FOREWORD THESE are the reflections of a Frenchman who spent the year 1917 in America. They deal with the present events and those from the near past, but their expression is first inspired by the thought of the near future, that is to say, the period that will begin when this war ends. My purpose was to define and to sum up the possibilities which Franco-American relations will offer tomorrow, as well on intellectual as on concrete grounds. This subject would be much too wide for one man and for one book, but we shall concentrate on the results of co-operation between elements of the younger generation of both countries. The present book is written for the young men and women of America who are interested in the present life of France. Those who know well my country, having seen her and helped her during the present trial, will find here some facts which are already familiar to them, and I fear that they will resent my pretension to teach them what they know better than I do myself. Other readers will charge me with excessive optimism or with "youthful" severity for the generation that preceded mine. It may be that they are right; it may be also that they lack the faith and vision that is in many of us. I wish that, in order to face a state of things which is quite new, one could bring a quite new attitude of judgment. This is precisely what may be expected from Americans, as it is one of their best national qualities. We live in a time when the fruits of thought are ripening with strange and terrible rapidity, and many utopias of yesterday have already passed to the rank of the commonplace. Let us, therefore, deal with today's utopia with the respect that is owed to the commonplace of Much has been said and written about FrancoAmerican relationships. Since one hundred and thirty-nine years, many great and less great minds have expressed concordant views on that subject. Common interpretation of republican principles, love for country and for freedom, joined to that idealist and generalizing tendency that made our two nations express their Declarations in terms that are valuable, not for one country alone, but for the whole world, from the very beginning of our con temporary history-how often did historians and orators dwell on that theme, developing it with more eloquence than I could bring here! But a storm has shaken all the values of the earth. Those which will be found intact, after the crisis is over, one might well call them eternal. The friendship of the two Republics is one of them. And the values which will be born from the present overthrowing, we have to make clear as soon as possible, and confront them with our past, so as to know what remains. Among these new values, and in the first rank, there is the realization of common standards in life, the sense of common task and common responsibilities, and, above all, the value of mutual knowledge between the youth of France and America. For, after all our old reasons for mutual understanding, there exist now new reasons, and indeed, much more powerful ones, which I shall try to set forth here. Let me first extend my thanks to all those who helped me in my task by their generous encouragements, and especially mention the reviews which published some parts of the present work: The New Republic, The New France, The Dial, The Nation, etc. And let me express my gratefulness to the authors of remarkable translations from French writers whom I quoted in this book: to Miss |