TWO FRENCH CHARACTERISTICS.
THERE are two foibles or peculiarities in the French character which differentiate it from that of the Englishman, and in a less degree from that of the German, with a certain violence. These are the immense part played in the character by amour propre, and the liability to a sus- piciousness almost unreasoning and sometimes even absurd. Englishmen have amour propre, Americans are much affected by it, and Scotchmen, who are much the most sensible people in Europe, display it more strongly still, but it is not dominant in any of them. They can keep it down, they refuse to gratify it by injuring others, and when it clashes with duty they go on performing the duty, with sullenness or concealed indignation perhaps, but still performing it. With Frenchmen it is one of the master passions, always in evidence, and almost beyond control of the will. Frenchmen think themselves the most good-humoured people in the world, and so long as they are not " wounded " they are ; but if they are wounded, if their amour propre is touched by so much as a scratch, the good-humour disappears, and they show them- selves, like the rest of the Celts, among the most vindictive of mankind. A Frenchman who has been snubbed, or ridiculed, or belittled in any way whatever is a Frenchman who is un- happy until he has sought and found some kind of vengeance, which, moreover, must be visible to the world as well as to his own eyes. Often a biting epigram will do if others hear it and appreciate, but more commonly there must be an act or series of acts. This is the real cause of the continuance of the duel, and of the excessive tolerance which French juries show for the use of the revolver whenever the quarrel has arisen from sexual offence or suspicion. The amour propre, the personal dignity or sensitiveness of husband or lover, wife or mistress, has been affronted, and jurymen cannot see how that was to be endured. It is impossible to read any French memoir without seeing how immense a part the foible plays in the daily life of France. St. Simon is dominated by it, and it is apparent even in Sully, otherwise so like a rug Englishman. It is hardly too much to say that the autocracy of Louis XIV. in his Court was based on the wonderful skill with which he provoked or soothed the amour propre of his courtiers, who under Louis XV. squabbled and fought and intrigued and flattered eternally, in the hope of gratifications, often minute, to their self-love. The " policy of pin-pricks," as we now call it, seemed to the later nobles of France not only an amusing, but a most intelligent method of managing each other, and obtaining from equals due "consideration." One master evil of the French military system, the extraordinary difficulty of inducing Generals to support one another cordially in the field, is due almost exclusively to this foible. This Marshal or that General cannot endure to think that he shall be outshone, or even momentarily forgotten, in the success of a rival, whom, apart from the outshining, he rather likes and esteems. Even Napoleon's Generals, deeply as they feared him, would not support one another if they thought that support would yield to another a " glory " painful to their self-love. It is just the same in the present imbroglio. The bitterest partisans of either side are those whose amour propre has been engaged in the contest, and the main reason why the struggle is so dangerous is that nearly every officer feels that if the verdict is for Dreyfus his own amour propre as officer will be " lacerated."
A little of this feeling is no doubt a kind of self-respect, of the wish to be reputable in one's own eyes, which cannot fairly be pronounced discreditable; but it is singularly mixed up with a personal vanity which self-respect should hold in
check, and with a passion for histrionic self-advertisement. The Frenchman, unless he has taken up the role of martyr —of which he is, on due provocation, splendidly capable, e.g., Picquart and M. de Pressense—cannot be content unless his personality looms as large in the eyes of others as in his own. He regards himself from the outside, fixes on a creditable, or at least impressive, part, and plays that for applause. He is not so selfish as Englishmen are apt to suppose—sometimes, if his emotions are touched, is very unselfish, but appreciation, applause, all that he understands by " honour " or " glory," is to him what the cheers of the audience are to the actor. He has no spirits without them. Naturally, being so inherently histrionic, any slight, which involves, of course, refusal of applause, startles him exactly as a hiss startles an actor. It is like a slap in the face, an insult producing not only pain but nearly unbearable disap- pointment. He has done his beet in his role, and this is his reward. He will not endure it without revenge. It was noticed in the Revolution that none were so bloodthirsty as actors who had been hissed, and a Frenchman whose amour propre has been severely wounded is a hissed actor.
The frenzy of suspicion—" preternatural suspicion," as Carlyle called it—into which Frenchmen when excited are apt to fall is more difficult of explanation, especially to Englishmen, who cannot even comprehend why Frenchmen should believe that English gold is expended upon the Dreyfus agitation, and consider the belief either fictitious or simply silly. The belief with thousands is not fictitious at all, and the French are one of the shrewdest of European races, possessing besides that touch of humour which should prevent any one from believing that an unbroken egg has been poisoned. We confess the suspiciousness bothers tie, who have watched French politics through a lifetime. If it were always directed against one set of enemies it might be interpreted as a mere form of hatred; but that is not the case. There is more suspicion in Paris of French Jews at this moment than of Englishmen, and as much suspicion of a very grave and reputable class—the Huguenots—as of either. The feeling is often set down to ignorance, but classes of Englishmen who are quite as ignorant are com- paratively free from it, and the French populace suspect above all men those who live their lives all day and every da3 under their microscopic eyes. They know their Magistrac3 just as well as we know ours, and still attribute every decision they do not like either to gold, or threats, of the wish to keep down the poor. There is a sort of connection between the feeling and the general histrionic tendency, familiarity with stagey situations developing the suspicion that plots may be going on, but the true cause must be a deeply-seated kind of timidity. The French are as brave as any people in Europe, but they are a race with nerves, and the moment their nerves are predominant, when, as we say, they are " all to pieces," their imaginations begin to work and they see men as trees walking. " Dreyf as is worrying us here, the English are conquering the Soudan—Adolphe, where is the Soudan P—and there must be some connection between those facts." Three minutes' reasoning of that kind and the English are the source of all evil, are plotting this, that, and the other, always against France, until from very exhaustion the fit passes off, and the Frenchman, sane again, acknow- ledges that he has been deceived—by some one else. It is a strange kind of fit, which has fallen on Englishmen once or twice in their history—e.g., the Titus Oates revelations—but which is alien to their genius and has never lasted long. It rose in France during the Terror to a height which the pictorial historian can only adequately describe as " preter- natural"; but we are not sure that it is not Heir g again, and should not be in the least surprised to hear that all France was in a turmoil from a belief in an impending invasion by the people of the Isle of Man. The odd thing, which we do not profess to explain, is that the people liable to these fits is at bottom acute even to subtlety, and has a special tendency to be remorselessly logical. All one can say is that some very able people have been in all ages very much afraid of ghosts, and have shown themselves on that subject, when in credulous mood, absolutely impenetrable to reason. There is a form of timidity which has absolutely no relation either to cowardice or insanity in the medical sense, and it is excep- tionally common in France.
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