The New Zealand Spectator and Cook’s Strait Guardian, Saturday, April 19, 1862
“Decent Mourning.”
“Decent Mourning.”
The brilliant French writer, M. Edmond About, is at present contributor to the feuilleton of the Constitutionel. The following passage is from an article in that journal of Tuesday, which bears his signature:—“Have you remarked that phrase in the official publication of the English Government after the death of Prince Albert—‘It is expected that all persons will assume a decent mourning?’ How much is said in a few words! A whole treatise might be written on them. The Queen of a great nation has just lost her husband, and she hopes that in her three kingdoms every person will assume a decent mourning. This is neither a decree, nor an ordinance, nor a command sent down from on high; it is a simple appeal to the public sympathy, and at the same time a reminder of a social obligation. There is in the formula a mingling of dignity, confidence, and familiarity. You feel, from the very first word, that the dynasty which speaks is in the most courteous, if not the most intimate, relations with its subjects; that no one disputes its rights—that it has no declared enemies in the nation—that it may rely, on all occasions, upon that loyalty without meanness which the English display with a sort of coquetry. You perceive a Queen who reigns and who does not govern—a people which manages its own affairs, and fears all the less to appear humble and submissive because it is sure to remain free—a country of tradition, of decency, and of decorum, governed by manners even more than by laws. We, of course, are proud of being French—that is all settled. But there must pass away many years before our political manners are elevated to the high tone of those of England. Nothing is more unequal, more capricious, less logical, than our relations with the men who govern us. The French people conduct themselves towards monarchy as towards a mistress. We embrace it, we beat it, we put it out of doors—we seek it out next day and cling around its knees. Yesterday we could find no name foul enough for it; today we flatter it, not without blushing at our present baseness and our past violence. It is a question of passion and temperament. We adored Louis XIV, as a god, yet we flung mud upon his funeral cortége [sic: cortège]. There was, too, that bonne homme of a King whose hand we clasped between both our own, full of respect for his coiffure and of admiration for his umbrella, yet he had to fly in the midst of hootings, honest man though he was in his own person. With what acclamations did we not deafen Lamartine upon the Place de l’ Hotel [sic: Hôtel] de Ville! Apollo himself descending upon earth to bring us harmony could not have been more welcome. Fourteen years after this splendid triumph Apollo pines in hunger, and the generous little journals follow him with the bitterest cries. I have already assisted at some ovations, political and otherwise. These blustering scenes fill me with a profound sadness. It is not jealousy—of that you may be certain. No! I pity the recipient. I should rather see for him the tokens of a ‘decent’ approbation, as they phrase it in London. He would then be exposed to less terrible reactions. Suppose that our old ancestors had not left to us the Salic law, and picture to yourselves a Queen of France, young and fair, choosing for her husband a foreigner who would not be King. What a delicious dream for this young Prince! but also what an awakening after the honeymoon of his popularity! What pamphlets, what couplets, and what caricatures! One of two things must happen—either this unfortunate man must shamefully fly to escape from our popular injustice, or he must try to crush our ill-will and to overthrow our laws. Prince Albert, for whom a decent mourning has just been asked and obtained yonder, has never been placed in this dangerous alternative. The nation received him politely, not as a stranger, but as a guest; he rendered to England courtesy for courtesy; he gave to the Crown numerous heirs, and created a family truly Royal. Modest and delicate, he kept discretely within the pale of politics; his dearest study was the education of his children; in his hours of leisure he encouraged art and industry so well that, after having lived more than 20 years near the Throne, without ever having been popular in the French sense of this terrible word, he dies regretted and esteemed by a great people, and his funeral is honoured by a ‘decent mourning.’”