The Indianapolis journal., 1898-12-19
THE PARIS OF TO-DAY.
Something Seriously Wrong with IL,
but WHAT
9. w. steevens. in london Nan.

fidence in the government the Chamber, the
army, the church. 1t is not merely that
nobody has any confidence in his neighbor.
The amazing thing is that nobody seems to
have any confidence in himself. Some pro-
fesS confidence in a vague entity called
France, meaning by that, apparently, not so
much the mass of Frenchmen as a kind of
natural process of growth and recuperation
which has always brought France out of
her troubles and is trusted to do so again.
But everybody leaves it for France to do by
herself without the aid of Frenchmen.
There are half a dozen symptoms to be
gathered from a single mornings newspa-
pers. A turn in foreign politics looks un-
favorable. instead of looking inward to her
own strength, France looks outward for
allies; Germany, if you like, the generations
enemy, but anything rather than be left
alone. A nation offends them. "Cowards,"
they cry some day you shall pay for this
The influence of the Jews is in question;
half the voice of Paris is nervous silence,
the other half is not less nervous hysteria.
That the Anglo-Saxon means to destroy the
Latin is no longer doubted and instead of
defying him, Paris asks what it is that
makes him her superior.
For worse symptom than any of these,
oA' 14Sl4l TlOCHelOFI, week or Two ago,
drawing on his unquenchable invention for
materials damnatory to Dreyfus, announced
that the government was in possession of
certain important facts acquired by opening
at the frontier the private, the very inti-
mate, correspondence of the German am
bassador's daughter. 1t was silly story,
though not too silly to be copied into every
paper in Paris. But the astounding thing
was that to not one single paper-that
could fnd-did it seem to occur how black
guardly, and at the same time how abject
must be government that could take such
measures for its security. Some believed
the story, some doubted; all tacitly agreed
that it was natural a government should
do such things. Afterwards, as 1 heard the
story, Count Won Munster had to go down
to the Quai d'Orsay and point out, not for
the first time, that unless such stories were
ofhc1aily denied he would be obliged to re-
move to a country where public men be-
haved like gentlemen. On this the govern
ment denied the fable-saying, vaguely that
It had been published in the press, and not
daring TO accuse, much less to punish M.
Rochefort as author of the discreditabe
fabrication. If you start though, to detail
the weakness of the French government,
you will never be DONE The whole series of
irritations inflicted on this country during
the last few years is due to nothing else.
Its author has been the Colonial party. Now
the Colonial party in France is weak, but
it is just stronger than the government. 1t
is not the Foreign Office. but men like
Prince Arenberg, that send out the Mizons
and the MarchandS; the government fears
the inevitable complications, but dares not
risk attack by no.
AS for the interior policy of France it is
just an equilibrium of weakness. Orlean-
lists, Bonapartists, Republicans Socialists,
church. army-they all hold each other in
check, because not one Of them has a policy
or a man. Either would do; not one of the
groups can produce either Not so many
took a q
Boulanger, to threaten a coup d'etat; now
many talk openly of a Marchand-a junior
major and the son of a carpenter.
Then is France utterly hopeless? You
would say so, out Of her own mouth. Hard
ly Frenchman has still a word left for his
government; some go farther. 1 have heard
1t declared that all the manliness is gone
out OF French people, partly by reason of
absinthe' partly by reason Of precocious
ment to bring against a whole people.
Drunkenness they say, is ominously increas-
tional vice. AS for the other thing, it is
not easy to judge. From the look of the
place you would say its morality was sink.
The only way to take the legendary English
miss to Paris would be to meet her at the
station In shuttered brougham, to drop
her, in blinkers, at Duval for lunch, and
must not judge altogether by books and pic
lures. 1t is possible to be moral without
what the French mean by British hypocrisy.
Certainly the French take irregularities
much more easily than we do, but are they
therefore, more Irregular?
It does not follow at all think probably
they are. somewhat. but not nearly as much
as we think. And, for case in point. what
ever may be the physical resIlt of French
eXceSSeS, they never succeed in Smirching
French tenderness for children Not merely
in fathers and mothers is it exhibited;
French children are never Girty, never dow
dy, which speaks for the mother, but the
veriest roue is always ready to let any in
FAINT pull his nose and tip his new silk hat
into the gutter Bebe is the king of Paris.
So far-we are only skating over subject
despair of herself? All that is happening
say keen observers. is that France is leading
the march of civilization. In France per-
haps more than in any country you will
meet people who will say: mo; am not
patriotic;'' as one might say. II do not ride
of a further advance in civilization than
other nations have yet made. 1t could not
be called cosmopolltanism in the ordinary
sense, for few French people know anything
of any country but their own; it might be
called so in. the correcter sense citizenship
of the world.
yet not citizenship, either; for the ten
dency of modern Paris is not towards any
thing political Hardly; when people will
fools, or both; when their nearest approach
to a statesman is toy Brutus IKE M
longer sees anything important in politics.
The Dreyfus affair may interest, even ex-
cite, it one day; it falls on callous ears the
next; political nation would have settled
it years ago. one way or thu Nther
FrenchnIen do not want to rule; they want
to live. The pursuit of life. of laughter of
charming sensations of intelligent appre-
tensions of individual development of char
acter-it may all be more important, more
vital to human existence than the pre-
occupation to rule well ones self and others,
to make laws and to fight. Only this you
can say both from history and common
sense: that if one nation thus abandons the
political life while others still pursue it, that
nation, sooner or later will suffer from the
others. France survived Sedan and sur
Vived the commune; but unless she revertS
to politics there must, in the long run. come
Sedans and communes which she will not
survive
Meantime, the Partisan promenades his
miniature Japanese dog through the court
yard of the Louvre, and jingles his petroleum
tricycle. in the shadow of the Solonne Ven
dome. He is quite civilized and quite con-
tent The men who built the palace and set
up the column were not; but the Partisan
is not the less satisfied with himself Is not
he also building the exhibition of 1900?