French general

“ Decidedly the primary consideration of so eminent a genius and leader should have been the respect, at least, of the feeling of France, an essentially religious and Conservative land. Proud and impatient, thirsting for a vast but fleeting popularity, he rushed headlong into the ranks of those he dares to call now his "admirable and generous French people." ”

“ It is said that you are discontented—but why? France has not conquered, but adopted, you: you are excluded from no benefits which are enjoyed by the French; you are a portion of the same family, and participate in all its advantages. ”

“ Where will you find, on the face of the globe, a more polished or more civilized nation than the French, or one more punctiliously alive to any rudeness, coarseness or indecorum? You will find none. The French are scrupulous on these points, to a proverb. ”

“ A certain aggregation of personages, actions, emotions and moods, ideas and works, which make their appearance in France, find expression in the French language, and influence French society at the beginning of the nineteenth century, form in my eyes a naturally coherent group, from the fact that they all centre round one idea, namely, the re-establishment of a fallen power. This fallen power is the principle of authority.
By the principle of authority I understand the principle which assumes the life of the individual and of the nation to be based upon reverence for inherited tradition. ”

“ Let it not, therefore, be objected, my lords, to our ministers, or our negotiators, that the French obtain more influence than they; that they are more easily listened to, or more readily believed: for while such is the condition of mankind, that what is desired is easily credited, while profit is more powerful than reason, the French eloquence will frequently prevail. ”

“ It reminded me, as one is reminded at every turn, of the democratic conditions of French life: a man of the people, with a wife en bonnet, extremely intelligent, full of special knowledge, and yet remaining essentially of the people, and showing his intelligence with a kind of ferocity, of defiance. Such a personage helps one to understand the red radicalism of France, the revolutions, the barricades, the sinister passion for theories. ”

“ Today the soil of liberty is clear, and we owe it to the French people to give their government a base, eternal and pure. Yes, we shall say to them: Frenchmen, you have the right to adore the divinity which seems to you worthy of your reverence. ”

“ It seems no difficult matter to ascribe most of the differences which we observe between the English and French character to the differences in the habits of the people, occasioned by form of government and various assignable causes: and the French character, in particular, has very much the appearance of being moulded by the artificial form of society which prevails among the people. ”

“ But whatever the specialties and accomplishments of individuals or of classes, the French, as a nation, were excelled by no other in the practice of the art of making themselves personally comfortable. ”

“ whereas to the French it is part of the general fearless and joyful contact with life. ”

“ I would address a proclamation to the French; I would say to them;—You are lost if you are not united. The odious, the insolent foreigner is about to parcel you out and to annihilate you. Frenchmen arise; make common cause, at all hazards,—rally, if it must be so, even around the Bourbons! ”

“ And yet, despite the truth and blackness of this picture, owing to the force of a similar life and habits, owing also to a kindly social instinct in the race, the French country gentleman—and even the great noble—was a prosperous, honourable, and useful member of society, so long as he lived on his lands and served the State, within the boundaries of his own parish, as captain of militia and justice of the peace. ”

“ I need not observe to your lordships, that all the great actions that have, in all ages, been achieved, have been the effects of resolution, diligence, and daring activity, virtues wholly opposite to the calmness of moderation. I need not observe, that the advantages enjoyed at present by the French are the consequences of that vigour and expedition, by which they are distinguished, and which the form of their government enables them to exert. ”

“ There is no answer to such a statement. Frenchmen believe, quaintly enough, that the hand of every foreigner is always against them. The national conceit in France, an excellent asset, of course, for the nation, but singularly aggravating sometimes, is enormous, unfathomable, and entirely impervious to argument or logic. The greatest praise for anything in France is that [Pg 67] it is French. ”

“ With all their quickness, enthusiasm, and activity, the mass of French people want that admirable quality which I unfeignedly think is the particular characteristic of ourselves:--I mean, common sense. ”

“ Thou wilt be richer in noble qualities than ever French gentleman was before thee, but thou wilt have few of fortune's goods. Thou wilt serve yet another king of France, who will love and esteem thee much ”

“ In a discussion upon French manners, and the present condition of French society, it is impossible but that one great and leading observation must almost immediately present itself, and the truth of which, on whatever side, or to whatever class of society you may turn, becomes only the more apparent as you take the longer time to consider it ”

“ We are writing from both past and present History, and our fervent hope is, that this our present work may prove a timely warning against any ignorant, misunderstood, or distorted reading of the History of France, especially for the last thirty-five years. We do not profess to judge; we are studying the History of France, which we are bidden to teach the young entrusted to our care. We will not substitute our own views: we simply take to and shape our task according to the safe control of French tradition and the realities of French life. ”

“ Frenchmen, it is for you to give to the world the example which Paris has given to France; prepare yourselves by order and by confidence in your destiny for the firm institutions which you are about to be called upon to establish. ”

“ In considering the cases of many of these brilliant and sympathetic young French officers, who had already published or have left behind them works in verse and prose, there may be a disposition, in the wonderful light of their experience, to exaggerate the positive value of their productions. Not all of them, of course, have contributed, or would have contributed, durable additions to the store of the literature of France. We see them, excusably, in the rose-light of their sunset. ”

“ But this has never been the case in France, where it is not the king who polishes the people;—but the people who refine the manners, humanize the heart, and, if it be not perfectly opaque, enlighten the understanding of the king. ”

“ Some incurable and radical blindness must have come over the French to prevent their seeing that in this their Third Republic, as in the first two, everything is steadily deteriorating from bad to worse. ”

“ French refined and systematic intelligence, the most exact in seizing on the subordination of ideas, the most ready in separating ideas from matter, the most fond of clear and tangible ideas, find in him its nourishment and its echo. ”

“ I notice this assumption of a double character on the part of the French, not to lament over it and its consequences, but to render somewhat more intelligible the conduct of our own Generals; and to explain how far men, whom we have no reason to believe other than brave, have, through the influence of such example, lost sight of their primary duties, apeing instead of imitating, and following only to be misled. ”

“ In this state of the public mind, the French people rose simultaneously, as one man, and with unconquerable energy and bravery, like a whirlwind, swept the advocates and the armies of despotism from off the face of the earth. ”

“ Certainly, government ought to be patted on the back if those neat, wide, well-kept roads are its handiwork. But, as I was saying, it is a surprise to most English comers to find how thoroughly French the whole place is, and you perceive the change first and chiefly in the graceful and courteous manners of the people of all grades and classes. ”

“ When we reflect upon the evolution of French institutions from Charlemagne to Fallières, the progress of the French people in the arts and sciences within the last century, and the contributions that they have made to these, and to literature and to art, as well as to the world’s diplomacy and intellectual development, we do not wonder that [54] the Republic across the sea, which you represent, gentlemen, is aglow with vitality and energized by new and expanding ideas, and is forging forward as one of the most progressive and powerful nations in the world. ”

“ But console yourself with the reflection that it is perfectly immaterial whether the French ideas are brought into your country by your soldiers or by ours. Besides, this is an article which so easily eludes the vigilance of the custom-house, that the railways are already bringing it in daily, and you will soon have a large stock on hand. And after all, where's the great evil? All men who have studied us without prejudice, know that French ideas are ideas of order and liberty, of conservatism and progress, of labour and honesty, of culture and industry. ”

“ The French have profited by their glorious Revolution: they trusted reason and have had their reward; no such leap forward has ever been made as France made in that one decade, and the effects are still potent. ”

“ The French seem so delighted and dazzled with the lustre of Monarchy, that they cannot bear the thoughts of any qualifying mixture, which might abate its violence, and render its ardour more benign. They chuse to give the splendid machine full play, though it often scorches and threatens to consume themselves and their effects. ”

“ Now, as I am a great admirer of French principles, and that new and accommodating kind of morality, by Frenchmen discovered, and which I ever have and ever will eulogize, to the utmost extent of my faculties, perhaps your worships will express no small degree of wonderment why I should be the intimate friend of a gentleman, the blaze of whose oratory, one would suppose, would have blasted Buonaparte, and even singed the whole French republic. ”

“ The power of coming after the great synthetic products of the human spirit and distributing them by analysis into special categories, eminent in his country, is pre-eminent in him. The facility at slipping over hard points, and at coming to unity of representation, partly by the solving force of an interior principle, and partly by ingenious accommodations, characteristic of French thought, characterizes his thinking in particular. ”

“ The reason is obvious: in France, there is a bonhommie, a degree of equality established between the different grades of society by universal politeness. A French servant is familiar with his master at the same time that he is respectful: and the master, in return, condescends to his inferior without forgetting their relative positions. ”

“ A finer subject could not offer itself to a Frenchman than the long reign in which France, seeming, at a bound, to emerge from a base condition of manners, of public morals, of government, and of policy, stood forth resplendent in letters, arts, arms, statecraft, and social refinement. ”

“ All through the previous hundred and fifty years the French had gained great advantages by showing themselves to be far more sagacious and politic in conciliating and winning power, influence, and absolute sway over the savages than the English. ”

“ Meanwhile, Frenchmen may venture to remind us with all due respect as an absolutely true fact, that Frenchmen of higher position and abilities have difficulties neither few nor slight to overcome before reaching the classes they are expected to lead: the rapprochement between classes of French society since 1789 is undoubtedly improving in tone and feeling to-day; but the higher are still usually misunderstood and unjustly judged by the Lower Middle classes. ”

“ Past and current History at least allow a stranger to think that French Monarchists, Conservative and Liberal, have given and would give again a better account of themselves, and that both France and all classes of Frenchmen would more comfortably fare at the hands of men who own a nature not less patriotic (to say the least) , are possessed of more self-reverence, self-knowledge, and self-control ”

“ The French compose one body with one head. They have all the same interest, and agree to pursue it by the same means. They are subject to a governour, commissioned by an absolute monarch, and participating the authority of his master. ”

“ The French republic is founded on rationalism. The philosophy of the eighteenth century, with its destructive criticism of the existing order, furnished the doctrines, and from that seed of knowledge there grew and still are growing the practical ideals of France. ”

“ We are attracted by the process which produced that mental alertness and precision which characterise the French mind, that power of organising life so as to get the most out of it, which is still the peculiar merit of the French people. ”

“ Our nation, as a nation, is just as plucky as the French,—no one disputes it; and yet take a Frenchman of your class,—the commis-voyageur, or anything that way,—and you 'll just find him as prompt on the point of honor as the best noble in the land. He never utters an insolent speech without being ready to back it. ”