French, English, American Essays

NO one will expect a book supporting Catholicism and monarchy to be a best seller in this country, especially not if the book does not mince words, makes no qualifying statements, and is frankly the work of almost insane prejudice. On the other hand, Leon Daudet occupies a position in French affairs that entitles him to a hearing.

Even in France one does not take this genial 250-pounder seriously--no one, that is, except the police, who have learned from bitter experience that behind this gentleman's grand opera gestures there beats a brain capable of engineering even the most subtle of prison breaks.

Head of the Royalist newspaper, L'Action Francaise, M. Daudet as a writer has been a chronic under-dog. Never, or practically never, has his party been "in." Always has he been "out," in a strong editorial position, having nothing to defend, and having every chance of gaining by a change in the present conditions of affairs. This has given to his pen, and perhaps to his whole mentality, a virulence not unlike that to be found in The Nation and in the oil charges of the Democratic party in this country.

In this book, M. Daudet considers the events leading up to the France-Prussian War. France's British and American policies, the principles of colonization, and the problems of religion and state. In brief, he finds that France, under the liberal regime has been hardly mismanaged, particularly as to things political and intellectual. He of course, goes too far. His alignment of cause and effect is usually distorted. But despite his exaggeration, exaggerations which bring a smile to the supporter of democracy but which Mr. Daudet regards as Gospel truth, there is to be found a germ of truth. Democracy has not proved the panacea for all national ills. M. Daudet believes that Catholic monarchism is the patent medicine which will provide the remedy, and says so in a manner that is comparable only to a combination of Mencken and Oswald Garrison Villard. One does not agree with Daudet any more than one agree with these two gentlemen. But the Frenchman is no more ridiculous than your Fourth of July orators, and he is a good deal rarer and therefore more entertaining.