A difference in spirit

French version

Contents:

I report two recent conversations that took place after a friend's wedding. My first interlocutor is the head of a patrician family in South-East France. My second interlocutor is a Polish painter exiled in France.

Conversation #1

I listened to the Frenchman talk about some ramifications of the Bonaparte family. Only one of the Emperor's brothers refused the marriage imposed on him. One of the sisters was very beautiful and had many lovers. Napoleon III was not only installed by the British, he had, through his wife, a link with Italy, which would lead him to support Italian nationalism against the Papacy and the Austro-Hungarian Empire. My interlocutor was a collector of books and beautiful objects.

I told him that I had the impression that the French elite seemed very discouraged today, as if after De Gaulle everyone had for all practical purposes given up on national greatness. I added that the current inaction of this elite sometimes leaves me perplexed: what exactly are they waiting for? His first response was to make the gesture of someone whose hands are tied. He admitted to me that the situation makes him despair and that he sees no future for the country. He regrets Gaspard Koenig's lack of success in politics . "Ah, but he is a liberal" was my remark. We moved on.

Conversation #2

I know less about Poland than I do about France, but over the years I have had several interactions with Poles and to a first approximation one can say that everything converges systematically towards this map:

Thus my second interlocutor developed the idea that for Poland, what is at stake in the present war is to not miss out on the opportunity to 1) remake greater Poland and 2) dismember Russia (a pseudo-country according to him). Having assured him of my high regard for the cause of Poland's greatness and influence, I encouraged him to elaborate on his position, which he did in a very instructive manner. I note in particular his deconstruction of the Russian language as a pure artifice stolen from Ukrainian and cobbled together by an Asian despot. All of this is coherent, from a certain point of view, though I can't verify any of the details for now.

The consistent quality of the Poles today seems to me to be ambition for greatness and a level of testosterone above the average in Western Europe. They think about what they can gain and don't seem to care about the risks.

This reminds me that a now-defunct Anglo-Saxon publication published an article in 2016, archived here, entitled Poland And Russia Will Fight For Control Of Europe. Good call from the author, an American of Croatian descent.

Homework

Task: Transpose the current Polish spirit to the Western European country of your choice.

Send your psyop ideas to SSL and I will publish the best ones in a future issue.