Page:Nicolae Iorga - My American lectures.djvu/168

 of students in Bucharest in 1906 were all that was necessary to recall this class to a sense of its duties. The performance of an immoral French revue at the National Theatre brought matters to a head, and a riot broke out in which the national aspirations of the populace were clearly manifested. A collision with the police ensued and the situation was so serious as to necessitate the army being called upon to cooperate in the restoration of order and the suppression of hot-heads. As I was reminded of this in Paris at the delivery of my first lecture to the Sorbonne, I answered that the «beau monde» which had wanted to show «Madame Flirt» in those days had had German sympathies during the Great War, while the young rioters had given their blood for the common cause, helping to preserve the honour and existence of their great moral educator, France.

After the conclusion of peace French influence in all the States of South-Eastern Europe was renewed. The prestige of the victory was and is immense. Serbia, which was a sub-Germanic State in the matter of culture, has completely changed her direction. The young generation, educated in France, has determined this sudden transformation. Bulgaria is a suppliant for forgiveness for her attitude in time of war. In Roumania the new directives of this beneficial influence are linked up with the precise sense of the obligations each nation has and should have towards its own traditions and moral needs. Instead of forming a parasitical clan, it tends to inspire the life of an entire national community.