IS THERE TO BE A NEW ST. BARTHOLOMEW ?
WE must refuse absolutely to believe that there is any real danger of a new St. Bartholomew in Paris in which the Jews primarily, and the Huguenots and Pro- testants in the second place, will be the victims of massacre. The notion is one which is quite unthinkable in a civilised country like France. Yet we are well aware that there are plenty of people in Paris at this moment who regard the danger as something more than possible. That they have some excuse for their opinion we do not deny, for the baser portion of the French Press has of late reeked with attacks on the Jews. Not only does M. Drumont in the Libre Parole, a paper which, we believe, circulates by the half-million daily, incite the mob to attack the Jews, but a number of other papers, some of which, we deeply regret to say, profess a religious complexion, hound on the mob to what is, in fact, massacre. No doubt Frenchmen are excitable and mean less by violent language than Englishmen. When they talk of it being necessary that blood should flow they do not always mean murder. At the same time, we can- not forget that history has always shown that in France vile words are often the precursors of vile deeds. Again, we must remember that the outbreak of violence against the Jews and the Protestants is not now merely an affair of " heady " newspapers. There is a large Anti-Semitic litera- ture, which is apparently printed, published, and sold at what we should call here religious bookshops. In the Tempe of December 4th last there is an article by M. Gaston Deschamps which shows that the delirium from which France is suffering is being shared by a section, at any rate, of the Roman Church, and that the men who ought, as Christians, to be doing all they can to allay the outbreak of cruelty and injustice, are actually fanning the flames. We do not, it is needless to say, blame the Roman Catholic Church as an institution for this. It merely shows that a portion of the French Roman Catholics have taken up what we do not hesitate to describe as a, wicked and absolutely un-Christian attitude. We must add, also, that apparently the higher ecclee siastical authorities as a whole have not cared, as they ought to have cared, to take upon themselves the duty of a crusade against the vile monster of Anti-Semitism. The Church has, in fact, missed a great opportunity for standing forth and showing France the duty of the followers of Christ when such questions are involved as those which arise over the threatened persecution of the Jews.
M. Gaston Deschamps describes how he went from one vendor of pious works to another, and turned over the pamphlets which lay among the rosaries, the prayer-books, and the tious medals. In one shop he was offered the "Marseillaise anti-semite," dedicated to Joan of Arc. In this work (according to M. Gaston Deschamps) occurs a prayer ; "O peuple de France, leveetoi avec Jeanne d'Are. Les pro- testants eux aussi sont des traitres a la patrie Franeaise." Another pamphlet from the same shop speaks of "the pack of Huguenots who are carrying on against the Army a dreadful eanapaign,"—"Ces Huguenots ont sans doute la sensation des represailles qua les attendant." So this tirade goes on till at last we are told that " the day is coming near" when the country at the end of its patience will break the insupportable yoke under which it bends, and will seek, "apres une juste vengeance dens un avenir reparateur, le refuge et to salut." As M. Gaston Deschamps says, "this is almost the tocsin of St. Ger- nia.iu,—l'Auxerrois." And he adds : " It was thus that certain theologians wrote on the eve of the revocation of the Edict of Nantes,—the dawn of a day when a fratricidal proscription destroyed the staff of our armies and ruined for so long our foreign trade." Yet another part of this same pamphlet says of Colonel Picquart, who is a Catholic of Lorraine:— " Sur la religion du Colonel Picquart on n'est pas bien fire; on a de bonnes raisons pour le croire d'origine israelite." But we need not give any more extracts. It is clear, unless M. Gaston Deschamps has, which we cannot believe, garbled his extracts, that the writers of these works hold up Jews and Protestants not only to popular odium, but to popular vengeance. We have no doubt that in the writings of certain French secularists things as infamous, or even more infamous, have often been said against priests and Jesuits; but that wrong is no excuse. Of what avail is Christianity if the Christian is to be no better than his opponents is The way to get France back into the paths of Christianity is by preaching and teaching the religion of mercy and goodwill, not by floods of prejudice, suspicion, vengeance, cruelty, and hate. Before we leave the odious subject of these attacks on the Jews and Protestants, it is worth while to note what " Gyp " said to the correspondent of the Daily Mail after she had been cast in damages for a libel on M. Trarieux ; —" Gyp" had alleged that M. Trarieux had become a Pro- testant in order to make a rich marriage. Madame de Martel (" Gyp ") declared that she wished not merely to drive the Jews out of society, but out of France, and this she regards as not impossible. After declaring that the Jews are at the bottom of the alleged Dreyfus Syndicate, she goes on :—" In all this the Jews, who are the prime movers of disorder, will get the worst of it. They do not realise their danger. If the social revolution comes they will be the first to be swept away. Even now if an attack were to be made on the house of any prominent Jew, or if an affray were to take place in the street, and some one were to be killed, then it would be impossible to prevent the matter from going further." This, of course, must mean that if only an attack is begun upon this or that un. popular Jew, it will end in a general massacre. Neverthe- less we do not believe that "Gyp" is a true prophet. There is danger, no doubt, but the more clearly it is realised the more anxious will be not only the Jews, but all who dislike disorder and anarchy, to see the State and the Army in the hands of a strong man. Hence, in our opinion, there will not be a new St. Bartholomew, but rather a dictatorship in order to avoid it. We regret greatly that this should be the alternative, for we believe a liberal Republic the best government for France. Our regrets, however, cannot alter the facts, and the leading fact of the present situation is that one after another all the chief influences in France are setting in the direction of the overthrow of the Republic, and the substitution of a, dictatorship,—probably in the hands of a, member of the Bonaparte family. Even in a case like that of an Anti-Semitic movement, which by its cruelty and wantonness causes a sort of horror noturatis, it is as well to try to see the case of the other side, and not to assume that there can be no defence. Why do so many Frenchmen hate the Jews ? How is it possible that newspapers can be read that gloat over the prospect of Jewish corpses choking the sewers ? What is it that has caused this outbreak of barbarous ferocity in a civilised nation ? These are questions easier to ask than to answer. No doubt the Jews have come to the top in many professions,—but then that can only be because the Jews have services to sell which Frenchmen as a whole consider worth buying. The Jews cannot give a man a great practice as a doctor or as an engineer. He gets his wealth by obliging Christians in some form or other. It is said, too, that it is naturally maddening to French- men to see so many great 'official posts held by Jews,—at one time we are told half the Prefects in France were Jews. But surely the remedy for such a state of things is not to persecute Jews and to talk about the necessity for bloodshed to redress a great wrong, but to put such pressure upon the Government that they will not appoint any more Jews. Again, it is said that the Jews are very rich, which is no doubt true ; but that is hardly a reason for attacking them, unless the assailants are Socialists. Lastly, it is often urged that the Jews are too insolent to be borne, and that their overbearing ways are intolerable. But even granted that this is so, how can any one seriously regard it as an excuse for an Anti- Semite crusade of the kind that is going on in France? No one can pretend that Jews in France have proved bad citizens in any real sense. They have not shirked service in the Army. They have not avoided paying taxes. They have not attempted to undermine any of the institutions of the country. They have not as a class dealt any blows against public morality or public order. The Jew as a rule is a good son, a good father, a good husband, and a good patriot,—i.e., a man willing to stand or fall by the country in which he happens to be a citizen. As far, then, as we can see, the Jew is persecuted in France simply because be is supposed to be a disagreeable person,— because, in fact, he is Dr. Fell to most Frenchmen. He is not hated, as in Eastern Europe, because he is a small moneylender, or because he has come, largely owing to persecution, to practise certain bad trades, but simply and solely because he is a Jew,—and so a person about whom it is always safe to believe the worst. With such a prejudice it is of course useless to argue, but it is impossible not to take the Anti-Semitic feeling in France into account when one is gauging the condition of that country and her prospects as a nation. We are quite aware that all France is not Anti-Semite, and that, indeed, the majority of Frenchmen have no wish to avenge themselves on Jews and Protestants. Unfortu- nately, however, there does exist a. large section who take seriously, and sympathise with, the attacks on the Dreyfusards, the Semites, and the Huguenots. As long as that section exists, and it is possible for men to talk of a new St. Bartholomew, how can we look upon the state of France without alarm and regret?
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