10 
LAND & WATER 
September 6, 1917 
genius has dissuUod so manv French Ministries, and who 
may yet deal a fatal blow to the system of which he is a living 
symbol, is already well-known in Kngland. M. Leon Daudet, 
has, on the contrary, scarcely been heard of on this side of the 
Channel. Long before August 19 14, both writers, at the risk 
of losing influence and popularity, made continual and 
dcsix:rate efforts to rouse their fellow-countrymen to the 
existence of the German peril. 
The son of the celebrated novelist Alphonse Daudet. AL 
Leon Daudet is himself a novelist whose talent, though totally 
diiturent in character, is at least equal to that of his father. 
This inherited disposition soon lined him from the study of 
medicine, and the result of the change in his career was a 
series of novels ot which Lcs Morlicoles is jM'rhaps the most 
famous if not the most remarkable. But. though he has 
never entirely ceas.d to write fiction, M. Leon Daudet has of 
recent years devoted most of his energy to political iournalism. 
His paper/,',lf/ion/->««(-in'.sr is const»crated to the champion- 
ship of the Koyalist cause, and incidentally to the exposure 
that besides her oin-n enemies in the field, France is under the 
menace of secret enemies at home. 
I Daudet's Activities 
This latter crusade begun long before the war. was adopted 
by M. Leon Daudet as a sacred duty. His barbed and 
brilliant pen, violent, tenacious, and at the same time logical 
in attack, soon made of him the leader of a band of writers 
which includes that forcible theorist and monarchist M. 
Cliarles Maurras. Despite the ability with which it was 
conducted, L' Action l-rancaise had' until recently com- 
paratively few readers in France, and made fewer converts. 
I'Vom my own part, I must confess that before the war I never 
attached much importance to the propaganda of MM. Daudet, 
Maurras, and their Camelots du Roy. It required the terrible 
catastrophe of 1914 to bring to my notice that extraordinary 
book L'Avant Guerre, written at least three years previously 
by M. Leon Daudet, with the express purpose of denouncing 
the optni and occult intrigues of the innumerable German 
agents already settled on French soil. With the connivance 
of powerful groups of international financiers, these servants 
of the Central Empires had elaborated plans not only for the 
commercial conquest of F-rance, but also for the betrayal of 
important strategic points within our territory to the invaders 
immediately after the declaration of war. 
L'Avant Guerre was given me by a friend who begged me to 
read it. I spent a feverish niglit in devouring its pages and 
closed them with the conviction that M. Leon Daudet was a 
brave and patriotic Frenchman. Of his public and private 
life 1 knew little or nothing. But I realised that in time of 
peace it takes more than ordinary courage to raise a cry when 
most political parties, and many private individuals, are 
ready to smother you for daring to disturb their selfish com- 
jilacency or threaten their petty profits. Of course, I was 
told when I ventured to express my admiration of the book 
that Leon Daudet was simply a venal traducer, in the pay of 
najneless bandits whose only desire was to overthrow the 
faultless regime which had given France forty years of p,->ace 
and prosperity. I adhered, however, to my opinion that 
whatever motives might have urged the man who wrote' 
L'Avant Guerre, the book contained the truth and nothing 
but the truth about the secular enemies (»f l-'rance. That 
was sufficient for me. So next day I obtained a copy of 
L' Action Fratifaise, the daily organ of this Royalist knight- 
errant, who had dared to wage war against the perfidious 
Teuton before the first shot was fired. 
Shall I continue my confession, and avow that for more 
than three years I have read L' Action Franfaise every day, 
and that without being converted to all the views, political, 
or religious, professed by Leon Daudet and his friends, I 
have been compelled to recognise that they, and they alone, 
in the Paris Press, were intelligent and brave enough to 
prosecute day after day a patriotic campaign against those 
hidden enemies, who were still flourishing in the heart of the 
capital long after the Battle of the Marne? How many 
times have 1 seen in L' Action Francaise, the formidable indict- 
ment of Vigo, alias Almereyda, launched by M. Leon Daudet 
at the time when that ex-anarchist, convicted of many crimes, 
was the intimate friend of ix)wcrful politicians, and the 
defender of M. Caillaux ! W liile L' Action Franc.iise had only 
its few sympathisers and a public subscription, which was 
mar\-ellously successful, to depend upon for funds, Vigo 
alias Almereyda, Jacques Landau, and their associates, were 
startiiig papers with ample subventions which not only pro- 
vided their contributors with large salaries, but with all the 
luxuries of Parisian life on an ante-bellum scale. 
It really seems as if a strange and fatal l>indness inevitably 
falls upon politicians from the moment they grasp the reins 
of power. Like all prophets, Leon Daudet's indications 
of the rocks ahead were reiterated in vain. In spite of his 
ardent propaganda, he strictly adhered to the pact of the 
*' Union Sacree," or Political Truce, and preached obedience 
to tlie Government responsible for the safety of France 
during her terrible struggle, never protesting against 
the harshness of the censorship which makes every writer 
in my republican country sigh for the liberty of monarchic 
F^ngland. • Yet L^on Daudet's advice and entreaties were 
alike disregarded by every successive Ministry. Again and 
again he offered to give them the benefit of the documents he 
possessed concerning many of the doubtful Frenchmen, 
neutrals and naturalised Germans, who kept up communica- 
tions with the enemy. But although his offers were never 
accepted, the Government was unable to ignore entirely his 
denunciations of certain functionaries. But it would not 
interest English readers to give the list of scoundrels who 
were finally arrested and condemned after having been 
pilloried for years in L' Action Frangaise. 
M. Leon Daudet's patriotic efforts made him few friends in 
official circles, and the fact that the infamous Vigo, alias 
Almereyda, enjoyed impunity for so long, was largely due to 
his passing himself oft as a political victim of Royalist rancour. 
To-day the tables are turned, though many parliamentarians 
may still declare that M. Clemenceau, and nobody else, forced 
M. Malvy to repudiate his former friend and comrade 
Almereyda. The truth is, however, that M. Clemenceau 
simply repeated in the tribune some of the facts and argu- 
ments which Leon Daudet had collected and published 
in his paper. In making this assertion I shall not be accused 
of party prejudice. After seventeen years' residence in 
Lbndon the only political consideration that moves me is 
the safety and welfare of France. 
But the Clemenceau-Malvy-Almereyda episode Would be of 
little consequence beyond the limits of French international 
■politics, if beneath the affair of the Bonnet Rouge one did 
not perceive dangerous though still vague possibilities of far 
deeper import. 
On the one hand, the scandal of the exposure and death 
of Almereyda has awakened public opinion, and demon- 
strated to the Government sceptics that Daudet's " spy- 
mania " was not so mad as those in authority would have 
had us believe. It is now proved that large sums of German 
money have been sent into F>ance through a Neutral State 
— not to corrupt the French Press — but to create mushroom 
rags devoted to all those causes which are dear to the Central 
Empires. No Ministry of the future will be permitted to 
disregard the canker which had begun to eat into the military 
as well as into the civilian elements of F'rance. 
But, on the other hand, nobody can fathom the ultint'ate 
consequences of the revelations which ^rnust inevitably be 
made when the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies meet in a 
few weeks' time. The legal action already started by the 
Public Prosecutor against Duval and the acolytes of the 
Bonnet Rouge and of the Tranches Repubiicaine cannot 
now be arrested, all the more so as we are living under 
military jurisdiction. In ordinary times the Government 
would have had no real difficulty in handling this delicate 
matter. At the worst, a new Ministry would have been 
formed to disown the errors of its predecessor and all would 
again have been well in the best of all possible Republics. 
To-day, however, we are confronted with the following 
situation : three different Ministries, each supposed to exist 
and function by the consent of the Union Sacree, have 
stubbornly refused even to listen to warnings and accusations 
supported by evidence, made by a group of French citizens, 
representing another ideal of trovernment. But in the end 
the State has been compelled to take action upon these self- 
same facts. 
If the present Government had possessed the most ele- 
mentary common sense, it would have made use of the Political 
Truce to collaborate frankly with L'Action Franfaise in 
the patriotic -«ork of cleansing France of its traitors, and the 
Republican regime would have been strengthened thereby. As 
it is, incalculable forces have been set in motion which may 
well escape control. The task of explaining to the French 
people why this nest of malefactore has been, not only tolerated, 
but encouraged in the pretended interests of the " Republic, 
will not be an easy one. It remains to be seen whether M. 
Ribot — or possibly hissucc^ssor — will have the power and the 
intelligence necessary to avert a disaster, not only to his party 
but to the fabric of the Republic itselL 
While south country' seaside resorts are crowded to suffocation 
in September, there are parts of Blackpool where, if one de.sihe it', 
comparative solitude can be enjoyed. At the same time, fur 
those who delight in tlie fascination of crowds, there is plenty of 
amusement and of crowds to be found at the Lancashire resort, 
where every conceivable amusement is provided, and the in- 
vigorating quality of the air tends to add to one's enjoyment. 
Blackpool offers every vsiriety of holiday from the quietest to the 
most strenuous. 
