BOOKS.
PARIS WAITS.*
MRS. CLARICE, an English resident in Path, has written a, diary of events from the eve of the war till Christmas. It is notable for its gracefulness, fine shades of colour, and ' deep sympathy. Those who thought that French Anarchists, Syndicalists, and Socialists would forget that they were children of La France when the Great War came should; ponder what Mrs. Clarke says on this subject. M. Herv4,, one of the beat-known anti-militarists, immediately after the assassination of N. Jaures asked to be allowed to join his regiment, and headed an article in La Guerre Soeiale with:, "On a assassine Satires, voir qu'on n'assassine pas La France." The effect of this on French Socialists was probably immense., The talk of "war against war "—which would of course have -meant civil war and nothing else, and would have produced a situation comparable to that when the Commune in Paris was' witnessed by the German enemy at the gates of Paris—died, away in 'street demonstrations by men of every tone of political opinion. The doubt was not what Frenchmen would do, but what Britain would do. We wish that those who preached neutrality op to the last moment would inform, themselves for their future guidance as to what Frenchmen really thought of us then. Mrs Clarke says :— " English people in Paris during those first days of mobilisation went through some had holing. RIINIDIUS came from home that • .Paris Watts, 1914.137 'Si. E. Clarke. London tbultli.`111der,Toffe. Pa. Jana England, in spite of the Triple Entente, might remain neutral. Pessimists whispered in our ears that the Government Was deter- mined to stand back until it saw its way more clearly, and French people began to look at us askance in the streets. Their eyes asked 'What are you going to do ? ' Their attitude was reserved, even a little defiant. Always, in the scraps of conversation which were wafted to one's ears from passing groups of people, through open windows, in cafes and from the Zoges of the concierges, came `Est-ce quo les Anglais vent marcher? "Estee que PAngletern. va none trahir ? ' And one's own French friends asked the same questions. One woman went so far as to say .Est-ce quo wins alles etre perfide encore?' And oven when Sir Edward Grey had spokes, these doubts remained for yet a day or two longer. News from England came in slowly, and once a seed of doubt is sown in a French heart it has to be thoroughly eradicated before its owner will allow that any attempt to uproot it has been made. `Est-il vrai quo l'Angleterre vs marcher ? ' asked one man of me with obvious anxiety. 'Because they tell me that even now you can back out of it if you like.' Yet at that time our navy was known to be in the North Sea and our army was mobilizing as fast as it contd. To say that the English people in France were glad when great head-lines in the morning -papers announced to the French nation that England had declared war on Germany, does not give an idea of our relief. Not that England was at war, but that England was loyal to her friends and swiftto punish the breakers of treaties and the invaders of neutral territories. When tho Union Jack waved side by side with the Tricolour and-the Russian Eagle, and all France said 'loyal England' instead of `perfide Albion,' was a great moment to English people who know France and French people."
Very few Englishmen could be found now -who do not see, in the light of subsequent German conduct, that if we had allowed France to be overwhelmed it would have been a case of "our turn next." No doubt it required heart as well as brains to see it at the time. It is true that we were not bound by any written bargain to support Trance—we were bound only by such a moral tie as between man and man would cause the world to say that the one who left the other in the lurch in an emergency, after all that had been said and implied between them, -was a contemptible poltroon. Of course we were bound to go to war for Belgium's sake, but if Belgium had never come into the question at all we were equally bound to go to war for the sake of France. As we read Mrs. Clarke's diary of emotions we felt ashamed at the thought that there could ever have been any hesitation about rallying to the side of France. It is not the least merit of Mrs. Clarke's book that she shows us very plainly what Frenchmen would have thought of us had we stood-aloof.
Another impression we have is of the remarkable difference between the appearance of the capital of an island whose shores are protected by a powerful Navy and whose men are not subject to conscription, and the appearance of a capital which is drained of its manhood and expects the arrival of the enemy day by day. In London nearly everything ie,going on as usual. In Paris the happy and vivacious ra.raf.vient of the boalevards was suddenly replaced at the order to mobilize -with a visible emptinesa and by a sensible gloom. Some Frenchmen do not make enough allowance for the operative difference of the two sets of conditions, and when they visit London are inclined to charge us with a heartlessness of which we are net guilty. Heartless indeed must he the young _Englishman who has no sound reasons for not serving and yet perambulates the streets with a complacent face; bat the fact remains that the capital of an island must necessarily wear a different complexion front a Continental capital. There is no half-way with .a place like London ; sither it goes its almost normal way, or its naval .barrier has been broken through and its agony has mitred.
Much has been written lately of the signs of religious revival in France—of the reaction that was hound to come against -the narrow, sour,and inhuman spirit which informed for some years the policy of .Anti-Olericaliam. On August 12th, 1914, Mrs. Clarke wrote :— " that is simple and childlike ia the Frenchman has been uppermost this week, and in nothing does he show these traits more ebvionslythan in his attitude towards religion. It has so 'often been said 'that the Frenchman has no religion: but the Frenchman is like most other men, intime-of great stress he turns to prayer. In a restaurant one evening, a group of ultra-Miamian artists were giving a 'farewell dinner to a comarnas who waste join his regiment on the following day, when some oneweminded 'him that his regiment was likely to be one of the firstengaged in action. '• Bah ' was the quick retort, 'What do I care? I non- fessed this morning; so it doesn't matter what happens new.' No one of -all that little company of dare-devils thought it odd that he should feel like that, moreover, it is a well-known 'fact that since the mobilisation-order came, men have been in hundreds 'to .confese before leaving for the front. .-Mosisieur le :Care /nest help me with the prayers. I cannot remember much of my Credo, and I have quite forgotten my Confiteer; but that doesn't matter, does it, B. le Cure? What I want is to go away with a clean elate."
That passage alone would not convince tie, we fear, that young Frenchmen intended to go beyond the principle of "the Devil was sick, the Devil a monk would be"; but Mrs. Clarke has better evidence. Later in the book she says:— " Carlyle said that Frenchmen possessed 'thought without reverence,' but this war has proved Carlyle to be wrong in more instances than one. The whole attitude of Prance to-day is unquestionably reverent, not in any pharisaical fashion, but in a sincere, courageous manner which it is splendid to see. We have heard so much of the anti-clerical Prance, the free-thinking France, and the Prance that mocks at all things. But anyone who knows Prance knows also that all these things are not Prance at all. Prance is irrevocably and innately Catholic, and the war has proved her to be so. She will probably be narrowly so for a time, because the reaction after the struggle between Church and State is sure to be strong and the priests have, generally speaking, behaved so splendidly throughout the whole war that their influence over the people is likely to be great. . . . In all the hospitals, in all the military stations, the same spirit is still to be found. It is also noticeable in the world of civilians in a hundred different ways ; by the articles they like to read in the daily papers, by the avoidance of all irreverent allusions in the illus- trated comic papers, by an access of reverence towards the dead, and above all by the habit of going to church."
On August 28th Mrs. Clarke recorded the acute nervous- ness which already existed in Paris at the approach of the enemy, and afterwards it was augmented daily till the great rally of the Marne relieved the tension :— "To tell a tithe of what we hear would fill a volume. But iii, obvious that every one is getting more and more anxious every day, and there is even fear for the safety of Paris. • Some one in the Ministry ' advises a friend of his to leave Paris. • Some one against the Government' hints darkly at treachery. The man who serves you with coffee berries mutters angrily that it is useless to provision yourself, for all Paris will be in the flames of revolutionary fire before another week has gone. A letter from England says that it is rumoured in London that the flower of the British Army is already wiped out."
In one of those bad days more than forty thousand persons left Paris. The Embassies advised foreigners to go. The only calm parts of Paris were the quarters of the working class, who did not worry because they could not go in any case. Among the wild rumours was one that M. Caillaux's was still the guiding hand, and that he had been appointed Paymaster of the Army. The appointment of General Gallieni as Governor of Paris was fortnnate, if only because he forbade newspaper milers to shout the latest rumour in the streets. A few inepreesibles stuck the name of their paper in their caps, and others sang in low tones : "Will you buy my paper, the name of which I am not allowed to cry ? " The worst days of all were the first Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday in September. The authorities encouraged every one to leave precipitately :— • "Thousands waited hours for tickets at the railway stations for Havre, or for the south ; and, as fast as people poured out of the city, others poured in from the surrounding neighbourhood, in the fulfilment of General Gallieni's orders. There were moments when a dreadful desire to laugh came over one, it seemed as incon- sistent to see the exodus and the advent going on at the same time, and for the same reason. All were seeking safety from the enemy, and yet some were coming and others were going."
Three thousand francs for a motorcar to Touraine was nothing; and even people with little money paid £10 for a boat to sail down the Seine to Havre, paying for their own food and beds on shore during the journey.
The French opinions of the British soldier are very interest- ing. Lord Kitchener'a admonition to the Expeditionary Force left all Frenchmen wondering. It made them think of Cromwell and every English Puritanical tradition. The papers told wonderful tales of British piety, and when French people saw a British soldier violating one of Lord Kitchener's rules they shook their heads and hoped that the tradition was not becoming extinct. For our part, we rejoice to know that French people are capable of being delightfully childish as well as keenly critical and logical. Perish the thought that French men and women of this generation will not tell their children that the British soldier of the Great War could not fight without his tea and his jam, that the greater his difficulties were the more he sang, that he preferred to sit on any part of a railway train to being inside the carriage, and that though he was said to like sport his real recreation was shaving!
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