For the Soul of France

“I will not dwell on his shameless, intolerable associations with all that is worst on the extreme left, his absolute subordination to M. Clemenceau, his debasing intimacy with the men of La Lanterne.”

It was France’s misfortune and originality, a journalist observed in 1861, that since the Revolution every form of government had been regarded as a usurpatory improvisation by one camp or another. Twenty years later, the remark still held true.

Civilization, life itself, is something learned and invented. Bear this truth well in mind: Inventas aut qui vitam excoluere per artes. After several years of peace men forget it all too easily. They come to believe that culture is innate, that it is identical with nature. But savagery is always lurking two steps away, and it regains a foothold as

As Tocqueville saw it, demagoguery would be the ultimate political expression of a society bereft—of family pride, manners, grammar, local custom, hierarchical structure, religious principles, and sacred space.

“Time in his forward flood shall grow ever more dignified,”

Tu seras plus qu’un roi, tu seras plus qu’un Dieu Car tu seras la France, O Général Revanche!*

Before the late 1880s, service was compulsory in name only, the grounds for exemption being so numerous as to make a mockery of the term. Exempted were family breadwinners, the elder sons of widows, the brothers of serving soldiers, educational administrators, and priests, among others. Men who didn’t qualify could, for fifteen hundred francs (a su

De Lesseps’s grandiosity, or capacity for self-delusion, made him, like Eugène Bontoux, an exceptionally effective promoter.

History had taught republicans to distrust luminaries.