Préfaçant pendant l'affreuse année 1942

un livre sur Charles Péguy, "mort au Champ d'honneur" en 1914, voici ce que Julien Green écrivait des Français. Je cite :

"Very few races have been as completely misunderstood as the French.This, I believe, is partly their fault. They have allowed the world to think that they were gay (à l'époque, le mot n'avait pas pris le sens que lui ont donné les Nord américains) and pleasure-loving to the point of lightheadedness. They have laughed at evrything under the sun, as only the Athenians had laughed before them; nevertheless, I have always been of the opinion that the race that produced Jean Calvin and Blaise Pascal and Descartes and the men of the Revolution, and Pasteur is as serious as any race that ever walked this earth. But the French do not believe that being serious necessarily means going about with a long face: they have always held laugher as a sort of virtue, and in many cases, an extremely difficult  form of courage. There is a saying, in Provence, which I think sums up their mental attitude in a few words: " Le rire dans la rue, les pleurs à la maison", that is laugh in the street  and do your weeping at home. Goodness knows they have for tears now, but I should be very surprised if any of their weeping were done in the street."

Cher lecteur, ceci n'est pas de moi; je ne suis donc pas chauvin, mais je souscris à cette analyse, et espère que la technicisation croissante de notre société, les progrès de la culture d'angoisse, de soupçon et de matérialisme, ne viendront pas à bout de cette Vertu fondamentale (qui je l'avoue, se trouve aussi à Rome).