Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 53.djvu/286

272 old régime, or by their own local assemblies, as had been the case before the growth of the monarchy had deprived them of every semblance of liberty. The justification of his contemptuous opinion of them is to be found in the maintenance to this day of the administrative and judicial despotism that he created—a despotism that Mr. Bodley, the latest and ablest writer on France, believes to be indispensable to their welfare.

Severe as this judgment is, there is evidence on every hand to warrant it. A people fit for freedom would not endure for a moment the crushing bureaucratic system that regulates almost every activity of the Frenchman from the cradle to the grave and helps to saddle him with a burden of taxation greater even than that of the old monarchy. They would destroy at once a judicial system based upon the atrocious assumption that a man is guilty until his innocence has been established. The secret proceedings by which Dreyfus was convicted would be repugnant beyond their endurance. Were they not animated by the spirit that characterizes the victims of despotism they would never maintain a great standing army for the sole purpose of revanche nor permit it to dictate to them what the interests of the state require. The punishment of a man like Zola, whose sole offense is that he has dared to beard the dragon of militarism, and lift up his voice in behalf of a man that he believes to be most cruelly wronged, would appeal to their chivalrous sentiments, and instead of trying to mob him they would side with him against the despotism that is demoralizing and crushing them. Finally, an alliance with a power so hostile to every form of freedom as Russia would seem to them an unspeakable disgrace if not a crime against civilization.

In the face of such evidence as this of the unfitness of Frenchmen for freedom, evidence that has extorted from Jules Lemaître the confession that he is almost ashamed to belong to France, it is impossible to doubt the justice of Mr. Bodley's verdict. It is impossible also to believe that anything better is in store for France as long as it is possessed of the militant spirit and insists upon the maintenance of a great standing army to avenge itself upon Germany. Both are absolutely incompatible with freedom and civilized sentiments, and are certain to lead sooner or later to the appearance of another Napoleon to repress the discontent and despair bred of the hard conditions that invariably flow from despotism and onorous taxation. We believe that the only hope for France lies in the complete disbandment of its army, the discontinuance of its efforts to establish a colonial empire, to which few Frenchmen ever go except to get office, the gradual diminution of its bureaucratic despotism, and the growth of personal liberty and private initiative. A continuance of its present policy will exhaust its resources, demoralize its people, and finally make them as easy a prey to a vigorous invader as the unhappy inhabitants of the Celestial Empire.