The Madison daily leader. [volume] (Madison, S.D.) 1890-current, 1898-03-17
FRENCH SUSPICIOt,.
81 HAS PLAYED AN IMPORTANT PAR
IN THE COUNTRY'S HISTORY.

tions of Robespierre.
At all the great crises Of French life
she element of ~preternatural suspicion
has played an important part. Like
some mischievous Puck it hovers over
the land, whispering doubts here, mis-
givings there. converting the whole ma
ton into mouchards. whose business ii
is to set a watch on their %neighbOrS day
and night. We have such a profound
admiration for many qualities Of the
French people, such Il sincere belief in
the necessity of IA powerful French fac
tor III the complex mesh OF modern
civilization, that we can afford to bring
this charge OF undue suspicion against
France as 4 whole. No student OF
French history can fail to see the con-
fusion it has wrought. 1t is not the
growth Of yesterday. but it is almost as
evident in the memoirs of the France
of the seventeenth century as on the
Paris boulevards at the present moment.
1t pervaded the court and the official
classes in the time Of Richelieu, it was
constantly present in the mind of Maza-
rim when negotiating with Cromwell,
and it is visible all through the pages
of the memoirs of De Retz. This spirit
of preternatural suspicion naturally at
tanned its climax in the French revolu-
ton, when. for the first time, the mon
archy was involved in its infinite en-
tanglements.
From the moment when the national
assembly met at Versailles to the day
when Napoleon was baniShed to Elba
universal suspicion filled the air and
dictated the cruel aspect Of French pol
icy. The queen was, of course suspect
ed. and justly, in political matters, and
perhaps it was not altogether unreason-
able that the suspicion i'll which she
was enveloped should have attached to
her weak but perfectly honest husband,
who was assumed to be absolutely I'M
DER her fatal influence.
The attack on the BaStille was ami
mated not merely by memories of the
past. not il the least because Of actual
cruelties at the time, for there was
none. but mainly because it was sus-
pected that the Bastille was to be utilized
as an armed fortress to Overawe Paris.
The day of the "black cockades' and
the march of the Maenads (to use Car
lyle's graphic phraseology) We're due to
excited suspicion. The assembly had
scarcely organized itself before the
demon Of suspicion spread its dusky
wings over that body, and Mirabeau and
Barnave, at first popular idols, became
suspected Of intrigue with the court.
The vigorous personalities who came
10 the front all suspected ont another.
To them the famous warning which
Benjamin Franklin addressed to the
founders of the American republic,
"Gentlemen, we must hang together OF
we shall hang separately would have
been useless. They could not hang to.
gether, and they did hang, or Were
~guillotined. separately. 1t was Danton's
suspicion Of an arlstocratic plot which
caused the September massacreS. It was
pure suspicion that created the most re.
Voting and unjust of all the revolu.
tlonary excuses, the tribunal of Fou.
Iuier-Tinville. Danton in his turn was
suspected and fell.
We may, Of course, justify the suspi
clon Of DumourleZ, but what possible
explanation can be given of the suspi
zion of the harmless astronomer Bailly
with his precisian virtues, who paid
with his head for the dangerous folly
Of meddling with things he did not uc.
derstand: 1t was obviously a question
Ct war to the knife between Jacobin ant
GirOndip. for each took an absolutely
different view Of both foreign and i'll.
1srnal politics; but why could not the
struggle have been confined to party
warfare within the walls Of the con.
sention: Why was it necessary to deci
mate the Girondin chiefs: The only
answer that can be made is that suspi-
elon had grown to such a pitch that the
cry existence Of GirOndiSm was con
siicred Incompatible with the security
u the republic. Men had become fren-
lied, insane. through constant SPYING on
one a~nOther's actions and perpetual at
'enapts u fathOm one another's inward
thoughts, and the claw Of suspects
Ha> simply a formal expression of ma
ilonal craziness. That way madness lies.
III the person Of RobcsDierre preternat-
ural suspicion attained its most com
E-ete incarnation. His feline nature vas
Ever on the dart for its prey. He could
rot hear a good word said Of any man
bat he Instantly began to ~reyolve in his
nlhd the question as to whether there
were not some concealed motive in the
Praise. The shout Of triumphant relief
which reverberated over France when
Robespierre's head fell into the basket
marked the break Of the straining point
II that suspicion which had created and
sustained the terror. When we remem-
Ter that but for an accident Carnot
would have fallen "a victim to Robes
plerres suspicious and that this suspi-
clou- disposition had led a mar Of senti-
mental virtue to become a wholesale
murderer. w can understand that feel
ing OF relic .-LondOn Spectator.
Nothing to Work On.