Ten Frenchmen of the nineteenth century

Contents

CHAPTER

I. Introduction -

II. Guizot and the Cause of Constitutional Monarchy -----

Chapter I

The achievements of the nineteenth century were the carrying out of the ideas of the eighteenth. Before the French Revolution men theorized; after it they employed themselves in turning the theories into facts. Science left the study for the shop; steam and electricity were put to practical uses; chemistry became a handmaid to industry; while physiology created medicine anew. Likewise in public affairs. The application of the social views of philosophers and essayists transformed governments, changed constitutions, created states.

THE FRENCH REVOLUTION AND FRANCE

In no country of Christendom were these results so evident as in France. By the temperament of its people France is subject to violent changes. Other nations yield to the invasion of new ideas gradually, peacefully. In France devotion to tradition and custom is so strong in all matters of private or public import that the forms of the past continue to stand after their content is exhausted. They must be broken by the impact of other forms of new and vigorous content. Hence revolutions in politics and i literature, violent antagonisms, strifes between the living present and the dead past. The French Revolution is an instance of the way changes in politics are made. By their attacks on religious and civil authority, which went hand in hand in old France, Voltaire and his allies destroyed respect for creed and statute. Their influence was wholly towards pulling down. With his dreams of the primitive happiness of man, a golden age which civilization had corroded and tarnished, Rousseau showed how justice and truth would be found only in a return to nature and a purely democratic state. He would destroy, but in order to create anew. The skepticism of Voltaire and the faith of Rousseau met in the French Revolution. Faith won, as always, and from the chaos of the Reign of Terror a new France emerged.

THE WORK OF NAPOLEON

This new France was a land of passion. It believed it had a mission: to proclaim liberty, equality, and fraternity to all mankind, and free from injustice and oppression the peoples of the world. To direct this enthusiasm Providence raised up a leader. Bonaparte was a great administrator. Modern times have not seen his equal in this respect. His foreign wars may not have been an unmixed blessing to Europe, and were quite certainly an evil to France; but they carried abroad the principles of liberty, and made Germany and Italy nations. His work at home, however, was beneficial. It fashioned the France of the present day. The results of the Revolution were accepted, and incorporated into the common law of the land. Peasant proprietorship was sanctioned, and primogeniture abolished. To recompense the Church for the loss of its revenues appropriations were granted direct from the public treasury. Public improvements were planned, set on foot, and carried out in many instances. The internal administration of the country was systematized, and concentrated in the central authority. Art and science were fostered. Whatever the political vicissitudes which have followed, France has remained in all essential particulars the France of the Empire.

THE RESTORATION

With Napoleon finally at St. Helena, Louis XVIII on the throne, and the emigrant nobles back after a twenty years’ exile, during which little notion of the great changes at home had entered their minds, France seemed in fair way to return to the ideas of the eighteenth century. The great bulwark against this ebb in the social tide was the peasant proprietorship, sanctioned by the Napoleonic Code. Country and city, though weary of war, joined in successful resistance to a political reaction. Fifteen years after Waterloo the Bourbons fled, never to return.

But the Restoration did more than hold the ground gained by the Revolution. Its era of peace fostered learning and literature. Science became more and more experimental. Literature, which had been antagonized in its development by the pagan ideals of the Revolution, renewed its connection with the nature-worship of Rousseau, who had rejected classical models. Its votaries were divided into two camps. One party became deeply religious. Turning away from antiquity it found new and Christian sources of inspiration in the writings and art of the Middle Ages. Chateaubriand headed this group, and many of its members wrote under the influence of English and German romanticists. In politics this faction was conservative, reactionary. The other camp held the liberals, the advocates of democracy and equality of sex. In matters of religion it sided with Voltaire, though its leaders, Mme. de Stael, and later, George Sand, were the especial disciples of Rousseau. This group was much less numerous than the other. Perhaps also the division between the two is more apparent than real. It is strongly marked only in religious belief and in politics, and towards 1830 both factions found themselves united in the French Romantic School. This school included poets like Hugo and Lamartine, and historians like Thierry and Guizot. Beside them stood the romanticists of art, Boulanger and David d’Angers.

THE REIGN OF LOUIS PHILIPPE

Liberalism in politics triumphed in the July Revolution of 1830. The aristocracy of birth, which strenuously held to the ways of old France, was supplanted by the caste of bankers and merchants, the Third Estate, whi§h had made the French Revolution, and was now demanding the fruits of its labors. The new monarch, Louis Philippe, of the House of Orleans, a man of simple and democratic ways, received his throne at the hands of Parliament. Napoleon had recognized the democratic principle. His generals had risen from the ranks and had become the dukes and princes of a new nobility. The year 1830, therefore, in many ways joined on to 1815. A significant sign of this close connection was the substitution of the tri-colored flag of the Empire for the royal white banner and golden lilies of the Restoration. But the July monarchy was in favor of peace. It was a business man’s government. The only war it was called upon to undertake was one of territorial aggrandizement, by which Algeria was added to the possessions of France.

Still the inevitable evolution of the principles of the French Revolution — liberty, equality, fraternity — went on under this rule of the bourgeoisie. The constitution of the country was patterned on the constitution of England. A property qualification underlay tenure of office and the suffrage. In the eyes of the masses this was not equality. Democratic ideas flourished. Socialism found advocates in theory and practice. The government did not understand how to trim its sails to ride out the growing storm, and the Revolution of 1848, supported by the mechanics and day laborers, drove it from power.

During this period of eighteen years many men of letters had played at politics. Thiers and Guizot, both historians by vocation, had in turn guided the destinies of the nation. The glory of the Empire, now seen in retrospect, had thrown its suffering into the shade. The so-called Napoleonic legend had daily been gaining strength. The triumphal recovery of the remains of the emperor, in 1840, and their interment at the Invalides had aroused an enthusiasm which disturbed the monarchy and cost Thiers his office. Guizot’s failure to comprehend the times and their demands forced the crisis of 1848. Other writers who took part in public affairs, as Lamartine and Hugo, attained no more lasting success. As republicans they survived 1848, but only to lose place and power in the stormy years that followed.

Their contributions to the literature of their country were, however, more beneficial and more lasting. Around Hugo the second generation of romanticists had gathered,

Alfred de Musset, Theophile Gautier, Sainte-Beuve. In sympathy with them, but not in such close touch, wrere the other great writers of the Romantic School, Alexandre Dumas and George Sand. Inspired by them and inspiring them in turn were the artists Horace Vernet and Delacroix; the musicians Chopin, Meyerbeer, and Rossini. On the other hand, opponents of romantic views, while partly imbued with them, included the first and the best of the realists, Stendhal and Balzac. They did not care for art, they gave little heed to style. Observation directed their pen, not imagination; what they saw, rather than what they felt. They left emotion and sentiment to the romanticists. Skeptics in religion, conceiving life to be a struggle for material enjoyment, in which the strongest and shrewdest succeeds, taking their model from Napoleon, the great parvenu , and possessed with the spirit of the exact sciences, they substituted in their works descriptions for emotions, the careful narrative of physical man and his surroundings for a picture of the human soul, and the heroes of the shop and professions for the knights of the Middle Ages and the musketeers of Louis XIII. The Third Estate had seized the political power. Why should it not be eulogized in more lasting annals? Some of the realists went farther. Eugene Sue laid the plots of his romances in the resorts of the revolutionists of 1848.

THE SECOND EMPIRE

The Republic of 1848 proved to be lacking in vitality. Its leading men were theorists or Jacobins, and France was not yet ready for representative government pure and simple. The Republic established universal suffrage, and fell at once into the hands of Louis Napoleon, whom universal suffrage first elected president, then president for ten years, and finally emperor. The attempt to return to the political ideas of 1793 had failed. Public opinion forced on the country a despotism, for fear of a lapse recurring to the anarchy of the Reign of Terror, and socialistic views of ownership.

The main strength of Napoleon III was derived from the Napoleonic legend, which had grown until it had quite crowded out all other political sentiment. But he possessed also a keen appreciation of the desires of the French people, knew foreign countries, was inclined towards idealism. He declared at once for peace and industry, and in public affairs leaned towards the establishment of a constitutional monarchy. His internal administration was excellent. Important works of improvement were undertaken in the larger towns. Paris was made over, given parks and public buildings. Universal expositions in 1855 and 1867 fostered national industry and art. And all the while the absolute autocracy of the earlier years was yielding little by little to the increasing demand for liberty of thought and action. But in foreign affairs his rule was singularly unfortunate. Intent on making France the center of European diplomacy, and on cheaply purchasing a large amount of military glory, Napoleon III engaged in alliances and expeditions more and more unfortunate. The Crimean War, in which he opposed Russia, the natural ally of France, and assisted in perpetuating the power of the Turk in Europe, the Italian War of 1859, which ended in a way unsatisfactory to the Italians, the Roman Catholics, and Europe generally, his unfortunate attempt to found a Latin state in Mexico were each recognized at the time or later to have constituted a series of political mistakes, from which France had gained nothing but enmity and distrust. The final blunder of the Franco-Prussian War proved fatal to the Empire.

In the domain of ideas the Second Empire did not show the robustness of either the Bourbon or the Orleanist monarchy. Its pretense of religion and morality was regarded in many quarters as a sham, a cloak to cover irreligion and wrongdoing. However this may have been, the popular philosophy among the scientists was Comte’s positivism, which formulated agnosticism. The effect of this creed on literature was striking. With 1848 romanticism had ceased to rule, and the best of realism had departed. Chateaubriand had died in that year, and Balzac in 1850. Lamartine had turned hack-writer, De Musset’s muse was silent. George Sand had retired to the country, and the coup d'etat of 1851 had driven Hugo into exile. Yet experimental science grew, favoring mental doubt until results have been attained, while criticism and research occupied the greater talents, who looked to Germany and England for guidance. These include Renan, the historian; Littre, a disciple of Comte, the linguist and essayist; and Taine, of the same school, the critic.

Of works of the imagination there are few, apart from Hugo’s novels and poetry; for realism in literature had degenerated into a bastard naturalism. Man passed more and more for a mere animal, an animal endowed with evil instincts to the exclusion of the good. The novelist of the day, Flaubert, is a chronicler of human imbecility and physical decay. Baudelaire gave these ideas expression in verse, while a new school of poets, the Parnassians, were devoting their energies to the perfection of technique and form. The drama, in its representatives, the younger Dumas and Augier, portrays the unwholesome traits of contemporaneous manners or argues for reform in social conditions. It is realistic, like Balzac.

Art also left the domain of the imagination for the field of observation. Studies of nature, landscapes, attained unwonted excellence in the paintings of the Barbizon School. The Empire also had its eulogists, who delineated with extreme care and attention to detail the battles of the Grand Army and the military experiences of Napoleon III. Towards the end of the period a revolt in the direction of naturalism becomes manifest. More freedom, a broader treatment, a rejection of conventional themes and color, point the way to greater originality of thought and expression. But official influence was ever on the side of conservatism in either literature or art. Censorship was often exercised.

THE THIRD REPUBLIC

The battle of Sedan brought the opposition to imperialism to the front, and the republicans of Paris, unrestrained by the presence of the regular army, captive or besieged, proclaimed the Third Republic. The numeral is significant. It preserves the memory of the French Revolution and the Republic of 1848. There is no question but that the nation as a whole was taken by surprise by this action of the Parisians. For when, after the war and the Commune, deputies were elected to the National Assembly, it was found that the republicans were in a minority. But the majority was made up of such antagonistic factions — Bonapartists from the north, Bourbons from the west, and Orleanists from many districts controlled by the bourgeoisie —

IO that no agreement among them was possible, and the Republic continued by sufferance. For nearly twenty years this peculiar state of affairs lasted. The existence of the government was often menaced. It often seemed on the verge of destruction. But it was not destroyed, and since 1890 its stability has not been seriously doubted. From a strife between partisans of a monarchy or empire and partisans of representative government, the political contest within the country has passed to the usual struggle between liberals and conservatives. Religious opinion forms much of the party difference. The liberals, who include the moderate socialists, are on the whole against Church influence in public affairs. The conservatives are quite generally stanch churchmen.

The Republic has shown itself fairly competent in the management of internal affairs. The centralized system of administration, established by Napoleon, remains in full force, though many of the more enlightened citizens favor greater local autonomy, and some steps have been taken toward increasing the attractions of other towns than Paris. This is especially noticeable in the matter of education. Shortly before the fall of the Second Empire, the minister of public instruction, Victor Duruy, the historian, brought forward a measure for the extension of common schools under governmental direction. Primary education had been almost entirely in the control of the Church. The Republic, with its leanings away from clericalism, succeeded to Duruy’s idea and pushed it forward until the youth of France of both sexes enjoy practically the same educational privileges that are enjoyed in Germany. Hand in hand with this movement has gone the development and improvement of the more advanced

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schools of learning. Universities in the provinces, at Grenoble, Montpellier, Toulouse, or Lyons, have enlarged their resources quite as much as the University of Paris. Scientific privileges formerly concentrated in the capital are now available in the more remote districts also.

In the matter of public works the present government has continued the plans of the Empire. The buildings in Paris ruined by the Commune have been in part replaced, and with greater magnificence. Broad avenues have taken the place of city alleys, bridges have been constructed, while the expositions of 1878, 1889, and 1900 have fairly outdone the fairs of the Second Empire. The policy of fostering art has been continued, museums have been multiplied, and private individuals have vied with the state in increasing the collections open to the public. A notable instance is the gift of the old Conde estate at Chantilly by one of the Orleanist princes, the Due d’Aumale, to the Institute of France. No previous era has seen so much done for the enlightenment and comfort of the people. At the present time the chief obstacle to the success of the existing regime in France is the burden of taxation which its military budget lays upon the people. Neither monarchy nor empire had to contend with expenditures for war when there was no war.

In foreign affairs the Republic has followed the vacillating policy of its predecessor. It has in turn estranged and reconciled Italy, has shown its sympathy with Spain, during the Spanish-American War, and its distrust of England. But no complications have ensued because of its feelings — other than those of a tariff war with Italy. And to its great credit can be placed the alliance with Russia, the utility of which had appealed to Bonaparte, but had escaped his nephew, Napoleon III. The wars it has wTaged have been small, if unfruitful, prompted by the spirit of colonization. Algeria has always been commercially unprofitable. Now Tunis has been added to it under the guise of a French protectorate. Expeditions to the eastern seas have also been undertaken. Tonquin was wrested from China, and Madagascar from its native rulers. All these petty campaigns have involved some expenditure of blood and still occasion considerable expenditure of money. It is a question whether the resources thus applied might not have been employed at home to better advantage. The French do not colonize. They wisely prefer to dwell in their own fair land.

The progress of ideas under the Third Republic has kept pace with the evolution of western thought. Inventions and discoveries — notably those of Pasteur in the line of chemistry — have contributed their share to the advancement of mankind. In all departments of science there are many workers, some of whom have attained eminence. Literature has suffered, as it has everywhere else. Its springs of inspiration, imaginative or realistic, seem to have dried up. Hugo, the great genius, who had labored in all the epochs of the century since Waterloo, worked on in this also in full possession of his powers; but there was no one to bear him company. In fiction the better writers are realists or naturalists, like Daudet and Zola. In poetry the Parnassians, who counted among their number two men of note, Coppee and Sully-Prudhomme, were soon opposed by the symbolists, who tried to carry poetry back to its origin in music, appealing to the ear and not the eye. The dramatists of the Empire have had no successors. The stage has been occupied with theatri-

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cal experiments, more or less realistic in their bent, and is now freed of all conventional restraints. Rules of construction have given way to complete liberty. Throughout the whole period the influence of Russian and Scandinavian writers has been plain, affecting now fiction, now drama. But on the whole the various branches of literature, having exhausted the impetus born of the social changes which produced the French Revolution, are waiting for new sources of emotion to reveal themselves.

THE PRESENT OUTLOOK

The future of France may be judged to some extent from her past. In government she may have reached her goal. No other form of administration since the French Revolution has lasted so long as the Third Republic. Its existence has at times been precarious, but it has survived the revival of Caesarism in Boulanger, the financial scandal of the Panama Canal, the injustice and party spirit of the Dreyfus affair. There is every likelihood that its strength of resistance will grow. In the thirty-four years ‘since Sedan a whole generation has come to maturity, a generation which neither ties of sentiment nor of self-interest attach to a dynasty. The common-school system, spread throughout the land, is in itself a great protection against reaction to a monarchy, where clerical instructors and parochial education would be supreme. Pretenders to the throne are too far removed in blood from the old sovereigns to create any serious diversion in their favor. In foreign affairs the Republic has attained a position of dignity.

Among the French people there is a visible drift towards socialism, as in all other countries. But in

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France this drift is opposed even more resolutely than elsewhere by the peasant proprietors and the steady, selfcentered bourgeoisie. Legislation in behalf of the artisans and non-property-holding classes may be expected, forced as elsewhere by the broadening of the democratic principle and the growth of altruism. But revolutions should be less and less feared as the people learn the art of selfgovernment, and acquire the habit of making the ballotbox the arbiter of disputes. Some decentralization will undoubtedly be carried through, as much as the genius of the nation, which demands order and unity, will allow. In short, the Republic will continue to be, but it will continue to be French, not Germanic nor Anglo-Saxon. Offering, as it does, full play to the expression of individual thought and opinion, it should be more completely representative of French genius than any despotic or restricted kind of administration.

As a military power the France of the future will be of less consequence than the France of the past. And the France of the future will also be a less important factor in the industrial world. Individual selfishness and the selfishness of family feeling combine to restrict that growth in population which is a necessary foundation of enterprise and power. If children only avail to fill the places vacated by their parents, invention will decline and the power of initiative will be dwarfed for lack of exercise. But France will continue to lead the nations in taste and art. She is the Greece of the modern world. To an unusual degree receptive of ideas, from whatever quarter they may come, she assimilates these ideas, recasts them, and presents them again to their originators clad in her own inimitable form. This process has been

*5 repeated at every stage of her existence, since the battle of Hastings and the crusade of Peter the Hermit, ever since France has felt herself a nation. It will continue until she ceases to be a nation. For her supremacy does not rest on the might of armies, but on the charm of thought.

The French People. Arthur Hassall.

Modern France , 1789-1893. Andre Lebon.

Chapter II Guizot And The Cause Of Constitutional

MONARCHY

[Francois Pierre Guillaume Guizot, born at Nimes, October 4, 1787; Adjunct Professor of Modern History in the University of Paris, 1812; Secretary-General in the Ministry of the Interior under Louis XVIII, 1814; Counselor of State, 1816-1820; deputy from Lisieux and Minister of the Interior, 1830; Minister of Public Instruction, 1832-1836; member of the French Academy, 1836; Ambassador to England, 1840; Minister of Foreign Affairs and Prime Minister, 1840-1848; Died at Val Richer, in Normandy, September 12, 1874. Principal works: “History of Civilization in Europe, ” 1828; “History of Civilization in France, ” 1830.]

The fall of Napoleon was brought about quite as much by the exhaustion of France as by the uprising of Europe. For two decades the French people had lived in a state of almost constant alarm. Campaign had succeeded campaign with but short intervals of intermission. To defend the existence of the Republic at first and afterwards to maintain the glories of the Empire, the mask under which Bonaparte concealed his personal ambition, the land had been fairly drained of able-bodied men, and disease and death had seated themselves in the corner of every hearth. Through these privations the nation as a whole had wearied of war. The return of Napoleon from Elba met with only moderate enthusiasm. Few save his restless veterans gathered around his standard. The country longed for peace. For peace it was ready to sacrifice its

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* ambition and much of its pride, and Waterloo occasioned at the time but slight regrets.

Still the task which devolved on the monarchy of Louis XVIII was not an easy one. The sympathies of the king were naturally with the old order of things. His court, composed in large part of the nobility which had fled from France during the Revolution, and whose estates had been confiscated by the government in consequence, was moved by every private interest to help undo the work of the administrations which had remade France during its absence. But almost at the other end of the social scale was the large body of newly created proprietors, peasants, and small tradesmen, who had held by law these confiscated estates for twenty years and more. Whether their title was based on right or not, they constituted so numerous an element of the population, perhaps even the majority, that it was out of the question to dispossess them. And in the center was the great French bourgeoisie , which had carried on the Revolution in order to secure its natural rights, and had increased its wealth gained by manufacturing and commerce to a degree that made it the equal of the nobility in all material things. This class aimed at social equality, and possessed the means requisite to reach that goal. Over against the nobles its interests lay with the peasant proprietors. The alliance was formidable, preponderant. The advisers of the restored monarchy were forced to heed it. All but the most narrow of the emigres at once realized that the ancien re'gime was gone beyond recall. The age of special privilege bestowed by birth had passed. It was probable that the influence of the former privileged class would wane. The rising tide of democracy, which had swept the state from its moori8 ings during the Reign of Terror, had found a ruler to be sure in Bonaparte, but a ruler who increased its volume while curbing its current. His check removed, if it was not to engulf anew the whole social fabric, a dike was necessary. This dike could only be found in a union of the nobility with the upper bourgeoisie. Such was the political problem of France from 1815 to 1848.

Foreigners think of Guizot as a great historian; and in truth, his historical work constitutes the lasting basis of his fame. But he himself desired to be regarded as a statesman, and the years of his most vigorous manhood were given over to politics. Born in Nimes, the old Roman town in the south of France, in 1787, but two years before the beginning of the French Revolution, his career was both made and marred by that great event. It was made because he was a child of Protestant parents, and Protestants of the bourgeois grade could hope for little favor in royal France. It was marred because Guizot’s father, a zealous advocate of liberty, was revolted by the horrors of the Reign of Terror, and answered for his defection with his head, in 1794. The mother remained, a woman of unusual endowments of mind and firmness of character. Under her steady hand the young Francois grew to manhood. She had fled to Geneva with her family, and there, under the protection of a republican form of government, and perhaps subjected to the leveling theories of Rousseau, a native of Geneva, the son began his education and learned the carpenter’s trade. In 1805 he went to Paris to study law, and at once showed his aptitude for a literary calling. Journal articles, reviews, essays, books even, followed one another in rapid succession, for Guizot ever possessed the capacity for hard labor.

Finally an annotated translation of Gibbon’s “ History” gave evidence of his real talent, and brought about, in 1812, his nomination to the chair of history at the university. With his opening lecture his conception of historical investigation was formulated, the school of philosophical history was founded.

The abdication of Napoleon called Guizot into political life as an officer in the Interior Department. But he soon found that the royalists had much to learn, and provoked by their arrogant demands, he resigned his post on the eve of Napoleon’s return from Elba. During the Hundred Days, however, the group of liberals who wished a constitutional monarchy, shaped according to the English pattern, perfected a tentative organization. Guizot was their chosen spokesman, and before Waterloo was fought had already carried to Louis XVIII, who had taken refuge in Ghent, their advice to accept the work of the Revolution without reservation, and dismiss all reactionary councilors. This embassy to the exiled king, at a time when France was again engaged in foreign wars, was never forgiven by the Bonapartists. In the days of Guizot’s unpopularity it was the great reproach that his enemies cast upon him, so that even the urchins in the streets of Paris were familiar with 'That rascal of a Guizot who went to Ghent,” without knowing in the least what the phrase meant.

The Second Restoration called him back into the administration. Again his moderation, his middle course, opposed at once to the extreme reaction towards the old rule and to the claims of unrestrained popular sovereignty, ruined his political prospects. He and his friends, men of patriotism and learning, wished a government which