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POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



old regime, or by their own local as- 

 semblies, as had been the case before 

 the growth of the monarchy had de- 

 prived them of every semblance of 

 liberty. The justification of his con- 

 temptuous opinion of them is to be 

 found in the maintenance to this 

 day of the administrative and judi- 

 cial despotism that he created— a des- 

 potism that Mr. Bodley, the latest 

 and ablest writer on France, be- 

 lieves to be indispensable to their 

 welfare. 



Severe as this judgment is, there 

 is evidence on every hand to war- 

 rant it. A people fit for freedom 

 would not endure for a moment the 

 crushing bureaucratic system that 

 regulates almost every activity of 

 the Frenchman from the cradle to 

 the grave and helps to saddle him 

 vfith a burden of taxation greater 

 even than that of the old monarchy. 

 They would destroy at once a judi- 

 cial system based upon the atrocious 

 assumption that a man is guilty until 

 his innocence has been established. 

 The secret proceedings by which 

 Dreyfus was con^^cted would be re- 

 pugnant beyond their endurance. 

 Were they not animated by the spirit 

 that characterizes the victims of des- 

 potism they would never maintain a 

 great standing army for the sole pur- 

 pose of revanche nor permit it to 

 dictate to them what the interests of 

 the state require. The punishment 

 of a man like Zola, whose sole of- 

 fense is that he has dared to beard 

 the dragon of militarism, and lift up 

 his voice in behalf of a man that he 

 believes to be most cruelly wronged, 

 VFould appeal to their chivalrous 

 sentiments, and instead of trying to 



mob him they would side with him 

 against the despotism that is demor- 

 alizing and crushing them. Finally, 

 an alliance with a power so hostile 

 to every form of freedom as Russia 

 would seem to them an unspeakable 

 disgrace if not a crime against civil- 

 ization. 



In the face of such evidence as 

 this of the unfitness of Frenchmen 

 for freedom, evidence that has ex- 

 torted from Jules Lemaitre the con- 

 fession that he is almost ashamed to 

 belong to France, it is impossible to 

 doubt the justice of Mr. Bodley "s 

 verdict. It is impossible also to be- 

 lieve that anything better is in store 

 for France as long as it is possessed 

 of the militant spirit and insists upon 

 the maintenance of a great standing 

 army to avenge itself upon Ger- 

 many. Both are absolutely incom- 

 patible wnth freedom and civilized 

 sentiments, and are certain to lead 

 sooner or later to the appearance of 

 another Napoleon to repress the dis- 

 content and despair bred of the hard 

 conditions that invariably flow from 

 despotism and onorous taxation. 

 We believe that the only hope for 

 France lies in the complete disband- 

 ment of its army, the discontinuance 

 of its efforts to establish a colonial 

 empire, to which few Frenchmen 

 ever go except to get office, the grad- 

 ual diminution of its bureaucratic 

 despotism, and the growth of per- 

 sonal liberty and private initiative. 

 A continuance of its present policy 

 will exhaust its resources, demoral- 

 ize its people, and finally make them 

 as easy a prey to a vigorous invader 

 as the unhappy inhabitants of the 

 Celestial Empire. 



