The Chauvinisme of the French

THE democratic spirit of the French people is unique in its fierceness and its indiscipline. It is so deeply implanted in the popular heart, that ages of despotism would not uproot it ; and at the same time it shows itself in ways which are almost brutal in their rudeness. The brown-fisted ouvrier crowds against the elegance of the fop with a self-assertion that makes one shudder. In all public places he is equal to a prince ; and one is often tempted to believe that he thrusts himself forward in order to teach the select few a rude lesson in humility. At Paris, in the lowest haunts of Belleville, the stranger will be treated with great politeness; the men will uncover their shaggy heads and the women will salute. But neither men nor women will leave you in doubt whether their advances are only courtesies, and whether they know their equality before the law. They are generally civil, but always just. The French flunky acts his part so long as he is paid his salary ; but the day after his discharge he meets his old master with head erect and the independent air of a freeman.

I do not complain of the democratic brusqueness of the French workingman. It is on the whole rather an admirable quality. It is the manifestation of the spirit of 1789, of 1848, and of that firm popular resolution which was so skilfully courted by the government of Louis Napoleon. Moreover, the ouvrier though cruel is as brave as a lion. If he sends a queen to the guillotine, he storms the Bastille. If he tears down the monuments of Paris, he dies in the trenches before the foe. If he too often overlooks the mercy of charity, he seldom forgets the mercy of justice. He has a long memory, and seizes the hour of revenge with fierce exultation ; but he loves his class better than himself, and the state better than either. He goes out to the fight as cheerfully as he goes out to his work, singing the airs of France, and glowing with hope, courage, and joy.

In many of his qualities the ouvrier may well be compared to the professor who lectures at the Sorbonne or the College of France. Indeed he has very many points of superiority. He is more steady in his habits of mind, he is more manly ; and when difference of education is taken into view, he can reason more closely and logically. 1 he model French scholar is a very peculiar character, often endowed with a rare erudition, and with the happy gift of clear and effective style, but he dilutes these merits with a vanity more than childish, and a peevishness absolutely absurd. The late war threw half the professors in France off their mental balance. One has only to drop in at a popular lecture in the Latin Quarter to hear men of superb abilities ruin their effectiveness by the way in which they mix politics and passion with what ought to be graver scholastic dissertations. Even men like Cousin and Guizot were never able to rise to that serene intellectual atmosphere which has given German scholarship such a just renown.

The mode of thought among the best educated Frenchmen is strictly in harmony with their nature. If there is one branch which the French conspicuously ignore, as well in their studies as in their practice, it is that of logic. They are much commended for the swiftness with which they leap to conclusions ; but the swiftness is attained by contempt for intellectual processes, and often for truth itself. They reason from general propositions to specific facts. Take the case even of Montesquieu. In him the general truth usually precedes the particular examples; induction is quite ignored ; and reduction is made from propositions which are false or have not been established. The division of powers is conducive to the welfare of a government ; the ancient republics did not understand the division of powers ; therefore they fell ; this is the usual form of Montesquieu’s arguments. The fallacy in this syllogism is obvious ; and it would be just as obvious if the main proposition or all the propositions were true. But it is a characteristic piece of French logic. It shows fairly that peculiar mental defect which is often called acuteness, but which is really an incapacity for close consecutive thinking. It is this inherent, national illogicality which in matters of patriotic interest produces in the French people the condition of mind known as chauvinisme. The word itself is peculiar. It is not found in the older and smaller dictionaries ; but if it wants the authority of elegance, it has the venial emphasis of slang. The chauvinisme of the French differs from the vanity of other peoples, not so much in kind as in depth and extent ; but in these two points of comparison the difference is immense. The bombast of the Yankee is often extravagant, but it is good-natured and does not offend. One laughs, of course, at the itinerant Briton’s failure to find anything quite equal to “ that thoroughly English love of respectability.” Every one knows the pugnacity with which the German will defend the fatherland. But these are masculine virtues by the side of that spiteful, puerile, and absurd vanity, which patriotism seems to exact of the French citizen, and which seems to glow most fiercely in the most ingenious minds. Victor Hugo is the worst victim of this sentiment, if his chauvinisme may be dignified by the name of a sentiment. There are two theories about the great poet’s rhapsodies, the one ascribing them to a species of real insanity, the other treating them as cheap bids for notoriety. The one accuses his reason, the other his honesty, and the reader may choose between them. It is certain, however, that French chauvinisme is in general neither a trick nor a mania, except in the sense in which any marked national passion may be regarded as a willing or unwilling perversion of the mind. The French do not reason out all of their startling conceits, much less do they hold them insincerely. They thoroughly believe that France is the greatest nation in the world ; that she stands at the head of civilization ; that she has produced the greatest men in every department of life ; that she alone has a language, a literature, and an art; that her soldiers are the best in the world, and in the late war were defeated only by treachery. I speak of the prevailing tone of thought in the French press, French literature, and French society, but without overlooking cases of rare and outspoken candor. It will be observed that here is nothing which a warm-hearted patriot might not believe, and yet retain his reason. To have a generous belief in the greatness of one’s country is not chauvinisme. It is the character of the latter quality to be wildly extravagant, to be fretful and childish and silly, to resent a doubt as an insult, and to offend by its very frankness. These are some of the features of that national tendency which meet one at every point of contact with the French. Sometimes it amuses by its absurdity, sometimes it offends by its intolerance, sometimes it amazes by its extravagance, but always it is a serious evil from which the French themselves are the worst sufferers. It is superior only to that cold sceptical prudence, which degrades patriotism by robbing it of all its spontaneity. A fierce, popular egotism is not the best bulwark of a state ; but it is at least as admirable as that affectation of candor which always throws the burden of proof on one’s own country, and is patriotic only on second thought.

This irrational spirit of chauvinisme is the cause of two grand defects — the one moral, the other temperamental— in French character. The first is wide-spread and is confined to no class ; but it need be here considered only as it appears in those minds which culture ought to lift above the petty tricks of national vanity. The most serious charge which can be brought against a scholar is that of dishonesty. Noblesse oblige is a maxim which the French themselves have given us ; and of all species of nobility there is none so high in itself, and none which prescribes so high a standard of duty, as the nobility of scholarship. Now in what concerns the mere form of literary art, or the practical basis of culture, the wise men of France are equal to their brethren of any country. But when a higher test is applied, when there is question of that spiritual refinement, of which mental discipline ought to be at once the cause and the companion, when one looks for that intellectual integrity without which the profoundest learning is a sham and an evil, one turns away with the conviction that French scholars, with all their brilliant qualities, are lamentably wanting in a sense of their professional responsibility. Junius advises those who want sound maxims in the science of law to study Mr. Justice Blackstone’s book, and those who want virtuous examples in the profession of law not to follow Mr. Justice Blackstone’s practices. The same unfortunate distinction must be made in the case of a great many leading French writers. On topics purely scholastic and neutral, French literature adds the charms of a clear style and a fair erudition to an impartiality which has no motive to waver. Indeed the history of other countries has been treated by men like Guizot and Thierry with as much fairness as ability. But what student of the Napoleonic wars would rely on Thiers’s glowing epic ? How many Frenchmen know that the English took part in the Crimean war? Who can think without a smile of the future French historian of Bismarck, or of the late war ? The treatment of such subjects by a partisan is often, and perhaps pardonably, marked by a bias which the reader ascribes to errors of judgment or want of discipline ; but deliberate mutilation of the facts of history is an offence which may be too often brought home by irresistible proof to the first writers of France. They are good partisans but poor patriots.

It has been my fortune to spend some time amid the wrecks of French society, and to study with a sympathetic eye the struggle for regeneration. I have seen a brave people bear without a murmur the burdens of taxation, and clamor for more that the day of deliverance might be hastened. I have seen a people demand almost with one voice a system of education which should be obligatory and universal. I have seen strong men shed tears over the faults of their country. But seldom in the history of national crises has the one class which ought to set the example of a dignified candor and a loyal energy — the scholars, the authors, the thinkers— shown itself so far below the occasion and its duties. To say that they have been active is to pay them a sorry compliment. They have studied the problem, and have filled the libraries with their solutions ; but their incapacity is almost as marked as that at Sedan. They have even done but little to diffuse a more healthy public sentiment. Nothing is more evident than that the France of to-day needs the probe and lancet of the surgeon rather than the soothing potions of the nurse. She needs remedies and not excuses, the counsel of courage and not the flattery of weakness, the caustic severity of truth and not palliating doses of fiction. But this truth, obvious as it is, seems not to have entered the consciousness of the French thinker ; or, if it has entered, it is guarded as a dangerous secret. Accordingly the books which have treated the misfortunes of France are full of flattery on the one side and falsehood on the other ; they are shallow, superficial, and illogical. Most of them give too much credit to mere political forms, and too little to the graver social evils. They are timid in the statement of truths which reflect on the French, and bold only in the fabrication of libels upon the Germans. This manner of treatment too is not confined to those who use the pen. At the oldest and greatest French university I have heard grave professors make statements which I knew to be false, which they knew to be false, and which their auditors knew to be false. These men are honored with the highest social and professional positions, and as the chosen instructors of the youth of France wield a power which affects both the character of the French and the destinies of France. What admirable examples of integrity they set before the rising generation ! Instead of the calm dignity which can bear misfortune, they show the fretful anger of a disappointed child ; instead of severe deductions from the facts of defeat, they coin excuses which are insufficient or false ; instead of courage, honesty, and logic, they bring to the treatment of the great problem nothing but egoism, shallowness, ill-temper, and mendacity.

If the spirit of French chauvinisme corrupts the integrity of the few, it takes a most pernicious direction in the many. The glory of France has been largely won by her soldiers, and from this fact the untrained logicians easily draw the inference that military glory is the only true glory. This gives a martial tone to the whole nation. At the same time the military spirit in France is feudal or mediæval rather than modern. It delights in the dashing and the brilliant, rather than those more solid achievements which are the work of patience, time, and heavy battalions. The impetuous skill which made Napoleon master of Europe is the highest quality of the French soldier, while the dull method of Moltke’s legions is held to be vulgar and unchivalrous. Hence the French can bear defeat with great difficulty, while they are rather fond of the éclat of successful campaigns. They love to read bulletins from their victorious armies, and to study the long roll of battles on the Arc de Triomphe. Peasants who never heard of Voltaire or Bossuet, and look with mute amazement on the literary record of their country, can describe with exact fidelity the wars of the first Republic, or the campaign in Italy. An original soldierly spirit has been fostered by unwise teachers, so that it seems to prodominate throughout French life. The Emperor’s declaration that the Empire meant peace was popular with the French, not because it insured them against war, but because it seemed to insure them against defeat. But the Emperor soon saw that he could not support an effective army on a peace establishment. Rome, Algeria, Mexico, were so many training fields for his soldiers, but even with the principle of rotation he could not keep up their discipline. They terrified the gamins of Belleville, and made brilliant conquests among the servant-girls of the Faubourg St. Germain ; but one rude week of service against the Prussians taught them more than years of preliminary drill. The French nature resists discipline. When a whole nation would rise against a united continent, as France rose against Europe, the history of 1789 must be studied and followed. But when science takes the place of élan, when mechanical training supersedes a reckless daring, a methodical people like the Germans have a vast advantage over their gallant foes, and are pretty sure to win. The French passion for military glory is a great evil ; but a military spirit which despises the drill-master is false to itself.

On the other hand, this very elasticity of the French is perhaps the cause of a warm national generosity which is not possessed in the same degree by any other people in Europe, except the Irish. They who are fond of such speculations may perhaps find that generosity is a trait of the Celtic character. Be that as it may, no one can study the history and the nature of the French without seeing that they are a people of warm sympathies and chivalrous impulses, — qualities which are in harmony with the national pride, but not often with the national interests. French writers themselves lay much stress on this fact. In contrast with the apparent ingratitude of those European states which calmly saw France crushed under the heel of Germany, these writers cite the sympathy and soldiers which France gave to Italian unity, her friendship for Poland, her defence of English interests in the Crimea, her championship of the Pope, and more particular outbursts of a warm and uncalculating generosity. These souvenirs come with bad taste from French pens, but they are drawn from truth. Individually the French count their moral resources with admirable care ; and as a nation their vision is narrow and often oblique. But they are warm-hearted and impressionable, and can make the most superb demonstrations of unselfish passion.

I have suggested that the want of discipline in the French people is a cause or condition of their impulsive sentiments. The suggestion may well be pushed further. It may be doubted whether generosity is a reflective passion at all, especially the generosity of a whole people, and whether it does not spring more often from qualities which the art of government is obliged to deplore. The two most sympathetic peoples in Europe are the French and the Irish, and they are the two peoples in whose political life judgment and reason play the smallest part. The English and the Germans, with many noble qualities which the French do not possess, show in this particular the cold, prudent, Teutonic spirit of selfishness. Who ever saw the English stirred by a high impulse of popular generosity ? Who can find a single relenting moment of tenderness in the fifty years that Germany gave to the patient “ study of revenge ” ? I wish to avoid sentimentality. A wise selfishness is still one of the first of national virtues ; and the plaintive parallels drawn by Frenchmen who know no weapon but the pen are almost too silly for contempt. But even in this cynical age the liberal virtues ought not to be despised. It ought to be remembered that those swelling sentiments of chivalry, which have been extinguished except among the French, were honorable and victorious in an age when war was a pastime and not a profession, and when nature rather than education made the soldier.

Herbert Tuttle.