BOOKS.
FRANCE BEFORE EUROPE.*
THIS pamphlet of M. Michelet (for such it really is, though it exceeds the usual dimensions of a pamphlet) has already passed under a censorship far more searching and severe than could be exercised by auy individual critic. The first edition appeared in January, and the events of the past half-year have given unexpected and terrible answers to many of the questions for which the friends of France then hoped to see a very different solution. It is hardly possible to believe that this sentence was written only six mouths ago :.•‘4 Equilibre'e comme elle est, la France pent regarder en' face la question sociale." Where is the equilibrium of France now ? or whose are the hand and eye that can as yet weigh in a true balance the fires of Paris and the executions of Versailles? Those who take pleasure in being wise after the event, and can find it in their hearts to triumph in the disappointment of high-minded hope, may have no great difficulty in making M. Michelet's confidence in the future seem presumptuous and ridiculous. We prefer to- take the chance of being ridiculed with him, and to admit that to some extent we shared his illusion. And so, again, what he says of the Government of the National Defence will not now,. we fear, find many willing to listen to it even in France. There is no forgiveness for the men who could only save France from. dishonour when defeat was inevitable. Yet these words were truce when M. Michelot wrote them, and we cannot see that they are less true now :— " Oavrons la Leger:de d' Or, et derivons-y les noms du Gouvernement de la Drffense, si admirablement loyal, ddsintdress6, cldvon6. Qui forrait tel do sea membres, dujin iige, riche et cotnbl6 de teutes los gloires du talent, qui le forrait d'accepter cette responsabilit6 immense, et toutos les chances de l'ingratitude qu'dprouvent la plupart des sauveurs du pouple ? Qui forrait ce forme Breton, dans sa carriOre attard6o, d6jh prosque h. l'heure du repos, do so joter en avant, do so coacher sur le seuil do Paris, d'y ark Otor lee armies en lour disant, 'Vous no passerez quo our mon corps!' ot co jeuno homme intrdpide qui, s'envolant do Paris, a port6 partout in flammo de son indomptable ccour, organisd in guerre qu'il no connatt quo par la divination du gdnio : qui lui fit prondro co role dtrange, magnifique ot terrible ?"
It is to be regretted that most of this passage is omitted in tho translation, we do not knew for what reason. Both in contents and in style it is one of the best and most characteristic in the book. It can hardly be that the praise of M. Gambetta is con- sidered so intolerable to the English public that not even a trans- lator may reproduce it.
It will be seen that our sympathies are on the whole with M.. Michelet, and that we do not approach his work with any desire to• find fault. But even for a sympathizing reader who shares his enthusiasm for France it is quite impossible to accept his opinions as to the relations of France to Europe, and the probable effect of the war on European civilization. The leading political idea which runs through the whole is one which is not altogether new to us iu England, but which we must regard as the wildest of dreams. It is that Bismarck is in a conspiracy with the Czar first to enslave Germany to Prussia, and then deliver over both to Russia, with a view to the extinction of freedom throughout Europe. Germany has been induced by the wiles of Bismarck to exhaust herself in destroying France, and the path is left open for the Russian hordes to overrun the West.. Already the Russian demand of November last has given a warn- ing of what we have to expect. England awoke from the sleep. into which Bismarck had thrown her (" sa &Meat° opdration de chloroformer l'Angleterre pendant l'execution de France ") to find herself alone in the world face to face with the White Bear,. and cried, " Where is France?" France, and France alone, is the power destined to save Europe from being devoured by Russia ;. in short, the world is called on to save France to-day, that Franco may be able to save the world to-morrow. Now the claim of France in her misfortune to European sympathy and regret, a. claim which we shall not be suspected of depreciating, is certainly * Jules : Lee France devout l'Europe. Florence. 1871, France before Europe. By Jules Michele& Translated from the French, London: Smith, Elder, and Co. 1871,
not improved by being stated in this fantastic and exaggerated manner. The neutral powers of the West may have behaved with unjustifiable vacillation and timidity, but it is not the right way to convince them of their error to treat them like naughty children, and tell them the white bear is coming to eat them. M. Miohelet has fallen into the error which, perhaps, moro than any other has been fatal to the French in these last days, that of looking for the reason of disasters, and for the force that is to overcome them, everywhere but at home. The Empire looked for the treason of South Germany, and the Germans of the South stood in the forefront of the battle against it. The Republic dreamt for a moment that the invaders would be gene- rous enough to forgive the debts of the Empire, and they were exacted to the uttermost farthing. Paris was steadfast in her own strength for a while ; but even Paris was fed in part with hopes of succour from the provinces that never came, junctions of armies that were never effected, and alliances abroad that were never made. Meanwhile the provinces would not believe in the danger of Paris, and expected to be saved by her without any trouble on their own part. Everywhere we see the mind of France infected with a temper that cannot trust itself because it will not pass judgment on itself ; that cannot overcome circum- stances because it will not recognize them. The horrors of the civil war that has done to Paris such things as no invader had ever done might have been avoided, if either party could have understood that the other was really in earnest.
And so M. Michelet, not having escaped the influence, whatever it is, which has thus intoxicated men's minds, cries out against inevitable facts for being what they are, and is impatient with the world for taking its ordinary course. Re is indignant at the mechanical turn warfare has taken, and reproaches the Germans with crushing their enemy by artillery fire while they are them- selves out of reach : a complaint which might perhaps be excused as rhetoric, but which seems meant to be serious. General Trochu has recently said almost the same thing in the Assembly. Again, M. Michelet quotes against the Prussians an alleged statement of a Prussian officer that the German arrangements had ensured a numerical superiority of three to one, as a disgraceful and cynical avowal. If it is a crime to bring overwhelming force to bear on the point sought to be gained, it is one which has been systemati- cally committed by generals of all nations, and by Napoleon above all. One is not so much surprised at finding the stories of German cruelty and pillage adopted indiscriminately. The same kind of credulity is by no means unknown in England. But we certainly are startled by the statement that towards the end of the siege of Strasburg the Germans were reduced to loading their cannon with gravestones ; the reason that no account mentioned it at the time is said to have been that it was " une chose qua tous avaient sup- prim6e, comme trop exiScrable." Certainly the suppression was very effectual at the time, if there was any such fact to suppress.
We doubt if with modern artillery the thing is physically possible ; at any rate it would be ruinous to the guns. This is a rather striking instance of the attempt to make mere sentimental colour- ing do duty for evidence which not unfrequently weakens M. Miohelet's statement. " Its lancerent des cirneti6res :" he succeeds in making this the theme of two fiery paragraphs, which call up an image of horrible desecration ; but suppose the defenders had run short of ammunition and fired gravestones ?
Would it not have been equally easy to represent it as an act of heroic devotion, in which the dead took part with the living in resisting the impious invader who disturbed their rest, and would not M. Michelet have been quite ready to use all his eloquence for that purpose? But he even denounces the Prussians for firing at French balloons, using the false analogy of a vessel in distress at sea. Accusations of this kind recall the astonishment of the recruit in the Biglow Papers :—
"Bein' they han't no lead, they make their bullets out o' copper,
And shoot the darned things at us, tu, whioh Caleb says ain't proper."
They would be ridiculous, if their absurdity wore not swallowed up in the tragedy of the great events they arise out of, and they are not worthy to be in the mouth of one who speaks as the advocate of a really great nation. England naturally comes in for her share of reproach. Not only are we regarded as having been utterly mystified and stupefied by Bismarck, but the departure of the ministry from London after the session of 1870 is branded as a deliberate dereliction, a flight planned to escape responsibility. As to France before the war, M. Michelet allows that she had one failing, which contributed to bring misfortune on her in some mea- sure ; but the failing assigned is certainly not that which any reader would guess beforehand,—" C'est le ddfaut de la France, son tort : elle aime le monde." Overmuch hospitality and confidence in her neighbours ; unsuspecting sympathy with German unity in 1866 ; universal benevolence for which the world was not ripe ; such have been her faults, according to M. Michelet. Altogether, the foreign politics and international law of La France decant l'Europe give one an uncomfortable sensation, as it were of a strange,. unearthly atmosphere.
It would be a mistake, however, to suppose that because the book thus fails in truth it does not deserve attention. The author seems to live in and see through an atmosphere that is not ours, but we must realize his point of view if we would understand the phase through which France, that is, the mind of the intelligent part of. Frenchmen, is now passing. In style the work is rather unequal,. sometimes it is overstrained and disfigured by violent antithesis, but sometimes it rises to true eloquence, and there are brilliant, detached phrases in abundance. M. Michelet'a mingled dread and contempt of the Russian Empire are well summed up in this :. " cotta Asie bitard6e de bureaucratie allemande." Gortscbakoff is " l'esprit funebre dont on n'a jamais vu lee yeux sous d'hnp6,u6tra- bles lunettes." The sketch of Louis Napoleon's career is full of sharp sayings; the beginning of his success is thus accounted for,. " it reassit en '48 b, force de ne rien dire." Perhaps the happiest, personal description is that of 011ivier, "masque d'autant meilleur qu'il se trompait lui-mome." The translation is, on the whole, well executed, and fairly gives the spirit of the original ; but it is not free from variations and inaccuracies in detail, and there are some curious omissions, to one of which we have already called attention. This criticism must be taken, however, subject to the remark that the translator appears. to have worked on a later edition of the original than that now before us.
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