Chapter XIV: In the Calvados

Val Richer--The home of Guizot--The French Protestants and the
Third Republic--Free education in France the work of Guizot--Education
in France checked by the Revolution--Mediæval provisions
for public education--The effect of the English and the
religious wars upon education in France--Indiscriminate destruction
of educational foundations by the First Republic--Progress
of illiteracy after 1793--The guillotine as a financial expedient--The
Directory painted by themselves--The two Merlins--'Republican
Titans' wearing royal livery--Barras on the cruelty of
poltroons--Education under Napoleon--The Concordat and the
Church--Napoleon's University of France--A machine for creating
moral unity--The despotism of 1802 and 1882--The Liberals of
1830--Primary education under M. Guizot--The rights of the
family and the encroachments of the State--Catholic vindication
of Protestant liberty under Louis XIV.--The heirs of M. Guizot
in Normandy and Languedoc--M. de Witt at Val Richer--Three
historic châteaux--The birthplace of Montesquieu at La Brède--The
Abbey of Thomas à-Becket--The Château de Broglie--Lisieux--M.
Guizot as a landscape gardener--A Protestant statesman
among the Catholics of the Calvados--The Sieur de Longiumeau and the
sacred right of insurrection--'Moral unity' and 'moral
harmony'--Catholicism in the Calvados, Brittany, and Poitou--Charlotte
Corday--The historic family of De Witt--An election in the Calvados--The
people and the functionaries--Bonnebosq--The Normans and personal
liberty--The procedure of a French election--Mayors with votes in their
sleeves--Glass urns and wooden boxes--Gerrymandering in France and
America--Catholic constituents congratulating their Protestant
candidate--'Vive le roi!'--M. Bocher on two Republican
presidents--Wilsonism and the Norman farmers--The domestic
distilleries--The war against religion in Normandy--'The Church as the
key of trade'--How the officials revise the elections--Prefects
interfering in the elections--A solid Monarchist department--Politics
and the apple crop--The weak point of the Monarchists--The
traditions of Versailles and 'modern high life'--Louis XV. and
Barras--Madame Du Barry and Madame Tallien--The 'noble'
grooms of ignoble _cocottes_--The Legitimists under the Empire--The
war of 1870-71, and the fusion of classes--Historic names
in the French army--Officers and the châteaux--An American
minister and the Comte de Paris--The Monarchist and the Republican
representatives--The Duc de Broglie in the Eure--Architectural
evidence as to the social life of the _ancien régime_--The
war of classes a consequence, not a cause, of the Revolution--The
Vicomte de Noailles and Artemus Ward--Feudal serfs and New
York anti-renters--Jefferson and _lettres de cachet_--The Bastille
and the Tower of London--Don Quixote and the wine skins--The
Château d'Eu--Private rights in the 14th century--The 'Nonpareil'
of the world--La Grande Mademoiselle and her lieges at
Eu--Her hospitals and charities--A quick-witted mayor--A model
Republican prefect--The Duc de Penthièvre--The Orléans family
at Eu--Local popularity of the Comte and Comtesse de Paris--Norman
grievances, old and new--A Protestant movement in
Normandy--American associations with Broglie, La Brède, and
Val Richer--Mr. Bancroft on the ministers of Louis Philippe--The
'military council' of Royalist officers in the Revolution--Louis
Philippe and Thiers--The rights of property under the
Second Empire--The seizure of the Orléans property--The
Jacobin levelling of incomes--The reformer Réal as an opulent
count--The Orléans property restored in 1872, as a matter of
'common honesty'--What the princes recovered, and what they
presented to France--The 'wounded conscience' of a nation--The
daughter of Madame de Staël--The present Duc de Broglie and the
anti-religions war--The Conservative republic made impossible--The
Radical Jacobins rule the roast--'The Republic commits
suicide to save itself from slaughter'--Floquet the master of
Carnot--The war against God--Two statesmen of the South--Nîmes
and M. Guizot--The religious wars in Languedoc--The
son of M. Guizot at Uzès--Politics in the Gard--Catholics and
Protestants fighting side by side--The late M. Cornelis de Witt--The
hereditary principle in Holland--What the United States
learned from the Netherlands and from England--How the Duke
of York missed an American throne--A Protestant monarchist
in the Lot-et-Garonne--The plums of Agen and the apricots of
Nicole--Coeur de Lion and Bertrand de Boru--The home of
Nostradamus--Why the Germans beat the French--The barber
bard of Languedoc--Scaliger and the Huguenots--Nérac and the
Reine Margot--The 'Lovers' War'--The Revocation and the
Revolution--The ruin of property in 1793--Decline of the wealth
of France--The monarchists of the Aveyron--A banquet of
monarchist mayors--The need of a man in France--'A bolt out
of the blue'--How the Duc d'Orléans demoralised the government--The
young conscript at Clairvaux--Carnot surrenders to
the Commune--A Russian verdict on the republican blunder--The
'Prince' of the people--How the Government has helped the
Comte de Paris--Irregularities of republican taxation--Corsica
and the Corrèze--France the most heavily taxed country in the
world--Steady and enormous increase of taxation--Cost of collecting
the revenue--Political dishonesty on the stump--The persecution
of candidates--Invasion of private life--Bullying the
magistrates--Public servants ordered to the polls--Curés fined
for preaching religious duty--The Conférences du Sud-Ouest--M.
Princeteau at Bordeaux--The fête of the Bastille at Bordeaux
and Nîmes--A '_Fils de Dieu_' at Nîmes--Socialism at
Alais--The suppression of inheritances--'Property a privilege to
be abolished'--'Opulence an infamy'--The Socialists and the
Government--Persecution of the Protestants--'Pray, what is
God?'--Strength of Socialism in South-eastern France--Two
typical departments--Socialism in the Bouches-du-Rhône--Historic
France in the Calvados--Boulanger at Marseilles--A Socialist
coachman at Arles--A great Catholic employer of labour at Marseilles--The
largest glycerine works in the world--Church candles
and dynamite--Taxing industries to death--Dutch competition
with France--A Christian corporation in Marseilles--'An economical
kitchen'--An uphill fight for law and order--The Christians
of the 4th and of the 19th centuries--The Radicals hold the
bridle--Shall France be Christian or Nihilist?--Ernest Renan on
the situation in 1872--Jules Simon on the situation in 1882--The
'civic duties' of man and the guillotine--What will the situation
be in 1892? 437-515

MAP OF FRANCE _at end of book_

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_Errata_

P. 24, 11 lines from top, _for_ rival _read_ rural.

P. 64, line 1, _for_ de Royes _read_ de Royer.

P. 91, line 6 from top. M. Spuller, Prefect of the Somme in 1880, was the brother of the present Minister of Foreign Affairs, not the Minister himself.

P. 96, line 5 from top, _for Montauban _read_ Montaudon.

P. 105, line 4 from bottom, _for_ being _read_ long.

P. 395, 3 lines from top, _for_ Abbeys _read_ Abbaye.

Wherever found, _for_ de Fallières _read_ Fallières.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

As I have not wished to swell the bulk of this book by references, and as many statements made in it concerning men and things of the first Republic may seem to my readers to need verification, I subjoin a brief list of authorities consulted by me in this connection. It is incomplete, but will be found to cover every material point concerning the epoch to which it refers.

BIRÉ, E. La Légende des Girondins.

CAMPARDON, EMILE. Le Tribunal Révolutionnaire à Paris d'après les
Documents Originaux.

DAUBAN, C. A. La Démagogie à Paris en 1793.

DAUBAN, C. A. Les Prisons de Paris sous la Révolution.

DAUBAN, C. A. Mémoires Inédits de Pétion, de Buzot et de Barbaroux.

DAUBAN, C. A. Mémoires de Madame Roland. Etude sur Madame
Roland. Lettres en partie inédites de Madame Roland.

DE BARANTE. Histoire de la Convention Nationale.

DE LAVERGNE, L. (de l'Institut). Economie rurale de la France depuis
1789.

DE MONTROL, F. Mémoires de Brissot, publiés par son fils.

DE PRESSENSÉ, EDMOND. L'Eglise et la Révolution Française.

DONIOL, H. Histoire des Classes Rurales en France.

DU BLED. Les Causeurs de la Révolution.

DURAND DE MAILLANE. Histoire de la Convention Nationale.

FEUILLET DE CONCHES. Louis XVI., Marie Antoinette et Madame Elisabeth.

FORNERON, H. Histoire Générale des Emigrés.

GALLOIS, LÉONARD. Histoire des Journaux et des Journalistes de la
Révolution Française.

GONCOURT, EDMUND ET JULES. Histoire de la Société Française pendant
la Révolution.

GRANIER DE CASSAGNAC. Histoire des Girondins et des Massacres de
Septembre.

GUILLON, l'Abbé. Les Martyrs de la Foi pendant la Révolution Française.

HAMEL, ERNEST. Histoire de Robespierre.

JEFFERSON, THOMAS. Memoirs and Correspondence.

LAFERRIÈRE (de l'Institut). Essai sur l'histoire du Droit Français.

MALLET DU PAN. Mémoires et Correspondance.

MASSON, FRÉDÉRIC. Le Département des Affaires Etrangères pendant la
Révolution.

MORRIS, GOUVERNEUR. Diary and Letters.

MORTIMER-TERNAUX. Histoire de la Terreur, 1792-1794, d'après des
documents authentiques et inédits.

ROCQUAIN, F. L'Esprit Révolutionnaire avant la Révolution.

TISSOT, P. F. Histoire complète de la Révolution Française.

VATEL, CH. Charlotte Corday.

YOUNG, ARTHUR. Voyages en France pendant les années 1787-89.
Traduction de M. Le Sage; Introduction par L. de Lavergne.

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