France and the French in the second half of the nineteenth century ... Translated from the third German edition

Preface

vii

Introduction

Xl SOCIETY AND LITERA TURE. CHAP. I. FAMILY LIFE AND MANNERS I II. EDUCATION 40 III. PARIS AND THE PROVINCES 72 IV. INTELLECTUAL LIFE IOS POLITICAL LIFE. I. THE IDEAL AND ITS REALISATION 1 37 II. NAPOLEON III. AND THE REPUBLICANS . . . . 171 III. THE DICTATORSHIP OF THIERS AND THE SEPTENNATE . 201 IV. CONCLUSION 239

Appendix

. THE WORKING-CLASS IN PARIS

PREFACE.

. These "impressions and experiences" of French life have been so kindly received and so considerately judged, even by those who differ from me, that it will not be out of place in a few words to express my thanks and clear up some misapprehensions. The beginning, nay, the bulk of this little book was written in the summer of 1872, when the impressions of the Great war were still fresh in men's minds, while the last chapter dates from December 1878, when the decisive victory of the French Eadicals over the Conservatives had been won. The French translation of it was published in 1880, and the English makes its appearance in 1881. It is but natural that the disposition of mind in which the author wrote and the public read these pages should have undergone great alterations in this long space of time, and that, if the book were to be entirely rewritten, the tone would be different, although it would be im possible for the author to change any of the views or statements which he has put before the public.

It was indeed his constant endeavour, even in the midst of all the passions roused by the war, to keep himself free from those passions, though his efforts may not have been b

PREFACE.

. entirely successful. He sought to indicate the points in which the intellect, character, and manners of the French differ from those of the Germans, not to allege any superiority of the one over the other, and (in accordance with Spinoza's counsel, neither to praise nor to blame, but to understand), he has never thought of making his sym pathy or antipathy for particular views on moral sub jects the standard of their worth. He would, indeed, be most unwilling to be suspected of having assumed a hostile attitude towards France, when he has a lively sense of the debt he owes to that great country, and gladly acknowledges to her — " Quod spiro et placeo (si placeo) tuum est." A lady once reproached him because this little book was " too French for a German, and too German for a Frenchman." No praise ever gratified him so much as this blame.

Had his friend added, that it was too liberal for an absolutist, too absolutist for a liberal, too free thinking for a religious person, and too religious for a freethinker, his satisfaction would have been complete. For if a writer has made it the task of his life to study the history of his time, it must be his highest aim to attain and preserve a point of view which places him outside and above the prejudices of a national, religious, or political partisan. The reader must also remember it is only of modern France — a country which has been convulsed by eighty years of revolution — that the author is speaking • for ancient France he has as sincere an admiration as any one. Every cultivated person knows what she once did

PREFACE.

. IX in philosophy, science, and literature ; and it is only necessary to omit the names of Scaliger, Montaigne, Pas cal, Descartes, Bayle, Montesquieu, Voltaire, Eousseau, Laplace, and Cuvier from the history of European culture, to gain some conception of the grand, and on the whole beneficent, influence which the French mind has had on Europe and mankind. And even more by the form than by the matter of her productions was France for many years the instructress of Europe, without whose aid the literature of England and Germany in the last century would have been impossible. No less admirable were the traditions of French government, as long as they were really living traditions. The history of few nations can show such statesmen and administrators as Henri IV. and Sully, Eichelieu and Mazarin, Louvois and Colbert, and the whole of the Napoleonic school.

There is yet another point which the author would be glad to clear up, if it could be done in the limits of a preface, or indeed be done at all ; but, as a fact, no discussion is possible between two views of life which start from entirely different principles. He has been credited with the naive object of reconciling two hostile nations by his writings, averting future wars, and with other such estimable intentions. But no one who has understood a syllable of his book can imagine that he has, or could have, any such aim. He has no more intention of exercising a practical influence by making the Germans acquainted with France, than he had when he endeavoured to make Germany known to the French. He has known too long that good advice ancl moral reflections have but little weight in the scale against passions and interests, the ruling forces in

PREFACE.

. X politics. Certainly, if the greatest men of a great time, the noblest and most gifted English and French writers of the eighteenth century, strove in vain to draw the two nations closer by a better understanding of each other, the author of these slight studies could not well labour under the illusion that anything he might utter would avail to bring about more peaceful sentiments between France and Germany. But it was, and still is, his belief, that notwithstanding the serious loss of higher intellectual culture, which we have witnessed in the last thirty or forty years, there still exists in every nation of Europe a number of really cultured men, who do not allow coarse national hatred to assert its influence over them, and for whom politics are neither the only nor the highest form of human activity.

Such men may, however, take the same interest in them as they would in history or anthropology. For the edification of such, not " to reform or convert mankind," have these observations and reflections been noted down by the author, who knows only too weU how much men can learn and how little they can change. KAEL HILLEBEAND. Florence, ist March 1881.

INTRODUCTION.

. Within the last few years French life and character have been treated by several different writers in Germany from many different points of view. The interest of the Ger mans had been aroused by the sudden fall and rapid recovery of France, by the deeply rooted evils which the catastrophe laid bare, and by the many noble elements which they so unexpectedly discovered in the national life during their involuntary invasion. There was a general desire to study historically and psychologi cally the good and bad alike in the character and the intellectual temperament of the people. Some of these writers still thought it necessary to caution us against the vices and bad habits of our neighbours, while the eloquent, liberal, and sympathetic voice of others reminded us of all that we had to learn from the conquered nation.

Yet for nations, as for individuals, learning has its limits. Tech nical and scientific methods, a knowledge of facts and information, even individual ideas, may be gained from others; but can a philosophy of life be learnt, can a particular temperament be acquired? Yet from these flow all that is good or bad in men, whatever in them is to be followed or avoided. We need not on that account

INTRODUCTION.

. lose the pleasure of studying a nation as the philosopher, the historian, or the poet studies mankind, without any idea of practical application, and simply from an interest in the drama of human life. The task of studying a foreign people as if it were a present past, or we, as Byron said, a living posterity, and of following up in tently its inner and outward development, will always preserve its charm for impartial and contemplative minds, even though it should not directly contribute to the improvement of public or private life. So, then, a Ger man like myself, who has spent half his life iu France, may be allowed from his rich store of experience to add some further contributions to the numerous essays which have been called forth by recent events. I have endeavoured to adopt, as far as possible, an historical or objective mode of treatment, neither suppressing my sympathy and good will on the one hand, nor, on the other, admitting any polemical arriire pensie, and excluding entirely (it is almost superfluous to add) the " patriotic " point of view.

A witty Italian statesman, who knows Germany well, once said to me, " No ; you Germans are not vain, but you are arrogant ; " and in the last few years I have frequently had occasion to reflect on the truth of my friend's observation. Before our political successes the evd spirit of arrogance appeared in the German scientific world, and claimed for the Germans the part of a chosen people. Even earlier, occasional references were made to our peculiar mission for the culture of the world • and between 1840 and 1850, in direct contradiction to the humanitarian views of the eighteenth century and our classical period, even men of eminence began

INTRODUCTION.

. XIII to talk complacently about " German virtues." The ex cessive modesty of former days gave way to a somewhat assuming self-consciousness. German industry and Ger man fidelity, German honesty and German piety, German sincerity and German conscientiousness, German force of will and German family affection, used to be celebrated as so many monopolies of the German people. Latins and Slavs were looked down upon with a consciousness of superiority only equalled by that which the English once displayed towards Irishmen and Indians. A Gervinus did not shrink from setting the " deep " Wolfram von Eschenbach far above Chretien de Troyes, whom the Franconian knight had interpreted for Germans. Vilmar allowed himself to describe Eabelais as a common jester compared with his Alsatian adapter, Fischart.

Even a Mommsen was not ashamed to deny any poetical tempera ment to the nation which produced Dante and Leopardi. It became an irrefragible maxim that Gothic architecture, the true child of Northern France, was " old German art." In certain quarters it was taken as a matter of course that France was not capable of producing anything better than " fashion and elegance." The German saw only too clearly the mote in his neighbour's eye, and laughed heartily at his pretentiousness in imagining that he headed the " march of civilisation," while all the time he was himself very innocently displaying the beam in his own eye and talking of the " superiority of German culture " as if it were a self evident fact. When the German professors, with such admirable taste, quoted in their answer to the address of the Dublin University these words of Paracelsus, " English, French, and Italians, you follow — we lead," they did but

INTRODUCTION.

. betray in an unguarded moment the feeling which nestled in the breast of many a learned German. Fortunately after 1860 a decided reaction commenced against this national arrogance — a reaction which was the more remarkable as it originated with the best minds. I need only mention among so many D. F. Strauss, H. Hettner, Julian Schmidt, and K. Justi. It was well for Germany that in the moment of victory, and just after it, the voices of our first writers were raised so bravely to warn us against over-estimating our capabilities or our achievements, that the German generals gave such a rare example of modesty and dignified tact, and that so many enlightened and impartial observers endeavoured to do justice to the good sides of the enemy's character. Other wise the great mass of the half-cultured middle-class would soon have learned to rest and be thankful on the summit of the " German virtues."

Whoever has lived long amongst the French — that is, whoever has known them, not in cafes and theatres, but in their family life and in their official and professional occupations — will gladly allow that our neighbours too have their virtues, though not always those which appeal most directly to our hearts, nor indeed all which they were so fond of imagining they possessed in the days of their splendour ; he will gladly allow that at bottom they de serve " ni cet excis d'honneior, ni ceite indigniti." It can hardly be considered a matter of surprise, still less of blame, that a nation which in the eighteenth cen tury exercised such a predominant influence over the culture of Europe, as England, Spain, and Italy had done over that of preceding periods, should have lived on in

INTRODUCTION.

. XV the belief that they still retained the first place even after they had lost it, particularly when they saw that their political ideas were everywhere gaining ground among the masses on the Continent. It beseems us, who for fifty years stood at the head of the intellectual republic of Europe, either to maintain our position or to perceive and recognise the insignia of supremacy as soon as they are displayed by another people : at aU events, it does not become us to look down with contempt upon those whom we may for the moment have excelled. Above all things, we must beware of insisting upon the moral corruption of our neighbours, because they happen to be passing through a period of intellectual languor and political weakness. Neither morally nor materially, neither politically nor intellectually, can there be any thought of such a decline in the French nation as that of Germany, for instance, about the year 1648, when not only the fact, but the very idea of a country was lost to us, and nothing was to be found in all the length and breadth of the Empire but brutality and wretchedness, corruptibility, ignorance, servility, lust, and gluttony.

Nay, we need not cast our eyes upon a period so remote in order to find facts which may tend to moderate the pride of our virtue, and to shake our belief in the inborn superiorities of race. Is it, then, so long ago since, under Wollner and Bischoffswerder, a sickly pietism and a cynical disbelief united to stifle every truly religious sentiment ? Where was our German sense of duty, our German chastity, and our vaunted family feeling in the days of Gentz and Wiesel, not to mention the more purely literary circles of the Eomantic School ? And

INTRODUCTION.

. what patriot can remember without shame and loathing the picture of the corruptibility, the favouritism, and the looseness of every kind in the South German official class during the period of the Ehine Confederation and the Eestoration, which Eitter Lang has displayed in his memoirs? What a condition of things prevailed only forty years ago in some of the small residencies and in tlie States which had formerly been subject to ecclesias tical rule, we ourselves have " shuddered to behold." In comparison with these things, the " corruption of the Second Empire," of which we hear so much, is hardly Avorth mentioning. Indeed, only to speak of " the moral decline" of a nation which has thrice in the course of the last three centuries — during the religious wars, under the Eegency, and at the time of the Directory — sunk far lower than it is at present, shows that he who employs such language is either ignorant of history or has for gotten it.

One has only to compare the dates of Barras's orgies and of Napoleon's victories to see that a nation may grow healthy and strong enough in the midst of such a " decline." A great deal has been said about the ignorance the French betray of foreign countries, and the superficiality Avith which they speak of everything that concerns them, Avhen they consider it at all worthy of their study or attention ; and there is some truth in this charge. Few of the numerous French books and periodicals that refer to other countries really enter into the spirit of the intel lectual and social life which they treat. But do matters stand much better with us noAvadays ? Are the German writers who couple the names of Merimee and Sue, or

INTRODUCTION.

. XVII Thierry and Cassefigue, so much better than the French who speak of Eanke and Duller, or of Lenau and Eedwitz, as if they were twins ? To take a single instance. I remember that a German doctor of philosophy, some twenty-seven years of age, an excellent philologer and a thoroughly good teacher, Avho had even spent some years abroad, once asked me Avhether Paul or Alfred de Musset were the greater poet. He knew nothing of either, except that one of them had Avritten the "Chanson du Ehin." It would hardly be pos sible to find a boy on the higher forms of a French grammar-school who Avas equally ignorant of Heine ; and yet, quite independently of his great poetical merit, the historical importance of Musset for France is as great as that of Heine for Germany. What a different knowledge our grandfathers possessed of France and England !

In reading the letters of Wie land, Herder, Goethe, and Merck, we meet foreign names on every page. From Justi's excellent book Ave may learn how carefully Winckelmann read the French authors though he disliked them, and a single glance at the "Dramaturgic " is enough to shoAV hoAV intimate was Lessing's knowledge of them. Our ancestors lived, so to speak, on familiar terms with Voltaire and Eousseau, they had a command over the language similar to that Avhich every educated Eussian still possesses, and so Paris and Leipzig were then in truth hundreds of miles nearer to each other than they are in our days of railways and telegraphs. There can be no doubt that the change was inevitable. So great an intimacy with foreign literatures is only possible to a people which possesses no literature

INTRODUCTION.

. XVIII of its own ; but has not the alienation gone too far ? It is well that our children should continue to learn the verses of Schiller rather than those of Corneille by heart ; it is Avell that our youth should make Kant rather than Condillac the basis of their philosophical culture ; well, above all, that Goethe should retain his place as our dearest friend and companion in every period of our lives. But ought this to prevent us from keeping an open eye and an open heart for the excellences of other nations. Should we not rather endeavour to follow the example of the sage and poet, who even in his old age was not contented with merely glancing over the pages of Byron and Manzoni, of Merim^e and Victor Hugo, but who entered into their inmost spirit and accepted them into his heart. It is a good thing to live in the daily company of one's wife, one's children, and the friends of one's youth, but it is not hospitality alone that prompts us to keep a seat at our table sometimes open to a stranger: an enlightened selfishness teaches us that our conversation does not lose in vivacity, grace, and variety by the occasional admittance of foreign elements.

What strikes an impartial observer of French history more than anything else is the number of contradictions he meets with in it. As the national mood is at one time that of " boundless exultation," at another is " sad even unto death," so its history either dazzles us or excites our pity. French public Hfe shows a rapid alternation of passionate interest in poHtics and hopeless indifference, of enthusiasm and scepticism, of a spirit of blind routine and a desire of innovation, of impulsive self-sacrifice and selfish individuaHsm, of longing for freedom and a con-

INTRODUCTION.

. XIX tented acceptance of absolute rule. Superstition and scepticism, immorality and domestic affection, a love of rhetoric and the soberest literary taste, are found in con tact, yet not in conflict, in the religious, moral, and intel lectual life of the French. Even more striking is the contrast between their public and private life. Frivolous, extravagant, and impulsive where only the state is con cerned, they are provident, economical, and always cautious in their private affairs. This contradiction may perhaps be explained by referring the two extremes to a common origin. Nature seems to have entirely denied them the qualities of a Zwov tvoXitikov — at least avroKpariicov ; she has enabled them to excel in social life, and given them moral, inteUectual, and artistic capacities, if not superior, at least equal to those of the other European nations.

If we are not mistaken, the secret lies for the most part in the sharp contrast between their character and their mode of thought. Eationalism, or the habit of judging with the understanding alone, is the characteristic of the French mind. This logical spirit reached its fullest development and found its most definite expression in the eighteenth century; during the Bevolution and the Empire it obtained complete supremacy ; but it is only in our own days that it shows unmistakably the influence which it exercises on pubHc and private Hfe. We shall endeavour to trace this rationaHstic spirit in its workings, to discover it in the most different spheres of life, and to see how it combines with the passionately excitable temperament and the irrepressible self-love of the Celt, destitute as he is of any such harmonising qualities as the German Gemiith and the sensual ideaHsm of XX

INTRODUCTION.

. the Latin race. Of course I am only speaking here of the middle class, and in it only of the large majority and the general rule, not of the minority and the exceptions, which, for reasons to be given later, rarely exist in France. In every nation the mass of workmen and peasants possess the characteristics of its civilisation in rough outline, but never so clearly marked or so fully developed as to enable us to study in them the physiognomy of this civilisation, while in the highest and richest classes the traits have become too faint to afford fitting material for observation. August, 1872. Part h SOCIETY AND LITERATURE. FRANCE AND THE FRENCH.

Chapter I. Family Life And Manners

I. Every one knows that in France marriage, which is the basis of family life, is arranged on principles of expediency. At the same time, foreigners are wont to judge of these matters with too little discrimination. When a young Frenchman has sown his wild oats — for " il faiot que jeunesse se pctsse" has been elevated to a moral prin ciple — is close on thirty, and in a position to set up a house, his parents, his friends, and often the young man himself, begin to look round for a suitable alliance. But it would be a great mistake to suppose that he is only marrying a doAvry. This is, no doubt, a sine qua non ; yet a man is generally content if his wife's income amounts to half his own. As a rule, her fortune is kept separate (rigime dotal), though sometimes, especially in the North, no such division is recognised.

In these arrangements, by Avhich the wife's share is invariably secured to her, we see the spirit and character of French marriage. As a rule, the law protects both the mother and the children in every way against neglect, desertion, extravagant habits, or a fondness for speculation on the part of the husband — a protection Avhich a bride sometimes resents as implying a want of confidence, a wife as a troublesome restraint. But not the question of fortune alone is taken into considera- A tion. Equal importance is attached to health, to age — the bride must be generally ten years younger than the bridegroom — to character, about which the most careful in quiries are made, to the habits of life, and above all, to the circle of society to which each belongs. A French man prefers not to marry above his own rank of life, and very seldom marries below it.

It is not too much to say that the misalliances which are the result of pas sion never occur. I never remember to have heard of a young man of wealth and good position marrying his sister's governess, or of a girl of good family eloping with her brother's tutor — events which are common enough in countries of Germanic race, not to mention greater aberra tions, such as sometimes come to Hght in England. In the mother's eyes, the really important thing is that her daughter's future husband should know the world (to use the regular euphemism), that he may not begin to do so after his marriage ; for on one point everybody is agreed, that " il faut que jeunesse se passe." After the fiancis have made acquaintance with each other, the bridegroom visits the bride every evening in the presence of her relations, " pour faire sa cour."

The use of the confidential " tu " is of course not to be thought of during this one month's probation; they are hardly alloAved to shake hands. Love is expected to follow marriage, and it usuaUy does. Most French marriages turn out* happily, often more happily than our love-matches. Unity of interests, especiaUy after the birth of children, brings husband and wife nearer together, and gives them the same wishes and aims ; habit does the rest, and friend ship, at least, seldom fails to grow up between them. In the middle class infidelity is very rare, and a warm affec tion, which falls little short of love, generally characterises family life. But this is not the case in the highest ranks of society, where it is not uncommon to find husband and wife Hving in complete independence of each other ; still less in the working classes, where concubinage is the rule, though it is often legalised by a late marriage.

It is rare for married men to frequent restaurants and cafes, as in Germany ; and it is only, as a rule, in the highest and lowest classes that they go habitually to the club or the marchand de vin. The description given by Gustave Droz of family life in his popular book, " Monsieur, Madame, et Bibi," is, on the whole, very true to life. That such a book should have reached its seventieth edition certainly gives a curious idea of the delicacy of the French bourgeoisie. A German would rather have courtesans introduced than see the veil thus drawn aside from the mysteries of marriage.* Yet, taken as it stands, Droz's book gives a vivid picture of French married life, and of the cheerfulness and harmony Avhich usually prevail in it. It is, however, characteristic that, with all her affection for her husband, a Frenchwoman is generaUy fonder of her children than of him.

It is a well-known fact that in France the number of children is limited. French morality, taking its principles as it does from the conclusions of the understanding, not from the impulses of the heart, forbids more chUdren to be brought into the world than can be conveniently provided for and educated. The children, generally two or three in number, become the sole care and the sole interest of their parents, whose tenderness goes far beyond the limits of prudent affection. The custom of sending children out to nurse in the country, which used to be the invariable practice, has almost entirely ceased in the upper and upper middle classes, and is for the most part confined to the lower orders, small tradesmen, artisans, &c. For it is con sidered wrong, on moral grounds, to take an unmarried nurse into the house, and a married one cannot be obtained except for comparatively high wages.

Only the children of the educated middle class can therefore be kept at home. * Not that the German middle class display an excess of delicacy, as any one knows who has had the pleasure of travelling with newly married couples on the Rhine steamers, or has read the matrimonial advertisements of a German newspaper, — rather a strong form of "mariage de raison." There they become the universal subject of conversation ; they soon begin to have their meals with their parents, who always attend to them first. Every wish is granted, every whim satisfied, every word and every movement held up to admiration. In short, they are systematicaUy spoilt, and the unpleasant task of accustoming them to discipline and order is reserved for their future teachers. At ten years of age a boy has to go to the collige, a girl someAvhat later to the pension, in both cases as boarders (internes).

In the last ten or twenty years, however, it has become much less common to send girls of good position to a boarding-school. It is easy to imagine what a struggle this separation costs the parents; still it requires less courage to make the sacrifice once for all than to show the O firmness and severity which day after day is required to curb the self-wiU of the children. At school, it is said, a boy's character is formed ; yet it usually happens that the collige and pension are just the places where a chUd's imagination, hitherto so anxiously guarded, may be corrupted in a few weeks. Nothing shows more clearly how entirely French morality is a matter of calculation than the almost pedantic way in which children, especially girls, are kept in ignorance of natural facts. They are never allowed to stir out of the house alone ; a careful watch is kept on what they read ; and not only what is actually immoral, but a.nj thing that is likely to occupy or foster the imagination, good and bad alike, is put out of their way.