CONTENTS OF VOL. 223. Mr. Balfour's Gifford Lec- The Ideas of Maurice Barrès Political Reconstruction JANUARY, 1916 No. 455 THE UNITY OF FRANCE I. La Patrie en Danger. Par GUSTAVE HERVÉ. Paris: Bibliothèque des Ouvrages Documentaires. 1915. 2. L'Âme Française et la Guerre: L'Union Sacrée. Par MAURICE BARRÈS. Paris: Émile-Paul Frères. 1915. 3. Contre les Barbares (1914-1915). Paris: E. Flammarion. 1915. Par PAUL MARGUERITTE. 4. Péguy. Par ANDRÉ SUARÈS. Paris: Émile-Paul Frères. 1915. 5. Enquête sur la Jeunesse : La Revue hebdomadaire. Paris: Librairie Plon. 1912. 6. Paris pendant la Guerre. Par FERNAND LAUDET. Paris: Perrin et Cie. 1915. WE E are all of one mind in admiring, and often with an admiration bordering upon amazement, the magnificent temper in which the heroic French nation has faced its stupendous hour of trial. But there is a danger that the nature of the national fortitude should be misapprehended in this country, and as a fact much has been hastily said on this subject in the English press which is not founded on a close study of recent history. From every point of view it is unjust and unseemly to proclaim our surprise at the heroism of the French, and to assume that the calm of the population, and its confidence, and its unity, are due to a All rights reserved. VOL. 223. NO. 455. B sudden miracle supernaturally brought about by the act of mobilisation in August 1914. To assert this, and to talk, as too many English publicists have done, of a New France, created at the moment of the declaration of war on purpose to resist the advances of Germany, is not merely, in our opinion, to stale a matter of history incorrectly, but it is to do a grave injustice to the intelligent evolution of French sentiment. The France which is now so gallantly fighting with us and with the rest of the Allies to prevent the triumph of Teutonic evil is simply the France which has long been in preparation for a life-struggle with the powers of darkness. Those who detested France and had every spiritual and material reason for depreciating her values continued to repeat, with nauseous iteration, that she was in full decadence, and that her race was eaten out to the core by the white ants of social disorder. The disputes of radicals and moderates, of socialists and reactionaries, of anti-militarists and clericals, were pointed to with glee as the evidences of ethical chaos in a bewildered people, and events like the Caillaux trial and its result saddened the best friends of France as much as they were exulted over in Berlin. What has not been understood has been the superficial character of these symptoms. The pretended levity of Paris was all on the surface, and even there, if the exotic elements were eliminated and the action of the parasitic population removed, there was little for a formalist to condemn or even reprove. What in the charming gaiety of the French might seem, in face of the most painful contingencies of the moment, to be frivolous, was thrown like a gauze veil over the harsher lines of life. This complaint of the levity of France is one of the poorest excuses which dulness can make for its own want of amiability. No one has put the matter more vividly than Voltaire when he says: 'Il me semble que la vertu, l'étude et la gaieté sont trois sœurs qu'il ne faut point séparer.' For our own part, so far from reproaching France with her frivolity, we should be inclined to regret the increasing seriousness of the national countenance, which of late years has seemed less and less ready to break out into those ripples of laughter which have always fascinated the nations. Yet, if France has of late laughed less, her smile has on occasion been more beautiful than ever. There is more reason in the objection that has of recent years been brought against the French people for an apparent want of internal harmony and evenness in its treatment of political and social aims. In the ardent struggles of French thought during the last two decades, it has, indeed, been sometimes difficult to trace that continuity of purpose which should be the aim of public life. The constant disturbances, the angry wranglings, the battles royal between Labour and the Army, the Church and the Republic-these have often, we admit, been depressing to those of us who have loved France best. It is very difficult for eyes that watch, however benevolently, another nation from a distance, to avoid misapprehension of developments which are unfamiliar in their kind. But reflection will persuade us that even the social agitations which have so often bewildered us in recent French politics were founded on generous instincts. They were conducted in the interest, often no doubt in the mistaken and even the perverted interest, of equity and justice. They were exasperating in their form, and they led to deplorable episodes, but in their essence they were not ignoble. At the basis even of their irregularities, it was always possible to trace a zeal for first principles and the universal rights of man, no less than for the emancipation of intelligence and for the progress of civilisation. Even the crisis of Dreyfusism, which saddened and bewildered the rest of the world, and in some of its features presented an aspect of unrelieved distress, even this melancholy affair revealed marvellous examples of high civic courage. It is not too much to say that after all these years it is the intrepidity of the combatants, far more than their confused and squalid struggle, which remains vivid to us when we look back on the dismal swamp of Dreyfusism. We do well, therefore, to protest against this talk of a New France, risen, like a phoenix out of the funeral pyre of the old, for the instant purpose of combating the arrogance of Prussia. The France of to-day is splendid, but her effort is not miraculous; it has long been prepared for by the elements of her ancient and continuous civilisation. Those who watched the nation closely before the outbreak of this war have no cause for surprise, though much for gratulation and thankfulness, in the evolution of national character; it is welcome, but it is no more than we expected. For fifteen years past, sudden miracle supernaturally brought about by the act of mobilisation in August 1914. To assert this, and to talk, as too many English publicists have done, of a New France, created at the moment of the declaration of war on purpose to resist the advances of Germany, is not merely, in our opinion, to state a matter of history incorrectly, but it is to do a grave injustice to the intelligent evolution of French sentiment. The France which is now so gallantly fighting with us and with the rest of the Allies to prevent the triumph of Teutonic evil is simply the France which has long been in preparation for a life-struggle with the powers of darkness. Those who detested France and had every spiritual and material reason for depreciating her values continued to repeat, with nauseous iteration, that she was in full decadence, and that her race was eaten out to the core by the white ants of social disorder. The disputes of radicals and moderates, of socialists and reactionaries, of anti-militarists and clericals, were pointed to with glee as the evidences of ethical chaos in a bewildered people, and events like the Caillaux trial and its result saddened the best friends of France as much as they were exulted over in Berlin. What has not been understood has been the superficial character of these symptoms. The pretended levity of Paris was all on the surface, and even there, if the exotic elements were eliminated and the action of the parasitic population removed, there was little for a formalist to condemn or even reprove. What in the charming gaiety of the French might seem, in face of the most painful contingencies of the moment, to be frivolous, was thrown like a gauze veil over the harsher lines of life. This complaint of the levity of France is one of the poorest excuses which dulness can make for its own want of amiability. No one has put the matter more vividly than Voltaire when he says: Il me semble que la vertu, l'étude et la gaieté sont trois sœurs qu'il ne faut point séparer.' For our own part, so far from reproaching France with her frivolity, we should be inclined to regret the increasing seriousness of the national countenance, which of late years has seemed less and less ready to break out into those ripples of laughter which have always fascinated the nations. Yet, if France has of late laughed less, her smile has on occasion been more beautiful than ever. |