By Luke Foster
The tale goes that in the climactic months of World War I, an American regiment filed into the trenches to replace a unit of their French allies. As the earth rumbled from the fire of artillery and rat-ridden mud squelched beneath their feet, they realized, astonished, that the poilus had set up a full spread for an aperitif: wine, fresh baguettes, and cheeses. On edge for an attack, the doughboys could not allow themselves to enjoy the delicacies. Their commander asked his French counterpart, “But how can you eat this way when you’re on duty?” The colonel in blue shrugged and said simply: “Are we not fighting for civilization?”
This myth conveys a truth: American pragmatism is bewildered yet admiring in the face of the French devotion to form and beauty. American conservatives have traditionally found this Gallic tendency incomprehensible. Molded by Burke’s Reflections as we are, we tend to reduce France to 1789 and liberté, égalité, fraternité—beguiling abstract ideas wreaking dreadful consequences on the everyday lives of real people. For us, France is plagued by both leveling republicanism and the remnants of a snobbish nobility; she is both statist and anarchic, with 35-hour work weeks being mandated even as the banlieues burn. We like Tocqueville—but mostly because he praised us at the expense of his countrymen.