MODERN FRANCE.*
"MODERN FRANCE" is a wide subject for a volume of four hundred pages, and Mr Kirwan's explanatory preface is certainly not unnecessary. From it we learn that a large portion of the contents have appeared at different times as articles on special subjects in various magazines and reviews, some of which are republished unaltered, while others are supplemented up to the present day. It is necessarily a difficult task to weld fragments of different dates and materials into a consistent whole, and in this case neither the original nature of Mr. Kirwan's fragments, nor his method of combining them, has been conducive to suc- cess. There is no special connecting link between the subjects of French journalism, military organization, and the Bourse, to which the three most important essays are devoted, to account for their juxtaposition, while the ambitious tide is scarcely justified by the scope of the whole. But what is lacking in coherence of matter is amply made up by unity of purpose in the author. Literary, journalistic, social, or commercial topics, only serve to Mr. Kirwan as so many different points of depar- ture for assailing the Emperor and the Empire, in language for which unmeasured is the mildest term. A considerable portion of the volume before us was written soon after, or at the very time of, the coup d'état of 1851, and yet defects and vices admittedly inherent in the French character are, even then, unhesitatingly ascribed by Mr. Kirwan to the upas-tree-like influence of the Napoleonic regime. Not only, too, does he re- publish, unmodified, general assertions and personal attacks barelYexcusable in the heat of contemporary politics, hut he also endorses them, after the lapse of years, in terms scarcely less bitter. There is not a sore spot in French morality, French habits, or the physical condition of the French people, that Mr. Kirwan does not dwell upon in forcible and scathing language, but which also be.rrs the unmistakeable impress of a foregone de- termination to fix the origin of the evil upon Louis Napoleon, rather than an honest and impersonal indignation. If, according to him, French journalism is unblushingly corrupt, if the wealthier classes spend half their income on plats fins and rare vintages, if all France is devoured by an insatiable thirst for gold and dis- like for labour, if the Bourse is merely an arena for gambling of the worst kind, if tales such as " Madelon" and "Fanny" are the most popular in France, if literary talent is either extinct or pros- tituted to the lowest depths of sensational novels, or if the desire even for liberty is dying out in France, it is in every case a natural and logical result of the empire. One cannot, however, help putting Mr. Kirwan's theory to one test. If things were as bad as he represents them after:four years of Napoleon as Prince President, what ought they to be after eleven years of him as Emperor ? The answer scarcely bears out his sweeping generali- zations. France is unquestionably benefited in many ways, but has the object for which Mr. Kirwan asserts those benefits to have been conferred—the diversion of popular thought and attention from internal politics, been attained ? The recent French elections show that the wish for greater liberty is increas- ing every day. Englishmen have learned of late to be very moderate in judging France and the French people, to take the good with the evil ; and many who could have gone great lengths with Mr. Kirwan ten years since, are now inclined to take a far more hopeful view of the real prospects of France. It is absurd to suppose that one man—even a Napoleon—can irre- deemably degrade a great nation.
We regret the more that Mr. Kirwan should have disfigured his essays by such indiscriminating political, or rather personal, hos- tility, on account of the vast amount of really interesting literary information which they contain. His acquaintance with the personnel of French journalism is great, and the mass of details which he has enumerated is much of it absolutely new to Eng- lish readers. His style, though occasionally degenerating into those very " contortions " which he frequently describes as a main characteristic of the French literature he so violently reprobates, is, on the whole, extremely readable. Many of the personal sketches, even before 1848, are scurrilous in the extreme, but the leading facts connected with almost every French journal are given with apparent fairness.
• Modern France; its Journalism, Literature, and Society. By A. V. Kirwan, Esq. London : Jackson, Watford, and Hodder. 1863. The Moniteur, of course, first claims Mr. Kirwan's attention. Founded in 1789 by a bookseller named Pankoucke, whose family still own a large share in the concern, its files have now taken their place amongst the most authentic materials for the history of the century. Most elaborate indices and analyses have been compiled, and a complete series commands an enor- mous price. The greatest event, however, during the infancy of French journalism, was the founding of the Journal de t Empire, subsequently the Journal des Debats, by the brothers Bertin. Wit, learning, and extreme skill in the management of political topics, raised this paper during the first Empire to a circulation of 32,000—unequalled then by any English journal. In the early part of the century, the most brilliant writers in France met in the columns of the Debars. The old school of classical criticism was disappearing, and the two Berlins collected round their standard workers in the rising literature of the day — Chateaubriand, Melte Brun (who first introduced foreign politics into French journalism), Hoffman; and others, who gave an individual vitality to the paper rarely paralleled. Under the present empire the Debuts has been principally remarkable for the dexterity with which, up to 1861, it avoided a warning, although still avowing its 0 dean ist sympathies. We cannot follow Mr. Kirwan through- out his biographies of fact and personal sketches of modern French journalists. There is much that is valuable in the way of information in the former, and much that is amusing in the way of gossip—too often scandal, perhaps—in the latter. Granier de Cassagnac and Emile Girardin are his favourite objects of invective, and his method of setting the two by the ears in a foot-note, quoting all the malicious things said by one of the other during a violent quarrel, is ingenious and effective. The feuilleton system, now grown to such enormous proportions, was introduced by the Presse, and Mr. Kirwan tells an amusing story of Balzac, one of the first writers in that department. Balzac, originally of the lowest origin, had his head so completely turned by success, that when it was thought desirable that a Frenchman should reply to De Custine's exposure of Russian government, he started for St. Petersburg, and forwarded to the Emperor a note couched as follows :—" M. de Balzac Nerivain at M. de Balzac le gentilhomme sollicitent de sa Majeste la faveur d'une audience particuliere." The Emperor's reply was an auto- graph letter :—" M. de Balzac le gentilhomme and M. de Balzao Pecrivain peuvent prendre la poste quand il leur plaira." This was certainly what would now be called "giving full change." Mr. Kir- wan frequently recurs to the alleged corruption of the Parisian press, and tells some curious stories on the subject. In a pamphlet pub- lished in 1839, by one Constant Hilbey, the writer asserts that, for the insertion of a small poem in the Presse, he had to pay no less than sixty francs, and for a favourable criticism from Granter de Cassagnac he was requested to present him with four couverts d'argent, and six small spoons—a "couvert d'argent" including a silver folk, spoon, and knife. These articles must have cost not less than 200 francs—a long price for a " puff " of a column and a half, even though the name of M. Hilbey was there mentioned in conjunction with those of Brutus, Cassius, Staberius, Quintus Rendus, Quintus Cecilius, Atticus, Abelard, Cardinal d'Ossat, St. Paul, the Magdalen, and Victor Hugo. The statistics which Mr. Kirwan gives as to the vast extent of Parisian journalism are ex- tremely remarkable. In 1846 there were published no less than 343 papers in Paris alone. In 1848, between February and August, this number was increased by 283 journals, most of which, how- ever, perished in a week.
Next to those on journalism, the paper of most interest is that on the military position of France, in which the great system of military education is minutely described. There are no less than twelve military schools in France of the first class, besides °thereof less note. Many of these are, of course, devoted to special branches and requirements of the service. There is an Ecole des Trompettes and a Gymnase Musical Militaire. Besides fencing and other exercises directly connected with the military calling, swim- ming and gymnastics of all kinds are taught throughout the army, so that the French soldier becomes individually the equal in strength and activity of men vastly superior in natural advan- tages. The paper on the Bourse contains some curious facts in connection with the absorbing rage for speculation of the day ; and, in closing the volume, we must repeat our re- gret that Mr. Kirwan should have allowed himself to be ever carried away by a violence of political bias which distorts the justice of his criticism, and so often diminishes the pleasure with which it will be read by the many who do not carry their animosities, personal or political, to such an extravagant ex- tent.
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