As Tocqueville saw it, demagoguery would be the ultimate political expression of a society bereft—of family pride, manners, grammar, local custom, hierarchical structure, religious principles, and sacred space.

Everyone agreed that France faced a demographic crisis.

Several months later, in December 1892, the valiant, independent-minded Abbé Frémont noted regretfully in his journal, “Hatred of the Republic and of Jews is today the sustenance of French clergy. Drumont is their preceptor. Above all, don’t tear this choice morsel out of their mouths: if you try, you will immediately be smeared with ink and blacke

“I will not dwell on his shameless, intolerable associations with all that is worst on the extreme left, his absolute subordination to M. Clemenceau, his debasing intimacy with the men of La Lanterne.”

“So there exist fresh young brains and souls that this idiotic poison has already deranged? How very sad, and how ominous for the coming twentieth century!”

Tu seras plus qu’un roi, tu seras plus qu’un Dieu Car tu seras la France, O Général Revanche!*

History had taught republicans to distrust luminaries.

One consoles oneself for not knowing foreign lands by supposing that one knows one’s own country at least, and one is wrong; for there are always areas of one’s own land that one has not visited, and races of men who are new to one. I experienced this fully then. I felt that I was seeing these Montagnards for the first time, so greatly did their mo

pride. Your science is beautiful, and necessary, and invincible; but you accomplish little by enlightening the mind if you do not cure the eternal wound of the heart.