English Pharisees and French Crocodiles Part 4

CHAPTER VII.

FRENCH IMPULSIVENESS AND BRITISH SANGFROID ILl.u.s.tRATED BY TWO REMINISCENCES.

Two incidents that took place lately, in Paris and London respectively, may serve to ill.u.s.trate French impulsiveness and English _sangfroid_.

The other evening the opera "Les Huguenots" was played at the Grand Opera. The singer who took the part of _Marcel_ was out of sorts, and sang flat. An old gentleman, seated in an orchestra stall, was observed to be restless and uncomfortable during the performance. At the end of the last act, _Marcel_ pa.s.ses before the church, just at the moment when the _Duke of Nevers_ and his partisans come out of it.

"_Qui vive?_" cries the _Duke_.

"Huguenot," answers _Marcel_, and he falls, shot dead by the followers of the _Duke_.

This part of the opera had no sooner been acted, than the old gentleman, who now looked radiant, rose from his seat, put on his hat, and, shaking his fist at the dead hero, to the great amus.e.m.e.nt of the public, cried at the top of his voice:

"You donkey, it serves you right, you have been singing out of tune the whole evening."

And indignantly he left the theater.

In a beautifully appointed English house, afternoon tea, served in costly china, had just been brought to the drawing-room, when the mistress of the house inadvertently overturned the tea-table. Without the slightest show of vexation, without _oh!_ or _ah!_ Lady R----calmly touched the bell, and, on the appearance of the domestic, merely said:

"Take this away, and bring more tea."

"My dear," whispered Lady P---- to a friend, "she won't match that china for $500."

Another ill.u.s.tration of the latter:

A fearful railway accident has taken place. The first car, with its human contents, is reduced to atoms.

An Englishman, who was in one of the first-cla.s.s cars at the rear, examines the _debris_.

"Oh!" he says to an official, pointing to a piece of flesh wrapped up in a piece of tweed cloth. "Pick that up, that's the piece of my butler that has got the keys of my trunks."

CHAPTER VIII.

ENGLISH PHARISEES AND FRENCH CROCODILES.

The French and the English have this very characteristic feature in common: they can stand any amount of incense; you may burn all the perfumes of Arabia under their noses, without incommoding them in the slightest degree.

With this difference, however, in the extremes.

The French boaster is noisy and talkative. With his mustache twirled defiantly upward, his hat on one side, he will shout at you, at the top of his voice that,[1] "_La France, Monsieur, sera toujours la Fr-r-rance, les Francais seront toujours les Fr-r-rancais._" As you listen to him, you are almost tempted to believe, with Thackeray, "that the poor fellow has a lurking doubt in his own mind that he is not the wonder he professes to be."

But allow me to say that the British specimen is far more provoking. He is so sure that all his geese are swans; so thoroughly persuaded of his superiority over the rest of the human race; it is, in his eyes, such an incontested and incontestable fact, that he does not think it worth his while to raise his voice in a.s.serting it, and that is what makes him so awfully irritating, "don't you know?" He has not a doubt that the whole world was made for him; not only this one, but the next. In the meantime--for he is in no hurry to put on the angel plumage that awaits him--he congratulates himself on his position here below. Everything is done to add to his comfort and happiness: the Italians give him concerts, the French dig the Suez Ca.n.a.l for him, the Germans sweep out his offices and do his errands in the City of London for $200 a year, the Greeks grow the princ.i.p.al ingredient in his plum pudding. The Americans supply his aristocracy with rich heiresses, so that they may get their coats of arms out of p.a.w.n. His face beams with grat.i.tude and complacency, as he quietly rubs his hands together, and calmly thanks Heaven that he is not as other men are. And it is true enough; he is not.

"Dear brother reader," says Thackeray, "answer as a man of honor. Do you think a Frenchman your equal? You don't, you gallant British sn.o.b, you know you don't.... Oh, my country! if I were a Frenchman, how I would hate you!"

There is one great difference between our two boasters: the Englishman will seek, on all occasions, to appear a trifle better than he really is--he never runs himself down; if he has a defect or two, he will let you find them out; but the Frenchman, on the contrary, is a braggart of vice. To hear him joke about matrimony, for instance, you would take him for a libertine. To listen to some of the plays that he will applaud, to see the caricatures that amuse him, you might come to the conclusion that, in his eyes, marriage was not a sacred tie. But do not form your conclusions too hastily. Those jokes, that delight him, are often in very doubtful taste, I admit; but they are jokes and nothing more, and if you were to take the plays and caricatures for real pictures of French life, you would be making as great a mistake as you could well make.

Now, a Frenchman, who had given an appointment to his wife, would be apt to take on a little look of mystery as he hurried away from a friend in the street, with the words: "Excuse my haste, I must leave you; I have an appointment." And if you heard the response, "Ah! you rascal, I'll tell your wife," accompanied by a knowing shake of the head, you might rashly take the pair for a couple of reprobates. But once more you would be wrong. Such harmless trivialities--for trivialities they must be called--are indulged in by men who are the honor and joy of their homes.

Let me tell you this: Whenever you hear a Frenchman speak ill of himself, do not believe him, he is merely boasting. Be sure that nothing is more true. I shall never say anything more true so long as I live.

We French hide our virtues and do not like to be reproached with them.

On this subject I might tell an anecdote which, if venerable, is none the less amusing.

The _Athenaeum_, a paper written by the _elite_ of the literary, scientific, and artistic worlds, was at a loss to know, not long since, why almost all the heroes of French novels were engineers. The reason is that French engineers are all ex-pupils of the Polytechnic School. I mean the engineers of mines, roads, and bridges. These young men, having pa.s.sed their youth in study, in order to prepare for the most difficult examination we have, naturally have the reputation of being steady. The anecdote is this: Edmond About one day wrote: "Virtuous as a Polytechnician." The sentence displeased the young mathematicians, and they promptly took the author of it to task.

I forget the exact words of their reply, but it ran, as nearly as I can recollect:

"_Dear Sir_: Please to speak of what you know something about.

We are no more virtuous than you."

And I can vouch for the truth of this little anecdote: I was one of those who signed the letter.

Call a Frenchman a "good father" or "good citizen," he will smile and probably answer back, "You humbug!" Yet he _is_ a good father and a good citizen, and he used to be a good _garde-national_, notwithstanding his objection to be told so. He proved it during the siege of Paris, although his wife had never been able to look at him in his uniform without laughing.

Now, if the Englishman, who ornaments his b.u.t.tonhole with a piece of blue ribbon, does not put on two pieces more to proclaim _urbi et orbi_ that he is a good father and a good citizen, it is because the idea never occurred to him--for n.o.body doubts that, like his neighbor, he, too, is a good father and a good citizen.

Ah! I say once more, if we only knew how to hide our faults as we can hide our virtues, what a respectable figure we could cut by the side of our neighbors!

The English hypocrite is the hypocrite of virtue and religion. English novelists have exposed him, but have not succeeded in extinguis.h.i.+ng him; the Chadbands, the Stigginses, the Podsnaps, the Pecksniffs, all the saintly British _Tartuffes_, are as flouris.h.i.+ng as ever.

Moliere could, in his times, put on the stage such a man as _Tartuffe_; at the present day the type is extinct; the religious hypocrite would not go down in France; the character is exploded.

Pecksniff, one of the most powerful creations of d.i.c.kens, a photograph from the life, had named his two daughters, Mercy and Charity. In France, this worthy father and the Misses Mercy and Charity would find every door shut in their faces. This kind of vocation would lead straight to the workhouse.

It is not that we have no hypocrites, however. We keep the article, but it is of a different pattern.

The French hypocrite is the hypocrite of sentiment--the crocodile.

It is natural enough that it should be so.

The hypocrite does but force the characteristic note of his race. The English are religious (I mean church-going), the French sentimental; therefore, the English hypocrite is the hypocrite of religion, and the French hypocrite is the hypocrite of sentiment.

The former will enter into conversation with you by expressing a hope that you do not concern yourself too much with the things of this world.

Chadband presents himself at the house of a friend with the salutation: "Peace be upon this house." Then, seeing the table garnished with good things, he cries: "My friends, why must we eat? To live. And why must we live? To do good. It is then right that we should eat. Therefore, let us partake of the good things which are set before us." Thereupon he gorges himself, that he may be able the better to support life, and do the more good. No French novelist would dare portray such a personage in his books.