The copper country evening news. [volume] (Calumet, Mich.) 18??-1907, 1898-03-15
FRENCH SUSPICION.
..s PLAYED AN IMPORTANT PART
N THE couNTRvs HlsroRy. "a

S.w Thing-How ~ Ann"o"0ou sA'o Ao-
.,ous of Robespierre.
=. al, the great crises Of French life
~. s,ement Of preternatural suspicion
- r,ayed an Important part Like
mischievous Puck II hovsrs over
land. whispering doubts here, mis-
In, j there, converting the whole ma
y,Ias ,,tc n,uuchnrs14 whose business it
~ VI 4 watch ID theif neighbors day
~ nivnt. ~ have such z profound
FERMENTATION for many qualities Of the
T,,bch people. such q sincere belief in
"a necessity of a powerful French fac
~. ~. in the complex mesh Of modern
Ssr,,;zation, that we can afford to bring
.s;s charge Of undue suspicion against
T M as a whole. No student Of
rrsnch history can fail to see the con-
sns;on il has wrought. 1t Is not the
Growth of yesterday, but 1t is almost as
se.;dent in the memoirs of the France
:, the seventeenth century as on the
p.r;s bouleyards at the present moment.
II neryaded the court and the official
,,aSses In the time of Richelieu. it was
oOnstantly present in the mind Of Maza-
yin when negotiating with Cromwell,
and Il il visible all through the pages
~ the memoirs of De Retz. This spirit
~ nreternatural suspicion naturally at
,ained its climax in the French revolu-
tom when, for the first time, the mon
srcbv 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 filed the air and
dictated the cruel aspect Of French pol
lev The queen was, Of course, suspect
adj and Justly. in political matters, and
perhaps it was not altogether unreason-
able that the suspicion in 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
mast, not in 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 Ito use Car
lyle's graphic phraseology) were 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, ut first popular idols, became
suspected of intrigue with the court.
The vigorous personalities who came
to the front all suspected one another.
To them the famous warning which
Benjamin Franklin addressed to the
founders of the American republic,
Gentlemen, we must hang together or
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 aristocratic plot which
caused the September massacres. 1t was
pure suspicion that created the most re-
voting and unjust of all the revolu-
tionary excuses, the tribunal of Fou-
quier- Tinville. Danton in his turn was
suspected and fell.
We may, of course, justify the suspi-
cion of Dumouriez, but what possible
explanation can be given of the suspi-
cion 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 I'M
derstand? 1t was obviously question
OF war to the knife between Jacobin and
Girondin, for each took an absolutely
different view of both foreign and in
ternal politics; but why could not the
struggle have been confined to party
warfare within the walls of the con-
vention? Why was it necessary to deci-
mate the Girondin chiefs? The only
answer that can be made is that suspi-
cion had grown to such pitch that the
very existence of Girondism was con-
sidered incompatible with the security
OF the republic. Men had become fren-
zled, insane, through constant spying on
one another's actions and perpetual at
tempts to fathom one another's inward
thoughts, and the claw Of suspects
was simply formal expression of ma.
tional craziness. That way madness lies.
In the person of Robespierre preternat-
ural suspicion attained its most com
plete incarnation. His feline nature was
ever ON the dart for its prey. He could
not bear good word said of any man
but he instantly began to revolve in his
mind the question as to whether there
were not some concealed motive in the
praise. The shout of triumphant relief
which reverberated over France when
hobespierre's head fell into the basket
marked the break of the straining poin,
Oh that suspicion which had created an6
sustained the terror. When we remem
Der that but for an accident Carno'
would have fallen q victim to Robes
pierre's suspicious and that this suspi
cious disposition had led man of senti
mental virtue to become a wholesale
murderer. we can understand that feel
ing OF relief. London Spectator.
Nothing to Work On.