The Man Who Rages

He is not a dishonest man: he is not a bad Frenchman. He is a gentleman who is very honorably known in his neighborhood and who would cut a good figure on the Municipal Council.
Of course, he is too intelligent to take the communist "bobbies" seriously. Nor does he believe in the reactionary "bobbies" about the dangers of an upcoming revolution.
But in the end, irritated by so many alarmist or defeatist rumors, this average Frenchman, and even above average, ends up saying to himself: "The agitation that the Millerands and the Castelnaus are running out of steam to provoke could only be, at worst, a passing crisis. Order would be quickly restored."

But, if he risks being troubled for a moment, a wise man, who has charge of a family, must take some precautions. In what form? A small reserve of cash allows one to wait without hindrance, in the countryside or at our neighbors', for the fever to subside.
Thereupon, our man, who has some resources, puts aside a hundred thousand-dollar notes, just in case. Suppose that a hundred thousand French people make the same gesture: there you have ten billion withdrawn from circulation. And the good people will be surprised, after that, in the most ingenuous way in the world, at the cash flow problems that hamper their industry or their trade!

But how could Marseilles, one of our most commercial cities, not understand that the main cause of the difficulties from which business suffers is precisely the dreadful campaign of rancor and anger led by Millerand who does not let it go?

In France, we do not like that. It is quite understandable that a man who has lost "his place" regrets it and feels sadness about it. We even forgive him for letting it show too much; but we do not admit that he should rage publicly, and that he should demand from all the echoes the tail of the frying pan that he had to drop, because he was rapped on the knuckles.
What is even more intolerable is that the personal resentment of the ex-president Millerage engages him in an enterprise against public credit. Formerly, political chivalry demanded that France should never be mixed up in party quarrels. Mr. Millerage no longer has these outdated scruples. "Perish France, provided that I return to the Elysée!"

The people of Marseilles and Paris have already discerned the poor motive of this "campaign". It is so miserable in every sense of the word that they will be content to shrug their shoulders. It is not even worth a smile.

Gustave Téry