In the spring of 1870 Renan was on the point of making a trip to
Spitzbergen, in company with Prince Napoleon. Shortly before starting
he was discussing politics with me one day. "You can become thoroughly
acquainted with the Emperor," said he, "through his writings. He is
a journalist on the throne, a publicist who takes pains to inquire
into popular opinion. Since his whole power depends upon the latter,
he has occasion to employ more art, notwithstanding his inferiority,
than Bismarck, who can afford to disregard everything. Until now he
has been merely physically, not intellectually, enfeebled, but he has
been extremely cautious (_extrêmement cauteleux_), and he entertains a
profound distrust of himself hitherto unknown to him." Renan's estimate
of Napoleon was very similar to that expressed by Sainte-Beuve, in
the well-known fragment on "The Life of Cæsar." Ollivier, whom he had
known for a long time, he criticised severely. "He and the Emperor are
admirably suited to each other," said he; "they have the same kind
of ambitious mysticism; they are, as it were, allied through their
chimeras." As early as the year 1851 Ollivier had often said to Renan,
"As soon as I am at the helm, as soon as I become premier--"
When I, with my simple political principles, urged the necessity of
obligatory education, a thought I constantly had occasion to advocate,
and which was everywhere treated as an absurdity or as a long since
abandoned whim, Renan was, in my estimation, so paradoxical that I
could scarcely believe him to be in earnest. His arguments, however,
are interesting, especially because similar ones were continually
presented at that time by the most prominent men of France, although
perhaps in a different form. Renan maintained, first of all, that
enforced education was tyranny. "I have myself," said he, "a little
child that is in feeble health. How despotic it would be to take that
child from me in order to educate it!" I replied that there would
be exceptions made by the law. "Then no one would send children to
school," he answered. "You do not know our French peasants. They would
gain nothing from such legislation. Let them till the soil and pay
their taxes, or give them a musket in their hand, and a knapsack on
their back, and they are the best soldiers in the world. But what is
well adapted to one race does not always suit another. France is not
like Scotland or the Scandinavian countries; Puritanic and Teutonic
customs cannot take root in our soil. France is not a religious
country, and every attempt to make it so would prove abortive. Ours
is a land that produces two things,--what is great and what is fine
(_du grand et du fin_). Respectable mediocrity will never thrive
here. These two words express the ideal needs of the population; as
for the rest, there is but one thing they want, and that is to amuse
themselves, to experience through pleasure that they are living. And
finally, believe me, it is my firm conviction that elementary education
is a downright evil. What is a human being that can read and write--I
mean a human being that can do nothing but read and write? An animal,
a stupid and conceited animal. Give human beings an education of from
fifteen to twenty years' duration, if you can; otherwise, nothing!
Anything less, so far from making them any wiser, only destroys their
natural amiability, their instinct, their innate sound reason, and
renders them positively unendurable. Is there anything worse than to be
governed by a seminarist? The sole reason why we are forced to occupy
ourselves with this question is because this mass of street boys (_ce
tas de gamins_) gained the upper hand and wrung from us the right of
universal suffrage. No, let us agree that culture is only a good in the
case of highly-cultivated people, and that the half-cultivated are to
be regarded as useless, arrogant apes." I spoke of decentralization,
of elevating the condition of the provincial cities, Lyons, for
instance. "Lyons!" he burst out, in absolute earnest, "why, it would
never occur to any one to transform the metropolitan cities of the
provinces into intellectual focuses, for they would at once come under
the control of the bishops. No," he added with droll conviction, "in
such cities nothing but absurdities will ever be accomplished." After
such utterances from the man of all others in France who fought most
vigorously for a reform in the higher schools and universities, it
is perhaps easier to understand why it was that the indifference of
the liberals in that country went hand in hand with the zeal of the
Catholic priesthood, whenever there arose a question of remedying that
ignorance of the lower classes which later proved so dangerous for the
outer and inner security of the land. Old Philarète Chasles, who was
really no Chauvinist, made himself very merry one evening in May, 1870,
over my faith in the efficacious power of compulsory education; he
called it my _Revalenta arabica,_ and facetiously declared that I hoped
through it to make the human race happy through all eternity. He asked
me, too, if I did not think the peasants made sufficiently good fathers
of families and good soldiers, without the aid of the schoolmaster.
The war soon taught these men that the soldier who can read and write
has a power in his hands never before adequately appreciated. It was,
indeed, remarkable to see how ideas we are apt to ascribe wholly to
the Catholic priesthood--as, for instance, this idea of the absolute
harmfulness of imperfect knowledge--had gradually gained such
authority in a land saturated with Catholicism that, with a slight
alteration of form, they even swayed the opponents of the Catholic
faith.
Another equally interesting application of the Renan theory, that
what was good in Germany or in the North was not necessarily suitable
for France, I heard one day at Renan's country villa in Sèvres when
he himself was absent. The conversation fell on French _convenance_
marriages. A lady, closely allied to Renan, a German-born lady, who
was thoroughly imbued with his ideas, defended the French custom of
founding marriages on an agreement between the suitor and the parents,
and of permitting the wedding to take place after a few _obligato_
visits. "This manner of forming a matrimonial alliance," said she,
"would not exist without very good reasons. Although brought up in
France, I who am German by birth did not marry in this way. As often
as it was proposed to me to take a suitor into consideration, I
declared that I would not see him; the mere fact that he came as a
suitor sufficed to make him odious in my eyes. I was acquainted with my
husband several years before our marriage." Who can offer any protest
against the French custom, however, that has seen, as I have in the
case of so many of our friends--and she mentioned one and another--who
were introduced but one week before their wedding-day, and yet whose
union proved so happy and satisfactory to both parties.
While I was viewing these words, partly as a subterfuge employed to
escape passing judgment on the relations of near friends, partly as a
symptom of the French characteristic desire to represent every national
peculiarity, however unfortunate it may be, as an unalterable quality
of the race, a gentleman who was present, one of the most unprejudiced
of French authors, laid his hand on the head of his little daughter,
a child of two years old, and said: "Do you think it would be right
for me to give my little girl to the first man that might appear on
the scene, and without appealing to us, her parents, manage to steal
away her heart? Remember how great is the inexperience of a young
girl, and do not forget the conditions of the actual world, nor what
scoundrels there are abroad, nor what a past, what diseases, what
bestial appetites a young man may have, which a father's eye may
detect, but whose existence the innocent mind of a young maiden neither
can nor should deem possible. The world is an enemy. Should not I with
all my might defend my little daughter against this enemy? If, some
day fifteen years hence, suitors for her hand announce themselves, we
parents, if we are then living, will act as follows: we will discard
those who cannot suitably be taken into consideration, either because
of their social position, or because of moral or physical weaknesses;
we will make a choice selection, and from this permit the young girl to
choose as she pleases." To account for this mode of contemplation, the
secluded education of young girls in convents, or in boarding-schools,
should be borne in mind. Viewed in this light, even when consideration
is taken of the greater ardor and sensuality of the Latin races, the
conclusion arrived at is perhaps not unreasonable.