CHAPTER XLII

FRANCE (_continued_)

I beg leave to speak ill of France a little longer. The reader need have no fear of seeing my satire remain unpunished; if this essay finds readers, I shall pay for my insults with interest. Our national honour is wide awake.

France fills an important place in the plan of this book, because Paris, thanks to the superiority of its conversation and its literature, is, and will always be, the _salon_ of Europe.

Three-quarters of the _billets_ in Vienna, as in London, are written in French or are full of French allusions and quotations--Lord knows what French![1]

As regards great passions, France, in my opinion, is void of originality from two causes:--

1. True honour--the desire to resemble Bayard(26)--in order to be honoured in the world and there, every day, to see your vanity satisfied.

2. The fool's honour, or the desire to resemble the upper classes, the fashionable world of Paris. The art of entering a drawing-room, of showing aversion to a rival, of breaking with your mistress, etc.

The fool's honour is much more useful than true honour in ministering to the pleasures of our vanity,

[Pg 163] both in itself, as being intelligible to fools, and also as being applicable to the actions of every day and every hour. We see people, with only this fool's honour and without true honour, very well received in society; but the contrary is impossible.

This is the way of the fashionable world:--

1. To treat all great interests ironically. 'Tis natural enough. Formerly people, really in society, could not be profoundly affected by anything; they hadn't the time. Residence in the country has altered all this. Besides, it is contrary to a Frenchman's nature to let himself be seen in a posture of admiration,[2] that is to say, in a position of inferiority, not only in relation to the object of his admiration--that goes without saying--but also in relation to his neighbour, if his neighbour choose to mock at what he admires.

In Germany, Italy and Spain, on the contrary, admiration is genuine and happy; there the admirer is proud of his transports and pities the man who turns up his nose. I don't say the mocker, for that's an impossible rôle in countries, where it is not in failing in the imitation of a particular line of conduct, but in failing to strike the road to happiness, that the only ridicule exists. In the South, mistrust and horror at being troubled in the midst of pleasures vividly felt, plants in men an inborn admiration of luxury and pomp. See the Courts of Madrid and Naples; see a _funzione_ at Cadiz--things are carried to a point of delirium.[3]

2. A Frenchman thinks himself the most miserable of men, and almost the most ridiculous, if he is obliged to spend his time alone. But what is love without solitude?

3. A passionate man thinks only of himself; a man

[Pg 164] who wants consideration thinks only of others. Nay more: before 1789, individual security was only found in France by becoming one of a body, the Robe, for example,[4] and by being protected by the members of that body. The thoughts of your neighbour were then an integral and necessary part of your happiness. This was still truer at the Court than in Paris. It is easy to

[Pg 165] see how far such manners, which, to say the truth, are every day losing their force, but which Frenchmen will retain for another century, are favourable to great passions.

Try to imagine a man throwing himself from a window, and at the same time trying to reach the pavement in a graceful position.

In France, the passionate man, merely as such, and in no other light, is the object of general ridicule. Altogether, he offends his fellow-men, and that gives wings to ridicule.

[1] In England, the gravest writers think they give themselves a smart tone by quoting French words, which, for the most part, have never been French, except in English grammars. See the writers for the _Edinburgh Review_; see the Memoirs of the Comtesse de Lichtnau, mistress of the last King of Prussia but one.

[2] The fashionable admiration of Hume in 1775, for example, or of Franklin in 1784, is no objection to what I say.

[3] _Voyage en Espagne_, by M. Semple; he gives a true picture, and the reader will find a description of the Battle of Trafalgar, heard in the distance which sticks in the memory.

[4] _Correspondance_ of Grimm, January, 1783. "Comte de N----, Captain commanding the guards of the Duke of Orleans, being piqued at finding no place left in the balcony, the day of the opening of the new hall, was so ill-advised as to dispute his place with an honest Procureur; the latter, one Maître Pernot, was by no means willing to give it up.--'You've taken my place.'--'I'm in my own.'--'Who are you?'--'I'm Mr. Six Francs'... (that is to say, the price of these places). Then, angrier words, insults, jostling. Comte de N---- pushed his indiscretion so far as to treat the poor joker as a thief, and finally took it upon himself to order the sergeant on duty to arrest the person of the Procureur, and to conduct him to the guard-room. Maître Pernot surrendered with great dignity, and went out, only to go and depose his complaint before a Commissary. The redoubtable body, of which he had the honour to be a member, had no intention of letting the matter drop. The affair came up before the Parlement. M. de N---- was condemned to pay all the expenses, to make reparation to the Procureur, to pay him two thousand crowns damages and interest, which were to be applied, with the Procureur's consent, to the poor prisoners of the Conciergerie; further, the said Count was very expressly enjoined never again, under pretext of the king's orders, to interfere with a performance, etc. This adventure made a lot of noise, and great interests were mixed up in it: the whole Robe has considered itself insulted by an outrage done to a man who wears its livery, etc. M. de N----, that his affair may be forgotten, has gone to seek his laurels at the Camp of St. Roch. He couldn't do better, people say, for no one can doubt of his talent for carrying places by sheer force. Now suppose an obscure philosopher in the place of Maître Pernot. Use of the Duel. (Grimm, Part III, Vol. II, p. 102.)

See further on, p. 496, a most sensible letter of Beaumarchais refusing a closed box (_loge grillée_) for Figaro, which one of his friends had asked of him. So long as people thought that his answer was addressed to a Duke, there was great excitement, and they talked about severe punishment. But it turned to laughter when Beaumarchais declared that his letter was addressed to Monsieur le Président du Paty. It is a far cry from 1785 to 1822! We no longer understand these feelings. And yet people pretend that the same tragedies that touched those generations are still good for us!

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