Page:French life in town and country (1917).djvu/281

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unpopular cause, not only risked his life but fell from the height of professional wealth to something nearly approaching professional poverty. The Université Populaire, a liberal institution, with, in consequence, Church, Army, aristocracy and snobbish upper-middle class against it, was supported by such professors and writers, the glory of hard-working, thoughtful and intelligent France: M. Gabriel Séailles, philosopher; M. Ferdinand Buisson, educationalist; M. Emile Duclaux, director of the Pasteur Institute; the Pasteur Wagner, M. Paul Desjardins; M. Daniel Halévy, the brilliant young son of the illustrious writer, Ludovic Halévy, one of the simplest and most charming of Frenchmen it is my privilege to know; M. Anatole France, whom I do not hesitate to call the greatest of living French writers; M. Paul Hervieu, a kind of French George Meredith, with all the qualities and defects, the generosity and passion for justice of his great English brother, and others less known across the Channel.

Now the mother-house of the Université Populaire is in the Faubourg St. Antoine, the big nerve of labouring Paris. Here, in the heart of the Socialist movement, serious and honourable men strive nobly to combat the current of anarchy by fraternity in ideas and intellect with those who work by their hands and the sweat of their brow to keep France where she is, and