Page:French life in town and country (1917).djvu/115

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rich country was supposed to be one of the paymasters of Europe in its unequal struggle against the honour of France. It was the Affaire Dreyfus that revealed to the amazed world the sudden passion of the French people for its army. The army saw its opportunity, seized it, and may now be said to be in revolt against the nation. Let us be in no doubt of the fact that France does not desire a military dictator, and that such a dictatorship would be the very worst calamity that could happen to her. It is easy enough to detect the wire-pullers behind a parcel of mischievous journalists; discontented shopkeepers, whose suffrages are obtained by the promise of brisker commerce under a new condition of things; the large middle class always in terror of socialism, which might rob them of their cherished luxuries. There are two great powers diminished under republican government—the aristocracy and the Church. These are working together to overthrow what they regard as a common enemy, and any means are welcome to them, whether foul or fair. Hence we see a marquis who has denied his order, an atheist and blasphemer who has shocked every religious and aristocratic conviction, and wounded every decent French susceptibility by pen and speech, M. Henri Rochefort, the leading light of the present agitation, a man who has heaped obloquy and contempt on French generals in