x ¦l.p'vt ~*ooks ftrr Vie founding ef a CeXtge in this CoUnf •YAILJE-'VMVlEISSinrY- - ILIlIBKAISy • BOUGHT WITH THE INCOME OF THE Alfred E. Perkins Fund Qtambutrge l^istoriral Series edited by G. W. PROTHERO, F.B.A., Litt.D. HON. LL.D. OF EDINBURGH AND HARVARD, AND HONORARY FELLOW OF KING'S COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE HISTORY OF MODERN FRANCE IN TWO VOLUMES Volume II 1852— 1 9 1 3 CAMBRIDGE UNIVERSITY PRESS C. F. CLAY, Manager LONDON : FETTER LANE, E.C. 4. NEW YORK : G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS BOMBAY ¦) CALCUTTA I MACMILLAN AND CO., LTD. MADRAS J TORONTO : J. M. DENT AND SONS, LTD. TOKYO : MARUZEN-KABUSHIKI-KAISHA ALI. RIGHTS RESERVED HISTORY OF MODERN FRANCE 1815-1913 BY EMILE BOURGEOIS Volume II 1852— 191 3 Cambridge : at the University Press !9J9 TABLE OF CONTENTS CHAPTER I Early Years of the Second Empire Dictatorship by Decree — The Mixed Commissions — Proscriptions; Electoral Manipulation — The Army: "L'Empire, c'est la Paix " — The Imperial Constitution — Marriage of Napoleon. The Re publicans — Support of the Church — The Bourgeoisie and Economic Progress — Banks and Railways; the Working-man — Public Works; Haussmann and Paris — The Court: general Gaiety — Literary Opposition ; the Salons — Hostility of Paris — Catholic Crusade in the East — Quarrel about the Holy Places — Menchi- koff's Mission — War between Russia and Turkey — Lord Strat ford de Redcliffe: Sinope — The Crimean War — Appeals to Austria and Piedmont — Fall of Sebastopol — Napoleon anxious for Peace — The Peace of Paris . Pages I-47 CHAPTER II Napoleon III and the Nationalities The Mind of the Emperor — The Italian Question in 1856 — Rumania and Italy — Orsini's Attempt — France and Austria — The Meeting at Plombieres — Congress or War — Austria decides on War — Villafranca and the Peace of Zurich — Italy and the Far East — Developments in Italy — Garibaldi, Naples, and the Pope — First Constitutional Changes — Cobden Treaty; Parliamentary Opposition — The Press and Literature — Journalism and Youth — "Les Cinq": National Finance — The Chinese War — Syria; the Empire and the Papacy — The Roman Question — The Question of Mexico — The Mexican Expedition — Montenegro and Poland — Polish Revolt; Failure of the Congress — The Elections of 1863 — Success of the "Union Liberate" — Mexico. Convention of 1864 — Peace Abroad, Trouble at Home — The Working Classes: Emile Ollivier — Liberal Evolution of the Empire — Napoleon, Ollivier, and the "Tiers Parti" — The Slesvig-Holstein Question — Danish War: Conference of London — Peace with Denmark: Convention of Gastein — The Mexican imbroglio — Biarritz: Austria and Prussia — Prussia and Italy: vi Contents Napoleon intervenes — Congress proposed : Speech of Thiers — Sadowa: Napoleon and Prussia — Rouher and Reaction; Napoleon's Health . 48-128 CHAPTER III The Decline of the" Empire The Emperor and Rouher — The Luxemburg Affair — Mexico and Italy — Mentana: the Roman Question — Absolutism or Parlia mentarism — The Press and the Republicans — Repression and Socialism — The Elections of 1869 — Concessions to the Third Party — Gambetta and Rochefort — Ollivier's Ministry: Victor Noir — Policy of Ollivier — Further Reforms: the Plebiscite — The Plebiscite: Foreign Affairs — The Army; Austria and Italy — Attempts at an Alhance — Bismarck and the Spanish Question — The Hohenzollern Candidature — On the Brink of War — Final Negotiations — War declared: Austria and Italy — Isolation of France ... . 129-173 CHAPTER IV The Franco-German War Froesch wilier and Spicheren — New Ministry: Measures of Resistance — Mars la Tour and Gravelotte — Sedan — The Revolution of September 4 — The Government of National Defence — Re sistance of Paris — Favre, Thiers, and Gambetta — Reorganisa tion of the Army — Capitulation of Metz — Gambetta's Armies — Bombardment of Paris — The Armistice; its Terms — Elections to the National Assembly 174-202 CHAPTER V The Conservative Republic Character and Policy of Thiers — The National Assembly and Paris — Insurrection of the Commune — The Communal Organisation — Defeat of the Commune — The Peace of Frankfort — The As sembly; Thiers Chief of Executive — Rome and the Monarchists — Republicans and Labour — Liberation of French Territory The Army reorganised — Local Government organised — Ad ministrative and economic Reforms — The Constitutional Prob lem — Thiers leans towards a Republic — Monarchist Opposition; Thiers resigns — Educational Progress — Educational Demands of the Clericals — Character of Marshal MacMahon — The Ultra- montanes; German Menaces — MacMahon and the Monarchists Contents vii The Republican Left-Centre — Defeat of the'Monarchists — Dis cussions on the Constitution — The Constitution of 1875. New Ministry — MacMahon versus Gambetta — Ministry of Jules Simon; a Dissolution — The new Chamber; Changes of Ministry — MacMahon resigns. Exhibition of 1878 — Commercial and colonial Expansion — The Eastern Question — France at the Congress of Berlin . ... 203-268 CHAPTER VI The Democratic Republic Jules Grevy and the Peasantry — Promotion of Agriculture — Minis terial Changes; the Chamber — Jules Ferry and Waldeck- Rousseau — Ministry of Gambetta — Fall of Gambetta; Ministry of Ferry — The Church and the Schools — Attack on the Congre gations — Reforms in Higher Education — The Army and the Nation — Tunis and Egypt — The Egyptian Question — Madagas car and Tonkin — Colonial Failures and Successes — Conference of Berlin. Elections of 1885 — General Boulanger. Grevy retires — Carnot and Boulanger — Boulanger disappears. Exhibition of 1889 — The Franco-Russian Alliance — Exploration and Expansion in Africa — Radicals and Socialists — Growth of Socialism — Pope Leo XIII and the Republic — Death of Carnot; Casimir Perier President — Perier resigns; Felix Faure President — The Meline Ministry — The Church and the Army — The Dreyfus Case ; Fall of Meline — Africa; the Marchand Mission*— Fashoda ; bitter Party Strife — Emile Loubet and Waldeck-Rousseau — Parliamentary Success of Waldeck-Rousseau — Exhibition of 1900; Industrial Progress — Ecclesiastical Legislation — France and Morocco — Delcasse and Millerand — Growth of Provincial Influence — Combes and the Breach with Rome — Agreements with England and Spain — Germany and Morocco — Fall of Delcasse; Conference of Alge- ciras — Armand Fallieres President — Act of Algeciras. Clerical Opposition — Defeat of the Catholics; Policy of Briand — Dreyfus reinstated; Clemenceau and Jaures — A Socialist Prime Minister — Strikes suppressed; Ministry reconstituted — Briand resigns; Policy of Caillaux — Morocco again; Casablanca — Agadir; Settlement with Germany — Fall of Caillaux. Poincare elected President ... . 269-371 Bibliography 372-394 Index . . . 395-416 CHAPTER I EARLY YEARS OF THE SECOND EMPIRE At the beginning of the year 1852, the bourgeoisie and people of France, who had refused Charles X the right to issue Ordinances, and condemned Louis Philippe for abuse of personal government, allowed Louis Napoleon Bonaparte to assume an authority of singularly wide scope. Their indignation at the claim of the Crown to grant a Constitution in 1814 and alter it arbitrarily in 1830, and at its refusal in 1848 to make the reforms demanded by the nation, did not prevent them from granting to Louis Napoleon, in 1852, the uncontrolled power to frame a Constitution and to legislate. Through dread of monarchy and of anarchy they were stripping themselves of all liberty. This was the main feature of the democratic institutions established in that year for the benefit of the Prince Presi dent, who was in theory responsible to the people, as the King in a monarchy had been to God — a new type of legitimism in favour of the "Chosen One of December 20," which gave him a sovereignty as absolute as that of Louis XIV, "the Chosen One of Providence." During the first three months, Louis Napoleon legislated by means of decrees. By decrees working-men's associations were dissolved for alleged socialism and their number reduced from 300 to 159; by decrees prefects were authorised to dismiss mayors, to dissolve municipal councils, to close public-houses and cafes; to prohibit residence, to subject 2 Early Years of the Second Empire [ch. citizens to police supervision, to frame regulations, to nominate members of Agricultural or School Committees; by decrees the republican motto of Liberty, Equality and Fraternity was proscribed, and the National Guard dis banded. On February 17, 1852, a statutory decree was issued regulating the condition of the Press. Every sort of periodical publication was now subjected to official authori sation; caution-money and stamp-duty were continued; parliamentary reporting was forbidden; the compulsory insertion of all official communications was ordered. Editors and staff were subjected to the jurisdiction of the Courts of Common Law composed of removable judges, with power to inflict very severe punishments ranging from a simple warning, with reasons attached, to a temporary suspension for two months, and even to total suppression. Louis Napoleon no longer allowed any journals to appear in France but those subservient to his will and his ambition. The Press to him was simply a tool; as an influence he would have none of it. By a decree of March 1, 1852, he lowered the age of retirement from the Bench ; and he was thus enabled to - bestow the important posts in the magistracy, hitherto held by former servants of the Crown or of the Republic, upon officers who either owed him their fortune or awaited it at his hands. A decree of March 9 subjected to his authority the heads of the University, who were henceforth to be appointed or removed by the President and his Minister of Public Instruction at their pleasure; and the Higher Council, which had jurisdiction over the officials and settled the curricula, was similarly placed in their hands. Thus everything in France that stimulated thought by writing = or speech was placed under the arbitrary control of a Minister. i] Dictatorship by Decree 3 In another direction a decree amending the Constitution was issued one month before, on February 2, 1852, which prescribed the conditions for elections to the Legislative Body. It enacted that the voting should be for single candidates, in districts of 35,000 electors, that it should cover two days, and that for election an absolute majority of the electors registered should be required ; thus admitting a vigorous local pressure by officials on voters by universal suffrage. The construction of this assembly, created to delude France into thinking she possessed a democratic con stitution, was the main care of the men who had helped the President to lay violent hands on Liberty. In the three months of their rule, which lasted till March 28, 1852, they never ceased striking at those whom they called the ring leaders of the Republicans or the Anarchists as pitilessly as they had done before the plebiscite. Decrees issued on January 9, 1852, removed the chiefs of the democratic party by proscription. The deputies Miot, Greppo, Marc Dufraisse, Richard, and Mathe were sentenced to transportation to Cayenne, a sentence com muted afterwards to exile in the' case of four of them. Sixty-six other deputies were condemned to exile and threatened with transportation in case of their return to France, among them Victor Hugo, Schoelcher, Madier .de Montjau, Charras, and Quinet. On January 2 and 11, circulars were addressed to the prefects inviting them to forward to the Government as speedily as possible lists of the democrats or revolutionists imprisoned under the decree of December 8, "against whom it was not proposed to proceed by ordinary legal methods." The fate of these suspects under official terrorism needed no court to pronounce it. Those of the first group had been already transported to Cayenne or Algeria; those of the second, the chiefs of Socialism, had been "exiled"; the third group, "the men who had displayed 4 Early Years of the Second Empire [ch. a marked hostility," were temporarily got rid of. Beyond these again was a last group formed of those who could not be placed in the third class, but whom it was desirable to remove from their own neighbourhood for the time, till the elections were over. By way of proving their zeal, all the officials, prefects, sub-prefects, judges, and constables, started a "hunt" for revolutionary ring-leaders, and bid high for secret information. "One half of France," said Georges Sand, "was informing against the other half." In the Department of Herault alone, 60,000 persons were thus denounced, though 2000 only were detained. In the very republican district of the Nievre, their number reached 20,000; and, in the whole of France, according to Jules Simon, 100,000. It recalled the days when the officials of the Restoration wreaked their vengeance on the Re publicans by means of the White Terror. True, there was no more shooting ; but transportation to the deadly climate of Guiana or Lambessa under very rigorous treatment was often fatal, and deserved its title of "guillotine seche," the bloodless axe. The worst of it was that the character of the punish ment was left to the decision of the executive officials, and not of the judges. In some districts which were in a state of siege, military boards transferred suspected cases from civil jurisdiction to Courts Martial. The law officers were in the constant habit of drawing up lists of alleged criminals, and deciding whether and to what extent the so-called Measures for the General Safety should be applied; prefects drew up other lists, and "called for sentence' upon them. On January 18, the Ministers of War, of the Interior, and of Justice instructed the Prefect and the Attorney-General of each Department in a state of siege to meet the Military Commandant, and, after examining the evidence and submitting their final decision in each case to their respective Ministers, to lay down in i] The Mixed Commissions 5 a joint award the class of punishment to be inflicted, instead of giving a judgment as required by law. This procedure served to introduce a measure dated February 8, 1852, which soon extended to all the Departments, whether in a state of siege or not, the combined action of the civil and military authorities. Thus arose the " Mixed Commis sions," which closely resembled Courts Martial; they were expected to give their decisions at the end of February at the latest. Election-time was drawing near. Under the recorded decisions of these Mixed Commis sions 239 citizens were deported to Guiana, nearly 15,000 persons sent to Algeria, 15,000 sent into banishment, 50,000 interned, placed under police observation, or driven to flight; and to justify this severity there was nothing but political accusations, to which the punishments were quite out of proportion — five years at Lambessa to a working-man of respectable family, incapable of doing harm, the only support of a blind mother; ten years of Cayenne to a lock-smith, the Mayor of his Commune, father of five children, of good report for honesty, but the founder of a political association; again, ten years of Lambessa to a working-man, a well-behaved old soldier, but a political enthusiast, "a sort of village lawyer." Another was "an ardent Socialist with nothing against him, and very sorry for what he had done." These were the men who were then being sent to penal servitude and exile, to suffering and wretchedness, families and all, as criminal at Common Law, in spite of their acknowledged good reputation and irreproachable private life, and all "to* prevent them from affecting the elections and the voters" ! There was no other way, as Morny argued, to reach the mass of our foes, and to put an end to civil war. Georges Sand, lamenting the lot of her political friends, wrote (in March 1852) : " If you go into the French pro vinces, you will find that all thought has been annihilated, 6 Early Years of the Second Empire [ch. all the sap of the country destroyed to-day by the imprison ment, death or exile of that phalanx of good men." No doubt the Prince who ordered these proscriptions was not a cruel sovereign, any more than Louis XVIII. "One cannot know him," said Queen Victoria, "without seeing that there is much amiability and kindness in him. He is gifted with a powerful self-control, great calmness, one might even say, great gentleness." But to achieve success and to avoid the loss of the stakes in the game he had been playing, he would avail himself of every means. "He committed all these unpardonable acts," added the same writer, "under the constant guidance of the idea that he was accomplishing the destiny that God had allotted to him, and that, however cruel and hard in themselves, these acts were necessary, to reach the end to which he believed himself to be called." Nurtured for many years on the Napoleonic legend which the first Emperor had evolved at St Helena for the purpose of restoring the affections of the French people "whom he had loved so dearly" to his own family, the Prince had undertaken to set it forth in his printed works, Reveries politiques (1832), Les Idees Na- poleoniennes (1839), L'Extinction du Pauperisme (1844), and to realise it when the time came. At the critical moment, anxiety for his own future merged in that for the success of his mission. Regardless of justice and liberty, he broke up opposition in order to remove every obstacle which hindered him from constraining the French nation to a reconciliation, and serving the"cause of democracy without consulting it. Furthermore he showed culpable weakness towards his accomplices, having perhaps been drawn on by those about him further than he had intended to go. Among the Bonapartists, as among the Royalists in,. 1814, there were "Ultras," men prepared to misuse victory for their own private hatreds and ambitions. As Fouche was dead i] Proscriptions ; Electoral Manipulation 7 they employed Maupas to organise their Terror, and on January 22, 1852, revived in his favour the Ministry of Police, which had been abolished' in 1818. On that day, on the discussion of the decree for the confiscation of the private property of the Orleans family (known and ridiculed as le vol de I'aigle), a feeble reflection of the execution of the Due d'Enghien or of Marshal Ney, the schism took place between the violent and the moderate associates of Louis Napoleon. Morny, Achille Fould, Magne, and Rouher resigned, while St Arnaud remained at the Ministry of War, Ducos at the Ministry of Marine, Persigny took the Interior, Abatucci Justice, Maupas State Police, Drouin de Lhuys the Foreign Office. De Fortoul, Minister of Education, wanted to lock up Jules Simon at Mazas, for speaking against the coup d'etat in his lectures at the Sorbonne. St Arnaud was indignant at the leniency shown to mere talent or courage ! In the Bonapartist salons, the only dread was that the deportations should not be sufficient in number or in severity. Napoleon submitted, far more than was necessary, to the advice of those who proposed, no matter at what cost, to make France the obedient instrument of his greatness and the bond-slave of their own fortunes. Under Persigny's vigorous impulse, the prefects and officials, who had been trained to this duty since the begin ning of the year and were now freed from the Republicans, had not the smallest scruple in "making" the elections. On January 18, 1852, Morny had instructed them to prepare for an "intelligent" arrangement of the electoral districts; on the 20th, he pointed out the candidates to be preferred, "great manufacturers, great commercial men, large pro prietors," to the exclusion of politicians. He desired them to prevent the constitution of Electoral Committees. It was for the Government, added Persigny on February 11, to enlighten the electors, and to inform them through its 8 Early Years of the Second Empire [ch. agents, by official advertisements, by all possible methods, what candidates should be favoured. For a country which could not put up with the official candidatures of the Guizot Ministry, which had kicked against the domination of the higher bourgeoisie and the abuses of officialdom, the attempt seemed audacious. But possibly its very audacity was its success. "Go to work in the sight of all men," was Persigny's instruction to his prefects. The Bonapartist Terror, like the White Terror, was once more going to present the new authority with a Chambre inirouvdble, an unheard-of Chamber. Three Republicans only were elected, two in Paris, Cavaignac and Carnot, and Henon at Lyons; and they resigned forthwith, so as not to swear allegiance to the Dictator. Montalembert alone, in the meeting of the Chamber to vote the April budget in June 1852, raised an independent voice. Thus composed, Parliament was only one of the Assemblies of Notabilities, as the First Consul called them, by which the Bourbons of the Ancien Regime pretended to consult -their subjects, without risk to themselves. In these first three months of his Presidency, Louis Napoleon had by his decrees broken down, or managed to anticipate all opposition. He might at that moment have followed at once the advice of his counsellors; he might have put the coping-stone on his fortunes and fulfilled his destiny, by restoring the popular monarchy which in the eyes of Frenchmen still constituted alike the pledge and the symbol of the national glory; he might, in short, have proclaimed the Empire. In a con versation with the Austrian ambassador, Hiibner, in January 1852, Louis Napoleon allowed his "impatience to crown the edifice" to be seen. It was already the desire of the army, that army which was the foundation of his strength, I by which and for which he ruled. During the year 1853 | he lavished honours and f£tes on the troops, in order to ;attach them to his own person, and issued a decree in- i] The Army : " L' Empire, c' est la Paix" 9 stituting a military medal for their benefit. He gave the officers splendid uniforms, and opportunities for exhibiting them at his receptions. He held frequent reviews to give them more chances of shouting "Vive Napoleon!" On May 10, 1852, he invited them to a great festival in the Champs de Mars for the distribution of Eagles, the symbols of the Empire, the cost of which was charged on the officers' pay. On August 15, he paraded the troops to celebrate the anniversary of the Empire. But all this deliberate return to the military glories of the past, however attractive to the army, was precisely the sort of thing to disturb the friends of peace in France and in Europe. Was it possible that Louis Napoleon had no anxiety lest a restoration of the Empire might give his Government a flavour of aggressive policy inherited from the first Napoleon, "the mighty conqueror"? And this was in fact the fear in foreign countries. "Every Bonaparte," said the King of Prussia, "is the enemy of Germany." Tsar Nicholas warned the French to "beware of the Empire." "Louis Napoleon is in need of popu larity," said Wellington to Queen Victoria. " Heaven. knows how far that will lead him." If the President just then sent his friend Heekeren touring round the Courts of Europe, it was to enable him to decide finally as to the steps to be taken in view of the attitude of Europe. In September and October 1852 the President visited the French provinces in person to encourage them. He had already, when dis tributing Eagles, said with emphasis, "Take your new standards, not as a threat to the outer world, but as the symbol of your independence, and the memorial of a heroic age." At Bordeaux he said specifically, " The Empire means peace; your inheritance is glory, not war." The popular acclamations (prepared by his prefects) which saluted him with the imperial title during this progress through the Departments, put an end to his hesitations. 10 Early Years of the Second Empire [ch. On October 19, 1852, the Senate was summoned to discuss the changes to be made in the form of govern ment. The debate was short. On November 4, the Prince President sent a formal message, pointing out that "it was now in the power of the French people boldly but deliberately to set up once more that which thirty-seven years before had been overthrown by the force of arms, and thus to achieve a magnificent revenge for its former reverses without making a single victim, or troubling the peace of the world." And on November 21 and 22, 1852, the People — the peasants and soldiers to whom the Empire had long been a religion — confirmed by 8,000,000 votes to 250,000 the decree of the Seriate which effected the restora tion of the Napoleons. This vote, which, now that the re publican opposition was proscribed, looked very much like a unanimous vote of the nation, enabled the Senate, obedient to its master's will, to lay down more precisely the extent of his authority by a new Act, the decree of December 25, 1852. The senators had been paid for their willingness to oblige by a decree fixing their annual salaries at £1200. They made short work of the last safeguards at the disposal of liberty by striking them out of the text of the Constitution, which was proclaimed in January. Too late, Montalembert and his friends, de Kerdrel, de Flavigny, de Chasseloup- Laubat, after encouraging and helping the coup d'etat, thought it their duty on December 2 to protest against it in the Legislative Body. Eloquent as their cry of distress was, the effect of it was lost in the mighty shout of enthusiasm of which the plebiscite was the legal expression. From that day forth, it was no longer the Legislative Body but the Emperor alone and of his sole authority, who made treaties of commerce and decided on Public Works, who settled the relations between the two Houses and regulated their functions. And, though the budget of the Finance Minister still required the approval of the Legis- i] The Imperial Constitution ii lative Body, the distribution of the sums allotted to each Ministry and the purposes to which they were allocated were settled by the decree of the Chief. "The Empire," said Baron Hubner, "has grown to ripeness like a fruit hanging on its tree. As now proclaimed, it is absolutism in the hands of a remarkable man, who has neither the respect for justice nor the traditions of the old monarchies to control him. If he is prudent, it may last for his life time." This suggestion of an absolute but ephemeral dictatorship was expressed at the same moment by Monta lembert in his invectives before the Legislative Body. "This," he said, "is but a temporary remedy, a provisional constitution. It may be that the democracy of France, that great harlot who has respected nothing and spared nothing, will find her salvation in silence and abstinence." "Great as may be the power that Louis Napoleon- has seized by violence and conspiracy," said Proudhon, "it is only the strength of a dynasty superimposed upon and affixed to the democratic constitution, but forming no part of it."... "The sovereignty of the people, the unshakeable foundation of the democratic system, has not been dis placed either from our Constitution or from our customs, into which the practice of republican institutions had introduced it." '" People are apt to forget," said a judge under the Empire, "that 1848 was more than an abstract idea; it was the actual reign of demagogy; and this fact is still alive in the mind of the working class as something that has been once, and ought to be again." Louis Napoleon did not ignore this fact, especially in the first years of his reign. "He wants to keep his throne," wrote Hubner, " and at times he feels it shaking under him. Fear then seizes on him, and, along with fear, anger." What with the crowned heads of Europe on one side,] who were summoned by Count Buol to a meeting in thej 12 Early Years of the Second Empire [ch. last days of 1852 for the purpose of refusing to Napoleon III, on principle and through fear of aggression, a place among legitimate sovereigns, and on the other side, the Republicans of every shade in Paris, in the provinces, or in exile, united for a death-struggle against tyranny, the position of the new Emperor was a difficult one. He was annoyed on learning that the Tsar refused to recognise him as a brother, and addressed him contemptuously as "Sire, and good friend " only. The insult would have been made complete, had not the King of Prussia, who had promised his allies at Vienna and Petrograd to join the plot, now withdrawn his promise, and decided, like Queen Victoria, to treat Napoleon III as a brother and not as an intruder. Still, it touched him so nearly that at the first moment be was on the point of refusing audiences to all three ambassadors. All the world of Paris thought that war would be declared on January 6, 1853 ; but, obedient to the advice of Morny; the Emperor recovered his temper and swallowed the Tsar's insult. The alliance with England was his vengeance, and supplied the means of exacting it, as had been the case with Louis Philippe on the morrow of 1830. And, as the hostility of the monarchies of Europe had also wrecked his prospects of marriage with princesses of Sweden of Baden, he determined to make a love-match, without the aureole of sovereignty, and accordingly married Eugenie de Montijo, Comtesse de Teba, on January 30, 1853. His age and the circumstances of his accession to the throne made it incumbent upon him to marry and found a dynasty, at present an obviously weak link in his policy. The proscribed Republicans, who had formed groups in England, Switzerland, and Belgium, supporting themselves ->._¦ by their own toil, sometimes manual, more often intellectual, journalists, professors, and working-men together, flooded j France with their publications, abused alike proscriptions and proscriber, and never ceased to call for justice and j ¦i] Marriage of Napoleon. The Republicans 13 vengeance. Victor Hugo's pamphlet, Napoleon le Petit, and his poem Le Chdtiment, which were smuggled over the frontier in spite of prefects, kept up the spirits, and excited the emotions, of the young and of the republican working-men. In Paris, in spite of the Bonapartist Terror, the Republic had made and continued to make recruits in the younger generations, and was doing the same on the east and south and especially on the frontiers. And, along with its martyrs, the Republic had its apostles, Michelet, Quinet, Deschanel, Pelletan; its bankers, Goud- chaux and Deroisin, who collected funds for the assistance of the victims of the coup d'etat ; .private houses where the tradition of the Revolution and the love of liberty were still kept up, those for instance of Laurent Pichat, Carnot, Herold, and Madame d'Agoult, "a whole population of refined and cultured literary men, truly worthy," wrote Prevost-Paradol, "of exercising universal suffrage." In all these centres burnt a living faith in liberty, and, above all things, a conviction that this tyranny could not last, that it was an age of probation which was not for ever, and that believers would see the end of their slavery and exile. All men thought of the Empire what Thiers said of it, "It is a tree that stands on props, but has no roots." In the matter of props, the stoutest that the Emperor could select at the outset was the Catholic Church and its votaries, hard-bitten Conservatives, who flattered them selves that in him they had found a Constantine. "In few periods of the history of the Church of France has it enjoyed so large an independence, such active and enlight ened protection," wrote a contributor to the Revue Con- temporaine. To the majority of French Catholics, and notably to Veuillot, the Empire seemed to be "a gift of Providence" for the consolidation of all the progress realised by the Church since 1849. The State restored the Pantheon to the use of the Church, and required the presence 14 Early Years of the Second Empire [ch. of all its officers at religious ceremonies, masses, and pro cessions. It licensed the propagandist missions and rebuilt religious edifices; and by a decree dated January 25, 1852, it allowed female communities to be freely developed for the supply of schools, alms-houses, and nurseries, to which benefactions flowed liberally. Of these, in ten years, the Emperor licensed nearly 1000, far more than Louis XVIII and Charles X together. The teaching Congregations took possession of the education of the young; while Fortoul, the Minister of Public Instruction, weeded wicked teachers and vicious curricula out of the classical and state-schools, and dismissed professors who would not swear allegiance to the Dictator and obedience to the Church. By a decree of August 10, 1852, he gave religious instruction precedence over the study of philosophy or the classics. The lately established liberty of instruction was now working at the top of its action, crushing out, between the state-schools subject to the influence of the bishops and the religious houses provided with privileged constitutions, any free institutions which the University monopoly had left alive, but which could not carry on the struggle against the Church supported by the Government. Working through educa tion, charity, and propagandism, the religious Congrega tions were securing their hold on the wealth as well as on the intellect of France. The Clergy, thus satisfied, repaid the debt by putting its influence at the service of the Emperor, furnishing him with docile electors and officials. "The black coats," wrote Persigny, "have grown tame, and crowd round the Emperor so fanatically as to be ridiculous." The archbishops in their pulpits or from their palaces sang the merits of the new Constitution with dithyrambic enthusiasm. One of them, at Rennes, raised the beauty of the Empress, "that pious Spanish lady," to the dignity of a respectable, not to say adorable institution. The Catholic journals, like the i] Support of the Church 15 Univers of Louis Veuillot, which took' their note from Rome, and which alone in France had the right to speak freely, called upon their readers to serve the Master who furthered the" cause of the Church, the Pope, and the Congregations. Between the Empire and the mass of Catholics, which included the Conservatives of all parties, former Orleanists and Legitimists, the bourgeois of the small towns, parish priests under the thumb of their bishops and their Con gregations, an alliance had been concluded nearly as close as that between the priest-party and the Restoration, with the approval of Rome. While not at all a religious man by nature, and sometimes nauseated by the obsequiousness of his allies, Napoleon III considered the alhance as essential to his rule. "To secure himself against the claims of liberty, he needed the support both of the guard-room and the sacristy," to use the actual words of a great Catholic, M. de Montalembert. Very early in the day, moreover, Napoleon III felt with great justice that the forces which had helped him to win, the forces of the Church and of the army, would not always save him from the turn of fortune for which his victims were on the look-out. To retain in servitude the nation which he had conquered, he at once brought into play his remark able personal fascination, and the indulgences that he proposed to grant to all classes without exception in order to attach them permanently to himself. From the very beginning he had himself indicated his method to his pre fects, in a circular dated January 20, 1852. "The most effective policy is good-will to individuals, and readiness to forward business matters." With a view to the realisation of this programme, intended to induce the French nation to forget its lost liberties, the Emperor relied mainly on himself; like the power he had acquired, the faculty was essentially a personal one. Like other sovereigns, he 1 6 Early Years of the Second Empire [ceC. had confidants — Mocquard, his secretary, Conneau, his physician, the friends of his childhood and his exile. He was constantly at the council-board, and insisted on his Ministers informing him of everything, and coming to no decision without him. He was determined to be the sole master of his policy down to the smallest details; no Council on which his Ministers might support a policy differing from his own was to stand between himself and the nation. They were indeed prohibited from attending the Assemblies, which, for that matter, themselves only played an auxiliary part ; the Council of State drafting and finding arguments for laws proceeding from the Emperor in person, the Legislative Body voting upon them by his direction without the right of initiative or amendment, the Senate simply reporting whether they were in accordance with the Constitution or no. The direct and constant activity of the sovereign was thus secure from interference. It found its way into the recesses of the provinces through the prefects, who were trained to serve him blindly, while they were themselves omnipotent in their own Departments, masters of the officials, the elections, the Press, and the munici palities appointed by them. For these officers, selected by the Emperor among his personal friends, all zealous to take ; him as their model, the system formed an epoch of ex ceptional importance in the middle of the nineteenth century. By the extensive powers entrusted to them, the preparation required of them, their anxiety to please their master by winning over their subordinates, their - long continuance in the. same employment, and the constant i; interchange of visits with their Chief, they gained for ' themselves and for the Emperor a popularity which in some places even survived the Empire; e.g., the cases of Janvier de la Motte, Le Provost de Launay, Dugue de la* Fauconnerie, Raoul Duval, Vaisse, Boselli, Henri Chevreau ] i] The Bourgeoisie and Economic Progress 17 Brun, and David, each with his court and his re tainers. The mass of the bourgeoisie was mainly anxious to enrich itself by the methods which economic progress was opening to its activity; and to it Napoleon III appealed with the same argument that Guizot had used before the revolution which overthrew him — "Make your mdney!" Moreover the men who helped Napoleon before and after the coup d'etat were Orleanists of the close of the preceding reign — Morny, who at first admitted his indebtedness to Guizot for the fortune and ther position which he had acquired from his property at Limagne; Fould, the Pre tender's banker; Magne, the financier, an admirer of the economic teaching of Bugeaud ; Ducos and others — all men of business, and in favour of a practical policy such as had for the last ten years appeared to them to be what the nation really wanted. Imagine the delight with which they and the like of them heard the head of the Government say, speaking at Bordeaux in 1851, "We have immense tracts of waste land to drain, roads to make, ports to dredge, canals to finish, railway-systems to complete, a kingdom to incorporate bpposite Marseilles, all our great western ports to bring into more rapid communication with the American continent. These are the conquests I am projecting, and you all, you who desire, as I do, the weal of the nation, you are my soldiers." These promises of prosperity, this programme of agricultural, industrial, and commercial enterprise, this call to work, addressed to the reserve of capital and energy held by the bourgeoisie of France, were the great conception of the new sovereign, and his principal methods of attraction. Nowhere did these act with such force as in the bourgeois centres, into which the doctrines of St Simon had penetrated, careless as to forms of government, but ardent for social, by means of economic, progress. Pere Enfantin, on whom B. II. 2 18 Early Years of the Second Empire [ch. St Simon's mantle had descended, at once joined the party of Napoleon III, and summoned to his side his disciples, Paulin Talabot, the founder of the Paris, Lyons and Mediter ranean Railway, the great railway artery between Paris and Marseilles ; Didion, a director of the Orleans Railway Company ; the brothers Pereire, and Michel Chevalier — all . persuaded that, in furthering the programme of Napoleon, they were serving their country and the cause of civilisa tion. Enfantin, writing in 1853, sa-id> "Parliament and the Press may now keep silence for a time; where gunpowder once roared, let naught be heard but the ring of hammer on anvil, and let man cover the earth with iron hieroglyphs, and not paper with political conundrums." The Emperor could desire no better professions of faith than these. While his victims, Victor Hugo at their head, denounced him as a tyrant, his co-workers considered him the Messiah of an age of labour and prosperity. The charm was working. The first machinery invented by the Empire for the use of this industrial and commercial effort of the bourgeoisie of France was the Credit Fonder, founded December 31, 1852, for the purpose of assisting the mobilisation of capital by advances on the security of landed property under the supervision of the State. The creation of this institution was for that period what the creation of the Bank of France had been in the days of the Consulate. Next, and side by side with it, certain bankers, mostly St Simonians, the brothers Pereire among them, instituted by private initiative the Societe Generate de Credit Mobilier, the principal object of which was to concentrate and apply to industrial purposes the capital thus let loose. With the aid of these resources, the French railway- system— the Eastern, Great Central, Western, Southern, and Ardennes lines — was carried to completion. The great Gas Company was established in Paris in 1855, with. a monopoly for fifty years. The Compagnie Generate Trans* i] Banks and Railways ; the Working-man 19 atlantique was founded for trade with America and Algeria. The effect of the impulse was felt everywhere. With the ' assurance of a state-guarantee for 100 years, the railway companies proposed to lay down in six years a system of five times the size. The State enlarged its postal and telegraphic network. It liberated industry and commerce from all the fetters that still remained of the economic policy of the past. At its call the bourgeoisie, under the influence of a positive' fever of enterprise which overbore its habitual propensity to save, and corrected its timidity, placed its activity and its capital at the service of this industrial development. The Paris Stock Exchange, for which these first years of the Empire were an age of gold, took rank in the world by the side of that of London. In the opinion of Proudhon, the bourgeois capitalists were hurrying to secure for themselves the monopoly of French business. Thus, in short, Napoleon III got the credit for crowning the edifice of the last fifty years' industrial evolution, late in the day perhaps as compared with that / which machinery and the influx of capital had produced in England, but analogous to it and as fruitful of result. France could now afford the comparison. The nation was much excited over the International Exhibition which the Emperor opened at the Palace of Industry in 1855, feeling confident of occupying a place of honour there, and proud of exhibiting to strangers the progress that had been made. The growth of fortunes in the bourgeoisie corresponded •to an increase of employment and wages in the working class, in whose eyes the Emperor was a sovereign anxious to remind the world that he had written a book on the Extinction of Pauperism ; the schemes that he encouraged in every direction prevented or diminished lack of work, and ensured to every one his daily bread. From the confiscated private property of the Orleans family, the Empire had by a decree of January 23, 1852, exacted a 20 Early Years of the Second Empire [ch. contribution of ten million francs (£400,000), which was to assist in establishing in all the communes of France Mutual Aid Societies, subject of course to the strictest control of the Administration. By another decree the state paWn-shops (Monts de Piete), created to protect the working-man in temporary embarrassment from usurers, were put on a new footing. Convalescent homes were. instituted in the neighbourhood of Paris for workmen coming out of hospital, maternity societies and creches for new-born babies (these under the special patronage of the Empress), and asylums for pauper orphans. A law of June 1, 1853, established Conciliation Boards (Conseils de Prudhommes), where elected representatives of employers and employed met under the presidency of delegates appointed by the State to settle disputes between masters and wage-earners. No doubt these boons from the Govern ment were not disinterested; and the well-being they pro cured for the people was intended to make them forget their rights, and divert them from asserting political claims. But the well-being was undeniable, and the boons assured. The whole nation shared in this. By the development of the means of communication, the peasant reaped the benefit of this general prosperity as much as the artisan. The more easily the produce of his farm circulated, the better it paid him. Scarcity of food, from which the poor had suffered for the last time just before the rise of the Empire, now disappeared ; and agriculture saw the last of non-paying crops. Proprietors, both great and small, found something to their advantage ; the rural districts grew rich, while the towns and the centres of industry asserted their prosperity by their complete transformation. And indeed the last-named process was not the least potent of the philtres used by the Emperor to capture the sympathies of his subjects. All the great provincial towns acquired a look of prosperity which they had not known i] Public Works ; Haussmann and Paris 21 since the middle of the eighteenth century. At Marseilles, a new city grew up at the foot of Notre Dame de la Garde, between the Old Port, the basins, and the New Docks, and again in the other direction towards Longchamps. At Lyons, a wide opening, named Rue de ITmperatrice, brought air and light into the older city. Handsome Prefectures rose everywhere, at Caen, Rouen, and Ver sailles, and also fine boulevards. But nowhere was the work conceived on so large a scale, or so methodically carried out, as in Paris. The intention, which was frankly borrowed from the first Napoleon, was evident: "to make Paris the unique city of the world, the metropolis of Europe. ' ' This involved nothing less than the destruction of hundreds of houses, and the construction of vast avenues in the place of narrow and unhealthy streets and lanes. " Hygiene pre scribes it; progress demands it," said the socialist Louis Blanc. The Government scored twice in this process ; first, in doing away with an entangled labyrinth of lanes very useful to conspirators and for barricades, and sub stituting wide spaces to serve the operations of the army of order in case of a riot ; and secondly, in providing work for the labourer, air and luxury for commercial men and bourgeois, a satisfaction to the national pride, and noble vistas for the people generally. A prefect of the name of Haussmann, a man of initiative and action, was summoned from Bordeaux to superintend these alterations, the first of which was the construction of the Rue de Rivoli in 1852 and the clearance of the purlieus of the Louvre and the Tuileries. He did not shrink from the expense of rebuilding the whole of Paris ; he enlarged its borders so as to double its size ; he appealed to the public credit to find the means of meeting the burden of so vast an enterprise; he built Central Markets, laid down parks, and created the Bois de Boulogne. Nobody had ever before been so audacious in his use of the spade in an old capital, or in removing so 22 Early Years of the Second Empire [ch. much building material. " The extraordinary expenditure," said Haussmann, "will produce a general growth of revenue and of comfort; it will thus be repaid by the foreigners." Thus was set on foot a policy which for the next fifteen years was worked in a way to strengthen and give per manence to the forces which had already under preceding reigns begun to attract cosmopolitan admirers of taste and aesthetic temper to enjoy the hospitality of the great city, so fascinating, so rich in all the graces of sense and intellect. That this policy corresponded to the general intentions of Napoleon III may be gathered from the favour accorded to Haussmann, as well as from the words of the Ruler to Castellane the Governor of Lyons: "My wish is to deal in the great, to strike the imagination." In promises of fortune, prosperity, and pleasure, the Emperor, from the moment of his accession, lavished on his subjects every form of seduction. By his orders the Court gave the key-note and started a bacchanalian orgy of amusement and luxury. It began at the Elysee* before the Empire and the Imperial marriage, under the direction of Stephanie de Beauharnais ; and the President even ran into debt to maintain the brilliance of the entertainment. Next came the splendid pageant of Empire at the Tuileries, which captivated the greatest sceptics; great official ceremonies, diplomatic receptions, and the Imperial marriage, with high function aries heavy with gold lace, and their wives magnificently dressed, dinners, balls, and concerts. Thanks to his Civil List of a million sterling, the Emperor had the wherewithal to dazzle Parisians, who loved gold and embroideries ; and he would not have forgiven subordinates who failed to imitate him, one of their main duties being to startle and amuse their flocks by their prodigality. Even an old soldier like the Marshal de Castellane gave great dinners at his camp at Lyons after his reviews, and small dances without number. The Chief Justice rivalled him in luxury i] The Court : general Gaiety 23 and gaiety, "to set the Bench of Judges a-jumping!" And thus it was from one end to the other of France, which never amused itself so thoroughly as in this period, when pleasure was turned into a method of government. No longer should it be said, as in the last days under Louis Philippe, that "France was being bored." The luxury and the amusements which made work for the artisans should have been enough to divert them from new ideas, and extinguish any fancy for a change. "Our poor French Society," said Duke Pasquier, "so sparkling, but so frivolous and thoughtless, so easy to push in one direction or another, goes simply giddy in the whirlpool of amuse ments." "We drink, we sing, we hold high feast," shouts the author of the Chdtiments with the violent note of a Juvenal. Neither working-men nor bourgeois were strong enough to resist the allurements of luxury and material well-being, which made them forget slavery, and neglect the civic life and the struggle for liberty and the right to think. In addition to the military and administrative forces of which it could dispose to bolster up a reign which did not promise to be lasting, Imperialism showed great skill in using and flattering the aspirations of the French nation as they could be read in the previous fifteen years. The upper classes exhibited a marked return to the Roman Church, to the guidance of the Congregations, to a Catholic propa ganda, and at the same time a growing taste for material enjoyment and for wealth, fostered by the sudden economic expansion ; the working classes lived in the hope of a social readjustment which the Revolution of 1848 had not satisfied ; and the nation at large, the nation of peasant-proprietors interested mainly in their own business, their own saving, their own labour, yearned only for a .strong hand above them,, to save them the time they would lose in governing 'themselves. 24 Early Years of the Second Empire [ch. If Napoleon III had been the absolute master of the Catholic conscience and mind, and, above all, of Paris, his Empire would have been exposed to Uttie risk. But in 1853 the best-known chiefs of the Catholic party began to forswear the alliance made with him in 1851 on the score of his refusal to allow them further conquests, such as the suppression of the essential clauses in the Concordat, the subordination of the civil marriage to the religious, the right of founding Catholic Universities as well as Colleges. Some even of their leaders regretted that they had accepted a master too fond of vulgar pleasures, and too far below their own standard of faith and of talent. For these reasons Montalembert and de Falloux soon declared war on Napoleon III in their speeches and in their pamphlets, such as Les Interets Catholiques, and in their articles in the review Le Correspondant, the centre round which a group of Orleanists and Legitimists — Albert de Broglie, Cochin, Lenormant, Ozanam, Lacordaire, and Dupanloup — had rallied to constitute the party of Liberal Catholics. The war soon came to be carried on with such vivacity that they were not afraid to provoke a schism in their own ranks, and to be as bitter against Veuillot and the Univers as against the sovereign to whose side Veuillot was calling the lower orders and the country clergy. Pius IX had to intervene to restore order and concord. "The Clergy," said. the Emperor sadly to Lacordaire, "shows great ingratitude 1 to me." This opposition disturbed him. No less was he disturbed by the resistance he encountered in the world of society, of literature, of education— of everything in fact that lived by the inteUect, and refused to come to heel. In the Faubourg St Germain, at the Princess Lieven's, or at Madame d'Agoult's, the old parlia mentary hands combined to discredit the new regime by laughing at it. They would form a circle round the repubUcan leaders or round Thiers or Guizot, Duchatel i] Literary Opposition ; the Salons 25 or Mole, and discuss the last article in the royalist Journal des Debats, or the repubhcan Avenir, or the Revue de Paris, which Laurent Pichat and Louis Ulbach devoted in 1854 to the merciless criticism of the Empire. They would applaud the elections to the French Academy, or to the Academy of Moral Sciences, which in nearly every case — as in those of Berryer, Lacordaire, and de FaUoux — had gone against the Government, or the caustic remarks of de TocqueviUe, ViUemain, or Mignet. This was an inde pendent domain where the Imperial writ did not run nor the Imperial seductions operate, on which the Emperor could get no hold. Once more was to be seen the pheno menon noticed during the Restoration, when a great move ment in thought, science, and literature was set on foot by the severity of the official attacks upon liberty. "Nothing Uke persecution," wrote Prevost-Paradol, the secretary of Daniel Stern (Madame d'Agoult), in 1853, "for making thought work up to the height of its power and eliciting aU its value. The spouters are silenced ; but, when street- music is stopped, there is a chance for artists." Victor Hugo, having been exiled after his Chdtiments, then wrote La Legende des Siecles, one of his chefs-d'oeuvre, and published his Contemplations, being a poet alike of satire, epic, and sentiment. Leconte de Lisle wrote his Poemes antiques in 1852 in a strongly coloured and more condensed style. Michelet produced La Mer, L'Oiseau, and ' Le Peuple in prose essays which are none the less poetry. Georges Sand consoled herself for her social disappointments by writing an idyll in La Petite Fadette, one of the most finished of her novels. Shortly afterwards, the world witnessed a complete revival of French comedy from the pens of Emile Augier, Alexandre Dumas the younger, Jules Sandeau, and Mme de Girardin. Novel-writing was restored by Flaubert, Merimee, and Cherbuliez, criticism by Sainte Beuve. 26 Early Years of the Second Empire ¦ [ch. *To spirits bruised and flouted in the gloom of those days, science, whether theoretical or experimental, came with consoling power as softly insinuating as a hope. It came either from universities beyond the Rhine, or from the positivist lessons of Auguste Comte, and was becoming the haven of refuge for moralists and thinkers, a great army of whom had been driven out of the University by govern ment pressure and had thereby obtained leisure for searching, examining, and writing. These now stood up in the pursuit of truth in the face of the governing lie — Jules Simon, the author of the Devoir (1854) and of La Religion Naturelle (1856) ; Barni and Renouvier, the apostles of a natural morality ; Vacherot, a great Liberal ; Bersot, a subtle and elegant moralist ; Jacques and Saisset, two pupils of Victor Cousin ; Taine, who though stUl a youth was already meditating a new scientific psychology ; Renan, engaged in buUding up a Science of Language and Religions; Littre and Frederic Morin — all resolved, to defend the independence of French thought against the platitudes of the day, and the violence or fascinations of the Dictator, by the dignity of their attitude and the vigour of their convictions. De Tocqueville brought his life to a beautiful close by adding to his studies of America, which had made his reputation very early in life, his observations on contemporary France, the Ancien Regime and the Revolution, a work full of sugges tion, though unfinished. Villemain, Vielcastel, Duvergier de Hauranne, and Guizot, by their recollections of the Restoration or of the parliamentary regime, taught the rising generation not to despair of their country or of liberty. And then there was Paris — not the Paris of gaieties, of easy-bought pleasures and luxury, but the Paris of intellect and of taste, the Paris of salons, libraries, and schools, the sacred hearth where the dreams of a youth enamoured of the ideal, of truth and of justice, came to find a life-giving glow; i] Hostility of Paris 27 a youth which, drawing the working class along with it, made itself heard at the funerals of Armand Marrast in 1853, of Francois Arago and Lamennais in 1854, 0I Beranger and General Cavaignac in 1857; which displayed its in dignation against Sainte Beuve, the flatterer of the Empire, by obliging him to resign his Chair at the College de France ; which roundly charged Nisard with impudently teaching two sorts of morality at the Sorbonne. "Everybody who is not absorbed in gross pleasures," said one of its chiefs, "or in still grosser speculations, thinks the same thoughts, has the same desires for moral and political independence." Baron Hubner, a close observer of every manifestation of life in the Capital, remarks in his journal of 1853, "Paris is and remains hostile to the new order of things." Even with the assistance of Haussmann, the brilliancy of his Court, the strength of his police, and the prestige of his devoted army, Napoleon III had failed to subdue the adversary who twice over, in 1830 and in 1848, had got the better of his predecessors. And yet he had taken every advantage of an opportunity such as they had, unluckily for them, not looked for or utilised, of offering the Parisians the satisfaction and the glory of a military movement made to tickle their vanity. In aU probability the opportunity was not of his seeking either, although Persigny had advised him in 1830 to look in the national warlike sentiment for a way to combat Mevil passions." Napoleon III was sincere when he de clared his intention of founding a peaceful Empire, for he was not in the least desirous of staking his unexpected stroke of luck on the uncertainty of battle. If he thought of abohshing the treaties of 1815, and restoring France to the glorious position of arbiter between nations and sovereigns, which had been the dream of every Frenchman for the last six and thirty years, of assisting oppressed nationalities, of constituting — or reconstituting — mutilated 28 Early Years of the Second Empire [ch. countries, if all his life through he thought of such feats as being the true destiny of his Empire, believing himself to be the St Louis of Democracy, still he held to the scheme which he had published in 1839 m tne Idees Napoleoni- . ennes, and wished to see the remodeUing effected by diplomatic congresses, not by war. "Be sure," said Lord Derby to Prince Albert in 1852, "that you may trust to that publication with safety. The author is preeminently a man of fixed ideas." But the alliance which he had formed just before and after the coup d'etat with the Roman Catholics, in spite of the efforts he had made in 1849 t0 §et rid of his engagements in the Roman affair, drew him imperceptibly, after 185 1, towards the Holy Land in a matter which was destined to set up a war all but general in the East and in Europe. The historian might ask himself with Thouvenel, writing in 1854, what was the real meaning of this dispute which France raised about the Holy Places, but he could scarcely faU to see in this "Churchwardens'" quarrel another stage of the Catholic crusade begun in. Rome in 1849 by the restoration of the Temporal Power. When on May 28, 1850, General Aupick claimed at Constantinople on behalf of Louis Napoleon the right reserved by the Capitulations to the Latin monks, of guarding the tomb of the Virgin at Jerusalem, the Church of the Nativity at Bethlehem, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, and the tombs of the Latin Kings, to the exclusion of the Greeks who had held it since 1812, a Catholic writer on public law in Paris said, "This affair must not be degraded into the dimensions of a local squabble. It involves the faith and creed of France, and reminds her of the most glorious traditions in her history. Her prosperity, her policy, and her rank among the nations demand of her a solution of the question." It certainly was not for the sole object of winning France i] Catholic Crusade in the East 29 over to their creed that the Catholic party led by Monta lembert and de Falloux had cut their connection with the monarchy, and supported the Republic and the policy of Louis Napoleon. They looked to see France actively assisting in the restoration of the Papacy and of the Church through out the world. For twenty-five years they had devoted themselves to the task of propaganda which Pope Gregory XVI had resumed, especially in the East, by means of the funds of the Society for the Propagation of the Faith, founded at Lyons in 1822, and the assistance of various reconstituted and re-animated religious orders, Jesuits, Lazarists, Dominicans, Fathers of the Holy Ghost, Sisters of Charity, and Ladies of Zion. With unrivalled zeal they had given to this work money and men, apostles who, throughout the whole East, in Asia Minor, Syria, Egypt, Persia, and even China, had restored and .extended the Christian folds. France was thus making good her wrongs to the Faith; her present virtues were more than the equivalent of her former hatred, her soldiers now serving the Cross more numerous than the martyrs of t;he past. This advance, after so long a retreat, awakened in French Catholics the ambition to revive the doughty deeds of their ancestors for the service of their Faith and the glory of their country ; they yearned to follow up the revolutionary crusade of the eighteenth century by a Christian crusade in the nineteenth. Their journals and reviews had been celebrating these new Gesta Dei per Francos for the last ten years. In 1841 Lacordaire saw therein the "world- mission of France " ; M. de Falloux was enthusiastic over the great Christian Liberalism, which the French were to preach aU over the world. "Let France seek the Glory of God," said a writer in the Corresponddnt, "and it will find its own into the bargain." To aU this zealous band, eager for action, nurtured in the sacred hope for the realisation of their programme, the 30 Early Years of the Second Empire [ch. sight of a French government asserting the privUeges of the Latin Church in the East seemed to indicate that the hour had come. Napoleon did not think so; and his Foreign Minister declared at the beginning of 1852 that "the incidents did not threaten a diplomatic rupture." Turkey on her side, being used to these "monkish squabbles" and caring nothing about them, offered a compromise. She pointed out to the French ambassador, M. de La VaUette, that if the Greeks had taken possession of the Holy Places, it had been for the purpose of repairing them at a time when the Latins were leaving them uncared for, and that, not less for them than for the Latins, Palestine was a Holy Land. She suggested that, instead of excluding the Greeks, which was now impossible, the two religions should have a common use of the places. Clauses to that effect were included in a firman drawn up on February 9, 1852, which purported to settle the incident by giving the Latins three keys of the Church at Bethlehem, and the right to say mass at the tomb of the Virgin. But the vigour of the Catholic claims had awakened a corresponding vigour in the Greek world. It looked to them as if it was proposed to reconsider the progress made by the Orthodox believers since the Treaty of Kainardji (1774)^ which had thrown open to their pUgrims and their monks, under the protection of the Tsar, the East which had been previously exclusively under Latin influence. To the threat of the restoration of that influence the Primates of .the Greek Church replied by a counter-stroke. The question was put by the Russian envoy, Titoff, to the Sultan, whether he now proposed to place himself and all the East under the protectorate of France. The Tsar Nicholas approved his representation, having already dis cussed the matter with Lord Aberdeen in London in 1844, He was not in the humour to bow before a Catholic policy; and, in spite of his omnipotence, he, as Orthodox Emperofi i] - Quarrel about the Holy Places 31 was obliged to consider the feelings of the masses on whose support he rested and who gave him his authority and his strength. The common use of the Holy Places, by which Turkey thought to settle the matter, displeased him. He demanded and obtained a secret firman dated March 12, 1852, annulling the concessions made to the Catholics and to France. "Take care," wrote M. Thouvenel, a French diplomatist, who had been put on his guard, " and under stand clearly that Russia will not give way. For her it is a question of life and death." While M. de La Vallette, Napoleon's ambassador, was receiving first the congratulations of the Pope in Rome, and next the lively compliments of his Catholic friends in France, whose journals vied with one another in their noisy acclama tions of his triumph, the envoy of the Tsar was securing the position which he had secretly recaptured at Constantinople. The result was that, in September 1852, the matter of the Holy Places, which had been thought to be closed, was re opened. The French Catholics, proud and delighted with their victory, had lost no time in getting up a pilgrimage to Jerusalem to give it formal recognition. The Greeks, who had seen the secret firman cancelling the Sultan's concessions and were thus convinced of the soundness of their position, required AUf Bey, the Turkish commissary, to return a curt refusal to the pilgrims and monks from Rome or France: this he naturally dechned to do. Then followed an out burst of wrath from the Orthodox communities at Jerusalem, Constantinople, and even Petrograd against the treachery of the Sultan, who appeared to have made the Tsar ridiculous. "Were milUons of Greeks to aUow themselves to be robbed by these wretched Turks to gratify a few French Catholic tourists ? " Nicholas I was between two fires, the wrath of his people, if he did not take action, and a conflict with Europe, if he did; and he began to look round for the means of restoring his influence in the East, which. the 32 Early Years of the Second Empire [ch. policy of Palmerston since 1841, and that of France of the day, were weakening and restricting daily. The question of the Holy Places was graduaUy developing into the larger and more dangerous question of the relations between Russia and the Turkish Empire. The means that Nicholas was looking for were then suppUed by Austria, as stated by Baron Hubner, the Austrian ambassador in Paris, in his Memoires. That Power had had reason to complain of the Sultan in 1849 for refusing to surrender to her some Polish and Hungarian rebels who had taken refuge in Turkey, and had seen her influence in Constantinople ruined to benefit Lord Stratford de Redcliffe, the British ambassador. When Count Buol heard of the Sultan's intention to crush the revolt of Prince Danilo in Montenegro (1851-2) for the purpose of securing the independence of his dynasty, he at once determined to give him a lesson. Adopting an energetic policy, he sent the Comte de Linanges on an extraordinary mission to Constantinople on January 30, 1853. The ambassador, with an army already mobUised on the Danube, demanded and obtained in a few days from the Sultan an immediate disarmament, some decrees for the benefit of the Christians of Bosnia and Herzegovina, and the independence of Montenegro. This capitulation of the Turks emboldened the Tsar. Speaking to Sir Hamilton Seymour, the British ambassador at his- Court, he gave him to understand, in the famous con versations of February 9-20, 1853, that he thought the hour had come for taking advantage of the weakness of Turkey, and possibly dividing her spoils. On Feb. 28, an ambassador extraordinary (like the Comte de Linanges), the Prince Admiral Menchikoff , who had been purposely selected from the highest official ranks of the Empire, arrived at Stamboulft,( in state, escorted by Imperial aide-de-camps and vice- admirals, amidst the acclamations of the Greeks who i] Menchikoff's Mission 33 greeted him as the Tsar-Liberator. On the next day he drove into retirement the Foreign Minister who had nego tiated the firman for the Catholics, and adopted a masterful tone in the presence of staggered Turks and enthusiastic Greeks. His Imperial master had entrusted him with two distinct duties. The one, which was public, was to settle the question of the Holy Places in a sense favourable to the Greek Church. The other, which for the moment was kept secret, was to demand for the Tsar a protectorate, more formal than that implied in the Treaties of Kainardji and Adrianople, over all Orthodox Christians in the Sultan's dominions. It should be noted that, at this moment, M. de La VaUette had been recalled, and M. de Lacour, the new French ambassador, had not yet arrived; while Lord Stratford de Redcliffe was absent in England. In their absence, Menchikoff, soon after his arrival, began secretly to press the Sultan and his Ministers with a view to obtaining the advantages thought necessary to establish Russian influence in the Ottoman Empire. On April 19 he presented to Rifaat Pasha, the new Foreign Minister whom he had imposed on them, the draft of a convention or Sened, so drawn as to place explicitly under Russian pro tection the persons and properties of Greek Christians in Turkey and especiaUy in Palestine. It is probable that by this action Russia was not seeking a casus belli, any more than Austria by hers. The Tsar Nicholas meant what he said to the French envoy, M. de Castelbajac, on January 12, 1853, "I want to avoid war in the East, and it is for that very reason that I have thought it necessary to speak firmly to the Turks." In order to escape the anger of his own subjects, he was bound to give the Turks a counter-blow which should efface any humiliation arising from the occurrences at Jerusalem, and be as com plete, as the satisfaction recently obtained by Austria ; but it was only a- diplomatic success that he required, one that b. 11. 3 34 Early Years of the Second Empire [ch, should demonstrate the strength of .Russia and the weak ness of the Porte. The danger was that, if Napoleon III insisted on support ing the claims of the Latins, under the pressure of the Catholics, he might treat this Russian success as a defeat of himself and of France. At the beginning of 1853, fhe Emperor had made his pacific intention clear by refusing. to take umbrage at the Tsar's ungracious recognition of the Empire. He had summoned M. de Thouvenel to assist M. Drouin de Lhuys in the direction of Foreign Affairs at the Quai d'Orsay, as one who was determined to ignore the " trumpetings of the Catholic- organs," and to avoid a quarrel with Russia. Furthermore he had removed M. de La VaUette from Constantinople, and replaced him by M. de Lacour, a more prudent official and less committed to a view. And no sooner had the latter met the Sultan, than he notified that France would in a spirit of conciUation. accept a simultaneous publication of the two firmans, one for the Catholics, the other for the Greeks. During the month of ¦ April 1853 the Porte prepared a new draft, which was ready on May 4, and which might have ended the contest by a new compromise. It is true that Napoleon III, who did not see why he should look as if he had capitulated like the Turks, had ordered his fleet from Toulon to Salamis ; but this was only a demonstration, like Menchikoff's mission. Neither Petrograd nor Paris wanted to go to war in the East for the sake of the Holy Places. AU that now remained to be settled was the proposed convention presented by Menchikoff to the Porte, which was to testify the Tsar's anxiety for the Orthodox Church and his rights on their behalf. After long and rather lively debate between the Russian admiral and the Grand Vizier, Mehemet. Ali, which lasted from May 4 to 13, the affair appeared to be in the course of settlement by a draft Note— i a less serious document than a formal treaty— which Men- , i] War between Russia and Turkey 35 chikoff accepted, and which simply referred to the recog nised rights of Russia under the Treaty of Kainardji. On learning this result, Napoleon and his Ministers were de lighted, and by an official communication to the Journal Officiel on May 18, 1853, announced to the French nation the approaching close of all these incidents, which had excited pubUc opinion and, against the wish of the Emperor, given rise to a threat of war in the spring. Then came the unexpected bolt from the blue, three days later, at Constantinople. Menchikoff suddenly left the city, rudely breaking off the negotiation which was thought to be concluded, and as hastily returned, breathing threats. Soon afterwards the thunder-bolt was launched, in the shape of an ultimatum to the Turks from Nicholas I, which described him as having felt "the five fingers of the Sultan on his cheek, "'and announced the mobilisation of his forces in the Moldo-Wallachian provinces. Napoleon III could not but be aware of the motive of this unlooked-for explosion, which started the war in the East when everything seemed to have calmed down. It was the result of an intrigue go,t up within the Council of the Sultan by the English ambassador, Lord Stratford de Redcliffe, the formidable diplomat — "especiaUy formidable to his own Government, whose orders he does not carry out unless they please him," said Baron Hubner. He was a man of violent temper, concealing under a grave deportment and haughty manners a passionate devotion to the greatness of his country. The Parisians and the Emperor had made much of him on his way through Paris, where he was the "lion" of the day; but they never once guessed his design. . He had scarcely returned to Constantinople (April 5), before he discovered that Menchikoff was prepared to yield to the conciliatory offers of the Grand Vizier and the ambassador of France. On May 12 he found means of persuading the admiral, by the help of a secret agent in his household, that 3—2 36 Early Years of the Second Empire [ch. his dragoman had betrayed him to the Grand Vizier, and induced him to demand the dismissal of Mehemet Ali in favour of Reschid Pasha as likely to give him better terms. Menchikoff fell into the trap, and discovered, only too late, that Reschid Pasha was on the contrary the less conciliatory of the two, and refused to admit any reference to the Treaty of Kainardji, which was the special object of Menchikoff's mission. His disgust and wrath may be Conceived; also the fury of his immediate departure, and all the tragic consequences of the comedy of which he had been both hero and dupe. Lord Stratford de Redcliffe, having determined that Mehemet Ali, "in his wish to act patriotically, had gone too far in concessions to the Russians," concocted this ingenious and elaborate scheme for making the Russians themselves get rid of the too conciliatory Vizier who was doing his best to avert war. He had induced the Sultan to accept the risk, of his own motion and without orders from his Government, by promising formaUy on May 9 to summon the English fleet from Malta to the aid of Turkey in case of conflict. Henever doubted for a moment that his Government would eventually honour his draft. By May 31, the Emperor Napoleon had taken the requisite steps in view of the threatened conflict. While still averse from war, he did not hesitate to place himself by the side of England, the only European state that had favoured his advent to power. True, he instructed Walewski at first. not to countenance "any united action or any war," and ordered his Minister in Vienna to suggest an agreement among the Cabinets of Europe; but Baron Hubner was already satisfied that "France would follow England." Between June 1 and 3, Napoleon sent the French fleet to the East; and the British Government ordered its ships from Malta. For a moment, in July 1853, there seemed to be a chance of averting the crisis through a Note drawn ij Lord Stratford de Redcliffe : Sinope 37 up in Vienna by Count Buol, and accepted by the Tsar on August 3, on the ground that it referred specifically to the stipulations of Kainardji and Adrianople, without formally repeating them. But once more Lord Stratford de Redcliffe succeeded in reopening the matter by the bellicose advice he gave to Reschid Pasha and the Sultan. "We are paralysed," wrote Prince Albert, "because our agent at Constantinople seems prepared to act or refuse to act at his sole will and pleasure." Nevertheless, England and France together were ready to follow his lead, when Turkey rejected the Vienna Note on August 23. "How ever pacific the Emperor may be," wrote Baron Hubner, "he wiU try to make sure of the English alliance, at any price, even that of war." Now, at. this date, English public opinion, as exasperated as Lord Stratford de Redcliffe could desire, was becoming more and more used to the notion of a maritime war in the waters of the Levant. On October 2, 1853, the French and English fleets anchored in Besika Bay and subsequently passed the Dardanelles to defend Constantinople. To the invasion of Moldavia by a Russian army, Turkey replied on October 8, requiring the evacuation of the Principalities by a fixed date ; and fifteen days later the Turkish army, under Omar Pasha, crossed the Danube. At the end of November, a Turkish squadron of 12 ships, conveying an expeditionary force to the further end of the Black Sea, was attacked and destroyed by Admiral Nakhimoff at Sinope. This encounter removed the last chance of a pacific settlement, which was afforded by a new Note drawn up at Vienna on Dec. 5, and accepted by France, England, and even by Turkey itself. Napoleon III at once, in concert with the English Cabinet, ordered his fleet to enter the Black Sea, and on December 27 warned the Tsar that he should occupy that sea, and close it to Russia, if he did not recall his troops from the Danube. The war in the East was thus begun; its purpose was 38 Early Years of the Second Empire [ch. doubtless that which had been already formulated in the minds of Sir Stratford and Palmerston — to repel the advance of Russia, and oust her from the positions she had gained by the treaties of 1774. and 1829. Nicholas I could not retire before the threats used; it was not to be expected. On February 9, 1854, he accepted the chaUenge; "Russia," said he, "will do in 1854 wnat sne &A in I8i2." To justify his action in the eyes of the French nation, into whose ears he had been for two years dinning his pacific designs, and his satisfaction in May and August 1853 at the. prospect of preserving peace, Napoleon III threw the whole responsibility for the aggression on the ambition of the Tsar. Very briefly he declared himself to be compelled by necessity to defend the honour of France, Turkey, and the balance of power in Europe (March 1854). Moreover he admitted that he was not ready for a campaign, but he reckoned, as usual, on his allies, England, and (more espe ciaUy) Austria, "whose cooperation," he said on March 1, "would put the seal of morality and justice on the war he was undertaking." Already he saw himself, like his uncle, heading a great European coalition to make the Russians tremble, possibly to restore life to Poland, and hope to all oppressed nations. And France applauded, "through hatred of the Cossacks and love of glory and battle," said Proudhon. It was to be observed, however, that at that juncture it was not the nation, as a whole, which was to endure the hardships of war. The army landed under St Arnaud at Varna in June 1854 was an army constituted under the Law of Conscription of 1832, which allowed any man called to the colours by ballot to pay a substitute. When subse quently, after the evacuation of the Principalities by the Russians, the Allies determined to follow up their efforts by invading the Crimea (September 1854) and, when, after the battle of the Alma (September 20) and the murderous i] The Crimean War 39 combats of Balaclava and Inkerman (October and Novem ber), they had to concert a further display of force for the siege of Sebastopol, Napoleon III created a strictly pro fessional army. By a law dated April 28, 1855, every Frenchman called upon to serve could escape by paying a certain sum to a fund entitled the Army Endowment Fund (Caisse de Dotation de I'Armee). By means of this Fund the State provided itself with the soldiers it wanted, paying old soldiers especiaUy more highly, to induce them to renew their engagements. The Emperor had already taken steps, by a law of 1853 on civil and military pensions, to create an Officers' Corps, most of whose members were in the army of Africa. In the risks and trials of those deadly campaigns, in which cold and sickness tried the . French soldiery as rudely as the sword, the nation at large took very Uttie share. Moreover Napoleon made every possible diplomatic effort in 1854 and 1855 to reduce to a minimum the sacrifices required. Nicholas I had sent Count Orloff on a special mission to Vienna to remind Francis Joseph in haughty language of the Tsar's services to him in 1849 > ^ut Austria declined to pledge herself to neutrality. In June 1854 she had compelled the Russians to evacuate the Princi palities by threats of war, and of an alliance with the Turks ; the treaty was in fact concluded on June 14. In the struggle between the maritime Powers and Russia for supremacy over Turkey and the Black Sea, Francis Joseph and his adviser, Count Buol, had seen a chance of getting the Danubian Pnncipalities assigned to them on easy terms. Their only fear was that Frederick William IV, the King of Prussia, a relation of the Tsar, might, out of loyalty to Russia or from a wish to get in Germany the "revenge" for Olmiitz, take the opportunity of Austria's entanglement on the Lower Danube to declare war on her. But Prussia had granted to Field-Marshal Hess, who 40 Early Years of the Second Empire [ch. visited Berlin in AprU 1854 in that behalf, a convention whereby Manteuffel agreed to support the policy of Austria on the Danube. Thus the ambition of Austria had de veloped itself in a way which assisted the French Empire in bringing about the general coalition on which her Chief counted for the increase of his glory and the reduction of his risks. When General Coronini received the orders of Francis Joseph to invade the Principalities, Thouvenel wrote: "We are nearing the critical moment. When that comes, Prussia will follow Austria like the camel of Scripture even through the eye of a needle." On July 22, the French Minister sent to Vienna the " Note of the Four Points," which was adopted by Austria, France, and Great Britain. It demanded an international protectorate of the PrincipaUties, i free navigation of the Danube, the integrity and inde pendence of Turkey, and the renunciation by Russia of her claim to a protectorate of the Christians in the Ottoman Empire. This was in fact the ultimatum of Europe to Russia, to be followed up — so at least the Minister hoped — by a threat of war from the German Powers, in case of her recalcitrance. It simply requested the Tsar, though he was still too powerful to submit to such a sacrifice, "to abdicate his position as leading Power in the East," and renounce a hegemony which had been so far tacitly recognised in Europe. It looked as if the Emperor had every chance of forming the coalition of his dreams. Then Prussia stopped the way. Supported by the sympathy of the Courts of Saxony and Bavaria with Russia, and by the objections of their representatives! von Beust and von Pfordten, who had met at Bamberg and agreed on their policy, Bismarck and the Conservative party of the Kreuz induced Frederick William IV in September to decline to associate himself in the threats; used by Austria unless the lesser German Powers did the same, "I thus defeated," he said, "the pressure exercised i] Appeals to Austria and Piedmont 41 upon Prussia to drag her, like a dog on a leash, into this war which was opposed to Teutonic interests." Count Buol tried to appeal to the Diet for its consent, but in vain; the very firm language of a Prussian circular, dated October 13, decided the whole of Germany to refuse it. Disappointed in this quarter, Napoleon III had no alternative but to turn to Italy. In November he sent his confidential friend Persigny to Victor Emmanuel, whose Minister Cavour had ever since April been offering the Allies the assistance of the Piedmontese forces instead of those of Austria, with the hope of being repaid at the ex: pense of the latter. Possibly Napoleon did not at the time intend more by this Italian suggestion than to overcome Austria's enforced hesitation ; indeed it looked as if he had succeeded when on December 2, 1854, Austria signed a Triple Alliance, and on December 22 obtained a formal promise from the two maritime Powers to maintain order and the status quo in Italy. Francis Joseph asked for a delay of one month only before carrying out his engage ments. But, while the French diplomatists were cajoling Austria, those of Prussia were acting. In spite of the fact that war was actuaUy proceeding, they induced the Tsar and Gortchakoff to ask Austria once more, on December 22, 1854, as to her conditions, and to offer her certain impor tant concessions. When, on January 14, 1855, Count Buol, knowing nothing of these negotiations, decided through fear of the Italians to ask the assistance of Germany again, it was sharply refused to him (January 30) through the influence of Prussia, which had then "boldly seized the helm of German politics." It was useless for Drouin de Lhuys, on his return from Vienna, where he had been trying to secure the aid of Austria (March 1855), to advise Napoleon III to modify the rigour of the ultimatum which Francis Joseph was to send to the Tsar, by omitting the article 42 Early Years of the Second Empire [ch. requiring the exclusion of the Russian fleet from the Black Sea. The Emperor, more closely committed than ever to the demands of England, whose ambassador, Lord Cowley, was day by day acquiring greater ascendency over him, was deaf to the entreaties of his Minister, who soon afterwards resigned office (May 7, 1855). Undoubtedly, in default of Austria, urged to action by her ambition and condemned to inaction by the Germans, Napoleon III had found one ally, to give assistance. On January 26, 1855, Victor Emmanuel, persuaded by Cavour, who accepted the whole responsibility for the deed, made France and England the gratuitous present of the small but valiant army under La Marmora, which immediately sailed for the Crimea, in the uncertain hope of some far distant gain. It was high time that such a reinforcement should come to support the feeble attack of the Allies upon the hitherto impregnable defences of Sebastopol. Tsar Nicholas had died on March 2, 1855, of grief at the invasion of Russia; and in Paris the growing disappointment caused by the long delay in scoring a decisive victory greatly annoyed the Emperor. The Republicans and Royalists were turning it to account. There was a moment in which he wondered' whether he would not prefer to a continuance of the war a peace which Austria, with the help of Drouin de Lhuys, might arrange for him by some concessions. He would perhaps have given way, if Palmerston had not, in April 1855, by his proverbial obstinacy put fresh strength into his resolution. Then, after determining on war to the bitter end, and after talking in the spring of going to the Crimea and taking command of the Allied forces, he gave up the idea under the pressure of his intimates and of England, and contented himself with transferring the supreme command from Canrobert to the more energetic Pelissier, who might be reckoned on to take the offensive with greater boldness and success (May 16). i] Fall of Sebastopol 43 On May 16 and June 18, 1855, Pelissier again made fruitless attacks with the division under Bosquet upon the works constructed by Todleben round the Malakoff; and later on at the Tchernaya and at the bridge of Traktir he had to repel the forces sent by the new Tsar, Alexander II, under Gortchakoff to the assistance of Sebastopol; in all these engagements the aid of the Piedmontese was invaluable. Their cooperation and the voluntary sacrifices they made aUowed the Allies to continue their efforts ; after a furious bombardment and a successful attack by MacMahon on the Malakoff (September 8) the Russians were compelled to evacuate Sebastopol. For this decisive but very remote success, which brought the French more glory than real benefit, Napoleon III had called upon France to sacrifice 97,000 men, of whom 20,000 were killed in action. The last attack alone had cost the AUies 11,000 men. "AU of us, officers, generals, and privates," wrote a French colonel, "are getting sick of this ridiculous war. At any rate we should prefer that our lives and health should be of some use to our country." The Emperor tried by briUiant f£tes and by the flourishes and trumpetings of the first Universal Exhibition to divert to other matters the attention of his subjects, of whom he was asking a supplementary credit for twenty-eight millions sterUng ; and he felt the weight of his responsibility. ' On June 25 he confessed his anxiety to his Italian friend Arese, saying, " I am worried about the war ; I want some striking victories." And he permitted another confidant, de Morny, to open secret negotiations with Russia through his friend, Baron Seebach, the son-in-law of Nesselrode, who was envoy of Saxony in Paris. Palmerston on the contrary, supported by the opinion of the Queen and the English public, would have carried on the struggle, and won fresh victories over Russia ; he had good reason for saying, " When Sebastopol is taken, a new danger 44 , Early Years of the Second Empire [ch. will come in sight — the danger, not of war, but of peace." He did not succeed in escaping it, although he contemplated a great attack on Cronstadt in the Baltic in conjunction with Sweden, who hoped to get something out of it ; and, although Napoleon III urged Piedmont to take the offensive, he eagerly caught at an offer of peaceful mediation made to him by the Court of Vienna about the beginning of October 1855. The offer was transmitted to him by M. de Bour- queney, his ambassador, and contained the following con ditions, which Count Buol offered to submit to Petrograd: the restoration of the Crimea and Sebastopol to the Tsar, who should cede to the Turks a part of Bessarabia in ex change, thereby cutting himself off from aU access to the Danube, and the absolute neutralisation of the Black Sea. If the real and only object of the Allies in this war had been to keep the power of Russia by land and by sea far from Constantinople, these conditions were such as to satisfy them. By sparing Russia the humiliation of a conquest and refusing to insist on high-handedconditions, Napoleon III was preparing the ground for a durable peace on easy terms. England, being unable, as the Queen said, to resist the tendency to peace at any price that ruled in Paris, or to .continue the war alone, was fain to allow Napoleon to negotiate in the sense he desired. Bourqueney returned to Vienna from Paris on October 29, 1855, bringing with him the conditions of peace as agreed between Paris and London. Meanwhile the Ministers of the German Courts who had come to Paris for the close of the Exhibition, von Pfordten, Beust, and the Prussian General Willisen — "an entire German Congress " — encouraged NapoleOn, and backed him up in his pacific disposition. On November 14, Bourqueney and Buol settled a proposal for mediation which was at once despatched to Petrograd. This draft was specially valuable in that it contained a promise from Francis Joseph to join i] Napoleon anxious for Peace 45 forces with the Allies and declare war, in the event of the Tsar's refusal. The Austrian Court had been induced to take this step, which it had hitherto always avoided, b3? the justifi able fear that, if the Emperor of the French were forced to continue the war, he would be obliged to give it a "national object," to make it a war interesting France as a nation, by directing it towards the Rhine or Italy or Belgium. The effect was decisive. All Palmerston's efforts in December 1855 to require harder conditions of Russia, and to force the Tsar into a desperate resistance, were of no avaU against the firm resolution of Napoleon III. The Duke of Cambridge, afterwards Commander-in-Chief of the British forces, who had come to Paris to concert a plan of mUitary operations in January 1856, allowed himself to be persuaded by the Emperor of the necessity of peace. Writing on January 20, 1856, he said, "France yearns for peace above everything; and the feeling is not confined to Walewski and the Ministers ; it is shared by all classes. No doubt, the Emperor can very often do what he likes, but it is impossible for him to contend directly with a feeling so forcibly expressed, , without injuring his own position. Public opinion has much more influence and speaks much louder than is believed in England." On the other side, the Tsar was thoroughly tired of a war which brought him only disaster, while the advice he received from the German Courts inclined him to peace. He would have accepted it at once, but for the fact that, at the last moment, Austria, alarmed by the demands of the war party in England, included some of these in her proposals. At last on January 16, 1856, the Tsar, finding that Esterhazy, the Austrian ambassador, had threatened to send for his passports at once, made up his mind iri favour of peace. "On January 17 the Emperor Napoleon placarded the great news in the Stock Exchange. French Stock rose by five francs. That night many houses in 46 Early Years of the Second Empire [ch. Paris were iUuminated. People went about the streets embracing each other with tears of joy." This testimony of Baron Hiibner, taken with that of the Duke of Cambridge, throws strong light on the feelings of the French towards the Imperial Government. Any new popularity which that Government would now acquire would be due not to the Crimean war, but to the peace, a peace which it had initiated, and which gave it for some time a sort of position as European arbitrator. "Our position is admirable," writes M. de Thouvenel. All the Powers agreed in 1856 that the Congress to settle the Eastern question should be held in Paris, under the presidency of Napoleon III and Walewski. The King of Sardinia, the King of Prussia, who had taken no part in the war, and the Germanic Confederation solicited of France the favour of admission to it — so far off was that day in 1840, when France had been left out, isolated ! Indeed, the Congress of Paris might even be treated as an adequate counter-blow for the Congress of Vienna! When the French people saw the nephew of the great Emperor triumphant over the Tsar, when they watched these foreign statesmen and, Prime Ministers m esse or in posse, Gortchakoff, Orloff, Clarendon, Count Buol, Cavour, Manteuffel, accepting the hospitaUty of their sovereign, and apparently listening to his advice, they could not resist a legitimate feeUng of pride, which was thus expressed by an eye-witness: "In our national history there are periods of glory from a military point of view ; but I know of none in which our Government has been surrounded with so many marks of esteem and admira tion from outside." The Treaty of Paris, which the Congress filially settled on March 30, 1856, agreed in its main lines with the pre- , liminary conditions of February 1. The independence of Turkey, secured by the neutralisation of the Black Sea and by possession of the mouths of the Danube, and the i] The Peace of Paris 47 estabhshment of the Danubian PrincipaUties on a semi- autonomous basis, with the addition of Bessarabia to the province of Moldavia, did not amount to any important advantage to France. Napoleon III admitted as much to Queen Victoria on August 12, 1856. "Better results (he said) would certainly have been desirable; but it would be unreasonable to expect them, considering how the war was started, and how ruinously it was carried on." "We think ourselves weU off here," wrote Clarendon, "in getting a peace which is not actuaUy disgraceful." The balance of profit was certainly moderate for the number of lives lost and the forty mUlions sterling spent. The only practical good to France — and that arising rather from the Congress than from the war — was the moral advantage "of having broken up the European League which for the last fifty years had always been at hand, ready to be revived against France, and having restored her to the great European famUy, and almost to its front ranks," to use the words addressed by Baron Hubner to Napoleon in his own Court. The result was, above all, a pledge of vitality given to the Napoleonic dynasty by the war in the East, or rather by the Peace of Paris, at the precise moment in which the Empress Eugenie presented the Emperor with a son (March 16), and the Prime Ministers of the European Courts crowded round the cradle with congratulations and sympa thetic homage. How different from the circumstances attending the birth of the King of Rome on March 20, 1811 ! CHAPTER II NAPOLEON III AND THE NATIONALITIES An adventure which might have had very different con sequences, had come to an unexpectedly happy conclusion. Napoleon III might have taken advantage of this result to strengthen himself by disarming the Opposition, which had been kept in activity, especially in Paris, by the uncertainty connected with the war and by the cost of it since 1855. , His advisers, Maupas and Walewski, did indeed recommend < him to get into touch with Thiers, the chief man of the parliamentarians, proscribed on December 2, who seemed open to overtures, Emile Ollivier declares that*Napoleon 5j said afterwards, "I ought to have granted liberty after the Congress of Paris." But, seeing how he allowed his other Ministers, Persigny and Billault, to prosecute and suppress journals in Paris and in the provinces, how all his prefects and law-officers hunted down the secret societies, the working-men and the heads of the republican party, there is no reason to think that the Emperor reaUy thought of modifying the dictatorial rule, of which his famous and successful army was the main support. His thoughts were otherways directed, following up the illusions awakened by the meeting of a Congress of which he believed himself to be the destined arbiter. When he saw " all the family assembled," as he said, he thought that the moment had come to put an end to the quarrels which had divided people, sovereigns, and nations since 1815. As' ch. h] The Mind of the Emperor 49 heir of the great Emperor, whose defeat enabled Metternich, the abhorred of all persecuted peoples, to place between France and the oppressed nationalities the Europe of his creation, Napoleon III saw the day coming on which he should reahse in his own person the prophecy of his pre decessor: "The first sovereign who sincerely embraces the cause of the nations wiU make himself the head of Europe." And what else but that was he at the Congress of Paris ? His mind, which was naturaUy inclined to meditation- and dreaming, owed a good deal to other influences, besides the glorious memories of his house. Born in 1808, and banished from France early in life, he was sent by his mother, who lived at Arenenberg in German Switzerland, to a college at Augsburg ; there he received a deep imprint of German Unes of thought, as well as a German accent which remained with him all his life. "He is as little French as possible, and is more like a German," said Queen Victoria, who also remarked on his partiality for German literature. From this education, as well as from the lectures of the philologists Philippe Lebas and Hase, he had acquired a marked taste for archaeology, which was strengthened during his visits to Italy, and for the German theories on the origin and rights of nationalities and lan guages, which he shared with his friend and former fellow- student?Mme Hortense Cornu, through whom the scholars from beyond the Rhine, Ritschl, Dubner, and Mommsen, were introduced to the Court of the Tuileries. These were throughout his life his favourite pursuits; and, thus sur rounded, he acquired the habit of dreaming of an "inter- nationality of letters and arts " that would help the cause of science, and the claims of the various Teutonic, Italian, and Rumanian races which the revolutions of 1848 had raised, but not satisfied; a dream which was to ruin him and France with him. After March 6, 1856, Queen Victoria and her advisers B. 11. 4 50 Napoleon III and the Nationalities [ch. suspected him of wanting to change the Conference of Paris into a European Congress "for the revision of treaties and of the political map of Europe." As soon as he admitted the Prussian envoy to the meetings, the impression was created that Prussia would have his support in getting a revenge for Olmiitz. Bismarck pointed out to his sovereign the necessity of making some advances himself. Cavour, with the assistance of Italians who had secret admission to the Tuileries, Nigra, Arese, and Vimercati, had taken his seat, thanks to the Emperor, by the side of the representatives of the Great Powers. "Poor Italy," said Napoleon to Count Orloff at the outset of the Conference, "cannot something be done for her?" For a moment he thought of giving the Danubian Principalities to Austria in return for her cession of Lombardy and Venetia to Piedmont. On Count Buol's refusal to consider this, he suggested the exchange of the Duchy of Parma against the provinces which would have been ruled by the Duchess of Parma if she had married Prince Carignano. These attempts having come to naught, he could afford the Italian nothing but hopes, but these he gave very distinctly. He had worked with equal activity in favour of the claims of the Danubian Principalities, demanding for them inde pendence and unification. "The great fault of the Congress of Vienna," he said to Orloff on March 6, 1856, "was that it took account of the interests of sovereigns, and not of those of races." All he could obtain for the Rumanians of the future was the right to be consulted on the position of the frontiers fixed by the Congress between the two provinces, the Conference refusing to sanction their union under one prince. As to Poland, he mentioned it to the Russians at the beginning of the Conference, with the same warmth, but without a chance of being listened to. It was speciaUy on the morrow of the Treaty of Paris, that he made his great effort to induce Europe to "settle Il] The Italian Question in 1856 51 in Congress the questions which might shortly endanger peace." On April 8, 1856, Walewski was instructed to invite the plenipotentiaries to draw up a code for maritime warfare to complete and explain the first elements of a code formulated in 1780. Next, he drew their attention to the state of Greece, to the miseries of Italy, devastated by the excesses of the King of Naples and given as a prey to foreign soldiery by the Pope, and finally to the licence of the Press of Belgium against himself. The Emperor was always deluding himself with the idea that persuasion and diplorriatic protocols could settle changes of territories and allegiance without recourse to arms. The King of Sardinia and his Minister Cavour strove to bring up the Italian question for settlement, being anxious to accomplish the unity of Italy and the aggrandisement of the House of Savoy; but they failed against the absolute and haughty refusal of Austria; they were not assisted either by the vague encouragement of Clarendon or the tepid support of Walewski. The representative of Russia forbade the mention of even the name of Poland. Turkey and Austria would not hear of the union of the Rumanian race. Thus the conversations arranged by Napoleon had served no purpose but to awaken hopes and ambitions which could not be satisfied. Cavour in his disgust talked of starting war in Italy ; and the Rumanians were arming. In April Bismarck wrote a long memorandum at Frankfort for the use of his King, on the near necessity for taking action in Germany. Gortchakoff, who was soon to become Chancellor, and his master Alexander II, were preparing to get their revenge "by the help of Katkoff and Slavism. Metternich, who was watching from his retirement this awakening of nationalities, encouraged by Napoleon III and utilised by the other sovereigns, wrote on May 24, " This may be peace, but it is not the peace that carries order with it." Napoleon III would have done better had he, instead 4—2 -52 Napoleon III and the Nationalities [ch. of creating these foreign complications, turned his attention to the conditions affecting his administration at home. One of his most clear-sighted law-officers had suggested as much in a report made in 1855 on the position of the Empire. "The democratic party is not so much converted as under constraint ; the Legitimists are strongly organised ; they have the support of the Clergy, and enrol artisans and young people in their charitable associations." The elections of June 22, 1857, m spite of the official pressure of the prefects, introduced into the Legislative Body two Catholics elected in the Nord without the assistance of the Government, Brame and Plichon, four Republicans, Carnot, Goudchaux, Ollivier, and Darimon, elected in Paris, and one Republican, Henon, elected at Lyons. The Democrats made demonstrations at the funerals of Beranger and Cavaignac,-; growing bolder as the Catholics grew more importunate. • "A sad sight," said the" Emperor Napoleon III, when the anxieties caused by this internal opposition prevented his following up his dream of European mediation. It was especially from the side of Austria that this dream met with senous hindrance. Francis Joseph, secretly supported by Turkey under Lord Stratford de Redcliffe's encouragement, had kept up its military occupation of the Danubian Principalities in 1856 in order to prevent any free expression of opinion on the claims of Rumania in the approaching elections. Austria and Turkey had succeeded in excluding nine-tenths of the Rumanians from the register for the election held on June 15, 1857. The Tsar, to whose coronation Napoleon had sent M. de Morny as his envoy, offered him an alliance against these practices which Morny thought would be useful. Between this offer and the conditions of his understanding with England, Napoleon was seriously embarrasses. A question of _boundary-lines in the territory of Bolgrad in Bessarabia, which England refused to recognise as Russian, had obliged Napoleon to n] Rumania and Italy 53 call another conference in Paris in January 1857 and shown him what are the difficulties of an arbitrator. He visited Osborne on August 6, 1857, then went on to Wildbad and Stuttgart in Wiirttemberg, in order to convince Queen Victoria on the one hand, and Alexander II on the other, of the necessity for a pacific settlement of the question of Rumanian nationality, "and indeed of all nationalities," as he said to Prince Albert. By dint of persistence, he succeeded in quashing the Rumanian elections, in pro curing the recaU of Lord Stratford de Redcliffe from Con stantinople in December 1857, and in getting leave to convoke another Congress, in Paris in 1858, to settle the government of the Rumanian nation. But it was especially in Italy that the difficulty arose on the very morrow of the Congress of Paris. Cavour, having come back empty-handed, declared for a general war "to the knife." He started a national subscription for the fortification of Alessandria (Piedmont), and impressed upon his countrymen the importance of the cooperation almost promised by England and the Emperor, "to urge them to gain their independence and liberty." These menaces annoyed Austria, who on January 15, 1857, asked for explanations at Turin, and, on the refusal of Victor Emmanuel to give any, broke off diplomatic relations in March 1857. On the summons of Cavour, the Italian patriots Manin, La Farina, Pallavicini, and even Garibaldi joined the ranks under the House of Savoy with a view of forming in every province of Italy a National Society to encourage an insurrection in the Peninsula. Thus the pacific policy of Napoleon III, denounced in Turin by excited patriots prompted by French proscribed exiles, had to undergo a severe ordeal. The next thing attacked was the life of the Emperor himself. On January 14, 1858, a native of the Romagna, Orsini by name, who had escaped from an Austrian prison, 54 Napoleon III and the Nationalities [ch. threw a bomb at the carriage of Napoleon III as he was leaving the Opera, and all but succeeded in killing him and the Empress. This was the second Italian who had attacked the Emperor since the attempt of Pianori in April 1855. The impression produced on the Tuileries by this crime was very serious. It was attributed to the republican propaganda, and was used by the Ministers to remind the sovereign of the alleged weakness of his government, for lack of repressive power in the law. Decrees of the Senate were immediately passed for securing the regency to the Empress (February 1858), and for requiring candidates at elections to swear fidelity to the Imperial Government (February 17). Finally on - February 27, the Legislative Body passed, in spite of the protests of Emile Ollivier, the Marquis de Pierre, Legrand and twenty-one other deputies, a Law of General Security, which Morny reported to the House. It was an unadulterated Law of Public Safety to suit the exceptional circumstances. It imposed severe penalties upon "anyone who personally or by correspondence had attempted to disturb the public peace, or to stir up hatred or contempt of the Imperial Government"; and it authorised "the internment or de portation of suspected persons without trial, as a measure of security." But the Government had not waited for the passing of the law. On February 7, 1858, General Espinasse, - one of the most daring of the actors in the coup d'etat, took the place of Billault, as Minister of the Interior and of General Police. On February 8 he requested the prefects "to strike terror into the wicked" by arresting from five to twenty suspects from among the artisans' secret societies and acknowledged Republicans. These measures resulted in the arrest, detention, capture, and banishment of nearly 2000 victims. Republican and Legitimist journals like the Revue de Paris and the Spectateur were suppressed. Next, the Emperor decided, on the report of Marshal Vaillant ii] Orsini's Attempt 55 (January 28), to divide France into five military commands, to be held by Marshals residing in Paris, Nancy, Lyons, Toulouse, and Tours. "The army received more and more attention at the Tuileries," said Baron Hubner, "as the sole real foundation of the Imperial throne." And in con nexion with all these measures the same impartial witness added, "Universal Suffrage having failed the Emperor, in so far as he had not succeeded in muzzling it nor in enlisting it in his service, he had perforce to look elsewhere for the main support of his power. The moment was a favourable one for consolidating the established order of things." What then took place at the council-board of the Emperor, at this moment when he was adopting the most rigorous measures against the " Reds," and was asking Victor Emmanuel and Palmerston to join him in his action against the assassins who had taken refuge in their countries? On February 27, the very day on which he promulgated the Law of General Security, the Moniteur de I'Empire reported the speech of Jules Favre, a Republican of mark, deUvered the previous day in defence of Orsini, whom he represented to the court as a patriot gone astray. And along with the speech was reported a letter from Orsini delivered to Napoleon III by Pietri, the Lieutenant of Police, who had visited him in his prison. " It was the last will and testament of this assassin (said Baron Hubner), who has been transformed by the sentence of the Assize Court into a political martyr, shedding his blood for the same cause that Louis Napoleon once defended and is betraying to-day." "I pray your Majesty (wrote Orsini) to remember that, so long as Italy is not independent, the tranquillity of Europe, no less than that of your Majesty, is a mere chimera. ' ' ; "There is something obscure about this affair, but the light will come," added the Austrian ambassador, who had for a moment thought of making a formal protest against the publication of the letter. Why should Napoleon III, who 56 Napoleon III and the Nationalities [ch. treated with such severity the French who were innocent of the deed, cast about for excuses for the Italian who dealt the murderous blow? and why should the Empress herself have implored with tears for. his pardon on the previous day ? Why did he treat the Repubhcans of France as brigands, and the disciple of Mazzini as a hero? We know why to-day. On February 20, 1858, he had taken leave of Delia Rocca, an aide-de-camp of Victor Emmanuel who had come to Paris with his master's apologies for declining to pass a Law of General Security in his dominions ; and, in dis missing him, he had used these significant words: "In case ' of war with Austria, your King, my faithful ally, wUl find me by his side with imposing forces. TeU M. de Cavour to write to me." On the day after this, Pietri visited Orsini in prison, and dictated to him his dying appeal on behalf of his beloved Italy. When finaUy on April 7, the Gazette of Piedmont published on its own account, at the invitation of Napoleon, the testament of Orsini together with a second letter of his addressed to Napoleon on the eve of his execu tion, Cavour had good reason for shouting with delight, "This is a direct attack upon Austria, not by Piedmont, but by France." In the Courts of London and Brussels the first inclination was to attribute Napoleon's indulgence to fear. "He wanted a sudden shock in Italy, to serve him as a lightning- conductor," said Leopold I. The Times of March 15 was careful to publish that Napoleon III had no longer the courage to drive about Paris without a strong escort, and no longer dared to drive his phaeton in the Champs Elysees. On that very day he appeared there with General Niel, driving himself, and without escort. On AprU 5, at the inauguration of the Boulevard Sebastopol, he appeared on horse-back twenty paces in front of his staff before an applauding crowd. These actions showed that he felt no n] France and Austria 57 fear for himself, but the dread of a crime directed against his dynasty and anxiety for the future of his son may have contributed' to modify his policy with regard to Italy^ But we must remember that, what with the diplomatic rupture between Victor Emmanuel and Austria in 1857, and his own knowledge and approval of Cavour's desire to start his War of Independence at the earliest possible date, Napoleon III was himself inclined to break with the Court of Vienna, whose attitude towards himself ever since the Congress had been frankly hostile. " The ill-humour of the Emperor towards us," wrote Baron Hubner, "has been growing throughout the year, and looks as if it would break out towards the end of it. He is angry with us for spoiling his opportunity of recasting the map of Europe." ~ All the agents of the national party in Italy were then ceaselessly intriguing round him, among others a fair Italian lady, Castiglione by name, who was the rage in the year 1857, and "caused jealousy in exalted members of the Court circle"; also Prince Jerome Bonaparte, whose sister Mathilde had been heard to say to the Italian Marquis della Rocca with enthusiasm, "We adore you." But Italian aspirations would not be satisfied by a challenge addressed to Austria alone; it must apply also to all the princes of the Peninsula, including the Pope, that "unique" Sovereign, and with him to the Catholics of France, and, particularly, to the Empress and her friends. The natural indecision of Napoleon, drawn hither and thither by the opposing forces of his wife and his cousin, his French Ministers and his Itahan confidants, led him to see in Orsini's attack a way to compel the Empress, and after her aU Catholic .opinion, to accept the intervention demanded by Cavour. He succeeded beyond all his hopes. The Empress became infatuated for the patriot-assassin, dropped a tear over his misfortune, and wanted to visit him in the Conciergerie; "a regular fascination," said the disgusted 58 Napoleon III and the Nationalities [ch. Walewski. From that day forth, as she said in writing to Count Arese, she worked hard to "Italianise herself." Napoleon III was now becoming estranged from the Holy See; and after the month of April 1858, the strongest support of his dynasty might be said to be the Palais Royal, where Prince Napoleon gathered together the Liberal con tributors to the Siecle, Havin, Bixio, and Henri Martin, who remained true to their revolutionary ideal. "Napoleon is becoming a revolutionist," said Count Buol in Vienna; and yet he did not know, nor did Walewski, the Emperor's first Minister, know, that in the month of May Cavour received at Turin a visit from Dr Conneau, Napoleon's physician and friend, the son of an Italian mother, bringing him a special invitation to meet the Emperor at Plombieres. "The drama is approaching its solution," wrote Cavour in telling his friends that he was going to Switzerland in the summer. "None of us could believe, neither Fould, nor Walewski, nor Drouin der Lhuys, nor I," wrote Baron Hubner, "that this man, after reaching the highest pinnacle of greatness, could, short of being seized with gambler's madness, have seriously thought of plunging into new adventures." His health was beginning to suffer; and he had other reasons for going to Plombieres than the wish to arrange this business with Cavour. His authority was losing popularity in the interior of the Empire, and some of his most devoted and confident friends were again- conceiving doubts as to the permanency of his rule. " Napoleon must dread a foreign war," said Baron Hubner in July 1857; on the contrary, he wanted one. "What has M. de Cavour been doing at Plombieres?" asked the Austrian envoy of M. Walewski, who could not tell him. When Napoleon returned from taking the waters, he assured his Minister that he had granted nothing and promised nothing. The Italian journals in Cavour's confidence asserted the contrary, and with truth. The ii] The Meeting at Plombieres 59 interview at Plombieres had settled the conditions and the final object of Franco-Italian action; to avoid alarming Europe, the action was to be limited to the valley of the Po, from which the Austrians were to be driven by a rising of the inhabitants of Lombardy, the Romagna, and Venetia, united under the crown of Sardinia. The main effort would be made by France, whose recompense was to be the extension of its frontier to the Alps, and the acquisition of Savoy and perhaps of Nice, although Cavour had so far refused to give up the city where Garibaldi was born. The whole negotiation was to be guaranteed and confirmed by the marriage of Prince Jerome to Clotilde, the daughter of Victor Emmanuel, which Napoleon now solicited. As soon as Cavour, on his return, had persuaded the King to sacrifice his daughter to a man twenty years older than herself, and "better than his reputation," as the Emperor said, the understanding was complete. It was signed on December 10, 1858, and a formal promise was then added of the cession of Nice as well as Savoy. For six months Napoleon III kept silence as to his promises, even to his Ministers; he wanted to sound the European Courts. On August 4 he received Queen Victoria at Cherbourg, and two months later he saw Clarendon at Compiegne ; to both he asserted his pacific intentions, but did not disguise his wish to embark on the regeneration of Italy. In September he sent Prince Jerome to Warsaw to get the official countenance of the Tsar and Gortchakoff, by suggesting hopes of their annexing Galicia ; but nowhere could he get the cooperation and acquiescence that he wanted. And still the hardest but the most necessary task remained — that of inducing the French people to adopt this war, on which they had not been consulted, and of which they were afraid. In the business world and the smaller bourgeoisie Napoleon detected a very distinct aversion from any new military adventures. 60 Napoleon III and the Nationalities [ch. To make head against this objection, he suddenly be thought himself of seeking the support, by an unexpected reversal of policy, of the Liberals whom he had been harrying and hunting for the last seven years, and whose sympathy for Italy and hatred of Austria he knew fuU well. On June 14, 1858, he put an end to the extraordinary powers conferred upon General Espinasse, and replaced him at the Ministry of the Interior by Delangle. The Press re covered a liberty that it had forgotten. Under the influence and inspiration of Prince Napoleon, who could command the Presse and the Siecle, it made use of its liberty to denounce with violence the crimes of absolutist monarchs in general, and Austria in particular, so as to accustom the public ear to the sound. The Prince himself "moved heaven and earth to urge on a war." Hubner was informed that he worked the Departments, the prefects, and the army; and his adjurations were bearing fruit, not in the industrial classes, but in the lowest orders of the people and in the army. This was just at the time when Napoleon, having signed the treaty of aUiance with Sardinia, and thus burnt his boats, decided to acquaint Walewski with the fact, at the end of December. On January 1, 1859, ne informed France and Europe, by the words he addressed to Baron Hubner at his New Year's reception of the ambassadors, that "his relations with Austria were not- as satisfactory as they had been heretofore." "After all his secret politics, he was beginning," said Hubner, " to transact them coram. populo." On January 9 the French journals made a general attack upon Austria, declaring that Europe must be delivered from this policy of petty annoyance which threatened her peace. The public began to get accustomed to the idea of the necessity of a war ; and Prince Napoleon went to Turin to marry the Princess Clotilde. The French funds went down; but Napoleon said to the Spanish ambassador, ii] Congress or Wtar 61 "the Stock Exchange is against me, but I have .France with me." Suddenly, about the middle of January, new obstacles to the Emperor's schemes arose. WhUe preparations were being made at Turin for the marriage of Prince Napoleon, and General Niel was arranging a military agreement with La Marmora on January 18 for the mobilisation of the Piedmontese army, the Empress had returned to her objections to the Italian venture, and was now all for peace. Whether it was for the dynasty or for the Papacy that she feared the effect of an unpopular war, her salon became the centre of a successful effort to enlist the best servants of the Empire, Persigny, Walewski, Pelissier, VaiUant, and Castellane in the cause of peace. To over come the resistance of these men, Napoleon III appealed to pubUc opinion in a pamphlet entitled Napoleon III et la Guerre, the substance of which he dictated on February 3 to a political writer of the day, the Vicomte de La Gueronniere. At the same time he did his best to convince his Ministers, and obtain their approval -of a war with Austria. But the opposition of his own Court was strongly reinforced by the policy of the English Government, who were very anxious to prevent this war. It was a wide-spread opinion in Great Britain — an opinion shared-by the Queen — that the venture , proposed by Napoleon would work out in compensating Russia for her defeat in the East, and that there was a secret understanding between Russia and the Emperor. The Queen wrote Napoleon III a letter, dictated by her Prime. Minister, Lord Derby (February 3), expressing her "intense desire for the maintenance of peace in Europe." And, with that view, her Ministers despatched the British ambassador in Paris, Lord Cowley, whose offers of mediation Morny and Walewski were supporting at the Tvuteries, to Vienna, in order to influence the Austrian Government. LoTd-Cpwlejy. writing from Paris on February 6, reported 62 Napoleon III and the Nationalities [cr. "a great change for the better. The Queen's letter has produced an excellent effect." In short, the Emperor had been unable to resist this message of peace and conciliation ; he could only come back to his beloved dream and hope for a Congress to settle the future of Italy. On March 3, a note in the Moniteur announced a reopening of pacific negotia tions. "If France is going to the Congress with those ideas, we are ruined for ever," wrote Cavour on March 30 to his friends, whom he had called to arms a month earlier. Prince Napoleon on March 7 resigned all his offices in dis gust, and advised Cavour to come and make one more attack on the Emperor in person. Cavour came, begged, implored, all in vain; Napoleon was not to be moved. He was only too glad to keep his promises without drawing his sword. All he did was to insist upon Austria withdraw ing her demand for the disarmament of Sardinia before taking her seat in the Congress. His programme was beginning to be realised, thanks to the diplomacy of Gort- ichakoff and of the Tory Ministry of Queen Victoria. On April 20, 1859, the Moniteur again spoke, to announce, with evident satisfaction, the approaching Congress which was to decide the fate of Italy. "There can be no question of war with Austria," said the Emperor to his intimates, "for another five years." The discharge of his debt to the Italians, without risking his own fortunes in France, had been his precise object for the last three years. He was still master of France, and could do as he would with the army, the resources of the State, and the loyalty of the masses, which had not yet been affected by the dislike and distrust felt in the higher classes or by the political opposition in Paris. He ruled in the Tuileries, the central figure of a brilliant Court which desired peace, even more than he did himself, for the sake of its amuse ments and its safety. Then Austria, by a sudden decision, precipitated "the war il] Austria decides on War 63 which France with the rest of Europe fondly believed to have been averted. On April 10 the Emperor Francis Joseph called up his reserves, hurried on his mUitary pre parations, and sent another army corps into Italy. On April 26, having the-support of his mobilised forces, he sent Victor Emmanuel a haughty summons either to lay down his arms or to break off relations. A shout of joy arose from aU the patriots of Turin, Venice, and Florence. "We will open an Italian parliament next year," said Cavour; whUe on the west of the Alps Napoleon III ceased to hesitate. Five French army corps were mobilised by April 28. There was no difficulty in proving to the nation that she was bound, by the action of Austria, by a sense of her own dignity, by loyalty to her ally,- to undertake this task. "Moderation," said the Emperor, "has been my rule ; now energy is my duty. If France draws the sword, it is not to conquer, but to liberate." Even the republican deputies joined in cheering these words in the Legislative Body ; and the public of Paris applauded the Emperor when he decided on May 10, 1859, to take personal command of this crusade for the liberty of nationalities. Two months later, in the full flush of victory, his path was stopped by an obstacle which he could not foresee at the outset. When, on January 28, he pointed out the favourable aspects of his plan to his Ministers in order to decide them in his favour, he had reckoned on a quiet Germany, the neutrality of Prussia, and even the possibility of an alliance with her against Austria. But at the first sounds of con flict, the Germans, those of the smaller Courts no less than the Prussian Ministers, carried away by a torrent of national enthusiasm and of hatred for the French, began to demon strate in favour of Austria. It was on the assistance of this enthusiasm and this hatred that Francis Joseph had reckoned when he decided so suddenly on war. Yet, after all, he was mistaken in counting on Prussia. At Berlin, 64 Napoleon III and the Nationalities [ch. WiUiam, the Prince Regent, and his Ministers were awaiting the defeat of Austria to seize the reins in her stead, and prepare to take up the hegemony of Germany. As soon as the Austrian forces had been defeated by Napoleon at Montebello on May 20, at Palestro on May 31, at Magenta on June 4, and expelled from the Milanese territory, Prussia mobilised six army corps, and by June 4 had made every arrangement for a national war. "We missed it," said Bismarck, "by a hair's breadth." Thus after a war in Italy, Napoleon had suddenly to face the prospect of another on the Rhine. The risk was serious. The victory of Magenta, as well as the later one at Solferino, had been dearly bought, indeed at certain moments had been actually doubtful. The French generals did not conceal their weariness, and their doubts of the success of the effort requisite to oust Austria from the as yet untouched Venetia. Napoleon III resolved to make peace. He first attempted to secure the mediation of England, and applied through Persigny to Lord John Russell and to Palmerston, who had returned to power in June. The Emperor's request was refused by the Ministers, somewhat against their own judgment, on the personal instructions of Queen Victoria, or rather of her husband Prince Albert who favoured at heart the demands of the German patriots and the pre visions of Prussian policy, and would have preferred that the Emperor of the French should remain in his Italian entanglements. Napoleon escaped from these by a direct arrangement with Austria. On July 6 he sent his confidant, General Fleury, to request an armistice of Francis Joseph, who consented almost at once (July 8). So far, it was only a truce. But three days later the two Emperors met at Villafranca, both equally uneasy about the movements of Germany, and made the necessary reciprocal concessions. Francis Joseph gave up Lombardy to Napoleon to be trans ferred to Victor Emmanuel; and Napoleon gave up the ii] Villafranca and the Peace of Zurich 65 idea of occupying Venetia, of which Francis Joseph was to remain master. They agreed to the convocation of a Congress. at Zurich to turn these rapidly signed preliminaries into a definitive Treaty of Peace, to set up an Italian Con federation, with the Pope as Honorary President, and to force the Italian sovereigns, including the Pope, to accept certain liberal reforms. Victor Emmanuel acquiesced in the decision of his ally in spite of Cavour, who resigned his office (July 13). The war of Italy had come to an end in three months. Like the war in the East, it had brought no profit to France. Napoleon had failed to keep his promise to the Italians to set free the whole north of the Peninsula, and had therefore to forgo any claim to the cession of Savoy and Nice. He was almost compelled to admit in his addresses to his Legislative Assemblies that he had been stopped by "the fear of a war on the Rhine, and had been fain to content himself " with the exhibition of the military power of France and the enlargement- of the monarchy of Savoy. "Have all our efforts and sacrifices then been a pure loss to us?" No, he replied; but in fact he only put the question himself to prevent others putting it to him. If the only fruit of the sacrifices asked of the French nation was the measure of liberty obtained for the Italians, a trifling one after all, how could the Empire go on obsti nately refusing the same to the French? " My neighbour is creating danger for himself," said Queen Victoria, "by giving the Italians a constitutional government. The French wUl say, Are we of less account than Italians, that you put us off with a little less Uberty ? " Napoleon found himself compeUed by necessity to pardon the men whose pretended crimes against society had been the excuse and justification of his dictatorship on December 2. On August 17, 1859, a decree of amnesty was published, ( b. 11. s 66 Napoleon III and the Nationalities [ch. permitting all the victims of the Imperial police to return to their country, without imposing any conditions. Some of them, as Madier de Montjau, Edgar Quinet, Schcelcher, and Victor Hugo, refused to accept the pardon, and condemned themselves to voluntary exile. The greater part returned, saying, like Felix Pyat, "The amnesty is one way of furthering the Empire; why should it not do the same for Liberty?" The necessity in which the Emperor stood of reckoning with the chiefs of Democracy became so marked that Morny, as President of the Legis lative Body, began to advise the adoption of some parlia mentary reforms, such as the right of moving amendments, publication of the debates, and greater freedom in the discussion of the Budget. Very soon, indeed, Napoleon was forced, not to offer pardons to the Democrats, but almost to make advances to them. Now that they had acquired some freedom of speech, he wanted to use their voices against those of the Catholics and the eloquence of Montalembert, the recognised chief of a great opposition party, which took its tone from the bishops. The preliminaries of Villafranca had not succeeded in bridling for long the energies of the Italian patriots, - encouraged by the war in Lombardy. Working in secret accord with Cavour and Victor Emmanuel, Farini pro claimed himself dictator at Modena on August 15, and Ricasoli at Florence on August 20, while others stirred up Bologna and the Romagna ; all declaring their union with the monarchy of Savoy, and threatening to crown their patriotic campaign by a decisive attack on 'the Papacy. " Without Rome," said Ricasoli, " Italy is nothing ! " From that day forth Rome was marked as the object and aim of that struggle for Liberty and Unity. Under the influence of his Italian friends, Napoleon III gave Cavour to under stand that he should not oppose the ardour of Italian patriots so long as Rome remained outside their attacks ii] Italy and the Far East by (August and September 1859). In this crisis it was hard to say which would win, the Italian nation or the Holy See. After the month of September 1857, the Catholics of France asked that question of themselves with some anxiety, and also asked it of the Emperor. Since the Roman expedition and the affair of the Holy Places they had flattered themselves that they had been carrying out a grand scheme for the expansion of Christianity, with the assistance of the Imperial army and navy. Napoleon had certainly disappointed them by failing to use the Crimean war as a lever for the deliverance and re-union of the Churches of the East, as de Falloux desired. But the Chinese war, undertaken in company with the English late in 1857, which secured the Christian Missions by the Treaty of Tientsin (June 26, 1858), did something to pacify the mal contents ; while the Indo-Chinese expedition of September 1858, which was brought about for similar reasons, the treaty with Japan of October 9, 1858, and the crusade which was in preparation at the end of 1859 Ior the Maronites of Syria, aU assisted to satisfy the aspirations of French Catholics. They might very well believe that their Sovereign was working for the defence of the Roman Church and its progress among the Infidels, and that he had whole heartedly accepted the splendid office of Patron of the Catholic Rite which they were ceaselessly offering him. Suddenly a revolution in Italy, for which he was respon sible, threatened the domain of St Peter with a tempest even more terrible than that of 1849, in that now not the Romans only but the whole Italian nation demanded its destruction. Hereupon sundry fiery bishops, Mgr Pie of Poitiers, Dupanloup of Orleans, and Donnet of Bordeaux, issued charges to their flocks, which were published and com mented on in the Univers by Louis Veuillot with his usual violence. Many of the bishops, and Veuillot himself, had 68 Napoleon III and the Nationalities [ch. at first found grave fault with the attitude of opposition to the Emperor adopted by Montalembert and de Falloux. They now admitted their mistake, and invited all Catholics to unite without delay for the defence of the Papacy. Their wrath and their fears increased when they read the pamphlet entitled Le Pape et le Congres which the Emperor had dictated to his hack-writers, and in which a "good Catholic" advises Pius IX to make the necessary concessions, to abandon the Romagnas, and to confine his jurisdiction to Rome only. On the next day, December 23, 1859, Mgr Dupanloup and Montalembert hastily published an answer, entitled Lettre d un Catholique, which called upon the Emperor to take up arms, as he had done in 1849. The ball was thus started; Pontifical briefs, appeals frorh the Pope to General Goyon the commander of the French forces in Rome, episcopal' charges, articles in newspapers and reviews followed. To meet these angry passions, and to escape from these demands, all that Napoleon could do was to restore the right of free speech, free pen, and free protest to the French supporters of Italian independence, who objected to take the part of the Pope in 1859 as much as in 1849. Having allowed liberty to the Catholics at a time when aU liberty was suppressed in France, he was obliged, as soon as these began to threaten his power, to make equal concessions to the Democrats. From that day onwards Napoleon III had to admit that his authority was not strong enough of itself to decide the policy of the nation without its assent. Thus the Constitution of 1852, which made him the elected representative — practically the sole elected representatiye — of Democracy and thereby the master of France, received a shrewd blow. The more the Italian difficulty developed, the more manifest became these results of it. At the end of 1859 Napoleon recognised the fact that the understanding be- li] Developments in Italy 69 tween the King and Cavour on one side and the patriotic insurgents of Florence, Bologna, and Modena on the other, extinguished for ever his idea of an Italian Confederation. Nor was a Congress possible; the thing was done, and Europe had only to accept it. In January i860, Napoleon, being unable to obtain Walewski's assent, asked for his resignation, and summoned M. de Thouvenel in "his place. In October 1859, ne sent a secret agent, M. de Favel, a Republican of long standing, to Ricasoli in Florence, to assure him- that he accepted the Kingdom of Italy. He had no sooner definitively signed the Peace of Zurich with Austria on November n, 1859, than he began to negotiate an understanding with Victor Emmanuel, which was formaUy executed in January i860 after the return of Cavour to the Ministry. He then was very insistent in announcing to France, and to Europe generally, that he demanded the cession of Nice and Savoy as the price of his consent to the aggrandisement of the kingdom of Sardinia. "The most elementary maxims of political prudedce require France not to give her consent to the formation of a kingdom of ten million souls just outside her frontiers without taking steps to secure her own safety. ' ' The people were consulted : those on his side of the Alps joined France; those beyond them annexed themselves to Italy. An Italian Parliament met at Turin on April 2, i860, and ratified the understanding between Napoleon and Thouvenel on one side and Victor Emmanuel and Cavour on the other. In spite of the entreaties of the Catholic party that he should undertake once more the defence of the Holy See, now robbed of the Legations, and threatened in Rome itself, Napoleon III announced on May 11, i860, his intention of withdrawing his troops from Rome; and on May 12 he settled with Pius IX the conditions on which they were to be recalled. The Pope, under the direction of Lamoriciere, was to set on foot an Army of the Faithful, 70 Napoleon III and the Nationalities [ch. Pontifical Zouaves, recruited mainly from the ranks of the French and Belgian nobility. As this arrangement elicited criticism from the clerical opposition in Paris, the Govern ment was obliged to tolerate similar criticism from its republican adversaries, known as the "Five." It was long since speeches had been heard like those of EmUe Ollivier, Henon and Jules Favre, which were simply heckUngs of the Government on all matters, financial and military. Garibaldi's unexpected attack on the kingdom of Naples still further precipitated events. The intrigues of the Mazzinians, and of Crispi in particular, had combined with the obstinate despotism of Francis II and his Minister Statella to provoke a revolt at Palermo. Garibaldi em barked at Genoa at the head of his Thousand, volunteers recruited throughout Italy and Europe for a revolutionary crusade. On May 17 he landed at Marsala, and within a month had made himself master of Sicily. But the libera tion of Sicily even with the secret consent of Victor Emmanuel was not the main object of the expedition. It was Mazzini's counterblow to the King of Naples and the Pope at one stroke. Garibaldi carried it out without delays or hindrances. On August 20 he was beyond the Straits of Messina, and occupied Naples in the name of Victor Emmanuel on September 8 ; he then said to Elliot, the English envoy, "Rome is an Italian city, and neither Emperor nor any other man has the right to forbid me to go thither." Napoleon fully grasped the bearing of this threat levelled at the Holy See. • At the moment of embarcation he had ordered his troops to remain in Rome, but he no longer saw his way to make use of them as in 1849. Neither the appeals of the King of Naples, who had taken refuge at Gaeta, nor the reproaches of the Pope could decide him to begin a struggle involving all sorts of complications ; he refused to have " a war against Italy on the morrow of a II J Garibaldi, Naples, and the Pope 71 war on behalf of Italy" (September 23). He left to Victor Emmanuel and Cavour the task of sparing the Pope the humiliation and danger of an attack upon Rome by Gari baldi. The Piedmontese Government ordered its soldiers to enter the Pontifical territory on September 10, so as to reach the Catholic city before Garibaldi. As a reward for the services that he was about to render to the Papacy against the Revolution, the King at once awarded himself the Marches and Umbria, without listening to the indignant protests of Pius IX, of all Catholic Europe, and even of the Tsar. He was positive that the French garrison of Rome under General Goyon would not actively oppose the ItaUan forces under General Cialdini; in fact Cialdini himself, when visiting Chambery on August 27, 1859, in the company of Farini and Count Arese, had received from Napoleon secret assurances to that effect. Lamoriciere and his volunteers offered a very feeble obstacle to the schemes of Cavour, backed by the neutrality of Napoleon III, and were easily beaten at Castelfidardo on September 19 by Fanti, Cialdini, and Delia Rocca. Tsar Alexander and Francis Joseph attempted to start a European opposition ; but it came to nothing for the same reason, on the formal declaration of Thouvenel to the Great Powers (September 25, i860). By October 2, i860, the whole operation had been successfully carried out. The Pope was compelled to agree to the destruction of the Temporal Power in order to keep Rome, Civita Vecchia, Viterbo, Velletri, and Civita Castellana. A week later the Italian Parliament at Turin pronounced the annexation of the two SicUies and the Pontifical territories. Victor Emmanuel had avoided the threatened conflict with the revolutionary parties, whether Garibaldians, Mazzinians or Papalists, by seizing the stakes with a bold initiative which obliged them to capitulate on both sides. While reserving the question of Rome, he had 72 Napoleon III and the Nationalities [ch. made the unity of Italy a fact for the benefit of his own dynastyT and at the same time served the interests of Napoleon. De Gramont, writing from Rome to the Emperor (who agreed with him), says: "A satisfied Pope is not an absolute necessity to France; a free Pope is." Whether Pius IX was satisfied or not, his adherents in Paris were thoroughly dissatisfied, and exhibited their feelings in public meetings, and above all in the newspapers, by the constantly increasing violence of their attacks on the Emperor. The victims of Castelfidardo were glorified by the bishops as martyrs and saints. The episcopal charges reached such a pitch of violence that the Minister of the Interior was instructed to apply to them the law against dangerous publications (November 17, i860) . On December 17 the Pope delivered a memorable oration denouncing "the perfidy and treachery of the Monarch who had pretended to be the protector of the Church"; Napoleon replied by another pamphlet entitled France, Rome, and Italy and by a letter. These exhibitions of CathoUc temper induced Napoleon III to take the decisive step which would in his opinion be a sufficient counterpoise to the many Liberal motions against the Temporal. Power, against Ultramontanism, __ and in favour of the new Italy. On November 24, i860, he issued a decree authorising the Senate and the Legis lative Body to discuss the Annual Address, and directing that Ministers without portfolios should attend before them to carry on the discussion, that the deputies should have the power of moving amendments, and finaUy that a report of the debates should be officially published. "The Empire," wrote Proudhon, "has made a wheel to the left." "There is going to be a complete change in France," said Doudan. "The Emperor," added Bersot, "wiU be obliged to become more and more revolutionary." Broadly looked at, these concessions were the first elements of a Charter that ii] First Constitutional Changes 73 Napoleon III offered his subjects, thus renouncing the idea of governing, like the Bourbons after their exUe, as an absolute master; they were essentially the starting-point for a regime, which though constitutional, was not yet, and perhaps never would be, a parliamentary one, with all its weakness and dangers "of which the country knows only too much," as Troplong told the Senate. To bring this reform into practice, the Emperor put himself into the hands of the same men who had helped him to construct his dictatorship. De Morny had the chief duty, for which his attitude during the session of i860 had been a good preparation, of watching the debates in the Assemblies. "The hand of the Emperor," said he, "has opened, of his own will and accord, to restore to the country, in the midst of tranquillity and peace, a portion of the rights which she had wisely abandoned to him." Next Persigny was recalled on November 26, i860, from England, where a long term as ambassador had taught him to appreciate political liberty, and made Minister of the Interior. He surprised the prefects by his circular of December 5, i860, inviting them to "work for a recon ciliation of parties, and to induce distinguished members of former Governments to put their light and their experience at the service of the country." He made some advances towards M. de FaUoux, as well as towards Lamartine. He published a statement on December 7, i860, that "he was increasingly inclined to favour the acclimatisation of the habit of free discussion." BUlault, Magne, Baroche, Ministers without portfolios, were preparing with equal zeal to "create institutions," as Morny phrased it. However, the events in Italy and the opposition of the Catholics were not the only causes of this change of policy. "The Emperor and I have been thinking it over for some time past," said Morny to EmUe OUivier. In the year 1858 Napoleon began to feel the symptoms of a premature 74 Napoleon III and the Nationalities [ch. old age, and of the disease which tormented the last thirteen years of his life. The burden of absolute government weighed heavily upon him. He would have been glad to lighten it, and to be able to devote bimself to less heavy tasks, to his papers on army reorganisation, or his work in ancient history, that Life of Caesar which he undertook in partnership with Maury, Victor Duruy, and Mommsen, or the publication of the works of Borghesi which he had entrusted to Leon Renier. "There are moments," he once whispered to a friend, "when I feel a century old." This weariness suggested the possibility of his taking the nation into partnership, and inducing it to become at need the guardian of his dynasty. At that time the experiment seemed a safe one. The -opposition to which he appealed was essentiaUy a Parisian opposition, recruited from the Academies, from the literary world, from the bourgeoisie, Orleanist, Legitimist, and Republican, from the youth in the schools, and from the artisan centres. The peasants of France, who formed the great bulk of the nation which had given him his power, remained attached to him still, either fascinated by the Imperial legend as regilded by the victories of the Crimea and Italy, or thankful for the peace of the country. - The Treaty of Commerce with England, which Cobden, who was presented at the Tuileries by Michel Chevalier, induced the Emperor to sign in spite of the Opposition, was a real boon to the rural population. It opened the English market to the wines of France, the wheat of the province of Beauce, and the fruit of Normandy and Touraine ; while it brought in the products of English manufacture, tools, and clothing, at the lowest prices, thus benefiting both the proprietors and the labourers in rural districts. The pro vinces of France, thus enriched and supplied more bounti fully than ever, naturaUy remained indifferent to any discussions which the policy of the Emperor might provoke li] Cobden Treaty ; Parliamentary Opposition 75 in the Press or in the Assemblies. M. de Barante, speaking in Auvergne in July i8bo, described the situation thus: "Not a word is heard as to the actual state of affairs; and people are sUent, not from fear of committing them selves, but because they have nothing to say ; they take no interest in the events of the day. It is 'useless to go on saying that France is a difficult country to govern." The only voice that still knew how to awaken the great mass of the nation was that of the Emperor, confident in his power of bringing them over to his views, and in the willingness of this democracy (which was at the same time, to use the phrase of Bersot, his public) to pass the plebiscites re quired. "Your Empire," said Emile Ollivier in 1863 to the Ministers of Napoleon III, "has for twelve years been an absolute government. I call upon you to make it a con stitutional government ; at present it is a self-contradiction. You are trying to move in two opposite directions at the same time." And it was not only to the Opposition of that day that the Imperial policy between 1861 and 1868 gave that impression. No Government has ever come under the analysis of the historian, whose actions both at home and abroad have been so lacking in coherence, whose language has been more uncertain, whose purposes have been so obscure, whose efforts to reconcile the irreconcileable have been so sterile. While the policy of Napoleon III, when the absolute master after the coup d'etat, could be easUy foretold by reference to the character and interests of the Sovereign, after i860 it became difficult to know whither it was tending. It was now no longer directed on . a system and by one simple definite idea, but sub ordinated to exterior circumstances and to the exigencies and variations of the most contradictory opinions, tossed about by contrary currents below and shifts of wind above, like a dismantled and rudderless ship before a storm. 76 Napoleon III and the Nationalities [ch. Abroad, Imperial France, on the morrow of the Italian war, which had given her two new provinces, and up to the date of the Great Exhibition of 1863, enjoyed a commanding prestige. Queen Victoria was alarmed at seeing "the Con tinent at the feet of the Emperor" ; more than one Sovereign paid him a visit ; Bismarck courted him ; nationalities came to ask for his support. At home the liberty to discuss the acts of the Government in public meetings or in the Press which had been restored, though very sparingly, to the Catholics, Liberals, and Republicans, had been sufficient to let loose the __ repressed passions of the last ten years in the Chambers, the newspapers, and the public. New re publican journals appeared, Gueroult, a Saint Simonian, editing the Opinion Nationale, Nefftzer founding the Temps, and Ganesco the Courrier du Dimanche. The Catholic papers, the Univers and the Correspondant, worked with doubled energy, while the Journal des Debats with Bersot, Prevost- Paradol, Herve, J. J. Weiss, and D'Haussonville on its staff, welcomed the young Liberals whose talents and whose dislike of the Empire won them votes, and helped the Academies in their more decorous onslaughts. In the Legislative Body, Emile Ollivier, Jules Favre, and Picard, Prince Napoleon from his seat in the Senate, Catholics such as KeUer, the Marquis de Pierre, Andre Lemercier; and Devinck gave the Ministry a very hard time. But the demand for justice and for the squaring of old accounts was pressed with special vigour by the new genera tion, which had been educated up to liberty from 1847 to 1851, the sons of Orleanists and of exUes, from the lower ranks as well as from the bourgeoisie. A band of young men whose fathers had fought Democracy under Louis Philippe now advocated universal suffrage as a way of rescuing France from the Empire — Count d'Haussonville, Victor de Broglie, the brothers de Noailles, the Due d'Ayen, the Marquis de Noailles, the Cochins, Guillaume Guizot and his brother- ii] The Press and Literature 77 in-law, "Cornelis de Witt, besides others less famous but not less zealous, who met at the Society of St Vincent de Paul, and went to the Odeon to hiss Edmond About's play the Gaetana, on account of his alleged servility (1861-2). "The young men are waking up," wrote Bersot. "The new generation," wrote Guizot with some amazement, "are quite wUling to make a bond fide experiment on Democracy : but when will all these flowers get the chance of opening?" Even the Orleans princes, both elder and younger — the Comte de Paris, and his uncles d'Aumale and Nemours — after having in 1857 finally closed the door on any attempt at fusion with the Comte de Chambord, considered the possibility of utilising the Democracy to combat the Empire. The Due d'Aumale held up the rulers of the day to scorn in his striking pamphlet addressed to the public under the title of Letters on French History (1861). Nevertheless in this younger generation, which had deter mined to shake off the yoke of the Empire, the majority did not merely give a resigned assent to Democracy, like the sons of the Orleanist bourgeoisie, but were democrats through love of liberty, by logical necessity, on principle. "The Empire," said one of them, Lafargue, "condemned us to silence and study ; we now stand before it stout of heart and strong of brain." For the Romantic School in Literature, Politics, and Art, which turned out to be one of the most important factors in French thought of the nineteenth century, the first ten years of Imperial rule had been as mischievous as the period of the Restoration had been beneficial. The Masters who initiated this movement, while differing in age and often in mental character, nearly all obeyed the same tendency. Such were Renan, who after his breach with the Church pointed out in L'Avenir de Science (1848) the relation of science to modern thought and society ; Taine, who broke away from philosophy and the University of Cousin, and 78 Napoleon III and the Nationalities [ch. laid the foundations of psychology in scientific experiment; Vacherot, Barni, Bersot, and Jules Simon, who brought back Voltaire and Rati6nalism; Renouvier, who rejuvenated the philosophy of Kant by his " neo-criticism " ; Comte, whose Positivism, as expounded by Littr6 and Wyrouboff, reads like a final judgment of Social Science based on experi ence. All of these men — scholars, philosophers, and men of learning — inculcated a return to the scientific spirit of the eighteenth century, which had been stifled by the influence of Rousseau and de Chateaubriand and by the Roman ticism which exalts passion at the expense of reason, the subjective at the expense of the. objective and scientific. In literature, Flaubert soon gave the signal by his Madame Bovary for a reaction against Romanticism. Even poetry put on a scientific character, and aimed at reproducing the general concepts of the intellect rather than emotional accidents. Among the works of Victor Hugo in exile was the Legende des Siecles, the poetry of which pointed in this direction, failing to affect the heart, but accepted by the intellect. Leconte de Lisle, in his Poemes antiques et barbares (1855-9), adopted for the matter of his poems an archaeological knowledge of religions, and, while leaving it impersonal, endowed it with form and even colour, which reproduced the perfection of the thought which gave it that form. In the drama, Ponsard and Emile Augier threw back to comedy and the satire of manners in classical form. Lastly, the humanitarian romanticism which had fascinated writers and men of action just before 1848 was now de molished and soon afterwards replaced by the syllogisms of scientific socialism, by Karl Marx and Engels, with their social system based on the observation of facts, and on historic materialism. From the addresses which were drawn up at that time by the youth in the schools we may conclude that, in taking part in this movement of ideas, they were consciously ii] fournalism and Youth 79 opening out a new era for themselves. "Our generation," they said, "is called upon to carry out a task on which the hopes of mankind depend, and which demands the con centration of every effort." Students, young barristers, physicians, and scholars formed groups of friends or class mates in cafes, Masonic Lodges, and newspaper offices, even in the gaUeries of the Chamber, where the eighteen seats reserved for the public were always occupied by the "Auditors of the Legislative Body," who attended to support the five republican deputies and to learn the ways of public life. All the coming leaders of Democracy and thought in France had thus already found their places through friend ships of school or private life. When Anatole France started an Encyclopedia of the French Revolution with Xavier Ricard, he obtained the assistance of Henri Brisson, Bancel, Massol, and Jules Claretie in bringing in "scientific politics" to prepare the way for the triumph of their pure science and logic. Certain positivist periodicals such as the Revue de Paris and the Libre Pensee brought together Naquet, Lockroy, Spuller, Clemenceau, and Marc Dufraisse. The Masonic Lodges of Paris counted among their members Floquet, Brisson, Ranc, Meline; those of Lyons suppUed Le Royer, Edouard Millaud, Andrieux, and Antonin Dubost. The prisons to which old revolutionists like Blanqui, Republicans like Pelletan, Socialists like Tridon had in •turn been sent by the Imperial police had become scholastic retreats where young Republicans could all meet, and rekindle their ardour. "One of the greatest blunders of the Empire was the locking up of Blanqui in the midst of a crowd of young men; he made his prison a preparatory School of Democracy." A constant exchange of ideas, hopes, and political programmes went on every evening at the Cafe Procope, or the Cafe de Madrid, or in the privacy of the rooms of Herold the son of the musician, or of Dreo 80 Napoleon III and the Nationalities, [ch. the son-in-law of Gamier-Pages. There you might meet and admire the eloquence, the high cultivation, and the cheeriness of Leon Gambetta with his inseparable Clement Laurier, and the well-matured and decisive judgment of Jules Ferry. There, too, other more violent souls, Ranc, Longuet, Rogeard, whose Propos de Labienus delighted the enemies of the Empire, and Jules Valles, recalled the memories of the great revolutionary epoch, with greater violence and not less hope. The one point in common among these young Democrats was their sense of the reality of politics, which saved them from the iUusions of their predecessors, their admiration of all their mighty ancestors who had held sway, "be they Danton, Robespierre, or even Hebert," and their hatred of all phrases, of all dogmas, religious or otherwise. They were neither conspirators, nor constitution-mongers, but statesmen in posse, ready not only to destroy, but to rebuild. From time to time a bolt would flash out as from a storm brewing below the horizon. There were mani festations in the lecture-rooms of the University, sympa thetic or hostile as the case might be — hostile in that of Royer the Emperor's physician, sympathetic in that of Renan, who was disliked by the authorities, or in that of Sainte Beuve, who was now in revolt after truckling for ten years ; while ovations and reverence were paid to the pro scribed or to the victims of Imperial police. Even in the public schools, mere boys would recite verses from Victor Hugo, or, like Richard, submit impertinent satires instead of copies of Latin verse, to the indignant eyes of University examiners ; or they invoked the Hour of stupendous Dawn, the sacred hour When France will claim to have her memories too ! "France has slipped out of the clutches of the Empire," said Ernest Bersot (one of the teachers of these lads) ii] " Les Cinq" : National Finance 81 even at that date — perhaps with some of the hastiness of youth. To all these forms of opposition, most of them still working in the dark, others directed by the ' ' Five " — Ollivier, Ernest Picard, Jules Favre and his friends — the Imperial regime presented two points for attack, the inadequacy of its finance, and the vacillations of its foreign policy. At the beginning of 1861, it was announced that Mires, the financier, had been imprisoned at Mazas. This worthy was the head of the Caisse Centrale des Chemins de Fer (Central Society for Financing RaUways), which was then constructing the Roman and Turkish railways, and had, by the liberal commissions that it paid, purchased supporters in all classes, both in the Imperial circles and abroad, such as the younger Baroche, a receiver of inland revenue, who committed suicide, the Prince de Polignac, and Cardinal Antonelli. M. de Pontalba, a share-holder, dissatisfied with his share of the plunder, charged the banker with forgery; and his arrest was the signal for a general break-up of the speculation. The next matter for criticism was the absence of all check on the proceedings of Baron Haussmann, who was involving the revenue of the city of Paris in a long and daily lengthen ing scheme of public works, noble boulevards pierced through slums, the erection of churches, theatres, an Opera House by Garnier, etc., all doubtless useful, but obviously good hunting ground for speculators. At the end of the year the Emperor had to confess his uneasiness about the public finances" by the publication in the Moniteur of November 15 of a letter from Fould, whom he had appointed Minister of Finance, and who had had the impertinence to point out that, largely by the abuse of extraordinary credits and by speculation, there was a deficit of £120,000,000 on the Budget, and of £40,000,000 on the floating debt. Fould covered it in part by taxation and by a conversion of the French Funds : but the main B. II. 6 82 Napoleon III and the Nationalities [ch. point he gained was a promise from the Emperor not to engage in new expenditure without a vote of the Legislative Body and the signature of the Finance Minister. It was unquestionable that this deficit was also the result of an absolutist policy at home and the schemes of the Sovereign abroad. After shocking the Catholics by his Italian war, the Emperor had tried to recover their confidence by supporting the Christian crusade which Rome and her flock required of the eldest daughter of the Church. The Treaty of Tientsin (June 1858) had never been ratified by the Chinese Government, which now refused admission to the English and French envoys, Bruce and de Bourboulon, the protectors-designate of the Christian Missions. The EngUsh and French forces thereupon attacked the Taku forts, and were repulsed with heavy loss (June 1859). ^ thus became 'necessary again to coerce the Chinese ; and Baron Gros and Lord Elgin were appointed to represent the two Western Powers. In August i860, an Anglo-French squadron of no vessels, with a corps of 12,000 French on board, commanded by General Cousin-Montauban, bombarded and took the Taku forts. The Chinese appeared to resign themselves to the opening of Tientsin to English commerce and French influence ; but they wished to keep Pekin closed. On September 14, General Cousin-Montauban advanced his forces to within a few miles of the capital. Negotiations were still proceeding when on September 18 the Chinese soldiery and populace, excited by the presence of foreigners and the intrigues of the Court, seized the English and French envoys, Chanoine, Bastard, Loch, and Parkes, at Tung-Tcheou, and threw them into prison. On September 21 the allied troops checked the Chinese offensive and took Palikao from the Tartar army, and on October 5 gained possession of the gates of Pekin. The Emperor of China took flight at their approach, with a view to organise his defences. The Summer Palace was unfortunately. ii] The Chinese War 83 plundered and burnt by the allied troops at the orders of Lord Elgin, in order to punish the Emperor for his treachery. The Emperor thereupon came to terms. In his name, on October 24, i860, Prince Kong negotiated a peace with England and France, which restored to the latter the property of the Christian churches and their cemeteries, with indemnities, and awarded to Napoleon III the office of protector of Catholic Missions in China. The Liberals of Paris were indignant at the violence used by the troops against the Chinese, and refused General Cousin-Montauban, now created Comte de Palikao, the pecuniary reward which the Emperor wished to make to him. But the Missions, being thenceforward under the protection of France, rebuilt their churches, and erected new ones at Pekin and Tientsin, as well as schools and hospitals ; indeed at Tching-ting-fou they obtained the grant of an Imperial Palace as a residence. The revolt of the Taiping in 1861 interfered somewhat with their work in the south of the Empire; but Napoleon III again, in 1863, sent an expe ditionary force under two Admirals, Protet and Tardif, to their assistance, which displayed great valour. He helped England to get the better once more of Chinese fanaticism at Nankin in 1864, as he had at Pekin in i860. The last- mentioned campaign secured the establishment of the Jesuits at Shanghai with their church, hospitals, and schools. Throughout the entire Far East the French fleets had the same orders and the same mission. While Admiral Charner defended the churches of China, those of Indo- China remained exposed to the violence of the Emperor Tu-duc. At Saigun their only protection was the heroic Commandant Daries and his 700 men, who held out for eight months against all the forces of Tu-duc united at Kihoa. In April 1861, Admiral Charner returned from China with troops with which he attacked the Emperor of Annam and speedily deprived him of three provinces, 6—2 84 Napoleon III and the Nationalities [ch. which thenceforth became French possessions. On June 5, 1862, Napoleon III obtained for France from the vanquished sovereign, now threatened with a revolt in Tonkin, the right to insist on the free exercise of the Catholic religion, and fhe protectorate of churches and missionaries in Indo-China as in China. Thus in the Near East as in the Far East the Empire had accompUshed the same task. In order to protect the Maronites and Catholic Missions in Syria, the Jesuits at Beyrout, the Lazarites and Franciscans, whom the Druses at Damascus, with the secret encouragement of the Turkish Government, were massacring pitilessly, Napoleon III had induced Europe to grant him, by the Convention of Paris of August 3, i860, a mandate which was very like a call to a crusade. "Soldiers ! " he said to the troops assembled at the camp at Chalons, "show your selves worthy sons of those heroes who bore the banner of Christ into those countries ! " In September, General de Beaufort d'Hautpoul landed in Syria at the head of 6000 men, while the rest of Europe, represented by four Com missioners, watched his proceedings with jealous eyes. The Turkish commissioner, Fuad Pasta, who would have liked to save the Druse sheikhs from a deserved punishment, did his best to cut down the indemnities demanded by France on behalf of the Missions (November i860), and actually proposed to abolish the independence of the native Catholics, or Maronites. Displeased with this, Napoleon III ordered his forces to prolong their occupation, which had been originally fixed at six months; but in June 1861 he accepted a compromise which enabled him to recall them. Under this, Maronites and Druses were to lose their autonomy and accept the jurisdiction of the Turkish governor of the Lebanon, but only on the condi tion that he should always be a Catholic. Thereupon the Catholics of France, heartened and encouraged by this li] Syria ,- the Empire and the Papacy 85 promise, started a subscription for the Eastern Churches initiated by the Abbe Lavigerie, who collected £120,000. With these resources, added to the amount received as indemnities, the Romanising work in Syria recovered its vigour, thanks to French efforts. Catholicism was imposing itself on the Mussulman world. The services that the Emperor rendered to the Roman Church, though onerous to France, were still insufficient to make Pius IX, his advisers, and disciples forget the sinister consequences of the unification of Italy, the part played by a Liberal France in the events of 1859, or the threats uttered by Italian patriots against the Eternal City, which they were determined at any cost to make the capital of the new kingdom. On April 5, 1861, while Garibaldi at Caprera was plotting a fresh attack, the Itahan Chambers called upon Cavour and Victor Emmanuel to finish their work. The Pope appealed to the Catholics of Italy, to D'Azeglio and Gioberti, and more loudly still to the Catholics of France. "Our country has the misfortune," wrote Merimee to Panizzi, "to be profoundly religious"; and Napoleon III then had good reason to know it. Backed by speakers who had the ear of the Senate and the Legisla tive Body, Keller, Pichon, and La Rochejacquelin, a strong minority demanded another expedition to Rome in 1861 for the restoration of the Temporal Power ; while on the other side Prince Napoleon, speaking on behalf of the king, his father-in-law, and of the unity of Italy, strenuously insisted on the necessity of Rome as capital (March 1861). If, in restoring the right of speech to the French, Napoleon thought he might get himself out of trouble by pitting the Right against the Left, he was deceived. "The arena is again open to the gladiators, as in the days of the National Assembly," shouted one deputy. The violent language of the friends of Italy excited the anger and the invectives of the Catholics arid supporters of Pius IX. 86 Napoleon III and the Nationalities [ch. For some months the Emperor looked for the settlement of this Roman question to the assistance of Cavour, to whom it was equaUy troublesome. His Minister Thouvenel advised him to recall the French troops who were pro tecting the Pope; and Cavour was so delighted with the idea, which would have met all the demands of his fellow- countrymen, that he promised, if it were carried out, to guarantee the safety of the Pope, and to allow him to retain Rome. But he died suddenly on June 6, 1861, actually while the treaty was being drafted. His successor, Ricasoli, lacking Cavour's authority, could neither restrain the ardour of the Italians, urged by Garibaldi, Rattazzi, and Farini, the chiefs of the Left, to claim Rome for their capital, nor get the confidence of the Catholics and Conserva tives. He delegated Count Arese and Cavaliere Nigra to the Tuileries to unite with Dr Conneau and Prince Napoleon in urging Napoleon III to evacuate Rome ; but his efforts were in vain, against the opposition organised in Paris by the Empress and the Catholic party. At the beginning of the year 1862 that party, to whose progress the Minister Billault and Prince Jerome Napoleon had emphatically called attention from the tribune of the French Parliament, notified its purpose of restoring the Pope's domains to him whatever the cost. In a great assembly of bishops held in Rome in June 1862, the whole of Christendom, represented by its pastors, with one mighty voice affirmed the Temporal Power of the Holy See and demanded its restoration. Thouvenel tried in vain by the agency of his envoy La VaUette to wring from the Pope a consent to the abandonment of his property and his rights (July 1862) ; and Rattazzi, who had succeeded Ricasoli in March, was equally unsuccessful in restraining the Italian patriots whom Garibaldi led to the attack of Rome (August 1862). General Cialdini was compelled to give him battle on August 29 at Aspromonte, where the leader of the Il] The Roman Question 87 crusade for Italian unity was wounded and taken prisoner. Victor Emmanuel and his Minister gave Napoleon III clearly to understand — indeed on September 10 they stated it through their diplomatic agents all over Europe — that the new monarchy would not be able to cope for long with popular resentment, if it failed to secure the recall of the French troops from Rome. Ever since Napoleon III had restored a certain amount of liberty to the French people, it was understood that he must throw in his lot with one of the two parties, either the Liberals who would support the unification of Italy to the uttermost, or the Catholics who would defend the Temporal Power at any cost. "The revolt against the Clergy," wrote Bersot, "is everywhere accepted." La Gueronniere started the journal La France to oppose Italian unity ; and even Proudhon, writing from Brussels, declared himself against it, insisting on the necessity of his native country continuing to be a Catholic Power, and loyal to the cause of the Holy See. When the Sovereign came t9 consult his Council, which he did in September, he found in it the same differ ences of opinion. Thouvenel unhesitatingly advised the Emperor to give up Rome. "I consider," he said, "that the dynasty risks less on a liberal, than on a clerical policy." On September 25, 1862, he published in the Moniteur the details of the correspondence carried on with Antonelli during the summer, and called on the French nation to testify to the good-will of France and the intractability of the Holy See. Thouvenel was supported by a majority of the Ministry, composed of Morny, Rouher, Baroche, Fould, and, above all, Persigny. But the minority, led by Walewski and composed of Magne and Marshal Randon, found puissant allies in the Empress and the ladies of her Court, and devoted advocates in the bishops who filled her salons. Tossed about by these various currents, Napoleon could come to no decision. "Everybody is very tired of the inaction of 88 Napoleon III and the Nationalities [ch. the Government in this business," wrote Bersot; "and the only clear thing is that opinions are taking shape, and that, if the Government is to continue to exist, it must grant.some real liberty." "You are losing your prestige, and dis couraging your friends," said Persigny to the Emperor. Friends and foes alike felt that their future hopes and their present interests were affected by the false position into which Napoleon III had been drawn, and from which he could not escape. It was about this time that the idea struck him of plunging into a new undertaking in which he might find means to satisfy both of the parties whose opposition in the Roman question was giving him so much trouble. Juarez, the President of Mexico, by putting arms into the hands of the natives, had secured the triumph of the federal non-clerical Republic founded by Comonfort in 1857 over the Monarchist and Conservative chiefs, Miramon and Zuloaga. The latter, who had been first victorious and then vanquished, had, ever since 1859 ar*d i860, been seeking for funds and assistance from the Catholic Powers and the Holy See. Guttierez de Estrada and Almonte gained over the Cabinet of Madrid, and insinuated themselves into the confidence of the Archduke MaximUian and the Princess Charlotte, and also into that of the Empress Eugenie through her friend Hildago. When Juarez, at one blow, secularised the property of the Church, expelled the Nuncicr, and suspended payment on the Mexican debt in July 1 861, the Monarchists and Conservatives of Mexico pointed to these acts of violence and bankruptcy as potent arguments. It was said at the time that their chief sup porter in Paris was M. de Morny, who was interested in making good against Juarez certain claims of the Swiss banker Jecker, the agent for the Conservatives, in the con version of the Mexican debt, and ruined thereby. For the scheme that they then concocted they had in fact as their iij The Question of Mexico 89 principal legal adviser M. de Dubois-Saligny, the French envoy in Mexico. In order to curry favour with the Empress, the Catholics, and the Spaniards, that official took pains to represent the acts of Juarez as a vast system of brigandage, and the Conservative party as the only one capable of protecting the property and persons of citizens of civilised countries; while in Europe Almonte and Guttierez de Estrada offered the crown of Mexico to the Archduke Maximilian, with the promise of the support of France and Spain (September i860). Dubois-Saligny ap pealed to Europe at large and to the Emperor in particular against the alleged menaces of the Mexicans. On September 9, 1861, Napoleon III instructed M. de Thouvenel to come to an understanding with the Sovereigns of Spain and England for the rescue of Mexico from " anarchy and barbarism." At that moment the United States were not in a position to assert the Monroe doctrine against Europe, owing to the civil war which was tearing them asunder. WoiUd not this be an opportunity for creating a CathoUc monarchy in Mexico, which would be some counterpoise to the Anglo-Saxon Protestantism of the New World? This was the view of the Empress and her Spanish confidants, and also of the French Catholics, who said, with Michel Chevaher : "A comparison of the progress of -Catholic and Protestant countries respectively gives rise to some gloomy reflexions among statesmen who have observed that the destinies of France are now made subordinate to the future chances of the Catholic countries." The Emperor thought that an opportunity was offered to the Papacy and its votaries to forget the consequences of his Italian policy in the reinstatement of the Roman Church in America. "Who knows," asked M. de Thouvenel, "if it might not aid in the solution of the Roman question? It is possible that, on seeing a crown provided for an Austrian Archduke, Francis Joseph might be induced to make. 90 Napoleon III and the Nationalities [ch. fresh concessions to the unification of Italy, and give Venetia, for instance, in exchange for Rome. And would not the creatiqn of a Latin Empire in Mexico be well adapted to satisfy the advocates of nationalities in France, and all who covet on her behalf the glorious mission of giving freedom and independence to the Latin races throughout the world? " Of course Napoleon was glad to minimise the fresh sacrifices required of his subjects, and for that purpose asked England and Spain to cooperate. M. de Flahault sounded Lord Russell in London, and the Emperor wrote personally to Queen Victoria. He could count by antici pation on the support of General Prim at Madrid, as he had already awakened his ambition at Yichy. On October 31, 1861, he signed a Convention with Spain and England, providing that the three allied fleets should make a demon stration against the Republic under Juarez, on the precedent of the recent events in China and Indo-China. As a matter of fact, the whole burden of the expedition soon fell upon France alone. The English had not the faintest intention of joining in a Catholic and Latin Crusade. Their only object was to compel Juarez to inform Europe as to his financial position, by occupying Vera Cruz and Tampico. Spain, or rather Prim, had determined to keep for the use of itself, or of the Spanish Bourbons, all the profits of the enterprise. No sooner had the fleets landed the forces of the three allies at Vera Cruz, than the English and Spaniards objected to the adoption of any wider action by France. The Emperor, annoyed at this opposition, determined on January 15, 1862, to send 4000 more men under General Lorencez, with orders to march straight upon Mexico; but the Spaniards and the English had already negotiated with Juarez, and recognised his government, by the Convention of la Soledad, February 19, 1862. Admiral Jurien de la Graviere had u] The Mexican Expedition 91 given his consent, and had detained at Vera Cruz the Mexican Conservative agents, Almonte and Father Mir anda, who had hurried thither hoping for the vigorous intervention of France. There was to be no more Crusade, either French or Latin, unless the Emperor was ready to take the risk of it all alone, and to pay its expenses. He decided to undertake it. How could he again escape the demands of the Catholics, and the entreaties of his wife, as he had done in the Roman business? "The affair has been started badly," Thouvenel admitted, "bftt we cannot now stop half-way." Admiral Jurien de la Graviere's action was repudiated, while Dubois-Saligny was compli mented on having appreciated the determination of his Master, who was thenceforth resolved notN to recognise either Juarez or the Convention made without his authority. Thus in March 1862, without a single ally, either in Europe or in Mexico, where the Monarchists were but few, France and her Emperor were preparing to reestablish the throne and the altar in Mexico, and under cover of the War of Secession to create a Latin Empire in America ; a heavy and difficult task, the extent of which could be measured by the first efforts it demanded. WhUe Prim, in careful observance of the Convention of la Soledad, was re-embarking the Spanish contingent for Cuba, General Lorencez. imagining that he might with the help of the Monarchists easily release the Mexican towns from the grip of the Juarist bands, attacked Puebla on May 5, 1862 ; but he failed, and was reduced to the defen sive. In order to overcome the resistance of the Mexican nation, which had now determined to fight it out under Juarez, another French army would be required beyond the original estimate, which, in the opinion of Serrano should number at least 30,000. "This unlucky Mexican affair," writes M. de Thouvenel, "with, its numberless troubles, financial and others ! " The enterprise had indeed 92 Napoleon III and the Nationalities [ch. been undertaken with Uttie consideration. The Opposi tion, whose wishes it was expected to satisfy, took occasion,. on the appUcation of the Ministers for War and Marine for credits of £600,000, to criticise with severity the Emperor and his friends, as well as the speculations, financial and other, which compromised the good name and the best interests of the nation. "The confidential advisers of the Sovereign, of whom I was one," said General Fleury, "did not conceal the disagreeable fact of the unpopularity of this great speculation. The poor Emperor would mourn fully shrug his shoulders." He had hoped it might atten uate the difficulties of the Roman question, whereas it only added new troubles from Mexico. However he was bound to support the honour of the flag and to plunge deeper in. "Not a man in France," said Merimee, "would dare to suggest treating with Juarez otherwise than at the cannon's mouth, which was a costly proceeding." At the end of 1862, a force amounting to a fuU-sized army under General Forey and his lieutenants, Bazaine and Douai, was despatched to Mexico and, after two months' very severe work, captured Puebla (May 13) and Mexico (June 3). The country was conquered, and MaximiUan proclaimed Emperor. But the task was not yet finished. Juarez in the north, and Porfirio Diaz in the south, supported by the prayers and patriotic wishes of their fellow-citizens, had determined to resist to the death. "We admire the heroism of our soldiers fighting under a deadly sky," cried the Opposition, "but you have no right to involve the power of France in ventures with so ill-defined an object; and neither our principles nor our interests obliged us to go to Mexico to ask what form of government she wants." After the expedition to Rome, which was still a heavy burden on the Imperial Government, the Mexican venture imposed one a hundredfold heavier ! At the same moment, Napoleon III was turning his ii] Montenegro and Poland 93 thoughts in another direction. It was in the East that he sought to "liquidate" the Italian affair, to use Thouvenel's expression. In March 1861 a revolt had broken out in Herzegovina in the Balkan district,, which had been energetically supported by Prince Mirko of Montenegro. Encouraged by this, Serbia called out her militia, and drove the Turks out of Belgrade, her capital, which she still occupied at the beginning of 1862. Thouvenel had the greatest difficulty to restrain Napoleon from embarking on an expedition in the Balkans under the influence of his Italian and French counsellors. With the aid of Russia the French Minister was able to compel the Turks to pardon Montenegro, and to give up the city of Belgrade, by a treaty made in the autumn of 1862. Turkey, however, retained the fortress for some years longer. But the fire had scarcely been extinguished in that Eastern centre before another was started on the Vistula. On the night of January 22, 1862, a formidable insurrection broke out at Warsaw on the call of Zamoiski and Czartoriski. For French Democrats the cause of Poland was an article of their creed ; for the Catholic party it meant the defence of a nation, martyrs to its faith. The Liberals who desired the success of the insurgents found at the Palais Royal in the person of Prince Jerome a devoted advocate of Poland ; the Catholics, such as Montalembert, reckoned on the Empress. The two parties, who were so widely separated on the Italian business, were prepared to combine in order to persuade Napoleon to undertake this new adventure. And Thouvenel was no longer there to stop him; the Empress had demanded his dismissal on October 15, 1862, in order to put Walewski in his place, knowing the former to be as favourable to the surrender of Rome as the latter was hostile to it. All the advisers of the Emperor, deploring his weakness, had threatened to resign in consequence; and Napoleon III, after having given in to his wife, gave 94 Napoleon III and the Nationalities [ch. in also to his Ministers by summoning Drouin de Lhuys to the Ministry. If the dismissal of Thouvenel emphasised the inability of the Emperor to shake off the Roman entanglement, the appointment of Drouin de Lhuys seemed to commit him to intervention in Poland. Annoyed by the promise given by the new King of Prussia to the Tsar to assist him against the Polish insurrection, he had requested England and Austria to make representations on the subject at Berlin on February 18, 1863. On March 2, Russell and Palmerston accordingly addressed the Tsar, but in an almost minatory tone, claiming, as it were of right, the liberty of Poland, whereas Napoleon would have had him treated with more urbanity. Public opinion in France took note of the demand by asking the Emperor through the Press and in the Chambers to do as much for his own subjects. Prince Jerome, amid the applause of Liberals and Catholics combined, reminded his cousin of the Napoleonic tradition. His speech in the Senate and his intrigues in the Tuileries let loose against Russia all the secret enthusiasm and all the latent hopes of Paris. It was a repetition of the Italian crisis of 1858. The Italian Government sent Count Arese, as a special envoy from Victor Emmanuel, to Paris, thinking that the time had come for an European cataclysm out of which might emerge a united Italy. They were informed at the TuUeries that the order would soon be given to clear the decks for action, and that Napoleon would then caU upon Italy, and would secure Venice for her, if he could form a coalition with Austria and England for the rescue of Poland. Drouin de Lhuys was inclined to favour this project in March 1863. He then requested Mettemich, the Austrian ambassador, to propose to his master a coalition against Russia, having for its objects the re-integration of Poland under the sceptre of an Austrian Archduke and the completion of the unity of Italy. ii] Polish Revolt ; Failure of the Congress 95 At that juncture it lay with Francis Joseph to reopen, if he chose, the great European controversies which would have started the Crimean war afresh, and plunged France into an unknown more fraught with danger than even the Italian question, at the moment when her troops were seriously engaged in Mexico. At Petrograd the alarm was great. The Tsar hastened, on March 31, 1863, to promise the Poles their pardon and certain reforms if they would lay down their arms. Austria was suspicious of England, and with justice, as that Power soon retired from the game, satisfied with having made irremediable mischief between Tsar Alexander II and Napoleon III ; and Palmerston con fined himself to the delivery of diplomatic protests in favour of Poland on the 15th and 17th of AprU. To mask his enforced retirement, Napoleon III allowed Drouin de Lhuys to send a minatory note to Petrograd on August 31, 1863 '• but he could not put these threats into effect, or enter the lists on behalf of Poland in the East single-handed and with out the support of England and the German Powers. "His diplomacy had sounded a charge, and then his drums beat a retreat, after a blank volley or two." When at length Napoleon III, in order to conceal his impotence and per plexity, proposed in the month of October to summon a Congress to discuss a reduction of armaments and a pacific revision of the treaties of 1815, the refusals he met with in London, Petrograd, and Vienna only showed the extent of the ground he had lost in seven years. In fact, this Empire, which had declared itself for peace in 1852, was responsible for no less than seven expeditions since the Crimean war — that to Italy, the Chinese cam paigns, the expedition to Indo-China, the war in Syria, the occupation of Rome, the wars in the Kabyle and south of Oran, and the long and costly expedition to Mexico. Most of these expeditions were unconnected and remote, and were entered into simultaneously, with no other object 96 Napoleon III and the Nationalities [ch. 'but to satisfy certain factions in France, whose demands grew with the pledges thus given them. Berryer was not contradicted when he reckoned the total of the loans asked for to carry out this useless and burdensome policy at £120,000,000. Every year fresh efforts were required to . repair the huge losses which these campaigns were bound to cause in the ranks and munitions of the French army and navy. "Our means must be eventually exhausted," said the Emperor himself in 1863 to the Sovereigns whom he was inviting to disarm, "in these empty displays of our power." The worst result of this policy was that it alienated all sympathy from France, leaving her isolated, without an alliance and without a friend. In England, where Palmer ston ruled with absolute power, she only met with suspicion and jealousy; Russia could not forgive the Emperor his encouragement of the Polish insurgents, his refusal to move in the Balkans, or his advances to Austria ; Prussia required him to give up to her the whole of Germany; Italy, in toxicated with her sudden growth, the origin of which she was careful to forget, wanted France to make her a,present of Rome and Venetia ; the Holy See, irritated and disturbed by Italian aims, made the Emperor responsible for aU its misfortunes, regardless of the fact that he was placing his land and sea forces at the command of the Church, for the protection of Rome, of all Catholic Missions throughout the world, and of Catholicism in Mexico. In short, the feelings of the several European Powers towards France iri 1863 may be analysed thus : resentment caused by her provoca tions, disappointment due to the non-fulfilment of her promises, anger or jealousy at her interference which upset all calculations and threatened their interests or ambitions. Never was stranger or more perilous situation recorded in history than this, of a nation entangled and at the same time isolated on every side. ii] The Elections of 1863 97 For all this the Emperor Napoleon was alone held responsible; indeed he always took care to claim that responsibUity. If Drouin de Lhuys was accused, either in the Emperor's circle or in the country at large, he would issue the foUowing official communication: "The spirit of our institutions must not be misconceived. Under the existing regime, it is from the Sovereign alone that emanates the directing idea in every transaction " (Septem- ' ber 22, 1863). In fact, however, the Imperial idea had been subordinated to the claims of factions, which the Emperor hoped to neutralise by setting up one set of opponents against another, and leaving the blunders of Catholics and Liberals to cure themselves by the reaction they created. In order to continue to command, he determined to divide ; but he only succeeded in introducing division and dissent into his own circle, his family, his advisers, and his Ministers. The parties whom he thought he might split or keep asunder immediately prepared to reunite by a sudden return on themselves, challenging him for the mastery of France. This occurred at the elections of 1863, which had a decisive effect on the future of the reign. To every Frenchman caUed upon to elect a representative at that period a pro blem presented itself. Should the man of his choice, be he Repubhcan, Legitimist, or Orleanist, submit if elected to the oath of aUegiance required by the Empire? If he did not, as had been the custom since 1852, what was the use of electing him? Would it not be better that the whole electoral body should abstain from voting, 'as a protest against tyranny? Such had been the feeling of Berryer, of Thiers in his younger days, of Proudhon, and of Jules Simon ; but the contrary view was now more general. Opposition candidates accepted the Constitution of 1852, and assented to the plebescite. "1 am the enemy of Empire and Emperor," said Thiers, "but within the limits laid down by the Constitution." "The problem that arises at elec- B. 11, . 7 98 Napoleon III and the Nationalities [ch. tions," added J. Ferry, "is not one that puts the Constitu tion in question. The Opposition has everywhere accepted the Constitution and the dynasty ; the minorities were not proposing to vote against the Empire." All they did — and it was after all the essential thing- was to agree upon a common fighting programme "for the enlargement of public liberty." This was the phrase invented by the brilliant young writer, Prevost-Paradol, who was the first to foreshadow in his pamphlet on the Parties of the Past (" les Anciens Partis "), dated i860, the union of all parties attached to liberty, whether Monarchist or Republican, in their struggle with despotism. The law-officers of the Empire had at that date obtained a conviction against the pamphlet, the programme, and the author, on the charge of "exciting to the hatred and contempt of the Govern ment " ; and when, on the approach of the elections of 1863, the Union (or Liberal Opposition) had brought into the field as candidates Thiers, Berryer, Pelletan, Jules Simon, Marie, Dorian, Barthelemy St Hilaire, Casimir Perier, de Witt, Remusat, Odilon Barrot, and Leonce de Lavergne, Persigny and his prefects did their best to induce the electorate to find a similar verdict against them. They denounced them on the suspicion of their desire to restore a method of government fatal alike to the Empire and to France— "a regime" — said Persigny in his letter to Haussmann against Thiers, which was placarded aU over Paris — "which for eighteen years has produced nothing but impotence at home and feebleness- abroad ; in a word, the parliamentary regime." In spite of official pressure, the elections of May 31 and June 1, 1863, did not ratify the judgments of the Imperial law-officers against the coalition of the young generation and the old parties advised by Prevost7Paradol. It was especially in Paris that 'the victory of the Oppo sition was most marked. The journals that supported it were even then numerous— the Debats, the Presse, the li] Success of thg " Union Liberate" 99 Opinion Nationale, the Steele, the Temps. None had fought harder for it than Emile de Girardin. The frequenters of the salons, churchmen, the youth from the schools, and the working-men from the slums had joined in voting against the official candidates. All the Imperialist candi dates in Paris were rejected. Even Thiers, the Orleanist leader, had secured his seat by means of the Republicans and working-men socialists. The Opposition carried — be sides their original "Five" — PeUetan, Jules Simon, Gueroult, and Havin. Out of 240,000 voters, the Government could claim but 82,000, while 153,000 were scored for the Oppo sition. On this occasion the great cities of the provinces had foUowed the lead of Paris. Marseilles had elected the Republican Marie, and the great Legitimist Berryer; St Etienne and Lyons also had chosen the Republicans Dorian, Henon, and Jules Favre; Dijon had followed suit ; and Lavertujon had been all but elected at Bordeaux. Of course, it was not all success. Old parliamentary hands like Dufaure, Odilon Barrot, Casimir Perier, and Monta lembert had failed ; but in nearly all the towns the coalition had been victorious, and now had thirty-five representatives in the Chamber. Even in the rural districts, which were still attached to the Emperor, they had captured some con stituencies; thus Havin had been elected in La Manche, and Glais-Bizoin in the C6tes du Nord. "But for the pressure exerted by the Administration," said the victorious deputies to the Ministers, "the whole of France would have followed the votes of Paris, Lyons, and Marseilles. France has confidence in herself, and is competent to enjoy the same franchises as other nations." The effect of these elections on the French public was considerable. The victims of proscription were already looking for the early fall of the Imperial system ; but their wishes were ahead of the events. These events however ioo Napoleon III and the Nat tonalities [ch. were of great significance. The Emperor was induced to consult public opinion in the selection of his Ministers. Persigny, the champion of official candidatures, was dis missed on June 23, 1863, and left, grumbling at "apolitical school that tried to copy the English aristocratic regime, and boasted that it took the most eloquent orator in the Chamber as Prime Minister." His successor at the Ministry of the Interior, Paul Boudet, a man of long parliamentary ' experience, took the post which seemed to belong to Emile Ollivier, who was beginning to draw towards the Empire ' under Morny's influence. Public Instruction was entrusted , to Victor Duruy, a University man, a pronounced foe of all clerical influence, an equaUy pronounced champion of non- religious, free, and compulsory primary education, of the education of women, and of advanced study. To the Ministry of Public Works the Emperor summoned Behic, an Orleanist; and if he did not actually as yet set up ministerial responsibUity, he made Billault a Minister of State with the special duty of defending the government policy before the Chamber, like a President of the Council. At the same time he gave him Rouher to assist him in the Presidency of the Council of State. However much the Emperor might repudiate the idea, the Cabinet that he was thus forming was a rough specimen of parhamentary govern ment. It looked .as if Napoleon III had experienced the need of "consolidating the Empire through liberty," to use the expression of Emile Ollivier. In order to consolidate the distant Empire of Maximilian in Mexico, one more recent and fraU than Jus own, he was forced to make similar concessions. He recalled his agent, M. de' Saligny, who, in order to secure a Catholic ascendency, had put himself entirely into the hands of the clerical party, Guttierez de Estrada, Almonte, Miramon, and the elder Miranda, and had combined with them to foment a general attack upon the holders of Church property. The Emperor ii] Mexico. Convention of 1864 101 had also replaced General Forey by Bazaine, who had been promoted to the rank of Marshal in July 1863 as a first step towards Liberal government. Lastly he invited Maximilian, who was not hurrying his departure from Europe, to sail for Mexico as soon as possible, so as to take formal pos session of the throne, and to enable the French troops to return home. It is clear from every action of the Emperor in 1864 that he felt an urgent desire, an imperious need, to make up for the unlucky enterprises in which he had let himself be entangled since 1859 by concessions to the Liberals. He returned again to the solution of the Roman question, for which the Marquis Visconti Venosta, an ardent ex-Maz- zinian, in whom Italy had lately discovered a successor to Cavour, offered him the means. The Minghetti Cabinet, in which Visconti Venosta exercised great influence, in the office vacated by Farini, then submitted once more to Napoleon III through his relative Pepoli the conditions as formulated by Cavour. He pledged himself not to interfere with the Pope in Rome, while France on her side agreed to withdraw the support of her troops from the Holy See after a certain date. As a pledge or security for their good faith, Victor Emmanuel's Ministers, without consulting him, but sure of the approval of the majority of Italians, declared themselves ready to select Florence for their new capital, a step which might easily be interpreted as a sort of renun ciation of Rome. The offer suited the Catholic Ministers of the Emperor ; and the Emperor, thankful to get rid of this eternal worry, accepted it with alacrity, greater indeed than that of Victor Emmanuel, who objected to leaving Turin and his faithful Piedmontese. The Convention, which was signed on September 15, 1864, contained among its published conditions the promise of France to evacuate Rome within two years, the promise of Italy to forbid all attacks upon the Holy See, and permission to the Pope to form a Corps 102 Napoleon III and the Nationalities [ch. of Volunteers by process of recruiting; a secret condition provided for the -transfer of the Italian capital to Florence. The comment passed by Nigra upon this solution of the Roman question on the day after its signature was not very encouraging either to the Catholics or to Napoleon III. "This cannot of course involve," he said, "the re nunciation of any national demand." However Napoleon accepted it at its face value, observing to the Marquis Pepoli (October 19, 1864), "Our object was to deal with the present and provide for the needs of existing circum stances." This formula was applicable to the whole Imperial policy of that period. The speech from the Throne, delivered in the Chambers at the end of 1864, only developed it further as a policy of "liquidation." "In the contest which has arisen on the shores of the Baltic, my Government, divided between its sympathy for Denmark and its good-will to Germany, has observed the strictest neutrality. In the south, the precarious and provisional state of things which caused so much alarm is about to disappear ; and, by the transfer of its capital to the heart of the Peninsula, Italy finally constitutes itself and joins hands again with the Papal Power. She is pledged to respect the independence of the Holy See, and thus permits us to withdraw our forces. In Mexico the new throne is acquiring solidity, and the country is becoming pacified. All our expeditions are attaining their objects. Our land forces have evacuated China ; our fleets are sufficient to protect our establishments in Cochin China ; our armies in Africa are about to be re duced ; that in Mexico is now re-entering France ; the Roman garrison will very shortly return. In closing the gates of the Temple of Janus, we may proudly inscribe on a new Arch of Triumph : ' To the glory of French arms for their victories in Europe, Asia, Africa, and America!'" The strain of triumphant ecstasy in which this summary il] Peace Abroad, Trouble at Home 103 ends scarcely serves to conceal the admission of blunders, and of the deficit created by all these barren but expensive enter prises. And it was only a chance that prevented Napoleon from giving back to the Emperor Tu-duc the provinces at the mouth of the Mekong taken from him by the French fleet ; but for the energetic resistance of Chasseloup-Laubat and Victor Duruy, he would have abandoned perhaps the only one of all his distant enterprises which was to turn out fruitful and profitable for an indemnity of four millions sterling from the Sovereign of Annam. In every direction, in that spring-time of 1864, the Government retreated before the Opposition led by Thiers, who gave authoritative and precise expression to their grievances before the Legislative Body, now no longer under the domination of Morny. Napoleon III had been no less mistaken as to the nature of the forces at the disposition of his adversaries. He thought he had reduced the working classes to silence by violence or cajolement, but the hostile vote given by the urban centres in 1863 showed that they were awaking once more. At those elections a working-man candidate, who was suspected of being a protege of Prince Napoleon, was put up against Havin. Two others, of whom Tolain was the more noticeable, appeared at the complementary elections of 1864. By the development of the great industries which the Empire had favoured, and which in 1865 accounted for one moiety of French production, or say 240 millions sterling, the population had been coUected round certain centres, urban, mining, or metal-working, of which Paris was the principal ; and the working classes had thus come to know their own strength. It was hoped that the increase of work, of wages, and of general comfort would have disposed these classes to support the Empire to which they owed them; but the calculation was upse.t by the very substantial rise in the price of food and the necessaries of 104 Napoleon III and the Nationalities [ch. life during the same period. The working-men gradually deserted the Government and their employers, the great industrial princes of the time, and instinctively sought to improve 'their condition by incorporating themselves and presenting a solid front in trades-unions. Corbon, in his curious book (1863), Le Secret du Peuple de Paris, made this clear. It was also the secret of the factory-workers of Lyons, and of the artisans of the North, at LUle, Roubaix, and Rouen — a secret known to the Emperor through his cousin Prince Napoleon, who enlightened him as to the urgency of these needs and aspirations of the working class. Then he thought that by favouring these popular ideals he would be asserting his stedfast loyalty to his democratic tactics, and to the scheme that he had sketched out in his Extinction of Pauperism. In the palace of Prince Napoleon it was decided by a committee of ten working-men headed by Tolain, that, with a view to the approaching Exhibition in London, where the Prince was to preside over the French section, a delegation of working-men should be nominated by the Presidents of the Mutual Aid Societies in the various trades (February 2, 1862). The encouragement given by the Emperor to this association of working-men, their visits to the industrial centres of England, where they found their English brethren better paid, happier, and at greater liberty to create Unions, to discuss their own interests, . and to strike, had awakened demands which were expressed in the reports of the delegates between 1862 and 1864. They were still more apparent in the programme published in May 1864 by sixty working-men, inspired by Tolain, Coutant, Blanc, Camelinat, and the young Republican Socialists, Henri Lefort, Chaudey, Gambetta, and the Reclus brothers, for the purpose of justifying the nomination of Labour candidates, completing and consolidating the Liberal Opposition, and "obtaining the necessary minimum of economic reform." ii] The Working Classes : Emile Ollivier 105 But Napoleon had not even waited for the appearance of the signs of this threatened alliance between the working classes and the chiefs of the democratic party before trying to break it down by concessions to the workers. Towards the end of 1863 he had instructed his Council of State to draft a measure to take the place of that of June 1791 on working-men's unions and that of 1810 on the criminality of strikes. Morny, who was a party to this instruction, described it himself as "an experiment in the study of social problems, with a view of conciliating the democracy without being carried away by it." The Council of State was shy of making the experiment, and only proposed a modification of the Law of 1810, still retaining a portion of the Law of 1791 ; thus their Bill, which was produced in January 1864, made a distinction between fraudulent and legitimate combinations, and between peaceful and violent strikes, leaving the courts to decide as to the character in each case. Emile Ollivier, whom Morny was now beginning to aUure into the service of the dynasty by the hope of high office, was assisted by his protector in inducing the Emperor to make larger concessions. Having been placed by the Chamber, along with Jules Simon, on a committee of which he afterwards became chairman, he carried on May 25, 1864, the law giving working-men the right to strike or to combine, on the condition that neither violence nor threats were used, nor "any illegitimate manoeuvres for the creation or maintenance of a combination, or for attacking the respective rights of employers or employed." This half-concession to the working class left the Imperial authorities defenceless against combinations, while it refused the workers the right possessed by their English brethren of forming trades-unions. Arbitrary rule was still applicable to the combination, though not to the strike. 106 Napoleon III and the Nationalities [ch. If the Emperor imagined that he had detached the prole tariat of France from the party which promised to win for them all necessary liberties, he soon saw his mistake. The proletariat replied to him by an aUiance with the English, Italian, and German proletariats, the origin of the Inter nationale of workers, which was finally established at a great meeting held in London in September 1864 as the result of events in Poland. Their hopes were turned towards the younger men of the Opposition, who could not forgive the author of the coup d'etat nor accept his dynasty, and whose r courage they stimulated or revived. By their efforts the republican ranks, dispersed, proscribed, and trodden under foot in 1851, were reorganised to correspond with their ideal of a social and political democracy, for the approaching confusion of tyranny. Abroad, the policy of compromise attempted in Italy by Napoleon III was met by the theocracy of Rome on Decem ber 8, 1864, by a programme of unqualified resistance, and " demands so exorbitant that all government became im possible as between the Emperor, a Sovereign elected by a modern democracy, and such of his subjects as claimed to be loyal members of the. Church. In the Encyclical Quanta cura Pius IX and his advisers denounced, and in the appended Syllabus condemned, all forms of liberty and civilisation originating in the Revolution of 1789, the doctrine of National Sovereignty, and the scientific and secular temper, as impieties soon afterwards formally for bidden to Frenchmen by their bishops in obedience to orders -from Rome. This was the signal for an Ultramontane crusade in France for which the Clergy strove to enlist the members of their flocks in an "idolatrous" spirit which even Montalembert deplored. If this signal was the reply of the Church to the Emperor's decision to evacuate Rome as early as possible, it was a formidable challenge, and one hard to take up in a country where the rural population ii] Liberal Evolution of the Empire 107 was at once Catholic and the mainstay of the Imperial regime. It was at this moment that Napoleon III, uneasy and perplexed amid all these difficulties and oppositions, accepted, and indeed looked out for, every sort of alliance, internal or external, by which to buttress up afresh his threatened and tottering authority. There was perhaps one other attitude conceivable for him, one modelled on that of the Pope ; and Rouher was in fact beginning to suggest it to him as a way to meet his internal foes and his external difficulties — an attitude of non-compromise, of haughty unqualified reserve, in which he would rely entirely on his principles, on the concentrated forces put in his hand by the plebiscite, and on his army. Subsequently, there were moments when the Emperor may have dreamed of so doing. But it called for an energy of mind, nay, for a physical energy, which he no longer possessed; prematurely aged and broken in health, he bid fair to follow Morny, who had been removed by death in 1865 from the Government of which he had been the soul and the mainstay. His bodily weakness inclined him to cling to any support that offered. In a speech addressed by Emile Ollivier to the Legis lative Body in February 1863, before the elections, that repubhcan deputy suggested to the Ministers and to their master an arrangement whereby the Opposition should give a loyal adhesion to the Empire on the understanding that constitutional liberty should be granted to the country. He took a leading part against the Ministry in the Paris elections of that year, with the help of Emile de Girardin, who supported his proposals; and, after thus securing a victory to the Opposition, he renewed his suggestions. Morny began by accepting them. Side by side they then searched for a method of establishing " an understanding with the democracy for the organisation of liberty." In November 1863 Ollivier submitted to 108 Napoleon III and the Nationalities [ch. Morny a minute of his proposals, and was expecting every day to be summoned to the counsels of Napoleon, having every confidence in his powerful aUy. But the ally failed him, for Morny died. Prince Napoleon and, later, the Empress, came to his assistance. In June 1865, Napoleon and Ollivier met at the Tuileries ; and, as they separated, pleased with one another, OUivier remarked, "Your Govern ment, Sir, is strong enough to be very daring in granting liberty." An observation recorded in Duruy's Memoires enables us to state the precise terms of the bargain then preparing between the Sovereign on whom the popular vote had conferred absolute power, and the Repubhcan who was ready to recognise that absolute power if the Emperor would grant full liberty to the country on the platform, in the Press, and in the right to combine: "M. EmUe OUivier," said Duruy, "has shown himself a decided absolutist (so long as Napoleon III is the master), and at the same time a very prudent democrat." Of the mutual understanding thus initiated by OUivier in 1864, the whole of the Opposition expressed their dis approval — Thiers, Jules Simon, JulesFavre, and even Picard, his private friend, every one, in short, but Darimon and Prevost-Paradol ; and when, in 1868, after the conventional eulogy of Morny, Ollivier tried to justify his poUcy before Parliament, the breach became final and inemediable. What Thiers from his point of view and the Republicans from theirs refused to aUow even to a liberalised Empire, and what OUivier was willing to admit, in order to induce the Empire to become Liberal, was that the plebiscite should be read as conferring on the Emperor a sort of Divine Right, transcending the rights of Parliament like the royal pre rogative of the Bourbons under the charter of 1814, while reserving a vague responsibiUty to the nation. Should the Empire become a constitutional Government, like that of the Restoration, or a parliamentary Government, like the li] Napoleon, Ollivier, and the "Tiers Parti" 109 Monarchy of July? This was the problem set for solution before the Government and its enemies, a problem on which even those enemies were divided. Had OUivier been working alonein his search for an answer, abandoned as he was by most of his friends, he could have done nothing. But no sooner had he broken with the Left, than he found allies among the Imperialists, men who now saw facts as they were, and who were uneasy about the vast military expenditure and the deficit in the Budget: Buffet, Chevandier de Valdrome, Segris, Martel, the Due de Gramont, Brame, and Plichon. Opposed, on the one hand, to the Caesarians, who were loyal to the principle of a despotic Empire, and, on the other, to the Repubhcan or Orleanist parliamentarians, a Constitutional party began to take shape. Already numbering 45 members, it was a "Third Party," destined, without intending it, to weaken the Government by dividing its supporters already cleft asunder by their hate or love of Ultramontanism. Did the alliance of Emile Ollivier with the Emperor, by hastening the formation of this Third Party, compensate the latter for the mischief done to his Government by the censures, the criticisms, and the demands of that party? Napoleon was then preparing to form other alliances outside France, which turned out even more fatal to himself. The man who had been ambassador in Paris in June 1862, and was then recalled to Berlin in September to be Minister in Prussia and to direct her foreign policy, Otto von Bismarck, had resolutely cut aU connexion with the Kreuz party, even as Emile Ollivier had separated from his republican friends, in order to make certain significant advances to the Emperor. Thus the two men who were destined to play the leading parts in the drama of the Fall of the Empire were now coming within range of the Emperor for the furtherance of their own ambitious plans and for his ruin. no Naopleon III and the Nationalities [ch. No statesman has ever described bis own plan of action with greater precision than Bismarck. He explained it in Paris in Thiers' drawing-room, at the Tuileries, at the French Foreign Office, in his own official room at Berlin to M. de Talleyrand. It was the plan on which has been founded Prussia's greatness in Germany and in Europe for the last half-century, involving the creation, with the help of von Moltke and von Roon, of a military force to be extorted without debate from the Prussian Chamber for the support of the Hohenzollerns, the suppression of the smaUer German States, beginning with those in the north, and war with Austria, should she object to the realisation of this last item. But, if Prussia was to be cured of the disease of Federalism, which had brought it to the crisis of Olmiitz in 1850, by the only proper remedies of "fire and sword," the cooperation or, at least, the benevolent acquies cence of France was, in the eyes of Bismarck, indispensable for success and even for action. The Emperor and his advisers of that day may well have been beguiled by these proposals and their conformity with the doctrine of nationalities, particularly if they saw their way to obtain by their means a similar advantage for France, in the matter of Belgium, a country French in language and habits, and for ages past a coveted object to both kings and people of France. The conquest of Belgium was the bait set by Bismarck for Napoleon and the French nation ; and he thereby decided them to foUow and even to assist him in his campaign of annexation in Germany. When, in 1863, Napoleon desired to call a Congress for the revision of the boundaries of European states, with the object of wiping out the treaties of 1815 at the pleasure of his people, Bismarck was the only statesman who gave his ideas a hearing. "Were I King of Prussia," he said, "I should at once accept." The faUure of this diplomatic venture caused Napoleon to appreciate still more strongly ii] 'The Slesvig-Holstein Questidn'" in the good-will of Prussia and her King. " Prussia must have her place in my scheme of alliances , ' ' said he on November 23 , 1863, to Baron von der Goltz, who had been sent to cultivate his friendship. In fact it was France that was from that time forth relegated to the lower rank, a bond-slave to the programme of alliances and conquests, which Bismarck now began to carry out by the occupation of the Danish Duchies in 1864. The death of Frederick VII, King of Denmark, and the accession of his cousin Christian IX, on November 15, 1863, brought to a head the question of the Duchies which the Conference of London was supposed to have settled in 1852. To gain the sympathies of the Danes, the new king confirmed the letters patent published by his predecessor on March 30, 1863, his object clearly being to embrace Slesvig in the Union as constituted and in the Danish Parliament, leaving Holstein, a Teutonic country owning allegiance to the Confederation, to its own Parliament and administration. The German patriots had already, before King Frederick's death, pronounced this Danish Constitution to be a violation of the Treaty of London, releasing the Diet from its obliga tions to that instrument, and justifying it in altering the order of succession in the Duchies which the treaty had established. Accordingly, soon after the accession of King Christian, the Diet, on December 7, 1863, gave the Duchies to the Duke of Augustenburg, and ordered the execution of the Federal Decree, which Saxon and Hanoverian con tingents prepared to carry out at the end of December. It was a collision between two races, both determined to contest the possession of a country which neither nature nor history had ear-marked to either. It appeared at first that it would fall to Prussia to direct this German Crusade ; and Napoleon at once gave his consent, in spite of the ancient sympathy between France and Denmark. " I have fought," he said, "for the- independence of Italy, I have 112 Napoleon III and the Nationalities [ch. made my voice heard for the nationality of Poland, and I cannot change my principles in Germany." WhUe he sent General Fleury to Copenhagen to persuade King Christian and his Ministers to make the concessions de manded by Germany, he let his good- will be known at Berlin. He was therefore seriously surprised when he discovered the intentions of Bismarck, on whose advice the King of Prussia came to a sudden decision to refuse to work for the benefit of anyone but himself. He declined to join the Diet in supporting the rights of the Duke of Augustenburg,- or to allow another secondary state to be created. Making use of the fear felt in Vienna of a possible awakening of the German nation, he came to an agreement with Francis Joseph on January 16, 1864, to exclude the Diet from the discussion of the controversy, and to occupy both the Duchies as securities, until such time as King Christian should abolish the Danish Constitution which had called an excited Germany to arms. If Napoleon III had at that moment taken sides with the Danes and in favour of the integrity of their monarchy, as England pressed him to do on January 28, 1864, he might have easily justified his attitude by reference to the designs of Prussian policy, which were equally contrary to the claims of Augustenburg and of Christian IX, to the pretensions of the German Confederation, and to those of the Danish people. Desiring to retain the friendship of Prussia, and annoyed with Palmerston for refusing to further his project of a Congress, he remained neutral, and pretended to consider the Austro-Prussian invasion of the Duchies as "a sop to the nationalistic aspirations of Germany." The Danes surrendered Holstein without fighting, but did their best to defend Slesvig. In little more than two months, however, the Prussian army, assisted by the Austrians, had brought both Denmark and Germany to i , n] Danish War : Conference of London 113 reason. General de Meza was compeUed to abandon the line of the Eider on February 1, and was subsequently (Feb. 5) obliged to evacuate the Dannewirke. On April 18 the strong lines of Diippel were stormed, and Jutland was invaded. All that remained to King Christian was one- third of Jutland and the Island of Alsen. The attempt made at Wiirzburg on February 17, by the German sove reigns of Saxony, Bavaria, and Hanover, to proclaim the Duke of Augustenburg as lord of the Duchies wrested from Denmark came to nothing. The Prussian General Manteuffel threatened to mobilise against them on the Saxon frontier ; and the Diet had to admit that it was impotent. At that moment, the victims of Prussian policy, German as well as Dane, found a way of salvation in the intervention of England. In order to save Denmark, the Russell Cabinet had taken the initiative in calling a Conference of the Powers, which met in London on April 25, its object being to propose some compensation in Holstein and Lauenburg to the Duke of Augustenburg, who was supported by the German Princes. This English scheme was the only one then capable of at once rescuing Denmark from the talons of Prussia and gaining German approval; but it needed the support of Napoleon. The first, and indeed the only result of the Conference was to bring about an armistice of six weeks, which began on May 12. Bismarck could scarcely refuse the right of discussing the future of the Duchies to Europe and Germany ; and the armistice had the effect of arresting the Austro-Prussian army in the full career of victory. But the efforts of the English at the Conference to preserve a portion of Slesvig to Christian IX, while abandoning the rest to the Duke of Augustenburg, came to nothing, owing to the continued refusal of Napoleon III to support them. The war was therefore continued. The Austro-Prussian conquest was carried further after the close of the Conference between the 25th and the 30th of b. 11. 8 114 Napoleon III and the Nationalities [ch; June, 1864, by the occupation of the Island of Alsen and the north of Jutland, which put the Danes at the mercy of the conquerors. On July 22, de Quaade, Christian IX's Minister, settled the preliminaries of peace in Vienna with Bismarck and Rechberg, and they were signed on August 1 without consultation with Europe or even with Germany. The final treaty of peace was signed at Vienna on Oct. 27. The Duchies, in their entirety, were surrendered to Prussia and Austria. The King of Prussia (who at the start had ex pressed to his Council some scruple in taking Holstein, to which he had no right) now congratulated Bismarck, the deed being done, on "the additional political and military strength which he had given to his kingdom." He might have included the Emperor of the French in his thanks. It now occurred to Europe to ask what interest Austria, guided by the Count von Rechberg, had in working this success for Prussia and Bismarck. Rechberg, who for that matter was himself the victim of this policy and who lost his office thereby, answered the question in addressing these words to the Prussian Minister on October 27, 1864: "It is clear that you want the Duchies; well, pay for them by guaranteeing our territorial integrity." The evident strength of the yearning of the Prussian Ministers for the Duchies suggested to Francis Joseph a means of securing the support of Prussia elsewhere, the lack of which had lost him Lombardy in 1859, and of being able to reckon on an ally in Italy without whom he did not see his- way to defend Venetia. If he had not actual cognisance of the negotiations of the past year between Napoleon III and his Italian friends Arese, Pepoli, and Nigra, and Victor Emmanuel's Ministers, the object of which was to divert the ambition and military aspiration of Italy from Rome upon Venetia, he could guess their purport. " The moment will come," wrote Palmerston in August 1864, "when France and Italy will be readv to liberate Venetia from the II] Peace with Denmark : Convention ofGastein 115 Austrian yoke." The conquest of Denmark had beeri undertaken by Austria through fears of the Napoleonic poUcy ; by Prussia, in the hope of the Emperor's benevolent neutrality. Thiers, speaking for the Opposition at the beginning of 1865, pointed out the danger of this movement towards Prussia as the inevitable result of the occurrences in Italy ; but his warning was as useless as his previous censure of Emile Ollivier for .coming to an understanding with the Empire. Henceforth Napoleon III was thoroughly en meshed, within and without, in these alliances. Prussia and Austria, now masters of the Duchies, refused to allow the forces of the Diet to enter them, and only suffered the Duke of Augustenburg to exercise a nominal rule there on humiliating conditions (February 22, 1865). Germany seemed ready to take up the challenge in May 1865 ; but Francis Joseph dismissed the Schmerling Ministry which advised him to separate from Prussia and support the resistance of the Diet, and instructed Blome to effect an understanding with Bismarck at Gastein on August 14, 1865, for the division of the spoils, Slesvig and Kiel going to Prussia, and all Holstein but Kiel and Lauenburg to Austria, The daily increasing cordiality displayed by Napoleon and even by the Empress to Bismarck's con fidential adviser in Paris, Baron von der Goltz, gave King WUliam and his Ministers all the encouragement they re quired to defy Germany. The suspicions inspired in the mind of Francis Joseph by the intrigues of Napoleon with the Italians once more determined him to support the policy of. Prussia. This Convention of Gastein was nothing less than a Treaty of Partition, recaUing the work of Frederick the Great in Poland ; it affected two nations at once, Denmark and Germany, and was in no sense consistent with the- doctrine of nationalities to which Napoleon was so fond 116 Napoleon III and the Nationalities [ch. of appealing. The indignation it created in the German nation among the patriots of the National- Verein (National Union) at the Diet of Frankfort, its condemnation by the principal European statesmen, such as Lord John Russell and M. Drouin de Lhuys himself, ought to have been sufficient motive to Napoleon III for getting loose from the fascinations and advances of Bismarck. Far from doing so, he plunged in deeper, owing no doubt to the difficulties in which he then found himself as to Mexico and Italy. His hope had been that the arrival in Mexico of the Emperor MaximUian, who had been induced with some difficulty by the united entreaties of the Princess Charlotte his wife, of the Emperor of Austria, of the Holy Father, and of the French Emperor himself, to take possession on June 4, 1864, of a tottering throne, would allow of his withdrawing his troops, getting his expenses paid, and. closing the transaction. A year later, in April 1865, he was driven to confess that his hopes were shattered, and his calculations absolutely nullified. Maxi mUian found himself caught in Mexico between the Catholics, who accepted the Syllabus and obeyed the Papal Nuncio (whose malice and reactionary spirit he had refused to assist in December 1864), and the Liberal patriots, who, remaining true to Juarez, had failed to create a party, an administra tion, or a revenue. The French army remained his sole resource ; but of that he could not dispose. Bazaine, who commanded it, dealt with it as he thought fit, sending a portion home, as if the hopes of Paris were near fruition and the end of Mexican opposition at hand, in spite of the prayers of Maximilian and the advice of General Douai; the resistance of the patriots, which might have been crushed had the force used been sufficient, became an intangible guerUla warfare, breaking out constantly at opposite ends of the country, and amenable to no authority. Bazaine had married a Mexican lady, the daughter of ii] The Mexican Imbroglio 117 a former President, and perhaps had his own reasons for prolonging the difficulties of Maximilian. Be that as it may, their quarrels did not tend to hasten the success of their common cause; each disputed the other's authority, and their only agreement was in the severe measures passed on October 30, 1865, and in the death sentences pronounced on the chiefs of rebel bands. This was the moment at which Napoleon III was informed that the United States, having been freed in April 1865 from the incubus of civil war, proposed to put a stop to all further European inter vention in Mexico. Bigelow, the_representative of the great American Republic in Paris, gave him to understand quite frankly their wish "that the support of the French army should be withdrawn from Maximilian." The Monroe doctrine demanded it. On January 15, 1866, Napoleon sent Bazaine his order to return, and left Maximilian to wind up by himself the venture into which he had plunged him. What would the French nation have said, if it had involved them in war with the United States ? Ever since the middle of the year 1865, Napoleon III had been considering this possibility with dismay. And he was not less anxious to settle the question ?of Venetia with the Italians, so as to realise his gains on the Convention of September and keep them away from Rome. There could be no doubt that, in signing that document in 1864, he had promised Venetia to Victor Emmanuel as the price of his abandonment of Rome. But did not the Convention lately concluded at Gastein between Bismarck and Austria involve a secret promise on the part of the King of Prussia to Francis Joseph to guarantee him the possession of Venetia ? Threatened by the United States, menaced by the Italians in case he failed to satisfy them, abandoned by England, attacked from within by the Catholics under the influence of the Holy See, and by the Liberal Opposition once more aUied to the Catholics under the leadership of Thiers, 118 Napoleon III and the Nationalities [ch. terrified at the reckoning demanded of him by France and by Italy, he invited Bismarck to meet him at Biarritz in September 1865. Whatever may have been said, there is no doubt that it was there, in secret conversations simUar to those of Plombieres, that the fate of Prussia, of the French Empire and of Italy was decided. On September 27, 1865, before leaving Berlin, Bismarck had revealed to the French charge d'affaires, M. de Behaigne, the detaUs of the alhance, involving the future of Prussia, which he proposed to submit formally for the acceptance of Napoleon III. For, as he put it clearly, "the question now was not one of neutrality, but of alliance." In spite of the Convention of Gastein, Prussia had resolved to take possession of The entirety of the two Danish Duchies, to secure the acquies cence of Italy by allowing her to take Venetia from Austria with a possibility of compensating the latter Power in Wallachia, and similarly to make sure of France by ad mitting, at least provisionally, her right to "extend her authority over every country in which French is spoken," in other words, over Belgium. The conversations at Biarritz did not of course lead so immediately to a result as those at Plombieres at the end of 1858. The Emperor listened to Bismarck's offers, but did not give him a formal answer on the spot. The annexation of Belgium, over which country Prussia had no disposing power, and which would have embroUed France and England, seemed to him of doubtful value, and certainly less desirable than the occupation of the Rhine provinces, which Bismarck could not promise, nor even listen to. Napoleon III preferred to keep the future in his own hands. But his silence was not to be construed as a rebuke, much less as a veto on the ambitious schemes [of his companion. The only way to win Venetia for Italy twas that suggested by Bismarck, a Prussian attack upon li] Biarritz : Austria and Prussia 119 Austria; and Napoleon accepted it. Just as in days gone by Cavour returned to Turin, so in November 1865 the Prussian Minister came back to Berlin with the joyful news of the Emperor's consent, which elicited from him the words, "If Italy did not exist, we should have to invent her." In order to achieve the unity of Italy, the Emperor be friended at its very outset the unification of Germany through the victories of Prussia. On January 26, 1866, the envoy of Prussia in Vienna caUed upon Francis Joseph to put an end to the common occupation of the Duchies, on the pretext that Gablenz, the General governing in Holstein, was favouring the in trigues of the Duke of Augustenburg's friends in Slesvig. On February 7, 1866, the Emperor of Austria haughtily took up the challenge ; on February 28 King William sum moned to Berlin a Council of Ministers and Generals which had aU the character of a Council of War. Then Europe stepped in. Lord Loftus, the English ambassador at Berlin, offered his mediation, and all but forced it upon Prussia. The Russian ambassador, M. d'Oubril, did his best to ruin the credit and the schemes of Bismarck. AU that was now needed was that Benedetti, the envoy of France, should back up the steps already taken to prevent a conflict between Prussia and Austria. But it was precisely on February 28 that Napoleon III requested Nigra to forward to La Marmora, the President of the Italian Council, the formal advice, "to urge Prussia to make war, and to be ready for it himself." Hereupon, on March 14, 1866, Victor Emmanuel sent General Govone to BerUn on the pretext of enquiring into the last improvements in weapons of war introduced at Berlin; and about the same time (March 16) Bismarck notified the Austrian ambassador that Prussia "no longer felt herself bound by the Convention of Gastein." But Europe would scarcely have understood a recourse to arms 120 " Napoleon III and the Nationalities [ch. on a question involving the Duchies only; and to justify himself in her eyes, and to determine his master to risk a war with Austria, Bismarck was bound to arrange for an attack on a wider front. He therefore proposed on March 24 a reorganisation of the Germanic Confederation. But it was the Italian alliance which he specially needed; and, though he kept up his negotiation with the Italians, he trusted them but little. He feared that, as soon as Victor Emmanuel knew the nature of the Prussian offers, he would extort from Austria, thus threatened in Germany, the Voluntary cession of Venetia against an indemnity, and, having obtained that, would retire from the field without fighting. On March 27, 1866, General Govone and M. de Barral, the envoys of Italy in Berlin, assisted Bismarck in drafting a treaty under which Prussia was to have the military support of Italy, and Italy was to get Venetia. They had hesitated for some time, fearing on their side that Bismarck might so misuse their engagements to him as to reduce Austria to unconditional surrender, and enable him to get the Duchies from her without striking a blow. At Turin La Marmora was equaUy, nay, more doubtful, about the matter. On March 28 he had sent Count Arese on a secret mission to Napoleon III. The advice he received by telegraph from Paris on March 30 — "the Emperor considers the treaty with Prussia to be useful"— determined him and his master to send full powers to their agents in Berlin to conclude the treaty, which was signed on April 9, 1866. If we compare the personal influence of Napoleon upon the King of Prussia at this critical moment with that of Tsar Alexander and the Queen of England, with her daughter the Crown Princess, it is obvious that, while the Tsar and Queen Victoria were trying to avert war, the tendency of Napoleon was to encourage it and to favour the ambition ii] Prussia and Italy : Napoleon intervenes 121 both of Prussia and Italy. "If France showed any ill- will," said Bismarck to Govone, "we could do nothing." Without the good-will of Napoleon, Victor Emmanuel would not have decided to act, would not indeed have touched the matter. Without the Italian alliance, Bismarck would not have persuaded his master to make his proposed appeal to the German nation, with Austria and the German Princes against him. The official diplomacy of France under the direction of Drouin de Lhuys formally declared "its neutrality in the events then preparing." The alliance between Italy and Prussia, with which official France had absolutely nothing to do, was, like that of 1858 between France and Sardinia, the personal work of Napoleon III, determined by his private sympathies and by what he believed to be the interests of himself and his dynasty. It was carried out without the knowledge of his Ministers. It was in fact, though in a roundabout and disguised way, an alliance with Prussia and an encouragement of her ambitious and self-seeking policy. A telegram from Arese to La Marmora of April 9, 1866, gives its full purport and bearing. "The Emperor told me this morning that the King of Prussia was going to convoke a German Parliament at Frankfort on the basis of Universal Suffrage; he re peatedly asked me whether our treaty was signed." Far better for Napoleon III would it have been if in the place of these minute and mysterious suggestions a formal alliance had been concluded, in which the price of his assent, so indispensable to Prussia, might have been discussed and settled. Some weeks later the Emperor had another opportunity. On April 18 Austria, deferring to the counsels of modera tion coming from Petrograd and all the minor German Courts, Saxony, Bavaria, Wurttemberg, and Hanover, offered to demobilise in a week, if Prussia promised to follow suit on April 26 and at the same time to publish her 122 Napoleon III and ihe Nationalities [ch. new scheme of Federation. William I was inclined to accept this pacific solution. Bismarck did not conceal his disappointment (April 21) at the possible failure of his manoeuvre for combining the conquest of the Duchies with the mastery of North Germany. " The risk of an immediate conflict has been dispelled," Benedetti wrote on April 22. A few days later Napoleon III thought he might utilise this delay by calling one of his beloved Congresses to settle the question of Venetia, and so satisfy the demands of Italy, who was disgusted to see her prey escaping her, even if it were only temporarily. He suggested the idea to Baron von der Goltz on April 25, but it was forthwith rejected by Bismarck, who replied that "the work of a Congress can only be prepared by war." Ferro et igni was always his method. And to bring it to bear, and also to accustom bis master to the idea of a war, he urged Italy to concentrate troops in the Romagna on the frontiers of Venetia; Austria of course felt bound in her own defence to prepare for a conflict in that district towards the end of AprU. On April 29 the order to mobUise was issued from Florence over the whole of Italy ; and the King of Prussia informed his Ministers that he must follow suit. Italy applauded her king for summoning her to fight. Bismarck was educating his sovereign up to the same point. Once again however Napoleon III, with the help of Lord Cowley and Prince Metternich, thought he had found a way of anticipating the now imminent war by a Congress. "Without absolutely rejecting the idea of a Congress, the English Government immediately suggested a coUective move by France, Russia, and England, to compel the adversaries -to lay down their arms, by invoking the Declaration of Paris ; this step, they thought, might prepare the way for a Congress. At this supreme moment Napoleon III, supported by England, was once more to be seen standing between rival Powers as an arbitrator. He was still ii] Congress proposed : Speech of Thiers 123 master of his aUiances and of his own destiny. While Austria declared herself ready to give up Venetia to the Italians, with a hope of receiving compensation in Silesia, Bismarck found it necessary to renew his formal offers to France, and to enquire what her price was, whether French-speaking Belgium, or the country between the Rhine and the Moselle. Napoleon III was shy of risking a war by choosing one or the other, and preferred to wait till a Congress settled the affair which the Chanceries of London, Paris, and Petrograd euphemistically termed "the Italian difference." Its date was fixed for June 12, 1866,., and the invitations were issued on May 25. There can be no doubt that the illness from which Napoleon suffered — said to be a protracted attack of acute rheumatism, with serious affection of the bladder — combined with his dread of the attack on his policy which Thiers and the Opposition were preparing, paralysed him at' this critical moment. The speech of the Liberal leader in the Legislative Body on May 3 put out of the question both war and an aUiance with ^Prussia, however profitable it might be. This speech laid bare to the French people the gloomy prospect of an immediate future in which they would find themselves scandalously com promised, "the danger of the Imperial policy," and the imprudence, after aUowing the unification of Italy, of creating a German Empire as formidable as that of Charles V, with its centre in Berlin and its supports in Italy. Thiers defied Napoleon III to accept payment for a piece of work which he ought to have paid any price to have left undone. Fould, one of the Imperial Ministry, declared in the lobby of the Chamber that he had never heard a finer or a stronger speech. From that day forth French opinion refused to measure foreign policy by any test but this cry of alarm and of wounded pride, to which Thiers had forced his countrymen to listen. Napoleon III felt it, and tried to recover his 124 Napoleon III and the Nationalities [ch. position by a speech at Auxerre on May 6, 1866, in which he invoked the doctrine of nationalities, and sought to revive the old animosity of the nation against the treaties of 1815. But he did not attempt to deceive himself. If, as Nigra said, the Allies in Berlin and Florence tempted him by a prospect of large profits, he refused their offers and declined to go to war against the general wishes of the people and more especially of the Legislative Body. Instead of a treaty with Prussia, which would have meant six months of agreement with Bismarck followed by war, it was with Austria that he signed a treaty, dated June 12, 1866, which secured to him in any event the cession of Venetia, with which to satisfy the Italians, and settle the Roman question. Austria had at the eleventh hour granted him this favour, feeling assured ever since June 1 that, with the help of the German Princes and the neutrality of France, she might risk a decisive movement against Prussia in the north and Italy in the south. As in 1859, Francis Joseph had decided to defend himself by taking the offensive rather than have recourse to the mediation of a European Congress. As we know, the chance of arms served him no better than the worst Congress. The victory of the Archduke Albert over the Italians at Gistozza on June 24 was not an equivalent for the defeat of Sadowa on July 3, 1866 ; and in the decisive victories of the Prussians over the Princes of Saxony, Hanover, and Hesse, all dethroned in one month, the future destiny of Prussia was settled by the sword. The skill of Bismarck was to complete that task, and Napoleon was to give him yet more help. On receiving the news of the defeat of Austria in Bohemia and of Italy at Custozza, the Emperor judged that the best service he could render to Italy was to offer his media tion; Francis Joseph accepted it, and offered to transfer Venetia to Italy if she would lay down her arms. Victor Emmanuel, his Ministers, and his people, counting on the li] Sadowa : Napoleon and Prussia 125 complete ruin of Austria, and far greater resulting advan tages, rejected the offer, and even expressed some indigna tion that France should make a merit of a piece of humi liating charity. The Prussians, annoyed at the suspicious appearance of this French intervention, did the same, and carried their conquests further into Moravia. AU that Napoleon need now have done to bring them to reason and to assume the r61e of arbitrator which they refused him, was to send an army corps across the Rhine; this would have raUied the troops of Southern Germany and put new energy into Austria. Drouin de Lhuys and Marshal Randon did their best on July 5 to induce their master to take this step ; and at first with apparent success. It was proposed to corivoke the Chambers, and to mobilise. But other Ministers, La VaUette, Rouher, and Prince-Napo leon, who aU dreaded a rupture with Italy, though for very different reasons, worked in the contrary direction at the TuUeries. The agents of Prussia in Paris who then had access to the Emperor were struck with his perplexity. The Prince of Reuss said, " he talks like a man who has not a clear conscience." Goltz wrote, "A prey to contra dictory ideas, yielding to a diversity of influences, he seems to have entirely lost his head. Nevertheless we have him now on our side. If we can help him out of his painful position, he wUl be eternally grateful." On July 14, 1866, Goltz settled with Napoleon III a preliminary minute, which recognised the greater part of Prussia's acquisitions, viz. her hegemony over the secondary states of North Germany, the abolition of the Germanic Confederation, and the annexation of the Duchies, except Northern Slesvig, the Danish population of which was to be consulted. As this minute mentioned no territorial conquests in Germany, and as William I proposed to annex Hanover,. Electoral Hesse, and Frankfort, Goltz requested Napoleon to express his consent to these annexations, and 126 Napoleon III and the Nationalities [ch. he gave that consent, acting quite independently of his Minister Drouin de Lhuys, on July 19. On July 23, Bismarck had the moderation to suggest, and the authority to insist, in the teeth of his generals, who wanted to follow up their victories as far. as Vienna, that his King should spare Austria further punishment, and be satisfied with the enormous profits won by a short war and the unofficial assistance of France. The more widely the extent and range of Prussian am bition came to be recorded and officially known in France,? the more deeply was public opinion disturbed. " From the point of view of the variability of temper in man in general arid in the Press in particular," wrote Hector Pessard, "nothing is more curious than the change of attitude in the newspapers. The most pacific of our coUeagues became thunderbolts of war ; while even the admirers of Bismarck talked of ,flaying him alive ! " France appeared to have adopted the remark attributed .to Marshal Randon, " It is France that has been beaten at Sadowa!" Republicans such as Quinet and Georges Sand raved at this result of Prussian victories, abetted by a Napoleon on the pretext of working out the unity of nations. Thiers and the Conservatives, Prevost-Paradol and the Liberals, wept over the fate of their country, fallen into the second class of nations. Even in the Bonapartist world, Fould and Magne, to whose despairing paroxysms of wounded pride Quentin-Bauchart gave expression, on July 22 addressed the Emperor thus: "Stop the expansion of Prussia! If war is necessary, do not hesitate ; no war will ever be more popular, nor, we are sure, more glorious." When suddenly brought face to face, through the bitter criticisms of the Opposition, with the inevitable results of this Prussian alliance for which the Sovereign was personally responsibly which had been carried through in secret not only without ^advantage to France but against her interest, the nation il] Rouher and Reaction ; Napoleon's Health 127 rose in one body and called for an account from her master, and also from Prussia, who owed her none. On the other hand Napoleon was beginning to regret to his intimates,. Rouher and La VaUette, in view of these excited and troublesome criticisms, that he had restored to the country the right to pass judgment on his acts and his policy;, he deplored the concessions made in the last five years to the Liberal and Constitutional party. Six months before he had taken alarm ; now he listened only to the counsels of Rouher, or rather of La VaUette, whom he had made Minister of the Interior. At the end of 1865 he dismissed Duruy from the Ministry of Public Instruction as too Liberal, and because his plans for compulsory elementary education, for the instruction of girls, and for advanced scientific and literary study disturbed the Con servative bourgeoisie and the Clergy. He vetoed energeti cally all extension of parUamentary liberty as "leading to a RepubUc" — to use Rouher's phrase. On July 18, 1866, he laid before the Senate a draft Law which indicated very precisely his return to the absolutist system of 1852, as it forbade the discussion of the Constitution in the Legislative Body or by the Press, suppressed the right of amendment, and bade fair to threaten the address itself. It was undeniable that these aUiances, which the Emperor had hunted up alike inside and outside France for the purpose of disposing of the accumulated perplexities in which he had involved himself by his foreign policy since 1859, bad done him more harm than good. The steady decline in his health took him to Vichy in July, to seek for remedies for his ailments with equally mischievous results : he found there no rest either for body or mind. The day after a most depressing attack of illness, the unhappy monarch was caUed upon by Rouher and Drouin de Lhuys to warn Prussia, no doubt with all consideration, that he should refuse a definitive recognition of her . conquests unless Mainz and the whole left bank of the Rhine were 128 Napoleon III and the Nationalities [ch. n ceded to France. Bismarck and his King haughtUy rejected this discreetly worded ultimatum which Benedetti was charged to deliver, on August 7, observing that "both our armies are on a war-footing; yours is not." The story was immediately published by Vilbert, a correspondent of the Siecle, who got his information from one of Bismarck's circle. On learning the answer received, France was humi liated and disturbed, feeling that it exposed her either to disgrace or to danger. But, on the Emperor's immediate reply, protesting his pacific intentions, they had not even that choice ; the disgrace of the check alone remained. In Germany, the excitement was equaUy great, and it was increased by a blundering instruction sent from Paris to Benedetti, of which Rouher was the adviser, on August 16. Napoleon III, who had taken upon himself the duty of defending nationalities, offered on that date to acquiesce in the union of the Southern German States with those of the North under the sceptre of Prussia, if Prussia would coun tenance his annexation of Belgium. Bismarck made believe to accept the offer, but revealed it to the Southern Princes, and to the King of Bavaria in particular ; and he made use of their indignation to extract from them a promise, which was recorded in treaties dated August 18 and 22, 1866, to put the combined armies of all Germany at the dis position of the King of Prussia, in the event of a war, offensive or defensive. This created the mUitary unification of Germany, as the Zollverein had created the economic, and all for the benefit of the Hohenzollern dynasty. Let us consider the distance traversed in less than six months, from the conquest of the Duchies, to that of Northern Germany, and thence to that of the whole of Germany! William I might well say to Bismarck after the Peace of Prague (August 22, 1866), "You have written your name as statesman for all eternity on the Roll of Honour of History." • But the genius of his Minister had been singularly assisted by the sympathies, as later by the menaces, of Napoleon.- CHAPTER III THE DECLINE OF THE EMPIRE Napoleon must at this period have been very painfully affected by the reproaches of the nation to whom he yet persistently refused the right of self-government, to judge by the manifesto which he determined to address to it, the most remarkable and instructive of his many messages to the French people. The document bore the signature of- La VaUette, Minister of Foreign Affairs in the interim be tween the resignation of Drouin de Lhuys and the installa tion of the Marquis de Moustier, who had been summoned to the office from Constantinople on September 17, 1866. It opened in a grave tone. "Public opinion," the Emperor confesses, "is disturbed. It fluctuates in uncertainty, between the delight of seeing the destruction of the treaties of 1815, and the fear of the inordinate growth of the power of Prussia, between a desire to maintain peace and a hope of winning extension of territory by war. It welcomes the complete liberation of Italy, but asks for some . security against the dangers that might threaten the Holy Father." To dissipate this uncertainty, and to give clearness of con viction, the Emperor might have found some other method than an announcement that he must provide himself with a strong army, and, by the side of the lately constituted nationalities and kingdoms, must look out for territorial extensions "such as absolute necessity demands, and such as may add still further to the solidity of our cohesion." Did this mean an approaching war, or a lasting peace based on generosity and moderation? Napoleon did not B. II. 9 130 The Decline of the Empire [ch. know himself ; and the picture he drew of the uncertainty of the nation was just a picture of his own state of mind in the last three years of his reign, down to the final catastrophe. What with the demands of parties at home, and the am bitions and requirements of the Powers whose development he had hastened, both his policy and his volition were in a far more dangerous state of fluctuation than the opinions of the French. nation. At first, and down to the close of 1866, he employed Rouher to control the newspaper Press more closely than ever; he suspended the Courrier du Dimanche, in which Prevost-Paradol recorded the humiliations of France, and he found fault with Walewski, as President of the Chamber, for not checking the audacity of critics. Then he suddenly began to listen to the advice of this same Walewski when he proposed, on January 10, 1867, to make a bona fide ex periment in constitutional government, and even to appoint Emile Ollivier to the Ministry. Ollivier declined the offer; but on January 19, Napoleon addressed a letter to his out going Ministry in which he granted the country a new Charter, abolishing the Address to the Throne, but giving deputies the right to put questions to Government, "subject to certain rules." A decree dated February 5 prescribed some details of this new system : (1) requests for information were to be submitted to the control of a Minister of State and the permanent committees, and were not to be foUowed up by a reasoned resolution ; (2) leave to move amendments to be subjected to a complicated procedure, involving examination by a Committee of the Chamber and by the Council of State ; (3) the Emperor to inform the Chamber by means of his Ministers, but without involving any responsibility on their part ; (4) a promise to place press offences once more under the jurisdiction of the ordinary courts ; (5) announcement of a Law as to right of Com bination. in] The Emperor and Rouher 131 These measures would have satisfied the Liberals, in spite of the restrictions which surrounded them, if Napoleon, alarmed at this LiberaUsm, had not given way to the en treaties of the Empress, and retained Rouher in power — Rouher, his absolutist Minister, the leader of a party of stalwart Conservatives, whose members shortly afterwards started a Club outside the Assembly in the Rue de l'Arcade in preparation for the contest. "After tying up one of your arms," said Jules Favre in i860, " they untie it; but only to tie up the other immediately." One of the first acts of Rouher was to confer on the Senate on March 12, 1867, a right it had not previously enjoyed — that of discussing all Bills ; by the Constitution of 1852, only laws affecting the Constitution were within its purview. Rouher wished to make the Senate a Napoleonic Chamber of Peers capable of controlling the vagaries of the Legislative Chamber. He contrived to ehminate Emile OUivier from the Parliamentary Committees, and Walewski from the Presidency. He compeUed the Emperor, then incapable of resisting him, to evade and postpone the promises of liberty given three months before to EmUe Ollivier, to whose remonstrances the Emperor replied on April 8, "The country is not so ripe for reform as I thought." Thus separating from the men who had advised the experiment of a constitutional government, he delegated his authority to Rouher so completely that the latter was generally known as the "Grand Vizier," whUe OUivier actually addressed him in the Chamber as "Vice-Emperor." With the support of the Arcade group, and the energetic help of the Empress, whom her husband's weak health seemed to designate as Regent in the near future, and who was attending Councils and preparing for the task of government, Rouher succeeded in withholding from the French nation all the Uberty that the Emperor had seemed to concede tojt in 1867. In a bold and detailed report addressed to the Emperor 9—2 132 The Decline of the Empire [ch. on September 30, 1867, Pietri, the Prefect of Police, said: ' "The nation wants to know what the Emperor wishes, and what object his Government is aiming at. Is it a new development of Liberalism, as announced in the letter of January 19? or is it on the contrary an increase of the power of the executive government ? Every one feels that in the present state of national uncertainty and torpor a clear and bold assertion of the Imperial policy is a matter of daily increasing urgency." But neither the Emperor nor Rouher dared to decide or lay down, much less to explain to the French nation, the governing direction of their foreign policy. "The country wants to know," added Pietri, "whether this means war with its patriotic impulses ; and if so> war with whom? Or does it mean peace, security, reduction of military expenditure and annual contingents, and the. abandonment of an unpopular scheme for the reorganisa tion of the army?" Since the La VaUette circular had been, published and the creation of a High Commission for the reorganisation of the military force required for the maintenance of French influence had been notified to the country in October 1866, everything seemed to indicate a formal intention on the part of Napoleon III to raise the forces of the Empire to a number proportional to that which Prussia and Italy had lately adopted. But it needed no more than the obstinate silent resistance of Bismarck during the concluding m6nths of 1866 to the demands of Napoleon, to compel him to abandon the idea of claiming by force either compensation or "wages" from the Prussians. By the skill of Bismarck the conquest of Northern Germany was completed in the shape of a Con federation of the North, which was carried by vote in February 1867, and recognised by all Europe. Then suddenly Napoleon returned to the idea of a conquest, even if it must be smaller than that of the left ill] The Luxemburg A'ffair 133 bank of the Rhine or Belgium. He requested the King of Prussia to withdraw the Prussian garrison which occupied Luxemburg in the name of the German Confederation now defunct, and to permit him to occupy that Grand Duchy. In February 1867 be apphed to the King of HoUand, the actual owner of the Grand Duchy, asking him to surrender his title to it against an indemnity. The affair was weU set on foot, both Prussia and Holland appearing to be favourable ; but complications arose when William III, fearing to be entrapped between the ambitions of France and Germany, asked Napoleon to obtain the formal assent of Prussia, for which purpose it was necessary to reveal the secret of these negotiations to the Germans on March 30, 1867. Their feelings were thoroughly aroused ; and the Marquis de Moustier and Benedetti were at first inclined to meet the Teutonic wrath by taking up an energetic attitude. "The fear of war will not drive us back a foot's breadth. ' ' However, the formal challenge addressed by Bennigsen, the leader of the German patriots, to the King of Prussia on April 1 decided Bismarck to request an adjournment of the matter. The same challenge was still more effective in making the King of Holland refuse his signature to the Deed of Cession (April 2, 1867) ; and Napoleon III was compelled on April 15 to declare that " in the interests of European peace he accepted the idea of conciliation in any form consistent with his dignity and his duties towards the country." He gave up the cession which had been agreed upon and was to all appearances complete, on condition that Prussia withdrew her troops from Luxemburg. Ten days later, the King of Prussia proposed on his side the assembly of a Conference; and by that Conference, which met in London, the neutralisation of the Grand Duchy and the retirement of the Prussian ( troops were arranged (May 3-11, 1867). Although the Marquis de Moustier tried to conceal his 134 The Decline of the Empire [ch. defeat by boasting of it in the Chamber as a diplomatic victory won against German arrogance, the result had in fact been so skilfuUy worked out by Bismarck as to forbid the French to hope, not only for Belgium, but even for Luxemburg. "Every issue, every prospect has been closed to us," said Drouin de Lhuys sadly; adding, "So far as we are concerned, any attempt of ours at aggrandisement in the West would now be difficult, chaUenged by the whole of Europe, and impossible to justify." After this experience,^! apolebn III seemed to accept the situation ; and when, after receiving all the sovereigns of Europe, great and small, including the King of Prussia with Bismarck and Moltke, for the festivities of the Uni versal Exhibition in Paris (1867), he expressed his desire to Uve at peace with all nations, no doubt he spoke with sincerity. He had certainly tried to rid himself of Mexico by ordering Bazaine to embark his 25,000 men and officers, on March 1, 1867, though the Marshal had begun to con centrate his forces upon the city of Mexico during the summer of 1866 without troubling himself about the fresh outbreaks of revolt in his rear. Napoleon remained deaf to the appeals of the Emperor MaximUian, addressed to him through Almonte in May, as well as to the entreaties of the Empress Charlotte, who had arrived as a suppliant from Mexico, and had become insane in Rome while address ing a useless petition to the Pope (August 1866). No doubt he refused to believe that the end of the adventure was going to involve the tragic end of its unlucky hero, Maximilian, who was captured, tried, and executed by Juarez on June 19, 1867, refusing to abdicate and unable to escape. France recovered her army; but Maximilian lost his life. The lesson was a hard one for the Emperor and" his circle, and it must have taught therii the need of prudence in their designs. "If the Prince Imperial were eighteen years old, we should abdicate," said the Empress in tears. And, to in] Mexico and Italy 135 iUustrate the state of confusion in which the Government was drifting at the mercy of events, the august lady added these words: "We are like people in a besieged city; no sooner have we done with one trouble than another begins." In fact, Napoleon had scarcely received news of the death of Maximilian, just at the moment of the return of his troops from Mexico and the Exhibition fetes, in July 1867, when he learnt, in the month of October, that Rome had been attacked by Garibaldian bands with the connivance of the Rattazzi Ministry. He thought it his duty to send an army corps to the assistance of the Holy See. He had fancied- that gratitude for the liberation of Venetia would incline the Italians to forget their grievances against the Holy See. But, in the first place, the Italian people had felt humiliated by, rather than grateful for, the Emperor's benevolence ; and, further, they were dissatisfied with. a mediation whose object seemed to be to protect the last remnants of Austrian domination in the Trentino. Each step in advance in the process of unification created in the patriots a stronger yearning for the decisive step of the occupation of Rome, a city as sacred from their point of view as from that of the Catholics. "Italy without Rome is nothing," said Ricasoli; and he was the most moderate of therri. It is possible that Napoleon hoped to relieve the fears of French Catholics by the fact of his carrying out the Convention of September at the exact date fixed for the,recall of his troops (October 15, 1866). His whole procedure looked like a clumsy challenge to the King and people of Italy. " I will not give up a single point," Napoleon said to Count Arese ; " I am thoroughly determined to support the Temporal Power of the Pope by every means at my disposal." And to prove it, he gave out that he was keeping a force of 20,000 men at Toulon ready to sail for Civita Vecchia at the first summons. Furthermore, he encouraged the formation of a Pontifical Legion at 136 The Decline of the Empire [ch. Antibes, which left for Rome under the command of General Dumont, an officer on active service. He thus gave it to be understood that he was willing to prolong the expedition to Rome, in a disguised form. In the same roundabout way, Victor Emmanuel and his Ministers soon allowed the Garibaldians to assemble in all the provinces for a decisive attack and to provide them selves with arms by the benevolent forbearance of the prefects. The next series of events was that Garibaldi escaped from Caprera on October 20, landed in Tuscany, took advantage of a ministerial crisis to remain at large in defiance of the King, who ought to have arrested him, and, in the interval between the resignation of Rattazzi and the appointment of Cialdini, on October 23, hurried to the Roman frontier and occupied Monte Rotondo, two days' march from the city. Thereupon on October 25, 1867, Napoleon III ordered General de Failly to embark for Civita Vecchia without delay. Five days later his troops were in Rome; on November 3 they surprised and routed Garibaldi's small force at Mentana ; Garibaldi himself was taken prisoner by the Italian authorities after the defeat, on November 11, 1867. By this fresh expedition to Rome, reluctantly carried out to prevent the wrath of the Catholics in Paris from exploding, Napoleon ensured a corresponding explosion from French Liberals, who attempted to make disturbances, as well as from Italian patriots, who destroyed his statue in Milan; while his action drove Mazzini and PaUavicini into an alliance with Bismarck against France. Mgr Darboy, speaking in the Senate at about this date, said : " France is more deeply involved than she was six months ago. She can neither advance nor retire. Intervention, far from being a solution, of the difficulties, complicates them further. Italy comes out of it belittled, and consequently indignant, if she has any spirit." That such was the result of inter- in] Mentana: the Roman Question 137 vention was evident from the opposing utterances which immediately followed. In the French Chamber, Rouher, on being caUed upon by both Right and Left to define his position, and formaUy summoned by Thiers to make an unequivocal statement, speaking for the French Govern ment, said, " Italy will not take possession of Rome ; never, never wUl France put up with such a blow to her honour and her Catholicity." Some days later, in the Parliament at Florence, President Lanza in his opening speech said, "Sooner or later, by the necessity of things and the logic of ages, Rome must be the Capital of Italy " ; and, when passing a vote of confidence in the Menabrea Ministry, the deputies declared, in the teeth of Napoleon III, the one essential article in the National Creed to be "Rome as capital, Roma intangibile." The Italian question, no less than the German, was alive with perils for the Emperor. The Catholics of France urged him to put a veto on Italian unity in Rome; while all Frenchmen without exception demanded that limits should be put to the progress of Prussian unity. Republicans and Liberals were as indignant as they had been in 1849, at the support given to the Papacy ; while the bishops blamed it as inadequate. In seeking to satisfy one party and at the same time relieve the fears of the other, in preparing for war while maintaining peace, and guaranteeing peace while claiming the benefits of a conquest, he was trying for the impossible. "What with a constitution which has ceased to be an Empire, and is not yet a parliamentary regime," said Persigny to him no less bluntly than justly, "what with a condition which is less than peace and not quite war, how can you wonder at the confusion in the public mind and the general uneasiness? " And the nation which the Imperial system was now powerless to command had not attained either to liberty or to the art of self-govern ment. Parties fought more violently than ever for the 138 The Decline of the Empire -[ch, conduct of affairs, on platforms of the most opposite character. The heads of the Liberal Opposition agreed in demand ing necessary liberties, which signified a parUamentary regime resembling that of the Monarchy of July, in which the Emperor would reign without governing; and with this some Republicans like Picard and Jules Favre would have been satisfied. They were united also in criticising the deficits in the Imperial budgets, the useless and ruinous expedition to Mexico, the policy that had weakened France by allowing the two Powers, Prussia and Italy, to grow up on her frontiers, and had finally destroyed the Temporal Power of the Pope for the benefit of nationalities. But these Liberals were not in agreement with the Radical Republicans — Brisson, Gambetta, Vacherot, Pelletan, Challemel-Lacour, Jules Favre, Delescluze, Ranc, etc. — who were determined on a death-struggle with the Imperial dynasty as a reply to the coup d'etat. These irreconcileables had welcomed the emancipation of Italy, and the blows struck at the Church of Rome, whose ¦ influence and doctrines they disliked; they had no ill- feeling towards Germany ; and, though they regretted the triumphant progress of Prussia, they declined to give Napoleon III the means of stopping it, on the ground that he might make use of a stronger army to consolidate his dictatorship. On the dther hand, among the supporters of fhe Empire too there were still more marked divergences in disposi tions, opinions, and feelings. The members of the Dynastic Opposition, or Third Party, claimed for the country certain rights which the defenders of an absolutist Empire either refused with obstinacy or flouted at their pleasure. Some dwelt on the danger of the doctrine of nationalities ; others approved of the doctrine, making its support the duty, and its success the glory, of an administration. Prince in] Absolutism or Parliamentarism 139 Napoleon, standing close to the Throne, was the centre of the ardent anti-clericals; while the Empress supported the Catholics who defended the Papacy and the Temporal Power. What with Emile Ollivier supporting the dynasty for the purpose of recommending peace and a Constitutional regime, and Rouher championing absolutism and the strong hand, the discord reigning in 1867 was complete, and took the character of a personal and often violent struggle. If — as Marshal Vaillant said — the Emperor vacillated, the nation hesitated equally between the parties, looking wist fully for a path, but uncertain as to its own immediate future and ultimate destiny. WhUe the Imperial regime was being broken down by this state of uncertainty, the populations of the great industrial towns which had grown with_ the economic progress of the country, and the proletariat of Paris, were preparing the forces required for an attempt to secure further liberty and comfort. The establishment of the Lnter- nationale in 1864 having furnished a scheme of organisa tion, the Paris and Provincial Sections of that body had been formed; and representatives had been regularly sent to the Congresses of Geneva in 1866 and Lausanne in 1867, which constituted the States-General of the working classes. Although the French branch of the Internationale had at the Congress condemned the practice of strikes as revolutionary, strikes broke out in the bronze industry in Paris and in the weaving trade of Roubaix in 1867. At the end of that year the French artisans resolved that the conquest of political liberty "was a measure of primary and absolute necessity." Thus a mob was all ready to rise in Paris against the Empire, and the Empire replied by a judicial decree suppressing the working-men's International. Indeed the question was discussed before Napoleon in Council in January 1868 whether a sort of second coup dletat should not be attempted, under the 140 The Decline of the Empire [ch. direction of Persigny and Rouher, against the artisan party of Paris and the great towns. "It is easier to talk of a coup d'etat than to carry one through," replied La VaUette and Walewski. "We are no longer living," Rouher had to confess with sorrow, "in the days when the Empire was created by a national effort, and by the memory of recent dangers which had upset society. Do not let us irritate the young generation which is looking forward to a more extended liberty." In this speech, which he addressed to the Legislative Body by the orders of the Sovereign, Rouher admitted the impotence of the Government to restrain the activities of the working classes. On March 7, 1869, the Legislative Body passed, with only one opposing vote, a law on the Press which the Opposition considered insufficient, while the Bonapartists at first thought it much too Liberal. The practices of requiring newspapers to obtain licences before issue, and of warnings, suspensions, and suppressions by police orders, were abolished. Press offences, discussions of the Consti tution, attacks, whether on the Sovereign or a subject, were to be tried in the ordinary counts, and not before a jury, which might refuse to yield to Government pressure. The Press had evidently not yet heard the last of arbitrary rules ; and it was still liable to severe penalties, as well as to stamp-duty and caution-money. Nevertheless it was a fresh start, a re-birth of liberty, an embargo taken off the lips of the citizens. And it is only fair to point- out that the law of June 11, legalising public meetings in principle, though placing them under the observation and control of the police, was a concession of the same sort, granted by a Government which had secured itself in 1851 by a pitiless proscription of Clubs. The effect of this legislation was almost immediate in the great cities and especially in Paris. Six months afterwards the republican and revolutionary movement, which was ill] The Press and the Republicans 141 sooner or later to upset the Empire, began to make head. Henceforth the crowded audiences which listened to re publican and socialist speakers were composed of awakened, educated, and well-organised people. New journals came into being — the Tribune, organ of the Republican Radicals, edited by Pelletan with the help of Glais-Bizoin, Cluseret, Naquet, and Claretie; the Revue politique, founded by ChaUemel-Lacour, Jules Ferry, and Brisson, on the same side ; the Democratic, founded by Chassin, the historian of the wars of La Vendee, to which Louis Blanc, Quinet, and Felix Pyat contributed. Again there was the Electeur libre, round which Picard collected his earliest friends of the moderate Republican party such as Jules Favre and Henon, together with Jules Ferry, Prevost-Paradol and Leon Say. At the extreme opposite wing of the Opposition there was the Reveil, in which Delescluze, the old Revolutionist who had returned from Cayenne, called the people of Paris to the fray. By means of these j ournals, and more especiaUy the last-named, the masses of working-men recovered the habit of reading, pondering, and discussing. And into this fever of awaking consciousness Rochefort in May 1868 flung the Lanteme, a leaflet overflowing with spirit, impudence, and mischief, whose jokes mercilessly tore to pieces the dynasty, the men in power, and their system. The Lanteme was at this period preeminently the mouthpiece of the Parisian mob, that strange mixture of industry and Ught- heartedness, already in revolt against its masters. Then there were the public meetings, where the spread of Republican and Socialist doctrine was carried on by speech even more effectively than by the Press. On June 18, 1868, a debate on woman's labour took place in the presence of 3000 men, to whom the disciples of Proudhon explained their theories; and before long all the labour questions were under discussion, either in the Masonic Lodges, or in halls rented in the Faubourg St Antoine or St Marcel, in 142 The Decline of the Empire [ch. Belleville or Montmartre. The Republican bourgeois, and economists like Molinari, Frederic Passy, and Clamageran, attended, and stated their objections; and, mingled with the leaders of this artisan movement were to be found MutuaUsts such as Tolain, Camelinat, Chemale ; Communists, such as Ranvier, Milliere, Lefrancais the historian of these meetings, and Vartin; with Blanquists of a more revolu- tionary\type, Germain Casse, Raoul Rigault, and Chauviere, independents and eclectic socialists, as Longuet and Beslay. The alliance between these leaders of the Parisian Democracy and the democratic bourgeois, which had broken down in June 1848, was being now once more formed. No doubt, in the twenty years which had passed, the old resentments had been gradually forgotten by the new generations on both sides. The new union between the working class and the Republican bourgeoisie was a heavy blow for the Empire which their former divisions had done so much to favour. In a great popular meeting called in November 1868 the Socialists voluntarily suggested an understanding which would restore to the Republican and Social ideal its leaders and its forces. From Paris the movement passed to the provincial towns. Delescluze in founding the Reveil announced on May 9, 1868, that his journal — "a Paris journal" — would afford the fulcrum required by the provincial Press. Lefort started the Suffrage universel at Caen ; Naquet started the Peuple at Marseilles ; Yves Guyot the Independant du UiM at Nimes. Discussion-meetings were also held in all work| ing-class centres. As soon as the Imperial Government appreciated the strength of this popular movement, which was beginning to prove its power in Paris, it attempted to check it by the decrees of its judges and the supervision of its police. In a few months the Republican Press had to submit to more than one hundred prosecutions, which cost the journalists more than ten years' imprisonment and 125,000 francs in in] Repression and Socialism 143 penalties. Rochefort was obhged to fly to Belgium; Lockroy of the Rappel was imprisoned at St Pelagie — proceedings which were useless save as giving the Republican barristers a platform whence to overwhelm the Government with invective, and securing them a favourable hearing from the Parisian public. An assemblage more dangerous than the discussion- meetings prohibited by the police, and one in which Republicans found an opportunity for protesting against the coup d'etat, took place on All Saints' Day and again on December 3, 1868, at the visit of respect paid to the tomb of the deputy, Baudin, one of the victims of Louis Napoleon's soldiery, who fell on December 1, 1851. The disturbance it "produced was prolonged by the creation of a fund to erect a tomb to the martyr to which all the Repub lican journals opened their columns. "Now the Republic is saved ! " cried Delescluze. Its hour was in fact drawing nigh ; Paris was confronting the Dictator with a memorial celebration of his victims. The Emperor insisted on State prosecutions of the journalists who had flung their chaUenge in his face ; thus giving td Gambetta, who defended Dele scluze, on November 13, 1868, the opportunity of making a political speech which marked him as at once the avenger and the chief of the Democracy. His client was found guilty ; but the real prisoner then in the dock was the Empire. The orator had raised, in a voice heard from one end of France to the other, the cry of revolt from Paris, where after seven teen years the will of the People, against which no proscrip tion runs, was once more challenging "the arbitrary violence of a master." The general elections of 1869 were now approaching. The Emperor, more and more exhausted by illness and the strain of contest, had already admitted the victory of the Capital, and by not offering any official candidates for election spared himself the humiliation of their defeat. 144 The Decline of the Empire [ch, And Paris competed with MarseUles, which had just lost its great representative, Bertyer, in December, for the privUege of sending Gambetta to the Legislative Body "to assert and establish in the face of the Caesarian Democracy the principles, rights and grievances of a true Democracy, as well as its incompatibility with the present regime"— the sovereignty of the people, in short, against the sovereignty of intrigue and violence. The victory of the Democracy of Paris, now that it had decided to withdraw from Napoleon III its mandate to act on its behalf, surpassed in completeness even the fears of the Emperor and his Ministers (May 23, 1869). It was in fact a brilliant triumph for the Republic. The electors had put aside even those Liberals who had accepted the Empire in 1863 "with the necessary liberty," preferring to them the " irreconcileable " Republicans of 1848 — young Republicans whom an aUiance with the Socialist leaders for the overthrow of the dynasty did not alarm, Radicals whose boldness no longer frightened the bourgeoisie. Pelletan and Jules Simon were re-elected by large majorities ; but Gamier-Pages and Carnot, Republicans of 1848, had their places taken by Raspail and Gambetta. Ernest Picard had to fight for his seat with a Socialist, whom however he beat ; Jules Ferry was substituted for Gueroult ; Jules Favre only won from Rochefort, and Thiers from d'Alton-Shee, on the ballot. Lastly Emile Ollivier suffered a complete defeat from Bancel, a courageous and eloquent victim of the proscription. He was able to verify for him self that in his electoral area the wealthiest traders were no longer as afraid of a popular revolution as in 1850, and preferred the risk of it to the Napoleonic dictatorship. The candidates who remained loyal to the Empire did not receive one-third of the votes given in the Capital to the Republic. The proportion was the same at Marseilles, where Gambetta was elected; at Lyons, in the case of in] The Elections of .1869 145 Raspail and Henon ; at Bordeaux, in those of Jules Favre, Larrieu and Bancel; at Dijon of Magnin; at Toulouse of Remusat ; at Mulhouse, which elected Tachard ; at Limoges, at St Quentin, and at Nantes. On that day a breeze of Revolution blew over Paris. On the boulevards and in the cafes the voting was watched with passionate interest; newspapers were snatched from hand to hand; throngs stood round the printing offices, where telegrams were being received every minute. The town fairly seethed with excitement. "Every place is fuU of explosives (said Jules Ferry) ; a single spark would suffice." How could it be otherwise, when the Parisians saw that out of 7,738,000 votes recorded 3,300,000 had been given against the dynasty? "The Republic," wrote the Socialist Malon to his friend Richard at the be ginning of November 1869, "is moraUy proclaimed. Paris has in a sense regained its liberty, and the Press and the platform are comparatively free. The right of assembly has passed into our political ethics. The first popular gale wiU scatter far and wide the fragments of the absurd monarchical scaffolding which burdens our native soil with its revolting weight." In certain revolutionary circles it had been already decided to make the main feature of their policy the impeachment of the Emperor. A duel between the Emperor and the working-class Democrats would have taken place at once, had not the bourgeoisie, both Liberal and Republican, from fear either of a bloody revolution or of a reaction in favour of the army, once more interposed between the adversaries, between the chief of the army which was devoted to the Imperial cause and the people of Paris yearning to retaliate for the coup d'etat. It was obviously the part to be under taken by the deputies of the Third Party, who believed that an unmistakeably Liberal Empire with true parliamentary institutions rnight reconcile the Sovereign and the nation, b. 11. 10 146 The Decline of the Empire [ch. and, as Maupas put it, grow into an unshakeable foundation of the Napoleonic dynasty. As soon as Rouher had summoned the new Chamber, on June 28, 1869, a group was formed round Emile Ollivier, whom Buffet, Chevandier, Plichon, Segris, and Louvet at once accepted as their leader, meeting under the roof of Brame, one of the most resolute of their number. At their bidding more than one hundred deputies determined to put inter pellations to the Government, demanding that the "nation should be brought into more practical connexion with its own affairs," that its representatives should have a responsible Ministry to deal with, and all the rights of a true Parliament, in short that, while the Emperor continued to reign, he should no longer govern. With Thiers and his Orleanist friends, many of whom had lost their seats in the elections, notably Prevost7Paradol, Casimir Perier, De Witt, Bocher, and de Broglie, but who were stiU numerous enough to furnish the needful amount of rank and file, this Third Party might hope to get a majority. Napoleon III was very angry at first: "You want to cut off the old lion's claws and teeth, and leave him nothing but his fine mane." Advised -and urged by the Empress, who supported Rouher, he would not listen to Persigny, who told him on June 27: "By favouring this man, you increase the boldness of his enemies and the general dis affection." On August 2 he prorogued the Legislative Body, but with his usual weakness omitted^ to fix a date for its next meeting, in order to avoid an interpellation. But at the same time he announced the dismissal of the Rouher Cabinet, and appointed in their stead a Ministry of business men under Chasseloup-Laubat ; knowing the very liberal views of the latter, he directed him to draw up on his behalf and get through the Senate a Decree granting very ample reforms. On September 8, 1869, the Senate passed this new amendment of the Constitution, which in] Concessions to the Third Party 147 granted to the Legislative Body an initiative in legislation, the right to vote the Budget, the right of interpeUation and amendment, the right to elect its own President and officers, and which finally proclaimed ministerial responsibility. This, but for some reserved though essential points, was reaUy government by Parliament ; though the Senate was stUl entrusted with the protection of the Constitution, and it was expressly declared that "Ministers depended on the Sovereign alone." Nevertheless EmUe de Girardin was right in holding that this Decree of the Senate involved "a change even more important than that of August 9, 1830, when the Duke of Orleans ascended the throne after the deposition of Charles X." Except so far as concerned the succession, they had finally disposed of the right to govern France without taking her into counsel, which Napoleon III held by the will of the people, as the Bourbons had held it by the grace of God. Though still kept out of power by the wounded vanity of a monarch whose health and strength were rapidly failing, the Third Party and its leader were delighted. "It is evident," wrote Emile Ollivier, "that sooner or later we shall come to blows in the streets. Then we must be able to point to the word 'Liberty' blazoned on our standards. True wisdom (he added) lies in meeting the flow of Revolution by an opposite current of Liberty ; were these two ever definitely to run in the same direction, the trouble would begin." Thus by the efforts of the Third Party the conflict which was apparently imminent between the people and the Government was postponed. " If Rouher remains fast at his post," said the Rappel, "all the better." But Emile Ollivier and his friends had got rid of Rouher. "If the benches on the Left are to be filled with rioters," wrote Paul de Cassagnac on the other side, "we shall not conceal our satisfaction at this- triumph of the Radical Opposition." But the leaders of the Democracy, knowing full well the 148 The Decline of the Empire [ch. harm that a riot and the fear of the Red Spectre would do to their cause, had done all in their power to pre vent a popular explosion. Gambetta, in his address to the electors of MarseiUes, declared himself as thoroughly opposed to demagogy as to Caesarism. "Demagogues," he said, "may call themselves .Caesar or Marat; the point is that they trust to force for the satisfaction of their ambitions or their lusts. And it is because Democracy is radical that it is so completely devoted to order, the basic principle of society." His friend Ranc scoffed at these counsels of prudence ; but Jules Ferry, Bancel, Grevy, and Jules Simon were preparing to act upon them even at the risk of alienating the Socialists. When the day came to put them to the test, the republican bourgeois declined to risk the future of their party in a revolution based on- doctrines with which they disagreed. The populace of Paris, having been success ful at the elections, were indignant at the Emperor's apparent wish to postpone ^indefinitely the opening of Parliament. Communist agitators, Blanquists, and heads of the working-men's Internationale urged them to claim their rights by arms ; they only awaited the signal of the democratic deputies, who had arranged to meet, like Mirabeau of old, on the day fixed by law for the opening of the Chambers (October 26, 1869) at the door of the House now closed by tyranny. The signal was not given. The Left met at its ordinary place of assembly, and resolved unanimously not to give the Empire any excuse for another baptism of blood; they preferred to incur the angry re proaches of the revolutionary chiefs, to which Benoit Malon thus gave vivid expression : "October 26 was, we thought, to be a brilliant day ; to-day its Ught burns low. A capital event in the history of humanity has come to pass; the bourgeoisie has just inexorably pronounced its own de position. Brought suddenly face to face with an imminent in] Gambetta and Rochefort 149 Revolution bearing Socialism in its womb, it has recoiled in a sudden terror." "And," he added, quite unfairly, "it has cast in its lot with the Empire." In reality the Radicals preferred the Republic, though they might have to wait longer to get it by pacific means ; they preferred the ballot-box to the barricade. They had learnt from the lessons of the past : after violence, reaction. Thus it was in 1835, thus in 1848. "The heroic times of Republicanism are over," as Gambetta said not long after, to the youth of the day. " So long as the field is left open for discussion, controversy, proselytism, and propaganda, so long as the hand of the police has not been laid on the lips of free citizens, we may shout as loud as we hke that we despise violence in the police as much as in an usurper." But though Paris declared its approval of Rochefort when with Socialist aid he founded, on November 22, a journal, which he called the Marseillaise, to rouse the nation against the Imperial regime, the Republicans thought mainly of France; they felt that to win it over from the Empire, they musj: be able to inspire confidence in the peasantry and provide them with a strong adminis tration, as their only guarantee for security and order. " If I clamour for the introduction of the republican form of government, it is because it will be a real government. And I protest with all my might against those who, through long fighting against government institutions in hands that have misused them, have forgotten that under democratic rule the government will mean ourselves. I refuse to upset an organisation which maintains the whole equilibrium of society." In the choice between a dictatorship, however bad, and pure anarchy, Gambetta and his friends accepted the lesser evil, awaiting the hour in which the nation, delivered from the tyrant without being delivered up to the anarchist, would yield to their arguments and come round of their own accord to a RepubUc- 150 The Decline of the Empire [ch. Thus it was that a truce was established which from January to August 1870 gave six months' longer life to the Imperial rule, and so much more internal peace to the nation. On January 2, Napoleon III summoned Emile Ollivier to form a Ministry, with the aid of the Third Party, from members of the majority, a bona fide parliamentary Ministry. It had a Republican for chief; and one im portant member, Buffet, the Finance Minister, had been vice-president of the National Assembly dissolved in 1851. The Emperor had no longer any hopes of strengthening his dynasty by the use of force. "You cannot have a coup d'etat twice," said the Empress Eugenie herself to him. In the secret interviews between Ollivier and Napoleon in November and December 1869, the Republican had persuaded the monarch that "a few months of liberty would do more to secure his dynasty than any prosecutions of the Opposition," and that he ought to summon the younger generation to his side to save his son; while the Emperor had converted the Republican to the defence of the legitimacy of an Empire based on the national will and an appeal to the people. Supported by his master, Emile Ollivier, as he himself tells us, believed himself to be the Casimir Perier of this novel parliamentary monarchy and "a barrier on the road to revolution." Feeling sure of France, he, like the bourgeois Ministers of Louis Philippe, had no doubts as to his power to reduce to sUence the opposition of Paris. He had scarcely become a Minister, before an opportunity occurred for applying his doctrines. In the previous month a violent discussion had arisen in the Press, reflecting on the Napoleon family, between the editors of the Revanche (a Corsican journal) and the Marseillaise, Paschal Grousset and Rochefort, on one side, and on the other Prince Pierre Bonaparte, the son of Lucien, once a member of the Legis: lative Body, who had been forbidden the Tuileries on in] Ollivier' s Ministry : Victor Noir 151 account of his irregular and scandalous life. On January 10, 1870, P. Grousset sent his seconds, Victor Noir and Ulric de Fonvielle, young men of hot temper, to demand satisfaction of the Prince at his house at Auteuil. Irritated by their manner, the Prince received them with insolence, which Victor Noir returned by a vigorous slap in the face ; whereupon the Prince drew a revolver, shot Victor Noir dead, and fired at de Fonvielle, who only escaped by flight. Whatever the excuse might have been, this was a homicide committed by a Bonaparte; and the Government recognised the fact by immediately arresting the culprit. On the following day Rochefort, by an article in the Marseillaise and a speech in the Chamber, summoned the Imperial family to give an account of this outrageous murder. "Are we under the Borgias?" he cried. The emotion, whether spontaneous or provoked by the demo cratic Press, was extreme both in Paris and in the great provincial towns. Much pity was bestowed on the victim, "a humble son of the people," and much indignation felt against the assassin. Napoleon III was called to account for this and aU other murders committed since the coup d'etat. In every meeting arose the same cry of pity and vengeance. It was agreed that the entire Democracy, working-men, bourgeois, journalists, etc., should assemble at the victim's house at NeuUly to accompany the body to the cemetery in Paris, and give the Bonapartists by this demonstration of sympathy a rehearsal, perhaps the last, of the decisive insurrection which should upset their power. "To-monow," said the revolutionary leaders, "the flag of the Republic will be triumphant." WhUe OUivier was hurriedly concerting with Chevandier and Lebceuf, the Ministers of the Interior and of War, the steps to be taken to prevent the agitators from entering Paris, the heads of the radical Democracy, and this time their boldest, Rochefort and Delescluze, kept them at 152 The Decline of the Empire [ch. NeuUly. ' ' The Government are only waiting for the moment to finish with the Republic. We shall get our vengeance in due time. For the present, patience and calmness!" Some isolated bands promenaded the faubourgs in the evening; nothing further happened that day. However, as the Ministry had asked the Legislative Body for leave to prosecute Rochefort, the Revolutionists continued to agitate in the hope of prejudicing his trial, at which he was sentenced to six months' imprisonment (January 22, 1870) ; they provoked a strike at Le Creusot, and called upon the inhabitants of Paris to rise. But once more and suddenly they changed their minds; on the evening of February 5 the members of the Internationale, Johannard, Landrin, Benoit Malon, and Martin, themselves exhorted the people to be patient. "We think that the moment has not yet come for decisive and immediate action. Do not let us obstruct the advance of Revolution by an impatience which, however legitimate, may be very disastrous." As in the previous October, so now for a second time, a sanguinary conflict between the mob and the army, between master and people was averted, and one more respite given to the Emperor and his Ministers. The great mistake of these last was in thinking and persuading their master to think that the Democracy, while eager to overthrow them, was holding back through fear and not as a matter of tactics. After this they continued to carry out their policy of stripping the Imperial power of all its weapons, trusting that liberty would bring up to the support of the Empire the Liberals and even such Republicans as Jules Favre, Picard, Henon, and the youthful talents of Weiss, Herve, and Prevost-Paradol. The prefects whose Bonapartist zeal had committed them too deeply, De Launay, Janvier de la Motte, and sundry law-officers who had been mere detective agents, were either transferred or dismissed. PoUce magis trates and school-teachers were requested to confine them- ill] Policy of Ollivier 153 selves to their functions of administering justice or educa-i tion, and became the servants of the nation as represented by the Ministry; the latter declaring itself ready to give up the support of official candidates, and the use of adminis trative power at elections. "The suppression of official candidatures," said OUivier in the Chamber, "logically follows upon the abandonment of personal government" (February 26, 1870). The Emperor could not see all his work destroyed without an occasional murmur; but he could only resign himself, powerless and shattered by illness, to the wUl of a man who so confidently promised him "a happy old age." Thus it came about that he aUowed his Minister to submit to the Senate a stUl more decisive measure repealing clause vn of the Constitution and depriving the Emperor of the right of nominating the mayors of French communes and their deputies. Every day saw another stone removed from the edifice which for seventeen years had sheltered the amazing fortunes of Napoleon III. "Every concession is an addition to your strength," replied Ollivier; "we have left one shore, and must perforce reach the opposite one towards which the wind is driving us." But the crossing was more dangerous than OUivier knew. The chief rock ahead was the elusive bloc of irre- concUeable Republicans, on whom neither his promises of liberty nor his appeals for support got any hold. From the fact that around this bloc, which offered more resist ance than he expected, the popular surges had broken in merely passing squalls, OUivier concluded that he was certain to reach his port. This was the period when his conduct was directed by, and his action regulated to meet, the opposition of' the Bonapartists, who like Rouher clung to the Constitution of 1852, with the violence and absolutism of the Imperial dictatorship. In order to overcome that, he embarked (March 1, 1870) on a decisive contest with the 154 The Decline of the Empire [ch. Senate, into which Napoleon III had gradually drafted all who had aided him in building up his fortunes, under the presidency of Rouher, who depended upon these and upon the Empress for support. This contest could have but one end — the ruin of himself, the Emperor and France. Nevertheless it began by a striking success. Napoleon III aUowed OUivier to make another far-reaching amend ment of the Constitution. By a new Decree of the Senate the power of altering the Constitution, hitherto reserved ex clusively to that assembly, composed of officials nominated by the Sovereign for life, was to be divided between the Legislative Body and the Senate. In exchange for this, OUivier, who had made up his mind to maintain the existing dynasty, and was moreover bound in honour to do so, had reserved for the Emperor the privUege of appeaUng to the people, to whom alone he remained responsible. He had even promised Napoleon to spare him the risks he feared if an immediate appeal were made to the people as to putting these constitutional reforms into practice. At this price he had obtained from the Sovereign the crucial concession of the right of Parliament and the Ministry to take away the Constituent Power from a recalcitrant Senate. And thus it came about that on March 28 he laid before the Senate the proposed Decree, which was to bear the same relation to the Constitution of 1852 that the "Acte Additionnel " of 1815 had to the Constitution of the First Empire. The Senators who looked to Rouher for directions, disturbed by this constant and gradual demand for con cessions frorn the failing volition of their master, made a tremendous effort to keep the political system which was slipping from their hands within the principles on which they had founded it in 1852. They succeeded in convincing the Emperor that a system established by a plebiscite could only be modified by a plebiscite ; and they called upon him in] Further Reforms : the Plebiscite 155 to take the risk of thus consulting the nation, advice which he was forced, most unwillingly, to accept on March 28. Their calculation was a simple one; if the people declined to approve the Liberal reforms, the Ollivier Ministry was condemned; if, on the contrary, it approved them, this national manifestation in favour of the dynasty must be treated as endowing it with a new authority, and con stituting a second sanction to the Empire. It was for the same alternative reason that the republican deputies then opposed the plebiscite on March 30 and April 5, 1870 — Grevy with the doggedness of his Franche Comte, Gambetta with the subtlety and passion of Marseilles, Jules Favre with the spirited and eloquent fervour of an old Parlia mentarian. Emile Ollivier did not trouble himself about their objections. Though originally a Republican, he allowed the possibility of a nation entrusting by a formal referendum to an individual, instead of to an assembly, the authority to dispose of its destiny, even though that individual had previously thrust himself into power by violence. He did not observe that to allow the power of a single person created by the will of the nation to co-exist with that of a Parliament authorised to exercise the same power at its discretion was only to bring France back to the conflicts that had so cruelly rent her in 1851, the senseless duel which, in the words of Gambetta, had paralysed her life-forces. " Of two things one ; either the liberty to vote and equality of right must give way before the satisfaction of one man's will, or the power of the one man must dis appear before' the rights of a popular majority." It seemed at first as if it were the former alternative which would be realised. By virtue of a vote of the Senate unanimously passed on April 20, and of an Imperial Decree of the 23rd, the people of France were summoned on May 8 to vote "yes" or "no" on the Liberal reforms carried out during the previous ten years. In spite of the efforts 156 The Decline of the Empire [ch. of the republican deputies who piled meetings upon meetings, in spite of aU the oratory in Paris and in the provinces, the peasantry, either through indifference and famUiarity with the estabUshed authority, or through dread of a revolution, once more gave their voices, 7,000,000 in number, on the side of the Imperial dynasty. The number of non-voters and actual opponents remained steady at 3,500,000, being the same number that in 1869 pronounced against an Imperial despotism. The event seemed, none the less, a victory for the Ministry in power ; but it was a Pyrrhic victory. The real success lay with its adversaries of the Right, who had advised the Emperor to make this appeal to the country; the moment they had prevailed on him to take the step, several members of the Ministry, Daru and Buffet, had resigned (April 14), and Talhouet went a little later (May 10). The withdrawal of these Ministers, at the moment in which Napoleon III was making a pressing appeal to the country in favour of his son, was made- use of by the Bonapartists of the Rue de 1' Arcade to prove the danger that the Emperor ran in trusting to these unprincipled parliamentary men. Had not the plebiscite which had been forced upon the weakness of the Sovereign enabled him to distinguish between the true and false friends of his policy? Why should Napoleon have granted all these useless concessions on the advice of disloyal servants instead of trusting to the nation which for its part retained its fidelity and affection towards him? It is said that the Empress Eugenie, after living for two days in an agony of terror, could not conceal her delight. In her eyes, the plebiscite represented the triumph of her policy and of her son's future, after these had been attacked and en dangered by the Liberals. And, while Emile Ollivier and his colleagues were engaged in following up the consequences of their victory over the Senate, modifying the press regula- in] The Plebiscite : Foreign Affairs 157 tions by the institution of Juries, restoring to Councils General the right to elect their officers, preparing a more liberal method of electing mayors where chosen by Municipal Councils, the Empress and the extreme Right whom she favoured were arranging to extract out of this vote of the people in favour of her son all the benefit of a brilliant campaign which, under other Ministers, would have given new life to the fortunes and authority of his dynasty. "A cyclone," said Ollivier, "smote the edifice of his dream, and flung him back into the limbo of those stricken souls condemned to ostracism, because the hurricane that prostrated him also tore a limb from France." Since 1867 the violent attacks of the Opposition, the invectives of Thiers against the doctrine of nationalities, the haughty refusals of Prussia, who, having made sure of her own gain, would not leave France any hope of compensa tion even in Luxemburg for her amazing expansion, the ingratitude of the Italian patriots exasperated by the battle of Mentana, had not ceased to disturb the Emperor. He wondered how to stop the threatened attacks of Prussia upon South Germany, and of Italy upon Rome. He had made war on Italians to forbid them Rome ; he had been afraid to make war with Prussia in 1866 : action and in action left him equal cause for regret. If his visit to the Emperor of Austria at Salzburg suggested the possibility of an understanding with Austria with a view to restrain Prussia (August 1867), the mission of General Fleury to Berlin at the close of that year, followed by that of Prince Jerome in March; seemed to negative that intention. In another direction, while he approved Rouher's assertion of his resolve never to give up Rome to the Italians, he was stiU secretly desirous of finding an excuse for withdrawing the garrison, which he had sent with reluctance. The only decision at which Napoleon III arrived in this perplexity was that he must reconstruct his army. The 158 The Decline of the Empire [ch. victories of Prussia had sharpened the ardour of inventors ; Chassepot submitted his rifle, which was adopted. Trochu wrote a book which made a sensation. Works were started at Meudon for the manufacture of mitrailleuses. With Niel at the Ministry of War, and Lebrun at the head of the Staff, the Emperor studied the question of creating a reserve army. He raised a Garde MobUe (Territorial Force) in spite of the Opposition, who took alarm at this military development (January 16, 1868) ; but there was in fact no evidence that the Sovereign and his Ministers had any war of conquest or revanche in their eye. Nevertheless there was at that time a solid party acting upon the unstable temper of Napoleon, and advising him to seek for glory. To overcome the opposition which threatened his dynasty, EmUe Ollivier recommended him to try the virtues of liberty; but Clement Duvernois, La Gueronniere, and the Bonapartists of the Rue de 1' Arcade agreed with Emile de Girardin in saying to Napoleon that "the Emperor must surely understand that a dynasty cannot be securely based on a triple exhibition of in capacity." From a patient of that sort "they must require a proof of virility," some demonstration of active force. Thereupon, as usual, offers reached the Tuileries from Italy which might well have involved Napoleon in a com bination against Prussia. Since the re-entry of the French troops into Rome and the declaration of Rouher, the Menabrea Ministry found it difficult to keep the touchy and irritable patriotism of the Italians at Turin in hand. They entreated Napoleon to recall his troops and return to the Convention of September 15, 1864. The idea then occurred to him that he might get another compensation for the abandonment of Rome, which he had promised to leave for the Pope ; after Venetia there was South Tirol, which Italy might invite Austria to cede to her in return for her assistance against Prussia, and her promise to secure the Hi] The Army ; Austria and Italy 159 aid of France. This was the first germ of a Triple Alliance which Menabrea came in person to discuss in Paris with the Emperor in March 1868, and which Nigra and Vimercati after him continued to promote secretly at the TuUeries, though in a very vague shape. On April 9 Prince Metter- nich, the Austrian ambassador, was requested by Napoleon, with whom he was on the most familiar visiting terms, to sound von Beust as to the desirability of an understanding against the possible encroachments or other violent acts of Prussia towards Southern Germany. Here we may see the first threads of an intrigue which Napoleon favoured at its start as possessing the merit of settling the Italian question and the German at the same time. The difficulty was to bring Austria and Italy into touch with one another in the year after Custozza, Italy being seemingly wholly under Prussian influence, while it would be hard to make Francis Joseph forget the policy that had robbed him of territory twice running. Beust, the Austrian Minister, had taken pains to strengthen the weakened monarchy by a reconcUiation with the Hungarians in 1867. It was not he who urged his master to seek for revenge on the HohenzoUern; but the Habsburg princes, and some Austrian patriots kept alive in the secret heart of Francis Joseph a grudge against victorious Prussia. They anticipated with satisfaction any opportunity which Bismarck's policy might possibly give of obtaining some compensation; and their hopes inclined Austria towards a reconciliation with Italy. In August 1868 Victor Emmanuel determined to make the first advances, through the intermediation of General Tun, a Hungarian who had long been a friend of Italians and was also connected with the Bonapartes. In December" 1868 he secured the adhesion of Napoleon III to a Triple Entente, under which the Trent district was to be given to Italy, and the support of Italy to Austria. When Tun- arrived in Vienna in January 1869, Francis Joseph's first 160 The Decline of the Empire [ch. remark was, "It is always I who pay." "Your Majesty will compensate yourself elsewhere," replied the Hungarian. His part was" over. Secret negotiations between the Cabinets now began, conducted by Napoleon III and Rouher, the King of Italy, and Beust, for whom Metternich acted as agent in Paris. The discussion took a definite shape in Paris in the spring of 1869. The Austrian envoy in Belgium, Count von Vitzthum, came from Brussels with a proposal for a defensive aUiance, according to which, "if France went to war with Prussia, Austria would retain her liberty of action in the matter of giving her assistance." The idea earned accep tance at the Tuileries by the influence of Rouher, and was favourably received in Vienna. It was at once com municated to the Cabinet of Florence by Vimercati, the Italian military attache in Paris, whom the Emperor had received into his intimacy (March and AprU 1869). If Napoleon III thought that by involving himself in these agreements outside the cognisance of his Ministers he could make the Italians forget the Roman question, he was at once undeceived. Menabrea immediately made it a con dition with the Emperor that his engagement to withdraw his troops from Rome should be recorded in the treaty. The Emperor and Rouher both objected strongly; and Vitzthum's efforts during the month of May to bring the two parties into harmony were fruitless. In July 1869 the treaty was stUl in suspense ; and the attack of illness from which Napoleon suffered on his return from Vichy in August postponed the negotiations still further. The Sovereign resumed them in September by address ing letters to Victor Emmanuel and Francis Joseph. He apologised to them for not concluding^ formal treaties with them, on the ground that the constitutional reform which he had lately granted to his subjects prohibited him from so doing without the concurrence of the Chamber; in fact,, ill] Attempts at an Alliance 161 however, he was unwUling to subscribe to the Italian con ditions. For lack of a treaty, he offered to pledge his word as Emperor. In the replies he received from Vienna and Florence the Emperor and the King entered into engage ments similar to his own, thus constituting the first draft of an Entente among the three Powers for the protection of Europe against the ambition of Prussia, in default of a formal treaty. It cannot be said that these secret and imperfect engage ments really represented to the minds of either Napoleon III or Francis Joseph a positive coalition against Prussia so as to ensure an immediate counter-attack on her. Never theless they were serious matters, because, being known only to Rouher and La VaUette, the two Ministers who favoured the notion of such a counter-attack, they would supply them with arguments and excite their hopes. This was especiaUy the case as soon as Bismarck and his King were led to suspect their existence, at the moment when the discussions between Paris and Florence began. Bis marck was not the man, much less was WUliam I, to risk the loss of their late successes in a new adventure. "The South," said Bismarck in May 1868, "does not yet want union with the North. Let us finish buUding; we can enlarge later on." They took their stand on the Treaty of Prague, and resisted the pressure of the military party, whose chief, Moltke, was making tremendous efforts to organise the Germanic army, with the cooperation of the South Germans, for the "march on Paris." Just then they were warned by Usedom, their agent in Turin, and by the indiscretion of the Italian Press, of the negotiations begun in March 1869 in the Cabinets of Paris, Vienna, and Florence. WiUiam I was so much disturbed by the news that four times on the same day he sent to enquire of Bismarck; and Bismarck enquired of Benedetti, the French envoy, who could neither relieve their fears nor B. II. II 1 62 The Decline of the Empire [ch. give them information. The whole of Berlin was similarly disturbed. Not so however Bismarck ; but he took his own course. If Italy was escaping out of the snares of Prussia, Spain was ready to hand. Since the revolution of 1868, which had dethroned Queen Isabella, Spain had been looking for a king ; and the republican leaders, Serrano, who favoured" the Duke of Montpensier, and Prim, who objected to any Bourbon prince, were unable to agree upon a candidate. Prim had approached the Duke of Aosta, who had declined his offer, next Prince Ferdinand of Coburg, father of the ' King of Portugal, who also drew back on April 5, 1869. Yet the Cortes, by their formal vote of May 21, insisted by a very large majority on the necessity of restoring the monarchy. In the rrionth of March 1869 — to be precise, on the 22nd — Ranees, the Spanish ambassador at Vienna, visited Berlin, and in conversation with Bismarck tried to win him over to the cause of the Duke of Montpensier, an Orleans prince, whose candidature was naturally objectionable to Napoleon III. The conversation did not take a turn favourable to his views. But, as soon as he had left, a report was circulated of a Hohenzollern candidate, in the person of Prince Leopold, the brother of the King of Rumania. Benedetti sent the information by express to the Tuileries, where they com mitted the blunder of showing their agitation, and directing their envoy to question Herr von Thile, the coadjutor of Bismarck, in the absence of his principal. Thile denied the story : had not Benedetti just denied the proposed entente between France, Italy, and Austria? To the mistake of working for that secret entente Napoleon now added the blunder of letting Bismarck see his uneasiness at the Hohenzollern candidature, for he thus gave the Prussian Minister a weapon, the value of which he knew. On April 5, while doing his best to shirk Benedetti'% daily inquisitions, ill] Bismarck and the Spanish Question 163 Bismarck sent to Madrid, where the agent of Prussia had been up to that date on the side of the Bourbons, a trusty private agent of his own, by name Bernhardi. On April 25 an article in the Augsburger Zeitung, which attracted much attention in the French Press, informed Europe that the Spaniards had found a young and talented Sovereign in Germany. For two months more the mine laid by Bismarck in Spain lay inactive, although on July 14, 1869, a banker of Berlin had written to Serrano to introduce Prince Leopold. It was in September 1869, at the very time when letters were passing to and from the Sovereigns in Paris, Florence, and Vienna, that a match was put to the mine from Berlin. On September 19, Herr von Werther, the Prussian Minister in Bavaria, introduced to Prince Charles Antony von Hohen zollern one Salazar, a deputy in the Cortes, who, though without authority, offered him the throne of Spain for one of his sons. To this proceeding, Prim, the principal master of the Spanish revolution, remained an entire stranger; indeed he was intriguing on his own account at Turin and Madrid in favour of the Duke of Genoa, a nephew of Victor Emmanuel. But Bismarck had resolved, ever since October 1869, upon a war, for which he, Prussia, her armies, and her generals were all ready, whUe France was less prepared, being stUl on the hunt for aUiances in Vienna or Florence, under an invalid and vacUlating Emperor. On February 17, 1870, Prim, tired of looking for a king after the refusal of the Duke of Genoa, yielded to the en treaties of Salazar, and consented to adopt the candidature of the Prince of Hohenzollern as desired by Bismarck. "He might weU think that Napoleon would not take umbrage", seeing that he had himself placed the prince's elder brother on the throne of Rumania. The Prussian Government did not admit any doubt in the ihatter. If Napoleon chose to take the selection of Leopold as an offence and 164 The Decline of the Empire [ch. a challenge, let him ! At a Council held at Berlin on March 20, 1870, Bismarck had the support of Roon, Moltke, Thile, and Delbriick in strongly recommending that the Hohenzollern families of Berlin and Sigmaringen, King William, Prince Antony of Hohenzollern and his son, should accept Prim's offer. From a patriotic point of view, the interests of Prussia; from a political, the urgent necessity of the case — these were his arguments. But they failed to break down the resistance of his master, who had made up his mind not to give any provocation to Napoleon, or of Prince Leopold, who was determined not to go except- on the order of the head of his House. Repulsed and dis appointed, Bismarck sent two secret agents, Lothar Bucher and Major von Versen, to Spain, to induce Prim to abide by his offer in spite of everything, and also to bring back from their mission any arguments which might determine Prince Leopold to accept what he had at first refused. While these intrigues were going on between Berlin and Spain, the Archduke Albert, the victor of Custozza, visiting France in March and April 1870 to cast an eye over the French army, submitted to Napoleon a proposal for a plan of campaign based on the entente established between his own chief and France and Italy in the preceding year. His proceedings certainly warranted some hopes in the Emperor, who on May 28 sent on a confidential mission to Vienna General Lebrun, bearing instructions from -the Minister of War, and two generals who had been sum moned to the Tuileries for a secret council. Four inter views took place at Vienna between General Lebrun and the Archduke Albert to settle the plan of mobUisation which was to "guarantee peace"; and on May. 24 Beust revealed to M. de Gramont, who was leaving Vienna to undertake the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Paris, the secret Of the Triple Alliance, and of the reciprocal promises of help that had passed among France, Austria, and Italy. in] The Hohenzollern Candidature 165 Napoleon III, while forced to confirm the statement on de Gramont's arrival in Paris, begged him not to mention it to Emile OUivier or any of his colleagues. It was un desirable that France should know that his secret reason for not entering into formal agreements essential to the safety of his frontiers was his refusal to withdraw from Rome. Besides de Gramont, Rouher alone knew the secret; and the party directed by Rouher used it as an argument, and also as the ground for a delusive hope, which were eventuaUy to drag the Emperor into war. On June 4, 1870, Prince Leopold, convinced at last by Bismarck's agents Major von Versen and Lothar Bucher, decided to accept the throne of Spain, if offered to him. On June 11 the Prussian Minister informed Prim, who, having come to an end of his expedients and being anxious to have done with the matter, sent Salazar to Germany once more. "This candidature was not my notion," said Prim, "it was suggested to me." This was the fact; it was de vised and carried through as an item in Prussian policy. But it was Prim who was forced by the indiscretions of Salazar, only too delighted to spread through Germany the story of his success at Sigmaringen, to reveal to the French ambassador, Mercier de Lostende, on July 2, a "piece of news which would be disagreeable to the Emperor." On the foUowing day the Agence Havas wired the news all over Europe, and the indignant French believed themselves to be challenged and threatened by the installation of a HohenzoUern at Madrid. They saw forming again around their frontiers the iron circle created by Charles V, the formidable enveloping movement against which they had struggled for two centuries. The Prussian intrigue looked to them like a final challenge. And the first and the most eager of the journals that took it up was the Pays, the organ of Cassagnac, the spokesman in ordinary of the Bonapartists of the Right, of the Arcadians, who longed 166 The Decline of the Empire [ch. for a war; though, for that matter, all the journals of every party were beginning to speak of war as inevitable. The strong feeling thus exhibited by the nation deter- , mined the line of conduct of the Ollivier Cabinet. The feature of the candidature of Prince Leopold which was the first to strike them was not so much the offer of a crown by Spain to a Hohenzollern as its effect on the public opinion of France, not so much the fancy of the Spaniards as the success again scored by Prussia. They ought to have looked round, and above all insisted at Madrid on the postponement of the election, which was fixed for July 20. But they looked to Berlin for some solatium for their wounded pride. On July 4 Lesourd, the charge d'affaires at Berlin, called on Herr von Thile, by de Gramont's in structions, to ask for a disavowal, but only received a dilatory reply. On the same day M. de Gramont and Ollivier pointed out to Herr von Werther, the Prussian ambassador, who was about to join his master at Ems, the absolute necessity in which they were placed of asking for explanations from Prussia. The discussions of the following days showed that neither the Emperor nor his Ministers were willing to accept responsibility for the war. ' But by addressing themselves to Berlin, where Bismarck sat awaiting the explosion of their wrath, they made it almost inevitable. As Ollivier himself observed, "A man cannot afford to use spirited language unless he can back it up by action." On the evening of July 5 a council was held at St Cloud, at which the Emperor, who was thinking most about a recent con sultation with his physicians, begged his advisers to "be prudent and pacific. Emile Ollivier desired the same, but neither he nor his colleagues saw a possibility of peace, unless Prussia consented to warn the whole Hohenzollern family off Spain ; by no other means could they, in their judgment, calm the public opinion which for four years past had been ill] On the Brink of War 167 alarmed at the progress and ambition of the Prussians. The Emperor said as much to the Spanish ambassador ; and Lord Lyons received from Emile Ollivier a similar avowal. The journals which were most devoted to the dynasty shouted for war. The Empress, who hated Prussia as a Protestant Power, dreaded the effect of the anger of the public on the future of her son, and was beginning on her side to appreciate the popularity of a victory, was strenuous in demanding an energetic attitude in her husband's servants. In default of a war which he did not desire, Emile OUivier decided, as the most practical course, to try for a diplomatic victory at Berlin by the use of firm language. At a Council held at St Cloud on the morning of July 6 the Ministry decided, with the approval of the Sovereign, to submit to the French nation through the Legislative Body certain strongly expressed propositions which would flatter the national pride and might intimidate Prussia: "Without hesitation and equaUy without weakness, they would do their duty against any foreign State that tried to destroy the Balance of Power in Europe by putting one of its Princes on the throne of Charles V." Had the King of Prussia taken up the ultimatum, had the Hohen- zollerns stood obstinately to their ambitious views, war would then have broken out at once in spite of the wishes of the French Ministry. Such journals as the Pays and the Liberte would never have allowed them to retreat ; and the Bonapartist Right demanded the humiliation of Prussia. "She has disgrace on one side of her, menaces on the other ; let her take her choice ; she must back out, or fight," wrote Paul de Cassagnac. WhUe this warhke fever was starting in Paris, King WiUiam I was receiving pacific counsels from Vienna, Florence, and London. He was then staying at Ems, where he was less subject to the influence of Bismarck, 1 68 The Decline of the Empire [ch. the latter having been left at Varzin in some alarm at the possibility of war. When Benedetti came on July 9 to ask the King to intervene at Sigmaringen, with the view of obtaining from the Hohenzollern princes an abandonment of their candidature, he found him annoyed no doubt at the French menaces, but on the whole disposed to make the best and not the worst of the incident. If his dignity prevented him from at once informing France of the strong measures that he immediately took, between the 7th and nth of July, to obtain the withdrawal of Prince Antony and his son, the courteous tenor of his language to Benedetti showed what were his secret wishes. And those measures were further strengthened by the arguments of de Strat, a Rumanian diplomatist, who at the request of Napoleon III paid a very secret visit to Prince Antony, as the father of his own Sovereign, to persuade him to^ preserve the peace of Europe. On July 12, at the moment when Bismarck left Varzin to ask for the mobilisation of the army, the news reached Berlin and spread over all Europe that the Hohen- zollerns declined the crown of Spain. "We have got our peace, and wUl not let it go again," said Ollivier. This was the critical moment, when the duel between France and Germany, for which preparations had been going on for six months, became a certainty. OUivier, who up to that time believed himself to be able to stop it, suddenly lost command of the business. At this precise moment de Gramont, without consulting him, sent a tele- gram_to Benedetti from the French Foreign Office, to the effect that the renunciation of Prince Leopold " could not be accepted as a sufficient satisfaction without the official parti cipation of the King of Prussia in this disavowal of Prussian intrigue." In the afternoon, he repeated it to Werther, the Prussian ambassador, asking him to obtain a formal letter from his master. Emile Ollivier, coming to the Quai d'Orsay at the time, supported this request. The language ill] Final Negotiations 169 in which he formulatedit could not leave the smallest doubt as to their reason for thus insisting. "The King of Prussia would strengthen our position as a Cabinet and give us the means of carrying out our task of pacification." The country had been so stirred up by the faction in favour of war; and Parliament was so sensitive to their angry clamour, that the act of renunciation which might well have closed the incident gave rise to a movement of anger against- the Ministry. The message immediately addressed by the Emperor to Ollivier and his interview with Nigra revealed the uneasiness he felt, even for his dynasty, on account of this anger. And matters were far worse in the evening at St Cloud, when the Empress herself, and all her intimates, Bourbaki, and the generals, called for war rather than disgrace : " The Empire is lost, is faUing to the distaff ! " There, cut off from his Ministers, cajoled by his wife, and by the Bonapartists who imagined themselves to be securing the dynasty by an -enterprise easUy dealt with and fruitful of victory, Napoleon III authorised Gramont to send on the evening of July 12 a fresh telegram to Benedetti, requiring the King of Prussia to give "an assurance that he would not permit such candidature to be renewed." This was a declaration of war. No doubt, the calculations of Bismarck were seriously upset by the withdrawal of the Hohenzollerns and the concessions of the King; yet he succeeded in finding in the persistency of Napoleon III the means of bringing William I to a rupture. On July 13 the King had warned Benedetti that it was useless to insist further; it is true that, to soften his refusal and as a last sacrifice to peace, he gave him to understand that he approved of the with drawal of the Hohenzollern candidature. The news was despatched from Ems to Bismarck and the mUitary junto at BerUn, by whom it was passed to the German Press in a eurter form than the Sovereign desired, and with the 170 The Decline of the Empire [ch. omission of the quaUfications it contained. To Germany it read as a challenge flung in the face of their King ; to France, as an outrage on herself and her ambassador. And it was France, which, drawn by the Bonapartists of the Right and the bellicose Arcadians into the snare skUfully set by Bismarck, took up the glove, and flew to arms. The Ems despatch " had produced, on the Gallic bull, the effect of a red flag." There was no other mistake left for them to make. How could it be necessary for the Emperor to leave to the nation the responsibility for this enterprise as a be lated revanche for the Prussian victories? At the last moment, Napoleon and his Ministers hesitated in honor at the tragedy before them. On the afternoon of July 14 they first decided to call out the reserves ; at 5 p.m. they gave way again and prepared an appeal to Europe to arbi trate on the quarrel, in a Congress which England might perhaps have convoked. Then on his return to St Cloud, the Emperor, and Lebceuf his Minister of War, had to meet the reproaches of the Empress, who charged him with "disgracing himself." A fresh Council was caUed, the Ministers being summoned hastily from Paris, and war was declared. It is certain that, before running this risk, Napoleon III as well as his Foreign Minister had confidently counted on the support of Italy and Austria. He never doubted for a moment of the assistance of Victor Emmanuel, who owed to him his Italian crown. On July 9, M. de Cazaux, the charge d'affaires left in Vienna by M. de Gramont, wrote that France might rely on Beust with perfect confidence; and a second telegram from the same agent, confirming the certainty of the cooperation of Austria, probably determined the decision of the Council of War held at St Cloud on July 14. More than this, M. de Gramont flattered himself that ill] War declared: Austria and Italy 171 the cooperation of Austria would paralyse the South Germans, all to the advantage of France. When the Minister of War read out to the Chamber on July 15 the Declaration of War which de Wimpfen took to Berlin on the 17th, he was questioned by the deputies on the chances of the enterprise, and encouraged them by the hope of assistance from Austria and Italy. He could not, for a very good reason, produce to them the treaty of 1869, which had not yet been signed, nor the letters that passed between the Sovereigns, being mere confidential promises which only affected them personally. On that evening Napoleon telegraphed to Victor Emmanuel to ask for his assistance; and he also charged Vimercati to call on him without delay with the same entreaty. On the same day he sent Count Vitzthum, the negotiator of the Coalition discussed in 1869, to Vienna, and followed him up on July 18 by the Prince de la Tour d'Auvergne as his new ambassador to Austria. To this prince was reserved the honour of attaching his signature on behalf of France to the Act of Coalition ; after having been taken up again in Paris on July 15, and put forward at Florence by Vimercati, it was to be finally drawn up in Vienna with the help of Count Beust. With an Austrian army massed in Bohemia against the North Germans, with 80,000 Italians containing the South Germans through Tirol, surely the French forces had an excellent chance of carrying out their great task on the Rhine. It was the counterblow of Sadowa, the policy which should reestablish the balance destroyed by the suc cesses of Prussia, and thus link France by ties of gratitude to the heir to the throne, in spite of the opposition and of the vacillations of an invalid Sovereign ! Sudden and bitter was to be the awakening from this dream, the last and most fatal of all his dreams. The attack on Prussia involved three essential conditions — a rapid mobilisation of two armies of 350,000 men, for which 172 The Decline of the Empire [ch. Marshal Lebceuf had given his word, a bold offensive move ment into the Palatinate in order to keep apart the Northern and Southern German armies, and lastly a speedy mobiUsa- tion on the part of Austria and Italy. A fortnight after the declaration of war, when the Emperor went to Metz to take supreme command of the army on July 29, all that he found to his hand at first were 200,000 men in the fighting line. By their neglect of all preparation for the mobilisation of the reserves, and of the organisation,, for assembling in due tune the men, horses, material, and munitions, the French higher command had put it out of their own power to cross the frontier. Even the fortresses were bare of every requisite. On July 30, Napoleon III, in consternation, found himself under the necessity of stopping Marshal MacMahon, who was coming from Strassburg to take charge of the attack on the right bank of the Rhine. In fact, he gave up the offensive. Not only so, but he had finally to abandon the hope of an alliance with Austria and Italy, the terms of the bargain offered him at Vienna and Florence appearing too hard to him. Victor Emmanuel had declared himself on July 20 ready to meet his engagements, but to do so said that he must conquer the opposition of his Ministers, which he could only do by giving them some hope that the occupation of Rome would be assented to, if not by France, at least by Austria. Hereupon Beust had obtained the required consent from Francis Joseph, in order to secure Italy ; and on July 25 it depended on the Emperor alone whether an entente rapidly concluded between Austria and Italy should not impose its mediation upon Prussia by force. His formal refusal to leave Rome to the Italians ship wrecked the whole scheme. "We wiU sooner give up the' alliances we have sought for," he telegraphed on July 27 to M. de Gramont, who was then thinking of asking for an Ill] Isolation of France 173 aUiance with Russia, not knowing that she had been gained over by Prussia. On August 1, at Metz, on the eve of a decisive encounter, Napoleon III still emphatically refused to give way on the Roman question, and all hope of alliances vanished. "On the morning of August 6," writes Emile Ollivier, "France stood alone. No alliance existed, still less an alliance ready for work." The situation of Prussia was entirely different. She was going into this duel with the certainty of the neutrality and even of the sympathies of Europe, thanks to the sensational revelations made by Bismarck on July 26 as to the ambitious views of Napoleon on the Rhine and in Belgium on the morrow of Sadowa. On the same day it was known both in Vienna and in Paris that Prussia had massed 450,000 Germans on the Rhine, from Cologne to Rastadt, divided into two commands, one that of the Crown-Prince composed mainly of contingents from the South, the other the central command formed by Prussians and Saxons. At Mainz, which was put in a complete state of defence, a grand central depot had been formed, with six divisions of cavalry fully equipped, and three army corps in process of organisation in rear. Finally Moltke had prepared a formidable planof attack on Alsace, to make sure of its conquest, while the main Prussian force under the command of the King marched by the vaUey of the Saar to deliver the decisive blow. All was prepared to catch the French forces at Metz both in front and in rear, to crush them in a vice, and to cut them off from Paris. CHAPTER IV THE FRANCO-GERMAN WAR The German attack began by the storming of the frontier position of Weissembourg on August 4, and was next directed, two days later, against the main army of Mac Mahon. This force was scattered along the hne from Bitche, where the 5th (De Failly) Corps lay, to Mulhouse, where the 7th Corps was — the ist Corps, with 48,000 men, being left alone to withstand the. 150,000 men whom the Crown-Prince could bring into action. The forces met at Froeschwiller, on a plateau formed by the last buttresses of the Vosges ; and the encounter was rapid and decisive. After a few hours' combat, the superiority of the assailants in numbers and artillery proved too much for the courageous defenders of Froeschwiller. The issue might perhaps have been different, had- the 5th Corps under General de FaiUy come to the assistance of MacMahon, who sent him repeated orders to that effect. "I have lost the battle," wrote the Marshal to Napoleon on that evening, at the moment when he was retreating upon Saverne with the remains of his army covered by the brilliant charge of Cuirassiers at Reichsoffen. By the same blow, and in one day, he had also lost Alsace. The Emperor might possibly have got his revenge with the help of the rest of the army through the resistance of Metz and Strassburg, had not the Prussians won another victory on the same day at Spicheren. In this case also General Frossard had on August 5 concentrated his Army Corps upon a height above the valley of the Saar for a ch. iv] Froeschwiller and Spicheren ' 175 defensive action which was to be supported by Bazaine's entire force, under the eyes of the Emperor. There he was met on August 6 by General Steinmetz, commanding the ist German Army, who boldly took the offensive in spite of Moltke's orders. Frossard's obstinacy in keeping ' to his position, instead of taking advantage of the numerical superiority that he held up to 3 p.m., gave General Alvens- leben with the 2nd Prussian Army time to reach the field of battle and attack the village of Forbach with all his strength. To Frossard's application for reinforcements, Bazaine replied very tardily, and even then he did not come in person from Sarreguemines ; nor for that matter did the Emperor or Lebceuf come to direct the operations. It looked as if the whole higher command of the French had ? resigned. On the evening of the 6th, Frossard had no alternative but to retire on Sarrfguemines. On the following day, chaos and stupor reigned at the head-quarters of Napoleon III, who for a moment had the idea of retiring as far back as Chalons with all his forces, say 210,000 men; but this would have meant the abandonment of two French provinces to the enemy after the first en counter, not through the fault of the soldiers, whose temper was still excellent, but through the pessimism of a sick Sovereign, incapable of taking a virile resolution, the unskUfulness and rivalries of badly selected and ill-trained commanders, and the general lack of preparation and organisation. The fate of Alsace at any rate was at once decided. On the report of the first successes over the French, German patriotism, fostered by the teaching in schools, in the Press, and on the political platform, lifted up its horn on high from the Vistula to the Rhine, from the North Sea to the Alps. Statesmen, soldiers, scholars, bourgeois, pro letariat, all combined at once in looking upon Alsace, the land that had been filched from the Germanic Fatherland, 176 The Franco-German War [ch. as the solid foundation, the unshakeable base of the' New Germany, at last united and victorious. On August 14 Count von Bismiarck-Bohlen was installed there as Governor, in spite of the fact that Strassburg had not fallen. On August 24 the limits of his jurisdiction were extended by decree to all territories taken back from France, the Upper and Lower Rhine, the Moselle, with Metz, and the valley of the Saar; and maps were at once drawn showing the frontiers. And it is very possible that at that moment the King of Prussia, and his son the victor of FrceschwUler, with the approval of Bismarck, who exhibited moderation and a dislike to slaughter, might have stayed the army, even though Moltke was anxious to take it on to Paris at any cost, if the Emperor and the people of France would have consented to their keeping the prize of their first victories - which had so unexpectedly fallen into their hands. But it was too much to expect of France — considering -the irritation that had been felt there for the past four years at the progress of Prussia, her uneasiness at the unification of Germany, her reluctance to beUeve that she was conquered before the fight had well begun — that she should at once abandon two Departments to the enemy and sacrifice her own unity. WhUe the Germans, especi ally the patriots of Munich, Baden, and Frankfort, were possessed by a fever of conquest, the French prepared for a no less furious resistance. The people of Paris, "in a fever of wrath" (said Moltke) against both their own Govern ment and the invaders, and carried back in their indignation to the memories of the Great Republic and of "the country in danger," insisted on carrying on war to the death, and making a united national effort for the defence of the soU of France. Bismarck himself expressed his admiration of the strength of the patriotic feeling exhibited in France against the armies of his master, on the morrow of the first defeats. iv] New Ministry : Measures of Resistance 177 It was this feeling that deterred the Emperor Napoleon III from carrying out his project of making a hurried retreat on Paris. He dreaded the reception that he would meet from the angry populace, who "proposed to face the enemy, refused to accept defeat, and demanded their revenge. The Ministry and the Empress Regent made a hasty effort to calm the people down by convoking the Legislative Body for August 9. Emile OUivier then attended and read a memorandum to explain why the country need not fear 'the invasion. But this did not satisfy opinion, which demanded energetic action, and an effort, however desperate, to regain lost ground. On August 10 the Empress, under the pressure of a threatened riot, put the Ministry into the hands of a General, the Count de Palikao, who was hastily sum moned from Lyons for the purpose, and gave the military command of Paris to General Trochu; finaUy, on the 12th, she put Bazaine in command of the army of the Rhine. A Decree of August n called out the National Guard. Privy councillors were sent to discuss with prefects the immediate mobUisation of the entire nation; and a loan of 40 million sterling was voted. All these steps be tokened a vigorous resistance. The Prince de la Tour d'Auvergne, who had returned from Vienna to take the direction of Foreign Affairs in the place of M. de Gramont, in a conversation with.Lord Lyons on August 16 described the task of his colleagues and himself as follows: "France has suffered reverses, but does not despair of making them good ; and she cannot treat, so long as she possesses means of driving the Prussians out of her territory. For her, as for the Emperor," he added, "the integrity of , her soil dominates aU other questions." It was the evil fate of France, that neither the Emperor nor his new Ministers, nor the new Generalissimo, were in a position to make or direct the effort which the nation b. 11. 12 178 The Franco-German War [ch. asked of them at this crisis. Just for a moment, on August 13, Bazaine had a notion of taking the offensive, thrusting the Germans back across the Nied, a tributary of the Saar, and joining hands again with MacMahon; but it was at once abandoned. Napoleon III, overcome by defeat and by illness, alarmed at the number of his opponents, which he reckoned, and correctly, at 500,000 men, was solely governed by the wish to preserve for the service of his dynasty the 200,000 men still at his disposal. "This army," wrote Trochu from Paris, "is the last hope of France." As for Bazaine, though as an officer he had proved his courage, and had the confidence of the country and the army, he knew his own incapacity to handle a large army. A dull and undecided man, perhaps already tempted by the prospect of keeping a political future for himself by saving the army which the Emperor begged him not to risk, he was always for evading decisive engagements. Thus all with one accord helped to paralyse the effort of the nation, instead of seeing in its outburst of energy the only chance for their own safety. They lost precious time in vainly looking for help from without — from Victor Emmanuel, whose crown England had guaranteed to him as the price of his neutrality ; from Austria, which was paralysed by the sympathy of Hungary for Prussia and by the fear of Russia. They allowed the general mobUisation of the German forces to be carried out, and were incapable of availing themselves either of the heroism of their soldiers or of the spirit of the nation. On August 13 the Emperor left Metz, giving an order to Bazaine to bring back his army to Verdun by the only route which was at his command as far as Gravelotte, leaving in Metz a garrison of 25,000 men. To carry out this movement to the rear, Bazaine would require at least 24 hours. Begun at noon on the 14th, it was not com pleted when at 4 p.m. on the same day General von der iv] Mars la Tour and Gravelotte 179 Goltz, without orders from his superior officers, Steinmetz, Manteuffel or Moltke, attacked the Imperial army at Borny. The attack failed, but it delayed the retreat of the French ; and on the 16th, Bazaine, with whom Napoleon had then parted company, suspended the movement entirely. General Alvensleben again attacked him on the same day at RezonviUe and at Mars la Tour, to check any movement that he might wish to make. The battle was a bloody one, and left the French in their positions, but nothing more. On the following day, instead of trying to reach Verdun by the route through Etain, which was stUl open to him, and rejoining MacMahon at any cost in the direction of Chalons, Bazaine brought his men back in disorder under the walls of Metz, facing west. In order to close every road to him, Moltke again gave him battle at St Privat, at the cost of 20,000 German lives and 13,000 French; and, after a san guinary effort, he succeeded in bringing the whole French army to a standstill on the glacis of Metz, Bazaine appa rently remaining unconcerned. The siege of Metz was now begun by seven Army Corps under Prince Frederick Charles, with a united force of 160,000 men. The two German armies, the one under the Prince Royal of Saxony, the other under the Crown- Prince of Prussia with his father and Moltke, numbering together more than 200,000 men, now marched upon Paris, the first by Sainte Menehould, the second by Nancy and Bar le Due, arranging to effect a junction on the road at Chalons. Napoleon III at first awaited their arrival at Chalons, with the remains of MacMahon's army, and a new Army Corps placed under the command of Lebrun. He had thus still 130,000 men at his disposal, but not aU of the same value, part being demoralised by defeat and a precipitate retirement. But the main'weakness lay in the indecision of the Sovereign with his bad health and moral prostration, and in the doubts and perplexities of MacMahon, the Commander-in-Chief 180 The Franco-German War [ch. The Marshal's first move was in the direction of Rheims on August 21, to keep or recover touch with the army of Metz. But on the 22nd he seemed to have given up the plan on the representations of Rouher, who implored him, in the teeth of the orders of the Minister Palikao, to cover Paris and bring back the Emperor. On the 23rd he received notice that Bazaine proposed to force a way through with his army towards the valley of the Aisne and Montmedy. Finding that supplies were failing, he decided to take his forces northwards by Rethel and Vouziers on the 25th, and then by Stenay and Mouzon in the Argonne on the 26th. Possibly he might have changed his mind and modified his plan, had he received a despatch in which Bazaine on the 23rd pointed out that he would have difficulty in effecting a junction ; on the 24th there was still time to do so; on the 26th it was too late. Moltke, who had been informed of MacMahon's move ments, had already gone in pursuit, and was harassing him to the eastward of Sainte Menehould, between the Aire and the Meuse. Bazaine's inaction and the threatening move ments of the Germans now suggested to the Emperor and MacMahon the idea of escaping by way of Mezieres; and this might possibly have saved them. But they were dissuaded by a telegram from Palikao, who clung to his scheme of a junction of the two armies, and earnestly pressed them to move towards the Meuse on the road to Metz by Montmedy. On August 29 and 30, at the moment when MacMahon's army was preparing to cross the river, it came into collision, with the superior forces of the two German armies at Beaumont. MacMahon, with the view of reorganising his force and with the hope of regain ing Mezieres,- retreated hurriedly to Sedan. There he was attacked on the 31st in an unfavourable position, lying round a small town of no military value and commanded by heights all round it, a "very nest for shells." On the iv] Sedan 181 morning of September i, Moltke enveloped him with all the forces at his command, and crushed him under the fire of 600 guns. MacMahon, wounded early in the day, had been obliged to pass on the command to Ducrot, from whom however ^Wimpfen claimed it by right of seniority. The heroic efforts of the defenders of Bazeilles, the desperate charges of the cavalry under General Margueritte and General GaUffet, and all those "fine fellows" — to use the expression of the King of Prussia — were broken against that choking band of steel and fire. At 5 p.m. Napoleon III with his army surrendered to the conqueror. Napoleon, as well as Wimpfen, attempted to find out from Bismarck and Moltke whether the conditions of peace were such as would enable him to make peace with honour ; but both diplomatist and soldier were deaf to negotiations, and insisted, as a condition of restoring the Sovereign to liberty and his army, on the immediate cession of the two provinces, and of Metz and Strassburg ; they even forbade him to interview the King of Prussia, for fear William should give way on any point. "France/' said Bismarck, must pay the penalty of her pride, her aggression, and her ambitious temper. We must have sufficient territory, with fortresses and frontiers adequate- to shelter us from any attack on her side." Rather than sign these terms of conquest, Napoleon III accepted imprisonment for himself and 80,000 men, worthy of a better fate than internment in German fortresses. The prison prescribed for him was Wilhelmshohe. Perhaps he imagined that the sacrifice he was making of his own person while refusing to surrender the sword of France would move French sentiment, bring back the nation to the support of his dynasty, and rally it round the Empress and his heir, for one desperate effort. But the fact was that the fate of the Empire and of Napoleon hung on the telegraphic wire which bore to Paris the news of the capitulation of Sedan. 182 The Franco-German War [ch. The news of Sedan arrived in Paris in the course of September 3; and without violence, almost without a tremor, brought to a close, in favour of the Republic, the pitUess war waged by the Democracy of Paris against Napoleon III since 1869. The Imperial army, by which alone (and far more effectively than by the liberty offered by Emile Ollivier) the revolution in the lower orders had been disarmed and restrained, no longer existed. France was no longer either capable or desirous of upholding against the will of Paris the Imperial regime, though she had once more bolstered it up by her vote in the plebiscite. On the evening of September 3 the people of Paris rose, on the Boulevards, on the Place de la Concorde, in the neighbourhood of the Legislative Body, caUing, as they did at Lyons, for a Republic, with an underlying notion of making some great patriotic effort which, like that on the eve of Valmy, might save France from invasion. It is true that at the first moment the republican deputies, Gambetta, Jules Simon, Jules Favre, and Grevy hesitated to entrust the fate of the country to the chances of a Parisian revolution; indeed they felt shy of saddling. a Republic with the responsibility of this national crisis. On that very evening Gambetta, addressing the mob, said, "The Republic must not be called upon to inherit the misfortunes which are overwhelming our country." When on Septem ber 4 they attended the night-sitting of the Legislative Body, which Schneider, the Bonapartist president, had summoned, the chiefs of the Republican opposition pro posed to create between the tottering dynasty and the people of Paris whose riots they dreaded a sort of Committee of Public Safety, drawn from aU the sub-divisions of the Assembly which still represented France. The hesitation of the Bonapartist deputies to join them on that night, in proclaiming the deposition of Napoleon and the vacancy of the Throne, secured the victory to the people. iv] The Revolution of September 4 183 On September 4, no sooner had the Legislative Body met at 2 p.m., than the mob, led by the socialist chiefs, Miot, Regere, Jaclard, and Peyrouton, the subordinates of Blanqui and Delescluze, poured into the HaU of Assembly, ejected the president, and passed a vote of condemnation, first on the Empire, next on the Assembly itself. The Parisian Democrats were preparing to imitate those of 1830 and 1848 by proclaiming the Republic from the Hotel de VUle of the city of Paris, on the spot where, in 1792, the Commune oi Paris had seized the government of France, and defied at once the Monarchy and its Prussian aUies. Already Milliere, one of the socialist chiefs, had thrown out from the window to the crowds below lists of the names of that revolutionist and patriotic Commune which afterwards roused the nation to work for the Patrie en Danger, Blanqui, Felix Pyat, Delescluze, and Ranvier. Some of the populace climbed into the belfry to hoist the red flag there. In order to arrest this demagogic movement, Jules Favre and Gambetta had only time to repeat the manoeuvre with which Lamartine had succeeded in February 1848. Having learnt the state of things in the Legislative Body, they re paired, by the advice of Keratry, to the Hotel de VUle, accompanied by an enthusiastic crowd who accepted their promise to proclaim the Republic. They proclaimed it accordingly, and, on the advice of Ledru-Rollin, decided that the administration should be placed in the hands of the deputies for Paris, Jules Favre, L. Arago, A. Cremieux, Garnier-Pages, Glais-Bizoin, Eugene PeUetan, Jules Simon, and Henri Rochefort. It is true that they added to their numbers Gambetta representing MarseiUes, Ernest Picard of the Herault, and Jules Simon of the Gironde. On the other hand they entirely lacked the support of Thiers, one of the representatives of Paris. In order to persuade the people not to place the power in the hands- of the revolutionary leaders 184 The Franco-German War [ch. in whom, but for this interference, they would have put their confidence, they were led to believe that through their de puties they remained the masters of France and its fortunes. Based on the same motive, an appeal for support was ad dressed to General Trochu, who was Governor of the Capital, and very popular. Jules Favre offered him the Presidency, with the command of the defence. The actual proclamation was drawn up on the same evening by Ernest Picard, and was inspired throughout by a desire to show the Parisians that the Republic, and the Government thus constituted, were their work and their government. "The People has been beforehand with the hesitations of the Chamber. To save the country in its peril, the People has demanded a Republic. A Republic drove back the invasion of 1792. The Republic is proclaimed ! It is constituted in the name of public right and public safety. The Government is above all things a Government of National Defence ! " The popularity of Jules Favre and of Trochu, more especially the influence of Favre, combined with the con siderations above mentioned to induce the Parisians to accept this improvised Constitution. Like Lamartine in former times, Jules Favre, the great orator, " then fortunately enjoyed," said Jules Ferry, "a popularity which he never had before, and never reached again" ; the fact being that he was borne along on the stream of pubUc opinion. "You have by your courage," wrote Jules Simon to him on Sep tember 4, "saved our country from disorder and disgrace." On the evening of September 4 the Legislative Body claimed for a moment to challenge the right of the Govern ment of -National Defence to the power which it had only assumed to prevent its being abandoned to the caprices of demagogues. The deputies met at the Palais Bourbon, and commissioned Jules Grevy to go to the Hotel de Ville with their formal protest. Jules Favre and Jules Simon brought back the reply with instructions to support it iv] The Government of National Defence 185 viva voce before the deputies who were still in session under the presidency of Thiers.' It consisted of a quiet request, wrapped up in courteous forms and patriotic platitudes, to a body which had been unable to make up its mind to condemn the Empire, to bow before the Republic born out of the circumstances of the time, "which would try to repair that Empire's faults." With the last defenders of Caesarism on the one side, and the leaders of mob-rule on the other, the republican bourgeois of September 4 were once more proposing to try a free and conservative Government. Having won over Trochu from the Empress, who now fled from the Tuileries to look for her son abroad, they solemnly covenanted with him to defend the conservative principles of family, pro perty, and religion. The task before them was certainly a more formidable one than that on which, some twenty years before, Lamartine had been shipwrecked. The bourgeois Republic which they were restoring in Paris had not only to bring order into harmony with liberty; "it had also to defend an invaded and mutilated country; and its chiefs, as they justly said, were not so much in power as in peril." Their only asset at that truly critical moment was Paris, from which a centralised France was now, as ever, ready to receive orders and impulses, and accept a government and an administration — Paris which, with its fortifications and its girdle of forts, had since 1846 become a great fortress, and a base for an energetic resistance to an invader — Paris whose inhabitants without hesitation and without dis tinction of class were aiming for that resistance. The sense of this source of power, so indispensable for the accomplishment of their task, was present at first to an almost excessive degree in the men of September 4. They were fully aware that this force did not give them, any more than it had given the Provisional Government of 1848, the right to represent France, to direct her movements, 186 The Franco-German War [ch. to fight, speak, or bargain on her behalf. Ernest Picard remarked as much on the evening of September 5, and asked that a National Assembly should be forthwith convoked. The request appeared to his colleagues to be so fair that in principle no one objected. But, when it came to realising it in fact, many even of the more advanced — Jules Simon, Cremieux, Rochefort, Glais-Bizoin, and Gambetta — thought that by consulting the country they would diminish the authority conferred on them by Paris. Picard, supported by Jules Favre, Jules Ferry, Garnier-Pages, and Trochu, fought the point for three days so insistently that on September 8 the Council determined upon convoking an Assembly, though the date was after all postponed to October 15. This was a compromise analogous to that which had secured the equilibrium of the Provisional Government in 1848, and brought Lamartine and the moderate Republicans into agreement with Ledru-Rollin and the Revolutionists. The command of the popular power, which Jules Favre and his colleagues had now taken over from the ultra-violent heads of the Parisian demo cracy, seemed to them more valuable than any pedantic adherence to legality with its uncertain consequences. In fhe same way, when the appearance of the enemy about September 15 at Meaux in the outskirts of Paris indicated the imminence of a siege, the CouncU had to consider whether the administration of France could be carried on in a besieged town. They were loth to leave the Capital through fear of losing the precarious authority which it had entrusted to them. "They foresaw," said Jules Favre, "the daily occurrence of troubles, riots, panics, and fierce paroxysms of anger." Once more they arrived at a compromise, by which the Government, was kept in Paris, but a delegation of three of its members was sent to Tours, Cremieux, Minister of Justice, Glais-Bizbin, Admiral Fourichon, Minister of Marine, in support of iv] Resistance of Paris 187 M. de Chaudordy in charge of Foreign Affairs. This created two Governments, one for Paris, the other for France, and even these two were separated before long by the German lines ; thus the nation had to face the invader without the unity which in all times of crisis had been its mainstay. "The field of battle is also the field of duty," said Jules Favre to the Departments from which he was cutting himself off. But surely the whole of France was the field of battle on which she must fight on behalf of her honour and her integrity ! One of their excuses was the bad one that many of their number did not then believe in the possibility of a long, general, and wide-spread resistance to the enemy. But their last and worst mistake was that they contrived to create in the people of Paris, whose confidence they wished to retain, the delusion of a patriotic hopefulness which they did not themselves feel. For the Democracy of Paris, the Republic was a word of power that could awaken the national energy, stay the invasion, and liberate the soil of France, which, after a Sedan, promised a Valmy. The most ardent of its leaders, Blanqui, Felix Pyat, and Gambetta bimself, who had been won over by the patriotic enthusiasm of his coUeagues, appealed to popular passions, with a sincere conviction that these could make good the defects of a scheme of defence improvised in the middle of the invasion. "Everything may be expected, everything demanded, of men who have devoted themselves to the defence of their country and of liberty." When Paris armed to stop the invader, it was with the hope that France would rise for her deliverance, with the determination to fight to the bitter end in order to give her time and means for the purpose. The first proclamation drawn up by Jules Favre on September 6 adequately expressed this "Republican pride," as Gambetta described it later; "France is rising; we will not yield one inch of our 188 The Franco-German War [ch. soil, one stone of our fortresses. We wUl fight to a finish." The first acts of the Government corresponded to these, their first words. In a fortnight, it had raUied the Army Corps which had escaped the Sedan disaster, those under Vinoy and Ducrot, and called up the sailors from the ports, thus constituting a regular force of 75,000 men. The National Guard of Paris was called out. The Garde MobUe, called from the country, furnished nearly 100,000 men, who were equipped and trained under the shelter of the forts; these were provided with 200 guns and strengthened by complementary redoubts. In the huge entrenched camp into which Paris was being converted quantities of wheat, live stock, and preserved foods were being accumulated, sufficient for a large population, even with the addition of the refugees from the outskirts. This was a serious and in every sense a grand effort of cooperation by Frenchmen of every party, and won the admiration of Europe. Nevertheless, however well the captains of the defence did their duty, they were doubtful as to the issue from the first. General Trochu, who was charged with the manage ment of this extraordinary effort, looked upon it as a "heroic folly"; and he had no difficulty in convincing Jules Favre, Jules Simon, and Ernest Picard, of the fact, as they, like Thiers, at bottom preferred peace to the chances of a too unequal struggle. On September 9, Jules Favre commissioned the ex-Minister of Louis Philippe to visit first London and then Vienna, to solicit a mediation which might give to conquered France an honourable peace. On September 19, without informing his coUeagues but with the approval of Trochu, he visited the German head quarters at Ferrieres to see whether he could move Bismarck ; and he asked him for an armistice. The conqueror's re quirement of the sacrifice of Strassburg and even of Metz, which was not then invested, as a preliminary condition of iv] Favre, Thiers, and Gambetta 189 any armistice, was so revoltingly opposed to the stout and high-spirited purpose of the Parisians that Jules Favre published it in Paris in order to stimulate popular indigna tion. He recognised the truth of the observation made at the H6tel de Ville by one of the 72 commandants of the National Guard: "The hope of buying a peace is the most potent solvent of all real will to resist." Of all the com promises into which the Government of September 4 was forced in order to preserve the good-wiU of the Capital, none could do so much mischief to France, whose power of resistance it weakened, or to the Republic, in whose heart it thus at once sowed the seed of a tragic misappre hension. The principal merit of Leon Gambetta, at that period, was that from October 1870 he worked resolutely at the re construction of a Government for France as a whole, which became in very truth a Government of National Defence. He was only 32 years of age, and therefore much younger than any of his coUeagues. He left Paris by balloon on October 7 in the company of his friend Spuller, invested with an authority higher than that of the members of the Tours delegation, whose action over the country and in the matter of defence was paralysed by old age and irresolution. His patriotism, which was as zealous as his belief in the Republic, forbade him to trouble himself with any doubts as to the legality of his power or the expediency of a resis tance to the end. His first proclamation from Tours, dated October 9, asserted that the Republicans were justified in taking command "alike by necessity and by right," and that, with an "impregnable" Paris and a levy en masse throughout the country, the "Grande Nation" might deal successfully with 500,000 invaders. His boldness in crossing the investing lines in spite of all risks, the con fidence which he, like the revolutionary leaders, felt in Democracy as the safeguard of their threatened Fatherland, 190 The Franco-German War [ch. and his energy and youthful enthusiasm, kindled once more the hope of an effective counterblow in the nation and the army which refused to admit defeat. While the Government remained imprisoned in the Capital, the country, which now looked in vain to Paris for its accustomed instructions, went to pieces. At MarseiUes a revolutionary Commune, supported by a Civic Guard in revolt, dictated its orders through Esquiros, the prefect, set up the Regime of Terror, and finally convoked a meeting of the south-eastern Departments for the forma tion of a "League of the South." At Lyons, a Committee of Public Safety instaUed at the H6tel de VUle on Septem ber 4, very soon came under the influence of Cluseret and Bakounine, revolutionists from Geneva, and arrested suspects, declared war on the prefect ChaUemel-Lacour, and enforced its will by process of riot upon the munici pality elected on September 15. From Besancon the forma tion of a " League of the East " was reported. At Toulouse there was the same trouble, with the same tendencies to separation and autonomy. No sooner had Gambetta reached Tours than the prefects received vigorous instruc tions, and the revolted towns a lecture. " In the midst of our disasters and under the blows of evU fortune one thing remains to us," he wrote to his agents, "the feeling of the unity of France, of the indivisibility of the Republic." This passion for the unity of France, which Gambetta shared with the most ardent Republicans like Blanqui, forming, with the passion for equality, the most valuable of the legacies of the Old Revolution to the French of the nineteenth century, was the great moral asset upon which he could justify his arbitrary summons of the whole nation to take up arms for the forcible recovery of the lost pro vinces. Jules Favre, as strong a patriot, but with a less un shaken confidence, proposed to rescue them from Bismarck iv] Reorganisation of the Army 191 by diplomacy. After the fruitless interview at Ferrieres he begged two American officers to intervene with an attempt to mitigate the severity of the conqueror's con ditions, and to obtain an honourable compromise. On October 17 he issued a circular asserting publicly his desire to make peace so long as the integrity of French territory was maintained. When Thiers returned at the end of October from his journey round the European Courts, with no better result than a safe-conduct for his return to Paris to enable him to persuade the Government there to make the necessary sacrifices, Jules Favre was delighted to seize this further opportunity of modifying the exactions of the victor. While this was going on, Gambetta was giving himself up heart and soul to the task of organising war to the death. He had in hand 35,000 men all told, who had retired before the Bavarians at Orleans; this became the nucleus of the army of the Loire commanded by Gen. d'Aurelles de Paladine. There was a small force in the Vosges under Gen. de Cambriel, which was retreating, in spite of the support offered by Garibaldi, who brought his volunteers into France. This was the nucleus of the Eastern Army. Men, arms, ammunition, and equipment were aU lacking. With all the volunteers, fighting civilians, and soldiers who had escaped from the Germans that could be coUected, an army of 80,000 men was put together again on the Loire in a very short time. Under the pressure of M. de Freycinet, the military delegate, some sort of war material was created. Gen. Thomas organised the artiUery, and looked to private firms, such as the Schneider and Voruz works, to supply cannon and other weapons. The main value of officers at that moment was as instructors and trainers of these improvised troops. A Decree of October 13, 1870, suspended the ordinary rules of promotion, and stimulated devotion, as well by the hope of reward as 192 The Franco-German War [ch. by appeals to patriotism. A Head-Quarters Staff was created, with a sufficiency of maps, and an Intelligence Department. Rothan, a native of Alsace, an eye-witness of this work, wrote, on October 30, "The activity of the man in charge of the defence is prodigious. His faith in his success is unshakeable, and alsp contagious. It elec trifies France, and is the last hope for Alsace." On October 18 the Prussians at Chateaudun had their first encounter with this heroic resistance. At the end of the month Gen. d'Aurelles de Paladine, reinforced by a second army corps formed at Blois by Chanzy on his return from Algeria, was preparing to take the offensive. At that moment Gambetta learning that the enemy was marching on Besancon, hurried thither, put new heart into General Cambriel, then returned to Tours and published the Decree of November 2, which called for a levee en masse of 600,000 men between 25 and 35 years of age. He arranged for nine army corps, for the command of which young officers of firm temper offered themselves, Faidherbe, Billot, and de Sonis, or generals of the late Empire, like Bourbaki. On November 9 fortune smiled for the first time on the national forces. At Coulmiers, the Bavarians under von der Tann were thrown back, and the road to Paris opened. Gambetta would have had them dash into it at once; but d'Aurelles de Paladine refused to allow the only army remaining to France outside Paris to be risked so early. Moreover he had just heard, through the German com mander himself, of the capitulation of Bazaine at Metz. Strassburg had surrendered on September 28, but not till after a fearful bombardment, which the inhabitants and the army, under the prefect Valentin and Gen. Ulrich, had borne heroically ; Tou] had also kept them at bay for a month. Verdun, Soissons, and La Fere stUl stood between the enemy and his goal. But the principal bulwark of France was Metz, with its 1600 guns, its 175,000 seasoned iv] Capitulation of Metz 193 soldiers, its 6000 officers commanded by three marshals of France, the main hope of the National Defence. Un fortunately Marshal Bazaine, believing — like all the generals of the Empire — that peace must inevitably come, had intended to spare his troops, so as to remain the master of the situation after its conclusion. Between September 23 and 25 he had received at his head-quarters the visit of a certain Regnier, to whom Bismarck had given a permit to pass the German lines, and who boasted of his ability to induce the Empress to treat with Germany through his agency. Bazaine had sent Gen. Bourbaki to England to enquire, and learnt through him that the Empress in person expressed her firm determination to keep clear of such shady negotiations. When Bazaine treacherously refused his generals and his army every opportunity of attacking the enemy, he had faUed to grasp that Bismarck's parleyings were only intended to paralyse his action, and so in the long run bring about the reduction of Metz by famine ; " and the moment had come, on October 12, when Bazaine was forced to face his shame. To escape it, his colleagues, led by Marshal Canrobert, proposed a sortie which would at least have saved his honour ; but he had now adopted the notion that by writing a letter to the King of Prussia, explaining that his purpose was to restore the Empire in Paris, he might obtain leave to withdraw from Metz without fighting. Bismarck insisted on his sending his aide-de camp, Boyer, on a second visit to the Empress to force her to conclude a peace with Germany without any conditions ; but this final negotiation came to nothing before the firm attitude of the Empress, and the Marshal had no alternative left but to capitulate. He was obUged to accept for Metz the same conditions as those enforced at Sedan, at the dictation of Prince Frederick Charles (October 27, 1870). No heavier blow than this could have struck the Republicans, who, whether in Paris or at Tours, had stiU b. 11. 13 194 The Franco-German War [ch. nursed the hope of a counter-stroke. The wrath of Paris was expressed on October 31 by an attack on the H&tel de ViUe, on the news that Jules Favre, with Thiers to back him, was preparing on his side to negotiate with the enemy. The mob invaded the Minister's room, calling for a Com mune, and a levee en masse. The troops under Flourens clamoured for the resignation of the Ministers, who faced their muskets with calm courage. Blanqui and MUliere hurried to their assistance and kept them as prisoners till Jules Ferry and Picard arrived with the National Guard to set them free ; in the struggle between the Government and Paris no blood was shed. On November 3, at the municipal elections, the electors of Paris gave nearly 600,000 votes in favour of the Government. So far, nothing had occurred but a hint (in the shape of a first riot) addressed to the pacificists by the supporters of war to the death — a sug gestion of the feeling roused by the fall of Metz among a people who, in spite of all, refused to give up hope. Under the influence of the same feeling Gambetta addressed the departments in a proclamation dated October 30 as follows : " Marshal Bazaine has betrayed us. In less than two months 225,000 men have been surrendered to our enemy. Whatever may be the extent of the disaster, we meet it undismayed, and unhesitating. In the face of the foe, with every point in his favour, we swear never to give in." In spite of the threat of an early and severe winter, Paris did in fact settle down to an obstinate resistance. Yielding to the advice of Ducrot, Trochu arranged a sortie between November 15 and 18, first from the western face, then in the direction of the Marne, in hopes of reaching the army of the Loire by the valley of the Loing. Ducrot had collected nearly 200,000 men, and, having sworn "to return dead or victorious," led them for three successive days to the assault of the Prussian positions at iv] Gambetta s Armies 195 Champigny and Bry, but without success. On the Loire, in the north and in the east, armies hastily put together by Gambetta were coming to the front. For a whole week from November 28 to December 2 at Beaune la Rolande and at Loigny, the commanders of the army of the Loire, Crouzat, Billot, de Sonis, and especially Chanzy, -measured their strength against the troops which Prince Frederick Charles had brought up with all speed from Metz to support the Duke of Mecklenburg. The French were at last forced to retire; Orleans was lost, Tours and Vierzon threatened at the end of November. In the north, Bourbaki had fought Manteuffel foot by foot with 25,000 improvised troops for the possession of the Somme valley, until November 30, when he was forced to evacuate Amiens. In the direction of Dijon the fine fight put up by Cremer against Werder and Keller, his successes at Nuits on November 30, and later at Chateauneuf, paved the way for the great effort that Gambetta was meditating in the east to unmask Belfort. These improvised armies, hurriedly equipped and trained, could scarcely be expected to do better against seasoned troops, jubilant with success, moving methodically and with certainty, well led, and with every want provided. But their struggles, like the resistance offered by Paris, had at least the effect of securing some sympathy for France, which in her distressed state was not to be despised. This could be seen at the Conference which was called in London on November 26, 1870, at the request of England, to consider the demand of the Tsar Alexander, dated October 29, for a revision of the Treaty of Paris. Gladstone invited the French Government on December 2 to send a representative ; and Beust prepared to give him a cordial reception. The meeting, originaUy fixed for January 3, 1871, was postponed for the convenience of France to January 11. " The Republic is recognised ; room, ample room indeed, is being made for 13 — 2 196 The Franco-German War [ch. her," wrote the Journal des Debats, with perfect conectness. Bismarck confessed to no little uneasiness at the prospect of this European Congress, which might cost Germany all the profits of her duel with France. He was irritated to see what a prolonged affair this duel was. The army of the Loire, after its defeat at Orleans on December 4, 1870, had been reconstructed by means of efforts originating with Gambetta at Bordeaux, and carried out by Chanzy with unfailing optimism. It once more numbered 60,000 men, and was victorious in a struggle for the banks of the Loire at Beaugency and Tavers, on December 9 and 10. Chanzy then joined Bourbaki, and fought for ten days in the Le Mans district against Frederick Charles, the victor at Metz; he then proposed to make another day's advance from Venddme on December 19 and possibly break the blockade of Paris. For seven days, from January 6 to 13, in the neighbourhood of Le Mans, he stood up with rare energy against a German army which Bazaine at Metz with far superior material had not dared to attack. On December 25 Faidherbe at Pont-NoyeUes all but drove back Manteuffel; on January 3, 1871, at Bapaume he beat Gen. Krummer. After furious fighting against von Goeben in the neighbourhood of St Quentin, he only retired on January 19, 1871, before superior numbers. The German General Staff had been obliged to send Manteuffel with two army corps in January to oppose Bourbaki, who, on January 9, had beaten Werder at ViUer- sexel in the east, and had attempted to force his way through the line of the Lisaine and uncover Belfort, where Colonel Denfert-Rochereau had been making a heroic defence from December 3 to February 8. There was a moment, at the beginning of January 1871, when the German commanders were wondering whether they would not be obliged to abandon the siege of Paris in order to iv] Bombardment of Paris 197 make an end of these constantly recurring and increasingly serious attacks from east, north, and south. It was then, after January 5, that Moltke determined to bombard Paris. But he failed to terrorise the inhabitants of Paris as he expected ; he only provoked strong resentment in Europe. We may ask ourselves what would have been the outcome of this feeling if Jules Favre had gone to London on December 19 to plead the cause of his fellow-citizens, whose fate excited such deep sympathy. Queen Victoria wrote to WiUiam I, Lord GranviUe wrote to Bismarck through Lord Loftus, imploring them to stop the bombard ment of Paris. Bismarck never forgave the Queen of England for this act of humanity. "The intervention of neutrals," he said, "during fhe stagnation of the siege gave me much uneasiness and impatience, and many sleepless nights." Famine alone was to prove stronger than the Parisians. On January 20, 1871, although the Government had reduced the daily rations for three weeks past, economised bread by mixing oats, barley and rye with wheat, and spared fuel in spite of a particularly severe winter, they had at the most six days' supply for two millions of mouths. Deaths from hunger, cold and disease increased to nearly 5000 a day. Yet the people could not resign themselves to the fatal necessity of a capitulation; Paris was not to end as ignominiously as Metz and Sedan. They insisted that the impossible should be attempted in forcing the hostUe lines ; and, as Trochu had not made the most of the vigorous effort, at first successful, of Vinoy and Ducrot at Buzenval on January 19, they indignantly obliged the Government to substitute General Vinoy for Trochu as Commander-in-Chief. In the night of January 21 the people of the artisan districts rose, released Flourens from prison at Mazas, and made a fresh attack on the Hotel de VUle, which however was repulsed by the Gardes Mobiles 198 The Franco-German War [ch. from Finistere. Capitulation, now inevitable, was singularly cruel to a population who for five months had endured destruction, squalor, famine, cold and bombardment. It of course extinguished- the last "hopes of the Republicans, and also of the Generals who had done their best to aid the resistance of the capital. The despair of Gambetta revealed itself in the indignant letter which he wrote to Jules Favre and his colleagues on January 14: "The Provinces cannot understand your persistent inaction." Between the despair of patriots and the demands of a conqueror now assured of his prey, Jules Favre was not in an enviable position, when on January 23 he offered to bring to Versailles the keys of a starving Paris. Not only did he not refuse, but he actually claimed this "nauseating mission," as Trochu called it, as a privilege. Then suddenly he perceived that this negotiation must bring to a close the authority that he and his colleagues had enjoyed since September 4. His main request to the conqueror was for an armistice, which would allow Paris to be re-victualled, and a National Assembly to be summoned with all speed. On the following day Bismarck and the King assented. The siege of Paris and the Government of Defence came to an end by the same blow. All that was left was to decide on the fate reserved by the enemy for the army and the civil population. Were the troops to be prisoners of war like those of Sedan and Metz? Was the city to submit to the humiliation of a triumphal entry of the besiegers within its walls? The discussion was a long one, -pro tracted over four days. Jules Favre could only obtain his desire by consenting to an armistice involving the submission of the whole of France to the wUl of the con queror from January 31. If the officers were not all made prisoners, if the National Guard was allowed to keep its arms, if the entry of the Germans into Paris was postponed, if the war indemnity iv] The Armistice; its Terms 199 payable by Paris was reduced from £40,000,000 to £8,000,000, it was due to the fact that Bismarck thus secured a real peace — a point on which he was probably more intensely anxious than even France, prostrate as she was and begging for quarter. The armistice signed by Jules Favre on January 28, 1871, stipulated for a suspension of hostilities within a line which to the north crossed the Somme, on the west passed through Pont-Leveque, Lisieux, and the course of the Mayenne, in the centre cut in two the depart ments of Indre et Loire, Yonne, and le Morvan. With respect to the armies of the east, of whose positions Jules Favre knew nothing, he thought it might be wiser to. reserve them to Uberate Belfort if these negotiations were broken off, and therefore decided not to include them immediately in the armistice. He did not perceive that he thus liberated Manteuffel's hands and left him free to envelope Bourbaki. This process the German general at once carried out, closing the circle by a few decisive moves, and forcing the once victorious but now impotent army of Bourbaki over the Swiss frontier (February 1, 1S71). In thus sacrificing aU that was left in France of resources and defensive energy, as the price of conditions reUeving the Parisians from the tortures of famine and softening the bitterness of their defeat, Jules Favre and his colleagues remained loyal to the end to their principle of governing and fighting, by the capital and for the capital. As he returned from VersaiUes, he had a foreboding that Paris would not in the least appreciate how much energy, how much moral and civic courage, it had cost him as he stood alone to confront the conquerors, almost deserted by the generals, who should naturally have advised him at this critical time, to save the people of Paiis from dying either of hunger or disgrace. "Within thrice 24 hours," he said to Bismarck on January 27, "my name will be written among the traitors 200 The Franco-German War [ch. to their country." And in fact, on January 31, 1871, as soon as Gambetta heard the news at Bordeaux, he issued this indignant message to the departments: "Without warning us, without consulting us, and without our knowledge, they have signed an armistice, the criminal folly of which we learned only too late." Broadly considered, this armistice was only a final compromise, by which a general peace on Prussia's own terms was used to obviate the possibly excessive rigour of a peace made with Paris alone for the honour and security of the capital. It could not satisfy anyone in France, either among those who blamed the Government for carrying on the defence to its extreme limit, or among those who could not forgive them for having forced the country to a general disarmament. On the day of election to the Assembly (February 8, 1871), Jules Ferry wrote to Gambetta: "None of us of either party will be elected, except perhaps Jules Favre." Now that they were called upon for the first time since April 9, 1848, to conduct their own government through freely elected representatives, the majority of Frenchmen showed singular indifference to political questions. They had been interrupted in their daUy labour, uneasy as to their interests, and stricken in their families by the disaster of the war ; and at the moment they cared for nothing but a termination of the crisis. On the other hand the inhabitants of the great towns, whose pride and patriotism had been wounded by the capitulation, took no thought of anything but the struggle of the Republic to make head against Germany. In fact Gambetta himself, the Minister of the Interior, in inviting the electors to institute a really National Assembly, described it as one "desiring peace, if peace will ensure the honour and integrity of the country, but also capable of voting for war." Moreover the vote of the nation did not fulfil the hopes iv] Elections to the National Assembly 201 of the repubhcan patriots who counted upon their willing ness to make fresh efforts. To induce the country to do so Gambetta had tried on February 2, 1871, to influence the electors, by issuing a Decree forbidding them to vote for Bonapartist candidates. Bismarck on February 3 required him to withdraw this decree forthwith, as contrary to the freedom of election guaranteed in the armistice ; and Jules Favre sent Jules Simon in great haste to implore him to avoid any breach with the Germans. The threats of Bismarck and the entreaties of Jules Simon failed for some days to overcome Gambetta's obstinacy, which had the support of the Municipality and Republican Committees of Bordeaux. On February 6 he gave way, on the arrival of Pelletan, Emmanuel Arago, and Garnier-Pages ; but he resigned office, stricken with despair. His dictatorship had closed; that of Thiers was beginning. No less than twenty-six departments had simultaneously decided to elect Thiers as their representative. Party spirit had not been aUowed any share in this expression of the national will. Frenchmen refused their suffrages to the men of the Empire, who had let war loose on them, and meted them out with caution to the men of September 4, who had canied on the war without saving them from any sacrifices or , sparing them the final humiliation. They lavished their votes, to the number of nearly two millions, on the aged statesman who on July 14, 1870, had opposed the war that had ruined them, and after September 4 had declared against the further pursuit of an attempt which had not succeeded in retrieving the first disasters. This marked expression of opinion was almost as good as a plebiscite against war to the uttermost, of which France was weary, and in favour of peace at any price, and the sooner the better ! If it had any political value besides, it was in its manifest intention of silencing the patriotic and social demands of Republicans who were stUl living belated 202 The Franco-German War [ch. iv lives on memories of 1793, "the country in danger," and the Tenor. "Everybody in France who thirsted for peace within and without, the bourgeois of the towns and the peasants of the villages, had designated Thiers as the helmsman in the national disaster." The National Assembly had barely met, on February 13, 1871, before it consulted Thiers on the choice of its first president, Jules Grevy, a Republican and also one who had had no hand on September 4 in the National Defence; and finished by electing Thiers by acclamation on February 17 "Chief of the Executive of the French Republic." CHAPTER V THE CONSERVATIVE REPUBLIC I. The Presidency of Thiers (1871 — 1873). The Assembly which, by its sovereign will expressed in the Decree of February 17, delegated to M. Thiers the govern ment, the right to negotiate with the enemy, and the right to select his own Ministers, had no idea of making a Constitution, and certainly not a Republican Constitution. On the contrary, the preamble of the Decree laid it clearly down that the decision as to the form of Government in France was reserved for a later date. Of the deputies who formed the Assembly 400 out of 630 were Monarchists, former servants of the legitimate line or of the Orleans monarchy, whom the country had elected rather as men of general or local mark than for their capacity, their experience or their political programme, in view of a task that was more pressing than constitution-mongering. After their arrival at Bordeaux Thiers discussed matters with the Royalists, whose chiefs the Due d'Aumale and the Prince de JoinviUe accepted, though reluctantly, his advice not to take their seats though elected, and also with the Marquis de Dampiene and the Comte de Juigne, represent ing the Legitimists ; and he, had no difficulty in convincing the majority that, before enteririg into any political dis cussions, France expected them to secure the deliverance of her soil by means of peace, since she had been unable to obtain it by war. Victor Lefranc, the chairman of the 204 The Conservative Republic [ch. Committee on the Decree which gave him his authority, asked all parties to continue to observe -a truce round the French Republic and its new chief, "even as round the Government of National Defence they had forgotten their dissensions, shed their blood, and saved their honour." This truce of parties constituted what is caUed the Pacte de Bordeaux. As a provisional step, the pacific policy offi Thiers, as set forth in his message of February 19, 1871, and his personal and political authority, were to take the place of a constitution for France. Adolphe Thiers had been a disciple of TaUeyrand and had at first foUowed his fortunes. Their careers were curiously alike. Each, at the age of 73 years, became master of France in the hour of peril into which she had been hurled by a Napoleon, whose blunders each had pointed out and whose ruin each had predicted; each was called upon to mediate between his own country and her con querors. In appearance there was no resemblance between them — the one a courtier prelate, a great nobleman, cold and ironical in manner; the other a MarseUles barrister, petulant, passionate, a typical bourgeois,, self-sufficient and opinionated. One thing however they had in common — Thiers had dreamed it from his earliest youth, and he had seen Talleyrand in his old age realise it — the vision of a statesman who should direct the course of events "without a sword by bis side," as one of his biographers says, by a sort of kingliness of mind. While still young Thiers had tried to overawe Louis Philippe into reigning without governing, and leaving him to govern, and for that matter reign also, instead. In 1850 he had some hope of contesting the dicta torship with Louis Napoleon, with the support of the Legis lative Assembly. He would have served the Empire after 1855, if the Emperor had consented to aUow him the power that Louis Philippe had refused him. History, which in his mind was only a form of action functioning when action v] Character and Policy of Thiers 205 itself was forbidden, had between times tempered the heat of his impatient aspirations, which resembled those of Talleyrand in yet "another point, that they were merged in both cases in an intense desire to serve France — "one of the greatest and most powerful countries in the world, in exhaustible in her resources " — whether in a time of trouble or in the hour of her success. A realist in public business, supple-minded, indifferent at heart as to the form of government so long as it favoured his own success and served the aggrandisement or the re covery of the nation, Thiers was at that time, by virtue of his reputation, his character, and his practical patriotism, marked for headship. The majority of Frenchmen, the bourgeois and the peasantry, showed their confidence in him because, like him, they wanted peace abroad and at home, without preference for one political regime rather than another, and acquiesced in the sacrifices required, so that business and the national credit might be restored by the resumption, tardy enough, of work. As they had sur rendered themselves to Talleyrand in 1814 as a penance for their former surjender to the first Napoleon, so they gave themselves into the hands of Thiers in 1871 after their sub mission to Napoleon's nephew — in both cases on the morrow of an invasion and with full experience of the danger which the dictatorship of Napoleon had entailed. The first care of Thiers Was to arrange without delay for a more solid basis of peace with Germany than that afforded by the armistice. After rapidly putting together a Cabinet, with Jules Favre at Foreign Affairs, Dufaure as Minister of Justice, Ernest Picard at the Interior, Jules . Simon in charge of Public Education, Gen. Lefld for War, Admiral Pothuau for the Navy, and Pouyer-Quertier for Finance, he left Bordeaux and reached Versailles on February 19. There he stayed for five days, contesting with Bismarck the conditions of peace inch by inch; he 206 The Conservative Republic [ch, agreed to the cession of Alsace, Metz, and nearly all .the department of the MoseUe, and to a war indemnity of £200,000,000, guaranteed by the maintenance till payment of a German army of occupation. He fought energetically and successfully to retain Belfort in return for some con cessions of territory and railways which connected Luxem burg and its lines -with the new conquests of Prussia; last and by no means least, he gave Moltke the satisfaction of ! making an entry with his army into Paris on March 1, 1871. In submitting these heads to the Assembly at Bordeaux on February 28, Thiers invited their opinion on the con ditions not only of peace abroad but of future tranquUlity at home. The one could only be secured at the expense of the other. There were still, however, many republican patriots, democrats elected by the larger towns and es pecially by Paris, who could not resign themselves to the mutilation of the country, or the victory of Might over Right. "Anything rather than the dismemberment of France," said Blanqui. Jacobins, Socialists, Republicans, Parisian mobsmen, in the fever of their heroic but useless defence, were furious at the idea of handing over two provinces to the barbarous invader. Their grief and indignation were an excellent basis for the protests of the representatives of the districts thus threatened with separation from their mother-country. In March 1871 Republicans and Alsatians joined in pronouncing the deposition of the Imperial dynasty, as "responsible for the ruinous invasion and the loss of territory." They were still more closely united for the rejection, if possible, of the preliminaries of peace proposed by Thiers. Against this coalition of emotional politicians the President brought to bear those arguments of cold reason and practical good sense, which had made him, in this tragic moment, the interpreter of the nation at large. "We must behave like sensible people," he said, "and v] The National Assembly and Pjtris 207 not like children, when we are settling the fate of the whole country and of two of her fairest provinces." After the vote in favour of peace had been carried by a majority of 340, the representatives of the MoseUe and the Upper and the Lower Rhine left the Assembly, "declaring null and void a treaty that disposed of them without their consent." They recorded their gratitude "to those who for six months had not ceased to defend them," to the republican representatives of Paris, notably Victor Hugo, Rochefort, Ranc, Felix Pyat, Benoit Malon and Ledru-Rollin who had retired in their company, and to Gambetta. The last-named had been elected both for Paris and Strassburg, and, having opted to sit for Strassburg, the victim-city, had retired to St Sebastien with the other Alsatian deputies, broken down with grief, incapable of accepting his lot, and already beginning to conceive the idea of a return victory of Right over Might. A few days after Thiers had settled the conditions of peace, Paris rose against his Ministers and the Assembly. During the last days of February the populace, which had not yet laid down its arms to return to its ordinary work, responded to the summons of a "Provisional Central Committee" of the National Guard, on which it at once, on February 24, 1871, conferred a permanent constitution, declaring it to be composed of delegations from the various metropolitan dis tricts, and charged with the duty of preventing the entry of the Prussians into Paris. Then, on the pretext of guarding the cannon that had been used in the defence, the Central Committee seized them and placed them in position on Montmartre at the Buttes Chaumont. It had not, it is true, gone so far as to attack the Prussian forces, and had aUowed them to enter as far as the Place de la Concorde on March 1 and 2. But it refused to give way to the regular Government, when the energetic d'Aurelles de Paladine was appointed to the command of the National Guard, and it was 208 The Conservative Republic [ch. still more recalcitrant to the military authority of Gen. Vinoy with his 12,000 demoralised troops. It felt that it was mistress of the capital, and of a capital sore alike at its defeat and at the peace imposed upon it. Such was the attitude of the people of Paris, the out come of their patriotic anger and their hopes of a revolu tion. But the majority of the Assembly sitting at Bordeaux, who claimed to represent the pacific side of France and the provinces, were inclined to make short work of the resis tance of the capital. "We have had enough of this Paris," they said in the lobbies, " this Paris which ten times in eighty years has sent us down a new Government for France by telegraph." When, on March 4, Thiers requested the Assembly to wind up the duplicated administration that the necessities of the war had imposed on them since October 1870, it turned out that the majority were in favour of transferring the capital to the provinces, from fear of the threatening revolution, and also from a desire to punish Paris. "Through fear of a riot," wrote an Orleanist, "they will create civil war." In spite of the entreaties of Jules Favre and Picard the Minister of the Interior, Thiers made a dangerous concession to the Right, as part of a bargain on which he rather prided himself, by acquiescing in the return of the Assembly, not to Paris, but to Versailles, which was voted on March 10, 1871. The Parisians at once took this vote as a challenge. The Assembly, which was suspected, not without justice, of monarchical tendencies, was for dethroning Paris after having mutilated France, thus striking first at their country, and next at the Republic. The threat awoke memories of the patriotic and revolutionary Commune which had in former days roused the democracy of Paris against foreign foes and monarchists. On the very day of the vote which seemed to them to be aimed at the capital, the Central Committee of the National Guard published V] Insurrection of the Commune 209 an appeal to the regular troops, calling on them to disobey their officers and to join the people in defending the Republic; and appealing to patriots to ally themselves! with the Central Committee against the rats of Bordeaux,! "the Clericals." The influence of this body was increasing fast among the smaUer tradesmen owing to the activity of the socialist propaganda; moreover they were irritated by a recent decree of the Assembly for the resumption of cash-payments suspended during the war, and (so far as I they were members of the National Guard) by the threatened withdrawal of their daily pay while work and business) remained at a standstill. Whether Thiers meant to break up the Central Com mittee or not, is not clear ; at any rate he now ordered the troops, although of doubtful fidelity and inferior both in numbers and equipment, to attack the National Guard. Lefl6 the Minister of War, and the Governor of Paris, undertook to wrest the guns by force from the people on the morning of March 18; but they failed absolutely, for want of horse-power strong enough to carry off the guns quickly. The National Guard rose first at Montmartre, and afterwards at 11 a.m. in the faubourgs; the rank and file deserted their officers, some of whom were left in the hands of the riotous mob. The insurrection was victorious, and marked the fact by a deed of blood, the brutal execution of the two generals, Clement Thomas and Lecomte. It is possible that Thiers had taken the risk of this arbitrary act which started the crisis, with a view of dis covering the force of resistance in his hands, and the power of the rioters against him. He knew what had happened in 1830, and he could personally remember how, in 1848, Bugeaud and Marmont had been unable to repress with the regular troops an insurrection in Paris supported by the National Guard. At once he decided on his course. He determined (March 18) to transfer the whole administration b. 11. 14 2io The Conservative Republic [ch, to Versailles ; once there, they would reorganise the regular army, therewith declare war upon the capital in the name of France, and compel her to submit to the law. "Paris has given us the right," he said, "to prefer the interests of France to those of the capital." This was the first time since the great French Revolution that the provinces and the party of Monarchy had not bowed before Paris and her threats, before the will of the urban Democracy. The Central Committee of the National Guard foresaw the effect of this revolution (March 19) and hesitated. It seemed willing to listen to the conciliatory proposals of the mayors and vice-mayors of Paris for protecting the rights of the capital without violence. These mayors — Tolain, Tirard, Clemenceau, Vacherot, Arnaud de l'Ariege, Henri Martin, and H. Carnot — were strong Republicans, though bourgeois ; they dreaded this conflict between France and Paris, between the bourgeoisie and the people, which could only result, as in June 1848, in the ruin of the Repubhcan cause. But the chiefs of the insurrection were already feeling the influence of the revolutionary committees and of the Blanquists who had been angered by the arrest of their leader, and who were more anxious to win a victory for their socialist doctrines even by violence than to prepare the way for a Republic by compromise. On March 26, 1871, the General Council of the Commune was constituted at the H6tel de Ville by elections which conferred power on the friends of Blanqui — Raoul Rigault, Ferre, Ranc, Tridon, with some equally ardent journalists, Felix Pyat, Vermorel, Delescluze, Paschal Grousset, Flourens ; and clubmen of the district, Amouroux, Meillet, Regere, Champy, and Decamps. In the Council, now reduced in number to 78 by the resignation Of the representatives of the bourgeois districts, Adam, Meline, and Tirard, Coun cillors such as Jules Valles, Varlin, Benoit Malon, Vaillant, Beslay represented the doctrines of the Internationale, with v] The Communal Organisation 211 ideas and policy inspired by the Marxism of Germany. As soon as it was formed, the Commune appointed its Committees: on Finance, Varlin and Jourde; on War, Eudes; on Police, Raoul Rigault and Duval; also an Executive Committee. It placed guns in the southern forts and on the bastions of Paris, and had for a moment an idea of sending the National Guard to attack VersaiUes, while declaring its readiness to respect the treaty of peace with Germany. Most fortunately for Thiers and the Assembly, the bourgeois Republicans at that moment made another attempt to intervene as mediators. Supported by Re publicans of the Assembly, the mayors, Clemenceau and Tirard, came from Paris (March 23) to beg the Assembly to show some confidence in them, and authorise them to elect a Municipal Council and a Commandant of the National Guard; after which they returned from Versailles to Paris to make a corresponding proposition to the Central Com mittee. These negotiations gave Thiers time to put another army together. Having the assistance from the first of Gen. Leflo, the Minister of War, and Borel, the Chief of his Staff, and also of Marshal MacMahon, and himself taking special interest in military questions, of which he was passionately fond, the President was able to provide himself with three divisions of infantry and the same of cavalry. He appealed for volunteers from the country districts. The prisoners of war set at liberty by Germany were sent to Cherbourg, where Gen. Ducrot was employed in regrouping them; and soon 100 regiments were turned out complete with arms, equipments and officers. By April 19 Thiers had realised his purpose; he could dispose of a force of 130,000 men under the command of Marshal MacMahon, assisted by Generals Cissey, du Barail, and Ladmirault to meet the insurrection of Paris. The Commune tried on April 3 to fling three columns of 14 — 2 212 The Conservative Republic [ch. insurgents upon Versailles, but they encountered a successful resistance. All rebels taken prisoners were immediately shot. After fortifying ChatiUon, the troops of Thiers occupied the first houses in NeuUly. The Commune was reduced to act on the defensive, which was promptly and strongly organised by General Cluseret. To the refusal of quarter declared by the Assembly and its Generals he replied by instituting the Terror. All men under 40 years of age were forcibly incorporated in the ranks of the insurgents ; all liberty, of the Press or otherwise, was suppressed. Men were sent to prison in batches, among them General Chanzy, sundry priests, Mgr Darboy, the vicar of the Madeleine, the Abbe Deguerry, some Jesuits and some gendarmes; these were called the "hostages." They took possession of churches, of Thiers' private house, and of the private property of their opponents. Nor did the Commune reserve its severity for its enemies alone. The Central Committee kept the General CouncU under close observation and criticism. The Executive Committee by dint of its suspicions paralysed the action of the leaders of the defence, Cluseret, Bergeret, Dombrowski, and Rossel in particular. At the same time it failed to provide them with the requisite munitions, convoys, commissariat and medical officers. Thiers felt his superiority, and was correspondingly disinclined to parley. He refused to set Blanqui free, although the Commune offered the most distinguished of its hostages in exchange; he went so far as to detain Mgr Darboy's vicar-general at Versailles without a reply, when that prelate had been sent under a safe-conduct from the Commune to negotiate the exchange, thereby exposing him to a charge of treachery from the other hostages. All efforts at conciliation that were still being made at the beginning of April by the Chambers of Syndics, the League of Republican Unions or the Masonic Lodges were met v] Defeat of the Commune 213 by the President with an absolute refusal. He prepared to bombard Paris once more by way of bringing it to reason ; and by hard fighting he seized the positions which the Prussians had used, Les Moulineaux, the park and (after wards) the fort of Issy (April 20-27). The Commune, like the Revolution, treated failure in its generals as a crime, both in Cluseret'scase and Rossel's. It appealed for help to the communes of France, offering them a Federative Republic which would acknowledge their autonomy. For its Committees it substituted dele gates, who were in fact Ministers and almost dictators. On April 28 it even constituted a Committee of Public Safety, which challenged the authority of the Commune, now incapable of defending even itself, not to speak of Paris. The resulting confusion assured the victory that Thiers and his officers had planned after the bombardment of April 15. A breach in the wall at AuteuU, made by the combined fires of the forts Mont Valerien, St Cloud and Issy, gave an entry on May 21 to a division of the army of Versailles. CUnchant, the general in command, would have pre ferred at this moment a bold offensive strategy in the streets of Paris ; but Thiers, fearing street fighting, preferred gradually to occupy the districts of the west and of Mont- martre. The conquest of Paris went on over six days, during which the Committee of Public Safety organised a system of defensive barricades, and set fire to the districts taken from them by the Versailles troops; the Tuileries, the Board of Audit, the Council of State, the Ministry of Finance, the Prefecture of Police and the Arsenal, and even private houses were in flames. In the passion of defeat, they ordered the hostages to be executed. The massacres and incendiarism went on up to the final moment, when the troops carried by assault the last centres of resistance, first the Bastille, then the Buttes Chaumont and Pere 214 The Conservative Republic [ch. Lachaise. This was the "week of blood," which was followed by a period of terrible repression. At first the rebels were shot down on the spot without trial, as criminals by common law; the number killed was nearly 20,000. Nearly 40,000 men, women and children were anested and sent in batches to Versailles or Satory to be tried by court-martial ; twenty-two of these courts sat permanently down to the year 1876. Imprisonment, deportation to New Caledonia, and capital sentences put an end to the insurrection of Paris. Democracy and Socialism lost their leaders and best fighters: the provinces reduced Paris to silence; and the few voices that were uplifted on her behalf at Lyons on March 24, at St Etienne on the 25th, at Toulouse on the 27th, at Marseilles on April 1 and at Limoges on April 4, were silenced with equal severity. Nothing had inspired Thiers with greater confidence in the triumph of his authority than the peace with Germany, which was eventually signed on May 18, 1871. To obtain it, however, he had been obliged to make fresh concessions to Bismarck on the score of the weakness of his government under the threat of insurrection. At the Conferences which were opened in Brussels on March 28, two days after the constitution of the Commune, the German negotiators, Arnim and. Balan, put forward demands in addition to the Preliminaries— the cession of the railways of Alsace- Lorraine, of portions of Lorraine around Thionville, of the communes in the canton of Briey which contained valuable minerals — and extended the frontier of Germany as far as Redange, on the road to Luxemburg. On Thiers resisting these demands, Bismarck threatened to occupy Paris. Fresh Conferences were opened at Frankfort, which Bismarck left Berlin to attend, bearing his ultimatum to Pouyer- Quertier and Jules Favre, as follows: a speedy payment of £60,000,000 on account, the most-favoured-nation treat ment to be accorded to German imports, the cession of V] The Peace of Frankfort 215 the Lorraine districts above-mentioned, and the gratuitous cession of the Luxemburg railways, the working of which belonged to the French Compagnie de I'Est. Being on the point of giving final battle to the Commune, Thiers accepted these demands, the object of which was to attach Luxemburg to the German Empire as if she had been a conquered country. Without allowing the Assembly to see the full bearing of aU the conditions of peace, he induced it to accept them as matters that "France was not in a position to discuss." When the month of May 1871 closed, with the defeat of Paris, these events did not diminish the respect felt by the nation for its President, as the man who by his wisdom and by his energy had restored peace at home and abroad. On his return to the capital on May 29, men uncovered to him as he passed, women cheered him, soldiers presented arms. On June 29, 1871, he held a review of the reconstituted army at Longchamp, and the bourgeoisie of Paris gave him a great reception. By June 27, great and small had paid down on his appeal double the sum that he had first asked for towards the evacuation of the territory — five milliards of francs., instead of two. At that moment, when the tragic hours of fhe invasion and the civil war were forgotten, Thiers was the living expression of the aspirations' of a nation which though mutilated, torn, and humiliated, still remembered its former grandeur, unity and strength, and longed to make its future equal to its past. Rarely however have so many and such vital problems, so evidently urgent and so apparently insoluble, been presented to any nation as to the French in this summer of 1871. We must grasp this, if we are to understand the popularity of Thiers in the first place, and, next, the forty- two years of history that followed his pacific dictatorship. After the peace, nearly one-half of the soil of France was 216 The Conservative Republic [ch. occupied by German troops, whose commander, Baron von Fabrice, wielded a stronger power and was better obeyed than Thiers himself, the conqueror of the Commune, when he spoke in the name of the Assembly of which he was at once the master and the servant. The evacuation referred to in the Treaty of Frankfort was only to begin after the payment of the first twenty mUlions sterling, in the depart ments of the Eure, Seine-Inferieure, and Somme. This did not take place till July 22. Some days earlier, 101 electoral districts, which had been called upon to elect deputies in the place of those returned by sundry Colleges of Electors, gave a large majority of their suffrages to the Republicans. Leaving the adherents of Monarchy and Church, they acclaimed thrice over, in Paris, at Marseilles and at Toulon, Gambetta, the Republican soldier of National Defence, the man who had protested against the conditions of peace at any price and the mutUation of France. With Gambetta the Parisians elected Scheurer-Kestner, who like him looked forward to the liberation of Alsace; three departments elected Denfert-Rochereau, the defender of Belfort; three gave their votes to Faidherbe. It looked as if the country was preparing to regret the sacrifices it had made for peace, and was returning under Republican leadership to the hope, the vision of the revanche, the counter-victory, perhaps not immediate, but certain. There were moments when Bismarck was inclined to doubt the genuineness of the resignation of France, and wondered whether he should not reinforce the army of occupation rather than diminish it. The problem was vital for the conquered nation too; and the choice between a final acceptance of the situation and an unquenchable hope, which would at the best of times have been risky, was now peculiarly delicate for a people which had either lost, or at any rate not yet found, a government. On the defeat of Sedan, the Empire v] The Assembly ; Thiers Chief of Executive 217 collapsed. True, certain intrigues were carried on between Paris and Chislehurst on behalf of the Napoleonic dynasty, but they were of small account beside the wrath of a con quered and mutilated France, to which Sedan recaUed memories of Waterloo. "Things have taken a bad turn for me," wrote Napoleon III from exile, "they will not forgive me my bad servants, or my ill-luck." Similar unpopularity had fallen on the men of September 4 who had taken on themselves the task of governing in the name of Paris, and had organised the National Defence. When the war was over, they retired, without gratitude or regret on the part of the nation. The National Assembly, the only legal power then existing, had been convoked, not so much to decide on the future government, as to choose between peace and war, and to reconstitute the forces of France for a new departure. In fact the Assembly had markedly evaded making such a decision by establishing M. Thiers as a provisional sovereign, with the title of "Chief of the Executive of the French Republic '' — words of suggestion, but not of binding contract. This provisional state was favourable to the speculations of the various component groups in the Assembly. The Monarchists, who were the most numerous, prepared for a monarchical restoration by summoning the Comte de Chambord to Paris and by sundry futile attempts on the part of Mgr Dupanloup to induce that prince, who had obstinately insisted on flying the white flag only, to meet the Comte de Paris, who had been recalled from exile with his uncles on June 8, 1871. The Republicans took advantage of the personal authority of Thiers to famUiarise the nation with the title of Republic. FoUowing Gambetta's lead, they devoted themselves to representing it to the nation as a system of order, and the only form competent, first, to vindicate the honour of France, and then to restore her to her rank in Europe. 218 The Conservative Republic [ch. This did not prevent the President from admitting that they must soon put an end to this provisional state of things. " Never was a grander problem put before a nation ! Shall this country, the object of the impassioned interest of the universe, be a Republic or a Monarchy?" It looked, moreover, as if everything in France was now to be once more put to the proof — liberty of conscience, system of government, material interest. In the history of the Catholic Church, which is closely interwoven with that of France, the events of 1870 were as important from the poli tical point of view as the Franco-German war. The decrees of the Vatican Council represented the determined hostility of the Roman theocracy and of the Ultramontane party against the liberty claimed by modern society and by democracy, against the affirmations of reason and science, and the demands or traditions of national churches. They indicated the progress made in the world by Papal authority, and showed what might be expected from the demands of the clergy in any Catholic country where the laity were forbidden henceforth to question orders from Rome. In France, religious communities long forbidden even under the Monarchy had returned, rich in numbers and zeal, to take control of popular education by virtue of the Falloux law, and, in defiance of the University, to give a Catholic bias to the training of the bourgeoisie and the numerous functionaries, deputies, mihtary and naval officers, and law officers who inclined, either from conviction or calculation, to serve in this Ultramontane campaign, the opening of which France seemed likely to experience. Furthermore, as the Vatican decrees synchronised with the entry of the Italians into Rome and the destruction of the temporal power of the Popes, it was thought that the Church militant might awaken the zeal of its adherents through their pity for the Church suffering and their sympathy with the hard fate of Pius IX, the aged and august victim of violence, v] Rome and the Monarchists 219 imprisoned in the Vatican. If France, the eldest daughter of the Church, in testimony to her loyalty to the Holy See, were willing to devote her sword, fresh tempered in the adoration of the Sacre Cceur, to avenge the Papacy, such a crusade, undertaken on the very morrow of her own cruel reverses, would most assuredly be the mark and seal of the absolute consecration of the people to the interest and cause of Rome. But such was neither the wish nor the intention of a large number of Frenchmen who were still hostile to a "government of parish-priests," especially the young Re publicans, who were penetrated by the teaching, and inspired by the works, of Comte, Littre, Renan, Berthelot, Taine and Jules Simon. ¦ A great movement of free thought had been at work, resembling the philosophic struggles of the eighteenth century against dogma and the Church, but with a more rigorously scientific method, a more enlightened curiosity, and a wider knowledge. The schools had undergone a positive resurrection since they had been placed by Napoleon III under Victor Duruy, the determined foe of the Congregations; and a number of societies had been instituted for the advancement of popular and secular education, which were all more or- less inspired by a Free masonry growing daUy more Positivist. Thus was being prepared a body of resolute, trained and officially recognised adversaries of Ultramontanism in France. The political struggles to which the invasion and the destruction of the Imperial regime gave rise were another source of compli cation in the ensuing reUgious quarrels, the liveliest that the nation had known for some time. Social controversy was only suspended by the disasters of the Labour party and the banishment of its leaders after the Commune. In a country where universal suffrage was stiU the basis of public life, it was impossible, even in the provisional state of siege declared against the Press and the 220 The Conservative Republic [ch. socialist organisations, that the proletariat should resign itself without a murmur to a total and definitive abandon ment of its own interests and claims. And with a victorious bourgeoisie now mistress of the situation through Thiers, there would always be some partisans of Labour, in the persons of the leaders of the Republican bourgeoisie. True, the ensanguined days of the Commune, like those of June 1849, bad made a gulf between them ; but it was not so deep now as then. The Republican party, under Gambetta, Jules Ferry and Clemenceau, did not forget - that, from its inception, it had laid before the democracy a programme of political reforms, drawn up with a view to the weU-being of the whole social body, and now actually in operation. The moment that party came into opposition to the Conservative bourgeoisie or to the Monarchists, it needed the cooperation of the Labour masses; and iri July 1871 the working-men saw that the lever for their revanche was a Republic. Animated by the same care for popular education, and by a kind regard for all professional bodies or associations, for mutualist or cooperative societies, working-men such as Barberet, Chabert, Tolain, or bourgeois like Vacquerie and Louis Blanc, the editors of the Rappel, literary men like Renouvier and Charles Bigot, decided with all speed to reconstruct the alliance between the bourgeoisie and the proletariat. To appreciate properly how much strength and hopeful ness was still left in the Labour party after their disastrous defeat — not to speak of the support they received from German and English Socialists — it is sufficient to notice the remarkable efforts then made by all the groups in the bourgeoisie, besides the Republicans, to appease their wrath and win them over. There were Jules Amigues with the funds and instructions which he received from the fallen Emperor Napoleon III ; M. de Mun and M. la Tour v] Republicans and Labour 221 du Pin with their Catholic Labour Circles which they were hastily starting under pressure of the bishops ; the disciples of Le Play with their Unions for Social Peace. "Do not let us make any mistake," said a Conservative; " Socialism is putting on a benign character, but only in appearance; and the sole reason is that many Socialists, feeling that their numbers alone ought to ensure them the mastery in the pohtical field, are satisfied to await success through the ordinary working of universal suffrage." The Labour masses had appealed to force and been beaten; they were now looking for a revanche of a pacific and legal character. And this social evolution, its conditions, its means, and the obstacles it would meet with, presented not the least among the many problems now before the French nation. After all, France could not ignore the fact that her defeat, and her political, religious and social troubles, could not stay the stream of history in Europe and in the world at large; that this history had just then reached a point which would be decisive of the future of some European nations; and that in the territorial and economic trans formation of the old and new worlds her own future was involved. Continents were then opening out to European conquests and activity, notably Africa. In other continents, where yet there was room, nations and empires were forming, the offspring of Europe, but full-grown, adult and indepen dent — the United States of America, Australia, Canada, Afrikanderland and the South American States. Old forgotten peoples, China, and especially Japan, were waking up, and modernising themselves by opening their doors to the commerce and influence of the West and the teachings of its civilisation; while, in the East, Russia and England were spreading to the farthest limits of Asia and extending their rival colonial domains side by side in Afghanistan and Turkestan. The year 1869 was a great date in the history 222 The Conservative Republic [ch. of humanity, greater than that of Austerlitz or Sedan, the year in which the first ship passed through the Suez Canal, and the last rivet of the Transcontinental Railway from the Atlantic to the Pacific was driven by General Grant, President of the United States. Now that the genius of M. de Lesseps had opened the way for France, now that she had prepared herself by the vigorous suppression of a native revolt in Algeria, by her work in Senegal and Egypt, and by her more recent ventures in Indo-China, was she in a position to join in this world-life, to maintain her place in it, and to extend and consolidate it? Amid sadness and ruin, and in the uncertainties of the morrow, would the nation defeated in 1870 have the means, the leisure, even the wish io follow this path ? Thus, in the summer of 1871, the people of France had to reconstitute their frontiers, their material lives, and their government ; to build up their intellectual and moral lives, and create harmony where the conflict between capital and labour had left division; and lastly to make a prolonged effort of unknown extent and importance to put themselves in a position to take their part in the expansion of Europe across continents and oceans. That since that period France has not, speaking generally, failed in any one of these tasks, that she has foUowed them aU up simulta neously, that she has fully availed herself of the counsels of experienced and patriotic guides who have never been wanting to her, and that she has found the necessary means — these are the facts which constitute the broad outlines of the history of French democracy from 1871 to 1913. Under the Presidential — some people called it the Royal — rule of Thiers between 1871 and 1873, the first care of the French, in obedience to his advice, was to complete the work of pacification abroad, and first of all for security's sake to free the country from foreign troops. After accept- v] Liberation of French Territory 223 ing the severe conditions of the Treaty of Frankfort, the French gave their Government all their savings without stint. At the end of September 1871, £40,000,000 were paid off to the Germans, and two-thirds of the conquered districts were evacuated. The nation was ready even to anticipate payments in order to get immediate deliverance, had Bismarck been wiUing to take them; it was obliged to await its opportunity, which was not long in coming. Germany was afraid of competition with the manufactures of Alsace, which she was bound to admit unconditionally, as soon as free entry into France was closed to them by the treaty; for the present they enjoyed that freedom, but only up to September 21. By a convention dated October 12, 1871, Thiers agreed to postpone the closing of the frontier by custom-houses for three months, on Bismarck's agreeing to withdraw his troops from six other departments at once. Thiers paid another instalment of 40 miUions sterling between January and May 1872; and at the beginning of 1872 the German troops left in France numbered only 50,000 instead of 500,000. A third convention was signed on June 29, 1872, which warranted the hope that the liberation of the country was at hand; and the loan of 120 mUlions sterling, authorised by a vote of July 15, subscribed for seven times over in France and seven times over in the rest of Europe, enabled this hope to be reahsed. The actual stipulations of the convention only required payments of these 120 millions sterling in three instalments, on January 1, 1873, January 1, 1874, and March 1, 1875, to be made directly to Germany by the subscribers to the loan; but on March 1, 1873, Thiers, feeling sure that France could free itself of the burden of the last two instalments within the year, begged the Emperor WUliam to direct a complete evacuation on July 1, 1873, and received his assent on March 15. The National Assembly, in the delight which they shared with 224 The Conservative Republic [ch, the whole of France over a deliverance two years earlier than she could have expected, declared that "Thiers had deserved well of his country." The next matter of importance, after the re-establish ment of the frontier, was its military protection and armament, a measure necessary for the security of the nation, not to speak of the hope of revanche, which, ever living in the hearts of many Frenchmen wrung by the poignant farewells of the Alsatians, the Republican leaders round Gambetta took care to foster. Besides the 400 mUlions sterling which represented the cost of the war, the country undertook with resignation and self-denial the burthen of additional taxation involved in the recon struction of a large and strong army. In February 1871, France had 534,000 men under arms; but all or nearly all of these had been raised very hurriedly, and did not include a single one of the old regiments of the line. She had further recovered, for use against the Commune, some 80,000 men of her old army from German prisons. The defence of France was reconstituted by a series of laws which were drafted and submitted to the Assembly by Thiers with the help of General de Cissey, his Minister of War, between Junes, x87i, and May 29, 1873. The infantry was reorganised (July 24, 1871), then the cavalry, next the artillery (AprU 20, 1872) ; promotion and retirement were settled by a law of January 5, 1872 ; and the Supreme Council of War and the Committee of Defence were constituted on July 21. Finally the law on recruiting (July 27, 1872) made personal military service obligatory on all Frenchmen, on the Prussian principle of the nation in arms. Substi tution and exoneration were abolished. The duration of service was fixed at five years with the colours, by the decision of Thiers supported by Generals Changarnier and Ducrot, who, differing from Generals Trochu and BUlot, believed in professional armies ; after which four years in the v] The Army reorganised 225 Active Reserve, five years in the Territorial • Force, and six years in the Territorial Reserve, made up the twenty years for which every French citizen was enrolled, between his 20th and 40th years. Every batch of recruits was divided by ballot into two parts, those who drew the lower numbers constituting the Active Force, whUe the others were sent home after one year, though stUl liable to be recalled. Total exemption from service was granted to priests, professors, schoolmasters with a ten years' engage ment to the State, and the eldest sons of widows. Lastly conditional exemption for four years was given, as in Prussia, to graduates, sons of commercial men, agri culturists and manufacturers, who could pass an examina tion; they then served for a year, paying 1500 francs for their maintenance while with the colours. By constituting an active army of 675,000 men, with a reserve of 500,000, the Government had done all it could to aUeviate the financial burden of this law, while showing a fair regard for the bourgeoisie and at the same time for the productive and intellectual forces of the nation. France, bereft of master, of dynasty, almost of govern ment, but confronted by a united Germany, further con solidated by victory, learnt to appreciate the necessity of this triple burden, military, financial and social . She further accepted the law of July 24, 1873, which instituted nineteen army corps furnished with depots, commissariat, and muni tions of war ; and a strong artillery, locally organised into "regions" in each of which the artillery divisions were dis tributed. She built new barracks, constructed the requisite camps and armament, and created a military organisation for the railways and telegraphs. The Treaty of Frankfort had left a gaping hole of 200 kUometres in length in the eastern frontier of France to which General Sere de Rivieres called the attention of the Committee of Defence, submitting to them a plan for b.ii. 15 226 The Conservative Republic [ch. restoring the frontier; this was carried out, and France cheerfully paid the biU. In 1873 it was decided to construct an artificial frontier, with a view of making an enemy hesitate as to his line of invasion, and of supporting an army of defence in a task in which time for preparation was needful. This frontier included the entrenched camps and fortresses of Maubeuge and Lille, Verdun, Toul, Epinal and Belfort, Langres, Besancon, Lyons, Grenoble and Briancon. Paris itself was constituted a huge entrenched camp surrounded by fortified works on a circumference of 130 kUometres, divided into three sectors, St Denis, Eastern and South-eastern. In spite of these efforts for liberation and self-preserva tion, which earned for France the respect of Europe, French men had an instinctive feeling that they must also en deavour to find support outside the country, remembering how cruelly they had been abandoned to face the exactions of a victorious Germany alone. In May 1872, the Temps, one of the principal republican journals, spoke of a possible epoch-making alliance between France and Russia. The meeting of Tsar Alexander and the two German Emperors, the conqueror and the conquered of Sadowa, in Berlin in September 1872, suggested a solemn sanction of the victories of Germany, and at the same time another Holy Alliance against France, following Sedan as the first followed Waterloo. It suited Bismarck well enough to allow this to be believed, and even to say it, in Paris. The Chancellor, when at Gastein, had found in Andrassy and the Hungarians, who had persuaded Francis Joseph to forget Sadowa and put the helm of the Monarchy into their hands, more docile cooperators than Beust (August and November 1871). The Tsar, however, had not come to Prussia to strengthen Bismarck's hands, but to keep an eye on him. He had not the smallest intention of lowering or humiliating France v] Local Government organised 227 any further; he would rather watch over her, and give her time to reconstitute her strength "sufficiently to play her part in the world." This was the assurance, we may almost say, the hope, that he allowed his Chancellor, Gortchakoff, , to whisper to the French ambassador, M. de Gontaut-Biron, while declining to back up all Bismarck's demands for guarantees for the due execution of the Treaty of Frankfort ; and he repeated it in almost the same words to the English ambassador, Odo Russell. Now England, like Russia, was beginning to think that to maintain the equilibrium of Europe a strong France was necessary. France was still isolated, but she already felt that her rapid revival and her energy had won her sympathy in quarters where it might be easUy transformed into friendship and even into alliance. The reconstruction of France was the work of a nation of peasant-proprietors, which had first sought and found in itself, in the instinctive qualities of the race, its industry, its frugality, and its sound sense, as also in the productions of a happUy-tempered and varied climate and soil, the remedies for its defeat, the means to meet the needs of the day, and guarantees for a brighter future. The National Assembly, in which the rural deputies were in a large majority, and which had put down from Versailles the revolt of Paris, was well constituted to further this work, understood its purpose, and did in fact further it. Indeed of all that the-Assembly did this had the most lasting result. Two great laws which this body passed in the first months of its existence — that of April 14, 1871, on Munici palities, and that of August 10, 1871, on CouncUs General of Departments— were directed to promote the progress and weU-being of the rural population. Those laws corresponded to the "Nancy" programme put forward by the Liberals at the close of the Empire, involving the principle of decentralisation, according to which the provinces would regain more initiative and larger rights, and would be J5— 2 228 The Conservative Republic [ch. freed from the yoke of a centralised administration which since the days of Napoleon had restricted the authority of the Government for the benefit of the capital. Thiers himself, and other statesmen like Ernest Picard and Gambetta, objected that this reactionary legislation threatened a certain amount of danger to the power of Ministers, the unity of the country, and indeed the general liberty. As passed however, with some amendments, it gave to the communes in villages, and in towns of less than 20,000 inhabitants, the right of electing their councillors and mayors, the administration of their accounts and their property, their local taxation, the maintenance of their . roads, public services, and municipal buildings, and the control of their own police. To the departments it per manently confirmed the right of holding regular assem blies twice a year under an elected president of their own, the administration of their property, the maintenance of their main, high, and pavement roads, the right to assess themselves for direct taxation, and to levy taxes by additional centimes for local expenditure on repair of roads, education, poor relief, and sanitary work. As a check on the wide authority stUl left to the prefects, the law of August 1871 instituted the Departmental Commission, which was a committee, aU but permanent, appointed by the Council General to prepare its work and see that its orders were carried out. These municipal and general counciUors, being taken from the actual districts, often themselves peasants and always in touch with their peasant electors and cognisant of their needs, were not likely to neglect any matter that might affect their elections or the interests of agriculture. To facilitate access to their markets, they first gave their attention to the roads, created a staff of road-surveyors, and sanctioned an expenditure of 200 million francs (£8,000,000) a year. A report by Krantz on the reorgani- v] Administrative and economic Reforms 229 sation of water-carriage was favourably received by the Assembly, June 2, 1872. The Finance Minister, Pouyer- Quertier, agreeing with Thiers and overruling the resistance of the free-traders, embarked France on a protectionist policy which favoured the corn-growers. The political men of leading all vied with each other, in trying to get the favour of this rural democracy of small landed proprietors which cared little what governments were created — or destroyed — by the capital, but ever since the Revolution had formed the great, solid, industrious majority of the nation. Immediately after his return to France, at Bordeaux on June 20, 1871, Gambetta longed "for the appearance of a rurally elected Chamber" to rebuild the France of his desire. He insisted on the necessity of making ceaseless appeals to the peasantry, "satisfying their interests, elevating and educating them." From that time onwards, owing to the favour of the great proprietors who formed the majority of the Assembly, owing too to the policy of Thiers and the foresight of Gambetta, agriculture, "the first of the national industries of France," became the main care of the legislation, the Government, and indeed the whole nation. It did not, however, follow that the nation remained indifferent to the resources accruing from manufacturing industry. Since 1862 great progress had been made both in the way of industrial concentration and of technical skill — progress only interrupted by the war, and resumed immediately after it. In 1872 the consumption of coal rose to 23,000,000 tons and continued to increase by about a miUion tons a year. The production of smelting works rose" to a million tons, and was to double itself in the next ten years. The sugar trade was growing still faster; and the large number of deputies who supported a pro tectionist policy on its behalf also served the interests of the cotton and wooUen manufactories so numerous in the 230' The Conservative Republic [ch. western districts and in Champagne. Among the artisans, numbers were rising, whUe wages were also increasing. Associations were formed to anticipate the initiative of the State in supplying them with technical instruction by the operation of the Polytechnic Associations, the Philo- technic Associations, and the Society of the Rhone for Professional Instruction. This wide-spread movement had beneficial results in the intensification of commercial life, the growth of foreign trade (the value of which rose by a milliard francs, or 40 millions sterling, in a few years), the increase of busi ness, of the merchant marine, of activity in the ports, on the railways, and in general traffic. France, though shorn of two of her fairest provinces, and weighed down by the loss of material and the heavy expenses piled up during the war, fell back at once upon her old habits and her capacity for labour to find the means of maintaining her financial position. That position had not only suffered nothing by the loss of the five milliards of francs, which represented money saved before 1870, but it even improved at the rate of one hundred million francs a year, in spite of her sacrifices, involuntary and voluntary. If we must credit Thiers with this resurrection; if, in the complex work of budgets, loans, administrative re organisation, and commercial and industrial business, a large part bore the mark and impress of his far-seeing activity, scarcely credible in an old man of 75 ; if another part of the work must be attributed to the National Assembly, whose duty it was to make peace and to arrange for this reconstruction, still the main honour for the prompt ness of the recovery was due to the nation itself, to its elasticity, its optimism,, its high spirit, its confidence in its own resources and its own labour. Its own good sense informed it that in that direction lay the compensation for its defeats, less brilliant at the moment, but more v] The Constitutional Problem 231 certain in the end than the one commonly proposed to it. Nations, having the whole past for their history, do not suffer from the impatience of individuals for whom time is measured by the hmits of their own lives, and to whom distant hopes are forbidden. Moreover the fixed determination of the country to buUd up its own destinies afresh was still more clearly manifested by the use it made of universal suffrage as an instrument for obtaining a political constitution after the faU of the Empire and under stress of the invasion. The task was a hard one, especially for a rural democracy con sisting of five mUlions and a half of peasants, who for some eighty years past had been in the habit of accepting any masters that a Paris revolution chose to send them, in different both as to principles and forms so long as the government was carried on in conformity with their interests. It was of no use for them to look for guidance to the National Assembly, a body elected in the " woful days," the majority of whom, though Monarchists, were incapable of selecting among the different pretenders, each of whom claimed to succeed by virtue of one or other of the consti tutions tried since 1815. The obligation that Thiers had entered into by the " Pacte de Bordeaux," and had renewed in his famous speech of March 27 ("that he would never favour one party secretly at the expense of others ") , forbade him from giving the country any but vague indications of his own preferences; in fact, whether it was hesitation or reserve, he gave some people the impression that he wished to keep up his ill-defined provisional position in order to retain power for the rest of his life — a paltry judgment against which he protested vigorously before the tribunal of history. The fact was — and he had grasped it — that the democracy of France, after all its experiments and failures in monarchy, could no longer trust anyone but itself; and that it had now proposed to take the guidance of its 232 The Conservative Republic [ch. destinies into its own hands; and Thiers had neither the means nor the opportunity of suggesting or submitting the form that the democratic regime should take. Thus for more than a year, down to November 1872, owing to the impracticability of the Assembly and the reserve of Thiers, the French people were never in a position to solve the constitutional problem on which their future depended. Then it was that Gambetta became the shep herd of this shepherdless nation, going from town to town through all the provinces. At St Quentin (December 1871), at Toulon and Marseilles (January 1872), at Angers and Havre (April 1872) , at Versailles (June 24, 1872), at La Ferte- sous-Jouarre (July), at Chambery (September), at Grenoble and Annecy (October) he demanded the dissolution of the Assembly and the dismissal of "the Versailles people," and laid before the country the programme of a "Re publican Republic" in all its detaUs— "the government of the people by itself, with supreme regard to order, by force of hberty, with Revanche as its object." Towards the end of the year 1872 Thiers came — and very wisely — to the conclusion that the French were learning their lesson, and were turning in the direction indicated; and that his duty was to help them. On November 13, 1872, he sent a message to the Assembly inviting them to establish a permanent government by organising the administrative powers. This simply meant that the President invited the Assembly to establish a Republic, and it provoked great anger. The majority in that body were always working in hope of the return of the Maison de France, and of a Monarchy devoted to the Church. But they were quite unable to induce the Comte de Chambord to accept a constitutional regime, although the Orleans princes and their friends acknowledged its necessity; and their impo tence had been even more strongly marked by a new v] Thiers leans towards a Republic 233 manifesto, dated January 25, 1872, which the head of the elder branch addressed from Antwerp to his adherents. StUl, they would not allow that, in consequence of their dissensions, a Republic should be erected on the ruins of their dreams. On the motion of the Legitimist Audren de Kerdrel they proposed to the Assembly to appoint a com mittee of fifteen to examine — and refute — -the message of the President. On that day a decisive struggle began between Thiers and the majority. The first bout ended apparently to the advantage of Thiers. On November 29, 1872, he had a majority of 37 in favour of a motion by M. Dufaure requiring the Assembly to appoint a committee of thirty to draft a law for regulating the distribution of administrative power. To get this vote, Thiers had obtained the support of the Left Centre, a group of deputies which played a decisive part on his side in those difficult days. Its president was General Chanzy, a Republican, inasmuch as he had been the heroic commander of National Defence; but its members were mainly Orleanists, who had resigned themselves to the abandonment of their monarchic velleities, like Casimir Perier, Remusat, Dufaure, Malleville, Ricard, and Rivet. The constitution by which this party wished to reconcUe the views of the country and the Assembly was the republican, as demanded by the nation, but of a con servative type to suit those to whom democracy was a bug bear. With the help of Thiers, who secretly supported it, this party eventually succeeded in graduaUy convincing the bourgeoisie and the Assembly that they need not fear any danger from the progress of Republicanism. At the same time, by its loyal adherence rto republican institutions, it encouraged the nation to disregard the intrigues of impenitent Monarchists. The vote of November 29 was its first victory, and was greeted in Paris by a dense crowd with repeated shouts of "Vive la Republique." It did in 234 The Conservative Republic [ch. truth amount to an acceptance of the republican type by the Assembly, and a promise of its coming realisation. To turn the promise into act, Thiers conceived — perhaps unfortunately — the idea of strengthening his rather frail majority by making advances and concessions to the Right Centre, the uncompromising Orleanists and Bonapartists, who were specially jealous of his authority. On November 30, he substituted at the Ministry of the Interior, for Victor Leblanc, a Republican, M. de Goulard, who, while retaining the private friendship of the President, was a devoted Monarchist, while Dufaure was almost at open war with Gambetta. Thiers also summoned M. de Fourtou, a member of the Right Centre, to the Ministry of Public Works ; and he established cordial relations with the Com mittee of Thirty, in which that party dominated, hoping that the Government might be allowed to prepare schemes for the organisation of the legislative and executive powers, the institution of a second chamber, and the new law on elections, if M. de Broglie, who was the Reporter of the Committee, could be induced to report in favour of such permission. In order to obtain this essential permission, the President did not hesitate to give up his privilege of addressing at his own time and pleasure the Assembly and the country from whom he had two years before received his real authority. All these concessions caused a general uneasiness, while Gambetta and the Republicans were loud and profuse in their warnings against the intrigues of the Monarchists. And Paris showed her mistrust by electing Barodet against Thiers' candidate, M. de Remusat, on April 27, 1873. Still it is only fair to say that Thiers succeeded in persuading the Assembly to ^et him bring in a bill for the creation of a Republican Constitution prepared by his Keeper of the Seals, M. Dufaure. The Orleanists of the Right Centre, irritated by the Comte de Chambord's formal rejection, on v] Monarchist Opposition ; Thiers resigns 235 February 23, 1873, of every attempt at fusion with the house of Orleans, had resigned themselves to this decisive step. But they did not resign themselves for long. When the President, armed with this vote, addressed a resolute appeal to the Left Centre to make the Conservative Republic a fact, and on May 18, 1873, formed a Ministry of Liberal Republi cans under the presidency of Dufaure, comprising C. Perier, Leon Say, Remusat, Waddington, Pothuau and Berenger, aU the enemies of a Republic with one accord combined for its destruction. They met on the same day at the house of the Due de Broglie, and, having first shelved the candidature of the Due d'Aumale by agreement as a matter on which differences might arise, they made choice of Marshal MacMahon. On May 23, at the very moment when Ministers were bringing in their constitutional bills, M. de Broglie made a vigorous attack on them; and on the following day, Thiers, being put in a minority by the defection of the Right Centre, resigned. It was clear that he was to be overthrown, cost what it might, rather than be allowed to found a Republic. The Assembly no longer gave him any credit for services performed; nor would it listen to the demands of the nation for a permanent, essentiaUy democratic government under legal sanction. Rather than be persuaded by Thiers, it threw him over. The problem of the fate of France still awaited solution. This was not a possible state of things. France wanted to live ; and the check given to Thiers was a sort of defiance addressed to aU the inteUectual and moral forces of the nation which had been roused by his defeat. At the inauguration of the "Ecole Libre des Sciences Politiques," on November 29, 1871, by Taine, Boutmy and Vinet, Taine wrote: "Not only is business reviving, but a public spirit and a national sentiment are starting out of its slumbers." In the great disaster that had just stricken France, all men, 236 The Conservative Republic [ch. young and old, belonging to the University, or to literature or science, had the same feeling that their science and talent and teaching power ought to be employed for the resusci tation of their country. They recognised that the victories of Prussia had been prepared for by the way in which science had placed itself at the service of the Fatherland and of the idea of a United Germany, and had forged the souls and spirits of the millions of dwellers beyond Rhine into weapons for the decisive struggle. Not that they were blind to facts : Renan, in his Lettres a Strauss, Pasteur in his Lettres au doyen de Bonn, Chevreul, Fustel de Coulanges and many others stigmatised that excessive docUity of German thinkers and professors towards men of the sword, and their leniency of judgment on the barbarities and cruelties of conquest; all nevertheless believed that the revanche, the return-victory of the French, would only be won by an awakening of intellect, and by better instruc tion of all from the highest to the lowest. Pasteur, writing at the time to a Lyons newspaper, asks, "Why could not France find men of leading to help her in the hour of danger? It is owing to her neglect and contempt of the great achievements of thought in exact science." "We have been beaten by Science," said Sainte-Claire DeviUe. For ten years the danger had been pointed out by the masters of the youth of France, men who were the glory of French civilisation in the nineteenth century — in che mistry, Pasteur, Berthelot, J. B. Dumas; in physiology, Claude Bernard ; in history, Duruy and Fustel de Coulanges ; in geography, Reclus ; in philology, Renan and Havet ; in general learning, Quicherat and his pupils of the Ecole des Chartes; in archaeology, Leon Renier and Desjardins. But the nation had not given them the necessary means or authority to serve her. Renan had pointed out the evil in 1862; and Victor Duruy had given a state initiative which was to prove fruitful, by starting the Ecole des v] Educational Progress 237 Hautes Etudes. This, with the Normal School to which Bersot was appointed in 1871, proved to be the centre of -a complete renascence of science and letters in France. Historians trained in German schools or on the methods peculiar to French culture, Gabriel Monod, Ernest Lavisse, Rayet, Giry, and phUologists like Gaston Paris, Paul Meyer, James Darmesteter, Charles Graux, Bergaigne, Tournier, Michel Breal, undertook to revive the methods and the learned institutions of ancient France, and thus restore her to her rightful place, in the face of a victorious Germany. " Patriotism," said Gabriel Monod of his friend Darmesteter, "has been the dominating influence in his life." No less might be said of the thinkers and writers who ever since that period have gathered round the French universities, now weU supplied both with means and with a youthful band of scholars, trained in the discipline of German science, not from a desire for servile imitation of the conqueror, but from a spirit of emulation pregnant of results. When Jules Simon was appointed by Thiers to the Ministry of Public Education on February 19, 1871, he formed a group of assistants, whose value Victor Duruy had already marked — Dumesnil for Higher Instruction, Zevort at the head of the Secondary Schools, and 0. Greard for Elementary Education. AU these, animated like their chief by ardent patriotism, had one thought in common, that of every Frenchman of the time, and that which Gambetta had proclaimed at Bordeaux as the programme of democracy — the revival of France through education. " Let your first demand be for the completest possible education in human knowledge from its base to its summit. For this object the nation will not grudge even millions." On the morrow of their defeat, the people and the State began to work for the attainment of this object, towards which every heart, whether of politician, philosopher, or scholar, felt the same patriotic impulse, even in the presence of the conqueror, 238 The Conservative Republic [ch. who might lord it over the soil of the nation, but never over its inteUect or its heart. However, the Catholic — or more precisely, the Ultra montane — party had taken steps to oppose this view. Between them and the bold and brilliant men who were trying to restore their country through science and study, harmony was difficult, indeed scarcely possible. While Boutmy was calling upon the bourgeoisie to get education for the service of the democracy of France, "now on a flood-tide which will know no ebb," the members of the Roman faith, and more particularly their bishops, taking their cue from, the Syllabus, denounced democracy and science as dangers that must be averted at any cost, by prayer and propagandism, by the assistance of the State, and even by education given through monks and priests. The capture of Rome and of the Papal domain, which had been carried out with ease by the King of Italy in September 1870, had created in the Catholic circles of France as much pity for the violence done to Pius IX as had been felt for the dismemberment of their own country. A perfect deluge of petitions for the restoration of the Temporal Power was organised by the bishops after May 1871 ; and Thiers had considerable difficulty in preventing the National Assembly from imposing upon him, on July 12, the duty of giving effect to them. Six months later, Brunet, deputy for the Seine, proposed that the Assembly should solemnly dedicate itself to Christ and to the Sacred Heart. Even Thiers could not avoid bringing in a proposal for the erection of a Basilica on the heights of Montmartre ; though it was not actually carried till July 24, 1873, after his fall. The Clerical party hoped to draw the whole of France into this crusade on behalf of the Papacy and of their country, for to their minds the destinies of the two were but one ; and to this end they made use of stout-lunged v] Educational Demands of the Clericals 239 preachers, festivals and processions. In February 1872 the Assumptionists joined the Jesuits in starting a "Board of Pilgrimages," by which the faithful were conducted to Lourdes on October 6, to Paray le Monial, where Marie Alacoque had enjoyed the vision of the Sacred Heart, to Puy, to Notre Dame de la Garde at MarseUles, to Notre Dame de Chartres. All these shrines were dedicated to the Virgin Mary, whose intercession Pius IX invoked by preference; and from all of them rose the strains of the hymn, composed expressly for the occasion, celebrating the future bliss to which the Holy See invited the faithful — "God save Rome and France" — the Marseillaise of the Catholics. Among French Romanists the patriotic emotions roused by the. victories of Prussia took the shape of increased affection for a Pope who was equally the victim of violence. This triumph of Ultramontanism, this devotion which was at once both national and mystic, was in truth a very great and potent religious movement ; but it was in direct opposition to the programme which men of science and Republicans enamoured of a secular ideal of science and reason were framing for the intellectual renascence of France. When, on December 15, 1871, Jules Simon brought up a proposal for compulsory elementary education, the Catholic deputies proposed Dupanloup as chairman, and Ernoul as secretary and reporter, of the committee appointed to throw it out. The Monarchist and Clerical Right demanded the abolition of the Normal School and of the School for Higher Studies (March 1872) ; and about the same time they placed on the University council which had to do with the masters and curricula the fiercest of the Ultramontane bishops, Dupanloup and Freppel, and the most Catholic members of the Institute and Court of Review. Having thus laid hands on the State schools, they demanded fuU and entire liberty for the Church schools and the Catholic faculties. 240 The Conservative Republic [ch. Thiers, who had favoured the policy of the bishops at its start in 1850, now supported Jules Simon, the Minister of Cults, in trying to limit the scope of this campaign of reaction, by a temperate and kindly use of the powers which the Concordat still gave the State over the clergy of France. Between their concessions to the Ultramontanes, and the demands of the democracy and secularists, the two had a difficult part to play. The faU of Thiers was preceded on May 11 by the resignation of Jules Simon, which the Clericals demanded on some specious pretext, in order to put a stop to his reorganisation of PubUc Education. And the order of the day which struck down the President on May 24, 1873, was prepared by one of the most skilful champions of Ultramontanism, the banister Ernoul, a pupil of the fiery bishop of Poitiers, Mgr Pie. Thus it was not only the form of constitution which was once more to be discussed, but the whole intellectual future of the democracy of France. The appeal of the Ultra montanes to a "moral order," as necessary to the safety of society, was practicaUy a claim to bind society down to the teachings, and involve it in the destinies, of the Church of Rome. The vote of the Assembly which severed Thiers from the Presidency prolonged the constitutional crisis seriously; after the blood-stained struggle between the people of Paris and the bourgeoisie of the provinces in March 1871, it seemed that another quarrel, on religious and moral grounds, was to divide Frenchmen with con sequences equaUy fatal to the restoration of the country. While less violent than the civU war of 1871, it was on the other hand to be of longer duration, lasting, as it did, over nearly aU the six years of the Presidency entrusted after the faU of Thiers to Marshal de MacMahon. v] Character of Marshal MacMahon 241 II. The Presidency of MacMahon (1873 — 1879). By family traditions which carried his descent back to Stuarts and Bourbons, and by the influence of his marriage with a fervently Catholic lady, the Marshal who governed France for the next six years was a Legitimist. And for this reason the adherents of the Comte de Chambord, who wished to avert the threatened candidature of the Duke d'Aumale, pushed him into the place vacated by Thiers. He was, as a matter of fact, above all a soldier, and nothing but a soldier; fortunate, and generally brilliant, as in Algeria, at the Malakoff, and Magenta, less fortunate at Woerth and Sedan, he had never thought of a political career. He had served with equal loyalty under Louis PhUippe, Napoleon III and Thiers ; and, when he accepted the Presidency, it was with the intention of preserving the order of things "established by law." Having declared, when elected President of the Republic, that "existing institutions were outside criticism," he had not the slightest intention of making himself the tool of a Monarchist coalition and of a conspiracy. What he did accept on the other hand was the task, compatible (as he thought) with the form of a Republic, of ensuring the success of the Ultramontane party which formed the majority in the National Assembly. Supported by Orleanists hke M. de^BrogUe, the head designate of his first Ministry, by Bonapartists such as Magne, by Legitimists like Ernoul and du Barail, all united by one common desire, he became the President " of Moral Order" — the phrase invented to deliver the future of French social life, bound hand and foot, to the interests and prescriptive rights of the Roman Church. Under his rule the religious question took the leading place for several years among the problems of the Government which the Assembly had put in the place of M. Thiers to prevent him from organising a Republic. b. 11. 16 242 The Conservative Republic [ch. Under the direction of de Broglie, the Ministry laboured to solve it in favour of Rome. Beule, Minister of the Interior, suppressed newspapers that had been denounced by the ecclesiastical authorities, compelled officials to attend religious ceremonies, and forbade their attendance at the funerals of citizens who had left the Church; indeed Ducros, one of his prefects, at Lyons insisted on such "impious" obsequies taking place at night. Du Barail, Minister of War. subjected the officers of the army to similar regulations, and in 1874 introduced into every important military unit an Almoner, upon whose report their future would depend. Batbie, Minister of Publfc Education, favoured schools taught by ecclesiastics, both " the elementary and the secondary, the latter competing with the "Lycees," which had become the nursery of functionaries, civil, military and naval. He was ready to hand over higher education to the clergy ; and in 1875 he gave them the right to open Catholic universities under the authority of the Pope, and even to provide candidates for public careers by granting degrees. Under the lenient eye of M. Ernoul, the Keeper of the Seals, the religious orders were increasing their numbers and their influence by their skUfully popularised devotional services; pil grimages, charitable and social guilds multiplied. Never since the Middle Ages had the Theocracy preached its doctrines, asserted its claims, or proclaimed their progress, so distinctly as now under the Republic — much more so indeed now than in the days when the power as well as the duty of opposing it was in the hands of the "very Christian king." Emboldened by their success, the Ultramontane party now involved the Marshal, his Government and his country in a foreign policy which endangered the security of a nation scarcely yet risen from its disasters. The manifestations of that party in favour of the Temporal Power, which took v] The Ultramontanes ; German Menaces 243 place in September in Rome, under the very walls of the royal palace of the Quirinal, alienated the crown and people of Italy from France, and sent Victor Emmanuel to Vienna and Berlin to negotiate an aUiance which should ensure him against this Catholic Republic, audacious enough to find fault with Bismarck for his Kulturkampf policy. The French ambassadors in Rome and Berlin, M. de Courcelles and M. de Gontaut-Biron, though their aUegiance to the Ultramontane party was beyond suspicion, warned its leaders, so early as July 1873, of the danger of a policy which must end in throwing Italy into the arms of Germany, and might give the all-powerful ChanceUor an excuse for condemning France to fresh humiliations. No attention was paid to them, in spite of the insistence of the Due Decazes, the Minister to whom the Due de Broglie, had entrusted Foreign Affairs in a reconstruction of his Cabinet, November 26, 1873. With one accord the French bishops condemned from their pulpits, more vigorously than even Pius IX in his Encyclical, Si multa fructuosa, of November 21, the anti-Roman policy of Bismarck as "a compound of meanness and treachery." Herein that statesman saw an opportunity for revenging v- himself, "and at the same time" (as he put it to Count Orloff) "checking the mUitary reconstruction in France and occupying Nancy"; his organ, the official Journal of North Germany, was made to say that with a French Government working to serve the policy of Rome it would be impossible to "live at peace." The allusion was'as clear as the threat. Luckily for France, the " thrust was parried," to use the exact expression of Count Andrassy, by the speedy intervention of the Prince of Wales, Queen Victoria, and the Tsar Alexander II at BerUn. In the spring of 1874 the Due Decazes succeeded in "putting France on her feet again." But it had been a critical moment ; and the danger justified the warning that Gambetta not long 16 — 2 244 The Conservative Republic [ch. i afterwards addressed to France, "Clericalism is the enemy." The danger of this policy, which MacMahon was unwise enough to allow his Ministers to carry on through the whole year 1874, weighed on the fortunes of the Republic. The Prince of Wales, who detested Prussian arrogance and retained grateful memories of his youth in Paris, repeatedly warned France of it. With the support of Italy, disturbed by the Ultramontanism of France, and also with that of Austria, Bismarck resolved to call upon France to disarm to an extent which would leave her powerless, and to smite her down once more if she refused; and on May 5, 1875, the formal summons to that effect was served by Prince Hohenlohe on the Due Decazes. Luckily the Duke had received notice of the intentions of Germany through an indiscretion forced out of M. de Radowitz, one of Bismarck's agents, by M. de Gontaut-Biron, the French ambassador at Berlin, at the end of April 1875, and had time to send word of it to Queen Victoria and the Tsar. In this way he was able to meet the threats of Germany; and an immediate intervention of the sovereigns of Russia and England on May 10 finally averted the danger. The danger had been averted ; but it was none the less real, and just of the sort to compromise the methodical reconstruction which had been going on in France for four years. The nation had run a great risk of finding itself once more isolated, and unarmed, faced by a Triple Alliance now in course of negotiation in Central Europe, divided by religious dissensions, and still unprovided with a con stitution. While strong enough to impose the will of the Roman Curia upon France by virtue of its power over the Govern ment through MacMahon, the National Assembly was still too weak to achieve the monarchy of its dreams. The Legitimists, who, even within the Ministry, were working for v] MacMahon and the Monarchists 245 the return of the Comte de Chambord, had persuaded the Comte de Paris, the head of the house of Orleans, to visit Frohsdorf and thus recognise the Comte de Chambord as the sole representative of the monarchic principle (August 1873). This was a great step forwards, but the decisive step would have been that Chambord should admit the Orleanist demand for a modern constitution, the symbol of which was the tricolour flag. During September and October the Pretender was obstinate in refusing this, in spite of the petitions of his lieges and the entreaties of Pius IX himself. . Finally, as the Assembly was on the point of recaUing him to the throne, but with that condition attached (October 22), the Comte de Cham bord published a letter, dated October 29, 1873, refusing point-blank to submit to any condition. Not that he did not desire the crown; but he thought that he held the .Assembly, MacMahon, and France itself at his mercy. He was annoyed when he learnt that the Due de Broglie, by way of graduaUy preparing the throne for the Orleans family, was asking the Assembly to put the executive power into the hands of MacMahon for ten years, reduced later at the request of the Assembly to seven. He returned hastUy to France on November 10 to stop the voting on this proposition, which shelved both Legitimism and the Republic alike. Living concealed in VersaiUes for ten days, he tried to persuade the President of the Republic to receive him, in order that he might, with the President's consent and assistance, impose himself upon the Assembly by a sort of coup d'etat. But MacMahon was too loyal a soldier and too honest a man to be tempted by the part of Monk. He refused his cooperation ; and on November 20, owing to the obstinacy of the Pretender, monarchy was put on one side for seven years. Yet the Assembly stUl craved for it, and the law for retaining MacMahon in the Presidency of the RepubUc was passed by a majority of 65. " Your proposal," 246 The Conservative Republic [ch. said Jules Grevy to the majority, "means the prolongation of the provisional state of things with its danger and suspense." The Due Decazes, on the other hand, remarked with great perspicacity that "this presidency of MacMahon would mark the foundation of the Republic in France." MacMahon was not the man to use violence for the benefit of any individual ambition, or of pretenders of opposed aspirations, against the will of the nation, which was growing daily stronger and more unanimous. He left it to the Due de Broglie to try the experiment, with the assistance of the Bonapartists. The Duke declared thirty- two departments in a state of siege, changed their officials, and on January 30, 1874, passed a law giving to the President the right to appoint and dismiss mayors. "These are laws of the Empire type," Jules Ferry told him, "laws for the manipulation of elections." The country would have none of them. An alliance was at once formed between Thiers, who then announced his formal adhesion to the Republic, and the heads of the republican party; the latter, with Gambetta at their head, did aU they could to efface the memories of their Radicalism from the minds of the electorate. And little by little — for the progress was slow — Republicans began in 1874 to take the place of Monarchists in the Assembly. While the defenders of national democracy of all shades were uniting, their opponents were daily going further asunder. The Legitimists objected to the Due de Broglie's leniency with the Bonapartists, and placed him in a minority in January 1874. Six months later the Bona partists under Rouher thought the moment had come to profit by the quarrels of the Monarchists, and to push forward the son of Napoleon III, who reached his majority in March 1874. The Due de Broglie was overthrown on May 26, 1874 (just a year from the day when he overthrew M. Thiers), and was followed by a de Cissey Cabinet, the V] The Republican Left-Centre 247 members of which were mostly Bonapartists. First the Legitimists, and now the Orleanists, saw the Assembly pass sentence on their hopes. Then it was that, even under the presidency of MacMahon, the deputies of the Left Centre in the Assembly, the men of a Conservative Repubhc, reasserted the authority which in the fall of Thiers they had all but lost. Between an Assembly as conservative and as Catholic as themselves, and a republican nation as desirous as themselves of education, tolerance and freedom of thought, these men, alike religious and liberal, represented the only force left that could make for concUiation. Furthermore, when in the summer of 1874 the menace of Caesarism began to take definite shape, the Liberal Monarchists, who had combined with the Republicans under the Empire and in the Coalition of 1863, began to desert the Right Centre and return to their former allies; and with them came even some Legitimists who were a's dissatisfied with Rouher and EmUe Ollivier as with the Due de Broglie. ReaUy the policy suggested by Laboulaye of giving the nation a permanent constitution, lest it should make one on its own account, seemed the best they could adopt. "You are afraid of the nation," he said, "so am I !" What with the persistency of the democracy and the revival of imperialism, it began to look as if they had no choice but to compromise as proposed; and apparently this was the opinion of MacMahon himself, when he called upon the Committee of Thirty to draft laws defining the powers of the State. Now that the Right had discovered its own impotence, and danger threatened from the Bonapartists, its members kept dropping off one by one into the Left Centre, to which the leaders of the main Left, Ferry, Brisson, ChaUemel-Lacour, and Grevy, with Thiers behind them, now left the manage ment of the affairs of the Republic. The first important symptom was the election on May 13 248 The Conservative Republic [ch. of M. Martel, an intimate friend of Thiers, to the Vice- Presidency of the Assembly. Some days later, on June 15, 1874, Casimir Perier explained from the tribune of the House the wishes and political programme of his party of the Left Centre, and asked for immediate legislation for the institution of a Republic under a President and two Chambers ; by a majority of four votes the Assembly reluc tantly acquiesced, at least in principle. Thus Casimir Perier, the brother-in-law of Audiffret-Pasquier, and but yesterday an Orleanist, under Liberal influence and desiring to put an end to the "provisional state of things, which is kUling us," founded the Republic. A distinct counter proposal submitted by the Due • de la Rochefoucauld- Bisaccia for the re-establishment of Monarchy was not even discussed. It is true that, when details came to be considered, the Due de Broglie once more brought the Monarchists into line against republican institutions. WhUe, on the one hand, M. Wallon, a Catholic Republican, submitted on June 16, 1874, a proposal involving the creation of two Chambers, and held out to the Monarchists the hope of a revision of the constitution in six years' time, as a bait and a comfort to the Right Centre, on the other hand the Committee of Thirty tried hard to adjourn his proposal without discussion. But the Left Centre stuck to its guns, forced the Marshal, who supported the contrary policy of M. de Broglie, to promise "regular institutions," and obliged him to dismiss the more absolutist of his Ministers, the militant Bonapartists, de Fourtou and Magne (July 20, 1874). For a moment M. de Broglie was led by this rebuff to the Bonapartists and by the decided rejection of the pro posals of the constitutional Republicans in the Committee to think that his lucky hour had once more come round ; for the last time he frightened the Conservative majority into v] Defeat of the Monarchists 249 subjection, using the same argum.ents as those which in 1849 had won the day for Louis Napoleon. But his victory was short-Uved; and the country, tired of waiting and uneasy at the machinations of the Catholic party, soon converted it into a disaster. "The Republic is the inevitable," was Gambetta's phrase on August 9. EmUe de Girardin writes, "France is republican; and to become what she was once needs no princes, asks for no aid but her own." In the electoral districts republican victories succeeded each other everywhere throughout the summer, in the departments of Seine, Maine et Loire, Alpes Maritimes, Seine et Oise, Pas de Calais, Dr6me and the Nord. The most significant of these were the re-elections to the Councils General; forty-three departments, or more than a half of the whole number, gave a majority to the Republicans. Rural France, the France that for a century had refused demo cratic government through fear of the Terror, was now fulfilling the desire of Gambetta, by finally accepting that form of government and proclaiming its necessity. In this demonstration of opinion, the Left Centre, the best adapted of all the French parties to represent and guide this decisive development of the nation in the direction of political liberty, through order and moderation, gained fresh authority. Just as the defeat of the Monar chists on certain points had benefited the Bonapartists, so more than one Royalist had to regret the policy of resistance advised by M. de Broglie, and to incline once more in the direction of the moderate Republicans. The decisive moment came, when Marshal MacMahon appealed to the deputies of the Left Centre, and, outside the Assembly, to Dufaure, Casimir Perier, d'Audiffret-Pasquier, and Leon Say to meet himself and his Ministers in conference on the constitutional question (December 29). The Extreme Right loudly objected to this as tending to a dictatorship. On January 9, 1875, MacMahon sent 250 The Conservative Republic [ch. a message to the Assembly, inviting them to constitute a Senate, but omitted to mention whether it was to be the Upper Chamber in a republican constitution ! At the opening of the discussion, Laboulaye, who then took a very leading part, speaking on behalf of the Left Centre, asked the deputies to give their opinions. Jules Simon supported him in asking for a reply to the question " Have we, or have we not, got a Republic?" The Assembly hesitated, and adjourned the debate to January 25. On January 28 the chairman of the Left Centre, on the advice of M. Thiers, proposed the adoption of this formula: "The Gpvernment of the Republic is composed of two Chambers and a President." The Assembly, insensible to the patriotic appeals and powerful arguments urged by Laboulaye amid the acclamations of the whole Left, again rejected these words, obviously too precise for them. On the same evening however they were again adopted by M. Wallon and watered down a little; and on the foUowing day Leonce de Lavergne, an enlightened Royalist, declared his acceptance of them, bringing with him some of the adherents of the Orleans family, such as Bocher and d'Audiffret- Pasquier. This combination now held in its hands the fate of France, and on January 30, 1875, victory crowned the men of the Left Centre by a majority of one ! It was to all appearance a very modest victory, an indirect affirmation of the fact that the chief of the executive power, being President of the Republic, was to hold office for seven years and be elected by two Chambers, two Assemblies as republican as himself. Doubtless this was all matter of course, but it had not yet been put into words ; and, on the other hand, it was quite understood and actually stated that the Republic was not to be formally proclaimed, and might be again discussed on revision seven years later. The compromise was one that the men of the Left were wise in accepting on behalf of the democracy ; they understood v] Discussions on the Constitution 251 that it was as much as they could get frorn a Monarchist majority reduced by its own impotence and lack of cohesion to leaving the French people to govern themselves. Had they demanded more, a political crisis, a new revolution, would have separated the country from its representatives ; whereas by accepting the conditions offered them, as obtained by the Left Centre, they drove the supporters of other regimes out of the field for an indefinite time and ipso facto started the Republic. As a reward for their prudence, the door they had half jopened swung yet wider. By a second law passed on February 1, 1875, it was enacted that the President of the Republic should obtain the assent of the Senate before dissolving the Chamber. This enactment, carried by a majority of eight, involved one of the essential principles of a parliamentary Republic, ministerial responsibility, carried on February 3, being another. When, on February 11, the mode of election of senators came on for discussion, this Monarchist Assembly for a moment felt obliged to allow Laboulaye to propose universal suffrage. So sudden a victory for the democracy, however, was too much for the majority, who gathered themselves together and declined to proceed to a final and decisive debate, trying in fact to barricade at the last moment the breach through which the Left were pressing on to victory. Further negotiations and concessions were necessary. Once more the result was due to the Left Centre, in combination with the Orleanists of the Right Centre, at a meeting held in the house of the Due d'Audiffret-Pasquier on February 11 ; due also to Marshal MacMahon, who, acting for himself personaUy, gave up the right of appointing life- senators, on condition that the democrats abandoned the principle of direct universal suffrage in elections to the Senate. On February 19, 1875, a proposal was submitted to the 252 The Conservative Republic [ch. National Assembly by the combined Right and Left Centres for conferring on deputies, members of departmental and district councUs, and delegates chosen by the communes in each department, the right to elect 225 senators, while 75 life-senatorships were reserved to be filled up by the National Assembly. The proposition was marked " urgent," and adopted on February 24; and on February 25 this Assembly, which had it in its power to restore the Monarchy, passed a law on executive powers and a law on public authority, and instituted a Chamber elected by universal suffrage by a majority of 170 votes, thus completing the task of founding a democratic and parliamentary Republic for France. On July 16, 1875, the law on the mutual relations of the branches of pubUc authority was passed; on August 2 that on the election of senators ; on November 30 that on the election of a deputy for each separate electoral district (scrutin d' arrondissement). Thus, in the course of a year, the Republican Constitution was definitively settled. Differing from all those that France had previously given itself, it did not emanate from a Constituent Assembly convoked for the express purpose, but was accepted by one party as a provisional makeshift, by another as part of a bargain, and by all as a compromise. StiU, as a compromise or a provisional measure it was destined to live, because it was imposed on the Assembly by the wUl of the nation and provided the nation with adequate means to express its desires and to satisfy its needs. Since that date, the constitution has undergone but slight modification. The responsibUity of Ministers to a Chamber elected by universal suffrage, and the gradual trend of Parliaments towards Republicanism, have been sufficient to liberate democratic institutions from the trammels which the majority of the Assembly had thought fit to im pose on them. To oppose this gradual movement, the adherents of the Ultramontane Church and of the faUen v] The Constitution of 187 5. New Ministry 253 causes no longer had any lawful expedients. But France, though henceforth governed by the wiU of the people, was still administered by a body of officials working outwards from a strongly organised centre in Paris, the nucleus of which was a President not responsible to the Assembly; and it was this citadel of irresponsibUity and arbitrariness which the Clericals and the reactionaries for another three years made the centre of their resistance. Conect parliamentary doctrine would have required that, after the victories of 1875, the men of the Right and Left Centres should be called upon to carry out the con stitution they had created. But in his new Cabinet of March 10, 1876, Marshal MacMahon gave them only minor posts — to Dufaure the Ministry of Justice, to Leon Say Finances, to WaUon Public Education. He refused to give the Ministry of the Interior to the Due d'Audiffret- Pasquier, entrusting it, together with the Vice-Presidency of 'the Council, to Buffet, whose first care was to govern, with his burly prefects and his generals, in the style and to the liking of the Bonapartists, to put France in a state of siege at the nod of M. de Cissey, the Minister of War. In disposing of the offices, the Marshal and his adviser believed they were disposing of the country, and checking the spread of democratic ideas, thus repeating the mistake which had cost Louis Philippe his crown, and Napoleon III (after the liberalisation of the Empire) his power. Gam betta, who, along with Thiers, directed the constitutional resistance of the nation by his influence and his oratory, warned them: "It is useless for you to keep the officials of the Empire; there may be a few rotten boroughs in which you may thus secure the election of some of your party; but the tide is going to flow over the party itself, and sweep it clean away." When the National Assembly was dissolved, on December 31, 1875, and the dates of elections were fixed — that of the 254 The Conservative Republic [ch. Senate for January 30, 1876 — and that of the Chamber for February 20, 1876, the tide predicted began to flow. Buffet stood in four constituencies, and was beaten in all four ; of 530 seats, the Republicans won 300. In spite of all the efforts -made to stifle its voice, the nation let it be un mistakeably known by a striking majority that it demanded "a Republic served by Republicans." The Buffet Ministry had at last to give place to a reaUy constitutional Ministry of the Left Centre, with M. Dufaure as President, Picard at the Interior, Waddington at Public Education, Christophle at Public Works, Teisserenc de Bort at Agriculture, and Admiral Fourichon as Minister of Marine — mostly old coUeagues of Thiers, with the exception of Decazes, who, to the surprise of everyone, was retained ' at the Foreign Office. As a whole, the Cabinet bore an extraordinary like ness to the one formed by the late President on May 18, 1873, when he began the struggle with the Assembly in favour of a Republic in which he eventuaUy fell. It might be thought strange that the Marshal President, who had served under Thiers himself, but had not been unwiUing to oust him, should now summon to his assistance so many other colleagues of Thiers; but in fact, unless he was wUling to accept the service of a Ministry of the Left of more pronounced views and including the leaders of the recently elected republican majority, he could devise no other method than this to carry out his duty as constitutional President. He did in fact carry it out, though not an inch farther than he could help. The Cabinet, which, when formed by Thiers in 1873, was a piece of audacity and the cause of his fall, now as formed by MacMahon was a com promise for saving the authority which he held, not from the people, but from the Assembly. And a compromise was all that it could be ; henceforth government belonged to the nation alone, the fate of Ministers being at the mercy of the Chamber, the direct representative of the nation. v] MacMahon versus Gambetta 255 However necessary this conclusion may have been, MacMahon declined to submit to it; and in his new Ministers — who were in fact a set of timid and moderate bourgeois, as much alarmed as himself at the vigorous claims of the democracy, who thought they could govern France without being governed by the people — and more especially in Dufaure, he discerned the approval which he required to aid him to stand up for bis own very strong authority. The powers he stiU retained in the nomination of civil and military officers, in the army, and in the administration of the consular service, and the further right of dissolving the Chamber with the consent of the Senate, and of appeaUng to the country by formal messages, seemed to the President to warrant him in asserting his will, with the help of his Ministers and their servants and especially of the senators, even in the face of the country. "During my occupation of the Presidency," he wrote some months later, "I am conscious of having never been guided by any personal feeling. My conduct has been dictated by con siderations of public order. Gambetta's doctrine of the omnipotence of the Chamber must be rejected, and the independence of the President of the Republic within the limits of the constitution maintained." With the support of the Senate and the cooperation of the Left Centre, the Marshal thought that success was possible; and his desire for success was enhanced by the fact that Gambetta and his friends were joining hands with the Freemasons, who trained their disciples in Positivism and free thought, to organise the opposition to the Ultramontane party— a combination which, in the opinion of the Marshal and his friends, would be fatal to the schemes of that party. He used his authority to shield the Minister of War, and officers like M. de Mun, who were demanding that "the Church should kill the Revolution," and who as Catholics -refused to submit to the rule of the democracy. In the 256 The Conservative Republic [ch. President's struggle, the support of the Senate was an essential element. Although by an arrangement made by Gambetta with the Legitimists, Republicans were elected to 66 out of the 75 vacancies in the Assembly caused by the nomination of deputies to senatorships for life, the other elections of senators in 1876 had not resulted favourably to his party. The members of Councils General, the mayors, and delegates of communes, under the influenceof the prefects, sub-prefects, clergy and large proprietors, voted for members of the Right, Bonapartists or Orleanists, but, preferentially, for former deputies of the National Assembly. Thus these elections had given the Republicans only 93 seats ; and, even with the life-senatorships which they had secured, they were stiU in a minority of one. In this ' ' Great CouncU of the Communes of France," as it was called by Gambetta, the majority was not as yet democratic, much less anti-clerical; and the Marshal himself expected it to give him the support required for the protection of his authority and that of the Church. He had spent two years in the effort; yet his success was not destined to correspond to his calculations or to his hopes. A public writer of that day said "The Senate is the constitution of 1875 " ; and Marshal MacMahon was then of the same opinion. But in reality the constitution was nothing else than the democracy of France, which amid the general impotence of parties had become master of the situation by the constitutional operation of universal suffrage and parliamentary institutions; it worked its wUl by Ministers whom the President might select, but who only continued to exist and to govern by the good-will of the deputies of the nation. The Marshal was soon to find this out for himself. To carry out his design, all he required was the means of governing. What with the urgent demands of the President and the Senate for concessions to the Catholics and main- v] Ministry of Jules Simon; a Dissolution 257 tenance of the officials of " Moral Order " on the one hand, and the Radicals of the Chamber on the other — Gambetta, Jules Ferry and Brisson — his first Ministry lasted only nine months. His second Ministry was constructed, on Dec. 12, 1876, by Jules Simon, a deputy of 1848, and champion of a Radical Republic, who had been converted under Thiers to moderate views, and was now "a frank Republican and a stanch Conservative " ; it lasted for even a shorter time, six months only. The Republicans never forgave Jules Simon, that free-thinking university professor, for his, aUiance with their opponents, and his tolerance of the numerous clerical demonstrations; while the Conservatives always treated him as a suspected criminal. The more marked he made his attentions to the Church, the more recklessly exacting the Catholics became. It was about the same time, also, that the General Assembly of the CathoUcs, presided over by bishops and advised by Chesnelong, called upon Marshal MacMahon for energetic action in favour of the Holy See and against King Victor Emmanuel. "We want," they said, "some religious and social protection in spite of M. Jules Simon." A question in Parliament from the Left, put on May 3 and 4 hostilely to the Ministry and intended to force them to action against clericalism — "the enemy" — compelled the Marshal to choose between Jules Simon and the Republicans. He dismissed M.Simon on May 16, but only to form a fighting Ministry, in which Bonapartists predominated, under the aegis of M. de Broglie. He then prorogued the Chamber on May 18, and dissolved it on June 23, 1877. On that day the question, though then left unanswered, was put with perfect precision. The President claimed the right of imposing on the majority Ministers of his own selection ; Gambetta and the Chambers in the name of the majority replied that " the first condition of self-government in a country was that the preponderating, power in ParUa- b. ii. 17 258 The Conservative Republic [ch. ment should be exercised by the majority through respon sible Ministers." The Marshal and his advisers stUl had hopes of establishing a discord between the electors and the deputies, now sent back to face their constituencies. The whole machinery of the administration was brought to bear with brutal violence upon universal suffrage by M. de Broglie, and his colleague, M. de Fourtou ; prefects, sub-prefects, mayors, law-officers and even policemen were curtly dismissed, and wholesale appointments made in their stead; republican journals were prosecuted and suppressed; candidates were presented, patronised, and forced upon constituencies by the Marshal, as in old days by Louis Napoleon ; indeed he personally made electoral campaigns in their favour. The result was a total defeat for the President, who had been allowed by his Ministers to join in this compro mising and really absurd venture, and for the Clericals, Bonapartists, and Orleanists who had joined hands over it after having fought one another for five years. The French people remembered only too well what absolutist rule had cost them, and the blunder they had committed under the Empire from 1849 to 1871 in coupling their own interests with those of the Papacy and the Temporal Power. On October 17 and 28, 1877, France spoke "with sovereign voice," to use the phrase of Gambetta; 80 per cent, of the electoral body went to the ballot-boxes, and voted for 326 Republicans against 207 Monarchists; and on November 4 they emphasised their meaning still further by adding 113 republican members to the CouncUs General. After this expression of opinion there could be no further doubt, and the Marshal could only "submit, or resign." The chief of this victorious majority, the popular orator, the patriot statesman, who for the last five years had spent himself in ceaseless and successful toil to create in the democracy of France some consciousness of itself, of its V] The new Chamber; Changes of Ministry 259 interests, and its rights, was Leon Gambetta. He had foreseen and almost predicted the resignation of the Marshal, and had pointed to Thiers as the man to take his place, on a formal understanding that the late head of a Conservative Republic would now acquiesce in the success of the Radicals. With Thiers once more President of the Republic, and Gambetta his Minister and fellow-worker, this long-drawn crisis ought to have reached its conclusion in a parliamentary country. Unfortunately, in November 1877, Thiers had been dead two months, and, rather than take Gambetta as Minister, the Marshal firmly resolved neither "to submit nor resign." The secret of the Marshal's obstinate resistance at that time lay in his horror of a secular Republic. He had no personal ambition to serve, no love of power or its per quisites, only an unreasoned conviction that he and the Senate were the guardians of moral and religious order in France, and a hope that he and they might yet fulfil that duty. For a moment, in November 1877, he considered the possibUity of dissolving the Chamber again, but was dissuaded from it by the Due d'Audiffret-Pasquier. Then he formed a Ministry under a perfectly unknown General, M. de Rochebouet, from which all the "parliamentary hands" were excluded. This lasted three weeks, from November 23 to December 15, 1877, long enough to suggest that he was preparing a coup d'etat ; indeed on December 10 and n it looked as if the Minister of War was actuaUy doing so. The Chamber then declined to pass the budget; and both sides were now at daggers drawn. At the last moment the Marshal President, "who did not feel in himself the makings of a dictator, nor a desire to provoke a civil war," repudiated M. de Rochebouet, and once more thought of resigning. But, beset by the idea that it was his duty to sit fast and keep Gambetta out, he sat fast, and sent for M. Dufaure. 17—2 260 The Conservative Republic [ch. The return of this Minister to power certainly bore no resemblance to his advent, two years earlier, surrounded by colleagues like M. de Cissey and the Due Decazes. This time he had none but tried Republicans, men. of the Left Centre, such as Waddington, De Marcere, Leon Say, Admiral Pothuau, with men of the Left of a more decided political complexion for the Under-Secretaryships of State — Lepere, Cyprien Girerd, Cochery, Bardoux, and de Freycinet, Gambetta's friend and assistant in 1870. "The Marshal has given in," said Louis Veuillot. At the first Cabinet meeting over which he presided, the Marshal took his seat looking like a beaten man, "flushed, under strong emotion, appearing humUiated." The fact was that MacMahon's concessions, painful as they appeared to him, were no longer sufficient to satisfy the democracy, or their recognised and popular leader, Gambetta. Only by the aid of the Senate, and by bringing all his officials into line against the will of the nation, had the President been able to resist the advance of democratic ideas for the last two years. But the Republicans were already counting on the elections of January 1879, which would renew one-third of the Senate ; and in the meantime, and in preparation for the event, they required the Marshal and his Ministers to dismiss the prefects, law-officers and other officials who had been most deeply compromised in the elections of May 16, 1877. The Dufaure Ministry sacrificed many of them — too many to please the President, too few for Gambetta and his party. Then came the elections of January 5, through which 66 additional Republicans entered the Senate and con stituted a purely Republican majority ; the exigencies of the Left now became more pressing, and were especiaUy marked against the commandants of army corps, Bourbaki, BataiUe, Montaudon, and du Barail, old servants of the Empire and private friends of the Marshal, who had seemed pretty v] MacMahon resigns. Exhibition of 1878 261 favourable to a coup d'etat in December 1877. MacMahon objected to their dismissal, but the Dufaure Cabinet, dreading the majority who were quite ready to turn them out as too lukewarm, put it to him as a matter of obligation. Thereupon, anticipating by a year the close of his septennial tenure, which would normally have expired in 1880, the Marshal President determined, on January 30, 1879, to resign, carrying with him in his retirement the esteem of his adversaries, with whom he had fought many a fight, but never at the expense of legality or of his country. "The only government whose fall I have not regretted," said he, "has been my own." If the perspicacity of the Marshal had equalled his honesty, he would have spared France four years of painful uncertainty and sterile discussion. There was one day however, June 20, 1878, on which, had he been able to see and understand, he would have recognised the extent of that popular power to which he thought he could oppose his wiU and his office. Two years earlier, the United States had invited the world to celebrate the centenary of their democratic constitution in 1876 at the Philadelphia Exhibition, at which France was worthily represented in spite of her recent reverses. In the saihe year the French decided to assert their own national and economic resuscita tion on their own soU by an Exhibition to be opened in Paris in 1878. When these "Assizes of International Commerce" were finally opened in buildings extending on both banks of the Seine over a space five times as large as that of 1867, in real permanent palaces such as the Troca- dero, and when the French nation saw the sister nations answering her summons, she allowed herself one spontaneous outburst to testify to her legitimate pride. No subsequent official festival could ever equal in brUliancy that national manifestation, when the democracy of Paris beflagged and Uluminated its poorest streets and districts to demonstrate 262 The Conservative Republic [ch. its delight on resuming its place in the world by virtue of its industry, and its independence by the reconstruction of its military force. Thus it asserted its determination to complete by self-government the work of its own restoration. And for this one occasion the entire people of France, now awakened to the future before it, joined in this patriotic and republican demonstration, which, as they recognised, would be of lasting importance. Moreover the Universal Exhibition of 1878 in itself fully justified this popular enthusiasm. "Commerce and industry will find wider scope for their action," said the Marshal on the day of its inauguration ; and, to hasten this result, the State placed the machinery of commerce among the first subjects demanding enquiry. The railways were insufficient for the growing traffic; since 1850 the net work of rivers and canals had been too much neglected, and the ports were inadequate to the needs of the merchant service owing to the increased size of vessels. On January 2, 1878, M. de Freycinet, who had been called to the Ministry of Public Works, appointed committees to consider a scheme for the completion of the railroad system (introduced on January 18), which, with the ports and canals, would require an immediate expenditure of four mUliards (£160,000,000). On the motion of Leon Say a terminable loan at 3 per cent. was passed, together with M. de Freycinet's proposals, on March 16, 1878. At the same time a fund was created to complete the development of local roads, to which the National Assembly had so wisely contributed. It was really consoling to see a nation that had suffered so much stoutly submit to any sacrifices to ensure the adequacy of its industrial apparatus. The energy of the nation was reflected in its commerce, which rose between 1869 and 1878 from 6250 million francs to considerably more than 8000 miUions ; in the higher wages and spread of comfort in the working classes ; in the gold reserve of the Bank of v] Commercial and colonial Expansion 263 France, which had doubled in ten years in spite of the war ; in the high price of the national stock, which was 20 above par; in the doubled deposits of the savings-banks; and finaUy in the general increase of private and public wealth. France in short was fully justified in having confidence in herself and her fundamental virtues of industry and courage. The social, pohtical, and religious crises through which she had passed since 1870 had barely affected the rehabilitation of her ancestral estate after the reductions caused by war and invasion. Though deeply divided by class-feelings, tendencies, and opinions, all Frenchmen were united by a common religion, the love of their country, whether they were chiefs of Democracy or Royalists, MacMahon no less than Thiers. AU had the same yearning, in the National Assembly and in the communes, that France should be able to rise once more after her defeat. The work begun by Thiers was carried further by Marshal MacMahon, and continued by Jules Grevy. This work seemed so far solid and settled in 1878 that it occuned to certain Frenchmen to combine with it a movement of commercial and colonial expansion in the new worlds. Being merchants, economists, sailors, or geographers, accustomed in their businesses, professions, or studies to look beyond the limits of ancient Europe, they understood after 1870 that the progress of humanity had enlarged the stage on which nations had to play their appointed parts, and that henceforth France would be obliged to display an activity proportionate to the increased area of international intercourse. At first they formed a smaU body, which advertised itself through the Geographical Societies, first that of Paris, then the daughter societies at Lyons, Bordeaux, and MarseUles, formed between 1873 and 1876, through newspapers and lectures, in commercial circles, and among the younger men. Their activity manifested itself first in exploration round the old French 264 The Conservative Republic [ch. colonies, in southern Algeria, which after the last revolt (put down in 1871) showed signs of becoming a source of revenue, in the east of Senegal, which General Faidherbe had organised under the Empire, in the Sudan, in the north of Cochin China, and the vaUeys of the Mekong and the Red River, where the successful missions of Doudart de Lagree and Francis Gamier anticipated coming events. Little by little, the French public learned to interest itself in the efforts of SoleUlet and Largeau in the Sahara (1874-7), of Dr Harmand (1875-7) in Indo-China, of the merchant Dupuis in Tonkin, of Gamier, who in 1873-4 founded a French colony at Hanoi and a Protectorate in Annam (treaty of March 14, 1874), and of General. Briere, who once more opened the Niger route from Senegal, which Faidherbe had pointed out to his successors. No doubt, that moment was not, in the eyes of the people or its Ministers, a favourable one for committing France to any wide and general colonial poUcy. But it was remarkable that the Government and M. de Freycinet were asking Parliament for funds for surveying a raUroad across the Sahara from the upper valley of the Senegal (1879), and that that body ratified the treaties made with the Court of Annam. But the most important symptom of aU was that the statesmen of Europe, in BerUn, London, and Vienna, were now trying to divert the reviving energies of France towards distant enterprises; they would not have thought of this had they not seen that these enterprises were beginning to interest her. * Until 1877 France had been isolated; her only policy had been one of meditative reserve, her only demand on the other Powers, the right to hve once more. Her states men, MacMahon, Thiers, Decazes and Waddington, no less than Gambetta, thought omy of anticipating the wrath of Bismarck, if need were, by submission, or of restraining it by the intervention of England or of the Tsar. Then v] The Eastern Question 265 came the great Eastern crisis of 1877, and modified the situation. " The Powers now find that they must make some advances to France, if they intend to take either action or counsel," wrote Gambetta at the time. The decay of the Sultan's power, and his persecution of the Christians of the Balkans, had driven the latter into revolt, and had called for observations from the European Powers, to which the Sultan had repUed by the assassination of the French and German consuls at Salonica, and by the Bulgarian massacres (May and August 1876) ; while the subsequent proceedings of Alexander II, under the influence of Panslavism, for the protection of the persecuted Slavs, and the mission to Constantinople of Ignatieff, the leader of the Great Russian party, had aroused the suspicions of Lord Beaconsfield in London and Bismarck in Berlin. There is evidence1 that, at this moment, the all-powerful Chancellor, the champion of Germanism, and the British Government, anxious for the interests of Great Britain in the East, allowed the Tsar to involve himself in a war with" Turkey, on the condition (secretly accepted by Alexander II) that the interests of Germany, Austria-Hungary and England should receive satisfaction at the close of the conflict. France alone feared war, in whatever quarter it arose, and tried hard but fruitlessly in September 1876 to stop the conflict. When the desperate efforts of the Russians had brought it to a conclusion in the Treaty of San Stefano, Bismarck's plan came to light. It has been preserved to us by Prince Hohenlohe in these terms: "the reconcUiation of England, who could not bring herself to acquiesce in the Russian victories, with the Tsar and with Austria, by giving each of the parties a piece of the Turkish Empire." This was the same device that Frederick the Great, the 1 See the Memoirs of Bismarck, Hohenlohe, and Shouvaloff (then Russian ambassador in London). The conventions referred to were dated May 6 and 30, 1877, and May 1878. 266 The Conservative Republic [ch. master of Prussian diplomacy, had employed with such success in Poland to stay the advance of the Russian power on the Vistula. When the Chancellor revealed his plan to his confidant Hohenlohe, he had. no intention of bringing France in, wishing to leave her "for the present outside the chafferings of first class diplomacy." It seems however that he altered his mind very quickly, perhaps on the advice of England, who was uneasy at a possible conjunction between France and the Tsar. In January 1878, Beaconsfield invited Waddington, the new director of French foreign policy, to j oin England ' ' in the defence of their vast common interests. ' ' On June 3, Bismarck on his side asked him to take part in the Congress in which his own omnipotence and the success of his policy were shortly after to assert themselves. The French people hesitated for some time; not Waddington only, but Gambetta, the chief of the repub lican patriots, and Grevy also, were afraid of engaging in a matter of European policy on which the last word would certainly be said by the brute force which their conquerors had at their command. They feared that they might be led to sanction a partition of the Turkish Empire, which would bring them no advantage, material or moral. On the other hand, they were fortunate in getting this unex pected chance of enabling the Republic to "take its place." This chance they seized, and they did well. It is quite possible that the devisers of the coming partition, Beacons- field, Andrassy, and Bismarck "the honest broker," had reaUy proposed to strengthen their position by obtaining the cooperation of France, without paying the price of it in the East; but certainly, before they finished, they recog nised the necessity of indemnifying her and discussed the best way of doing it. On July 7, 1878, five days after the conclusion of the Congress, Lord Salisbury informed M. Waddington of the Convention which gave Cyprus to England. " Do what you like at Carthage and in Tunisia," v] France at the Congress of Berlin 267 he immediately added. And on August 7 he had no hesitation about making this proposal, which had the approval of Bismarck, in writing. After having first determined to treat France as a negligible quantity in his political calculations, the Chan cellor changed his mind. However confident he was in his own capacity and genius- he was not as indifferent as he would have it appear to the danger of a reconstructed France, ever loyal to the hope of a revanche. On three separate occasions in this year, by the good offices either of Henckel the financier, or Blowitz the journalist, he tried to induce Gambetta to visit him at Berlin; and on each occasion he ascertained that the Minister of the revanche demanded as a sine qua non that the question of Alsace-Lorraine should be discussed at the interview. He began to wonder whether the offer of a considerable addition of territory in North Africa might not induce the French to abandon the lost provinces; and, from another point of view, whether the attraction of colonial ventures would not divert their minds from the Rhine. "Germany," he said to Hohenlohe, "has nothing to do with affairs of this sort. We have no navy to protect colonies; and our system of administration is not adapted for those countries." It mattered naught to him that Tunis went in 1878, and even Morocco in 1880 — although Morocco, he admitted, "seemed rather large for a birthday present." Thus France brought away from the Congress of Berlin a double advantage. She resumed her place in Europe, a place worthy of her past, and a moral influence, which she had exercised usefully at Berlin in support of Rumanians, Armenians, and Greeks; and she had the approval of Europe for the expansion of her possessions. Before that date no French statesman would have openly undertaken such a responsibUity; and yet it was this which enabled her to show that she was about to double her wealth, 268 The Conservative Republic [ch. v and to recover in the eyes of the world the high position she had lost — and that without prejudice to the prospect of revanche on the Rhine. > The month of January 1879, when MacMahon resigned office, abandoning the Ultramontane party to its fate, and the Republic, at last established, to the Republicans, marked the close of the transitional period which followed the fall of the Empire and the invasion, and the beginning of the age of a calm and active democracy of a parliamentary and non-clerical type. In 1793 the change was carried out in the isolation of a European war, and amid the troubles of a civil war ; in 1848, it had been the effect of an accident. Now, in complete peace, in full possession and conscious ness of its own powers, the French proletariat, urban and rural, taught by misfortune, united and strengthened by its regenerative efforts, and working hand in hand with the republican bourgeoisie, took into its own hands the task of securing the permanence of its future, its administration, and its fortunes. A new epoch in the history of France, the advent of which had been awaited since the fall of the Monarchy in 1792, though delayed -for a hundred years by crises within and without, was now beginning. -CHAPTER VI THE DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC I. Presidencies of Jules Grevy (1879 — 1887). Jules Grevy, who was elected to the Presidency of the Republic on January 30, 1879, by the Republican Congress, receiving 563 votes out of 670, was perhaps the man best fitted to represent and direct the nation of peasant -pro prietors whose almost unanimous vote had placed him in that high position. Not that he was himself a peasant — he was born at Mont -sous- Vaudrey in 1807, his father being an officer, a soldier of the Revolution and the Empire ; but he belonged to the bourgeoisie of the small provincial towns, which is almost as closely tied to the soil as the peasant by its interests if not precisely by its labour, with an equaUy limited horizon, and with the manners and customs of the district. Of course he was not entirely provincial, having left his home in 1830 to attend the Law Schools and seek his fortune at the Paris bar. There he earned the reputation of a sound jurist by earnest and continuous industry, he further strengthened his inherited republican opinions, and he enlarged his horizon and his intelligence. He had never attempted to become a restless Parisian, hungry of reputation and success, but kept in close touch with the Jura. In the Jura he began his political career. Ledru-Rollin had sent him thither as Commissary for the Government ; and the electors had been so charmed by his moderation, 270 The Democratic Republic [ch. tact, and coolness that they sent him as their representative to the Constituent Assembly. He preserved as a statesman of 40 years of age, and up to the moment of his attaining the supreme magistracy, the temperament peculiar to the peasantry, who always remained loyal to him, in 1869 and in 1871 — a sort of bluff yet sly simplicity, a contempt for phrases, patience, a rather sceptical acvrteness, a regard for reality, and a passion for saving. His hard legal training, his experience in political life, his hatred of the despotism of the Empire (against which he had fought so far back as 1848 before he made his name, and which he had helped to upset), had raised him much above the level of his birth, I so high indeed that in the National Assembly he was j looked upon as a rival of Thiers for the Presidency, and j in the Senate after Thiers' death as the man to take his place. From the height to which he had noiselessly risen step by step, like a labourer reaping his crops year by year with methodical and constant toil, Jules Grevy- loved to descend, in straw hat, blouse and sabots, to walk the fields of the Jura, talking crops, cattle and pohtics to other Frenchmen of the same type. During his Presidency, the rural democrats, who had hitherto been indifferent to the strange variety in the political systems that Paris offered them, began to under stand the value of universal suffrage as a support for their interests, and to acquire a taste for its exercise. In 1878 these interests were gravely threatened. French agriculture had been attacked at its very roots by two plagues, one unsuspected and sudden, the other long foreseen: the invasion of the vineyards of France by the phylloxera, and the ruinous effects of foreign competition on certain crops doomed to be beaten in the market owing to the obstinacy and ignorance of French farmers. The French vineyards, which in 1875 spread over 4,000,000 hectares (say 10,000,000 acres) the eleventh part vi J Jules Grevy and the Peasantry 271 of the cultivated surface of the soil, were reduced ten years later to less than 2,000,000 hectares ; their production had diminished by one-half, and its value by two-thirds; but the legislature, under the constitution that the country had created in 1878, was able to give the wine-grower some energetic support in the defence or rehabilitation of his property. By laws passed on July 19, 1878, and August 9, 1879, access to the soil of France was forbidden to the American vines to which the plague was due; prefects were instructed as to measures of precaution and disinfection; syndicates were organised for protection and pecuniary assistance. By another law of December 1, 1887, all land on which the farmers had boldy met the disaster by destroy ing and replanting was exempted from taxation for four years. There is perhaps no episode in the history of agriculture under the republican system that illustrates so weU the inventiveness and doggedness of the French peasant, and the whole-hearted cooperation of the public authorities in regard to his relief and assistance. It was a harder matter for the State to protect him against foreign competition, the success of which had been brought about by the multiplicity of international relations, the consequent lowering of the freights on long voyages, and the introduction of cheap foreign wheat and stUl cheaper live stock from new countries to the French market. The National Assembly under Thiers and his Minister Teisserenc de Bort had already, in 1875, expressed themselves in favour of a system of protective duties, the obvious and simplest remedy for the drop in the profits on farming in France. But it was not till March 25, 1885, that the Chambers gave way to the importunity of the corn- growers and cattle-breeders, and irriposed upon foreign wheat a duty of three francs a quintal (two cwt.), raised in 1887 to five francs. On July 20 of the previous year there had been some fresh legislation on sugar, the duty 272 The Democratic Republic [ch. on which had been made to vary inversely as the amount of sugar in the beetroot crop, which had now become one of the main resources of landed proprietors, especially in the. north. In 1881, for hygienic reasons as well as for fiscal protection, the importation of salt pork from America was forbidden. When we remember that one half of the population got its living from the soil, and that the interests of the inhabi tants of the small towns and larger vUlages were closely connected with those of the peasantry, we are not surprised that the majority in the Chamber was driven to adopt this economic policy, which did not conform to republican traditions in favour of Free Trade, and was against the interests of the proletariat in the great towns, who would have to reduce their comfort or increase their expenditure. An industrial crisis occurred in 1883-4, with a resulting fall of a miUion and a half tons in the yield of coals, and a similar loss in iron. French commerce, which had been improving regularly up to 1881; now began to weaken in its turn, showing a diminution of 66 miUion francs a year. The total value of exports fell back graduaUy to that of 1872; the merchant navy began to decline in numbeis And all this was owing to the legislation which the French peasantry had wrung from their representatives, by the strength of their voting power, to protect the profits of their labour and soil against foreign competition. Other means of defence might have been discovered. French farmers were working their land on antiquated methods, and faUing to draw from it all the profit possible. By refusing to use chemical manures, which they sys tematically ignored, by their carelessness in selecting seed and the soU to suit it, by their obstinate prejudice against the use of agricultural machines, and lastly by the excessive sub-division of property, they were failing to extract from their corn-lands more than about half the Vi] Promotion of Agriculture 273 quantity obtained by the better instructed and more indus trious English, Germans or Belgians. President Grevy, who knew the men well and loved them, directed them to a better remedy for their troubles than any that Parliament could give them, when he told them in 1881, "The great question, the greatest of all questions, the one that caUs the loudest for the attention of the public authority is, how to increase the productiveness of the soU." Republicans of every shade agreed with the President as to the need of curing the French peasant of his routine habits, and teaching him the modern methods of the trade which he worked so badly. By a law of June 16, 1879, professors of agriculture were set up in every department ; and soon afterwards centres for agricultural observation were provided, with lectures and apparatus for demon stration. The agricultural schools were growing in number, from the Agronomic Institute, restored in Paris by the law of August 9, 1876, to the technical or farm-schools founded in 1875, with national schools linking the one group to the other, being at once scientific and practical. To give a proper direction to the instruction, and to promote the development of its methods, the Chambers determined on the creation of a special Ministry of Agriculture, to which they at once added an under-secretaryship of State (November 14, 1881). If this creation was the work of Gambetta, it was characteristic of the man to have taken this initiative. A realist in statesmanship, he had early learned to appreciate the strength of this rural democracy, and few had done more to place the destinies of France in its hands. It seemed to him that the time had come to enlighten this democracy as to its own interests, lest its power should be converted into tyranny. It was fhe sovereign, in whose honour Jules Meline, a barrister like Gambetta and Grevy, who had become a Minister, instituted the Order of Agricultural b. 11. 18 274 The Democratic Republic [ch. Merit, not to flatter it, but to encourage it in weU-doing. Not since the day in which the Physiocrats thought they had found in the progress of French agriculture the means of restoring the finances of the kingdom, had such an effort been attempted to instruct and to methodise. And this effort was destined to a permanence and a fecundity far beyond that of Dr Quesney, for it was not, hke that of 1750, the financial expedient of a government threatened with ruin, but the direct and immediate result of a new regime which had dawned upon a nation of peasants as their essential means to prosperity and well-being. This, however, was not all; every medal has its re verse ; and there was some danger that the figure of the Democratic ¦ Republic as conceived by the rural electors might be absolutely unlike the ideal for which urban politicians had been hoping and toUing for the last fifty years. Grevy 's definition of politics — "for my purpose, a business matter " — might suffice while France was getting back her breath in quiet and ease after aU the dangers she had gone through. But, as a definitive principle, it reaUy departed too far from the programme of social reforms, of progress towards justice and liberty, which had been be queathed to the Republicans by the democrats of the Revolu tion and tha idealists of 1848. The result was seen among the Republicans, whose union had been their strength, in the divisions which graduaUy weakened them. At the close of Jules Grevy's first Presidency the discords were such as to suggest to the nation, which wanted to feel a firm hand on the helm, that a parliamentary Republic was not adapted to supply it. In these eight years (1 880-1888) there were eleven Ministries, several of which did not last for a year, some for six and even three months only ; while the six years of MacMahon's Presidency had been satisfied with eight. The instability of Governments between 1871 and 1879 vi] Ministerial Changes; the Chamber 275 may perhaps be accounted for by the importance of the critical questions of politics and religion which then resulted in the final defeat of Monarchy and the Ultramontanes ; but, when once the Republic had been established in 1879, the contrary might have been expected to occur. As soon as the Radicals of the Left and Extreme Left observed the departure from the programme which -they had put forth in 1869 in the name of the "Grand Principles," they protested, and were supported by the constituencies of the great towns, and especiaUy of Paris. The protesters were late converts to Republicanism, Henri Brisson, Floquet, and Clemenceau, who could command in the Parisian Press the Rappel, the Lanteme, and (later), the Justice. Their demands were as foUows: on behalf of the capital, which was their citadel, the return of the public authorities to Paris; an amnesty to blot out memories of the Commune and its quarrels; liberty of the Press; entire liberty of association, "so as to enable working-men to deal with social problems " ; an immediate revision of the constitution as bearing too many marks of a monarchic and bourgeois origin; lastly, the separation of Church and State. The requirements of these individuals were certainly larger than their numerical importance in the country- In the Senate they held but a few seats, and they were a minority in the Chamber. They possessed, however, all the influence that the Parisian Press and the democratic habit of thought in the towns had won for the republican party in general under the Empire ; and by coaUtions with the Right, they several times threatened destruction to the republican Ministries, their foes. The Conservative Republicans had a majority in the two Houses and the weight of the constituencies to back them. Besides the advantage which they obtained from the fact that the Administration was chosen from the majority in the Senate and Chamber, they had the further authority 276 The Democratic Republic [ch. which they derived from their agreement with the President. One of the new-comers amongst them, Ribot, a disciple of Dufaure, when arguing with Clemenceau, thus summarised their position: "Conservatism is as necessary now for the government of the Republic as it was before for its defence." Most of the Ministries constructed between 1879 and x^^5 were headed by statesmen of the Left Centre, or Republican Left, such as Waddington, who had accepted office under Marshal MacMahon; Freycinet, who was Minister in 1879, I^8i and 1886; and Jules Ferry, whose name and work dominate the whole of that period, he being the only Minister who reached a two-years' term of office twice over. Jules Ferry was a native of the Vosges, a man of cool temper, as resolute as he was cautious, very firm in his democratic convictions, while too much of a patriot and a statesman to tolerate the exaggerations and impulsive ness of the demagogue. In origin, as in temperament and belief, he was nearly of the type of Grevy, who possibly looked to him. as his successor. Other men who directedT a Ministry at intervals during this period were Duclerc, a former secretary to Garnier-Pages, and FaUieres, a deputy from the south ; though more violently republican than Ferry, they were equaUy opposed to any concession to the demands of the Extreme Left. But in spite of their united opposition, in spite of the support of the Senate and the advice of Jules Grevy, the programme of their adversaries graduaUy approached realisation. In June 1880 the Chambers decided to return to Paris; next, but not without great difficulty, on July 12, 1881, a plenary amnesty was granted to the convicted- Communists; the rural Democrats turned republican, thus reversing the verdict given by the National Assembly against the capital and the Socialists. They further permitted the constitu tion, which the Assembly had passed against its will, to vi] Jules Ferry and Waldeck-Rousseau 277 be amended by the repeal of the precautionary articles that had been introduced to maintain the influence of that body. The Congress which met at Versailles, August 4-13, 1884, amended the constitution by depriving the law which created the Senate of its unalterable character — a change involving the gradual suppression of the 75 life-senatorships over whose appointment the nation had no control, and the restoration of the right to elect ordinary senators in their places as the life-senators one by one disappeared. It also decided that the number of persons delegated by the communes to elect senators should not be the same in all communes, small and great, but should be fixed in proportion to the population. Paris and the great towns thus recovered their legitimate share of influence over the Upper Chamber, which a majority hostUe to democracy had refused them, On March 21, 1881, the working class in these towns induced a moderate Minister, M. Waldeck-Rousseau, who wished to follow the example of England in forestalling revolutionary demands by remedial legislation, to obtain for them the right to form and subscribe for the support of trades-unions with their own premises and pension- funds. The more essential reforms which the Democrats had demanded under previous constitutions, and which the Republicans now hesitated to cany out, were finally dealt with by legislation. The freedom of the Press was established by a law of July 30, 1881, which abolished caution-money and previous authorisation, and sent press offences to the assizes to be tried by jury; the right to hold meetings by a law of June 1881 ; the protection of the individual against the abuse of judicial power by a law of August 31, 1883; which abohshed the irremoveability of the judges. The liberty of association, which the Conservatives still considered to be dangerous from the political point of view, had been already conceded to working-men's Clubs, 278 The Democratic Republic [ch. Societies for Mutual Aid or Cooperation, and Trades- Unions. Lastly, communal liberties were completely established by a law of March 28, which gave all Municipal Councils, except in Paris, the right to elect their mayors; and another of April 4, 1884, which authorised them to admit the public to their sittings, enlarged their jurisdiction, and established municipal life on a liberal scale. It could not be said that the policy which inspired these reforms was based on mere business views or material interests. It was democratic France realising, in spite of all obstacles and hesitation, the lofty ideal of the sons of the Revolution and their vision of a world made free, righteous and prudent through the equality of all feUow- citizens. Universal suffrage was, after all, only govern ment by opinion, of which Paris and the great towns possessed a larger share than the rural districts: and the nation defended itself by these reforms against the " tendencies of a majority somewhat inclined to sacrifice the general interests of the nation and its future to the immediate but paltry satisfaction of private and material interests. The nation had also found its best and stoutest champion in the man who for ten years had been asserting its rights against the Empire and the Monarchists with the eye and brains of a statesman. Among the men who governed the Republic after 1879, Leon Gambetta has earned a place by himself. His election to the presidency of the Chamber in February 1879, by the almost unanimous vote of his colleagues, had excluded him from the position which he would naturally have expected to occupy when constituting the Republic. It looked indeed as if the republican leaders — the Moderates like Grevy, Jules Simon, Dufaure, Leon Say and Waddington, his old friends de Freycinet and Jules Ferry, and the Radicals of the Extreme Left, Clemenceau and HenrLBrisson — had passed the word vi] Ministry of Gambetta 279 to cut him off from the sphere of activity to which his tastes, his past services, as well as the opinion of the public called him. They all refused him their help, when on November 14, 1881, he formed the Ministry which was at once derisively dubbed "the Grand Ministry," and which only lasted to January 31 of the next year. The responsibility for the intrigues which reduced Gam betta to take secret action has often been attributed to President Grevy, who certainly was not fond of him, and felt himself eclipsed by his popularity. The fact is .that his principles and his plan of action, which had taken shape long ago in opposition, placed him outside, or rather, above the groups of interests and ideas which were then straggling for the mastery of the democracy. Nobody had been so earnest as he in pointing out the dangers of hasty reforms, or of too stiff a policy which might give alarm to selfish interests, and retard or perhaps extinguish the allegi ance of the peasantry to the Republic. He had even invented the name of "opportunism" f6r the progress that is made without a shock when things are ripe for it; and, while still a youth, he had recognised the need of " a Government to attend to the business side of democracy." While his prudence worried and annoyed important members of the Extreme Left, wha misconstrued his purpose, attributing it to a low craving for the enjoyments and satisfactions of power, it faUed to relieve the fears of the Moderates, who distrusted his southern enthusiasm and impetuousness. Gambetta never succeeded in getting them to forget that he repre sented Marseilles, and also BellevUle in Paris, and had been called by Thiers a "raving maniac." What they thought madness was his passion for a Republic of ideas, fertile and progressive, such as he sketched on May 10, 1881 : " the man who represents France, that is to say, the loftiest moral entity in the world, must be able to procure or create for her service men familiar with the 280 The Democratic Republic [ch. ideas and historical traditions on which this world-wide glory has been built." Nothing irritated these Moderates, who had, like their rural constituents, obtained all they wanted, so much as to be told: "The future is for you to deal with. Either you will say in your turn, Beati possi- dentes ; or you will return to the traditional Republicanism. Look at this torrent of force, power, and energy, and re member that you may, if you choose, make use of it to keep the current of national sovereignty up to its proper level." But the present was enough for them. Gambetta, being thus an object of suspicion to all, might have waited, taking refuge in his functions as President of the Chamber, which would have justified his inaction as a sign of impartiality; and he would have done so, had he consulted his own comfort and his future only. He had given the name of " Republican Union " to the group of men who followed his fortunes. He intervened publicly in the proceedings of the Assembly to persuade it to pass the amnesty which eventually concUiated all Republicans. He introduced his friends into successive Ministries in order to carry out his ideas of democratic progress and opportune reforms. "What do I care for your groups, and your sub-groups, their names, and their surnames ? They don't interest either me or France. " At the expense of his popularity, and at the risk of caUing down on his own head all the insults and calumny which the persistency of his action, the" occasionally awkward zeal of his followers, and the prestige of his name and reputation provoked, Gambetta did much, throughotit that troublous time, to correct, by an agreement amongst the Republicans, the mischief that the conflict between rural and urban democrats, embittered by local rivalries, might have done to the new constitution. Indeed his sole object was to reach the root of this mischief by sub stituting group-elections (sem tin de 'liste) for individual Vi] Fall of Gambetta; Ministry of Ferry 281 elections (scrutin d' arrondissement). When he took office as Premier in 1881, he was in hopes of carrying this reform, and putting an end to "the vices, abuses and impotency of a system which was ruined by the selfishness of local interests, and the corruption of Committees " ; this it was that wrecked him when, on January 28, 1882, he was beaten on a "programme of searching reforms, based entirely on the change in method of election (scrutin)." The benefits he had conferred on the Republic were as great as the injury he suffered from the Republicans who forced him to fight each of their separate groups single- handed. Worn out with the work, he died prematurely on December 31, 1882 ; and France and democracy reaped the benefit of the agreement among the politicians of his party which his efforts had, though with difficulty, main tained. He went to his grave before the man who from the President's chair watched and followed the intrigues and ambitions of parliamentary life with the scepticism of satisfied old age, and having thus reached the close of his magistracy, renewed his tenure of it in his eightieth year. Jules Ferry, the man who was best able to continue Gambetta's efforts, though a believer in the system of single-member constituencies (scrutin d' arrondissement) , was placed in power for a second time, though with' a bad grace, by Grevy in 1883 ; he, like Gambetta, had recommended himself to the people by an act essential to the future well-being of the democracy, which had earned the grati tude and confidence of Republicans of all shades. Ferry had been made Minister of Public Education by Waddington in 1879, anc^ bad taken as his programme the very considerable enterprise "of re-making public education from top to bottom " — to use Gambetta's ex pression. A staneh free-thinker, and profoundly convinced, with the Positivist school of thought, that the safety of 282 The Democratic Republic [ch. modern society, the key of its destiny, its protection against the power of reaction and the impatience of the demagogue, lay in the cultivation of science, Jules Ferry asserted that it was the mission of the State, as against the Church and the Religious Orders, to impart secular instruction. Assisted by Buisson, Greard and Zevort, and advised by men of learning who had ever since 1870 with one accord called for schools, high or low, as a means of restoring their native country, Ferry took up once more the task laid down by Duruy ten years before. Politically, his hostility to Jacobins and Socialists, his courageous opposi tion to Blanqui and his friends during the siege of Paris, and his liking for strong government, placed him among the most moderate of the Republicans. His anti-clerical tenets and hatred of the Jesuits, on the other hand, commended him to the confidence of the most suspicious of democrats. In these conditions it was that during four years he was able to lay the principal foundation-stones of the intellectual edifice which the Republic had only to complete in the period following the Presidency of Jules Grevy. He proceeded methodically. Before the communes of France could be supplied with the schools necessary for the education of citizens in a country of universal suffrage, schoolmasters had to be provided. By a law of August 9, 1879, all departments were required to provide themselves with Normal Schools for the training of teachers in boys' and girls' schools — secular schools of course, from which the priest was excluded, and where religious practices were left to the choice of the scholars. By subsequent decrees and orders Higher Grade Elementary Normal Schools were constituted, at St Cloud and Fontenay-aux- Roses, for the training of those who were to instruct the teachers ; of principals, male and female, of the Normal Schools; of inspectors of both sexes to direct the practice and stimulate the zeal of even the humblest of the instructors vi] The Church and the Schools 283 of the people in the departments. Not until this army of teachers with the needful general staff had been fully constituted in 1881, did Ferry, who had then become Prime Minister, begin the work of education proper. In order to impress the democracy with the fact that the schools were of value to them, the legislature provided (June 16, 1881) that attendance should be free in them as well as at the Normal Schools and the Higher Elementary Schools instituted by Guizot in 1833, first at the cost of the communes and departments, later at that of the State. To ensure the non-clerical character of schools, another law deprived the priests and religious Orders of their privilege of keeping schools without a certificate of capacity from the State. A law of March 28, 1882, made it obligatory upon all citizens to send their children to a school, whose neutrality and independence of any church or sect was guaranteed. The children would be entitled on their side to a "certificate of study," which would serve as a useful testimonial in their later careers. Shortly afterwards a law of June 20, 1885, which Jules Ferry in person drafted before the fall of his Ministry, fixed the rate of grant payable out of public funds to the communes to enable them to build and furnish schools throughout the country. In these six years, an effort was made such as France had never seen before, an impulse which in foUowing years resulted in the complete instruc tion of the children of the democracy on methodical lines. This reform served alike the interests of individuals and the highest collective interests of the nation. It formed the chief title of its author to the gratitude of his country men ; and it raUied round him Republicans of every shade. During the same period Jules Ferry proposed to chaUenge the clerical monopoly of the education of the French bourgeoisie, which his party Wanted to direct towards modern ideas, and to train for the service of the 284 The Democratic Republic [ch. democracy. His first step was to bring in a Bill, on March 15, 1879, for restoring to the National University, a body of traditionally Liberal tendencies, "the independence it required to fulfil its mission in the body politic, of which the Assembly had deprived it in 1872. He excluded the clergy entirely from the Higher Council, and from all other Boards which dealt with discipline or curricula, and reserved the right of conferring degrees to the State University alone. Clause 7 of the same BUI prohibited all members of unlicensed religious Congregations from giving instruction in public or private. Having set free the University, the Minister thus aimed a blow at its competitors, and especially at the Jesuits, who had con troUed the education of the middle class since 1850, and whose progress in the last thirty years had been so striking that this attack on them seriously alarmed the whole Church. The bishops and the religious Press protested,|i and alarmed the Catholic conscience; in Parliament thej discussion on the Ferry proposals roused a strong opposition j1 among the moderate and Catholic Republicans, like Etienneli Lamy or Leon Renault. The Bill passed the Chamber on July 9, 1879, thanks to the energy of its author and the aid of Gambetta and his friends Paul Bert, SpuUer and the Radical party. But it was thrown out in the following year by the Senate, where the Left Centre retained its power down to the elections of 1882, owing to the influence of Jules Simon, who demanded freedom for the Church as her right. But Jules Ferry,, refusing to be baulked, persuaded M. de Freycinet and the President to sign two decrees, on March 29 and 30, 1880, closing the Jesuit houses, and re quiring the other Congregations to obtain licences from the State. These decrees were carried out ; the Jesuits were ex peUed and their schools closed between June 30 and August 31, 1880, although 200 Catholic law-officers resigned in vi] Attack on the Congregations 285 a body by way of protest. Freycinet had been in com munication with Pope Leo XIII through Cardinal Lavigerie, and was stiU trying to obtain exemption from these measures for the other Catholic teaching Orders. There upon Jules Ferry, on September 23, 1880, with the help of the Gambettists and the Radicals, overthrew the Ministry, and took office himself in order to finish the business, and proceed without delay to the closure of 261 communities. He then devoted himself unremittingly to the task of justifying, by fertUe reforms and new legislation, the privi lege that he had won for the Secondary Public Schools and the faculties of the State University. He induced the nation to make the necessary sacrifices for erecting Secondary Schools of a healthier and more modern type, and increasing both their importance and their number (in ten years they rose from 80, to 100) ; and for restoring the CoUeges in the second-class towns which used to provide the bourgeois families with tutors. The reforms of 1880, which had been elaborated by the most eminent masters in the University, Lavisse, Marion, Croiset, and Greard, were a remarkable attempt to breathe new life and youth into their studies by applying new methods, and pruning off the dead wood of obsolete exercises, to make room for that amount of exact science which the cultured youth of a great nation requires. Another experi ment pregnant of results was the attempt of the Minister to carry out a moral transformation by reforming the disciphne in those institutions whose rules smacked too much of the ferule of the Jesuits or the military spirit of Napoleon. WhUe training the young Frenchman for the part assigned to him in the democratic State, Jules Ferry also took pains to prepare a help-meet for him, fitted to join him in founding a famUy capable of the great work before it. CaUous to the anathemas thundered by 286 The Democratic Republic [ch. the bishops against M. Duruy for promoting the education of girls, he started, by a BiU dated December 21, 1880, Secondary Schools and CoUeges for Girls ; these had reached the number of 36 in 1886, with a constantly growing success and reputation even outside France. A Higher Grade Normal School was instituted at Sevres in 1881 for the training of the professors of the Lyceums or Secondary PubUc Schools for Girls, in which the most eminent masters of the University gave their assistance; the curricula of these Lyceums were skUfully drawn up to meet the special objects aimed at, and their certificates attracted a large number of aspirants, larger indeed than could have been expected. It was owing to Jules Ferry that the youth of that day, struggling for light with appetite for study awakened and sustained by a constant stream of ever-widening instruction, was bidden welcome to these homes of high culture and science, such as France had not seen since the days when the glory of its Universities illuminated the mediaeval world. The heart's desire of the scholars and thinkers of the last 30 years, Pasteur, Renan, Wurtz, Gaston Paris, and Berthelot, was now fulfiUed by the Minister and his fellow-workers, Albert Dumont, Liard, Lavisse and G. Monod for the benefit of the Republic. For French science, formerly neglected by the State, mansions now arose at Grenoble, Paris, Lyons, Bordeaux, LUle and Tou louse, worthy of their guests and large enough to receive, in the various faculties, all students, as well as the masters, hitherto too few in number but now attracted by advantages of all sorts. Libraries and laboratories were multiplied; more than 100 million francs were expended on buildings, and as much more on the foundation of professorships and on apparatus. In eight years the numbers registered in the different faculties were doubled. The faculties of Letters and of Sciences, which in 1880 did not possess vi] Reforms in Higher Education 287 bodies of regular bond fide students as in Germany and England, very soon gathered swarms of industrious workers, and once more became true schools of higher study. It was comparatively easy to start professorships and build schools ; to carry out in a few years a complete change of method, and make the faculties into living centres of research, foci of light irradiating all the schools and the whole mind of France with science and intellectual culture, was a harder and longer task. It was, however, carried out with unexpected rapidity, through the methods adopted by Jules Ferry's assistant, Albert Dumont, who died prematurely in 1884. The work was done by the body of masters, old and young, acting freely on their own initiative, whether qualified for such a task by their talents or not, who had been caUed upon to teach in the various faculties, to direct their classes without interference, and even to administer their funds after the Orders of 1885, and gradually place them on an independent footing. " France requires," said Renan in 1872, " intellectual capitals where young people may find ready to their hands every requisite for the complete development of their intelli gence." This is what Jules Ferry gave to France, and with remarkable speed. In 1870 he said to his constituents in Paris: "So far as I am concerned, on the day when you did me the honour to elect me your representative, I took an oath to myself that I would choose from amongst the problems of the day the one to which I could devote my whole intellect, soul, heart, and moral and physical power, the" problem of National Education." In the few years allowed him by the instability of Ministries, Jules Ferry amply redeemed his promise. The education that he pro vided for his fellow-citizens, rising from the school of the people to that in which Pasteur and Poincare made their discoveries, would suffice in any country to make the repu tation of a statesman for services rendered; and no one of 288 The Democratic Republic [ch. his adversaries has ever contested this fact. Thus once more the democracy of France discovered a remedy for the divisions amongst its leaders, for the internecine struggles of tendencies and of interests which threatened to paralyse it in its very birth and its progress. While Gambetta and Jules Ferry were thus providing the means of agreement and concihation in the party, the sudden fall of the former in 1881, and the ministerial reverse of the latter in 1885, revealed once more one of the main causes of the discord in the parliamentary world and of the hesitation of the people in taking a decisive step. Though Europe had invited France to resume her place on her councU board at the Congress of BerUn (1878), more than one French statesman, and even the Foreign Minister, had looked askance at the offer, and had only accepted ' it with doubt. It seemed as if the recoUection of the woes of 1870, caused by the policy of the Emperor and his craze for entangling the nation in all sorts of contradictory and unlucky enterprises, had been a lesson to the Repubhc to avoid all risks through action abroad. There are times when the temptation of profit or of reprisals must yield before the consideration of risk, when this risk may possibly involve total ruin. The nation turned a willing ear to the advice of those who, from Thiers downwards, invited her rather to reserve her forces, and to reconstruct her military strength, so as to be able to defend herself against the ever-threatening enemy. When Jules Grevy was placed in power, he had no other policy to suggest to his Ministers, no Une of action to recommend to the nation, but that of silence and non-intervention. At the height of the struggle in 1870, he found fault with the active resistance of the Government of National Defence, and'the threats of reprisals from Gambetta and the Extreme Left. His persistent hostility to Gambetta arose mainly from his suspicion that, in spite of his resolutely pacific language, vi] The Army and the Nation 289 Gambetta stiU perhaps retained a hope of putting on some pressure from without, if not by arms, at least by diplomacy. Regarded from this point of view, Grevy was undoubtedly the elected President of this democracy, in which the majority were peasants, now cured by a drastic remedy of the dreams of glory which attracted them in 1851 to the heir of the Napoleonic name, and whose first demands now were security of frontier and safety for their labour. No doubt the French nation consented to the sacrifices required to keep up the army which the foresight of Thiers and of the National Assembly had provided for it; but, even so, it insisted on the reduction of the term of military service to three years (against the judgment of successive Ministers of War who thought that period insufficient for the task of fitting soldiers to face the Germans), as well as on the aboUtion of exemptions and of the system of ballot, both of which formed part of the law of 1872. The reduction would have been passed on June 21, 1885, had not the Senate opposed it. General Boulanger, hungry for popu larity, submitted it again to the Chambers on May 25, 1886; and it was passed after Grevy's departure on July 19, 1889, just before the elections. If the nation, then, aUowed itself to be placed under arms, it was from necessity, and not for its pleasure, strictly for purposes of defence, and with no intention of letting this military instrument ever be used to serve a policy of aggression, or even of legitimate reprisal. An armed peace, perhaps; stUl peace, with a poUcy of "sUent thought," and abstention- — such was the desire of the great majority of Frenchmen under the presidency of Jules Grevy in 1881. Some of them, the bolder and more clear-sighted, felt that, for a great nation like France, to isolate itself per manently from Europe, especially during a period in which Europe was spreading itself over the world, would be to b. 11. 19 290 The Democratic Republic [ch. run the risk of growing smaller, of losing its influence and of seeing its resources slowly diminishing. Merchants and manufacturers, first those of Marseilles, next those of Bordeaux, Lille and Paris, seeing how liberally the markets were opened to Germany after her victory, had good reason to be alarmed. The republican politicians who during the last eight years had desired to occupy the post of Foreign Minister — Waddington in 1879, Freycinet in the same year, in 1882, and in 1886, Gambetta and Spuller in 1881, Jules Ferry and Fallieres in 1883 — all felt that the French democracy ought to exhibit some activity abroad, and that it was incompatible with its greatness and with its interests to sulk behind its frontiers. Jules Ferry pledged himself in this direction from the outset of his first Ministry. The Waddington Ministry had bequeathed him the means for intervening in Tunis after the Congress of Berlin. The threatened intervention of Italy, for which the Italian Consul Maccio had been working since 1879, showed that these means would be wanted for the safety of Algeria, and that speedily. This was the opinion of Barthelemy de Saint-Hilaire and his adviser, the Alsatian patriot, Baron de Courcel, who had no difficulty in making Jules Ferry and Gambetta take the same view. M. de Courcel described the enterprise very happily as "the diplomatic birth of the Republic." It was explained to the country as due to the necessity for protecting the Algerian frontier from the raids of the Kroumirs. In April, 1881, a force of 30,000 men landed at Tunis, and had no difficulty in compelling the Bey to sign the treaty for a Protectorate, known as the Act of Bardo, which the French Chambers ratified on May 23 and 27. Gambetta, writing to Ferry, said, "France is resuming her rank as a Great Power"; but he wrote in vain. France did not recognise the facts till later, and the Ferry Cabinet got no thanks for their service to the country. And when, in the vi] Tunis and Egypt 291 course of the summer, the campaign in Tunis had to be continued, it was so unpopular that the Paris deputies talked of impeaching Ferry; indeed the nation itself seemed to endorse the comparison that was often made. between the conquest of Tunis and the expedition to Mexico. Jules Ferry resigned on October 28, 1881, and was succeeded, as President of the Council and Minister of Foreign Affairs, by Gambetta, who at any rate had justified his action first by defending him and next by completing the task, so as to put a stop to what he called "the policy of crushing France flat in the face of Europe." The lesson was not lost on their more timid successors when, after the Tunis question, the problem of Egypt came on for solution. So far back as May 1876, Disraeli, addressing France, had disclaimed the idea ascribed to him of coveting Egypt; and again, at the Congress of Berlin, Waddington had taken formal note of the declarations of the British Cabinet admitting the equality in position and influence of the two Powers on the Nile. This equality was based on the financial condominium which had been permanently imposed by England and France on the new Viceroy, Tewfik Pasha (June 1879), and which was presided over, on behalf of the creditors of both countries, by M. de Blignieres for France, and Mr Baring (afterwards Lord Cromer) for England. But it was a question whether^this equality could be defended or maintained, now that Lord Derby had succeeded by a bold step, which the Due Decazes did not see his way to oppose, in buying on November 18, 1875, the mortgaged shares in the Suez Canal belonging to the Khedive Ismail. Lord Palmerston had said ten years before : "If the Canal is made, England will be compelled to annex Egypt." The purchase of Ismail's shares had settled the relations between England and Egypt, giving the former Power a preponderating influence at Suez which was bound to spread to Cairo. 19 — 2 292 The Democratic Republic [ch. The concerted attack upon foreigners made by Arabi in February 1881 gave England an opportunity of explain ing the situation to France. On Gambetta's proposal for joint action against the rebels who were laying down the law to the Khedive, GranviUe, with the important support of DUke, received his request with coldness, and evaded it later by a note declining any common mUitary action. The result was that Arabi Pasha was able to impose a constitution on the Khedive, to seize the dictator ship and to abolish the financial control. The French were shouldered out of Egypt, along with M. de Blignieres (February 5, 1882). In the meantime Gambetta had fallen, on a question of revising the constitution (Jan. 31, 1881). He was succeeded by Freycinet. Had Gambetta remained in office, public opinion, as expressed in Parliament or by the nation, would not have authorised him to take action on the Nile, either with England or against her. Business men, including even French financiers, afraid of displeasing the great London bankers, had ceased; since the purchase of the Canal shares, to take any interest in Egypt. " England wUl absorb Egypt," they said; "no national question is involved." This feeling was so general and the fear of any fresh activity abroad was so great among • the French, that very few. regretted the abolition of the condominium. When the violence of Arabi obliged England in spite of herself to seek the cooperation of France and propose the convocation of a conference at Constantinople (May and June 1882), M. de Freycinet scarcely moved. Even after the massacre of Europeans at Alexandria, on June 11, 1882, the French fleet took.no action. On July n the EngUsh fleet bombarded Alexandria, whUe the French Minister, though he had pretended to mobUise on June 26 in the Mediterranean ports, stiU left his squadron inactive. This inactivity was in no way disagreeable to the English, vi] The Egyptian Question 293 who announced on July 30 their fixed resolution not to evacuate Egypt "until order was re-established." Some of the politicians in the French Senate like Scherer and Waddington, sensible of the weakness - thus displayed, wished to make M. de Freycinet responsible. He tried to evade the charge by asking for funds for landing a small force on the Isthmus of Suez only ; but the proposal was so timid as to satisfy neither the supporters nor the opponents of French action in Egypt. The Ministry, thus placed in a minority of nearly the whole Chamber, was forced to re sign on August 7, 1882. M. Duclerc, a personal friend of Gambetta, who succeeded to the office of Premier, con tented himself with protesting against the military occupa tion of Egypt by the English, and with vainly demanding a return to the system of the condominium, which had ceased to exist. By supporting the opponents of Jules Ferry, Gambetta and de Freycinet, the country was practically falling in with the counsels of the republican majority, which were in favour of absolute effacement, complete abdication beyond the frontier, complete renunciation of any foreign poUcy. "The moment will come," said a weU -informed public. writer of the day, Gabriel Charmes, "sooner or later, when the country wiU find out that it has allowed the legacy of preceding administrations to suffer loss, and that by thrusting it constantly into the background the Republic has reduced France to the position of a second-class Power." That moment seemed to be far off in 1885'; for in that year Parliament turned out Jules Ferry once more for involving France in Madagascar and in Tonkin, in spite of his "previous conviction" for the same offence. Such was the unpopularity of this statesman that it continued after his fall and even threatened the Constitution itself. The Madagascar affair however was connected with the national tradition, inasmuch as the French had been 294 The Democratic Republic [ch. established in the island since the seventeenth century, and had never aUowed their rights to drop entirely. A treaty had been made in 1862 to assist the enterprise of Jean Laborde, a colonist from La Reunion; but Ranavalo II afterwards came to a sudden determination to exclude French colonists and their proteges, the Sakalavas. By the orders of the Duclerc Ministry, Admiral Pierre bombarded Majunga in 1883, and afterwards Tamatave, but failed to obtain redress from the new queen Ranavalo III. Jules Ferry persisted in demanding it, but was afraid of giving to the steps he took the character or importance of the military movement which was needed. Admiral Miot did not occupy Vohemar till May 1884,; the step was insuffi cient, but Jules Ferry had limited his action too exactly to the minimum. When his successor, Brisson, took up the affair again in August 1885, general opinion was still so much against it that Parliament refused to grant him more than a paltry credit of 12 million francs; and the expedition was all but a failure. In short the task of establishing France in an island, to which both its history and its interests called it, met with more difficulties in Paris than in the island itself. In Tonkin Jules Ferry showed more resolution and energy; and he had to suffer for it. Ever since France had obtained a protectorate over Annam in 1874, and the right of trading with Hanoi and Haiphong, the Emperor Tu-duc had shown himself increasingly hostile to French influence, and to the traders and missions protected by France. Invoking with skill the suzerainty of China, which he had always previously denied, his only object was to keep up bickerings and opposition between the Republic and the Chinese Empire, in order to give free play to his own tyrannical caprice. The Governor of Cochin China, Le Myre de Villers, induced his home govern ment to allow Henri Riviere, an energetic officer, to move Vi] Madagascar and Tonkin 295 on Tonkin with 300 men and there at least to assert the authority of France; but he had strict orders "not to plunge the nation into the risks of a military expedition." Henri Riviere with his small force did a fine piece of work ; he occupied the citadel of Hanoi on April 25, 1882, and held it for a whole year against the assaults of the .bands treacherously despatched against him by the Mandarins. After an exploit like this, honour no less than interest forbade his abandonment ; and Admiral Jaureguiberry, the • Minister of Marine, at the beginning of December 1882 proposed to the Council to send an expedition composed of a few ships and some thousands of men, at an expense of 10 mUlion francs. Very possibly Grevy 's reply inter preted correctly the feeling of the nation: "France has got over the craze for distant adventures, and hungers for repose." The Republicans who had combated the rashness of the Empire were always afraid of attack from those who discovered a new Mexico in Tonkin ; and at that moment they were frightened at the prospect of a war with China instigated by the Emperor of Annam. Bouree, the French ambassador at Pekin, recommended prudence, though he wrote (December 5, 1882) : "I have avoided the danger of a war with China." Admiral Jaureguiberry, without asking the Chamber for an extraordinary credit, induced them at least to allow some reinforcements to be sent to Hanoi, with which, by a heroic effort, Riviere succeeded in occupying Nam-Dinh (March 27, 1883) and a part of the Delta. He saved his own Ufe and won Tonkin for France; but the struggle became too much for him in the long run, and he sank under it on May 13, 1883. When the news of his death reached Paris, Jules Ferry had returned to power, with ChaUemel-Lacour as Foreign Minister. This at least Riviere had earned by his death, that his work should not die with him. His heroism had been admired even beyond the stage of his exploits, and 296 The Democratic Republic [ch. had begun to influence the French Parliament in favour of an active colonial policy. How could one live in France and not be thrilled at the efforts of these officers who with mere handfuls of men were winning empires for their native land, such as Gallieni and Borgnis-Desbordes, who imposed their will on Ahmadu the Sultan of Segu, and destroyed the kingdom of Samory between 1882 and 1887 ; or Savorgnan de Brazza, who created French Congo under the eyes of Stanley between 1880 and 1884; or Henri Riviere in Asia? When ChaUemel-Lacour, on March 13, 1883, asserted for the first time the necessity of a colonial poUcy adequate to the interests and rights of France, the Senate cheered him. On May 26 the Chamber made a grant of five million francs for an expedition of 4000 troops to the Red River, too late to save the life of the gaUant man who had apparently succeeded in converting his feUow-citizens, but in time at least to preserve to France the prize for which Riviere had sacrificed his life. But an occasion soon arose for observing how stubbornly. t the French democracy objected to any active policy or any warlike enterprise, however distant or Umited in scope. The French nation had anxiously watched the struggle between Admiral Courbet and the court of Hue (August 25, 1883), and the heavy fighting needed to liberate Tonkin from the attacks of the " Black Banners " — mercenaries engaged, at first by Annam and later by China, to oppose the French forces. Its anxiety was increased by the news that war with China was actually begun (December 1883), and that 20,000 men and a fleet were required for an expedition to the Furthest East. Captain Foumier concluded a treaty with the Tsung-li-Yamen after the victory of General Millot at Tientsin (May 1884), which, combined with the treaty for a protectorate made by Patendtre with the Court of Annam on June 6, relieved popular fears for a moment. But uneasiness was revived and augmented vi] Colonial Failures and Successes 297 by the news that the Chinese Government had drawn Colonel Degenne's troops into an ambusli, and that an expedition must be made into China proper for their punishment. Admiral Courbet had been calling for some time for decisive action; but Jules Ferry had not so far dared to permit Admiral Lespes to do more than make a futile attack on Formosa (August 5, 1884). He was uneasy as to public opinion; and his majority in Parliament was being sapped by the members of the two extremes, Right and Left. Once more the Minister staked his popularity on a venturous throw. By a bold manoeuvre Courbet took his squadron into the river Min, sheUed the Chinese fleet at Foo Choo, and destroyed the arsenal and the fortifications. He proposed to push on into the Gulf of Pechili and to Port Arthur (August 23, 1884). But the home authorities begged him to desist ; he had already done too much ; aU that he could be allowed was the conquest of Formosa (September 1884 to February 1885). On land, Generals Briere de l'lsle and Negrier, no less boldly than Courbet on water, pushed forwards the conquest of Tonkin towards the southern provinces of China. On February 16, 1885, Negrier's brigade occupied Langson, and was there attacked by a large Chinese force in the month of March. Negrier was wounded and obliged to resign the command to a lieutenant who, unduly alarmed at the strength of the Chinese, precipitately evacuated the place, abandoning guns and material, on March 28. The news of this defeat on March 29 excited a great explosion of feeling in Paris. On the following days crowds sunounded the Chambers, calling upon the deputies to wreak exemplary chastisement on the Minister who had exposed France to the risk and disgrace of this venture. The majority that had foUowed him so far, having now to choose between public opinion, recoiling in panic from 298 The Democratic Republic [ch. colonial enterprises, and the statesman who on March 30 presented himself with demands for fresh sacrifices of men and money, declared itself against Jules Ferry. The Minister resigned, and Grevy accepted his resignation at once. On the same date the news reached Paris of the peace successfully negotiated with China by Sir Robert Hart, the English Inspector of Chinese Customs, two months before. Courbet died on board his ship on June 11, after having compelled China by his victories to recognise the protectorate of France over Tonkin and Annam. His genius had thus put the coping-stone on the edifice begun by Henri Riviere, completing the establishment of the French protectorate over Camboja (1884). Thus, in spite of itself, the French democracy had been led on to this great result, the creation of an empire in Indo- China, while in Africa it was rounding off its northern empire by the Maghreb, had occupied Madagascar, and was ex tending its dominion of Senegal to the Niger. FinaUy the Conference of Berlin (November 1884 to February 1885) recognised its colony on the Congo and its rights of pre emption over the independent State created by Leopold II on the left bank of the great river of Africa. This was undoubtedly a remarkable result to have been achieved by a nation averse from activity abroad, and under the rule of a like-minded President. It may be explained by the fact that circumstances are often stronger than human wUl ; but it was also due to the sustained effort of a bold and enterprising minority and to the clear-sightedness and tenacity of Jules Ferry, to whom the French, enlightened by the evidence of facts, afterwards did tardy justice. In 1885 the immediate effect of these successes was a great schism in the party which since 1879 had been occupied in organising the Republic, and had hitherto shown itself scarcely equal to its task, owing to want of unity. This appeared in the elections of 1885, which vi] Conference of Berlin. Elections of 188$ 299 gave the Republicans of the Extreme Left a position enabling them to discomfit the Moderate Republicans. The charges made against the latter before a nation caring naught for distant conquests — indeed hostile to any conquest — were based on the colonial, policy and 'the war. The effect of the challenge was immediate. The Monarchists, who owed their weakness to their own dissensions between 1875 and 1879, now saw in the quarrels of their adversaries an opportunity and a pretext for regaining lost ground, and for overthrowing their former conquerors the Republi cans; while the Clericals saw a chance of punishing the author of the Education Laws and of the Orders against the Congregations. The victory won on October 4, the first day of voting, was a striking one, and was due to the scrutin de liste, which enabled the Monarchists to capture whole departments at once, and gave them 176 seats against 120 won by their opponents. If, on the second round of voting, the Moderate Republicans had not, from motives of discipline, voted for Radicals, sacrificing their resentment to the interests of the whole party, they would not have kept 244 seats out of the 269 remaining vacancies; anda majority in favour of Monarchy would have beeri returned. How many questions would then have been brought forward for discussion ! And what a lesson for the Republicans, whose majority was reduced from 340 to 163, or by more than one half ! They had lost nearly two million votes in the country. The President alone seemed to escape all attacks. On the expiration of his powers, he was re-elected (Jan. 31, 1886) for another period of seven years. But the storm which was gathering round the Chamber, now reduced to impotence by the dissensions within the majority, was bound sooner or later to burst upon Grevy in his presidential capacity, as the apex of the democratic constitution. It did not come from the expected quarter, 300 The Democratic Republic [ch. the Orleans princes, whom it was thought possible to get rid of by a law of June 22, 1886, prohibiting them from residence in France. It came from a General Officer, doubtless a man of courage and an able administrator, who had been made the member of a Radical Cabinet in January 1886, and who at one stroke established an enormous reputation with the inhabitants of the capital at a military review of the garrison of Paris. "We have found our master," was the expression already in the mouths of uneasy Republicans when referring to General Boulanger. In the prolonged eclipse of President and Presidency, the prospect of a military dictatorship began to loom once more; the seed was of the lightest, but the soil was propitious to its growth. An incident iri connexion with Germany, the motive of which remains obscure, gave it a sudden development. Schncebele was a French police officer, who had been entrapped by a German police officer, Gautsch, and iUegally arrested on French territory (AprU 21, 1887). Was it more than a discourteous act on the part of Bismarck, intended as a hint to the French police on the German frontier? In any case, the hint was given; and on April 27 the BerUn authorities ordered Schncebele to be released. "I have brought my nerves under control," says Bismarck in his Memoirs, "but French nerves are slower in quieting down." But for the coolness and authority of President Grevy, General Boulanger might very likely have induced the Goblet Cabinet to demand satisfaction for the Schncebele affair by arms. As it was, when the matter had been settled, the Parisians, under the growing influence of Boulanger's popularity, called Grevy personaUy to account for the humiliation, which they attributed to the feebleness of a Parliamentary Republic under so decrepit and inert a chief. Boulanger meant youth; action and hope. He had been obliged to resign his office as Minister of War; vi] General Boulanger. Grevy retires 301 and his banishment to his military command at Clermont Ferrand completed his right to be considered a victim. His adherents — for a party had actually formed round this buckram Bonaparte, who claimed dictatorship before victory won — advised him to march on the Elysee. But he felt some scruple about turning out the President ; and it happened that the President was on the point of turning himself out by an act of senile weakness. A scandalous instance of corruption had been unearthed by the Press, who discovered that a deputy named Wilson, son-in-law to Grevy, to whom the President had for four years past allowed an excessive influence and authority, had abused his position in favour of certain speculators. It was useless for the Rouvier Cabinet to try to cover the President and to save his son-in-law from prosecution; they were out-voted. Jules Grevy tried to face the attack, and was met by a growl of insurrection in Paris. The Boulangists seized the opportunity; and, in order to save the President, the Radicals offered terms. December 2 was a day of fate for dictatorship ; on that day Napoleon III had established his rule, and on that day dictatorship now threatened again. In order to protect from danger the Parliamentary Republic which he had assisted in creating, Jules Grevy determined to retire, leaving behind him a powerless and discredited executive authority, and the Chamber a prey to the partisan quarrels which he had been fooUsh enough to neglect. In spite of the undoubted gains of these eight years in the shape of recon stituted forces intellectual and material, extended territory and increased military power, France seemed once more, under the influence of the capital, to have grown weary of the form of government which it had clamoured for and welcomed as a boon ever since 1875. 302 The Democratic Republic [ch. II. The Presidency of Sadi Carnot (1887 — 1894). The resignation of Jules Grevy (Nov. 1887) took place in the very midst of a political crisis. On the question of his successor the split among the Republicans which had brought about the crisis grew wider, and public opinion more in flamed. It might have been expected that the favourite candidate would be Jules Ferry, the statesman who had done most for the material and moral interests of the democracy since the death of Gambetta. But his method of doing it had earned him the implacable hostility of the Catholics, and of the advanced Republicans who opposed his colonial policy. Boulanger was interviewed by the Radicals between November 28 and 30, and after that by members of the Right, with the result that Jules Ferry was set aside, and Sadi Carnot, grandson of the great Carnot, and son of the irreproachable republican Minister of 1848, was selected by the Republican Congress. Sadi Carnot was a man of cold manner, rather shy, but of tried probity, a conscientious worker and a talented engineer ; he had been seldom seen in the tribune, but was known and highly appreciated on committees and by the business departments of State. Under his reserved exterior, this hard worker, whom the party men had selected because they were not afraid of him, proved, beyond expectation, the man for difficult tasks demanding coolness and devotion. He had demonstrated this in 1871 as a prefect under the Government of National Defence and a subordinate of Gambetta, with whom he voted against the Treaty of Frankfort. Gambetta then predicted that "in any im portant position, he would be competent to deal with difficulties." Those he met with at the outset of his Presidency called for strong action. Confronted by a soldier whose popularity was greater than that of the Chief of the State, vi] Carnot and Boulanger 303 the presidential function had lost its prestige, its authority, and even its dignity. The mischief would have been less in a Parliamentary Republic, in which the head of the Ministry would have been able to do the governing so long as he had a good majority. But the Chamber of Deputies was crumbling away into small rival groups of about equal power, the Extreme Left under Clemenceau and Pelletan, the Radical Left under Floquet and Brisson, the Moderate Left under Ferry and the friends of the deceased Gambetta, the coalition of Monarchists and Bonapartists on the Right, which had no real existence except on the question of religion. The impotence of the parliamentary regime was all in favour of Boulanger, whom the people, deceived by his persistent propaganda, regarded as representing the ideal of an active govern ment inside and outside the frontiers. The political pro gramme which the soldier-politician submitted to the Chamber on June 4, 1888, consisted of an amendment of the Constitution of 1875 which would give the President of the. Republic the powers of an American President, and the authority of a chief elected, like Louis Napoleon, directly by the democracy. The Monarchists and Clericals were delighted with it, and, feeling sure that Boulanger was working in favour of their views, placed their Press, their funds, and their friends unreservedly at his service.. On January 29, 1889, Paris, by a triumphant majority, saluted the rising fortunes of the General, whose progress had been prepared by the divisions of the Republicans, the intrigues of their opponents and of the clergy, and the disgust of a nation which could obtain neither adequate government at home nor respect abroad. To protect the Constitution and save the deluded nation from dropping either into the unknown or under the heel of a master, Carnot's resources were at first of the poorest. So far as depended on himself, at any rate, he did all that 304 The Democratic Republic [ch. was possible to restore the dignity of his office. In this he easily and quickly succeeded by the attitude he adopted and the liberal and hospitable scale of his household expen diture, which compared favourably with that of Grevy. Without waiting for an invitation, he made official visits to the towns and provinces of France, which appreciated the attention and gave him a good reception. He did "not ask for ceremony or brilliant ovations, but he made the country feel the existence of a Government, and got into touch with the people. His visits impressed upon them that the Presidency was not a useless though lucrative sinecure, but an office with functions which he proposed to discharge effectively. The outcome of this policy took time to make itself evident. At first he did not interfere with the progress of Boulangism, and of the Boulangists who traded on intrigue and on the popularity of the General as affirmed by the Paris election ; and possibly, had the Elysee been stormed by Boulanger in March 1889, as was expected by bis party, Carnot might not haye been able to save it. Luckily the General did not dare to make the attempt. Against the threat of a dictatorship, the Senate, the object of so much democratic abuse, had been the mainstay of the Ministers Tirard and Constans, when they decided to bring the troublesome General, and his friends the Patriots, Deroulede, Rochefort and Dillon, before the bar of that House. Boulanger signed his own condemnation when he escaped by flight from the sentence of exUe which was passed upon him and his adherents on August 14, 1889. In one month his cause was lost among the Democrats, who in the elections of September gave the supporters of constitutional revision only 23 seats — and not lost only, but straightway forgotten. President Carnot had by slowly-won sympathy for his person and office brought about the defeat of this adventurer. vi] Boulanger disappears. Exhibition of '1889 305 At the festival of the Exhibition held in Paris (1889) to celebrate the centenary of the Revolution, he presided with dignity and earned the gratitude of the people for repre senting them so well before the foreigners. The Parisians acknowledged that they had made a mistake ; and the success of this undertaking, which attracted strangers from all corners of the earth into their city at the foot of the Eiffel Tower, with profit to the promoters and to their fortunes, proved that the Constitution which the revisionists con demned had nevertheless given France the peace she required for her prosperity. While agriculture continued to develop under the new methods and under a protective system of duties, until the production had reached the figure of 360 millions sterling, and while the capital and letting value of the soil was rising, the provision of industrial machinery continued to grow ; and the advances made in metallurgic, chemical, and electrical works during ten years were most striking. These results, thus sUently obtained by the industry of the nation, belonged to the same order and were stamped wrth the same characteristics as the conduct of their industrious and persevering President, through whom they were submitted to the inspection of Europe. The wealth of France and her return to prudent courses justified Carnot two years later in starting a foreign policy which established his authority on a permanent basis. This was the principal result of his Presidency. French frugality had since 1871 found the means for the State enterprises needed for the national resuscitation, and was now looking for investments in foreign markets. The Russian Empire was in need of capital to develop its economic, activity. Hitherto Russia had sought it in the BerUn market, where the great financiers worked in the service of the Bismarckian policy, as settled since the Berlin Congress (1878) and the Triple Alliance of 1882, with b. 11. 20 306 The Democratic Republic [ch. the object of isolating and controUing the poUcy of Russia. Petrograd was well pleased when a syndicate of French bankers, introduced by a Dane named Hoskier, offered Wichnegradski, the Finance Minister, a loan of 500 million francs (1888), then two more loans amounting to nearly 2000 million in 1889, then nearly 1000 million more in 1891. In these financial relations, France and Russia alike found their advantage. The dealing was sound ; and good accounts, as usual, made good friends. This was the first opportunity of an alliance with a Great Power that had been offered to the democracy of France since its defeat and isolation. Short of an alliance, no doubt they had met with valuable sympathy at Petro grad in 1875 ; and again in 1887 Tsar Alexander had told M. de Giers, his ChanceUor, "not to aUow France to be diminished." But there were many difficulties in the way of a real and permanent connection — the objection of the nation to every sort of diplomatic relation, particularly with the Tsar, the most absolute of ah European sovereigns ; the hesitation felt by the Ministers and the Court of that potentate in negotiating with a Republic; and above all the difficulty, which to these gentlemen appeared insur mountable, of carrying on, in the stiUness of their offices, any policy in harmony with Ministers of uncertain tenure and liable to the inquisitive hecklings of Parliament. President Carnot took the initial step towards the removal of these obstacles. He understood that- the patriotic fever which had led the French people to follow General Boulanger was the result of the humUiations to which their isolation exposed them, The remedy was to find them an alhance which should bring with it, instead of the risk of war, guarantees for security; and, while M. Ribot in Paris, and M. de Laboulaye at Petrograd, endeavoured to create a Franco-Russian understanding, Carnot could offer the Tsar the secrecy and continuity of vi] The Franco-Russian Alliance 307 poUcy that he wanted. A law of July 16, 1875, gave to the President authority to negotiate and ratify treaties, and constituted him sole judge as to the date when they might be communicated to the Chambers "without detriment to the interests or security of the country." This constitu tional prerogative to negotiate in person and in secret had been neglected by his predecessor, but to Carnot it furnished exactly the instrument wanted for the understanding for which his Minister had paved the way. The fact that thenceforth, in spite of her previous objections, democratic France coiUd carry on a foreign policy with continuity and secrecy, was due to the precedent thus made. Thenceforward, the length of the presidential term of office, the confidence reposed in Carnot, the respect personaUy paid to him, the special information that his exalted office enabled him to extract from party leaders and politicians, became so many invaluable factors in the security and even in the destiny of the Republic. On August 22, 1891, the treaty was signed in Paris by M. Ribot and M. de Mohrenheim, the Russian ambassador. It had been preceded by a visit of the French fleet to Cronstadt, which roused the enthusiasm of the Russian nation, while the echoes of it penetrated France "down to the depths of its smaUest town, its minutest hamlet." The text of the arrangement was kept secret, and no one in Parliament or of the public expressed surprise. The adver saries of France had too often enmeshed her since 1870 in a network of secret alhances among sovereigns, of which she had felt the annoyance. The mere suggestion that one of the - mightiest of these sovereigns was coming forward, not to draw- her into fresh risks, but to enable her to live at peace Without loss of dignity, was enough to give her unqualified satisfaction without exciting any indiscreet curiosity. And if Russia required a proof that, "in spite of surface changes, France was capable of carrying out a connected design 20 — 4 308 The Democratic Republic [ch. in a spirit of continuity equal to that of any monarchy," she shortly afterwards received it. In October 1893, under a Ministry of which M. Ribot was not the Chief — the Dupuy Ministry — the Russian fleet came in its turn to Toulon, whence the crews of Admiral Avellan 's ships repaired to Paris to receive from its inhabitants an enthusiastic welcome. No such spontaneous expression had been given to the sentiments of the nation since the popular festivals of 1878 which had celebrated the foundation of a Republican re gime. The people were right ; the Franco-Russian Alliance, even more than the Congress of Berlin, was "the diplomatic baptism of the Republic." This rite once performed, the democracy felt no further uneasiness as to the policy of colonial expansion, which had previously appeared to endanger the safety of her remote frontiers ; this was the first benefit derived from the Alliance. From the Congo, now definitively acquired as a base, they pushed towards Northern Africa by the routes of the Ubanghi and the Sangha (1887-90). Supported by the Committee of French Africa, Dybowski, who had been the companion of Crampel, assassinated at El Kouti in 1891, and after him Maistre explored the Logone, returning to the Niger by the Benue ; in the meantime Mizon in 1892 went by the Nigef and the Adamawa country to seek de Brazza on the Upper Sangha (1891-3). A convention with Germany (February 4, 1894) fixed the German Cameroons and the left bank of the Chari, as the boundaries of this new-born empire. All the district of the Ubanghi, the Sangha, and the Baghirmi eastward to the bank of the M'Bomou, which had been recognised as French territory by another convention, constituted this empire; and the officer who finally took charge of it was Captain Monteil. But the work of this bold explorer had already begun in the country of the Sudan where the principal attempts of France to found colonies were then being made. Since Vi] Exploration and Expansion in Africa 309 the day when a. body of courageous men of the Colonial army, BoUeve, Combes, Peroz, and Gallieni, had shaken the power of the native princes Ahmadu, Mahmadu-Lamine and Samory on the Upper Niger (1885-7), Binger had occupied in the name of France all the territory situate between Bissan-Dugu and the Gulf of Guinea (1887-9). He thus joined up Senegal with the Ivory Coast, of which he became Governor, and the frontiers of which Marchand was now extending northwards into the Baoule (1891-3). In April 1892 Colonel Dodds, with 4000 men, and some further reinforcements sent in October, undertook the difficult task of subjugating Dahomey, and continued their work as far as Say on the Niger. On the north the occupa tion of the Middle Niger was reaching completion, and was finally settled by the march of Bonnier and Joffre on Timbuctoo (January-February 1894). Some treaties with England foUowed, securing for her the lower courses of the Niger (August 5, 1890) ; and then Captain Monteil, by leaving the Sudan, crossing the bend of the Niger near Say, passing by Kano, Kuka and Lake Tchad, and return ing by Tripoli, demonstrated that communication could be established from the Sudan and French Congo to the French Empire on the Mediterranean (1890-2). It was indeed a magnificent effort of expansion, such as had not been seen in French history since the end of the seventeenth century. For, in addition to this, the Republic was preparing to convert a sham Protectorate into a reality by sending a force of 25,000 men for the conquest of Madagascar ; it was also sending an expedition to Siam to acquire the left bank of the Mekong, in which Admiral Humann successfully occupied the port of Chanta- bun; and lastly it prohibited the conquered sovereign by treaty, dated October 3, 1893, from maintaining any military force on the right bank of the great river to which France laid claim, England finaUy admitted this claim, 310 The Democratic Republic [ch. when on January 15, 1896, she abandoned to France all influence over the basins of the eastern affluents of the Mekong, while reserving liberty of action in the Siamese pro vinces in the northern part of the Malay Peninsula., What had happened in Africa was repeated here ; the Democrats of France, once so timid in the matter of action abroad, were now opening out, alongside of the English, by the energy of their soldiers and their colonial administration, at once in Asia and on the shores of West Africa, vast fields for the activity, civilising influence, and com merce of their own country. After a few years the violent criticism of the Opposition, based upon the danger and use- lessness of these undertakings, began to slacken ; nobody now thought of imputing them to Jules Ferry as a crime. He had been called to the Presidency of the Senate, but- died suddenly on March 17, 1893. The time was not far off when his country would honour him as one of the best and most devoted of her servants. In the list of remedial measures which Carnot, during his Presidency, suggested to the democracy for the correction of their mistakes and the consolidation of their future, the only omission was one for the cure of their dissensions. In barely five years nine Ministries were formed, of which some, like those of M. Ribot, lasted from 'one to three months at the most. The longest-lived was that which M. de Freycinet succeeded in keeping in existence for two years (from 1890 to 1892) by the help of the Moderate Republicans, Fallieres, Rouvier, and Constans, and the Radicals Leon Bourgeois and Barbey. His methods and his parliamentary tactics were continued with fair success by M. Loubet, an amiable Minister, all smiles and rather studied simplicity. In 1890 the still recent memories of the Boulangist danger brought the antagonists rather closer, but could not reunite them. Just then a new and serious cause of division suddenly vi ] Radicals and Socialists 311 arose from the social claims of the working classes, especially in the great cities. These claims had been postponed by the defeat of the Commune, but had begun again to make themselves heard in 1877, when Jules Guesde joined Lafargue, a son-in-law of Marx, in starting L'Egalite for the advocacy of Collectivism, Marx's book Das Capital having been adopted by the Socialist meetings at Brussels and Berne as the Gospel of Internationalism. They had been once more asserted, when the amnesty granted in 1879 to the convicted Communists gave back to the workmen their chiefs and to the advocates of Marxist doctrines some determined supporters. At a Congress of working- men held at Marseilles about this time, the Collectivist speakers, Lombard, Ernest Roche and Fourniere, were applauded for their advocacy of the combat of classes in every field, intellectual, political and economical. In 1880 the association of "Socialist Workers of France" was formed, organised in six districts, with their leaders and their propagandist apostles, Benoit Malon and Guesde, men inspired by the revolutionary doctrines of Marx and Engels. Thenceforward the Socialist party had a programme and organs of their own — the Proletaire, the Egalite and the Revo lution. "Never had a doctrine," said a witness from the other side, "made its way with the people at such speed." At a very early date the republican politicians recog nised in this awakening, this advance of revolutionary doctrine, a danger for the position they had acquired and for the success of their propaganda in bourgeois and peasant circles, which believed in order, social peace, and the right to private property. They felt that they were liable to lose the support of the towns (as had happened to Gambetta at the close of his life) and their authority in the conservative centres which they had brought round to the Republic. Clemenceau, the most ardent of the Radical leaders, was by no means the least hostile, in fact 312 The Democratic Republic [ch. was as hostile as Gambetta and Jules Ferry. He absolutely declined to accept the doctrines of Marx, "with his con vents and his banacks." Such opposition, with power and talent behind it, stopped the way for the Socialist party for some time, and indeed set some of its leaders, Malon, Brousse, and (later) Allemane, Joffrin and Clovis Hugues, wondering whether partial reforms graduaUy wrung from the Republicans would not serve the prole tariat better than a complete and violent reform of society at some distant, perhaps never attainable, date. They only wanted what was possible (hence their name of Possibilists) , and were strong enough to induce the Workers' Congress at Rennes in 1881 to accept their measures of compromise, in spite of Jules Guesde, their autocratic chief, obstinately attached to his Marxism and Revolutionism; and they actually broke away from him at the Congress of St Etienne in 1882. This split in the Socialist party strengthened the resistance of its adversaries. Joffrin deplored it when he wrote in 1884 : " It is wretched to be always beaten in the working class, not by one's direct enemies, but by one's friends." This was the precise moment chosen by the Re publican Government for offering the urban democrats a law on Trades Unions which might weU have seduced them away from the Socialist leaders, by satisfying their material demands and securing their liberty. There can be no question that Waldeck-Rousseau hoped to find in this pacific and law-abiding organisation of the working classes the means of staying the progress of the Marxist- doctrine of a war of classes. The good-will of the Repub lican Government was also demonstrated by the many sorts of encouragement given to Cooperative Societies, both productive and distributive, carried on in a spirit of practical Socialism, or on the lines of the school of Nimes, founded by de Boyve and Gide. One of the most vi] Growth of Socialism 313 important decrees was that of 1888, which permitted Workers' Associations to tender for State contracts, and encouraged them further by the grant of specially favourable conditions. The first Congress of Mutual Aid Societies was held at Lyons in 1883 under the eye of a well-disposed Minister, who took the opportunity to start a special organ within his office to foUow the progress of Workers' Associa tions. If the divisions in the Socialist party seemed to weaken it, the moderation of some of their leaders in promoting negotiations with the Republicans tended to solidify the democracy as a whole. In spite of all drawbacks, the power of Socialism increased, owing to the fact that the policy of social reform and the necessity of meeting the demands of the working classes became daily more urgent. Jaures suddenly deserted the Left Centre party, in which he had begun life, and, after a noisy recantation, adopted Socialist doctrines (1887). Millerand in 1882 placed his legal knowledge at the service of the miners of Montceau les Mines, Decazeville and Carmaux, and of the strikers at Vierzon. Moderates Uke Poincare, Hanotaux and Jamais combined with the Socialist deputies to request the Chamber to set aside two sittings a week for the special discussion of socfal questions. Supported by all this young talent, as well as by the older but ardent Blanquists of Roche- fort's circle, and by the haughty and uncompromising pertinacity of Jules Guesde, who waxed bolder with every step gained, Socialism was a growing power in the Republic. At the Congress of the Revolutionary Labour Party at Bordeaux in 1889, its demands were stated as foUows: an eight-hours' day, abolition of night work, of Employers' Cooperative Societies, and of registry-offices, and equality of salaries as between the two sexes. It organised a demonstration for May 1, in the shape of a strike all round, a general cessation of work as a warning to the bourgeoisie 314 The Democratic Republic [ch. and the public authority, a rehearsal of a general strike, a sort of ultimatum in the impending war of classes. The threat alarmed the Government into adopting measures of defence. This was the first danger signal. Parliament proceeded steadily with its benevolent policy of labour legislation. In July 1890 a law was passed, enabling workers in mines to elect delegates of their own to ensure safety during work; and an enquiry was directed as to the conditions on which a limit could be put to working hours in factories. Another law (December 27, 1890) protected the working- man whose labour contract had been arbitrarily broken. This tendency to intervene in the relations between employer and employed was strongly emphasised in 1891 by the creation of a Superior Labour Council formed of an equal number of members from both classes, by the preparation of a scheme for workers' pensions, the institution of a Labour Office in the Ministerial department, and of Labour Bursaries in the cities. The independent activity of the working class was encouraged and grew with the growth of Unions and Cooperative Societies. At the same time they turned a more willing ear to the exhortations of the revolutionary chiefs to form themselves into a fighting party, within the Republic, to secure the triumph of their interests. From that moment, a reaction set in among the bourgeois Republicans, less sudden and violent than that in 1848, but noticeable. From the menaces addressed to them by the Extreme Left they turned back to the Right to seek a ground of support and a defence; and more especially to Constans, a Minister who had won great influence by his victory over Boulangism, and with him to Ribot, Jules Ferry, and of course President Carnot. This was the moment when Cardinal Lavigerie, in secret agreement with this party, and with the authority of vi] Pope Leo XIII and the Republic 315 Pope Leo XIII, in speaking to the toast of Algiers on November 2, 1890, gave the French bishops the word to join the democratic Republic, "to save the world from social peril." The Roman Church, by the voice of the Archbishop of Algiers, which had the support of the Liberal prelates Rampolla and Ferrata in Rome, invited the faithful, by recognising the democratic regime in France, to gain over the labouring classes, and convert them to Christian Socialism as M. de Mun had tried to do. This was also the precise meaning of Leo XIII's Encyclicals addressed to the French people, that entitled Rerum Novarum of May 15, 1891, and the subsequent one, Inter Innumeras, of 1892, the object of which was to remind the Catholic party that the civil power, even when republican, "comes from God" and must be obeyed. More than one of the bishops and the whole monarchist party declined this advice; others, as M. de Mun and M. de Mackau, accepted the orders from Rome to support the Government, and thus obtained a promise from the republican politicians, that the question of separation of Church and State should not be raised at the next election. They expected to be treated with indulgence, with some favour towards their tenets; while the Republicans looked in return for the cooperation of the Conservatives in the elections in staying the progress of Socialism. A fatal incident which happened in the northern mining districts further strengthened the Opposition, and developed the good understanding between the bourgeoisie of the Left and Right. At Fourmies, the demonstration on May 1, 1891, brought about an armed conflict between the working population and a battalion of infantry posted there to keep order and stationed in the Town Hall, which resulted in several deaths. Thus civil war was raising its head once more after twenty years. In the following year the anarchist Ravachol committed a series of criminal outrages, 316 The Democratic Republic [ch. sometimes in the barracks, or in front of the residences of judges or police-stations, which terrified the bourgeoisie. To crown all, in June 1894, during a visit paid by President Carnot to Lyons to open an exhibition, in the very midst of the rejoicings and general enthusiasm, he was mortally stricken by one Caserio, an Italian anarchist. French Socialism was not responsible for these crimes; but, none the less, the terror they inspired contributed to an improve ment in the relations between the Catholics and the repub lican bourgeoisie in 1893 and 1894. Thus was brought about on this point an ever-widening chasm of disagreement in the party which had founded and organised the Republic in 1875, and which ought to have ruled it afterwards. While the Moderates were drawing nearer to the Right, the Radical Democrats were seeking an alliance with the Socialists, as advised by MiUerand, Goblet, and Lockroy since 1891 in the Petite Republique Frangaise, the former organ of Gambetta. Pelletan sealed this alliance by founding the Radical Socialist party, while MiUerand was employed in bringing the militants of all the fractions of the Socialist party into one camp. The elections of 1893 emphasised the importance of these arrangements in the two opposing groups. The Socialists, with the support of the Radicals, obtained 50 seats in the new Parliament, and shouted victory ; while the majority of the Moderates, assisted by the Catholics who had joined their ranks, put forward Casimir Perier and Spuller to denounce this danger from the Left, and to offer as a concession to the Right that the Congregations should be restored. President Camot, who when a deputy had always opposed anti-Catholic legislation, encouraged the tendency to the "modern spirit," as Spuller and his friends called it. When he fell, the victim of a crime deplored throughout France, before the end of his presidential term, the republican party found vi] Death of Carnot ; Casimir Perier President 317 itself, by virtue of the "modern spirit" of the Moderates on one side and the progress of Socialism on the other, on the brink of a disagreement as threatening as that which in 1849 bad arrayed against each other the two great sections of the Democratic party — the terrified Bourgeoisie and the working-men organised to battle for their demands. Carnot had made his Presidency illustrious by many services; the only one that he neither could nor would render was that of averting — or stopping — this discord. III. The Presidency of Casimir Perier (1894 — 1895). The President selected by the Republican Congress to succeed Carnot at the moment of a ministerial crisis, started by the violence of the Revolutionists, was the Minister who had most resolutely opposed the Socialists, and whose name alone implied resistance to revolution, Jean Casimir ' Perier. A young man — he was scarcely 50 — a resolute Repubhcan, he had won the Legion of Honour for good conduct during the war, and had a reputation for energy and courage. In every office that he had filled in the service of the ParUamentary Republic, as deputy since 1876, member of several committees, Under-Secretary for War in 1883, Minister of Foreign Affairs and President of the Council 1893, three times President of the Chamber, he had been conspicuous for activity, clearness of vision, and authority of language. A man of this sort, in the full maturity of his age and his talents, was bound to carry on, with some additional emphasis, the effort so tactfully yet so resolutely made by his predecessor to restore some real and efficient authority to the Presidency. There was a latent strain of command and of absolutism in his temper which made him perhaps less suitable than Carnot for this delicate task, a natural object of suspicion to the leaders in a ParUamentary Republic. His very name and 318 The Democratic Republic [ch. family iditions, while recommending him to some, could not but disturb others. It is said that he was himself aware of his, and that he only accepted the candidature with regret, after long hesitation. "My place is in the Chamber, not in the Elysee. I am a fighter by nature." But, once elected, he declared most categorically his intention "not to allow the rights conferred on him by the Constitution to be ignored or forgotten." On hearing this message read, the Socialists pretended to look upon it as a declaration of war. They received it as a menace of dictatorship and condemned it as a violation of Parliamentary Government ; in their turn they declared war to the knife against the new President. Casimir Perier had invited the Minister Ch. Dupuy, who had preceded him in 1893 in the Presidency of the Council, to form a Cabinet. It happened that Ch. Dupuy was presiding in the Chamber on the day when the anarchist VaiUant threw a bomb among the deputies, and his coolness on the occasion had been remarked. It was not surprising that, now that he was Minister, and on the morrow of the murder of Carnot, he should ask the country and Parliament for exceptional legislation to prevent a recurrence of these crimes. Hence'the law of July 28 and 29, 1894, which met the anarchist practices by making all provocative matter, newspaper article or speech, of an anarchist character, amenable to the ordinary tribunals. But Casimir Perier had already, as Minister in December 1893, been the author of two laws directed against anarchist conspirators, of which the new legislation was only an extension ; and the opponents of this legislation, which of course acted in restraint of the liberty of the Press and of Association— the Socialists and Radical Socialists— did not hesitate to attribute it also to the President. With greater violence than ever, they denounced his personal government, "capable of such flagitious legislation," and the reaction vi] Perier resigns; Felix Faure President 319 in the Bourgeoisie which he had favoured by ajijunder- standing with the Church party. The Republican Union, which Carnot had beenjunable to keep together, now went finally to pieces, in spite of the appeal addressed to them by Casimir Perier at Chateaudun on September 19, when he implored them "to forget their former struggles and past quarrels." Ministries came and went, each enjoying but a month or two of life, for lack of a majority. The gravest feature was that the President, being looked upon as the leader of one of the contending parties, was losing the authority which belonged to his high office, and was as incapable of representing France as of influencing her government. He must either descend in person into the arena or be powerless; for the first, the Presidency was in no way adapted; the second, Casimir Perier deemed unworthy of his office and of himself. On January 15, 1895, he resigned, disgusted, it is said, with his Ministers, who had failed to give him either support for his defence, or the influence upon foreign affairs or in the Army which his predecessor had wisely been allowed. IV. The Presidency of Felix Faure (1895 — 1899). While the old plague of ministerial crises continued to beset the Parliamentary Republic, the Dupuy Ministry being foUowed on January 26, 1895, by a Ribot Cabinet, and that on November 1 by a Cabinet under Leon Bourgeois, which retired in its turn on April 29, 1896, the instability of the presidential functions was beginning to be marked as an even greater evil. The new President, Felix Faure, was once a merchant at Havre, first known to the Chamber by Gambetta's inclusion of him in his Ministry. Jules Ferry made him Under-Secretary of Marine ; but he had never been Premier, and he owed his election solely to the obscurity of his 320 The Democratic Republic [ch. career. Like his predecessor, he did not reach the end of his term of office, but died on February 16, 1899. The Republic was now (1895) in a state of impotence, owing to the instability above mentioned, and to the divisions among the Moderates, Radicals and Socialists; and during the Presidency of Felix Faure it passed through the most critical experiences of its existence since its foundation. The Leon Bourgeois Ministry had proclaimed itself on November 1, to be a Ministry for the concentra tion (they did not dare say, reconciliation) of Moderate Republicans and the Extreme Left. It carried on a pre carious existence up to the day when it attempted to get the bourgeoisie to swallow the financial proposals of the Radical party; their income tax, welcomed by the Socialists, was abhorred by the Moderates, to whom it suggested confiscation. Just then Meline attempted to form a per manent party to resist the progress of Socialism. Meline was a late convert of the RepubUcans, who on the death of Ferry had taken command of the Conservative Repub licans with the support of the peasantry, whom he had assisted by a protectionist policy favourable to their interests/ ajad of the Catholics, to whom he offered a wide measure of tolerance. At first his attempt seemed likely to succeed, as he maintained himself in power for more than two years (April 1896 to June 1898). The SociaUst Opposition, of which MiUerand and Jaures were the spokes men, lowered their revolutionary demands with a view to, strengthen their friendly relations with the Radicals, who on their side were more and more inclined to allow them, as Pelletan did, to nationalise the three great industries, railways, banks, and mines. It seemed as if a great party in favour of social reforms without revolution was on the point of being formed, on the platform laid down by MiUerand at St Mande on May 30, 1896. Nothing could at first sight be conceived vi] The Meline Ministry 321 more suitable for a democracy embracing so many differing interests and hopes than this arrangement, whereby two opposing parties, one representing action, the other safety, vied with one another peacefully and publicly for the con quest of public opinion and, with that, of power. But, regarded more closely, was it possible that these two parties, each of which was obliged, in order to maintain its equilibrium, to appeal to allies from the extreme wings of the Right or Left and to submit to their conditions — was it possible that either of them could govern a nation through officials of whom some objected on principle to a bourgeois Republic, others to a non-clerical Republic? It was an odd sort of Republicanism that made the Socialists forbid their members all access to the Ministry, in the name of class-warfare ; and equally odd were the democratic principles of Ultramontanes who wanted to ignore existing statutes for the benefit of religious Congregations, recog nising no other kwjthan_the_law ofJRome. Thus Meline's administration, far from establishing order and equilibrium among parties, simply completed the mischief begun by the Dupuy Ministry under the Presidency of Casimir Perier, and opened a Cabinet question which lasted for three years and all but swamped the whole parliamentary regime in miUtary conspiracies, in the impulsive movements of popular masses alive to the danger of the country, in the crazy terrors of a bourgeoisie disturbed in its interests "by the menace of a revolutionary and international Socialism. The great mistake of MeUne, as of Ch. Dupuy before him, was omitting to take into account the effective strength of the allies they had brought in, or — if they did take it into account — of the risks they ran in not opposing them. Of course, the danger was not that, by the side of the universities newly modelled by the law of 1896 and of the elementary schools now liberally provided with teachers and material, a moral movement of Christian renascence, 322 The Democratic Republic [ch. supported by a certain disgust at the aridity of science and a generous yearning towards intelUgent altruism, might arise, and affect even the centres of lay instruction, the Normal School and the Lyceums, through the eloquence of a Vogue or a Brunetiere. The danger was that, by the side of these appeals to Christian tradition and under the shelter of the understanding between republican politicians and devotees of the Church, reUgious Congrega tions were then spreading, and with them a sectarian spirit of intolerance and domination, now that they had nothing to fear from the usual menaces of anti-clericalism. People might prattle about social and reUgious peace; but a violent Ultramontane Press, such as the Libre Parole and the Croix, supported out of the cash-boxes of a bour geoisie educated by Jesuits and Assumptionists, breathed war without mercy against French citizens of Jewish or Protestant faith, hoping by attacking them eventuaUy to reach the democratic laity. The signal had been given by La France Juive, a work by Edward Drumont, out of which French anti-Semitism had sprung fuUy armed; and the influence of that book was very soon increased ten fold by the comments of the Libre Parole, which roused the clergy, and their flocks through them, against Jews and French Freemasons. Brunetiere, in the Revue des Deux Mondes, made similar war upon science, attacked the critical spirit and State neutrality in religion, and, taking advantage of a notorious conversion which had just taken place, demanded that the Democracy, which claimed the right of self-government, should follow that example and submit to the discipUne of the Roman Church. The Ministry, who were drawn from the repubhcan bourgeoisie, were surprised by this exhibition of hatred and religious passion which they had not at first thought worth notice; next they were staggered by its violence; taken between the two fires, of the Anarchists whose vi] The Church and the Army 323 bombs were exploding in their midst, and of the militant Sociahsts, they allowed themselves to be terrorised by the threats of the Ultramontane journals, by the pretended patriots who saw in General Mercier the approach of another Boulanger, and by the cruel sentence passed in December 1894 of degradation and deportation to Guiana on the Alsatian Jew, Captain Alfred Dreyfus, charged upon no evidence at aU with selling his country and the secrets of her defence to Germany (1894). This sentence gave the measure of the progress of anti- jSemitism and more particularly of the enormous influence 'that the Church had gained in the last four years through the 'cultivation of this sentiment in all classes of the nation, and especially in the Army and the General Staff. Further, it represented a revival of Boulangism, which had by no means died out with the flight and death of its hero. The Minister of War, to obtain this verdict, had communi cated to the Court certain secret documents unfavourable to the accused which had been forged in his own office; and thenceforth this complicity of his with such an outrage upon justice had made him the bondslave of the parties and of the Press which had demanded of him this victim. The Chief of his Staff, De Boisdeffre, together with the majority of the commanders of army corps who formed the Supreme Council of War and had the exclusive jurisdiction over promotions, constituted at this period a sort of mUitary parliament, stronger than either the Chambers or the Law. The President of the Republic shut his eyes to them, if he dfd not openly encourage them. All that he cared for in the exalted office to which he had unexpectedly attained was its social advantages. By the Russian Alhance he was put on terms of intimacy with the sovereigns of Europe. He thoroughly enjoyed the popular salutes at reviews and military manoeuvres, and readily abandoned all the real authority he might 324 The Democratic Republic [ch. and ought to have exercised over his Ministers and his military commanders. The nation on its side, encouraged by a false patriotism and a very mischievous sort of military reUgion which was beginning' to be called Nationalism, and wanting to keep out of the army and at the same time out of the city all Jews, Geneva Protestants, Liberals and Socialists, never dreamed that the Jew who had been condemned could be innocent; on the contrary, it felt much indebted to the Staff for having discovered his supposed treason. If all Catholics perhaps were not privy to the criminality practised, the Clericals at any rate let it be known that they were satisfied with the progress of their party; they supported the Meline Ministry, which pushed its fear of Socialism to such a point that it absolutely shut its eyes to this resumption of the offensive by a military and monastic dictatorship. Suddenly the silence so favourable to conspirators was broken by the unexpected news that Captain Dreyfus was innocent ! This was first announced in July 1897 by the Alsatian Senator Scheurer-Kestner ; and it was confirmed at the end of that year, to the great wrath of the Nationalists, by Colonel Picquart, a distinguished officer then working on the General Staff. It was in vain that Meline and his colleagues in the Ministry, wishing to cover General Mercier and fearing the attacks of a Press on the war-path, at first met the entreaties of the family and the arguments of the multitude of advocates from the most widely differing professions, politics, literature and the bar, whom the mis fortunes of the Captain had caUed forth — Joseph Reinach, Clemenceau, Jaures, Zola, Anatole Frarfce, Gabriel Monod, Havet, and Laborie — by insisting on the impossibUity of a rehearing after sentence given. It was in vain that the General Staff tried to show that to charge the Anti- Semites with crime was to attack the honour of the army, vi] The Dreyfus Case; Fall of Meline 325 (and declined to recognise their own officer, Esterhazy, 'as the real author of the secret memorandum upon which Dreyfus had been illegally found guilty. 1 If the mass of the lower class and the majority of the ; bourgeoisie took the same view, it was because they were led astray by the journals subsidised by the Government, land because the champions of the innocent victim were 'represented to them as revolutionists like Jaures, or "naturalists" Uke Zola, whose efforts, however disguised, tended to undermine all the mainstays of society, the law-courts, the army, and last of aU the country. Yet "the truth was on its way," as Zola wrote on January 13, 1898, after he had taken the lead of the "Dreyfusards," who were burning to reverse an unjust verdict and to punish the real culprits. In spite of popular clamour and official falsehood, the truth as to the intrigues hatched between the Clericals and the high military officers began slowly to dawn on the nation, the deputies, the magistracy and the republican bourgeoisie. So early as May 1898 the elections had brought about the fall of the Meline Cabinet. The accession of Henri Brisson, a Radical, an old Republican and a deter mined free-thinker, to the Presidency of the Council brought his party over to the side of revision; for they, like the Socialists, who had broken away from Jaures on the point, had hitherto opposed it. Cavaignac, the Minister of War, though wiUing to back up his Staff, was compelled by inexorable necessity to admit that the evidence of 1894 was a forgery, and that its author was Colonel Henry, an official of the War Office. Henry acknowledged his guilt by committing suicide in prison; De Boisdeffre, the Chief of the Staff, resigned on the foUowing day; and the Minister was finally compeUed, in August 1898, to make the order for revision of the trial, which would have been made a year before but for the passions of a deluded nation, the intrigues 326 The Democratic Republic [ch. of the Clericals, and the machinations of the Staff. Even then another year and more had to pass before the trial was reopened at Rennes, in August 1899, a year during which the Ministers of War, Zurlinden and Chanoine, took up the defence of the Staff against the charge of forgery, kept the most important witness, Colonel Picquart, in prison, and succeeded at first in getting Parliament to overthrow Henri Brisson. After him came a Dupiiy Ministry, which, from November 1, 1898, to June 22, 1899, did all it could to hinder the revision on which the Appeal Court had to pronounce judgment, and that perhaps with the complicity of the President, Felix Faure. The sudden death of this President on February 16, 1899, gave an opportunity of seeing the amount of power that the opponents of revision could still command in the country and in the Press for the defence of the military chiefs. When the Republican Congress put forward a Moderate but decided Republican, Emile Loubet, to suc ceed him, the mob in Versailles and in Paris overwhelmed him with insult and gibe on the day of his election. Deroulede and his friends of the Patriots' League tried to induce Roget, a general officer, to attempt to carry the Elysee by storm. And the Parisians were so obstinately determined to have a soldier for chief that for lack of an insubordinate general they called, on June 1, for Colonel Marchand, the hero of Fashoda. After two years the ff Dreyfus affair was still unsettled. For this period it, and " nothing else, had in a sense formed the whole internal politics of France; it had turned all parties upside down, broken up their organisations, and divided families and disturbed consciences; and, while it provoked hatred almost as violent as that of the days of the Ligue, it also gave birth to a devotedness worthy of serious record. The fact is that, while it seemed to be only a question of judicial mistake, it was in reaUty a contest of extra- Vi] Africa; the Marchand Mission 327 ordinary scope, involving the future of the democracy and its national army, not to say of the nation itself. For these two years the question had been, Was this nation to assert its capabiUty for self-government by the authority of law in accordance with justice, and by reason in accordance with truth, and thus conform itself to the republican ideal; or was it to submit itself once more as in 1851, misled by lies, by its own patriotism, and above aU by the fear of Socialism, to the domination of the great military chiefs, themselves only the instruments of the long-prepared reprisals of the Ultramontane party? Moreover this was not the only danger to which France was exposed during this disturbed Presidency. After having eschewed for so long all exterior activity and colonial expeditions, the democracy had begun graduaUy to interest itself in ventures conducted by African officers, whose initiative and heroism had in the last twenty years won for it empires in Africa and in Asia. The penetration of Algeria as far as the desert with the addition of Tunis, the occupation of the Sudan from the Senegal to the Niger and to the southern rivers, the conquest of Indo-China from the Red River to the Mekong, and finaUy of Mada gascar, formed a colonial domain which had grown from 804,000 to nearly 12 million square kilometres, with a native population of 50 millions. This was the list of achievements which at first had been well-nigh forced upon an unwiUing democracy. Yet in 1895 they were no longer sufficient to satisfy the nation. WhUe England, now permanently at home in Egypt, announced her intention in 1895 of challenging the Mahdi for the Sudan and Upper NUe, France, who had obtained an uninterrupted line of territory from the Ubanghi and the Tchad to the Niger, now proposed to join it by way of the Upper Ubanghi to the Nile. To the huge English Cape-to-Cairo programme which was then being sketched, 328 The Democratic Republic [ch. the pioneers of the French Congo opposed a programme involving the same portion of Africa, but measured from the Senegal to the Nile and Ethiopia, and so to the Red Sea. "The English plan of holding the whole Upper Nile," said a deputy to the French ParUament on February 28, "is, I think, for ever dissipated." He referred thus to the French dream which took shape in the expedition entrusted on June 15, 1896, by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, then directed by M. Hanotaux, to Captain Marchand. For an undertaking of this size a troop of 200 Senegalese, even though led by a man of courage like Marchand with colleagues like Simon and Baratier and subalterns like Mangin and Fargeau, was but a slender provision. After two years of effort, the Marchand mission arrived at Fashoda on July 10, 1898, and occupied it after driving back the Dervishes ; two months later the Sirdar Kitchener arrived, fresh from his victory at Omdurman over the chief of the Mahdists on September 2, and relying on his army of 25,000 men. There the French dream and the English plan faced each other for the two months of September and October. To support their conquest, the Government of Paris invoked the priority of their action in a country that had been taken from the Dervishes; to assert hers, England laid stress on the length of her expedition to the Sudan, and on the rights of the Khedive over a territory that had been tom from his own by rebels ; the strongest argument that Sir Edmund Monson presented to M. Delcasse, the Minister for Foreign Affairs in the Cabinet formed for the revision of the Dreyfus trial on June 28, 1898, was the enormous disparity between the English and French forces in the Sudan. But it did not at once convince the French, who for twenty years had been conquering empires with handfuls of resolute men. To retreat before force, because it was force, seemed to them an insupportable humUiation. vi] Fashoda; bitter Party Strife 329 Delcasse, however, understood that England was not going to give way, and that an unequal war with her would result in the certain loss of the magnificent results of twenty years' effort, with a more than uncertain chance of profit. He had the courage and the sense to make the French nation accept the inevitable surrender. Marchand was obliged to leave Fashoda on December 11 ; and by a con vention dated March 21, 1899, the Bahr-el-Gazal and Darfour were closed to French enterprise and became, like Egypt itself, English territory. For a great nation the rebuff was marked, and the iU-humour it caused lasted tiU 1902. StUl it was better to draw back, than to push obstinately on even to war, with such an inequality between the respective forces. Six years later France was to reap at Algeciras the reward of her retirement from the Nile. ' The patriots who by way of condemning the Ministry acclaimed Marchand on his return, and wanted to re-kindle on his behalf the national hatred against England by evoking the memories of Napoleon, thought otherwise. The fever of their wrath was intensified by the death- struggle in which they were then involved against the champions of Captain Dreyfus' innocence and the judg ment of the High Court which brought him home from his distant prison, against the Ministry selected by the new President from the parliamentary groups favourable to the revision, and lastly against the Socialists, who could claim as a victory the inclusion of MiUerand in this Ministry of republican defence. Never had party struggles been more acrid, never had the divisions among the Republicans been deeper, than at this time when the whole future of France seemed for a moment to be in danger. What with religious and social quarrels, conflicts between the military element and the civil power and between France and England in Egypt, and the constant trouble of the last twenty-five 330 The Democratic Republic [ch. years with Germany on the Vosges frontier, the' Republic and the nation had never found so many rocks in their course, or run so many risks. V. The Presidency of Emile Loubet (1899 — 1906). The office with which the Congress had invested Emile Loubet in February 1899, the highest magistracy in the Republic, had lost much of its dignity and importance since Casimir Perier had pubUcly declared his inability to wield its prerogatives to any purpose, and FeUx Faure had given up its substance for its shadow. The new President did not seem either by character or from his past to be the man to impose his authority at this critical moment upon the parties or upon the nation. He belonged rather to the second than to the fighting hne, being known only_ for practical business capacity on committees and carefuUy cultivated knowledge of parUamentary society; a man of modest and pleasing manner, an enemy to violence and struggle. He possessed one merit, at any rate, and one source of power in belonging to the party of the republican bourgeois who had for years past done so much for the triumph of democracy by the firmness of their convictions and the moderation of their attitude. When he acceded to power as President of the CouncU on March 3, 1892, he thought it advisable to remind the French nation that, in the minds of its founders, the Republic was not a "mere form of government, but a body of dogmas, a complex of principles represented by laws outside discussion, a respect for which must be inculcated, both upon citizens and upon functionaries." It was a good thing that in 1899 the highest office in the State should be filled by a man thoroughly imbued with these views and deeply attached to legahty and the Republic. Just then, however, the chiefs of the democratic party vi] Emile Loubet and Waldeck-Rousseau 331 and their most valued advisers effected a combination with those who, without distinction of party, profession or pursuit, defended the cause of liberty and right in the University world, in Science, and in Literature. These men, derisively dubbed Intellectuals, saw eye to eye with the Democrats in regard to the original and deep-seated causes of the critical situation which endangered the liberty of the individual in so far as it depended on the general liberty — the impotence of ephemeral Ministries leaning on chance majorities and still further weakened by the rivalries of groups and interests ; and the feebleness of parliamentary government in the face of the absolutism of a military oligarchy or a Papal hierarchy. The Republicans saw the necessity of forgetting their quarrels and rivalries and closing up once more into the "Democratic Block" (as Clemenceau called it) of Moderates, Radicals, Radical- Socialists, and even pure Socialists, to form a bodyguard to the Ministry, and enable them to exist and to govern. Thus, under the threat of a common danger, the parties were tardily converted to the advice given by Gambetta , so vigorously and so fruitlessly from 1878 to 1884 ; they | were driven back to the programme laid down by him in 1870 in his speech to the youth of the nation : "If I use all my efforts to bring about the introduction of a Republic, it is because it will be a real government with a full sense of its duty, and a determination to make itself respected. What we want is a government." Nobody therefore was surprised to see that Waldeck- Rousseau, the statesman to whom President Loubet under these conditions entrusted the task of realising this pro gramme by means of the Union of Republicans, was the pupil of Gambetta, whom he had discovered in 1881, who 1 had then worked under him and under Jules Ferry, and after that had retired voluntarily and remained for five years (from 1889 to 1894) out of Parliament, far away from party quarrels. 332 The Democratic Republic [ch. The task was not one which President Loubet proposed to take up on his own account, either delicately, as Sadi Carnot had tried to do it, or boldly like Casimir Perier. The reception that had been given him at his election forbade that ; moreover he felt that it was equally possible and equally necessary to restore the authority of the chief Minister, who in a truly parliamentary regime should have not only the responsibility but the power. He had asked for the assistance of Raymond Poincare and Casimir Perier; but Waldeck-Rousseau alone was ready to fulfil the conditions of the Republican Defence, as it was then called, by forming a Government strong enough to ensure respect, and insisting on an understanding among all Republicans, including even the Socialists. In the Ministry that he constructed in June 1899 were Moderates such as Leygue and Decrais, Radicals like Lanessan, Baudin, Delcasse, and Jean Dupuy, by the side of MUlerand, one of the highest authorities and most trusted advisers of Socialism. When we remember that, so late as 1896, MiUerand was spokesman for the Socialists at St Mande, and that the ablest speakers of the party, Jaures, Viviani, Briand at his back, warmly approved his acceptance of office, and promised Waldeck-Rousseau their cooperation, we shall recognise the importance of the event. It marked the definitive close of the war waged against Collectivism by Moderates like Meline, Dupuy and Barthou, and the return to a sort of concordat between the Collectivists and the Republicans in power, with' a view to ending the struggle. It was so precisely a concordat, that the Socialists who held strongly to the dogma of a war of classes and the religion of combatant revolution — Guesde, his school and friends — were indignant at the concessions made by MiUerand and Jaures to the Parliamentary Republic, and denounced them at the great congress of the party held on December vi] Parliamentary Success of Waldeck-Rousseau 333 3, 1899, which did not venture to decide between the opposing factions. The MiUerand episode, while it denoted the closer connexion between the chiefs of the Labour Democracy and the republican bourgeoisie, became the starting-point of a new schism among the adepts of the Marxist Church. The Revolutionary Labour Party broke away daily further from the Socialist Independent or Reformist Party, and expeUed its leaders Viviani, MiUerand and Briand at the congress held at Lyons in May 1901. In the other wing, the Moderate Republicans and the Progressists who refused to associate themselves with the Democratic Block, or were thought unworthy to do so by reason of their leniency to the malpractices of the great military chiefs, were cast out of the republican party or remained in it only under suspicion. They were charged with having fomented, or at any rate allowed, the growth of those perils which the parliamentary form of government incurred by reason of the divisions among the Republicans. It is clear that the action taken by Waldeck-Rousseau in 1899 prevented the recurrence of those dangerous crises by which in June 1848 and in March 1871 the union of demo cratic forces had been broken up and scattered. A parlia mentary majority of daily increasing numbers formed round the statesman who, with the loyal support of President Loubet, had made the Republicans understand the necessity of a real governing power; for three years it remained faithful to him", and would have followed him even longer, if he had not voluntarily resigned in June 1902, satisfied with his work, and physically broken down by the strain, which he survived but a short time. This was the longest Ministry that France had known since the establishment of the Republic. Waldeck-Rousseau's successor, Combes, remained in power nearly as long, so that two successive Ministries nearly covered the length of Emile Loubet's septennate. Some change had certainly taken place in the 334 The Democratic Republic [ch. spirit of government, in which liberty seemed to have at last been reconciled with strength and stabUity. The close of the long quarrel which had for three years excited the passions of France was due primarily to an act of the Executive in August 1899. Captain Dreyfus having been again found guilty at Rennes, the Ministry requested the President to exercise his prerogative of mercy in favour of the innocent man; possibly they deliberately intended not to prosecute his torturers; at any rate a general amnesty passed on June 13, 1900, secured them finally from punishment. No doubt justice ought not to have been satisfied without exacting more; but what was done was enough to stop the exchange of invective and insult between the friends and foes of the Decree for Revision shortly afterwards pronounced b}' the High Court, and to stay the scandals of the streets till passions had calmed down. When the third Exhibition under the Republic was opened in May 1900 on the banks of the Seine, gay with the standards of foreign nations which had flocked thither in answer to the invitation of France to celebrate the birth of a new century in her capital, the French nation, forgetting its differences, and the Republicans their di visions, were proudly conscious, and desired their guests to recognise, what a combination of industry, ingenuity, enterprise and frugality was represented in her Democracy. They were grateful for this to President Loubet, and proud, in spite of all, that their elected chief should receive the visits and attentions of the first sovereigns of Europe. The mayors of France, assembled together at the invita tion of Waldeck-Rousseau, received the President with a homage so deferential as to make him forget the indignity of his original reception. A cheer was raised for MiUerand, the Minister of Commerce, who presided at the festivals by the side of the two first officers of the Republic, and vi] Exhibition of 1900 ; Industrial Progress 335 thus affirmed his care for the economic prosperity of the country, proving it by his industry, his firm handhng and his quickness of comprehension. It was on occasions of this sort, when the bed-rock of France, the resources of its soil and of its industry, as well as those of its dominions over-sea, stood revealed to the eyes of foreigners, that the nation became conscious of the future it had prepared for itself. From these results it anived at the conclusion, which it would have others also see, that the political and even the religious disturbances of the country were, after all, but squalls which, like the changes of regime so frequent since 1815, only ruffled its surface. All the springs of prosperity which had been tapped in other social strata had been maintained, and their flow increased, by the genius of the nation (especially since it had undertaken its own government), and now converged into the same common reservoir from which the Democracy drew its increase of well-being and strength. The close of this century gave official recognition to the permanent advance made in French agriculture. The total annual production, which in 1850 was valued at six milliards of francs only, had nearly doubled in 50 years, reaching eleven milliards (440 fnillions sterling) in 1900. And the local value of land and real property had risen with the growth of the profit earned .by cultivation. It was incontestably the effect of a complete revolution in the technical work of agriculture at the expense of the old routine — the extension of the return-bearing area, the use of artificial manures, the more profitable handling of cattle, the employment of farming-machinery. The French "peasant, protected, guided, and instructed, was enlarging his means and adding to his comfort, while the factory artisan was able to obtain, by the progress of the important French industries so brilliantly illustrated in the Exhibition, higher salaries, fewer working hours, and easier conditions 336 The Democratic Republic [ch. of existence. Between 1889 and 1901 the consolidation of isolated factories into great industries was a feature of the trades in sugar, metallurgy, chemical products and electrical work, to an extent of more than 20 per cent, of their volume, thus increasing sometimes threefold, or even sixfold, the productive power of the working nation. Lastly, if the merchant marine of France found it difficult, for lack of heavy cargoes requiring sea transport, to compete with the vastly increased shipping of Germany, she still kept her place in front commercially, the sum total of her business being nearly eight milliards of francs. She was now preparing for a new development which became more marked in following years, in looking for solid support to her colonial markets which were daily increasing in value, and which soon gave her nearly two mUliards of business. Barrett-Wendell, an American who visited France at the beginning of the twentieth century, writes: "This country is prosperous above all countries. Nowhere will you receive a more decided impression of solid substantial well-being. Assuredly no government could by itself create the prosperity that strikes all travellers in France, if the people living under the shadow of that government were not robust, intelligent and economical. But no energy, no intelligence in a nation could give their due return, if the power above were not what its health required. The general state of contemporary France shews that Frenchmen under forty consider the government to be not only solid but efficient, and an important factor in the well-being of the public." This stability in the Government, which struck a stranger watching its effect on the prosperity of the nation, was the work of a Ministry which had at last looked for support to the union of the republican groups, and knew how to construct a solid majority out of them. Thanks Vi] Ecclesiastical Legislation 337 to that, the Waldeck-Rousseau Ministry was able to carry out some very necessary tasks which demanded time. Ever since its foundation— indeed it may be said, in order to secure its foundation — the Republic had beeri engaged in a struggle with the religious forces that received their direction from Rome. Her difficulty had always been to defend herself without attacking or wounding the con victions of the masses or of the bourgeoisie who were , attached to the Pope and to their creed. When he had \ settled the Dreyfus affair, Waldeck-Rousseau undertook, after May 16, with the help of Jules Ferry, to put this difficult matter in order. It was in the Congregations, in the "Monks of the League," as he caUed them, that he expected, as had Ferry, to find the road to success ; but his method and design turned out to be very different from Ferry's, in that he had it very sincerely at heart not to injure either the Church or France or Liberty. The Bill presented to Parliament in November 1899 was riot a special or exceptional enactment; and the Congre gations with whose future and whose statutes Waldeck- Rousseau proposed to deal were not even mentioned therein. He had simply observed that in the French Democracy no associations other than financial or benefit societies pos sessed any rights recognised by the State, and all, whether civil or religious, existed solely on sufferance; and he offered the nation the only franchise it still lacked, the right of Association, on the condition that they" formed no more secret societies outside the laws, and that in the case of an Association formed partly of natives and partly of foreigners Uving in community under foreign direction, the State should retain the exclusive right of deciding whether to recognise it or not. The legislation thus undertaken was so large and of so wide a scope as to provoke a long struggle; and it was only passed by the Chamber after many discussions 338 The Democratic Republic [ch. and amendments. On July 1, 1901, it became law. Parlia ment had insisted on the insertion of a special section (§ Ui) on religious Congregations, and a clause (14), repeat ing clause 7 of Jules Ferry's Act, prohibiting unrecognised Congregations from giving instruction. It had expressly reserved the right to act by statute, and not by Order in Council, against those Societies in connexion with which the liberalism of the Minister seemed open to suspicion. But for Waldeck-Rousseau the Bill that he had presented and carried through was to be an "Act of Pacification." He could congratulate himself on the results which the confidence of Parliament had enabled him to realise. In 1900 he had succeeded in getting through a law on the colonial army which had been waiting for fifteen years. He had undertaken, with the assistance of M. de Lanessan, an active and vigorous colleague, the task of restoring the naval strength of the nation ; and he discharged it'with such success that the plan of naval defence laid down by him in 1899 has resisted all the efforts of his antagonists. With Delcasse, another of his colleagues, and also an intimate friend of President Loubet, he began negotiations which resulted in securing for the French a striking satisfaction for their rebuff in the valley of the Nile. "In the west of Algeria," he said in 1900, "we have made good certain uncontested rights which had hitherto only existed as geographical expressions." In fact, it was at that date that France undertook the penetration of Morocco which was carried on for ten years by the valour of the army of Algeria, the unwearied diplomacy of Delcasse at Fez, Rome, London, and Madrid, and lastly the labours of Rouvier at Algeciras. The only boundary between the Shereefian empire and Algeria was the artificial frontier on the Moulouya created by the treaty of 1845. This had now become useless for the purpose as between France and the Sultan vi] France and Morocco 339 AbdiU Aziz, a sovereign incapable of securing the obedience of the tribes and feudatories of his empire, from the day when France, developing her power in the south of the province of Oran, pushed her frontier up to the borders of the Moorish Sahara. After the extension of the railway to Ain Sefra, an Algerian column captured the oasis of Igli in 1900, next that of Timimoum in the Gourara, and finaUy occupied Insalah in the Touat in 1901. The military road constructed for the purpose of these expeditions constituted a menace to the Moroccans of Figuig, and on the other hand was exposed to their attacks; and the moment appeared to have come when, for the consolida tion of her frontiers, France should arrange with the Sultan of Fez, whom her advance might intimidate into acquiescence, to assist him in extending his territories towards the south and east by her side, and thus bring him gradually under her influence. This was the object of the treaty made on July 20, 1901, between the Governor Revoil and Abdul Aziz, which was completed by the agree ments of AprU 20 and May 7, 1902. The task of organising the fruits of this peaceful conquest was finally carried out by General Lyautey from Ain Sefra in 1903. From that morrter!^ftieMinistry, and especially Delcasse, became aware of certain possibilities almost providentially designed to compensate the rebuff in Egyptian Sudan, if only Europe could be induced to let them be realised. They undertook the attempt. Ever since 1898 Italy, without breaking from the Triple Alliance, had been improving her relations with France, reassured by her neighbour's resistance to Ultramontane demands, and attracted by the financial cooperation that she might obtain out of French savings for her public finance and her industrial enterprises'. In April 190 1 the Duke of Genoa visited Toulon with the Italian fleet to greet President Loubet. The cordiality of the Itahans corresponded to 340 The Democratic Republic [ch. the wishes of the President and his Ministers, who willingly agreed to guarantee Italy a free hand in Tripoli, on the condition that she did not hinder the action of France in Morocco (1901). Not long afterwards they lent a favourable ear to the proposals of SUvela, Prime Minister of Spain, who talked openly in 1901 of an understanding with France on the subject of Morocco, and began some conver sations thereon; these, however, hung fire owing to the difficulties , of Castilian pride, in spite of the good-will of the King, Alfonso XIII, and President Loubet. Meanwhile the strength and intimacy of the Franco- Russian Alliance were being asserted more every day, in the two visits of M. Delcasse to Petrograd in 1899 and 1901, and in the visit of the Tsar and Tsarina to Compiegne in 1901; and thus the fulcrum on which France had trusted for the last ten years for the support of her colonising efforts appeared to be more solid than ever. It was not yet known that Russia, on her side, trusting to her aUiance with France, had been seduced by some adventurous financiers into involving herself in schemes connected with Korea which brought her to the disasters of Liaoyang and Mukden in 1904-5. A policy followed up with the fixity of purpose warranted by the exceptionaUy long life of this Ministry inspired foreigners with a confidence in the Democracy of France which shortly afterwards cul minated in the Anglo-French reconciliation, and gave the French nation good reason for hope and legitimate pride. The position which the Republic held in the world in 1902, under the Presidency of Emile Loubet and the direction of Waldeck-Rousseau and Delcasse, might easily be appre ciated by comparison with that of France after 1870, desolate among the nations, shorn of two provinces, and suffering in Algiers, then her only colony, from a serious revolt of the natives. The Union now re-established among the Republican Vi] Delcasse and MiUerand 341 groups had enabled them, under a Government with a capacity for existence, to demonstrate to the world the results of the labours of the nation. The Socialist party had gained more by associating themselves with parlia mentary government than by adhering to the policy of class-opposition. As Minister of Commerce, MiUerand had started in his department an Office of Labour, also an Office of Provident Effort and Social Assistance, managed by partly elective Boards, on which the repre sentatives of the working-men had seats. One of the first benefits thereby obtained was that in March 1900 the working day was fixed at 10 hours, in 1902 at 9J hours, and in 1904 again at 10 hours. An order of January 2, 1901, set up Labour Councils for the pacific solution of differences between employers and employed. Another law of December 29, 1900, regulated the hygienic conditions in workshops; shortly afterwards a general law on Public Health was passed on February 15, 1902, to submit work men's dwellings to strict inspection ; and the State offered large grants to encourage the formation of societies to provide cheap housing for the working class. During the three years that MiUerand was in power the attention of the Cabinet, a body of which he was the first Socialist member, was never diverted for an instant from social questions. When he left the Ministry of Commerce in 1902, he had just concluded the investigation of a still more radical reform, for the realisation of which he never ceased afterwards to work — the organisation of Labour pensions. At the same time the republican party and the Parlia mentary Republic, now that they had returned to what had always been their real programme and object, seemed to have received much additional strength by the accession of Socialists to power ; and they actually selected from that body those future leaders whose authority and talent aided and guided the progress and fortune of France through 342- The Democratic Republic [ch. the most alarming difficulties, internal and foreign. Such were MiUerand, Briand, Viviani, and others, men of ability both as statesmen and administrators. But no sooner had the majority which Waldeck-Rousseau , had reconstructed and which had supported him for three years been relieved of the weight of his authority by his voluntary resignation than it plunged into courses incon sistent with the proper exercise of ministerial power and the regular action of a true executive. Senator Combes, whom President Loubet had called to the Presidency of the Council on the advice of Waldeck-Rousseau, wishing to secure a firm seat in his saddle, soon acquiesced in the formation of a sort of Parliamentary Committee entitled Delegates of the Left, nominally to advise the Cabinet, practicaUy to direct its action. Why have a Ministry at all, if there is a Committee of Public Safety whose resolutions are equivalent to orders ? This encroachment of the legislature on the executive was bound to extend as time went on. Officials of all sorts, prefects, sub-prefects, teachers and treasury officials, had to behave so a§ to please the deputies ; and their zeal was pro portioned to the rank and party influence of the traffickers. Between the representatives of constituencies and the Ministry charged with the general and local administration of the country a sort of exchange of services went on, and this at the expense of the administration; the deputies secured their seats, Combes and bis colleagues their credit as Ministers. In this exchange, so contrary to the true spirit of parliamentary government, the Ministers generaUy got the worst of the bargain, and France was the victim. For in a traffic of influences the provincial "bosses," the men who arranged elections, dictated to prefects and deputies alike, disposed of the Press and nominated the committees, were bound to have the last word. Their power had begun to make itself felt in the elections of 1892, vi] Growth of Provincial Influence 343 which the Radical supporters of a complete breach between State and Church won with the help of the Socialists. With the acquiescence of the Ministry they proceeded to settle down into their respective constituencies as if they were -their own private fortresses. Another change which then took place in the political habits of France was no less important in its effects on the daily increasing weakness of Ministries. Paris, the capital whose hegemony over the provinces had been supported for a century past by administrative centralisation and by the favour, of the Press, seemed after 1900 to be losing the political privUege it had enjoyed and so often abused. The provinces, now better informed owing to the increasing rapidity of communications and the improvements in telegraph and telephone, had grasped the political con ditions upon which depended the satisfaction of their own particular interests, and no longer looked for instructions to the capital ; indeed they often gave instructions on their own account through their deputies, who commanded the officials. Great provincial dailies were able to publish the telegraphic news before the Paris journals could reach their readers; and thus the Petit Marseillais, the Depeche de Toulouse, the Lyon Republicain, the Pr ogres de Lyon closed whole districts to the influence of Paris. The rural democracy, with a horizon often limited to the parish, with deputies and mayors obedient to the orders of the local committees established round the journal of the district, particularly in the south of France, was now beginning to substitute its will for that of the capital, to claim to rule, almost to tyrannise, with a tyranny no less mischievous than the dictatorship once wielded by the impulsive Parisians. The main achievement of this Government was the breach with Rome, one of the most considerable events in the history of the nation since the Revolution. Yet 344 The Democratic Republic [ch. no official wanted it — neither Waldeck-Rousseau, nor his colleagues, nor even his successor, Combes, who carried it out, nor President Loubet. AU of them, with the majority of republican politicians, looked upon the Concordat, by which the Catholic priesthood had become a body of State- paid French officials, as a force and at the same time an instrument for ensuring internal peace in the hands of a republican government. But the delegates of the Left and the Chamber were not slow in asserting the contrary. On May 20, 1903, the principle of separation only lacked fifteen votes of a majority in the Chamber. A month later, a committee was appointed favouring that principle. Combes had vainly attempted to please and satisfy the majority which was gradually assuming the functions of government, by making fiercer war upon the religious Congregations than Waldeck-Rousseau ever desired. In accordance with the law of July 1, 1901, on June 27, 1902, he closed all institutions opened without licence since the passing of the law. A month later he closed all those, some 3000 in number, that ought to have petitioned for licences but had not done so. But, where a Congre gation had applied for a licence, the Law of Associations required that no further steps should be taken until the application had been examined ; each case should then have been dealt with separately by special resolution, and deter mined after discussion. The majority of the Chamber were annoyed by the reprieve which the discussion of petitions (fifty-three from male Congregations alone) would involve for the religious Orders thus menaced, and insisted on the Ministry allowing, contrary to the law, only one discussion and one summary rejection (March 12-28, 1903). Combes gave way, and dispersed the religious Orders thereby con demned. In the same way he dispersed eighty-one female teaching Congregations in June. Waldeck-Rousseau's law of "pacification" had become a law of proscription, wluch vi] Combes and the Breach with Rome 345 infuriated the Catholics and the Holy See, without at the same time satisfying their opponents. While the entire Church part}' took sides with the dissolved Congregations, the majority refused on April n, 1903, to vote Supply under the head of "Cults," by way of forcing Combes to put pressure on bishops and priests guilty of receiving religious persons into their sees and parishes. Free fights took place round the pulpits and processions, in the churches both of Paris and of the provinces. On the death of Leo XITI the stream of events ran faster, whether through the intrigues of the ejected Con gregations who wished his successor Pius X to follow the advice of Merry del Vai (his Spanish secretary) and the French clergy, and to make a breach with France to the possible profit of their cause, or perhaps through the growing influence of the Socialists and their leader Jaures over the parliamentary majority. The actual crisis 6ccurred through the visit paid by President Loubet in Rome from April 24-29, 1904, to the King of Italy. Pius X intimated that, if the President went to the Quirinal, he would not be received at the Vatican; and on the President neverthe less visiting Rome, the Pope declared, on April 28, that he took it as a serious insult. The French Government did its best to hush up this protest, though the Republicans in their turn might well have taken it as an insult to themselves ; but the Pope went out of his way to challenge them, by bringing it officially under the cognisance of foreign countries, whence it naturaUy reached France, on May 17, 1904. There upon Jaures, the most brilliant speaker of the Socialist party, amid the applause of the Left, demanded that it should be forthwith met by the recall of the French ambassador to the Holy See ; and on May 21 Nisard left Rome. From that day forth the separation of Church and State was inevitable, though Combes would have liked to defer it. The Holy See was determined to avenge the dissolution 346 The Democratic Republic [ch. and expulsion of the Congregations, while the Parliament was now equally decided to smite the Church if necessary, as it had smitten the monastic Orders. And yet it was not Combes who was destined to carry it out. At the moment when he brought in his Bill — which was compared by a Protestant to the revocation of the Edict of Nantes — he was overthrown owing to a change of opinion in the country caused by his subservience to the orders of the Radicals. It had come out that Andre, the Minister of War, by way of assuring himself of the loyalty of his officers, had established under the roof of the Grand Orient of France a spy-system whereby Masonic Lodges furnished Radical associations with confidential reports and lists of suspected persons. Now the Combes Ministry had to admit that they had carried out the same system through the prefects in the departments and communes, in the belief that it would be agreeable to the majority. The Government certainly seemed to have fallen very low if it was now nothing more than a detective agency for the benefit — sometimes perhaps to the detriment — of deputies of the majority. "Jesuitism inside-out!" Clemenceau called it ; while on January 9, 1905, MiUerand, Deschanel, Doumer, men in short of every shade, ener getically expressed their indignation in the Chamber. The striking feature in it was its surrender of the duty of government, though Combes in announcing his resignation on January 19, 1905, was bold enough to elevate this view into a sort of constitutional theory. This surrender had been a matter of daily observation, during the time that he held power. In order to keep for the Radical majority the support of the Socialists, whose influence was increasing even in rural districts through the skill of Jaures, Combes had little by little aUowed the officials to form syndicates, or unions, in opposition to their administrative chiefs, and also aUowed the Trades Unions to combine into associations of a revolutionary character, vi] Agreements with England and Spain 347 which confronted an administration Ul-served by its officers with a body of strictly disciplined members. He had even consented, in order. to please the Extreme Left, who were themselves under the thumb of revolutionary, anarchist, and anti-military parties, to reduce the strength of the forces required for public defence. In the Ministry of Marine, Pelletan had done all in his power to get rid of the naval programme of the preceding Ministry ; in the teeth of the opinions of the admirals, he favoured socialist doctrines in the fleet and in the arsenals. In the Ministry of War, General Andre proposed to reduce the military service to a period of two years (March 17, 1905), and to economise on armaments and the cost of maintenance of men and material. "In this country," said Briand, a former Socialist Minister, not long afterwards, "anarchy, trouble and confusion reign." After the close of the successful experiment carried on for three years by Waldeck-Rousseau in restoring the authority requisite to a parliamentary democracy, the existence and prestige of the Government had become more precarious than ever. Its feebleness was such that in April 1906, under the Rouvier Ministry, France had to put up with a humiliation the like of which she had not suffered since 1871. Indifferent to the tricks by which Combes prolonged the life' of his Ministry, and to religious questions which had no relation to his designs, Delcasse continued secretly, in cooperation with President Loubet, his diplomatic labours with the object of acquiring Morocco for France. He had been able to carry out the essential part of the work on April 8, 1904, by the Anglo-French Agreement, supplemented on October 6 by a Franco-Spanish treaty, as required by clause 8 of the Agreement. The circumstances were these : France coidd not obtain liberty of action in Morocco without the consent of England ; and the price of that consent was the absolute cessation of all the quarrels which had divided 348 The Democratic Republic [ch., the two nations in Egypt. Delcasse did not hesitate. His difficulty was to get the French people to acquiesce in a reconciliation, with the memories of Fashoda and of the Boer war still in their minds. The King of England, Edward VII, took that business on himself, with a tact and intelligence which won him, during his short visit in 1903, the good-will of Paris and of the French nation. The President, on returning his visit two months later in London, brought him the sincere and deliberate expression of that feeling. England, henceforth the friend of France, recognised that "France was concerned, as next neighbour to Morocco along a great extent of frontier, in its tranquUlity, and entitled to assist it in all needed reforms, administrative, economic, or financial." With that decisive declaration, which was the crown of four years' good work, Delcasse thought he saw his way for a French penetration into Morocco. He made a mistake, however, in not troubling himself about one reservation with which England had qualified her consent, in the shape of an obligation on the French not to take any action on the Moorish coast round Tangier from the mouth of the Moulouya on the Riff to Larache on the Atlantic. The secret clauses of the Franco-Spanish treaty took note of this same obligation in October 1904 and September 1905, putting it into the shape of an Act of Partition. The French Minister made light of the burden it imposed, adopting for his own use a phrase famous in German diplomacy, " If Spain did not exist, we should have been obliged to invent her." He was very near con gratulating himself on having by his promises to Spain turned the difficulty upon which the Anglo-French Agree ment might have been wrecked, in connexion with the Strait of Gibraltar, which England could not give up to France. It was through Germany indeed that Delcasse came to vi] Germany and Morocco 349 see his mistake. Germany had made great changes in her poUcy since the time when Bismarck, in his indifference and even hostility to any colonial expansion of the new Empire, urged the French to go to Tunis and even to Morocco, in order to keep them off the Rhine. The vigorous economic progress of the Empire, whose commerce had tripled between 1875 and 1905, and whose merchant fleet had out-grown that of France, the creation of a navy which had increased nearly tenfold in the ten years from 1898, and for which they were personaUy indebted to the Emperor William II, the pride of a nation enriched by its own activity, and of a sovereign who yearned to emulate his ancestors, had given birth in the new reign to the idea of a "greater Germany," greater than that of Bismarck and William I. Every German, whether sovereign, minister, politician or merchant, now began to regret that the moment had been aUowed to pass, at which France, England, and some kinglet or other, it might be of Belgium or of Italy, had portioned out to one another the new worlds in Asia and Africa. They hastened to seize upon every spot that seemed to- be still vacant — Samoa, Kiaochou, East and South-West Africa, the Caroline Islands, the Cameroons — not without regretting that they had been such late-comers at the distribution. This being the state of mind in Germany, Morocco was bound to be the object of much covetous feeling there. Count von Biilow, the German Chancellor, knew it, though he hesitated to draw the sword to satisfy it, as he told the Reichstag on AprU 14, 1904 ; but he was determined that, if Morocco were partitioned, the Empire should have its share. As soon as he learnt at Madrid (not of course from the French chancery, which had kept them dark) the secret clauses of the Franco-Spanish Agreement, the terms of which were strikingly like those of a partition treaty, he prepared to dispute them. 350 The Democratic Republic [ch. During the year 1904, Russia had suffered a series of defeats which, followed by the great reverse at Mukden (March 4-9, 1905), reduced her to impotence. On March 31, 1905, the Emperor William II visited Tangier to assert before all Europe "that the interests of Germany in Morocco demanded the maintenance of an absolutely free Sultanate at Fez, unfettered by monopoly, undiminished by annexa tion." He gave France curtly to understand that the fact that Germany objected to a policy sufficed to make it incumbent on that policy to give way. This deliberate challenge was barely veiled by the demand for an inter national Conference, the sole object of which was to deprive France of the privileged situation in Morocco which her Algerian Empire and the consent of Europe seemed to entitle her. Delcasse, in April 1905, was inclined to take up the challenge by categorically declining the Conference, what ever happened ; but the Rouvier Ministry, which was now in power, refused to run this risk. It decided against Delcasse and accepted his resignation, and it admitted the views of Germany, whom it hoped to placate by two agreements made between Paris and Berlin on July 8 and September 10, 1905, for the assembly of a Conference. Possibly Rouvier was right in yielding, seeing that Russia, after her defeat by Japan, was powerless to defend France, and that the French army had been weakened by the recent reduction in the period of compulsory service. But it was a serious matter that France should have been obliged, under German threats, and in spite of her aUiances and friendships, to dismiss a Minister by order of a foreigner and abandon her historical rights and interests in North Africa. The humiliation of Fashoda had been less severe and less irreparable. And it was precisely at the moment when the reparation for that rebuff seemed close at hand that the French nation was called upon to bow before the vi] Fall of Delcasse ; Conference of Algeciras 351 veto of a Power that already claimed "by the concentration of its strength " to rule the world. When, amid these circumstances, the Presidency of EmUe Loubet came to a close in February 1906, the future of French democracy seemed once more to be threatened. The breach between the French State and the Roman Church, and the expulsion of the Congregations which had hastened that event, seemed to point to a revival of the religious quarrels, the asperity of which the policy of Leo XIII and the "new temper" of the moderate Re publicans had diminished. The demands of the Socialists, encouraged by the good-natured leniency of the Radicals and the energy, talent and authority of their leaders, ¦ Jaures, Sembat, and Guesde, became every day more peremptory and violent; and, since the agreement under which MiUerand and Briand had attained to power under the direction of the General Confederation of Labour, they had resumed a revolutionary tone which might well have provoked the bourgeoisie to resistance. The weakness of Ministries, the subserviency of officials to members of ParUament, and of members in their turn to the leading electors in their constituencies, exposed the Republic to the risk of being either governed by private interests or not governed at all. In short, this neglect of the general interests of the nation for those of party seriously compromised the efforts it had been making for the last thirty years to assert against every foreign foe the independence, the dignity, and the security of its action, and thus by the restoration of its military power and by its alliances to win an honourable and profitable peace, the respect of Europe, and the right to carry on its civilising labours outside Europe conformably to its needs and its destiny. But we are bound to remember the number and magnitude of the tasks laid upon the French democrac}' since the day when the fall of the Empire 352 The Democratic Republic [ch. and the invasion had called' upon it to become once more conscious of its own existence, and to order its own future both internally and externally. Against its short-comings and its mistakes account may be taken of its capacities, which had enabled it, in spite of these and similar disturbances, to carry on its existence, and earn the sympathy and esteem of Europe. The past history of the Third Republic was the soundest guarantee for its future. VI. The Presidency of Armand Failures (1906 — 1913). The moment had now come for Parliament to choose a successor to President Loubet, at the close of his term of office, in circumstances of serious difficulty to the Republic both at home and abroad. The European Conference to which Germany had agreed to submit its differences with France in the matter of Morocco had met at Algeciras on Jan. 16, 1906; and, although a protocol executed in Paris on Sept. 28, 1905, between the Republic and Germany, had provided by anticipation for the conditions and limits of the inter national decision which was to end the dispute, the demands of German diplomacy still threatened to revive it. On the other side of the Rhine the Press was still in arms; and on Nov! 28 language had been used by the Chan cellor in the Reichstag and also by the Emperor which boded ill for peace. Moreover, in the first sittings of the Conference .between February 10 and 19, 1906, it certainly looked as if Germany were determined, in the matter of the Morocco police, to require France to sacrifice her clearest rights and her most essential interests, or risk a rupture and a declaration of war. At home the situation was equally strained. True, the Statute of Dec. 1905, ordaining a peaceful separation of Church and State, had been passed by a very large majority vi] Armand Fallieres President 353 after three years' vigorous dispute ; but Pope Pius X by his Encyclical Vehementer of Feb. 11, 1906, had forbidden the Clergy and the Catholics of France to accept the law ; and by calling upon the bishops to resist it, he appeared to favour, indeed to be preparing for, a religious war with the French Republic. In choosing a new President, the representatives of the nation were more troubled by their difference with the Pope than by the question of Morocco. They declined to support the candidature of Paul Doumer, who, after obtain ing the Governorship of Indo-China by favour of the moderate Meline party, had by the same influence ousted from the presidential chair of the Chamber of Deputies Henri Brisson, the "father" of the party opposed to all compromise with the Church. Their choice fell, after a pretty lively contest, on Armand Fallieres, the President of the Senate, although that old Republican was neither violent nor radical. Between 1880 and ,1892 he had been a member of several Cabinets, with sturdy yet moderate Republicans such as Jules Ferry, Duclerc, Freycinet, Rouvier and Tirard, for coUeagues, never failing to exhibit moderation, courtesy and tact. None the less vigilantly did he protect the rights of the State ; and in 1891, even in the days of Leo XIII, he had not hesitated to require from the French Clergy a respect for the laws of France, and to control them, though without unnecessary provocation. His supporters did not trouble to ask bim about his religious policy ; they proposed to reserve this question for the party which had a majority in the two Chambers, and to settle it by dealing with this majority themselves. What they expected him to provide was a Cabinet which would govern the country according to their ideas and take up the challenges of the Papal party. As to foreign policy, all they cared about was the maintenance of the peace which the country longed b. 11. 23 354 The Democratic Republic [ch. for, now that its courage had been restored by the armaments that had been coUected in feverish haste since Oct. 1905, and by the liberty of action which Russia had recovered by the recent Treaty of Portsmouth (Sept. 5, 1905). The President understood it so well that on March 14, 1906, he summoned to the Foreign Office Leon Bourgeois, the man whose name, closely associated with the Hague Conference, stood in the eyes of Europe for a France resolved on peace, the suppleness of whose inteUect, combined with a keen sense of the dignity of his country, promised a harvest of peace with honour at Algeciras. Twelve days later, Europe and the United States had satisfied themselves as to the rights and the pacific intentions of France, and on March 25 they compelled the Emperor William II to give way. While, by the final Act of Algeciras, dated April 7, 1906, which was the outcome of these pacific negotiations, France consented to meet the Emperor's wishes by recog nising the integrity of the Shereefian dominions and the economic independence of Morocco, she obtained on her side a formal mandate from Europe for the organisation of the Shereefian police in concert with Spain, the creation of a Bank of Morocco, the capital of which was to be sub scribed in equal shares by the Signatory Powers, and the exclusive right to settle by direct and final dealing with the Sultan as to the arrangements on his Algerian frontier. Without provoking war with Germany by making Morocco a Protectorate analogous to that of Tunis, France might now prepare for the extension of her influence with the approval of Europe. The reward was weU worth the trouble, great as that was bound to be in view of the anarchy in Morocco — anarchy which was beyond correction by a mere diplomatic instrument and would doubtless be increased by the intrigues and jealousy of the outwitted Germans. There were at Algeciras, it is true, "neither victors nor vanquished" ; but, as a matter of fact, German vi] Act of Algeciras. Clerical Opposition 355 diplomacy and German pride had both received a sharp check through the medium of the Powers which William II had expected to detach from the Republic or to enlist against her. Even Austria, his most faithful aUy, had not always foUowed his lead at Algeciras! For an ambitious sovereign who shared with his people the dream of forcing upon the world the hegemony of his Empire by fair means or foul, this disappointment was nothing less than a defeat, and foreboded a yearning for a return blow. The majority which dominated the French Parliament and enforced its ideas on the Ministry and on the people was not speciaUy stirred thereby. Though they dis approved of the opposition of the Socialists led by Jaures to the action of France in Morocco, they were in no haste to obtain the ratification of the Treaty of Algeciras by the Powers. It was not indeed till the end of 1906 that it was ratified by Parliament, .in whose eyes the essential matter was not so much national progress in Morocco, as the pacific and honourable issue of a threatened quarrel with Germany. Indeed, Parliament seemed to have at once ceased to trouble itself as to a possible recurrence of the quarrel ; they were preparing to put in execution the Military Law of 1905 for reducing service under the colours from three to two years, which, in spite of the inclusion of some classes of citizens previously exempted, had diminished the force at the immediate disposal of the nation either for offence or defence; and in like manner they proposed to diminish its sea-power. Their main watchfulness was directed" to the resistance of the Holy See ; and the tactics by which they thought to overcome it entirely monopolised their attention. President Fallieres had called to the Presidency of the Council a Minister prepared to carry out these views of the majority, M. Sarrien, an old radical Republican, and had retained in the office of Minister of Religion M. Briand, the author of the Statute of Separation. 23 — 2 356 The Democratic Republic [ch. In accordance with that Statute, the Government began in Jan. 1906 to draw up inventories of the Church property which was to pass into the hands and management of the denominational associations, for the benefit of the denomi nations which were thenceforth deprived of State support. The Clergy and the Catholics, irritated or egged on to resistance by the Roman Curia, seized this, their first opportunity of rioting, and obstinately closed their churches to the agents of the State. In Paris, in Brittany and in the Nord blows were exchanged, and lives were lost; a civil war seemed imminent. Certain Catholics of mark, such as Brunetiere, Picot,, Thureau-Dangin and Denys Cochin, desiring to avoid the danger, and sundry eminent arch bishops assembled in Council, implored the Pope to put some limit to the resistance ; Rome, deaf to their appeal, took advice from the uncompromising chieftains of the Action Liberate, who reckoned upon this civil war to affect the coming elections, fixed for May 1906. With the head of this body, the deputy Piou, Mgr Montagnini, a Roman prelate, confidential agent in Paris for the Papal Court, carried on an intrigue, procuring financial help for the Catholic Press, enlisting the women of France to fight for the "Good Cause/' and supporting Opposition candidates. The methods adopted were not the less vigorous for being carried on with discretion, and in such a fashion as not to compromise the Papacy; but they failed in their object. The supporters of the Statute of Separation obtained a large majority, while its opponents lost nearly sixty seats, in spite of the support of Rome (May 6 and 20, 1906). Nevertheless the Government was not, at the date of this election, in a very comfortable position. A serious accident at the mines of Courrieres had on March 15 occasioned among the miners of the Pas de Calais a strike which lasted nearly a month and caused some bloodshed. The leaders vi] Defeat of the Catholics; Policy of Briand 357 of revolutionary Socialism at the head of the Confederation Generate du Travail had attempted to start a riot in Paris ; and Jaures, the most capable of their orators, was preparing to heckle Clemenceau, Minister of the Interior, on the subject. But the splits in what was known as "the Republican Block " in no way shook the authority of that party in the country. Similarly the obstinacy of Pius X was in no way shaken by the defeat of the Catholics, which ought to have been a warning. In spite of the entreaties of the French prelates and of the Catholic Academicians (the "green Cardinals"), he put forth on August 10 a new Encyclical, entitled Gravissimo Officii, whereby the faithful in France were again enjoined not to obey the Statute of Separation, or become members of denominational associations: As he seemed determined that the religious war should con tinue, M. Sarrien, the Premier, pointed in support of the law to the confirmation it had received in the late appeal to the . constituencies. And, although he transferred the Presidency of the Council on Oct. 20 for reasons of health to his colleague Clemenceau, the change was merely personal, and did not indicate any modification in the views of the majority. All that could be discerned as to the intentions of M. Briand, the Minister who was still charged with the arrange ment of the new relations between Church and State, was a keen desire to carry it out pacificaUy. He said, " Applying a law with firmness does not mean applying it with violence . ' ' And he proved his point by leaving the Clergy who, under orders from Rome, refused obedience to the law, in possession of their churches (Dec. 1, 1906). It was necessary, however, to do something with the Church property which could not be assigned to a denominational association owing to the Pope's veto ; Briand therefore carried two further laws (Jan. 2, 1907, and Aug. 13, 1908) permitting the Clergy, even after 358 The Democratic Republic [ch. their refusal to form denominational associations as pre scribed by law, to retain the use and care of the religious buildings, the legal estate in which had passed to the com munes or to benevolent institutions. Of course it was riot an easy task for M. Briand to induce the majority, and especially the Premier, M. Clemenceau, to accept this legislation, "for the sake of avoiding a reUgious War" — which was probably the object of Rome. He succeeded however, and so well, despite the protests of the Vatican, that since that time the Catholics of France have not been in any way molested in the quiet enjoyment of their churches and the exercise of their religion, and that they appear to have gradually acquiesced, if not in the law, at any rate in the separation of Church and State as a fait accompli. In this way the French democracy escaped, by the laws it imposed on itself, and by the skill of its statesmen, from the danger of the religious crisis with which it was threatened by its official rupture with the Papacy. The judgment of the Court of Appeal of July 12, 1906, which established the innocence of Capt. Dreyfus ; the two Acts of legislature by which he and his defender, Col. Picquart, were restored to their ranks in the French army, followed by a complete amnesty for aU matters connected with the affaire ; finally the transfer of the ashes of M. Zola to the Pantheon and the nomination of Col. Picquart to the Ministry of War on Oct. 26, 1906, concluded a crisis which had involved the Republic in a serious danger — that of a quarrel between the State and the high military commands. Nevertheless, a feeling of insecurity prevailed, for, while the nation was obliged to keep a watch on German pretensions abroad, the tendency to mutiny, even in the Republican ranks, created a dangerous situation at home. Moreover, the country was suffering also from a more recent evil— the transfer of aU the authority of Government to the constituencies, which were incapable of exercising it for the benefit of the vi] Dreyfus reinstated ; Clemenceau and J aures 359 general interests of the country. Even the President of the Republic could do little to remedy the evil, for any attempt in this direction was sure to be immediately denounced as an encroachment on the rights of the nation or its repre sentatives. The only power left to him was that of selecting the members of his Cabinet from among the leaders of the parliamentary majority; yet these Ministers did not get from the majority whence they were selected anything like the support they wanted to carry on the government. It was in vain that the Clemenceau Cabinet, on Oct. 25, 1906, published a programme of democratic reforms and during nearly three years tried to work it out. It included a scheme for graduated income-tax, the Bill for which was brought in by CaiUaux, the Finance Minister; the con struction of a network of State railways, an idea actually realised in part by the Minister, Louis Barthou, who took over the " Ouest " Railway Company ; and the creation of a Ministry of Labour, the first holder of which, Viviani, was chosen from the Socialist party and did his best to carry a law providing pensions for manual workers both in town and country. But Clemenceau could not disarm the desperate opposition of the Socialist party ; they denied him the right and refused him the power of governing otherwise than for the benefit of the Communist ideal, which they wished to substitute, by the combined action of Parliament and a submissive Minister, for the principle of private property. "A democratic party (said Jaures to the Radical Majority and. their leader- Clemenceau) simply forfeits its claim to that title if it attempts to stop the Communist movement by granting reforms to the working classes, and using the power of the State to protect private property." After being denounced in this fashion to an angry populace, Clemenceau had naturaUy to submit to many attacks. On March 8, 1907, the Confederation Generate du Travail, which embraced the Socialist Unions of the Bourse 360 The Democratic Republic [ch. du Travail, deprived Paris of its light by calling out the electricians. Two months later, rioting occurred in the South at the call of popular agitators in Herault, and also in Aude and Narbonne. There was a sort of strike among the taxpayers and the municipal corporations, which was responsible for serious violence. The Prefecture at Perpignan was set on fire. In the following year a simUar movement took place among the landed proprietors at Draveil, which caused bloodshed (June 2) ; the riots there had an echo in Paris and were renewed in Draveil on July 30, through the influence of the revolutionary soci alists. In these quarrels the power of resistance in the Executive was wasting itself away; the more so, inas much as the Confederation Generate du Travail claimed, on behalf of the employees of the State, the right of combination into Unions, which that body proposed to affiliate to itself. A refusal of the Government to aUow it would at once mean a strike, a's in the case of the mutiny of the employees in the Post and Telegraph Department between May 12 and 20, 1909, which the Clemenceau Administration had difficulty in repressing; the railway officials and the schoolmasters also threatened to rise. Even in the army, during the trouble in the South, some soldiers told off to restore order mutinied and wrecked a powder-magazine. Thus it came about that the power of the State, as centralised by Napoleon and handed on from one form of government to another down to the second Republic, was being gradually transferred to the new depository of power, the disciplined masses under the chiefs of the Labour Party. It was true that Parliament had one day (May 26, 1909) resolved on the motion of M. Barthou, a Minister, that the right of striking could not be granted to State functionaries. But, ever since taking office, Clemenceau had had occasion to notice that even his own parliamentary majority was vi] A Socialist Prime Minister 361 but a fragile creation, and that many members who were watching the progress of Socialism in the constituencies were rather in favour of his abandoning these rights of the State, and hesitated to expose their political futures to the chances of his maintaining a firm resistance on the point. The stern admonitions that Clemenceau addressed to these "mutes of the Seraglio," who were quite prepared to use the bow-string on him, irritated instead of conciliating them. They showed it by deserting from his ranks on the decisive day, when he thought he might reply in the same acrid tone to his colleague Delcass6, who had charged him with sacrificing the French Navy (July 20, 1909) . As the question was one of principle, and the Ministry was not imperilled by the adverse vote, which was personal to the Premier, the President of the Republic was free to summon to the direction of affairs any member of the out going Cabinet who could count on the support of a fair number of his colleagues, e.g. Barthou, Stephen Pichon, Doumergue, or Viviani ; but, to judge from his past, Aristide Briand, one of the most representative speakers of the Socialist party, was the best able to give the assurances required by that party. This was the first time in the his tory of France and of the Republic that the reins of govern ment had been entrusted to a Socialist. But this Socialist was the statesman who had carried into effect, with equal tact and firmness, the rupture of the Concordat, that^, essential item in the programme of the radical bourgeoisie ; he seemed therefore to be the one designated to effect a reconciliation between the bourgeoisie and the working classes, and thus to reconstruct what was then known as the bloc republicain. But to the Socialist who was thus summoned to rule France his mission presented itself under a yet loftier ideal. After the successful struggle of the nation during the last thirty years to endow itself with the democratic govern- 362 The Democratic Republic [ch. ment it craved, he thought that the time had come for France and for its leaders to close the conflict of party, as henceforth superfluous and injurious to the Republicans who had won the day. "Themoment has come," he said at Peri- gueux on Oct. 10, 1909, " when we must let the language of brotherly love be heard; I am filled with joy at the thought that the mission may fall to me.... We want to make the Republic so pleasant to dwell in, to raise it so high above party, that the glories of aU France may be focussed in it." On the other hand Briand felt that, in order to carry out this task of national importance, a wider and more solid platform must be discovered in Parliament than a majority whose members were never free from the entanglements of parochial and local interests, and were daily more exacting in their demands on the Ministers or their subordinates. He did not hesitate to denounce the mischief in language so vigorous as not to be soon forgotten. He compared the constituencies, in which the deputies with the help of the prefects secured supporters and seats, to "a quagmire of festering pools" in which the future of the Republic and of the country was being smothered. By way of mending political morals, Briand proposed an elec toral reform similar to the abolition of rotten boroughs in England in 1832, viz. Departmental Election by schedule (scrutin de liste), which consisted in submitting the whole body of candidates on one list, in lieu of passing judgment on each individually. But he refused to join to that another reform demanded by many Republicans, which but for him would have been carried on Nov. 8, 1909, viz. the representation of minorities. This programme, while worthy of a statesman whose views went beyond the ordinary range of parliamentary questions, displeased the different parties, who disliked the remedies more than the disease from which they were suffering. What was this talk of fraternity and union to .vi] Strikes suppressed ; Ministry reconstituted 363 men whose rule of life was the war of classes as preached by Marx, or the right of administrative chiefs to the loyalty of their subordinates as against the orders given by the Trades Unions affiliated to the Confederation Generate du Travail! To call constituencies " festering quagmires," and to propose election by departmental list, seemed simply the language of abuse_and moreover mischievous to the deputies who had settled down with their supporters each in his own electoral district like feudal tenants. The elections of April 20, 1910, added both to the numbers and to the spirit of the Socialists. And the radical deputies, disturbed by these successes, clung the more jealously to the system of election which promised them safety in the future. On April 3, 1910, a strike of ships' crews broke out at MarseUles and stopped all over-sea trade there for two months. On Oct. 10, a still more formidable strike occurred among the engine-drivers and stokers of the Compagnie du Nord; other branches, electricians, etc., joined in; and for three days the economic life of the nation was suspended. As against the strikers, Briand upheld in Parliament the " right of the Government to live and to maintain intact the main features of the system of National Defence " ; and on Oct. 29 the Chamber, by a majority of 149, gave him a vote of confidence. Nevertheless, the feeling was such, and the language of the Socialists so violent, that, on Nov. 2, the Premier resigned" in order to form a fighting Cabinet, by getting rid of MiUerand and Viviani, who disapproved his policy of suppression. Briand's new Cabinet was formed on Nov. 7, 1910. Fresh troubles, however, arose among the vine-dressers of Champagne and Aube (Feb. 1911) on a point of com mercial competiti on ; and these local quarrels resulted in open riots under the Red Flag, which demonstrated the power- lessness of Briand against anarchy. At the same time the radical bourgeoisie, sitting in congress at Rouen, was equaUy 364 The Democratic Republic [ch. severe on his projects of electoral reform, his policy of conciliation, and even his alleged resistance to social reforms. Thus, after two years, the statesman who was to have carried out the union of parties had in fact united them only for his own destruction. When forced to retire on Feb. 27, 1911, he certainly commanded only a minority in Parliament. During the remaining years of the Presidency of Armand Fallieres the tentative movement towards political reform, which had been carried on by Briand or by the supporters of the rights of minorities, was suspended. Parliament could not make up its mind to adopt electoral reform ; and Joseph Caillaux, the leader of the Radical majority (who had returned to the Ministry of Finance in the Monis admini stration on March 2, 1911, and was later, on June 23, called to the Premiership), did nothing to assist that measure. This politician, in person and in career alike, presented an almost complete contrast with Briand. His father, an ex-Minister under MacMahon, had taken an active share in the reaction of May 16, 1877. Belonging by birth to the conservative bourgeoisie, he had entered political life as a moderate Republican, and soon began to court popularity with a proposal for a reform of taxation by a progressive tax on the incomes of the wealthy. While Briand displayed both skill and caution in the pursuit of his political ends, CaiUaux, on the contrary, affected a loud tone and brusqueness of manner when striving to obtain the means of satisfying the interests of his party and of avoiding conflicts with the Socialists. At the very com mencement of his Ministry he had, in his speeches to the electors of Sarthe, put forward a policy opposed to that of Briand, which he described as a dangerous dream of the Union of aU French citizens, declaring that for his part "he should govern by party, for party, so as to bring about a continuous movement of social evolution." vi] Briand resigns; Policy of Caillaux 365 His friends, the Radical Socialists, gave him an energetic support in return for his promise of assistance by means of Government machinery in their constituencies. His action commended itself to the Socialists when directed against the wealthy bourgeoisie, e.g. the great railway companies, whom his socialist colleague Augagneur proposed to provide with a working staff appointed by the State, besides rein stating all the officials dismissed in 1910; the financial companies, whose managers were to pay a duty ; and the holders of national funds, whose interest, hitherto exempt, was now threatened with a tax. " Ever side by side with you," said CaUlaux to Jaures, "on the path of democratic progress and reform ; never on the road to violence." And, inasmuch as the majority of the Socialists and their leader disapproved of a policy of violence, they had no difficulty in accepting this alliance, which lasted for two years, to January 1912. Thus the split between the Left and the Extreme Left of the Republican party was closing up — a benefit perhaps to the Socialists, but assuredly a very doubtful one for the Republic as a whole or for the nation. The feeling of instability in the authority of Parliament, which had been a characteristic of the last days of past constitutions, was constantly in the air. "There is not a single man of any experience in France or abroad who would care to deny its existence" — such was the uncontradicted assertion of an ex-Minister. A sovereign democracy, like a king, may have its flatterers — the men who give her of their worst service and pay themselves liberally of her best — members of electoral committees in rural districts, or Trades Union officials in the urban hives of artisans, eager to offer themselves for any office, from a mere subordinate to that of a Minister of State. As the people of France began to perceive the import ance of their votes, they were ready to be persuaded that all authority — executive, administrative and legislative — was 366 The Democratic Republic [ch. an encroachment on their privileges whenever it claimed the right to discuss or contradict their wUl. Thus, little by little, all the organs of national life were reduced to im potence.- Between 1906 and 1913 the Presidency of the Republic was kept more strictly than ever outside the political machinery of the country. This change increased the authority of the Cabinet, which would have been omni potent, had not its existence depended on the deputies. But these in turn, though collectively stronger than even the Ministers, were themselves dependent on the electors whom they represented, or whose ill-will they might have to fear. Finance, army, foreign policy, domestic administration, the economic existence of the nation itself — everything in short which constitutes and regiUates the general interests of a country ran the risk of being sacrificed through the ignorance or the incompetence or the selfish passions and instincts of a class, a section, or a district. In the days of absolute monarchy, before the reign of Louis XIV, the sovereign had allowed the authority of the officers of his household immediately attached to his person to organise itself in such a way that their opinions, being based on sound business habits and legal experience, prac tically limited the power of the Crown, and at the same time were the best security for its continuance. What the king required of his servants was advice rather than service. In an absolute democracy the Government is assumed to be strong enough to control and guide the wUl of the nation without exposing its Ministers to constant suspicion of en croaching upon popular rights by their advice and initiative. A readiness to suspect treachery and to welcome flattery is a fault with which the historian has too often to charge all absolute governments. In France there has been less and less ground for it, in proportion as the nation has developed in practical and social life the principle of popular sovereignty, which has been the foundation of vi] Morocco again; Casablanca 367 French legislation since 1848. It is for the nation itself, the great body of peaceable, laborious, productive and patriotic citizens, when once informed of the facts by its loyal servants and invited to deal with them, to devise and supply the needed remedy. In her transactions with Europe under the Presidency of Armand FaUieres, France showed that she was equal to the duty thus required of her. On the morrow of the Conference of Algeciras her duty was to settle her relations with the Empire of Morocco, while always subject to the malevolent criticisms of Germany. In May 1906, M. Charbonnier had been assassi nated in Tangier; in March 1907, Dr Mauchamp was murdered by the populace at Marrakesh; and other out rages followed. The result was the occupation of Casa blanca and the surrounding district of Chaouya (Shawia) in August 1907. It was useless for the Socialist party to im peach this military movement before the French people as a policy of conquest, and equaUy useless for the Germans to- try to block it by raising up against the Sultan Abdul Aziz, a party to the Treaty of Algeciras, his brother Mulai Hafid (who, after declaring himself Sultan in Sept. 1907, succeeded in dethroning him in August 1908), or for them to heap up against France a number of small incidents, such as the affair of the deserters from the Foreign Legion, who were arrested by the French authorities at Casablanca (Sept. 25, 1908). The French people applauded the combined firmness and moderation with which Pichon, as Foreign Minister, de fended their rights ; and once more, as at Algeciras, Germany was obUged, in Feb. 1909, to accept the decisions of Europe, on this occasion represented by the Court of the Hague, which settled the affair of the deserters on May 24, 1909. Meanwhile France maintained her garrisons on the Morocco frontier. Very soon the support which Germany had given to Mulai Hafid resulted in a fresh blow to her diplomacy, and 368 The Democratic Republic [ch. to another step forward on the part of France. The Sultan, who owed his. throne to his hostility to France, was obliged, lacking both money and reputation, to have recourse to her, as his brother had done. He asked for a loan, and for in structions what to do with the small army which he had hastily collected to oppose the rebel tribes now threatening his capital and the European colony at Fez (April 25, 1911). In spite of invectives from the Socialists and protests from Germany, who still affected to claim a share in the estate of the Shereefian empire, the Government under M. Monis without hesitation ordered 40,000 men under Generals Mounier and Toutee to enter the country (May 1911), while the Spaniards occupied the zone promised to them by the Treaty of Algeciras, El Kasr and Larache (June 8). The news of the progress made by France in Morocco as a Power, although almost the necessary consequence of German diplomatic action, nevertheless met with a very bad recep tion at Berlin. Admitting that it was difficult for Germany to quarrel with France over Morocco, where she was acting by the mandate of Europe, similarly to Spain and in conjunction with her, the Germans were stUl determined to insist on compensations from France ; and words to that effect were let drop in the conversation between the French ambassador, Jules Cambon, and the German Minister, Herr von Kiderlen-Waechter. Then suddenly, as in 1905, the Em peror WiUiam II, possibly in a fit of impatience, adopted a method stUl better fitted to secure him a hearing. He despatched a vessel of war to the roads of Agadir, on the south-western coast of Morocco, ostensibly to protect some supposed dependents of Germany (July 1, 1911) ; and the French Foreign Minister was informed by Herr von Schon that the German occupation of Agadir would last as long as the French occupied Fez. This was a direct • chaUenge without either motive or qualification. Vi] Agadir; Settlement with Germany 369 The Paris Foreign Office did not however answer it as such. They accepted the negotiation thus imposed by Germany; and the dispute was eventually settled on the basis df the authorisation of France to establish a Pro tectorate at Fez, in return for the cession by her of a part of French Congo — nearly aU the valleys of the Sangha and the Logone, which were annexed to the German colony of the Cameroons. The French diplomatists, M. de Selves and Jules Cambon, did their best in the course of the discussions, which were carried on, sometimes very bitterly, from August to October 1911, to consolidate the work of France in Morocco and to induce the German appetite to be satisfied with these concessions. The Convention which they signed at Berlin on Nov. 4, 1911, could plead for itself, first, that it maintained peace, and secondly, that it secured a great advantage for France in the complete establishment of her position in North Africa from Tunis to the Atlantic, thus in less than eighty years completing the construction of this Colonial Empire within easy reach of the mother-country. On the other hand it involved, in a sense, a national surrender before the brutality and the anogant threats of German diplomacy. The debates to which the Treaty gave rise in the French Parliament showed that, since the Agadir affair, following on the incident at Tangier, the nation was more responsive to the demands of Germany than to her clumsy offers of friendship. For forty years France had maintained an attitude of pacific reserve; but she had not the smaUest intention of surrendering, through dread of a foreigner and of his insults, her self-respect — the "first of all interests," to use the words of that ardent patriot and eloquent inter preter of her claim to independence, M. de Mun. Conscious of being a power in the world, she was determined to main tain her position. She had ejected the Monis Ministry as soon as it appeared to wish to weaken the powers of the b. 11. 24 370 The Democratic Republic [ch. Commander-in-Chief in connexion with his duty of preparing during peace a military force adequate to its duties abroad, and had on July 29, 1911, insisted on their being solidly centred in the person of General Joffre. She applauded the language used by President Fallieres at the review of the Toulon squadron in Sept. 1911, when he spoke of "certain hereditary rights which one cannot renounce except by resigning the whole property." Meanwhile, the solidity of the Russian alliance, as demonstrated by the visit of Tsar Nicholas to Cherbourg in Aug. 1909, the proofs of friendliness towards France that England had displayed ever since the fortunate visit of President Fallieres to London in May 1908, the marks of esteem that the'kings of Spain and Portugal and Albert I, the new king of the Belgians, brought with them to Paris in May 1910 — aU indicated to the French nation the rank to which she was entitled in the European family for her wisdom as much as for her strength. Germany, indeed, complained that she was being deliberately "isolated" by the mutual understandings which her own anogance had forced her neighbours to make — the Franco-Russian alliance,. fortified by the Anglo-French Entente, the reconciliation of Russia with Japan and England respectively (July and August 1907), the restoration of good feeling between France and Italy through the agreement about Morocco and Tripoli ; but the very form which this complaint took was enough to apprise the French nation that they were no longer left alone to face the demands of Germany. There was no need for England, on the morrow of Agadir, to send a man-of-war to lie alongside the German Panther, for the attitude of England was clear without such visible proof. Such was the state of feeling aroused by the speeches of the Pan-Germans and the braggadocio of their Emperor* that all idea of unconditional surrender was dismissed, and the nation became suspicious of any advances on the part of Vi] Fall of 'Caillaux. Poincare elected President 371 Germany. What, then, was its surprise and disgust when it learnt that, by way of pleasing the Socialist party, the Prime Minister, Caillaux, was secretly negotiating at Berlin, but not through the medium of the Foreign Office? M. de Selves resigned, and seized the occasion to reveal the fact that, under cover of the Convention of Nov. 4, which foUowed the Moroccan settlement, some movement was concealed, possibly aiming at a reconciliation with Germany. France was furious ; on the morrow of the receipt of an insult, actuaUy under the pressure of a threat, the thing was un thinkable. CaiUaux immediately resigned, and Raymond Poincare took his place. The return to power of statesmen like Briand, MiUerand, J. Dupuy, on Jan. 14, 1912, in the last year of the Presi dency of Armand Fallieres, seemed to indicate the revival of some regard for a national policy. Poincare was determined, he said, to build up once more a domestic administration "which should not allow itself to be governed," and to carry out an electoral reform which should give the elected repre sentatives the freedom they required in order to keep local interests subordinate to the interests of the country, in short, " to expand the naval and military strength of France, inasmuch as strong nations alone are sought for as friends." On Jan. 17, 1913, the senators and deputies assembled in Congress, to choose a successor to Armand Fallieres, appeared to sanction this programme by summoning to the Presidency of the Republic Poincare, who once more en trusted M. Briand with the task of carrying it out. 24 — 2 BIBLIOGRAPHY For the General Bibhography of French History consult the works mentioned in vol. i. GENERAL HISTORIES OF FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. For the general history of France, add the foUowing works: Buloz, Francois. Annuaire des Deux Mondes, 1850-1867. 17 vols. Paris. Daniel, Andre Lebon. L'Annee politique, 1875-1898. 23 vols. Paris. Wallier, R. Le XXe Siecle politique, 1 901-1907. 7 vols. Paris. Viallate, Achille, and Caudel, Maurice. La Vie politique dans les Deux Mondes, 1906-1912. 7 vols. Paris, 1908-1913. GENERAL SOURCES OF THE HISTORY OF FRANCE IN THE NINETEENTH CENTURY. Consult the works mentioned in vol. 1. HISTORY IN PERIODS FROM 1851 TO 1911. 1. The Second Empire. Granier de Cassagnac, A. Histoire du retablissement de l'Em- pire. Paris, 1857. Bavoux, Evariste. La France sous Napoleon III. 2 vols. Paris, 1870. Abbott, T. S. C History of Napoleon III, Emperor of the French. Boston, 1873. 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Paris, 1903-1905. (c) Presidencies of the Repubhc from Thiers to Fallieres. Crisenoy, Jules de. Annales des Assemblees departementales de 1887 a 1898. 13 vols. Paris, 1899. L6vrier, Antonin. La chute de Monsieur Thiers. Paris, 1878. De Margerie, A. Pages d'histoire contemporaine. Paris, 1875. Granier de Cassagnac, Paul. Histoire de la 3e Republique. Paris, 1875. Grenville-Murray, E. C. The men of the Septennat. Paris, i875- Lamy, Etienne. Quatre ans de provisoire, 1871-1875. Paris, 1876. Monod, Henri. Du 16 Mai au 2 Septembre, 1877 (Notes a consulter). Paris, 1877. Simon, Jules. Le Gouvernement de M. Thiers. 2 vols. Paris, 1878. Littr6, Emile. De l'6tablissement de la 3e Republique. Paris, 1880. Bibliography 383 Chambord, Comte de. Ecrits politiques et correspondance, 1841-1879. Paris, 1881. Gautier, Hippolyte. Carnets d'un joumaliste pendant le 16 Mai. Paris, 1881. Bert, Paul. Discours parlementaires, 1872-1881. Paris, 1881. Gambetta, Leon. Discours et plaidoyers politiques. (Edited by J. Reinach.) Vols. m-xi. Paris, 1881-1885. Bardoux, Agenor. Dix annees de vie politique. Paris, 1882-. Barth61emy St Hilaire, Jules. Fragments pour l'histoire de la diplomatie francaise. Paris, 1882. Blanc, Louis. La Constitution de 1875. Paris, 1883. Vinols de Montfleury, Baron J. G. Memoires d'un Membre de l'Assemblee Nationale. Paris, 1883. Bertol-Graivil, A. Souvenirs de Leon Gambetta. Paris, 1883. Waldeck-Rousseau, Pierre-Marie. Discours parlementaires. 2 vols. Paris, 1883-1899. Reinach, Joseph. Le Ministere Gambetta. Paris, 1884. Andrieux, Louis. Souvenirs d'un prefet de police. Paris, 1885. Saint-Valry, E. Discours et reflexions politiques. 2 vols. Paris, 1886. De Dreux-Breze, Marquis. Notes et souvenirs (see also later editions published in 1893 and 1899). Paris, 1886. Boulanger, le General. Discours, 1881-1887. Paris, 1888. D'Avril, Adolphe. Negotiations relatives au traite de Berlin (1878). Paris, 1887. Daudet, Ernest. Souvenirs de la Presidence du Marechal de MacMahon. Paris, 1888. Delafosse, Jules. Vingt ans au Parlement (discours). Paris, 1889. Callet, A. Les origines de la 3e Republique. Paris, 1889. "Fidus" (Eugene Balleydier, dit Loudun). Journal. 4 vols. Paris, 1888-1890. Target, P. L. Dix ans de Republique, 1 879-1 889. Paris, 1889. Richard, Pierre. Le proces de la ligue des patriotes. Paris, 1889. Mermeix (Trarieux, Gabriel). Les coulisses du boulangisme. Paris, 1890. Reinach, Joseph. La politique opportuniste, 1 880-1 889. Paris, 1890. 384 Bibliography Langl6, Paul. Souvenir de mes campagnes politiques avec le prince Napoleon, 1879-1891. Paris, 1891. Weiss, J. J. Combat constitutionnel, 1866-1886. Paris, 1893. Lucas, Auguste. Precis de l'histoire de Panama. Paris, 1893. Gavard, Charles. Un diplomate a Londres. Paris, 1893. De Marcere, Emile. Entretiens et souvenirs politiques. 2 vols. Paris, 1894. Le seize Mai et la fin du Septennat. Paris, 1900. Chesnelong, P. Charles. La Campagne monarchiste d'Octobre, 1873. Paris, 1895. Callet, A. Les responsabilites. Paris, 1895. DeMun, Albert. Discours et ecrits politiques. Paris, 1895-1902. D'Harcourt, Emmanuel. Souvenirs inedits. Paris, 1895. Floquet, Charles. Discours et opinions. Paris, 1896. Denormandie, E. Notes et souvenirs. Paris, 1896. ChaUemel-Lacour, Paul-Armand. OEuvres oratoires. Paris, 1897. Delpit, Martial. Journal et correspondance. Paris, 1897. Waldeck-Rousseau, Pierre-Marie. Associations et Congrega tions. Paris, 1901. Deschanel, Paul. La Republique nouvelle. Paris, 1898. De Meaux, Vicomte. Souvenirs politiques. Paris, 1904. Jaures, Jean. Discours parlementaires. Paris, 1903. Ribot, Alexandre. Quatre annees d'opposition (discours, 1901- 1903). 2 vols. Paris, 1905. Waldeck-Rousseau, Pierre-Marie. Pour la Republique. Paris, 1904. Du Barail, le Gen6ral. Mes souvenirs. 3 vols. Paris, 1905. Deschanel, Paul. Politique interieure et etrangere. Paris, 1906. De Gontaut-Biron, Vicomte. Memoires. 2 vols. Paris, 1906- 1907. Perm, Georges. Discours politiques et notes. Paris, 1907. Brisson, Henri. Souvenirs. Paris, 1908. Pichon, Stephen. Dans la bataille. Paris, 1909. Ducrot, le General. Memoires sur les projets de restauration monarcbique en 1873. Paris, 1909. Deschanel, Paul. Hors des frontieres. Paris, 1910. Barclay, Sir Thomas. Thirty years of Anglo-French reminis cences. London, 1914. Bibliography 385 De Jouvenel, Robert. La Republique des Camarades. Paris, 1914. Lanessan, J. F. Nos forces militaires. Paris, 1914/ Notre defense maritime. Paris, 1914. Reinach, Joseph. Recits et portraits contemporains. Paris, 1912. ^Cambon, Victor. Notre avenir. Paris, 191 6. Baudin, Pierre. Anticipation. Paris, 1916. BIOGRAPHIES, ESSAYS AND OTHER WORKS, BEARING SPECIALLY ON THE HISTORY 1872- 1914 IN PERIODS. 1. The Second Empire. Chevaher, Michel. Le Mexique Moderne. Paris, 1864. Domenech, L. Histoire du Mexique: Maximilien et Juares. 3 vols. Paris, 1868. Detroyat, Leonce. L'intervention francaise au Mexique. Paris, 1868. Le Bilan de l'annee 1864. Paris, 1868. Prevost-Paradol, L. A. JLa France Nouvelle. Paris, 1868. Simon, Jules. La politique radicale. Paris, 1868. Saint-Ferreol, A. Les proscrits francais en Belgique. Brussels, 1870. Pradier-Fodere, Paul Louis. Documents pour l'histoire con temporaine. Paris, 1871. Bordier, Henri. L'AUemagne aux Tuileries. Paris, 1872. Giquel, Prosper. La politique francaise en Chine. 2 vols. Paris, 1873. "Junius." Correspondance secrete d'un Ambassadeur du second Empire. Paris, 1874. Niox, Capitaine. L'expedition du Mexique. Paris, 1874. Ancien diplomate, Un. Etude diplomatique de la Guerre de Crimee. 2 vols. Paris, 1874. De Mazade, Charles. Le comte de Cavour. Paris, 1877. Rousset, Camille. Histoire de la Guerre de Crimee. 2 vols. Paris, 1877. Massari, Giuseppe. La vita et il regno di Vittorio Emmanuel. 2 vols. Milan, 1878. b. 11. 25 386 Bibliography Rothan, Gustave. Les origines de la guerre de 1870 (La poli tique francaise en 1866). Paris, 1879. Souvenirs diplomatiques (l'affaire du Luxembourg, 1867). Paris, 1882. D'Harcourt, Comte Bernard. Les quatre ministeres de M. Drouin de Lhuys. Paris, 1882. Rothan, Gustave. L'Allemagne et l'ltalie, 1870-1871. 2 vols. Paris, 1884-1885. Bianchi, Nicomede. La politique du Comtexde Cavour, 1852- 1861. Paris, 1885. Simon, Edouard. L'Empereur Guillaume I. Paris, 1886. Rothan, Gustave. La France et sa politique exterieure en 1867. 2 vols. Paris, 1887. La Prusse et son roi pendant la Guerre de Crimee. Paris, 1888. Thouvenel, L. Le Secret de l'Empereur, 1860-1863. Paris, 1889. Rothan, Gustave. L'Europe et 1'avenement du second Empire. Paris, 1890. Gaulot, Paul. Un reve d'Empire: la verite sur l'expedition du Mexique. 3 vols. Paris, 1889-1890. Von Sybel, Heinrich. Die Begriindung des Deutschen Reichs. 7 vols. Berlin, 1889-1894. D'Herisson, le Comte. Le Prince Imperial. Paris, 1890. Grandin, Commandant. Campagnes des Francais en Italie, Syrie, Chine et Cochinchine (1859-1862). Paris, 1891. Thouvenel, L. Nicolas Ier et Napoleon IIIme (preliminaires de la guerre de Crimee) . Paris, 189 1. Greard, Octave. Prevost-Paradol. Paris, 1894. Malo, Charles. Precis de la campagne de 1859 en Italie. Brussels, 1895. Chiala, Luigi. Politica segreta di Napoleone III e di Cavour, 1858-1861. Turin, 1895. Martinet, Andre. Le Prince Imperial. Paris, 1895. Grabinski, Comte Joseph. Le comte Arese, un amide Napoleon HI. Paris, 1897. Thouvenel, L. Trois annees de la question d'Orient, 1856-1859. Paris, 1897. Andler, Charles. Le prince de Bismarck. Paris, 1899. Weill, Georges. Histoire du parti republicain en France. Paris, 1900. Bibliography 387 Leonardon, Henri. Le marechal Prim. Paris, 1901. Bapst, Germain. Le marechal Canrobert. 4 vols. Paris, 1903- 1904. Matter, Paul. Le prince de Bismarck. 3 vols. Paris, 1905- 1908. Lehautcourt, Pierre (le General Palat). La candidature Hohen zollern. Paris, 1912. Charles -Roux, Francois. Alexandre III, Gortschakoff et Napoleon III. Paris, 1913. 2. The Franco-German War. See M. Lehautcourt's bibliography, already mentioned above. 3. The Commune of Paris. Clerc, Jules. Les hommes de la Commune (biographie complete) . Paris, 1 87 1. Becker, Bernhard. Geschichte und Theorie der Pariser revolu- tionaren Commune. Leipzig, 1879. Montrevel, Ch. de. Nouvelle histoire de la Commune. Paris, 1885. Duret, Theodore. Histoire de 1870 a 1873. 2 vols. Paris, 190 1. Bourgin, Georges. Histoire de la Commune. Paris, 1907. 4. The Presidencies of the Republic. From Thiers to Fallieres. De St Albin, A. Histoire d'Henri V. Paris, 1874. Favre, L. Histoire politique de l'annee 1877. 2 vols. Paris, 1880. Deschanel, Paul. La question du Tonkin. Paris, 1883. Picot, Georges. M. Dufaure. Paris, 1883. De Mazade, Charles. M. Thiers ; 50 ans d'histoire contemporaine. Paris, 1884. Henri de France, comte de Chambord. Paris, 1884. D'EstoumeUes de Constant, Baron. La politique francaise en Tunisie. Paris, 1885. Dhormoys, Paul. La Com6die politique: les debuts de la Republique, vol. 11. Paris, 1887. 25—2 388 Bibliography "Fidus" (Balleydier, Eugene). La republique opportunists. Paris, 1887. Seche, Leon. Jules Simon. Paris, 1887. Courcelle, Edgar. Les hommes politiques de la 3e Republique. Paris, 1887. Simon, Jules. Nos hommes d'etat. Paris, 1887. Laffitte, Paul. Le suffrage universel et le regime parlementaire. Paris, 1888. De Flers, Marquis. Le Comte de Paris. Paris, 1888. Hippeau, E. Histoire diplomatique de la 3" Republique. Paris, 1888. Dreyfous, Maurice. Les trois Carnot. Paris, 1888. "Sybil" (Benoist, Charles). Croquis parlementaires. Paris, 1890. "Testis." Les hommes de 1889. Paris, 1890. Verly, Albert. Le Gdneral Boulanger et la conspiration mo narchiste. Paris, T893. Courcelle-Seneuil, T. G. La Societe moderne en France. Paris, 1892. Teste, Louis. Les Monarchistes de la 3e Republique. Paris, 1890. Millet, Rene. L'expansion de la France et la diplomatic. Paris, 1895- Charmes, Gabriel. La politique exterieure et coloniale de la France. Paris, 1895. Loir, Maurice. L'Amiral Courbet en Extreme Orient. Paris, 1897. Daudet, Ernest. Le Due d'Aumale. Paris, 1898. Jaures, Jean. Les preuves de l'affaire Dreyfus. Paris, 1898. Deschamps, Gaston. Xe malaise de la democratic. Paris, 1899. Billot, A. La France et l'ltalie, 1881-1899. Paris, 1901. Ernest-Charles, T. Waldeck-Rousseau. Paris, 1902. Lavy, A. L'CEuvre de MiUerand. Paris, 1902. Daudet, Ernest. Histoire diplomatique de l'alliance franco- russe. Paris, 1908. Rambaud, Alfred. Jules Ferry. Paris, 1903. Reinach, Joseph. Histoire de l'affaire Dreyfus. 6 vols. Paris, 1902-1908. Millet, Rene. Notre politique exterieure de 1898 a 1905. Paris, 1905- Bibliography 389 Leyret, Henri. Waldeck-Rousseau. Paris, 1905. Deschamps, Gaston. Waldeck-Rousseau. Paris, 1905. De Freycinet, Charles-Louis. La question d'Egypte. Paris, 1905. Waldeck-Rousseau, Pierre Marie. L'Etat et la Liberte. 2 vols. Paris, 1905-1906. Berard, Victor. L'affaire marocaine. Paris, 1906. Avenel, Henri. Le Pr6sident Loubet et ses predecesseurs. Paris, 1906. Hansen, Jules. Ambassade a Paris du baron de Mohrenheim, 1884-1898. Paris, 1907. D'Yvetot, Jules. Armand Fallieres. Paris, 1907. Poincare, Raymond. Questions et figures politiques. Paris, 1907. Laur, Francis. Le cceur de Gambetta. Paris, 1907. Tardieu, Andre. La conference d'Algesiras. Paris, 1907. Berard, Victor. La France et Guillaume II. Paris, 1907. De ChampviUe, Fabius. Le comite executif du parti radical- socialiste, 1897-1907. Paris, 1908. Renault, Louis. Les deux conferences de la Paix. Paris, 1908. Tardieu, Andr6. La France et les Alliances. Paris, 1909. Briand, A. La separation, 1904— 1905. Paris, 1908. Fouillee, Alfred. La democratic sociale et politique en France. Paris, 1910. Crispi, Francesco. Politica estera (memorie e documenti). Milan, 1912. Albin, Pierre. Le coup d'Agadir. Paris, 1912. La France et l'AUemagne en Europe. Paris, 1913. Reclus, Maurice. Jules Favre. Paris, 1912. Ernest Picard. Paris, 1912. De Lanessan, J. L. La crise de la Republique. Paris, 1914. Reinach, Joseph. Mes comptes rendus, 1894-1913. 3 vols. Paris, 1913. Recits et portraits contemporains. Paris, 1915. La vie politique de Leon Gambetta. Paris, 191 8. Debidour, Antonin. Histoire diplomatique de I'Europe depuis le CongrSs de Berlin. 2 vols. Paris, 1916-1917. 390 Bibliography SPECIAL WORKS. i. History of Religion. Montalembert, Comte de. Les interests catholiques au ige siecle. Paris, 1852. Ollivier, Emile. L'Eglise et I'Etat au concile du Vatican. Paris, 1879. Keller, Emile. Les congregations religieuses en France, leurs ceuvres. Paris, 1880. Drumont, Ernest. La France juive. Paris, 1889. Lazare, Bernard. L'antisemitisme, son histoire et ses causes. Paris, 1894. T'Serclaes, A. Le pape Leon XIII. 3 vols. Paris, 1894-1906. Goyau, Georges. Le pape, les catholiques et la question sociale. Paris, 1899. De Meaux, Vicomte. Montalembert. Paris, 1897. Waldeck-Rousseau, Pierre-Marie. Associations et Congregations. Paris, 1 90 1. Cochin, Denys. L'Esprit nouveau. Paris, 1900. Veuillot, E. Louis Veuillot. 3 vols. Paris, 1901. Lecanuet, le Pere. Montalembert sous l'Empire. Paris, 1902, Brisson, Henri. La Congregation (opinions et discours) . Paris, 1902. Piolet, le Pere. Les missions catholiques francaises au ige siecle. 6 vols. Paris, 1903. Bota, Charles. La grande faute des catholiques en France. Paris, 1904. Chaine, A. Les catholiques francais et les difficultes actuelles. Paris, 1904. France, Anatole. L'Eglise et la Republique. Paris, 1904. Bourgeois, Emile, and Clermont, Emile. Rome et Napoleon III. Paris, 1907. Reville, Max. Le regime des cultes d'apres la loi de 1905. Paris, 1906. De Lanessan, J. L. Les missions et leur protectorat. Paris, 1907. Sangnier, Marc. La lutte pour la democratic. Paris, 1908. Mater, Andre. La politique religieuse de la Republique. Paris 1909. Bibliography 391 Mater, Andre. Les textes de la politique francaise en matiere ecclesiastique, 1905-1908. Paris, 1909. Debidour, Antonin. L'Eglise catholique et I'Etat, 1870-1906. (Based upon the French archives and containing a very complete bibliography.) Paris, 1906. Toumier, J. Le Cardinal Lavigerie et son action politique. Paris, 1912. 2. Constitutional and Administrative History. See the authorities mentioned in vol. 1 ; also : Chardon, Henri. L' Administration de la France. Paris, 1912. 3. Financial History. Bodet, Mathieu. Les finances francaises de 1870 a 1878. 2 vols. Paris, 1881. Noel, Octave. Etude historique sur I'organisation financiere de la France. Paris, 1881. Sudre, Charles. Les finances de la France au XIXe siecle. 2 vols. Paris, 1883. Amagat, L. A. Les finances francaises sous l'Assemblee Nationale et les Chambres Republicaines, 1872-1889. 2 vols. Paris, 1899. Cucheval-Clarigny, Ath. Les finances de la France de 1870 a 1890. Paris, 1890. 4. History of Economics (Agriculture, Manufactures and Commerce). Enquete de i860 sur I'Etat de I'lndustrie en France. 8 vols. Paris, 1861-1862. Statistique agricole decennale de la France. 4 vols. Paris, 1862-72-82-92. Rapports des Delegues ouvriers Parisiens a l'Exposition de Londres, 1862. Paris, 1862. Rapport sur l'Exposition Universelle de 1867. Paris, 1869. Rapport des Delegations ouvrieres a l'Exposition de 1867. 2 vols. Paris, 1869. Enquete de 1870 sur I'Etat de I'lndustrie en France (resume analytique). Paris, 1872. Statistique industrielle de 1861 a 1866. Paris, 1873. 392 Bibliography Picard, Alfred. Les Chemins de fer francais. 6 vols. Paris, i 883-1 884. Rapport general sur l'Exposition de 1889. 10 vols. Paris, 1890. Noel, Octave. La Banque de France. -Paris, 1891. Levasseur, Emile. La population de la France depuis 1789, vol. in. Paris, 1892. Les vceux des agriculteurs de France. Paris, 1868-1894. Vigier, Albert. Deux Annees au Ministere de 1' Agriculture. Paris, 1895. Picard, Alfred. Le bilan d'un siecle. Rapport sur l'Exposition. Paris, 1902. Roux, Charles. Notre marine marchande. Paris, 1901. Levasseur, Emile. Questions ouvrieres et industrielles sous la 3e Republique. Paris, 1906. Zolla, Daniel. La crise agricole. Paris, 1902. Leon, Paul. Fleuves, Canaux et Chemins de fer. Paris, 1903. Thery, Edmond. Histoire des grandes compagnies de Chemins de fer. Paris, 1894. Jouve, A. Les fonctions de la Banque de France. Paris, 1895. Thery, Edmond. Les progres economiques de la France. Paris, 1908. Henry, A., and de Lavergne, Bernard. La richesse de la France. Paris, 1909. Baudin, Pierre, Leroy-Beaulieu, Paul, and MiUerand, Alex. Les forces productives de la France. Paris, 1909. Cambon, Victor. La France au travail. Paris, 191 1. 5. Colonial History. Rambaud, Alfred. La France coloniale. Paris, 1886. Alis, Harry. Nos Africains. Paris, 1894. , Armand, A. A., and Meray, H. Organisation administrative, politique et judiciaire des Colonies. Paris, 1894. Dubois, Marcel. Un siecle d'expansion coloniale, Paris, 1900. Guy, Camille. La mise en valeur du domaine colonial. Paris, 1900. Lecomte, Henri. L'agriculture aux colonies. Paris, 1900. Rouard de Card, E. Les territoires Africains et les conventions franco-anglaises. Paris, 1902. ChaUley-Bert, J. Dix ans de politique coloniale. Paris, 1902. Bibliography 393 Petit, Maxime. Les colonies francaises (complete bibliography). 2 vols. Paris, 1903. Lorin, Henri. La France, puissance coloniale. Paris, 1906. Librairie Larousse. Atlas colonial illustre, avec notices. Paris, s.d. Gouraud, Colonel. La pacification de la Mauritanie. Paris, 1911. Societe de I'Ecole des Sciences politiques. L'Afrique du Nord Francaise. Paris, 1913. Jary, Georges. Les interets de la France au Maroc. Paris, 191 1 . 6. Labour and Socialism. See Stammhammer's bibliography, mentioned in vol. 1. 2 vols. Jena, 1900. Compagnon, A. Les classes laborieuses. Paris, 1858. Simon, Jules. L'ouvriere. Paris, 1861. Tolain, Henri. Les elections de Paris en 1863. Paris, 1864. Reybaud, Louis. Rapport sur la condition des ouvriers en soie, coton, laine. 3 vols. Paris, 1859-1867. Fribourg, E. L'association internationale des travailleurs. Paris, 1871. Testut, O. LTnternationale. Paris, 1871. Enquete de la commission parlementaire sur les associations ouvrieres. 2 vols. Paris, 1884. Associations professionnelles et ouvrieres (Statistique publi6e par l'Office du Travail). 3 vols. Paris, 1899-1904. VaUeroux, Hubert. Les associations cooperatives en France. Paris, 1884. De Seilhac, L. Les congres ouvriers en France, 1876-1897. Paris, 1899. De Rocquigny, A. Les syndicats agricoles. Paris, 1900. Waldeck-Rousseau, Pierre-Marie. Questions sociales. Paris, 1900. Metin, Albert. Les traitds de prevoyance et de travail. Paris, 1900. Jaures, Jean. Etudes socialistes. Paris; 1901. Halevy, Daniel. Essai sur le mouvement ouvrier frangais. Paris, 1 90 1. Bourdeau, L. L'evolution du socialisme. Paris, 1901. D'Eichthal, E. Socialisme, communisme et collectivisme. Paris, 1901. 394 Bibliography Lagardelle, P. L'E volution des syndicate ouvriers. Paris, 190 1. Pelloutier, F. L. E. Histoire des Bourses du travail. Paris, 1902. Pic, Paul. Traite elementaire de Legislation industrielle : les lois ouvrieres. 2e edit. Paris, 1903. Weill, Georges. Histoire du mouvement social en France. Paris, 1904. De Seilhac, L. Le monde socialiste. Paris, 1904. Guillaume, James. LTnternationale. 2 vols. Paris, 1906-1907. Simiand, Francois. Les salaires des ouvriers des Mines en France. Paris, 1907. Lepine, F. La Mutualite. Paris, 1909. Chailley-Bert, J., and Fontaine, Arthur. Lois Sociales (1895 a 1901). Paris, 1909. 7. Public Education. See the authorities mentioned under this head in vol. 1; also:Greard, Octave. L'enseignement secondaire des jeunes filles. Paris, 1883. Education et instruction. Paris, 1889. Dreyfus, Brisac (Paul, Edmond). L'education nouvelle. 2 vols. Paris, 1882-1888. Lavisse, Ernest. Questions d'enseignement national. Paris, 1885. Etudes et Etudiants. Paris, 1890. Duruy, Albert. L'instruction publique et la Democratic Paris, 1889. Mace, Victor. La ligue de 1'Enseignement. Paris, 1890. De Beauchamp, Alfred. Recueil des lois et reglements sur l'enseignement superieur, 1789-1898. 3 vols. Paris, 1899. Rouvier, Gaston. L'enseignement public en France au debut du XXe Siecle. Paris, 1904. 8. Literary History. To the Bibliography of French literature of the period, the best and completest guide is : Lanson, Gustave. Manuel bibliographique de la litterature francaise moderne (from 1500 to 1900). Paris, 1912-1914. INDEX Abatucci, Minister of Justice, 7 Abdul Aziz, Sultan, 339, 367 Aberdeen, Lord, 30 About, Edmond, 77 Action LiMrale, 356 Adam, deputy, 210 Adamawa, 308 Adrianople, Treaty of, 33, 37 Africa, exploration and expan sion in, 298, 308 f£., 327 f., 350, Agadir, 368 ff. Agoult, Madame d' (Daniel Stern), 13, 24 f. Agricultural Merit, Order of, instituted, 273 Agriculture, development of, 20, 228 1, 273 f., 305, 335 Agronomic Institute, 273 Ahmadu, Sultan of Segu, 296, 3°9 Ain Sefra, 339 Alacoque, Marie, 239 Albert I, King of the Belgians, 370 Albert, Archduke, 124, 164 Albert, Prince, 28, 37, 53, 64 Alessandria (PiedmDnt), fortifi cation of, 53 Alexander II, Tsar, 43, 51 ff., 71, 95, 120, 195, 226, 243 f., 265 Alexander III, Tsar, 306 Alexandria, 292 Alfonso XIII, King, 340 Algeciras. 329, 338, 354 f. ; Con ference and Treaty of, 352, 354 *., 3°7 f- Algeria/ 3, 5, 222, 241, 264, 290, 327. 338- 354 Algiers, 315, 340 Alif Bey, Turkish commissary, 3i Allemane, socialist leader, 312 Alma, the, battle of, 38 Almonte, 88 f., 91, 100, 134 Alpes Maritimes, department of, 249 Alsace, 173 ff., 192, 206, 216, 223 Alsace-Lorraine, 214, 267 Alsen, Island of, 113 f. Alton-Shee, d', 144 Alvensleben, General, 175, 179 Amiens, 195 Amigues, Jules, 220 Amouroux, 210 Anarchist practices, laws against, 3. 3i8' Andrassy, Count, 226, 243, 266 Andre, General, Minister of War, 346 f. Andrieux, 79 Angers, 232 Anglo-French Agreement, 347 1, 37° Annam, 83, 103, 264, 294 ff., 298 Annecy, 232 Antibes, 136 Anti-Semitism, 322 ff. Antonelli, Cardinal, 81, 87 Antony of Hohenzollern, Prince, 164, 168 Aosta, Duke of, 162 Arabi Pasha, 292 Arago, Emmanuel, 201 Arago, Francois, 27 Arago, L., 183 Arcadians (political club in the Rue de l'Arcade), 131, 156, 158, 165, 170 Arenenberg, 49 39° Index Arese, Count, 43, 50, 58, 71, 86, 94, 114, 120 1, 135 Ariege, Arnaud de 1', mayor, 210 Armistice, terms of, 198 ff., 201 Army, the, Louis Napoleon's action towards, 8 f . ; the con stitution of, 38 f . ; reconstruc tion of, 158, 191 f., 224 1, 288 f., 355 Army Endowment Fund, 39 Arnim, German negotiator, 214 Artisan party, advance of, see Working classes Aspromonte, battle at, 86 "Assizes of International Com merce," 261 Association, right of, 130, 277, 337. 344 Associations, working-men's, 1, i°5. 277, 313 Assumptionists, 239, 322 Aube, disturbance in, 363 Aude, rioting in, 360 Audiffret-Pasquier, Due d', 248 ff., 251, 253, 259 "Auditors of the Legislative Body," the, 79 Augagneur, 365 Augier, Emile, 25, 78 Augsburg, 49 Augsburger Zeitung, journal, 163 Augustenburg, Duke of, 111 ft., 115. "9 Aumale, Due d', 77, 203, 235, 241 Aupick, General, 28 Aurelles de Paladine, d', General, 191 i, 207 Austerlitz, 222 Austria at war, 62 ff., 124 f. ; and Italy, 158 ff., 170 ff. Auteuil, 213 Auvergne, Prince de la Tour d', Minister of Foreign Affairs, 171, 177 Auxerre, 124 Avellan, Admiral, 308 Avenir, journal, 25 Ayen, Due d', 76 Baghirmi, 308 Bahr-el-Gazal, 329 Bakounine, Russian revolution ist, 190 Balaclava, combat of, 39 Balan, German negotiator, 214 Balkans, 93, 96, 265 Bancel, 79, 144 1, 148 Baoule, 309 Bapaume, 196 Barail, du. General, Minister of War, 211, 241 f., 260 Barante, de, 75 Baratier, 328 Barberet, 220 Barbey, 310 Bardo, Act of, 290 Bardoux, 260 Baring, Mr (Lord Cromer), 291 Barni, 26, 78 Baroche, 73, 87 Baroche, the younger, 81 Barodet, 234 Barral, de, Italian envoy, 120 Barrett-WendeU, 336 Barrot, Odilon, 98 f . BarLhou, Louis, Minister, 332, 359 ft. Bastard, envoy, 82 Bataille, commandant, 260 Batbie, Minister of PubUc Edu cation, 242 Baudin, deputy, visit to tomb of, 143 Baudin, in Waldeck-Rousseau's Ministry, 332 Bavaria, 113, 121, 128 Bazaine, Marshal, 101, 116 1, !34» 175> 177ff-. 180, 192 ff., 196 Bazeilles, defence of, 181 Beaconsfield, Lord, 265 f., 291 Beaufort d'Hautpoul.de, General, 84 Beaugency, 196 Beauharnais, Stephanie de, 22 Beaumont, battle at, 180 Beaune la Rolande, 195 Behaigne, de, charge d'affaires, 118 Behic, Minister of Public Works, 100 Index 397 Belfort, 195 f., 199, 206, 216, 226 Belgium, no, 118, 123, 128, i33f-. 143 Belgrade, 93 Belleville, 142 Benedetti, French envoy, 119, 122, 128, 133, 161 1, 168 f. Bennigsen, leader of the German patriots, 133 Benue, 308 Beranger, 27, 52 Berenger, 235 Bergaigne, philologist, 237 Bergeret, 212 Berlin, Council of Ministers and Generals at, 119; Congress at (1878), 266 1, 288, 305, 308; Conference of (1884-5), 298; Treaty of (191 1), 369 Bernard, Claude, 236 Bernhardi, 163 Berryer, 25, 96 ff., 144 Bersot, Ernest, 26, 72, 75 ff., 80, 87 f- 237 Bert, Paul, 284 Berthelot, 219, 236, 286 Besancon, 190, 192, 226 Besika Bay, 37 Beslay, Councillor, 142, 210 Bessarabia, 44, 47, 52 Beule, Minister of the Interior, 242 Beust, Count von, Austrian Minister, 40, 44, 159 i, 164, 170 ff., 195, 226 Beyrout, 84 Biarritz, 118 Bigelow, representative of the United States, 117 Bigot, Charles, 220 Billault, Minister of State, 48, 54, 73, 86, 100 Billot, General, 192, 195, 224 Binger, 309 Bishops, assembly of, in Rome (1862), 86 Bismarck, Otto von, 40, 50 f., 64, 76, 109 ff., 113 ff., 121 ff., 126, 128, 132 ff., 136, 159, 161 ff., 173, 176, 181, 188, 190, 193, 196 ff., 201, 205, 214, 216, 223, 226 f., 243 i, 264 ff., 267, 300, 349 Bismarck-Bohlen, Count von, 176 Bissan-Dugu, 309 Bixio, 58 "Black Banners," 296 Black Sea, 37, 39, 42, 44, 46 Blanc, Louis, 21, 104, 141, 220 Blanqui, 79, 183, 187, 190, 194, 206, 210, 212, 282 Blignieres, de, 291 f. Blome, 115 Blowitz, journalist, 267 Bocher, 146, 250 Boer war, 348 Bohemia, 124 Boileve, 309 Bolgrad, 52 Bologna, 66, 69 Bonaparte, Lucien, 150 Bonaparte, Mathilde, 57 Bonaparte, Prince Jerome, see Napoleon, Prince Jerome Bonaparte, Prince Pierre, 150 f. Bonnier, 309 Bordeaux, 9, 99, 145, 196, 200 f., 205 f., 208, 313 Borel, Chief of Staff, 211 Borgfiesi, 74 Borgnis-Desbordes, 296 Borny, battle at, 179 Boselli, prefect, 16 Bosnia and Herzegovina, 32 Bosquet, 43 Boudet, Paul, Minister of the Interior, 100 Boulanger, General, Minister of War, 289, 300, 302 ff., 306 Boulevard Sebastopol (Paris), in auguration of, 56 Bourbaki, General, 169, 192 f., 195 f., 199, 260 Bourbons, 8, 90, 108, 147, 163 Bourboulon, de, French envoy, 82 Bouree, French ambassador at Pekin, 295 Bourgeois, Leon, Minister of 39§ Index Foreign Affairs, 310, 319 f., 354 Bourqueney, de, ambassador, 44 Bourse du Travail, 359 Boutmy, 235, 238 Boyer, 193 Boyve, de, 312 Brame, 52, 109, 146 Brazza, 308 Brea], Michel, philologist, 237 Briancon, 226 Briand, Aristide, 332 f., 342, 347, 35L 355. 357 i-, 3°i ff- 364, 371 Briere de l'lsle, General, 264, 297 Briey, canton of, 214 Brisson, Henri, President of the Council, 79, 138, 141, 247, 257, 275, 278, 294, 303, 325 1, 353 Brittany, rioting in, 356 Bioglie, Due de, 24, 76, 146, 234.I, 241 ff., 245 ff., 248 1, 257 i- Biousse, sociaUst leader, 312 Bruce, English envoy, 82 Bran, prefect, 17 Brunet, deputy, 238 Brunetiere, 322, 356 Brussels, Conferences in, 214 Bry, 195 Bucher, Lothar, 164 f. Buffet, Vice-President of National Assembly, Minister of Finance, Minister of the Interior, Vice- President of the Council, 109, 146, 150, 156, 253 1 Bugeaud, 17, 209 Buisson, 282 Bulgarian massacres, 265 Biilow, Count von, German Chancellor, 349 Buol, Count, 11, 32, 37, 39 ff., 44, 46, 50, 58 Buttes Chaumont, 207, 213 Buzenval, 197 Caen, 21, 142 Cafe de Madrid, 79 Cate Procope, 79 Caillaux, Joseph, Minister of Finance, Premier, 359, 364 1, 37i Cairo, 291 Caisse Central des Chemins de Fer, 81 Caisse de Dotation de I'Armie, 39 Camboja, 298 Cambon, Jules, French ambas sador, 368 f. Cambridge, Duke of, Comman der-in-Chief, 45 f. Cambriel, de, General, 191 f. Camelinat, 104, 142 Cameroons, 308, 349, 369 Canrobert, Marshal, 42, 193 Caprera, 85, 136 Carignano, Prince, 50 Carmaux, 313 Carnot, 8, 13, 52, 144 Carnot, H., mayor, 210 Carnot, President, 302-319, 332 CaroUne Islands, 349 Carthage, 266 Casablanca, 367 Caserio, ItaUan anarchist, 316 Cassagnac, Paul de, 147, 165, 167 Casse, Germain, 142 Castelbajac, de, French envoy 33 Castelfidardo, battle at, 71 1 Castellane, de, Maishal, Gover nor of Lyons, 22, 61 CastigUone, Italian lady, 57 Catholic crusade in the East, 28 ff. Catholic Missions, 83 1, 96 Caution-money, 2, 140, 277 Cavaignac, General, 8, 27, 52 Cavaignac, Louis Jacques, Minis ter cf War, 325 Cavour, Count, 41 1, 46, 50 1, 53, 56 ff., 62 1, 65 1, 69, 71, 85 1, 101, 119 Cayenne, 3, 5, 141 Cazaux, de, charge d'affaires at Vienna, 170 Central Society for Financing Railways, 81 Chabert, 220 ChaUemel-Lacour, Minister of Index 399 Foreign Affairs, 138, 141, 190, 247, 295 f. Chalons, 84, 179 Chambery, 71, 232 Chambord, Comte de, 77, 217, 232, 234, 241, 245 Chambre introuvable, 8 Champagne, 230, 363 Champigny, 195 Champs de Mars, 9 Champy, 210 Changarnier, General, 224 Chanoine, envoy, 82 Chanoine, Minister of Wai, 326 Chantabun, 309 Chanzy, General, 192, 195 1, 212, 233 Chaouya (Shawia), 367 Charbonnier, assassination of, 3°7 Chari, 308 Charles V, 123, 165, 167 Charles X, 1, 14, 147 Charles Antony von Hohen zollern, Prince, 163 Charlotte, Princess, wife of Em peror Maximilian, 88, 116, 134 Charmes, Gabriel, 293 Charner, Admiral, 83 Charras, deputy, 3 Chasseloup-Laubat, de, 10, 103, 146 Chassepot, 158 Chassin, historian, 141 Chateaubriand, de, 78 Chateaudun, 192, 319 Chateauneuf, 195 ChatiUon, 212 Chaudey, 104 Chaudordy, de, Minister of Foreign Affairs, 187 •Chauviere, 142 Chemale, 142 Cherbourg, 59 Cherbuliez, novel-writer, 25 Chesnelong, 257 Chevalier, Michel, 18, 74, 89 Chevandier de Valdrome, Minis ter of the Interior, 109, 146, 151 Chevreau, Henri, 16 Chevreul, 236 China, Chinese affairs, 67, 82 ff., 90, 95, 102, 294 ff., 297 f. Christian IX, King of Denmark, in ff. Christian Missions, 67, 82 Christian Socialism, 315 Christians, persecution of, in the Balkans, 265 Christophle, Minister of PubUc Works, 254 Church and State, separation of, 352 f. Cialdini, General, 71, 86, 136 Cissey, de, General, Minister of War, 211, 224, 246, 253, 260 Civil and military pensions, law on, 39 Civita Castellana, 71 Civita Vecchia, 71, 135 f. Clamageran, economist, 142 Clarendon, 46 1, 51, 59 Claietie, Jules, 79, 141 Clemenceau, Minister of the In terior, President of the Coun cil, 79, 210 1, 220, 276, 278 1, 303, 311, 324, 331, 346, 357 ff., 360 f . Clinchant, General, 213 Clotilde, Princess, 59 f . Clubs, see Associations Cluseret, General, 212 f. Cluseret, revolutionist, 190 Cluseret, journalist, 141 Cobden, 74 Coburg, Prince Ferdinand of, 162 Cochery, 260 Cochin, Liberal CathpUc, 24, 76 Cochin, Denys, 356 Cochin China, 102, 264, 294 Collectivism, 311, 332 Colonial expansion, 263 1, 308 ff., 569 Combes, President of the Coun cil, 3°9. 333. 342, 344 ff- 347 Combination, see Association Commerce, Treaty of, with Eng land, 74 400 Index Commercial expansion, 262 f . Communists, amnesty for, 276 Comonfort, 88 Compagnie de I'Est, 215 Compagnie du Nord, 363 Compagnie GenSrale Transatlan- tique, 18 Compiegne, 59 Comte, Auguste, 26, 78, 219 Conciliation Boards, establish ment of, 20 Confederation Generate du Tra vail, 357- 359f- 3&3 Confederation of the North, 132 Congo, 298, 308 Congregations, teaching, 14, 23, 284, 299, 316, 322, 337 1, 344 ff- 35i Conneau, Dr, 16, 58, 86 Conseils de Prudhommes, 20 Conservative Republic, 203-268 Constans, Minister, 304, 310, 314 Constantinople, 34 1, 37, 44, 53, 129 Cooperative Societies, 220, 312, 314 Copenhagen, 112 Corbon, author, 104 Cornu, Mme Hortense, 49 Coronini, General, 40 Correspondent, review, 24, 29, 76 Cotes du Nord, 99 Coulmiers, battle at, 192 Councils General of Departments, law on, 227 1 Coup d'dtat, 7, 10, 13, 17, 28, 54, 75 Courbet, Admiral, 296 ff. Courcel, Baron de, French am bassador in Berlin, 290 Courcelles, de, French ambas sador, 243 Courrier du Dimanche, journal, 76, 129 Courrieres, 356 Cousin, 77 Cousin - Montauban, General, Comte de PaUkao, 82 1, 177, 180 Coutant, 104 Cowley, Lord, English ambas sador, 42, 61, 122 Crampel, 308 Credit Fonder, foundation of, r8 Cremer, 195 Cremieux, A., Minister of Jus tice, 183, 186 Crimea, Crimean war, 38, 42, 44, 46, 67, 74 Crispi, 70 Croiset, Alfred, 285 Croix, journal, 322 Cronstadt, 44, 307 Crouzat, commander, 195 Custozza, 124, 159, 164 Cyprus, 266 Czartoriski, 93 Dahomey, 309 Damascus, massacre at, 84 Dampierre, Marquis de, 203 Danilo, Prince, 32 Danish Duchies, in ff., 118 ff., 122, 125, 128 Danish war, 113 1 Dannewirke, 113 Danton, 80 Danube, 37, 39 1, 44, 46 Danubian Principalities, 37 ff., 4°. 47. 5°. 52 Darboy, Mgr, 136, 212 Dardanelles, 37 Darfour, 329 Daries, commandant, 83 Darimon, 52, 108 Darmesteter, James, philologist, 237 Daru, 156 David, prefect, 17 D'Azeglio, 85 De Boisdeffre, Chief of Staff, 323, 325 De Launay, prefect, 152 De Marcere, 260 Debats, journal, 98 Decamps, 210 Decazes, Due, Minister of For eign Affairs, 243 1, 246, 254, 260, 264, 291 DecazeviUe, 313 Index 401 Decrais, 332 Decrees, legislation by means of, iff. Degenne, Colonel, 297 Deguerry, Abbe, 212 Delangle, Minister of the In terior, 60 Delbriick, 164 Delcasse, Minister of Foreign Affairs, 328 1, 332, 338 ff., 347 1, 350, 361 Delescluze, 138, 141 ff., 151, 183, 210 DeUa Rocca, Marquis, 56 1, 71 Democratic RepubUc, 269-371 Democratie, journal, 141 Denfert-Rochereau, Colonel, 196, 216 Denmark, matters concerning, 111-115 Heptche de Toulouse, journal, 343 Deportations, 3 ff . Derby, Lord, Prime Minister, 28, 61, 291 Deroisin, 13 , Deroulede, 304, 326 Dervishes, the, and Fashoda, 328 Deschanel, 13, 346 Desjardins, archaeologist, 236 DeviUe, Sainte-Claire, 236 Devinck, 76 Didion, 18 Dijon, 99, 145, 195 Dilke, Sir Charles, 292 Dillon, 304 Dodds, Colonel, 309 Dombrowski, 212 Dominicans, 29 Donnet, Bishop of Bordeaux, 67 Dorian, 98 f. Douai, Geneial, 116 Doudan, 72 Doudart de Lagree, 264 Doumer, Paul, Governor of Indo- China, 346, 353 Doumergue, 361 Draveil, riot at, 360 Dreo, 79 Dreyfus, Captain Alfred, 323 ff., 326, 328 1, 334, 337, 358 Drome, department of, 249 Drouin de" Lhuys, Minister of Foreign Affairs, 7, 34, 41 1, 58, 94 1, 97, 116, 121, 125 ff., 129, 134 Drumont, Edward, 322 Druses, 84 Dubner, 49 Dubois-Saligny, de, envoy, 89, 91 Dubost, Antonin, 79 Duchatel, 24 Duclerc, Premier, 276, 293 1, 353 Ducos, Minister of Marine, 7, 17 Ducros, prefect, 242 Ducrot, General, 181, 188, 194, 197, 211, 224 Dufaure, Minister of Justice, 99, 205, 233 ff., 249, 253 ff., 259 ff., 276, 278 Dufraisse, Marc, 3, 79 Dumas, Alexandre, the younger, 25 Dumas, J. B., chemist, 236 Dumesnil, 237 Dumont, Albert, 286 1 Dumcnt, General, 136 Dupanloup, Mgr, Bishop of Or leans, 24, 67 1, 217, 239 . Diippel, 113 Dupuis, merchant, 264 Dupuy, Ch., President of the Council, 308, 318 1, 321, 326, 332 Dupuy, Jean, 332, 371 Duruy, Victor, Minister of Public Instruction, 74, 100, 103, 108, 127, 219, 236 1, 282, 286 Duval, on Communist Committee of Pohce, 211 Duval, Raoul, 16 Duvergier de Hauranne, 26 Duvernois, Clement, 158 Dybowski, explorer, 308 Eagles, distribution of, 9 East Africa, 349 Eastern question of 1877, 265 Ecclesiastical legislation, 284, . 337 f- 344 f- Ecole des Haules Etudes, 236 26 402 Index Itcole Libre des Sciences Poli tiques, 235 Economic progress, under Na poleon III, 17 ff. Educational matters, 237, 239, 242, 282 ff., 285 ff., 299 Edward VII, King, 243 1, 348 Egyptian affairs, 222, 291 ff., 329, 348 Eider, 113 El Kasr, 368 El Kouti, 308 fclecteuv libre, journal, 141 Electoral Hesse, 125 Elgin, Lord, 82 f. Elliot, English envoy, 70 Ems, 166 1, 169 f. EncycUcals, 106, 243, 357 Enf antin, Pere, 17 f. Engels, 78, 311 Enghien, Due d', 7 Epinal, fortress of, 226 Ernoul, Keeper of the Seals, 239 ff., 242 Espinasse, General, Minister of the Interior and of General PoUce, 54, 60 Esquiros, prefect, 190 Esterhazy, Austrian ambassador, 45 Esterhazy, French officer, 325 Eudes, on Committee of Finance, 211 Eugenie de Montijo, Comtesse de Teba, Empress, 12, 47, 54, 56 1, 61, 86 ff., 93, 108, 115, 131, 134, 139, 146, 150, 154, 156 1, 167, 169 1, 177, 185, 193 Eare, department of the, 216 Exhibitions, fl855) 19, 43 f. ; (1863) 76; (1867) 134; (1876) 261; (1878) 261 1; (1889) 305; (1894) 316; (1900) 334 1 Fabrice, Baron von, German commander, 216 Faidherbe, General, 192, 196, 216, 264 Failly, de, General, 136, 174 FalUeres, Armand, President, 276, 290, 310, 352-371 Falloux, de, 24 1, 29, 67 1, 73 Falloux law, 218 Fanti, 71 Fargeau, 328 Farini, dictator at Modena, 66, 71, 86, 101 Fashoda, 326, 328 1, 348, 350 Fathers of the Holy Ghost, 29 Fauconnerie, Dugue de la, 16 Faure, Felix, Under-Secretary of Marine, President, 319-330 Favel, de, secret agent, 69 Favre, Jules, Minister of Foreign Affairs, 55, 70, 76, 81, 99, 108, 131, 138, 141, 144 1, 152, 155, 182 ff., 186 ff., 189 ff., 194, 197 ff., 200 1, 205, 208, 214 Female communities, decree con cerning, 14 Ferrata, prelate, 315 Ferre, 210 Ferrieres, German headquarters at, 188, 191 Ferry, Jules, Minister of PubUc Education, Prime Minister, 80, 98, 141, 144 1, 148, 184, 186, 194, 200, 220, 246 1, 257, 276, 278, 281 ff„ 284 ft., 287 1, - 290 1, 293 ft., 297 1, 302 1, 310, 312, 314, 319 1, 331. 337 *- 353 Fez, 339, 350, 368 f. Figuig, 339 Finistere, 198 "Five," the, 70, 81, 99 Flahault, de, 90 Flaubert, author, 25, 78 Flavigny. de, 10 Fleury, General, 64, 112, 157 Floquet, 79, 275, 303 Florence, 63, 66, 69, 101 1, 122, 124, 137 Flourens, 194, 197, 210 Fonvielle, Ulric de, 151 Foo Choo, 297 Forbach, 175 Forey, General, 101 Formosa, attack on, 297 Index 403 Fortoul, de, Minister of PubUc Instruction, 7, 14 Fouche, 6 Fould, Achille, Mimster of Fi nance, 7, 17, 58, 81, 87, 123, 126 > Fourichon, Admiral, Minister of Marine, 186, 254 Fourmies, conflict at, 315 Fournier, Captain, 296 Foumiere, 311 Fourtou, de, Minister of PubUc Works, 234, 248, 258 France, Anatole, 79, 324 Francis II, 70 Francis Joseph, Emperor of Austria, 39 ff., 44, 52, 63 ff., 71, 89, 95, 112, 114 1, 117, 119, 124, 159 ff., 172, 226 Franciscans, 84 Franco-German War, 174-202 Franco-Russian AlUance, 307 1, 34°. 37° Franco-Spanish Agreement, 347 ff. Frankfort, 116, 121, 125, 214; Treaty of, 216, 223, 225, 227, 302 Frederick VII, King of Den mark, in Frederick Charles, Prince, 179, 193. 195 i- Frederick the Great, 115, 265 Frederick WiUiam IV, King of Prussia, 39 f . Freemasons, 255, 322 French Congo, 296, 309, 328, 369 Freppel, Bishop, 239 Freycinet, de, Minister of PubUc Works, 191, 260, 262, 264, 276, 278, 284 1, 290, 292 1, 310, 353 FroeschwiUer, 174, 176 Frohsdorf, 245 Frossard, General, 174 f. Fuad Pasha, Turkish commis sioner, 84 Fustel de Coulanges, 236 Gablenz, General, 119 Gaeta, 70 Galicia, 59 GaUffet, General, 181 GalUeni, French officer, 296, 309 Gambetta, Leon, Minister of the Interior, President of the Council, Minister of Foreign Affairs, 80, 104, 138, 143 1, 148 1, 155, 182 1, 186 1, 189 ff., 192, 194 ff., 198, 200 1, 207, 216 1, 220, 224, 228 1, 232, 234, 237, 243, 246, 249, 253. 255 ff., 258 ff., 264 ff., 267, 273, 278 ff., 281, 284, 288 ff., 291 ff., 302 1, 311 1, 316, 319, 331 Ganesco, 76 Garibaldi, 53, 59, 70 1, 85 1, 136, 191 Garnier, architect, 81 Garnier, Francis, 264 Gainier-Pages, 80, 144, 183, 186, 201, 276 Gas Company of Paris, estabhsh ment of, 18 Gastein, 115, 226; Convention of, 115, 117 ff. Gautsch, German poUce officer, 300 Gazette (Piedmont), 56 General Security, Law of, 54 f. Geneva, Congress of (1866), 139 Genoa, Duke of, 163, 339 Geographical Societies, 263 German States, union of, 128 Germanic Confederation, 46, 120, 125, 133 Germany and Morocco, 349 f . Gibraltar, Strait of, 348 Gide, economist, 312 Giers, de, Russian Chancellor, 306 Gioberti, 85 Girardin, Emile de, 99, 107, 147, 158, 249 Girardin, Mme de, 25 Girerd, Cyprien, 260 Girls, education of, 286 Giry, historian, 237 Gladstone, W. E., 195 Glais-Bizoin, 99, 141, 183, 186 26 — 2 404 Index Goblet, 316 Goblet Cabinet, 300 Goeben, von, 196 Goltz, Baron von der, Prussian ambassador, 111, 115, 122, 125 Goltz, General von der, 178 Gontaut-Biron, de, French am bassador, 227, 243 f. Gortchakoff, Chancellor, 41, 43, 46. 5i. 59, 62, 227 Goudchaux, banker, 13, 52 Goulard, de, Minister of the In terior, 234 Gourara, 339 Govone, General, 119 ff. Goyon, General, 68, 71 Gramont, Due de, Minister of Foreign Affairs, 72, 109, 164 ff., 168 ff., 172, 177 "Grand Vizier" (Rouher), 131 Grant, General, President of the United States, 222 Granville, Lord, 197, 292 Graux, Charles, philologist, 237 Greard, O., 237, 282, 285 Greece, 51 Greeks and the Holy Places, 28, 3° 1, 33 f- Gregory XVI, Pope, 29 Grenoble, 226, 232 Greppo, deputy, 3 Grevy, Jules, President of Na tional Assembly, President, 148, 155, 182, 184, 202, 246 1, 263, 266, 269-302, 304 Gros, Baron, 82 Grousset, Paschal, journalist, 150 1, 210 Gueroult, 76, 99, 144 Guesde, Jules, 311 ff., 332, 351 Guiana, 4 1, 323 "Guillotine seche," 4 Guinea, Gulf of, 309 Guizot, Guillaume, 8, 17, 24, 26, 76 1, 283 Guttierez de Estrada, 88 1, 100 Guyot, Yves, 142 Hague Conference, 354 Haiphong, 294 Hanoi, 264, 294 f . Hanotaux, Gabriel, Minister of Foreign Affairs, 313, 328 Hanover, 113, 121, 124 f. Harmand, Dr, 264 Hart, Sir Robert, Enghsh In spector of Chinese Customs, 298 Hase, philologist, 49 Haussmann, Baron, 21 1, 27, 81, 98 Haussonville, Count d', 76 Havet, philologist, 236, 324" Havin, journalist, 58, 99, 103 Havre, 232 Hebert, 80 Heekeren, 9 Henckel, financier, 267 Henon, 8, 52, 70, 99, 141, 145, 152 Henry, Colonel, 325 Herault, rioting in, 360 Herold, 13, 79 Herve, 76, 152 Herzegovina, 32, 93 Hess, Field-Marshal, 39 Hesse, 124 Higher Studies, School for, 239 Hildago, 88 Hohenlohe, Prince, 244, 265 ff. Hohenzollerns, no, 128, 164, 168 Holland, 133 Holstein, 111 ff., 119 Holy Places, the, dispute about, 28, 30 1, 33 1, 67 Holy See, 67, 69 1, 861, 96, 101 1, 117, 135, 257 Hoskier, a Dane, 306 Hubner, Baron, Austrian am bassador, 8, n, 27, 32, 35 ff., 46 f- 55. 57 f- 60 Hue, 296 Hugo, Victor, 3, 13, 18, 23, 25, 66, 78, 80, 207 Hugues, Clovis, 312 Humann, Admiral, 309 Igli, oasis of, 339 Ignatieff, leader of the Great Russian party, 265 Index 405 Independent du Midi, j ournal, 142 Indo-China, 67, 83 1, 90, 95, 222, 264, 298, 327, 353 Indre et Loire, department of, 199 Industries, development of, 103, 229 1, 335 f- Inkerman, . combat of, 39 Insalah, 339 Instruction, liberty of, 14 "Intellectuals," 331 Internationale, association, 106, 139, 148, 152, 210 Isabella, Queen, 162 Ismail, Khedive, 291 1 Issy, fort, 213 Itahan affairs, 41, 49 ff., 53, 55 ff., 59 1, 65 ff., 72, 82, 85"ff., 90, 93 ff., 96, 101 1, 106, 114 ff., 118 1, 121 ff., 124 1, 129, 135 ff., 138, 157 ff., 162, 171 1, 238, 339 f- Ivory Coast, 309 Jaclard, sociaUst chief, 183 Jacques, 26 Jamais, 313 Japan, treaty with (1858), 67 Jaureguiberry, Admiral, Minister of Marine, 295 Jaures, 313, 320, 324 1, 332, 345 f- 35i. 355. 357. 359, 3°5 Jecker, Swiss banker, 88 Jerome, Prince, see Napoleon, Prince Jerome Jerusalem, 33 Jesuits, 29, 83 1, 322 ; expulsion of, 284 Jews, attack upon the, 322 ff. Joffre, General, 309, 370 Joffrin, socialist leader, 312 Johannard, 152 Joinville, Prince de, 203 Jourde, 211 Journal des Dibats, 25, 76, 196 Journal Officiel, 35 Journalists, prosecution of, 142 f. Journals, suppression of, 2, 54, 258; foundation of new, 76, 141 1, 149 Juarez, President of Mexico, 88 ff., 116, 134 Juigne, Comte de, 203 Jurien de la Graviere, Admiral, 90 f . Justice, journal, 275 Jutland, 113 1 Kabyle, the, war in, 95 Kainardji, Treaty of (1774), 30, 33. 35 ff- Kano, 309 Kant, 78 Katkoff, 51 Keller, 76, 85 Keller, Prussian commander, 195 Keratry, 183 Kerdrel, Audren de, 233 Kerdrel, de, 10 Kiaochou, 349 Kiderlen-Waechter, von, Ger man Minister, 368 Kiel, 115 Kihoa, 83 Kitchener, Sirdar, 328 Kong, Prince, 83 Korea, 340 Krantz, report of, on water- carriage, 228 Kreuz party, 40, 109 Kroumirs, 290 Krummer, General, 196 Kuka, 309 Kulturkampf , 243 L'£galite, journal, 311 La Farina, Italian patriot, 53 La Fere, 192 La Ferte-sous-Jouarre, 232 La France, journal, 87 La Gueronniere, Vicomte de, 61, 87, 158 La Manche, 99 La Marmora, President of Itahan Council, 42, 61, 119 ff. La Reunion, island, 294 La Rochejacquelin, 85 La Soledad, Convention of (1862). 90 f . 406 Index La VaUette, de, French ambas sador, Minister of the Interior, Minister of Foreign Affairs, 30 1, 33 1, 86, 125, 127, 129, 132, 140, 161 La Vendee, wars of, 141 Laborde, Jean, 294 Laborie, 324 Laboulaye, de, 247, 250 1, 306 Labour Council, Office, and Bur saries, creation of, 314 Lacordaire, 24 1, 29 Lacour, de, French ambassador, 33 f- Ladies of Zion, 29 Ladmirault, General, 211 Lafargue, 77, 311 Lamartine, 73, 183 ff., 186 Lambessa, transportation to, 4 f. Lamennais, 27 Lamoriciere, 69, 71 Lamy, Erienne, 284 Landrin, 152 Lanessan, de, 332, 338 Langres, 226 Langson, 297 Lanteme, journal, 141, 275 Lanza, ItaUan President, 137 Larache, 348, 368 Largeau, 264 Larrieu, 145 Latin Church and the Holy Places, 28, 30 1, 34 Lauenburg, 113, 115 Laurier, Clement, 80 Lausanne, Congress of (1867), 139 Lavergne, Leonce de, 98, 250 Lavertujon, 99 Lavigerie, Cardinal, 85, 285, 314 Lavisse, Ernest, historian, 237, 285 1 Lazarists, 29, 84 Le Creusot, strike at, 152 Le Mans, 196 Le Morvan, department of, 199 Le Myre de Villers, Governor of Cochin China, 294 Le Play, 221 Le Provost de Launay, 16 Le Royer, 79 Lebas, Philippe, philologist, 49 Leblanc, Victor, Minister of the Interior, 234 Lebceuf, Marshal, Minister of War, 151, 170, 172, 175 Lebrun, General, 158, 164, 179 Lecomte, General, 209 Leconte de Lisle, 25, 78 Ledru-RolUn, 183, 186, 207, 269 Leflo, General, Minister of War, 205, 209, 211 Lefort, Henri, 104, 142 Lefranc, Victor, 203 Lefrancais, 142 Legrand, deputy, 54 Lemercier, Andie, 76 Lenormant, 24 Leo XIII, Pope, 285, 315, 345, 35L 353 Leopold I, 56 Leopold II, 298 Leopold, Prince, 162 ff., 165 1, 168 Lepere, 260 Les MouUneaux, 213 Lesourd, charge d'affaires at BerUn, 166 Lespes, Admiral, 297 Lesseps, de, 222 Lettre a un Catholique, 68 Leygue, 332 Liaoyang, 340 Liard, 286 Liberte, journal, 167 Libre Parole, journal, 322 Libre Pens6e, journal, 79 Lieven, Princess, 24 Lille, 104, 226 Limoges, 145, 214 Linanges, Comte de, 32 Lisieux, 199 Littre, 26, 78, 219 Loch, 82 Lockroy, 79, 143, 316 Loftus, Lord, EngUsh ambassa dor, 119, 197 Logone, 308, 369 Loigny, 195 Lombard, 311 Index 407 Lombardy, 50, 59, 64, 66, 114 London, Conference of (1852), in; (1864), 113; (1870), 195; Exhibition in, 104; Treaty of, in Longchamp, 215 Longuet, 80, 142 Lorencez, General, 90 f. Lorraine, 214 f. Lostende, Mercier de, French ambassador, 165 Loubet, Emile, President of the Council, President, 310, 326, 330-352 Louis XIV, 1, 366 Louis XVTII, 6, 14 Louis Napoleon Bonaparte (Na poleon III), 1-182, 204, 217, 219 1, 241, 246, 249, 253, 258, 3°i. 303 Louis PhiUppe, 1, 12, 23, 76, 147, 150, 188, 204, 241, 253 Lourdes, pilgrimage to, 239 Louvet 146 Lower Rhine, 176, 207 Luxemburg, 133 1, 157, 206, 214 1 Lyautey, General, 339 Lycees, 242, 322 Lyon Republicain, journal, 343 Lyons, 21, 99, 104, 144, 182, 190, 214, 226; Congress at (1883), 313; (1901), 333; Exhibition at, 316 Lyons, Lord, 167, 177 Maccio, Itahan Consul, 290 Mackau, de, 315 MacMahon, Maishal, President, 43, 172, 174, 178 ff., 181, 211, 235, 240-268, 276, 364 Madagascar, 293, 298, 309, 327 MadierdeMontjau, deputy, 3, 66 Magenta, 64, 241 Maghreb, 298 Magne, financier, 7, 17, 73, 87, 126, 241, 248 Magnin, 145 Mahmadu-Lamine, native prince, 3°9 Maine et Loire, department of, 249 Mainz, 127 Mais'Te, explorer, 308 Majunga, 294 Malakoff, 43, 241 Malay Peninsula, 310 Malleville, 233 Malon, Benoit, socialist, 145, 148, 152, 207, 210, 311 f. Mangin, 328 Manin, Italian patriot, 53 Manteuffel, Prussian General, 40, 46, 113, 179, 195 1, 199 Marchand, Colonel, 309, 326, 328 1 Marches, tha, 71 Margueritte, General, 181 Marie, 98 f. Marion, 285 Maritime warfare, code for, 51 Marmont, 209 Maronitesof Syria, 67, 84 Marrakesh, 367 Marrast, Armand, 27 Mars la Tour, battle at, 179 Marsala, 70 Marseillaise, journal, 149 ff. Marseilles, 21, 99, 142, 144, 148, 190, 214, 232, 363 Martel, Vice-President of the Assembly, 109, 248 Martin, Henri, historian, 58, 152, 210 Marx, Karl, 78, 311 1, 363 Masonic Lodges, 79, 141, 346 Massol, 79 Mathe, deputy, 3 Maubeuge, fortress of, 226 Mauchamp, Dr, murder of, 367 Maupas, Minister of State Police, 7, 48, 146 Maury, Alfred, 74 Maximilian, Emperor of Mexico, 88 1, 100 1, 116 1, 134 1 Mayenne, 199 Mazas, 197 Mazzini, 56, 70, 136 M'Bomou, 308 Meaux, 186 408 Index Mecklenburg, Duke of, 195 Mehemet Ali, Grand Vizier, 34 ff. Meillet, 210 Mekong, 103, 264, 309 1, 327 Meline, Jules, barristei, 79, 210, 273, 332; Ministry of, 320 1, 324 i-, 353 Menabrea, Ministry of, 137, 158 ff. Menchikoff, Admiral, 32 ff. Mentana, battle of, 136, 157 Mercier, General, 323 f. Merimee, 25, 85 Merry del Vai, 345 Messina, Straits of, 70 Metternich, Prince, Austrian am bassador, 49, 51, 94, 122, 159 1 Metz, 173 1, 176, 178 ff., 181, 188, 192 ff., 195 ff., 198, 206 Meudon, 158 Mexico, 88 ff., 95 1, 100 ff., 116 1, 134 1, 138, 291 Meyer, Paul, philologist, 237 Meza, de, General, 113 Michelet, 13, 25 Mignet, 25 Milan, 136 Millaud, Edouard, 79 MiUerand, Minister cf Commerce, 313, 316, 320, 329, 332 ff., 341 1, 346, 351, 363, 371 Milliere, socialist chief, 142, 183, 194 Millot, General, 296 Minghetti Cabinet, 101 Miot, Admiral, 294 Miot, socialist chief, 3, 183 Mirabeau, 148 Miramon, 88, 100 Miranda, Father, 91, 100 Miies, financier, 81 Mirko, Prince of Montenegro, 93 "Mixed Commissions," 5 Mizon, 308 Mocquard, secretary to Louis Napoleon, 16 Modena, 66, 60 Mohrenheim, de, Russian am bassador, 307 Moldavia, 37, 47 Mole, 25 Molinari, economist, 142 Moltke, von, no, 134, 161, 164, 173, 175 1, 179 ff., 197, 206 Mommseh, 49, 74 Monis, Ministry of, 364, 368 f. Moniteur, journal, 62, 81, 87 Moniteur de l'Empire, journal, 55 Monod, Gabriel, historian, 237, 286, 324 Monroe doctrine, 89, 117 Monson, Sir Edmund, 328 Mont Valerien, fort, 213 Montagnini, Mgr, 356 Montalembert, de, 8, 10 1, 15, 24, 29, 66, 68, 93, 99, 106 Montaudon, commandant, 260 Montceau les Mines, 313 Monte Rotondo, occupation of, 136 Montebello, Austrians defeated at, 64 Monteil, Captain, 308 f. Montenegro, 32, 93 Montijo, Eugenie de, Comtesse de Teba, see Eugenie de Montijo Montmartre (suburb of Paris), 142, 207, 209, 213, 238 Montpensier, Duke of, 162 Monts de Piete, 20 Moravia, 125 Morin, Frederic, 26 Morny, de, President of the Legislative Body, 5, 7, 12, 17, 43. 52, 54. 61, 66, 73, 87 1, 100, 103, 105, 107 1 Morocco, 267, 338 ff., 347 ff., 350, 352 ff- 355. 367 ff- 370 1 Moselle, 123, 176, 206 f. Motte, Janvier de la, 16, 152 Moulouya, 338, 348 Mounier, General, 368 Moustier, Marquis de, Minister of Foreign Affairs, 129, 133 Mukden, 340, 350 Mulai Hafid, Sultan, 367 Miilhouse, 145 Mun, de, 220, 255, 315, 369 Municipalities, law on (1871), 227 f. Index 409 Mutual Aid Societies, 20, 104, 220, 278, 313 Nakhimoff, Admiral, 37 Nam-Dinh, 295 Nancy, 243 "Nancy" programme, 227 Nankin, 83 Nantes, 145 Naples, King of, 51, 70 Napoleon I, 9, 21, 204 1 Napoleon III, see Louis Napoleon Bonaparte Napoleon, Prince Jerome, 57 ff., 76, 85 1, 93 1, 103 1, 108, 125, 139. 157. 246 Napoleons, deciee restoring the, 10 Naquet, 79, 141 f. Narbonne, rioting in, 360 National University, legislation affecting, 2, 284 f. Nationalism, 324 Nationalities, doctrine of, 48- 128, 138, 157 Nefftzer, journalist, 76 Negrier, General, 297 Nemours, 77 Nesselrode, 43 Neuilly, 151 1, 212 New Caledonia, 214 Ney, Marshal, 7 Nice, 59, 65, 69 Nicholas I, Tsar, 9, 12, 30 ff., 37 ff- 42 Nicholas H, Tsar, 370 Niel, General, Minister of War, 56, 61, 158 Niger, 264, 308 1, 327 Nigra, Cavaliere, 50, 86, 102, 114, 119, 124, 159, 169 Nlmes, 142, 312 Nisard, French ambassador to the Holy See, 27, 345 Noailles, de, the brothers, 76 Noailles, Marquis de, 76 Noir, Victor, 151 Nord, the, 249; rioting in, 356 Normal Schools, 237, 239, 282 1, 286, 322 Notre Dame de Chartres, pil grimage to, 239 Notre Dame de la Garde, pil grimage to, 239 Nuits, 195 Officers' Corps; creation of an, 39 Ollivier, Emile, Liberal Premier and historian, 48, 52, 54, 70, 73, 75 1, 81, 100, 105, 107 ff., 115, 130 1, 139, 144, 146 1, 150!, 153 ff., 165 ff., 173, 177, 182, 247 Olmiitz, 39, 50, no Omar Pasha, 37 Omdurman, 328 Opinion Nationale, journal, 76, 99 Oran, 95, 339 Orleans, loss of, 195 f. Orleans, Duke of, see Louis Philippe Orleans family, 7, 232, 235, 245, 250 Orloff, Count, 39, 46, 50, 243 Orsini, attack of, on the Em peror, 53 ff., 56 f. Ottoman Empire, see Turkish affairs Oubril, d', Russian ambassador, 119 Ozanam, 24 Pacte de Bordeaux, 204, 231 Palermo, revolt at, 70 Palestro, battle at, 64 Palikao, seizure of, 82 Palikao, Comte de, see Cousin- Montauban Pallavicini, ItaUan patriot, 53, 136 Palmerston, Lord, 32, 38, 42 1, 45. 55. 64, 94 ff., 112, 114, 291 Panizzi, 85 Panslavism, 265 Papacy, support of, 137, 139, 258; see also Temporal Power, Roman question Paray le Monial, pilgrimage to, 239 410 Index Paris, improvement of, 21 1, 81 ; opposition of, against the Em pire, 26 1, 48, 86, 98 1, 139 ft., 142 ff., 145, 148 1; Conferences and Congresses at, (iS^) 46, 48 ff., (1857) 53, (1858) 53; Treaty of (1856)", 46 1, 50, 195 ; Convention of (i860), 84; De claration of, 122; Exhibitions in, (1867) 134 1, (1878) 261 1, (1889) 305; levDlts and strikes in, 139, 143 1, 182 1, 356, 360; during the Franco-German war, 185 1, 188, 193 ff., 196 ff., 206 ff. ; surrounded by fortified woiks, 226 Paris, Comte de, 77, 217, 245 Paris, Gaston, philologist, 237, 286 Paris, Lyons and Mediterranean Railway, 18 Parkes, envoy, 82 Parma, Duchess and Duchy of, 5° Pas de Calais, 249, 356 Pasquier, Duke, 23 Passy, Frederic, economist, 142 Pasteur, 236, 286 1 Patenotre, 296 Patrie en Danger, 183 Patriots' League, 304, 326 Pauperism, extinction of, Na poleon's book on, 19 Pawn-shops, 20 Pays, journal, 165, 167 Pechili, Gulf of, 297 Pekin, 82 f. PeUssier, commander, 42 1, 61 Pelletan, Eugene, Minister of Marine, 13, 79, 98 1, 138, 141, 144, 183, 201, 303, 316, 320, 347 PepoU, Marquis, 101 1, 114 Pere Lachaise, 2T3 Pereire, the brothers, 18 Perier, Jean Casimir, Under- Secretary for War, Minister of Foreign Affairs, President of the Council, President of the Chamber, President, 98 1, 146, 150, 233, 235, 248 1, 316-319, 321, 330, 332 Peiigueux, 362 Peroz, 309 Perpignan, 360 Persigny, Minister of the In terior, 7 1, 14, 27, 41, 48, 61, 64, 73, 87 1, 98, 100, 137, 140, 146 Pessard, Hector, journalist, 126 Petit Marseillais, journal, 343 Petite Republique Francaise, jour nal, 316 Petrograd, 12. 31, 95, 121, 123 Peuple, journal, 142 Peyrouton, socialist chief, 183 Pfotdten, von, 40, 44 Philadelphia Exhibition, 261 Philoteclmic Associations, 230 Pianori, attack of, on the Em- peior, 54 Picard, Ernest, Minister of the Interior, 76, 81, 108, 138, 141, 144, 152, 183 1, 186, 188, 194, 205, 208, 228, 254 Pichat, Laurent; 13, 25 Pichon, Stephen, Minister of Foreign Affairs, 85, 361, 367 Picot, 356 Picquart, Colonel, Minister of War, 324, 326, 358 Pie, Mgr, Bishop of Poitiers, 67, 240 Piedmont, 44, 50, 53, 56 Piedmontese forces, 41, 43, 61, 71 Pierre, Admiral, 294 Pierre, Marquis de, 54, 76 Pietri, Prefect of Pohce, 55 1, 132 Pilgrimages, Board of, 239 Piou, deputy, 356 Pius IX, Pope, 24, 68 1, 71 1, 85, -• 106, 218, 238 1, 243, 245 Pius X, Pope, 345, 353, 357 Plichon, deputy, 52, 109, 146 Plombieres, 58 1, 118 Po, 59 Poincare, Raymond, Prime Min ister, President, 287, 313, 332, 37i Index 411 Poland, matters concerning, 38, 5" 1, 93 ff-. 106, 112, 115 Pohgnac, Prince de, 81 Polytechnic Associations, 230 Ponsard, dramatist, 78 Pontalba, de, 81 Pont-I.eveque, 199 Pont-Noyelles, 196 Port Arthur, 297 Portsmouth, Treaty of (1905), 354 "PossibiUsts," 312 Pothuau, Admiral, 205, 235, 260 Pouyer-Quertier, Minister of Finance, 205, 214, 229 Prague, Peace of (1866), 128, 161 Prefects, powers of, 7 1, 16, 48, 52, 54. 73 Press, the, measures concerning, 2, 48, 60, 130, 140, 142, 277; see also Journals Presse, journal, 60, 98 Prevost-Paradol, 13, 25, 76, 98, 108, 126, 130, 141, 146, 152 Prim, General, 90 1, 162 ff., 165 Prince President, see Louis Napoleon Bonaparte Progris de Lyon, journal, 343 ProUtaire, journal, 311 Proscription of democratic chiefs, 3. 99, 144 Protectionist poUcy, 229, 271 1, 3°5. 320 Protet, Admiral, 83 Proudhon, 11, 19, 38, 72, 87, 97, 141 Prussia, Crown- Prince of, 179 Prussia, King of, see Frederick WilUam, William I Prussian affairs, iio-129, 133, *38. i57-!73. etc. Puebla, attack on, 91 Puy, pilgrimage to, 239 Pyat, Felix, journaUst, 66, 141, 183, 187, 207, 210 Quaade, de, Danish Minister, 114 Quentin-Bauchart, 126 Quesney, Dr, 274 Quicherat, historian, 236 Quinet, Edgar, 3, 13, 66, 126, 141 Radowitz, de, Bismarck's agent, 244 Railways, extension of, 18 1, 81, 262, 359 Ram poi) a, prelate, 315 Ranavalo II, 294 Ranavalo III, 294 Ranc, 79 1, 138, 148, 207, 210 Ranees, Spanish ambassador at Vienna, 162 Randon, Marshal, 87, 125 1 Ranvier, 142, 183 Rappel, journal, 143, 147, 220, 275 Raspail, 144 f. Rattazzi, Minister, 86, 135 f. Ravachol, anarchist, 315 Rayet, historian, 237 Rechbeig, Count von, 114 Reclus, 236 Reclus brothers, the, 104 Red River, 264, 296, 327 Redange, 214 RedcUffe, Lord Stratford de, EngUsh ambassador, 32 ff., 52 1 "Reds," the, 55 Regere, socialist chief, 183, 210 Regnier, 193 Reichsoffen, 174 Reinach, Joseph, 324 Remusat, de, 98, 145, 233 ff. Renan, 26, 77, 80, 219, 236, 286 1 Renault, Leon, 284 Renier, Leon, 74, 236 Rennes, 326, 334; Workers' Congress at (1881), 312 Renouvier, 26, 78, 220 Repubhc Constitution, biU for, 234 "Republican RepubUc," pro gramme of, 232 Republicans, proscribed, publi cations of, 12 f. Reschid Pasha, 36 f. Reuss, Prince of, 125 Revanche, journal, 150 Reveil, journal, 141 1 Revoil, Governor, 339 Revolution, journal, 311 412 Index Revolutionary Labour Party, 313. 333 Revolutionary ring - leaders, "hunt" for, 4 Revue Contemporaine, 13 Revue de Paris, 25, 54, 79 Revue des Deux Mondes, 322 Revue politique, journal, 141 Rezonville, battle at, 179 Rhone, Society of the, for Pro fessional Instruction, 230 Ribot, 276, 306 ff., 310, 314, 319 Ricard, Xavier, 79, 233 Ricasoli, dictator at Florence, 66, 69, 86, 135 Richard, deputy, 3, 80, 145 Rifaat Pasha, 33 Rigault, Raoul, 142, 210 f. Ritschl, 49 Rivet, 233 Riviere, Henri, 294 ff., 298 Robespierre, 80 Roche, Ernest, 311 Rochebouet, de, General, 259 Rochefoit, Henri, 141, 143 1, 149 ff., 152, 183, 186, 207, 304, 313 Rochefoucauld-Bisaccia, Due de la, 248 Rogeaid, 80 Roget, 326 Romagna, the, 59, 66, 68, 122 Roman question, 15, 66 ff., 69 ff., 82, 85 ff., 88 ff., 93, 95 1, 101 1, 106, 114, 117, 124, 135 if., 138, 157 1, 160, 172 1, 218 1, 238, 343 ff., 351, etc.; see also Temporal Power, Papacy Romantic School in Liteiature, Politics, and Art, 77 Rome, King of, 47 Roon, von, no, 164 Rossel, General, 212 f. Rothan of Alsace, 192 Roubaix, 104; strike in, 139 Rouen, 21, 104 Rouher, 7, 87, 100, 107, 125, 127 1, 130 ff., 137, 139 1, 146 1, 153 1, 157 1, 160 1, 165, 180, 246 f. Rousseau, 78 Rouvier, Prime Minister, 301, 310, 338, 347, 350, 353 Royer, the Emperor's physician, 80 Rue de l'Arcade, political club in the, see Arcadians Rumania, 49-53, 163 Russell, Lord John, 64, 90, 94. 113, 116 Russell, Odo, English ambassa dor, 227 Russian affairs, 33 ff., 36 ff., 39 ff., 42 ff„ 45, 52, 59, 61, 93, 94. 96, 265 1, 305 ff., 340, 350 Saar, 173 1, 176, 178 Sadowa, 124, 126, 171, 173, 226 Sahara, 264, 339 Saigun, 83 St Arnaud, Minister of War, 7, 38 St Cloud, fort, 213 St Denis, 226 St Etienne, 99, 214; Congress at (1882), 312 Saint-Hilaire, Barthelemy de, 98, 290 St Mande, 320, 332 St Pelagie, 143 St Privat, battle at, 179 St Quentin, 145, 196, 232 St Simon, 17 f. St Vincent de Paul, Society of, 77 Sainte Beuve, 25, 27, 80 Sainte Menehould, 180 Saisset, 26 Sakalavas, 294 Salazar, deputy in the Cortes, 163, 165 Saligny, de, 100 Salisbury, Lord, 266 Salonica, assassination of French and German, consuls at, 265 Salons, Bonapartist, 7 Samoa, 349 Samory, kingdom of, 296, 309 San Stefano, Treaty of, 265 Sand, Georges, 4 1, 25, 126 Sandeau, Jules, 25 Sangha, 308, 369 Index 413 Sardinia, 46, 51, 59 1, 62, 69, 121 Sarreguemines, 175 Sarrien, President of the Council, 355. 357 Satory (Versailles), 214 Savorgnan de Brazza, 296 Savoy, 59, 65 1, 69 Savoy, House of, 51, 53 Saxony, 113, 121, 124 Saxony, Piince Royal of, 179 Say, on the Niger, 309 Say, Leon, Minister of Finance, 141,235, 249, 253, 260, 262,278 Scherer, politician, 293 Scheurer-Kestner, Alsatian Sena tor, 216, 324 Schmerling Ministry, 115 Schneider, President of the Legis lative Body, 182 Schncebele, French poUce officer, 300 Schcelcher, deputy, 3, 66 Schon, von, 368 Schools, legislation regarding, 14, 239, 282 1, 285 ff. Science, advance of, 26, 286 Scrutin d' arrondissement, 281 Scrutin de liste, 280, 299, 362 Sebastopol, 39, 42 ff. Secret societies, 48, 54 Sedan, 180 ff., 187 1, 193, 197 1, 216 1, 222, 226, 241 Seebach, Baron, 43 Segris, 109, 146 Segu, 296 Seine, department of, 249 Seine et Oise, department of, 249 Seine-Inferieure, department of, 216 Selves, de, French Minister, 369, 37i Sembat, Radical leader, 351 Senegal, 222, 264,598, 309, 327 f. Separation, Statute of, 352 1, 355 ff- Serbia, 93 Sere de Rivieres, General, 225 Serrano, republican leader, 91, 162 f. Seymour, Sir Hamilton, 32 Shanghai, 83 Shereefian empire, 338, 354, 368 Siam, 309 Sicilies, Kingdom of the two, 71 Sicily, 70 Slide, journal, 58, 60, 99, 128 Silesia, 123 Silvela, Prime Minister of Spain, 340 Simon, of the Marchand mission, 328 Simon, Jules, Minister of Public Education, Minister of Cults, 4, 7, 26, 78, 97 ff., 105, 108, 144, 148, 182 ff., 186, 188, 201, 205, 219, 237, 239 1, 250, 257, 278, 284 Sinope, Turkish squadron de stroyed at, 37 Sisters of Charity, 29 Slavism, 51, 265 Slesvig, in ff,, 115, 119, 125 Sociahsm, 1, 3, 311 ff., 315, 31.7, etc. "SociaUst Workers of France," association, 311 SocieteGenerale de Credit Mobilier , 18 Soissons, 192 Soleillet, 264 Solferino, victory at, 64 Somme, department of, 216 Sonis, de, commander, 192, 195 South Tirol, 158 South- West Africa, 349 Spain and England, Convention with, and Napoleon, 90 Spanish question, the, 162 f. Spectateur, journal, 54 Spicheren, 174 Spuller, 79, 189, 284, 290, 316 Stamp-duty, 2, 140 Stanley, 296 Statella, Minister of Francis II, 70 Steinmetz, 175, 179 Stern, Daniel, see Agoult, Madame d' Strassburg, 174, 176, 181, 188, 192 414 Index Strat, de, Rumanian diploma tist, 1 68 Strikes, 105, 139, 152, 313 1, 360, 3^3 Stuttgart, 53 Sudan, 264, 308 1, 327 1, 339 Suez Canal, 222, 291 Suffrage universel, journal, 142 Syria, 67, 84 1, 95 Tachard, 145 Taine, 26, 77, 219, 235 Taiping, the, revolt of, 83 Taku forts, attacks on, 82 Talabot, PauUn, 18 Talhouet, 156 Talleyrand, da, no, 204 f. Tamatave, 294 Tampico, 90 Tangier, 348, 350, 367, 369 Tann, von der, Bavarian com mander, 192 Tardif, Admiral, 83 Tavers, struggle at, 196 Tchad, Lake, 309, 327 Tchernaya, 43 Tching-ting-fou, 83 Teba, Comtesse de, see Eugenie de Montijo Teisserenc de Bort, Minister of Agriculture, 254, 271 Temporal Power, matters con cerning, 28, 71 1., 85 ff., 135, 138 1, 238, 242, 258; see also Papacy, Roman question Temps, journal, 76, 99, 226 Tewfik Pasha, Viceroy, 291 Thiers, President, 13, 24, 48, 97 ff., 103, 108, no, 115, 117, 123, 126, 137, 144, 146, 157, 183, 185, 188, 191, 194, 201- 241, 246 ff., 250, 253 1, 257, 259, 263 1, 270 1, 279, 288 f. Thile, von, i62,*i64, 166 Thionville, 214 "Third Paity," 109, 138 Thirty, Committee of, 233 1, 247 1 Thomas, Clement, General, 191, 209 Thouvenel, de, diplomatist, 28, 31, 34, 40, 46, 69, 71, 86 1, 89, 91, 93 i- Thureau-Dangin, 356 Tientsin, 82 1, 296; Treaty of, 67, 82 Timbuctoo, 309 Times, the, 56 Timimoum, oasis of, 339 Tirard, mayor, 210 1, 304, 353 Titoff, Russian envoy, 30 Tocqueville, historian, 25 f . Todleben, 43 Tolain, 103 1, 142, 210, 220 Tonkin, 84, 264, 293 ff., 296 ff. Tcuat 339 Toul, 192, 226 Toulon, 135, 232, 308, 339, 370 Toulouse, 145, 190, 214 Tour du Pin, ia, 220 Tournier, philologist, 237 Touts, 186, 189 1, 192 1, 195 Toutee, General, 368 Trades Unions, 104 1, 277 1, 312, 314. 346, 363 Traktir, 43 Transcontinental Railway, 222 Transportation of suspects, 3 ff. Trentino, Trent district, 135, 159 Tribune, journal, 141 Tridon, 79, 210 Tripoli, 309, 340, 370 Trocadero palace (Paris), 261 Trochu, General, 158, 177 1, 184 ff., 188, 194, 197 1, 224 Troplong, 73 Tsung-h-Yamen, the, tieaty with, 296 Tu-duc, Emperor of Annam, 83, 103, 294 Tung-Tcheou, 82 Tunis, 267, 290 1, .327, 349, 354, 369 Tunisia, 266 Turin, 53, 59 1, 63, 69, 101 Turkish affairs, 30 ff., 33 ff., 36, 4°. 5i t-, 93. 265 1 Tiirr, Hungarian General, 159 Tuscany, 136 Index 415 Ubanghi, 308, 327 Ulbach, Louis, 25 Ulrich, General, 192 Ultiamontanism, 72, 109, 239, etc. "Ultras," 6 Umbria, 71 United States, 89, 117, 261 Univers, journal, 15, 24, 67, 76 University, see National Uni versity Upper Rhine, 176, 207 Usedom, 161 Vacherot, mayor, 26, 78, 138, 210 Vacquerie, 220 VaiUant, anarchist, 318 VaiUant, CounciUor, 210 VaiUant, Marshal, 54, 61, 139 Vaisse, prefect, 16 Valentin, prefect, 192 Valles, Jules, Councillor, 80, 210 Valmy, 182, 187 Varlin, Councillor, 142, 210 f. Varna, 38 Varzin, 168 Velletri, 71 Venetia, 50, 59, 64 1, 90, 96, 114, 117 1, 120, 122 ff., 135, 158 Venice, 63, 94 Vera Cruz, 90 f. Verdun, 178 1, 192, 226 Vermorel, journalist, 210 Versailles, 21, 198 1, 205, 208, 210, 212, 214, 227, 232, etc.; Congress at (1884), 277 Versen, Major von, 164 f. Veuillot, Louis, 13, 15, 24, 67, 260 Vichy, 90, 127 Victor Emmanuel, 41 1, 53, 55 ft., 59, 63 ff., 66, 69 ff- 85, 87, 94, 101, 114, 117, 119 ff., 124, 136, 159 i; 163, 170 ff., I78, 243, 257 Victoria, Queen, 6, 9, 12, 43 1, 47- 49. 53. 59, 61 1, 64 1, 76, 90, 120, 197, 243 f. Vielcastel, 26 Vienna, Note from, 36 f . ; Con- - gress of, 46, 50; treaty of peace signed at, 114 Vierzon, 195, 313 Vilbert, 128 ViUafranca, 64, 66 ViUemain, 25 1 Villersexel, 196 Vimercati, Italian miUtaiy at tache in Paris, 50, 159 f., 171 Vinet, 235 Vineyards, 270 f. Vinoy, Geneial, 188, 197, 208 Visconti Venosta, Marquis, 101 Vistula, 93 Viterbo, 71 Vitzthum, Count von, Austrian envoy in Belgium, 160, 171 Viviani, Minister of Labour, 332 1, 342, 359, 361, 3^3 Vogue, 322 Vohemar, 294 Voltaire, 78 Vosges, frontier, 174, 330 Waddington, Minister of Pubhc Education, 235, 254, 260, 264, 266, 276, 278, 281, 290 1, 293 Waldeck-Rousseau, 277, 312, 331 ff., 334, 337 1, 340, 342, 344. 347 Wales, Prince of, see Edward VII Walewski, President of the Cham ber, 36, 45 L, 48, 51, 58, 60 1, 69. 87, 93, 130 1, 140 Wallachia, 118 Wallon, Minister of PubUc Edu cation, 248, 250, 253 Warsaw, 59; insurrection at, 93 Waterloo, 217, 226 Weiss, J. J., journalist, 76, 152 Weissembourg, German attack on, 174 Wellington, 9 Werder, German commander, 195 f- Werther, von, Prussian ambas sador, 163, 166, 168 White Terror, 4, 8 Wichnegradski, Russian Finance Minister, 306 416 Index Wildbad, 53 Working-men's associations, 1, Wilhelmshohe, 181 104 1, 139, 277, 313 William I, King of Prussia, 64, Wurttemberg, 53, 121 114 1, 117, 119 ff., 122, 125, Wurtz, 286 128, 133 1, 161, 164, 167 ff., Wiirzburg, 113 176, 181, 193, 197, 223, 349 Wyrouboff, 78 William II, German Emperor, 349 1, 354 1, 368 Yonne, department of, 199 WilUam III, 133 Willisen, Prussian General, 44 Zamoiski, 93 Wilson, deputy, 301 Zevort, 237, 282 Wimpfen, de, 171, 181 Zola, 324 1, 358 Witt, CorneUs de, 77, 98, 146 Zuloaga, 88 Woerth, 241 Zurich, Peace of, 65, 69 Working classes, advance of, Zurlinden, Minister of War, 19 1, 103 ff., 139 ff., 142, etc. 326 CAMBRIDGE: PRINTED BY J. B. PEACE, M.A., AT THE UNIVERSITY PRESS.