TSVETAN TODOROV
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tradition, adds Michelet in his
History of
France,
in fact extends all the way
back to the Galles, a race whose most salient characteristic was mobility,
flexibility-in a word, liberty, or again, perfectibility. Thus, the trait Rousseau
had described as being distinctive of the human species-its ability to acquire
knowledge and to perfect itself-here becomes a specifically French trait.
Embodying everything most human in humanity, France is that contradiction
in terms knows as a "universal fatherland." Michelet goes on to declare that
he prefers his patriotism to other people's humanitarianism; but, to
demonstrate the former's superiority, he
relies
on arguments drawn from the
latter! This allows him to see every characteristic of the French nation as a
manifestation of its universality, and thus as intrinsically valuable. France's
vocation is to "usher all other nations into liberty," to "deliver the world" -in
effect, France is a planetary midwife.
The possibility of simultaneously experiencing the particular and the
universal is, of course, reserved exclusively to the French, given that all
other peoples,
in
developing their sense of patriotism, undermine universalism
rather than reinforcing it. They are aware of this, however, and-not being as
dumb as all that-have secretly chosen France as their second fatherland,
often preferring it to their native country. This allows Michelet to consider
himself to be above any possible reproach of partiality: if he defends France,
it is not because he is French but because he loves truth and good.
Michelet's reasoning contains an obvious paradox. The merit of France
consists
in
having defended the principle ofequality. However,
if
this principle
is just, it forbids us to favor one people to the detriment of the others. The
content of the statement is in contradiction with the very moral Michelet
wishes to draw from its very existence, and this can only lead him onto
shaky logical ground. "Every great people," he writes, "doubtless represents
an idea important to humanity. But-great Heaven-how much truer this is of
France!" When one considers that the "idea" under discussion is just that of
equality, the precariousness of such a statement becomes clear. In actual fact,
even were universal good and France's political program to coincide at a
given point in history, this would not confer a lasting privilege on France, for
it can (and, as we
all
know, does) change its politics at the drop of a hat.
Having thus disguised
his
nationalism as universalism, Michelet can give
free sway to his impulse to denigrate other countries. The Russians, he
writes, are "barbaric masses" given to-what else?-"fits of barbarism" and
sounding like "a chorus of wild beasts" ; in brief, Russia is nothing but a
"monster." Of the Germans, Michelet asks in
Le Peuple:
"As for German
books, who reads them outside of Germany?" Following the Franco-Prussian
War, this intellectual condescension continues-Michelet refers to the
"vaporous ideas that
fill
a Northern brain between stove, pipe and beer mug"
