half-hearted, unconvincing rigour— much more leniently than Vatimesnil had done imder Charles X. This change of attitude was hastened by the Kevolution of 1848. But it was well under way as early as 1845. To the government of the Citizen King belongs the credit ot having for the first time organized popular education. The law of June 22, 1833, prepared by Guizot, may seem timid and incomplete compared with the ambitious schemes of the Kevolution or with modern achievements. But it was a radical improvement. Each ** commune " was compelled to keep up at least one primary school. Towns over 6,000 were obliged to maintain in addition one higher primary school. To meet the expenditure, 3 per cent, was added to local direct taxes. Should this resource prove inadequate, the department or the State would make up the deficiency.* Attendance was not * Only boys' schools were considered. The education of girls was not organized until three years later, and as this was done by an ordinance instead of a law, the local bodies could not be compeUed to provide the funds. Girls' schools were thus ignored until 1850. EDUCATION 235 . compulsory, only pauper children were excused fi-om tuition fees, salaries were ridiculously small, and in populous cities classes were so large that the monitorial system had still to be resorted to. In 1847 the State spent only 3,000,000 francs for public education, and nearly 40,000,000 for public worship. But the system worked, and, modest though it was, results were soon apparent. In 1830 more than one-half of the military contingent could neither read nor write. In 1847 the pro- portion had fallen to one-third. § 3. Second Republic and Second Empire. The Revolution of 1848— The Falloux law on the liberty of education — Clerical influences under Napoleon III — Reaction under Fortoul — Admirable work by Victor Duruy. The Revolution of 1848, like the Convention of 1792, held out magnificent promises. The liberty of education was for- mally declared in the Constitution. Hippolyte Carnot, the son of Lazare Carnot, the *' Organizer of Victory," became Minister of Public Education. He planned to make elementary schools unsectarian, gratuitous, and compulsory. Little came out of these high ambitions. The only actual foundation of Carnot was a Superior School of Administration, which disappeared soon after his fall. The promised liberty of education was realized through the Falloux law, but not in the generous, democratic spirit in which it had been announced. ** Three facts," says M. Liard, **are bound together like the terms of a syllogism in the short public career of M. de Falloux. The closing of the national work- shops causes the upheaval of June. The Days of June strike the bourgeoisie with terror. The terrified bourgeoisie vote the law of 1850 as a measure of social preservation."* In the committee in charge of the bill, Thiers and Cousin, once the stanchest supporters of lay education, were now willing to turn it over to the clergy. ** The 40,000 schoolmasters are 40,000 priests of atheism and socialism," said Thiers. Some Catholics hoped that the Church would secure absolute control of all • L. Liard, L' Enseignement Sup6rieur, etc., ii. 233. /I \ 236 FRENCH CIVILIZATION IN XIXth CENTURY schools. This, however, did not come to pass. Thiers was one of those Voltairians who thought that religion was needed for the people, not for themselves : whilst entrusting elementary education to priests, nuns, and friars, he would have liked to keep intact the authority of the State in secondary education. Cousin wanted to save the University, as it had been saved under the Restoration, by placing it under the supervision and influence of the clergy. The erstwhile anti-clerical bourgeoisie, therefore, did not sun*ender unconditionally. It was necessary to come to a compromise. The Catholic leaders, on the other hand, Dupanloup, Falloux, Montalembert, were enlightened men, and belonged to the liberal wing of their party. The Falloux law was extremely disappointing for the fanatics. They roundly charged de Falloux with treason. Many of its provisions have long since been amended. But in spite of the constant attacks of the Radicals, its principle stands to the present day. This is sufficient justification for this much-maligned measure. The Falloux law dealt exclusively with elementary and secondary education. Its first effect was to destroy the Napoleonic University. Public education ceased to form a separate entity, a corporation, an order, with its Grand Master, its endowment, its civil rights and privileges : it became an administrative department like any other. The Church was thus rid of a potential rival in spiritual leadership. It was well understood that the Church alone would profit by the liberty of education : she alone had the organization, the financial resources, and the prestige required for such an under- taking. But ''liberty" was not enough: she secured valuable privileges. The bishops were ex-officio members of the academic councils, and their authority therein was really greater than that of the rectors themselves.* Catholic schools could be endowed and subsidized by the local authorities and by the State. Bishops and priests could open secondary schools with- out any of the formalities imposed upon their lay rivals. In elementary education, the letter of affiliation (or "letter of obedience ") of a friar or a nun was accepted instead of a • The number of " academies" and rectors had been increased to 89— one in each department. That made the rector a comparatively small personage. EDUCATION 237 qualifying certificate. But the Catholics failed to carry one of their most important points : the granting of degrees remained the monopoly of the State. Did Louis-Napoleon, in order to gain the support of the Catholics, promise them further advantages — perhaps even that complete control of education which had ever been the goal of their desires? There were rumours to that efl'ect, but they cannot be substantiated. Certain it is that, whilst Napoleon, during the first period of his reign, from the coup d'6tat to the Italian campaign, was the stanch ally of the Church, he no less firmly refused to become her tool. The law of 1854 strengthened the hands of the State in educational matters. The number of academic districts was reduced from 89 to 15 : the rector was thereby restored to a position of influence, and was better able to hold his own against the bishop. The administration of Minister Fortoul, from 1851 to 1856, has remained famous for its reactionary character. An oath of personal allegiance to the President or Emperor was exacted of every educator : whoever refused to take it was debarred from teaching. Yillemain, Cousin, Guizot were put on the retired list. Michelet, Quinet, Mickiewicz lost their professorships at the College de France. Many others — Barthelemy Saint- Hilaire, Vacherot, Jules Simon, Barui, Challemel-Lacour were summarily dismissed. Philosophy in the lycees was reduced to formal logic. Contemporary history was excluded. The course of studies was ** bifurcated " : students were required to choose, when much too young for such a decision, between two branches, the one exclusively scientific, the other ex- clusively literary. Minister Rouland, not a very competent man either, corrected some of the mistakes of his predecessor (1856-63). After 1859, and especially about 1863, the Empire became more liberal. Fortunately the right man was found to carry out the new policy. One of Napoleon's hobbies was to write a life of Caesar, his hero, the prototype of those '* providential men '* among whom he hoped some day to rank. Among the scholars whom he consulted was Victor Duruy. He liked the man, promoted him to be inspector-general, and, in 1863, quite unex- 238 FRENCH CIVILIZATION IN XIXth CENTURY pectedly, made him his Minister of Public Education. Duruy proved equal to the task. The law of 1867 increased the number and extended the curriculum of primary schools. Ten thousand public libraries — humble, to be sure, but of incalculable usefulness — were created. Elementary education was made practically gratuitous. Duruy waaited to make it compulsory as well, and had won the Emperor to his view when he was driven from office. In 1866 he granted official recognition to the Education League (Ligue de I'Enseigne- ment), founded in Alsace by a young teacher, Jean Mace, and two journeymen. He encouraged evening classes for adults and popular lectures. In secondary education he repaired the harm done under Fortoul, suppressed the ** bifurcation," restored the study of philosophy, introduced that of contemporary history, and created, by the side of the classical course, a " special " one, meant to be more practical. He had planned a system of public high schools for girls, but the opposition of the clergy in this case was too strong for him. In superior education, breaking away resolutely from the false ideal of catering to the general public, he fostered the seminar method by the creation of the ** Practical School of Superior Studies." It was through him, and thanks to the genuine interest of Napoleon IH in these matters, that Claude Bernard, Pasteur, Berthelot, Robin, were encouraged in their researches and provided with laboratories, still woefully inadequate, but much better equipped than in the previous decade. This progressive policy roused the suspicion and anger of the Church. It cannot be denied that materialism, positivism, and even atheism were at that time rampant among scientific men. For one Pasteur, who knew that there was something which his microscope could not reveal, there were many followers of Littre and Robin — earnest servants of truth, no doubt, but bigoted in their negative attitude. This was the pretext of a new attack, led by Mgr. Dupanloup, against State teach- ing in general, the Paris Medical School in particular, and Duruy personally. The matter was brought, in the form of a petition, before the Imperial Senate, and was debated EDUCATION 239 with a fullness which does credit to the Assembly and the time.* The irony of fate, in the shape of political combinations drove Duruy from the Ministry at the very moment when the Empire was becoming decidedly liberal. Duruy was sincerely attached to his Imperial master, who for six years had shielded him from the hostility of the clerical party; but he was thoroughly democratic and progressive. On that account he IS perhaps the only Bonapartist official to whom his Republican successors have shown any fairness. He ranks with Guizot and Jules Ferry among the master-builders of French education. § 4. The Thikd Republic. § 4. ElemenUiry Education.-^L^w of 1875 on the liberty of superior education-Jules Ferry. Paul Bert, and the national school system- Anti-clericahsm : about 1880-ReWval aft-er the Dreyfus case-The neutrality problem-Achievements of the Republic-Shortcomings The cnsis of primary education, material and moral- Socialism and 6\Tidicalism among the teachers. § 6. TJie Third Republic : Secoiuiary and Superior Education — Secondly The Church holds her own -Reorganization of the course -—The Reform of 1902. Superxor Education.-Cre^tion of local universities, 1896-University !"' • lif °^^^^^*1 importance and prestige-The provincial uni- versities-Their activities- Alleged excess of the scientific spirit- General culture outside the universities : literary lectures, etc Note on the Popular Universities. " It is the German schoolmaster that conquered at Sadowa and Sedan." France accepted this verdict, and the war of 1870 was immediately followed by a great movement in favour of universal education. Jean Mace's League started a petition which was soon covered with a million signatures. Yet, for ten years, little was achieved. The political status of the country was uncertain. The conservatives were in power, but not strong and unammous enough to carr>' out any definite scheme ot their own. The democrats were waiting for their chance of turnmg the nominal and provisional Republic into a permanent reality. One advantage, however, did the conservative party • L'Ensei^nemmi Sup^riewr d^rd U Senaf, Discussion cxtraU^ du UonvUur, ISmo, Hetzel. 1868; cL Sainte-Beuve's speech. 240 FRENCH CIVILIZATION IN XIXth CENTURY secure : it gave the Falloux law its long-deferred complement relative to the liberty of superior education. Four Catholic universities were immediately founded at Lille, Paris, Angers, and Lyons, with an isolated law school at Toulouse. Mixed juries of State and Church professors were to grant the degrees. Only one institution independent of Church and State alike was created: the Free School of Political Sciences. Taine and Boutmy, the fathers of the scheme, hoped to prepare for their country a generation of competent officials to help in the work of national regeneration. Without becoming such a power in the land, the school has a very creditable record. As soon as reaction was finally defeated, the Republican party proceeded with its educational programme. The man who assumed this huge responsibility was Jules Ferry, one of the few constructive statesmen of the present regime, the peer of Gambetta and Waldeck-Rousseau. He was ably seconded by Paul Bert, a physiologist of some repute, but, in politics and in religion, a man of more sectarian outlook than his chief. The reorganization of popular education meant war with the clergy. Not that the lay schools were intended to be atheistic, anti- catholic, or even anti-clerical ; but they were neutral in religious matters, and Rome maintains that neutrality and hostility are synonymous. ** Without the Church there is no salvation." The Catholics, whose spokesman was an active, eloquent, and thoroughly modem prelate, Mgr. Freppel, made desperate efforts to prevent the vote of the education Bills. The Repub- licans were ready with their reply. By a law passed in 1880 the mixed juries established in 1875 were suppressed and the State resumed the monopoly of granting university degrees. Article Vll of that same law debarred members of non-author- ized religious communities from giving any kind of teaching.* The proper certificates were required of everybody, instead of the letter ** of obedience." Gradually friars and nuns were eliminated from the public schools and their positions filled by lay teachers. This went on, sluggishly at times, for twenty • This article was rejected by the Senate. Thereupon Ferry, upheld by the Chamber of Deputies, dissolved and expelled a certain number of these illegal organizations ; of. Chapters V. and VIII. EDUCATION 241 years. The yictory of the Radicals, after the Dreyfus crisis gave a new impetus to this policy of secularization. That S State, professedly unsectarian, should not salary denominational tT: T 1903 ''' r * °'^^^"- ^'"^'^^ ^-*>- -- farther. In 1903 recognition was denied to the religious Orders which had applied for it under the Waldeck-RoSeau law on associations. Still, the Brothers of the Christian Natr n'- \ !r- ."*'" ---unities, authorised J Napoleon, retained their legal status. In 1904 a new law was passed providing that within ten years all schools undrr The control of religious Orders should be secularized or closed Thi drastic policy was relentlessly applied by Emile Combes himself Tt;LZflert''''i'T',"°" '^^""°"^'^' ^y'^^^ -~ • The Idea of certain Radicals is manifestly that the State should be he sole educator: all French children should be brought up n the principles of "modern civilization" and steeled aVinst the prejudices and superstitions of the " obscurantists." They would fam adopt, with some slight correction, the motto of Z monarchical France : " One faith, one law, one king." The e are signs, however, that this sectarian spirit is on the wane The feud between the former anti-clerical allies-the Radicll bo^geoisie and the socialistic people-has brought home to both the dangers of monopoly. Meanwhile, the Catholic schools, secularized but in name continue to exist, if not to thrive. But the Church can no onger hope to compete with the State in elementary educatl" the financial burden is too enormous. So the latest move is to attack the State schools from within : " We are vmat^Zl l pelled to attend these schools," the Catholics crnfen"'^e;T; for them hke all other French citizens. The law expressly provides that they shall be neutral : it is our right and our dut to enforce the fulfilment of this promise." Ever^ text book not agreeable to Catholic parents, every unguarded'' word oft freethinking teacher, is denounced by the priests Th! position of certain schoolmasters has thus become intolerable hey have brought suits in their turn against their critics and the dwindling but still powerful Radical majority ispZZt legislative measures for the " protection of lay teaching." T^^f 16 242 FRENCH CIVILIZATION IN XIXth CENTURY every village school is a battlefield and the new generation is brought up in an atmosphere of hatred. It is a relief to turn from this record of strife to one of positive achievement. Within the last thirty years the Republic has done noble work. Elementary education was made compulsory, gratuitous, and secular by the laws of 1881 and 1882. Money was lavishly spent for school buildings. ** As mediaeval Europe clad herself in a white mantle of churches, so democratic France covered herself with schools.'* Teachers' salaries were increased, their tenure of office was made more permanent, representa- tives were given them in departmental and national councils (Conseil Superieur de I'lnstruction Publique). In 1870 the budget of elementary education was 61,500,000 francs ; in 1877, 94,397,554 ; in 1902, 236,598,969 ; in 1912, 297,944,599. Every teacher is now duly certificated, and many of them hold a higher degree. Thanks to the creation of a number of normal schools and of two superior normal schools,* they are much better informed and more scientifically trained than formerly. Their social standing has been raised in the same proportion : the schoolmaster is no longer a pauper, as under the Restoration, or the cure's humble subordinate, as under the Empire. And, under the leadership of splendid men like Ferdinand Buisson, Felix Pecaut, Octave Greard, it cannot be said that the moral aspect of their mission has been neglected.! However, there is a tendency among Republicans to claim for their party the sole credit for this progress. It may be well to bear in mind that under Louis-Philippe and Napoleon III education had advanced at a still faster rate ; I that the salaries paid to French teachers are inferior to those of their English * At Fontenay-aux-Roses for women and at Saint-Cloud for men. t Buisson, Director-General of Primary- Education ; Pecaut, Director of the Superior Normal School for Girls, Fontenay-aux-Roses ; Greard, Director of Education for Paris. I School enrolment— 1837, 2,690,035 ; 1850, 3,322,423 (+ 632,388 in thirteen years); 1876,4,716,935 (-1-1,394,512 in twenty-seven years); 1904,5,448,030 (-{- 731,095 in twenty-eight years) ; of course, with a stationary population and a number of children of school age actually decreasing the school enrol- ment cannot indefinitely progress, but the efforts of previous regimes should not be ignored or minimized. EDUCATION 243 and German colleagues; that France, although far ahead of the Catholic countries. Italy, Spain, and Belgium, is still behind those where Protestantism prevails; that whilst monarchical Prussia has stamped out illiteracy altogether there are still fo,u- French conscripts out of eveiy hundred who can neither read nor write. wW^'v"'^'7 ^""f"'?" '' ** ^'^'"''^ S°'°g "''°»gl^ a crisis ft .K ^^ matenal and moral causes. For some twenty years after the Ferry laws all went apparently well. The danger came from without-from the Church. Schoolmasters preached un- questioningly "the immortal principles of 1789 " and the gospel of patriotism. They devoted their spare hours to extension and social work-popular lectures, savings banks, mutual help societies. In reward they were surfeited with fulsome praise by Radical politicians and their salaries seemed large in comparison with those of the immediate past. But. like all persons with a fixed income, they suffered sharply from the sudden increase in the cost of Imng which marked the last fifteen years. Unlike employees in private industries, they had no means of voicing their economic grievances except through the influence of some friendly member of Pariiament. Now, lobbying for larger pay IS a form of begging, and the teachers did not like it : first cause of discontent. Circumstances had often pitted the schoolmaster agams the pansh priest. He was the local representative of Republican Ideas : as such, his position was, in the broadest sense, a pohtical one. This was emphasized by the fact that ^ ""T .?^T^f ^^"^ '°"'*^ ^^ '■^'^°'^'* ^y a P^ely political official the Prefect. Now, some clever and unscrupulous teachers took advantage of the situation and secured promotion as a reward for political services. The great majority of the pro- fession sincerely Republican at heart, but unwilling to turn themse ves into electoral agents, resented this interference of the politicians and asked to be placed exclusively under the authority of their academic superior, the rector. Second grievance. During the Dreyfus crisis the Puidical and anti-clerical bourgeoisie fought side by side with the more advanced parties. Socialists and Anarchists, and, in the heat of conflict, denounced 244 FRENCH CIVILIZATION IN XIXth CENTURY ** militarism, chauvinism, social prejurlices, economic injustice" with a vigour akin to violence. The teachers were in the thick of the fray. They were men of the people themselves and naturally inclined to socialism. Many of them were converted to revolutionary ideas. Their encyclopaedic and perforce super- ficial learning, their habit of laying down the law to immature minds, made them somewhat dogmatic in their attitude. They began to preach pacifism, internationalism, and socialism with the same zeal as, ten years before, they had preached the hoary doctrines of the first Revolution. Dissatisfaction with their economic conditions ; revolt against the rule of professional politicians ; aspirations towards internationalism and socialism : the teachers wanted to express all that, and they found sjmdi- ealism ready at hand. So they formed syndicates or unions and sought affiliation to the General Federation of Labour. The Radical bourgeoisie, as soon as they were through with their anti-clerical campaign, discovered this new danger and recoiled with almost the same terror as M. Thiers in 1848. The situa- tion is serious. It could be relieved by taking politics out of public education and by increasing salaries on a generous scale. But the politicians will not willingly give up their patronage, and military expenditures are draining the resources of the State. The fact that so many teachers have gone over to revolutionary socialism would still remain a menace.* Thus we now have a three-cornered fight. As anti-clericals and Republicans the teachers are supported, more or less warmly, by the Government. As Socialists and Internationalists they are combated. The bourgeois papers no longer tell them that they are the hope of democracy, the priests of the new order. They are advised to be prudent, modest, even humble-minded, to ** know their places'* and eschew ** dangerous doctrines." We are once more brought face to face with the fact that neutrality in elementary education is a myth. As soon as we go beyond the three R's some philosophy of life is implied. Is * Another solution, which, as far as we know, has not been seriously con- sidered, would be gradually to eliminate all men teachers. Women are more conservative and satisfied with lower salaries. The example of America shows that it cati be done. But it would not afford immf»diate relief. EDUCATION 245 the State justified in enforcing conformity to doctrines which a arge m,no„ty of the people cannot accept ? The question Ts a L7. ffl' u ?' '"'"""^ "''* y^* '"^ '^S^'- Fortunately, these difficulties do not prevent most teachers from fulfilling with simple faithfulness their essential duties ^ AND SUPEBIOR l^ ^ § 5. The Third Republic: Secondary Education. rir'T*^''^-/*^?^""" *^' "•^"'^"^'^^^ ^«°^<^i"« with the tZt. IV^Tf f.r™"""*'^' P'-^^^"^^ «l^^ «till educates In pure y scientific value her schools may be inferior to those of i' the State ; the culture they give is narrower and less original, v ►- , '/ Yet hey are popular, were it only for social reasons. Parvenus *)^' -^V or scheming parents like to send their sons to Jesuit colleges, .. / • -^here they will meet the scions of the aristocracy, learn good ^ ^VC' manners, and make useful acquaintances. The 'kthersTre ' '^ known o follow and help their pupils through life. Perhaps <* the qualities of intellectual courage and moral self-reliance are ' not properly emphasized in ecclesiastical education. But other Tt IS' "T ""^^"^l"' ^'* °^ "'^deniable value, are patiently instilled : piety, discipline, reverence, self-denial. If the Fathers do not each how tojAjnA:, they can teach how to speak and write with refineTflnency. ^Tlieir somewhat artificial methods of cramming facts and ready-made opinions are highly successful m certain competitive examinations. They claim-and there may be some truth in the contention-that whilst a State boarding-school IS a jail a Church school is a home. For the education of girls the Church is supreme. The State attempted practically nothing in that line until 1880, and for many years the few lycees for giris did not show any vitality. They seem to have been more successful of late. The Radicals have tried to cripple Church education in the secondary as well as in the elementary grades. It remains to be seen whether the laws of EmUe Combes will be any more efi-ective than the ordinances of Vatimesnil under the Restora- or/nLrF '' °^.^"ir* "^^'^ I^ouis-Philippe. or the decrees of Jules Ferry under the present regime. It is especially with 246 FRENCH CIVILIZATION IN XIXth CENTURY reference to secondary education that the Falloux law is obnoxious to the anti-clericals. As a step towards monopoly they propose that Government positions should be reserved to the alumni of Government schools. The Church, on the other hand, chafes under the obligation of having her courses pre- scribed and her students examined by lay educators. Is it true that the existence of clerical schools perpetuates the unhappy division of the country ? The schism exists, but its causes are deeper. Unity could not be restored by legislation. Voltaire, Kenan, Anatole France, and Emile Combes were brought up in Catholic institutions. The State lycecs and the local colleges * spurred by this formidable rivalry, have valiantly held their own. Their curri- culum was repeatedly reformed so as to make it more varied and more practical. Duruy's ** special course *' had always been looked upon as somewhat inferior to the full classical training. In creating ** modern secondary education " in 1891 M. Bour- geois expected to give sciences and modern languages the same status as Greek and Latin. Certain schools like Chaptal College in Paris, which specialized in that new branch, com- pared favourably with the best classical lycees. By 1899 there existed four parallel courses, each leading to a separate Bachelor's degi-ee: Classical (letters) , Classical (sciences). Modern (letters). Modern (sciences). But there was much dissatisfaction about the alleged formal, wasteful, and antiquated character of all of them. The classical B.A. or B.S. degrees were still rated higher than their Modern equivalents. In 1899 a great investigation was undertaken by a national committee under the chairmanship of M. A. Ribot. This led to a total reorganization of the system in 1902. First of all, the six years of the high school course were divided into two self- contained ** cycles," so that at fifteen or sixteen a young man could leave with a limited but well-rounded education. Then the distinction between ** classical " and ** modern " disap- peared. Each cycle was divided into four sections: one with • The only difference between lyc^e and coUege is that the former is under the immediate control of the State, the latter belongs to the local authority the lycees, found only in large cities, have the pick of the teachers. EDUCATION 247 Latin and Greek as major subjects; a second with Latin and modern languages; a third with Latin and sciences; a fourth with sciences and modern languages. Compared with the previous arrangement, this marked a progress of Latin (now taught in three instead of two sections) and a regression of Greek. But the Latin course was made less arduous than formerly through the omission of -obsolete" exercises; and the direct method was extensively applied in the teaching of modern languages. After eleven years of experience, this reform still evokes much criticism. It is charged with being less thorough than the old without being any more practical. We are told there is a '* crisis" in the use and teaching of the French language. The new generations are indifferent to the logicalness of thought and neatness of expression so dear to the old school Leagues are formed in defence of the humanities. The *^Modermsts" retort that the Greeks showed such spontaneous greatness because they did not study Latin. Naturally, this pedagogical problem has its social aspect. The lycees are no longer alone in the field : *' higher primary " and *'technicar' education are becoming formidable rivals. The sons of the people, through the free high schools and the normal schools, are forging their way up to the universities. And the universities, thoroughly democratic and up to date in their ideas, are willing to welcome them. This means the triumph of a new pragmatic spirit over hallowed traditions. The bourgeoisie, it is claimed, desirous of keeping a monopoly of the professions, use the expensive humanistic culture as a fence and Latin as a shibboleth. The tone of certain reactionary papers when speaking of ^ lesprit primaire " would lend colour to this contention. On the other hand, many unprejudiced thinkers believe that a liberal education is the greatest need of a democracy ; that the cultural heritage of a nation is a treasure not to be lightly bartered away ; that France, in particular, whose ambition was to be an ^ Athenian Eepublic," should protect herself against the ubiquitous Boeotian. /The development of superior education under the present regime has been most gratifying. In 1885 the advanced^ , / schools of each academic region, hitherto scattered and un- ' 248 FRENCH CIVILIZATION IN XIXth CENTURY connected, were grouped together under the authority of a "general council/' This was the first step towards the creation of genuine universities, which was eflfected in 1896. The long delay was due to the conflict of local interests. It was not deemed advisable to consider each existing ** faculte " as the nucleus of a local university: the attraction of Paris was so enormous that there seemed to be no room for more than five or six provincial centres of higher learning. But no city was willing to forgo its claims. The law of 1896 was a compromise. The administrative centre of each academic district became the seat of a university. Some of these institutions were composed of the four regular schools or facultes : law, medicine, letters, and sciences. Others had only three or even two. It was not without a struggle that Douai, for instance, lost its law school to Lille ; and the University of Aix-Marseilles is still divided between the two cities : the colleges of law and letters in the sleepy old capital of Provence; those of sciences and medicine in the bustling commercial metropolis. The military law of 1889 provided a clientele for these universities. Holders of certain degrees were excused from two years of military service. So the sons of the bourgeoisie, hitherto satisfied with a mere baccalaureat, found it profitable to study for the " licence." This regime lasted long enough to create a sentiment and a tradition. When, by the law of 1905, all educational causes of military exemptions were removed, a great falling ofi" in the number of students was expected : but it did not take place. One half of the total number of students in France are enrolled in the University of Paris. Under the splendid leadership of Vice-rector Louis Liard * the old Sorbonne has reconquered her proud position as the world's greatest centre of learning. It has no less than 17,000 students, of whom 3,000 are foreigners. The administrative offices, the Assembly Hall, the Library, the College of Letters, the Practical School of Superior Studies, the School of Charters, and part of the College of Sciences, occupy the New Sorbonne. This magnificent block of buildings was • Vice- rector because the Minister of Public Education is ex officio rector of the University of Paris. I EDUCATION 249 style, the best artists of the time have been employed in its oZfT' Tm *^' """^ P'^^"""^ °^P"-« d^ Chavannes in the adi t?fb r r "P"?'^ '^ ""''"^ *° ^'^ ^ masterpiece In veritable "S T'' 'l'''^'' ''^'>'^' ^^^ '^^^'^^-'-^ form a ver table academic city m the Latin Quarter. Furthermore ihl I' rauce . at Roscoff in Bntanny, at Wimereux near Boulogne the S "f I''' " '''' '^'''^' «°"*^- On the other ha^d the College de France, the Museum of Natural Historv bnfb S tf ? S"'1 r ^"°"^' ''' ^" ^- f— tL tf Music anH tr '^'f^'-^'^J Engineering Schools, the Conservatoire of ^iZT^^::^:^^^^^^^^^ ^^^-tal Languages, fh« TT^,- ^'""^^"S to the State, are not component parts of 7fi«? r?-n^'^ '^ ^^ ^^' t^« most popular Lbiect that law m France is a general culture course, preparing for administrative duties, the civil service, politics, journalism and ST08O ''aLT''' 'T'r '-' T,enLesZiZ ^m 4,080 (765 foreigners). The Colleges of Letters and Sciences, which train their students almost exclusFve y L 2e standard Thi'^r^ ^r ^JTZ'^Zf^^^^:^ dent of the University, has finally been incorporaied witL t Tf wo consider that the equivalent of the freshman and sophomore years are^ven in the lycees, if we bear in mind that se^er^ mportant departments have a separate organization and do n" contribute to that huge total of 17,000, we come to realize the enormous size of the University of Paris. Its material prosperity however, is but the outward sign of its intellectual supremacy.' It offers an endless and yet systematic variety of courses'ranging "rausriircr '' ^^'^°°^^ '-'-^'^^ «^ ^^^ --' This splendid success oi the University of Paris was to a certain extent expected. That of the other institutions came as a pleasant surprise, even to the most optimistic. It is often asserted a prion that decentralization is impossible in Frail" 250 FRENCH CIVILIZATION IN XIXth CENTURY this one attempt should teach us better. The local universities are not mere replicas of the Sorbonne on a diminutive scale. They are " provincial " in the best sense of the term : open wide to new ideas from all over the world, they make a special study of local conditions — historical, geographical, economic. Like the newer universities of England or those of the American Middle West, they keep in touch with practical life and enlist the support of business men. Dijon, for instance, has an CEnological Institute, Lille a textile museum, Besan^on a special laboratory for testing watches and clocks. Montpellier has kept its medifeval fame for medicine, Nancy leads in physics and forestry. The South-Western group, Bordeaux, Toulouse, Montpellier, keep active intercourse with the Spanish-speaking countries ; Grenoble attracts German students and has created a Franco-Italian Institute at Florence. The central administration interferes only to prevent the wasteful duplication of efforts ; every legitimate initiative is encouraged. Private benefactions, almost unheard of for that purpose in the nineteenth century, are no longer negligible, and the cities spend money freely on their universities. As a result of this transformation, the French system of degrees has lost its rigid simplicity. There is an almost infinite variety of " licences." Original research is as far as practicable substituted for the scholastic examinations of former days. A new Diploma of Superior Studies has been created for those students who wish to go beyond the licence without expecting to get the advanced professional title of Agrege. As the Doctorates of Sciences and Letters were almost inaccessible to foreigners, a " Doctorat d'Universite " has been established, which is equiva- lent to the German Ph.D. Need we say that the universities have not been spared by critics? Some useful pessimists, like Mr. Loth, comparing their equipment, their endowment, their organization with those of their German rivals, conclude that much remains to be done : a most excellent spur to further endeavour. Others, of the humanistic persuasion, are dismayed by the " new spirit " which pervades superior education. The vague and brilliant lectures of forty years ago, which were performances rather than lessons, EDUCATION 251 were bad enough. But have we not rushed into another extreme? Is not erudition stifling culture? The modern scholar. It IS alleged, can neither think nor write ; he merely accumulates documents, piles up innumerable " slips " which he does not even attempt to classify. If this were true, the danger would be great indeed. But, it is answered, among the professors thus arraigned many are recognized masters of lucid generaliza- tion as well as accurate detail. That mediocre students sufi-er at present from the slip-mania may be granted : perhaps a Caro or a Deschanel could have taught them instead how to say nothing with consummate grace. But a method is not to be judged by the failure of the inefBcient. France needs the discipline of positive facts ; of general ideas she has enough and to spare. FortAinately for both parties, the old-fashioned course is not dead, but It has emigrated beyond the walls of the Sorbonne It would be a loss to literature if such lectures as those of M. Jules Lemaitre* had not been given. A well-known magazine, Les Annales, has created a "university" where an aristocratic public, cultured, bigoted in essentials but open- minded for new-fangled cults, keenly appreciative of certain iterary qualities, rather indiflFerent to mere details, and scorning the drudgery of research, find exactly the kind of teaching to suit their needs and taste. On a much higher level, the Free School of Social Sciences deals in a serious and yet accessible manner with questions too vast, too vague, or too controversial for the Sorbonne and the College de France. Tliis division of labour between the regular institutions of learning and private foundations of a less scientific character is excellent, and might weU be imitated on the other side of the water, t • Rousseau, Racine, F^nelon, etc. J, t^ f°^'"°"^„°»°7'°«°' which miscarried after an auspicious beginning r n f •^°''^" Universities. The two prototypes, founded beforf the Dreyfus crisis, were the " Co-operation of Ideas." created by a joiner! Pount'r'' ri,*,f n' °^ """ "^'""^"S ""^ '°'«^''°=« : '■^^ the Universit; HaJland nth ^^ r^^^-f^^'^^, ^y Jacques Bardou, in imitation of Toynbee Hall and other settlements. The Dreyfus case gave the movement a great ^petus : inteUectual workers ai.d manual labourers communed in the «rv,co of JUS ,ce and truth. But the basic conception was much to^ vague : People's Palaces. University Extensions, Freefhinkers' Club^th^ 252 FRENCH CIVILIZATION IN XIXth CENTURY France, on the whole, may well be proud of her educational system. It is not perfect, but it is not fossilized, and is capable of indefinite expansion and improvement. That the tumult of social and spiritual unrest should cease at the door of the school could not be expected : nay, one may wonder whether it would be desirable. Does Catholic education make the moral division of the country irremediable ? Would not enforced conformity to some secular orthodoxy be a remedy worse than the evil ? We believe that both these dangers are waning. The growing multiplicity of opinions on all subjects is making for tolerance : the Catholics are not unanimous, neither are the Freethinkers. If there were but two parties, they would come to blows : there are twenty, and they must needs manage to live side by side. The old ideal of dogmatic unity must be given up ; but the schools— all schools— are slowly evolving out of this apparent chaos a richer unity, as varied and as undefinable as life itself. were everything and nothing. The absence of common principles soon allowed the early enthusiasm to cool. Needless to say that the term " popular universities " was a misnomer, even to denote the ideal which none of these institutions realized. For the Furrow (Sillon), a Catholic imitation of the Popular Universities, of. next chapter. BIBLIOGRAPHY ""' ^^'ll^S'^^tr^' '' '''^''^^' ^ P-^^ ^n 4 vols L. LUBD. L'Enseignement Sup^rieur en Prance 1789-18Sq o , 474 pp., 622 pp. Colin, Paris. 1888-94 °"®' "^"^^S- 2 vols. 8vo — - Universitts et Facult^s. Colin, Paris. " 1890 r. LrUizoT. Memoires pour servir 4 THicfr^i^^ a m Paris. 1858-61. ^^^^'^ ^ ^ Histoire de mon Temps. 8 vols. L^vy V. DuRUY. Notes et Souvenirs. 2 vols ftvo Wa.i, ** r. • A. R.MB.ua Jules Ferry. Plon-Nour"rit. Paris 1^3 ' ^''"'- ''''■ A^RiBOT. Enquete de 1899 (Documents ParlemenS) (H. Tusk. Origines, Vol. XI : L'Ecole.) ^^'^'^sj. CHRONOLOGICAL TABLE VII. EDUCATION Plans for National Education introduced by — 1790 Talleyrand; 1792, Condorcet ; 1792, Lanthenas; 1793, Barr^re ; 1793, Lcpeletier de Saint-Fargcau ; 1793, Romme ; 1793, Bouquier; 1794, Lakanal ; 1795, Daunou. Educational foundations of the Convention : 1793 Museum of Natural History. 1794 Polytechnic School. (Superior) Normal School. 1795 Institute of France. Central Schools. 1803 Creation of Lycees (10 Floreal, An X). 1806-8 Creation and organization of the Imperial University. 1815 Royer-Collard and Guizot plan to create seventeen local Universities. 1824 Ministry of Public Education becomes Cabinet position (coupled with Ecclesiastical Affairs). Courses of Guizot and Cousin suspended. 1827 Same reopened. Brilliant trio : Guizot, Cousin, Villemain. 1828 Jesuits' schools closed. Restrictions on Lower Seminaries. 1830 Liberty of Education promised by the revised Charter. Campaign of Lamennais. 1833 June 22. Guizot's Law organizing Primary Education. 1836 Ordinance organizing Primary Education for Girls. 18.38-51 Michelet, Quinet, Mickiewicz at the College de France. 1844-45 Campaign of liberal Catholics against University (Montalembert). Counter-campaign against the Jesuits. 1848 Liberty of Education promised by the Constitution. Hippulyte Carnot, Secretary of Education, plans compulsory, gratuitous, and secular education. 1850 March 10. Falloux Law, establishing liberty of Primary and Secondary Education. 1851-5G Reaction under Secretary Fortoul (1852, •' bifurcation"). 1SG2 Renan at the College de France. 1863-69 Progress under Victor Duruy. 18G5 " Special " Secondary Education organized. 1866 Education League authorized (Jean INIace). 1867 Practical School of Superior Studies created. ■2J4 EDUCATION 255 iQ7Q^Qo t""!^ ^^ ^'^''*^ °^ ^"P^"°' Education (Catholic Universities created) 1879-82 Jules Perry and Paul Bert. Superior Council of Pub lEdu S TsShet '''"'^"^'' ^"*^^^°^^^ ^^^ --^- "on 1880 Secondary Education for Girls organized 1891 " Modern " Secondary Education. 1896 July 10. Local Universities constituted. 1899 Great Inquiry under A. Ribot, etc., leading to-- 1902 Reorganization of Secondary Education. 1904 July 7. Suppression of Congreganist teaching. CHAPTER VIII TTIE RELIGIOUS QUESTION § 1. Reaction, 1800-30. § 1. Reaction, lSOO-30.— The war of the Church against evil ; three main lines of conflict—Religious situation in ISOO— Reasons of Bona- parte for negotiating the Concordat— Fosters Ultramontanism— Con- flicts arising from the Concordat— Napoleon excommunicated and the Pope imprisoned. Revival of Catholicism in French thought and literature : Chateau- briand, de Maistre, do Ronald, Lamcnnais. Alliance of the Church and the Ultra-Catholic party— Clericalism and anti-clericalism under Charles X. The Church is a militant organization and her life is war — war against evil under all its forms, sutlering, ignorance, unbelief, and corruption. We should like to dwell on this, the essential side of her activities, which even Catholic historians are apt to neglect. As a charitable agency the Church is unrivalled. In the field of education her power is still great. Catholic missions, in which France has played a leading part, are covering the whole world with a network of churches, schools, and hospitals. Religious orders offer a refuge to the world-weary, the sorrowful, the mystic, the saint. And no fair-minded observer could speak without tender respect of the daily life of the Church, the humble and sublime routine of parish duties. All tins, and not the Roman Curia, is the heart of Catholicism and the secret of its perennial appeal. To whoever cares to see deeper into the true religious life of France, we recommend the biographies of a few typical Catholics : Augustin Cochin, the representative of what is best in the old, upright, cultured, and charitable bourgeoisie ; Ozanam, a young scholar with the soul of an apostle; Father J.-B. Vianney, the saintly village priest of Ars ; Sister Rosalie, whom the Paris poor have not yet forgotten. Unfortunately, 256 THE RELIGIOUS QUESTION 257 this wealth of silent heroism is hardly capable of historical pre- sentation. Ours is the task, a thankless one, of chroniclin- the outward, corporate, political life of the Church. And this is made up of three contlicts : the struggle of faith against unbelief, or rather of theology against science and freethought ; the struggle of authority against liberty, of theocracy against democracy ; the struggle of centralization against local autonomy, ^of lltramontanism against Gallicanism. To touch upon any of these points is to probe wounds and inflict pain : may ours be the callousness of the investigator, and not of the tormentor ! In the eyes of many Catholics, whoever does not fully agree with the dominant party in the Church is attacking religion ; the oppo- nents of the Cardinal Secretary of State are the enemies of God. It is obvious that no impartial study of these very puzzling problems is possible unless we dismiss once for all such a gratuitous assumption. When Bonaparte made himself master of France in 1799, the State professed to ignore all forms of worship and tolerated all. Roman Catholic Churches were freely opened. Religious perse- cution had ceased : if the Roman clergy were still treated with suspicion, it w s for purely political causes which would have disappeared witw the restoration of order. The Constitutional Church, Gallican and democratic, established by law in 1790 and salaried by the State until 1794, was still in existence as an independent organization— a schismatic body in the eyes of the Romanists. It was neither farcical nor negligible, but its vitality was ebbing fast. The '' Culte Decadaire," of a purely civic nature, celebrated on the official day of rest, the tenth day or Decadi, was moribund : its last flicker of life was due to the fact that all marriages had to be solemnized at the close of its ceremonies. One new sect, Theophilanthropy, recruited chiefly among the liberal bourgeoisie, was not unlike our Ethical Culture movement. Protestantism, fully emancipated by the Revolution, was satisfied with the new order. Conditions were by no means ideal : different cults were compelled to share the same buildings, and unseemly brawls were too often the result. But it may be asserted that there existed no difficulty which a few years of liberty and tolerance could not have settled. 258 FRENCH CIVILIZATION IN XIXth CENTURY The reconstructive work of the First Consul, the Concordat ' of 1802, was therefore not indispensable. France was not clamouring for a renewal of the old alliance between Church and State. The ruling class was still Voltairian : Bonaparte found it no easy task to reconcile his most intimate supporters to his ecclesiastical policy. He was not impelled by his own religious sentiments : although there were in him unexpected touches of mysticism, he was free from what eighteenth-century philosophy called prejudices. His treaty with the Pope was the result of political considerations. First of all, there was the question of the property confiscated from the clergy and put up for sale by the State. The Church excommunicated the purchasers of these ** national estates,'* even at second and third hand. With time, her threats and protests would have become innocuous : meanwhile, they were still a cause of hatred and strife among Frenchmen Vendee and Brittany were barely pacified. Napoleon thought he could ' not carry out his plan of national reconciliation without silencing \ the opposition of the Church. This he could do by oftering her material and moral compensations. Experience has taught us that he should have limited himself to financial indemiiitication and shunned politico-religious entanglements.* However, the temptation to resume the old relationship was overwhelming. The separation re^j^ime had so far been an accident, a truce due to the weariness of the combatants : it did not seem to be a permanent solution. Napoleon could not conceive of such a power as the Catholic Church living and growing within the State and yet independent of the State. Union or incessant war : • he saw no other alternative.. Besides, as he himself said later, with brutal openness, priests would provide him with a ghostly police to supplement his prefects and his gendarmes. He was already haunted by dreams of monarchical restoration : the King of France was the Lord's anointed ; his successor would remain a usurper until he secured the goodwill of the Church. j A Concordat would take from Louis XVIII his trump card. \ Finally, Napoleon was conscious of a reaction in favour of • In 1825 tho noblos who had suffered from the Kevolution received nionoj, but feuiuilism was not re.-^torod, X V THE RELIGIOUS QUESTION 259 religion, and it was his instinctive policy to capture and canalize every important movement, so as to use it for his own ends and claim, the largest share of profit and praise. The Concordat, signed in Rome in August, 1801, and not promulgated in Paris until April, 1802, secured to the State the following advantages : the owners of former Church property would be left in quiet possession ; there would be a new delimita- tion of French bishoprics, their number being greatly reduced ; all existing bishops, whether Romanist or Constitiitional, would be requested to resign ; the members of the new episcopate and their successors were to be nominated by the First Consul and confirmed by the Pope; parish priests (cur6s) were to be appointed by the bishops, subject to the approval of the First Consul. Bishops and priests would have to take an oath of fidelity and obedience to the First Consul, and to promise that - they would denounce any plot or conspiracy that might come to ^ their knowledge. The First Consul would enjoy all the preroga- tives and privileges of the kings his predecessors. Pius VII had thus shown himself much more tractable than Pius VI ; for these concessions were as radical as those required by the Civil Constitution of the Clergy in 1791, and so indig- nantly refused by the Holy See. The compensations, it is true, were considerable. Catholicism, so recently under the ban, was recognized as the religion of the majority of the French, and particularly of the Consuls themselves. The Constitutional schism was ended by a compromise : ten of its prelates became Roman Catholic bishops. Feeble as it was, this national and reformed organization might have proved a permanent rallying- point for the opponents of papal encroachments. Finally, bishops and priests received stipends,! on a fairly liberal scale, from the Government. All considered, one may seriously wonder whether the Church was not bartering away precious liberties for doubtful privileges. What tempted and decided the Pope was the unlioped-for increase of authority that the Concordat gave him over the Gallican Church. For the Roman Pontiff to dispose of French property as if it were his own was unheard of in a land hitherto so jealous of her ecclesiastical autonomy. His requesting all vi- / 26U FRENCH CIVILIZATION IN XIXth CENTURY French bishops to resign was tantamount to the assumption of absolute power. The French clergy gained something in wealth s^ and prestige by the Concordat: but Rome was enormously strengthened.* I This was certainly not what Napoleon had in mind. He wanted to subject the whole Church to the authority of the Pope ^ because he thought that the Pope would be a convenient tool in v_ his hand. He hoped to be a new Constantino, a masterful bene- factor whom the Church could not afford to displease. He had failed to gauge the spiritual power of that petty Italian prince whom a mere detachment from the French army could coerce into submission. He considered the Pope as a vassal, almost as a dependent. He did not mean to give up a single one of the Vfold Gallican chiims : indeed, with the Concordat he promulgated '' so-called *' Organic Articles," which strictly limited the rights of the Pope in France and made the Gallican declaration of 1682 the official doctrine of all theological seminaries. Rome protested at once against this unilateral addition to a formal treaty : Napoleon and his successors maintained that tliey were strictly within the bounds uf their traditional powers of legislation in ecclesiastical matters. Hence a conflict which was to last as long as the Concordat itself. The future was with Kome, not with Gallicanism. Wlien the king was the legitimate successor of Clovis and the descendant of Saint Louis, anointed with holy chrism which a mystic dove had brought down from heaven, endowed with miraculous heal- ing powers, his authority might balance that of the Pope himself. But a Corsican usurper, or a Voltairian Citizen King, even a sceptical and constitutional Louis XVIII, had no spiritual glamour about him, and his word counted for little in Church affairs. But there were other ambiguities in the Concordat. What, for instance, was to be the status of the religious orders sup- * No fewer than forty prelates refused to obey : they were deposed, but they stin considered themselves as the sole legitimate representatives of the Catholic Church in France ; the last of them died in 1828, and the ♦' Petite Eglise," as it was called, did not disappear until the last decade of the nineteenth century. THE RELIGIOUS QUESTION 26 X pressed by the Revolution ? Were the salaries paid to th^ clerg}^ the remuneration of a public service or a compensation, as Church historians and jurists occasionally maintain, for their property confiscated in 1791 ? Had the Government the right of appointing or merely of nominating bishops ? These important problems remained unsettled. The Concordat was therefore a mistake : Napoleon himself came to consider it as the worst blunder in his career. The Pope was brought to Paris, to grace with his presence the self- coronation of the new Charlemagne. But, immediately after this brilliant ceremony, difficulties began between the Sacerdoce and the Empire. In his ruthless way, Napoleon annexed piece after piece of the Pope's dominion, until in 1809 Rome itself became a French city. The Pontiff, dangerously sick, was hurriedly taken to Savona, thence to Fontainebleau, and kept in strict confinement. The papal archives were brought to Paris — the new Rome. Thirteen cardinals who, out of sympathy with Pius VII, had refused to attend the second marriage of Napoleon, were deprived of their insignia and scattered in provincial towns under police supervision. Meanwhile the Pope had secretly excommunicated tlic Emperor, and refused to con- firm the Bishops appointed by him. A Council was summoned in Paris to cope with this situation (1811). As it proved intractable, Napoleon dismissed it ; but, by threats or promises, he secured the individual adhesion of a majority of French prelates to some modus vivendi. In 1813, at last, returning defeated from Russia, he negotiated directly with Pius, in dramatically mysterious interviews, a new Concordat which the wavering and ailing Pope accepted in January, only to retract two months later. 1814 brought deliverance to the Pontiff, to whom his possessions were restored. Such had been the immediate fruits of the Concordat. Bonaparte's policy was powerless either to foster or to check the revival of Catholicism. This great movement was due to much deeper causes. A century of dry materialism and scoffing scepticism, ten years of revolution, had brought about a revulsion of feelings. Sentiment and imagination were restored to their rightful place in the spiritual world. Logic was discounted. V "N V- ) • \\ %2 FRENCH CIVILIZATION IN XIXth CENTURY I all this we can trace the influence of Rousseau, the pioneer of Inaction as well as of revolution. Authority and tradition had long been known exclusively through their abuses ; now they lay shattered, and their services were remembered. A poignant melancholy rose from their ruins, which pious hands sought to restore. This was the work of Chateaubriand. His Genie du Christianisme is an event in the history of culture. It came exactly at the right time, and expressed with poetical eloquence the aspirations of the new era. There was much Romantic self- delusion and shallow sentimentalism in the assumed orthodoxy of Chateaubriand. It led most of his disciples into unbelief or even into morbidity. But for a quarter of a century it was a most powerful factor. All the great poets of the following generation, Lamartine, Hugo, Vigny, were for many years professed Catholics ; echoes of the Genie du Christianisme are found, altered yet unmistakable, in Michelet's History of the Middle Ages, and even in Renan's works. But Chateaubriand with his aesthetic and sentimental religiosity was by no means the sole advocate of Catholicism. De Bonald, de Maistre, Lamennais were preaching with less charm a severer doctrine, the gospel of authority. De Maistre, in particular, taught that a divinely ordained spiritual power alone could give the world order, peace, harmony — and this power he could find nowhere but in the eternal Church guided by an infallible Pope {Du Pape, 1819). Absolutism under the monition of theocracy : such was the ideal of this thorough and inspiring reactionist, whom Ballanche called a ** Prophet of the Past.'* Gallicanism now meant a com- promise with the constitutional civil authorities issued of the Revolution : this thought both de Maistre and Lamennais abhorred. Thus was naturally sealed the alliance, in the Ultra-royalist party, between political and religious reaction. The same men wanted to restore the rights and privileges of the nobility and of the Church : for them the cause of monarchy by divine right and that of Catholicism were inseparable : the ** throne and the altar" should stand or fall together. This alliance has afl'ected the life of the Church throughout the nineteenth century. Under the Restoration, the Church party did not discourage the outbreak of violence known as the White Terror, and the THE RELIGIOUS QUESTION ''Missions," instead of fostering a purely spiritual revival, were crusades against the ideas and the institutions of the modern regime. Strict was the censorship of the Press whenever religion was concerned. Sunday rest ordinances were rigidly enforced. Public education was placed under the control of the clergy, and sacrilege was punishable with death. But the liberal, anti -clerical opposition was not poweriess. It was composed, not only of materialists and Voltairians, but chiefly of reasonable Catholics attached to the traditions of the Galhcan Church. The law on sacrilege, which created a great stir, was never applied. A new Concordat, negotiated with the Pope in 1817, was received with such hostility by public opinion that the Ministry thought it wiser to let the matter drop. The " Organic Articles " were not repealed. The one permanent advantage the Church obtained was the creation of several new bishoprics in 1821. Under Charies X the struggle became sharper. The new King, atoning for a dissipated youth, was a bigoted Catholic. His coronation at Rheims seemed to revive old theocratic claims. He and his most intimate advisers were supposed to be in the hands of a mysterious ''Congregation" which governed the State for the best interests of the Church. The dreaded Jesuits had returned as Paccanarists and Fathers of the Faith. This aggressive move of clericalism brought about a revival of Voltairianism. It was the time of Courier's pamphlets, of Beranger's most biting satirical songs. Several popular editions of Voltaire were published. Montlosier, a gentleman of the old school, an ardent defender of feudalism and Gallicanism, de- nounced the Jesuits with extreme violence, and at his instigation the Courts reaffirmed that the famous Order could have no legal existence in France. The conflict which led to the ordinances and to the Revolution of July, 1830, was a religi(^s as well as a con- stitutional one. For a few months it was hardly safe for a priest to venture in the streets of Paris in his clerical garb. The Ai'chbishop's palace was sacked by the mob. The same fate befell the Church of St. Germain-PAuxerrois, for the sole reason that Legitimists had gathered there for a memorial service. The coronation of Louis-Philippe was performed FRENCH CIVILIZATION iN XIXth CENTURY with great simplicity, almost shamefacedly. It seemed as though Catholicism had been exiled with the last of the old Bourbons. § 2. The Great Schism, 1830-70. § 2. Tlw Great Schism, 1830-70.— 1830 : Liberal Catholicism- Failure of Lamennais— Lacordaire at Notre-Dame— Montalembert in the House of Peers — Attacks against the University and counter- attack against the Jesuits —Conversion of the great Romanticists to humanitarianism. 1848 : Temporary reconciliation between the Church and demo- cracy—Immediate rupture— The Roman expedition at home— The coup d'etat endorsed by the Catholics— Slow agony of liberal Catholicism- Uncompromising policy of PiusIX— The Syllabus— Papal Infallibility. But there were still treasures of spiritual life in France, and even in Catholicism. Lamennais, a conservative theologian, in his Essay on Indifference, understood the lesson so sharply inflicted. The modern world was based on liberty ; could not the Church frankly accept this principle, at least in her relations with the State and with society? Would she not gain more through liberty than through the protection of a secular sovereign like Charles X ? Absolutism was dead ; the Church herself could not become democratic, but could she not Christianize democracy ? Such was the bold change of front which Lamennais advocated in his newspaper UAvenir {The Future), supported by two brilliant young men, Montalembert and Lacordaire. Liberalism is the constant refuge of defeated minorities ; but the attitude of these men was the result of a sincere conversion rather than a tactical move. Turning the tables against the new Government, they asked at once for a liberty promised by the revised charter : the liberty of education. They even founded an independent school. Now that the Vol- tairians were in control, they were reluctant to give up the State's teaching monopoly, and the pledge of 1830 was not redeemed. The school of The Future was closed by the police and its founders prosecuted Thus did the State welcome the liberal Catholics. On the other hand. Lamennais and his friends were not THE RELIGIOUS QUESTION 265 heartily supported by their co-religionists. The old aristocratic families were still the mainstay of the Church; congenitally unable to understand a new departure, they were horrified at the very name of liberty. Although the new movement was conservative in theology and respectful of the Roman hier- archy, timid souls shrank from it as if it were heretical. The publication of The Future had to be suspended, and the three daring Catholics repaired to Rome to plead their cause. But in 1831 a reactionary pontifi", Gregory XVI, had been elected. In August, 1832, he issued an encyclical letfer, Mirari VoSy in which liberalism was condemned root and branch. Freedom of thought, or democracy within the Church, the liberals had never advocated. But they were in favour of the separation of Church and State, and, as they claimed for them- selves the right to believe, they wanted to respect in others the right not to believe. This was denounced by the Pope as an ** absurd and erroneous opinion, or rather a piece of folly," springing from **the fetid source of indifferentism." Lamen- nais hesitated for a while, his passionate soul torn by a tragic conflict. After some velleities of submission he left the Church. We shall find him later in his third avatar, as the prophet of anti-clerical and democratic Christianity. His two friends, Lacordaire and Montalembert, after a few years of silent discouragement, resumed their activities, but with greater prudence. Lacordaire was a brilliant orator. Faithful to his principle of modernizing the methods of the Church, he gave at Notre-Dame, from 1835 onward, several series of lectures on the burning questions of the times. He was sonorous rather than profound, but his romantic eloquence found a ready echo among the young generation, and the efi'ect was heightened when he assumed the white robe of a Dominican friar. He helped to revive in many hearts the poetic religiosity heralded by Chateaubriand. To any deeper influence he has no claim. Montalembert's liberalism was quite different from the vague, warm-hearted, popular tendency found in Lacordaire. It was of a narrower, parliamentary and aristocratic nature, somewhat 266 FRENCH CIVILIZATION IN XIXth CENTURX nn-French and probably due to the man's English ancestry and education He happened to come into his title just beforo the heredity of the peerage was abolished ; in the Upper Hous., he found h:mself while still very young, the respected leader o' the Catholic party. He limited his efforts to the one point in which the interests of the Church were at one with those of liberty : he renewed the campaign of The Future against the wltsiX'^f ' "!"."'""• ^' '""^ ^^"^"»t '^^ 'jie attack felt obliged to sound a note of warning. Voltairianism was hrown upon the defensive. As usual, the efforts of the Church Ldn Zfi f "7 ""' "^ anti-clericalism, and, as usual nfw.; / .1 ^'^'""" ""'"' ^^' '^^^""^' ^^' '^^'^ educational power and the aggressive vanguard of Catholicism. Libri anTdl 7 '^''^^^'^^ against them* The great Romantic and democratic historians, Quinet and Michelet, gave and pub- ished a series of anti-clerical lectures.! Eugene Sue .-rote his ^ng-popular romance. The Wandering Jen; one of the mos a Je.mt Kodin, plays the part of the ^-illain. Villemain's dread carler "^t'"' r ""' ' •"'"*'' ^''^'' ^^''^ mterrupted his career. The Government could no longer ignore the presence ot these embarrassing Fathers : the number of their colleges was increasing; one of them, Ravignan, had taken the succeiL of hand T/r ^^V^:^-^' --i they were denounced on eve; the famous Society. A conservative Protestant in open sym- ^thy_ with Rome, and a friend of Metternich, he reSesent^d adm.,a,ly that section of the bourgeoisie wh/ch. since 1830 had abjured revolutionary ideas and was ready to strike an alliance with the Church. So. compelled to "do som^hing " he sent to Rome a brilliant economist and statesman of cos- mopohtan experience, Count Rossi, and tried to secure throu" he Pope the voluntary withdrawal of the Jesuits. 4 liui' comedy with which all Frenchmen are familiar was thfn per! • Les J^suites et I'VniversiU, 1S44 ■w* rretre, de la Femme etdela FamiUe, 1845. -uicneiet. THE RELIGIOUS QUESTION 267 i formed ; a few colleges were closed, and soon reopened under a diflferent name. The eighteen years of the July monarchy were thus a time of covert and undecisive hostility between the liberal forces in the lay State and the Roman clergy. But during that period a great revolution took place, the consequences of which are not yet fully realized beyond the borders of France. It may be said that the main current of religious thought ceased to flow in the traditional channel. Those years of romanticism and Utopian socialism were full of spiritual life: ** France was big with Messianic "hopes." These undisciplined aspirations assumed forms which may seem to us grotesque enough, like the synthetic **Evadism" of the gentle lunatic who called himself the Mapah. But the New Christianity of the Saint-Simonians, in spite of its ludicrous sides, was a powerful movement which illumined for a few months the lives of strong men, and the memory of which remained sacred to them after thirty years of practical activities. No unconquerable prophet appeared, no Church was permanently established. But there prevailed a certain spirit which, in another work, we have ventured to define as ** Romantic Humanitarianism." Its keynote was love — love and pity for the oppressed, for the poor, for the fallen woman, for the sinner, for Satan himself. Universal love means universal brotherhood : mankind is actually one, the collective incarnation of the divine, the growing realization of the immanent God. Of this incarnation Christ was the most perfect type and the supreme symbol. The service of mankind is then the essence of religion: democracy and socialism, with their mystic connotation, are true Christianity. This creed is nowhere expressed with finality : we find it implied in scores of books, in Pierre Leroux's De VHunianite, or in the last published works of the Saint-Simonians, Father Enfantin and Barrault. But the gospel of the new faith, without a trace of dogmatic theology, is Lamennais*8 brief biblical pastiche. Words of a Believer. With its verses full of tenderest pity and burning wrath, this book had a powerful influence. It was chiefly through Lamennais '^ — although many other agencies were at work — that the greatest writers of the day — Hugo, Lamartine, Michelet, George / 268 FREx\CH CIVILIZATION IN XIXth CENTURY Sand, even Vignj— were converted to some form of mystic ^humanitarianism. ' There we have the great schism in the religious life of France: on the one hand pessimistic supernaturalism, which holds that man is corrupt and cannot be saved except through the grace of a transcendent God ; on the other, optimistic naturalism, which believes that human instincts, human reason, are not deceptive, that God is in everything, and therefore that the universe must be progressing towards the light. These two antinomic conceptions are curiously blended in the faith of most orthodox Christians : they are by no means radically separated even m France. But, on the whole, Catholicism insists on the Fall and redemption through the historic Christ, whose powers are vested in His Church ; it stands for the repression of evil by an authority from above, whose rights are established by tradition. It is a doctrine of discipline and conservation. Humanitarianism insists on progress through the expansion of forces within mankind, through the spirit of the immanent Christ. It is a doctrine of emancipation, of growth, and looks towards the future as orthodox Christianity looks towards the past. Now, although pessimistic supernaturalism may have a more tonic effect upon the individual soul, optimistic naturalism is at the basis of every social improvement. The chief paradox of the situation is this : the Church, resting on authority and tradition, defends the established order, and therefore sides with the rich and the powerful : so the greatest spiritual power is not free from the taint of materialism. The humanitarians, on the other hand, whose philosophy is too often materialistic, are fighting for what they hold to be justice and truth, in a spirit of br^'other'^ hood and hope, and are thus the true idealists, the true followers of Christ. The struggle of the Church against the Revolution IS not a clear conflict of right and wrong, but u many-sided, puzzling warfare, in which sympathies cannot go unreservedly to either side. In 184S It seemed as though Catholicism and liumanitarian- ism were to be reconciled. Pope Pius IX, elected two years previously, was thought U. be a true dem.icrat. The Church THE RELIGIOUS QUESTION 269 and the people had both hailed with delight the fall of the Voltairian bourgeoisie. The Revolutionists were fond of claiming Christ as their Master. The clergy blessed the trees of liberty. Abbe Henry Maret started a democratic paper, aptly called The New Era, in which he received the support of Ozanam and Lacordaire. The great Dominican orator himself was sent to the Constituent Assembly. But within a few months the old antinomy reappeared. Lacordaire soon grew discouraged and resigned his seat. Montalembert censured the Christian phraseology of the Hevo- lutionists as sacrilegious. The New Era was bought over and summarily ** strangled " by a Legitimist Catholic, La Roche- lacquelein. The Days of June frightened the upper and middle classes into reaction—/. e., into clericalism and ultra- montanism. The death of Archbishop Affre on his mission of peace to the barricades was the symbol of an irreparable breach between the Church and the Revolution. At the same time, Pius IX was driven from Rome by an uprising of the people, and when, in 1849, he was restored by a French army, he became the unrelenting foe of every modern idea. A '' Roman expedition at home," a campaign of political and social reaction, was carried on by the French conservatives in the name of religion. The Falloux law was meant to break down the State's educational monopoly for the sole benefit of the Church. The coup d'etat of December, 1851, which '' saved society " from a return of the democrats to power, was endorsed, with some reluctance, by Montalembert, and with lyric enthusiasm by Louis Veuillot. The twenty-two years during which Louis-Napoleon was the ruler of France, as President or as Emperor, are a critical period iri the history of French thought. Catholicism hardened in its policy of resistance to progress. For ten years it reaped the material benefit of its alliance with autocracy. Honours, influ- ence, money were showered on the clerg}\ French cardinals were by right members of the Senate. Education was entirely under the supervision of the priests, although not under their immediate control. Religious orders were allowed to multiply. In Paris, aTul all the great cities, magnificent churches were ( 270 PRE.VCH CiyiLIZATIOX 7N- XIX„, CENTUUV .h,» « , ', "^."'""P- *^'*''J'' "«"» ~fe praised wh.oeve, Loiii, Voiiilln" . 1^ . '^ , "" '""S" »f secession, cere b«trl™. ','"",' f ''"'°"« ""«"'• "l-W '"J sin- F^eh ciSs;::'™'' "" "*■"■ ™' "■« "■"»' f»»« »"w« The lasl traces of G.llic.iiism were also vani.hin. Tk on him who ^ilinni/i ,>. • ^ • ., '^ F^^P^sition. Anathema must L reconciled 7 ^ *'"' '^' '^""''» P"^""«' '-' -'J and mode cS:lt"f . '"Tr":;-^^ .^"? ^'^^^'--' ''•'-•"^-". dogma of P.H iS;; ,,, d! ;?;;;, eT/'''%^-" "-f ^'^^ few davq 'ifVor fK- ^t^uiica oy the Vatican Cminci . A icw uays alter this siiDreme frinmr^K ..f m Franco-German War bi^^^.^Z E: ^f ^1?'^^:^^ 'T troops were hastily recalled fnL .. "^"^^^^'\ ^^^^' ^^'^ ^^'^'"^'li September the ariL of V . 7 ' '^^^^ ^'" ^^^^ ^^^^^ ^^ City. History T s f! ^^^'^^"^"^"^^""^'^ -^tered the B:ternal .y xiistoiy offers few more dramatic contrasts. % THE RELIGIOUS QUESTION 271 § 3. The Third Kepublic. Religious revival after the war— Checked by clerical and political intrigues— Anti-clericalism and the 16th of May— Anti-clericalism and the school question— Leo XIII and the policy of reconciliation with the modern world— The " RaUies " and the **New Spirit "—The Dreyfus case and religion— Anti-clerical legislation of Waldeck- Rousseau— Emile Combes (Note on Freemasonry)— The Concordat breaks down— Rupture— The Separation law— Hostility to the Separa- tion due to the Roman Curia. § 4. Modeniisjn.—Gr&try and Maret, forgotten forerunners— Revival of Catholic thought and sentiment in the nineties— Vagueness of the Modernist attitude— Encyclical Pasce?idi— Christian democracy : Abbe Lemire— Marc Sangnier and the " Furrow " (Note on Count de Mun's social activities). After the war and the Commune, Catholicism had an admirable chance. France was humbled in her pride and, one might say, penitent. There was a genuine return to religion, symbolized by the two votive churches which rose on the heights of Fourvieres and Moiitmartre like citadels of prayer protecting the cities of Lyons and Paris. France was groping for Chris- tianity : she found again clericalism and ultramontanism. The I priests wanted her, bleeding still, to reconquer Rome for the I'ope. The old alliance between the Church and political re- action was as evident as ever. The Government of Moral Order and the half-hearted coup d'etat of the IGth of May were supported by the rank and file of the Catholics. Hence Giimlictta's war-cry, which was to re-echo throughout the history of the Third Eepublic : '^Clericalism is the enemy!'* The delbat of the iNLuiarchists at the polls in 1877 was a disaster for the Church. As soon as the Kepublicans were in full control of the government they introduced anti-clerical legis- lation. The repeal of the Concordat had long been an article of the iJadiral programme. But the Oi)portunists shrank from Hucli a bold experiment for fear that the young Republic should not prove equal to the strain. It was understood that separation would mean civil war. From 1879 to 1905 Church and State i^ were unitrd like two well-matched adversaries who dare not let •A go their hold of each other for a moment. We have Fcen how the oducBtional problem was embittered by / / 272 FRENCH CTVTIJZATIOX IX XFXTif CENTURY the clerical question. In 1880 a certain number of monasteries, convents, and Jesuit schools were closed manu militari, after a show of resistance. As usual, they were reopened as soon as the crisis was over. "Neutrality" in the State schools was denounced as thinly veiled atheism, although Jules Simon, a spiritualist philosopher had made the existence of God the basis of moral education' Nuns and the Brothers of the Christian Doctrine had charge of the public schools in many districts : the new laws provided that all sectarian elements should gradually be eliminated. Great was the bitterness on both sides. Devoted men and women were driven from country schools—as well as from hospitals— even when the local population wanted to keep them. On the other hand, lay teachers in remote parts were too often the victims of social ostracism and even of cowardly violence. No wonder then that in many places the schoolmaster has assumed, or been driven to assume, the position of '' anti-priest." * Pius IX died in 1878, after a reign of unparalleled duration and importance. His successor, Leo XHI, was by no means a radical reformer. The Syllabus and Papal Infallibility remained the law of the Church, and the protest against the Italian occupation of Home was not abandoned. But, cultured, diplo- matic, broad-minded within the limits of the Vatican traditions, Leo XIII did much to assuage the strife between Catholicism' and modem society. His encyclical Rerum Novarum, on the labour question, is the charter of Christian socialism. In 1891- 92 he formally advised French Catholics not to waste their energy in the defence of lost political causes : '' This," he is reported to have said, clasping a crucifix, 'Hhis is the only corpse that the Church clings to." A number of monarchists obeyed, not without reluctance, and formed the so-called ** rallied "party! Literature was full of vague Neo-Catholicism. The Government was ready to meet the Church half-way. A '' new spirit" pre- ♦ There was a " clerical question " even in banking. The Catholics founded a financial establishment, the Union G^n^rale, which collapsed in 1882 ruin- mg many smaU investors. The Panama scandals, in which Jews and anti- clerical politicians were implicated, were considered by the Catholics as a sort of revenge for their own failure. / THE RELIGIOUS QUESTION 273 Tailed, to use the phrase made famous in 1894 by Spuller, a statesman interested in religious questions. The Meline admin- istration relied for two years on the support of the Catholic "rallies" (1896-98). We have already shown how the Dreyfus case opposed once more reaction and revolution, and involved a realignment of parties. An aggressive Order, the Assumptionist Fathers, who had put on a marvellously profitable basis the cult of Saint Anthony of Padua, had at their service a well-drilled and unscrupulous Press. The Dominicans and the Jesaits had ' prepared in their schools a whole generation of military officers and civil servants entirely devoted to them. Anti-Semitism was gaming ground. It seemed as though a military-clerical coup d'etat, a repetition of the 2nd of December, 1851, or of the 16th of May, 1877, might take place at any moment. The Radicals denounced " the alliance between the sabre and the holy- water sprinkler." Every victory of Dreyfus's cause was a defeat for the Church : she had taken the wrong side, and had soon to pay the penalty. Waldeck-Rousseau wanted to defend the Republic against clericalism. But he hoped this could be achieved within the limits of the Concordat, by suppressing, curbing, and keeping under permanent control the turbulent Catholic elements those monks in whom breathed again the spirit of Saint-Bartholomew's night. In this he had the support, not merely of the Radicals but of many reasonable Catholics, and even of a large number of the clergy. The monks were not popular with the priests who accused them of using vulgar and unscrupulous methods • of Ignoring the authority of the bishops; of confiscating all 'the activities of the French Church, whilst the priests were confined to the least interesting and the least profitable routine duties An association law was passed, requiring every religious order to apply for authorization, with a statement of its statutes membership, and property. This intrusion of the State into their private afi^airs was intensely disagreeable to organizations which had always managed to dodge taxes and to evade factory laws and which did not care to reveal the extent of their fabulous wealth. Waldeck-Rousseau retired at the height of his triumph \ 274 FRENCH CIVILIZATION IN XIXth r^ENTURY recommending M. Combes as his successor. He could not but know that the latter, who had studied for the priesthood, was a rabid anti-clerical. The association law was turned into an instrument for suppressing rather than regulating religious orders. Many did not even apply. The rest were, for the sake of expedition, divided into large groups — teaching orders, com- mercial orders, contemplative orders — and whole blocks at a time were denied legal recognition. Only a few were authorized. The Premier, a fiery septuagenarian, did not allow this legislation to become a dead letter. A number of convents and monasteries were secularized, or had to emigrate to foreign parts. And, as he could not reach the Brothers of the Christian Doctrine, authorized long before. Combes had a special law passed against ** congreganist " education in July, 1904. The Church and Freemasonry. — The Church ascribed the persecution she was suffering to the activity of the "Satanic sect," Freemasonry; for, especially under the Republic, Freemasonry had become the backbone of the radical anti-clerical party. The phrase '* Satanic sect" was meant very literally. An anti-clerical of the lowest type, Leo Taxil, announced his conversion to Catholicism (1885), and began to denounce his former associates, the Free- masons, as devil-worshippers. Ho held the Catholic world breathless with the horrific revelations of a certain Miss Diana Vaughan, who knew all the secrets of the Luciferians. He kept up the deception for a number of years, until, on the eve of being exposed, he publicly confessed that it was a hoax (1897). But many Catholics still believe in this rather crude nursery tale.— Second episode : in 1903-4 the Minister of War, in order to weed out of the army the '• clerical" element which had become a danger to the Republic, made use of secret individual reports provided by the Masolis. These reports were sold to a Catholic deputy, who published them. France was disgusted with the whole affair, and the popularity of the Radicals has been waning ever since. Unsavoury affairs cropped up in the course of these interminable diffi- culties : the million of the Carthusian monks, the corrupt practices of Receiver Duez, etc. Yet Premier Combes did not think that the hour of separation had come. He hated and feared the Church too much to set her free. But, under his administration, the absurdity of the Concordat became manifest. The Republican Government was paying out salaries to its open enemies, and to a fanatical anti- Catholic was entrusted the selection of bishops. The Pope was morally justified in wishing to end this situation ; nay, the THE RELIGIOUS QUESTION 275 Concordat itself provided that a new convention would have to bo drawn, in case the head of the French State should be a non-Catholic. But the alternative to the existing regime was separation, not a new treaty. Meanwhile the new Pope, Pius X, and his Secretary of State, Cardinal Merry del Val, adopted a less diplomatic attitude than Leo XIII and Rampolla. Two bishops, accused by members of their dioceses, were called to Rome, in defiance of the Organic Articles. The Government ordered them to ignore the summons ; yet they were compelled to resign their functions. The Holy See systematically refused to confirm Combe's appointees. In a few years half the bishoprics of France would have been vacant. The Concordat was breaking down entirely. Oddly enough, it was the question of the Pope's temporal power in Rome which brought about the long-deferred crisis. After thirty years' estrangement, the reconciliation of Italy and France was sealed by official visits : King Victor-Emmanuel III came to Paris ; President Loubet could not but go to Rome. But the Pope cannot allow the head of a Catholic State to meet the ** usurper " in the very city he filched from the Church : the Emperor of Austria dares not \isit the capital of his ally. A note of protest was sent round to the diplomatic representatives of the Holy See. France would have ignored this platonic manifestation, had it not been discovered that there were two versions of this document — the one communicated to the French Government, which was harmless enough, and another reserved for the other Powers, couched in much more ofi'ensive language. France immediately recalled her ambassador from the Vatican, and expelled the papal nuncio from Paris.* Naturally the Concordat lapsed ipso facto. A new regime had to be organized. This regime, unfortunately, could not be the result of an agreement between Church and State, since all diplomatic relations were broken between the Vatican and Paris. Besides, the Papacy would never have accepted the principle of the Later the diplomatic papers of the Papal Legation in Paris were seized, and afforded evidence of Mgr. Montagnini's active intervention in French politics. / \ 276 FRENCH CIVILIZATION IN XIXth CENTURY separation, which was now inevitable. France, therefore, was obliged to legislate on ecclesiastical affairs without consulting the official representatives of the Church. But there were in Parliament many sincere and able Catholics, with whoso constant collaboration the law was prepared. The bigoted anti-clericalism of Combes was no longer the dominant factor. The man who became identified with the Separation law, Aristide Briand, was singularly broad-minded. Even Radical Republicans, haunted with the ominous precedent of the First Revolution and the Vendue, were willing to be generous on all minor points. The law, such as it was, promulgated in fJuly, 1905, provided liberal pensions for aged priests, and a series of transitional measures gradually to wean the Church from State support. The State renounced its right of appointing, , or even nominating, bishops. All the other restrictions which for a century had paralysed Catholicism, were removed. Ecclesiastical property, after an inventory, would be turned over to the Catholics themselves, organized into *' Associations for Public Worship," which the clergy were free to compose exactly as they saw fit. In order to prevent schism, it was stated that the property would always be attributed to the associations in communion with the original Church. A minority of Roman Catholics, therefore, would remain in possession, even if the majority of the parishioners should go over to Protestantism or Gallicanism. This regime, which safeguarded the dignity, the discipline, and even the material interests of the Church, was in every way more liberal than the one Rome had accepted in Prussia. When the French bishops met in general convention, they first of all sent to the Pope a telegram endorsing his theoretical condemna- tion of the separation, but by a substantial majority they agreed upon a policy of compliance with the law. Pius X affected to ignore this, the main result of their activities, and on the strength of their first message he affirmed that the French episcopate were with him in his uncompromising resistance. A number of Catholic professors and members of the Institute ventured to draw up a petition, respectfully entreating His Holiness not to hurl France into an interminable conflict. THE RELIGIOUS QUESTION 277 They were sneered at by the Vatican Press as "green cardinals." * The next general elections were fought chiefly on the Separation question, and the policy of the Government was unequivocally endorsed even by the rural districts. In a word, there is convincing evidence that the bulk of French Catholics were willing to give the law a fair trial. The opposition came from Rome. The Curia, deluded by a few incorrigible French reactionists, probably thought that it could drive the Government into acts of open persecution, which would cause a revulsion of feelings and the overthrow of the present Republic. These expectations were disappointed : M. Briand and the majority who supported him remained calm and firm. The churches were not closed. The violent and ignorant element seized upon the inventories as a pretext for disturbances in a few great cities and in some remote villages. But these unjustifiable riots w^ere blamed by the more enlightened Catholics, and the venerable Cur6 of Sainte-Clotilde said to the mixed crowd of toughs and aristocrats who pretended to '' defend " his church : ** You are pious hooligans ! " f Year after year, as a result of this militant policy, the Church has forfeited some of the real advantages that the law of 1905 provided for her. Public worship has never been interrupted or disturbed. But the tenure of the churches is precarious : no one is responsible for structural repairs, and a number of religious buildings have already been closed and condemned as unsafe. However, a modus viveiidi is being evolved. Without any further legislation, the Catholics will probably secure the full title to their own churches, by individual purchases at a nominal price from the municipalities. • But many years and many millions will have been wasted in useless strife. To define the attitude of Rome in this aff'air, we are compelled to use again the words clericalism and ultramontanism. The Curia was afraid lest the new regime should give the French Catholics some authority over their own finances, and therefore over their local policy and hierarchy. The spiritual and disci- • The uniform of members of the Institute is braided with green palms, t " Des Apaches pieux." 278 FRENCH CIVILIZATION IN XIXth CENTURY plinary powers of the Pope were not threatened by the separa- tion ; on the contrary, his authority was freed from any trace of lay interference. But more was wanted : the total subjection of the national clerg}^ and laity, in all things, to the Holy See. This goal has been reached : the last liberties of the Gallican Church have disappeared. It remains to be seen whether a deep blow has not been struck thereby at Catholicism itself. No schism has taken place. The Catholics have shown an admirable example of passive obedience ; but many of them feel that they have been treated with scant respect, led against their own better sense into a hopeless battle. How long will discipline stand such a strain? In this question of disestablishment, the chief point of interest is perhaps this silent crisis within the Church rather than the open conflict with the State. It is an episode in the war of extermination waged by the Roman autocracy against all forms of liberalism. The crushing out of the Modernist and Sillonist movements is another manifestation of the same policy. § 4. Modernism. Modernism is not the direct continuation of Liberal Catholicism, for Lamennais before the fall, Montalembert and Lacordaire all their lives, were conservative in their theology. Under the Second Empire, two Catholic philosophers. Abbe Henri Maret and Father Gratry, attempted to reconcile fearless and cogent thinking with the dogmatic tradition. Gratry, who as chaplain of the Superior Normal School influenced a number of young men, revived the Oratorian order for that very purpose. Maret was the head of the Theological School at the Sorbonne ; be gathered there a number of remarkable professors— Bautain, Gratry, Lavigerie, Freppel, Perreyve, Adolphe Perraud. These two men met with indifi'erent success: Gratry died isolated, almost persecuted and in despair; Maret never secured full canonical recognition for his school, which was finally suppressed by the State, and he lived under a constant menace of excom- munication. Both are deeply forgotten in our days. But they prepared a second generation of scholars and thinkers, who under the more liberal rule of Leo XIII attained high dignities: THE RELIGIOUS QUESTION 279 Perraud even became a cardinal. He and Mgr. Duchesne were members of the Institute of France. However, it should not be imagined that Leo XIII was personally inclined to modernism : he intimated that the Summa of Saint Thomas Aquinas was to remain the basis of all philosophical teaching in the Church, and Abbe Loisy was dismissed from the Catholic Institute of Paris in 1894. We have noted the so-called neo-Catholic movement im- mediately before the Dreyfus crisis. It was but a superficial sign of the great revival of religious thought, which, although ** the Aflfair " interfered with its development, bore magnificent fruit. Within the last ten or fifteen years the Catholics can boast such able men as Blondel, Fonsegrive, Laberthonniere, Sertillanges, Maumus, Le Roy, Goyau, Houtin, who dropped by the way, and the lost leader, Loisy. All are earnest thinkers and believers. Negligible in comparison are the political converts like Maurras, Lemaitre, Bourget, Barres — orthodox Catholics who are probably not Christians. The Lyons review Demain {To-iiwrroic) was as great a credit to the faith which inspired it as the Assumptionist paper La Croix was a disgrace. Any one who will compare the substantial and suggestive catalogue of the Catholic publishers Bloud, for instance, with the sickening literature in vogue twenty years ago will be struck with the difl'erence. There was no ** school*' of modernists. The tendency was a spirit, or, to use their own favourite phrase, a life^ rather than a doctrine. It may be considered as part of the anti-in- r tellectualist movement of which William James and Bergson are the leaders. With Houtin, once a modernist priest himself, we V do not believe that modernism had any great future in France. The country is still too fond of sharply defined logical thinking to be satisfied with these hazy syntheses. The encyclical Pascciidi Doininici Gregis in 1907, which summed up the new theories with superadded clearness and condemned modernism root and branch, was on the whole favourably received by genuine freethinkers."^ The fact remains that this latest attempt at * Liberal Protestants, ou the cuutrary, were as a rule very favourable to modernism. ^ i 280 FRENCH CIVILIZATION IN XIXth CENTURY liberalizing Catholic theology through immanentism or creative evolution has failed. A few individuals left the Church, like Loisy and Houtin; others protested anonymously; but the movement of revolt was an imperceptible ripple on a boundless sea The Roman hierarchy has proved that it could enforce conformity in matters of faith just as it could maintain discipline in questions of government. At the same time yet another manifestation of liberalism was defeated. The dream of Christian democracy, which appeared to Lamennais in 1831, to many Socialists as late as 1848, and again to Loyson and Gratry a generation later, was revived by Marc Sangnier and Abbe Lemire. The latter is a priest inter- ested m practical social reforms ; he has won the devotion of the Flemish peasants who send him to the Chamber of Deputies and the respectful sympathy of his anti-clerical colleagues! Ihe former is a wealthy and eloquent philanthropist who created somewhat on the line of the Dreyfusist "Popular Universities," an active social and educational centre called " Le Sillon " (the Furrow). As soon as it was realized that both of them were genuinely democratic, they were treated with suspicion, and even sharply rebuked. In every field Catholicism stands for con- servation and authority : these are the essence of the system There always will be parties and classes interested in the defence of the existing order ; the Opportunists, once anti-clerical, have made their peace witli tlie Church ; one may foresee the time when the Radicals will go to Canossa, if thereby they can obtain assistance against the Socialists. If the Socialists should ever consolidate themselves in power, they would discover the merits of Roman inertia. Catholicism polarizes all the elements of resistance to progress : this is the secret of its eternity.* ♦ It may be added that if the Catholics arc conservative, they need not be narrowly and unmtelligently so. The Le Play school of political economists. aTk . r\'; " "°. "^g'^S'^le. The working men's clubs founded by Count Albert de Mun after the war are not without influence. The young mens 190 r^' "''"u'^T"' """"^ ^^ ^^^ '"""^ "aristocratic Socialist." have 120,000 members |between the ages of 15 and 30. They are orthodox con- servative, yet full of life. Their conventions are important events: it was before the meeting of 1898, at Besanfon, that BrunetiAre gave his famous T^Z "t''''"^.™^'""'- ^'•^ "°'°" °' ^'''°"<= R^ilw'ymen boasts of 50,000 members. (The Yellow or anti- Socialist syndicates of Messrs THE RELIGIOUS QUESTION 281 But, whilst it is for many a mere ecclesiastical police, a buttress of social unequality, it remains, for untold thousands, a school of charity and sacrifice, a gateway to the better life. Sheer Voltairianism has gradually lost caste and sunk to the level of Monsieur Homais. The modern doubter is a disciple of Kenan and has a keen sense of the beauty and grandeur of reli^on. Anti-clericalism, since the disestablishment law is on the wane. Religious peace is not in sight ; but violent and degrading warfare, let us trust, is at an end. § 5. Protestantism, Etc. Churctf 't'^ reorganized under Napolcon-The two established Churches-The Revival and the Free Evangelical Churches-ia Bevus iJlwcILT . r'"' ^'^-^y-Co'-flict between orthodox an" -H™aT K r ^"'^"'-T''^ Declaration of Faith of 1872 ; schism -Honourable but unimportant part of Protestantism in French life 18^8 r, r'""1 ""'''^ Napoleon-Complete emancipatTon aSa" Drum^nt «nrr r f't """""^ ^'^"""^ Jews - Antf-Semitism : fnce of anttcf r 'f^ f'"'"'^''^- Dreyfus case : minor import- ance of anti-Semitism (Note on the Jews in Algeria) ChUpr/ff^'°^'~^*""'" °* ""^ Churches: Gallicanism (Abb4 Cousin f'T ?'"'°''^\''°^"°°>-^"'"'-S''"-'^°'^°'-P-i«vism. UsZl "'^';'"=TZ'^^ " °*t"™l religion" of the middle classes —Its loug-continued influence. Intense interest of modern Prance in religious questions. The history of Protestantism in the nineteenth century is curious y parallel with that of Catholicism. Freed from all disabilities by Louis XVI and the Revolution the Protestants TTsn?*"''^'^ '"l" *7° ^'"'^ ^^^''^'' ^y Napoleon Bonaparte 1802. Two theological schools were created, at Montauban and Strasbourg. ^Protestantism did not much profit by its new official status or by the wave of religious feeling which swept over France : it remained a small, historical body, formal in its creed and living on its traditions. It was not until the end of the Napoleonic wars had reopened France to English influences that a revival took place, thanks chiefly to the efforts of XlSd ?n?rluSsrisT'' '"^''''^ '' ''' '^^*^°^- "- - th: tford%?citr c^ur^ '^^'''" ''--'' --^^^ - ^'-- -^ 282 FRENCH CIVILIZATION IN XIXth CENTURY Wesleyans. This movement was not encouraged by the estab- lished Churches. Conservative Protestants took exception both to the *' undignified " methods of the revival and to its excessive emphasis of one dogma, the Atonement. In spite of conciliatory efforts at the synods of 1848-49, these differences led to a disruption, almost to a schism; Ag6nor de Gasparin and Frederic Monod founded the Union of French Evangelical Churches, on the basis of revival theology, and independent of the establishment. From 1850 to 1869 the Revue de Strasbourg was the organ of those we might call the ** higher critics " of the day — Reuss, Colani, Scherer. But the attempted reconciliation of science with traditional dogma was not effected. Scherer went ov3r to extreme freethought, and in a valedictory article Colani had to confess failure. Strasbourg w^as an active centre of Protestant thought, and an admirable point of contact be':ween the cultures of France and Germany. The fate of war, in 1870-71, made it an outpost of aggressive Germanism, to the great loss of both countries. France lost nearly one-half of her Protestant population, and the Strasbourg theological school w^as transferred to Paris. The struggle between conservatism and liberalism is best exemplified by the Coquerel episode. Athanase Coquerel, junior, a thoroughgoing Liberal, was suspended by a Presbyterial Council, in spite of the unanimous support of his congregation (1864). Guizot, in this affair, assumed the role of a Protestant pope : he claimed that *' the Council of the Church must be the defender of the souls of Coquerel's flock, and decide for them the supreme question of faith and life." This is essentially the Catholic attitude. In 1872, again under the inspiration of Guizot, a synod accepted a stricter confession of faith ; the expected, we might even say the desired, result was a formal separation between the Orthodox and the Liberal elements. The Protestants, through men like Ferdinand Buisson and Felix Pecaut, played an honourable part in the development of public education. Their r61e during the Dreyfus crisis was ako creditable. They showed no animosity during the interminable conflict between the State and the Catholic Church. They THE RELIGIOUS QUESTION 283 accepted the Separation law without enthusiasm, for, whilst it was m accord with their principles, it was no less evidently detrimental to their material interests. Some foreign observers had prophesied a great forward movement of Protestantism after the Separation: but no such revival has taken place. The breach between Liberals and Orthodox has not even been healed. Certain so-called Nationalist writers affect to consider Pro- testantism in France as a foreign element. This is manifestly and wilfully unfair : the sons of the Huguenots, the disciples of Calvin, are French of the French. But it is true that they form a small nation-barely 700,000 in number-within the main body ; that their traditions are different from those of the rest of the country ; that they cannot help turning their eyes towards those lands where their faith is in the ascendant like England and Germany ; that, in education, in outlook, not seldom in race, they are more cosmopolitan than the average. There IS no national anti-Protestant prejudice in France, although there are local difficulties in the south and in the east. But there is a sort of reciprocal coolness, recognized by competent judges like Paul Sabatier and Roberty, between the Protestant minority and their Catholic or Free-thinking countrymen. These facts point to the conclusion that French Protestantism is an obstinate survival rather than a growing force. The Revolution removed all the political and civil disabilities 01 the Jews. In the case of the Portuguese Jews, few in number, thoroughly assimilated, and found mainly in Paris and Bordeaux, this was effected almost immediately and without protest. The problem of the German Jews, in Alsace and the Rhine provinces annexed to France in 1795, was not settled without difficulty. In this case, the energetic methods of Napoleon proved permanently effective. In 1806 he summoned an assembly of Jewish notables, somewhat arbitrarily chosen by the Prefects. That assembly was succeeded in 1807 by a Grand Sanhedrim. This authoritative body declared : that the Bible did not prevent the Jews from accepting the French legal system ; that polygamy had long been abolished ; that they considered themselves loyal Frenchmen and were ready to serve 284 FRENCH CIVILIZATION IN XIXth CENTURY France by all means in their power. Thereupon the Jewish Church was organized on the hierarchic and centralized plan dear to Napoleon, and took its official place in the national system ; but it was not until 1831 that the rabbis were salaried by the State, like the ministers of the other religions. However, anti-Semitic sentiment was still strong in the eastern provinces, and, by the Madrid decree of 1808, Napoleon felt it necessary to institute a provisional regime for the German Jews. They were not allowed to settle in other parts of the Empire, except as agriculturists ; they could not buy substitutes for serving in the army : these exceptional measures were to remain in force for ten years. In 1815, by the treaties of Vienna, France lost her recent acquisitions of German territory, and the Alsatian problem became more manageable. In 1818 no one asked that the Madrid decree be renewed, and all French Jews enjoyed exactly the same rights as other citizens. Until the last decade of the nineteenth century France was practically free from anti-Semitism, although in 1844 Toussenel published his Les Juifs Rois de VEpoque, a study of financial feudalism. The typical French Jew is neither the wealthy banker nor the sordid dweller in the Ghetto : he is an artist and a scholar. The French- Jewish roll of fame is brilliant ; philologists and archaeologists especially will remember the names of H. Derembourg, Oppert, S. and T. Reinach, A. and J. Darmesteter, Michel Br^al. In music and the drama, whether as actors or authors, the Jews are also particularly strong. In 1880, M. Edouard Drumont began his anti-Semitic campaign, which he has continued with unflagging energy, undeniable talent, and intense sincerity. His paper. La Libre Parole, has set the example which the Catholic Press, La Croix for instance, was only too willing to imitate. French anti-Semitism is not a racial prejudice : it is a mixture of Catholic fanaticism, demagogic pseudo-socialism, and anti- German Chauvinism. A few cosmopolitan families, like the Rothschild, are fabulously wealthy and bear Teutonic names : this was sufficient to draw upon them the jealousy and hatred of the populace. Anti-Semitism played some part in the inception THE RELIGIOUS QUESTION 285 of the Dreyfus case ; but although it remained noisy enough, it soon became a minor element in that great conflict. Even at the height of the crisis, when the anti-Dreyfusists seemed wholly in control, no anti-Semite was returned to the Chamber of Deputies by European France : it was Algeria, where conditions were absolutely different, which sent Drumont, Morinaud and others, for one legislature only, to the Palais- Bourbon. It may be noted that the old aristocracy, ultra- Catholic though it be, has no insuperable objection to the matrimonial annexation of Jewish heiresses, and th^t the spokesman of monarchy, tradition, society, and the Church, the editor of the Gaulois, M. Arthur Meyer, is a Jew. In the eyes of the Socialist there is no difference between Jewish and Christian capital. So it is not probable that the Jewish question will ever become a national danger in France. The Jews in Algeria. — The Algerian Jews are not in any way superior to the Arabs or the Berbers ; neither are they much more in sympathy with French civilization ; yet they were enfranchised all at once by the Cremieux decree in 1870, whilst the Mohammedans are still treated as a conquered people. The first result of this injustice was the great insurrection of 1871. The Algerian Jews, however, are fast getting Europeanized, and will soon be bona fide French citizens. The three religions recognized by the State until 1905 do not exhaust the spiritual life of France. No other Church, it is true, achieved any degree of influence. Abbe Chatel under Louis- Philippe, Father Hyacinthe Loyson after 1870, attempted to start schisms on Gallican lines ; but the result was disheartening. Recent efforts in the same direction, after the Separation, would have passed absolutely unnoticed had not the Roman Catholics invaded the schismatic places of worship and interrupted their services — a dangerous example to set before the Parisian popu- lace ! Saint Simonianism about 1830 was meant to be a new Christianity. Under Bazard and Enfantin it had preachers and seminaries, some sort of ritual, and enough mystic exaltation to give it a place among real religions. But, as a sect, it ended in division, scandal, prosecution, and the farcical pilgrimage to the East, in quest of '' the Mother." Positivism is a mighty move- ment ; but the formal cult of humanity devised by Auguste Comte 286 FRENCH CIVILI7ATION IN XIXth CENTURY in his latter years was not accepted even by his most prominent disciple Littre, and by the rest of the world was either ignored or ridiculed. The many queer little sects that amuse Parisian society for a season need not detain our attention. Of greater significance are what we might call the lay churches, or the substitutes for organized religion. The most definite of these was Cousin's eclecticism. This philosophy did not claim to be original, but to represent the '' common sense '' of the race in religious matters, from Plato to Hegel, by way of Plotinus, Descartes, Voltaire, Rousseau, and Kant. It taught the exist- ence of God, the spirituality, immortality, and responsibility of the soul ; after 1830, it became the official doctrine of State education— -and Cousin knew how to keep discipline in his '* regiment " ! But it was mercilessly assailed by the Catholics, for whilst attempting to preserve all the essentials of Christian metaphysics, it had no place for specifically Christian dogma. Under the Second Empire it lingered ingloriously, still en- trenched in official positions (with Caro, for instance), but jeered at by the orthodox on the one hand and the positivists on the other. The best representative of the second generation of ** spiritualists " was Jules Simon, whose books on Duty and Natural Religion were aptly called ** Missals for freethinkers." When Jules Ferry laid the foundations of unsectariau State educa- tion in 1879-82, it was Jules Simon who managed to have the essential tenets of spiritualism preserved as the moral basis of the new system. As a sign of the discredit into which this school of thought has fallen, we may note that Premier Combes excited an outburst of derision in the Chamber of Deputies when he professed himself '' an old-fashioned spiritualist philosopher.** M. Homais, the typical bourgeois described by Flaubert in Madame Bovanj, held the religion of '' Socrates, Voltaire, Rousseau, Franklin, and Beranger," i.e., that of Victor Cousin and Jules Simon. His modern congeners — no whit deeper or more original than he— swear by Darwin, Huxley, Spencer, and Haeckel. Spiritualism was naught but a compromise— a hateful thing in matters of faith. Yet it would be unjust to deny that it satisfied, somehow, the needs of many souls who were by no means despicable. I THE RELIGIOUS QUESTION 287 The Fatherland, the Revolution, Humanity, Science, have in turn or simultaneously been proposed to our veneration. Even the cult of Reason was revived during the Dreyfus crisis by a former priest, Victor Charbonnel, whom Emerson and the Chicago Congress of Religions had first caused to stray from the Roman path. Socialism is with many an idealistic faith, imply- ing the '* New Theology's" central belief that mankind is divine, the collective incarnation, the progressive self-realization of the immanent God. Certain it is that the haunting sense of the Great Beyond is present in the France of to-day, as much^as in any other period in her history. Paris, apart from its Catholic and Protestant schools of theology, is admirably equipped for the study of religion."^ Societies like the Union of the Servants of Truth or the Union of Free-thinkers and Free-believers, books like Charles P^guy's Mystery of the Charity of Joan of Arc, afford definite evidence of this spiritual activity. Even reckless negation may be a sign of intense concern in religious things : the dull of soul is a born conformist. The creed of France baffles definition ; but to follow an unnamed master, when night is darkest, is not that the supreme triumph of faith ? • Courses in the Faculte des Lettres, Ecole Pratique des Hautes Etudes, College de France, Ecole des Hautes Etudes Sociales, Mus^e Guimet, etc. BIBLIOGKAPHY ^' ^fC°"to..^''!°"' ^'' Rapports de I'Eglise et de I'Etat en Prance de UtUe " Alcan '°' '^''"'' ^^^^' '"'° ^''"'^S™^'^' *° " Biblioth^ue Sous la Troisieme R^publique. 2 vols. 8vo. Alcan. (Convenient col- lection of facts, useful bibliographies, marred by polemical tone ) Salomon REiNACH^Orpheus. Picard, Paris; Heinemann, London ; Putnam. hev,\0Tk. 1909. (Bibliographies, Voltairian in tone.) WEILL. Le CathoUcisme Fran«ais. Revue de Synthase Historique, December, 1907. (Excellent general indications; the other works of M. Weill also contain good bibliographies.) A. H. Galton. Church and State in France. 8yo. 283 pp. Arnold London. 1907. *^^ ^ruuiu, Paul Sabatier. A propos de la Separation des Eglises et de I'Etat. 12mo 216 pp. Fischbacher, Paris. Les Modernistes. Fischbacher, Paris. 1909. (With text of encyclical Pascendi, etc.) ^ ^'^^"^°^*^^o^ ^ligieuse de la France Actuelle. ISmo. 320 pp. Colin, '''7n';;7es?nrr'''''^' ''"''"''' ''' ^^' '''"^''' ''''• (^^^^^^^^^^ M. J. GUYAU. L'lrreligion de I'Avenir. Svo. Alcan, Paris 1886 E. BouTRoux Science et Religion dans la Philosophic Contemporaine. 18mo. Flammarion. 1908. Mme. C CoiGNET. L'Evolution du Protestantisme Francais du XIX™ si^cle. 18mo. Alcan. 1908. E Stapfer. La Declaration de Foi de 1872. 18ino. Fischbacher. 1908 The Jewish Encyclopedia. A. L Guerard. French Prophets of Yesterday. 8vo. Fisher Unwin and Appleton. 1913. chronological table VIII. THE RELIGIOUS QUESTION ' 1775-99 Pope Pics VI - SraS?3. Sglot 0?ditt;i-- -P-^ voted. 1-Qi = ^ ; C'"l Constitution of the Clergy 179 'qo ^^P'^'^ber 27. Pinal Emancipation of French Jews ,;i P^^ecutions against Non-jurors. '' * 9 fiL" 8 CeL ''k '''"!"^ "' "^^ ^^=«val of Reason. pferre'otX" ^"""' °' ''' '"^'^^ ^''"^^ (^^bes- 1799-18 JirEp[cs%i?"'''^'' "^"^"°° °^ ^''-'='' -^ State. ]^l i"'^, !f '° A"g"^t 28. Concordat signed. rw , C°°f < • » » ro^ d^ f--.-' It 'i- .%■ >J_»i"» %\- ^ - tc - CO o r^'i L-' %