THE RESURRECTION OF FRANCE.
PARIS, June 30th.
Coming from London to Paris, one is struck with the contrast--London
is so vast and interminable, _and dark_,--a "boundless contiguity of
shade,"--while Paris is all brightness and sunshine. The difference in
the appearance of the two capitals is due partly to the climate, and
partly to the materials of which they are built--London showing miles
on miles of dingy brick, with an atmosphere so charged with smoke and
vapors that it blackens even the whitest marble; while Paris is built
of a light, cream-colored stone, that is found here in abundance,
which is soft and easily worked, but hardens by exposure to the air,
and that preserves its whiteness under this clearer sky and warmer
sun. Then the taste of the French makes every shop window bright with
color; and there is something in the natural gayety of the people
which is infectious, and which quickly communicates itself to a
stranger. Many a foreigner, on first landing in England, has walked
the streets of London with gloomy thoughts of suicide, who once in
Paris feels as if transported to Paradise. Perhaps if he had stayed a
little longer in England he would have thought better of the country
and people. But it is impossible for a stranger at first to feel _at
home_ in London, any more than if he were sent adrift all alone in the
middle of the Atlantic Ocean. The English are reserved and cautious in
their social relations, which may be very proper in regard to those of
whom they know nothing. But once well introduced, the stranger is
taken into their intimacy, and finds no spot on earth more warm than
the interior of an English home. But in Paris everybody seems to greet
him at once without an introduction; he speaks to a Frenchman on the
street (if it be only to inquire his way), and instead of a gruff
answer, meets with a polite reply. "It amounts to nothing," some may
say. It costs indeed but a moment of time, but even that, many in
England, and I am sorry to say in America also, are too impatient and
too self-absorbed to give. In the shops everybody is so polite that
one spends his money with pleasure, since he gets not only the matter
of his purchase, but what he values still more, a smile and a pleasant
word. It may be said that these are little things, but in their
influence upon one's temper and spirits they are _not_ trifles, any
more than sunshine is a trifle, or pure air; and in these minor
moralities of life the French are an example to us and to all the
world.
But it is not only for their easy manners and social virtues that I am
attracted to the French. They have many noble qualities, such as
courage and self-devotion, instances of which are conspicuous in their
national history; and are not less capable of Christian devotion,
innumerable examples of which may be found in both the Catholic and
the Protestant Churches. Many of our American clergymen, who have
travelled abroad, will agree with me, that more beautiful examples of
piety they have never seen than among the Protestants of France. I
should be ungrateful indeed if I did not love the French, since to one
of that nation I owe the chief happiness of my earthly existence.
Of course the great marvel of Paris, and of France, is its
_resurrection_--the manner in which it has recovered from the war. In
riding about these streets, so full of life and gayety, and seeing on
every side the signs of prosperity, I cannot realize that it is a city
which, since I was here in 1867--nay, within less time, has endured
all the horrors of war; which has been _twice_ besieged, has been
encompassed with a mighty army, and heard the sound of cannon day and
night, its people hiding in cellars from the bombs bursting in the
streets. Yet it is not five years since Louis Napoleon was still
Emperor, reigning undisturbed in the palace of the Tuileries, across
the street from the Hotel du Louvre, where I now write. It was on the
15th of July, 1870, that war was declared against Prussia in the midst
of the greatest enthusiasm. The army was wild with excitement,
expecting to march almost unopposed to Berlin. Sad dream of victory,
soon to be rudely dispelled! A few weeks saw the most astounding
series of defeats, and on the 4th of September the Emperor himself
surrendered at Sedan, at the head of a hundred thousand men, and the
Empire, which he had been constructing with such infinite labor and
care for twenty years, fell to the ground.
But even then the trials of France were not ended. She was to have
sorrow upon sorrow. Next came the surrender of Metz, with another
great army, and then the crowning disaster of the long siege of Paris,
lasting over four months, and ending also in the same inglorious way.
Jena was avenged, when the Prussian cavalry rode through the Arch of
Triumph down the Champs Elysees. It was a bitter humiliation for
France, but she had to drink the cup to the very dregs, when forced to
sign a treaty of peace, ceding two of her most beautiful provinces,
Alsace and Lorraine, and paying an indemnity of one thousand millions
of dollars for the expenses of the war! Nor was this all. As if the
seven vials of wrath were to be poured out on her devoted head,
scarcely was the foreign war ended, before civil war began, and for
months the Commune held Paris under its feet. Then the city had to
undergo a second siege, and to be bombarded once more, not by Germans,
but by Frenchmen, until its proud historical monuments were destroyed
by its own people. The Column of the Place Vendome, erected to
commemorate the victories of Napoleon, out of cannon taken in his
great battles, was levelled to the ground; and the Palace of the
Tuileries and the Hotel de Ville were burnt by these desperate
revolutionists, who at last, to complete the catalogue of their
crimes, butchered the hostages in cold blood! This was the end of the
war, and such the state of Paris in May, 1871, scarcely four years
ago.
In the eyes of other nations, this was not only disaster, but absolute
ruin. It seemed as if the country could not recover in one generation,
and that for the next thirty years, so far as any political power or
influence was concerned, France might be considered as blotted from
the map of Europe.
But four years have passed, and what do we see? The last foreign
soldier has disappeared from the soil of France, the enormous
indemnity is PAID, and the country is apparently as rich and
prosperous, and Paris as bright and gay, as ever.
This seems a miracle, but the age of miracles is past, and such great
results do not come without cause. The French are a very rich
people--not by the accumulation of a few colossal fortunes, but by the
almost infinite number of small ones. They are at once the most
industrious and the most economical people in the world. They will
live on almost nothing. Even the Chinese hardly keep soul and body
together on less than these French _ouvriers_ whom we see going about
in their blouses, and who form the laboring population of Paris. So
all the petty farmers in the provinces save something, and have a
little against a rainy day; and when the time comes that the
Government wants a loan, out from old stockings, and from chimney
corners, come the hoarded napoleons, which, flowing together like
thousands of little rivulets, make the mighty stream of national
wealth.
But for a nation to pay its debts, especially when they have grown to
be so great, it is necessary not only to have money, but to know how
to use it. And here the interests of France have been managed with
consummate ability. In spite of the constant drain caused by the heavy
payment of the war indemnity to Germany, the finances of the country
have not been much disturbed, and to-day the bills of the Bank of
France are at par. I feel ashamed for my country when the cable
reports to us from America, that our national currency is so
depreciated that to purchase gold in New York one must pay a premium
of seventeen per cent.! I wish some of our political financiers would
come to Paris for a few months, to take lessons from the far more
successful financiers of France.
What delights me especially in this great achievement is that it has
all been done under the Republic! It has not required a monarchy to
maintain public order, and to give that security which is necessary to
restore the full confidence of the commercial world. It is only by a
succession of events so singular as to seem indeed providential, that
France has been saved from being given over once more into the hands
of the old dynasty. From this it has been preserved by the rivalship
of different parties; so that the Republic has been saved by the
blunders of its enemies. The Lord has confounded them, and the very
devices intended for its destruction--such as putting Marshal MacMahon
in power for seven years--have had the effect to prevent a
restoration. Thus the Republic has had a longer life, and has
established its title to the confidence of the nation. No doubt if the
Legitimists and the Orleanists and Imperialists could all _unite_,
they might have a sovereign to-morrow; but each party prefers a
Republic to any sovereign _except its own_, and is willing that it
should stand for a few years, in the hope that some turn of events
will then give the succession to them. So, amid all this division of
parties, the Republic "still lives," and gains strength from year to
year. The country is prosperous under it; order is perfectly
maintained; and order _with liberty_: why should it not remain the
permanent government of France?
If only the country could be _contented_, and willing to let well
enough alone, it might enjoy many long years of prosperity. But
unfortunately there is a cloud in the sky. The last war has left the
seeds of another war. Its disastrous issue was so unexpected and so
galling to the most proud and sensitive people in Europe, that they
will never rest satisfied till its terrible humiliation is redressed.
The resentment might not be so bitter but for the taking of its two
provinces. The defeats in the field of battle might be borne as the
fate of war (for the French have an ingenious way, whenever they lose
a battle, of making out that they were not _defeated_, but
_betrayed_); even the payment of the enormous indemnity they might
turn into an occasion of boasting, as they now do, as a proof of the
vast resources of the country; but the loss of Alsace and Lorraine is
a standing monument of their disgrace. They cannot wipe it off from
the map of Europe. There it is, with the hated German flag flying from
the fortress of Metz and the Cathedral of Strasburg. This is a
humiliation to which they will never submit contentedly, and herein
lies the probability--nay almost the certainty--of coming war. I have
not met a Frenchman of any position, or any political views,
Republican or Monarchical, Bonapartist or Legitimist, Catholic or
Protestant, whose blood did not boil at the mention of Alsace and
Lorraine, and who did not look forward to a fresh conflict with
Germany as inevitable. When I hear a Protestant pastor say, "I will
give all my sons to fight for Alsace and Lorraine," I cannot but think
the prospects of the Peace Society not very encouraging in Europe.
In the exhibition of the Dore gallery, in London, there is a very
striking picture by that great artist (who is himself an Alsatian, and
yet an intense Frenchman), intended to represent Alsace. It is a
figure of a young woman, tall and beautiful, with eyes downcast, yet
with pride and dignity in her sadness, as the French flag, which she
holds, droops to her feet. Beside her is a mother sitting in a chair
nursing a child. The two figures tell the story in an instant. That
mother is nursing her child to avenge the wrongs of his country. It is
sad indeed to see a child thus born to a destiny of war and blood; to
see the shadow of carnage and destruction hovering over his very
cradle. Yet such is the prospect now, which fills every Christian
heart with sadness. Thus will the next generation pay in blood and
tears, for the follies and the crimes of this.