Part 2

Though almost every book he has written is satirical in intent, or at least in incident, five volumes are satire pure and simple; as I have no space to analyse all his works, these five representatives must expound him. They are _Penguin Island_ and the four volumes of _Contemporary History_ (_The Elm Tree on the Mall_, _The Wickerwork Woman_, _L’Anneau d’Améthyste_, _Monsieur Bergeret à Paris_). They overlap a little, but the spirit which informs them is different. _Penguin Island_ is broad, applicable to the whole history of man, while the other four volumes cover rather the modern irregularities of the French State. For this reason, _Penguin Island_ is a bigger and a finer thing; indeed it is probably the biggest thing Anatole France has done, because, dealing as it does with the earliest superstitions of man, his faith in gods and in God, with the rise of feudalism, the roots of democracy, war, the birth of art, the action and reaction of parties, it has a sweep so large that it envelops even ages now in the womb of time. It is a terrible book, not so much because it is the thinly veiled history of the French people--that is to say, the story of follies, miseries and crimes (the story of any other imperial people)--but because at the end Anatole France reaches forth into the future. And what he sees is a development of capitalism by the side of which modern capitalism is as a puling child; he summarises in a phrase a period of greater New York: “the houses were never high enough.” He sees the masses rising, revolution, the break-up of the social system, the return of pastoralism, man once more nomadic ... towns forming ... another aristocracy ... Parliaments ... industry and capitalism fastening upon the world, and again the houses never high enough.... That is a vision of horror, of a world unchanging, unchangeable, of man as a dog ever returning to his own vomit. I should like to pursue the dream further, to the death of the sun, when the earth shall grow cold and a terrible term be brought to the stupidity of man; he shall once more be a fearful brute hiding in a cave, until at last, upon his cold and dying globe, among settling mists, he shall yield up the last spark of a misused life....

Anatole France is certainly wrong, for no barbarism which the world has ever known ever was so barbarous as the barbarism that went before. If the life of man describes a curve, this is not a circle; he does not interminably return to the same point; rather the curve is a cycloid, ever bending back upon itself and yet slowly moving onwards towards the unknown goal. Anatole France does not, I think, quite deny that, but he is not over-fond of what he calls idle speculation: where his knowledge stops he is inclined to say: “After all, what does it matter to Sirius?”

The island where the penguins lived was evangelised by St Mael, who quite naïvely relates how he navigated to its shores in a stone trough. God served him as rudder and sail. It would have been all right if the saint had not been short-sighted, but he took the penguins for men and baptized them, which gave rise to great trouble in heaven and a wonderful ecclesiastical debate. For St Patrick said that baptism could not avail birds; St Damasius said it could, for Mael was competent; St Guenolé said it could not, because penguins were not conceived in sin; St Augustine thought it could if given in proper form. This caused much ill feeling in Paradise; Tertullian grew quite vicious and said he was sorry that the penguins had no soul, as thus they could not go to hell. The intervention of the Almighty was hailed with unanimous cheers, which St Augustine backed up by begging Him not to give the penguins a soul because, as they could not keep the law, they would burn in hell “in virtue of God’s adorable decrees.” Upon this the disturbance turned to scandal, and to end it the penguins were turned into men.

Then the troubles of the once happy birds began. They were clad and modesty was born. Property arose, and murder. The Catholic Devil had a hand in this and remarked that the murderers were creating rights, constituting property, laying the bases of civilisation, of society and the State. He added that the source of property is force. Later a state formed and the poor only were taxed because they could not resist, and because there were more of them. A freebooter arose: he became a king. His armies went to war and were beloved, for they won. Art appeared; Margaritone foresaw the decadence of ecclesiastical art and, in a horrid dream, something like post-impressionism. The priest, Marbode, visited Virgil in hell; the Latin poet remarked that Dante was rather a bore and that Christ was the god of barbarism. Then history unrolls. There is a revolution (obviously 1789); Trinco (Napoleon) appears and a loyal penguin states that glory cannot cost too much. Modern times give Anatole France a yet greater chance, for he takes us to New Atlantis (America), where commercial wars are executed on contract, because a business people must have a policy of conquest; the European War of 1914, if one dives deep under the crust of patriotism, sounds very like the war of New Atlantis against Third Zealand “where they killed two-thirds of the inhabitants to compel the remaining third to buy from New Atlantis umbrellas and braces.” Plutocracy. Socialism. Royalist agitations, supported by the leaders of the army, the wineshops, the newsboys, the police and the courtesans. All through this section runs the Pyrot case. A traitor (Dreyfus) sold ninety thousand bundles of hay to the foreigner--that is to say, he did not sell them, for they did not exist. Yet General Panther says: “Evidently Pyrot stole them, so all we have to do is to prove it.” To which another General replies: “Arrest Pyrot. Find some evidence; the law demands it.”

Then the agitation, difficult because the people like to believe in guilt and are too stupid to doubt. Still no evidence, and evidence manufactured. Here Anatole France puts into the General’s mouth beautiful phrases: “Don’t have evidence; it makes the case less clear”; and: “It may be better to have no evidence, but still if you must have some, trumped-up evidence is better than the truth, for it is made to order.” And so on through popular agitations, Royalist manœuvres, Boulangism, the renaissance of Catholicism (supported by Jewish money), political adultery, the rule of gold, until we come to the time when houses are never high enough....

This is not the satire of Englishmen. It has not the truculence of Defoe’s _A Short Way with Dissenters_; nor does it state the author’s view as does any one of Mr Shaw’s plays; nor is it so veiled as _Gulliver’s Travels_. All this is together elusive and obvious; it aims at showing the reader what lies under history, man in the soldier’s coat, his meanness, his greed, his lust for power, and the horrible, crusted stupidity to which alone are traceable his crimes.

I should not advise any Englishman who is not conversant with French history to read _Penguin Island_, but I should not advise any Englishman at all to read the four volumes of _Contemporary History_ unless he has lived in France for the last fifteen years and mixed in every kind of French society. He will find in those books droll stories, and droll incidents; he will see that the author is getting at something, but that is all. For those volumes do not deal with the big outer movements which one can watch from the columns of _The Times_. They are concerned with the mysteries inside French politics, paralleled here by the “Confederates,” the Marconi case, the theft of the crown jewels at Dublin, the secret history of the rebellion of the officers at the Curragh. No Frenchman would understand a book dealing with those things, so it is too much to expect an Englishman to understand _Contemporary History_. The circumstances that led to the writing of these books are simple enough. The Dreyfus case was used as a platform for clerical, Royalist and militarist agitation. The Government set to work to break the Church and broke it (after which the Church mended itself and became stronger than ever); the Nationalist revival took place, and since that time there has been much manœuvring, some intended to restore the Bourbons and quite ridiculous, some of it designed to gain well-paid posts for reactionaries, and that one much in earnest. The interesting parts of the four books are the commentaries of M. Bergeret, a university professor in a little town, who, I need hardly say, is (just like Sylvestre Bonnard, Coignard, Trublet, Brotteaux) Anatole France himself. The four books, published between 1897 and 1901, more or less cover that period. In _The Elm Tree on the Mall_ unfolds, with local politics, the life of Bergeret, married to a shrew, unloved of his daughters, disliked by most people because he thinks for himself, which amounts to saying that he does not think like anybody else. Round him eddy representative characters, the Abbé Guitrel, who wants to be a bishop and is proceeding towards the episcopate half by apostolic mansuetude, half by way of Ignatius of Loyola; Worms-Clavelin, the _préfet_ (chief of the local executive), who is a Jew, a Freemason, a Conservative Catholic, an advanced Republican, a Socialist, a Royalist and a few other things necessary to the maintenance of his post; his wife is friendly to Guitrel because the Abbé makes her feel French (she was born Noemi Coblenz) and because she “likes to protect one of those tonsured heads charged for eighteen centuries with the excommunication and extermination of the circumcised.” There is General de Chalmot, a soldier, who thinks that if you destroy belief you ruin the military spirit, because you take away the hope of another life; there is Paillot’s bookshop where Bergeret meets the county, the lawyers, the doctors, to talk of books, politics, actresses and their figures....

Nothing in particular happens. Guitrel’s bishopric is the leading string of the action; there is Madame Worms-Clavelin helping Guitrel, who finds her, at bargain prices, chasubles with which she covers her armchairs; there is a young girl, Claudine Deniseau, who, inspired by St Radegunde, becomes a prophetess, indulges in healing, predicts frost and the return of the king; there is Worms-Clavelin, trying to keep the prophetess quiet, because so ancient a person as St Radegunde ought really not to cause a row in a country town. An old lady of eighty is murdered by her boy-lover, which causes Bergeret to remark that murder is quite natural and fortunate, for without evil one could not see beauty. Worms-Clavelin kisses Madame de Gromance on the shoulder, (a local custom); a senator promotes shady companies while his wife embroiders altar-cloths; and somehow the story ends with Guitrel very much out of the running for the episcopal stakes.

What matters in the book is Bergeret, sitting under the elm-tree on the Mall, or in the bookshop, thinking, talking, smiling at the comedy. Notable are his talks with Lantaigne, another candidate for the bishopric, and the type of the intellectual priest. Anatole France may detest the Catholic attitude, but he understands it admirably, and when Lantaigne contends that one can have two opinions, one conscious and rationalistic, the other intuitive and theological, he makes a very fine case. For him, in the case of Joshua, celestial astronomy is not the astronomy of man, and in celestial mathematics, 3 + 3 may make nine, because we do not know all the properties of numbers. At other times Bergeret, who talks to anybody, tells the melancholic story of Napoleon III., who never managed to grant his foster-brother a small post in the civil service: “The Emperor was a charming fellow but, alas, he had no influence.” And so the book wanders on with the opinions of Bergeret, happy, like Æsop, in the freedom of his mind, in spite of the narrowness of his home, conscious that the State is honoured so long as it taxes the poor, and that the republic is easiest to live under because it does not govern much, that revolutions help none save the flourishing and the ambitious. It would all be profoundly pessimistic if it were not always genial. One feels sure that if Bergeret had an agreeable wife, a good cook, and a volume of Lucretius (Oh, Omar!), he would let the State do just what it liked.

The story continues in _The Wickerwork Woman_, with Bergeret working up his lecture in the worst room in his flat, where stands the wickerwork figure used for dress-making, symbolic of his unpleasant wife. He grumbles, and then considers the Romans. “They were not heroes, they preferred making roads, they only made war for business reasons.” He thinks of soldiers and wonders whether the sergeant has a right to tell a conscript that his mother is a sow: he decides that the sergeant has this right, for without it there can be no hierarchy or discipline. Then the cook gives notice, and Guitrel goes to Paris while Bergeret talks to a tramp who says that when he was young he lost his pride because people made fun of him....

The town is greatly upset because the prophetess cannot give the logarithm of nine. (Another case of celestial mathematics?) Madame de Gromance passes, and Bergeret reflects that to see a pretty woman is a stroke of luck for an honest man. He is “grateful to her for dressing with art and discretion.” But tragedy invades the Bergeret household, for Roux, a pupil, becomes the lover of Madame Bergeret ... in circumstances which make it impossible for the professor to doubt his eyes. After a murderous moment Bergeret decides that this is all really very trifling, throws the wickerwork figure through the window, and goes out to talk to Paillot, the bookseller; he reflects vaguely on adultery and its meaninglessness. Guitrel and the archdeacon hold an earnest discussion on omelettes. Inspired by Marcus Aurelius, Bergeret concludes that the art of life is a benevolent contempt for man: all Anatole France is there. For him those lovers were chimpanzees, and he feels a little superior because he is “a meditative chimpanzee.”

The conversations continue to develop. Fremont, inspector of fine arts, is “patriotic, even in art”; Worms-Clavelin states that he loathes the Empire, but adds: “Still we make wine, grow corn, as under the emperor ... we work on the Stock Exchange, eat, drink, make love as under the emperor.” The upshot is: “Don’t touch the machine, for it will be all the same whatever you do.”

The execution of the murderer of the old lady enables Bergeret to state his views, which are, as usual, exceedingly unpopular, for he will not have it that the murderer was a degenerate: had not Mithridates a double row of teeth? Nor shall tattooing prove the crime, for are not fashionable travellers tattooed? And then he wanders off on the fiction of the aristocratic type in woman, which is entirely derived from the smart shopgirl and the plebeian actress. The shady senator is arrested, but released, says his wife, owing to the intervention of the Almighty. Meanwhile Bergeret refuses to speak to his unfaithful wife, which causes great trouble in the house, because the cook, disliking the goings-on, gives notice again; the new cook can make only one kind of soup, which is very annoying. And so the book rambles on until Madame Bergeret, unable to bear dumb disdain, leaves with her two daughters.

Before leaving she has disgraced herself again with Lacarelle, “the Gaul,” who only made love to her because his moustache was so long that this was expected of him. The Dreyfus case is beginning to bubble, and Guitrel, friendly to the _préfet_, finds it difficult to defend the Jews, except “the converted ones who have done a lot for the Church by their wealth.” Long story of Saint Austregisile, and of the Virgin’s miraculous foot. Honorine, the visionary, has a miraculous trance, and then retires into a bush to make love to a tramp. Fat and beautiful Madame de Bonmont entertains Guitrel. History of the rise of this county family, late Nathan, and of Madame de Bonmont’s love-making with Raoul, duellist and gambler, illustrious because he fought a Jew who had in a café asked for the Army List and thereby outraged the French flag. As the agitation progresses, the loyal populace sacks the shop of Meyer, the bootmaker, and retires, having struck a good blow for their country. In these days Bergeret is happy, talking to Riquet, his dog, “a religious beast,” thinking and talking of Hercules, whom he looks upon as a sort of boxer at a fair, and of the history of Spain....

Little boys pass, shouting: “Down with Zola!...”

Bergeret is a Dreyfusist. It does not make him any more popular than he became when he said that Joan of Arc was only a military mascot. Bergeret wistfully begins to desire Madame de Gromance, but knows that he has no chance; so he returns to his thoughts and to the all-pervading Dreyfus case, realising that the crowd cannot reason, that “it holds with established error.” Young de Bonmont meanwhile sends his beautiful mother to see a most glad-eyed Cabinet minister who has power to make Guitrel a bishop, because if Guitrel is made a bishop he can induce the local duke to invite young de Bonmont to the hunt. One is sorry for Madame de Bonmont, so fat and so innocent, but one does not feel sorry when young Dellion, who is for the time being favoured of Madame de Gromance, enlists her influence on the side of Guitrel, and while she is putting on her stays discusses the future of the bishopric. The talk veers to fashions, and while she attaches her suspenders Madame de Gromance argues whether his mother, Madame Dellion, was truly virtuous. Meanwhile Madame Worms-Clavelin, also supporting Guitrel, makes--well, let us say, great concessions to the secretary of the Cabinet minister, in the cause of chasubles at bargain prices and of good government....

Bergeret continues to attack most things: antisemitism, because he is not big enough to hate ninety thousand people; nationality, because there is no such thing, for the alleged French are only Gauls, Iberians, Celts, Romans, Franks and Saracens. Guitrel, made a bishop, is broken for attacking the Government, while poor Madame de Bonmont leaves her amethyst ring on Raoul’s bedroom mantelpiece.

In the last volume, Bergeret, now a professor in Paris, reflects on the quality of meat, the soul of dogs, and the essence of heroism. Panneton de la Barge delivers a passionate speech on the army which is “the consolation of the present and the hope of the future,” and ends by enlisting Bergeret’s influence to get his son out of two years’ military service. Madame de Bonmont has now fallen into the arms of Lacrisse, secretary of the Royalist group, for she wishes to save France. Lacrisse’s chief occupation is to coach generals in evidence to be used at the Dreyfus trial. Conspiracy. A letter from the Pretender; great sensation which leads to the conquest of Lacrisse, for Madame de Bonmont gives him “a historic embrace.” He then compels her reluctantly to subscribe to the funds. Royalist fête. And Panneton begins to cook the local elections with the help of Madame de Gromance: he finds that the one place where they can talk politics is a flat furnished with a graduated series of sofas.

Meanwhile Bergeret indulges in charity to a beggar called Clopinel, and then remarks: “I have done wrong, I have given alms ... I have tasted the shameful joy of abasing my fellow-man, I have signed the odious pact which preserves strength for the strong, weakness for the weak. I have sold to my brother fraternity at short weight.... I have been tempted. Oh, seducer! Oh dangerous Clopinel! Delicious Clopinel....”

Slump in Royalist plots, arrests. Lacrisse stands for the town council as a republican Liberal, with the help of Father Adéodat, who will let him be a republican in public if only he will be a true man in committee. And the Contemporary History ends at a Royalist dinner-party, on memories of a riot, the triumph of Mr Loubet, who triumphed just because he happened to be there; this is the downfall of reactionary and clerical hopes, but Madame de Gromance gives up to Dellion her hospitable heart....

It all sounds rather cruel, and there are touches, such as Lacrisse coaching Generals in the evidence they will deliver against Dreyfus, such as the description of M. de la Barge trying to get his son out of military service after proclaiming that the army is the ideal of his soul, which provoke in the reader just what Anatole France wants: not laughter, but an ironic, lingering, vinegary smile. Time after time, in every one of his books he obtains this effect; it is the effect of sharp contrast, of suddenness; it recalls a page of Machiavelli who, after describing how an Italian tyrant had one of his ministers sawn in half, alive, in the market-place, goes on: “But to return to more important things....”

That produces a shock, and when applied to irony this is an effect still more powerful than when it is applied to fiction, as, for instance, in Ambrose Bierce’s _An Occurrence at Owl Creek Bridge_. But the irony is not artificial: it is the sort of irony given to those who walk the world with their eyes open. It inspires the feeling of amusement which invaded a few of us during the great European War, when we read in the newspapers articles about Russian culture, and remembered what the same newspapers used to say about the Bear. I could not help smiling at our attitude to the sausage-eaters when recalling how completely we had forgotten the frog-eaters and candle-eaters of times gone by. Very likely, though the war roused him to action in defence of ancient French culture, Anatole France chuckled over the intimate friendship between France and England, which, in 1898, at the time of Fashoda, and in 1899, at the time of the Boer War, was such an intimate hatred. He would have chuckled still more had he known that a patriotic English inn-keeper had changed the name of his tavern from “The King of Prussia” to “The Czar’s Head.” For history has staying power, and one wonders a little whether, as generations pass, “The Czar’s Head” may not have to turn into “The Roosevelt Arms,” “The Garibaldi,” or perhaps one day into “The Chung Ling Soo....”

But ironic as it all is, it is very living. This should strike nobody as extraordinary, for life is most ironic: it would be quite intolerable to some of us if it were not. But this is worth saying because a great many other satirists--Swift, Rabelais, Cervantes--obtain most of their effects by distortion. Anatole France obtains his by bringing out the essential incongruity of life: funerals passing under the windows of the Ritz where there is a smart luncheon-party, sermons bidding us love our enemies while newsboys shout casualty lists; life is full of it. That is why the archdeacon and another cleric hold, in the midst of a theological crisis, that earnest argument about omelettes. Life and people are like that, and there is nothing at all distorted in the diplomatic, furry, soft-spoken priests who ... well, let us say, do not discourage their fair penitents from committing adultery with powerful republicans, provided this serves a good cause. After all Judith ... and Jael, and all that. And it does not seem monstrous that the new bishop should be selected while Madame de Gromance does up her suspenders, for it is quite conceivable that lovers should now and then, at intervals, talk politics.