"And now for a serious bit of moralizing, from gay to grave. The radical changes of the last five years in Paris deserve chronicling and deep study. The War and the Commune have made a new world. 'La nation la plus aimable la plus aimée et peut-être la moins aimante,' has been translated, 'The light and joyous character may lie below, but there is a terrible hard upper crust of sulkiness and economy run mad—rage for lucre, and lust pour la revanche.' There is only the ancienne noblesse, the Faubourg St. Germain, the souls loyal to their King and to their Faith, who remain pure. So far, the Parisians are like the Irish Kelt,—a blathering, bumptious, bull-and-blunder loving race. The former have been converted in half a century by politics and polemics into a moping and melancholy brood. It is no longer the fashion in France to speak without an introduction. Men will sit side by side at table d'hôte in dead silence for a month; they travel twenty-four hours in the railway without opening the mouth; and if a loud laugh be heard in public, it is sure to come from some triste Anglais. Even the women, although they still fling the look of hate at a pretty toilette, seem to have abdicated the supremacy of the toilette. Once you never did, now you often see the absence of corsets upon figures that can't stand it. They are badly painted, and it is a sin to paint badly. They are outrées in their dress, and the neglect of these things is a bad sign in Paris. The middle and the lower classes, who used to be à quatre épingles, are mal coiffées, with their petticoats hanging below their dresses, as we were in the days of les Anglaises pour rire. We have learnt many things from our French friends, and amongst the good things, how to dress; but dress never made our women's beauty—it did that of the French.
"The theatres are clearing 27,000,000 of francs (1875), when during the palmiest days of the Empire they never exceeded 17,000,000. Except at the new Opera, the scenery and decorations are those of our penny gaffs. 'Les Italiens' bears the palm of dowdyism, and actors and actresses seem to have decayed with the decorations. The cuisine, except in special instances, has notably fallen off. The bottles are all 'kick,' the famous bread and butter has lost caste. The café au lait is all chicory—maximum water, minimum beans. Mammonolatry is rampant, and the great problem of manufacture and depôt, of store and shop, is how to charge the most for the worst article. Economy has now become a vice instead of a virtue, and 1,852,000 souls manage to pay 12,280,000 francs in taxes per annum.
"It is impossible to pass a day in Paris without hearing and speaking politics. The French, I have said, are sulky, especially with the 'Perfidious,' because she has supplanted them in Egypt, where for so many years England had by a tacit convention supplied the material and France the personal. They question the wisdom of our last dodge. It is the first move in the coming Kriegspiel. I hate half-measures, and I would have bought the Canal wholly out and out, and put a fortress at each end, and taken a mild nominal toll to show my right. I would annex Egypt and protect Syria, occupy the Dardanelles, and after that let the whole world wrangle as much as it pleased. What is the use of having a Navy superior to all the united navies of the rest of the world, if we can't do this? The world will never be still till Constantinople returns to the old Byzantine kingdom; and we might put a Royalty there, say the Duke of Edinburgh, who, being married to the Czar's daughter, would unite the interests of Russia and England. Let the Turk live, but retire into private life; he is a good fellow there, and we can respect El Islam so long as he has nothing to butcher.
Central Europe.
"Let Austria become a mighty empire,—nineteen million Slavs, eight million Germans, five million Hungarians. Let Italy be satisfied with her Unity and Freedom and Progress, and Prussia repose upon her Bismarck, and France keep quiet and look after her health. But as it is, the three Emperors may say to us, 'Gentlemen, you have got what you want; we will follow suit—look on, and don't spoil sport.' Taken per se, this Suez Canal measure is a patch of tinsel gold plastered upon the rags of foreign and continental policy which our ins and outs have kept us up during the last decade, whilst under-authorities are apparently told off to declare periodically that England has lost none of her prestige abroad. Listen to the average politician of the multitude.[1] I do not like the doings of my own party (I am a Conservative); and what irritates me more is, that little as he knows, there is sound truth in what he says.
"The fact is, that England has repudiated the grand old rule of aristocracy which carried her safely through the Titan wars of the early Buonaparte ages, whilst she has not accepted the strong repulsive arm of Democracy, which enabled the Federal to beat down the Confederate. She rejects equally the refined minority and the sturdy majority; she is neither hot nor cold; she sits between two stools, and we all know where that leads to.
"This Suez move would have been a homogeneous part of a strong policy—that is, a policy backed by two millions of soldiers, by a preponderating fleet of ironclads, and by a school of diplomatists, which has not been broken in to 'effacing' themselves. Of our politicians generally, the less said the soonest mended; but I have unbounded confidence in our Premier,[2] in our Navy, and the good heart, rough common sense, firmness, and esprit de corps of our British public. The next shake—and it will be heavy and soon—will give us the Euphrates Valley Railway, despite the cleverness of an Ignatieff. The first disaster will bring on a revival of the Militia Law, and I should not be surprised if we live to see ourselves revolve round again to a general conscription, and the 'do nothings' will eventually go to the wall. It is a pity to tie the hands of so long-sighted a Premier.
"Revenge is still the dream of Paris, and the dream is not of the wise. The three Emperors love the three Empires, and hate one another; the Government and the Lieges are blinded by jealousy; each wishes to be the first in the race, and to see the other two distanced. All are mounted upon a war footing au piéd de guerre; which means that they intend fighting, and Germany especially must fight or she is lost; to her peace is more ruinous than war. France is cutting her way up with the purse instead of the sword. The great Triad might alter the map of Europe. 'The sons of Hermann' would absorb Belgium and Holland; the Muscovite swallow Constantinople with its neighbouring appendages, and Austria convey ('the wise call it') the remainder of Turkey's Slavonic provinces. But they will do nothing of the kind. Germany has proved herself the natural guardian of the Eastern frontier of Europe.
"A Franco-Russian alliance is now, in 1876, in everybody's mouth. France is for the moment safely republican, with a chance of M. Thiers, the kingmaker, succeeding to the Presidency.[3] She casts the blame of the Communal excesses upon the Buonapartists, because she fears them; but she has clean forgotten Legitimists and Orleanists. As regards the Franco-Russian alliance, opinions follow two courses. The sensible and far-seeing, which (like councils of war) never fights, would unite with Russia and temporarily keep the peace. The majority of hot heads and Hotspurs would use it for another 'À Berlin!' to attack Prussia from the east as well as the west.
"Yet, if the truth be told, France is far less ready for war than England. She can hardly raise 400,000 men to defend her own frontiers. We assisted at various reviews, and inspected many of the camps; we saw artillery, cavalry, and infantry equally unfit to face an educated enemy. Every order given by an officer was answered or questioned by a private, 'Mais, ce n'est pas cela du tout, mon Capitaine.' Guns, horses, and men were equally inefficient. True, the chassepot is being changed for the fusil Gras, the sword-bayonet is being supplanted by a neat triangular weapon unfit to cut cabbages and wood, and the six arms manufacturers of France are not wasting an hour. But after seeing the skirmishes and advances in line, one cannot help feeling certain that at this rate half a century will elapse before the Frenchman is ready to fight the Prussian. Meanwhile, every head of man, woman, and child here pay half a franc (fivepence sterling) per diem, and the municipality of Paris spends, I am told, an income inferior only to the six great Powers of Europe.