"Doubtless, every great nation represents an idea important to the human race. But, gracious heaven! how much more true is this of France! Suppose for a moment that she were eclipsed, at an end, the sympathetic bond of the world would be loosened, dissolved, and probably destroyed. Love, that constitutes the life of the world, would be wounded in its most vital part. _The earth would enter into the frozen age, where other worlds close at hand have already landed._"
We have never wittingly done injustice either to France or her people; but we confess we had no notion of the claims of both upon our regard and applause, until they were prominently put before us by her somewhat Quixotic historian.
In the first place, if you would heap up all the blood, the gold, the efforts of every kind, that each nation has expended for disinterested matters that were to be profitable only to the world, France would have a pyramid that would reach to heaven; "and yours, oh nations! all of you put together--oh yours! the pile of your sacrifices would reach up to the knee of an infant!"
And then God enlightens it more than any other nation, for she sees in the darkest night, when others can no longer distinguish. "During that dreadful darkness which often prevailed in the middle ages, and since, nobody perceived the sky. France alone saw it."
Rome is nowhere but in France. Rome held the pontificate of the dark ages--the royalty of the obscure; and France has been the pontiff of the ages of light.
Every other history is mutilated. France's is alone complete. Take the history of Italy, the last centuries are wanting; take the history of Germany or of England, the first are missing; take that of France, _with it you know the world_. Christianity has promised, France has performed. "The Christian had the faith that a God-made man would make a people of brothers, and would, sooner or later, unite the world in one and the same heart. This has not yet been verified, but it will be verified in us." The great and universal legend of France is the only complete one; other nations have only special legends which the world has not accepted. The natural legend of France, on the contrary, "is an immense, uninterrupted stream of light, a true milky way, upon which the world has ever its eyes fixed." An American once said, that for every man the first country is his native land, and the second is France. This surely was praise sufficient. But M. Michelet is very greedy of praise. "How many," says he, "_like better_ to live here than in their own country! As soon as ever they can break for a moment the thread that binds them, they come, poor birds of passage, to settle, take refuge, and enjoy here at least a moment's vital heat. They tacitly avow that this is the universal country." Beau Brummel certainly avowed it; but then he, "poor bird of passage," flew in a night from his own nest, to settle, take refuge, and enjoy a moment's vital peace in France, away from duns and creditors. Many, in similar circumstances, would unquestionably prefer Paris to London, provided they could break the thread which attaches them to their domestic responsibilities. France is the infant Solomon sitting in judgment. Who, but she, has preserved the tradition of the law? She has given her soul to the world, and the world is living on it now; but, strange condition! "what she has left is what she has given away. Come, listen to me well, and learn, oh nations! what without us you would never have learned:--_the more one gives, the more one keeps_. Her spirit may slumber within her, but it is always entire, and ever on the point of waking in its might."