books in which the Loriquets[1] of patriotism manipulated the facts of national history for the greater glory of the French fatherland? The little Germans have put into their hands books similar in kind, but exclusively celebrating the German fatherland.
Do you remember those History manuals in which on every page some scene of carnage or the portrait of some warrior was cynically displayed? You were not spared the sight of a single one of them, all were there: Vercingetorix, Charles Martel, Duguesclin, Bayard, all the generals of Louis XIV, including those who set fire to the Palatinate, all the generals of the Grand Army who went forth to stain in the blood of all the peoples the flag of Valmy, and not forgetting the vulture himself, Napoleon, on the top of his perch in the Place Vendome.
And the commentaries under each picture reek with race hatred, national vanity and idolatry of the sword—fine sentiments which the reading of the "Petit Journal" (five million readers!), the "Petit Parisien," and other papers with big circulations will do nothing but maintain and develop.
To complete the work of making the perfect patriot, to poison his whole system, nothing more is necessary than to let him become intoxicated with military pomp, which is still more impressive than the pomp of religion.
This time the impression is not produced by priestly vestments, resplendent with gold and precious stones; these are replaced by costumes of gaudy colors, with gold lace, plumes and feathers.
The music of the church organ is replaced by the still more intoxicating music of drums and trumpets.
Instead of religious processions, we now have those imposing military reviews, which we have all run after in our time in order to see the march-past, in the heat and dust, of those interminable ranks of instruments of slaughter and of young men, the flower of the nation, marked for future butcheries. Then, when the rag on
- ↑ Loriquet, a Jesuit historian.
