Christianity and Patriotism
duty to satisfy the desires of any Russian sailor; and all this passed unnoticed as though it were all as it ought to be. There were cases of unmistakable frenzy; one woman, for instance, dressed in the colours of the French and Russian flags, waited for the arrival of the sailors, and exclaiming: "Vive la Russie!" leaped from the bridge into the river, and was drowned.
Women generally took a prominent part in all these ceremonies and even gave the lead to the men. Besides throwing flowers and ribbons of all sorts and presenting gifts and addresses, French women fell upon the Russian sailors in the street and kissed them, others for some
one act of the drama of the hostility, created by Napoleon III. and Bismarck, between the two great nations France and Germany. This hostility keeps all Europe under arms and makes Russian absolutism, which has always been the support of tyranny and despotism against freedom, of the exploiters against the exploited, the arbiter of the political destinies of the world. Grief for our own country, regret for the blindness of a considerable part of French society—these are the feelings evoked in us by these celebrations. "We are fully convinced that the younger generation of France will not be carried away by national chauvinism, and, ready to struggle for that better social order to which humanity is moving, will know how to interpret present events and the right attitude to take to them; we hope that our warm protest will find a sympathetic echo in the hearts of the youth of France.
"Council of the League of the Twenty-four United Students' Associations of Moscow."
Moscow,
March 17th, 1894.
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