Washington sentinel., 1898-01-01
THR FRENCH ARMY AND THE DREyFUs
CASE.
Spectator.

The lower French people, who obey
the authorities more readily than any
other people in Europe-eyen the Ger.
mans pleading the law against officials
more readily than the French dO-bave
in their hearts an inner Gistrust of them,
think them. in fact, sometimes in the
teeth Of evidence, a corporation Of ras'
Gals, each OF whom is capable OF betray.
ing his country tor his own advantage.
What the cause of this distrust can be it
is exceedingly difficult to detect 1t can
hardly be race feeling, for it extends to
men who are undoubtedly not only
Frenchmen, but Gauls in every sense Of
the word; nor can it be caste feeling, for
the plain men" who now govern
France are as much dlstrustI d, though
not as much detested, as ever the old
aristocracy was. The evil has been at.
tributed to ignorance, but does not die
away with education, nor are the half
educated more free from it than those
who are wholly without instruction.
Mr.. HamertOn, who had made the ideas
OF the French peasantry a study oi years,
believed that it originated in a profound
jealousy of Paris and its influences; but as
Parisians are more liable to 1t than peas
ants, that is not a satisfactory explana-
ton. 1t is probably a result of many
causes, one OF them being the eagerness
for pecuniary gain and personal position,
Of which all but the best Frenchmen are
conscious in themselves; but whatever
IT'S origin, there can be no doubt either
Of the fact, or OF the serious character
with which it invests all scandals. They
justify to the masses their inner distrust
The affair Of the diamond necklace
helped IN destroy the R0urbon dynasty,
the Praslin tragedy shook the hold Of
the house Of Orleans on the middle class;
the killing Of Victor Noir by Pierre
Bonaparte assisted in swapping the claim
Of the Napoleons to rule; the Wilson
scandal cut down the prestige Of the
Presidency as an institution to a scarcely
visible point the Panama business
weakened the general confidence IN all
Senators and Deputies; and it IS by no
means certain that this DreYfus affair
will not profoundly affect the view
entertained by the whole army Of
France Of their relation to the Republic.
1t is their knowledge Of this terrible
result of scandals which makes all
French Governments so anxious to hush
them up, to preserve secrecy at any
hazard, to reserve to themselves the
power OF not sending charges before
any public tribunal. They cannot be-
lieve that any consequences Of secrecy
can be so injurious to the country as the
consequences ofpublicity are sure to be.
On the present occasion the danger they
foresee will be direct for it is the sol.
diery, nearly all the children ofpeasants
and artisans, who will say that the War
Ministry is obviously concealing some.
thing, that it distTusts It's own best
agents, or it would not have searched
Colonel Picquart's rooms in his absence,
that there is some one behind greater
than anybody yet accused. that the
Ministry ought to have known, possibly
did know, MAJOR Esterhazy's intense
feeling Of loathing for France. They
will quite naturally .disbelieve that UNI
happy officers story Of the forgery of
his letters, thinking Jew syndicates far
too clever to forge anything at once so
silly and improbable, and they will
reject, from ignorance OF human nature,
the far more likely explanation that the
letters had no meaning, and were only
the method in which furious man, half
maddened by pecuniary difficulties,
vented his rage upon the world around
him. Trollope in "Can You Forgive
Herr" makes his bad hero swear to
IN an almost precisely similar
So believing, the army
whatever the ultimate result OF the full
inquiry which the Government as yet is
at least half inclined to avoid, will
sullenly distrustful, suspic.
lous, disheartened feeling, in fact, as
if, with all its sufferings and its obedi-
ence to discipline, it was not adequately
That would be the result
even In England, and in England the
army would either distrust one individ-
nal or insist, through Parliament, that
an Objectionable sy stem should be swept
away. In France the soldiers have no
or think they have none, ex-
cept in modifying the foundations of the
State.
Do we then expect a mutiny in France2
Certainly not. The French army is in
capable Of mutiny, the contrary belief IN
his country arising from some misun-
ierstood incidents in the beginning or
he French Revolution. There has not
been, we believe, during the century a |
single instance IN which the army of
,art OF the army, has acted for itself |
without the consent or orders of its legal |
,hief. But we take il to be evident from |
he history OF France, and especially |
rom the incidents OF IS4S and those
with the rise of General |
3oulanger, that the army regards all |
events in Paris with attentive eyes, and |
hat when authority is discredited from |
my cause, or IS supposed to have be-
:ome unworthy Of confidence, either Tor
military or civil reasons, the soldiers do |
not heartily defend il.