France Off the Cuff
SCHAPIRO, J. SALWYN
WRITERS and WRITING France Off the Cuff A History of France. Revieived by J. Salwyn Schapiro By Andre Maurois. Professor emeritus of history, CCNY; Farrar, Straus & Cudahy. 598 pp....
...He stresses France's wonderful power of recuperation, so often exhibited in its history, that enabled it to rise from the ashes of defeat...
...Neither does he sufficiently emphasize la revolution dreyjusienne, which finally eliminated royalism, militarism and clericalism as dangers to the regime...
...The period of the Third Republic was one of rising prosperity for all classes, though shared unequally...
...How does Maurois treat the French Revolution, over which the French people have been, until recently, so bitterly divided...
...And Racine...
...And Marat...
...7.50...
...He does not fully describe the vital role of the Socialists as defenders of the Republic...
...The book has little of the paraphernalia of historical scholarship...
...Inspiring every established regime, as well as every revolution that overthrew it, has always been la France, the creator of "chivalry, courtesy, romantic love, Chartres and Versailles"—and, at the same time, the "advance guard of freedom...
...The Republic owed its stability to the support of the bourgeoisie, and even of many peasants, because it firmly upheld property rights and personal liberty...
...How is one to account for the stability of the Third Republic...
...This was strikingly shown during the Dreyfus Affair, the account of which by Maurois is inadequate...
...Maurois describes vividly the events and personalities of the Revolution, but devotes little space to the reconstruction of France, its permanent accomplishment...
...And then he is a fervent patriot...
...Maurois has undertaken to write a history of France from its pre-Roman beginnings down to 1956, all in one volume...
...it is all the more honorable...
...He analyzes acutely the Emperor's personality, character and genius, and gives a sound estimate of his achievements, both civil and military...
...The Fourth French Republic, established after the Second World War, is to a considerable degree a replica of its predecessor...
...The book vibrates with the author's passionate love of France, the history of which he asserts has been a "lasting miracle" like that of Greece...
...Henry VIII of England "broke with Rome in order to despoil the monasteries...
...of social and economic matters there is little...
...In explanation Maurois states that France since the Revolution had been searching "for a regime the legitimacy of which would not be disputed...
...What is Maurois's point of view...
...Did it not produce the Reign of Terror...
...With Napoleon the author has a field day...
...And it is addressed not to students of history but to the general public...
...The book is inviting but not serieux...
...Such a regime was established after 1870 when the "distrust of Germany, the desire for revanche, the need for a new pact with glory" united the nation...
...there is no bibliography, and the few references are to authors, not to their works...
...Maurois lays special stress on the role of great personalities...
...A highly attractive feature of the book consists of the many quotations from commentators on the French scene...
...That, more than the desire for revanche, explains the unity of all the parties when France, in 1914, entered the war against Germany...
...The great accomplishments of the Third Republic resulted in rallying the mass of people to its support...
...Impossible...
...These parties were the monarchists, the Bonapartists and the republicans...
...As an historical work, A History of France cannot be accepted as a contribution to a wider knowledge or a deeper understanding of the nation that has stood in the very forefront of Western civilization...
...Lyautey made Morocco "one of the most prosperous countries in the world...
...After a century of struggle, the last triumphed with the establishment in 1875 of the Third French Republic, the first regime since 1789 to become "legitimate...
...Empress Eugenie "knew very little, but knew that little in four languages and uttered it with fiery conviction...
...History in this volume is made pleasantly readable...
...As "the heirs of a magic past," Frenchmen are strengthened in the great trials that confront them today...
...All of France's history in the 19th century," writes Maurois, "was that of parties in quest of legitimacy...
...This explanation exhibits Maurois's lack of "feel" for the social and economic facts of national life...
...It lived for 65 years, precariously at times, until it was finally overthrown during the Second World War by the German invaders...
...No quotations are as apt as the French, always witty and often wise...
...After the Commune, they abandoned revolution and loyally supported the regime in every crisis involving its existence...
...The historian's part," he writes, "is not to judge...
...Especially important in the preservation of the Third Republic was the attitude of the Socialists...
...Colbert was endowed "with common sense, that rarest of qualities among technical men...
...author, "Condorcet," "The Worli in Crisis" This history of France is written not by an historian but by a literary man...
...This volume, elegant in format and printing, written in a spirit of bland sophistication by a cultivated man of letters, will grace the tables of the "middlebrows...
...Despite his tone of blithe nonchalance, Maurois reveals himself as a left-of-center liberal, a political attitude known as "radical" in France...
...Here are some of them: A crime "must be committed by the state in order to be permissible...
...Sometimes his judgment of their role is of questionable validity, as in the following instances: Madame de Pompadour "governed him [Louis XV], France and all Europe for twenty years...
...Maurois's concluding sentence is: "Being a Frenchman was and will remain a dangerous business...
...Maurois sketches briefly the origin and organization of the new regime, on which has devolved the arduous task of reconstruction...
...As one may expect of Maurois, his book, even in translation, has graces of style...
...he reveals their character, analyzes their ideas, and evaluates their influence...
...Then there are the author's own pertinent comments...
...The problem of stability has faced every regime established after the French Revolution...
...Did it not produce a united nation...
...Revolutions are "diseases with a short incubation period and a most lengthy convalescence...
...The Revolution was good, but not all good...
...This entails an immense compression, and he accomplishes the feat by directing most of his attention to the dramatic periods of French history...
...Can a Frenchman write a history of his country wie es eigentlich gewesen...
...The Old Regime, in his view, was bad, but not all bad...
...it will appeal to many readers...
...It also won the support of the workers because it maintained the democratic process, established popular education, emancipated the trade unions, and enacted social reforms...
...The book may be described as a narrative history dealing chiefly with political, diplomatic and cultural events...
Vol. 40 • September 1957 • No. 38
