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ENGLISH PHARISEES
AND
FRENCH CROCODILES.
ENGLISH PHARISEES
FRENCH CROCODILES
AND
_OTHER ANGLO-FRENCH TYPICAL CHARACTERS_
BY
MAX O'RELL
AUTHOR OF "A FRENCHMAN IN AMERICA," "JONATHAN AND HIS
CONTINENT," "JOHN BULL, JUNIOR," "JACQUES BONHOMME,"
"JOHN BULL AND HIS ISLAND," ETC.
NEW YORK
CASSELL PUBLISHING COMPANY
104 & 106 Fourth Avenue
COPYRIGHT, 1892, BY
CASSELL PUBLISHING COMPANY.
_All rights reserved._
THE MERSHON COMPANY PRESS,
RAHWAY, N. J.
TO JONATHAN.
You have been kind enough to receive favorably two volumes of
unpretentious impressions of your great and most hospitable country,
published in 1889 and 1891.
You are a dear friend and a delightful fellow. You are on the road that
will safely lead you to the discovery of everything that can insure the
prosperity of the land of which you are so justly proud.
Yet the Old World can teach you something; not how to work, but how to
live.
I have drawn a few sketches for you. Perhaps they will show you that
people can be happy without rolling in wealth, or living in a furnace.
Take up this little book and, lighting a cigar, lie down quietly on the
grass and read it under the shade of a tree.
CONTENTS.
CHAPTER PAGE
I. FOREIGNERS 1
II. JOHN BULL UP TO DATE 9
III. JACQUES BONHOMME, THE LANDED PEASANT-PROPRIETOR OF FRANCE 17
IV. JACQUELINE, THE FORTUNE OF FRANCE 27
V. JOSEPH PRUDHOMME, THE JOG-TROT MIDDLE-CLASS FRENCHMAN 33
VI. ENTERTAINING NEIGHBORS 47
VII. FRENCH IMPULSIVENESS AND BRITISH SANGFROID ILLUSTRATED BY
TWO REMINISCENCES 53
VIII. ENGLISH PHARISEES AND FRENCH CROCODILES 57
IX. FRENCH AND ENGLISH SOCIAL FAILURES 69
X. HIGH-LIFE ANGLO-FRENCH GIBBERISH AS USED IN FRANCE AND
ENGLAND 79
XI. HUMOR, WIT, AND HIBERNIANISM 87
XII. THE MAL DE MER 95
XIII. BRITISH PHILOSOPHY AND FRENCH SENSITIVENESS 107
XIV. THE FRENCH SNOB 123
XV. A SUCCESS AS AN ANGLOPHOBIST. (THE LATE MARQUIS DE
BOISSY) 127
XVI. WOMAN WORSHIP 131
XVII. FAITH AND REASON 139
XVIII. THE WORSHIP OF THE GOLDEN CALF 153
XIX. WHY THE FRENCH WERE BEATEN IN 1870 173
XX. ENGLAND WORKS FOR HERSELF. THE WORLD OWES HER NOTHING 177
XXI. THE SPIRIT OF DESTRUCTION AND THE SPIRIT OF CONSERVATISM 183
XXII. ORDER AND LIBERTY 191
XXIII. THE HUMORS OF POLITICS 209
XXIV. LORDS AND SENATORS 225
XXV. WHAT FRANCE HAS DONE TO MERIT THE RESPECT OF THE WORLD 231
ENGLISH PHARISEES AND FRENCH CROCODILES.
CHAPTER I.
FOREIGNERS.
People very often speak ill of their neighbors, not out of wickedness,
but merely out of laziness; it is so much easier to do so than to study
their qualities and all the circumstances that might oblige you to
change your opinion.
For instance, some fifty years ago, a great English wit, Sydney Smith,
said that it required a surgical operation to make a Scotchman
understand a joke.
Well, an English joke, he probably meant.
However, the satire was neatly expressed. When the English get hold of
a good joke, and see it, it lasts them a long time.
The Scotch are a hundred times more witty and humorous than the English;
but John Bull still goes on affirming that "it requires a surgical
operation to make a Scotchman understand a joke."
* * * * *
If such misunderstanding can exist between the English and the Scotch,
just imagine what feelings the natives of a land can inspire in
foreigners.
Oh! that word _foreigner_!
In some ears it sounds like bastards. In some people's minds, it is the
synonym of bad. The English greengrocer, for instance, divides his
asparagus into large and small heads. The fine large ones he binds
together and sells at high prices under the name of English asparagus.
The bundles of threads at one shilling figure in his shop window as
_foreign_.
In England, the adjective _English_ is synonymous with _excellent_. In
France, we have an adjective that signifies _excellent_, too, and that
is the adjective _French_. Do but make an observation to a French
shopkeeper upon the price of his goods, and he will promptly answer: "I
keep a cheaper article, but it is naturally of greatly inferior quality.
Would _Monsieur_ like to see my English stock?" In French commerce,
_English_ is synonymous with _worthless_.
* * * * *
Now, what is a foreigner?
No man was born a foreigner.
Once an American said to me, on board a steamer, sailing from Liverpool
to New York: "You are a foreigner, I guess."
"Well," I replied, "not yet. I shall be, when I get to your country."
* * * * *
What is a foreigner?
As a rule, a foreigner is a good fellow, brought up by worthy parents,
and belonging to a country quite as good as yours.
* * * * *
Nations may be well or badly governed. They may possess hot or cold
climates, indifferent or beautiful scenery. The manners and customs of
their inhabitants may be utterly different. But the most stupid
statement that can possibly be made is that some nations are better or
worse than others.
* * * * *
We French people ought not to be a closed letter to the foreigner, for
Heaven knows we make no attempt to hide our defects, and I might even
add that if we did study to hide them, instead of boasting of them, we
might cut quite as good and moral a figure as the most proper inhabitant
of the British Isles or of the State of Maine.
We offer ourselves to criticism so unreservedly, owning our
shortcomings with such frankness, such _abandon_, that it ill becomes
our neighbors to find fault with us. Indeed, we are a nation that
confesses with a gay candor that should disarm unkind criticism.
Yes, the foreigner ought to be able to read, as in an open book, that
good, warm-hearted, France that he hardly looks at. For him, France is
Paris; Paris that supplies him with pleasures for a fortnight, and that
he despises when he is satiated. The real France, peaceful and
laborious, he knows nothing about beyond what he has seen of it from the
windows of a railroad car.
On arriving at home again, he writes to his friends:
"I have just returned from France. What a country it is! Ah! I have seen
pretty sights, I can assure you! I will tell you all about it in
private, when we meet. All I can say now is, that I thank God that I was
born an Englishman."
Here is a good fellow who has undoubtedly visited the wrong places.
The Frenchman is no better. He comes to London for a week on business.
(I say "on business," because nobody would think of coming to London on
pleasure), and profits by his visit to go and see Madame Tussaud's
Exhibition. Then he returns home, and exclaims, parodying Victor Hugo's
celebrated lines: "How proud a man is to call himself a Frenchman when
he has looked at England."
He has looked at England, it is true, but he has not seen it.
To _look_ is an action of the body. To _see_ is an action of the mind.
* * * * *
When people travel in foreign lands, they often make two kinds of
mistakes.
Firstly, they are liable to visit the wrong places, like the Englishman
who returned home "thanking God he was born an Englishman."
Secondly, they draw conclusions too quickly.
Let us illustrate this.
When English people alight at a French hotel and find no soap on the
washstand, do you believe they conclude from this that the French carry
their own soap in their trunks when they travel? Not they. They conclude
that the French do not wash, or that, if they do, their ablutions are
performed by means of a corner of a handkerchief dipped in water.
Mark Twain, the prince of American humorists, exclaims upon entering the
bedroom of a French hotel: "What, waiter, no soap! Don't you know that
soap is indispensable to an Englishman or an American; and that only a
Frenchman can do without it?"
It is true that you find soap on the washstands in English or American
hotels; but the English and their American cousins may perhaps be
astonished to hear that a true-born Frenchman would have as much
repugnance to using hotel soap, as they would to using a toothbrush
that they might find on a lodging-house washstand. Some people like
second-hand soap; some do not. We will even make bold to inform them
that a great many French ladies are so particular as to carry about a
supply of bedroom towels with them when they travel.