English Pharisees French Crocodiles, and Other Anglo-French Typical Characters

You have been kind enough to receive favorably two volumes of unpretentious impressions of your great and most hospitable country, published in 1889 and 1891.

You are a dear friend and a delightful fellow. You are on the road that will safely lead you to the discovery of everything that can insure the prosperity of the land of which you are so justly proud.

Yet the Old World can teach you something; not how to work, but how to live.

I have drawn a few sketches for you. Perhaps they will show you that people can be happy without rolling in wealth, or living in a furnace.

Take up this little book and, lighting a cigar, lie down quietly on the grass and read it under the shade of a tree.

CHAPTER I.

FOREIGNERS

People very often speak ill of their neighbors, not out of wickedness, but merely out of laziness; it is so much easier to do so than to study their qualities and all the circumstances that might oblige you to change your opinion.

For instance, some fifty years ago, a great English wit, Sydney Smith, said that it required a surgical operation to make a Scotchman understand a joke.

Well, an English joke, he probably meant.

However, the satire was neatly expressed. When the English get hold of a good joke, and see it, it lasts them a long time.

The Scotch are a hundred times more witty and humorous than the English; but John Bull still goes on affirming that "it requires a surgical operation to make a Scotchman understand a joke."

If such misunderstanding can exist between the English and the Scotch, just imagine what feelings the natives of a land can inspire in foreigners.

Oh! that word foreigner!

In some ears it sounds like bastards. In some people's minds, it is the synonym of bad. The English greengrocer, for instance, divides his asparagus into large and small heads. The fine large ones he binds together and sells at high prices under the name of English asparagus. The bundles of threads at one shilling figure in his shop window as foreign.

In England, the adjective English is synonymous with excellent. In France, we have an adjective that signifies excellent, too, and that is the adjective French. Do but make an observation to a French shopkeeper upon the price of his goods, and he will promptly answer: "I keep a cheaper article, but it is naturally of greatly inferior quality. Would Monsieur like to see my English stock?" In French commerce, English is synonymous with worthless.

Now, what is a foreigner?

No man was born a foreigner.

Once an American said to me, on board a steamer, sailing from Liverpool to New York: "You are a foreigner, I guess."

"Well," I replied, "not yet. I shall be, when I get to your country."

What is a foreigner?

As a rule, a foreigner is a good fellow, brought up by worthy parents, and belonging to a country quite as good as yours.

Nations may be well or badly governed. They may possess hot or cold climates, indifferent or beautiful scenery. The manners and customs of their inhabitants may be utterly different. But the most stupid statement that can possibly be made is that some nations are better or worse than others.

We French people ought not to be a closed letter to the foreigner, for Heaven knows we make no attempt to hide our defects, and I might even add that if we did study to hide them, instead of boasting of them, we might cut quite as good and moral a figure as the most proper inhabitant of the British Isles or of the State of Maine.

We offer ourselves to criticism so unreservedly, owning our shortcomings with such frankness, such abandon, that it ill becomes our neighbors to find fault with us. Indeed, we are a nation that confesses with a gay candor that should disarm unkind criticism.

Yes, the foreigner ought to be able to read, as in an open book, that good, warm-hearted, France that he hardly looks at. For him, France is Paris; Paris that supplies him with pleasures for a fortnight, and that he despises when he is satiated. The real France, peaceful and laborious, he knows nothing about beyond what he has seen of it from the windows of a railroad car.

On arriving at home again, he writes to his friends:

"I have just returned from France. What a country it is! Ah! I have seen pretty sights, I can assure you! I will tell you all about it in private, when we meet. All I can say now is, that I thank God that I was born an Englishman."

Here is a good fellow who has undoubtedly visited the wrong places.

The Frenchman is no better. He comes to London for a week on business. (I say "on business," because nobody would think of coming to London on pleasure), and profits by his visit to go and see Madame Tussaud's Exhibition. Then he returns home, and exclaims, parodying Victor Hugo's celebrated lines: "How proud a man is to call himself a Frenchman when he has looked at England."

He has looked at England, it is true, but he has not seen it.

To look is an action of the body. To see is an action of the mind.

When people travel in foreign lands, they often make two kinds of mistakes.

Firstly, they are liable to visit the wrong places, like the Englishman who returned home "thanking God he was born an Englishman."

Secondly, they draw conclusions too quickly.

Let us illustrate this.

When English people alight at a French hotel and find no soap on the washstand, do you believe they conclude from this that the French carry their own soap in their trunks when they travel? Not they. They conclude that the French do not wash, or that, if they do, their ablutions are performed by means of a corner of a handkerchief dipped in water.

Mark Twain, the prince of American humorists, exclaims upon entering the bedroom of a French hotel: "What, waiter, no soap! Don't you know that soap is indispensable to an Englishman or an American; and that only a Frenchman can do without it?"

It is true that you find soap on the washstands in English or American hotels; but the English and their American cousins may perhaps be astonished to hear that a true-born Frenchman would have as much repugnance to using hotel soap, as they would to using a toothbrush that they might find on a lodging-house washstand. Some people like second-hand soap; some do not. We will even make bold to inform them that a great many French ladies are so particular as to carry about a supply of bedroom towels with them when they travel.

CHAPTER II.

JOHN BULL UP TO DATE

Would you know what an Englishman is – let him be a duke's son, officer in Her Majesty's service, student, schoolboy, clerk, shopboy, gentleman, or street rough?

Well, an Englishman is a lusty fellow, fearless, hardy, and strong-knit, iron-muscled, and mule-headed, who, rather than let go a ball that he holds firmly in his arms, will perform feats of valor; who, to pass this ball between two goals, will grovel in the dust, reckless of lacerated shoulders, a broken rib or jawbone, and will die on a bed of suffering with a smile upon his lips if he can only hear, before closing his eyes, that his side has won the game.

Multiply this Englishman by the number of the stars in the firmament, and you will arrive at a pretty correct idea of England's martial, if not military, force.

The Englishman does nothing by halves. His favorite adjective is thorough. The more difficulties he has to surmount the more he is in his element; he is a curious mixture of lion, mule, and octopus. Outdoing Milo of Crotona, he would manage to withdraw his wrist from the cleft of the oak.

Mr. Gladstone said one day (many years ago): "When I work, I work as hard as I can; when I run, I run as fast as I can; when I jump, I jump as far as I can." He might add now: "When I get into a mess, I plunge into it over head and shoulders."

To three qualities I ascribe the success of John Bull: his tenacity, the coolness of his head, and the thickness of his skin.

Take an Englishman to visit the ruins of some old castle: he will not rest until he has thrust his nose into every nook and cranny of the place, and climbed the most crumbling walls, at the risk of breaking his neck over and over again. He has seen nothing if he has not seen all. You may think yourself lucky if he has not profited by your back being turned for a moment, to go and hoist the Union Jack on the summit of the highest tower. That is a little weakness of his that makes him a trifle inconvenient occasionally, I must say; but, you see, one cannot get on in this world without a certain aptitude for making one's self at home.

He conquers the world for the good of the world. When he goes after pastures new, he takes the Bible with him. It will not be long before the natives have the Bible, and he their land. On arriving upon his new field of operation, the missionary places the Bible in the hands of the natives, and thus addresses them: "My dear Brethren, lift your eyes to Heaven, and pray. Lift your eyes – higher – higher – still higher – that's it. Now close them, and do not open them until I tell you – that's it – pray – there – now open your eyes, you are saved."

When the worthy natives open their eyes, their territory is gone.

Truly, a strange being, but an interesting subject of study, is this same Englishman. Capable of combining a thousand different personages, of playing a thousand different parts, of doing in Rome (to use his own words) as the Romans do; extreme in each of his acts, presenting the most striking contrasts, but always guided by his reason. Fiery patriot, yet calmly bearing the greatest humiliations while awaiting the propitious moment for taking his innings. In the temple, a publican, crying aloud, "O Lord, I am but a miserable sinner!" Outside its door, a Pharisee, setting up for a marvel of virtue. Worshiper of Mammon and Jehovah, the man most concerned in the interests of the next world, and most wrapped up in the concerns of this.

In the singular, a man upon whose word you can rely as you would upon a trusty sword; in the plural, a people who have too often merited the epithet "perfidious." At home, preaching temperance, even to the forswearing of all drinks but water; abroad, not only encouraging, but enforcing the opium trade. At home, prosecuting the individual that ill-uses an animal, unless, indeed, the animal be a wife; abroad, setting a price upon the head of a recalcitrant foe. At home, punishing with imprisonment the people who obstruct the rowdy processions of the Salvation Army mountebanks; in India, sending to prison the same mountebanks, who, in their zeal, might create religious difficulties among a nation that he has subdued.

Opportunist par excellence, he never asks all or nothing. He accepts a little as being better than nothing; and thus it is that little by little, without shock or violence, without revolutions, he perfects the machinery of his constitution.

Everything John Bull does is perfect. When anything goes wrong, he knows where to lay the blame: he keeps Scotchmen, Irishmen, and Welshmen conveniently at hand for that purpose.

At prayer time, a man appearing somewhat uncomfortable. When he prays, he makes a grimace, or hides his face in his hat, and reminds one of Heinrich Heine's sayings, "that a blaspheming Frenchman must be a more pleasing object in the sight of God than a praying Englishman."

Also watch John Bull as the collection is going on. Hear him sing at the top of his voice

And all the time see how carefully he feels his pockets to be quite sure that it is a three-penny bit that he has got hold of.

And what a diplomatist he is! Ask him for a reform, and he will stare at you astonished, assuring you that all is for the best in the best of worlds. But shake your fist at him, and show him that you mean to have that reform, and he will smile, and say: "Oh, that's all right, I beg your pardon, I didn't know that you were in earnest."

To sum up:

Worshiping his old monarchy, devoted to his old institutions, but ravenous for justice and liberty, he would be ready again to-day to demolish both monarchy and constitution, as he did in the seventeenth century, if his liberty ran the least danger. In politics, possessing the virtues that are indispensable to the prosperity of a nation – respect of the law and respect of power clearly manifested – he always bows to the decision of a majority. Refusing to submit to despotism in any shape or form, he himself keeps in order and discipline all his paid guides and governors: his queen, his princes, his ministers, his generals, his judges, his priests.

Wise, industrious, and persevering, never doubting his strength, above all minding his own business, and imposing upon one and all their attributions and duties, from his sovereign down to the humblest citizen, he has chosen for his motto:

Fais bien ce que fais.

CHAPTER III.

JACQUES BONHOMME, THE LANDED PEASANT-PROPRIETOR OF FRANCE

Jacques Bonhomme is a small landowner, fond of his country, his cottage, his fields, his cow, and his gros sous. His great aim is to be independent of the world, and to this end he takes great care of his pence, and has no need of any French John Bright to tell him that if he does so, the pounds will take care of themselves; it is a sentiment inborn in him. If you wish to make him happy, when he brings you a load of wood or a cask of cider, pay him in silver five-franc pieces – his coin of predilection. He will take gold without repugnance, but will look askance at a banknote. If you were to tender him a check, the odds are ten to one that he would immediately go for a policeman.

He does not seek to imitate the dweller in cities, either in his habits, speech, or dress. All he has on his back is not worth more than four or five francs, but his blouse is new when he buys it, and it belongs to him, as my black coat belongs to me. His food costs him about fourpence or fivepence a day at the outside, but it is wholesome and abundant. He keeps early hours and saves his candles, he lives a healthy life and saves doctors' bills. When he lies down to die, it is in his own bed, and his parish has not to pay for his funeral.

Every French village has its poor, but pauperism is unknown, for Jacques Bonhomme is charitable, and he always finds means to send a basin of soup to a neighbor whom he knows to be in want of one. It is only for the loafer that he has no pity; when he has called a fellow-creature fainéant, he has used the strongest invective in his vocabulary.

In politics, he takes very little interest, if any. All governments are acceptable to him, except perhaps the one that happens to be in power when he gets bad weather for the harvest. How else explain the fact that changes of government have always been made in Paris without his sanction, or even his opinion being asked for; and that the seven million five hundred thousand men who vote for the Republic to-day, are the seven million five hundred thousand who, when they were asked by the Emperor, in the year of the Plebiscite, whether they would still have him or not, answered almost to a man: "I will."

Jacques Bonhomme scarcely knew what a Plebiscite was; but he went to see his parish priest, who said to him:

"Are you married, Jacques?"

"Yes, monsieur le curé."

"Well, and what did they make you say on your wedding day?"

"Ma foi, monsieur le curé, they made me say, I will."

"Well, my good fellow, that is all the Emperor asks you to say; that is voting."

Whereupon Jacques went and threw his oui in the electoral box.

There is one form of government, however, of which he would dread the return: the government of the curés. He has not forgotten the tithe and the corvée, nor the days when the monks used to come and pay little visits to his wife and his cupboard, to bless his children, and relieve him of his superfluous butter and eggs.

He is no great churchgoer; yet, when he meets his parish priest, he touches his cap, but almost as he would touch it to an equal.

He is beginning to know how to hold a pen, but he rarely uses one except for the purpose of adding up his little accounts. As to letter-writing, he sees no fun in a frivolous pastime that would cost him three sous.

He has been placed by Nature on a fertile soil that yields him all he needs, and if you were to talk to him of emigration, he would stare and ask you what crime he had committed to deserve transportation. There is no more home-abiding creature upon the face of the earth.

You may tell him you are going round the world. He will let you go. He is not jealous.

On the wall of the village schoolroom he has seen a map of the world, but although he is willing to believe that it fairly represents the earth we live on, he would fain have seen the name of his dear village on it. He doubts not that the earth is round, since his curé and his schoolmaster say so; but the only proof he has of it is the sight of the line of horizon that greets his eyes, when he climbs the hill-top.

I know two or three of these honest French workers, who were induced to go to Paris in 1878, to see the Universal Exhibition. Such was their suspicion of the gay capital that, before setting out, they sewed their golden louis in the lining of their coats, and had their wills made by the notary.

The French peasant is peaceful, sober, and laborious. He possesses in a remarkable degree that invaluable quality than which there is no higher intelligence for the solution of the great problem of existence, which consists in patiently accepting one's fate, however hard it may be, and making the best of it. His ideal of life is the independence which is the fruit of labor, and he is satisfied with very little in the days of his strength, because the prospect of eating his own bread when his strength is gone makes him happy. He is thrifty and self-denying, but he is not deficient in any of the generous sentiments. He befriends his poorer relatives, he can be hospitable and charitable, and a patriot, too, when occasion calls, as history has proved. But he is no fire-eater, no yearner after social regeneration by baptism of blood, no dreamer of new worlds to conquer, nor the revival of dying feuds in ghastly wars. The surging passions of the capital, bred and fed by vice and improvidence, are horrible to him. He wishes the world to be at peace, so that he may be left alone, and be allowed to raise his flocks and grow his corn and wine in peace.

It is when he is making a purchase, at the fair or at the market, that Jacques is to be seen in his element.

Look at him as he takes a preliminary turn or two around the little rickety stall. He hesitates a long while before making up his mind; he knows that if he seems to have a fancy for any particular article, he will probably be asked a good price for it. So it is only cautiously, and with a look of indifference on his face, that he at length draws near. Next, taking up the coveted object with the limpest of fingers, he gives off sundry little grunts of disapprobation. He turns it over and over, looks at it well on all sides, shakes his head, and invariably finishes by dropping it back in its place again.

Then he turns, and makes as though he would go away, but after having taken a few steps, he brings up, comes back, and indicating the object of his maneuvers with a contemptuous finger, says to the vender:

"What do you want for that?"

And you should see the face he makes as he says "that."

He has scarcely heard the reply before he exclaims: "You mean that for a joke, I suppose."

Watch him a little later, as he goes off, carrying his purchase in triumph, and you will plainly see that he has made a bargain.

If Solomon had known Jacques Bonhomme, we might be inclined to think that it was he whom the Hebrew king had in his mind's eye, as he wrote: "It is naught, it is naught, saith the buyer; but when he has gone his way, then he boasteth."

Jacques' manner is no less remarkable when he has to part with the value in cash.

He seldom carries his money in his trousers' or waistcoat pocket. He confides it to the depths of a long purse, from which it is only to be extracted with difficulty, and this purse is hidden inside his blouse, and carefully attached to it by a strong leather string.

When the operation of paying has to be performed, Jacques gently lifts his blouse, and, making a rather wry face, draws forth his purse from its hiding-place. In the act of untying the leather string, he is as unhappy-looking a creature as you may well behold. He rarely faces the enemy on these occasions. He turns his back to you, and pretends to have great difficulty in getting his money out of his recalcitrant purse. Perhaps he hopes you will get tired of waiting, and say to him: "Never mind, Jacques, you can pay me another day."

When at last he has the money in his hand, he turns toward you, holds it out, draws it back, but eventually makes up his mind to the loss of this little portion of his patrimony.

Then he begins to wonder whether you have not taken him in; but, as it is too late to draw back, he resolves that he will be a match for you next time.

CHAPTER IV.

JACQUELINE, THE FORTUNE OF FRANCE

Jacques Bonhomme's wife is the fortune of France. Hard-working, thrifty, sober, you will always see her busy, either working in the field, selling her wares in the market-place of the nearest town, or engaged about her little household. She is the personification of industry, and when the winter of life comes on, you will find her by the chimney corner, or near the cottage door, keeping watch over the little ones, while she knits or spins; it is with her needles or her distaff in her hand that she peacefully passes away from earth. Not an hour in the life of the good Jacqueline has been spent in indolence.

It is she who hides the five-franc pieces in the corner of her linen cupboard, only to be taken out when there is an opportunity of rounding off the little family domain. Shares, bonds, and all such lottery tickets, she leaves for the small bourgeois of the town, who love to wait their turn at the door of the Treasury Office on the day of a national loan. No papers for her; what she likes is a field or a cow, something she is quite sure to find in its place in the morning, when she wakes up.

It is on market-day that you should see her! She makes light of a ten or twelve-mile walk to the chief town of her district, carrying a basket loaded with fruit or vegetables on each arm. In the evening, you may meet her with baskets empty, but pockets full, trudging back to her peaceful cottage – the center of all her affections. Follow her along the road a little, and you will see that, as she goes, she manages to busy her fingers on a pair of stockings for the little ones.

Her daughter does not wear fringes on her forehead, feathers on her hat, fifty-cent diamonds in her ears, or flounces on a second-hand skirt; but, though she is dressed in a plain coarse serge gown, and a simple snowy cap, her round rosy cheeks tell you that she is healthy, and a pair of eyes, that stare at you like the daisies in her father's field, tell you that she is pure.

When she goes into service – which is often the case – every month, as she receives her wages, she quietly pays a little visit to the savings bank of the town.

When the English servant receives her monthly wages, she straightway goes to buy a new hat and get photographed in it.

I will refrain from speaking of the duchesses who condescend to act as "helps" to the American public.

And the patriotism of her! Ah, let me here pay my humble tribute of admiration and gratitude that she has so great a claim to! Who among us French has not kept, engraven on his memory, the souvenir of the devoted peasant women of Normandy, Picardy, of Alsace and Lorraine, and all they did for us in that terrible year that would have seen the death of France, if France could die? Who among us has not admired and blessed them? With a sad smile on her face, how kindly the poor Jacqueline welcomed the weary soldier, worn out with fatigue and hunger! And, while the rich bourgeois too often received us with a frown, as he muttered, "More soldiers!" her greeting was always kindly. "Come in, my poor lads," she would cry; "you are tired and hungry. We have not much to offer here, but you shall have a bed to-night, if it is but a bed of straw, a good soup, and a rasher of bacon, or whatever there is in the cupboard. That will do you good. My own poor lad is fighting somewhere; it is many weeks ago now that I heard from him, but I hope some kind soul is doing for him to-night what I am doing for you." And the good creature would prepare her vegetables, put the soup on the fire, make up beds for us around the hearth, and give us old soft shoes for our poor blistered feet. And when, in the morning, we left her hospitable roof, we would say, "Allons, maman, adieu et merci. God bless you for all you have done for us." And as we went our way, she, standing on the threshold of her door, would wave her handkerchief, and watch the regiment out of sight. Then she would turn away, and the evening found her ready to do the same for the next weary band of men that halted at her door.