But the French are a nation of small farmers and shopkeepers who cling to their property while they argue and vote for their radicalism and Socialism. This is the duality of their temperament; they love possessions and they love philosophical speculation. They keep their fields and their little shops, and speculate about the new to-morrow. They vote and debate with imaginative fervor; they pay taxes with stolid commonplace silence. In measuring the strength of French Socialism it is necessary to keep this in mind. Not that the Frenchman does not take Socialism seriously. He takes it as seriously as he takes monarchism or republicanism, and much more seriously than he takes religion. There is only one thing he takes more seriously--his property. That is why the Socialists number among their adherents all classes and all conditions of men, from Anatole France, most fastidious of literary aristocrats, to gaunt and hungry proletarians who infest the cellars and garrets of ancient Paris. The French are, after all, the greatest of realists. They speculate in dreams and delicate theories; but they never lose their grip on their little farms and their little shops and the gold bonds of Russia. FOOTNOTES: [1] GEORGES WEIL, _Histoire du Mouvement Socialiste en France_, Paris, 1904, p. 220. [2] Other groups--the word party is hardly applicable in the French Chamber of Deputies--are the reactionary Right; the republican Conservatives, or Center; the Radical Left, or Liberals. [3] WEIL, _supra cit._, p. 276. [4] In France, when any one candidate for the Chamber of Deputies fails to receive a majority of the votes cast, a second ballot is taken, for the two receiving the highest number of votes [5] Quoted by ENSOR, _Modern Socialism_, pp. 48-55. See also a collection of Millerand's speeches, _Le Socialisme Réformiste Français_, Paris, 1903. [6] See "Manifeste 14 Juillet," 1899. [7] See _V^{me} Congrès Général des Organisations Socialistes Français tenu à Paris du 3 au 8 Décembre. Compte-rendu sténographique officiel_, 1900, p. 154 ff. [8] A partial report of the debate of the Bordeaux congress is given in ENSOR'S _Modern Socialism_, pp. 163-184. [9] See A. LAVY, _L'Oeuvre de Millerand_, Paris, 1902, a sympathetic account of his work; contains also extracts from his speeches and state papers. [10] See the _Contemporary Review_, August, 1906, for a brief abstract of this debate.