EVENING REFLECTIONS

The Gods are thirsty…

The events of yesterday and today have followed the normal course that we had predicted. The communists were able to have one of their own in the Chamber belch out the worst violence against President Millerand, they did not have to camp their troops on our boulevards as we had predicted.

The last act is played. But we will regret until the end that the last word did not remain with the defenders of legality, those who will henceforth be called the constitutionalists and who have resolutely taken their responsibilities.

We will regret that the resignation of the President of the Republic was concerted in revolutionary clubs, that the order was dictated by a handful of men to others infinitely more numerous who suffered, from the beginning, through weakness, their tyrannical defiance.

And we will note, once again, with bitterness, that the fear of the violent, the vertigo that seizes the timid in contact with the bold is the characteristic of troubled times when the Revolution is testing its strength.

So are we there? Yes, certainly. Let us not hide the gravity of the hour.

Internally, all the enemies of order are rejoicing. The first insurrectional victory won over it opens up horizons for them that they could have believed were still distant.

Since it is so easy for a minority to impose its will on a majority and to domesticate it, what can not all the troublemakers hope for in the near future? One-upmanship becomes the rule. It is a question of who, to please the leaders, will join their extreme measures tomorrow. Only the first step costs. It is taken and the gods are thirsty. When our Kerenskys want to turn around, they will find Lenins, I am afraid, to block their path.

Outside, all those who hate France, all those who hold a grudge against her for having defended civilization against barbarism, are rubbing their hands and congratulating themselves. The old monkey Lloyd George is showing off with his finest grimaces, which he had to return to for more than two years.

The Pan-Germans have never been at a better party. They have no need to strut and illuminate. Their insolent joy is in chorus with that of the Soviets. Germany is hastening its military preparation; its armed blackmail is exalting it. The Reichswehr already has a large part of the armament and munitions that will triple its strength. It is importing into its territory the war material manufactured by its neighbors. She tells herself that she no longer has to take precautions and, through her newspapers, which represent Poincaré in the guise of a viper, she is content to let the French rulers who are about to take power know that the head of the beast, even separated from the trunk, still remains aggressive and dangerous. Finally, Soviet Russia, seeking a Boche quarrel with Poland, breaks off negotiations with her.

At a time when it should reign more than ever, authority is crumbling and decomposing. At a time when we should be redoubled in our vigilance towards the Germans, whose deceit we have been measuring for five years, we hear only walls of renunciation.

The bleating pacifists are starting to whine their sentimental nonsense again. The incorrigible harbingers of war, the sad dupes of universal brotherhood, are forging weapons for the offensive return of imperialism that missed its mark.

Is it for this sinister comedy that France, which still mourns its dead, wanted to vote? Is it to the purveyors of defeatism that it has entrusted its destiny?

ANDRÉ PAYER.