ENGLISH PHARISEES AND FRENCH CROCODILES.
The French and the English have this very characteristic feature in
common: they can stand any amount of incense; you may burn all the
perfumes of Arabia under their noses, without incommoding them in the
slightest degree.
With this difference, however, in the extremes.
The French boaster is noisy and talkative. With his mustache twirled
defiantly upward, his hat on one side, he will shout at you, at the
top of his voice that,[1] "_La France, Monsieur, sera toujours la
Fr-r-rance, les Francais seront toujours les Fr-r-rancais._" As you
listen to him, you are almost tempted to believe, with Thackeray, "that
the poor fellow has a lurking doubt in his own mind that he is not the
wonder he professes to be."
But allow me to say that the British specimen is far more provoking. He
is so sure that all his geese are swans; so thoroughly persuaded of his
superiority over the rest of the human race; it is, in his eyes, such an
incontested and incontestable fact, that he does not think it worth his
while to raise his voice in asserting it, and that is what makes him so
awfully irritating, "don't you know?" He has not a doubt that the whole
world was made for him; not only this one, but the next. In the
meantime--for he is in no hurry to put on the angel plumage that awaits
him--he congratulates himself on his position here below. Everything is
done to add to his comfort and happiness: the Italians give him
concerts, the French dig the Suez Canal for him, the Germans sweep out
his offices and do his errands in the City of London for $200 a year,
the Greeks grow the principal ingredient in his plum pudding. The
Americans supply his aristocracy with rich heiresses, so that they may
get their coats of arms out of pawn. His face beams with gratitude and
complacency, as he quietly rubs his hands together, and calmly thanks
Heaven that he is not as other men are. And it is true enough; he is
not.
"Dear brother reader," says Thackeray, "answer as a man of honor. Do
you think a Frenchman your equal? You don't, you gallant British snob,
you know you don't.... Oh, my country! if I were a Frenchman, how I
would hate you!"
* * * * *
There is one great difference between our two boasters: the Englishman
will seek, on all occasions, to appear a trifle better than he really
is--he never runs himself down; if he has a defect or two, he will let
you find them out; but the Frenchman, on the contrary, is a braggart of
vice. To hear him joke about matrimony, for instance, you would take him
for a libertine. To listen to some of the plays that he will applaud, to
see the caricatures that amuse him, you might come to the conclusion
that, in his eyes, marriage was not a sacred tie. But do not form your
conclusions too hastily. Those jokes, that delight him, are often in
very doubtful taste, I admit; but they are jokes and nothing more, and
if you were to take the plays and caricatures for real pictures of
French life, you would be making as great a mistake as you could well
make.
Now, a Frenchman, who had given an appointment to his wife, would be apt
to take on a little look of mystery as he hurried away from a friend in
the street, with the words: "Excuse my haste, I must leave you; I have
an appointment." And if you heard the response, "Ah! you rascal, I'll
tell your wife," accompanied by a knowing shake of the head, you might
rashly take the pair for a couple of reprobates. But once more you would
be wrong. Such harmless trivialities--for trivialities they must be
called--are indulged in by men who are the honor and joy of their homes.
Let me tell you this: Whenever you hear a Frenchman speak ill of
himself, do not believe him, he is merely boasting. Be sure that nothing
is more true. I shall never say anything more true so long as I live.
We French hide our virtues and do not like to be reproached with them.
On this subject I might tell an anecdote which, if venerable, is none
the less amusing.
The _Athenaeum_, a paper written by the _elite_ of the literary,
scientific, and artistic worlds, was at a loss to know, not long since,
why almost all the heroes of French novels were engineers. The reason is
that French engineers are all ex-pupils of the Polytechnic School. I
mean the engineers of mines, roads, and bridges. These young men, having
passed their youth in study, in order to prepare for the most difficult
examination we have, naturally have the reputation of being steady. The
anecdote is this: Edmond About one day wrote: "Virtuous as a
Polytechnician." The sentence displeased the young mathematicians, and
they promptly took the author of it to task.
I forget the exact words of their reply, but it ran, as nearly as I can
recollect:
"_Dear Sir_: Please to speak of what you know something about.
We are no more virtuous than you."
And I can vouch for the truth of this little anecdote: I was one of
those who signed the letter.
Call a Frenchman a "good father" or "good citizen," he will smile and
probably answer back, "You humbug!" Yet he _is_ a good father and a good
citizen, and he used to be a good _garde-national_, notwithstanding his
objection to be told so. He proved it during the siege of Paris,
although his wife had never been able to look at him in his uniform
without laughing.
Now, if the Englishman, who ornaments his buttonhole with a piece of
blue ribbon, does not put on two pieces more to proclaim _urbi et orbi_
that he is a good father and a good citizen, it is because the idea
never occurred to him--for nobody doubts that, like his neighbor, he,
too, is a good father and a good citizen.
Ah! I say once more, if we only knew how to hide our faults as we can
hide our virtues, what a respectable figure we could cut by the side of
our neighbors!
The English hypocrite is the hypocrite of virtue and religion. English
novelists have exposed him, but have not succeeded in extinguishing him;
the Chadbands, the Stigginses, the Podsnaps, the Pecksniffs, all the
saintly British _Tartuffes_, are as flourishing as ever.
Moliere could, in his times, put on the stage such a man as _Tartuffe_;
at the present day the type is extinct; the religious hypocrite would
not go down in France; the character is exploded.
Pecksniff, one of the most powerful creations of Dickens, a photograph
from the life, had named his two daughters, Mercy and Charity. In
France, this worthy father and the Misses Mercy and Charity would find
every door shut in their faces. This kind of vocation would lead
straight to the workhouse.
It is not that we have no hypocrites, however. We keep the article, but
it is of a different pattern.
The French hypocrite is the hypocrite of sentiment--the crocodile.
It is natural enough that it should be so.
The hypocrite does but force the characteristic note of his race. The
English are religious (I mean church-going), the French sentimental;
therefore, the English hypocrite is the hypocrite of religion, and the
French hypocrite is the hypocrite of sentiment.
The former will enter into conversation with you by expressing a hope
that you do not concern yourself too much with the things of this world.
Chadband presents himself at the house of a friend with the salutation:
"Peace be upon this house." Then, seeing the table garnished with good
things, he cries: "My friends, why must we eat? To live. And why must we
live? To do good. It is then right that we should eat. Therefore, let us
partake of the good things which are set before us." Thereupon he gorges
himself, that he may be able the better to support life, and do the more
good. No French novelist would dare portray such a personage in his
books.
The French hypocrite proceeds differently. He makes professions of
friendship for you, embraces you, enters into your woes with touching
displays of feeling; when occasion seems to require, he can shed a few
tears, his lachrymal gland is inexhaustible. As he takes his departure,
he "hopes things will soon look brighter," and offers you a cigar.
It is at the funeral of a good bequeathing uncle that he is especially
edifying. He follows, with staggering steps, the remains of the beloved
defunct; he is literally supported to the grave by the two friends on
whose arms he leans. Tears trickle down his cheeks, he is pale and
exhausted. His handkerchief has a wide black border, but smells of musk.
He tells you, with sobs, that his uncle was a father to him, and begs
you to excuse him, if he finds it impossible to master his grief.
On arriving home, he writes to his upholsterer to order new furniture.
The two kinds of hypocrisy, one as loathsome as the other, are clearly
manifested even in the criminals of the two countries.
The English prisoner at the bar is not submitted to examination, and
thus the public is spared his professions of faith; but the letters he
writes to his friends, and to which the newspapers generally give
publicity, show him in his true light. "He believes in God; he knows
that Heaven will not fail to confound the infernal machinations of the
wretches who accuse him."
The French criminal makes professions of sentiment in the dock.
I extract the following lines from the trial of the vile assassins of
Mme. Ballerich:
"_Q._ You loitered about the house and asked Mme. Ballerich for
a fictitious person, in order to take stock of the premises,
did you not?
"_A._ I do not deny that I meant to commit a theft, but a
crime was far from my thoughts. A crime is going too far; I
would not dishonor my family; I swear it by my mother.
"_Q._ You struck the fatal blow that killed the victim. When
you left she was still alive?
"_A._ I did not look to see whether Mme. Ballerich was dead. It
is bad enough to be mixed up at all in affairs of that kind! It
made me feel sick to see the blood. I suffered internally; I
was struck with remorse and repentance and I thought of my
mother. (Here the prisoner burst into tears.)"
The English assassin, on mounting the scaffold, generally gives his
friends _rendezvous_ in the better land, and implores his Maker's
pardon. The French murderer implores the pardon of his mother.
At this solemn moment both of them probably cease to be hypocrites.