April 25, 1 9 18 
Land & Water 
^9 
The Two Frances: By Winifred Stephens 
IT would be difficult to imag.ne any one better qualift^u 
than Mme. Duclaux to interpret to British readers the 
true spirit of France.* By birth an Englishwoman, by 
vocation a poetess, France is the country of her 
adoption. There, where she has long resided, she has 
been intimately associated with two distinguished French 
families and has enjoyed the friendship of gifted French 
scholars. Already in many volumes she has displayed 
insight into and sympathy with French national character, 
literature, and institutions. It is not surprising, therefore, 
to find in her History of France one of the clearest, most 
penetrating presentments of a vast subject embracing no 
less than 2,000 years. 
Mme. Duclau.K could never be dull ; and every page of 
this book thrills with interest. Constitutional matters, 
philological questions, points legal and fiscal, which, under 
less skilful treatment might be obtruse, are so cleverly woven 
into the warp and woof of the story that they jump instantly 
to the reader's comprehension. Though far too scholarly 
and artistic to obtrude her own opinions, the historian intro- 
duces enough of the personal touch to enliven and point the 
narrative. While retaining a certain critical attitude, she 
cannot conceal her admiration of and esteem for France and 
the French, not excluding even that administration, which, 
although it Ls to-day almost universally condemned by 
Frenchmen themselves, Mme. Duclaux considers, despite its 
obvious imperfection "to be on the whole more efficient 
than that of any other country." 
The book is fairly well sprinkled with dates. We miss 
some of the old familiar landmarks such as the eighth-century 
Battle of Prtitiers or Tours and the thirteenth-century 
Bouvines. But the historian's object — and one brilliantly 
achieved — is not so much to chronicle facts and^dates as to 
present the spirit of successive £iges. Thus with perfect 
lucidity, for example, she foUows the cross-currents in the 
confusion and anarchy of the "Wars of Religion." A few 
graphic words sum up the character of another period. " The 
age of Louis Quinze was not an age of glory. Contrasted with 
the reign of Louis Quatorze, we see the ugliness of its absurd 
contrasts and the monotony of its dull frivolity. And yet it 
was undeniably an age of progress ... it, too, contributed 
to the growth of France by the general diffusion of know- 
ledge and the gradual constitution of a public mind." 
This historian is equally happy when she characterises a 
region : Bordeaux, " curious, intelligent, philosophic, sceptical, 
commercial" ; Lyons "m3^ticaLl, emotive, sensual yet 
highly moral" ; Toulouse, occupying a position not unlike 
that of Odessa, "the depository and hoarding-place for the 
wealth of a vast agricultural region." 
Of the striking personal portraits, many of them illus- 
trating the marvellous, natural ability of Frenchmen, which 
look out upon us from these picturesque pages, it is impossible 
to give any idea here. Mme. Duclaux has her favourites. 
She, the biographer of Margaret of AngoulSme, has naturally 
a kindly feeling for Margaret's grandson Henri Quatre. And 
we suspect her of a weakness for the unhappy Louis XVI., 
whom she does not think such a fool as many have made 
out. He "had a long head for detail, much good sense, a 
certain ^administrative capacity." 
But perhaps what strikes one most in reading Mme. 
Duclaux's history is the existence of two marked and 
different strains in the French national character. We 
discern two Frances, the industrial France of Henri IV., 
the imperialistic France of Louis XIV., the France of the 
Celt, and the France of the Roman. One is the pas-tsionate 
advocate of freedom and the rights of man, the other of 
equality, unity, regularity, and noble order. One has the 
delicacy of a Vauvenargues, the other the coarseness of a 
Rabelais. One France is a devoted home-lover, the other is 
ever attracted by the glamour of distant lands. One France 
is essentially logical, ever ready to push a proposition to its 
conclusion ; the other is sentimental and romantic. One 
gazes keenly into the future passing with the hopeful 
logic of Anatole France through "the ivory gate" which 
leads to the Europe of 2,270 ; the other dreams with Barrfe 
of the past, performing with him the rites of Le Cidte des 
Moris. In the words of our own poet, France has ever been: 
" First to face the truths and last to leave old truths behind." 
While all down the ages of French history sometimes one, 
sometimes the other strain has dominated, there have been 
periods when the two, running side by side, seem equally 
* A Short History of France. By Mary Duclaux (A Mary I- . 
prono jnced. Throughout the Revolution, for example, 
while with Celtic frenzy France was tearing to pieces the 
old regime, with true Latin statesmanship, she was building 
up the new order; while "sectarian fury" was raging in the 
provinces, the Jacobin; in Paris were p.ofessing one 
religion, the Stae, and possessing one virtue, patriotism. 
R 'vqlutionaries who were proclaiming the rights of man, 
were making war on private property. And while they were 
striving after the liberty of the individual, they werfe impro- 
vising a strong centralised Government. In the words of 
Marat, they were opposing "the despoti m of freedom 
to the despotism of kings." ^ 
Not only in the same age, but sometimes in the same 
character the two strains mc^et. They were present in 
Henri Quatre, the leader of a faction during the Civil War, 
and later the originator of one of the earliest schemes for a 
League of Nations. They were equally present in that 
naturalised Frenchman, Napoleon, whom Mme. Duclaux 
describes as "a logical dreamer. . . . The sort which does 
great things in France." His attempts to realise his dreams 
so exhausted the nation that, returning from Elba, he found 
the imperialist France dead, and nothing left for the moment 
but the industrial France, asking only to be let alone to 
cultivate her garden in peace. 
If Mme. Duclaux had brought her history down to the 
present day instead of closing it with the Battle of Waterloo, 
she doubtless would have continued to trace these two 
strains in French national character, and she would have 
told, as she has -done so forcibly in her essay in The Book 
of France,] how, in the summer of 1914, internal discord 
was suddenly silenced by that "strange sinister tattoo," 
which, resounding throughout the land, announced that 
la patrie was in danger. This cry has never failed to end 
internal dissensions and to join both Frances in the bonds 
of sacred union. 
The Miraculous Herring 
MR. ARTHUR SAMUEL, who comes of a famUy long 
settled in East Anglia, and has himself been Lord 
Mayor of Norwich, has, written a book on that 
humble Ash the herring, which has played a bigger part in 
history than any other denizen of the deep, including either 
whale or pearl-oyster. For five hundred years — that is to 
say "from the twelfth to the seventeenth centuries — wool 
and herring were what would now be called key industries. 
On them our national policy may be said to have largely 
turned, whenever the rulers of England entered upon dis- 
cussions, peaceful or warlike, with other nations." These 
sentences are taken from Mr. Samuel's preface to his new 
work. The Herring, Its Effect on the History of Britain (John 
Murray, los. 6d. net). The policy of Britain, which cul- 
minated in Cromwell's wresting their sea-carrying trade from 
the Dutch, began with squabble ; about the herring fishery. 
It would be hard to over-emphasise the influence which these 
inexhaustible shoals have exerted over the national hfe of 
this country, both internally and externally. How inex- 
haustible they are may be judged that in one year — 1908 — 
a million tons of fish were taJcen from the North Sea, of which 
more than half (57 per cent.) were herrings caught in drift- 
nets. And this harvest has been in progress to a greater or 
less extent for centuries. 
This book is delightfully illustrated by reproductions of 
old prints, illustrating fishing, curing, and eating' of the herring. 
There are^many quaint recipes given which have fallen out 
of use; but in these days, when, to quote Pimch, "quite 
nice people eat fresh herrings," some may hke to revive 
these recipes. The price of the herring has been frequently 
controlled, and in the fourteenth century the wholesale 
price in Yarmouth market was fixed at 6s. 8d. a last, which 
works out at 165 herrings for one penny 1 Cran, the usual 
measure for herrings nowadays, comes from the Gaelic word 
"craun," and means a barrel of 36 gallons, and it holds 
3j cwt. of fish, or from 600 to 1,000 herrings, according to 
size. A shoal swimming down the coast is "often eight or 
nine miles in length, three or four miles in breadth, and of 
unknown depth, the fish closely packed like sheep in a flock 
moving along a country lane." The miracle of quails in the 
wilderness is nothing to the miracle of herrings in the ocean. 
Read this book ; it is as full of meat as the fish it describes. 
t See The Background of a Victory, by Mme. Duclaux. The Booh 
of France, ed. 1915, by Winifred Stephens for the benefit of the invaded 
