The star. (Reynoldsville, Pa.) 1892-1946, 1898-02-09
FRENCH SUSPICION.
IT HAS PLAYED AN IMPORTANT PART
IN THE couNTRY's HISTORY.

In France the Element Of Suspicion t,ns
Reached the Preternaturai and Is No
New Thing How II Influenced the Ao-
tions OF Robespierre.
At all the great crises of Fren IN life
the element Of preternatural suspicion
has played an important part. Like
the land, whispering doubts here, mis-.
givngs there, converting the whole ma
ton into mouchards, whose business 1t
is tn set u watch ON their neighbors day
and night. We have such n profound
admiration for many qualities of the
FreAch people, such sincere belief in
the necessity of a powerful French fac
tor in tho complex mesh Of modern
civilization, that we can afford to bring
this charge of undue suspicion against
France as 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.
It pervaded the court and the official
classes in the time of Richelieu, 1t was
constantly present in the mind of Maza-
rim when negotiating with Cromwell,
and II is visible ali through the papes
of t,e nemoirs of De Retz This spirit
of preterpatural suspicion naturally at.
tainod its climax in the French revolu.
tion. when. for the first time. the mon.
srchy was involved in its infinite ell.
tapglcments.
From the moment when tho national
assembly met at Versailles to the day
when Napoleon was banished to Eliza
universal suspicion filled the dir and
dictated the cruel aspect of French mol.
lev The queen was. of course suspect.
ed and iustlv. in political matters. and
perhaps it was not altogether un, eason-
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 un.
der her fatal influence.
The attack Oh 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 il was sus.
pected that the Bastille was TO be utilized
as an armed fortress to oyerawe Paris.
The day If the "black cockades" and
the march of the Maenads ito use Car.
lyle's praphic pbraseolopy) were due to
excited suspiciop. The assembly had
scarcely organized itself before the
demon of suspicion spread its dusky
wings over that body, and Mirabeau and
Barnaye. at first popular idols became
suspected of intrigue with the court.
The yieorous personalities who came
20 the front all suspected one another.
To them the famous warning which
Reniomin Franklin addressed 10 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.
pether. and tbey did hang. or were
euillotined. 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 uniust of all the reyolu-
tionary excesses. the tribunal of Fou.
ouier.Tinyille. Danton in his turn was
suspected and fell.
We NAV, 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 medd!ing with things he did not un-
derstand? 1t was obviously a question
of war To the knife between Jacobin and
Girondin, for each took an absolutely
different view of both foreign and in.
terual 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 tho 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 securit
of tho renu, il. Men had become fren.