CHAPTER I PERSONAL SUCCESS THE estimate of what constitutes personal success varies so much in the two countries, and in the different classes of each, that it is very difficult to arrive at any common standard. There is hardly any kind of success that a French gentleman desires and which is at the same time possible for him. He cannot desire success in trade, or even in any lucrative profession, because all the trades and professions are beneath him; his former possibilities of success lay in Court favour, but now there is no Court. It is bon ton to despise official posts under the Republic. The gentry do not enter the Church, except occasionally the regular orders, and therefore cannot look for bishoprics. The fine arts and professional work in literature are of course infinitely beneath them. Nothing remains but the army and navy, with the drawback that both of these are already crowded with plebeian ability. A class that has nothing to look forward to in life, nothing to aim at, but only to live from day to day in dignity, often on very narrow means, is deprived of the possibilities of success, and cannot really know the delightful meaning of the word. The middle classes know it,—the shopkeepers, manufacturers, professional men. Success difficult for a French Gentleman. Success in the Middle Classes. Middleclass French women. Madame An untitled A true Even the peasant knows it when he has fought his way to the purchase of a little farm. The women in the French middle classes, as is well known, often understand business quite as well as the men, and show quite as much energy, and govern great commercial houses with quite as much capacity both for large affairs and for details. Madame Boucicaut, of the Bon Marché in Paris, will probably remain the typical Frenchwoman of business of this century. She attained undeniable greatness, not merely as the possessor of I know not how many millions, but as an untitled queen actually reigning over a great number of human beings and constantly applying a most powerful intellect to answer one question satisfactorily, "How can I do most good to all these people who work for me?" A lower nature would have tried to get above the shopkeeping sphere; her ambition was satisfied with remaining where she was and being a great worker and a great philanthropist.1 Her life was indeed a success, not only in the exercise of power, but in the development of character. It has sometimes appeared possible that studious philanthropy may have its origin in a kind of In the case of Madame Boucicaut it may have been at first suggested by regret for the injury done to remorse. 1 The public knows something of Madame Boucicaut's acts of public beneficence (though they were so numerous that it is impossible to remember such a list), but I have learned through several different private channels how thoughtful her kindness was to indiAn Artist in viduals. By long practice she had become quite an artist in goodness, having cultivated her talent in that way as another might have learned to paint or to sing. There was an inventiveness about her beneficence that made it as original as poetry, and as beautiful in its originality. Goodness. thousands of petty tradesmen by a colossal cheap establishment like hers. Money in France. The influence of ancient philosophies, and also that of Christianity (so far as it has been taken seriously), have both been hostile to money-making; but the influence of all visible realities is so constantly in its favour that the word 66 'success" in the middle classes both of France Success in and England means money and nothing else. The making. phrases "Il a réussi, il est arrivé," and the expressions" He has done well, he has risen in the world," do not mean that one has attained any ideal excellence, but simply that he has netted money, and in certain classes a man is considered a poor creature if he has not realised a fortune. This view of success has led, especially in France, to increased gambling in all kinds of specula- Speculation tions, because there is hardly any kind of real work that a man or woman can do which brings in more than a pittance. The increased cost of living, both in necessary expenditure and in the useless expenditure that is imposed by the foolish customs of society, has made the payment for honest work seem even smaller than it really is. The desire for a little money is an incentive to work; the desire for much is an incentive to speculation, except in the few cases where there is capital enough for one to become a leader of industry on a large scale. The same cause has led to the success of lotteries in France. Lotteries and it is this spirit which of late years has so much increased the amount of private gambling. These Private tendencies are not likely to diminish, since professional incomes, instead of increasing, have gone down as a result of competition. Physicians tell me that the facilities of cheap general and professional education are The Desire for Little and for Much Money. in France. Gambling. the French Medical The Fine Arts as a Profession. Crowding of now overcrowding their professions by an immense influx of young men who settle anywhere, as birds do where they are likely to find food. An old physician who formerly had a good rural practice in a part of the country very little known, told me that he was now surrounded by active young doctors in the adjacent parishes, and saw his income reduced to £160 a year. Yes, that is about the figure to which competition is bringing down the gains in the liberal professions. The fine arts, both in England and France, offer a few very valuable prizes; and as a few artists live very luxuriously and with considerable ostentation in their showy houses, they give a false idea of the prosperity of their profession. As a matter of fact, the majority of artists form a peculiarly and especially anxious class, whose gains are so precarious that next year's income is like the hope of a prize in a lottery. Nothing is more curious in the history of the nineteenth century than the prodigious increase in the number of artists both in England and France. A wellknown French painter told me there were twenty thousand of his profession in Paris, working, of course, chiefly for exportation, as France produces painting to sell rather than to keep. The number of sculptors, though not nearly so great, is even more remarkable, because sculpture is so little bought. An English academician has an interesting theory about the intentions of Nature with regard to the fine arts; he says that pictures are produced now as coal was in prehistoric times, to serve long afterwards for fuel. Seriously, it appears that Nature follows in this matter her usual principle of ". a thousand seeds for one to bear." She produces a thousand workmen in the fine arts that there may be found amongst Great of Artists. The Intentions of Nature. the Un them a single artist of genius whose work is truly precious to the world. In France the great number of semi-artists has had the effect of infusing an artistic element into several of the handicrafts, and of disseminating artistic ideas, chiefly amongst the population of Paris. Artists Uses of who have failed as makers of pictures or statues fall back successful. upon decorative painting or sculpture, upon designing for manufactures, and upon teaching elementary drawing in public schools. Painters often have recourse to another of the graphic arts when painting fails. There is hardly one of the French etchers who has not desired to be a painter. Small Worldly the French Clergy. given to From the point of view which regards worldly success, and which we are considering for the present, the French clergy is very inferior to the English. The highest pay of a parish priest is sixty pounds a year, the lowest thirtysix. There are some extras for wedding and funeral fees. There is also a priest's house, and these dwellings have been much improved of late. When the parishioners are rich and generous the priest receives many presents Presents of eatables, and in some parishes his cellar is kept well Priests. supplied with wine; but when the population is stingy he has to live strictly on his income, or even on less if he is of a charitable disposition. In towns, a favourite priest is often embarrassed with gifts for the comfort and elegance of his rooms; in rural parishes his rooms are likely to be bare. Each priest keeps one woman servant, usually plain, and, of course, invariably of mature agehis "rancid virgin," as one curé wittily called her. It has always been an insoluble problem for me how the two manage to live so decently on so little money. A canon French has sixty pounds a year, a bishop four hundred, and an Canons. |