But whatever excuses may be found for the disorders of
the French democracy, the temporary effect of the democratic idea upon
the national fabric was, undoubtedly, a rending of the roots of their
national stability and good feeling. The successive revolutionary
explosions, which have constituted so much of French history since 1789,
have made France the victim of what sometimes seem to be mutually
exclusive conceptions of French national well-being. The democratic
radicals are "intransigeant." The party of tradition and authority is
"ultramontane." The majority of moderate and sensible people are usually
in control; but their control is unstable. The shadow of the Terror and
the Commune hangs over every serious crisis in French politics. The
radicals jump to the belief that the interests and rights of the people
have been betrayed and that the traitors should be exterminated. Good
Frenchmen suffer during those crises from an obsession of suspicion and
fear. Their mutual loyalty, their sense of fair play, and their natural
kindliness are all submerged under a tyranny of desperate apprehension.
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