The Washington herald., 1915-05-16


French democracy which has rcsenerated the nation
in the forty-four years since Sedan.
Another article will be published next Sunday in
this seIils of sketches Of the backgrounds Of the
war as Mr.. Morgan them in the course OF HI,
journey sIUn. :hc route Of Napceon's campaigns.
If Louis XIV could rise from the silent
company of the Bourbon dead in the old
church of st. Denis and revisit the
Slimpses of the moon. he would be
shocked to behold the Frenchman who
now may boast. Il am the State" For
the successor of the grand monarch in
the sovereignty of France is the blue
bloused, wooden-shoed peasant whom
Millet has painted.
When most of Us think of France.
there instantly pops up before us, like
a observation-disclosures. the typical Frenchman
of the melodrama and the comic supple
mcnts-a SrimacinS, EesticuiatinG person
in pcg-topped trousers, flat-brimmed
silk hat, with a rctrcating crown. and
a frock coat with skirts that flare from
a corsetcd waist, with his hair parted
and plastcrcd at the back of his head
and his mustache and goatec waxed to
needle points.
Yet that familiar figure is no more to
be found in France than the stage Eng
lishman is 10 be seen in England, the
stage Irishman in ireland. the stage Ger
man in Germany or the stage Yankee in
America. That is one OF the disappOint-
ments and disillusonmSnts of travel.
There is another illusion which the
name of France evokcs for us. Behind
our typical Frcnchman see the daz-
zling glitter Of Paris, her boulevards
thronGing with an excited, eXclama tory,
swirlinE populaCe, as unstable as the
mercury in a thermometer And that
completes the first, hasty outline picture
of the French nation in the foreign I'M
aSination.
Regal Paris.
Now. a. wise man does not walk along
Broadway in the expectation OF finding
the sources of American national life
and American public opinion. He would
he moro likely to seek for the headwat
c~s of those great streams somewhere
ont in the Mississippi Valley. No more
are the springs whence the third repub-
lie draws its strength, its steadincss, its
wealth TO lie found beneath the horse
''lH'SIlulS WnlCn Inc tne DOuleNafCS OIL
Paris. Tho real France. the nov Franco,
lies without the walls Of tho capital and
far aiicld.
When l think OF tho Franco which to-
day is hearing tho brunt of battle so
quietly. 50 unwaYCringlN, | try to shut
Paris out of tho picture as a distraction
and try to visualize tho French country
side, across tho face of which toll and
thrift arc writ larger than anywhere else
IN the world round. This France is invis-
ible. almost inronCeivable in Paris
The city is royal and imperial in its
aspect and not at all republican. Al
though moro blood has been split in its
streets to overthrow monarchics than in
any other equal space of earth, those
streets all seem as If they surely must
lead up to a throne. 1t is plainly made
TO order town and the prettiiy arranged
stage setting of a court. The broad
trec-lincd avenues with their miles and
miles of windows and mansa ard roofs on
a tyrannicaI level. with their arbitrary
vistas of Bourbon palaces and Bonaparte
arches. wear an air of regal magnifi-
cencc and mock the simple republic in
its own capital.
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