[Sidenote: Pride in old French Patriotism.] [Sidenote: _La Grande Nation._] [Sidenote: Immense Superiority of France.] [Sidenote: A Talk in 1870.] [Sidenote: Former Faith in Military Superiority.] The element of pride was once intensely strong in French patriotism. Before the Franco-German war the Frenchman was as proud of his nationality as an ancient Roman; he sincerely believed his country to be _La Grande Nation_, and supposed that all the other peoples of the world must be humbly conscious of an immense inferiority. France, he believed, or rather he _knew_, was at the head of all nations both in arts and arms, the most military of countries, the most artistic, the most scientific--in all things and in all ways the greatest, the most illustrious, the best. I remember a conversation that took place in the spring of 1870 between two Frenchmen, a German, and myself. The Frenchmen were both scholarly and thoughtful men, immensely superior to the average of their countrymen, yet the old superstition about Gallic superiority was so inveterate in them that they maintained it at all points. The German and I ventured to doubt the absolute supremacy of France in literature and art, on which our French friends fell back upon a quality which they affirmed to be beyond question, their undoubted military superiority. I remember the quiet, scarcely articulate protest of the German. He said that the military superiority of France, if put to the test _then_ (1870) might not be quite so certain as in former times, as the Germans had made progress in the art of war. The French would not hear about the possibility of defeat; the incomparable _élan_ of the troops, the well-known _furia francese_, was sure to carry everything before it. [Sidenote: End of French Patriotic Pride.] Those were the last days of the pride of patriotism in France. Since 1870 no human being has heard any boasting of that kind from French lips. [Sidenote: The Feeling of Security necessary to it.] Before 1870 all French people had the sense of perfect security within their own frontier. They might send troops abroad, but at home they felt as secure as the English in their island. The sense of patriotic pride requires that feeling of security within the frontier, as much as the pride of wealth requires the sense of security from bailiffs. When the enemy is in possession, and the national forces are manifestly impotent to drive him out, there can be no national pride. There may be infinite devotion, and the most pathetic tenderness, but “_il n’y a pas lieu d’être fier_.” [Sidenote: Improvement of French National Character.] [Sidenote: Change from Rashness to Prudence.] [Sidenote: Humiliation.]