France of the French

Front matter

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UNIFORM WITH THIS VOLUME

Preface To The First Edition

The interest felt by English-speaking people — at all events by those of Great Britain — in whatever relates to France has received of recent years a stimulus the effects of which have been manifest in a variety of ways. The complete disappearance of those political causes of discord which for so long a period fostered reciprocal distrust has had, among other consequences, that of greatly strengthening in the two nations the wish to know one another better and therefore to clear their minds of all false impressions and engrained prejudices. A book that responds strictly to the title " France of the French " seems therefore to be a need of the day. My qualification to write such a work is the time that I have lived in this country in close intimacy with the French of Paris and of the provinces. It is a period that covers three decades, and one which has been singularly full of the materials of history as well as amazingly prolific of new movements of mind in relation to the arts, the sciences, and even the social order. The future may class it with the greatest of all epochs of French intellectual activity.

When a writer has spent a long course of years in a foreign country he needs to have his interest awakened in many things, which by force of custom or familiarity may have ceased to stir his curiosity or surprise. In writing ** France of the French," I have found this interest return to me, such as I knew it in the days when I was a " wayfarer " on the roads and by the rivers, through forests and in desert places, of this pleasant land, and before such wandering to gather knowledge and impressions had to yield to official duties.

VI PREFACE

I think it will be recognised that the ensuing pages have been written without prejudice, as also without any intention to soften shadows that exist, such as must be indicated in true pictures of any nation's life and customs.

A glance at the contents of this small volume will suffice to show that the subjects of which it treats would fill many volumes if exhaustively dealt with. Lacunae are therefore inseparable from the work. Nothing more has been attempted than to produce a book of general information concerning the life and genius of the French people, with especial reference to contemporary France. An endeavour has moreover been made to avoid the danger of dullness by giving to no subject treated an amount of attention that might appear disproportionate to the scheme of the work as a whole.

E. HARRISON BARKER.

Le TRfipORT, France, September, 1908.

Preface To The Third Edition

Owing to the war, there has been an exceptional demand for the books of this " Countries and Peoples " Series, and, in order to meet this, it has been necessary to reprint at once. Moreover, it has been found impossible to ascertain in all cases whether the persons mentioned in these volumes are still living or not, as so many of them are or have been in action. It must, therefore, be understood that, so far as the names of persons are concerned, they must be, to a large extent, read as correct only up to the outbreak of the war. Care, however, has been taken in France of the French to indicate, in cases where information was obtainable, that certain persons named in the book as living when it was last issued are now dead.

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Contents

CHAP. PAGE

I. FRENCH CHARACTER AND ITS INFLUENCE. . 1

II. FAMILY LIFE ..... 6

Chapter I French Character And Its Influence

There is no nation whose national character is more strongly

marked than that of the French. Whatever else may be

reasonably argued against them, it cannot be said that they

have not a character distinctively their own. They have

exercised upon the world an influence too far-reaching and

deeply penetrating for this to be denied them. In politics,

in literature, in art, in science, in philosophy, in war, they

have been great movers and stimulators of mankind. Some

of the incentives and shocks they have given to the world

offer the most violent and amazing contrasts ; as, for example,

the Crusades, which stirred the Christian enthusiasm of the

Middle Ages, and the Revolution at the close of the eighteenth

century, which gave the decisive impulse to the modern

tendency of thought with its positivism, its scientific and

democratic spirit. There are in this people wonderful

springs of enthusiasm, of ingenuity, of intuition, of artistic

fire, of scientific watchfulness, and sudden apprehension of

meanings that hover over the human mind. They have a

genius which disturbs the world, whether it stirs admiration,

or feeds prejudice and foments suspicion. Their history

has been one of almost incessant turmoil both within and

outside their frontiers. It has been their destiny to draw

to themselves and to repel, to inspire warm sympathy and

also fierce antipathy ; never to be treated with indifference

by other nations. There is an indefinable something running

through the psychology of the French people, which gives to their character the pecuhar tone and temper that make it what it is.

And yet the description of the French as " a race " does not bear analysis. The Bretons, the Gascons, the Normands and the Burgundians are as distinct in origin ^^^^.^^^y as are the Enghsh and the Irish. No one can travel through the country from north to south, or from east to west, with observant eyes without being struck by the marked differences in the physical type of the people of different provinces, and even divisions of provinces, especially among the agricultural population. The rule with the peasantry is to remain on the same soil for many generations, in fact until they are driven from it by the violence of an invader or some other public catastrophe. The large-boned, often tall, florid and frequently fair-haired Norman is quite a different type of man from the darkhaired, generally undersized, small-boned and lithe Provencal. The one is a Scandinavian, a man presenting really no points of physical difference from the Yorkshireman or East Anglian; the other is composed of an indefinable medley of the races of Southern Europe, including the Greek, with a dash of the Arab added.

What is also worth notice is that people of undoubtedly Celtic origin, who have remained Celts of almost pure blood to this day, namely, the inhabitants of Western Brittany (Armoricans) and those of the highlands of Central- Southern France (descendants of the Arverni and Cadurci) have but little in common except their greater attachment to religious observances and greater respect for ancient practices and traditions than the rest of the modern French. The change of language may have done much to bring these highlanders of Auvergne and the Quercy into line in various senses with the inhabitants of the great plains ; for although they spoke a Celtic idiom for centuries after Caesar's time, their dialect has been a Romance one from the dawn of the Middle Ages. The Bretons of Finisterre and the Morbihan

French Character and its Influence 3

retain the Celtic tongue with a tenacity only to be compared

to that of the Welsh in the same matter. Moreover, the

language of these two peoples, separated as they have been

for so many ages, is essentially the same.

What is the leaven or ferment which, working throughout

the nation's conglomerate mass of originally distinct elements,

has produced the French spirit, genius, or

What IS the character ? Whence comes it ? Is it a Leaven r

legacy of the old Celtic or Gaulish stock, or

of the Roman, whose blood in the French people is nearly

as doubtful a quantity as the same blood is in England, but

whose civilization and drift of mind produced results

incomparably more lasting and penetrating in Gaul than in

Britain ? Or does it come from the Normans, or the Franks

and other Germans ? To such questions there can be no

answer. All that we know is that there is a something like

a subtle ferment working throughout the mass that makes

the strong distinctiveness of the French national character.

It has long been the boast of the Parisians that it is their

spirit which leavens the multitude, animates _ the provinces

with the yeast of fresh ideas, infuses, as it p T . were, a psychic force throughout the nation,

making its diverse elements blend and flow into the moulds of thought, feeling, taste, beliefs, aspirations, political and social, which are fashioned for all on the banks of the Seine. It is true that a marvellously penetrating influence radiates from this centre. But who are the Parisians ? They are a population that is constantly changing, undergoing renewal from the inflow of provincials and even foreigners, just as the Roman population underwent incessant renewal from the drawing in of all the strange elements of the Empire. If he goes to Paris in his youth and settles there, the Norman, the Breton, the Gascon, the Picard, the Burgundian, the Provencal, the Basque, becomes in a few years thoroughly Parisianized. The genius of the spot holds him firmly if he has that in his nature which responds to the influence. If he has it not, he will probably drift elsewhere. It is by this process that Parisians are made. Old Paris families are not frequently found. If Paris is the brain of France, the provinces furnish a considerable part of what constitutes the intellectual faculties. Without going farther back than the history of the Third Republic, we find that of those Frenchmen who have forced their way into the front ranks of intellectual workers, whether in connection with literature, politics, science or the arts, the proportion of Parisian-born is far from overwhelming. Most of the others, however, have been very much Parisianized. To become so was almost a condition of their success. Paris is the furnace into which the ambitious young Frenchman usually yearns to cast himself. In any case he will be almost certainly drawn into it if he is destined to reach any high distinction. This is one of the many aspects of that strong, and in some respects regrettable, tendency towards centralization which has done so much to destroy the distinctive life of the provinces since the Revolution.

The readiness with which foreign elements are absorbed

and assimilated by the French nation often makes one marvel.

It opens the mind to the conviction that

Absorption of ^^le formation of national character is much Elements. more the result of environment than of race. There are no two European peoples between which the lines of distinction — not merely physical, but mental and moral — are so strongly marked as the English and the French ; and yet a child of English parents, brought up in France with French children, becomes so like them in all respects, that in manners, character, modes of expressing and communicating feelings and affections there is nothing to indicate a difference of origin. If the child grows to adult age in France, and there are no circumstances to interrupt the influence of this environment, he or she may be pretty safely reckoned upon to acquire the characteristics commonly attributed to people of French blood.

French Character and its Influence 5

This astonishing faculty of absorption and assimilation of foreign elements, which seems to belong to the French in a more marked degree than to other nations of Europe, compensates in an appreciable measure for the manifest failure of the people to compete with rival races on the score of fecundity. There is a constant inflow of aliens from without, and a large proportion of these remain in the country.

In the next generation there is usually nothing to denote a foreign origin, unless it be in name. Gambetta was a very typical Frenchman in spite of his Italian blood. This is only one among scores of such illustrations that might be given, including not only men belonging to the so-called " Latin races," a term absurdly misapplied when not confined to language — but also Germans, Flemings, Scandinavians, Poles and Jews.

There is matter for reflection, too, in the fact that of those who, as Frenchmen, have won distinction and eminence in every field of intellectual and artistic activity during the last few decades, a very notable proportion cannot be spoken of as belonging to the French race. They are examples of absorption and assimilation, and as such have proved in the most convincing manner the success of the experiment. It IS a little curious that this success of the alien by origin is not resented in France on account of that origin, although the French are by no means free from prejudice in regard to foreigners.

Chapter II

French family life is but little understood outside of France, and there are people from beyond the frontiers and the sea who, after living a long while in the country, are still very ill-informed on the subject. In lieu of the actual knowledge, there are false impressions that have been going the round of the world from the time that everybody living can remember. These are transmitted from one generation to another, and those who have once accepted them as truth rarely trouble to enquire further and observe for themselves. But it must be allowed that the subject is not an easy one to grapple with. The short cut by means of the stage and the novel to satisfy curiosity saves trouble, but it may be very misleading. The French family is not a corner of life open to everybody's inspection and study. The French are truly hospitable, and yet very exclusive as regards their family life. The Englishman is far more ready than the Frenchman to invite a casual acquaintance to his home. In France the cafe and the club are the places for casual acquaintances ; the home is reserved for the family and very intimate friends. Visits may be exchanged year after year, on receiving days, without the relations thus maintained going any farther than mere politeness. The same politeness may even be extended to balls and parties, and yet the family life be kept distinct and apart.

In Paris there is very considerable freedom of intercourse : doors are opened readily — too readily ; but Paris is the worst place for studying the French at home. In a multitude of cases the sentiment of home and the ideal of the family are submerged by mondanites. This may have given rise to one of those false but widespread impressions in England concerning the French — that they lack the sentiment of home. Ingenuity has gone so far as to connect this supposed want of the feeUng with the absence of a word in the French language equivalent to " home " ! Such reasoning is too absurd to be worth refuting, because an idea can be strongly and perfectly expressed otherwise than by a single word. But there is one word which the French use whenever they wish to make the chord of home-sentiment vibrate with a deeper and more subtle spirit than would be awakened by any term of common currency ; this is foyer (hearth), which sums up all that the mind and heart of man at their best can express on the subject.

Paris, let it be repeated, is the worst place for studying

the French at home. Simple and characteristic French life

is to be found there above the working and

Parisians lower middle class, but one must know where

Provincials, to look for it. The population belongs less to France than that of any other city in the country. The proportion of foreign residents and visitors, as compared to the rest of the inhabitants, has increased so steadily and enormously since the middle of the nineteenth century, that Paris of the present day is certainly the capital of which the social hfe has been the most profoundly penetrated and modified by extraneous influences. The " provincials " whom the Parisians are so ready to scoff at are much more French than themselves as regards customs, respect for traditions, habits and views of life, together with its duties, obligations, recreations and pleasures. The aristocratic class, nominally so much associated with Paris life, is becoming less and less French. The old Legitimist families, so intimately connected with the Faubourg St. Germain under the Second Empire and a good while afterwards, who at one time held so aloof even from the Bonapartist nobility, have greatly changed their habits and views of social intercourse. The two nobilities now intermarry without apparent hindrance on the score of prejudices, and mingle without any suspicion of class divisions. But all this society helps to form what is called " le Tout-Paris,*' which is almost as cosmopolitan as French.

It is among the middle class that manners, customs and tendencies have especially to be studied, if we wish to understand the home life of the nation. It is this

Middle Class ^^^^ ^^^^ tvIqs in every sense. Upon its ideals and tendencies depends the progress or decline of French influence in the world. Those who are below it must join it before they can have real influence. The bourgeoisie holds the country in its grasp. Practically, everybody who gets on at all belongs to it, whether he is the workman or the small employe who becomes a trader in a humble way, the peasant-proprietor who by increasing the area of his land becomes a power to those who admire or envy his success, the soldier who rises from the ranks to be an officer, the son who is enabled by the self-sacrifice of laborious and humble parents to enter the profession of medicine or the law ; in fact, everyone who can claim to live by a profession or trade, or upon the revenue of capital, however small. This great class contains remarkable contrasts and extremes, such as leading manufacturers and merchants whose capital embarked upon industry and commerce procures for the possessor great social and political power, and the small shopkeeper who has no higher ambition than by industry and economy to be able to retire at about the age of fifty on savings just sufficient to satisfy his modest needs.

AU occupations by which people earn money are officially

termed " professions " in France, and the Lines of social

cleavage which are often so strongly marked

Lines of ^ ^j^g EngUsh middle class are less so among

Cleavage. the French. It frequently happens with

them that, while some members of the same

family are officers in the army or navy, or follow learned

professions, others are engaged in ordinary commercial

pursuits ; and it is considered quite natural and reasonable

that there should be such diversity of aims and tastes. The number of trades that encounter social prejudices is much fewer in France than in England. The merchant who carries on his business by negotiation {negociant), and the tradesman who has a shop (commergant), are spoken of equally as being engaged in commerce, and their relative social position depends upon the state of their fortune and their known connections. Although the haute bourgeoisie holds aloof from the petite bourgeoisie, the latter need never despair of becoming merged with the former if it has the ambition, for this end can be directly and surely reached by signal success in business, unless there are serious social impediments.

In order to give any satisfactory picture of the French family, it was necessary to clear the way by dealing briefly with the general constitution of the great middle class, which for the main intent and purpose of social study may be regarded as France.

The positivism which is so marked a tendency of the French mind — practical in the ordinary affairs of life beyond all comparison with the English mind, although How Marriages ^^ France the common belief is precisely the contrary — takes every precaution to leave no margin for romantic and sentimental intervention in matrimonial arrangements. Of all the business transactions of life there is nothing so essentially businesslike as the ordinary middle-class French marriage. To those who still see the relations of the sexes through the idealizing atmosphere of the north, whose influence easily combines with the Christian exaltation of human sentiment and motive in respect of these relations, the French marriage as it is planned and accepted often appears sordid and mercenary.

Marriages that are nothing more than business contracts are not peculiar to France. They are well known in England, and opportunities for admiring or condemning them there are by no means rare ; but whereas they are the exception with the Anglo-Saxon race, they are the rule with the French, leaving aside the class so ill-furnished with this world's goods that they act upon their natural impulses, not deeming it worth while to be calculating. It is so well known that it is hardly necessary to lay stress upon the fact that most of the marriages which take place in the middle-class families of France are brought about by the influence of parents and friends, that love before marriage is looked upon very much as the dream of a too romantic imagination that should not be fostered, the foundation of the family happiness being material security. Pallisades are set up as high as they can be raised and as enduring as possible, so that the wolf shall never get a chance of coming near the door. Again and again the whole system of precautions and defences falls to pieces, like those structures in certain countries where the main timbers are secretly hollowed out by the white ant until the shell at length gives way and all collapses. Nevertheless, the general belief in the soundness of the system remains firm and steady, and it must be allowed that the degree of success which commonly attends it brings much confusion to those who, starting from very different ideals, expect from such marriages nothing but disaster.

Is this marriage system the one that is best suited to the French character and temperament ? Does it depend on

some inalienable atavism, or is it the Problems consequence of arbitrary and artificial

conditions, social and political ? A series of trying questions, in answering which one is thrown largely upon hypothesis. It is very probable that the Roman civilization — far more than Latin blood — has much to answer for as regards the angle of vision from which the typical Frenchman looks at woman : a subject that will be dealt with later. For the moment, it is enough to say that certain inherited or acquired ideas dispose him easily to accommodate his personal preferences to the reasoning of others who point out to him all the material advantages of the union which they press upon him as a bon parti. That the conditions of modern life may have gone far to favour and develop to excess an inherited tendency to make ideal satisfactions surrender to the positive prospect of material well-being may be granted without a moment's hesitation ; but we must not forget that these very conditions are chiefly, if not wholly, the work of men, who reap what they sow. The laws of succession and the whole elaborate administrative structure tend to the canalisation of the sexual instinct along lines marked out by extreme prudence and calculation. The most potent factor in restricting the legitimate increase of population has probably been the lack of testamentary liberty. The reform of the law under which it was impossible to marry in opposition to the wishes of parents, irrespective of the age of those chiefly interested, without vexatious and almost prohibitive formalities — sommations respedueuses, repeated after intervals legally prescribed — ^belongs to the legislation of yesterday. But national custom, when it has had time to push its roots deep into the subsoil of society, is stronger than law. In theory everybody who has reached the age of twenty- one may, under the new law, be free to marry as he or she pleases, without vexatious delays and formalities if parents or guardians oppose ; but in practice things will go on as before, with rare exceptions. Prudence as regards marriage seems to be deeply ingrained in the French character, and the submissiveness of children to the wishes of their parents in this all-important matter is ever wonderful to the English observer.

And here it may be remarked that the sense of filial duty

is very strong in France, and that the relations subsisting

between parents and their children in all

Simplicity periods of life are marked by frankness and

Affection. simplicity of affection. No false shame is

allowed to disguise, or diminish, in the

presence of others the natural movements of family love :

when a sentiment is known to be worthy, the heart is not

ashamed of showing it. That affectation of coldness — it is

only affectation — so often noticed between members of an

English family, especially the male members, when they are under the eyes of strangers, is unknown among the French. They have not that kind of self- consciousness which makes the fear of ridicule repress the good and natural movements of the human heart whenever there is a reason for yielding to an affectionate impulse. At the time of the Boer war, French newspaper correspondents who watched the parting between English fathers and their sons were much struck by the " stoicism," as they termed it, of the farewell. A grasp of the hand, a few parting words, and then the separation with all its heart-harrowing possibilities. The French cannot understand the reason for such reserve, and attribute it to the coldness of the most phlegmatic of races. They themselves would have exchanged embraces under the same circumstances, and probably have shed tears. It is possible that the EngUshman suffers more at such partings than the Frenchman, because of the restraint that he puts upon his feelings by his dread of appearing weak and his exaggerated sensitiveness — which often clothes itself with bluntness — when under observation.

It must be allowed, then, that the sentiment of filial submission has something to do with the general readiness

of the young in France to be influenced in

„ T^^ . a very large measure by the experience,

Market. judgment, and wishes of their parents when

there is a question of their marriage. In this disposition, and in the practice that results from it, there are both good and evil. The good is in the diminished risk of reckless and improvident marriages. The evil is in the too frequent degradation of the ideal of marriage, the placing it upon the mercenary level of a business contract. It is not going too far to say that the middle-class marriage in France is more often than not a mere business contract. The man marries to " settle down," to follow seriously some profession or trade. If he has any capital, his expectation is that his wife wiU bring him at least as much. Frequently it happens that he has no capital, and that his views of success and his social ambition are regulated to a large extent by what he and his family consider him to be worth in the matrimonial market. Those who follow such professions as the army, the navy, the law and medicine, have the recognized right to put a higher price upon themselves than others who have adopted callings less flattering to feminine ambition. Every marriageable man may be said to have his price. To put it crudely, he has to be bought. He often expects to get more than he is worth, and then he or those who act for him meet with rebuffs ; but as there is little sentiment in such negotiations, feelings run small risk of being wounded by a disappointment. The rejected suitor is simply in the position of the trader who makes a dash at something going in the open market, and misses it. The rule is to feel the ground cautiously before opening fire.

It is well known that the French middle-class family of to-day is rarely overburdened with offspring. When there

are more than three children, and the The Problem p^j-ents are not exceptionally favoured in

the way of fortune, such progeniture is regarded as a severe trial, if not a positive affliction. Let it be supposed that there are three, one boy and two girls. The boy is sent to one of the State lycees or colleges, of which there is at least one in every important town of France, and where an excellent general education is given. The lycee ranks before the college, and is to be looked for in the larger centres. The boy is well crammed, and if he is studious and fairly furnished with brains he may obtain the university degree of bachelier-es-lettres at the age of eighteen, or even earlier. To get this degree or that of bachelier-es-sciences no residence is required in any particular place. The whole matter is simplified to the passing of an examination. It seems almost needless to add that as a credential of learning this diploma is not to be compared in value to the B.A. degree of a British University. It is little more than a certificate which the French youth must obtain before he can with any chance of success become a candidate, even for so modest an employment under Government as that of clerk in a post ofhce. He cannot qualify as a chemist in trade without it. The next university degree after that of bachelor is licentiate., the examination for which is severe. Armed with his diploma of bachelier, the youth may enter himself at any of the Faculties either in Paris or in the provinces, or, if his tastes lead him to the army, he may obtain admission ^to one of the military schools, of which the principal are the Ecole St. Cyr. and the Ecole Polytechnique, the latter being especially designed for the training of engineers, military and civil. Whether he becomes a lawyer, a doctor, or an officer, his equipment for the career that he has chosen represents a certain capital which may or may not have imposed a heavy strain upon the home finances. In a very large proportion of cases it is severely felt, and the young man is then expected to make a " good marriage." The social position which he is able to offer a wife is taken to be worth a substantial dot. This may be £2,000 or much more, according to the social standing and ambition of the family. On his marriage he is supposed to have received his full share of parental assistance during the lifetime of his parents. His sister or sisters, to whom no profession has been given, have their marriage portions set aside for them, and just as this is much or little, their settlement in life is calculated. It is not so much the man as his position and prospects, that they are expected to marry.