extraordinary extent, first by the literature connected with the wars of independence,[1] then by the revival of the taste for the old national songs which followed these wars, then by a philosophy which pursues aims very far removed from sordid considerations. It must also be remembered that the victory of 1871 has considerably contributed toward giving Germans of every class a feeling of confidence in their strength that is not to be found to the same degree in this country at the present time; compare, for instance, the German Catholic party with the chicken-hearted creatures who form the clientèle of the Church in France! Our clergy only think of humiliating themselves before their adversaries and are quite happy, provided that there are plenty of evening parties during the winter; they have no recollection of services which are rendered to them.[2]
The German Socialist party drew its strength particularly from the catastrophic idea everywhere spread by its propagandists, and which was taken very seriously as long as the Bismarckian persecutions maintained a warlike spirit in the groups. This spirit was so strong in the masses that they have not yet succeeded in understanding thoroughly that their leaders are anything but revolutionaries.
- ↑ Renan even wrote: "The war of 1813 to 1815 is the only one of our century that had anything epic and elevated about it … [it] corresponded to a movement of ideas and had a real intellectual significance. A man who had taken part in this great struggle told me that, awakened by the cannonade on the first night that he passed with the volunteer troops collected in Silesia, he felt that he was witnessing an immense divine service" (Essais de morale et de critique, p. 116). Compare Manzoni's ode entitled "Mars 1821," dedicated to "the illustrious memory of Théodore Koerner, poet and soldier of German independence and killed on the field of battle at Leipzig, a name dear to all those peoples who are struggling to defend or to reconquer their fatherland." Our own wars of Liberty were also epic, but they have not been so well written up as the war of 1813.
- ↑ Drumont has often denounced this state of mind of the fashionable religious world.
