Le Figaro
- The Paradoxes of Franciscan History
- Foreign Credits and Franco-German Understanding
- TAKING STOCK OF THE HOLIDAYS
This front page set a meditation on sanctity beside two anxious pieces on money. Georges Goyau of the Académie française wrote about Francis of Assisi's "folly" of voluntary poverty, which echoed Paul's "folly of the Cross." He argued that by loving Christ's wounds and bearing the stigmata, Francis taught Christians to face the Crucifixion, which early Christian art had avoided showing. An editorial signed "Intérim." attacked a rival paper's call for foreign credits. It blamed London, Washington and "international finance" for letting a defeated Germany dictate terms to an isolated France, and it said a Franco-German understanding did not depend on France. Henri Vonoven welcomed the returning confidence in French finances but warned that "the financial illness remains." He called for new sacrifices, savings and more production to restore the franc.
Translation
The Paradoxes of Franciscan History
[?] When the young Francis, stripping himself bare in the square of Assisi, heard himself called a madman by the gilded youth of the little town, he smiled at the insult as at an omen of victory. He remembered that the Apostle Paul, in order to announce to his age the strangeness of a God annihilating himself on a gibbet, had dared to proclaim "the folly of the Cross." This other folly, that of voluntary poverty, preached by Francis, would win over a certain number of souls, and it was by colliding with the world that he conquered it. Those who the day before had dreaded what they called ruin suddenly, following Francis, yearned for poverty as for the joyful dawn of their spiritual renewal. The spirit of the Gospel, the immediate harshness and the promises of sweetness offered by the evangelical counsels, suddenly prevailed over all that was mediocre in human wisdom; people who the day before had been frozen, and had not suffered from it, suddenly felt the cold, and went to the Little Poor Man to be warmed, transfigured, even if they, like him, were to be accused of madness.
Yet the primordial folly, that of the Cross, had not yet been shown to men in all its nakedness. The Christian art of the first centuries had rebelled against the idea of displaying the torment of a God. Held back by some sort of modesty, or by a scrupulous concern to show God only in an attitude of glory, it needed a risen, triumphant Christ. And yet this Christ had said that from the height of his cross he would draw all things to himself: why, then, was art more timid than he? The Poor Man of Assisi came along and loved with true love the bleeding sufferings of his Master; he sang them in his verses and shared them through his stigmata: thanks to him, the world advanced in the understanding of the folly of the Cross. Now this was the hour when art was beginning to awaken: the painter who meditated, following Francis and his disciples, [?]
— Georges Goyau, of the Académie française
Foreign Credits and Franco-German Understanding
truths: one is that there is no financial restoration without America and England, the other is that there is no European peace without an understanding with Germany. How can anyone think of foreign credits? We are surprised that a mind as shrewd as our colleague's can still advocate resorting to foreign loans. We have explained ourselves on this question with all the clarity one could wish, and no answer has been given to the invitation we made in the Figaro on August 23, 1926. On that date, we asked our opponents to show us in what way recourse to foreigners was superior to the policy of domestic effort and the French loan. Since no reply has come, we are entitled to believe that the arguments that might be raised against us are not very solid.
Can our colleague fail to realize that victorious France is ending up succumbing under the relentless pressure of Anglo-Saxon finance? Thanks to this powerful assistance, Germany is taking a first revenge: she is escaping more and more from the consequences of the war she lost on the battlefields. Diplomatic maneuvers, backed by the artillery of the exchange markets, allow defeated Germany today to dictate peace terms to France, glorious but isolated and wounded. This situation is due exclusively to the concerted wills of the governments of London and Washington, which have lived too long under the blinding influence of international finance. It is time today to ask certain politicians whether they are aware of having thus achieved a result in keeping with the wishes and the immediate and future interests of the great English people and the great American people.
As for the understanding with Germany, meant to ensure European peace, it does not depend on us. Can one believe that France still has something to do to obtain this understanding? Has she not
— Intérim.
TAKING STOCK OF THE HOLIDAYS
[?] Confidence has returned, the confidence that made this sound management of our finances possible and that finds in this success a reason to grow firmer. But whatever joy we may feel at the thought of these results, we must measure their scope and see clearly. It is essential that the first stage of the vast operation undertaken by the ministry of union has succeeded. Had it failed — as Monsieur de La Palice will grant — all hope would have been lost. But, as the letter told the chairmen of the parliamentary committees, this is only a beginning. The bout of fever has subsided; the financial illness remains. If the hope of salvation is growing, the work of putting things on a sound footing remains hard and the trials to come will be serious.
The fiscal effort has been valiantly borne by those taxpayers, happily steadfast in their patriotism, "who eagerly anticipate the State's call." They must endure with the same courage the restrictions that will be imposed on them and that they must impose on themselves. It is toward new sacrifices that the Frenchman must be firmly guided, and must let himself be led, if he wants to see his currency rise again. Whatever technical methods for restoring the franc the government may resort to tomorrow, it must obtain from the country, along with savings, that intense and methodical production whose necessity has been proclaimed many times. Made possible by this favorable balance sheet, here begins the active phase of restoration, the most painful one.
Henri Vonoven.
THE FINANCIAL SITUATION
Context
Why Francis of Assisi appeared on this date
Goyau's essay ran on 3 October 1926 under the subtitle "for the seventh centenary of the saint of Assisi." The date was exactly seven hundred years after Francis died on the evening of 3 October 1226 in a hut beside the Porziuncola. That explains why Le Figaro gave the saint front-page space. The essay's opening scene follows the hagiographic tradition that Francis renounced his father and his inheritance before the bishop of Assisi. Some accounts say he stripped naked and the bishop covered him with his own cloak. Goyau presents the town's jeering at this "madman" as an omen of victory and links it to Paul's "folly of the Cross." The essay's second theme, the stigmata, also rests on established tradition: Francis is said to have received wounds like Christ's on La Verna in 1224, two years before he died. The claim that follows, that Francis brought Western art to face the Crucifixion directly, is Goyau's own devotional and art-historical argument. The excerpt breaks off just as he turns to the painter who meditated in Francis's footsteps.
The franc crisis behind Vonoven's call for sacrifice
Vonoven's "ministry of union" was Raymond Poincaré's government. Poincaré was recalled on 23 July 1926 as both prime minister and finance minister after another attack on the franc left it worth only about a tenth of its prewar value against sterling and the dollar. His government created sinking funds to manage the state debt, paid for by tobacco taxes and lotteries. That background explains why the editorial praises taxpayers who bore the "fiscal effort" while insisting that the "first stage" was only a beginning. Vonoven's image of a fever that had broken while the illness remained fit an autumn in which the currency had calmed but its final value was still unsettled. The recovery did remain incomplete for some time. The franc climbed back to 122 to the pound by December 1926, but it was not formally stabilized until the devaluation of 25 June 1928, which created the "franc Poincaré" at one-fifth of its old gold value.
Anglo-American money, Germany and the Locarno thaw
The "Intérim." editorial complains that Germany was escaping the consequences of defeat with Anglo-Saxon financial help. It was written when Franco-German reconciliation was moving fast. Germany had joined the League of Nations only weeks earlier, in September 1926, as the Locarno negotiations had planned. American capital really was flowing to Germany in these years: as part of Stresemann's strategy of close economic ties with the United States, New York bankers lent large sums, and Germany used those dollars to pay reparations to France and Britain. The editorial turns this into a polemic, claiming that London and Washington "exclusively" caused France's isolation and that an understanding with Germany "does not depend on us." Those claims are the paper's position, not established history. Its hostility to foreign borrowing also cut against how the 1926 rescue actually worked. According to an account of Lazard Frères, the bank persuaded Poincaré to accept its plan to pledge the Bank of France's gold to borrow dollars and buy back francs. Stresemann and Briand shared the 1926 Nobel Peace Prize for their work on Locarno.
Original
Les paradoxes de l’histoire franciscaine
[?] Lorsque le jeune François se dépouillant sur la place d'Assise, s'entendait qualifier de fou par la jeunesse dorée de la petite ville, il souriait à cet outrage comme à un augure de victoire. Il se souvenait que l'apôtre Paul, pour annoncer à son siècle l'étrangeté d'un Dieu s'anéantissant sur un gibet, avait osé proclamer «la folie de la Croix». Cette autre folie de la pauvreté volontaire, prêchée par François, allait séduire un certain nombre d'âmes, et c'est en heurtant le monde qu'il le conquérait. Ceux qui la veille redoutaient ce qu'ils appelaient la ruine, tout à coup, à la suite de François, aspiraient vers la pauvreté, comme vers la joyeuse aurore de leur renouveau spirituel. L'esprit de l'Evangile, les immédiates âpretés et les promesses de douceur qu'offraient les conseils évangéliques, prévalaient soudainement sur tout ce qu'il y avait de médiocre dans la sagesse humaine; des êtres qui la veille étaient glacés, et qui n'en souffraient point, se sentaient subitement frileux, et s'en allaient vers le Petit Pauvre pour être réchauffés, transfigurés, dussent-ils, comme lui, être accusés de folie. Cependant la folie primordiale, celle de la Croix, n'avait pas encore été montrée aux hommes dans toute sa nudité. L'art chrétien des premiers siècles s'était rebellé contre l'idée d'exhiber le supplice d'un Dieu. Retenu par je ne sais quelle pudeur, ou par un scrupuleux souci de ne montrer Dieu qu'en attitude de gloire, il lui fallait un Christ ressuscité triomphant. Ce Christ, pourtant, avait dit que du haut de sa croix il attirerait tout à lui: pourquoi donc l'art était-il plus timide que lui? Le Pauvre d'Assise survint, aima d'amour les souffrances saignantes de son Maître; il les chanta dans ses strophes, les partagea par ses stigmates: grâce à lui, le monde avançait dans l'intelligence de la folie de la Croix. Or c'était l'heure où l'art commençait à s'éveiller: le peintre qui méditait, à la suite de François et de ses disciples, [?]
Crédits extérieurs et entente franco-allemande
vérités: l'une est qu'il n'est pas de restauration financière sans l'Amérique et l'Angleterre, l'autre est qu'il n'est pas de paix européenne sans l'entente avec l'Allemagne. Comment peut-on songer aux crédits extérieurs? Nous sommes surpris qu'un esprit aussi avisé que notre confrère puisse encore préconiser le recours aux emprunts étrangers. Nous nous sommes expliqués sur cette question avec toute la netteté désirable, et aucune réponse n'a été adressée à l'invitation que nous avons faite dans le Figaro, le 23 août 1926. A cette date, nous demandions à nos contradicteurs de nous démontrer quelle était la supériorité du recours à l'étranger sur la politique de l'effort intérieur et de l'emprunt français. Puisque aucune réplique n'est venue, nous sommes fondés à croire que les arguments qui peuvent nous être opposés ne sont pas d'une grande consistance. Notre confrère peut-il ne pas se rendre compte que la France victorieuse finit par succomber sous l'effort implacable de la finance anglo-saxonne? Grâce à ce puissant concours, l'Allemagne prend une première revanche: elle échappe de plus en plus aux conséquences de la guerre qu'elle a perdue sur les champs de bataille. Les manœuvres diplomatiques, appuyées par l'artillerie des changes, permettent à l'Allemagne vaincue de dicter aujourd'hui des conditions de paix à la France glorieuse, mais isolée et meurtrie. Cette situation est due exclusivement aux volontés concertées des gouvernements de Londres et de Washington qui ont vécu trop longtemps sous l'influence aveuglante de la finance internationale. Il convient aujourd'hui de demander à certains hommes politiques s'ils ont conscience d'avoir ainsi atteint un résultat conforme aux vœux, aux intérêts immédiats et futurs du grand peuple anglais et du grand peuple américain. Quant à l'entente avec l'Allemagne, destinée à assurer la paix européenne, elle ne dépend pas de nous. Peut-on croire que la France a encore quelque chose à faire pour obtenir cette entente? N'a-t-elle pas
LE BILAN DES VACANCES
[?] La confiance est revenue qui a permis cette bonne gestion de nos finances et qui trouve dans ce succès un motif de confirmation. Mais quelque joie que l'on doive éprouver à la pensée de ces résultats, il faut en mesurer la portée et voir clair. Il est essentiel que le premier temps de la vaste opération entreprise par le ministère d'union ait réussi. Si elle avait échoué, M. de La Palice le reconnaîtra, c'en était fait de toute espérance. Mais la lettre l'a dit aux présidents des commissions parlementaires, ce n'est là qu'un début. L'accès de fièvre est tombé; la maladie financière demeure. Si l'espoir du salut grandit, la besogne d'assainissement reste rude et les épreuves à venir seront sérieuses. L'effort fiscal a été vaillamment supporté par ces contribuables heureusement constants en leur patriotisme et «qui devancent avec empressement l'appel de l'Etat». Ils ont à subir avec le même courage les restrictions qui leur seront imposées et qu'ils doivent s'imposer à eux-mêmes. C'est vers de nouveaux sacrifices que le Français doit être fermement guidé et doit se laisser conduire s'il veut voir se relever sa monnaie. Quels que soient les procédés techniques de redressement du franc auxquels le gouvernement puisse demain recourir, il doit obtenir du pays, avec des économies, cette production intense et méthodique dont on a maintes fois proclamé la nécessité. Rendue possible par ce bilan favorable, voici la phase active de restauration qui commence, la plus pénible. Henri Vonoven. LA SITUATION FINANCIÈRE