[49] Compare with Balzac, who, though a Conservative, never hesitates to show his Conservatives and particularly his Catholics in an unfavourable light, if he thinks that the true light. See the examples quoted by E. Seillière (_Balzac et la morale romantique_, pp. 27 onwards, and 84 onwards), who sharply reproaches Balzac. [50] ‘_Resurrection_,’ ‘_Jean-Christophe_’ (derived in this respect from the procedure of George Sand). On the other hand, I seem to find a great deal of justice done the bourgeois in _Les Miserables_, which is nevertheless a most ‘tendencious’ novel. [51] For instance, pre-war French novels showing the French in Alsace-Lorraine. We may be quite certain that since 1918 the Germans have written novels which are the exact counterpart to these. [52] See Note G at the end of this book. [53] See, for instance, Fustel de Coulanges’s study _De la manière d’écrire l’histoire en France et en Allemagne_. It will be observed that this author’s denunciation of the German historians exactly applies to certain French historians of recent years, with this difference: That the German alters history to exalt his nation and the Frenchman to exalt a political system. In general it may be said that the ‘tendencious’ philosophies of the Germans lead to national war, and those of the French to civil war. Is it necessary to repeat, after so many others, how much this proves the moral superiority of the latter? [54] _Revue Universelle_, 15th April, 1924. Here is that very curious desire of the moderns to yield to subjectivism, whereas their elders made every effort to combat it. [55] See Note H at the end of this book. [56] Yet the Jesuits thought of doing so to combat the Jansenists. (See Racine, _Port-Royal_, pt. i.) [57] On the matter of the lack of literary sensibility which accompanies this political criticism among its adepts, see a paragraph of L. Dimier, _Vingt Ans d’Action Française_, p. 334. [58] The distinction between these two humanitarianisms is well expressed by Goethe when he relates (Dichtung und Wahrheit) the indifference of himself and his friends to the events of 1789. ‘In our little circle, we took no notice of news and newspapers; our object was to know Man; as for men, we left them to do as they chose.’ Need I recall that the ‘humanities’, as instituted by the Jesuits in the seventeenth century, the ‘studia humanitatis’, are ‘the study of what is most essentially human’, in no sense altruistic exercises. See further Note I at the end of this book for a curious quotation from one of the ancients.