THE

NINETEENTH

CENTURY.

No. CXL.-OCTOBER 1888.

THE REIGN OF THE NOUVELLES

COUCHES' IN FRANCE.

THERE was a time, not long ago, when the sympathies of the world were given cordially and almost unreservedly to France. We have now reached a period when sympathies have, in general, disappeared, and when antipathies have, almost as generally, grown up in their place. For this there are two main reasons, one moral, the other political; one negative, the other positive. The first is that France has ceased to be the universal charmer, that the character, the capacities, and the attitude of the French have so completely changed that they no longer please. The second is that the situation of France has now become so complicated and so menacing, it is now so laden with difficulties at home and with ill-will abroad, it seems to offer so many and such varied risks, that Europe is looking not only with deep attention, but also with alarm, at the consequences which may ensue from so strained and so precarious a condition of things. And these feelings of interest and apprehension are intensified and sharpened by the impression which exists almost everywhere that the disappearance of the former brilliant example, and the decline of the former beneficial influence, of France constitute a loss for all her neighbours for the reason that Europe cannot afford to be deprived, through the waning of one of her constituent parts, of any portion of her associated stock of merits, faculties, or potentialities; and, still more, by the conviction that damage to France means damage to the world, and that the dangers which seem to be looming over France, and to grow more grave and threatening as time advances, will, in VOL. XXIV.-No. 140.

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some unknown degree and form, become, almost necessarily, dangers for other lands as well. By a not unnatural reaction between causes and effects, the belief in the reality of this mutual peril is adding, in certain countries, to the sentiment of irritation, and even of desire for repression, with which France was already regarded by them. In other centres, where traces of the once universal admiration and affection for France can still be detected, the common risk produces, on the contrary, an earnest wish that, for France's own sake, as well as for all the world besides, she may be stopped on her downward road before she has herself worked out, or before she has provoked others into working out, the fulness of the harm which she appears to be preparing.

It is especially from the latter point of view that we English are contemplating the situation. Those amongst us who have opportunities of becoming acquainted with the present condition of Continental opinion in its more intimate forms are well aware that it has indicated of late years, especially in certain regions, an hostility to France which has never existed on this side of the Channel, and that, of those European powers who still wish well to France, it is we, most certainly, who are animated by the most hearty and most sincere good feeling towards her. Of course things are not always smooth between France and England; of course, occasionally, each side sulks against the other; but we all know here, beyond the possibility of doubt, that we have nothing to gain, and may have a vast deal to lose, by any misfortunes which fall on France, and that we should profoundly deplore to see her suffer. But even we, with all our cordiality for her-perhaps even because of our cordiality-are watching with anxiety the development of her fate. We cannot shut our eyes to what all Europe sees; we cannot pretend to ignore, because we have warm sympathies for France, that she appears to be sweeping on, as if impelled by a wave of destiny, to a new crisis in her history, a crisis which may lead to any results whatever, foreseen or unforeseen, imaginable or unimaginable. Her enemies-of whom she now has many-do not conceal their hope that she will come out enfeebled and diminished, if not destroyed, from the trials which seem to be approaching. Her friends-of whom she now has few-continue to believe that, however much she may be changed, she is still a necessary element of the world's life; that she must be preserved because we cannot get on without her, and that, whatever fresh afflictions may be in store for her, the astonishing elasticity and recuperative power of which she has given so many proofs in the past will enable her to surmount them. But, at the best, however different be the motives and the points of view, both foes and friends are convinced that France is travelling towards trouble, and that the eventualities of her future deserve to be counted as the gravest of the many anxieties of our time. As this is, undeniably, the general

direction of the sentiment of Europe, both public and governmental, it may be interesting to consider what has been the action of the men of France in bringing about the present situation.

In attempting to define and describe any one of the elements of the present complicated and menacing situation of France, a difficulty of an unusual nature presents itself at the outset. Europe perceives, in that situation, a certain number of appearances which it regards as facts. The French themselves, on the contrary, denynot perhaps in words, but in substance and in effect-that they are facts at all. Appearances which are viewed as facts outside France, because all distant spectators agree as to the value of the evidence and, especially, as to the interpretation to be put upon it, are not counted as facts in France, because there the evidence changes in aspect, in value, and in meaning, with the individual point of view of each beholder. For instance, no one can pretend to assert, so far as French impressions can be taken as a guide, that it is an accepted fact that the Republic has governed either well or badly. A question of that character seems in foreign eyes to be easily susceptible of decision, according to the nature of the proofs supplied; but in France this question, like nearly every other consideration relating to the actual condition of the country, depends not on what foreigners regard as proof, but on personal opinion exclusively. Evidence is allowed to have no share in obtaining a generally admitted answer to it; appreciation alone, not testimony, decides it. In most other countries there is a line drawn somewhere between the certainties and uncertainties of contemporaneous history; opinion is not permitted to be everything; demonstration also counts for something. But in France just now it is impossible to demonstrate anything whatever, excepting to the satisfaction of one perhaps out of the many groups into which the nation is broken up. The present situation of the French presents to them no facts, no truths, but only subjects of dispute. When therefore foreigners consult them as to the realities of the position, they find with much bewilderment that, according to the French themselves, there are no universally acknowledged realities, that every opinion is contradicted, that every assertion is denied, that every authority is rejected, that every evidence is impugned. Foreigners observe-not only because they have eyes of their own, but also because the French cry out to them to look-that the Parliament decides nothing, that it frequently destroys ministries, but rarely produces laws; that every newspaper in France attacks something every day, and generally a good many things at once; that in private conversations each detail of the condition of the country is depicted, according to the standpoint of the speaker, as either odious or admirable, and that even the Government augment the difficulty of judgment for the reason that they agree

permanently on nothing except the immortal principle of the indestructibility of the Republic.

The inquiring foreigner finds himself, therefore, in a very unsatisfactory position, and the longer he lives in France the greater becomes the tangle. Every one of his informants, both public and private, contradicts all the others, and the more informants he takes the trouble of applying to, the more contradictions does he accumulate. So the resident foreigner, if he wants any clear impressions at all, is forced to form them for himself, as best he can.

The action of men in France, in the sense considered here, means, not their social, moral, or intellectual action, but their purely political action that is to say, the form and quality of their operation in creating the actual political situation of their country. Now, directly we look closely at that operation, we see that the difficulty of procuring evidence from the French as to realities concerning things presents itself with even greater force (if possible) as to realities regarding men. Things have a solidity proper to themselves, which cannot be taken altogether away from them; however much facts may be discussed, distorted, or denied, they continue, all the same, to exist, and that is why Europe persists in pointing to them and in insisting that they are there. But the character, the conduct and the acts of men have, by their origin and nature, far less of ascertainable reality about them; they are far more open to comments, inferences and suppositions; and in a country cut up, as France is, into parties, groups, sections and sub-sections, where the entire situation, interior and exterior, is of an exceptional and abnormal kind, and where the inherent excitability of the race is stimulated by the irritating friction of political hates, the motives, the objects and the processes of men may assume almost as many colours and exhibit almost as many aspects as there are lookers-on to judge them. As concerns this division of the question, therefore, foreigners can, without much hesitation, agree somewhat with the French, and admit that the politicians of France stand up before the world under conditions which render it embarrassing to judge them by ordinary standards. The task is complicated, too, by the special characteristics of the French politicians of our day, and by their marked unlikeness to their neighbours. They are the outcome of a particular situation which has developed in them peculiarities proper to themselves; they are a local product; they have little or no connection with the great circle of European government; they are outsiders; they are one of the symptoms of the national isolation. At least they seem to foreigners to be all this. We are obliged, therefore, to start with the acknowledgment that it would be unjust to weigh them as we weigh the public men of other countries. The French themselves, however, who demand so much consideration from strangers, show less generosity to their own people in this respect, and in the in

discriminate complaints which, now, are echoing over France, men come in for unlimited abuse. The Government and the Parliament are blamed furiously for everything, but the great and constantly repeated charge against the men who compose them is that not one of them exercises any influence outside his little set.

Now this, though absolutely true, does not appear to foreigners to constitute a basis of fair accusation. On the contrary, it would seem to us quite wonderful if, under the present conditions of French public life, any man, whatever be his faculties, had succeeded in acquiring power over others. Since Gambetta died no one has been able to guide a party, or even a group of other men. What are called groups in France have chairmen, and vice-chairmen, and secretaries, and other officials whose titles are unknown in England; there are all sorts of fourth and fifth class authorities, there are unnumbered varieties of non-commissioned officers; but there is not one single captain. There is not one man of whom it can be said that he has shown the true qualities of a leader. The French proclaim all this most vigorously, and foreigners agree entirely with their view; only, when the French go on to say-as they generally do-that the non-appearance of superior men in France is caused by the non-existence of any superior men at all, we cease to follow them. The conviction of most strangers is that, though it may be a fact that, as the French complain, there is not one man in France who is capable of being a chief, the cause lies less in the insufficiency of men than in the nature of the situation, which renders it impossible, both morally and materially, that, even if such a man existed, he could force his way out of the crowd and struggle to the top. The jealousies, the suspicions, the clamours against superiority of every kind, and the almost savage hate with which it is regarded, the determination to drag down, but never to lift up, and to recognise merit for no other purpose than to extirpate it, which are, as we see in France, the natural products of democracy in action, create towering barriers in the way of every one who tries to reach the front; and though it has been proved, in France itself, at other periods and under other political conditions, that such obstacles as these can be swept away by a true combatant, it seems most unlikely that any combatant, however strong, could, as things stand now, assemble in his hands the weapons of success. Of course, in the opinion of foreigners, the nation needs a man, and has been needing one for seventeen years; of course it seems to us that, as no place is occupied, every place is accessible, and even the more accessible because, as there have been no occupants, no places have been defined, and because all places can therefore be created by the persons who may be competent to fill them. And yet, notwithstanding this immense openness of the ground, it is difficult to conceive that, without war, plébiscite, or revolution, any place can be invented or any occupant be found for it.