THE

REJUVENESCENCE OF

IT becomes clearer every day to the returned traveller that France is undergoing a subtle change of policy and intellect. The spirit of unrest no longer breathes in her thoughts and words. She faces the world with an equal sense of her prowess and her responsibility. Those who remember her in the devastating period of the Dreyfus case, which cost her more of energy and self-esteem than a disastrous campaign, can hardly recognise the assured and capable country which to-day opposes the encroachments of Germany with the assured nonchalance of courage. Nor is there any friend of intelligence and the arts who will not rejoice at this gay and sudden rejuvenescence of France.

In the dark days of intrigue and scandal which lie behind her, France looked vainly for some thread of hope to lead her out of the wilderness. Though then she had no love of England, she perplexed her mind to discover in what consisted the superiority of the Anglo-Saxons. Her citizens wrote treatises on the unwelcome topic, and eagerly grasped at false clues. This profound philosopher was sure that the English were clothed with calm determination as with a cloak, because they educated

their boys and girls together, a task which none but cranks ever attempted. That grave politician found the secret of Britain's security in the income-tax, at which all Britons chafe. In brief, the reasons given for our superiority, which every Frenchman doubted in his heart, had no more meaning than the cause assigned by the boy in the ballad for his preference of one village before another, that it "had no weather-cock." It was only in England's fierce devotion to sport that France detected a true begetter of the qualities which she thought she lacked. And with noble resolution she undertook the task of turning a nation of boulevardiers into a nation of sportsmen.

Even though some may regret the change, there is no doubt that it has taken place. The French have turned their quick wits to a fresh pursuit, and they have succeeded beyond hope or belief. If sport be the touchstone of "superiority," then must the Anglo-Saxons look to their laurels. The youth of France has shown an aptitude for football which our players cheerfully recognise. It is no longer safe to send an English team over by night to play a match in Paris, before the ill-effects of the Channel crossing have worn

flame of enmity, should ever be revived. The English sportsmen, who, tired of grouse and pheasants, visited Madagascar at the time of the war to indulge the more keenly excited sport of stalking French soldiers, will never again be asked to create prejudice. A better knowledge has deepened sympathy, and even if the entente did not bind us in closer bonds, we should not drift back to the old misunderstand ings, to the time-honoured falsehoods. It is not impossible, of course, that in the future our relations may shift and change. Albion in the years to come may appear "perfidious" again to the fancy of France. But her "perfidy" will be known and defined, and therefore capable of discussion. It will not be the thing of suggestion and innuendo that it was before France had discovered where England lay on the map.

The stronger hold that modern France has upon reality may be clearly seen in her newspapers. Here the change, Here the change, obvious as it is, has not been altogether for the best. There is always a price to pay for practical success, and the journalism of France, in learning the lessons of its craft from England and America, has lost more perhaps than it has gained. There was a time, not far distant, when France put literature far higher than the collection of news. The 'Figaro' of Villemessant was not concerned to inform its readers that there was trouble in the Balkans. Its province Its province was to censure, not to inform,

It was a thing of art rather than of policy. The editor's theory that every man had an article under his waistcoat, which you might extract at breakfast between the cheese and the apples, was remote indeed from the present supremacy of the telegraph and the camera. The ideal of the Figaro,' as Villemessant sketched it, remained the ideal of French journalism for fifty years. Nor is it possible to look back upon what is gone without profound regret. The question then in the morning was not what had happened, but what this or that man of letters had thought. It was wit that the Frenchman looked over his coffee, not the satisfaction of an anxious curiosity. When Villemessant asked his barber what impression a certain article had had upon his mind, he was testing him not with a piece of news, but with a hint of criticism, a scene observed, a flash of humour. In our opinion the best sheet ever issued daily from a printing-press was the 'Journal,' as M. Xau planned and conducted it. It knew and cared little of

for

yesterday's world. In no sense was it alert or "up-to-date." It scorned leading articles and ignored the Chamber of Deputies. It was merely a hostelry in which little masterpieces of literature sojourned for fourand-twenty hours before they took their place in the "work" of their authors. There we saw embodied one conception of journalism, and we made the most of it, knowing well that

we should never see its embodiment again.

And, by a strange perversity, at the very time when the journalism of France vaunted itself literature, the political pamphleteer was doing his work with unexampled ferocity. Fifteen years ago MM. Rochefort, Drumont, and Cassagnac were assailing their enemies with vitriolic vituperation. Argument they disdained, finding personal insult nearer to their hand and purpose. It was not at measures that they tilted, but at men; and as M. Drumont saw a Jew a Jew concealed behind every politician with whom he did not agree, so M. Rochefort devoted all his powers of observation to the discovery of foreigners and Freemasons. The influence these men had was little enough. They professed no interest in, and assuredly they lacked all capacity for, constructive policy. But once a-day they let loose their vocabulary of invective, and all Paris read their articles with an amazed pleasure. The popularity which they achieved is a puzzle of history. When M. Rochefort returned to Paris, under an amnesty, from London, which had amicably sheltered him, and whose hospitality he rewarded by years of insult, he was met at the station by many thousands of admiring citizens. The mere appearance of M. Drumont at his officebalcony was always the signal of many raucous and confused cries. And to-day no Frenchman listens to the pamphleteer. The name and fame of Drumont

and Cassagnac are totally unknown to the rising generation, and even M. Rochefort, the stream of whose garrulity is not yet dammed, merely as specimen.

survives

an archæological

What, then, has taken the place of the literary journal and the vituperative pamphlet? A newspaper cut to the familiar pattern of England and America, a newspaper which lives upon a telephone wire, and which has its correspondents and its cameras in every every corner of the globe. It is very often of a yellow complexion. Its news, gathered in haste, is not always authentic or accurate. It has carried its interference with the affairs of private citizens further than is tolerated in England, and in glutting the curiosity of its readers it is sometimes guilty of oppression and injustice. In style and in wit it is immeasurably inferior to the two kinds of journalism which it has displaced; for let it be remembered that MM. Drumont and Rochefort, infamous as were their cruelty and insolence, possessed the rare gift of incisive satire. On the other hand, it serves a practical end. It tells its readers what is happening all the world over. It has removed the heavy weight of ignorance laid upon the back of France by such writers as M. Judet, who in the 'Petit Journal' was wont to mislead all the concierges of Paris once a-day. It has helped to make impossible the many misunderstandings which of old perplexed our relations

with France.

But it has not added to the gaiety of life, and even with the blessings of the Entente before our eyes, we cannot help regretting the time when Anatole France, Marcel Schwab, and Henri de Régnier sent their best and liveliest works to the daily journals, and when Paris had not discovered the painful duty of keeping herself "informed."

There is a still heavier sacrifice which Paris has made to the demon of practical life, a sacrifice which all lovers of France and amenity will bitterly deplore. With a kind of fierceness the Parisians have set themselves to the task of demolishing their ancient city. There is no honoured tradition, no ancient association, which they spare in their mad worship of speed. Streets, say their muncipal councillors, are mere tunnels of progress, which must be made as short and straight as possible. If the old ground-plan interfere for an instant with the onslaught of a motor-bus, then the old ground-plan must be savagely corrected. And it has been corrected with a savagery which a later and wiser generation will assuredly regret. One quarter of old Paris follows another into the night without raising a word of protest. St André des Arts has sadly disappeared. The Rue St Jacques, that wonderful street of hidden gardens and noble courtyards, where Anne of Austria attended mass at the Val-de-Grâce, and where James II. found a refuge of security, is condemned, if not already destroyed.

Even at this moment a sentence of condemnation has been passed upon the quarter of the Institute, rich in memories of poets and scholars, for no better reason than that the councillors of Paris think it prudent to carry the Rue de Rennes, broad and characterless, to the river. When this outrage has been committed there will be room for more motor-cars; louder will be raised the voice of the hooter; the inextinguishable noise, the bane of modern Paris, will increase horribly; and the famous Passage du Pont - Neuf, with the Jeu de Paume de la Bouteille, which once echoed with the

verse of Molière and the music of Lulli, will fall under the pick. With what result? Half a dozen citizens will exult when they see four sous less registered in their taximeter, a municipal councillor will gather a score of useless votes, and another link will be snapped in the chain which binds the Paris of the seventeenth century to these days of iconoclasm.

But if you would find the true symbol of Parisian destructiveness, you must seek it in the Boulevard Raspail. This broad and threatening thoroughfare has wrought more havoc than a thousand sieges. It has cut through the heart of the Faubourg St Germain without pity, and with no better reason than the saving of some minutes of useless time. Some years ago it was to be met with only in pieces; it was not then "joined up," as they say, and to find a certain number in this