Chapter XLII: Epilogue (1)

What is called the “national character” of the French and English has never been fixed, and it is now perceptibly changing.

[Sidenote: Changes in English National Character.]

The English were at one time not in the least Puritanical. They afterwards became moderately Puritanical in the upper classes and intensely so in the middle classes. They are now slowly but steadily passing out of Puritanism.

The English were at one time more European than insular. After that they became intensely insular, truly a peculiar people. Now, again, they are slowly becoming, chiefly through the influence of London, less insular and more European.

[Sidenote: Artistic and Scientific Ideas.]

The most powerful agents of change in recent times have been scientific and artistic ideas. These ideas are continuing their work unceasingly, and are even entering into the education of the young. To judge of their importance as new powers we have only to remember that artistic and scientific ideas formerly lay almost entirely outside of aristocratic and middle-class thinking, and were confined to persons specially devoted to artistic or scientific pursuits.

[Sidenote: Extent of Scientific Influence.]

[Sidenote: Its Result.]

The change may easily be under-estimated. The love of art and science may be called a taste for pictures or a fancy for shells and minerals, and so made to appear no better than an amusement. In reality, however, the change is most momentous. Science has taught a new way of applying the mind _to everything_. It has affirmed the right and duty of investigation and verification, it has set up a new kind of intellectual morality which has substituted the duty of inquiry for the duty of belief. The immediate result has been, in England, a sudden and amazing diminution of intolerance, a wonderful and wholly unexpected increase of mental freedom. The people of England have now become tolerant to a degree which could have been hoped for by no one who knew the formerly oppressive and aggressive character of religious majorities in that country. The boast of the national poet, that England was a country where men freely said their say, is now losing its apparently ironical aspect and may be true for the coming generation. The bigotry that still remains is only an inheritance of the past, it does not really belong to the present, still less to the more enlightened future.

[Sidenote: The Influence of Art.]

[Sidenote: Art and Puritanism.]

The influence of art is less visible than that of science, and seems inferior in this, that art is associated with ideas of pleasure and relaxation in the public mind, though it is more associated with ideas of study and hard work in the minds of artists. However this may be, the influence of art is important in England as one of the forces which are weakening the spirit of Puritanism. Art and Puritanism are antagonistic forces. The true Puritanical spirit always instinctively feels and knows this; for example, it shuts up the National Gallery on Sundays, and would shut up the Louvre if it could.

[Sidenote: The Study of Nature.]

Another important influence of the fine arts is in directing the national mind more to the love and study of nature. Art and nature are not the same, yet art gives a new delight in nature. I am not aware that this goes much beyond a refreshment of the faculties, yet, in an age when men are jaded by over-work and by the peculiar fatigue of life in large towns, a refreshment of this kind may be, and is, more important than in simpler times. One of the modern modifications of English character is that it seeks for natural beauty with a new desire. The modern love of nature is connected with a certain independence of conventionalism, and this is important, because conventionalism includes so much.

[Sidenote: Changes in the French Character.]

[Sidenote: Modern Industrial Enterprise.]

As the English character is changing in these and other ways, so the French character is changing by its passage from the military to the industrial epoch. It is unfortunate that the enterprise of the Panama Canal seems doomed to failure, because it afforded exactly the outlet that was desirable for French industrial ambition. It was by treating it as a patriotic enterprise and playing upon the patriotic chord that M. de Lesseps attained a delusive appearance of success. The exhibition of 1889, the Eiffel Tower, and the proposed bridge over the Channel, are also proofs of French industrial enterprise on a scale intended to attract attention. The ambition to excel is still in French imaginations, but it is diverted in great part from military to peaceful pursuits. There is no reason why French democracy, which is really averse to war, should not take a legitimate pride in undertakings that require as much science and energy, and almost as much treasure, as the greatest military operations.

[Sidenote: Common Sense in Education.]

[Sidenote: Desire for Physical Improvement.]

Another change in the French estimate of things is the increasing tendency to apply common sense to education in spite of old habits and traditions, to discard what cannot be mastered, and to learn more thoroughly what is practically possible and worth learning. The French are also inclined to attach more value to physical exercises. The English have lately become aware of this in consequence of M. Paschal Grousset’s very laudable efforts as a journalist in favour of more active amusements in the _lycées_; but the movement began several years earlier, and that writer would not have succeeded as he did without a public opinion already prepared to be favourable. I have shown elsewhere that the French are by no means indisposed to gymnastics and military drill. They are ignorant of cricket, as were the ancient Greeks, certainly not the most inactive people of antiquity.

[Sidenote: Dominant Tendencies.]

The dominant tendencies in the two countries appear to be these. The English are becoming more open-minded and the French are gaining in practical sense and prudence. The English are advancing in religious, and the French in political liberty. Material progress of all kinds is obvious and conspicuous in both.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Here is an instance of misleading by mistranslation. The English newspapers speak of Parisian “Communists” when they ought to say Communards. A Communist is a Socialist of a particular kind, who wants to have goods in common after the fashion of the early Christians. A Communard is a person who wishes for an extreme development of local government. He thinks that the Commune (something like a township) ought to have more autonomy--be more independent of the State. M. Charles Beslay, an old friend of mine, became a Communard and was Governor of the Bank of France under the Commune. He was a most upright and honourable gentleman, and so far from being a Communist that he defended the treasure of the Bank of France throughout the civil war of 1871, and afterwards handed it over intact to the proper authorities. I do not accuse English journalists of intentional dishonesty in this case; there is no English equivalent for _Communard_, the nearest English rendering would be _township home-rule-man_.

[2] Observe that the like-minded companions were “few.”

[3] It is curious that the French gymnastic societies should be rather discouraged by the Church, as giving too much attention to the body. I have seen formal expressions of clerical disapprobation. There may be some other reason. Everything has a political colour in France, and I believe that the gymnastic societies, now very numerous, are mainly republican.

[4] A French friend of one of my sons was invited to shoot at Ferrières, on the preserves of Baron Rothschild, but he said he soon had enough of it, as the game was so abundant that the interest in the pursuit of it was entirely destroyed. He compared it, as an amusement, with the shooting of fowls in a poultry yard.

[5] There are some remarkable exceptions. It would be possible to form one French regiment of very fine men, but I doubt if there are enough for two regiments. Napoleon’s _Cent Gardes_ were specimens.

[6] “In that case,” it may be objected, “boys who left school at fourteen would miss Latin altogether.” Yes, it is Professor Seeley’s desire that they should omit Latin, and those who left at sixteen would omit Greek. The time so gained would be devoted to real culture through English.

[7] Since the above paragraph was written I have consulted a very able _Professeur de Faculté_ and Latin examiner on this _Question du Latin_. He says: “The young men who come up for examination have an imperfect knowledge of Latin, and the standard of attainment falls lower and lower. The remedy that I should propose would be to reduce to fifteen the number of _lycées_ where Latin and Greek are taught. In those fifteen _lycées_ I would maintain a really high standard of genuine scholarship. That would be sufficient for all the real scholars that the country wants, and then the teaching in the ordinary _lycées_, being relieved of false pretension about Latin and Greek, might itself become genuine in other ways.”

[8] In an article in the _Revue Internationale de l’Enseignement_ for April 13, 1885. The article contains many interesting details.

[9] The following is a genuine English address from pupils in a Parisian _lycée_ to their master:--

“My dear and respected Professor--I take the liberty of testifying the feelings of gratitude which animate us all since we have been under your tutorship.

“No doubt we have been lacking in zeal and attention, but we nevertheless appreciate fully the pains you have evidently taken for our benefit. We therefore assure you that if you are not satisfied, we take the engagement to strive to do better hereafter; and you shall see that we will be faithful to our word.

“We terminate with the desire that you will sincerely accept this as a true testimonial of our real affection and respect.”

Creditable, though not faultless.

[10] There have been a few exceptions, such as Lord Egremont and the Duc de Luynes.

[11] French carters are superior to English in providing two-wheeled carts with breaks. I remember seeing the horses suffer very much for the want of them in steep roads and streets in England. The French, too, are usually very careful about balancing loads so as not to press heavily on the shaft-horse, but they are merciless in first overloading a cart and then beating the horse because the weight is beyond his strength.

[12] My wife had no rest till she had procured the abolition of this custom by an edict from the Mayor of Sens, but very likely it went on in private afterwards.

[13] The University decorations of _Officier de l’Instruction Publique_ and _Officier d’Académie_ confer no social position. The fellowship of the University confers none either outside of the University itself.

[14] The reason for the cheapness of the _lycées_ is because they are not intended to be paying concerns (deficits being filled up by the State), and because the pupils benefit by the wholesale scale of all purchases, on which, of course, no profit is made. The buildings, being supplied by the towns and the State, are rent free. Some of the newer ones are magnificent. The _Lycée Lakanal_, near Paris, cost £400,000, and is a model of practical modern arrangement.

[15] An English friend of mine, himself a man of the very highest culture, says that the cultivated English keep their talk down to a low level from a dread of the watchful jealousy of their intellectual inferiors. They only dare venture to talk in their own way between themselves in privacy.

[16] I can speak from experience on this matter, having had in youth an intensely strong local affection for the wilder parts of northern England, a feeling that afterwards extended itself to Scotland, but I remember that when this feeling was strongest, the midland and southern counties were quite like a foreign country to me--a very dull, uninteresting foreign country--and I had no home feeling whatever in London, nor any desire to revisit it.

[17] It is needless to quote Moore, but the reader may thank me for stealing for his benefit a short lyric by an Irish poet, Mr. Robert Joyce, which is full of the tender sentiment of patriotism, associating love and death in the most touching manner with the often-repeated name of one Irish valley--Glenara.

[Sidenote: An Irish Poet.]

I

O, fair shines the sun on Glenara,
And calm rest his beams on Glenara;
But O! there’s a light
Far dearer, more bright,
Illumines my soul in Glenara--
The light of thine eyes in Glenara.

II

And sweet sings the stream of Glenara,
Glancing down through the woods like an arrow;
But a sound far more sweet
Glads my heart when we meet
In the green summer woods of Glenara,--
Thy voice by the wave of Glenara.

III

And O! ever thus in Glenara,
Till we sleep in our graves by Glenara,
May thy voice sound as free
And as kindly to me,
And thine eyes beam as fond in Glenara,
In the green summer woods of Glenara!

[18] During the Franco-German war I knew French people who could not utter the word “_Patrie_” with dry eyes.

[19] During and after the invasion the intensity of the patriotic sentiment was always in exact proportion to the harm done by the invader. It was very feeble where he did not appear, and stronger in proportion to the duration of his presence and the harm that he inflicted. It is still intense in Alsatia and Lorraine, and especially intense in the French who have been expelled from those provinces.

[Sidenote: Varying Intensity of Patriotic Sentiment.]

[20] I regret not to have preserved some letters written to the English newspapers by private soldiers, in which they described how they were avoided by civilians even of the humbler classes. They appear to have felt themselves more despised in uniform than if they had been out of uniform. This is simply because the English people have never witnessed the sufferings undergone by soldiers in time of war.

[21] For example, at the time when I am writing these pages, a young gentleman, who is an intimate friend of mine, and who has received a scientific education, is diligently preparing himself to pass an examination for a commission in the artillery next month. Being obliged to serve in the army in any case, and having a right degree of _amour-propre_, he wishes to be an officer, and in a scientific branch of the service.

[22] The throne of Louis Philippe was itself a democratic institution.

[23] For the reader’s convenience I quote four passages from Dicey on the sovereignty in England. The references are to the first English edition.

“If the true ruler or political sovereign of England were, as was once the case, the King, legislation might be carried out in accordance with the King’s will by one of two methods.”--_The Law of the Constitution_, p. 354.

“Parliament is, from a merely legal point of view, the absolute sovereign of the British Empire.”--_Ibid._

“The electorate is, in fact, the sovereign of England. It is a body which does not, and from its nature hardly can, itself legislate, and which, owing chiefly to historical causes, has left in existence a theoretically supreme legislature.”--_Ibid._, p. 355.

“Our modern mode of constitutional morality secures, though in a roundabout way, what is called abroad ‘the sovereignty of the people.’”--_Ibid._

[24] The American system would not have succeeded in France. If the president had exercised the authority of an American president the Chamber would not have endured it, and there would have been a presidential crisis, with a new presidential election, every six months. The present system is not ideally perfect, but it suits the French temper better than any other that modern ingenuity can devise.

[25] It may be answered that this could be done by refusing to vote the supplies, but if the Sovereign were perfectly obstinate the House of Commons could not long put a stop to the working of the public service.

[26] It is an English habit to represent _égalité_ as an Utopian aspiration for equality in all things. The French understand it to mean nothing more than equality before the law.

[27] Article in the _Contemporary Review_ for March 1888.

[28] The reader will observe that I have substituted “nobility” for “House of Lords,” as there is no House of Lords in France, and “clerical” for “academical” education, as there is nothing corresponding to Oxford and Cambridge.

[29] _Popular Government_, Essay III.

[30] An English critic once said that the decimal monetary system had not yet been accepted by the French people because they counted in sous. They do not invariably count in sous, but they often do, and that without being unfaithful to the decimal principle, as may be seen by the following table:--

The five-franc piece = 100 sous.
The half-franc piece = 10 sous.
The one-sou piece = 1 sou.

[31] The word “conservative” is not used in this place with reference to the Tory party alone. There is much conservative sentiment in other parties.

[32] Even if the English did ultimately adopt the French weights and measures, without the coinage, they would not enjoy the full convenience of those systems, which consists in great part in their _relation_ to the coinage. For example, in English land measure (what is called “square measure”) you have 160 poles to the acre. A farmer takes an acre at thirty-seven shillings, how much is that per pole? I do not know; I must make an elaborate calculation to find it out. A French farmer takes a _hectare_ at sixty-seven francs, how much is that per _are_? Owing to the _intentional relation between measures and money_, the answer comes instantaneously, without calculation, sixty-seven centimes.

[33] M. de Freycinet, at the time when he was Foreign Minister in France, expressed a feeling of regret, that owing to the instability of English cabinets, it was not easy to carry on protracted negotiations.--_Speech of the 27th of November 1886._

[34] _Memoirs of Mrs. Jameson_, by her niece Gerardine Macpherson, First Edition, p. 154.

[35] This curé was an acquaintance of mine. His sister-in-law told me the amount of the subscription as an example of clerical influence.

[36] Here is a case well known to me. The income of the commune is 3000 francs, that of the curé about 1000. To offer the free disposal of the curé’s income to the municipal council is to offer a great temptation.

[37]

“‘And will not one man in the town help him, no constables--no
law?’

“‘Oh, he’s a Quaker, the law don’t help Quakers.’

“That was the truth--the hard, grinding truth--in those days.
Liberty, justice, were idle names to nonconformists of every
kind; and all they knew of the glorious constitution of English
law was that its iron hand was turned against them.”--_John
Halifax_, ch. viii.

[38] This excellent lady went on a visit to an old friend, who found her appearance so miserable that she took the liberty of clothing her from head to foot. The saint was _aware_ that she had been clothed, but neither pleased nor offended. She only laughed, and I believe her secret satisfaction in the matter was that she could give the old clothes to some beggar. I hope, but feel by no means sure, that she did not give away the _new_ ones, which were a surprising improvement to her appearance.

[39]

“Her faith through form is pure as thine,
_Her hands are quicker unto good_.”
_In Memoriam._

[40]

[Sidenote: A Civil Funeral.]

Hardly any one with the least pretension to rank or station, unless he might be some republican functionary, would venture to attend a civil interment in a French provincial town. A lady who knows the interest I take in these matters, wrote me a letter in March 1886, from which I make the following extract:--

“Il vient de passer sous mes fenêtres un convoi de la Libre Pensée, ce titre étant brodé en lettres d’argent sur tous les côtés du corbillard, qui est très beau avec ses franges d’argent. Une très grosse couronne d’immortelles rouges est placée sur le cercueil, et tous les assistants en portaient à la boutonnière. Le convoi marchait très lentement, très silencieusement. Que de méchants propos se disaient sur le passage du cortège! Nous n’avons pas encore le droit à l’indépendance. Il faudra bien des années pour que nous ayons notre libre arbitre sans être calomniés.”

Insults addressed to a funeral procession are immensely significant in France, where so much outward respect is usually paid to the dead.

[41] For Mr. Arnold the Trinity was “the fairy tale of the Three Supernatural Men.”

[42] This is a religion entirely without dogma, and Christian only in the sense that it would cultivate a Christian spirit.

[43] I have even known a sincere and severe Catholic who told me that no one who disobeyed habitually the moral law, whatever his beliefs, could be a Catholic. Giving drunkenness as an example, he said that there had never been such a person as a Catholic drunkard, because by the mere fact of being a drunkard a man proved that he was not a Catholic.

[44]

[Sidenote: Mr. Mivart.]

How much intellectual liberty is now enjoyed within the Roman pale may be seen in Mr. Mivart’s most interesting article on “The Catholic Church and Biblical Criticism” published in _The Nineteenth Century_ for July 1887. Mr. Mivart does not think it probable that a line of the Bible was written by Moses, whilst it is “in the highest degree unlikely that Abraham, Isaac, or Jacob ever really existed, and no passage of the history of any one of them is of the slightest historical value in the old sense.” The book of Jonah is a parable, that of Daniel quite untrustworthy and little more than a mass of fiction. With regard to the Deluge Mr. Mivart says, “I well recollect dining at a priest’s house (in or about 1870) when one of the party, the late accomplished Mr. Richard Simpson of Clapham (a most pious Catholic and weekly communicant), expressed some ordinary scientific views on the subject of the Deluge. A startled auditor asked anxiously, ‘But is not, then, the account in the Bible of the Deluge true?’ To which Mr. Simpson replied, ‘True! of course it is true. There was a local inundation, and some of the sacerdotal caste saved themselves in a punt, with their cocks and hens.’”

[45] “_L’Angleterre est instruite, élevée, gouvernée par ses clergymen._”--PHILIPPE DARYL.

[46] An essential difference between France and England. “No one,” says Professor Dicey, “can maintain that the law of England recognises anything like that natural right to the free communication of thoughts and opinions which was proclaimed in France nearly a hundred years ago to be one of the most valuable rights of man.”--_The Law of the Constitution_, first edition, pp. 257, 258.

[47]

[Sidenote: Law about Associations not Obsolete.]

The ordinary law about associations was declared by some English journals to be “obsolete,” and revived only for persecution. It was so little obsolete that it was steadily applied to lay associations. I was at one time an honorary member of a French club limited to eighteen in order that an “authorisation” might not be required; and I have been vice-president of another club, not limited in numbers, so that we had to send our statutes to be approved by the prefect, and whenever the slightest change was made in them they had to be submitted again to the same authority. It was a very simple formality, costing three sous for a postage stamp. Had we acted like the unauthorised religious orders, which declined to submit to this not very terrible piece of tyranny, we should have been dissolved as they were, and turned out of our club-house as they were turned out of their establishments.

[48] Author of _L’Irréligion de l’Avenir_, _Esquisse d’une Morale sans Obligation ni Sanction_, _Les Problèmes de l’Esthétique Contemporaine_, _La Morale d’Epicure et ses Rapports avec les Doctrines Contemporaines_, etc. Guyau died in 1888 at the age of thirty-three.

[49] The reverend father is speaking of Her Majesty’s visit to the Grande Chartreuse, which she was able to make by taking advantage of an ancient rule made before the Church could foresee the monstrous anomaly of an heretical king or queen. By that rule, which still remains in force, a bishop or a reigning sovereign can visit a house of cloistered monks or nuns. The Archbishop of Canterbury could, however, scarcely get into a nunnery, as the Rev. Father du Lac informs us that the ancient English sees were erased by Pius IX. from the list of the bishoprics of Christendom.

[50] In the number for 23d July 1887.

[51] A Natural History Society was founded in Autun (a small old town in Burgundy) two or three years ago. It now includes more than four hundred members. Their principal pleasure is to take long walks in the neighbourhood for geological and botanical purposes. They have meetings, lectures, and a museum. Anything more moral or more healthy it is impossible to imagine.

[52] There have been years in the memory of living men when anybody who would take two barrels to a wine-grower might carry away one of them full of wine (the wine being worth less than the wood); and when for the payment of one sou a man might drink wine as if it were water.

[53] An interesting example of English improvidence came to my knowledge recently. A professional man of great talent, who had been eminently successful, died, leaving a widow and a large family of children. At the time of his death the children were all married. The widow was left without a penny, and was anxious to find a situation, because the married children _all living up to the extreme limit of their incomes, as their father had done_, were unable to subscribe an annuity. In France they would probably all have had savings, and, with the national love of the mother and sense of filial duty, would have cheerfully hastened to provide for her old age.

[54] This is rather too favourable to the English of that day, as they certainly did not take warm baths so frequently as French people do now. They had not the conveniences. Few private houses had a bath-room and few towns had public baths.

[55] Especially in combination with the beautiful colour of the waxed walnut furniture and the red hangings of the beds.

[56] What follows is sketched from life.

[57] Plays were performed on Sunday at the court of Queen Elizabeth.

[58] Dancing, archery, leaping, May-games, and morris dances, were expressly permitted by James I. on Sunday in his Book of Sports. He forbade brutal sports only.

[59] The idea that governs the action of the Church of Rome with regard to the observation of Sunday in countries where she is free to do what she thinks best, appears to be simply the protection of toilers from their own drudgery on one day of the week. She herself keeps the day as a festival, and requires the attendance of the laity at one mass, which may be short and early.

[60] I made inquiry afterwards to ascertain what the parish priest thought of these proceedings, and discovered that he made a distinction. He did not approve of dancing on the public dancing-floors in the village, especially at night, because it sometimes led to wrong, but he was not opposed in any way to Sunday dancing in private houses.

[61] The distinction between sacred and profane music is fictitious, merely depending on the title that a musician chooses to give to his composition. The distinction between serious and light music is real, whatever the title. This is so well understood in the Church of Rome that the priests allow any music to be performed in their churches which is the expression of a serious or sublime idea.

[62] M. de St. Victor managed the estates belonging to the Countess de Talleyrand, and he lived at her old château of Montjeu, one of the most romantically situated places in France, in the midst of a large well-wooded park upon the hills.

[63] The passage is very well known, but I may quote it for the convenience of some readers:--

“And how is it possible that a man who has nothing, who is naked, houseless, without a hearth, squalid, without a slave, without a city, can pass a life that flows easily? See, God has sent you a man to show you that it is possible. Look at me, who am without a city, without a house, without possessions, without a slave; I sleep on the ground; I have no wife, no children, no prætorium, but only the earth and heavens, and one poor cloak. And what do I want? Am I not without sorrow? Am I not without fear? Am I not free? When did any of you see me failing in the object of my desire? or ever falling into that which I would avoid? Did I ever blame God or man? Did I ever accuse any man? Did any of you ever see me with a sorrowful countenance? And how do I meet with those whom ye are afraid of and admire? Do not I treat them like slaves? Who, when he sees me, does not think that he sees his king and master?”--_Epictetus_, Long’s Translation, Book III. chap. xxii.

[64] A friend of mine knows an impoverished French Marquis, the head of an old family, who lives like a peasant in a bare old house that is never repaired. He and his sister consume one bottle of common wine between them each week, and they are served by one old faithful female domestic. Their ruin was caused by lavish uncalculating generosity, by what Herbert Spencer would call the culpable excess of altruism.

[65] It is very significant that as the spirit of luxury has increased in France, the width and costliness of picture-frames have increased along with it.

[66] This reminds me of a French proverb often quoted by an old naval officer whom I knew. _Rien n’est bien fait qui n’est pas fait habituellement._

[67] I am myself old enough to remember how, when I was a boy, two gentlemen of good family quarrelled over their port wine after dinner, and one of them shouted to the other, “I’ll pull your nose, sir, I’ll pull your nose!” Some highly polished young reviewer of the present day will say that I had fallen into low company, but those gentlemen of a past time were quite as good as he is likely to be with all his polish, and it is probable that the aristocratic spirit was far more genuine in them than it is in anybody now.

[68] For example, in the French neighbourhood best known to me it is contrary to peasant decorum for a farmer and his wife to walk to church together. He must go first with his male companions, and she must follow with the women. It is also contrary to decorum for a man to be seen giving his arm to his wife, under any circumstances.

[69] I have heard of two cases that ended fatally, simply in consequence of obedience to English decorum.

[70] A French gentleman wanted to let me a country house, and said, with an air of conscious superiority, “It would be quiet and convenient for the prosecution of your--your _industry_.”

[71] As a system of recruiting party adherents, it has the great advantage of catching rather rich and influential people, especially landowners. Very poor families would gain nothing by the “de,” and, in fact, they drop it when it is theirs by right.

[72] This is stated simply as a fact and not in depreciation. There is not a more respectable class in France than the peasantry.

[73] He also takes precedence of the bishop. An intimate friend of mine was appointed to a prefecture. On his arrival the archbishop sent to say that he would receive him at his palace. This was an attempt to put the prefect in an inferior position, so he answered that it was not further from the palace to the prefecture than from the prefecture to the palace. The archbishop then came.

[74] George du Maurier attributes this happiness in the wealth of others to what he calls “The British Passion for inequality,” illustrated by him in _Punch_. An Englishman is walking with a Frenchman in Hyde Park, and gives utterance to that passion in these words:--

“_Sturdy Briton._ It’s all very well to turn up your nose at your _own_ beggarly Counts and Barons, Mossoo! But you can’t find fault with _our_ nobility! Take a man like our Dook o’ Bayswater, now! Why, he could buy up your Foreign Dukes and Princes by the dozen! and as for you and me, he’d look upon us as so much dirt beneath his feet! Now, that’s something _like_ a nobleman, that is! That’s a kind o’ nobleman that I, as an Englishman, feel as I’ve got some right to be _proud_ of!”

[75] The want of money, in these days, very frequently induces a French nobleman to marry an heiress in the middle classes. This is the most powerful cause of infractions of French exclusiveness.

[76] The essential difference between the scientific and the religious views is that the one sees a special Providential commission, where the other only perceives an undesigned accumulation of natural force.

[77] There is more English poetry of the same order, for example the following, also quoted from Mr. Gerald Massey--

“Oh! this world might be lighted
With Eden’s first smile--
Angel-haunted--unblighted,
With Freedom for Toil:
But they wring out our blood
For their banquet of gold!
They annul laws of God,
Soul and body are sold!
Hark now! hall and palace,
Ring out, dome and rafter!
Ay, laugh on, ye callous!
In Hell there’ll be laughter.”

[78] “Well, before _I’d_ put on stockings no better washed than those!”

[79] “Paid for, is it? It would not have been if thou hadst had to earn the money.”

[80] Just before returning the proof-sheet of this chapter I heard one French peasant describing his landlord to another in these terms:--

“Monsieur le Comte is one of the best landlords in this neighbourhood. He thoroughly understands agriculture, he looks after everything on the estate, but he never presses his tenants, never asks them for rent. On the contrary, he is always ready to help a tenant in any reasonable outlay.”

The landlord in question is a rich nobleman, living on his own land, and not by any means regarded with “the most savage enmity,” though he happens to be a Frenchman. I have seen his château and estate, a fine property, beautifully situated.

[81] Probably her chief reason, unexpressed, was that to have been asked in marriage for her good looks would have implied a deficiency of dowry, or, at least, left room for the supposition that there had not been dowry enough, of itself, to attract an offer of marriage.

[82] I was permitted to read a letter from the young lady’s father, in which he said, “The offer was quite beyond anything that my daughter could have hoped for, but after full consideration she decided to decline it, and I think she acted wisely, as money is not everything in this world.” The girl was left entirely free, as if she had been in England.

[83] A girl with £200 a year will expect, in marriage, a household expenditure of £800 a year. I proposed this theoretical proportion to a French gentleman of much experience, and he said that the estimate was moderate.

[84] Of course I mean with reference to aristocratic rank. A duke who has talent of his own is likely to recognise it in others.

[85]

[Sidenote: An Artist in Goodness.]

The public knows something of Madame Boucicaut’s acts of public beneficence (though they were so numerous that it is impossible to remember such a list), but I have learned through several different private channels how thoughtful her kindness was to individuals. By long practice she had become quite an artist in goodness, having cultivated her talent in that way as another might have learned to paint or to sing. There was an inventiveness about her beneficence that made it as original as poetry, and as beautiful in its originality.

[86] In any case a French officer cannot marry without an authorisation emanating from the Ministry of War. A military friend told me that the following mishap occurred to an officer in his regiment who thought he would like to marry a certain girl in a certain town. He applied for permission, which was refused. The regiment was sent elsewhere, and the sensitive officer was smitten a second time, so he applied for permission again. It came in the form of an authorisation to marry not the second, but the first young lady. The officer did so, and discovered, when too late, that she was one of those governing women who order about their husbands like children, so he has leisure to deplore the decision of the authorities.

[87] French carelessness in correcting is especially lamentable in school-books. I have before me a French school edition of _Childe Harold_, abounding in gross typographic blunders that must be most puzzling to French boys. M. Taine’s _Histoire de la Littérature Anglaise_ is very faulty in this respect.

[88] “Mr. Arnold’s studies of other nations, other ages, and other creeds would, I should have thought, have led him to regard Nonconformity as an universal power in societies, which has, in our time and country, its particular embodiment, but which is to be understood only when contemplated in all its other embodiments; the thing is one in spirit and tendency, whether shown amongst the Jews or the Greeks--whether in Catholic Europe or Protestant England. Wherever there is disagreement with a current belief, no matter what its nature, there is Nonconformity. The open expression of difference and avowed opposition to that which is authoritatively established constitutes Dissent, whether the religion be Pagan or Christian, Monotheistic or Polytheistic. The relative attitudes of the Dissenter, and of those in power, are essentially the same in all cases, and in all cases lead to vituperation and persecution.”--_The Study of Sociology_, ninth edition, p. 234.

[89] The French in Shakespeare has been said (never by French critics) to prove that he knew the language. It proves just the contrary.

[90] Lady Scott was of French extraction, yet Scott could not speak French.

[91] The place on the steep on the right bank of the Saône, behind the cathedral. Since Michelet wrote, a gorgeous new church has been built there for the miracle-working Virgin.

INDEX

A

Accent, purity of, a mark of rank in England, not in France, 59

Affections, family, strong in the French, 47;
cooler in England, 49;
cultured in France, 49;
example of Her Majesty Queen Victoria, 51;
English sympathy with the lower animals, 52, 53;
French hardness, _ib._

Agnostics, their influence in the French University, 42

Allen, Mr. Grant, just to France as regards Algeria, 202

Alliances.
See Marriage

America, system of Presidential government unsuitable to France, 110

Americans, their condemnation of idleness, 46

Anglicans, philosophical, different opinions, 171;
treatment of dogma, _ib._;
formalists but not hypocrites, 172;
amongst the English clergy, _ib._;
nearest French equivalent, 173.
See Church of England

Animals, humanity of the English and hardness of the French, 52;
cruelties in both nations in sport and cookery, 53

Apocrypha, no longer venerated in England, 55

Archery, unbecoming in English clergymen, 7

Army, English, a profession regarding volunteers and militia
as amateurs, 92;
old purchase system, _ib._;
French army under the Second Empire, raised by conscription but
not national, 93;
healthy revolution after the Franco-German war, _ib._;
real dignity of all military service, 94;
conscription under the Republic compensated by unity of sentiment
with civil population, 95;
by improvement in physical strength and activity, and extension
of education, _ib._;
national armies essentially peaceful when combined with
parliamentary government, 96;
French averse to the war in Tonquin, _ib._;
conscription in the English army inevitable, 97

Aristocracy, English, strong views of Matthew Arnold, 324;
overshadowing the English mind, 326;
favourable to simplicity of life, 327;
faults of the French Noblesse, _ib._;
their contempt for trade, 328;
usurpations of the territorial “de” in France, 329

Arnold, Dr., his personal influence in moral training, 39;
depended on his being a clergyman, 43

Arnold, Matthew, error as regards a French catechism used in
_lycées_, 195, 196;
confusion of _l’État_ with _le Pays_, _ib._;
charges the French with immorality, 220;
strong views of aristocracy, 324;
his influence, 400;
his division of the English into Barbarians, Philistines,
and Populace, 401

Art, independent of luxury, 295;
beautiful materials, _ib._;
the nude, 317;
realism, 318;
depreciation of English art in France, 410;
appreciated by cultivated French artists, 411;
English prejudice against French art, 412, 413;
patriotic bias of French art, 414.
See Education, Artistic.

Artists, French, their generosity, 31

Ascanius, his friendship for Euryalus excessively French, 47

B

Bagehot, Mr., his defence of titles, 325

Balzac, a hard-working genius, 403

Beckwith, Miss, the English swimmer, 10

Beljame, his evidence respecting the teachers and teaching of modern
languages in France, 20;
recent reforms in examinations and certificates of teachers, 21

Bible, English knowledge of, 27;
French ignorance of, 28, 55

Bifurcation, introduced into French schools by Fortoul’s ministry, 29

Bishops in France, may not ride or drive, 7

Bismarck, Prince, charges the French with hating their neighbours, 83

Black, William, his appreciation of patriotic tenderness in the
“Princess of Thule,” 66

Boar, wild, shooting in France, 11

Boating in England, 3;
limited in France, 8;
French regatta clubs, 9

Bonheur, Rosa, nothing in common with Landseer, 398;
her reputation in England, 412

Book-buyers in France, 395

Boucicaut, Madame, a true success, 376;
her goodness, _ib._

_Bourgeoisie_, or middle class in France, 35;
ignorant of art, 35;
vastly increased by French system of education, 56, 57;
inferior to the French _noblesse_ in field sports and equipages,
but not in learning, 59;
equal in purity of speech and language, 60

Bright, John, a salmon-fisher, 3

Britain.
See Variety in

Brittany contrasted with Provence, 434

Browning, Robert, unknown in France, 24;
his love for Italy, 72

Burgundy, contrasted with the Morvan district, 436

Byron, Lord, a distinguished swimmer, 3;
widely known in France, 24, 408

C

Cabinets, government of, in France and England, 110

Cafés, French, maintained by habitués, 237;
tend to separate the sexes, 367

Calendar, ought to be international, 124

Canadian society, Mrs. Jameson’s first impression, 81

Carlyle, Thomas, his teaching not followed by the English, 399

Carnot, President, his election a proof of the obedience of the
French army to the civil authorities, 94

Caste in France and England, 321;
true and false, 322;
aristocratic spirit, _ib._;
titles, 323;
peerage of Tennyson and Victor Hugo, _ib._;
strong views of Matthew Arnold, 324;
defence of titles by Bagehot, 325;
faults of the French _noblesse_, 327;
contempt for trade, 328;
absence of pure caste in England, 330;
new peers, 331;
Anglican clergy, _ib._;
French clergy and religious orders, 332;
military officers in France and England, 334;
officials, 335;
_Noblesse_, _Bourgeoisie_, _Peuple_, 336;
English gentlemen, _ib._;
fashionable and educated classes, 337;
French peasantry, _ib._;
pariahs in England and France, 338;
infidels and republicans, _ib._

Catholics, Roman, results of emancipation in England, 125;
English sympathies with French Catholics, _ib._;
an international religion, 142;
social preponderance in France, 153;
devotion of Catholic Sisters, 161;
genuine and formal, 174;
liberal interpretation of the Jesuits, _ib._;
dogma of eternal punishment, 175;
misrepresentation as to the expulsion of religious orders from
France, 191,
horror at the marriage of the Protestant clergy, 208;
good reputation of the French clergy, 223;
observance of Sunday for the protection of labour, 273;
incomes of the clergy in France as compared with England, 379

Catholicism in England and France, xii;
how far persecuted, xvi

Cetewayo, question of England’s right to break his power, 87, 88

Chambers, Robert, self-defence as to the authorship of _Vestiges of
Creation_, 196

Changes, dislike of, described by Sir Henry Maine, 120;
detested by Mohammedans, Chinese, and Hindus, 120;
by women, 121;
provoked by old institutions, 129;
future, in Great Britain and Ireland, 130

Channel Islands, French jealousy of English occupation, 88

Chauvinisme, a vulgar patriotism, ix

Cheerfulness, no equivalent in France, 389

Chevreul, the centenarian, respected in France, 54

Church of England, its social influence over the laity, 40;
its strength, 125;
subjection to the Queen or Parliament, 141;
intensely national, 142;
question of disestablishment, 151;
natural jealousy of nonconformists, _ib._;
freethinkers not eager for disestablishment, 152;
Mr. Voysey’s views, 154;
many formalists but few hypocrites, 167;
philosophical Anglicans, 171;
their treatment of dogma, _ib._;
examples amongst the clergy, 172;
ritualism promoted by formalism, 175;
old-fashioned Anglican formalism, 176;
opposite ideas of the marriage of ecclesiastics, 208

Church of Rome, founds all moral teaching on authority, 43;
clerical jealousy of family influence in France, _ib._

Classics, ancient, proposed abandonment in French schools, 18;
views of M. Frary and Professor Seeley, _ib._;
neglected in France, 19;
value as mental discipline, _ib._;
decay of the old veneration for in France, 55

Cleanliness, English, an invention of the nineteenth century, 254;
in England and France, 255;
English pride in hardihood, 256;
French warm baths, _ib._;
cleanly appearance of the French, 257;
effects of coal-smoke in England, _ib._;
whitewash in England, unknown in France, 258;
superior cleanness of the English, 259

Clergy, French and English, contrast in horse-riding and other
exercises, 7;
in yearly emoluments, 379

Clifford, Professor, fond of gymnastics, 2

Closure, adopted by the English from the French, 127

Clubs, more sociable in France than in England, 369

Colonisation, unfavourable to patriotism, 67

Comfort, English passion for, 285;
opposed to Christianity and Greek philosophy, 286;
difficulty of plain living, 287;
English prejudice against self-indulgence, 287;
stoicism of the French peasantry, 288;
comfort combined in England with mental anxiety, 289;
little known in France, _ib._;
as costly as luxury, 290

Commerce, its influence on art-culture, 32

Communes, proposed payment of the French clergy, 150

Communist, confounded with Communard, xii, _note_.

Conscription in the French army, faults under the Second Empire, 93;
revolution under the Republic, 94;
improved health of the French nation, 95;
increase of gymnastics and extension of education, 95;
repugnant to English feeling but inevitable in the future, 97;
disappearance of jealousies and social distinctions in the event
of war, _ib._

Conservatism and Experiment in French written constitutions, 119;
not produced by love of change but desire for order and
permanence, 120;
Sir Henry Maine on the dislike to change, _ib._;
tendency of the French to democratic conservatism, 121;
permanent innovations in France, 122;
decimal coinage, departmental administration, French university,
universal suffrage, representative government, 122, 123;
abolition of the republican calendar, 124;
permanent innovations in England, _ib._;
the Anglican Church, Catholic Emancipation, revolutionary
monarchy, 126;
opposition of Frenchmen to railways and of Englishmen to the Suez
Canal and decimal systems, _ib._;
adoption by the English of the French closure, 127.
See Change

Constable, revolutionised French landscape, 411

Conversation in foreign tongues a rare accomplishment, 25

Country, not an equivalent word to _patrie_, 75

Courage, national, apparent decline in England and France, 261;
shrinking from war, _ib._;
French courage after Sedan, 263;
bottled up in the Paris Commune, _ib._;
difference of training in England and France, _ib._;
football, duelling, boxing, and bull-fighting, 264;
field sports and military service, 265

Cricket in England, 3;
not popular in France, 4

Criticisms, international, reasonable and unreasonable, 89

Crosses, alleged removal from French cemeteries, 192;
the true story, 193

Cruelty to animals, sympathies of the English and indifference of
the French, 52;
cruelties of both nations in sport and cookery, 53

Culture of the affections in France, 50;
want of it in England, _ib._;
example of Queen Victoria, 51

Culture _versus_ Rank, 60

D

Dancing in the open air, out of fashion in France, 10;
objectionable balls, _ib._

“De,” the particle, supposed to indicate nobility in France, 329;
assumed by many of the _bourgeois_, 330;
money value in marriage alliances, 355

Debt, disapproved by the French, 46

Decimal system, a permanent innovation in France, 122, 127

Decorum, difference in national ideas, 307;
French and English bathing, 308;
artists’ models, 309;
natural necessities, 310;
language, 311;
inequalities of strictness, 312;
French reserve, 313;
at funerals, 313;
in literature, 314;
divorce reports in France and England, 315;
English tolerance of old books, _ib._;
Byron and Shakespeare, 316;
comic papers, _ib._;
the nude in art, 317;
realism, 318

Deer in France, 11

Democracy inevitable in France after Mirabeau’s declaration of the
sovereignty of the people, 105;
resemblance in the growth in France and England, 106;
comparison of the two revolutions, 107;
government in France, 109

Departmental administration in France, a permanent innovation, 123

Dicey, Professor, his explanation of the sovereignty of parliament
and people in England, 107

Dickens, a great reputation in France as an inventor, 408

Dissenters, dislike to being treated as inferiors, 132.
See Nonconformist.

Dissimulation encouraged in France by clerical teachers, 41

Dowries, in France, 359;
in England, 360

Drouet, Juliette, her relations with Victor Hugo, 211

Du Lac, Father, his views respecting Her Majesty the Queen, 200

Duelling in France and England, 277;
an appeal to divine justice, _ib._;
its survival in France, 278;
English sentiment expressed in Thackeray’s _Newcomes_, 279;
French sentiment, _ib._;
extinguished in England by ridicule, 279;
a modern French duel, 280;
its causes, _ib._;
difficulty in abolishing the custom, 281

Duruy’s Ministry, established the _Enseignement Spécial_ in the
French Schools, 29

Duty. See Patriotic Duty.

E

Edinburgh, its superiority as an art-centre to Lyons or
Marseilles, 36;
the centre of the literature and art of the Scottish
Lowlanders, 425

Education, artistic, French and English, 31;
seriousness of the French in teaching, _ib._;
generosity of French artists towards all art students, _ib._;
extension of art teaching in England, 32;
spread of sound elementary drawing amongst the French people, _ib._;
promoted by the desire for commercial success, _ib._;
art schools in Lancashire, a reaction against the ugliness of the
industrial age, 33;
comparative torpor of artistic life in French country towns, 34;
leadership of art in France maintained by Paris, 35;
academical teaching in England, 35;
superiority of Edinburgh as an art-centre to Lyons or Marseilles, 36;
difficult for the English to understand art, 37;
success of Ruskin’s moral criticism, _ib._;
English love of nature an impediment, 38;
feebler moral sense of Parisians favourable to their acceptance of
art, _ib._;
contrast of English and Parisian ideals, _ib._

Education of feelings of French and English, 47;
cultivated in France, repressed in England, _ib._;
love of mothers by Frenchmen and Englishmen compared, _ib._;
sentiment of friendship, 48;
coolness of the family affections in England, 49;
their culture in France, 50;
causes of the difference, _ib._;
healthy influence of the Queen in the expression of the feelings, 51;
English sympathy with the lower animals ridiculed in France, 52;
hardness of the scientific spirit, _ib._;
cruelties for the sake of sport or cookery, 53;
sentiment of reverence dying out in France, 54;
decaying in England except towards the Bible and the Throne, 55;
loss of veneration and faith, _ib._

Education, Intellectual, French and English, 15;
superiority of Latin and Greek maintained by both, _ib._;
Latin more important in France, and Greek in England, _ib._;
antiquity and mystery of ancient languages and dignity of the
teacher, 16;
priestly character of Latin in France, _ib._;
French contempt for modern languages, 17;
present tendency to thorough study of the classics or to abandon
them, 18;
views of M. Raoul Frary and Professor Seeley as regards Latin and
Greek, _ib._;
of masters in the French _lycées_, 19;
Latin and Greek regarded as mental gymnastics, _ib._;
neglect of Greek, _ib._;
inferior study of modern languages in French schools, 20;
inferior teachers, _ib._;
neglect of English, 21;
recent reforms, _ib._;
vast improvement in teachers of modern languages in France, _ib._;
examinations and certificates, 21;
inferior teachers of modern languages in England, 22;
difficulties in appreciating foreign poetry, 23;
English difficulties with French verse, 24;
conventional ignorance of English literature in France, _ib._;
knowledge of languages apart from a knowledge of literature, 25;
hollow pretensions to superior education, 26;
diminution of libraries in France and England, 27;
superiority
of the English in a knowledge of the Bible, 27;
science more studied than literature, 28;
present varieties in French secondary education, _ib._;
old system of Napoleon I, _ib._;
the _Bifurcation_ of Fortoul’s ministry, 29;
the _Enseignement Spécial_ of Duruy’s ministry, _ib._;
present varieties, 30