Evening Post. SATURDAY, APRIL 3, 1926. "KING OF FRANCE"

Evening Post, Volume CXI, Issue 79, 3 April 1926, Page 6

Evening Post. SATURDAY, APRIL 3, 1926. "KING OF FRANCE"

On Tuesday tie "Action Friacaise" is reported to have come out with the huge headline, "Le Boi est Mort, Vive le Eoi!" As the dead King is tho Duke of Orleans who neither reigned nor governed, and the kingship of the Duke of Guise, if he were willing at I the price of «xil» to tak« on tho job, would be equally shadowy, the death of the former is »ot quite the world-; shaking event that the journal of the French BoyalisU would have us be- i licve. To many of us, it doubtless comes as a surprise to find that in democratic twentieth-century France; there is such an organ at all, and that it takes its mission as seriously as that startling headline appears to suggest. We had, indeed, been reminded of its existence by one of those hysterical French murder trials a year • tw> ago, but the proceedings did not seem to touch practical politics, and there was no reason why the memory should remain. By way of further '-excuse it may also be pleaded that the. faith which the "Action Francaise" presumably exists to propagate cannot be said to touch practical politics even now. There is still, we believe, in England a Jacobite Society, and the annual cere- | mony of laying a wreath on the statue j of Charles I. shows that the Royal Martyr who not sq very long ago figured as such in our Prayer-books still has his votaries. But the validity of the Hanoverian succession does not trouble statesmen or electors, and the House of Windsor stands as safe- as ] Magna Charta or the Habeas Corpus Act. If the foundations of the French Constitution are not planted with equal firmness on the bedrock, there is cer-1 tainly no alarm over the momentous decision to be made by the Duke of Guise to enhance their insecurity. It was presumed by the "Action Francaise" that, as the heir of the Duke of Orleans, the Duke of Guise would "claim the French throne with the title of Jean the Third." It is unfortunate that the Duke of Guise "has not interested himself in Royalist polities" and that if he takes up the running he will have to leave France, but the Eoyalist organ seen^d nevertheless to believe that he would not miss so good an opportunity. John 111. would be a very good ' title from the French standpoint, and should give ' pleasure in England sjlso. Not that England's direct experience of John as a royal name has been a pleasing one. She has had one King John of her own, and he was so bad that she is never likely to have another. It cannot be by accident that, during the seven centuries that have passed since the nation rejoiced to be rid of the worst of kings, what is the nation's typical name, as its nickname '4 John Bull" testifies, has not been .borne by any of his successors. But the expert' ence of France has been very different. John I. of France certainly did not do anybody any harm, for though he. reigned for life his life only lasted a week. That John 11. had more positive claims to gratitude is shown by the fact that he is better known as '/John the Good." From the English standpoint he was also good, not merely as having served for the anvil of. the Black Prince's hammer at Poitiers, but also as having spent about half of the last eight years of his life as the involuntary but nevertheless honoured the welcome gUest of the English Court. It must, however, be confessed that John 11. was not called "the Good*' in the sense in which the term has been applied to such rulers as Louis IX. or Marcus Auretius or our own King Alfred. Tho second Jean was not a good man and still less a good ruler. But, if he was not conspicuous for a good life, he was fond of good living; if not a good king, he wad at least a good fellow; arid, so, by the charity or sympathy of his courtiers and his countrymen, a term which would have fitted a saint was attached to a very unsaintly person. It is indeed a striking example of .the pitfalls of language and history that thirty critical ydars of the struggle precipitated by Edward 111. 's claim to the French throne should have been covered by the reigns of "John the Good" and "Charles the "Wlge"—of which titles the first sounds to us little better 1 than ironical, and prepares us to do Charles a grave injustice by supposing that his wisdom was really foolishness. Avarice, extravagance, a terribly unsettled and demoralised country) and perpetual warfare with England were the chief troubles of John the Good, and some of the financial expedients to which he was driven by this formidable combination should excito the sympathy, if not the admiration, of the French politicians of to-"day who are engaged in an incessant struggle to make ends meet without paying for it. The coronation of John 111. was. celebrated at Rheims on the 26th September, 1350, "with all the accustomed splendour." "The brilliant train of princes who accompanied him/ says a

French historian, ''drew upon themselves not only the glances but the hopes of the entire population." But one of the reasons why these hopes were blighted -was that the financing of all the splendour had been accomplished by debasing the coinage. The resort at the very outset to this desperate expedient, and for such a purpose, was characteristic of^ the man, and the sequel was like unto it. M. de la Chavanna writes as follows of the second year of John's reign:— We can form some idea of the deplorable state of the finances from the fact that during the course of the year 1351 John issued no less than 18 ordinances altering monetary values, although neither the help of such expedients nor tho subsidies voted by the provinces availed to bring about an equilibrium between receipts and expenditures. The treasury continued, as. in tho preceding reign, to pay annually only a par 1; of the officers' wages and of the interest on the debt. There were also ordinances regulating the order in which the public expenses were to be met, just as to-day, in cases of bankruptcy, the succession in which creditors are to be paid is determined by law. In the case of certain outlays the Government was extremely tardy in making payment, taking for its model the nobility, to the members of which great latitude was allowed. "Let no one," said King John, "wonder, or be ill-pleased, for we take account of the respites and delays recorded to the nobles in the payment of their debts, and it would not be aoemly that we should be in a worse condition than they. , . • ■) It was not at any rate for the nobles to object, nor can they have objected when a few years later the Statei-Gen-eral passed an income tax of 5 per cent, on the poorest classes,' 4 per Cent, on middling fortunes, and 2 per cent, pn the rich. But though some of John the Good's devices may be approved by his countrymen to-day, they certainly do not need warning against this inverted method of graduation when the peasants have votes. Defeated and taken prisoner at Poitiers, John 111. seems to have spent four happy yeats in England at Windsor, Hertford, and afterwards in the Tower, fie was enteriained in royal state, and such luxuries as the country could not supply he was allowed to import from France. After being released on parole he honourably surrendered again and returned to captivity in England. Part of the winter' (1364) was spent, says Froissart, "in great rejoicings and recreations, in dinners, suppers, and other fashions." But the strain was too great: "these fetes and great repasts killed him," says M. Duruy. This precedent might perhaps make John 111. afraid of English hospitality if the adoption of the titlo compels him to leave France, but wherever ho is it may be Bafely prophesied that his reign will be as brief and as innocuous as that of the infant John I.