Part 8 (2/2)
Condorcet, who treated the brutal murderers of the Duc de la Rochefoucauld with a complaisance which ent.i.tles him to the confidence of the most advanced anti-clerical philosophers of our own day, bears witness to the good intentions of Turgot's correspondents. He says, in his memoir of Turgot, printed at Philadelphia seven years before the Revolution of '89, that 'the curates, accustomed to preach sound morals, to appease the quarrels of the people, and to encourage peace and concord, were in a better position than any other men in France to prepare the minds of the people for the good work it was the intents of the ministers to do.'
What was true of the French curates a hundred years ago is true of them to-day, the duties prescribed to them by the Church being still precisely what they were when Condorcet bore this testimony to the good dispositions of men much more conscientious than himself. Then, too, as now, the curates were required to look carefully after the education of the children in their parishes. France is indebted, not to the Revolution, but to a great Protestant historian and statesman, Guizot, and to King Louis Philippe for the foundation of her system of public education. The revolutionists of 1789 left the country worse off in this matter than they found it. The royal ordinance of Louis XIV. in 1698, which required the establishment of schoolmasters and schoolmistresses in every parish in which they were not then to be found, and fixed the salaries to be paid these masters and mistresses out of a public tax in every parish in which no foundations for their support existed, was distinctly a public-school law. This ordinance made it inc.u.mbent upon all parents and other persons who had charge of children to send them to the schools until they were fourteen years of age, and it also enjoined upon the curates the duty of 'watching with particular attention over the education of the children in their respective parishes.' The spirit in which the clergy of Artois, at least, discharged this duty appears in an ordinance of the Bishop of Arras issued in 1740, half a century before the Revolution of 1789, in which the bishop lays it down as a maxim that 'the greatest charity which can be shown the poor is to ensure them the means of obtaining an education.'
This, down to thirty years ago, was the principle of legislation in Virginia upon the public school question, the State not attempting to interfere with the authority of parents over their children in the matter of education, but making an appropriation for the instruction of the children of the poor. That mischievous wind-bag Laka.n.a.l lived in Mississippi and Louisiana during his exile in America, and it is possible that his influence may have had something to do with the early adoption by another southern State, Louisiana, of the general public school system. However that may be, Louisiana in 1850 spent upon her public schools three times as much money annually as any of the New England States, with the result that, out of a native white population of 186,577, she had in her prisons 240 native white criminals, or 1 in 777 of the whole number, being 'the largest proportion of criminals to population at that time to be found in America, if not in the world.'
Virginia, out of a native white population of 1,070,395 in 1860, had no more than 163 native white criminals in her prisons, or 1 in 6,566 of her native white population.
It is a curious fact, by the way, that but for the fidelity of the French clergy before 1789, in carrying out the work imposed upon them by the ordinance of Louis XIV., and commended in the ordinance of the Bishop of Arras in 1740, two of the most conspicuous actors in the grotesquely horrible drama of the French Revolution would have starved to death in the streets of Arras, or grown up there in vagabondage. The clergy of St.-Vaast in the diocese of Arras found, in 1768, two wretched urchins thrown upon the world by an unnatural father. One of these, Maximilian Isidore de Robespierre, was born in 1758; the other, Augustus Bai Joseph de Robespierre, in 1764. The good priests picked them up, cared for them, and put them in the way of getting a good education, which they turned to such purpose that both of them eventually came to the guillotine in the flower of their years, and amid the cordially contemptuous execrations of decent people all over the world. One of the most accomplished public men in Ma.s.sachusetts told me years ago, that he was stopped on his way to school one morning in 1794, by a friend of the family, who bade him run back at once and tell his father the news had come from Europe that 'the head of Robert Spear had been cut off.' 'Make haste,' said this gentleman, 'and your papa will give you a silver dollar, he will be so glad to hear it!'
It was rather instructive to think of the 'sea-green incorruptible' and his idiotic 'Feast of the Supreme Being' on that beautiful clay of Pentecost, in the charming rural commune of St.-Quentin, the peace and happiness of which was for a time so cruelly broken up by his atrocities and follies a hundred years ago. The fine old church, near by my host's residence, has been restored with great taste and good sense. It was crowded at early ma.s.s with the farmers and their families, many of the men wearing their blouses, but all well-to-do, for this region is one of the richest and best cultivated districts of Northern France. The service was celebrated with much simplicity, but with no lack of due ceremony; the singing was excellent; and the priest's homily, a brief and very good discourse on the spirit of Christian charity, was listened to with great attention.
The pretty custom prevails here, as in Normandy, of handing about in the congregation, at a certain point in the service, a basket of bread. Two gravely courteous old peasants presented the baskets in turn to all the people. The service over, the farmers stood and chatted together in groups in the churchyard and about the porch, and I heard much talk of the outlook for the crops, of the price of cattle, and of certain properties which had recently changed hands. Of politics next to nothing.
My host was for many years a notary at Aire. He has transferred this position now to the husband of his only daughter, and occupies himself mainly with his agricultural interests. The notary, who is a personage everywhere in France, is especially a personage in Artois. This has come about in part through the great changes which have taken place in the proprietors.h.i.+p of land in this province during the last three centuries.
Towards the end of the seventeenth century, after the province was substantially united with France by Louis XIV., great numbers of small proprietors, who had done well enough under the Spanish rule, found themselves forced, by the pressure of taxation, to part with their land, and there was a marked increase in the great estates, not only of the clergy but of the laity. After the First Consul took the country in hand, and began to reorganise it socially, on the principle laid down by him so often and so energetically, in his dealings with his councillors, that 'true civil liberty in a State depends upon the absolute safety of property,' there began to grow up in Artois a great middle cla.s.s of landholders, corresponding in many conditions to the 'strong farmers' of Ireland. With the increase of this cla.s.s came a natural increase in the importance and influence of the notaries, already and through the Spanish traditions very considerable in this region. In many parts of the province the notary is recognised as an unofficial, but authoritative, social arbiter, to whom may be safely referred for settlement all sorts of disputes, including very often questions of property which would elsewhere be taken before the courts of law. It was pleasant to see that the relation thus established between M. Labitte and the people generally had not been affected by the political agitation of the last ten years. When I drove about the country with him, I observed that he was saluted everywhere in the friendliest fas.h.i.+on, and that, as he more than once told me, by persons politically quite hostile to his re-election as councillor-general.
After luncheon on Pentecost, a most interesting ceremony took place at St.-Quentin. A long procession made up of the inhabitants of the commune, the men wearing their best clothes, the young girls garlanded and dressed in white, set forth from the porch of the church, after a brief service there, and marched around the commune. It was the English beating of the bounds without the beating, and with the old religious rites. In the midst of the procession, which extended perhaps a quarter of a mile, the parish priest walked alone under an embroidered canopy borne up by young villagers. Acolytes, with lighted candles, moved on either side of the canopy. Before it was borne a white silk banner of the Virgin, and behind it a banner embroidered in gold. All the park and grounds of M. Labitte lying within the commune, and being thrown open to the people, a very beautiful altar of verdure and roses had been set up under a bower in the great garden behind the house, by the daughter of M. Labitte. Before this altar the procession paused, a brief service was performed there, and then the long line resumed its march, a chorus of some twenty male voices chanting, as it went, the Magnificat. Nothing could exceed the unaffected simplicity and seriousness of the people of both s.e.xes and of all ages. The day was one of those perfect days, which, as Mr. Lowell says, come to the world in June, if ever they come at all; and as the long line wound its way around the fields, green with the prospering crops, beneath the orchards and the groves, and between the fragrant hedgerows, the silvery chiming of the bells in the old church alternated with the far-off chanting of the choristers, and the fitful breeze brought us, from time to time, the grave deep voice of the priest reciting, as he moved, the ancient prayers of hope and of thanksgiving.
It was interesting to remember that under the first French attempt at a republic, this lovely rural spectacle would have been as impossible as it would be to-day under the rule of the Mahdi in the Soudan; and also, to reflect that France is governed to-day by men who dream of making it thus impossible once more.
CHAPTER IV
IN THE PAS-DE-CALAIS--_continued_
AIRE-SUR-LA-LYS.
My host at St.-Quentin being a councillor-general, his term of office expires with the elections fixed to take place on July 28. There is no reason in the nature of things why councillors-general should be elected on the same lines with deputies and senators. On the contrary, it would seem to be very desirable that local rather than national considerations should govern the election of such functionaries. But it has been found difficult, even in England and Wales, to keep national party politics out of the election of the new county councillors, whose duties are modelled in some important respects upon those a.s.signed to the councillors-general in France; and it is evident that the French local elections in July will be largely determined by considerations affecting the national elections which must take place in September and October.
M. Labitte, who was elected a councillor-general by the Conservatives in this department six years ago, was defeated in 1886, as I have already said, in a by-election, held to fill a vacancy in the Chamber of Deputies. It is the wish of his party friends that he should offer himself as a candidate for re-election as a councillor-general on July 28; but he does not seem disposed to do this, preferring, I think, to keep himself quite free to do his very best to bring about a Conservative victory in the national elections in September, with the importance of which to the future of France he is deeply impressed.
Meanwhile, he is giving a personal account of his stewards.h.i.+p as a councillor-general to his const.i.tuents in a series of 'conferences.' One of these conferences he was good enough to invite me to attend.
It was held in a commune, distant some ten or twelve miles from St.-Quentin-par-Aire, and, as the custom of France is, it was held on a Sunday afternoon. M. Labitte's son-in-law drove out from Aire with his wife to dine and spend the evening with us. And about three o'clock M.
Labitte, his son-in-law, and myself set out for the conference. Our road lay through a level but richly cultivated and, in its way, very beautiful region. In the last century, Artois seems to have been a kind of Ireland. The climate was excessively damp, the lack of forests and the undeveloped coal-mines left the peasantry dependent upon turf and peat for fuel; the roads were few and bad. There were good crops of grain; but the Intendant Bignon, drawing up a report on the province at the close of the seventeenth century, for the Duke of Burgundy, tells us the wars had made an end of all the manufactures, including the long-famous tapestry-works of Arras. 'There were few fruit-trees, little hay, and little manure.' Here and there some linen was made; but the trade of the province was carried on almost exclusively in grain, hops, flax, and wool. Iron and copper utensils, and coal and slates came to Artois from Flanders, cod-fish and cheese from the Low Countries, b.u.t.ter and all kinds of manufactured goods from England. Yet the population steadily increased all through the eighteenth century, while it was falling off in the neighbouring provinces of France. The worthy intendant thought the people sadly wanting in 'intelligence, activity, and practical sense,' and seems indeed, like a Malthusian before Malthus, half-inclined to attribute the phenomena of increase and multiplication in Artois to these defects. It would surprise him, I fancy, to look on the people and the land of Artois to-day. The land has become one of the most fertile and prosperous regions of France; the people, unaffected to any appreciable extent by immigration, and unchanged alike in race and in religion, increase and multiply as of old. The well-tilled fields, the well-kept and beautiful roads, the neat, green hedgerows, the orchards bear witness on every side to the intelligence, the activity, the practical sense of the inhabitants.
M. Baudrillart in one of his invaluable treatises on the condition of France before the Revolution of 1789, gives us the main key of this great difference between the condition of agricultural Artois in the eighteenth century and its condition to-day. He cites a most curious appeal to the estates of Artois in behalf of the rural populations, from which it appears that the citizens of the chief towns had combined with the _n.o.blesse_ and the higher clergy to keep the village curates and the farmers out of the provincial a.s.semblies, and to throw the whole burden of taxation upon the agriculturists. 'The soil of Artois,' say the authors of this appeal, 'is quite as good as the soil of England; and yet the Artesian farmers can only get out of their labour on it one quarter as much as the English do.' It was the fiscal maladministration, they maintain, which checked the progress of agriculture and depressed the condition of the farmers; and it is interesting to observe that these rural reformers proposed to remedy the evils of which they complained, not by abolis.h.i.+ng all the privileges of the privileged cla.s.ses in a night, as did the headlong mob of the States-General at Paris in 1789, but by securing a fairer representation of the rural regions in the Provincial Estates, limiting the duration of the Provincial Parliaments to three years, and deciding that one-third of the seats should be vacated and refilled every year. This does not look as if the Artesians of the last century were particularly deficient either in intelligence or in practical sense.
On our way to the conference we saw several sugar factories, most of them now abandoned, though the beet crops of Artois are still very important; and my companions told me that the people here, with all their traditional conservatism, are very quick to abandon any industry which ceases to promise good returns, and to change their crops as the conditions of the market change. We saw but few chateaux. One of the most considerable, standing well in view from the road in the midst of an extensive park, and approached by a long avenue of well-grown trees, seemed to be shut up. The proprietor, the Count de----, I was told had not visited it for two years past, one of his gamekeepers having been murdered in a conflict with some poachers.
Under the existing laws in France, political conferences must be held within four walls. Trafalgar Square meetings would be as impossible in republican France as in monarchical Germany. As the commune in which M.
Labitte was to meet his const.i.tuents possesses no convenient hall, and the local authorities were not particularly eager to facilitate the conference, one of the local Conservatives, a well-to-do farmer, had taken it upon himself to provide, at his own expense, a proper place of meeting, by fitting up a fine large barn with seats, and putting up a simple rustic platform in one corner of it for the speaker. It struck me that this was a symptom of genuine interest in the politics of his region not likely to be shown in similar circ.u.mstances by many English or American farmers. He was a man of middle age, with the quiet, self-possessed carriage, general among his cla.s.s in all parts of France, and received us, in the large and neatly-furnished best room of his old-fas.h.i.+oned and very comfortable house, with frank and simple courtesy. On the walls hung a number of engravings and two or three small paintings. One of these represented the Duc d'Orleans, the father of the Comte de Paris, in the uniform of the celebrated corps of Cha.s.seurs which he organised and to which he gave his name. 'That picture,' said the farmer, 'was given to my father by the prince. He used to stop here often while he was at the camp of the Cha.s.seurs, and take his breakfast. I remember him perfectly, for I was then a well-grown lad, and he was always full of kindness and good spirits. Ah!
if he had lived! We should not be where we are to-day in France, with all these debts and all these dangers!'
The const.i.tuents of my host, all of them specially invited by letter to attend the conference, had already begun to a.s.semble when we arrived, but some of them had two or three miles to walk after service in their respective churches, and it was nearly six o'clock when the conference began. By that time the large farmyard and the rooms of the house were filled with a company of perhaps a hundred and fifty men, almost all of them farmers. Among them was only one landowner of the aristocratic cla.s.s, the Comte de----, who had walked over from his chateau about three miles off. He was a type of the old-fas.h.i.+oned French country gentleman, tall and sinewy, with finely cut features, simply, not to say carelessly, dressed, but with an unmistakable air of distinction, and a certain peremptory courtesy of manner which would infallibly have got him into trouble in the days when, near Baume-les-Dames, Arthur Young had to clear himself of the suspicion that he was a gentleman on pain of being promptly hanged from a lantern hook.
The seats in the barn once filled, some fifty auditors grouped themselves in the farmyard about the wide-open doors of the barn, and M.
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