Imatges de pàgina
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FOREIGN HISTORY.

CHAPTER I.

FRANCE.

The Government and the Elections-Letter of M. Casimir Périer-Marshal Mac Mahon's Manifesto-M. Gambetta at Aix-The Elections: victory of the Republican party-Resignation of M. Buffet-The new Ministry-The Second Ballots: the Bonapartist family feud-Finance and the Budget: election of M. Gambetta as chairman of the Budget Committee-Debates on the Amnesty: Speech of Victor Hugo-The University Bill-Scenes in the Chamber of Deputies The French Clergy: Speech of Mgr. Dupanloup-Reception of M. Simon at the Academy-Death of George Sand, Casimir Périer, Felicien David-Debates in the Chamber on Civil Funerals: Ministerial crisis-Resignation of the Dufaure Ministry: M. Simon, Prime Minister-Political prospects at close of the

year.

THE opening of the year was marked by considerable political agitation, conjectures concerning the probable attitude of Marshal MacMahon with a view to the future elections chiefly occupying the public mind. An important letter from M. Casimir Périer, published in the first days of January, clearly expounded the view of the situation adopted by a clear-sighted experienced politician, who recognised the necessity of the Republic without relinquishing his preferences for constitutional monarchy. "You are going," wrote M. Périer to his constituents, "to form the first Parliament of the Republic-some of you are summoned to elect the two Senators of the Department, all of you to select the Deputies of your respective arrondissements. Candidates of diverse origin will offer themselves to you in a country shaken by so many revolutions. To have been in former times attached to other forms of Government cannot be a ground of exclusion, but the declarations. of adhesion to the existing institutions must be frank and clear, the pledges without ambiguity or reticence. These will be your guarantees; and still more so, personal character and rectitude of conduct. The Monarchy has been shelved before the insurmountable obstacle of two irreconcilable principles. The Empire, overpowered by the weight of its blunders and disasters, would be fatally condemned to seek an impossible rehabilitation in a fresh war. I have a right to appeal here to the recollection of all those -and they are very numerous-who at the time of the elections of 1869 heard me predict the madness and catastrophes which threatened us. The event, much exceeding my gloomiest forebodings, has too quickly and too cruelly confirmed me.

Let us respect and make respected the Constitution and the rights it confers on the valiant soldier who, having become President of the Republic, has freely and loyally accepted the protection of the trust confided to his honour. Let us give our votes only to those who, Republicans of the eve or of the morrow, want that Republic to be irreproachable, strictly bound up with Conservative interests, never sundering democracy from liberty, or liberty from order. Let us ask candidates to declare expressly that the right of revision is in their eyes a means of improving and consolidating our institutions, and not a weapon for destroying them. Twothirds of the Senators to be elected this year will be still in office in 1880, and all, moreover, as well as the Deputies elected in 1876, may have to decide on the revision if the President of the Republic proposes it before 1880, and if the two Chambers accept it. It is indispensable, therefore, that candidates explain themselves on this point. General and vague professions of faith, high-flown words devoid of meaning are now no longer in season. France is tired of ambiguities and reserves. Everybody should clearly show what he is and what he wants. You can insist upon it, and you will resolutely set aside whoever disguises his idea, for he will try and deceive you."

The Buffet-Dufaure ministry felt the difficulties of their situation, especially with regard to the manifesto which it was now incumbent on them to publish. But day after day passed without any agreement as to the terms of the manifesto being agreed upon. M. Buffet and his colleague brought to the Cabinet Council addresses which were not only rival but contradictory. Hours of discussion failed to make the ministers agree upon a single point. When the Vice-President (M. Buffet) brought a proclamation intended to fuse both addresses, M. Dufaure protested against the very first sentence, and declared he would not sign such a document. Seeing the hopeless confusion, the Marshal, as the Times remarked, intervened with a compromise which "marked the simple directness of a mind trained in camps. He determined to put forth a Proclamation in his own name, while the Ministers could continue to fight among themselves so long as they should support him." It ran as follows:

"French Republic.-Frenchmen,-For the first time during five years you are summoned to take part in a general election. Five years ago you wanted order and peace. At the price of the most cruel sacrifices, amid the most terrible trials, you obtained them. To-day you still want order and peace. The Senators and Deputies you will elect will be bound with the President of the Republic to strive to maintain them. It will be our duty to apply together with sincerity the constitutional laws, of which I alone have the right till 1880 of proposing the revision. After so many agitations, strifes, and misfortunes repose is necessary to our country, and I think our institutions ought not to be revised before having been loyally worked. But to work them as the

safety of France demands, the Conservative and truly Liberal policy which I have constantly aimed at making prevail is indispensable. In order to sustain it, I appeal to the union of men who place the defence of social order, respect for the laws, and devotion to the country above party recollections, aspirations, and engagements. I invite them all to rally round my Government. Under the shelter of a strong and respected authority, the sacred rights which survive all changes of government, and the legitimate interests which every government should protect, must find themselves in full security. It is necessary, not only to disarm those who might disturb that security in the present, but to discourage those who menace it in the future by anti-social doctrines and revolutionary programmes. France knows that I never sought nor desired the power with which I am invested, but she may rely on my exercising it without feebleness; and, in order that I may fulfil to the end the mission which is confided to me, I hope that God will help me, and that the co-operation of the nation will not be lacking to me.

"Marshal DE MACMAHON, Duc de Magenta, President of the Republic."

This proclamation caused a great and salutary effect on public opinion. The plain-spoken-almost commanding-tone pleased the Conservatives, while the personal honesty and disinterestedness of the writer conciliated even the large party in the country who had been advocating the "anti-social doctrines and revolutionary programmes." There was, in fact, a chorus of approval from such very different quarters as the Débats and the France, the Dixneuvième Siècle and the Evénement, the République Française, Siècle, and Rappel. The truth was that the organs of the Left and Extreme Left had been so completely prepared for a reactionary manifesto that the actual proclamation was an agreeable surprise, showing that the liberal proclivities of M. Dufaure had not been without their due influence.

M. Gambetta delivered a speech at Aix shortly afterwards, in which he strongly inculcated the necessity of moderation in tone on the part of sincere Republicans. He remarked that the circumstances in which they met were a fresh proof of the sad condition of a country not yet enjoying, in spite of so many revolutions, the most elementary guarantees of free peoples. In two days they had been deprived of the most natural right of entering into relations with their fellow-citizens on the eve of operations most serious for the welfare of the country. The policy which inspired such measures was already judged by public opinion, and universal suffrage in a few weeks would deliver them from it; but this did not console him for the humiliation he felt as a Frenchman at finding such attacks on right possible. Let not the lesson be lost upon them in the future, and let them remember that the most detestable thing in such a policy was that it enfeebled the authority of any Government. He had intended at the

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proposed large gathering to examine the 25th of February Constitution, so has to show all its advantages for the future and for the progress of Republican Democracy, and to impress on them his conviction that this Constitution, so much criticized at the outset, might be the best, being the most practical, yet devised for French traditions, manners, divisions, and customs. Time not allowing this demonstration, he should confine himself to the impending election of the Upper Chamber, the consequences of which would be decisive for the welfare or misfortune of the nation. Alluding to the co-operation of every Commune in that election, M. Gambetta proceeded to say :

"It has been said that this was a scheme which would overpower the towns by subordinating them to the villages. That result might have been sought twenty or fifteen years ago. But after the villages had been shaken under the blow of our misfortunes; after the last levies of men they had to raise and protect the fortunes of France; after the milliards which the shames and follies of the Empire have cost us, the spirit of responsibility has penetrated into the remotest hamlet, and to question the peasant on his interest sufficed to elicit a response conformable to that interest."

Remarking that the municipalities had not the function of choosing Senatorial Delegates at the time they were elected, and that they might, therefore, exhibit some hesitation and have to feel their way, M. Gambetta expressed his conviction that future municipal candidates would be closely questioned as to their opinions, candidates for the posts of Delegate and Senator being similarly interrogated; that time would show what a Senate would be worth issuing from such a series of trials and elections. He went on to say :

"It is time to put an end to declamation on social peril and revolutionary programmes, to give up the monopoly of the title of Conservative union, which is only a lure and a deception in the mouths of those who pronounce it. None of the questions of property, liberty of conscience, public order, and the family are called in question by the party to which I belong, and which has gloriously defended these principles when attacked. A truce to this obsolete rhetoric. I recognize as Conservatives only those who are prepared to defend the laws, the Constitution, and the Republic. As to those intriguing to bring back a king of the elder or younger branch; conspiring to saddle us with one last disgrace, under which every sentiment of national honour would disappear, by bringing back I know not what creature of chance under the name of Cæsar, they are the enemies of civil and social peace; they are false Conservatives. A true Conservative is attached to all that has been created by the first Revolution, and which has for 100 years been the patrimony of French society. A Conservative upholds the absence of privileges as organized by the Code, liberty of conscience as proclaimed in the declaration of

the rights of man, liberty of thinking as of praying, the family as settled by the abolition of majorats and primogeniture, equal eligibility and protection for all. Political equality exists not where wealth flows forth for all, for human societies are not made to ensure good fortune, but where there is justice for all. To deny the national sovereignty and social, civil, and political equality; to restore an aristocracy without root, and families to whom the country has so many times done justice by its sufferings, losses, and revolutions; to want a dominant religion, the revival of mortmain, and I know not what hierarchy of forces combined against the principles of '89, is to be the Conservative of a bygone age, whose mere spectre makes the heart of France beat with anger. It is they who would bring the real social peril, for there is no greater peril than that of arming a young and growing society against the revivers of former systems. Let them renounce their usurped title of Conservatives, which belongs only to us. Not that we wanted a monopoly, for we have no exclusiveness. We are too anxious to repair the losses of France to exclude any Frenchmen from the task of raising up the country. They must not, however, enter the Republic with a mask and with deceitful words, for we will never tolerate hypocrisies. To those who were not with us in the hour of trial we offer a privileged rôle, for they have leisure, education, and social influence, and they may exercise their aptitudes for the benefit of all—a legitimate exchange for their position in a past which excluded the democracy that now welcomes all sincere men."

He concluded by drawing a forcible contrast between the only two possible régimes, the Republic and the Empire:-"I am sure what will be the answer of France when asked to change a system which helped you to get out of the hands of the foreigner, enabled you to pay the milliards of ransom, has made peace and industry prevail, brought nearer together various social strata, and reconstituted the military power of the country. When asked to change this system for the sake of a Prince, a dictator, or an adventurer, let us confound our calumniators by our conduct, and thus pave the way for a revision in the sense of Democratic progress, and let the generous population of the South, defamed as seditious and turbulent, set the example of calmness, moderation, and firmness. It has been held up to terrify France. Let it be an example and guide."

By way of a proof that Republicans were not always capable of M. Gambetta's statesmanlike breadth and moderation, Victor Hugo published at the same time a characteristic address in the Rappel to his 36,000 fellow Delegates, from which we quote a paragraph:

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"What France is now founding is the liberty of nations. work is more than national-it is Continental. Europe free will be Europe immense. She will have no other toil than her own prosperity, will attain the highest stature which human civiliza

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