National Pride must be a strong feeling, and one of the very few
sentiments which are not exhausted by the drain upon them; and it is
a strange thing, how the very fact upon which one man plumes himself,
another would regard as a terrible reproach. A thorough John Bull, as
he would call himself, thinks he has summed up, in those few emphatic
words, a brief description of all that is excellent in humanity. And as
he throws out his chest, and sticks his hand with energy in his breeches
pocket, seems to say, “I am not one of your frog-eating fellows,
half-monkey, half-tiger, but a true Briton.” The Frenchman, as he
proclaims his nation, saying, “_Je suis F-r-r-r-rançais_” would indicate
that he is a very different order of being, from his blunt untutored
neighbour, “_outre mer_;” and so on to the end of the chapter. Germans,
Italians, and Spaniards, and even Americans, think there is some magic
in the name of their fatherland--some inherent nobility in the soil: and
it was only lately I read in a French paper an eloquent appeal from
a general to his soldiers, which concluded by his telling them,
to remember, that they were “Mexicans.” I devoutly trust that they
understood the meaning of his phrase, and were able, without difficulty,
to call to mind the bright prerogative alluded to; for upon my
conscience, as an honest man, it would puzzle me sorely to say what
constitutes a Mexican.
But the absurdity goes further still: for, not satisfied with the
bounties of Providence in making us what we are, we must indulge a
rancorous disposition towards our neighbours for their less-favoured
destiny. “He behaved like a Turk,” is an every-day phrase to indicate a
full measure of moral baseness and turpidity. A Frenchman's abuse can
go no farther than calling a man a Chinese, and when he says, “_tu es un
Pékin_,” a duel is generally the consequence. I doubt not that the Turks
and the Chinese make use of retributive justice, and treat us no better
than we behave to them.
Civilisation would seem rather to have fostered than opposed this
prejudice. In the feudal ages, the strength of a brawny right arm, the
strong hand that could wield a mace, the firm seat in a saddle, were
the qualities most in request; and were physical strength more estimated
than the gifts of a higher order, the fine distinctions of national
character either did not exist, or were not attended to. Now, however,
the tournament is not held on a cloth of gold, but on a broad sheet
of paper; the arms are not the lance and the dagger, but the
printing-press. No longer a herald in all the splendour of his tabard
proclaims the lists, but a fashionable publisher, through the medium of
the morning papers, whose cry for largess is to the full as loud. The
result is, nations are better known to each other, and, by the unhappy
law of humanity, are consequently less esteemed. What signifies the
dislike our ancestors bore the French at Cressy or Agincourt compared
to the feeling we entertain for them after nigh thirty years of peace?
Then, indeed, it was the strong rivalry between two manly natures: now,
the accumulated hate of ages is sharpened and embittered by a thousand
petty jealousies that have their origin in politics, military glory,
society, or literature; and we detest each other like quarterly
reviewers. The Frenchman visits England as a Whig commissioner would a
Tory institution--only anxious to discover abuses and defects--with an
obliquity of vision that sees everything distorted, or a fecundity of
imagination that can conjure up the ills he seeks for. He finds us
rude, inhospitable, and illiterate; our habits are vulgar, our tastes
depraved; our House of Commons is a riotous mob of under-bred debaters;
our army an aristocratic _lounge_, where merit has no chance against
money; and our literature--God wot!--a plagiarism from the French. The
Englishman is nearly as complimentary. The coarseness of French habits
is to him a theme of eternal reprobation; the insolence of the men, the
indelicacy of the women, the immorality of all, overwhelm him with shame
and disgust: the Chamber of Deputies he despises, as a contemptible
parody on a representative body, and a speech from the tribune a most
absurd substitute for the freedom of unpremeditated eloquence: the
army he discovers to be officered by men, to whom the new police are
accomplished gentlemen; and, in fact, he sums up by thinking that if we
had no other competitors in the race of civilisation than the French,
our supremacy on land, is to the full as safe, as our sovereignty over
the ocean. Here lie two countries, separated by a slip of sea not much
broader than an American river, who have gone on for ages repeating
these and similar puerilities, without the most remote prospect of
mutual explanation and mutual good-will.
“I hate prejudice, I hate the French,” said poor Charles Matthews, in
one of his inimitable representations, and really the expression was
no bad summary of an Englishman's faith. On the other hand, to hate and
detest the English is the _sine qua non_ of French nationality, and to
concede to them any rank in literature, morals, or military greatness,
is to derogate from the claims of his own country. Now the question
is, are the reproaches on either side absolutely just? They are not.
Secondly, if they be unfair, how comes it that two people pre-eminently
gifted with intelligence and information, should not have come to a
better understanding, and that many a long year ago? Simply from this
plain fact, that the opinions of the press have weighed against those
of individuals, and that the published satires on both sides have had a
greater currency and a greater credit than the calm judgment of the
few. The leading journals in Paris and in London have pelted each other
mercilessly for many a year. One might forgive this, were the attacks
suggested by such topics as stimulate and strengthen national feeling;
but no, the controversy extends to every thing, and, worse than all, is
carried on with more bitterness of spirit, than depth of information.
The reviewer “par excellence” of our own country makes a yearly
incursion into French literature, as an Indian would do into his
hunting-ground. Resolved to carry death and carnage on every side, he
arms himself for the chase, and whets his appetite for slaughter by the
last “_bonne bouche_” of the day. We then have some half introductory
pages of eloquent exordium on the evil tendency of French literature,
and the contamination of those unsettled opinions in politics, religion,
and morals, so copiously spread through the pages of every French
writer. The revolution of 1797 is adduced for the hundredth time as the
origin of these evils; and all the crime and bloodshed of that frightful
period is denounced as but the first step of the iniquity which has
reached its pinnacle, in the novels of Paul de Kock. To believe the
reviewer, French literature consists in the productions of this writer,
the works of George Sand, Balzac, Frédéric Soulié, and a few others
of equal note and mark. According to him, intrigue, seduction, and
adultery, are the staple of French romance: the whole interest of every
novel turning on the undiscovered turpitude of domestic life; and the
great rivalry between witters, being, to try which can invent a new
feature of depravity and a new fashion of sin. Were this true, it were
indeed a sad picture of national degradation; was it the fact that such
books, and such there are in abundance, composed the light literature
of the day--were to be found in every drawing-room--to be seen in every
hand--to be read with interest and discussed with eagerness--to have
that wide-spread circulation which must ever carry with it a strong
influence upon the habits of those who read. Were all this so, I say
it would be, indeed, a deplorable evidence of the low standard of
civilisation among the French. What is the fact, however? Simply that
these books have but a limited circulation, and that, only among
an inferior class of readers. The _modiste_ and the _grisette_ are,
doubtless, well read in the mysteries of. Paul de Kock and Madame du
Deffant; but in the cultivated classes of the capital, such books have
no more currency than the scandalous memoirs of our own country have in
the drawing-rooms of Grosvenor-square or St. James's. Balzac has, it is
true, a wide-spread reputation; but many of his books are no less marked
by a powerful interest than a touching appeal to the fine feelings of
our nature. Alfred de Vigny, Eugene Sue, Victor Hugo, Leon Gozlan, Paul
de Muset, Alexandre Dumas, and a host of others, are all popular, and,
with the exception of a few works, unexceptionable on every ground of
morality; but these, after all, are but the skirmishers before the
army. What shall we say of Guizot, Thiers, Augustin Thierry, Toqueville,
Mignet, and many more, whose contributions to history have formed an era
in the literature of the age? The strictures of the reviewers are not
very unlike the opinions of the French prisoner, who maintained that in
England every one eat with his knife, and the ladies drank gin, which
important and veracious facts he himself ascertained, while residing
in that fashionable quarter of the town called St. Martin's lane. This
sweeping mode of argument, _à particular_, is fatal when applied to
nations. Even the Americans have suffered in the hands of Mrs. Trollope
and others; and gin twist, bowie knives, tobacco chewing, and many
similarly amiable habits, are not universal. Once for all, then, be it
known, there is no more fallacious way of forming an opinion regarding
France and Frenchmen, than through the pages of our periodical press,
except by a _short_ residence in Paris--I say short, for if a little
learning be a dangerous thing, a little travelling is more so; and it
requires long experience of the world, and daily habit of observation,
to enable any man to detect in the ordinary routine of life the finer
and more distinctive traits that have escaped his neighbour; besides,
however palpable and self-evident the proposition, it demands both tact
and time to see that no general standard of taste can be erected for all
nations, and, that to judge of others by your own prejudices and habits,
is both unfair and absurd. To give an instance. No English traveller
has commented on the French Chamber of Deputies, without expending much
eloquence and a great deal of honest indignation on the practice of
speaking from a tribune, written orations being in their opinion a
ludicrous travestie on the freedom of debate. Now what is the fact; in
the whole French Chamber there are not ten, there are not five men
who could address the house extempore; not from any deficiency
of ability--not from any want of information, logical force, and
fluency---the names of Thiers, Guizot, Lamartine, Dupin, Arago, &c. &c.
are quite sufficient to demonstrate this--but simply from the intricacy
and difficulty of the French language. A worthy alderman gets up, as the
phrase is, and addresses a speech of some three quarters of an hour to
the collective wisdom of the livery; and although he may be frequently
interrupted by thunders of applause, he is never checked for any
solecisms in his grammar: he may drive a coach and six through
Lindley Murray; he may inflict heaven knows how many fractures on poor
Priscian's head, yet to criticise him on so mean a score as that of mere
diction, would not be thought of for a moment. Not so in France:
the language is one of equivoque and subtlety; the misplacement of a
particle, the change of a gender, the employment of any phrase but the
exact one, might be at any moment fatal to the sense of the speaker, and
would inevitably be so to his success. It was not very long since, that
a worthy deputy interrupted M. Thiers by alleging the non-sequitur
of some assertion, “_Vous n'est pas consequent_,” cried the indignant
member, using a phrase not only a vulgarism in itself, but inapplicable
at the time. A roar of laughter followed his interruption. In all the
journals of the next day, he was styled the deputy _consequent_; and
when he returned to his constituency the ridicule attached to his
blunder still traced his steps, and finally lost him his election.
“Thank God I am a Briton,” said Nelson; a phrase, doubtless, many more
of us will re-echo with equal energy; but while we are expressing our
gratitude let our thankfulness extend to this gratifying fact, that the
liberty of our laws is even surpassed by the licence of our language.
No obscure recess of our tongue is so deep that we cannot by _habeas
corpus_ right bring up a long-forgotten phrase, and provided the speaker
have a meaning and be able to convey it to the minds of his hearers,
we are seldom disposed to be critical on the manner, if the matter be
there. Besides this, there are styles of eloquence so imbued with the
spirit of certain eras in French history, that the discussion of any
subject of ancient or modern days, will always have its own peculiar
character of diction. Thus, there is the rounded period and flowing
sententiousness of Louis XIV., the more polished but less forcible
phraseology of the regency itself, succeeded by the epigrammatic taste
and pointed brevity introduced by Voltaire. The empire left its impress
on the language, and all the literature of the period wore the _esprit
soldatesque_; and so on down to the very days of the barricades, each
changing phase of political life had its appropriate expression. To
assume these with effect, was not of course the gift of every man, and
yet to have erred in their adoption, would have been palpable to all;
here then is one important difference between us, and on this subject
alone I might cite at least twenty more. The excitable Frenchman
scarcely uses any action while speaking, and that, of the most simple
and subdued kind. The phlegmatic Englishman stamps and gesticulates with
all the energy of a madman. We esteem humour; they prefer wit: we
like the long consecutive chain of proof that leads us step by step
to inevitable conviction; they like better some brief but happy
illustration that, dispensing with the tedium of argument, presents a
question at one glance before them. They have that general knowledge
of their country and its changes, that an illustration from the past is
ever an effective weapon of the orator; while with us the force would
be entirely lost from the necessity of recounting the incident to which
reference was made.