A Journey of a Jayhawker

by W. Y. Morgan

The workingmen still wear the long blouse outside the trousers, which looks like a heavy night-shirt and reaches below the knees. At the time of the great revolution the workingmen were so poor that they could not afford to wear trousers and the long blouses were all that covered them. Hence came the nickname “sanscullottes,” meaning “without breeches,” and as all who have read the story of the revolution or Victor Hugo’s books will remember, the Sansculottes, the men without breeches, made up the mob which upset the throne and established the republic.

The French still worship Napoleon. They have forgiven the sacrifice of blood and treasure which he forced from them, and remember the glory and the greatness of the empire. And in spite of the fact that Napoleon III. quit the emperor business under a cloud, having been removed from office after his surrender to the Germans in 1870, he is well thought of, for during his reign France and Paris prospered and times were good. There is a large party in France that favors the return of the present representative of the Napoleon family, Prince Victor, to the throne. We went to the Church of Madeleine, the most beautiful and fashionable church in Paris, and over the altar is a beautiful painting of Napoleon receiving the crown from the pope, with Christ in the background of the picture. That is just like the French.

I made an effort to get into the meeting of the Chamber of Deputies, the French congress, but failed. You have to have a ticket of admission, and it must be applied for several days in advance. They tell me the session is a good deal like an old-time Kansas Populist convention, where everybody said what he wanted to and then everybody was of the same opinion still. The meeting often gets so tumultuous that the president of the body adjourns it. Such an assembly must be guarded by careful and tactful leadership or it will end in a row. I can’t understand French politics. There are really no parties such as we have. A large majority favor the republic. The minority is composed of Clericals, Bonapartists, Radicals, and Socialists. The government party is divided into factions, and the issues are personal rather than on economic questions. The minority is of course divided, and the result is that the government wins somehow or other nearly every time. If it should lose, a new cabinet would be formed; but that would be taken from the same party as the old, and would be merely a different lot of statesmen. The French republic is all right so long as there is no serious trouble, but a Dreyfus incident, or a war, or hard times might overturn the government, and nobody knows whether the monarchists might not get on top again. The church is opposed to the policy of the republic, which has been to decrease the power of the church, cut off the parochial schools, and take education out of the hands of the religious bodies. The men in France are not very religious, leaving that part of life to the women and children. But a large and respectable party is in opposition to the government on account of the way it has confiscated church property and driven out the religious orders.

There are only a few electric lines in Paris, and they are not in the main part of the city. The people use carriages a great deal, for they are so cheap; and also omnibuses. The usual means of traveling in the city, aside from the cab, is the omnibus, which is double-decked, carrying as many people on top as inside. This seems a trifle slow to Americans, but it works all right in Paris. The ’buses make regular processions up and down the principal streets, and as they are nearly always filled inside and outside, they add immensely to the Parisian picture. There is an underground railroad and there are dummy lines in the suburbs, but I think the people of Paris like to travel where they can see and be seen. The cabs are victorias. Automobiles are everywhere, and if you go to Paris to live and want to cut any ice you must get one.

I saw a little scene which seemed to show up Parisian character. A cab collided slightly with another. Immediately both drivers were off their vehicles, gesticulating and talking about 300 words a minute. As they shook their fists and grew red in the face with the words that came so fast they interfered with each other, I thought somebody would surely be killed. Nobody noticed them. No one paid any attention. And finally the two exhausted men climbed back to their places and drove on. I know they used French words to each other that in America would have ensured a police court trial for disturbance of the peace. A French friend to whom I mentioned the matter said it was the invariable way, and he thought the French method of taking out their wrath in words was better than the American way of fighting it out. Perhaps he was right, but as I afterward saw the scene repeated in different forms it always occurred to me that it was childish. And that reminds me to say that the Frenchman is in the habit of playing with his children, taking part in their games as excitedly as they do.