The Progress., 1898-02-05
FIR RENCH SUSPICION.
1T HAS PLAYED AN IMPORTANT PART
III VHE COUNTRY'S HISTORY.

New Thing-How 1t Influenced the &C
tfons of Robespierre.
At all the great crises Of French life
the element of preternatural suspicion
has played an important part. Like
some mischievous Puck it hovers over
tttle land, whispering doubts here, mis-
;givings there, converting the whole ma
itkon into mouchards, whose business it
is to set watch on their neighbors day
and night. We have such profound
admiration for many qualities of the
French people, such sincere belief in
the necessity Of powerful French fac
tor In the complex mesh of modern
civilization, that we can afford to bring
this charge of undue suspicion against
France as a whole. No student Of
French history can fail to see the con
fpesion it has wrought It is not the
growth of yesterday, but it is almost as
evident in the memoirs of the France
eff the seventeenth century as ON the
Paris boulevards at the present moment.
1t pervaded the court and the official
,classes in tho time of Richelieu, it was
constantly present in the mind of Maza-
rizi 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 It's climax in tho French revolu-
tion, when, for the first time, the mon
archy was involved in its infinite en-
tauglements.
From the moment when the national
assembly met at Versailles to the day
when Napoleon was banished to Elba
nS,,{uorSu1 c11cripi0n fi11n6 tho al onH
dictated the cruel aspect of French pol
icy The queen was, of course, suspect
ed, and Justly. in political matters, and
perhaps 1t 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 un-
der her fatal influence.
The attack on the BastiIle was ami
mated not merely by memories of the
past, not in the least because of actual
cruelties at the time, for there was
Z none, but mainly because it was sus-
&Dected that the Bastille was to be utilized
las an armed fortress to overawe Paris.
The day of the "blaclz cockades" and
the march of the Maenads (to use Car
1yle's graphic phraseology) were due to
O4CltSA SuSElClOh uS assembly utbIt
scarcely organized itself before the
demon of suspicion spread it's dusky
wings over that body, and Mirabeau and
Barnave. at first popular idols, became
suspected of intrigue with the court.
Tho vigorous personalities who came
to tho 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 Dnnton's
suspicion Of an aristooratio plot which
caused the September massacres. Tt was
puro 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 tho suspi-
cion of Dumourieg, but what possible
~I-,, A. l. 4t