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-but with a measure of hatred mixed in: "This absolute fidelity [characteristic
of the Germans] is a virtue of barbarians"; "the race's dormant barbarism
suddenly awoke"; in sum, "the time of the savage beast has come."
Apparently, there is no significant difference between Germans and Russians.
The other nations scarcely fare any better. "We are not like the Ital–
ians, thank Heaven." England is a weak and bloated giant. The Jews, a
people with no land, are a perpetual threat; they are bankers and usurers
who sow terror wherever they go: "The Jews do have a fatherland-the
London stock exchange; they are active everywhere, but their roots are in
the land of gold." And if even France has suffered setbacks, this is because
some of its ministers are foreigners.
Now,
if
ideology is conceded to play any role at all in political history, it
must be acknowledged that thinkers like Michelet (who is but one of a long
line of "republican nationalists" extending from Robespierre to Peguy) have a
particularly heavy moral responsibility. Patriots who are nothing but patriots
at least behave straightforwardly and do not raise false expectations:
Charles Maurras, for instance, the theoretician ofAction Francaise, never
claimed that his nationalist combat was anything but antidemocratic and an–
tirepublican. Michelet, while he
is
no less nationalistic than Maurras, advances
beneath the mask of republican virtues and humanist principles, in a country
where these values are held in high esteem. This accounts for his popularity–
but also, perhaps, for my reticence towards him.
Last but not least, let us take up the case of Chateaubriand. He
encountered the problem of "otherness" quite early in his life, having trav–
elled to America as a young man. His original purpose was to observe
Rousseau's "natural man" as embodied there by the American India.n He
soon realized, however, that this plan could not be carried out, and his reading
of Rousseau evolved from a superficial one (reduced to exotic primitivism)
into a more accurate, humanistic one (though Chateaubriand presents this
conclusion as a refinement of Christian ideals). He records the results of this
I
evolution in his book
Les Natchez,
of which
Atala
and
Rene
are the best–
known excerpts. One of his major characters, the Indian named Chactas,
, gradually discovers that the crucial opposition is not between "the others" and
, "ourselves," but between vice and virtue, both ofwhich are present in every
country in the world. His interlocutors in France, to whom Chateaubriand
gives the names of
La
Bruyere and Fenelon, state that individuals must not
be judged solely on the basis of the society to which they belong (be it
"savage" or "civilized"); what unites human beings the world over is more
important than what divides them. Yet this original equality does not lead to a
relativistic renunciation of value judgements: precisely because the human
species is one, it is possible to tell good from evil beyond the borders of one's
