Is Polite Society Polite? and Other Essays

by Julia Ward Howe

Parisians are very homesick people when obliged to forsake their capital. Madame de Staël, in full view of the beautiful lake of Geneva, said that she would much prefer a view of the gutter in the Rue de Bac, which in her day had not the attractions of the Bon Marché emporium, so powerful to-day.

I should deserve ill of my subject if I failed to say that the great issues of progress are to-day dearly and soberly held to by the intelligence of the French people, and the good faith of their representatives. In the history of the present republic, the solid interests of the nation have slowly and steadfastly gained ground.

The efforts which forward these seem to me to culminate in the measures which are intended at once to establish popular education and to defend it from ecclesiastical interference. The craze for military glory is also yielding before the march of civilization, and the ambitions which build up society are everywhere gaining upon the passions which destroy it.

In the last forty-five years, the social relations of France to the civilized world have undergone much alteration. The magnificent traditions of ancient royalty have become entirely things of the past. The genius of the first Napoleon has passed out of people's minds. The social prestige of France is no longer appealed to, no longer felt.

We read French novels, because French novelists have an admirable style of narrating, but we no longer go to them for powerful ideals of life and character. The modern world has outgrown the Gallic theories of sex. We are tired of hearing about the women whose merit consists in their loving everything better than their husbands. In this light artillery of fashion and fiction, France no longer holds the place which was hers of old.

In losing these advantages, she has, I think, gained better things. The struggle of the French people to establish and maintain a republic in the face of and despite monarchical Europe is a heroic one, worthy of all esteem and sympathy. In science, France has never lost her eminence. In serious literature, in the practical philosophy of history, in criticism of the highest order, the French are still masters in their own way. Notwithstanding their evil legislation regarding women, their medical authorities have been most generous to our women students of medicine. Many of these have crossed the Atlantic to seek in France that clinical study and observation from which they have been in great measure debarred in our own country.

There is still much bigotry and intolerance, much shallow scepticism and false philosophy; but there is also, underneath all this, the germ of great and generous qualities which place the nation high in the scale of humanity.

I should be glad to bind together these scattered statements into some great, instructive lesson for France and for ourselves. Perhaps the best thing that I can do in this direction will be to suggest to Americans the careful study of French history and of French character. The great divisions of the world to-day are invaded by travel, and the iron horse carries civilization far and wide. Many of those who go abroad may, however, be found to have less understanding regarding foreign countries than those who have learned all that may be learned concerning them from history and literature. To many Americans, Paris is little more than the place of shops and of fashions. I have been mortified sometimes at the familiarity which our travellers show with all that may be bought and sold on the other side of the ocean, combined with an arrant and arrogant ignorance concerning the French people and the country in which they live.

Even to the most careful observer, the French are not easy to be understood. The most opposite statements may be made about them. Some call them noble; others, ignoble. To some, they appear turbulent and ferocious; to others, slavish and cowardly. Great thinkers do not judge them in this offhand way, and from such we may learn to make allowances for the fact that monarchic and aristocratic rule create and foster great inequalities of character and intelligence among the nations in which they prevail. Limitations of mind and of opinion are inherited from generations which have been dwarfed by political and spiritual despotism; and in such countries, the success of liberal institutions, even if emphatically assured, is but slowly achieved and established.

A last word of mine shall commend this Paris to those who are yet to visit it. Let me pray such as may have this experience not to suppose that they have read the wonderful riddle of this city's life when they shall have seen a few of its shops, palaces, and picture-galleries. If they wish to understand what the French people are, and why they are what they are, they will have to study history, politics, and human nature pretty deeply.