English Pharisees French Crocodiles, and Other Anglo-French Typical Characters

But where is he to go? The English, who are generally so sensible, are curiously inconsistent in this matter.

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I have seen, in English illustrated papers, pictures of Sunday in London and Sunday in Paris. The first represented a dirty mob of men and women, drinking, quarreling, and fighting; the second, groups of workmen, accompanied by their wives, their children, and their old parents, in contemplation before the pictures in the Louvre Museum.

This was doing us justice for once.

Intelligent and liberal England is moving heaven and earth to get the museums thrown open to the people on Sundays. The Prince of Wales, and the leaders of all the aristocracies of the country, are at the head of the movement; but all the little narrow-minded and bigoted world is leagued against them, and it is not probable that they will succeed. Meanwhile, the London taverns remain open, which proves that the English bigots consider gin and beer more powerful moral stimulants than the masterpieces of great artists; such appears also to be the decided opinion of the bishops, who never fail to attend at the House of Lords in full force when the subject is coming on for discussion.

England erects her statues to the nobility and to finance. You see, England's great literary men were so numerous, that they had to be relegated to a corner of Westminster Abbey, for fear they should hinder circulation in the streets. With the aid of a guidebook, you may succeed in discovering the tablets erected to their memory by a not too grateful country.

Thackeray, the immortal author of "Vanity Fair," is rewarded with a tablet about a foot square. But, then, if you will take a walk around the Stock Exchange, you will see the third statue of the Duke of Wellington, and one of Peabody, the millionaire. In a little narrow City street, a bust of Milton, in an obscure niche, reminds the passer-by that the author of "Paradise Lost" was born in that place. It is comparatively unnoticed. In the wild, headlong, guinea chase, there is no time for trifling! Paris has a Rue Milton to make up for it.

Yet this thirst for gold has been the greatest civilizing power of modern times. It is this which has opened up new markets for commerce in the remotest corners of the world. This British Empire, which has been called a brazen colossus with feet of clay, is the greatest empire it was ever given to man to found.

In a hundred years' time, Australia will probably be a strong and independent Republic, a second America; but the separation will mean no loss of prestige or of profit to England; her commerce will not suffer; her steamboats will continue to ply between London and Sydney, as they do between Liverpool and New York.

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Who would dare to compare the greater number of England's conquests to those sterile ones that only survive in man's memory by the tears and blood that they have caused to flow?

"We are a wonderful people," cries General Gordon, in his Diary at Khartoum; "it was never our Government which made us a great nation; our Government has ever been the drag on our wheels. England was made by adventurers, not by her Government; and I believe she will only hold her place by adventurers."

This is true enough.

They were adventurers, who were the first to set foot on the soil of those remote regions which have been added one by one to the lists of England's colonies; but if England is a great nation, it is thanks to heroic deeds, such as thine, great advanced sentinel of modern civilization, who for months couldst unaided keep hordes of barbarians in check; it is thanks to heroes of thy stamp, poor Gordon!

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England conquers by the railway. She imposes her civilization and her commerce in the countries she subdues, puts the natives in the way of earning money, and sensibly takes care to make her yoke felt as little as possible. Her commercial power makes her indispensable to the rest of the world, including the shareholders of the Suez Canal Company, to whom she pays more than three times as much as all the other powers put together.

That which makes the strength of this colonial empire, is that each colony, like each child in the mother-country, serves the apprenticeship of life in the enjoyment of liberty.

As each colony becomes rich enough to suffice unto itself, and strong enough to defend itself, England says to the colonists: "You are now big enough to manage for yourselves, it is time you learnt to do without my help." This is what the Englishman says to his sons, as they come to man's estate. The colony forms its government, chooses its ministers, and its parliament; sends representatives to England to watch over its interests there, and becomes, as it were, a branch house of that immense firm, known in every latitude, under the name of "John Bull and Company."5

All forms of worship will lend themselves to exaggeration and develop eccentricities, and most certainly it is not the worship of the Golden Calf that is an exception to the rule. Let us look at the question from this side as well as the other.

You never run the risk of offending an Englishman by offering him money.

Everyone must remember the lamentations of the Madagascar missionary, Mr. Shaw. The reverend gentleman had been parted from his flock, and obliged to take pot-luck on board the late Admiral Pierre's vessel. What meant those jeremiads? Was it apologies he wanted? Not a bit of it! This apostle wanted cash. From the day that he received $5000 from the French Government not a word more was heard from him. He was quiet and happy.

$5000 for having eaten a few bad dinners! It does not fall to everyone's share to dine so satisfactorily as that.

Although the labor of preparing the posthumous works of Victor Hugo for publication will be enormous, his literary executors have refused to accept the profits, sure to be immense, which the poet meant should be the reward of their arduous task. But the thought of receiving money for such a labor of love is odious to them. English people may look upon this as sentimentality, but it compares very favorably with the highly practical proceedings of Thomas Carlyle's literary executor.

M. H – , the French député, who obtained 10,000 francs damages the other day, in Paris, from an individual who had insulted his wife, gave the money to the poor the very same day. It is a fact that, in France, no man, jealous of his honor, would pocket such gains.

"But," you will say, "surely the Reverend Mr. Shaw gave his $5000 to the poor, or to some good cause – ?"

You little know the type.

In England, it is only too much the fashion to carry everything to the bank – an insult, a kick, the loss of a lover, the faithlessness of a wife, all possible inconveniences; the almighty guinea consoles for every wrong, and may be offered to anyone.

On his wedding day (January 28, 1885), the Rev. Stephen Gladstone, Vicar of Hawarden, and son of the Prime Minister of England, received, among his numerous wedding presents, a check for a hundred pounds from Dr. Sir Andrew Clark, and another for the same sum from the Duke of Westminster. The thing was so natural that not a single English paper commented on the fact.

In France, such a wedding present could only be offered to a domestic who had served us faithfully for some time.

I was in France, spending a few days with a farmer in the heart of the country.

Dressed in a blouse and a large straw hat, I was one day taking a walk on the main road, when an Englishman, accompanied by a young lad of fifteen, accosted me, and asked which was the shortest way to the village of M – .

Delighted to see an Englishman, I volunteered all the information that was at my command. I even offered to accompany him as far as the lane which led to M – , and he willingly accepted.

After racking my brains to give my Englishman every detail I could think of, concerning the interesting village he was about to visit, I proposed to turn back.

He, after having uttered a formidable "Aoh" for all thanks, went on his way.

I had spoken in French. I always like to make Englishmen speak French when I meet them in France. It is my little revenge.

I will admit that, in my rustic attire, I could not have looked much of a dandy; but, in France, we have still preserved that good old habit of saying "Thank you," even to our inferiors.

The Briton had simply treated me as he would have a City policeman who had told him his way.

I called him back.

"Excusez-moi," I said.

"Aoh! mon ami, oui … je savé ce que vo – volé … je demandé pardonne."

And, without another word, he drew from his pocket a fifty-centime piece, which he slipped into my hand.

As you must always keep what an Englishman gives you a chance of pocketing, I did not hesitate to put the fifty-centimes in a safe place.

This done, I said to him in decent English:

"My dear sir, let me give you a piece of advice. When you have got a Frenchman to talk himself hoarse to explain to you your way, just thank him."

"Why, sir, you speak English – "

He was immediately all apologies.

"Above all," I continued, "never offer money in this country before you are quite sure it will be acceptable. You might have it thrown in your face," I added laughing.

My Englishman held out his hand, as if to receive back his fifty centimes.

"Oh! with me," I said to him, "there is no danger. I have lived a long while in England, and I am pretty businesslike by this time. I never throw money out of windows or in people's faces … I put it in my pocket."

My practical ideas won me his esteem. We laughed heartily over the adventure, and parted the best of friends.

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After having beaten the Ashantees, in 1874, brought home the umbrella of their king, and burnt their capital, a feat not requiring much talent, the dwellings being built of wood and straw, General Wolseley, on his return to England, had a grant of £25,000 made to him. Eight years later, on his return from Egypt, this same general received a peerage and £28,000. Lord Alcester, his companion in arms, who had operated on the walls of Alexandria, while he was operating on the backs of the Egyptians, also obtained a peerage and £30,000. When I consider that, during the siege of Alexandria, the English had only three men put hors de combat, it occurs to me that doubtless these rewards were granted to Lord Alcester at the suggestion of the British Royal Humane Society.

And yet General Roberts, the history of whose celebrated march to Candahar will remain written in letters of gold among the records of the great military feats of the present century, had to content himself with the Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath.

General Wolseley, now Baron of Cairo, a name so grotesque that he has never yet cared to assume it in public, was one day sent back to the Soudan to deliver Gordon, that modern chevalier sans peur et sans reproche. The perspective was tempting; there was every prospect of an ample harvest of honors and banknotes. Unfortunately, the Mahdi cut the grass under the general's feet, and he arrived too late. Poor Gordon had to die, not to save his country, but to become, and forever remain, a specter at England's feast, the victim of her vacillations, a standing reproach to her indifference.

Gordon and Wolseley! to think that, by the irony of fate, these two names should have been associated in the same campaign! The soldier saint, and the noble millionaire, whose victories are sounded with the clink of guineas.

"Look, here, upon this picture, and on this."

And you, O heroes of antiquity, arise from your long sleep, and see the progress that military art has made! Veil your faces, O Fabricius, Cincinnatus, and all you Romans, who, after you had subdued your country's foes, and drawn fettered kings behind your triumphal chariots, returned to cultivate your fields, and died so poor that you had to be buried at the public expense.

It has long been England's practice to reward with money those who had rendered services to the country.

After the battle of Waterloo, the Duke of Wellington received, as a present from the nation, £400,000 and a palace at the entrance of Hyde Park.

With reference to the grants to the famous Duke of Marlborough, that great general, who filled the hearts of his enemies with terror, and the pockets of his family with the money of his countrymen, and whose descendants still receive from the state the sum of £4000 a year, Swift compares, in the Examiner, the generosity of the Romans with the generosity of the English:

A Bill of Roman Gratitude.

A Bill of British Gratitude.

John Churchill, Duke of Marlborough, was pocketing these $2,700,000 about the time when Fléchier, comparing Turenne to Maccabæus, was able to say of him, "that he would never accept any other reward, for the services he rendered to his country, than the honor of having served her."

It is not at the Abbey of Westminster, it is on the façade of the Bank of England that there ought to be written:

HERE ENGLAND SHOWS HER GRATITUDE TO HER GREAT MEN.

CHAPTER XIX.

WHY THE FRENCH WERE BEATEN IN 1870

Everyone accounted for our disasters of 1870 after his own fashion. The most ingenious theories were brought forward, and we very well know why we believe it to be indispensable and patriotic to learn German.

"Ah!" cried some, "if we had only known German, we should not have been defeated." And forthwith instruction in German was decreed obligatory.

"That is not it," said others, "it is our geography, of which we did not know even the rudiments, that has been the cause of all the evil. On leaving Paris, our officers, ignorant of the meanders of the Seine, thought that they were beating a retreat each time they came to a fresh bend of that river." And the study of geography received a fillip.

Others again would have it to be that if the visors of our soldier's képis had not been lifted upward in front, the Prussians would have had a warm time of it. Down came the visors without delay.

I pass over the pious people, who saw in our disasters only the just chastisement of our faults, and will only give the opinion of Thomas Carlyle. This philosopher, whom the hazard of birth had made English, but who was a perfect German, cried out that "Germanic virtues had triumphed over Gallic vices."

Some few worthy folks, perfectly destitute of genius, but possessing an ounce or two of common sense, attributed our defeats to the fact that the Germans had an army of 1,200,000 men, whereas our own forces scarcely numbered 350,000. I fancy it is these latter that history will show to have been in the right.

The virtuous Germans that vanquished us, were they, after all, so clever at geography and French? This is how they learnt the geography they required, and how they made themselves understood in French:

A few Uhlans would approach to within a respectful distance of a village. There they would seize upon the first peasant, old man, or child, that passed, place a pistol to his throat, and after asking, "Are there any French soldiers in your village?" would say: "Show us the way to such and such place, and tell us the names of all the people around here, who have wine in their cellars, or hay in their barns. And you had better take care to tell the truth, or we will blow your brains out, and set fire to the four corners of your village."

Loaded pistols and lighted torches are magical quickeners of slow intellects; a deaf man would understand such arguments as these. If I took by the collar the first lad I came across in Germany, and, lifting my stick to his head, shouted into his ear: "You young rascal, I will knock your head off," I will warrant he would understand me as quickly as if I spoke the purest German.

If we have any spare time, let us learn German that we may be able to read Goethe and Schiller; from the practical point of view, the utility of German is but secondary. If we should ever demand of Germany the provinces that she wrenched from us, we shall find we have enough German-speaking mouths, if we can only put into the field as many mouths of cannon as Wilhem II.

CHAPTER XX.

ENGLAND WORKS FOR HERSELF. THE WORLD OWES HER NOTHING

"If," as M. Rénan says,6 "those nations which have an exceptional fact in their history expiate this fact by long sufferings and pay for it with their national existence – if the nations that have created unique things by which the world profits often die victims of their achievements," England may hope to live a considerable time yet, for everything that she undertakes is national, never universal. She works for herself and herself alone. Whenever she is asked to co-operate in the execution of a great project of universal interest, she refuses pointblank, unless it appears quite clear to her that she alone will reap the profits and honors of the undertaking. An Englishman's sphere of action is always England and her colonies; his only aim, British interests – two magic words to his ears.

If the Channel Tunnel could be made so that it could only be used by the English, it would be commenced to-morrow.

Lord Beaconsfield pronounced patriotism to be the most rational form of egotism. Would to Heaven it might be so interpreted in France!

When shall we, in France, cease to strive after the extraordinary and the universal? When shall we cease to concern ourselves about the happiness of the whole human race and, minding our own business, undertake only the possible and the practical? When shall we cease to become inventors and be men of business?

There is not much discovered in England nowadays, except new ways of dodging the arch-enemy.

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Yet it was Newton who discovered the infinitesimal calculus and the laws of universal gravitation. Yet it was England that produced Shakespeare, the sublimest example of the Creator's handiwork. Yet it was Harvey who discovered the circulation of the blood. But now England is entirely given over to business; she has no time to throw away upon inventions.

For that matter, why should England go in for inventing? She has money and a genius for commerce, and, possessing these, can do without inventors, who, as a rule, die in the workhouse, with the satisfaction of knowing that shrewd men of business have made fortunes out of their discoveries.

This has always been so. Even the sublime and Divine Thinker expiated with an ignominious death the invention of a theory which, but for the meddling of speculators, would have insured the happiness of the world. To-day He can contemplate from His celestial throne, the bishops coming out of their palaces in luxurious carriages to go to the House of Lords and vote against the opening of museums on Sundays, or on their way to the Mansion House to feast with the Lord Mayor, who gives better dinners than were to be had in Galilee, I assure you.

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The world is made up of fools and knaves, such was the judgment passed upon mankind by Thomas Carlyle, the great English historian, a rough and dyspeptic philosopher, who himself, however, was neither a knave nor a fool.

This writer, who passed his life in insulting his countrymen one after another, who could make love to his wife by correspondence when she was far away, but who never found an amiable word to say to her when she was near, this same Thomas Carlyle has calumniated the world. Where should we be without the few disinterested heroes who have devoted themselves to the amelioration of their fellow-creatures, and who, in return, have received but poverty and prison, torture and death? The men who have suffered for country, religion, science, liberty; are these Carlyle's fools?

CHAPTER XXI.

THE SPIRIT OF DESTRUCTION AND THE SPIRIT OF CONSERVATISM

How is it that the French are such vandals with regard to their country and their institutions, seeing that the love for their family, respect for their parents, and veneration for souvenirs, are such marked features in their character? The fact is that France is towed unresistingly by Paris, and that we often have to say "the French," when in reality we only mean "the Parisians."

We are accused of no longer having much respect for anything. Alas! that it should be impossible to deny such an accusation!

A country, just like a family, lives by its traditions, its souvenirs, even by its prejudices. Destroy these souvenirs, some of which serve as examples and others as warnings, destroy these traditions, and you break the chain that binds the family together, and the past, though never so glorious, has been lived in vain. Is a country less dear to her sons because of her prejudices? Do we not love to find them in a dear old mother?

Do not the very prejudices and weaknesses, the thousand little failings of our friends, often endear them to us?

Then why are we not content with France as she is? Why be always wanting to change her? Is it possible that we Frenchmen, the most home-abiding men in the world, can be attacked by this ridiculous mania for change?

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The study of the French language furnishes of itself plain proof of our spirit of destruction, and the Dictionnaire des Significations, which, is shortly to be published, and is awaited with impatience by the learned world, will show, by the history of the changes of meaning that our words have undergone, that the character of the French people can be recognized to this very day by the descriptions that were given of it two thousand years ago.

The French word benît formerly meant "blessed."

Thanks to the jokes of the old Gauls, our ancestors, it now means "silly." Our forefathers heard in church: "Benedicti stulti quia habebunt regnum cœlorum."7 Bénis seront les pauvres d'esprit, car ils auront le royaume des cieux. Now, in French, pauvre d'esprit means "silly," and, on their way home, the old jokers would indulge in merry remarks at one another's expense. When anyone gave proof of want of wit, he was congratulated on having his entry into the kingdom of heaven secured:

"You are stultus enough to be benedictus"; and the first adjective soon came to have the meaning of the second.

It will soon be impossible to pronounce the word fille in good society, except to express relationship.

Why are we obliged to make use of this word to designate a child of the feminine sex? Simply because the feminine of garçon began to be used in a bad sense in the seventeenth century. Before the feminine of garçon– which the French had to give up, as they will soon have to give up the word fille– they had a word which is, in the present day, a horribly coarse expression.

Such is the march of the spirit of destruction.

The Gauls have always been rich in wit, but wit often of a bantering and sarcastic kind, which disparages and covers with ridicule, and of which Voltaire was the personification.

People who eat sausages on a Friday,8 in France, think they are doing a smart thing, and rebelling against a form of tyranny, forgetting that Lenten fasts had originally a sanitary reason. To give rest to the stomach, such was the aim; and a French physician said to me one day: "If there were no Lent in the spring, I should order my patients to fast two or three times a week, through that season of the year."

The Talmud forbids the Jews to eat pork, because that meat is heavy and indigestible; the Koran forbids the use of wine among the Mussulmans, because of its intoxicating properties; in fact, have not all these religious edicts a foundation of common sense, and do we not give proof of common sense in conforming to them? Truly, he is but a pitiful hero – not to use a stronger term – who boasts of not following a salutary counsel, that he does not know how to appreciate, because he does not understand.

⁂

The English, unlike us, cling to their past, and because a custom is old, that is a sufficient reason, in their eyes, for holding it sacred. I feel sure that there is not an Englishman, who does not religiously eat his slice of plum pudding on Christmas Day, let him be in the Bush, at the Antipodes, on land or on water, and no matter in what latitude.