Hannah Lynch

“ Militarism to the outsider appears to be not only a demoralising force, but a monstrous expense; and it passes imagination how so thrifty a race as the French can go on complacently squandering millions on the support of an army that has stood still for thirty years and may not move for thirty more. It would be compensation enough if one could only believe what, in the face of facts, experience teaches us to be false, that military life hardens and solidifies a man and gives him an ideal of honour higher than any he would learn in any trade or profession that might assist him to a fortune. ”

“ But I have never left a French château without a feeling of sincere gratitude for not possessing one. The sensation of imprisonment, of futile chains, is oppressive. Here, as elsewhere, individuality is effaced by inexorable common law. To be original is to be amusing, no doubt; but, still more, unseemly and mad. You may be a little wild in speech, provided you walk the respectable step of your fellows without the slightest deviation. Your wit, if you happen to have any, will never be more appreciated, for on that ground the French are exquisite judges ”

“ But in Paris, should your pocket be empty and your room sordid, you need only saunter into the clear, vivacious air to find yourself within walking distance of every charming point of the radiant city. Between her broad and winding river, Paris lies, a two-volumed tale of romance; on every leaf, as you turn it, matters for musing and rapture, life around you full to overflowing,—the life that has been lived still vivid to remembrance, not clothed in sadness, but in the gracious gaiety of tradition. The scenes of dead hours are animated with floating suggestions. ”

“ To be poor in London is to be the poorest of poor devils upon the globe, for there life offers you no compensation. You live in such a slum as the Parisian eye has never gazed upon; the faces around you are sour or bloated, according to temperament and habits. There is no lightness of air, no brilliance of perspective, to distract the eye from the inward contemplation of daily misery, unless you put on your hat and trudge endless miles to get a glimpse of the long, bright boulevard of Piccadilly, or the sophisticated wonders of the Strand. ”

“ As well dream of a city of London without its trousered armies, rushing on the wings of time in pursuit of gold, as try to imagine a Paris with woman dethroned. She holds all the strong places; she vivifies the town from the old Place of the Bastille to the heights of Montmartre, where the texture and trimming of her garments is the topic of the hour; and men gather on the boulevards at the hour of absinthe, in devout expectation of seeing her pass by. Whether they discuss politics or art, be certain she is at the bottom of all their talk. ”

“ It becomes a passion.” And I can well understand it, from all I have seen of the humbler classes of Paris. There is a fulness of life, of vitality, of inarticulate, unconscious goodness about them that puts you in sympathy with Tolstoiïsm. But instead of the mysticism, the intensity of the Russian character, you have here that irresistible French gaiety, which is not by any means so light as it is said to be. Action is its virtue. Its mental horizon is brightened by a personal charm of character, as a twilight sky is enriched by an arch of radiant colour. ”

“ Jeanne, I admit, was the pearl of her set, speaking with polished diction, of manners gentle and urbane, only a nurse, and yet a perfect lady in everything. Her bedroom denoted her own charming refinement, with its blue and white curtains, its spotless prettiness, the flower vases, and little bookcase not ignobly filled. She spoke continuously of herself, of her wishes and dreams. Well, never once did I get a suspicion of a flirtation in her life. She spoke of men with dignity and simplicity, without simper or giggle, and made no effort to lead me to believe that she was pursued by lovers. ”

“ We laugh at the official legend bequeathed France by the Revolution, and, of a surety, we are not justified in that laughter. If liberty, equality, and fraternity are not all that they might be in France to-day, there has been made a considerable step towards their accomplishment which the conscientious observer is forced to recognise. If brotherhood is still in a nebulous state, the same cannot be said of equality. Where, in London, will you find the head of a large hospital cultivating roses and gathering them at sunrise to carry a breath of delight to a worn-out woman of the people? ”

“ Whenever I return home, and discover that I have lost a purse, a book, a packet according to my invariable habit, I am so thankful to feel that I am still alive, in spite of the automobile which charges through the streets in such a dreadful way, that I balance loss and gain, and count myself still a winner in the game of life by every new day to my account. In London you are everywhere enveloped in a sense of public protection. The cab drivers know how to drive, a feature of their trade they are most imperfectly aware of in Paris. ”

“ A genial hardness is, perhaps, the dominating character of the French peasant woman’s expression: it would never be safe to trust in the hope of finding her head napping and her heart too wide awake. But if she is not soft to others, she is implacably hard to herself. Her industry is amazing, and only less amazing is her resourcefulness. A more competent woman does not exist anywhere. Nothing of a dreamer, she is contented with her lot, provided only there is neither thriftlessness, waste, nor idleness about her. ”

“ The men who made it were no heroes, and we can bear at this hour to call them remorselessly by their proper names. But the evil they did in the cause of humanity has finally led to the amelioration of their race. Lay France, with all her liberal aspirations, with her generous hatred of injustice, tyranny, and oppression, bids fair to construct a France which shall be the real and not the illusive home of freedom. The land that can produce men and women like M. Pinard and Madame Coralie Cahen need have no fear of the triumph of decadence. ”

“ She will say to you, with that French independence I ever admire, that it is not your purse but hers that is in question; and I judge her to regard as idiots such saints as Martin of Tours and Francis of Assisi. Truth is no more conspicuous than charity and honesty among her virtues, for she will lie with a courage befitting a nobler cause in the interests of her pocket. The minute and persevering genius of Balzac alone could follow her through the maze of economical twists she has devised wherewith to save or make a sou. ”

“ Since it has shaken off the shackles of kings and dictators, it must walk in willing servitude to the countless smaller, and, it must be admitted, less obnoxious, tyrannies it maintains for the clipping of its own wings, and which form a kind of stable throne for its prestige. For what would France be in the eyes of the world without its five Academies, without its École des Beaux Arts, its Théâtre Français, the house of Molière, without its high literary tradition, the distinction and elegance of all that emanates from its genius? ”

“ HOME-LIFE IN FRANCE
There is no race on the face of the earth whose home-life is so enviable as that of the French. Both men and women bring the best of their qualities to the making and maintaining of this admirable domestic institution. It is, perhaps, too perfect, too wadded, for any people which may hold the theory that domestic happiness is an inferior ideal. It explains to us why the French are bad colonists, why initiative and enterprise are less developed here than in the regions of rougher interiors. The atmosphere of a French home is the most delightful I know. ”

“ Woman may leave her home to make money in the humbler walks of labour, and cause no flutter in male bosoms; but let her elect to do so in paths where ambition lures and pay is higher, and instantly a howl of dismay runs through the ranks of her oppressors and slaves. And yet, if common sense and logic were general instead of rare virtues, even in France, it would be understood that the abandonment of the homes by peasant women is of much more serious consequence to a nation than the infrequent flight into legal and medical circles. ”

“ It is sad to witness the extraordinary capers, the passion for popularity in which an intelligent man like M. Lemaître indulges, and to see him brandishing a wild pen and shouting in every tone of anger; so little dignity and common sense are left a Frenchman when hate and rancour hold him and when race-fury rolls over the land like a tidal wave, Vive l’armée! This famous critic has betaken himself to a sort of politics invented for the hour—a feverish antagonism to foreigners and all foreign influences, and a passion for every form of sabred hero. ”

“ Here, far off from the roar of reaction and the rumble of revolt, such women dwell amidst the dim splendours of an impoverished house, unfamiliar to the frequenters of routs and races; whose names never appear in the society columns of the Figaro; who are chiefly known to the poor and the priests of their neighbourhood; and they it is who preserve some charm for the Faubourg, who help us to regard it with some indulgence and sympathy in its futile discontent. For what can be the benefit to itself or to France of this fine attitude of disdain? ”

“ Paris that I have become converted to Tolstoi’s belief that the humble class is the vrai grand monde, a thousand times more interesting and instructive, worthier of our admiration, than the wealthy and educated classes. The deeper you penetrate into these obscure lives, the deeper you feel a sense of humiliation by confrontation with the futility of education, breeding, blood,—the accepted adjuncts of superiority. The poor and humble of the world are inarticulate, and they live and die unconscious of the heroism of their existence. ”

“ Such is her power that I am tempted to believe that if her ideal were a high, instead of a low, one, she might invent a type of Parisian very different from the well-known boulevardier and hero of French romance. But alas! this is her failing. She has no other ideal than that of ruling by the senses, and mastering the worst in man by the worst in herself. The ideal in her is wrecked on the alluring rock of her own making,—dress, for which she lives, and without which Paris would not be the Paris we know ”

“ Mingle then with the market-folk, and listen to their [7] speech—pleasant vocables, rendered pleasanter still by vivacity of gesture and vividness of gaze; neat peasant women, in spotless caps and sabots, who look all the merrier because they are so hard-worked; tanned, wrinkled faces, that smile as they did in youth, hard-set, but not unkindly, in the rapacity of commerce; responsive to a joke, unflinching in the teeth of trouble, not destitute of a promise of comfort in life’s softer hours—though softness is the very last quality they betray. ”

“ A Frenchman who had just returned from a tour through America once said to me: “It is our army which maintains our superiority; through it we keep intact a high ideal. I was struck by this fact in America, where there is no army and consequently no ideal. There must be a generous part of the nation kept aside for disinterested work.” We need only glance through the military history of the world to recognise the utter bombast and falseness of this view. Officers are no more disinterested than other men, and there are, in fact, no men so splendidly paid for their services in all lands. ”