CHAPTER I CHAPTER II CHAPTER III CHAPTER IV CHAPTER V CHAPTER VI CHAPTER VII CHAPTER VIII CHAPTER IX CHAPTER X. CHAPTER XI CHAPTER XII CHAPTER XIII CHAPTER XIV CHAPTER I CHAPTER II CHAPTER III CHAPTER IV CHAPTER V. CHAPTER VI. CHAPTER VII CHAPTER VIII CHAPTER IX CHAPTER X CHAPTER XI CHAPTER XII CHAPTER XIII CHAPTER XIV Part I.) Fcp. 8vo. 5s. Part II.) Fcp. 8vo. 6s. 1 Part III.) Fcp. 8vo. PART I. </em>Deduction<em>, 4s. PART II. Part I. The Prophecies of Balaam. 8vo. 10s. Part II. The Book of Jonah. 8vo. 10s. 6d. Part I. 15s. or adapted for the General Reader, 8s. Vol. Part II. 15s. or adapted for the General Reader, 8s. Part I. 8vo. 12s. 6d. Part II. 12s. 6d. PART I. Text, with separate Atlas of Plates, 8vo. 15s. and the Republic, by William Henry Hurlbert Project Gutenberg's France and the Republic, by William Henry Hurlbert This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org Title: France and the Republic A Record of Things Seen and Learned in the French Provinces During the 'Centennial' Year 1889 Author: William Henry Hurlbert Release Date: May 16, 2007 [EBook #21498] Language: English Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 *** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FRANCE AND THE REPUBLIC *** Produced by Julia Miller, Janet Blenkinship and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by the Bibliothèque nationale de France (BnF/Gallica) at http://gallica.bnf.fr) FRANCE AND THE REPUBLIC A RECORD OF THINGS SEEN AND LEARNED IN THE FRENCH PROVINCES DURING THE 'CENTENNIAL' YEAR 1889 BY WILLIAM HENRY HURLBERT AUTHOR OF 'IRELAND UNDER COERCION' WITH A MAP LONDON LONGMANS, GREEN, AND CO. AND NEW YORK: 15 EAST 16th STREET 1890 All rights reserved PRINTED BY SPOTTISWOODE AND CO., NEW-STREET SQUARE LONDON and the Republic, by William Henry Hurlbert 2 Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1890 by William Henry Hurlbert in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington * * * * * CONTENTS INTRODUCTION PAGE I. Scope of the book French Republicanism condemned by Swiss and American experience Its relations to the French people xxiii II. M. Gambetta's Parliamentary revolution What Germany owes to the French Republicans Legislative usurpation in France and the United States xxvi III. The Executive in France, England, and America Liberty and the hereditary principle General Grant on the English Monarchy Washington's place in American history xxxvii IV. The legend of the First Republic A carnival of incapacity ending in an orgie of crime The French people never Republican Paris and the provinces The Third Republic surrendered to the Jacobins, and committed to persecution and corruption Estimated excess of expenditure over income from 1879 to 1889, 7,000,000,000 francs or 280,000,000l. li V. Danton's maxim, 'To the victors belong the spoils' Comparative cost of the French and the British Executive machinery The Republican war against religion The present situation as illustrated by past events lxviii VI. Foreign misconceptions of the French people An English statesman's notion that there are 'five millions of Atheists' in France Mr. Bright and Mr. Gladstone the last English public men who will 'cite the Christian Scriptures as an authority' Signor Crispi on modern constitutional government and the French 'principles of 1789' Napoleon the only 'Titan of the Revolution' The debt of France for her modern liberty to America and to England lxxvi VII. The Exposition of 1889 an electoral device Panic of the Government caused by Parisian support of General Boulanger Futile attempt of M. Jules Ferry to win back Conservatives to the Republic Narrow escape of the Republic at the elections of 1889 Steady increase of monarchical party since 1885 Weakness of the Republic as compared with the Second Empire lxxxix VIII. How the Republic maintains itself A million of people dependent on public employment M. Constans 'opens Paradise' to 13,000 Mayors Public servants as political agents Open pressure on the voters Growing strength of the provinces The hereditary principle alone can now restore the independence of the French Executive Diplomatic dangers of actual situation Socialism or a Constitutional Monarchy the only alternatives xcvi and the Republic, by William Henry Hurlbert 3 CHAPTER I IN THE PAS-DE-CALAIS Calais Natural and artificial France The provinces and the departments The practical joke of the First Consulate The Counts of Charlemagne and the Prefects of Napoleon President Carnot at Calais Politics and Socialism in Calais Immense outlay on the port, but works yet unfinished Indifference of the people A president with a grandfather The 'Great Carnot' and Napoleon The party of the 'Sick at heart' The Louis XVI. of the Republic Léon Say and the 'White Mouse' Gambetta's victory in 1877 Political log-rolling, French and American Republican extravagance and the 'Woollen Stocking' Boulanger and his legend Wanted a 'Great Frenchman' The Duc d'Aumale and the Comte de Paris The Republican law of exile The French people not Republican The Legitimists and the farmers A French journalist explains the Presidential progress Why decorations are given 1-22 CHAPTER I 4 CHAPTER II IN THE PAS-DE-CALAIS (continued) Boulogne Arthur Young and the Boulonnais Boulogne and Quebec The English and French types of civilisation A French ecclesiastic on the religious question The oppressive school law of 1886 The Church and the Concordat Rural communes paying double for free schools Vexatious regulations to prevent establishment of free schools All ministers of religion excluded from school councils Government officers control the whole system Permanent magistrates also excluded Revolt of the religious sentiment throughout France against the new system Anxiety of Jules Ferry to make peace with the Church Energy shown by the Catholics in resistance St Omer The Spanish and scholastic city of Guy Fawkes and Daniel O'Connell M. De la Gorce, the historian of 1848 High character of the population Improvement in tone of the French army Morals of the soldiers Devotion of the officers to their profession Derangement of the Executive in France by the elective principle The 'laicisation' of the schools Petty persecutions Children forbidden to attend the funeral of their priest The Marist Brethren at Albert Albert and the Maréchal d'Ancre A chapter of history in a name Little children stinting their own food, to send another child to school President Carnot and the nose of M. Ferry French irreligion in the United States The case of Girard College Can Christianity be abolished in France? The declared object of the Republic Morals of Artois Dense population Fanatics of the family Increase of juvenile crime American experience of the schools without religion A New England report on 'atrocious and flagrant crimes in Massachusetts' Relative increase of native white population and native crime in America An American Attorney-General calls the public school system 'a poisonous fountain of misery and moral death' A local heroine of St Omer The statue of Jacqueline Robins The Duke of Marlborough and the Jesuits College A curious sidelight on English politics in 1710 How St Omer escaped a siege 23-43 CHAPTER II 5 CHAPTER III IN THE PAS-DE-CALAIS (continued) Aire-sur-la-Lys Local objections to a national railway A visit to a councillor-general Pentecost in Artois The Artesians in 1789 Wealth and power of the clergy Recognition of the Third Estate long before the Revolution The English and the French clergy in the last century Lord Macaulay and Arthur Young Sympathy of the curés with the people Turgot, Condorcet and the rural clergy The Revolution and public education M. Guizot the founder of the French primary schools The liberal school ordinance of 1698 The Bishop of Arras, in 1740, on the duty of educating the people The experience of Louisiana as to public schools and criminality The two Robespierres saved and educated by priests What came of it A rural church and congregation in Artois The notary in rural France A village procession 'Beating the bounds' in France An altar of verdure and roses The villagers singing as they march Ancient customs in Northern France 44-52 CHAPTER III 6 CHAPTER IV IN THE PAS-DE-CALAIS (continued) Aire-sur-la-Lys Local and general elections in France A public meeting in rural Artois A councillor-general and his constituents Artois in the 18th and 19th centuries Well-tilled fields, fine roads, hedges, and orchards Effect of long or short leases A meeting in a grange French, English, and American audiences Favouritism under the conscription Extravagant outlay on scholastic palaces Almost a scene A political disturbance promoted Canvassing in England and France Tenure of office in the French Republic 'To the victors belong the spoils,' the maxim not of Jackson but of Danton 'Epuration,' what it means If Republicans are not put into office 'they will have civil war' 'No justice of the peace nor public school teacher to be spared' 'Terror and anarchy carried into all branches of the public service' M. de Freycinet declares that 'servants of the State have no liberty in politics' The Tweed régime of New York officially organised in France Men of position reluctant to take office The expense of French elections 1,300,000l. sterling the estimated cost of an opposition campaign A little dinner in a French country house The French cuisine national and imported An old Flemish city Devastations of the Revolution The beautiful Church of St Pierre A picturesque Corps de Garde The tournament of Bayard at Aire Sixteenth-century merry-makings at Aire Gifts to Mary of England on her marriage to Philip of Spain The ancient city of Thérouanne Public schools in the 17th century Small landholders in France before 1789. 53-72 CHAPTER IV 7 CHAPTER V IN THE SOMME Amiens Picardy Old and New Arthur Young and Charles James Fox in Amiens 'The look of a capital' The floating gardens of Amiens A stronghold of Boulangism Protest of Amiens against the Terror of 1792 The French nation and the Commune of Paris Vergniaud denounces the Parisians as the 'slaves of the vilest scoundrels alive' Gambetta and his balloon Amiens and the Revolution of September 1870 The rise of M. Goblet The 'great blank credit opened to the Republic in 1870' What has become of it The Prussians in Amiens Warlike spirit of the Picards A political portrait of M. Goblet by a fellow citizen A Roman son and his father's funeral A typical Republican senator and mayor How M. Petit demolished the crosses in the cemetery M. Spuller as Prefect of the Somme The Christian Brothers and their schools M. Jules Ferry withholds the salaries earned by teachers The Emperor Julian of Amiens How the Sisters were turned out of their schools The mayor, the locksmith, and the curate Mdlle. de Colombel A senatorial epistle Ulysses deserted by Calypso Why Boulangism flourishes at Amiens The First Republic invoked to justify the destruction of crosses on graves The Cathedral of Amiens and Mr. Ruskin. 73-94 CHAPTER V 8 CHAPTER VI IN THE SOMME (continued) Amiens Party names taken from persons The effect of Republican misrule at Amiens Why the Monarchists acted with the Boulangists The Picards incline towards the Empire How the Republic of 1848 captured France Armand Marrast and the French mail coaches Mr. Sumner's story The political value of paint Paris and the provinces M. Mermeix offers with a few million francs and a few thousand rowdies to change the French Government General Boulanger's campaign in Picardy Capturing the mammas by kissing the babies The Monarchical peasantry The National Accounts of France not balanced for years Conservatives excluded from the Budget Committee The Boulanger programme Expenses of the political machine in France, England, and America The Boulangist campaign conducted by voluntary subscriptions General Boulanger and the army The common sewer of the discontent of France The local finances of a French city Municipal expenses of Amiens Pressure of the octroi A local deficit of millions since the Republicans got into power The mayor and the prefect control the accounts Immense expenditure on scholastic palaces Estimated annual increase in France since 1880 of local indebtedness, 10,000,000l. sterling M. Goblet on the growth of young men's monarchical clubs History of the octroi General prosperity of Picardy Rural ideas of aristocracy Land ownership in Ireland and France 'Land-grabbing' in Picardy a hundred years ago The corvée abolished before the Revolution, but it still exists under the Republic, as a prestation en nature Public education in Picardy two centuries ago Small tenants as numerous under Edward II. in Picardy as small proprietors now are Home rule needed in France 'The opinion of a man's legs' 95-124 CHAPTER VI 9 CHAPTER VII IN THE AISNE St Gobain Paris and the Ile-de-France Reclamation of the commons Mischievous haste in the Revolutionary transfer of lands The evolution of property and order in France and England The flower gardens of France The home counties around London compared with the departments around Paris Superiority of the French fruit and vegetable markets The military city of La Fère A local cabbage-leaf French farmers and the Treaties of Commerce Arthur Young at St Gobain The largest mirror in the world The great French glassworks 'An industrial flower on a seignorial stalk, springing from a feudal root' Evolution without Revolution Two centuries and a half of industrial progress Labour in the Middle Ages The Irish apostle of North-eastern France The forests of France A factory in a château A centenarian royal porter The Duchesse de Berri and the Empress Eugénie A co-operative association of consumers A great manufacturing company working on lines laid down under Louis XIV Glass-working, Venetian and French A jointstock company of the 18th century The old and new school of factory discipline French industry and the Terror 'Two aristocrats' called in to save a confiscated property St Gobain and the Eiffel Tower Royal luxuries in 1673, popular necessaries of life in 1889 How great mirrors are cast Beauty of the processes The coming age of glass Glass pavements and roofs The hereditary principle among the working classes Practical co-operation of capital and labour Schools, asylums, workmen's houses and gardens, social clubs, and savings-banks Co-operative pension funds A great economic family Of 2,650 workpeople more than 50 per cent. employed for more than ten years A subterranean lake The crypts of St Gobain and the Cisterns of Constantinople A spectral gondolier A Venetian promenade with coloured lanterns underground 125-161 CHAPTER VII 10 [...]... Lion and Bertrand de Boru The home of Nostradamus Why the Germans beat the French The barber bard of Languedoc Scaliger and the Huguenots Nérac and the Reine Margot The 'Lovers' War' The Revocation and the Revolution The ruin of property in 1793 Decline of the wealth of France The monarchists of the Aveyron A banquet of monarchist mayors The need of a man in France 'A bolt out of the blue' How the Duc... that their government of the Third French Republic in 1890 really resembles the government of the Akhoond of Swat about as nearly as it resembles the government of the American Republic under Washington The parliamentary revolutionists of the Third French Republic are Republicans first and then Frenchmen The framers of the American Republic were Americans first and then Republicans The Republic which they... income of the clergy of France They ordered the dispersion by Executive decrees, and 'if necessary by military force,' of all religious orders and communities not 'authorised' by the Government They drove nuns and Sisters of Charity, with violence and insult, out of their abodes They expelled the religious nurses from the hospitals and the priests from the prisons and the almshouses They 'laicised' the schools... evil The working men and the upper classes Count Albert de Mun A popular vote against universal suffrage The Holy See and the Catholic labour movement in France The parochial clergy and the laymen The Wesleyans and the Catholics Privileged purveyors The financial aspect of the Catholic corporations A revival of the old guilds The national system of the corporations Provincial and general assemblies The. .. Thiers and his legislative cabal got the better of the Prince President in the 'struggle for life' which then went on between the Place St.-Georges and the Elysée! III There are two periods, one in the history of modern England, the other in the history of the United States, which directly illuminate the history of France since the overthrow of the ancient French Monarchy in 1792 CHAPTER XIV 25 One of these... September' and the elections to the Convention How they chose Jacobin deputies at Reims The documentary story of the eight murders Mayors under the Republic The defence of Lille How the Republic voted a monument and Louis Philippe built it Desecration of a great cathedral The legend of Ruhl and the sacred ampulla The demolition of St.-Nicaise and the bargain of Santerre How Napoleon disciplined the Faubourg... 1870-71, and the fusion of classes Historic names in the French army Officers and the châteaux An American minister and the Comte de Paris The Monarchist and the Republican representatives The Duc de Broglie in the Eure Architectural evidence as to the social life of the ancien régime The war of classes a consequence, not a cause, of the Revolution The Vicomte de Noailles and Artemus Ward Feudal serfs and. .. prepare the Grand Social Revolution and make war upon the theocratic spirit which seeks to reduce the human mind to slavery!' In other words, the Third Republic is to combine the Socialism of 1848 with the Atheism of 1793, the National workshops with the worship of Reason, and to join hands, I suppose, with the extemporised 'Republic of Brazil' in a grand propaganda which shall secure the abolition,... restored under the Monarchy and Second Empire The 'King William's Fund' of the Netherlanders in London Count de Bylandt and Sir Polydore de Keyser 332-368 CHAPTER XIII 16 CHAPTER XIII IN THE MARNE Reims The capital of the French kings Clotilde and Clovis, Jeanne d'Arc and Urban II. Vineyards and factories The wines of Champagne known and unknown The red wine of Bouzy Mr Canning and still Champagne The syndication... Nîmes and M Guizot The religious wars in Languedoc The son of M Guizot at Uzès Politics in the Gard Catholics and Protestants fighting side by side The late M Cornelis de Witt The hereditary principle in Holland What the United States learned from the Netherlands and from England How the Duke of York missed an American throne A Protestant monarchist in the Lot-et-Garonne The plums of Agen and the apricots . xcvi and the Republic, by William Henry Hurlbert 3 CHAPTER I IN THE PAS-DE-CALAIS Calais Natural and artificial France The provinces and the departments The practical joke of the First Consulate The. persons The effect of Republican misrule at Amiens Why the Monarchists acted with the Boulangists The Picards incline towards the Empire How the Republic of 1848 captured France Armand Marrast and the. Holland What the United States learned from the Netherlands and from England How the Duke of York missed an American throne A Protestant monarchist in the Lot-et-Garonne The plums of Agen and the apricots