Anatole France

by Georg Brandes

France does not share the reactionary's fear of the power of the masses. But if he does not fear it, it is not because of their wisdom. It is because of their caution. He knows that fear of the unknown renders universal suffrage a perfectly safe institution. He has made too good use of his eyes and his reasoning powers to have more reverence for the sovereign people than for any of the other sovereigns to whom men throughout the ages have offered homage and flattery. He knows that knowledge is sovereign, not the people. He knows that a foolish cry, though taken up by thirty-six millions of voices, does not cease to be foolish, and that truth is irresistible and will make itself ruler of the earth, though it may be perceived and proclaimed only by a single man, and though millions may unite and shout in chorus against his "individualism."

France is no optimist. He has seen too much declension and apostasy around him in France and Europe generally, to believe in the fable of uninterrupted progress. He has lived through times of universal indifference and apathy, when no sting was sharp enough to stir men to think, much less to act. When men's souls are hungering and thirsting after unrighteousness, it is of little use offering them a refreshing draught of culture. As is said of the "people" in Bergeret: "It is not easy to make an ass which is not thirsty drink." France knows, too, what popularity means. He has good reasons for making one of his principal characters say: "If the crowd ever takes you lovingly into its arms, you will soon discover the vastness of its impotence and of its cowardice." And we have elsewhere his quiet, witty explanation of the election of a Nationalist candidate for the Municipal Council and the defeat of the Republican. The Nationalist candidate was entirely ignorant of all the subjects connected with the office, and this ignorance stood him in good stead; it rendered his oratory more spontaneous and eloquent. The Republican, on the contrary, lost himself in technical questions and details. Although he knew his public, he harboured some illusions regarding the intelligence of the electors who had nominated him. From a certain respect for them, he dared not venture on too much humbug, and entered into explanations. Consequently he seemed cold, obscure, tiresome—and all support was withdrawn.

But, on the other hand, France is no pessimist. He knows and says of the France of to-day: "The weak are in the wrong. That is the sum of our morality, my friend. Do you suppose that we are on the side of Poland or Finland? No, no! That is not the way the wind blows at present!" But he also knows that the earth will not finally belong to armed barbarity. Alone, unarmed, naked, truth is stronger than everything. Might and violence oppose it in vain. It strikes at injustice and annihilates it. The word of man changes the world. The alliance of strong reasons and noble thoughts is an indissoluble alliance, and against its onslaught nothing can stand. Bergeret, the tranquil philosopher, is absolutely certain of the final victory of reason. "The visions of the philosopher have in all ages aroused men of action, who have set to work to realise them. Our thoughts create the future. Statesmen work after the plans which we leave behind us."

Certain it is that the future is hidden from us. But we must, as France says, work at it as the weavers work who produce the Gobelin tapestry without seeing the pictures which they are weaving. Nor is it altogether true that the future is hidden. Or, granting it to be so to us, "we can conceive of more developed beings to whom to-morrow is realised as yesterday and to-day are. It makes it the easier to imagine beings who perceive simultaneously phenomena which appear to us separated by a long interval of time, when we remember that our own eyes, looking up to the night sky, receive, mingled beams of light which have left different stars at intervals of centuries, and centuries of centuries."

A man holding such views as these may be claimed as an adherent by both the Radical and the Conservative party, as Ibsen was for a time in Scandinavia. France actually was incorporated in the Conservative party. As late as 1897 he was the candidate for the Academy whom the Conservative party, the Dukes, opposed to Ferdinand Fabre, an author hostile to the power of the Church.

Highly valuing moderation and tact, he at that time detested his future companion in arms, Zola—detested him, indeed, without moderation—wrote: "I do not envy him his disgusting celebrity. Never has a man so exerted himself to abase humanity and to deny everything that is good and right. Never has any one so entirely misunderstood the human ideal." There is more love of good taste here than appreciation of genius. It must be remembered that France afterwards publicly recanted this and many similar utterances. He did so in the beautiful and heartfelt speech which he made at Emile Zola's grave; but he had done it long before.

He overlooked the genius of the man who was to become his best comrade in arms because of that man's bad taste and exaggerations, and himself exaggeratedly praised the men with whom he was afterwards compelled to engage in mortal combat, and of whose narrowness and weaknesses he afterwards had ample experience.

He wrote in serious earnest: "I do not believe that more intelligent men than Paul Bourget and Jules Lemaître can ever have existed."

He had no perception then of Bourget's fear of hell, or of Lemaitre's want of moral equilibrium. Here is his testimonial to the latter, the future Nationalist fanatic: "He is one of the men who bear ill-will to none, but are long-suffering and benevolent. His is a fearless spirit, a smiling soul; he is all tolerance."

When this was written Jules Lemaître was already malicious and ungenerous, though perhaps not yet base. A few years later he was, as Vice-President of the Patrie Française, leader of the band which kept Dreyfus prisoner in the île du Diable and advocated the coup d'état against Loubet. A few years later Paul Bourget had returned to the bosom of the Roman Catholic Church, and was attacking with the utmost violence every progressive movement, even the enlightenment of the people and instruction for the working man. These were France's models of intelligence.