Politicians From France

"What is the first object of society? It is to maintain the imprescriptible rights of man. What is the first of those rights? The right to life."

"Citizens, it is you who will have the glory of making genuine principles prevail, and giving the world just laws. You are certainly not here to plod servilely along the rut of tyrannical prejudices traced by your predecessors; rather you are starting a new career in which no one has preceded you."

"In every country where nature provides for the needs of men with prodigality, scarcity can only be imputed to defects of administration or of the laws themselves; bad laws and bad administration have their origins in false principles and bad morals."

"The National Assembly, imbued with a religious respect for the rights of men, whose maintenance should be the object of all political institutions; Convinced that a constitution designed to ensure the liberty of French people, and to influence that of the world, ought to be established on that principle above all; Declares that all Frenchmen, meaning all men born and domiciled in France, or naturalized, should enjoy fully and equally the rights of the citizen; and are eligible for all public office, without distinction other than that of their virtues and talents!"

"England! Ha! What good are they to you, England and its depraved constitution, which may have looked free to you when you had sunk to the lowest degree of servitude, but which it is high time to stop praising out of ignorance or habit!"

"The people only ask for what is necessary, it only wants justice and tranquility, the rich aspire to everything, they want to invade and dominate everything. Abuses are the work and the domain of the rich, they are the scourges of the people: the interest of the people is the general interest, that of the rich is a particular interest..."

"What is a person who, among men equal in rights, dares to declare his fellows unworthy of exercising theirs, and to take them away for his own advantage!"

"The law, the public authority: is it not established to protect weakness against injustice and oppression? It is thus an offence to all social principles place it entirely in the hands of the rich. But the rich, the powerful, have reasoned differently, Through a strange abuse of words, they have restricted the general idea of property to certain objects only; they have called only themselves property owners: they have claimed that only property owners were worthy of the name of citizen; they have named their own particular interest the general interest, and to ensure the success of that claim, they have seized all social power."

"let all of Europe league against us and Europe will be defeated."

"You constantly allege the declaration of human rights, the principles of liberty, and you yourselves believed in it so little that you constitutionally decreed slavery."

"Death, so much Death! And the wretches cast it upon me. What a memory I shall leave behind if this lasts. Life is a burden to me"

"To be armed for personal defence is the right of every man, to be armed to defend freedom and the existence of the common fatherland is the right of every citizen"

"To defend the oppressed against their oppressors, to plead the cause of the weak against the strong who exploit and crush them, this is the duty of all hearts that have not been spoiled by egoism and corruption… It is so sweet to devote oneself to one’s fellows that I do not know how there can be so many unfortunates still without support or defenders. As for me, my life’s task will be to help those who suffer and to pursue through my avenging speech those who take pleasure in the pain of others. How happy I will be if my feeble efforts are crowned with success and if, at the price of my devotion and sacrifices, my reputation is not tarnished by the crimes of the oppressors I will fight."

"The aim of constitutional government is to preserve the Republic; that of revolutionary government is to lay its foundation."

"The policy of the London Cabinet largely contributed to the first movement of our Revolution …Taking advantage of political tempests (the cabinet) aimed to effect in an exhausted and dismembered France a change of dynasty and to place the Duke of York on the throne of Louis XVI … Pitt … is an imbecile, whatever may be said of a reputation that has been much too greatly puffed up. A man who, abusing the influence acquired by him on an island placed haphazard in the ocean, is desirous of contending with the French people, could not have conceived of such an absurd plan elsewhere than in a madhouse."

"I know we cannot flatter ourselves that we have attained perfection; but holding up a Republic surrounded by enemies, fortifying reason in favour of liberty, destroying prejudice and nullifying individual efforts against the public interest, demand moral and physical strengths that nature has perhaps denied to those who denounce us and those we are fighting."

"Citoyens, vouliez-vous une révolution sans révolution?"

"Le secret de la liberté est d'éclairer les hommes, comme celui de la tyrannie est de les retenir dans l'ignorance"

"La plus extravagante idée qui puisse naître dans la tête d'un politique est de croire qu'il suffise à un peuple d'entrer à main armée chez un peuple étranger, pour lui faire adopter ses lois et sa constitution. Personne n'aime les missionnaires armés; et le premier conseil que donnent la nature et la prudence, c'est de les repousser comme des ennemis."

"It is indeed a great interest, the conservation of your colonies, but even that interest is connected with your constitution; and the supreme interest of the nation and of the colonies themselves is that you conserve your liberty and do not overturn the foundations of that liberty with your own hands. Faugh! Perish your colonies, if you are keeping them at that price. Yes, if you had either to lose your colonies, or to lose your happiness, your glory, your liberty, I would repeat: perish your colonies."

"Things have been said to you about the Jews that are infinitely exaggerated and often contrary to history. How can the persecutions they have suffered at the hands of different peoples be held against them? These on the contrary are national crimes that we ought to expiate, by granting them imprescriptible human rights of which no human power could despoil them. Faults are still imputed to them, prejudices, exaggerated by the sectarian spirit and by interests. But to what can we really impute them but our own injustices? After having excluded them from all honours, even the right to public esteem, we have left them with nothing but the objects of lucrative speculation. Let us deliver them to happiness, to the homeland, to virtue, by granting them the dignity of men and citizens; let us hope that it can never be policy, whatever people say, to condemn to degradation and oppression a multitude of men who live among us. How could the social interest be based on violation of the eternal principles of justice and reason that are the foundations of every human society?"

"Every citizen fulfilling the conditions of eligibility that you have prescribed has the right to public office."

"Let tyranny reign a single day, and there will be no more patriots the day after. Yet one or the other has to yield."

"Remember, that there is no more formidable enemy to liberty than fanaticism."

"When will the interests of governments be amalgamated with those of the people? Never!"

"Freedom can never be found by the use of a foreign force"

"It is by the progress of philosophy and by the spectacle of the happiness of France, that you will extend the empire of our revolution, and not by the force of arms and by the calamities of war."

"Whoever tries to stop the saying of mass is a worse fanatic than the priest who says it."

"There is one thing more despicable than a tyrant— it is a nation of slaves."

"Man is born to be happy and free, and everywhere he is enslaved and unhappy! Society exists for the purpose of conserving his rights and perfecting his being, and everywhere society degrades and oppresses him! The time has come to remind him of his true destiny."

"Citizens, imagination usually sets the limits of the possible and the impossible; but when you have the will to do good, you must have the courage to cross these limits."

"poverty corrupts the People’s behaviour and degrades its soul; it predisposes it to crime"

"You have driven out the kings: but have you driven out the vices that their fatal domination has bred within you?"

"The general will rules in society as the private will governs each separate individual."

"The Locarno pacts offer only the insubstantial semblance of a guarantee; they are an illusion calculated to mislead easily satisfied consciences and to lull more vigilant minds to sleep. In their inadequacy lies their danger. The spirit of Locarno itself is positively injurious to the interests of our country."

"Few men in France had made a more realistic appraisal of their country’s position in the post-war world, or were more anxious to secure its future, than its premier, Georges Clemenceau, known as ‘the Tiger’. The 78-year-old Clemenceau may have seemed a man of the past, and his square-tailed coats, shapeless hats, thick, buckled boots, and suede gloves (worn because of his eczema) accentuated this impression. To Clemenceau, the problem of the peace settlement was the problem of French security: how to protect France against another German aggression, something which all of France believed was possible. In his relentless search for the means to enhance French security, Clemenceau operated on the assumption that neither military defeat nor the fall of the Kaiser would permanently weaken Germany nor curb her continental ambitions. Germany would have to be disarmed, but this would hardly be sufficient for future safety. Even as he savoured the victory that was won at such high cost to France, Clemenceau understood how easily the peace could be lost. Stripped to its essentials, French security required the support of allies and military, territorial, and economic changes that would restrict Germany’s capacity to again invade France. Neither the Rhineland nor Belgium was to become a platform for future German attacks. Clemenceau intended, too, that the peace settlements would provide opportunities to redress the unequal balance of economic strength between the two neighbouring nations that the war had not altered. While Clemenceau did not rule out the future possibility of Franco-German economic co-operation, already canvassed in the summer of 1919, it was only a possibility and had to be on terms that would promote French industrial interests."

"Signing of Protocol and procés-verbal ratifying the Treaty [of Versailles]. It was interesting to see old Clemenceau going through the ceremony – the quick way in which he walked round the tables. L[loyd] G[eorge] said that after the signing of Protocol, which took place in a private room, Clemenceau had to shake hands with the German delegate. He said to [L]loyd G[eorge], “I spat on the place in order to commemorate it!”"

"Had a little talk with President Wilson... The President said that he had been reading an account of Clemenceau's philosophy of life, in which he remarked: “Life consists of the play of unrestrained natural forces” – in other words, the evolutionist's view of sociological development. President: If you take that view, I don't see how you can have any hope or incentive to action."

"Much talk about Clemenceau and Wilson. L[loyd] G[eorge] said, ‘Each lacks and fails to understand the other's best qualities. When Wilson talks idealism, Clemenceau wonders what he means, and, metaphorically speaking, touches his forehead, as much as to say, “A good man, but not quite all there!”’"

"Clemenceau said to me, “I used to be an idealist, but the older I grow the more I am convinced that it is Force that counts.” I replied, “Then you have come to agree with Machiavelli?” But Clemenceau doesn't like having his conclusions sharpened, and he said nothing."

"[Woodrow] Wilson then diverged into his usual rhapsody about the superiority of right to might: he referred to those great French idealists—Lafayette and Rochambeau...and he ended an eloquent appeal to Clemenceau by quoting Napoleon's saying on his deathbed that “in the end right always triumphed over might.” Clemenceau ... said: “President Wilson has quoted Napoleon as having said that in the end might was beaten by right. He says that he uttered this sentiment on his deathbed. Had it been true it was rather late for him to have discovered it. But it was not true. President Wilson alluded in glowing language to those idealistic young Frenchmen who helped to liberate America. However exalted the ideals of Lafayette and Rochambeau, they would never have achieved them without force. Force brought the United States into being and force again prevented it from falling to pieces.” The President acknowledged the cogency of the reply."

"His hatred of Germany had a concentrated ferocity which I had never seen before... I remember driving with him back to Paris...after he had handed...the German delegates the draft of the Peace Treaty. As we passed the ruins of the palace of St. Cloud, which had been burned by the Germans in 1871, he told me how he remembered seeing the blaze... That event seemed to have burned itself into his memory ... There is only one incident of 1871 of which he spoke to me with emotion, and that was of the poignant scene in the French Assembly when Jules Favre came straight from an interview with Bismarck to report to the deputies the nature of the terms demanded, and the ruthlessness with which the triumphant Chancellor had treated the supplication of the French delegates for some amelioration in the demands. Tears came into M. Clemenceau's eyes—for the first and only time in my intercourse with him—as he described how "the old man" (Favre), in attempting to describe the harshness of the conqueror, broke down in the tribune and wept. I then understood something of M. Clemenceau's hatred of the Germans. They had not only invaded France, defeated her armies, occupied her capital, humbled her pride, but in the hour of victory had treated her with an insolence which for fifty years had rankled in the heart of this fierce old patriot. When I met him at Carlsbad the sore was still stinging him into anger."

"He was...much the most arresting and powerful personality in the arena of French politics during the Third Republic... Clemenceau was a master of words. No orator of his day had a more perfect command and choice of word and phrase. But he was pre-eminently a man of action... That he should have succeeded as War Minister is not a matter of surprise. He possessed restless energy, indomitable courage and a gift of infecting others with his own combativeness and confidence... A combination of energy, courage and common sense was needed at that hour, and he possessed these three attributes in an exceptional degree... Clemenceau was the greatest French statesman—if not the greatest Frenchman—of his day. He was in every fibre of his being a Frenchman. He had no real interest in humanity as a whole. His sole concern was for France. As long as France was humbled he cared not what other people were exalted. As long as France was victorious he did not worry in the least about the tribulations of any other country. To him France was all in all."

"I was seated between Jesus Christ and Napoleon."

"He had one illusion — France; and one disillusion — mankind, including Frenchmen."

"In the fear, anger, and disarray of the French people the rugged, dominating figure of Clemenceau, with his world-famed authority, and his special British and American contacts, was incontinently discarded. "Ingratitude towards their great men," writes Plutarch, "is the mark of strong peoples." It was imprudent of France to indulge this trait when she was so grievously weakened. There was little compensating strength to be found in the revival of the group intrigues and ceaseless changes of Governments and Ministers which were the characteristic of the Third Republic, however profitable they were to those engaged in them."

"France had been bled white by the war. The generation that had dreamed since 1870 of a war of revenge had triumphed, but at a deadly cost in national life-strength. It was a haggard France that greeted the dawn of victory. Deep fear of Germany pervaded the French nation on the morrow of their dazzling success. It was this fear that had prompted Marshal Foch to demand the Rhine frontier for the safety of France against her far larger neighbour. But the British and American statesmen held that the absorption of German-populated districts in French territory was contrary to the Fourteen Points and to the principles of nationalism and self-determination upon which the Peace Treaty was to be based. They therefore withstood Foch and France. They gained Clemenceau by promising: first, a joint Anglo-American guarantee for the defence of France; secondly, a demilitarised zone; and thirdly, the total, lasting disarmament of Germany. Clemenceau accepted this in spite of Foch’s protests and his own instincts. The Treaty of Guarantee was signed accordingly by Wilson and Lloyd George and Clemenceau. The United States Senate refused to ratify the treaty. They repudiated President Wilson’s signature. And we, who had deferred so much to his opinions and wishes in all this business of peacemaking, were told without much ceremony that we ought to be better informed about the American Constitution."

"The truth is that Clemenceau embodied and expressed France. As much as any single human being, miraculously magnified, can ever be a nation, he was France."

"He was not a popular man. He had made too many enemies and his tongue was too sharp. But his fellow-countrymen deeply respected and admired him... For France owed much to Clemenceau. His love for her was the ruling principle of his life. To her he sacrificed ease and friendship and perhaps even happiness. He hated those whom he regarded as her enemies, whether at home or abroad, and he was merciless to them—a Tiger indeed. He grieved with her in defeat, he sought to discipline her in peace, he strengthened her in war and he led her to Victory."

"I saw him last at the end of May of 1929. He had aged a good deal but his mind was as clear as ever. He spoke sadly and with disillusionment. He professed that he no longer much cared to live, though he was very glad to have been alive. He spoke with uneasiness of the general situation in the world and especially in France. He seemed to think there was a decay of authority and—though he did not use the word—of ideals. He said: "The truth is that I am in one respect a very unfortunate man. I have seen my wishes fulfilled. I believed very much in democracy and representative Government and now that I see it in operation I am a little disappointed." One other striking phrase he employed. He said: "I have come to think that it is more difficult to make Peace than to make War—and requires more patience!""