Page:French life in town and country (1917).djvu/112

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one, susceptible to great moments of dejection, and easily plunged into terror under the influence of anxiety. They have not recovered from the effects of '70, and their souls are still stamped with the horrors of that terrible year. They wince at the memory of Sedan, and have only been able to check the depressing work of remembrance by a buoyant conviction in the near hour of vengeance. For years they have fed upon the hope of the revanche. Only a general can give them this desired satisfaction, they believe, and hence their absurd worship of their army, and their still more absurd readiness to fling themselves under the feet of any soldier who will fool them with tall talk, and intimidate them with the discovery of traitors. Their apprehension of treason in their own midst is one of the most significant symptoms of demoralisation. According to the modern French, every man seems to have his price, and every Frenchman is only longing for an opportunity to sell his country. Not even the Chinese have an intenser distrust of the foreigner. In the lamentable Affaire Dreyfus, the immense majority were honestly convinced that the nations of the world (Spain excepted) were banded together to work the ruin of France, and cast shame upon her army. They knew the figures paid to the Czar, their ally, to the Emperor of Germany, and to the King of Italy by the Jews. England as a