This contrast of character may also be noticed in the great concerns of the
two nations. The ardent Frenchman is all for military renown; he fights for
glory, that is to say, for success in arms. For, provided the national flag
is victorious, he cares little about the expense, the injustice, or the
inutility of the war. It is wonderful how the poorest Frenchman will revel
on a triumphant bulletin; a great victory is meat and drink to him; and at
the sight of a military sovereign, bringing home captured cannon and
captured standards, he throws up his greasy cap in the air, and is ready to
jump out of his wooden shoes for joy.
John Bull, on the contrary, is a reasoning, considerate person. If he does
wrong, it is in the most rational way imaginable. He fights because the
good of the world requires it. He is a moral person, and makes war upon his
neighbor for the maintenance of peace and good order, and sound principles.
He is a money-making personage, and fights for the prosperity of commerce
and manufactures. Thus the two nations have been fighting, time out of
mind, for glory and good. The French, in pursuit of glory, have had their
capital twice taken; and John, in pursuit of good, has run himself over
head and ears in debt.
* * * * *
THE TUILERIES AND WINDSOR CASTLE
I have sometimes fancied I could discover national characteristics in
national edifices. In the Chateau of the Tuileries, for instance, I
perceive the same jumble of contrarieties that marks the French character;
the same whimsical mixture of the great and the little; the splendid and
the paltry, the sublime and the grotesque. On visiting this famous pile,
the first thing that strikes both eye and ear is military display. The
courts glitter with steel-clad soldiery, and resound with the tramp of
horse, the roll of drum, and the bray of trumpet. Dismounted guardsmen
patrol its arcades, with loaded carbines, jingling spears, and clanking
sabers. Gigantic grenadiers are posted about its staircases; young officers
of the guards loll from the balconies, or lounge in groups upon the
terraces; and the gleam of bayonet from window to window, shows that
sentinels are pacing up and down the corridors and ante-chambers. The first
floor is brilliant with the splendors of a court. French taste has tasked
itself in adorning the sumptuous suites of apartments; nor are the gilded
chapel and the splendid theater forgotten, where piety and pleasure are
next-door neighbors, and harmonize together with perfect French
_bienseance_.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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