ORDER AND LIBERTY.
Obedience is the watchword of England.
The Englishman revolts only against injustice, and that but
figuratively. Brought up to respect the law, it is in the name of the
law that he demands redress for his grievances, and by the law that he
obtains it.
_Dieu et mon droit_, such is his device; notwithstanding that he has
rather monopolized the first, and that his definition of the second is a
trifle vague, it is certain that by them he is stimulated to do great
deeds.
* * * * *
Take the schoolboy, for instance.
In most of the great public schools of England, the refractory schoolboy
is still chastised by means of the rod, but do not imagine that
punishment is administered in an arbitrary fashion. The young offender
is brought to judgment. The head master hears the evidence against him,
and listens to his defense. If he is found guilty of the offense with
which he is charged, the head master pronounces his condemnation and the
boy is corrected on the spot. He submits without a murmur. The system
may be bad, but what is good about it is that it generally proves a
thorough _correction_ for the child.
Under similar circumstances, a French schoolboy would probably seize an
inkstand, or the first thing he could lay hands on, and menace his judge
or his executioner with it.
Do not ask me which of the two I prefer, but let me tell you that the
only punishments I have any objection to are unjust or arbitrary ones,
and that severe ones, administered with discretion, are generally
salutary. At all events, I ask you not to believe that the young
Englishman is cowardly because he knows how to endure pain, and is
submissive, for a few minutes later you will see him rejoin his
comrades at their play, and perform veritable acts of heroism. It almost
seems to me that a child gives proof of courage in submitting to a
punishment which he knows he has deserved, and that a spirit of
submission to discipline is more to be commended in him than a spirit of
rebellion. In resigning himself to his fate, and enduring his
punishment, the English schoolboy learns to master a passion; the French
schoolboy, in rebelling, allows a passion to master him. If the English
system is bad, the French one must be worse.
Since I have pronounced the word _rebellion_, allow me to show you how
differently the thing is understood in French and English schools.
Let us suppose that some privilege, which the pupils have long enjoyed,
and looked upon as their right, has been withdrawn, rightly or wrongly,
no matter which. What will the French schoolboys do? They will probably
retire to a dormitory, there to sulk and protest _vi et armis_. They
will barricade themselves, victual the intrenchments for a few hours,
and prepare for a struggle. Rebellion has wonderful charms for them;
they are insurgents, therefore they are heroes. If the cause be a bad
one, that matters little, it will be sanctified by the revolution; the
main thing is to play at the _peuple souverain_. These hot-headed youths
will stand a siege as earnestly as if they had to defend their native
soil; dictionaries, inkstands, boots, bedroom furniture, such are the
missiles that are pressed into service in the glorious battle for
liberty.
But, alas for youthful valor! it all fades before the pleadings of an
empty stomach; the struggle is abandoned, the citadel forsaken, and arms
are laid down. The misguided ones are received back into the fold, to be
submitted to stricter discipline than ever, the heroic instigators of
the little _fete_ are, in the end, restored to the tender care of their
mammas, or, in other words, expelled from the school. And for a boy to
be expelled from a French _lycee_ is no light matter, for the doors of
all the others are closed to him, and the pleasure of playing at heroes
for a few hours is often bought at the price of ruined prospects.
They manage these things differently in England. Under the same
circumstances, this is what the schoolboys of old England would do. A
dozen of the most influential and respectable among them would promptly
form themselves into a committee, and organize an indignation meeting of
all the pupils of the school. This meeting would be presided over by the
captain of the school, or even by one of the masters, and the grievance
would be discussed, not with any display of temper, but with the calm
dignity of the free citizen. Propositions made by the boys, and duly
seconded in a parliamentary manner, would be put to the vote, and the
president would be charged to transmit such resolutions to the proper
authorities. The meeting would then break up in a perfectly orderly
manner and without a murmur, everyone going his way, like a good
Republican who had just performed a civic duty of the gravest
importance.
Such a meeting as this has never been interdicted by the authorities,
for the very simple reason that such a meeting never endangered the good
discipline of a school.
* * * * *
Has it indeed fallen to our lot, to us who live under a Republic, to see
a people living under a Monarchy enjoying every form of liberty; liberty
of thought, liberty of speech, liberty of the press, liberty to meet
together, in fact the right of grumbling in every form imaginable; to
see them able to get redress for all their grievances, without having
recourse to violence?
Do you remember the great manifestations in favor of the abolition of
the House of Lords?
The Lords had refused to sanction the Franchise Bill--a bill which was
to give electoral rights to two millions of Englishmen, who had been
deprived of them up to that time. Two hundred thousand persons meet and
quietly-pass through the great arteries of London. Not a voice is
lifted. The immense crowd makes for Hyde Park and there divides itself
into twelve groups around twelve improvised platforms. Speeches are
made, resolutions passed, and the meeting breaks up in an orderly
manner.
But, you will say, the police were there, of course, to see that these
people did not break the law.
The police, indeed! Yes, most certainly they were there; but it was to
protect the people's right of meeting, and not to hinder them, or oppose
them, in the exercise of their privileges.
It was really a wonderful sight for a foreigner, to see this crowd, bent
upon overthrowing the Constitution, preceded, flanked, and followed, by
mounted police, whose duty it was to see that these subjects of Her
Majesty were allowed to protest unmolested! And that which afforded me
some amusement and more instruction still, was the sight of the Prince
of Wales and some friends of his, installed on a balcony at
Whitehall,[9] and evidently there to see the fun; to see at Pall Mall
windows the faces of lords, apparently much amused in watching these
people, who had taken a holiday, and who, if they did not gain their
point, had the satisfaction of feeling that they lived in a country
where they could air their grievances freely.
The House of Lords exists still, but its members passed the Franchise
Bill.
The Lords are wise persons.
* * * * *
Ah! how quickly our anniversary-keepers would draw in their horns, if
the Minister of the Interior spoke to them somewhat in this manner:
"You wish to hold your demonstration, my friends ... I beg your pardon,
citizens; why, certainly! Demonstrate away, to your heart's content;
there is nothing to hinder you. You want to carry a red flag about the
streets? Carry it by all means--red, yellow, blue, any color of the
rainbow that you like best. I will put as many policemen at your
disposition as you may require to protect you in the free exercise of
your rights."
How small the revolutionary would look if he were talked to in this way!
How mortified he would be! But draw your sword, and he is happy. He goes
about crying:
"The people are being slaughtered!"
It is the very worst course that could be adopted. The proper cure for
the mania for demonstrations is not the sword, but a little cold water.
Try how many followers you will get for a standard of revolt raised with
the cry:
"The people are being syringed?"
Ah! where is the Government that will have first the strength, and then
the good sense, to leave the people alone, instead of doing its best to
irritate them into adopting the _role_ of martyr? Monarchy or Republic,
what matters the name of this Government, so that it gives us what we
are in search of--our liberty.
The English newspapers love to fill their columns with the sayings and
doings of French Anarchists, so as to try and prove to their readers
that France "is still navigating on a volcano," although they know very
well that our revolutionary mountains are incapable of bringing forth
even a mouse, as the ridiculous failure of the proposed Anarchist
demonstration at Victor Hugo's funeral proved. The English know
perfectly well that in the year 1867, thanks to the inopportune meddling
of the police, there was a riot, in Hyde Park, which was likely to have
proved very serious. The English know all this; but the pot always had a
trick of calling the kettle black.
Our lower orders are a thousand times more intelligent than the English
ones; and when the French police force cease to be the symbol, the
instrument, of an arbitrary power, in order to become, in some sort, the
protection of the people, our workmen will astonish the world with their
good behavior, as they did on the day of our immortal poet's apotheosis.
The Frenchman is impressionable, excitable; but he is gentle, and easy
to govern. The Parisians never raised any riots that could not be traced
to the want of tact, or the malice, of the Government; and we all know
that if M. Thiers had not been so bent upon putting down a small
revolution, he would not have stirred up a large one; the Commune would
have been nipped in the bud at the Buttes-Chaumont on the 18th of May,
1871. The harmless folk who were looking after the famous cannons would
have been only too pleased to go home.
A nation does not learn the proper use of freedom in a day. It does not
understand at first sight that obedience and respect for the law are two
virtues indispensable to everyone who wishes to get on tolerably under
a democracy; it is for the Government to teach it its lesson. To do this
properly, an authority is wanted which shall be vigilant, while making
itself felt as little as possible.
This liberty should be the monopoly of no one, but the privilege of each
and all. Every time our police officers pounce upon a red flag and tear
it up, every time they suppress a Catholic school, or force open the
doors of a convent, the fruits of many a month's lessons are lost. We go
back; but the cause of the white or red flag is advanced.
Why is Roman Catholicism perfectly powerless in England, politically
speaking?
Because Protestant England allows the Romanists to open as many
churches, schools, and convents as they please.
All that England demands from those who live on her hospitable soil is
respect for her laws. Monarchs exiled by their subjects, and Communists,
Nihilists, Socialists, exiled by their monarchs, may jostle one another
in her streets any day; the individual liberty of the revolutionary
subject being held as sacred as that of the ex-monarch.
* * * * *
Our neighbor's eccentricities are but the natural fruit of liberty; and
these same eccentricities, which amuse us so much, in England pass
unnoticed. Everyone does as he pleases, and thinks it quite natural that
others should do the same. I have seen young girls on tricycles make
their way through a crowd, without an unpleasant remark or a joke being
indulged in at their expense. The men made way, and allowed them to pass
without remarking them more than if they had been on horseback.
Do not fear the abuse of liberty; among an intelligent race, good sense
will always take the upper hand.
Liberty is sure to lead to a few excesses; but it does not suffer
because of them.
Take England again.
English religious liberty is in no wise in danger because the law
tolerates, nay, protects, the rowdy proselytes of the Booth family. True
religion may suffer, but not religious liberty.
The right of association is not in danger because a _philanthropic_ club
has been formed at Ashpull, in Lancashire, by men who subscribe to
defray the costs when one of their number is fined for ill-treating his
wife.[10]
No, no, these eccentricities do but prove the vital force of England.
* * * * *
There is no need to penetrate deeply into French and English life, to
study the tempers of the two nations. The streets of London and Paris
furnish the observer with ample materials every day.
In the month of April, 1891, I was one day on the top of the Odeon
omnibus. In the Boulevard des Italiens some repairs were going on, and
at the corner of the Rue de Richelieu there was such a crowd of
carriages as to cause a block. The question then arose, who was to pass
first, those who came from the Madeleine or those who came from the
Bastille. An altercation soon arose between the drivers, and that in a
vocabulary which I will spare my readers. Meanwhile, the string of
carriages lengthened, and the matter was becoming serious. At last up
comes a police officer who gets the situation explained to him,
forthwith enters into a discussion with the drivers, and tries to make
the Madeleine party understand that it is their place to give way. He
might as well have talked to the pavement. A hubbub uprose on all sides
enough to make one's hair stand on end. Everybody was in the right, it
seemed, and the poor police officer, tired of seeing his parliamentary
efforts so fruitless, withdrew, saying: "Very well, then, do as you
please; I'll have nothing more to do with it" (_sic_). About a quarter
of an hour later, we turned into the Rue de Richelieu.
And now here is a scene which you may witness every day in any part of
London.
In every spot where the traffic is great, you will see a policeman. He
is there to regulate the circulation of the vehicles, and protect the
foot passengers who may wish to cross the road. In the discharge of this
duty, all that he has to do is to lift his hand, and, at this gesture,
the drivers stop, like a company of soldiers at the word "halt!" Not a
murmur, not a sign of impatience, not a word. When the little
accumulation of foot passengers has safely crossed, the policeman lowers
his hand, and everything is in motion again.
How many times, as I have looked on at this sight, which to the English
appears so natural, have I said enviously to myself: "If these English
people are free, if they are masters of half the world, and of
themselves into the bargain, it is because they know how to obey!"
I know the favorite explanation of these striking contrasts: the
temperaments are different; the blood does not circulate in English
veins with so much impetuosity as it does in French ones. This is true,
though only to a certain extent. But be not deceived; it is the
difference which exists between the education of the two races that is
the real solution of the problem.