“You allude to the sun of the mind?”
“Certainly! and the West is Paris.”
“A la bonne heure. Thus do we understand one another.”
“Just so, M. Gueronnay; an opinion after your own heart, isn’t it? What I cant understand is, that the world does not settle down to sleep quietly, since Paris thinks and acts for it. What more can be required for the general regeneration of humanity than the Journal des Débats, that is to say, the diffusion of useful knowledge—Madame Rachel, that is to say, the art-education of mankind—and a few Chasseurs d’Afrique, that is to say, liberty?”
“Not bad; you have French esprit. Well, you flatter us.”
“Indeed,” says Dr. Keif, very gravely. “Even the Paris Cancan, immoral though it may appear, has, after all, decency and grace enough to civilise half the world. Am I not right? And if la France has been put into the stocks, it is merely because she has been dancing all night for the benefit of distressed humanity; her present misfortune is, after all, nothing but a fresh proof of creative genius, which conceals the profoundest of all modern ideas of emancipation; for, if you please, whatever la France will do that she can do. She takes the resolution, in the face of all Europe, and in plain daylight, to lie in the dirtiest gutter that can be found, and lo! she performs the feat. Alas, for the blindness of the other nations, who do not also lie down in the same gutter, and who will not understand that there must be salvation in the pool in which it pleases la France to wallow!”
“Stop! stop!” replies M. Gueronnay. “What does all this mean?”
“It means simply that the French are the most conceited, insane people on the face of the earth.”
“Mais, Monsieur, I am a Frenchman!”
“Of course you are,” continues the Doctor, with a low impressive voice. “You cannot deny that the French go on sinning on the strength of their constitution! Pray let me go on. That they are a nation of spirited fools, genial ragamuffins, overgrown gamins, and revolutionary lacqueys, who can neither govern themselves, nor will they allow any despot ‘by the grace of God’ to govern them for any length of time.”