The greatness
of France

HEN the

they say that he
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German writer Friedric
France, but his praise was

he would gladly

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train of the conquering army.
But he did not live like a God

in France: the French could
not be made to understand
that they must surrender

their home to Siegburg and
his compatriots.

Great nations, like great
men, have plenty of ill-wish-
ers. France’s ill-wishers have
time and again declared that
she was done for, that the
place she had occupied was
vacant; as they drew up the
cbituary notice and priced the
gravestone they heaved a
sournful sigh and quoted her

2
past services.
past se

the French were “de-
eadent,” I had already heard
in my childhood, when the
talk was of the Dreyfus case,
of a series of sensational
swindles, of Octave Mirbeau’s
“Diary of a Chambermaid.”

Between the two world
wars,political articles. philo-
sophical essays, economic re-
searches and frivolous pam-
phlets discussing | France's
imaginary decline appeared
with astonishing persistence.
Each adduced his own proofs:
some said the spread of com-
munism showed that the
country had run to seed;
others claimed the Stavinsky
affair was evidence that the
French were debased; others
declared the art of Matisse
and Picasso was a symptom
of degeneracy.

When the Nazi armies over-

ran France, the prosecutors
sniffed genteelly and put
their handkerchiefs to their

the mourners de-
livered lengthy speeches of
indictment. either the re-
sistence of the French people,
nor the Paris uprising caused
them to stop and think: they
firmly believed this time
France would not rise again,
tnat she would sink to the
status of a poor relation who
knew her place was at the
enc of the table.

*

Little more than 10 years
have passed since the end of
the last world war, yet Fran-
ce’s ill-wishers observe with
astonishment that she has
healed her wounds and has
again taken her proper place,
that statesmen are com-
pelled to hearken to her voice
and that she continues as
heretofore to attract the
people of many nations not
only by her ancient monu-
ments but by her laboratories,

eyes, while

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lives like

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By ILYA EHRENBURG =

Germans want to: indicate that a man is the spoiled child of fortune,
“God in France.’’ A quarter of a century ago the
surg took this saying as the title for a book. He extolled

spiced with irony: he was speaking of a house in which
Sure enough, 10 years later he arrived in Paris in the

lectures, exhibitions and the-
aters.

The material and spiritual
regeneration of France can
perplex only those who do
not, or will not, know her. As
a nation she displays an
amazing continuity and con-
sistency. Her people, who
more than once astonished the
werld with their barricades,
their disrespect for conven-
tion and love of new ideas,
remain true to the customs,
tastes and habits evolved in
the course of centuries.

This tie between the past
and the present, this organic
cultural integrity has always
saved France from those pe-
ricds of spiritual decline
which are known to the his-
tory of many other countries.
French Catholics are fond of
scoffing at their clergy: in
them, faith and _ scepticism
live peacefully side by side.
A hidebound bourgeois will
join in the revolutionary song
of the’ trainbands of Mar-
seilles, and the most inveter-
ate negator of everything and
everybody will contemplate
a relic of the past with rev-
erent awe.

Travelers of all times have
observed that in Paris no-
body stops to stare at a for-
eigner, he may dress as he
likes and behave as he pleas-
es. But while accepting all
and wondering at nothing, the
French are jealously attached
te a host of manners and cus-

toms, which, intertwined,
form a rather solid manner
of life.

One may admire this or con-
demn it, but unless one under-
stands it it is hard to under-
stand .the vitality of France,
who amazes both by her age
and her youth, by the most
daring actions and®*the rou-
tine regularity of a _ well-
ordered life.

The French genius is real-
istic, lucid and _ concrete.
French poets were rarely
charmed by the lyricism
which inspired Shelley. ‘In
France, even romanticism was
noisy, vivid, noonday, without
moonlight or metaphysics.

This realistic trait. of the
people is also expressed in an
extraordinary love of the vis-
ual. Every peasant’ cottage is
picturesquely placed, its red
tiles harmonize with its green
shutters, its grey walls are
wreathed in purple wisteria,
the ash and the alder stand as

if placed by an artist who has
decided to paint a landscape.

Every working woman,
however modest her budget,
dresses tastefully, her shawl
has been chosen with care’ to
go with her frock, with -her
hair, and long before she was

born her grandmother and
gieat-grandmother were

schooled in the complex har-
monies of color, imaginary
and emotion.

*

French vitality is also re-
flected in their rare industri-
ousness. It evoked these
words from’ Saltykov-Shche-
drin:

“The German works assid-
uously, but as if he were
winding rope in a dream; the
Parisian works with dash and
ardor... He works hard and
long, but with a good spirit
and he never looks tired...
Three things stamp the life
of the Parisian worker: work,
enjoyment and — from time
to time — revolutions. All
this he does with extraordi-
nary skill, speed, ardor, and
a great deal of intelligence.”

When you watch a French-
man working, it seems at first
that he is doing his job half-
heartedly, he grumbles or
cracks jokes, and he looks as
if he is deliberately shirking.
Actually, he is working with
skill and fervor—he cannot
work otherwise.

The Burgundian win e-
grower cultivates his tiny plot
with the enthusiasm of an
amateur, as if the vine were
not his daily bread but a thing
to play with. The restaurant
owner stands all day at her
stove, and tells you that when
she is 50 and has made a
little money she is going to
give up the business and re-
tire to the country. But she
will not give it up — not at
50 nor at 60; without work
life would be too dull.

Readers of all countries ad-
mire the talent of Balzac; his
imagination aand_ creative
fire; but Balzac toiled like a
laborer, wrote as if he were
building a house, laying brick
upon brick from morn till
night.

And Zola, did he not hoard
material for every novel,
study Jesuit writings. and
works of strategy, the ways of
harlots and the various
brands of coal?

Matisse, forbidden by his doc-

Paris — the heart of the city.

tors to get up from his couch,
worked lying on his side from
dawn to dark.

*

Saltykov-Shchedrin put
two words side by side,“work”
and ‘“gaiety.” This is true.

You can hardly imagine a
Frenchman without a_ faint,
almost perceptible smile on
his lips. He has a zest for en-
joyment, as well as for work.

His gaiety is not of the loud
ard challenging type, it is
often combined with a vague
sadness: it is not a roar of
laughter, only a halfsmile.

He- retains his gaiety
through all trials and tribu-
lations, as was seen in the
years of the Resistance, in the
jokes in jail and concentration
camp,in the jest an hour be-
fore the firing squad. It goes
hand in hand with an innate
shyness which the foreigner
rarely suspects.

A’ young man who has a
liking for a girl will not tell
his comrade that she is beau-
tiful or attractive. “She’s am-
using.” he’ll say with a grin.
He says this, of course, both
from shyness and from re-
spect for everything amusing,
everything that makes a man
smile,

a nation
in its recre-
think that
to spend the

The character of
is best revealed
ations. Some
Frenchmen love
night carousing, are fond of
big glaringly-lit restaurants
filled with the blare of music.
But France goes to bed early.

The favorite recreation of
most Frenchmen is fishing or
gardening. No other nation
has such a passionate love for
flewers. They are sold every-
where — in the “poorest sub-
urbs and at factory gates. Hu-
ge markets are. devoted solely
to the sale of flowers, shrubs
and trees.

A couple of lovers will sit
on a bench in the shade of a
chestnut -or plane tree and
chat for hours about every-
thing or

nothing. In every
town, even in the smallest,
there are hundreds of tiny

restaurants where friends
gather to joke or argue: over

*

a bottle of wine.

-may think of thé

August 10, 1956 —PACIFIC TRIBU

Bourgeois deme
fers from many ¥
tween its declaratl
deeds lies a wide!
French _ political
likewise far #2
And if we may 54
less, that French)
sentially democra¥
not to any consti
visions, but to the
of its human relatl

It may have beé
of the people or P
innate sense 0*
that saved Francé
ceited upstarts
autocrats; times®
pulsory adulation,
ed servility have
her customs.

The worker ki
assert himself;
cares what a

Vailland, or how
of Picasso may
Minister of Fine
In the Forties #
some that Francé
and would neve!
Not only was the
vastated by wat
tion, it was pros
feat, betrayal, hum
ferocity of ene
cffensive condes
“friends.” ;
The light see™
gone out both 1
of Paris and 12
Frenchmen. And |
cross the Rhine
which had. perl@G
aged the count),
rebuilt, People
France opened
pupers with a>
speeches and de
rarious French
veice of France
Now we see
There. are pe?
country who are
their blind s
the lessons of
3ut they look lik
in France. I alt
the French.

Of course thé
think alike. We %
with the politi¢?
the arbiters of *
ual fashions,
country that W*
be precious 10
glad her place
can no longer