THE FUTURE IN FRANCE.
IT is useless, as we have always said, to prophesy about France, for surprises happen there as consequences do everywhere else, but it is difficult to refrain from speculating as to the outcome of the present situation. It is a most strange one. It seems impossible to believe that a commo- tion so great as that which the Dreyfus case has produced should die away without result ; that the Army, which has become so domineering, should silently acknowledge itself beaten by the civil power ; that the people of the cities of France, who have almost risen against the Republic, should be reconciled because they have been proved to be unjust. At first sight, no doubt, the storm seems to have subsided, and everything looks serene ; the Army is only sullen, the populace is either cowed or friendly, the Government is im- prisoning its enemies in regular Continental fashion, the Chambers vote confidence in the Ministry, even the hostile Press shows symptoms of a return to reason and to the satire with which, when events are too strong for it, it avenges itself. In any other country it would be said that the Constitution had received a new lease of life, but in France long-continued agitation usually marks the arrival, either suddenly or after a pause, of some great change. Under such circumstances, with the upper class all raging and half the lower ready to lynch its opponents, with the Presi- dent assaulted at a public festival, and half a dozen Generals threatened with imprisonment, it may be worth while to recall for a moment the signs of deep-rooted, or, as it were, instinctive, feeling which were betrayed during the contest. Of these, at least three were so well marked as to be unmistakable.
It is clear that the French people in their unrest have turned to the Army as the institution from which they hope most. Some of them hope from it a new Constitution, Imperial, Royal, or Republican after the American fashion, but in any case with an Executive much stronger for purposes of repression. Others long for a restoration of French prestige through a foreign war, which must neces- sarily be waged by land, and in which they feel certain, now that the Army is reorganised, the national genius of France will give them the victory. And a third party, yet which, though silent, is excessively numerous and influential, seriously dreads the "foreigner," believes that that vague entity is per- sistently plotting the ruin of France, and relies upon the devotion of the Army as its only solid defence. Together they include two-thirds of Frenchmen, and they all resent recent occurrences as grievous disappointments, as destructive to all their hopes, and as proofs of a certain malignity directed against France in those who have destroyed them, be they Jews, or Protestants, or foreigners, or domestic traitors. The feeling cannot be removed by argument, and the result of it must be that anything which would rehabilitate the Army, and crush its enemies, whether it be a war or a revolution, or even the rise of a soldier great enough to be visible and trusted, would be regarded by a majority with enthusiasm, and by all without disapproval. Although religious bigotry may have entered into it, and the tendency to expect treachery which has always marked Frenchmen, and some theoretic dislike of the Republic, too, it is impossible to doubt that enthusiasm for the Army, for its prestige, for its possible future, was the main source of the marvellous Anti-Dreyfusard passion which recently shook France.
The second sign manifested all through the last two years is the feverish longing to discover a great Frenchman, one who could keep down the parties, and render movements less sterile, and restore, after he had possessed power for a period, something of the " glory " of his country. The French people love to see a great man at their head, they recognise genius as no other people have ever done, and while thirsting for equality, they despise the pretensions of equals to be above them. Keen, sarcastic, and " quick in the uptake," they are thoroughly con- scious that since the death of Gambetta the Republic has yielded only second-rate men, worthy persons or unworthy, but entirely without initiative, and they are heartily sick of them. They give them no personal loyalty whatever. No Minister, no orator, no General, has anything like a powerful party in the country at large. He may head a group or a faction, or an "arm of the Service," but the country cares nothing about him, and lets him go when the wheel revolves without a sigh. Even M. Clemenceau was suffered to depart, though he was considered embodied Liberalism ; and so was M. Hanotanx, though his friends did mutter that in him at last France had found something of Richelieu. The French look round, therefore, eagerly for a man, all the more eagerly because the field of choice is so very wide. It covers the whole population of France. They do not care one straw about birth, or position, or even professional grade. They conquered the world under a Lieutenant of Artillery, and see no reason whatever why, if he is the ingredient required to make their acid bite, they should not conquer it again under a colonial like Dodds, or an explorer like Marchand, or a strong martinet like Gallieni. So intense is this desire that it opens a way to all ambitions, and that men of whom the world knows little except that they are pretentious men, like M. Cavaignac, or M. Quesnay de Beanrepaire, or M. Deschanel, are suspected with justice of not thinking the Dictatorship beyond their hopes. " France longs for a Dictator, and may choose ME," is a sentiment widely spread in France, and though it seems ridiculous to Englishmen, it is based on a deep conviction in the French character. The Englishman may wonder at the reception of Marchand, but M. Dupuy trembles.
The third sign is suspicion, " preternatural suspicion " as Carlyle called it. All through the Dreyfus affair this quality of the French mind has been painfully in evidence. The people appeared ready to believe anything of anybody. Judges, or Generals, or Ministers, nobody was supposed to be inaccessible to a threat or a bribe, or to a prospect of international rank, — the last-named being M. Faure's special temptation. The Jews were buying ascendency in France. The Protestants were calumniating France. The Great Powers were covering France with spies. Even the much- loved Staff were betraying secrets. In the heat of the struggle, when men revealed their secret thoughts, it really appeared as if no character, no mode of life, no record of service, could protect any man from any charge whatever. Even at this moment M. Loubet is accused of being " Panamist," that is, in_plain English, of having taken a heavy cheque to pro- tect the men who wasted the property of the Panama Canal _Company in bribing Deputies and Senators Suspicion of that kind not only increases oontempt for those who are governing, but reveals a deep-seated fear, a distrust enter- tained by the people of their own probity and patriotism. ' We must find a man above ourselves,' they seem to say, `or we are lost, for the ordinary men will all betray us out of vanity, or fear, or greed.' Frenchmen feel weak, and attri- bute the weakness to treachery, from which they demand to be protected. It is not natural to France, they say, to be second to any Power on earth, to be outstripped by England, or bullied by Germany, or made dependant on Russia ; there must be a defect somewhere, and these men—the rulers, who- ever they are—are not big enough, or honest enough, or men of genius enough to clear it away.
Our readers must judge for themselves what sort of result feelings like these manifested with such energy as they have been during the Dreyfus case are likely to produce. We can only point out their existence in forms as ominous as they assumed during the Revolution, and state an opinion which events may presently falsify. The French people will either embark upon some great experiment—it may be a social one, or it may be a political one—or they will find among them. selves a man competent to give them the initiative for which they are all waiting. The present writer thinks the second alternative the more probable of the two. He is unable to believe that genius is dead in France, he is certain of its quick recognition if it appears, and he distrusts profoundly the notion that France, with her history, will remain calm while her desires are unfulfilled, while her self-esteem is subjected to incessant pin-pricks, and while her best men doubt if she is not sinking politi- cally, morally, and intellectually into decay. As he reads history, France is the land which rots quickest, and emerges most quickly from the slime which seemed about to choke her. There may be a long period of the present system, with its weak Governments, perpetual alarms, and huge scandals, as there were sixteen years of Louis XVI., but it is more probable that the " end " will be sooner, the mark that it has come being the emergence of a Dictator, an Emperor, or a President intended and competent to be more than a figurehead. May the last be the solution.
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