MARGINAL COMMENT
By HAROLD NICOLSON
T0 those who do not enjoy social revolution or who feel themselves victimised by the fight against inflation which our Government are so wisely waging, -I recommend a visit to Paris. It will suggest to them that the monotony of our clothes and diet, the shared austerity of our uniform lives, provide a foundation which is more dull but also more durable than that which underlies the surface variegations of Parisian existence. It will suggest to them that in these tense transi- tional times it is a happy thing to possess a united Cabinet, backed by a strong parliamentary majority, and enjoying sufficient national support to enable it to disregard the dictates of internal or external pressure. It will suggest to them that we are fortunate in our temperament, which enables us, as a Dominion statesman recently remarked, " to absorb new ideas into our blood-stream and to retain thereby the elastic arteries of youth." It will suggest to them that a certain minimum of national tolerance is essential if democracy is to further the organic. interests of the whole community and not to be hampered and endangered by incompatibilities of doctrines and interests. And it will teach them that mutual hatred, jealousy and suspicion are not the lubricants which enable the great machine of state to adjust itself to new social and economic conditions or to the changed proportions of. power. We have no need, of course, to feel' self-righteous or complacent in that we possess a greater gift of patience than the French possess, a more widely distributed civic sense, and greater aptitudes for obedience. We have not suffered as they have ; we have not experienced defeat and occupation ; we have not endured the spiritual agonies of civil war ; illegality with us has not become a personal adventure and a patriotic duty. And our amazing capacity for acceptance, while it renders it easy for us to govern each other and ourselves, is not necessarily more admirable than the less lethargic, more individual, and far more lucid dis- obedience of the French. Reasonableness is not in itself a higher human quality than reason.
* * * * I advise those who wish to make this experiment, and who are sufficiently rich or extravagant, to. take the Golden Arrow train which leaves Victoria at to a.m. It provides an elegant foretaste of the inequalities which will be experienced across the Channel. After passing through a neat triumphal arch, the traveller sees the long white train drawn up beside the platform ; at the door of each pull- man coach stands an attendant clad in white clothes and bearing upon his chest the arms of the Southern Railway designed in enamel and gold. As the train slides gently out of the station, a persuasive voice informs him through the loud-speaker that he will find a bar attached to the train ; if he walks along those glittering corridors he will indeed find a coach, styling itself " The Trianon Bar," in which the soft tones of blue and amber mingle with chromium and glass. If he prefers it he can remain in his seat, call for refreshments, and watch the orchards of Kent slide rapidly beside him while the ice tinkles quietly in his glass. From time to time the voice upon the loud- speaker will relay comforting or informative words : " Ladies and gentlemen," he will be informed, " we are now approaching Ash- ford " ; and as the train rumbles under Shakespeare's Cliff he will be assured that _within a few minutes he will reach Dover Marine Station. " We trust," says the announcer, " that you have had a pleasant journey " ; and thereafter these polite wishes are repeated in the French language. The traveller feels privileged, solaced, re- freshed, international. It is with patience rather than indignation that he queues up thereafter for his passport and his customs examination.
* * * * On reaching Calais the traveller exchanges the comforts of the Golden Arrow for those of the Fleche d'Or. The battered wharfs and warehouses of Calais remind him for a moment that there has been a war ; and if he be a hedonist he may notice that the luncheon provided, although excellent in quality, is more meagre than that by which in 1938 he used to be so congested in the Blue Train. After passing Boulogne the signs of devastation become less
numerous ; Creil and Chantilly flash past him as .in the old days ; and as in the old days he rumbles over the Seine and catches a glimpse of the Eiffel Tower peeping pert and distant over the shoulder of Montmartre. To those who visited Paris shortly after the liberation the city will seem transformed. In place of the empty perspectives of boulevard and avenue, denuded of all traffic beyond a few American jeeps and lorries, he will find a congestion reminiscent of former times ; in his ears will echo the familiar whistle of the traffic policemen as they change the stream. He will notice that the shop-windows are crowded with scent bottles and pretty little Parisian articles, and that upon the terraces of the cafes French citizens are lounging together as if the Germans had never come. He will observe that the midinettes have regained their habitual sprightliness, that the fantastic clothes which the Parisians had assumed in order to disconcert their conquerors have been suc- ceeded by simpler, prettier fashions, and that the apathy which was so apparent in the early months of 1945 has given place to a hurrying alertness indicative of the admirable resilience of the French character. He will observe these things, and he will be much impressed.
Paris is determined to be hospitable ; she wishes to don her smartest clothes in order to receive her guests. London prefers to retain her sombreness, her battered stucco and her peeling paint, in order slowly but resolutely to rehouse her people. The gardens of the Tuileries, so much improved now that the Germans have removed the plethora of metal statues, are already gay with lawns and flowers. Some of the long chestnut avenues have been pleached and cut in the manner of Le Mitre, and provide the most superb perspectives. And the lower terraces on the quays, which before the war were used as dumping spaces for coal or fuel, have been turned into little gardens in which the midinettes and the workmen munch food in the sun. More astonishing still are the art exhibitions which have been arranged. In the new exhibition buildings down by the river is a. display of French tapestries, including the unsurpassed series of the Lady with the Unicorn from the Music de Cluny. In the Petit Palais is an exhibition, which is entitled " Grandeur et Charme de la France," in which are collected all the main mister- pieces of French painting which were formerly in the Louvre. Here one can admire the astounding continuity of the French artistic genius, from Jean Fouquet in ivo to Edouard Manet in 188o, and re- discover in a new and admkable lighting pictures which have for years been familiar. Here also one can see one of the finest of the Louvre's recent acquisitions, namely, the large equestrian portrait of the Chancellor Seguier painted by Le Brun in i66o. In the Tuileries gardens themselves are exhibitions of paintings in private possession which had been looted by the Germans are since recovered, and a representative display of modern British art from the Tate Gallery. In all certainty Paris is re-establishing her position as the capital of the artistic world.
These proofs of resilience, these manifestations of revival, cannot but delight all those who see in France one of the main fortresses of European civilisation. This wave of recovery is confirmed by the statistics of industrial production which show a monthly increase of to per cent. Communications have been almost re-established, and the food situation is improving. Above all, the French are anxious, men and women, to work hard. Yet the inequality of distribution, the tremulousness of the political balance, the uncer- tainties of finance, and the deterioration in civic discipline bring with them many elements of fragility. It may be that material recovery will lead to the moral recovery which is so desperately needed. But when one returns again to the drab equalities of London, one feels somehow• that it is preferable to rebuild slowly from the bottom. than quick on top.
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