We shall now assume that you love the people. But, besides that, in order to address them pertinently, you must understand them well, know their good qualities, their failings, instincts, passions, prejudices, and their way of looking at things; in a word, you must know them by heart. To a profound acquaintance with religion must be joined a profound knowledge of humanity as it exists at the present day. But, to speak frankly, the people are not known; not even by the most keen-sighted, not even by our statesmen. They are only studied superficially, in books, in romances, in the newspapers, or else they are not studied at all. Judgment is mostly formed from appearances. One sees a man mad with rage, who insults, blasphemes, or who staggers through the streets, and he says: "There; behold the people!" Another sees one who risks his own life to save a fellow-creature, or who finds and restores a purse or a pocket-book to its owner, and he exclaims exultingly, "Behold the people!" Both are mistaken, for both substitute an exception for the rule.
In order to understand the people well, we must probe beyond the surface, and take them as they are when they are most themselves. They must be studied in the spirit, as it were, and not on the outside; for they often appear worse than they actually are. Still less should we arrest our researches, as is frequently done, at a point where they clash against ourselves. On the other hand, I feel bound to state that if we do not know the people, they, in turn, do not know the classes of society above them; and it is on that account that we do not love each other as we ought.
At first sight, the French people—the lower orders—are a real mystery: an inconceivable medley of weakness and of courage, of goodness and ill-will, of delicacy and rudeness, of generosity and egotism, of seriousness and of frivolity. It may be said that they possess two natures: one endowed with good sense, which is generous, feeling, and contrite; the other unreflecting, which raves and drinks, curses and swears. On one side they are frivolous, vain, weak, scornful, sceptical, credulous, headstrong.
In their frivolity they jeer at every thing; at what is frivolous and what is serious, at what is profane and what is sacred. Their weakness under temptation is lamentable: they have no restraint over themselves. But, above all, their credulity is unbounded. This is their weak, their bad side; the source of one portion of our evils.
Alas! what may not this people be led to believe? There is no lie so great, no absurdity so gross, the half of which they may not be made to swallow when their passions dictate that any thing may be gained thereby, or they conceive that their interests are assailed. At certain seasons of blind infatuation they may be made to believe any thing; even that which is incredible, even what is impossible. Unfortunately this is to some extent the case among the higher classes. The people surrender themselves to the first comer who has a glib tongue and can lie adroitly.
Their credulity, as already stated, knows no bounds; especially as respects the rich and the clergy, whom they regard as the cause of all the ills which befall them. Accidents wholly independent of human volition are placed to their account. Is there a dearth? They create the scarcity of corn. Is there stagnation in trade? They restrain the capitalists. Undoubtedly they had some hand in the cholera; and it is not quite certain but that there exists some damnable connivance between them and the caterpillars and weevils. … Poor people! yet how they are deceived! Thereupon their good sense disappears, their heads reel, reflection abandons them, and then they rise up in anger: strike, pillage, kill. … They become terrible.
But I hasten to say that if there is evil in the French people, there is also good: much good. They are witty, frank, logical, generous, amiable, and above all, they have hearts. This is undeniable; and we should never despair of a man who has a heart, for there is always something in him to fall back upon. When all else is lost to this people, their heart survives, for it is the last thing which dies within them.
It has been said that frivolity is the basis of the French character; but that judgment is incorrect. More truly it should be said that the French character is frivolous outwardly, but at the bottom it is generous, combined with exquisite good sense.