CHAPTER XXII.

ORDER AND LIBERTY.

Obedience is the watchword of England.

The Englishman revolts only against injustice, and that but figuratively. Brought up to respect the law, it is in the name of the law that he demands redress for his grievances, and by the law that he obtains it.

_Dieu et mon droit_, such is his device; notwithstanding that he has rather monopolized the first, and that his definition of the second is a trifle vague, it is certain that by them he is stimulated to do great deeds.

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Take the schoolboy, for instance.

In most of the great public schools of England, the refractory schoolboy is still chastised by means of the rod, but do not imagine that punishment is administered in an arbitrary fashion. The young offender is brought to judgment. The head master hears the evidence against him, and listens to his defense. If he is found guilty of the offense with which he is charged, the head master pronounces his condemnation and the boy is corrected on the spot. He submits without a murmur. The system may be bad, but what is good about it is that it generally proves a thorough _correction_ for the child.

Under similar circumstances, a French schoolboy would probably seize an inkstand, or the first thing he could lay hands on, and menace his judge or his executioner with it.

Do not ask me which of the two I prefer, but let me tell you that the only punishments I have any objection to are unjust or arbitrary ones, and that severe ones, administered with discretion, are generally salutary. At all events, I ask you not to believe that the young Englishman is cowardly because he knows how to endure pain, and is submissive, for a few minutes later you will see him rejoin his comrades at their play, and perform veritable acts of heroism. It almost seems to me that a child gives proof of courage in submitting to a punishment which he knows he has deserved, and that a spirit of submission to discipline is more to be commended in him than a spirit of rebellion. In resigning himself to his fate, and enduring his punishment, the English schoolboy learns to master a passion; the French schoolboy, in rebelling, allows a passion to master him. If the English system is bad, the French one must be worse.

Since I have pronounced the word _rebellion_, allow me to show you how differently the thing is understood in French and English schools.

Let us suppose that some privilege, which the pupils have long enjoyed, and looked upon as their right, has been withdrawn, rightly or wrongly, no matter which. What will the French schoolboys do? They will probably retire to a dormitory, there to sulk and protest _vi et armis_. They will barricade themselves, victual the intrenchments for a few hours, and prepare for a struggle. Rebellion has wonderful charms for them; they are insurgents, therefore they are heroes. If the cause be a bad one, that matters little, it will be sanctified by the revolution; the main thing is to play at the _peuple souverain_. These hot-headed youths will stand a siege as earnestly as if they had to defend their native soil; dictionaries, inkstands, boots, bedroom furniture, such are the missiles that are pressed into service in the glorious battle for liberty.

But, alas for youthful valor! it all fades before the pleadings of an empty stomach; the struggle is abandoned, the citadel forsaken, and arms are laid down. The misguided ones are received back into the fold, to be submitted to stricter discipline than ever, the heroic instigators of the little _fete_ are, in the end, restored to the tender care of their mammas, or, in other words, expelled from the school. And for a boy to be expelled from a French _lycee_ is no light matter, for the doors of all the others are closed to him, and the pleasure of playing at heroes for a few hours is often bought at the price of ruined prospects.

They manage these things differently in England. Under the same circumstances, this is what the schoolboys of old England would do. A dozen of the most influential and respectable among them would promptly form themselves into a committee, and organize an indignation meeting of all the pupils of the school. This meeting would be presided over by the captain of the school, or even by one of the masters, and the grievance would be discussed, not with any display of temper, but with the calm dignity of the free citizen. Propositions made by the boys, and duly seconded in a parliamentary manner, would be put to the vote, and the president would be charged to transmit such resolutions to the proper authorities. The meeting would then break up in a perfectly orderly manner and without a murmur, everyone going his way, like a good Republican who had just performed a civic duty of the gravest importance.

Such a meeting as this has never been interdicted by the authorities, for the very simple reason that such a meeting never endangered the good discipline of a school.

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Has it indeed fallen to our lot, to us who live under a Republic, to see a people living under a Monarchy enjoying every form of liberty; liberty of thought, liberty of speech, liberty of the press, liberty to meet together, in fact the right of grumbling in every form imaginable; to see them able to get redress for all their grievances, without having recourse to violence?

Do you remember the great manifestations in favor of the abolition of the House of Lords?

The Lords had refused to sanction the Franchise Bill--a bill which was to give electoral rights to two millions of Englishmen, who had been deprived of them up to that time. Two hundred thousand persons meet and quietly-pass through the great arteries of London. Not a voice is lifted. The immense crowd makes for Hyde Park and there divides itself into twelve groups around twelve improvised platforms. Speeches are made, resolutions passed, and the meeting breaks up in an orderly manner.

But, you will say, the police were there, of course, to see that these people did not break the law.

The police, indeed! Yes, most certainly they were there; but it was to protect the people's right of meeting, and not to hinder them, or oppose them, in the exercise of their privileges.

It was really a wonderful sight for a foreigner, to see this crowd, bent upon overthrowing the Constitution, preceded, flanked, and followed, by mounted police, whose duty it was to see that these subjects of Her Majesty were allowed to protest unmolested! And that which afforded me some amusement and more instruction still, was the sight of the Prince of Wales and some friends of his, installed on a balcony at Whitehall,[9] and evidently there to see the fun; to see at Pall Mall windows the faces of lords, apparently much amused in watching these people, who had taken a holiday, and who, if they did not gain their point, had the satisfaction of feeling that they lived in a country where they could air their grievances freely.

The House of Lords exists still, but its members passed the Franchise Bill.

The Lords are wise persons.

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Ah! how quickly our anniversary-keepers would draw in their horns, if the Minister of the Interior spoke to them somewhat in this manner: "You wish to hold your demonstration, my friends ... I beg your pardon, citizens; why, certainly! Demonstrate away, to your heart's content; there is nothing to hinder you. You want to carry a red flag about the streets? Carry it by all means--red, yellow, blue, any color of the rainbow that you like best. I will put as many policemen at your disposition as you may require to protect you in the free exercise of your rights."

How small the revolutionary would look if he were talked to in this way! How mortified he would be! But draw your sword, and he is happy. He goes about crying:

"The people are being slaughtered!"

It is the very worst course that could be adopted. The proper cure for the mania for demonstrations is not the sword, but a little cold water.

Try how many followers you will get for a standard of revolt raised with the cry:

"The people are being syringed?"

Ah! where is the Government that will have first the strength, and then the good sense, to leave the people alone, instead of doing its best to irritate them into adopting the _role_ of martyr? Monarchy or Republic, what matters the name of this Government, so that it gives us what we are in search of--our liberty.

The English newspapers love to fill their columns with the sayings and doings of French Anarchists, so as to try and prove to their readers that France "is still navigating on a volcano," although they know very well that our revolutionary mountains are incapable of bringing forth even a mouse, as the ridiculous failure of the proposed Anarchist demonstration at Victor Hugo's funeral proved. The English know perfectly well that in the year 1867, thanks to the inopportune meddling of the police, there was a riot, in Hyde Park, which was likely to have proved very serious. The English know all this; but the pot always had a trick of calling the kettle black.

Our lower orders are a thousand times more intelligent than the English ones; and when the French police force cease to be the symbol, the instrument, of an arbitrary power, in order to become, in some sort, the protection of the people, our workmen will astonish the world with their good behavior, as they did on the day of our immortal poet's apotheosis.

The Frenchman is impressionable, excitable; but he is gentle, and easy to govern. The Parisians never raised any riots that could not be traced to the want of tact, or the malice, of the Government; and we all know that if M. Thiers had not been so bent upon putting down a small revolution, he would not have stirred up a large one; the Commune would have been nipped in the bud at the Buttes-Chaumont on the 18th of May, 1871. The harmless folk who were looking after the famous cannons would have been only too pleased to go home.

A nation does not learn the proper use of freedom in a day. It does not understand at first sight that obedience and respect for the law are two virtues indispensable to everyone who wishes to get on tolerably under a democracy; it is for the Government to teach it its lesson. To do this properly, an authority is wanted which shall be vigilant, while making itself felt as little as possible.

This liberty should be the monopoly of no one, but the privilege of each and all. Every time our police officers pounce upon a red flag and tear it up, every time they suppress a Catholic school, or force open the doors of a convent, the fruits of many a month's lessons are lost. We go back; but the cause of the white or red flag is advanced.

Why is Roman Catholicism perfectly powerless in England, politically speaking?

Because Protestant England allows the Romanists to open as many churches, schools, and convents as they please.

All that England demands from those who live on her hospitable soil is respect for her laws. Monarchs exiled by their subjects, and Communists, Nihilists, Socialists, exiled by their monarchs, may jostle one another in her streets any day; the individual liberty of the revolutionary subject being held as sacred as that of the ex-monarch.

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Our neighbor's eccentricities are but the natural fruit of liberty; and these same eccentricities, which amuse us so much, in England pass unnoticed. Everyone does as he pleases, and thinks it quite natural that others should do the same. I have seen young girls on tricycles make their way through a crowd, without an unpleasant remark or a joke being indulged in at their expense. The men made way, and allowed them to pass without remarking them more than if they had been on horseback.

Do not fear the abuse of liberty; among an intelligent race, good sense will always take the upper hand.

Liberty is sure to lead to a few excesses; but it does not suffer because of them.

Take England again.

English religious liberty is in no wise in danger because the law tolerates, nay, protects, the rowdy proselytes of the Booth family. True religion may suffer, but not religious liberty.

The right of association is not in danger because a _philanthropic_ club has been formed at Ashpull, in Lancashire, by men who subscribe to defray the costs when one of their number is fined for ill-treating his wife.[10]

No, no, these eccentricities do but prove the vital force of England.

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There is no need to penetrate deeply into French and English life, to study the tempers of the two nations. The streets of London and Paris furnish the observer with ample materials every day.

In the month of April, 1891, I was one day on the top of the Odeon omnibus. In the Boulevard des Italiens some repairs were going on, and at the corner of the Rue de Richelieu there was such a crowd of carriages as to cause a block. The question then arose, who was to pass first, those who came from the Madeleine or those who came from the Bastille. An altercation soon arose between the drivers, and that in a vocabulary which I will spare my readers. Meanwhile, the string of carriages lengthened, and the matter was becoming serious. At last up comes a police officer who gets the situation explained to him, forthwith enters into a discussion with the drivers, and tries to make the Madeleine party understand that it is their place to give way. He might as well have talked to the pavement. A hubbub uprose on all sides enough to make one's hair stand on end. Everybody was in the right, it seemed, and the poor police officer, tired of seeing his parliamentary efforts so fruitless, withdrew, saying: "Very well, then, do as you please; I'll have nothing more to do with it" (_sic_). About a quarter of an hour later, we turned into the Rue de Richelieu.

And now here is a scene which you may witness every day in any part of London.

In every spot where the traffic is great, you will see a policeman. He is there to regulate the circulation of the vehicles, and protect the foot passengers who may wish to cross the road. In the discharge of this duty, all that he has to do is to lift his hand, and, at this gesture, the drivers stop, like a company of soldiers at the word "halt!" Not a murmur, not a sign of impatience, not a word. When the little accumulation of foot passengers has safely crossed, the policeman lowers his hand, and everything is in motion again.

How many times, as I have looked on at this sight, which to the English appears so natural, have I said enviously to myself: "If these English people are free, if they are masters of half the world, and of themselves into the bargain, it is because they know how to obey!"

I know the favorite explanation of these striking contrasts: the temperaments are different; the blood does not circulate in English veins with so much impetuosity as it does in French ones. This is true, though only to a certain extent. But be not deceived; it is the difference which exists between the education of the two races that is the real solution of the problem.