CORNELL UNIVERSlfV LIBRARY GIFT OF Professor Henry Guerlac The original of this book is in the Cornell University Library. There are no known copyright restrictions in the United States on the use of the text. http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924028176935 Cornell University Library DC 335.C85 1897 Evolution of France under the third repu 3 1924 028 176 935 F^LIX FAURE, PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC. THE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE UNDER THE THIRD REPUBLIC BY BARON PIERRE DE COUBERTIN TRANSLATED FROM THE FRENCH BY ISABEL F. HAPGOOD ^utJjnrtjeJj IStiition WITH SPECIAL PREFACE AND ADDITIONS AND INTRODUCTION BY DR. ALBERT SHAW, EDITOR OP "THE REVIEW OF REVIEWS" NEW YORK: 46 East 14th Street THOMAS Y. CROWELL & COMPANY BOSTON: 100 Purchase Street OOPTKIOHT, 18ST, Bt T. T. OEOWELL & CO. Nottonob ^tim J. S. Cnshing St Co. - Berwick S Smith Norwood Mass. U.S.A. INTRODUCTION. JtrsT a hundred years have elapsed since the first French Republic attained apparent stability, with high prestige and virtual paramountcy throughout Europe. The political fortunes of France since that time have been full of a strange and seemingly capricious variety. As one looks back, however, over the course of things since the revolutionary period, it becomes plain not only that the last quarter of the hundred years has been by far the best epoch for the French people, but also that the caprice and contradiction of French politi- cal history have been rather upon the surface of events, while the real life of the nation has unfolded by proc- esses of development which make the present order in some true sense the logical and necessary outcome of all that has gone before. It has not been the task of our author in the present volume to treat of the entire century. He finds it desirable, nevertheless, briefly to recite his philosophy of the political evolu- tion of France since the first Napoleon. His views seem to me to disclose not merely a typical French aptitude for generalization and the rationale of things, but further than that a justness of judgment and a reasonableness that inspire the utmost confidence. In his prefatory remarks M. de Coubertin frankly admits the difficulties under which the writer of con- temporary history must labor ; but he also claims, very rightly, a number of peculiar advantages as respects iv INTBOBUCTION. the sources of information. The present volume seems to me a most admirable instance of the judicious use of ' the current mass of available material, by a student and observer whose methods are thoroughly workman- like, whose temper is well-nigh perfect, and who pos- sesses a scientific habit of accuracy combined with an artistic sense of proportion. M. de Coubertin has given us what is at once a discussion of the nature and workings of the French political system, and a vivacious narrative of the principal events in the politi- cal and general history of France since 1870, with an analysis of the contemporary life and character of the French people. The first French edition of this work (L^ Evolution Frangaise sous la Troisieme R6puhlique) made its successful appearance in Paris some months ago. It is to be observed that the present edition — translated for American and English readers by Miss Isabel F. Hapgood with her well-known fidelity and skill — has been extended and revised at various points by the author himself, in order to adapt it the better for America and the English-speaking world. Thus M. de Coubertin has wisely added many notes which supply names, dates, and political details, while also assigning more space to personal characterizations of the men whose names are entitled to appear prominently in a history of these recent times in France. The Baron de Coubertin is abundantly competent thus to give the revisory touches that would adapt his work for students and general readers in the two great English-speaking lands, because he knows both England and America remarkably well, and is in closer sympathy and rela- tionship with Anglo-Saxon life and institutions than almost any other of his fellow-countrymen. Although still a young man, M. de Coubertin has JNTBODUCTIOJSr. V acquired a broad point of view through wide travel and deep study. He is peculiarly qualified, therefore, to interpret the institutions of his own country for the benefit of Americans or Englishmen. No foreigner could have written certain chapters in this book with the insight that the author displays. On the other hand, no Frenchman not exceptionally familiar with the history, politics, and social life of America and England could, in the writing of a book like this, have rendered a direct service to English-speaking readers while primarily addressing his own countrymen. The international and comparative cast of mind has come to be as second nature with M. de Coubertin, — a thing that can be said of very few Frenchmen. In that re- gard he is the De Tocqueville of our day. Quite as De Tocqueville, now more than sixty years ago, visited the United States and England in order to write books which should interpret American democracy and Eng- lish life to the Frenchmen of the '30's who had just placed Louis Philippe on a "throne surrounded by Republican institutions," even so M. de Coubertin has for some years past been busily studying and interpreting to the young men of the Third Republic certain phases of English and American life which he has believed might well be incorporated into the French scheme of existence. M. de Coubertin is a philosophical observer and a constructive reformer; and since he is one of the really notable and remarkable young men of our day, — belonging also peculiarly to the student world, it is fitting that something of his life and career should be known to Americans. The Baron Pierre de Coubertin is the scion of a family now old in France, where it has been domiciled for somewhat more than four hundred years. It came vi INTRODUCTION. originally from Italy, by favor of King Louis XI., who conferred honors and titles upon the head of the house. The family came to be known by the name of Couber- tin some time after 1650, by virtue of the fact that its principal seigneurie was situated at Coubertin, near Versailles, in the renowned valley of Chevreuse. The Baron Pierre de Coubertin, with whom we have to do, was born on the 1st of January, 1863. His life and career have thus far been noteworthy chiefly on the educational side. He was educated in Paris, first at the Jesuits' day-school in the Rue de Marat, known as the Ecole Saint Ignace, and afterwards in the University of Paris, where he obtained successively the degrees of bachelor of arts, bachelor of sciences, and bachelor of law. He also took a post-graduate course in politi- cal science at the Ecole des Sciences Politiques. It was in 1884, when only twenty-one years of age, that M. de Coubertin began his visits to England, with the prime object of acquainting himself inti- mately with the life of the great public schools, — Rugby, Eton, Harrow, and the others of that type. He had become strongly convinced that there was an ele- ment in English education that was sadly lacking in the French schools. Obviously and conspicuously, the English training in athletics, and the English devotion to outdoor sports and exercises, were almost totally unknown in the French lyceums and collegiate insti- tutes. But Coubertin clearly perceived that some- thing even more serious Avas concerned than the mere question of physical culture. He understood that in the rowing, football, and cricket of the English schools, and all their other games, contests, and field-day exer- cises, there was involved an element of moral discipline and strength that supplied in some sense a key to the INTRODUCTION. vii secret of England's power. Not merely a manliness expressed in muscular force and physical bearing was developed in the English arena of school sports or neighborhood contests and pastimes, but also a fine spirit of fair play, a hatred of meanness, lying, and all forms of deceit, and that fundamental kind of honor and integrity of character that cause Englishmen to be trusted and respected, even if not greatly beloved, by all races, in all lands. Furthermore, this love of hardy games and contests seemed to Coubertin the best sort of protection to the young men of our times from the temptation to unworthy indulgences that tend to under- mine personal vigor and thereby to diminish the vitality of the nation. The drift in France among young men of education was towards softness and over-refinement, and the vices that are somewhat dangerously akin to certain phases of aesthetic development. The ideals of youth in England seemed, as compared with those of France, to make for the clear eye, the steady hand, the firm will, — in short, for self-control and the conservation of energy. It was, therefore, with no mere boyish fondness for the excitement of athletic contest, con- sidered as a thing desirable in itself, that M. de Cou- bertin devoted himself to the development or the revival of a high type of manhood among French stu- dents. Older men than he had perceived, after the disastrous war with Germany, that French education was lamentably behind the age, and that German mili- tary superiority was due in large part to the high in- tellectual training to which the whole nation had been subjected as a part of a far-sighted national policy. The ministers of education could improve the school system by securing better laws and spending more vm INTRODUCTION. money. But there was also needed the personal devo- tion of men who could, by giving their best effort and enthusiasm, work a change in the spirit of student life. Happily, M. de Coubertin has not been obliged to do this work in isolation and without help and sympathy ; but he has been the most active spirit in it, and has worked with such assiduity as well as tact, intelligence, and fine spirit, that already great results are evident. M. de Coubertin was not content with any merely casual study of English school life, nor did he jump at quick conclusions or attempt to propagate theories of French educational reform until he had tested his views and impressions by repeated comparative inspections of the educational life of the two countries. Thus for four years he went back and forth between England and France, making two or three sojourns a year on the English side of the Channel. In 1887 he began to publish articles in French magazines and journals, deal- ing with the reform of French education, and the rSle that sport should play in school life. Some of these, also, were interpretative studies of the characteristics of contemporary social and educational life in England, with particular reference to the schools and universities. He was ready at length in 1888, at the age of twenty- five, to publish his book L" Education en Angleterre, an account of school \ life in England, which, while valua- ble on any account, was of particular use in the ad- vancement of the cause to which all his efforts were really devoted. The book attracted very favorable attention in France, and its success gave the young author and reformer prestige enough for the public launching of his practical movement, this taking the form of a "committee for the propagation of sports and physical exercises in education," with that eminent INTRODUCTION. ix statesman, scholar, and educational authority, Jules Simon, as president of the committee. In the following year occurred the Paris Exposition of 1889, with its congresses and its various opportuni- ties for the exemplification of progressive ideas and methods. M. de Coubertin was alive to the value of the occasion, and he was instructed by the authorities of the exhibition, in connection with the displays and exhibits showing educational methods in foreign coun- tries, to organize an international congress on physical education. The congress was not only successful in itself, but especially valuable for the influence it was able to exert upon French public opinion. At this time M. de Coubertin published a book on L' Education Anglaise en France; and before the exhi- bition season had ended in the autumn he had the satisfaction of receiving a commission from the National Department of Public Instruction to visit the United States and prepare a report for the benefit of France upon the organization, work, and life of American col- leges. He accepted the commission and came promptly to this country ; and his visit is remembered pleasantly by numerous Americans who met him at one institution or another. He visited many colleges and universities in New England, in New York and the other Middle States, in the far South, and in the Mississippi valley and the Northwest, and extended his tour to Canada. His observations were embodied in a book published at Paris the following year, entitled UniversitSs Trans- atlantiques. He also founded, upon his return to Paris, a monthly magazine, the Revue Athletique, which he con- ducted for two or three years as the organ particularly of the athletic interests of French schools and uni- versities. X INTRODUCTION. Meanwhile, all this work for the encouragement of the athletic spirit in the French institutions had begun to tell strongly ; and in the season of 1891-92 it was possible under M. de Coubertin's leadership to organize what is now the well-known Union des Societes des Sports Athletiques. This central body is a confedera- tion of about two hundred French athletic clubs and societies, half of which are in the universities and col- leges. With a view to keeping the French student's interest from flagging, M. de Coubertin endeavored to make some plans for English and American competitions. Thus, in 1892, international football matches were begun between French and English teams. Lord Duf- ferin himself presiding over the first one held at Paris. M. de Coubertin also succeeded in securing the recognition of the French Union by the Henley Regatta Committee, and the admission of French rowing crews to the university contests on the Thames. Again, in that same season, he secured the visit to Paris of a team of American university athletes, as the result of the efforts of an American committee which he -had or- ganized and in which his friend Professor Sloane, then of Princeton University, was especially active. The practical aspects of M. de Coubertin's work for that season of 1892 should be further illustrated by mention of the seven days' athletic and intercollegiate tourna- ment in and about Paris, participated in principally 'by the athletes of the various French universities and schools, under the honorary presidency of the Grand Duke Vladimir of Russia. To crown the work of the j^ear, M. de Coubertin, at the end of November, gave a lecture in the amphi- theatre of the Sorbonne, in which he disclosed his plan for the re-establishment of the Olympic games. The INTRODUCTION. xi enlistment of American interest in this ambitious pro- ject for a modern quadrennial tournament of games and sports that should be open to amateurs — particularly those of the student class — from all nations, was much facilitated by M. de Coubertin's second visit to the United States, which occurred in 1893. He had the honor to come again with a commission from his gov- ernment ; for he had been appointed one of the organiz- ing committee of the French section at the World's Fair, while also designated by the World's Fair authori- ties at Chicago as one of the honorary heads of the Congress on Higher Education. He improved this opportunity to visit the Pacific coast, where he inspected the University of California at Berkeley, the Leland Stanford University, and other institutions. In each of these two California univer- sities, as well as at Princeton, and in Tulane at New Orleans, M. de Coubertin founded a debating prize that will make his name familiar to many future gener- ations of American students. This prize takes the form of an annual medal awarded to the best student debater on some subject relating to French politics or political history. M. de Coubertin's object in found- ing these very interesting contests in forensics was to promote, among the educated young men of the United States, a better acquaintance with France through a discussion of French politics every year in several uni- versities. Before leaving this country in the autumn of 1893 he had aroused a very general interest, espe- cially in the college world, in his plan for the Olympic A little later, in the early weeks of 1894, he was actively at work in England holding conferences and forming his committee for the promotion of the idea of xii INTRODUCTION. the quadrennial athletic tournament. In June of that year the subject was taken up by a great conference or congress, held at the Sorbonne in Paris, a dozen or more nations being represented. King George of the Hellenes sent his best wishes; and the eight-day confer- ence, with its accompanying fetes and sports in the Bois du Boulogne, was fairly successful, resulting in the formation of an international committee to carry the Olympic plan into effect. It was decided that the first games should be held in Greece in 1896, with the further understanding by common consent that the com- petitions of 1900 would be held at Paris as a feature of the proposed international exhibition, while somewhat more vaguely it was anticipated that the games of 1904 would be held in the United States. M. de Coubertin then betook himself to Athens, with the result of form- ing an enthusiastic Greek committee and perfecting plans for the first games, with the Crown Prince of Greece as presiding officer for the occasion. The games as they actually occurred at Athens in 1896 at- tracted a world-wide attention ; and the illustrated articles in which they were described in the periodical press of every part of the civilized world would fill a number of volumes. Meanwhile, M. de Coubertin had been married to Mademoiselle Rothan, daughter of the late M. de Rothan, who was a distinguished ambassador and well-known author. In the past two years his pen has been unusu- ally busy ; for, besides the present work on Prance under the Third Republic, he has completed a volume on his recent travels, entitled Souvenirs d'AmSrique et de Grrice. Furthermore, he has contributed a number of important articles to the leading French journals and reviews, besides a series for the (American) Review of INTBODITCTION. xiii Reviews, aud still other literary work. As illustrat- ing M. de Coubertin's thoroughness as a student and worker, I may be permitted to remark that at my sug- gestion he has written some of his articles in English. To have acquired English after attaining manhood, and to be able not merely to read and speak the language, but to write it for publication with full command of vocabulary and with an excellent use of idioms, is an unusual thing, particularly for a Frenchman. M. de Coubertin's mastery of English is simply an indication of his earnestness and persistence in all things to which he may have set his hand. Our author's study of the political history of his own country during the past quarter-century would seem to me to show a rare talent for political and institutional history. For the very reason that he belongs to the new generation, and did not therefore participate in the events that followed the catastrophes of 1870, he finds it the easier to render even-handed justice to all the men and parties that were active at that time. I have not read any book which shows with such convinc- ing logic as M. de Coubertin's the relation of one movement in French politics to another. His charac- terization of men is remarkably just and felicitous. Thiers, MacMahon, Gambetta, Jules Ferry, Gr^vy, De Freycinet, Jules Simon, Carnot, Boulanger, Cl^men- ceau, — these and many others stand out in clear relief, and one feels that with a few skilful touches the au- thor has given us true and trustworthy portraiture. Furthermore, his study of constitutional modes and parliamentary methods shows a remarkable power of analysis and discrimination. Nothing could be better in its way than his argument for parliamentary government as tending by virtue of xiv INTRODUCTION. its very instability and fickleness to give the Republic a real security. With ministerial rigidity there might in France be danger of revolution ; but where it is so easy to make and unmake ministries, the popular emo- tions expend themselves harmlessly, and the great mechanism of government goes on undisturbed. M. de Coubertin of course lays due stress upon the value of the permanent organization of governmental busi- ness, under chiefs who do not change, and who owe their loyalty to their bureaus or departments and to the country itself, rather than to parties or ministries. Our author would certainly not be so optimistic and easily satisfied as to extol the constant changing of cabi- nets as the ideal arrangement ; for he would not fail to admit that better results would be secured from a higher degree of ministerial stability. Nevertheless, he makes a strong argument to show that, thus far in the life of the Third Republic, the quick responsiveness of ministries to the veerings of public opinion as ex- hibited in the chambers has made for strength rather than for weakness. For the vitality of the Third Republic lies precisely in the fact that it has been an essential unfolding of the latent capacities of the nation itself for its own self-ordering and self-direction, — an Evolution, as M. de Coubertin happily phrases it in the title of his book. If the Republic had been a creation rather than an evolution, it might have come to disaster. If indeed, as some men wished, the Third Republic had been placed under the guarantees of a rigid constitution, — which, like our own American organic law, could not be changed at any point without processes practically requiring years of discussion and an almost unanimous consent in the end, — the lack of elasticity would have INTRODUCTION. XV provoked revolution, and the very object sought for would thus have been lost. As our author shows, the Empire, through the force of events, ceased to exist on the 4th of September, 1870. But the organized political life of the French nation went on ; and the Republic was the only normal possibility. It was simply the nation governing itself under a formula for which no adventitious claims were asserted, and which the nation was at perfect liberty to reject at any moment it chose. After a little time, the organization of the Republic began to take on a higher degree of differentiation. A second chamber seemed to correspond well to the facts and conditions of the national life, and a Senate was provided. This has thus far shown itself a valuable balance-wheel, because less impulsive than the Chamber of Deputies, more sober and deliberate in its methods, and more stably representative of the main trend of the nation's best opinion and intelligence. It has been capable of firm influence, while avoiding, for the most part, the obstructive and irresponsible attitudes that have in recent years so justly brought criticism upon the American Senate and the English House of Lords. Our author shows himself thoroughly appreciative of the value of the Senate in the mechanism of the Third Republic. The practical evolution of the office of the Presidency, from M. Thiers and Marshal MacMahon, through the long period of M. Gr^vy, down to the assassination of President Carnot, is presented most instructively. Nothing better illustrates M. de Coubertin's method in this volume than his treatment of just such a sub- ject. There is not a paragraph devoted to abstract discussion of the question of presidential responsibility, xvi INTRODUCTION. or the relation of the head of the state to the prime minister and the cabinet ; but every delicate phase of that very important matter of constitutional law and practice is set forth, with all the author's unfailing lucidity, by the more attractive method of concrete narration. Thus we are shown how the able, experi- enced, and conscientious Thiers conceived of the nature of his presidential duties ; and the principles involved are duly revealed as the events recited by our author brought these principles into evidence and caused them to be tried and discussed. M. de Coubertin's light upon the character and aims of Marshal MacMahon is especially welcome, because its high praise of the man himself, as a patriot with an unfailing sense of his duty under the constitution as President, is tem- pered at all points by full recognition of the errors of judgment which MacMahon undoubtedly committed. One's confidence, indeed, in M. de Coubertin's com- petency as historian of the Third Republic increases from page to page, as one notes the evidences of fair- ness, and sees how calm and objective is his discern- ment. It is so rare a thing to find the sympathetic faculty and the constructive imagination, conjoined with the trained and alert employment of the critical habit of mind. It is this combination of gifts, — sjan- pathy to interpret, imagination to unify and correlate, analytical insight to make just distinctions, together with industry in research, accuracy in detail, and the sense of form, proportion, and style, — that has given me a high regard for the work of this author, and a belief that it is entitled to international recognition. But to return from the author to his present work, it is enough perhaps to remark that we are led step by step in the course of the narration to see how, from INTRODUCTION. xvii a Republic which stood for self-government in the sim- ple form of the National Assembly, there came to be definitely evolved the two chambers with their appro- priate functions ; the presidency with its influence and dignity ; and the cabinet, — responsible not to the presi- dent but to the legislative chambers, representing the governmental policy of the day, and yielding, with a responsiveness that from some points of view might seem demoralizing, to the demands of public opinion as expressed through the deputies. It was the purpose of Gambetta, whose qualities and patriotic services are fully appreciated by our author, to consolidate factions into main parties, in order to give more meaning and dignity to parliamentary cabinet government. He be- lieved that much could be accomplished in that direc- tion by the mere electoral device of choosing deputies in groups on general department ticket, rather than singly in the arrondissements. But parties are not the outcome of mere election arrangements. Greater sta- bility in French cabinet government must needs come by the slower evolutionary processes, working in the sphere of public opinion. The late M. de Laveleye, in conversations upon this point some years ago, assured me that he was one of many European students of com- parative constitutional government who had lost faith in the system of parliamentary responsibility. He preferred the American system of a cabinet responsible to the president,' doing executive tasks for a fixed term, and carrying on their work in their own offices without either the right or the duty of appearing from day to day in the legislative chambers, there to seek support for policies, or to initiate, defend, or explain. But if the parliamentary system has its disadvantages, — and we certainly have no occasion to seek its introduction in xviii INTRODUCTION. the United States, — there is much force in our author's answer. This continual process of the making and unmaking of cabinets, far from evidencing the weak- ness and uncertain footing of the republic, is the best present device for enabling the ship of state to keep its buoyancy and seaworthiness. Under such a system, the republic itself comes to be an object of common loyalty and patriotism. Assaults which might, under other conditions, be directed against the State are merely aimed at the captain and the crew. Obviously, however, a good deal of incidental harm results from too frequent changes of the captain and the crew, even though such facility of change may make it sure that nobody will attempt to scuttle the ship. For the change of captain means often the shifting of the ship's course, and the abandonment of one de- sired port for another. These inconveniences are par- ticularly to be noted in respect of the country's external relations. They have made it comparatively difficult for the Third Republic to take and hold its place in the councils of Europe. They have made alliances more difficult to arrange and maintain, and they have caused some regrettable mishaps in the field of diplo- macy, while also rendering colonial expansion more preca- rious and uncertain. Thus France at a critical moment sacrificed her equal influence in Egypt ; and England, with her greater stability of policy, seized the advan- tage. Thus again Jules Ferry was discredited through a misapprehension of the value to France of his great colonial policy, at the very time when of all men his retention at the helm was most important for the fut- ure of France. In the further evolution of the French Republic, therefore, it would seem likely that a way will be found to give firmer tenure and better opportu- INTRODUCTION. xix nity to the administration of the day. It would seem likely also that the Third Republic will continue to pur- sue the policy of developing provincial and local life in France by further relaxing the bonds of centralization. The absolute denial of local home-rule under the First Empire had in the main survived until the establish- ment of the present Republic. Reforms in that field can be safely urged, with advantages to the national life that will grow constantly more apparent. The gradual fading out of the monarchical factions in France until all dynastic pretensions had become harm- less, is well shown by our author through the happy method of his narrative. His treatment of the Bou- langer episode is rounded, complete, and just ; although it would seem to me that his recital at this point falls a little short of its accustomed vividness. He does not perhaps quite reveal the depth of the momentary dis- may and apprehension that fell upon loyal republican hearts in France when Boulanger won his great elec- toral victory in the Department of the Seine and stood at the summit of his brief popularity. I happened to be in Paris through that season, with opportunities which brought me somewhat behind the political scenes ; and I shall not soon forget that turbulent night at the close of the election, when tried and dignified repub- lican leaders gathered their families about them in uncontrollable tears, and when such cool-headed and veteran statesmen as the late Senators de Pressense and Jules Simon admitted to me that they expected to be banished from France within six months. But if M. de Coubertin has not made the climax, or the apogee, as he calls it, quite dramatic, enough, he has certainly drawn the anticlimax in true and firm lines. For he shows us how quickly, under the strong hand XX INTRODUCTION. of M. Constans, the hoUowness, vulgarity, and fraud of the Boulanger plot were revealed to a disillusioned and disgusted country. Wholesomely, at that moment, the great exposition of 1889 served to give public opinion a new rallying-ground, and to show through its splendid object-lessons how much France had to be thankful and hopeful about, in her new industrial, social, and educa- tional life. Thus the Republic had faced the fascinations of a Man on Horseback, and rejected them with due con- tempt. It is not likely that another candidate for power will soon appear in that pretentious and dis- credited rSle. The Panama episode is nearer to us, and it does not belong in so complete a sense to his- tory as does the Boulanger incident. Our author has discussed it with due reserve and with a justifiable dis- position to defend the honor of the Republic against the wholesale aspersions that were so common in England and Germany. Certainly the Panama affair was de- plorable ; but it does not follow that it revealed uni- versal corruption in French political life, or that many of the influential and eminent men of France were im- plicated either in the giving or the taking of bribes. The investigation of the so-called Wilson scandal, which exposed the practice of selling such coveted prizes as the Cross of the Legion of Honor, and the subsequent inquiry into the Panama transactions, have been whole- some in their results, and have in no sense left the Republic discredited. They have shown, on the con- trary, that the Republic will not screen or countenance those types of the corrupt adventurer that had not found the atmosphere of the Second Empire altogether forbidding. The standard of public honor is higher to-day than ever before in France, and the administra- INTRODUCTION. xxi tive organization is more efficient by far and more worthy of respect and confidence than under any former regime. I must beg to commend especially M. de Coubertin's account of the diplomacy of the Third Republic. M. Waddington's attitude and policy at the Congress of Berlin in 1878 form a bit of history that our author evi- dently regards with particular pleasure. Waddington's open and honorable methods were sharply in contrast with those of certain other men in that notable council. The review of French experience in the acquisition of colonial empire forms another chapter in this volume highly worthy of note. Our author does not believe that it is necessarily the business of republics to play a purely humble and domestic r61e while the monarchi- cal governments are engaged in spirited and adventur- ous rivalry with one another for the honor and profit that may belong to the control and development of territories lying beyond the home domain. It is with more zeal, perhaps, than is betrayed in any other part of the volume that M. de Coubertin defends the policy of Jules Ferry in Indo-China, lauds the steps which resulted in the Tunis protectorate, outlines a great possible North African Empire for French enterprise to create and develop, and points out the lessons that ought to be learned, for the more prudent management of the Tonquin and adjoining Asiatic possessions, from the errors of the past. Of the more recent economic policies of his country our author gives a very intelli- gent account, with a cautious but confessed support of M. M^line's policy of protection. If M. de Coubertin has shown himself easily at home in his discussion of political and diplomatic affairs, he is pre-eminently sure of his ground in his chapters upon xxii INTRODUCTION. the progress and work of education in France, and upon the position and influence of the Church. He shows conclusively in both these spheres the steady adjustment of methods to the needs and ideals of the Eepublic. The improvements in French education have been most noteworthy; while in its turn nothing has been more remarkable than the changed attitude of the Roman Catholic Church, at the direct instance of Pope Leo XIII., towards democratic institutions as embodied in the present French Republic. In the chap- ters on the army, and on industrial society and the workingmen, one finds revealed the principles which are working towards social and economic equality, and are unquestionably giving a socialistic trend to the operations of government. In his chapter upon the ideas and habits that mark the French race at the pres- ent day, he answers very fairly those sweeping foreign criticisms which conclude that the French position is utterly hopeless because the stock is morally and physi- cally decadent. To answer these grave charges involves on our author's part a discussion of the literary tendencies of France, and an inquiry into the facts touching domestic life and morals. His conclusions are thoroughly hope- ful. He believes that the spirit of the Republic is making for a new era of wholesome and ennobling liter- ary activity. The immorality of which France stands accused is not an inherent and general condition ; but on the contrary the general tone of the nation's life is sound and virile. That stationary condition of popu- lation which has seemed to so many observers to mark at least a relative decline of the French among the great peoples of the earth, is attributed by our author for the most part to purely economic conditions, that is INTRODUCTION. xxiii to say, to the laws and customs regulating the trans- mission of property and to related causes. The argument has frequently been made that France cannot possibly succeed as a colonizing nation because she lacks the necessary overflow of population. Our author's reply would be that " external France," under properly inviting conditions, might furnish precisely the opportunity that would lead to a change in existing habits and customs, and result in the appearance of a surplus population. In Canada, with room for expan- sion, the French stock is remarkably prolific and vigor- ous, with no symptom of decline when compared with the English stock. Colonial possessions abroad, under certain conditions, might prove inviting to French- men, whose love of home and reluctance to migrate are surely no reprehensible traits, and it is conceivable that the growth of an external French empire might result in a race stimulus that would affect in a favorable way the future growth of the nation. Albbet Shaw. New York, May, 1897. TABLE OF CONTENTS. OHAFTEB PAGB I. THE EAELY YEARS OP THE EEPUBLIC .... 1 The Ith of September, and the National Defence. — The Assembly of Bordeaux. — The Communist Insurrection : Paris recaptures! by the French. — First Symptoms of Recupera- tion. — Decentralization: Party Spirit. n. THE EARLY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC (Conclusion) . 26 M. Thiers, Head of the State, and Prime Minister. — The Message of November 12, 1872. — The First Presidential Crisis. — Fusion, and the White Flag. — How the Monarchists helped to make the Republic . — Violent Debates . — The Discipline of the Republicans, and the Legislative Elections. in. THE SIXTEENTH OF MAY 63 The Constitution of 1875 : Unforeseen Stability. — The Beginnings of the Parliament. — Preludes of a Coup d'Mltat. — Appeal to the Country, and the Electoral Campaign. — A Futile Attempt. — Return to Normal Life. — The Exposition of 1878. —The Marshal resigns. IV. THE ALARM OF 1875, AND THE CONGRESS OF BERLIN 79 Composure and Abstention. — A Triple Alternative. — The Conference of London. — M. de Bismarck's Ideas. — Inter- vention of Europe. — At the Congress of Berlin: the First Partition of Turkey. — Disinterestedness appreciated. — The Difficulties of Republican Diplomacy. — Formation of the Triple Alliance. V. TUNIS AND EGYPT 107 A Forced Conquest. — Measures well taken and badly ap- preciated.— The Treaty of Bardo. — Lies and Calumnies. — France in Egypt. — The Condominium. — Arabi and the Na- tionalists. — Tergiversations of France: the English bom- bard Alexandria and occupy Cairo. — The "Great Minister." XXV xxvi CONTENTS. CHAPTER PAGE VI. THE JULES FERRY MINISTRY 135 Governmental Anarchy. — The " Long Ministry." —Legis- lative Work is resumed. — Angry Quarrels between the Extremist Parties. — The Revision of 1884. — Energy of Jules Ferry. — His Asiatic Policy . — March 30, 1885. VII. COLONIAL FRANCE . 162 Three Colonial Empires. — A National Tradition. — Ob- stacles and Labors. — France beyond the Sea in 1872, and in 1894. — West Africa. — Madagascar. ^ French Asia. — Prob- lems of Indo-China. — Administrative Errors. — The Slug- gishness of French Commerce. — The Educational Question. VIII. THE CRISIS (1885-1889) 198 The Majority melts away. — The Elections of 1885 : a Reac- tionary Half-victory. — Mistakes and Blundering. — A Brave List of Appropriations. — Minister Rouvier. — General Bou- langer's First Exploits. — Unexpected Scandals. — Election of M. Carnot. — The Committee of the Rue Sfeze. — Exposi- tion of 1889. —The Supreme Court. — The Elections : the End of Boulangism. IX. THE TRIUMPH OF THE REPUBLIC 239 The Workingmen's Congress in Berliii. — The Empress Frederick in Paris. — Cronstadt. — A "Novel Situation." — The General Tariff of the Custom-houses. — The Monarchists' "Last Card." — False Calculation. — Financial Ways. — The Elections of 1893. — Minister Casimir-Perier. — The Rus- sian Fleet at Toulon. — National Mourning. X. THE REPUBLIC AND THE CHURCH 272 Church and State. — Religious Policy. — The Congress of Mechlin, and the Encyclical Quanta Cnra. — The Designs of Leo Xin. — The Toast of Algiers. — Constitution of the Re- publican Right. — Political Evolution, and Social Evolution. — The Encyclical Rerum Novarum. — Resistance: Declara- tion of the Cardinals. — Immovability of the Sovereign Pon- tiff. —The Results. — The " Great Problem." XI. EDUCATION 308 Primary Instruction. — The Results of Secularization. — The Teacher. — Insufficiency of Moral Instruction. — Ger- manic Pedagogy. — Schools : Primary, High, and Profes- sional. — Secondary Instruction : the Imperial and the Monas- CONTENTS. xxvn CHAPTER PAGE tic Stamp. — Overdriving. — The Education of Character.— Schools for Girls. — University Revival. — Students and Pro- fessors. — The Rights of the State. XII. THE NATION ARMED 346 A New Spectacle. — Patriotism throughout the Ages. — Its Modern Formula. — Contradictory Problems. — A Work of Perseverance and of Confidence. — The Eifect on the Nation. — Officers and Soldiers. — Diverging Tendencies. — A Social- istic Lesson in Things. — Ideal and Patriotism. Xni. IDEAS AND HABITS 367 The Survival of Ideas. — Foreign Judgments on France. — The Worship of Form. — Unhealthy Scientific and Literary Stagnation. — Influence of Democracy on Letters and Lan- guage. — The Awakening : Taine and Renan. — Retaliation on Immorality. — The French Family and the French Woman. — Decrease of Population. — The Law of Succession, and Malthusianism. XrV. THE SOCIAL QUESTION 391 Errors of Valuation. — An Unprecedented Experience. — Universal and Simultaneous Progress. — Political Action: Congress and Elections. — Strikes. — Anarchists. — Intellec- tual Mediums. — Obstacles: Petty Proprietorship. — Alle- manists, Broussists, Guesdists, Blanquists. — Syndicates. — A Second Night of August i. PREFACE. Any one who undertakes to analyze contemporary history runs the risk of finding that the title of Histo- rian is deliberately refused to him. The historian must, above all things, be impartial. Is this chief quality which public opinion demands from him compatible with the narration of events of which he has been the wit- ness, and upon which there has not, as yet, descended that rational calm which time alone brings in its train ? Does not man, who is inclined to judge according to his passions, rather than according to justice, of that which nearly concerns him, require the distance of age for a proper survey of facts in their true proportions ? And, in conclusion, are not the elements of information lack- ing? The archives fill slowly; they deliver up their treasures only when those persons who have been play- ing the leading parts upon the stage have finally disap- peared from it. The writer who is so audacious as to try to sum up the play as soon as the curtain has fallen upon it should distrust his ability to collect the docu- ments which would permit him to reconstitute with exactitude that which he has not seen, and to hold in check that with which his memory furnishes him ; he must look for controversies, even for contradictions, of which the effect will be to injure his work by still fur- XXX PREFACE ther diminishing the confidence which it may inspire in those who read it. Such objections deserve to be seriously scrutinized. They are not irrefragable, however, and they lose much of their weight if one pauses to consider how greatly the study of contemporary history nowadays differs from what it was possible for it to be fifty years ago. The annals of monarchy were full of the unexpected ; the events therein always bore the stamp of the sover- eign will: either that of the monarch, or that of the ministers to whom the monarch delegated or abandoned the exercise of power. Athwart the march of events the human soul was perceptible, always influenced by surroundings and circumstances, yet acting in a thor- oughly individual manner. Democratic history, on the contrary, is full of logic ; it is made by peoples, and not by men; there is a sort of fatality and mathematical rigidity in the way in which everything is linked together, and the slow forces, the irresistible currents, which characterize it have deep origins and remote results. To what, then, is the part of the historian reduced? There are no secrets to fathom, no dark designs to disen- tangle ; the statesmen whose politics he studies are not obliged to surrender to him the details of their private life ; he sees in them only the servants of the democ- racy, summoned to execute its orders far more than to inspire its conduct. Day by day the press has noted their words and their deeds ; he has only to make his choice from this mass of thoroughly illuminated facts, to separate that which is of importance from that which is not; to estimate the greater or less value of each PBEFACE. xxxi piece of information. He operates like the chemist who separates substances from one another ; he ana- lyzes the combination, and has nothing to say as to its being good or bad. If he have but held himself aloof from the battles which his pen is about to describe, his quality of spectator is of service to him, rather than a disadvan- tage. It procures for him sources of information and means of authoritative criticism which his successor will not possess. History must be studied either at very short range, or at great distance ; the inter- mediate period is less favorable for sound judgments ; it often happens that contemporaries possess a per- spicacity which astonishes their descendants ; in this century Mirabeau and Alexis de Tocqueville have given striking examples of this, and many private documents which have been brought to light by the publishers of Memoirs prove that the generation of 1789 had a clearer and more exact conception of the Revolution, of its consequences and its action, than that which immediately followed it. "When it is a question of contemporary history, one must confine himself to the changes which have taken place within a definite period. The period which we are about to study has been particularly fruitful in changes. The Third Republic has beheld the accom- plishment of a general evolution in ideas, habits, political forms, social relations. In order to find the origin of this evolution, we must go back to the gloomy days of 1792, when popular right rose up and faced monarchical right. The latter is the more ancient of the two, and lies at the base of all power ; but, in the xxxii PREFACE. course of centuries, it has undergone numerous eclipses, and has consented to numerous abdications. It would be vain to seek in the terrible and majestic events which filled the end of the eighteenth century, and the opening years of the nineteenth, in France, for any appearance of logic ; all is confused and troubled ; the languor of the nation, the exceptional genius of one man whom circumstances never ceased to favof, the intoxication of glory, the terror of anarchy, — all concur to make this epoch a masterpiece of history; far from serving as a bond between the past and the future, as has been asserted, it had no connection with either the one or the other. The Empire is a vast administration which solves none of the problems that the Revolution had propounded, but which imprisons the French people in an inextricable network of arti- ficial combinations and principles : and Napoleon gone, the fetters remain. The conflict begins with the Restoration. Louis XVIII. has the perception of liberal needs ; the true representatives of the nation, the liberals, are endowed with the perception of monarchical authority ; Gen- eral Foyi and his friends conceive, in a very precise manner, the formula of constitutional royalty, and they put it in practice in a perfectly loyal way, but the political self-exiles and the reactionaries interfere : they will not hear to a compact between monarchical right and popular right ; they perceive only the duel between "legitimacy" and the Revolution, and as Charles X. is their man, the conflict becomes acute ; the revolution of 1830 results. Beginning with that 1 See the Letters of General Foy. PBEFACE. xxxiii day, the Republic is the necessary government of France because it is the most perfect representation of popular right, and because monarchical right no longer exists. Louis XVIII., who was its incarnation, could sign a compromise with the people ; Louis Philippe cannot ; he is nothing more than a crowned President of a Republic ; that is the way in which it is understood by those who have contributed the most to his accession. During his whole reign Louis Philippe toils to become king ; he almost succeeds, by dint of his wisdom and his cleverness, but the origin of his power weighs upon him ; his dynasty does not take root in the national soil. The throne of July is at the mercy of the slightest storm, one might almost say, of the smallest wave. In those days the forward march of democracy ap- peared clearly to certain choice spirits as a providen- tial, universal, durable fact. " A great democratic rev- olution is taking place among us," wrote Alexis de Tocqueville ; ^ " some persons look upon it as a new thing, and, taking it for an accident, they still hope that they may be able to put a stop to it, while others consider it as irresistible, because it seems to them the most uninterrupted, the most ancient, and the most permanent fact which we know in history." And, in another place : ^ " For whom should this study [on American democracy] be profitable and in- teresting if not for us, who are being dragged along day by day by an irresistible movement, and who are 1 " Democracy in America " (De la D^mocratie en AmMque) . Intro- duction. 2 Ibid., Vol. II. xxxiv PREFACE. walking blindly on, perhaps towards despotism, per- haps towards a Republic, but certainly towards a demo- cratic social state ? " Public opinion suffered this hesitation between a Republic and despotism ; the form of government which was about to be imposed upon France, and which was to mark the last halt before the accom- plishment of her new destiny, is again anticipatively defined by De Tocqueville with the surety of pro- phetic vision ; it is a Napoleonic idea — Jacobin, radical, socialistic to-day. It is " an immense and tutelary power ^ which undertakes of its sole responsibility to secure the enjoyment of the citizens, and to watch over their fate. It is absolute, detailed, regular, provi- dent, and gentle. It would resemble paternal power if, like the latter, it had as its object the preparation of men for manhood; but, on the contrary, it seeks only to keep them fast held in childhood : it likes to have the citizens enjoy themselves, provided they think of nothing but enjoyment. It gladly labors for their happiness, but it wishes to be the sole agent thereto, and the sole arbiter thereof ; it provides for their safety, foresees and secures their needs, facilitates their pleasures, conducts their principal affairs, directs their industry, regulates their manner of inheritance, divides their heritage : why cannot it relieve them entirely of the trouble of thinking and the torment of living? — I have always believed," adds the illustrious writer, " that this sort of regulated servitude, sweet and peace- able, might be combined, better than people imagine, with some of the external forms of liberty, and that 1 Be la Dimocratie en Am^rique, Vol. III. PBEFACE. XXXV it would not find it impossible to establish itself under the very shadow of the sovereignty of the people." The revolution of 1830 was waged against the old order of things, of which an offensive renewal, more apparent than real, alarmed the nation. The revolution of 1848 was waged against the middle classes, who had taken upon themselves the part of vanguard of democ- racy, and had afterwards misunderstood it.^ But the Republic had the triple misfortune to recall bloody memories, to alarm Europe, and to be surrounded in her cradle by the most generous, and, at the same time, the least reassuring of Utopias. In vain did she have liberty- poles blessed ; people did justice to her intentions, but they did not believe in her future. In order to estab- lish herself in a stable manner, it was necessary to free herself "from the formidable fellowship of the Con- vention." ^ The men of 1848 could not do it; the country people and the petty middle classes of the towns vaguely felt their interests menaced in their hands. They were seized with fear at the shadow of the first barricade. Louis Napoleon presented himself as the defender of order ; he was received with cheers. It is puerile to represent the Empire as having been established in spite of the country, against the will of the citizens. The truth is that the coup d'Staf, the master-stroke in State policy, had the approbation of the majority, and that the exiles which accompanied it appeared, to more than one upright mind led astray by terror, as a sad necessity.^ Time was needed, before 1 E. de Pressens^, Various Morales et Politiques, Paris, 1886. 2 Ibid. 3 Twenty-seven thousand seven hundred and sixty-four citizens passed xxxvi PREFACE. it was possible to perceive their real uselessness, and before the assassinating character of the 2d of Decem- ber manifested itself in broad daylight. Fear can found nothing solid and durable, and as, after all. Napoleon III. was not a tyrant, the imperial institutions were speedily shaken by liberal infiltrations ; it became necessary to cover them up with a layer of parliamen- tarism, in order to consolidate them. The Emperor, deprived of unscrupulous counsellors, returned of his own volition to the suggestions of his revolutionary past. The Republic once more appeared as the fated goal ; ^ nevertheless, no one could foresee that the throne would crumble, not in the inoffensive effervescence of a popular revolt, but on a field of battle where France, alone, without resources, would find herself grappling with a redoubtable and resolute enemy. The history of the Third Republic ought to be pre- ceded by a study upon the society of the Second Empire, upon those who formed the "ruling class" from 1852 to 1870 ; the contrast between that society and the "new strata" which followed it explains the consoli- dation of the Republic. " The society man, with his frivolous disdains, almost always passes, without per- ceiving it, close to the man who is on the high road to before the mixed Commissions after the 2d of December, 247 passed through the council of war, and 626 through the police office ; 239 were transported to Cayenne, 9563 to Algeria ; 959 were expelled ; 636 were "removed," and 2818 were assigned fixed residences in the country. (Statistics published on the occasion of the vote for six millions for life- pensions to the victims of the coup d'4tat, March, 1881.) 1 " The only revolutions which succeed are those which are made in advance in hearts and minds, and are ordered by the logic of history." (E. de Pressense.) PREFACE. xxxvii create the future ; they do not even belong to the same set ; now, the common error of society people is to belicTe that the set which they see constitutes the whole world." ^ " The ruling class of the Empire was, pre-eminently, a syndicate of protection guilty of much egotism, and with a taste which was dangerous to immobility ; it could be said of each one of the syndicate members, that, isolated, he is a stranger to the destiny of all the others ; his children and his special friends form for him the whole human race ; as for the rest of his fellow-citizens, he is close beside them, but he does not see them ; he touches them, but he does not feel them." ^ The spirit of solidarity, on the contrary, closely united all those who, perceiving that a new era was about to dawn, feeling that the country was on the point of "becoming enamoured of checks and guarantees,"* labored to render themselves worthy to govern it, when the day should come. The latter had faith ; they firmly believed that " free institutions are the only ones which can be sure of not dying."* They were moder- ate, and did not admit, so far as the Revolution was concerned, that theory of the "lump" which has been impetuously formulated since. They repudiated the " Jacobin religion," and proclaimed its numerous points of contact with the " Bonapartist religion." Calling to mind that " the Jacobins were the best prefects of the Empire," they repulsed, with all their might, "that 1 E. Renan, Saint Paul, Ch. VIII. 2 Alexis de Tocqueville, De la Dimocratie en AmMque, Vol. III. On the excess ol centralization and individualism, see M. Laboulaye's amus- ing satire, Le Prince Caniche. s Jules Ferry, Discours et Opinions, Vol. I. 4 Ibid. xxxviii PREFACE. narrow and unhealthy devotion to the men of the Terror," ^ which was becoming the fashion among the advocates of authority. And above all they worked. There were distin- guished minds in both camps ; in one only was work held iu honor. The other gave itself over to pleasure and to repose ; there no one sought progress except in so far as it added to the enjoyment of life. When the fatal hour for the imperial form of govern- ment sounded, the Republic had its staff in readiness ; the nation did not know it ; among men she perceived, at first, only radicals and demagogues ; in doctrines, she noted only the extreme, the most violent ; therefore, she did not, at once, yield; she demanded sacrifices of ideas, proofs of political perception ; she wished to have her confidence restored. No other party had prepared itself to enter upon the inheritance. In default of attachment to the imperial dynasty, the majority of the royalists had a taste for the things of the Empire ; they liked its manner of govern- ing, and regretted, with all their hearts, that their Prince had not understood how to be the first to make use of it. The "preservative alliance" which was formed, later on, between the partisans of the divers monarchical forms of government, was not as artificial as, for a long time, it was believed to be. The pre- servers were divided in name far more than by the nature of their solutions of the problem ; their desires blended on the majority of the points. By a strange irony of fate, they powerfully aided in the strengthening of the Republic, by forcing the 1 Jules Ferry, Discours et Opinions, Vol. I. PREFACE. xxxix republicans to wisdom, and by abandoning to them the positions only little by little. First the Chamber of Deputies escaped from their grasp, then the Presi- dency, then the Senate, then the Departmental and Communal Assemblies. The Republic absorbed the marrow of their doctrines ; she assimilated that which she found in them of utility to herself, and thus trans- formed the preservers into rebels. Her strength has lain, in great part, in the fact that, at no moment, had she great confidence in herself. Monarchies always believe that they are deeply anchored in the affection of the people, because the monarch lives isolated from his people by the courtiers. The Republic, on the con- trary, believed herself to be less stable than she really was. She knew not complete security, and when her successive victories had discouraged her original adver- saries, she beheld the disturbing elements which had just been reduced to silence on the right enter again upon the scene on the left. At the same time that the restoration of the monarchical state of things daily appeared more improbable, and that the very persons who had the most reasons for desiring it had lost con- fidence in the future, the Revolution, with its absolute doctrines, and its violent methods of procedure, once more became the ideal of a whole party, which made use of its name, and seemed more and more disposed to aban- don legal ways in the pursuit of its claims. That is the state of affairs at the present hour, when these lines appear. The author will refrain from closing with the word "progress." That is too definitive a term, and one which the experience of successive gen- erations has often effaced from the summit of monu- xl PREFACE. ments where the enthusiasm of contemporaries had inscribed it. Progress is relative ; it may exist between one his- torical period and another period without the public thing coming to perfection, — between one nation and another without the world being improved. The for- ward march of humanity is so slow, so impeded ! So many mists lead it astray ! so many obstacles retard it ! so many evil encounters force it to retrace its steps ! In general, a nation is progressing if the germs within it continue to develop freely ; if the institutions which govern it are suited to it, if they favor that develop- ment ; if the men who direct it are equal to their task, if they throw the future wide open to it without allow- ing it to lose sight of its past. This harmony between yesterday and to-morrow, then, is the criterion of progress. Every period of real national progress forms a sort of point of connection between what has preceded and what is about to fol- low. Whatever may be the appearances and the prob- abilities, it would be foolhardy to say that the present form of government fulfils these conditions. We stand at the turn of a century, where too much uncertainty weighs upon our destinies to authorize such language ; but in no way, except by putting end to end the diverse facts which compose her history, can it be seen that the Third Republic has regarded herself as the heir of all France ; she has repudiated none of the national tra- ditions ; she has reversed them, in more than one instance. In any case, she has furnished a new proof of the justice of the thought which our old poet Ron- sard so prettily expressed : — PREFACE. xli The Frenchman seems a verdant willow ; The more he is cut, the more he sprouts. He puts forth more branches, He acquires vigor through his own injury .^ 1 Le Fran^ais semble un saule verdissant ; Plus on le coupe et plus 11 est naissant. II rejetonne en bianches davantage Et prend vigeur dans son propre dommage. LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS. FAGS FiiLix Faube, Fbesident of the Republic . . Frontispiece Jules Fatse, Meubes of the Government of the National Defence 12 Marshal MacMahon, Due de Maoenta, and Second Fbesi- dent of the republic 36 Jules Gkbtt, Third President of the Republic . . 60 Ad. Thiers, First President of the Republic ... 84 Ch. de Fbetcimet, Minister and Senator .... 125 Jules Simon, Ministeb, Senator, and Membeb of the French Academy 151 Cardinal Latigebie, Abchbishop of Cabthaoe and of Aloiers 190 General Boulanoeb, Minister of War .... 214 Jean Casimie-Pbrier, Fifth President of the Republic . 234 A. Ribot, Deputy and Pbime Minister 260 Jules Fbrbt, Deputy, Prime Minister, and Pbesident of THE Senate 284 L]€oN Gambbtta, Deputy and Minister, and Pbesident of THE Chamber of Deputies 309 M. Sadi-Carnot, Fourth President of the Republic . . 359 Ebnest Reman, of the French Academy .... 377 H. Taine, op the French Academy 390 THE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE UNDER THE THIRD REPUBLIC. CHAPTER I. THE EARLY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC. The 4th of September, and the National Defence. — The Assembly of Bordeaux. — The Communist Insurrection : Paris recaptured by the French. — First Symptoms of Recuperation. — Decentralization : Party Spirit. In the series of revolutionary days which the annals of modern France contain, the 4th of September, 1870, occupies a place apart. On that date, the Empire was not overthrown ; it ceased. The attempt has often been made, in the interests of party which it is easy to discern, to represent the 4th of September as the deliberate and prearranged enterprise of a group of factionists. Such an enterprise could not have been prepared in secret, or accomplished without resistance; the very facility with which the change of government was effected indicates, not only how unstable were the imperial institutions, but also how little people expecte(^ to see them disappear so rapidly. The legislative body, it is true, contained republicans who had never concealed their opinions, or ceased to struggle, with the view of giving to the future a direc- 2 THE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. tion conformable to their desires. But patriotism and interest equally counselled them not to hasten a catas- trophe which was destined to be prejudicial to the cause of peace, as well as to that of the Republic. " We did not wish," one of them has said, "that the government, which is the ideal of our political life, should be inaugu- rated amid fortuitous circumstances." Nevertheless, in the expectation of the disaster, which all sensible men foresaw from that time on, the opportunity for a sort of " Committee of National Defence " was faced among the deputies. The names of Mr. Schneider, President of the legislative body, of General Palikao, Minister of War,i and of General Trochu, Governor of Paris, seemed to unite the approbation of all. It was under- stood that, if it became necessary to create a govern- ment, it should be done as "anonymously" as possible, so that " the legal order might be continued," ^ without compromising the future, or openly breaking with the past. The Empress' regency was not regarded as a serious solution of the difficulty, and the agitation which the dynastic interests kept up around the throne seemed to have no echo in Parliament. The disaster came, and even among the most pessi- mistic no one had foreseen that it would be so tragic and so complete. When the news of the capitulation of Sedan had been communicated by the Empress to the Minister of War, General Palikao imparted it to the Chamber, not without some suppressions ; there was a 1 The ministry over which General Palikao presided had succeeded to OUivier's ministry on August 9. It comprised MM. Henri Chevreau, Prince de la Tour d'Auvergne (Foreign Affairs), Admiral Eigault de Genouilly, Magne, Grandperret, Brame, Clement Duvernois, and Jerome David. 2 Deposition of M. Jules Ferry, before the Commission of Inquiry on the Procedures of the Government of the National Defence, instituted in 1872 by the National Assembly. EABLT TEARS OF THE BEFUBLIC. 3 night session, in the course of which Jules Favre, in the midst of a glacial silence, offered a proposition of dethronement. The majority of that Chamber was devoted to the Empire; the greater part of the depu- ties owed to it their warrants; many had obtained that warrant with the aid of the official candidacy which, for a long time, had violated the results of universal suffrage. Nevertheless, not a voice was raised within the walls of Parliament to defend the dynasty and its chief. Every one felt that they were doomed. The fragility of the bonds which united France to the Em- pire appeared in plain colors ; they were no longer the bonds of centuries which had united it to royalty ; the Bourbons were dear to them, after a fashion, as a married pair are dear to each other, when their union has been blessed by the civil law and the Church, who behold numerous children clustering around them, and who have behind them the memory of a long existence whose joys they have tasted, and whose woes they have borne together. The revolutionists of 1830 and of 1852 did not understand this, and, in their folly, they thought that all Orleans and Bonaparte required to implant them- selves in the destinies of the country was legal conse- cration, that " national will " of which, nevertheless, the ballot affords only an imperfect expression. In reality, simple contracts had intervened between France and the Second Empire as between France and the Monarchy of July : the first had been denounced because Louis Philippe had refused to sanction a reform in the elec- toral law ; could the obligation to denounce the second be avoided on the morrow of Sedan ? It was popular indignation which proclaimed the Republic. A considerable throng, whose attitude was at once calm and resolute, invaded the legislative body. 4 THE EVOLUTION OF FBANCE. there, in a manner, seized upon the deputies of the opposition, and dragged them to the City Hall, with- out interrupting traffic in Paris, without even opposing the departure of the Empress, who, at that very hour, was leaving the Tuileries, without any appearance whatever of resistance on the part of the functionaries and the soldiers. It is reported that the Prefect of the Seine, M. Alfred Blanche, when he saw M. Gambetta appear in his office, said to him: "I was expecting you," and withdrew. The whole of the 4th of Sep- tember is summed up in this remark. Since morning the Republic, represented by these citizens who made their way peaceably along the quays to the Municipal Building, had been "expected." The embarrassment of those whom circumstances in this fashion thrust into power was great. They were conscious of their terrible responsibility, and ac- cepted it in no spirit of levity. Moreover, they were compelled to offer energetic resistance to the "impa- tient," as they called, by euphemism, those men of disorder whose votes they had obtained, but whose violent passions they did not share. Milli^re and Deles- cluze were already at the City Hall, eager to undertake a revolutionary crusade. The germ of the Commune already existed in certain quarters of Paris; the 18th of March might have served as the morrow of the 4th of September; there was no room for evasion. The deputation of Paris constituted itself a " Govern- ment of National Defence." ^ It was composed of MM. Emmanuel Arago, Cremieux, Jules Favre, Jules Ferry, Gambetta, Garnier-Pages, Glais-Bizoin, Pelle- tan, Ernest Picard, Jules Simon, and Henri Roche- fort. General Trochu was called to preside over the 1 Journal Officiel cle la Bipublique Franfaise, du 5 Septembre, 1870. EABLT YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC. 5 government, M. Etienne Arago was appointed Mayor of Paris.^ A double task was imposed upon the new rulers : that of organizing the internal defence by appealing to all willing men; that of soliciting abroad the intervention of the European powers. "Surround yourselves," wrote Gambetta to the prefects on September 5, "with citizens animated, like yourselves, with the immense desire to save the country. Strive, abovfi all, to win the aid of all wiUs, in order that, in one unanimous effort, France may owe her salvation to the patriotism of her children." And, a few days later, Jules Favre, ad- dressing a circular to our representatives abroad, urged them to redeem the responsibility of France in the eyes of the sovereigns to whom they were accredited. "There is not a sincere man in Europe," he said,^ "who can affirm that, had she been freely consulted, France would have made war on Prussia." The proclamation of the Republic had excited, in the country districts, a lively enthusiasm ; a great many Frenchmen, moved by the memories of 1792, and inca- pable, at that tragic moment, of measuring the differ- ence between the two epochs, expected from it a sort of miraculous awakening, and imagined that unforeseen forces were about to spring from the earth to repulse the enemy. They felt the soul of the nation emerging from its lethargy, and repeated with the Strozzi of Lorenzacchio : " If the Republic were nothing more 1 The presence of Eochefort, whom they had gone to seek in his prison, did not imply radical tendencies on the part of his colleagues. Eochefort was the deputy from Paris, and this title gave an aspect of legality to the government formed by the union of those who upheld him. Many of the moderate, however, who feared the talent and the influence of Eochefort, considered it preferable to have him " Inside rather than outside." 2 Circular of September 17, 1870. 6 THE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. than a word, that word is something, since nations rise up as it passes through the air." For a moment, events seemed to justify the wild hope. Gambetta announced himself as the second organizer of victory ; at the summons of his voice, which rarely, later on, found noble accents, confidence rose agajn in souls, and hatred against the invader drew all hearts together. "Not an inch of our terri- tory ! Not a stone of our fortresses ! " Jules Favre had said, and that haughty reply was repeated by each man in the depths of his own being. A great wave of patriotism had swept over France, solidifying it, as in northern regions, those vast stretches maintained by their immobility in a state of liquidity, and which a cold breath congeals in an instant. It was a heroic struggle. All the generous and noble ardor of the Gallic blood awoke : there was but one flag now ; after the young men, the elderly men enlisted, with joy in their eyes, happy to fight for a cause so just and so holy; and when, at last, the ruin was complete, when Paris besieged was on the point of perishing with hunger, when they were compelled to lay down their arms and confess defeat, France had the consolation of being able to assert, as in the time of Francis I., that all was lost, "save honor." People had cherished no fewer illusions concerning the attitude of foreign powers than they had with regard to the strength of our improvised battalions. Europe heard with satisfaction of the first Prussian victories ; our wild and exuberant conduct had dis- pleased all governments ; ^ the war of Italy even had 1 The anti-French manifestations were tolerably numerous. In the course of the war there were defections which echoed sadly through the heart of the nation; among others, the visit to Versailles of Cardinal EARLY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC. 7 left rancor in the hearts of the Italians, and, at the first moment, not a single person could be found to deplore our fate. Later on, the efforts of the French, their unconquerable faith, commanded esteem and ad- miration ; none the less clearly did Europe show her intention to abstain from intervention. The capitula- tion of Sedan, nevertheless, had not failed to cause un- easiness in certain of the neutral powers ; they feared lest the equilibrium, re-established for a moment, should be again destroyed by too complete a victory on the part of Germany. But these powers did not wish to intervene in favor of a government which, as yet, inspired them with no confidence. Such was the im- pression which M. Thiers brought back from his sad pilgrimage over Europe, — a pilgrimage undertaken on the morrow of the 4th of September, and in the course of which he gathered from the sovereigns and their ministers only vague condolences and promises with- out import. Italy, moreover, had taken advantage of our embarrassment to make Rome its centre and the coronation of its unity, and Prince Gortchakoff had profited by it to announce the abrogation of the treaty of 1856, the result of the unlucky Crimean War. The prolongation of the struggle, which won for us only private sympathies, — help for our wounded, and gifts of money sent from abroad by charitable associa- tions, — had as a consequence the exasperation of the victor. Prince Bismarck has long been represented as having been forced into war by the Prussian military party. He himself has given people to understand Leddchowski, and the incongruous message of General Grant, President of the United States, addressed to the Federal Senate, and in which he exalted the German Empire. The President so far forgot himself as to send to Versailles, on the day following the proclamation of the Empire, a telegram of congratulation to Emperor William. 8 TBE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. that he had been forced to seem exacting. The ex- traordinary destiny of the Iron Chancellor reserved for his old age the bitterness of the vanquished, and in this vi^ay the world has learned, by a confession from his own mouth, that in order to render inevitable a con- flict which he deemed necessary for the realization of his plans, Prince Bismarck had not hesitated to forge a telegram. 1 Blinded by the sense of his own merit, the Chancel- lor was not able, in this case, to rise above his passions. Nevertheless, it was not impossible to perceive the in- stability of the situation which must result from a war imprudently prolonged. " When the material war shall have ceased," wrote M. de Mazade,^ pronouncing judgment on the future, "the moral war will begin, never more to end. There will be no peace between J^rance and Germany ; it will be, at the most, an agi- tated truce, full of hostility and resentment, in the bosom of which the interests and the relations of the two countries will be perpetually in peril ... a barrier will have been built ; commerce, industry, intellectual communications will suffer from it ; all Europe will feel the results of this great trouble cast into the centre of the continent ; even after the dismemberment with which we are threatened, France will never be so greatly mutilated as not to remain a great nation : she will collect herself, she will become enlightened by her misfortunes, she will recover her strength and her genius. . . . Who shall say that Germany will not be forced, one of these days, to render an account of an abuse of the victory, of which she will experience the 1 This tardy, almost posthumous reTelation, has caused less emotion in France than in other countries ; the English press, in particular, has been very serere in its criticism of an act which nothing can render legitimate. 2 Revue des Deux Mondes. Chronique, F^vrier, 1871. EARLY TEAB8 OF THE REPUBLIC. 9 fatal results in future crises, that in any case may drag her politics into all the affairs of the world ? " M. de Bismarck did not perceive this ; on the other hand, this attitude on the part of Germany has had some beneficial consequences for us. The state of armed peace may have weighed heavily upon our finances, and may even have paralyzed, at different times, our national life. Who will dare maintain that it has not aided in the work of reconstruction, by preserving all wills in unity, by commanding the representatives of the people to wisdom and prudence, by warding off the dangers of too complete confidence and security ? Ger- many certainly has kept up among us a fruitful emula- tion, and has prevented the ardor of our early days becoming extinguished. The members of the government of the National Defence made haste to appeal to universal suffrage, and to make it approve of the acts which concern for public safety had caused them to perform. But fate decreed that they should be forced to sacrifice to cir- cumstances the doctrines which they had always pro- fessed ; they found themselves compelled to govern without control, to maintain military discipline in all its rigor, and even to make use of that submission of an act to the people (plebiscite), which they had so energetically condemned under the preceding govern- ment. ^ As early as September 8, the electors had been convoked for the 16th of the following October, for 1 As soon as the surrender of Metz was known, a revolt broke out in Paris ; this was during the day of October 31. The government triumphed over it ; but, as it felt that it had suilered a shock, and as it did not wish to summon a municipal council, which would have led to the establish- ment of the Commune, it had recourse to the plebiscite ; 550,000 favorable votes against 60,000 rendered its position solid, and helped it to enforce obedience. 10 THE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. the purpose of electing a Constituent Assembly ; a few days later, the summons was advanced to the 2d of October.^ But M. de Bismarck had too much interest in preventing the gathering of an Assembly which would have legalized the internal situation of France, and by that very means have facilitated her relations with other nations, to lend himself to a truce of arms. As early as September 10, M. Jules Favre had written to him, requesting an interview. ^ It took place on September 19, and was renewed on the following day. The Chancellor had taken pains to confirm ^ the exact- ness of the impressions which the representative of France carried away from Ferrieres ; the conditions upon which he consented to an armistice were such as precluded even discussion. Supported by the popu- lation of Paris, the government opposed a plea in bar, and adjourned the elections. Paris was invested, and a delegation composed of MM. Cremieux, Glais-Bizoin, and Admiral Fourichon held session at Tours. On October 7, Gambetta set out from Paris by balloon, crossed the Prussian lines, and joined the delegation. He had the warrant to organize the defence, and not to hold the elections.* Now the state of men's minds was not the same in the country districts that it was in Paris, where everything was summed up in this: to hold their own until the country districts could raise the siege of the capital, 1 Decree of September 16, 1870. 2 Report of M. Jules Favre upon the interviews of Haute-Maison, and Ferrieres, in tlie Offlciel, September 23, 1870. 2 In a reply to tlie Report of M. Jules Favre, which he wrote on Sep- tember 27, and had inserted in a German newspaper. It was copied in the Offlciel, on October 18. ^ At Tours they had waited for Gambetta's arrival before coming to a similar decision. On the receipt of the news as to the conditions exacted by M. de Bismarck, M. Crdmieux had postponed the elections. EARLY TEAMS OF THE REPUBLIC. 11 or until foreign intervention should impose an armistice upon the Germans. In the country, the absence of a legal government was more keenly felt. The adjourn- ment of the elections was there looked upon as a grave mistake. It was so, in fact; it gave M. de Bismarck the chance, in the presence of the provisional character of the institutions, to affect an ironical indifference between the Republic and the Empire, and to declare that he was ready to sign a treaty of peace with which- ever should make the best offer. It does not come within the scope of this study to reconstruct, even as a summary, the history of the gloomy days during which France contended, with the German armies, foot by foot, for her territory. Others have written it in detail, and with talent. ^ The gov- ernment of the National Defence was, after all, only the introduction to the Republic, — an introduction written with blood, in the shadows. The men who had the burdensome honor of forming a part of it beheld, as they should have expected, their acts and their intentions calumniated ; it is difficult to pretend that they did not, in great part, justify their conduct in their testimony before the Committee of Inquiry instituted by the National Assembly. In any case, it should be recognized as a fact that they saved the honor of France by organizing resistance to the death, that they flinched before none of the responsibilities which their introductory step had caused them to incur, and that they sincerely endeavored not to be a partisan government. They became so, in spite of themselves. In the long run, political questions regained the upper hand; the solidarity which, during the struggle against the Em- 1 See, especially, M. Albert Sorel's remarkable work on L'Histoire Diplo- matique de la Guerre Franco- Allemande. 12 THE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. pire, had united them to the radicals, tlie chimerical schemes which they had, at times, admitted into their programmes, their whole fighting past, fettered their movements, and when the communistic insurrection broke out, which added to the horrors of a foreign war those of civil war, an attempt was made to hold them responsible ; people forgot that during six months they had held the elements of disorder in an attitude of re- spect ; they were reproached with not having managed to annihilate them. An unjust movement of reaction arose against them, which swept them from power ; some, like Gambetta, Jules Ferry, Jules Simon, were destined to regain it, and to give proof therein of the most lofty political qualities; others, like MM. Cre- mieux, Garnier-Pages, Glais-Bizoin, did not reappear in the front rank.^ One of the most worthy, Jules Favre, was also one of the most eulumniated. His popularity was great on the 4th of September ; he paid very dearly for it. Destiny condemned him to set his name at the bottom of the fatal treaty of peace which dismembered his country, and his country was the thing which he loved best in the world. His enemies discovered in his private life a sore spot not thoroughly healed, reopened it, and pried into it with barbarous cruelty. They turned into ridicule his outbursts of feeling in the presence of the conqueror, and the delicacy of his modesty remained unappreciated. ^ The end of his 1 M. Jules Ferry, appointed Prefect of the Seine by M. Tliiers, on May 26, 1871, was replaced, on June 5, 1871, by M. Le'on Say, and appointed, in the following year, Minister of France at Athens, whence he returned to fill his post of deputy on the fall of M. Thiers. M. Ernest Picard was Minister at Brussels. M. Emmanuel Arago occupied, for years, the post of Ambassador at Berne. General Trochu retired, and from that time on lived in privacy. 2 Jules Favre, by E. de Pressense'. Journal des Ddbats, August, 1880. JULES FAVRE, MEMBER OF THE GOVERNMENT OF THE NATIONAL DEFENCE. EARLY TEAMS OF THE HEPUBLIC. 13 career was a way of Calvary, and yet in his corre- spondence only one protest — a very mild one — is to be found, wrung from his courage by his sufferings. ^ He was, in short, the first victim of those currents of popular calumny which, cleverly worked by influ- ential and malevolent men, struck to the ground more than one good servant of France under the Third Re- public. More than one of these, also, has already found, through a revolution of public opinion, the rehabilita- tion which his memory merited. Gambetta, whom France had hailed with acclama- tion, was not, as yet, the prudent, wise, and thoughtful man who presided over the Chamber of Deputies later on. The great ideas which haunted his brain could not take the place of that experience, that " knowledge of difficulties " which men acquire more or less rapidly, according to their degree of intelligence and tact, but which are never innate in them. Six months of a dicta- tor's power had intoxicated him : when the elections came, he wished to render ineligible all those who had served the Empire ; the resistance of his colleagues was required to prevent his entering upon that path ; he retired, out of spite. His hour was not come. The man upon whom all eyes were now centred possessed the double advantage of having a political past, and yet of being in nowise compromised by the fallen government. He had been a great minister, or, at least, many persons regarded him as such ; he had become a great writer ; his atti- tude on the eve of the declaration of war and his jour- 1 "It is a real advantage to abate somewhat the good opinion which one is tempted to entertain ol oneself. I enjoy this, and I did not wait for the defeat to do it. I should desire nothing, did I not, occasionally, fall to thinking that the unrelenting animosity which does me honor deprives me of the power to be useful." (Jules Favre, Conferences et Melanges.) 14 THE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. ney through Europe, in search of foreign sympathy, made of him a great citizen. He wore on his brow the halo of wisdom, and France felt that she had in him a moral authority which would compel respect. M. Thiers was elected twenty-eight times, and the echo of this popular vote beyond our frontiers was all the greater because it was impossible to misconstrue the spontaneity of it.^ The elections took place, in fact, in a sort of twilight. Parties had not had time to reconstitute themselves ; no understanding between the citizens had been pos- sible ; how could they agree upon the names of candi- dates, and concoct precise programmes ? Each man, as he canvassed for votes, could merely give his own opinion, and promise his good-will. Means of com- munication, which had been imperfectly re-established, and the presence of the enemy, tended, necessarily, to keep politics apart from this great electoral consulta- tion, and one might have thought, at first, that this would prove of benefit to the country. A happy elec- ticism was, in fact, the dominating note of the elections. Lyons sent, at the same time, Jules Favre, General Trochu, MM. Mortemart and de Laprade ; Bordeaux sent M. Thiers, the Due Decazes, Generals Changarnier and d'Aurelle de Paladines. These men had in view nothing but to settle in the best possible manner a dis- astrous situation, and then to take the greatest care of their country during her convalescence. Peace once signed, and the first financial difficulties which would result therefrom overcome, was not the programme which presented itself to well-intentioned men ex- 1 In 1830, M. Royer-Collard had been elected seven times, and M. de Lamartine, in 1848, nine times. Tlie electors ol 1795 had given to M. Pelet de la Lozere the election in thirty-seven colleges, and to M. Thibaudeau in thirty-two. EARLY TSARS OF THE REPUBLIC. 15 tremely simple ? Would it not be the duty of all, set- ting aside their own preferences, to "put their hand to this common task which was to embrace our military reconstitution, our internal reorganization, and the en- ergetic reform of public education? "i Was it not necessary " to accustom oneself to doing useful things modestly, simply in order that one might learn to do manfully great things when the hour should come?"^ Nevertheless, simple as was the programme, the As- sembly of Bordeaux did not adopt it unanimously. Rather was it perceptible that it contained uneasy and turbulent minorities who sowed " stormy misunder- standings " in its bosom. At first, the responsibility of peace was not accepted with sufficient loyalty. One would have preferred to see, under these painful cir- cumstances, the Assembly in mourning voting silently : what more eloquent protest before the universe than such mourning and such silence? Now it appears that, in certain groups, an effort was made to shirk, in some degree, the responsibility of that peace which was being imposed upon them, as though with a con- cealed intention to make use of it later on, in the in- terests of a party. The nation itself was destined to disappoint these perfidious calculations, of her own initiative. The treaty of 1871 never suffered the fate of the treaties of 1815. Men knew that it was inevit- able : the people were convinced that everything had been done to make its conditions less harsh, and that unless the national dignity were humbled, its repre- sentatives could have done no more. "I call that Frenchman a good citizen," says Prevost- Paradol, "who rejects none of the forms of free gov- 1 Ch. de Mazade, Revue des Deux Mondes. Chronique. 2 Ibid. 16 THE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. ernment, who does not tolerate the idea of troubling the repose of his country by his ambitions and his personal preferences, who is neither intoxicated nor disgusted by the words republic or monarchy, and who confines his demands to one single desire : that the country shall itself regulate its own destiny by the means of assemblies freely elected, and of responsible ministers. " ^ It is perfectly certain that such was the dominating spirit among the electors of the National Assembly ; it was not so among those elected : a cer- tain number of deputies, new to politics, belonged to that class of country squires who had sulked at the Empire and been jealous of the Parisians, and who passed one half of their existence in hunt- ing, the other half in regretting the former state of things. By their side sat several over-excited republicans who could not pardon the 4th of September for having occurred without their assistance, and who tried to ex- aggerate the doctrines of the most conspicuous men of their own party. The former owed their warrant to the influence which their landed estates assured them in the country districts ; the latter, to the effect pro- duced, in certain quarters, by their violent declama- tions and their fallacious promises. Both sets were "intoxicated or disgusted by the words republic and monarchy." Thus, from the start, the situation was clearly defined in the form which it was destined to preserve for twenty years ; the Republic found itself called upon, on the very first day, to realize that equi- librium which was to be the condition of its existence, by seeking in the support of the moderate parties a safeguard against the exaggerations of the extreme 1 La France Nouvelle, by Pre'vost-Paradol. EARLY TEARS OF TSE REPUBLIC. 17 parties, against the irreconcilable opposition of the monarchists, and against the ultra views of that radi- calism of which Ernest Picard had so justly said, in 1869, that it "was not a policy, but an attitude." The Assembly was on the point of entering energeti- cally upon its work, when the communist insurrection broke out in Paris. This filled the measure of our mis- fortunes. In spite of the attempts which have since been made to attribute to this movement a socialistic and humanitarian character which it never possessed, time, which softens most things, has detracted noth- ing from the horror of the gloomy memories of 1871. The assassination of Generals Lecomte and Clement Thomas, the second siege of Paris, the orgies and buf- fooneries of the Commune, the massacre of the last days, and that filthy and bestial ending in blood and petro- leum passed over France like a nightmare. French hands tore from its pedestal the Vendome Column, that monument made of bronze painfully conquered for the glory of the country by simple soldiers, obscure heroes whose very names we do not know; the tricolored flag, under whose folds they had fought, was ruined on the soil of Paris along with the column, and the Prussians, under whose eyes this had taken place, rejoiced, for the defeat surpassed their expectations, since ignominy crowned it. The population of Paris endured the Commune rather than took part in it; it had fallen " from the summit of the most immense illusions which a besieged population had ever conceived, into a reality which unfortunately it had been impossible to reveal to it in advance." 1 Enervated by sufferings and anguish, it had not been able to free itself from the 1 Testimony of M. Jules Ferry on March 18, before the Committee of Inquiry. c 18 THE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. action of a staff of idle cosmopolitans, either criminal or insane, who were trying to take advantage of a situa- tion unprecedented in modern history. An eclipse of authority ^ had delivered Paris into their hands ; it was necessary to besiege the capital, and seize it by force. The country, invigorated and fortified by its re- cent misfortunes, grouped itself resolutely around M. Thiers. The army, without hesitation,^ fulfilled its pain- ful mission. Some deputies and municipal councillors wished to summon, at Bordeaux, a sort of congress of municipalities, which should arbitrate between Paris and Versailles. But the government repelled this dangerous proposition, and prohibited any demonstra- tion. It was not born solely from the desire of certain radicals to depend upon the cities to counterbalance the influence of those who were called " the Versaillais," and whom they considered too " rural." Many persons who were destined to receive enlightenment, through the fall of the Commune, as to its origin and tendencies, were mistaken as to its scope. This conflict between the citizens of one nation would cause, it seemed to them, & fissure in the unity of France ; they asked them- selves whether the country would remain compact after the shock, and they feared to see deep cracks make their appearance on its surface, — the symptoms of dis- integration. To-day, the war of 1870 and the events which followed it no longer appear to us as anything 1 See the despatches exchanged in the course of the day of March 18, between M. Jules Ferry, Mayor of Paris, General Valentin, Prefect of Police, and the ministers. In spite of M. Jules Ferry, who held his ground energetically in the City Hall, and was the last to leave it, the barracks, the Prefecture of Police, and, at last, the City Hall itself were evacuated, one after the other, at the incomprehensible command given, and several times repeated, of General Vinoy. 2 On March 18, the troops, at many points, fraternized with the in- surgents. EABLT TEARS OF THE REPUBLIC. 19 more than a violent but passing crisis, and not the most violent or the most dangerous which France has under- gone ; one must go back in thought to that troubled epoch, in order to understand the state of mind of those who had just passed through it, and the terrible per- turbation which they still retained from it. This second part of the crisis had marked moral ruins, which presented themselves to join the material ruins, and rendered the work of reconstruction still more dif- ficult. It was clearly evident that France lacked " the first condition of being a free State, the most simple perception of law." In the case of all, there was "a veritable outburst of individual fancies, a wild desire to do what one had no right to do," ^ the product of that systematic isolation between citizens, of those individ- ualist theories, established and propagated by the Em- pire, which found its own advantage therein. From another point of view, the Civil War laid bare in tragic wise "that work of demoralization which was going on in the bosom of society. It was hardly suspected. France was living in the height of luxury, of comfort and equivocal pleasures, while underneath were being devel- oped those ideas of an abject materialism, those cupidi- ties, and those confused hatreds which have weakened the sense of country as much as the moral sense." ^ The responsibility for this was thrown upon the Inter- nationale, to which Jules Favre called the attention of our representatives abroad in a diplomatic circular, that appeared at the precise moment when "the Brethren" of Belgium, England, and Switzerland had associated themselves in the work of the Commune, glorifying its crimes. 1 Ch. de Mazade, Bevue des Deux Mondes. Chranique. 2 Ibid. 20 THE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. The immediate results of the Commune were an in- crease in the expenses which we should be obliged to face, and an aggravation of M. de Bismarck's hostile designs. The chancellor could not let slip the op- portunity which was offered to him of still further accentuating the evident state of disorganization and demoralization in France ; he made haste to declare that the Prussians would continue to occupy French territory until the German government should deem that " order was sufficiently restored, in France as well as in Paris, to assure the execution of the obligations which had been contracted. " ^ It might have been foreseen that the excessive cen- tralization of the Second Empire would provoke, in the very beginning of the new order of things, a movement of reaction which would manifest itself in the form of some legislative proposition. In fact, one of the fun- damental laws of the Third Republic, one of those which have, probably, exercised the most influence upon its future, came under discussion when peace had barely been re-established : that called the law of the General Councils, which was reported by M. Waddington. However, the movement in favor of decentralization did not spring from a reaction alone ; it was of ancient date. It dated from the Restoration, from the epoch when MM. de Serre, de Martignac, Royer-CoUard, had pronounced in favor of local liberties. In 1861 Odilon Barrot had extolled them again. ^ In 1863 M. B^chard had submitted to the public important studies upon this subject. In a celebrated letter addressed to M. Roulier ^ Napoleon III. himself had recognized the ne- cessity of a reform, but he had immediately furnished 1 Official Documents. 2 ;^tudes Contemporaines. 8 Dated June 25, 1S63. EAELT TEABS OF THE EEPUBLIC. 21 an aDtidote to his thought, by appearing to wish that some of the prerogatives of the Minister of the Interior should be transferred to the prefects. Nevertheless, he granted his patronage to the work of FrM^ric Le Play, a work of which decentralization constituted, in a way, the alpha and the omega. Then it was that a group of men from Lorraine worked out the famous Programme of Nancy : among them were men of very diverse opinions, — republicans, members of the liberal Union, royalists. ^ These men proceeded to a sort of general consultation of opinion. It seemed as though they were about to declare a crusade against " the State," — that fiction which held its credentials from a bureaucracy infatuated with itself, and propagated by the silliness of all the doctors of science in the adminis- tration.2 All those people who were to be made to believe " that there are somewhere, in Paris, and in the prefec- tures, men better informed as to communal affairs, and more competent to judge than the persons interested themselves," ^ were about to rise up in rebellion against a state of things of which they had felt all the disad- vantages. One curious point — the law which reorganized the General Councils — was vigorously attacked on the ex- 1 MM. Volland, Laroher, Cournault, de I'^^pee (who died tragically, as Prefect of the Loire) , the Comte de Lambel. 2 Letter from M. Jules Ferry to the authors of the Programme of Nancy. 3 "The Commune is only a collective peasant, vegetating in poverty and dependence. Those who, desirous of breaking old oppositions, have broken the country into crumbs have forgotten that moral beings,. like animated bodies, require air to breathe, room to live. The little communes (and they are innumerable) have remained real children : large or small, however, in the eyes of the law every commune is a minor. Lawsuits, works, revenues, affairs of the highways and streets, and common lands, everything is regulated at the chief town, even at the Ministry." (Jules Ferry, La Lutte Electorate en 1863.) 22 THE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. treme Left, which caused it to be said that " nothing loves centralization like a radical, on condition that he can make use of it." Even on the Left it sowed uneasi- ness : M. Ernest Picard anticipated overwhelming dis- asters ; M. Thiers did not seem favorably disposed towards these rash measures. Notwithstanding, the law was passed with several amendments, so conscious were men of the accuracy of M. Ernoul's saying : "Do not you feel that in France the extremities are cold?" M. de Treveneuc, who remembered the 2d of December, proposed that the General Councils should take the place, by uniting together, of the national representation, in case the latter should be dissolved by some violent measure ; that question was postponed.^ The first signs of our recovery had not been slow to reveal themselves. The first questions which were laid before the Assembly had been financial questions. Prom a little more than ten milliards of francs, the French debt was to mount at a bound to twenty milliards. What savings could fill such an abyss ? M. Pouyer Quertier proposed a first loan of two milliards. Paris alone surpassed by five hundred millions, and all France by a milliard and a half the necessary subscription. With 1 A little later on it was decided in the affirmative. Nevertheless, it is not very probable that the occasion to make use of this arrangement will ever present itself, for it assumes some violent action operating directly contrary to the will of the nation. In the neighborhood of May 16, sev- eral General Councils officiously considered the possibility, and very vaguely at that, of making use of the prerogative which the Treveneuc law conferred upon them. But no one seeras to have troubled himself about it later on, at the time of the Boulanger adventure. As for politics, men were firmly determined to keep it entirely apart from their discussions. As early as the session of August, 1872, several political desires were expressed, but outside of the sittings. The first ap- pearances of the General Councils were, on the whole, very modest, practical, and reassuring. EARLY TEABS OF TBE REPUBLIC. 23 the subscriptions from abroad five milliards, and more, of the war debt were procured. In the following year (.1872) the Minister of Finance betook himself to Ber- lin for the purpose of negotiating there the anticipated liberation of our territory ; on June 29, 1872, a second treaty, signed at Versailles, settled the details. At the same time, a second loan was decided upon, of three milliards and a half, which was covered fifteen times over. Paris subscribed 14 milliards ; the country dis- tricts, 10 ; England, 334 millions ; Holland, 170 ; Stras- bourg, 44, and Mulhouse, 22. This event excited lively enthusiasm. " Without doubt," wrote M. de Mazade,i " such a loan, at the price at which it has been issued, that is to say, at about six per cent, is a very good piece of business . . . but, as a matter of fact, whatever may be the advantages, money does not rush forward with such eagerness for a financial operation alone ; a phe- nomenon which exhibits itself in such proportions is no longer a simple financial event." Already, unfortunately, the public mind was turning aside from these serious questions in search of others more sensational and more attractive. The entrance of Victor Emmanuel into Rome, a manifesto from the Comte de Chambord,^ a speech by Gambetta at Bor- deaux, and a book by General Chanzy on the second army of the Loire, the entrance of Littre to the French Academy, followed by the noisy resignation of Monsei- gneur Dupanloup, the election of the Due d'Aumale in the department of Oise, of the Prince de Joinville in that of Haute-Marne, and the questions as to whether they would occupy their seats as deputies, or would 1 Beviie des Deux Mondes. Chronique. 2 This manifesto, dated July 5, 1871, was described as "artless abdica- tion " ; it excited great enthusiasm in certain circles. 24 THE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. abstain from appearing at the Assembly, — all these petty events strongly excited public opinion. On Avigust 31, 1871, at the instance of M. Rivet, the title of President of the Republic had been conferred upon M. Thiers, for a period of three years. The only object of this was to set right his position in the eyes of foreign countries, and of France, which he repre- sented to them. M. Rivet's proposition had been carried by 480 votes against 93 ; but what frivolity of mind had been betrayed by the stormy discussions for which this palliative proposition furnished the pretext ! While the first elections to the General Councils ^ were taking place in the midst of universal indifference, and were remarkable chiefly for the number of those who abstained from voting, Bonapartists and radicals began a vigor- ous campaign in favor of dissolving the Assembly. Recovery seemed to lend strength only to the parties, and that in order that they might the better wage battle with each other. On the Right, the only thought was to keep a monarchy " ready made." The royalists, in their claims, associated the re-establishment of the Pope's temporal power and the Carlist restoration in Spain on the return of Henri V. They multiplied their pilgrimages to Lourdes, and to La Salette, as well as to Antwerp, when the Comte de Chambord was passing that way. The Bonapartists audaciously raised their heads ; one day, M. Rouher was heard to deliver him- self, in the open Chamber, of a panegyric on the Second Empire, to which, however, the Due d'Audiffret-Pas- quier replied in accents of indignant eloquence. Both parties seemed anxious, above all, " to work at dishonor- ing the government of the National Defence. "^ 1 October 8, 1871. 2 E. de Pressense, YariiUs Morales et Politiques. Paris, 1886. EARLY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC. 25 The advanced republicans, also, were lacking in wis- dom. It became necessary to prohibit their celebrat- ing, by rejoicings, the anniversary of September 4, and to remind them that "if the 4th of September re- calls the fall of the Empire, it also recalls the fall of France at Sedan." Gambetta made his tour of France. Angers, Havre, Saint-Etienne, Grenoble, and Annecy heard him in turn. He was not always perfectly in- spired. His speech at Grenoble, in particular, was such as to make M. Thiers declare that our liberation would be impeded by it. " The harm which the speech at Grenoble has done to industry and business," he said, "can be represented by enormous figures." ^ Several officers who had been present at the demonstration were punished ; at the same time, the municipal agents who had exceeded their duties were suspended. Finally, as a measure of state policy. Prince Napoleon was invited to leave France, where his presence inflamed political hatreds. This satisfied no one. On the one hand, the government was accused of crime in keeping the func- tionaries of September 4 ; and on the other hand, it was reproached with maintaining or replacing the func- tionaries of the Empire. In this contest M. Thiers' credit rapidly vanished, and his authority declined. 1 A few days later he declared before the permanent committee of the Assembly that this speech " had made the Kepublic lose more ground than it could have been made to lose by the hand of all its enemies." There was an evident exaggeration in this assertion. 26 THE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. CHAPTER II. THE EARLY YEAES OF THE REPUBLIC. (Conclusion.) M. Thiers, Head of the State, and Prime Minister.— The Message of November 12, 1872. — The First Presidential Crisis. — Fusion, and the "White Flag. — How the Monarchists helped to make the Republic. — Violent Debates. — The Discipline of the Republicans, and the Legisla- tive Elections. The exceptional point in M. Thiers' position was that, while head of the State, he was also Prime Minis- ter. ^ He had acquired the habit of interfering in the smallest discussion, and every moment he kept putting the question as to confidence. On many points he was in harmony with the majority of the Assembly ; but when he encountered a few opponents, his old auto- cratic habits got the upper hand again, and he was not in the least sparing of his disdain for those who did not share his opinion. It has irreverently been said of him that " he had the temper of a nervous woman, or of an old spoiled child." ^ Without going so far as that, it must be admitted that his language very often wounded and shocked the Assembly. 1 M. Thiers' life is too well known to make it necessary to dwell long upon it in this place. Under the Restoration, he had created oppositions : the Monarchy of July was, in part, his work. It was he who gave the signal for the movement which bore Louis Philippe to the throne. Later on, he became Prime Minister, and although his administration was not marked by any particular cleverness on his part, or by auy happy results, he acquired great renown in a very short time. His historical works, I'Histoire de la Revolution and I'Histoire du Consulat et de I'Empire, are well known, — works which possess great beauty of style, but the exactness of whose judgment and statements may be questioned. 2 Joseph d'Ar9ay, Notes inidites sur M. Thiers. Paris, 1888. EARLY YEABS OF THE BEPUBLIC. 27 The Assembly, in its turn, wounded and shocked the President.^ He would have liked less noise and more work. According to a barbarous expression of M. Jules Gr^vy, they were constantly "objectioning." During the session there was a perpetual interchange of questions, sterile agitation, " a deafening noise." M. Thiers' character acquired additional acerbity ; the more so that, in this withering atmosphere, he was con- scious of being in perfect accord with the country in the efforts which he made to thrust aside political questions, and to make questions of business the order of the day. And he always found before him the coa- lition of monarchists and radicals, anxious, above all things, not to allow themselves to be appeased, and to maintain opinion in a state of uncertainty, of uneasi- ness favorable to the hopes of their parties.^ The head of the State thought only of raising the credit of his government by wisdom and moderation, not only with France, but also with foreign nations, and was irritated because his simple and patriotic programme did not win the support of all, and that men could think more of their party than of their country. Certainly, he was quite right ; but men do not always allow themselves to be guided by the most lofty motives, nor by the rules of the purest logic. There certainly were in the Assembly — as the future proved — the ele- ments of a majority of moderates. M. Thiers did not sufficiently exert himself to consolidate it and render it capable of life. He had formed his ministry in a manner but little in conformity with parliamentary 1 M. Grevy was then President of the Assembly. 2 " The Assembly," wrote Jules Ferry afterwards, " was a great school of reticence. Nothing was done there except by circuitous paths." {Cor- respondaiice de Jules Ferry. — Letter dated November 17, 1877.) 28 THE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. usages, and was incarnating a Republic of the very special sort, which has for its corner-stone a man of Providence. He did not perceive that he had ceased to be that man of Fate as soon as the national life had resumed its normal course. They kept him, it is true, in a very dangerous state of illusions, by appealing to him under all circumstances, as they would have done to a dictator. When elections of a rather advanced type took place, one after the other, in the Nord, Somme, Yonne, a procession of delegates belonging to different shades of the Right solemnly came to the head of the State, at Versailles, to request him to take "measures of preservation." The Republic under M. Thiers was, accordingly, in the highest degree, a personal government. On January 19, 1872, when the Assembly refused to sanction the tax on raw materials, the head of the State sent in his resignation. It became necessary that a new vote should annul the preceding one, and that the deputies should take a step with regard to M. Thiers which resembled an act of penitence. A little later came the law of military reorganization. He took an active interest in it, and discussed its provisions with ardor. His ordinary claims were still further ex- aggerated when it was a question of anything which concerned the army,i by everything which his histori- cal labors had taught him with regard to Napoleon's strategy. " He occupied himself minutely with all the details of the War Administration; the army of Paris did not make a single movement without his orders."^ 1 General Le Flo, Minister of AVar, is credited with this charmingly ironical bit of wit: " M. Thiers' military knowledge causes considerable inconvenience, through the deference which it exacts and the suscepti- bility which it creates." 2 Jules Simon, Le Gouveniement de M. Thiers. EARLY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC. 29 As for the despatches, they all passed under his eye. He wished to know, moment by moment, the state of France, and that of Europe. " So long as Jules Favre was Minister of Foreign Affairs," says M. Jules Simon,i "he lodged him in his own house, in order that he might have the news more speedily at hand : every day he had conferences with the Minister of the Interior and with the Minister of Finance. He made the gov- ernor of the Bank and the great financiers come to him."^ It is plain that the former minister of Louis Philippe, now become head of the State, did not prac- tise the famous maxim with which he had paralyzed the governmental initiative of his sovereign : " The King rules, but does not govern." Nevertheless, it was under the shelter of this principle, which conceals a piece of profound wisdom beneath its apparent lack of logic, that the Presidency of the Republic was destined to acquire the prestige which it enjoyed later on. In spite of all that has been said to prove it, it does not appear certain that M. Thiers conceived, from the very beginning, the firm intention to establish the Re- public. This was, evidently, one of the solutions of the question which he had in his mind; but it was not the only one, and everything indicates that the mon- archists, by constantly refusing him the means of gov- erning, inspired him with the resolve to seek in a definitive Republic that support which a provisional Republic did not afford him. This solution, moreover, was forced upon many men who were separated by 1 Jules Simon, Le Gouvernement de M. Thiers. 2 " Only two ministries remained outside the scope of his meddling and his superintendence," M. Jules Simon wittily adds, — "Justice, because it is not good to interfere with the affairs of M. Dufaure; Public Education and Religion, because he relied, for these two points, upon the prudence and intelligence of the minister." 30 THE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. their past from republican doctrines, but who placed concern for the national interests above everything else. In the course of the long debate over the revision of the acts of the administration before and during the war, the Due d'Audiffret-Pasquier, General Chanzy, and others had very clearly defined what political course they intended to follow, drawing their inspiration only from the immediate needs of France and adjourning every question which was likely to hamper the recovery of the country. Others, taking into consideration the succession of governments in France, went further. " In the course of almost an entire century of succes- sive revolutions," wrote M. Casimir-Perier,^ " all forms of government have been tried, turn and turn about, save one, — that of a regular Republic, loyally accepted by the majority of the nation, served without prejudice on the one hand, and without weakness on the other. This trial remains to be made ; let us make it coura- geously and honestly." Such is the programme which M. Thiers decided upon. The message at the opening of the Assembly, on November 11, 1872, expressed in terms of luminous clearness, urged that body to a " great and decisive " session, in the course of which the " desirable and neces- sary character should be imprinted on the Republic." " France," said M. Thiers to the agitators of the Right and of the Left, "does not wish to live in a state of continual alarm ; " and every one understood that that simple statement of an undeniable fact constituted a demand, in due form of law, upon the representatives of the nation. 1 M. Casimir-Perier was the son of Louis Philippe's minister, and father of the future President of the French Republic. EARLY TEABS OF THE REPUBLIC. 31 The emotion and din caused by this message were considerable : M. de Kerdrel became the interpreter of the feelings which agitated the Assembly, when he called for the nomination of a committee which should prepare a reply to the President's manifesto. In the meanwhile, after stormy debates, an order of the day was passed which censured the doctrines set forth at Grenoble by Gambetta, and expressed, on the other hand, the traditional confidence in the government. ^ The committee soon made known its conclusions. M. Thiers had declared : " The Republic will be con- servative, or it will not be at all," and, at the same time, he had called for the prompt organization of the public powers. The committee ended in the prepa- ration of a law "touching ministerial responsibilitj^," and, by way of counterpoise, with the adoption of measures "against radicalism." It was not necessary to be very perspicacious to divine that this second con- clusion was the only one to which any importance was attached. " A fighting government " must be created ; M. Batbie's entire report is summed up in that phrase. The ministry could not accept such a legal demand ; it carried the day, but by a majority of only thirty-five votes. ^ This debate has an importance which has not been understood, and which was not presented, later on, by either the famous Wallon amendment, nor by the pas- sage of the constitutional laws. In reality, it was on that day that the liberal and parliamentary Republic received from the Assembly its true consecration ; the support of the illustrious citizen, upon whom the coun- try had set her confidence, and whose faults and petti- ^ Three hundred, on the Right and the Left, abstained from voting. 2 Three hundred and thirty-five votes on the Right condemned him. 32 THE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. nesses could not diminish his merit, secured the victory, which, moreover, was facilitated by the intestine quar- rels of the partisans of the monarchy. They seemed to understand it on the Right ; from that day forth, M. Thiers became the common enemy. The royalists of the undiscoverable Chamber ex- claimed, in 1816, that M. de Richelieu, M. Decazes, and Louis XVIII. had conspired together " to ruin every- thing." The conservatives of the National Assembly saw in M. Thiers a "traitor to the conservative cause." The extreme Left, on its part, repudiated this moder- ate Republic ; in their eyes it was not the true Re- public. Garibaldi, from the seclusion of his island, protested against the label which M. Thiers had at- tached to his government. Petitions in favor of the dissolution of the Assembly were circulated ; at Ver- sailles combinations, committees, motions, questions, began again worse than ever. The parties accused each other, reciprocally, of hav- ing torn up "the Bordeaux compact," which in this manner, by a singular mirage-like effect, acquired a retrospective importance. This ended the year 1872, which had, moreover, been fertile in all sorts of events : in the month of September, an interview had taken place between the three Emperors ; a radical, cosmo- politan congress, for "the emancipation of labor," had been held at The Hague, and the arbitration of Switzer- land had put an end to the famous " Alabama " conflict between England and the United States. When one reflects upon what has become of the Triple Alliance, socialism and arbitration, he begins to think that our deputies did not turn their attention to the objects which were most worthy of it. It was the country which undertook to furnish some EARLY TEARS OF THE REPUBLIC. 33 electoral indications capable of throwing light upon this obscure situation ; its immediate will was confined to this, — to avoid all new revolutions. As the conserva- tives gave it, on this score, no security, it elected repub- licans. Marseilles sent M. Lockroy, and the Rhone, M. Ranc. Gironde, the Jura, Nievre, Loir-et-Cher, and Haute- Vienna chose republicans of more or less ad- vanced type. But the most important event was the election of M. Barodet at Paris. The former Mayor of Lyons, M. Barodet, was the candidate of the " reds," as the advanced republicans were then called ; his com- petitor was M. de Remusat, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, a man of fine and distinguished mind, but not much known to the masses, and misunderstood by the ultra-republican parties. The encounter between these two competitors, of so different a stamp, and, it must be confessed, of such unequal value, excited public opinion to the highest degree. The electoral duel between M. Jacques and General Boulanger, on Janu- ary 27, 1889, alone may serve to give an idea of the feverish intensity of the struggle.^ M. Barodet was elected, as General Boulanger was destined to be later on, by that portion of the popula- tion of Paris whose good qualities and defects are so strangely combined that strangers have never been able to understand them. Heroic in time of war, capable of displaying in a crisis as much calmness as it puts of joy- ous turbulence into its pleasures, it excels in grasping the fine shades of things, and in amusing itself there- with. It does not raise an opposition to the govern- 1 The conservatives would not vote for the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic, the personal friend of the head of the State. At the last moment they improvised the candidacy of General Stoffel, who drew away 27,000 votes. M. Barodet was elected by 180,000 votes ; his rival received only 135,000. 34 TBE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. ment ; it teases, embarrasses, vexes it ; it is neither logical nor persevering, never troubles itself about the morrow, and apprehends badly the relation between cause and effect. It is not without analogy to the ancient populace, of which it possesses not the sangui- nary appetites, but the injustices and frivolities. This Paris has long made itself felt by the country districts, and through the country districts, by Europe. Centralization, dear to the imperial government, has added still further to its influence, and one may say that the Third Republic is chiefly remarkable for the importance which it has restored to provincial life and institutions. From the beginning, the " fear of Paris " manifested itself among the moderates of the National Assembly. They did not wish to take the government back there ; they shrank before the danger of extend- ing the municipal franchises, and the members from Paris have not ceased to occupy in Parliament, and before the government, a place apart, made up of a little respect and much distrust. And, although experience reassured the timid, although later events have demonstrated the falsity of the signs indicated by the Parisian barometer, people have not lost the habit, in moments of trouble, uncertainty, and anguish, of turning towards the great city, as they ask themselves, " What does Paris think of it ? " And Paris replied by a word of command which France no longer obeys. The crisis which every one foresaw, and which broke out on May 24, 1873, was paradoxical in this respect, that, on the one hand, when the country heard M. Thiers' appeal, it sent him, to found the Republic, men of the Left party, whose advent hastened its fall ; and that, on the other hand, by giving him a successor less MARSHAL MACMAHON, DUC DE MAGENTA, AND SECOND PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC. EABLT YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC. 35 attached to the republican form, the monarchists con- tributed to the strengthening of the government whose definitive establishment they wished to prevent. A slight disagreement between M. Jules Simon, Minister of Public Education, and his colleagues, caused the ministry to be recast at the assembling of Parlia- ment after the Easter holidays. MM. Casimir-P^rier and Berenger entered the Council. This caused the Right some uneasiness, and the battle began, under the form of obstructive questions which had already be- come the custom. The Due de Broglie led the assault. For the last time M. Thiers set forth his policy, and proved the necessity of the Republic which arose from the impossibility of the monarchy. He rallied no one to his cause, not even from the ranks of those who were hesitating ; but he had, at least, the good fortune to be able to make his retreat with a frank, precise speech, whose perfect sagacity the future was destined to emphasize. The Assembly rejected the order of the day pure and simple,^ modestly asked for by the ministers, and set about demanding with a certain persistence, under an indirect but pressing form, that resignation which a few months earlier it had refused to accept. The letter came ; M. Thiers had, perhaps, expected to provoke another procedure as flattering to his self-love 1 " The Assembly," said the order of the day which was moved, " im- pressed by the constitutional projects which have been presented in virtue of one of its decisions, considers it of importance, for the sake of reassur- ing the country, that a resolutely conservative policy shall prevail in the government, and regrets that the recent ministerial modifications should not have afforded to conservative interests the satisfaction which they had a right to expect." The order of the day having been rejected by a ma- jority of sixteen votes, the Assembly announced that it would sit in the evening, and adjourned, " to await the communications from the govern- ment." 36 THE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. as it was useful to his projects ; but the proposal that the resignation of the head of the State should be refused mustered only a respectable minority. Then the Left retired, leaving only 392 voters, and 390 votes elected as President of the French Republic Marshal MacMahon, the victor of Magenta, the illus- trious soldier whose bravery was universally known. The monarchists did not even suspect that they had just consecrated the existence and assured the working of the republican form of government. For the first time since Louis XVIII. people beheld the transmission of power in France effected with the most complete calmness, with surprising rapidity, with- out the slightest stoppage or even the slightest falter- ing in the governmental machine. The country had grown too unaccustomed to such a spectacle not to appre- ciate highly the regimen which furnished it. By elevat- ing to the supreme rank a marshal of France, created Due de Magenta by the Empire and well known for his severely conservative opinions, the Right had meant to confide to him the peculiar mission, if not of stifling the Republic, at least of putting a stop to the diffusion of republican ideas and doctrines. Now, the mass of the nation reasoned in quite a different manner, and, when it saw a loyal soldier accept the Presidency, it concluded that the Republic would incur no danger in his hands. ^ The tension relaxed in the country, and there was a sort of movement of general sympathy. The electors 1 In Europe, especially in the Courts of the North, people pretended to regard the election ol May 24 as a new revolution. Prussia did not content itself with a notification from the head of the State ; she demanded fresh credentials from the French amhassador. England, more accus- tomed to parliamentary ways, raised no difficulties, and all Europe was soon forced to recognize the fact that nothing was really changed in France. EARLY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC. 37 lent only an abstracted attention to the harangues of their representatives, who boasted, on the Right, of having brought France to a halt on the brink of an abyss, and lamented, on the Left, over the sight of the Republic in the hands of the reactionaries. For a moment it might have been thought that a party policy was about to predominate in the councils of the Presi- dent,^ but these fears were speedily dissipated, and a brilliant reception was given, without reserve, to the Shah of Persia, who reviewed our young army at Long- champs at the very moment when the last Prussian soldiers were quitting France ; the joy of liberation counted for a great deal in the enthusiasm with which the Oriental monarch was received. On September 5, 263,000,000 francs were paid, com- pleting, in capital and interest, the five milliards of the war levy. The Bank of France was left with a reserve in coin of more than 700,000,000 francs ; for the space of two years the commercial world had been pro- ceeding from one surprise to another. French elasticity surpassed all expectations ; the bank-note had suffered no depreciation, and the premium on gold remained insignificant.^ In the meantime, a rather important event had taken place. On July 5, the Comte de Paris, grandson of King Louis Philippe, and, consequently, the head of the younger, or the Orleans branch of the Bourbons, had 1 A rather tardy prosecution was ordered against one deputy, M. Kane, for his participation in the Commune, and unjustifiable police measures were taken at Lyons, against civil burials. The marshal had summoned the Due de Broglie to the Qua! d'Orsay ; M. Magnac to the Ministry of Finance; M. Beule to the Ministry of the Interior; M. Ernoul to that of Justice ; M. Batbie to that of Public Education. 2 It is just that the honor of this result should be attributed, in large part, to the preceding government and its commercial policy. 38 TBE EVOLUTION OF FBANCE. betaken himself to Frohsdorf, in Austria, the residence of his cousin, the Comte de Chambord, grandson of King Charles X., the head of the elder branch of the Bourbons, and, consequently, the sole legitimate pre- tender to the throne of France in consonance with the law of succession in force under the ancient monarchy. Since the revolution of 1830 no reconciliation had taken place between the two branches of the Bourbons; but, as the Comte de Chambord was then fifty-three years of age, had been married, for many years, to the Austrian Archduchess d'Este and had no children, and as the elder branch was destined to become extinct at his death, the moment had arrived for the Comte de Paris, who had become the legitimate heir, to seal the recon- ciliation. Therefore the prince decided to go and greet his cousin, the only representative of the monarchical principle. His uncles, the Due de Nemours, the Prince de Joinville, and the Due d'Aiunale, approved of this step. The prince took it opportunely, with tact and simplicity, and, from the emotion which it produced in France, it was possible to calculate that the chances of restoration had doubled in four-and-twenty hours.^ The republicans were somewhat alarmed by it : some of them recalled M. Thiers," whose services they had slighted ; others, more radical, made advances to Prince Napoleon, whose anti-clericalism charmed them. A question came up, of secondary importance in 1 While M. Lucien Brun, soon followed by MM. de Sugny and Mer- veilleux da Vignaux, betook themselves to Frohsdorf, the legitimists busied themselves in getting ready the "King's equipages." These car- riages, which long remained unused in the workshop of a carriage-maker, were, at last, bought by the Court of Greece, and came in play at the marriage of the Duke of Sparta to Princesse Sophia, the sister of Will- iam II. EARLY TEARS OF THE REPUBLIC. 39 appearance, but its consequences were serious. The flag of the ancient monarchy, which Louis XVI. had discarded, under the pressure of the revolutionists, which Louis XVIII. had reinstated, at his restoration in 1814, was the white flag sown with golden lilies. Louis Philippe, on the contrary, when he became king of France, in 1830, adopted the tricolored flag, blue, white, and red, which had been the flag of the Revo- lution and of the Empire. It had not been meddled with since 1830. The Comte de Chambord was forced to make his choice, and his followers were divided on this question. People were not slow to perceive that they were divided also on many others, since, behind the color of the flag, were concealed profound diver- gences of opinion and irreconcilable antagonisms. M. Chesnelong, royalist senator, had been " charged " by the head of the party to confer on this subject with the Comte de Chambord ; but he brought back from his long interviews with the pretender neither a solution of the difficulty, nor even a hope of solution. Nothing was either accepted or refused: the ambiguous situa- tion remained in its entirety. It was merely known that the prince was sufficiently attached to his flag, and had sufficiently manifested his feeling to impart to the acceptance of the tricolored flag, on his part, all the appearance of a concession made to the Revolution. Would he, in his turn, decide that " Paris is, assuredly, worth a mass ? " The whole question lay there ; and for any one who knew the rigidity of his principles, it did not seem at all likely that the Comte de Chambord would yield. In fact, he announced, in a celebrated letter, that he clung to the white flag, and thus caused to vanish the dream of restoration which his faithful followers had conceived. 40 THE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. A legend has been formed on this subject. The prince has been represented as the victim of the awk- wardness of his followers, as not having been able, of himself, to estimate the condition of E'rance. One is at liberty, to-day, to wonder whether, on the con- trary, he did not perceive, much more clearly than his partisans, the whole state of the case, as often happens with those who look on from afar, and from a height. Whatever criticisms may have been deserved by his programme, set forth in magnificent language, but in very vague fashion, in his letters and manifestos, it is impossible to mistake the fact that the Comte de Cham- bord held, regarding his mission, a view which was, at the same time, both very lofty and very just. He wished to be the king of all, and preferred not to reign, rather than to reign, like Charles X., Louis Philippe, and Napoleon III., over only a fraction of the nation. He divined that need of harmony, union, appeasement, which came to light later on. At no price would he have a combination, because he felt very strongly that the day of combinations had passed, and that hence- forth nothing durable could be founded without the unanimous, free, and well-considered consent of the deep masses of the nation. This consent did not exist. Perhaps the Comte de Chambord cherished the hope that it would exist some day ; ^ but this illusion was speedily dissipated. In any case, France may feel grateful to him for not having prolonged, by a restora- tion which could not have endured, the uncertainties and expedients of the preceding governments. When he died, ten years later, he carried with him to the tomb the respect of all parties ; thanks to him, the 1 His ulterior anxiety seems to have been to reserve the future ; he repeatedly requested his partisans not to bind him by their acts. EARLY TEARS OF THE REPUBLIC. 41 House of Bourbon underwent none of those adventures and compromises which, too often, have marked the decline and disappearance of great royal races. At the hour when the destiny of France was being thus debated between Salzburg and Versailles, the famous trial of Marshal Bazaine was going on at Trianon ; ^ in the course of one hearing, the defendant, by way of exculpation, argued that he had acted in the presence of a void, since there no longer existed any government, either Empire or anything whatever. " Excuse me," interrupted the Due d'Aumale, " France remained." That is precisely what good citizens thought, anxious not to allow the country to become the prey of factions. In the presence of a power without a fixed duration, Bonapartists and legitimists rivalled each other in their zeal for working at its enfeeblement. The majority of the Prince Imperial, celebrated at Chislehurst on March 16, 1874, and several electoral successes^ which they had just won, emboldened the former ; the latter had faith in Providence and declared that they were sure of the morrow. The confidence which the char- 1 Marshal Bazaine was accused of having signed, at Metz, a shameful capitulation; of having delivered over to the enemy one of our chief fortresses, with all the army therein, without having even attempted to exhaust the means of defence at his disposal. It was evident that he had acted thus, with the view of aiding, later on, in the re-establishment of the Empire, by hastening the advent of peace, and of securing for himself a brilliant future under the reign of the son of Napoleon III. There was no doubt as to his treason. He was condemned to death, but his penalty was commuted to perpetual imprisonment. Nevertheless, after the lapse of a few years, he succeeded in making his escape, and took refuge in Spain, where he died. 2 The year 1874 beheld the ranks of the Bonapartists swelled by the elections of M. de Burgoing in Nifevre, of M. Le Provost de Launay in Calvados, of the Due de Mouchy in Oise, of the Due de Padoue, who received 45,000 votes, in Seine-et-Oise. 42 TBE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. acter of the head of the State inspired had given birth to the idea of " prolonging his power," and the vote of November 20, 1873, organized the seven years' term of the presidential office. The situation was identical with that under M. Thiers. The marshal, like his predecessor, found himself obliged to maintain the Republic, and to try to organize it ; with a perspicuity and a perseverance worthy of all praise, he never ceased to insist upon this point. When, during a visit to the Chamber of Commerce of Paris, he was told of the anxieties of the Parisian manufacturers : " The National Assembly, " he said, " has entrusted to me the power for seven years. My first duty is to superintend the execution of this sovereign decision. Therefore, have no anxiety ; for seven years I shall know how to compel the respect of all for the order of things which has been legally established." This language the marshal refers to in a letter, and afterwards in an order of the day to the army, after a review in the Bois de Boulogne ; then again, at the approach of intermission, in a message which was very clear and almost autocratic in its form, in which he enjoined upon the Assembly the necessity of making an end of their quarrels. In the course of a journey in the West, he replied to the President of the Chamber of Commerce of Saint-Malo, in these abrupt and significant words : " You have just said that there is no government ; you are mistaken, there is one; my government." A little later, at Lille, he appeals "to the moderate men of all parties," and renews, in his message at the opening of the Assembly, the same declarations. The marshal's immovableness ended in imparting to his ministry a little spirit of steadiness and stability. EARLY TEARS OF THE REPUBLIC. 43 in which it seemed to be deficient. ^ The Vice-Presi- dent of the Council 2 proclaimed, in a circular to the prefects, that the seven years' term, like the charter of 1830 in earlier days, was henceforth "a reality," and, later on, accentuating his declarations, he an- nounced to the Chamber that "free from all engage- ments to any party whatever, it was with the aid of all that he desired and meant to govern." ^ The Cus- todian of the Seals, M. Depeyre, ventured to remind the Attorney-Generals that " the powers of the marshal and their duration" were "beyond all controversy." Such declarations scandalized the royalists; neverthe- less, the name of the Republic was always omitted from them ; it seemed beyond the strength of the ministers to employ it, and they indulged in the strangest circumlocutions for the purpose of avoiding the necessity of writing or uttering it.* Their successors did not put an end to this singular situation. When the ministry was overthrown, in the month of May, 1874,^ and M. de Goulard's laborious negotiations, with a view of forming a liberal ministry with the support of the two Centres, had come to nothing,^ General de Cissey accepted the presidency of 1 Just as the vote on the seven years' term was to be taken, it was altered: it now comprised, together with the Duo de Broglie, MM. the Due Decazes, de Fourton, de Larcy, Magne, and Depeyre. 2 The head of the government, the Prime Minister, then bore only the title of Vice-President of the Council, as the Presidency was more really exercised by the President of the Republic then than it is at present. M. Dufaure was the first President of the Council. 8 Official Documents of the Republic. * The Marquis de Noailles, our ambassador at Rome, ventured to men- tion the Republic in a letter addressed to the electors of Bayonne, and they dared to demand his recall, which, of course, the government did not grant. s By 381 votes on the Left and the Extreme Right, against 317. 6 See the 'details of these negotiations, which depict the state of mind of the different groups in question, in the Souvenirs de la Prdsidence du Marichal de MacMahon, by Ernest Daudet. 44 THE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. the working Cabinet, in which figured a certain number of members from the preceding Cabinet, and a few newcomers. 1 The marshal, whose conviction had not been disappointed, still waited for that constitution the guardianship of which had been entrusted to him before its birth, and the Assembly, whose prestige and authority were rapidly waning, wasted precious time in idle debates. The question of the municipal elective franchise raised tempests.^ M. de Lacombe proposed the "grand electoral college of 1820," and M. Chesne- long talked of the "notabilities," and of the "most heavily taxed," to whom he would have been willing to join the "delegates" of universal suffrage. M. Casimir-Perier did not succeed in his attempt to extricate the Assembly from chaos ; one proposition of the most unexpected sort followed on the heels of an- other : restoration of the monarchy, nomination of the marshal to the post of Lieutenant-General of the king- dom, extension of the powers of Parliament for a period of seven years, separation of the Assembly into two distinct Chambers. The monarchists were beside them- selves over the recent elections to the municipal council of Paris, in which extreme democracy, represented by MM. Floquet, Clemenceau, and so forth, reckoned fifty elected out of eighty. People pretended to see every- where the occult influence of M. Thiers, and to speak of the marshal as a mere manager. In short, men lived in a sort of legal anarchy where the minorities, in the interest of party, insisted in retaining a permanent right of moral sedition.^ 1 M. de Cumont, who did not distinguish himself in the department of Public Education, and M. Tailhaud, who gave vent in Ardfeche to the most artlessly unconstitutional language. ^ 2 M. Jules Ferry took considerable part in this long discussion. 8 Ch. de Mazade, Revue des Deux Mondes. Chronique. EARLT TEARS OF THE REPUBLIC. 45 MM. de Laboulaye and Wallon offered two amend- ments ; the first, expressed as follows : " The govern- ment of the Repviblic is composed of two Chambers, and one President," was rejected ; the second was adopted, by the vote of the majority : its text, more precise than that of the first, differed from it only by a subtle shade. " The President of the Republic," said the Wallon amend- ment, "is elected by the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies, joined together in National Assembly. He is elected for seven years, and is eligible for re-election." The adversaries of republican rule assumed to con- sider the "Wallon amendment as having settled the question as to the form of the government, and they took pleasure in repeating that the Republic had gone into effect only through the vote of the majority. The preceding pages have already done justice, in advance, to such an interpretation.^ The birth-pangs of the Constitution were painful ; men proceeded blindly in the midst of surprises and contradictions. The law concerning the Senate, ac- cepted in detail, was rejected as a whole ; dissolution again proposed would have been, at such a moment, equivalent to a formal confession of weakness. It was rejected. From the excess of evil a reactionary govern- ment was born at last ; reasonable and moderate men recovered themselves, and on February 25, 1875, the constitutional laws were passed, not without a combat, not without a great many amendments, counter-propo- sitions, interruptions, difficulties.^ All expedients were 1 Another fact which shows the Wallon amendment in its true light is that the ministry voted against it ; had it been a question of modifying the existing order of things, the most elementary tact would have forced the ministers to abstain from voting. 2 The majority was 181 votes out of 689 ; the vote shows what majority remains of the asserted establishment of the Republic. 46 THE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. considered lawful to hamper or delay the vote. But the Assembly, hitherto so divided, suddenly discovered that it had the strength to impose a wise and moderate solution. The Left, with a remarkable sense of disci- pline, abstained from replying to the attacks of those who reproached it, as did M. de Castellane, with " be- traying universal suffrage," by giving as electoral basis to the future Senate suffrage in two degrees. For many, in fact, this was a real sacrifice. " It is hard, nevertheless," said one of the radicals who had agreed to it, "to see our principles upheld by our adversaries and opposed by ourselves." ^ 1 The terms Eight, Left, Centre, have always been peculiar to the French Parliament. Though complicated in appearance, their meaning is very clear ; they form the colors of the political rainbow. At the epoch which we are studying, the Left is made up of republicans, of divers shades, but all attached to the republican form of government. The Extreme Left consists of the radicals who derive their inspiration, more or less, from the memories of the Jacobins of 1793. In the same way the Right is the camp of the monarchists, followers of the Bourbons, the Orleans, or the Bonaparte house, and the Extreme Right combines those who remain attached to the Institutions of the old form of government, and who would like to see the privileges of the nobility and the clergy restored in the form in which they existed before the taking of the Bastille. The Centre comprises the reasonable, the moderate in views ; on the one hand, those who, without being wholly republican, will accept the Repub- lic frankly, if they see that such is the wish of the country (this is the Left Centre) ; on the other hand, those who would go as far in the path of liberal and democratic concessions, but who will find it difficult to renounce the monarchical form of government. Such, at the present moment, is the state of the parties; later on, the classification will become simplified. Under Jules Ferry, there will remain only the Left, grouped around the great minister, and the Right, consisting of all those who oppose him, all the monarchists ; they will, falsely, call themselves con- servatives, since far from preserving, they seek only to destroy that which exists. Their adversaries will designate them by a juster epithet, — the reactionaries, — which is the one that I shall employ, by preference. Right, Extreme Right, Conservatives, Reactionaries, Boulangists later on, — all these are equivalent to designating by different names one and the same category of men, those who desire the power of a single man, and heredi- tary power, the monarchy, in short, in one form or another. Later on, in conclusion, there will be the mugwumps, former monarchists converted to EARLY TEARS OF THE REPUBLIC. 47 Among the wisest was Gambetta. He reckoned as dear no compromise to which he could loyally con- sent, if he might but attain to that goal which, at the moment, dominated all others. As M. de Pressense has very well expressed it,i it was on that day that Gambetta "was truly the second founder of the Re- public. The victory which he won over the Assembly he had first won over himself, by sacrificing everything in his programme which could not be immediately realized." When the Constitution was passed, a gov- ernment to apply it was required; the ministerial crisis, by its continuance, threatened to compromise everything; Gambetta was not afraid to enter into negotiations with M. Bocher, President of the Right Centre, to help him in constructing a Cabinet, since M. Bocher refused the power himself.^ And, finally, it was M. Gambetta who dared to explain, in an open faubourg of Paris, the work which had just been ac- complished, and boldly to assert his share of the re- sponsibility in that work. He defined the Senate as "the Grand Council of the communes of France," and made his electors accept institutions tainted by a distinctly liberal and anti-jacobin character. The Right Centre was not backward in the matter the Republic and to the Extreme Left, the Socialists. The President, in the French Chamber, sits facing the deputies or senators ; thus he has the members of the Right on his left hand, and vice versa. What has been said concerning the Chamber of Deputies may be applied to the Senate, with this difference, that the senators belong to a more moderate average of opinion, and do not allow themselves to be so often carried away towards extreme ideas. The Constitution of 1875 fixes the age for entrance to the Senate at not less than forty years. 1 Various Morales et Politiques, by E. de Pressens^. 1 volume. Paris, 1886. 2 The Cabinet which was formed was that of M. Buffet, whose col- leagues were the Due Decazes, General Cissey, Admiral Montaigne, MM. Caillaux, Dufaure, de Meaux, Wallon, and Leon Say. 48 THE EVOLUTION OF FBANCE. of wisdom ; it had voted, MM. de Broglie, Decazes, and Audiffret at the head. The Due d'Audiffret-Pasquier, elected by a great majority to the presidency of the Assembly, made a speech there which created a great stir. In their circulars, MM. Dufaure and de Cissey recommended respect for the Constitution. The sup- plementary laws formed the object of the labors of a parliamentary committee. Its president, M. de La- vergne, analyzed the last events in the following terms : " We have been led," he said, " by a concurrence of im- perious circumstances, to give a republican form to the government. All good citizens should rally round it, since the sovereign Assembly has pronounced upon it. Let us show, by the wisdom and firmness of our deci- sions, that we understand how to conquer our divisions for the sake of maintaining order and liberty at home, as well as for the sake of preserving peace abroad." Words devoid of enthusiasm, but without subterfuge, which were to be encountered sixteen years later on the lips of the " mugwumps " of 1892. M. de Laboulaye, who drew up the report of the sup- plementary laws, did not conceal how much they had borrowed from the monarchy. He recognized the fact that they were conferring upon the Republic "the guarantees of constitutional monarchy, in the form in which we have practised it for the last thirty years," and he added: "If among the republicans there are any who think that we should have gone further, they will do well to consider that France, after having passed through the Empire, feels the need of becoming accus- tomed, once more, to a constitutional government. It is a delicate task to acclimatize political liberty among us, and one which requires much prudent management." Such was not the opinion of M. Louis Blanc, who went MAELY YEARS OF THE REPUBLIC. 49 about in public assemblies "proclaiming the rights of the absolute," nor of M. Naquet, who expressed to the electors of Aries, Marseilles, and Toulon the fears with which the constitutional transactions recently agreed upon inspired him. General attention was already ^ concentrated on the approaching elections. Despite the intervention of Gambetta, who favored the election at large, the elec- tion by district had been established. In the first place, the Assembly chose seventy-fiLve senators for life. An understanding between the Extreme Right and the Left^ discarded almost all the moderates, and favored the republican candidates. Then came the turn of the senators with temporary warrants. ' The proclamations addressed to the electors displayed, in general, a pru- dent liberalism. MM. Leon Say, Feray, and Gilbert- Roncher announced, in Seine-et-Oise, the following programme : " Unreserved adherence to the Constitu- tion ; the clause concerning revision to be regarded as a door opened to the improvements of the republican government, and not as a means of overturning it ; the exertion of every effort to preserve our country from 1 Aside from the debate upon the liberty of higher education, which ended in the institution of mixed juries for the conferring of University degrees (see the remarkable speeches made by Jules Ferry, on June 11, 12, 1875), the session -was verbose and empty. M. Burgoing's election was declared void, fourteen months after it had taken place ; the inquiry had revealed Bonapartist tricks of a disquieting character. Otherwise, symp- toms of increasing calmness were multiplied throughout the country. The marshal continued to circulate through France, replying in familiar and happy fashion to the speeches which were addressed to him. Cardinal Donnet, Generals Lebrun and Ducrot uttered words of peace, and at Arcachon M. Thiers furnished the formula of the day : " The Republic has been decided upon by vote," he said; "the only thing now left for us to do is to make a success of it." 2 See the details of the negotiations in regard to this understanding in the Souvenirs de la Prisidence du Marichal MacMahon, by Ernest Daudet. 50 THE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. any sort of revolution whatsoever." The same ideas were expressed, in Aisne, by MM. Waddington, Henri Martin, and de Saint-Vallier. In opposition to this very clear language was out- lined the provisional policy, agitated and nervous, of M. Buffet. He saw civil war ready to break out at any moment ; in his eyes, the insurrectionary bands were only waiting for a " weakening " of the public powers. Nothing justified these fears : General Chanzy, Ad- miral Pothuau, MM. Casimir-Perier, Laboulaye, de Maleville, and L. de Lavergne had just been elected senators. The amnesty demanded by M. Naquet had found adversaries on all sides ; but M. Buffet did not perceive these things. His uneasy temper was sud- denly exhibited by his categorical demand upon M. Leon Say that he should disavow the senatorial list upon which his name appeared.^ This rating brought about an unforeseen crisis : the Minister of Finance wished to resign, followed by M. Dufaure. The mar- shal became alarmed, and, on this occasion, did not fear to interfere directly, over the heads of his ministers; he exposed the policy of the Cabinet in a very uncon- stitutional but well-written proclamation, in which he declared that he was the guardian of the Constitution, as well as of the conservative interests. M. Leon Say remained. The senatorial elections took place on January 30, 1876. M. Buffet came to grief in the Vosges, his na- tive country ; forty Bonapartists succeeded in Gironde, Charente-Inf^rieure, and Corsica ; several radicals were elected in the Bouches-du-Rhone district, Var and 1 The Prefect of Police, M. Leon Renault, candidate for deputy in the district of Corbeil, explained to his electors his reasons for adhering to the Eepublio, and M. BufEet demanded his resignation. EABLY YEABS OF TSE REPUBLIC. 51 Drome ; the pure legitimists were ousted ; all the rest belonged to the moderate element. M. de Freycinet was the first to be elected in Paris, where Victor Hugo was only the fortieth, in spite of his grandiloquent epis- tle, " from the delegate of Paris to the delegates of the thirty-six thousand communes of France." In short, the result of this great national consultation was a Senate whose composition assuredly disconcerted more than one calculation, and dispelled more than one illu- sion, which remained, nevertheless, "a tolerably close expression of a complicated situation, the living repre- sentation of the serious and permanent currents of public opinion."^ The electoral agitation increased at the approach of the legislative elections. On this occasion Gambetta displayed a marvellous and fruitful activity ; he spoke at Aries, at Lille, and everywhere prepared the way for the triumph of his ideas by the skill and the modera- tion with which he defended them. The ballot of February 20 emphasized and surpassed that of Janu- ary 30, although it did not have throughout France the character which could have been desired in the inter- ests of the Republic. In some departments, especially in Paris, " a disproportionate share " was conceded " to the violent and exclusive interests." ^ Nevertheless, the general impression which resulted was "an impression of peace and of order in the established government. "^ Gambetta was elected in Paris, Lille, Marseilles, and Bordeaux. So were M. Thiers and M. Dufaure, the one at Paris, the other at La RocheUe. The Due De- cazes, opposed at Paris by the imperialist candidate, 1 Ch. de Mazade, Revue des Deux Mondes. Chronique. 2 Ibid, sibid. 52 THE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. M. Raoiil Duval, was elected on the second ballot. The elections of March 5 put the finishing touch to the success of the republicans. The most striking person who suffered defeat on that day was M. Buffet, who had taken so personal an interest in the struggle. His friends failed in the north and in the south. He retired, followed by M. de Meaux, and M. Dufaure came into power. ^ On March 8, 1876, in the Hercules Hall at Versailles, the President of the National Assembly announced, that, the staffs of the Senate and of the Chamber of Deputies being now formed, the powers of the Assembly had come to an end. M. Dufaure, on assuming the executive power, promised, in the name of the marshal, that "he would use it, with the help of God and the assent of the two Chambers, only in conformity to the laws, for the honor and the interests of our well-beloved count^3^" 1 His colleagues were the Due Decazes, General Cissey, Admiral Fouxichon, MM. L&n Say, Waddingtou, Teisserenc de Bort, Christophe, and Eicard. Tlie latter, who died soon after, was replaced by M. de Marcfere. TBJE SIXTEENTH OF MAT. 53 CHAPTER III. THE SIXTEENTH OF MAY. The Constitution of 1875: Unforeseen Stability. — The Beginnings of the Parliament. — Preludes of a Coup d'Stat. — The Appeal to the Country, and the Electoral Campaign. — A Futile Attempt. — The Return to Nor- mal Life. — The Exposition of 1878. — The Marshal resigns. The organization of the public power in France lias been entirely transformed eleven times since 1789, without reckoning the modifications of details, or the simple changes of form, such as the senatorial decree of the Year XII. or the revision of the charter of 1814 in 1830.1 The first National Assembly began by chopping down all the institutions which surrounded the monarchy, and gave birth to the Constitution of 1791 to replace them. Too deeply imbued with the dogma of the separa- tion of powers, the members of the Constituent Assembly produced a work characterized by distrust and isolation : the ministers, kept out of Parliament, the sovereign, hampered in the exercise of his most elementary pre- rogatives, could not govern alongside an assembly itself unique and isolated in its powers. The Constitution of 1791 was condemned to death from its very birth. The Convention tried to substitute for it another in which the representative system was reconciled with 1 The constitutions, properly speaking, are ten in number : those of 1791, 1793, of the Year III., of the Year VII., of 1814, the Additional Act, the charter of 1815, the constitutions of 1848, 1852, 1875. Changes of form tools: place in 1804 and in 1830, and organic modifications were effected in 1793 and in 1869. So, in all, there have been fourteen changes. 54 THE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. the direct exercise of the national sovereignty. Con- dorcet presented the report in February, 1793 ; but, in the meantime, Girondist ideas had ceased to please even before they had been applied, and it was a Jacobin con- stitution which was proclaimed on June 24 of that year. Popular ratification of the laws constituted its princi- pal original feature ; this shadow of a regular form of government soon disappeared before the revolutionary government established by the decrees of October 10 and December 10, and the Committee of Public Safety remained alone invested with all powers. The Constitution of the Year III., which was reported by Boissy-d'Anglas, contained metaphysical digressions inspired by the Social Contract. It established two councils of the same origin : the Council of the Five Hundred, which was to propose laws, and the Council of the Ancients, which was to discuss them, without having the right to amend them. The executive power was vested in the Directory. If nothing of the chi- merical projects of the Year III. lasted, it is but just to remark that the great organic laws which were passed at this same epoch still serve, to-day, as the foundation of our administration. In the Year VII. Sieyes reappeared with a whole hierarchy agreeable to the eye, running from the " lists of notabilities " drawn up by the electors, and from which the functionaries were to be chosen, to the Grand Elector, a magistrate without authority, who was to preside over the proper working of the Constitution. Bonaparte accepted the lists of notabilities, which he regarded as inoffensive, but replaced the Grand Elector by the First Consul, of whom the Senatorial Decree of the Year XII. made a hereditary emperor. Then came a long period of parliamentarism : the THE SIXTEENTH OF MAY. 55 charter of 1814, replaced during the Hundred Days by the Additional Act, was re-established in the follow- ing year ; in 1830 it underwent several modifications of slight importance, and then lasted into 1848. Then bombastic preambles, grand principles, hollow generali- ties, which had charmed the legislators of the end of the preceding century, made their appearance again. The Constitution of 1848, drawn up by Marrast, Du- faure, Dupin the elder, Tocqueville, Odilon Barrot, Considdrant, Vaulabelle, Lamennais, was promulgated on November 7, "in the presence of God, and in the name of the people." It was stated that "the French Republic was one, democratic and indivisible " ; that it had as its foundations " family, labor, property " ; that it ' ' recognized rights anterior and superior to the positive laws," — all things excellent in themselves, but rather silly. The Constitution of 1852 was, above all else, anti- parliamentary, and directed against the Assembly, which was reduced, under the name of "legislative body," to the most modest and insignificant sort of a part. It lasted eight years. As early as 1860 the Em- peror was led to grant publicity to the debates, and the right to vote an address in reply to the speech from the throne; two Ministers without functions represented the government with the deputies. A great uprising of public opinion having made itself felt in the elections of 1863, the right of the question (^interpellation), and the presence of the ministers in the legislative body were conceded (January, 1867). And, finally, the Sen- atorial Decree of September 8, 1869, established true ministerial responsibility and voting upon the budget by sections. Hence the government which ratified the appeal to the nation of May 8, 1870, resembled that of 56 THE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. 1830. Universal suffrage and the responsibility — wholly fictitious, by the way — of the sovereign consti- tuted the only differences. But there was not time to try the experiment, and the liberal Empire succumbed at Sedan, together with the absolute Empire. While passing in review, as rapidly as possible, this collection of constitutional texts, it is impossible not to be struck by the fact that, out of four hundred years of our national existence,^ the two parliamentary constitu- tions (that of 1814-1830, and that of 1875) lasted fifty- four years, while the other eight constitutions lasted, in all, fifty years ; that is to say, their average duration was a little more than six years. Never have the merits of a parliamentary form of government been emphasized in history in a more clear and indisputable manner than by this fact. While fairly illogical in itself, the parliamentary form was better suited than any other to a century of transition, and it alone was able to guide Europe, and France in particular, from the monarchy by right divine, to pure democracy. This impression is still further accentuated if one compares the texts of the constitutions which have just been enumerated. The greater part of them, hastily pre- pared to meet the needs of a cause or of a man, bear the imprint of the most complete governmental inex- perience. Great periods with swelling phrases, ingen- ious or learned combinations, do not take the place of the knowledge of men and the exact idea of the needs of the epoch. It is in this point, in particular, that the Constitution of 1875 differs so completely from those which preceded it. Instead of forming a compact work, single, elaborated, and accepted at a dash, it is, in a way, dispersed into 1 These lines were written in 1895. THE SIXTEENTH OF MAT. 57 three constitutional laws distinct from each other. We have seen, moreover, in what a practical spirit it was drawn up and how its character of compromise per- mitted its joint-authors, who held very diverse opinions, to unite in preparing it. At its foundation is established a very broad electoral system, since to the qualification of French citizenship it suffices, for electoral rights, to add the age of twenty- five years, and a residence in one commune of one year and six months. Thus the electoral question, which is so troublesome in other countries, has been settled; it is impossible to go further unless suffrage be granted to women, which public opinion does not seem disposed to claim very soon. The Chamber is entirely renewed every four years. It is probable that the mode of elec- tion will undergo still further transformations, since the quarrel between the general election and the district election has lasted since 1817. As for the party plat- form (mandat impSratif), that ulcer of parliamentary life, " the strong organization of parties and the eleva- tion of political customs " ^ are the only safeguards which can be set up against it.^ In the beginning, men had dreamed of considerable pre- rogatives for the Senate; on the contrary, in practice, its part has been circumscribed in a greatly curtailed manner ; so curtailed, in fact, that some politicians per- mitted themselves to be induced to regard it as a use- less piece of machinery. Later on, circumstances proved the nature of its utility. In fact, it was to be feared 1 A. Eibot, Cows fait a I' Scale des Sciences Politiques (unpublished). 2 The mandat imp^ratif (party platform) , which played a prominent part in the elections ol 1881, is simply the instructions given to the deputy by his constituents to vote in such or such a way, and the obligation accepted by the deputy to make his vote conform to the requirements of his constituents. 58 TEE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. that the Senate, also, would try to overthrow ministries, and to demand that ministers should be held to equal responsibility before both Chambers. This was a serious danger ; it was only perceived after it had been averted. It appeared, in principle, as if irremovability ought to constitute a rampart against thoughtless impulses ; it was nothing of the sort, and eventually it was found possible to discard it without regret. On the other hand, the elective franchise, ingeniously combined in such a manner as to make all the municipal communes of the country take a share in designating the senators, has given the results which were expected from it. But partial renewal and the longer term of office have contributed, even more than its diversity of origin, to make of the Senate an Assembly entirely distinct from the Chamber, and thoroughly in harmony with the part which events were destined to assign to it. The President is irresponsible, and it is the National Assembly which elects him for seven years ; he did not seem very well armed against the exactions and arbitra- riness of Parliament except through his right to force a fresh consideration of laws which had been passed ; and even this privilege remained unused, and certain deputies were, perhaps, ignorant of its existence. The right of dissolution is exercised by the President, in company with the upper Chamber. The head of the State communicates with the senators and the deputies through the medium of messages, and presides over the Council of Ministers. The ministers may be more or less numerous; the Constitution does not fix their number ; it confines itself to declaring that they are responsible ; they are so, individually for their own administration, and collec- tively for their policy. Such, very briefly summed up, THE SIXTEENTH OF MAY. 59 are the institutions which the National Assembly of 1875 gave to the country after four years of waiting, and without any enthusiasm whatever. No one seemed to believe in their durability. " We certainly have occasion- ally seen statesmen promise perpetuity to their political creations," said M. de Mazade wittily ; " but M. Buffet is the first to begin putting ashes on the brow of the constitution which he has helped to make, by reminding it of its fragility, and of the probable briefness of its exist- ence."^ On the Left, also, men felt anxious. "While calling attention to the fact that " difficulties and crises are the living woof of free governments," Jules Ferry said, with a certain melancholy : " Nothing is quickly done, nothing goes by steam in the working of a govern- ment of three powers. It is the slowest of all motors ; it requires much time and many efforts to work and to produce. The rapid processes of which modern mechan- ism boasts are not its portion ; it is a government which earns its daily bread, but in the sweat of its brow."^ At least every one felt the necessity of making these institutions live. "The Constitution of 1875," wrote Jules Favre,^ " is far from being perfect ; its scrupulous maintenance is, nevertheless, one condition of public safety. Not to permit any one to touch it, not to touch it oneself, are two correlative rules of conduct drawn from the same principles : the necessity of stable institu- tions, and the duty of protecting them by their own force against all attacks. When this great and salutary example shall have been given, we shall have taken another step along the path wherein free governments hold them- selves erect. England preceded us long ago in that 1 Ch. de Mazade, Eevue des Deux Mondes. Chronique. 2 Letter to the journal, La Gironde, June 10, 1876. 3 Conferences et Melanges. 60 THE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. path; she has found therein repose, honor, and pros- perity. Let us strive to imitate her wisdom." Never did gloomy prognostications receive from time and circumstances a more absolute refutal. Conflicts between the head of the State and Parliament might have been apprehended ; the more so as M. Thiers had — under very peculiar circumstances, it is true — im- parted a dangerous course to the institution of the Presidency. Marshal MacMahon was almost constitu- tional ; M. Gr^vy was completely so, and every distrust was extinguished, so far as the Elys^e was concerned. As for the Council of Ministers, it was, by its very in- stability, the safety-anchor of the new order of things. There exists in the French temperament one serious defect which brings in its train a whole cohort of un- pleasant consequences. Public opinion, with us, has a mania for responsibility. Under the impulse of any emotion whatever, or of any unforeseen event, public opinion always attacks some one, and is only appeased after having executed its victim — even if he be an innocent man. It resembles those men of irascible temper, who, in order to conquer their rage, smash a piece of furniture, and immediately regain calmness and lucidity. When a people has such dangerous habits, only a ministry can be offered to it to over- throw. For if it has a responsible head of the State, and attacks him, it becomes a revolution. A number of ministerial crises which occurred under the rule of 1875 spared us revolutions : the causes which brought them about were often trivial, but a public opinion which is not master of itself cannot be reasoned with, and these crises played the beneficent part of a safety-valve. On the other hand, it is not quite correct to say that they disorganized the admin- JULES GR^VY, THIRD PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC. THE SIXTEENTH OF MAT. 61 istration ; that may have been the case in the begin- ning, but the mischief was soon repaired. In the majority of the ministries, the minister, beyond his political part as member of the government, does not do much more than peep into the portfolio of which he is the nominal custodian. Directors and heads of of- fices, who enjoy stability and authority, accomplish an identical task and in the same spirit under a different chief. This explains how it has been possible to under- take great reforms, and carry them to a successful end, slowly and steadily.^ In this practical application of the Republic, every- thing was unforeseen and paradoxical. An Assembly with monarchical origins and tendencies founded the Republic ; a constitution whose provisional character was proclaimed by the very persons who had drawn it up has surpassed, in its duration, all the " definitive " constitutions to which it succeeded. The conflicts between the two Chambers and the Presidency, which seemed probable, did not take place, and harmony was established between the three powers, each of which assumed a different character. An uneasy turbulent public opinon has, at last, found in ministerial respon- sibility the safety-valve which it needed, and under the external appearance of instability, a remarkably stable form of government has been established, and has flourished. In 1876 the first efforts of the new Chamber, pre- sided over by M. Jules Grevy, and of the new Senate, which had called the Dae d'Audiffret-Pasquier to the chair, did not presage any such happy results. No 1 This state of things appears in a fair way to he modified in the direc- tion of a more personal action of the minister in the business of his department. 62 THE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. tradition had been outlined, as yet ; discipline was lacking in the parliamentary groups. Experience, also, was lacking and good-will did not supply its absence. This good-Avill was expressed by the multiplicity of propositions due to the initiative of the deputies. The Chamber of 1876 came together with an inexhaustible supply of projects in stock. Military organization, administration, magistracy, education, religion, rail- ways, government of property, — each man had his own improvements to propose on each subject. "There is not a day," says M. de Mazade, "that M. President Grevy, a man full of patience, does not have to register in its proper place some new production of parliamentary measures, and a convenient device has been hit upon to reconcile all interests, to eliminate the element of self-love in the authors of the propositions without binding oneself to anything : it is, to take them into consideration. At the present moment, there are more than eighty committees occupied in ex- amining a multitude of motions." ^ Nevertheless, the Chamber was sufficiently ministerial. The majority did not have to be "sought"; it " offered itself," in a manner. " The aptitude for government carried the day in proportions truly unexpected " ^ in the republi- can ranks. A proof of this presented itself when the question as to the election of mayors again came under discussion. The republicans, on the report of Jules Ferry, accepted a compromise, with the sole object of not impeding the movements of the ministry. ^ Cer- 1 Ch. de Mazade, Revue des Deux Moncles. Chronique. " Jules Ferry, Diseours et Opinions. 2 It was a question of abrogating tlie law of January 20, 1874, and of returning to the law of 1871, which did not reserve to the central power the right to appoint mayors except in cities of more than twenty thousand inhabitants, and in the capitals of districts. As the government had im- THE SIXTEENTH OF MAY. 63 tain advanced groups had come to an understanding with the Extreme Right to perpetuate the confusion, prejudices, and the eternal and useless quarrels of parties. The Republic of all the rest of the world certainly was not theirs ; but while M. Tirard de- manded the suppression of the embassy to the Holy See, and MM. Clemenceau and Raspail, upholding the proposal of amnesty, declared that the " Versaillese " themselves were in need of amnesty, M. Gambetta, who had become president of the committee on the budget, brought to the cause of order his vibrating eloquence, and did not fear, in the heart of Belleville, to describe the Commune as " a criminal insurrection. " i Nothing in the internal condition of the country justified the sort of anguish, of wild perturbation, which the conservatives felt in presence of the republicans; nothing unless it were their profound ignorance of their ambitions and their plans. At no time has a more pro- found and less well-founded divergence of sentiments between the two parties been seen. The repugnance which the marshal had felt in confiding the power to M. Jules Simon,^ the deputies felt, in their turn, in try- prudently bound itself on this question, a compromise was the result : the central power had the right to nominate in the capitals of the depart- ments, of the districts, and of the counties. 1 It is hut just to add, that with this disposition displayed by the great tribune not to make his words and his acts harmonize together any too well, he proposed, at the same time, the abandonment of the trials for deeds con- nected with the Commune. The Chamber accepted this measure, with modifications ; the Senate rejected it, and this was the cause which occa- sioned the fall of the Duf aure Cabinet. 2 The question in point was, to ascertain whether the Constitution authorized the Senate to reinstate the appropriations which the Chamber had vetoed. " The fact is," says M. Kibot (Cours fait a l'£cole des Sciences PoUtiques, unpublished), " that in nearly all countries the upper Chambers never raise the question of the budget : this is the established usage. If the lords have made a timid and accidental attempt to act against this 64 THE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. ing to follow the new chief of the Cabinet, even when the latter defended their dearest principles. M. Jules Simon was, assuredly, more truly a conservative than any one of those who adorned themselves with that title and refused him their votes. He gave proofs of it every day. On the Left, they demanded that functionaries hostile to the form of government should be weeded out. There had been veritable scandals in several departments, and this weeding-out was indispensable, but an effort was made to make it too complete. Jules Simon energeti- cally resisted. " If I were to listen to you," he said to the advanced republicans, "I should introduce into French customs that American rotation in office which is cause of so many evils." A conflict over the annual appropriation having arisen between the Chamber and the Senate, the Minister defended the rights of the upper House. It was impossible to set his acts in con- tradiction to the words which he had uttered on coming into power. He had declared that " he was profoundly republican, and profoundly conservative." No one could cherish ill-will against him for being conserva- tive, nor feel uneasy because he was a republican. The chances of a monarchical restoration had retreated so greatly during the preceding four years, that with the exception of a few enthusiasts no one any longer dreamed of calling the form of government into ques- tion ; the urgent agreed to wait, at least, until the end of the seven years' term. custom, they were unable to succeed in it, and the reform was not effected. In France, the peers have never done more than docilely record the annual appropriation." Gambetta maintained, that in the case in ques- tion, the maximum was fixed by the deputies ; the senators could diminish, but could not augment the items set down in the budget. This arrange- ment was founded upon a subtle interpretation of the text of the constitu- tional law. THE SIXTEENTH OF MAT. 65 No ! the conflict whose preludes were beginning to enervate public opinion had other causes. For a long time it was thought that the Marshal President, shar- ing the uneasiness of the persons about him, had enter- tained the very singular and very widely disseminated idea, that the liberal ladder led, inevitably, to the abyss of anarchy, and that on its slippery steps no republican, not even the best-intentioned, would be able to stop the country ; that, imbued with this conviction, he had re- solved to apply the brake, so to speak, to the forward march of public opinion, but that, through lack of deci- sion and of self-confidence, he had not carried out his plan, and had allowed himself to be vanquished by more resolute adversaries. But there is one point which rises above everything else, and upon which it is impossible to be mistaken, now that the true charac- ter of the crisis of the 16th of May has become clearly apparent. It was not a political, but an essentially religious crisis. After Pius IX., crowning the work of his long pon- tificate, had offered to the world " an intellectual Caesar- ism, as the only remedy, as the solution vainly and long pursued in the disorder of all things," ^ in France a new Catholicism was beheld, — no longer the same which our fathers had known and loved, — marching, on all sides, to the assault of modern society ; it had assumed pre- cise form in the gloomy days of 1870. Feeble or terrified minds had accepted with ecstasy its consoling visions and its surprising prophecies ; new devotions had arisen; a strange idolatry formed its foundation. As formerly, in Phrygia, under Marcus Aurelius, the expectation of some mystical renovation hypnotized souls ; scenes of illuminism and of ecstasy occurred 1 Jules Ferry, Speech delivered on June 3, 1876. 66 THE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. every moment. " Innumerable little books spread wild ideas everywhere ; the good people who read them thought them more beautiful than the Bible." ^ When calm was restored after the war, a number of sanctua- ries, previously unknown, threw open their doors to the faithful. The clergy maintained, an attitude of reserve. Strange to say, it was the laity who had led the movement, organized the pilgrimages, disseminated the Gospel. They seemed desirous of confiscating religion, and of making it their own private property. Their headquarters were at the Monastery of Paray- le-Monial ; they dragged thither the deputies, and were angry because the Due de Broglie and M. Beule did not go there to make their devotions. M. du Temple and M. de Belcastel played in the Assembly the part of lay bishops ; they did their utmost to get passed the law asserting the public utility of the construction of the basilica of Montmartre, and there came near being a solemn vote " consecrating repentant France to the Sacred Heart of Jesus." No doubt, more than one good Christian was sad over these exaggerations, as he thought of the reaction which they must, of necessity, entail. It soon came, in fact, and there was a " disastrous emulation between the clerical spirit and the radical spirit."^ Both have their pontiffs and their trusty fol- lowers ; the radical religion believes that it has received, since 1793, the gift of miracles and the gift of tongues. Clericalism, unjustly so called, since laymen have had more to do with it than the priests, has quartered itself, in succession, on two fields of battle, both badly chosen, — the temporal power of the Pope, and national educa- 1 Renan, Marc-Aurele et la Fin du Monde Romain. 2 Ch. de Mazade, Revue des Deux Mondes. Chronique. THE SIXTEENTH OF MAT. 67 tion. From 1872 to 1887, the claims made in favor of the temporal power were incessant. They were multiplied, without any account being taken of the difficult cir- cumstances in which we found ourselves, or the most elementary signs of common sense. Petitions were circulated, even in the primary schools, and some were couched in terms offensive to the government of King Victor Emmanuel. Prelates, carried away by their zeal, made this question the theme of their pastoral charges, and the Bishop of Nevers went so far as to organize in his diocese a manifestation against a law which the Italian Parliament had just passed, and to propose to the mayors in his diocese that they should take part in it. It seemed as if clericalism were above and outside of all law. With every passing day its freaks in the direction of agitation became more dis- turbing to the future of the country and to its good name abroad. At last the storm broke ; a question was raised in the Chamber concerning the " ultra-montane intrigues." On that day Gambetta gave way to violence ; while protesting that he had no intention of attacking the Concordat, he depicted the episcopal body in rebellion against the government, and denounced it to public opinion in these celebrated words : " Clericalism — that is our enemy ! " This phrase exercised a great and in- jurious weight over a whole epoch. Clerical politics and religion are two very different things; he was just in not confounding them, and combating the one without attacking the other ; he was even clever in protecting himself from the one by the other. The French clergy likes to be on the side of the govern- ment; it might have been won, by treating it well, and by not forcing it to bear the blame of the excesses 68 THE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. committed by the laity. The opposition, by the same stroke of policy,' might have been deprived of one of its most formidable weapons ; it is the religious ques- tion which has permitted the monarchical parties to last so long. The reply of M. Jules Simon to the question was such as moderation and reason dictated; it was evi- dent that the government represented the opinion of the country on that grave subject.^ Nevertheless, the debate ended in a very unsatisfactory manner. The order of the day, which was passed without reaching the Cabinet, was not of a nature to facilitate his task. This took place on May 4. Twelve days passed, in a state of undefined uneasiness: men talked of a stroke of state policy, a coup d'etat, without believing in it, because, after all, nothing abnormal or disquieting had taken place. But on the morning of May 16, the mar- shal addressed to M. Jules Simon an angry and, in every way, improper letter, in which he withdrew from him his confidence. In a few moments the contents of the letter were known throughout Paris, where it caused troubled surprise. A ready-made ministry sprang out, as it were, from a trap. The Due de Broglie was its President ; MM. de Meaux, de Four- tou, and a Bonapartist senator, M. Brunet, were his colleagues.^ A message of prorogation was addressed to the Chambers : " I am none the less firmly resolved to-day ^ A recent incident had furnished him with an occasion for acting at once with firmness and with prudence ; a pontifical bull, instituting a " chancellor of the University of Lille," had been declared null and void ; but while refusing to recognize it, because it was contrary to the laws, the government had not yielded to the pressure of the hasty, who de- manded, with loud cries, that the free University of Lille should be closed. 2 General Berthaut aud the Duo Decazes retained their offices. TEE SIXTEENTH OF MAT. 69 than yesterday," said the head of the State, "to respect and uphold the institutions which are the work of the Assembly from which I hold my power, and which has set up the Republic. Until 1880 I am the only person who can propose a change, and I do not intend to do anything of the sort ; all my councillors are, like my- self, determined loyally to put in practice the institu- tions, and are incapable of aiming any blow at them." ^ It is not certain that the President's "councillors" shared, on this point, the opinion which he expressed with so much assurance. As for his conscience, it reproached him with nothing. Alongside of the re- publican watchword, which he had accepted without mental reservations and which he was observing with a fidelity " proceeding both from the delicate feelings of a gentleman and from the passivity of the good gendarme," 2 he considered no less imperious another unwritten watchword which he interpreted with the prejudices of his class and under the dominating in- fluence of the circles which surrounded him. This was the clerical and conservative order of the day in the sense which the clericals attributed to this expres- sion. In their eyes, the marshal was not the sole guardian of public order ; he was still the defender of certain ideas, the protector of certain groups. There 1 M. Ernest Daudet, in his Souvenirs de la Prisidenee du Marichal MacMahon, asserts that the 16th of May was the personal and spontaneous act of the marshal. No one said to him ; " The hour has come for action : act." The discussions in the Chamber exasperated him, and of his own prompting he wrote the famous letter. But, on the other hand, M. Daudet admits that this act had many co-workers : " The imprudent counsels of the Right, and the sterile violences of the Left, had," he says, "raised the head of the State to a white heat." As for the Due de Broglie, he was not very enthusiastic at first. M. Daudet puts into his mouth this phrase : "We have been thrown clumsily into the water, and we must swim." 2 Jules Ferry, Discours et Opinions, Vol. II. 70 THE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. ■were opinions to which he ought not to allow expres- sion ; there were men to whom he ought to bar the way. They repeated this to him every moment. Had he been left to himself, he would have been a model Presi- dent ; as he was incessantly worried by the people who surrounded him, he lost the proper sense of his own situation, of the origin of his power and of the nature of his prerogatives. Hence the honest clearness of his language, and the lack of conformity between his words and his actions. When in the course of his journeys he replied to addresses, or sent a message to the country, it was he himself who spoke or wrote ; others, too often, acted in his name. But all political influences, all those which were exercised in the name of a fixed party, found him unshaken ; he had consented to be the President of the Republic ; to betray the Republic would have caused him horror ; to serve Bonapartist or legitimist interests would have been to betray it. The influence exercised in the name of religion found him quite differently disposed ; in that quarter he was vulnerable ; in that quarter, also, action was incessantly brought to bear, and the marshal yielded to it all the more readily because, in resisting the republicans, he imagined tliat he was still being of use to the Re- public. The act which he had just perpetrated, moreover, re- tained in his eyes the character of legality: in demand- ing of the Senate the dissolution of the Chamber, he did not exceed his prerogatives; at the most, he over- stepped them a little by discharging the ministers on his own authority. But if the Constitution remained intact in form, the spirit of it was, manifestly, vio- lated; the 16th of May was — or tried to be, for it suf- fered shipwreck — a moral stroke of state policy Qeoup THE SIXTEENTH OF MAT. 71 d'Staf). It was directed at ideas, rather than at men; it aimed to hit doctrines, not institutions. Conse- quently, it was for several days misunderstood; at first, the country thought it a rather .abrupt appeal from her chief, who was consulting her in all frankness, for the purpose of obtaining from it indications of a clearer and more decisive course to steer. The excite- ment increased in proportion as the attitude of the gov- ernment contributed to emphasize the character and scope of the enterprise. Men found themselves, with amazement, face to face with an energetic and malevo- lent attack upon public opinion, made with the object of controlling and capturing it. The clergy joined in it with ardor. The marshal had a policy ; he spoke of it on every occasion, even to the army,i through the strange incoherence of his disturbed judgment. The ministers assumed an attitude of battle. " We have not your confidence, you have not ours," M. Fourtou said audaciously, from the tribune of the Chamber. People had thought it was a caprice; it was a platform. Everywhere in the country districts men formed cir- cles, seized the newspapers ; the prefects had ingen- iously discovered a means of eluding the law of 1875.^ They removed the mayors, and a barefaced pressure was brought to bear on the functionaries who retained their posts. " Alongside of the official demonstrations, by which people declare that they wish to remain on 1 At the review in the Bois de Boulogne. 2 From a speech made on July 19, 1883, in the Senate, hy M. Martin- Feuillee, Keeper of the Seals (Ferry Cabinet) , in connection with the law suspending the irremovability of magistrates, it would result that, in five months, at the epoch of May 16, there were 2700 prosecutions of the Press, more than a million francs of fines imposed, and forty-six years of prison applied to journalists. As for the removals, between May 24-29, 127 sub- prefects and lieutenant-governors had been replaced; in two months, M. Fourtou removed 217 prefects and sub-prefects. 72 THE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. constitutional ground," says M. de Mazade,^ "there is in progress a whole system of operations which is grad- ually thrusting the government out of the regular ways, separating the personal power of the marshal from the Constitution, threatening the country with fresh crises, with repeated dissolutions, if it does not vote right." In the face of all these illegalities, there was but one thing left for the majority to do: to pre- sent for re-election the 363 who had voted against the ministry of May 16. When summer came, the Councils General assembled, as a matter of form, as the Parliament had not voted, for 1878, the direct taxes which the departmental as- semblies have to distribute in their August session. As the time for the elections drew near, — they had been fixed for October 14, the limit of delay allowed by law, ■ — official candidacy became more and more scandalous. The notice, " Candidate of the govern- ment of Marshal MacMahon," figured on white paper in the mayors' offices.^ The administration was lavish in its appeals to the zeal of its representatives, follow- ing up the public circulars with confidential circulars which modified them; ^ at the same time, the bishops pub- lished electoral charges, inviting the faithful to march to the polls, as to the fulfilment of a religious duty. But in spite of searches and repressions, the govern- ment did not succeed in persuading the country that MM. B^renger, L^on Renault, Laboulaye, Dufaure, or Leon Say were dangerous revolutionists. At first sight, the results of the day of October 14 appeared rather indistinct ; but it was soon perceived that the 1 Revue des Deux Mondes. Chronique. 2 The white posters, as is well known, are the official notices. 3 Jules Ferry, Speech in the Chamber, November 14, 1877. THE SIXTEENTH OF MAT. 73 reactionary party had suffered a terrible defeat. The pressure exercised in its favor had won it only forty seats, and the republican majority remained over one hundred.! A deviation of 700,000 votes out of 10,000- 000 registered and of 7,000,000 voters, represented the difference of forces in the two camps. This long crisis injured both the Constitution and the Universal Exposition of 1878, which opened in the following spring. Commerce and industry suffered from it ; uncertainty and stagnation reigned every- where. Nevertheless, in certain circles, men did not shrink from the responsibility of prolonging this un- fortunate state of affairs, to the detriment of the coun- try; the ministers did not immediately retire, having in view, perhaps, the possibility of another dissolution which the extreme parties demanded. It became neces- sary to overthrow the Cabinet; then, twenty days later to overthrow the working Cabinet which was made up, on November 23, under the presidency of General Roche- bouet, and with which the Chamber refused " to enter into relations, in view of the fact that it saw in the con- stitution of this Cabinet the disavowal of parliamentary principles."^ At last, breaking away from the baleful advice of his immediate circle, the marshal became himself again and decided to summon M. Dufaure, who formed a ministry with the aid of MM. de Marc^re, L^on Say, Bardoux, Waddington (Foreign Affairs), de Freycinet, Teisserenc de Bort, Admiral Pothuau, and 1 363 against 158 was the old Chamber, in the great days ; 320 against 210 is, pretty nearly, the new Chamber, when it is complete. (Ch. de Mazade, Revue des Deux Mondes. Chronique.) 2 Journal Officiel. The deputies, at the same time, refused their sanc- tion to credits opened by decrees in the absence of the Parliament, and the committee on appropriations refused, until further orders, to present any report on the direct taxes. This energetic attitude conquered all the resistance of the Elysfe. 74 THE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. General Borel. This was the return to normal life, the re-entrance "into parliamentary verity, into the safe practice of the institutions."-' The extremists of the Right saw in it a "capitulation in the face of the enemy." But the nation, delivered from all anxiety and reassured, joyfully returned to its business. All was at peace : Marshal Canrobert went to represent France at the funeral of Victor Emmanuel; a little later, the Catholic world greeted with acclamation the accession of Leo XIII. to the pontifical throne, and many were under the impression that a new era was beginning for the Church. At Versailles, M. de Frey- cinet. Minister of Public Works, presented the famous plan which bears his name and which had for its object the completion of the network of railways and naviga- ble streams ; finally, the Exposition opened on May 1, 1878; its success, the national wealth and vitality of which it furnished so dazzling a proof, the visits of royal princes which the marshal received, the profound impression made upon Europe by the spectacle of our very rapid recovery, — all contributed to restore calm and security to men's minds. Nevertheless, the noise of violins and the glare of illuminating lamps did not prevent them from keeping their eyes riveted upon the senatorial elections of Jan- uary 5, 1879, because, as was most justly said, on the results produced by this ballot depended, in great part, the future of the new order of things.^ The republi- 1 Speech of M. Bardoux, Minister of Public Education. On the other hand, the message of December 15 formally recognized the irresponsibil- ity of the President, the responsibility of the ministers, and the sovereignty of universal suffrage, that " judge without appeal" ; this "was the form of disavowal inflicted by the marshal upon the doctrines of which they had tried to make him the representative. 2 M. de Freycinet visited Normandy, then the Nord, in company with TEE SIXTEENTH OF MAT. 75 can plan of campaign consisted in discarding all the senators elected who had voted, on May 16, for the dis- solution of the Chamber. On October 27, 1878, the municipal councils nominated their delegates ; from that moment, the character of the elections of Janu- ary 5 could be foreseen ; they were, at the same time, both conservative and republican, in this sense, that the newly elected belonged to the moderate shade of opinion, while remaining firmly constitutional. The chief point was, that thenceforth the Republic had in the upper Chamber a majority of sixty votes. This would have been the proper moment for all the extreme views of the Left to lay down their arms ; but it often happens, in such circumstances, that exactions increase with success ; the divergences of view between the ministry and the majority became more clearly defined and more emphatic. The majority demanded the suppression of the Roman Catholic universities,^ secularism, free and obligatory primary education ; that unauthorized monastic companies should be pro- hibited from teaching; that the ministers of May 16 should be impeached ; amnesty and the weeding out of functionaries. The government was disposed to grant only the resumption by the State of the right to bestow university degrees ; obligatory and semi-gratuitous pri- M. L&n Say, then the Sud-Ouest ; he spoke much concerning public works, and a little about politics. His language was moderate in tone, and he never ceased to appeal to the true conservatives, exhorting them to rally their forces. Garabetta was making pilgrimages also, and received triumphal ovations. He launched at the Romans a new war-cry against clericalism, the inopportuneness of which he seemed himself to regret. He tried, nevertheless, to seem as ministerial as possible, and to render more easy for M. Dufaure and his colleagues their daily task. 1 Four free departments of law had opened their doors in 1875 ; they were established at Paris, Lyons, Lille, and Angers. The creation of other departments had been announced, but professors, rather than money, proved to be scarce. 76 THE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. mary education ; the suppression of the letter of obe- dience that took the place, in the monastic orders which were engaged in teaching, of the certificate of capacity ; large measures of clemency ; and a limited weeding out. These concessions were deemed exces- sive, on the Right ; in reality, they were very satisfac- tory, and amply fulfilled the needs of the moment. On the 14th of January, the ministry defended its plat- form and obtained an order of the day, which contained more distrust than coniidence.-' A ministerial crisis was expected; what came was a presidential crisis. The government had resigned itself to the necessity of pronouncing a certain number of dismissals, nearly all of them justifiable, but which might have been effected in a less brutal manner, and with a more just feeling of services rendered. On Jan- uary 25, M. Leon Say brought to the Council a decree dismissing divers functionaries in the department of Finance. After a brief resistance, the marshal affixed his signature. Again he signed, on the 28th, the dis- missal of the Minister of Public Worship, M. Tardif, presented to him by M. Bardoux ; but when General Gresley made known to him the changes which he pro- posed to effect in the commands of the army corps,^ the 1 Gambetta had suddenly left the ministry, under the influence of a petty spite. General Borel had retired, because he was not able to defend, in a proper manner, from the tribune, the interests of the army, and the marshal had preferred, for the post of Minister of War, General Gresley, rather than General Farre, Gambetta's candidate. This was merely a wound to self-love, but it was added to many others. As President of the Committee on Appropriations, Gambetta should have been invited to the marshal's oflScial dinners, at the Palace of the Elys^e ; but he was not, and could not justly resent it. The decidedly too aristocratic following of the head of the State spared neither disdain nor sarcasms to the "new strata." 2 Five commanders of army corps were dismissed ; five others, Gen- eral's Bataille, Bourbaki, du Barail, de Lartigue, and de Montaudon, were placed on the retired list. THE SIXTEENTH OF MAT. 77 marshal refused to have anything to do with it, not, as has been asserted, in violent and angry terms, but in a tone which indicated that his mind was made up, and that his will was irrevocable. On January 30 the Council of Ministers assembled at Versailles to listen to the reading of the message by which the President withdrew from his functions. A few hours later, M. Jules Grevy was proclaimed Presi- dent of the French Republic by 563 votes out of the 670 cast. Just at the moment when the result of the vote was reported to him in his apartments, M. Grevy received a visit from Marshal de MacMahon. " I wished," said the illustrious soldier, "to be the first to greet the head of the State." The scene bore the imprint of a truly republican simplicity. M. Grevy had not calculated upon the difficulties which awaited him. If the rapidity and dignity with which the transmission of the presidential power had again been effected was of a nature to make a favorable impression upon Europe, on the other hand, the acces- sion to the supreme rank of a plain lawyer, sprung from the ranks of the people, marked too great a stage in the forward march of French democracy not to arouse abroad certain anxieties and certain susceptibilities. With noble frankness, M. Grevy asked the marshal for his aid, and the latter did not hesitate.^ Thus ended the second Presidency of the Republic. The government emerged from it greater and stronger. No one but the marshal was capable of accrediting the 1 The marshal interposed, in person, with several ambassadors, on behalf of his successor, of whom he spoke to them in particularly eulogis- tic terms; he also wrote to certain of our representatives abroad. The Marquis d'Harcourt, the Corate de Saint- Vallier, General Le Flo, the Comte de Vogue', Admiral Jaures had, in fact, either resigned or announced their intention to resign. 78 THE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. Republic to the emperors and kings of whom his title, his rank, and the military glory which surrounded him rendered him almost the equal. At home, being pos- sessed of liberal instincts, as he had already proved under the Empire, his chief fault was too great mod- esty. He had not sufficient confidence in his own judgment. His first steps in his governmental career showed him to us obstinately pursuing the establish- ment of something definite, claiming that constitution which had been promised to him. He made the 16th of May, because he had been led to believe in an imaginary danger which France was incurring. Under bad advice, he fell into the trap which had been set for him, and did not become himself again until he had "torn asunder that veil of passionate arguments which had been stretched before his eyes."i In reality, he was "haunted by anxiety for legality," ^ and ironical fate condemned his memory to bear the burden of arbitrary measures, for which he was hardly responsible. A new period now began, — a period of latent, under- ground working of which superficial observers were able to detect only the colorless character. As Gam- betta had just said : ^ "The era of dangers was at an end; that of difficulties about to begin." The hour had arrived for considering "what is ripe, what is urgent, what must wait, what must be discarded, what must be resolutely condemned." 1 Ernest Daudet, Souvenirs de la Prisidence du Mar4chal MacMahon. 2 Ibid. 8 Speech at the banquet of the cominercial travellers, at the Grand Hotel (January, 1879) . THE CONGRESS OF BERLIN. 79 CHAPTER IV. THE ALAKM OF 1875, AND THE CONGRESS OF BERLIN. Composure and Abstention. — A Triple Alternative. — The Conference of London. — M. de Bismarck's Ideas. — Intervention of Europe. — At the Congress of Berlin ; the First Partition of Turkey .— Disinterested- ness appreciated. — The Difficulties of Republican Diplomacy. — Forma- tion of the Triple Alliance. The foreign policy of France from 1870 to 1889 is summed up, in the eyes of many persons, in two words, — composure and abstention. This is, in fact, the very wise formula which the country enjoined upon her representatives ; our defeat, and the arduous toil which it enforced upon us, counselled a reserve the necessity of which was rendered still more imperious by the fact that the Republic was obliged, on nearly all her frontiers, to handle with great caution the sus- ceptibilities of monarchical feeling. But a country cannot control foreign affairs as easily as the finances or the administration, and the orders which it issued were not rigorously observed. No sooner was the Franco- German War ended, than Europe began to busy itself with the attitude which our diplomats would assume, and with the direction which they would im- part to our foreign policy, so thoroughly was it under- stood that a great nation cannot maintain itself in an isolated position, even if the form of its government forbids it to negotiate alliances with neighboring States. The most autocratic monarchies, those most thoroughly imbued with the doctrines of divine right, 80 TEE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. haye been led, by the force of circumstances, to come to terms with revolutionary governments, which they had tried to ignore, or with which they had, at first, endeavored to hold only distant and cautious relations. But such was not the case with the Third Republic, regularly and legally constituted.^ Therefore, French statesmen running counter to the sentiments of prudent reserve which directed public opinion, and which, more- over, facilitated their task, took care not to exhibit towards Europe an indifference and independence which would have injured the interests with which they were entrusted. The probabilities of the future pointed, in 1871, towards an alliance with Austria. It was felt to be plain sailing, to the regret of our conquerors, and the memory of Sadowa effaced that of Solferino. The simi- larity of their destinies was bound to draw together, it appeared, two nations which a fortuitous war had ren- dered enemies, between whom friendship and esteem had continued to exist. ^ Italy, by her official ingratitude, which was not offset by the devotion of some of her sons ; England, by the exaggerated caution of her neutrality; Russia, by the simultaneousness of her action, which had made evident her understanding with Prussia, — had fallen under our suspicion. Properly speaking, noth- 1 The idea expressed by Admiral La Ronciere-Le Noury, that " the form of her government prohibited France from resuming her place in the European concert," was shared, in the beginning, by many of the republi- cans, who grieved over it, but savf no way of remedying it. Of course, the command of the Mediterranean squadron was taken away from the admiral for having permitted himself such a piece of folly in public. (1875.) 2 It is to be observed that, in spite of her long participation in the Triple Alliance, Austria has no enemies in France ; the Emperor Francis Joseph is the only one of the sovereigns in the Triplicate who could come to visit us, with a certainty that he would be received with sympathetic deference. (Note of 1895.) THE CONGRESS OF BERLIN. 81 ing separated us from Austria, and on more tlian one point our interests were identical ; on none were tliey opposed. Now three alliances, or, rather, three understandings, — since the word "alliance" implies a firm compact, — have been possible ; precisely those which immediately after the war appeared the most improbable ; while at no time has the Franco-Austrian alliance had the slightest chance of realization. The first was the understanding with England : it allured a certain con- tingent of politicians, of liberal and thoughtful minds ; it was, without doubt, the least brilliant, perhaps the most rational and the most solid. ^ The second is the understanding with Russia ; statesmen in whom France takes pride ^ foresaw it, and made preparations for it by new methods ; it was sealed between the peoples before it was merely agreed upon between governing powers ; but the distinct will of Alexander III. gave it the sanction without which it would have had no results. The third was the understanding with Germany. Jules Ferry was accused of having sought it ; perhaps, in fact, it did, for a moment, allure the soul of the great patriot ; it would have speedily restored the fort- unes of France, and at the same time have assured the peace of Europe ; it was a work of audacious deli- 1 It is curious to recall what Garabetta said about it in the Chamber, on July 18, 1882, in connection with the affairs of Egypt. "Well," he exclaimed, " I have seen enough things to tell you this : Never break the English alliance, even at the cost ol the greatest sacrifices. It is not for the purpose of humiliating, of lowering, of diminishing French interests that I favor the alliance with England ; it is because I believe, gentlemen, that they can be effectively defended by this union, by this co-operation alone. If there is a rupture, all will be lost." 2 It is just to mention, likewise, that private initiative which did much towards bringing about a current of Franco-Russian sympathy; in the front rank of private influences must be placed that of Mme. Adam. 82 THE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. cacy, which required the absolute confidence of the nation in the man who should dare to undertake it ; as a matter of course, it included the revision of the treaty of Frankfort. Problems of a less lofty order presented themselves simultaneously with those which have influenced us to recast our diplomacy; it was necessary to find men qualified to represent the Republic in the courts of Europe, without being forced to seek them in the ranks of the adversaries of the government ; on the other hand, it was necessary to reconcile the policy of secu- larization, put in operation at home, with the protection of Roman Catholic interests which were intimately bound up, abroad, with our national interests. Al- though the telegraph, railways, and the progress of democratic ideas have modified the conditions in which it works, yet diplomatic action, such as is practised in Europe, remains a question of persons. The choice of an ambassador, his social position, his tact, his quali- ties of mind, settle the reception which is accorded to him, and also the person of the sovereign whose envoy he is, of the minister whose ideas he represents. Swit- zerland and the United States form the exception, no doubt ; but can they be compared with France, which has so long a monarchical past, such extensive fron- tiers, and so many points of contact with the States which surround her ? The diplomats of the other coun- tries all represent men, not institutions. How could Germany, Russia, Austria, be forced to admit that ob- literation of the man in favor of the institution which is the fundamental dogma of the Republic, without hampering the action of our ambassadors ? As for the Roman Catholic inheritance, it complicated the task of the representatives of France in the samfe AD. THIERS, FIRST PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC. TBE CONGRESS OF BERLIN. 83 degree as the monarchical inheritance. No one dreamed of repudiating it; but could any one accept it in its en- tirety ? On the very day after it was accomplished by force, and with all the appearances of a violation of right, the fall of the temporal power of the Popes aroused the wrath of the Roman Catholic universe. Time alone could assuage the ill-will by proving that the spiritual power of the Holy See had been strength- ened by that fall. Until that time should arrive, great circumspection was imperatively necessary. Our agents would have no influence as defenders of Roman Catholic interests at a distance, except in so far as France and the Holy See should maintain friendly relations, and pre- cisely the hostility of the clergy and the clericals against the Republic seemed destined to bring about a tension — perhaps a momentary rupture between the Vatican and the Cabinet of Paris. Many other difficulties of detail had accumulated beneath the feet of our diplomats ; among the rest, the following, which might appear particularly formidable to them : their acts would be interpreted and judged quite differently in the French Parliament from the way in which they would be interpreted and judged by the public opinion of the peoples among whom they resided ; the point of view would never be the same ; the deputies would be unable to divest themselves, for the purpose of considering foreign policy, of the habits of mind with which they decided domestic affairs ; for, it must be said, if the republican party had prepared itself to govern at home, it had made no preparations to negotiate abroad ; but a scheme of diplomacy cannot be invented, and diplomats cannot be extemporized. Sagacity, patriotism, made everything easy; but none the less, when we consider the arduousness of the 84 THE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. task must we pay homage to those who accepted it with self-devotion, and fulfilled it with skill. On September 9, 1870, Jules Favre, Minister of Foreign Affairs of the National Defence, had " entreated M. Thiers to go and solicit the aid of the British Cabinet." 1 Of all the European powers, England was the one which remained most indifferent to the over- throw of a throne, and her interest seemed to be not to permit Germany to abuse her victory. It was natural to appeal to her, in the first place ; but M. Thiers did not wish to go to London without also going to Rome, to Vienna, to St. Petersburg, chief of all. Had he the unexpressed idea that, as the necessary head of the gov- ernment which was on the point of being established, it was desirable that he should " present the Republic to Europe in his person " ? ^ This plan was not felici- tous. It was a sentimental policy ; M. Thiers was a bad diplomat ; he did not conceal well his private thoughts, and too great a confidence in his own prestige prevented his adopting the language and the manners of the chancellors' offices. Moreover, the undertaking was beyond the strength or talent of any one.^ Europe assembled at London, but it was for the purpose of revising that treaty of 1856, which we had imposed upon Russia fifteen years earlier, and which 1 Debidour, Histoire Diplomatique, Vol. II. 2 Ibid. 2 It has been asserted that, during M. Thiers' journey, the Comte de Chambord, who represented Foreign Affairs in the delegation of Tours, had succeeded in arousing the susceptibility of England, by making her fear that M. Thiers had entered into engagements with Russia. The English government, it is said, even made a proposal which was very well received by Italy and Austria, and which " aimed at a regular media- tion between the belligerent parties." M. Thiers, on his return to Tours, is said " to have caused the failure of everything by his obstinacy in cling- ing to the Russian system." These facts, accepted by M. Debidour in his Histoire Diplomatique, should be received, it seems to us, with caution. THE CONGRESS OF BERLIN. 85 now weighed in the balance of our fate. Far from dreaming of coming to the aid of France, Prince Gortchakoff did his duty, after all, as a Russian, by taking advantage of the circumstances to liberate his country from the shackles applied to her ambitions. The conference of London opened on January 17, 1871; M. de Bismarck invented the most petty sort of pro- ceedings to prevent Jules Favre from leaving Paris, and he seemed to rejoice that France's signature would not figure at the foot of the act of revision of the treaty of 1856. The conference overcame his resistance ; it adjourned repeatedly, by way of expressing its explicit desire to have a French plenipotentiary take part in the labors.^ But it was its no less explicit will that the discussion should not be allowed to transgress its bounds which had been fixed in advance ; the majority of the plenipotentiaries had received, on this point, very precise instructions from their governments, and in this way Lord Granville's good intentions with regard to France were paralyzed.^ The London con- ference was, none the less, useful to our national in- terests ; in order thoroughly to understand this, one must imagine to himself the consequences which would have been entailed by a forced absence under such solemn circumstances, at a moment when, in the presence of the disaster which we had suffered, Europe was wondering whether we should ever succeed in wholly recovering from it. There is no doubt whatever that Prince Bismarck, by 1 It was not until March 13 that the Due de Broglie was able to ratify the acts of the conference, in the name of France. 2 Lord Granville had insinuated that " at the end of the conference, or even after one of the sessions, the representative of France, taking ad- vantage of the presence of the plenipotentiaries, might submit to them some question of interest for his country." 86 TBE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. causing, through his excessive demands, the prolonga- tion of the struggle to the last extremities, cherished the hope of reducing France to the rank of a secondary power ; he had this more at heart than the possession of Alsace-Lorraine. An augmentation of territory was nothing in comparison with the perspectives which opened out for the German Empire by the disappear- ance of France from the concert of great powers. This illusion, which he was slow to renounce, and which he appears to have entertained contrary to all evidence, explains the brutality of his policy. When, at last, his eyes were opened, his bad temper came near provok- ing a new war ; that is what was called the alarm of 1875. When Europe interposed, he suddenly recon- ciled himself to seeing France maintained in her former rank, and confined himself to remaining on the defensive towards her, not without an eye, perhaps, to the possi- bility of coming to an understanding with her in the distant future. This strange series of evolutions is outlined in the correspondence of the chancellor with Count von Arnim, his ambassador to France. In January, 1872, on the arrival of Prince Orloff at Paris, M. de Bismarck wrote to M. von Arnim : " I beg that Your Excellency will not permit yourself to be led astray by the rumor of sym- pathy for France which has preceded the prince, nor by the declarations of M. de Remusat, but that you will, on the contrary, regard and treat Prince Orloff with all confidence, as the sure friend of Germany. As I have known him for many years, I cannot share the fear that the adulation which will, probably, surround him at Paris will bring about a change in his senti- ments. The national Russian feeling is very strong in him, and that constrains him to maintain good relations THE CONGRESS OF BERLIN. 87 with us."i On May 12 he asserted that "the party in favor of the Bonapartist Empire is, probably, the one with whose assistance one can most reasonably flatter oneself that he can establish tolerable rela- tions between France and Germany. "^ The despatch of December 20 following is one of the most instruc- tive. It is plain that the chancellor desires that M. Thiers shall be upheld until the treaty of Frankfort shall have been executed. He was already afraid lest it should become necessary " to draw the sword again," and his preferences now appear turned towards the Republic. He fears, if royalty be re-established, that he shall be forced by other European cabinets "to favor the development of the monarchical germ by mak- ing to the monarchy concessions which would have been refused to the Republic." Moreover, the monarchy would render France " capable of concluding alliances." As for the republican platform, the chancellor pleas- antly rallies M. von Arnim upon his fright on this point. " If France," he says, " were to play in the presence of Europe a second act of the uninterrupted drama of the Commune (a thing which I do not desire, from motives of humanity), it would help to make the Germans feel still more strongly the benefits of a monarchical constitution, and would augment their at- tachment to the institutions of the monarchy. " ^ But M. d' Arnim would not be convinced, and his procedures brought down upon him, on June 9, 1873 (shortly after the fall of M. Thiers), bitter reproaches for having managed to acquire personal influence over the Emperor William, and to interest him in the cause of the mon- 1 Hippeau, Histoire Diplomatique de la Troisieme R^puiliqiie. 2 Napoleon III. was still living at this date. He did not die until January 9, 1873. 3 Hippeau, Histoire Diplomatique de la Troisieme Ripublique. 88 THE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. archy. "You have prevented our throwing all the weight of our influence into the scales in favor of M. Thiers," writes the chancellor.^ This whole correspond- ence proves how difiicult M. de Bismarck found it to separate the Republic from the Commune in his own mind. The reconstruction of the army did not seem possible to him without the monarchy; the idea of a well-balanced, rational Republic remained foreign to him. On the other hand, our recovery already mani- fested itself before his very eyes ; he could not help seeing it ; so his attitude became more and more bel- ligerent. " We are ready," he wrote, in a later despatch, " to fight the war over again, as soon as the presumptu- ous acts of France force us to it." He recommended the ambassador not to take any pains to win the sym- pathy of the French, whose "every government, to whatever party it belongs, will regard revenge as its principal mission." And fortified by the interview of the three Emperors which had taken place in Berlin, he thought he had a right to demand from the government of the marshal, that, henceforth, we would regard " as definitive the political condition of Europe."^ In a word, during this whole period it seemed " to be a part of the policy of Berlin to maintain difficulties with France, and not to permit of their being stopped, or coming to a solution."^ On November 26, 1873, imme- diately after the organization of the seven years' term, the Due Decazes took the department of Foreign Affairs, which he was destined to conduct for four years. Shortly afterwards, he was led to state from the tribune * the policy of the government with regard to Italy, and 1 Hippeau, Histoire Diplomatique de la Troisieme Ripuhlique. ''Ibid. 8 Ernest Daudet, Souvenirs de la Prisidence du Mariehal MacMahon. 4 In reply to a question by M. du Temple. Session of January 20, 1874. , TEE CONGRESS OF BERLIN. 89 he defined France's double role in these words : " To surround with pious respect, with sympathetic and faithful sympathy, the august Pontiff to whom we are united by so many bonds, by extending that protection and that solicitude to all the interests which are con- nected with the spiritual authority, with the indepen- dence and the dignity of the Holy Father ; to maintain, without ulterior designs, with Italy such as circum- stances have made it, the harmonious, pacific, friendly relations which the general interests of France recom- mend, and which will also permit us to guard the great moral interests with which we rightly occupy our at- tention. We desire peace," added the Due Deeazes, " because we believe it to be necessary for the greatness and the prosperity of our country ; because we believe that it is ardently desired, ardently demanded by all. In order to assure it, we shall work without relaxation to dispel all misunderstandings, to forestall all conflicts, and we shall defend her against all vain declamations, against all regrettable incitations, from what quarter soever they emanate. Let no one tell us that we are compromising the honor and the dignity of France. The honor and dignity of France cannot be compromised ex- cept by political adventurers, who would inevitably lead her to the commission of a weakness or a folly." The form was happy, the idea wise. It was of the utmost importance to cut short, without delay, the compromising manoeuvres of the wild enthusiasts, who were combining in one worship Pius IX. and Don Carlos, and who never took their eyes off of Rome except to gaze at the Spanish frontier, where the pre- tender was trying to regain his throne, arms in hand. All the more important was it to clear the government from responsibility, because Germany was not disinter- 90 THE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. ested either in the question of Italy, or in the Spanish question. "I do not for an instant doubt," Prince Bismarck is said to have remarked at this epoch, "that the revenge which is desired in France will be led up to by religious complications in Germany. They wish to paralyze German unity. An influential party of the Roman Catholic clergy, who receive their orders from Rome itself, serves French policy because with it are bound up the efforts at restoration in the States of the Church."^ It was the epoch of the Kulturkampf.^ There were times when the chancellor seemed no longer master of himself ; one would have said that bursts of wrath deprived him of his habitual lucidity of mind. If we may trust a confidential remark, ex- changed in March, 1875, between Count von Munster, German ambassador in London, and Comte de Jarnac, our representative, it is to "the nerves of M. de Bis- marck " that we must attribute the anxieties and agita- tions of this period. It does not appear improbable, to any one who remembers the attempts at intimidation directed against Belgium in consequence of a trivial accident ; ^ the demand made upon Italy to modify the 1 Hippeau, Histoire Diplomatique de la Troisieme R^publique. 2 As early as 1871 the Boman Catholic division of the Ministry of Public Worship had been suppressed. In the following year, the Jesuits had been expelled. Finally, on January 11, 1873, the four laws known as those " concerning the Defence of civilization," which were passed on the 24th of the following April, were presented. As for Spain, M. de Bismarck energetically upheld the government of Marshal Serrano, and busied him- self with making Europe recognize it, perhaps through fear of seeing cleri- calism established there with Don Carlos. It was under the inspiration of Germany that Marshal Serrano took up the frontier incidents, and ad- dressed demands to France on the subject of the protection granted to Carlist refugees. The Due Decazes managed to calm the dispute, and soon afterwards, the restoration, headed by Alphonso, changed the face of things. 2 A Belgian coppersmith had written to the Archbishop of Paris offer- ing to assassinate M. de Bismarck, if the money were forthcoming. TBE CONGRESS OF BEBLIN. 91 law of guarantees,^ because of a pontifical letter from Pius IX.,-wMch gave displeasure at Berlin j the foolish repression which followed the attempt upon the Em- peror at Kissingen ; the prosecution of the director of the Grermania against the Bishop of Nancy and the thirty-six priests who were guilty of having read, from the pulpit, his pastoral letter.^ But it was after the National Assembly had voted the law of military grades (March 12, 1875) that events seemed to be on the point of coming to a crisis. Recriminations, quar- rels over the question of armaments, were multiplied without reason, and a newspaper campaign of unprece- dented violence began in Berlin ; the journals were, evidently, obeying the word of command. The Vicomte de Gontaut wrote to the Due Decazes, expressing his uneasiness, and the minister notified M. Gavard, our charge d'affaires in London (Comte de Jarnac had just died), and General Le Flo, our ambassador in St. Petersburg. Every day the marshal's govern- ment expected to be attacked ; it had been decided that our troops should immediately retreat beyond the Loire, and that France should appeal to Europe against this violation of right. It was thought that the moment had arrived, when Prince Hohenlohe presented himself at the Quai d'Orsay as the bearer of a serious communication from his government relative to our armaments, "which annoyed Ger- many." But, very luckily, neither Count Andrassy, nor Prince Gortchakoff, nor Lord Derby, nor Mr. Dis- raeli fell into the trap which was set for them. It was but too evident that France had given to Germany no 1 The law of guarantees regulates the relations of the Italian govern- ment with the Holy See. 2 France and the Holy See had not yet proceeded to map out anew the dioceses which had been dismembered by the annexation. 92 THE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. cause of discontent. They soon learned that Lord Odo Russell had intervened at Berlin, and, on the other hand. General Le E'lo transmitted, from St. Petersburg, a formal promise of support.^ Public opinion, which knew nothing of these negotiations, was instructed by the Times. In a celebrated correspondence, dated from Paris, and inspired, it is said, by an influential member of the ministry, the English journal unveiled the Prus- sian plan, which consisted in "entering France, invest- ing Paris by a rapid march, and taking up a position on the table-land of Avron, for the purpose of imposing a new treaty which should restore Belfort to Germany, limiting the number of the standing army, and exacting a contribution of ten milliards payable in twenty years with interest at five per cent, and without the anticipa- tion of payment being allowed." This was the appli- cation of a formula dear to the German military party, and which may be summed up as follows : " Making an end of France is not only an opportunity to be seized, but it is also a duty towards Germany and towards 1 It was said that Queen Victoria had directly intervened with the German Emperor. It is very probable. In any case, on the 24th of the following May, Lord Hartington having interrogated the Prime Minister on this subject, Mr. Disraeli replied : " It is true that the ministry advised Her Majesty to address representations to the government of the German Emperor in relation to the state of the relations between France and Germany. The object of these observations was to rectify some inaccu- rate ideas, and to assure the maintenance of peace. These observations received a satisfactory reply." William I., who did not read the news- papers much, is said to have been ignorant of what was going on, and heard of it through Count Schouvaloff, the Russian ambassador in London, who stopped at Berlin on his way back to his post. In spite of his chancellor's denials, the Emperor speedily divined the author, and his secret motives, as is indicated by the remark which he addressed to M. de Gontaut towards the end of the crisis : " They have tried to make mis- chief between us, but it is all over now." See the narration of these events found in the papers of M. Charles Gavard and published by the Correspondant (November, 1893) . THE CONGRESS OF BERLIN. 93 humanity." The article in the Times caused a pro- found sensation in Europe ; the indignation was gen- eral ; M. de Bismarck feigned astonishment, everything calmed down as if by magic, and the nations breathed freely once more. When the Emperor of Russia arrived in Berlin, on May 11, the crisis was already averted, but his influence was, none the less, exercised ■in the direction promised to the Due Decazes, and the words which he uttered made the chancellor under- stand the danger to which he would expose himself by trying to mix the cards again. Throughout this whole affair the Due Decazes showed a versatility, decision, energy, and dignity for which men were very grateful to him, and which were, never- theless, misunderstood. The minister's detractors even went so far as to assert that France at that time had not been " directly menaced " by Germany, and this was done for the purpose of ridding themselves of all grati- tude to him. History will declare, quite on the con- trary, that he understood how to adopt a line of conduct which was equally removed from presumption, which would have deprived us of the sympathies of other nations, and from pusillanimity, which would have compromised the honor of France. In the month of June, of that same year, 1875, fertile in events and in misunderstandings, an insurrection broke out in Herzegovina, and rapidly invaded Bosnia, Servia, and Montenegro. Austria, who was most directly interested, was the first to intervene,^ but she did not succeed in triumphing over Ottoman inertia ; 1 She published, on November 30, the "Andrassy note," which de- manded moderate satisfaction, hut in a rather imperious tone ; it was a question of religious liberty, and of the amelioration of the lot of Chris- tians. The Turkish government received the note with an air of deep concern and shelved it. 94 THE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. SO that, in the spring of 1876 the situation, which had been growing worse every day, had become very serious, — a general effervescence had manifested itself in the East ; the consuls of France and Germany were assassinated at Salonica ; the Servians, beaten at all points, appealed to Europe, and an insurrectionary movement having broken out in Bulgaria, between fifteen and twenty thousand Christians were massacred. This iniquitous repression unchained the wrath of public opinion, without, however, bringing the govern- ments into harmony. England refused her assent to the memorandum of Berlin, which the three chancellors had drawn up, and which France and Italy had im- mediately accepted. At Constantinople, comedy was mingled with the drama. According to a picturesque expression, the Sultan Abd-ul Azis had "been suicided"; his successor, Mourad V., was playing the part of a con- stitutional monarch ; by way of furnishing proofs of its reformatory intentions, the Porte proclaimed a parlia- mentary constitution and assembled a " High Council," to which it gravely submitted the propositions of the European plenipotentiaries assembled in conference on the shores of the Bosphorus.^ Of course, the High Council rejected them. The Porte reckoned on time and luck to extricate it from its scrape. But pacific as were the intentions of the Emperor of Russia, he could not allow Servia, " that vanguard of the Slavic world," to be crushed, nor the Christians to be mas- sacred in Bulgaria without coming to their rescue. On February 1, 1877, Prince Gortchakoff published a diplomatic circular in which were summed up the negotiations which had taken place, and which had 1 The conference opened on December 23, 1876, and sat until January 20, 1877. THE CONGRESS OF BERLIN: 95 resulted in a checkmate ; Russia asked from Europe the warrant to act in its name. A protocol, signed at London on March 31, was addressed to Turkey; it was a sort of ultimatum, to which, at Constantinople, they opposed a plea in bar. All attempts at concilia- tion having been exhausted, the Emperor declared war on April 22. There is no need to recount here all the fortunes of the Russo-Turl^ish War ; it proved that the Ottoman Empire — the " sick man," as it was called in the chancel- leries — still had at its command marvellous reserves of strength and of military valor. The siege of Plevna, the names of Skobeleff and of Osman Pasha, gloriously dominate this bloody period. Europe watched with anguish its successive phases; it was reassured only when it became evident that the conflict would not spread. The smell of powder made it shudder ; it resembled a sentry standing guard over a powder-magazine and a stack of burning hay. Men had become accustomed to the thought that the general conflagration which was so much dreaded would have its origin in the neighborhood of Constantinople, and that the Eastern Question contained the germ of all the evils with which the West felt itself to be menaced. France, in these circumstances, had preserved a very particular circumspection ; thus the Due Decazes had requested our agents and representatives to observe the rules of the strictest neutrality ; ^ nevertheless, he had given special instructions to M. Chaudordy, order- ing him to manifest Russophil sentiments in the measure which was compatible with the general interests of the country. England, also, remained neutral; when the rout of the Turks was complete and the treaty of San 1 Circular of April 25, 1877. 96 THE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. Stefano had established their defeat, they seemed to perceive in London that they had waited too long, and they hastened to make up for lost time ; the British government established itself on the Isle of Princes, opposite Constantinople, threatened to occupy the Dar- danelles, and openly made preparations for war, calling the reserves in England to arms and transporting Indian troops to Malta. Russia felt that she was not sustained by Germany, and was obliged to submit to an international Congress assembled at Berlin the clauses of the treaty which she had just imposed upon Turkey, and several of which appeared exaggerated. ^ The Congress of Berlin differed greatly from those diplomatic conferences to which the Eastern Question had been so often submitted and which had not been able even to regulate its least important incidents. It was a great assembly; the powers were represented at it by their most skilful statesmen, — Prince Gortchakoff, Lord Beaconsfield, Prince Bismarck, Count Andrassy.^ For the German Empire it was the first solemn act of European arbitration ; it was, also, for the French Re- public her first entrance into the company of the great powers. M. Waddington,^ Minister of Foreign Affairs, 1 This abandonment of Germany was keenly felt at St. Petersburg. Russia asked from Germany the service which she had rendered to her in 1870, — the liberty of proceeding to the very end without haviug to fear intervention. But " M. de Bismarck made it impossible for Russia to pick up the gauntlet which England had thrown down." (Debidour, Histoire Diplomatique, Vol. II.) 2 The plenipotentiaries were : for England, Lord Beaconsfield, Lord Salisbury, and Lord Odo Russell ; for Germany, Prince Bismarck, M. de Bulow, and Prince Hohenlohe-Schillingsf iirst ; for Austria, Count Andrassy, Count Karolyi, and Baron Haymerle ; for France, M. Waddington, Count de Saint-Vallier, and M. Deprez; for Russia, Prince Gortchakoff, Count' Schouvaloif , and Councillor d'Oubril ; for Italy, Count Corti and Count de Launay; for Turkey, Caratheodory Pasha, Mehemet Ali Pasha, and Sadoullah Bey. 3 M. Waddington had accepted the post of Minister of Foreign Affairs THE CONGRESS OF BERLIN. 97 would not entrust to any one the charge of speaking in the name of France on this occasion. But before betaking himself to Berlin, he was bent upon clearly defining before the Chamber the policy of frankness and equity by which he intended to be guided, — that policy "of clean hands" to which Gambetta had al- ready laid claim. Although it was not very fruitful in immediate results, yet the majority, in Parliament as well as in the country, had the good sense to content themselves with it ; it was disapproved only by the professional patriots, always ready to compromise their country under the pretence of guarding its dignity. Once more it came to pass that the most honest attitude was the most clever ; we derived a real profit from this Congress of Berlin, where our representatives gave proof of the qualities which had been lacking in our preceding government, — disinterestedness, sagacity, calmness. People were agreeably surprised to see that the Republic was so little like what they had augured. Moreover, M. Waddington had made sure that certain subjects would be reserved, that neither the question of Egypt, nor that of Syria, would come under consider- in the second Dufaure ministry, formed in December, 1877, and which lasted thirteen months. He became President of the Council immediately after the election of M. Grevy, left MM. de Marcfere, Ldon Say, de Frey- cinet, and General Gresley in possession of their posts, and added MM. Le Royer, Jules Ferry, Lepere, and Admiral Jaureguiberry. M. Wadding- ton, in spite of his English name, belonged to a prominent family of manufacturers, which had been settled in France for over one hundred years. Only, in contrast to many of his cousins, who are wholly French in their ways and their language, M. W. Waddington received a part of his education in England, and was connected, for several years, with the University of Cambridge. He spoke English admirably, and retained certain English habits with which his enemies bitterly reproached him. Never- theless, he was a good and loyal servant of France. Member of the Insti- tute, by reason of his much-esteemed works on Numismatics, he finished his career as ambassador of France in London, — a post which he occupied for nearly ten years. 98 THE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. ation, and that the protectorate exercised by France over the Holy Places would not be, in any way, dis- cussed. ^ At the Congress he was careful not to provoke an " offer of compensation," but forewarned the pleni- potentiaries, and Lord Salisbury in particular, of the contingency of French intervention in Tunis. The neu- trality of England was thus secured for us, and when, later on, our troops disembarked in Tunis, the threats of Italy awoke no echo in Europe and our action aroused no resistance on the part of the other powers. M. Waddington intervened again on behalf of Greece, .whose representatives were admitted, on his demand, to a share in the sessions of the Congress. It is one of the traditions in France to uphold the Greeks. Some momentary ill-temper was displayed, on this point. It was said that we had raised tJie Grreek question. But as the Greek question formed one chapter in the Eastern Question, and certainly not the least important, it was impossible to reopen the latter without touching upon the former. From the moment that the Congress recognized the independence of Servia, Roumania, and Montenegro, the least that it could do for Greece was to give her " expectations " and a promise of mediation between her and Turkey. A protocol of the Congress 1 England had been forced to consent to this ; it is said that, unable to flatter herself that she could obtain Egypt, she had secretly proposed to Austria an understanding by which they were to exercise a sort of joint moral protectorate over the Ottoman Empire ; if this be a fact, it is not surprising that the Emperor Francis Joseph and Count Andrassy should have repelled so impudent a proposition. In any case, England directly procured for herself " a choice morsel." On June 4 a secret treaty was signed between her government and that of the Sultan ; it had reference to the island of Cyprus, which was immediately occupied. The terms of this treaty were peculiar in this respect, — that England stipulated for reforms " in the Asiatic provinces of the Ottoman Empire," in compensa- tion for the administration of the island of Cyprus, which she consented to undertake. THE CONGRESS OF BERLIN. 99 recommended to both a speedy understanding for the settling of the boundary lines. The understanding did not take place. Thessaly and Epirus gave occasion, on the part of Greece, for certain claims -which Turkey would not admit under any pretext whatsoever. Moreover, this was not the only disappointment to which the Congress of Berlin gave rise. Without going so far as to assert that the Congress seemed to have been convoked "for the purpose of breeding quarrels between all the great powers, and even among many of the smaller powers,"^ it must be conceded that this "first partition of Turkey"^ did not seem to be of a nature to assure the general peace. Austria could only occupy Bosnia and Herzegovina, as she had been au- thorized to do, after a desperate struggle, in which her adversaries were morally supported by Hungary; the Albanian populations granted to Servia and Monte- negro revolted ; an insurrection broke out in Macedonia, and another in Roumelia. Repeated alterations were necessary ; a conference assembled in Berlin, on June 16, 1880, to complete what the Congress had sketched out, and to modify the defective parts of its work; it only half succeeded. In order to execute the decision which gave to Montenegro the little port of Dulcigno, it became necessary to assemble considerable inter- national forces in the Adriatic ; the " naval demonstra- tion " of Dulcigno was reckoned among the most ridicu- lous of happenings, and emphasized the incomplete and precarious character of the concessions made on both sides. As for the Hellenes, they were dropped without much sense of shame, after they had received a great deal of attention, and France was guilty of the awk- 1 Hippeau, Histoire Diplomatique de la Troisihne Ripublique, 2 Albert Vandal, Cours de l'6cole des Sciences Politiques. 100 TBE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. wardness of causing them a great disappointment after having given them a great deal of hope.^ It will be useful for us to cast a rapid glance at the state of Europe immediately after the Congress of Ber- lin. It happens that at certain turning-points of the century, nations meet like promenaders in a garden ; then it is that groups are recast, and, for a moment, all combinations become possible. Such was the case with the Europe of 1879. 1 After having been upheld by M. Waddington and by M. de Freycinet, the Hellenes found themselves rather neglected by M. Barthelemy Saint- Hilaire, as it appears from three circulars dated December 24, 28, 1880, and January 7, 1881; these circulars were unexpectedly published by the Presse of Vienna, and the Morning Post of London, and gave rise to parliamentary debate provoked by M. Antonin Proust. Kussia and England, who were ready to uphold Greece, in company with France, felt our unjustifiable retreat with much keenness, and the British government gave publicity to two despatches, from the Blue Book, of its representa- tive in Athens, one of which, dated August, 1880, was couched in these terms : " France's disposition to abandon, or at least to modify the active part which the government of the Republic was to take with the object of settling the Greek frontiers in conformity with the decisions of the Con- ference of Berlin, — that disposition being made evident by the tone of the French press, by the delay in the arrival here of the French officers entrusted with reorganizing the Greek army, by the sudden retreat of the French squadron, and by the non-fulfilment of the promise made by the French government to furnish thirty thousand rifles to Greece, — has caused a feeling of disappointment throughout that country." In fact, not only had the Thomassin mission set out, under the pretext that the German government was furnishing, at the same time, officers to Turkey and that a collision might occur ; but when Greece asked permission to buy munitions of war, M. de Freycinet informed his war colleague (con- fidential letter of July 27, 1880) " that by reason of the interpretations to which this act might give rise, at that moment, the President of the Republic and the Council of Ministers thought it preferable to abstain." It was afterwards learned that the contractors employed by Greece were buying, in our arsenals, rejected material ; the government cancelled the sales, and stopped the vessels when they sailed. This whole incident is significant, in that it shows an anxiety to preserve the peace which, though very laudable in great things, became, when applied to details of such secondary importance, greatly exaggerated, and came near incurring the risk of compromising the national dignity. THE CONGRESS OF BERLIN. 101 In Germany, M. de Bismarck was pursuing the series of his evolutions. Down to 1866 he had associated himself with the conservatives for the purpose of per- fecting the military power of Prussia; after 1866 he had formed an alliance with the democracy and estab- lished universal suffrage, with the object of having within his reach a truly national opinion to which he could appeal at need. From 1870 to 1878 he had gov- erned with the liberal party against the ultramontanes ; he now made approaches to the latter, with the purpose of securing the triumph of his political economy, and of waging war against socialism. The resistance of the Reichstag had in store for him a series of surprises and vexations. After the alarm of 1875, he had sud- denly accustomed himself to the idea of a France of the first magnitude, which should continue to figure in the constellation of the great powers ; soon he would be seen negotiating with Leo XIII., and ordering his rep- resentatives at Constantinople to keep step with French diplomacy. England underwent a salutary crisis ; Lord Beacons- field's " imperial policy " had completed its ravages ; war had been begun in India and in South Africa ; the Afghans and the Zulus did not seem disposed to give up a struggle which was turning to their advantage ; in Burmah there were murders to avenge. The situa- tion was very grave in Ireland, and relations with Rus- sia were more strained than ever. It required some courage on Mr. Gladstone's part to resume power under such conditions. Upheld by the good sense of the masses, he restored liberty to the Transvaal, evacu- ated Afghanistan, and became reconciled with Russia (1881). The Empire of the Tzars was also traversing a 102 THE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. troubled period, — nihilist plots, assassinations of high functionaries, bloody disturbances, demonstrations of students, followed each other in tragic succession. The old bureaucratic party, hardened, given to spying, full of abuses, and devoid of justice, had succeeded in 1863 in stopping the reformative progress of the early years of Alexander II. 's reign, and from that time forth it was in control. And, on the other hand, in Asia there was a continual march forward of the Russian generals, exceeding their instructions and involving the action of the government without too greatly pledging its re- sponsibility towards Europe.^ As for Italy, she bore away from the Berlin Congress only jealous regrets. The attitude of Leo XIII. and of Bismarck, which alternately flattered the Quirinal and the Vatican, dis- turbed her, and in spite of the rejection by the French Chambers of the Franco-Italian treaty of Commerce, negotiated by the ministry of May 16, under conditions so favorable to Italy, Francophobe sentiments were not yet developing in the Peninsula. The situation of France seemed much more favorable than that of her neighbors. She had at her head an illustrious soldier, all surrounded with the glory and the prestige that monarchies appreciate most of all: the glory and the prestige which are harvested on the field of battle. She had just given, at the same time, proofs of her political sagacity at the Congress of Berlin, and of her incredible national vitality at the Paris Exposi- 1 It was in this manner that General Tchernaieff had captured Tash- kend ; that Samarcaud had been annexed ; that Skobeleff had conquered Khokand ; that, in 1871, General Kolpakoff had occupied Kouldja just as his government was offering her services to China to help her chastise the rebels of that province, and then kept Kouldja. On March 4, 1876, the Tzar decreed the annexation of the Khanate of Khokand, which was only seven degrees from the frontier of the Punjaub. TBE CONGRESS OF BERLIN. 103 tion ; slie had managed to realize, by maintaining the Due Decazes at the Quai d'Orsay for four years in succession, a governmental stability which had not been expected from the Republic. All this made an impres- sion upon Europe, which had not understood the lesson of May 16, and did not feel how thoroughly this pros- perous situation was, at the same time, provisional. It became necessary to resume the march of progress, and that the Republic should accomplish its work. A government is not stable if the men who impart to it its life are not inspired by the principles upon which they ought, logically, to depend. But monarchical Europe did not perceive this necessity. The events which followed were a sad surprise to her. The elec- tion of M. Gr^vy, the instability of the Ministers of Foreign Affairs, the violent language of the deputies, the weeding out of functionaries, the expulsion of re- ligious bodies: she saw no rational motive for these things ; it seemed to her that the government was los- ing its hold, that men's minds were going astray, and in the stormy audacity of the municipal council of Paris she perceived the threat of a second Commune, more to be dreaded, and better obeyed. The war in Tunis set us at variance with Italy, and Egyptian affairs with England ; in addition, there was the Hartmann affair, which rendered Russia ill- disposed.^ For our diplomacy it was a period of effacement, and of incessant diificulties besides. The representatives of France were inclined to exaggerate 1 It was a question of a refugee accused of participation in the attempt at assassination at Moscow ; the identity was not established ; we refused extradition. The departure of Prince Orloff, which coincided with this affair, caused it to be supposed that the imperial government was angry with us about this ; but Hartmann betook himself to London, and was not further disturbed there (1881) . 104 THE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. the prudence whicli was enjoined on them from Paris, because they themselves doubted the stability of those in whose names they spoke. Patriotically, they tried to diminish, at least, the effect of the minor measures which made the other nations uneasy, and to impress upon their foreign offices the idea that France did not consider that republican doctrines formed a proper object of export commerce on the part of her govern- ment. They were not always thoroughly well seconded in their task by the young men who fulfilled the func- tions of secretaries and attaches under them, and some of whom, who had remained in the career under a government which they served with regret, sometimes showed themselves oblivious of the respect which was due from them to the head of the State and to his ministers. A diplomatic and consular reform was carried out by M. de Freycinet, concerning the con- ditions of entrance and of advancement, as well as the members of the staff, and bore its fruits. ^ In conclusion, one last source of difficulties arose from the fact that not everything was transacted through our agents. In a debate which took place in the Chamber, M. Pascal Duprat pointed out as a cause of uneasiness and distraction the current idea that " the government does not govern entirely, that exalted influences, more or less legitimate, are placed by its side," and Gambetta, being thus put on his defence, retorted by a heated and ringing impromptu speech. 1 It had been long decided upon, in principle : the Committee on Appropriations of 1872 had given its attention to this matter; later on, the Due Decazes appointed a committee which worked out the regulation, called the regulation of 1877 ; but the first reform suffered still further delay, in spite of incessant demands, and of the fact that the discussion of the appropriations for Foreign Affairs gave rise, every year, to very lively, and sometimes just attacks. THE CONGRESS OF BERLIN. 105 The accusation was not without foundation. The meddling was plain, but inevitable. At that moment, France regarded Gambetta as the real head of the State ; the confidence of the nation was, little by little, thrusting him into power, and he had about him, with- out even the need of any encouragement on his part, a sort of government in embryo, and a budding diplo- macy, alongside the official diplomacy and government. This distrust on the part of Europe neutralized, in great measure, the happy results which the attitude of France at the Congress of Berlin should have produced ; it ended in the formation of the Triple Alliance. A few years later, the existence of this anti-republican league was indiscreetly proclaimed at Montecitorio by M. Mancini, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Italy ; the fact of its formation had disturbed political circles ; at Budapest and Westminster it had created anxiety, and, at last, the Due de Broglie interrogated M. Challemel-Lacour, who then presided over our foreign relations. The minister's reply was full of acuteness and urbanity, as well as of pacific pride ; he terminated his speech in these words : " A nation like ours, a coun- try like France, which has been conquered, and which is recovering itself ; a country which finds in its energy, in its will, in its toil, in its indomitable hope, the means of maintaining itself upright, in the rank which the centuries have assigned to it ; a country which, on emerging from repeated and terrible crises, is resolutely building itseK up again, and which, after having ex- hausted the divers forms of monarchy, is building it- self up upon foundations conformable to its genius and to its needs but new to the bosom of monarchical Europe ; a country which is condemned, by its geo- graphical position, to keep up at great cost a consider- 106 THE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. able defensive force, and which is compelled, by the very nature of things, to be always on the alert, and which is surrounded by States which are young and, consequently, ambitious and prone to take offence, — such a country must not feel astonished if the world cherishes various dispositions towards it. It would be very wrong to try to ignore the fact, and there would be danger in misapprehending it. But, gentlemen, these dispositions may change, and we hope that they will change. Yes, we are firmly confident that they will be modified, in time ; we believe that the strength- ening of our institutions, the wisdom of our conduct, the precision and frankness of our policy, and the good use which we shall know how to make of the parlia- mentary or other liberties which our institutions assure to us, — we hope that all these things may modify the dispositions of which I speak, and that, perhaps, more speedily than we suppose."^ This programme of "smiling perseverance" was, after all, that of our ambassadors and our ministers ; they devoted them- selves to remaining faithful to it, and contributed not a little to the realization of M. Challemel-Lacour's heartfelt prayer. France will never forget it. 1 Speech of M. Challemel-Lacour in the Senate (May 1, 1883) . TUNIS AND EGYPT. 107 CHAPTER V. TUNIS AND EGYPT. A Forced Conquest. — Measures well taken and badly appreciated. — The Treaty of Bardo. — Lies and Calumnies. — France in Egypt. ^The Condominium. — Arabi and the Nationalists. — Tergiversations of France: the English bombard Alexandria and occupy Cairo. — The "Great Minister." Our colonial conquests cannot stand without a pro- logue, tlie comprehension of which is indispensable for those who wish, with adequate knowledge of the situa- tion, to estimate results and weigh responsibilities. Unfortunately, the public too often takes its seat only at the beginning of the first act, and, through having missed the prologue, misunderstands the play. In all the distant regions where the Republic has founded its rule or consolidated its establishments, it has acted in virtue of title-deeds which it was more or less to our advantage to enforce, but whose antiquity or authenticity could not be doubted ; intervention has generally been the consequence of anterior events which public opinion committed the mistake of ignoring, but which the government and the parties interested took good care not to allow to lapse into oblivion. The fall of the Bey's government in Tunis ^ — so far 1 At the head of the works which should be consulted on Tunis must be quoted that of Baron d'Estournelles de Constant, minister plenipoten- tiary, deputy from Sarthe, which he published under the pen-name of P. H. X. ; its title is : La Politique Prangaise en Tunisie . le Protectorat et ses Origines. Paris, Plon, 1891. The work of M. Narcisse Faucon must also be cited. La Tunisie avant et depuis I' Occupation Fran<;aise, for which M. Jules Ferry wrote a Preface. 108 THM EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. as it was an independent government — was inevitable ; the necessity for its abrogation has been summed up in the phrase, " The Beys could neither throw off our in- fluence, nor obey it," which is strictly true. From the day when she definitely established herself in Algeria, France could not permit Tunis — that prolongation of Algeria — to become a hot-bed of anti-French propa- ganda, and, on the other hand, the combined efforts of Turkey, England, and Italy were bound, of necessity, -to bring about that result. " The Porte," says M. Guizot in his MSmoires, " for a long time, cherished the desire to bring about in Tunis a revolution analogous to that which it effected in earlier days, in Tripoli, that is to say, to deprive the regency of Tunis of whatever hereditary independence it had won, and to transform the Bey of Tunis into an ordinary pasha. Almost every year a Turkish squadron emerged from the Sea of Marmora, to make a more or less menacing demonstration on the coast of Tunis. It was of the greatest importance to us that such a plan should not succeed; instead of a weak neighbor, such as the Bey of Tunis, whose interest lay in living on good terms with us, we should have had on our eastern frontier, in Africa, the Ottoman Empire itself, with its persistent claims against our conquest and its alliances in Europe. . . . Every time that a Turkish squadron approached or threatened to approach Tunis, our ves- sels sailed for that coast, with orders to protect the Bey against every undertaking on the part of the Turks." These lines of M. Guizot are significant, and bear witness to the ulterior designs which the monarchy of July already entertained with regard to Tunis. Louis Philippe received the visit of the Bey Achmet, who astonished the French by his Oriental luxury; a TUNIS AND EGYPT. 109 military mission was sent to him, to reorganize his army. When, later on, a contingent from the Bey took part in the Crimean expedition, it was not out of affection for the Ottoman rule. England had other motives for intervening, less le- gitimate, but no less pressing; her interest, of course, counselled her to prevent other nations from doing in the Mediterranean what she had done at Gibraltar and at Malta, that is to say, of seizing one of those posi- tions which command the principal courses followed by vessels, and give to those who hold them a prepon- derance to which they could not otherwise lay claim. As for Italy, she counted very numerous representatives in Tunis, who had shared her ambitions and her anxieties, and who had worked, according to their strength, for its unification. Having become a great power, it was easy to foresee that she would show her interest in them. Were not they securing to her the means of founding a colony, without expending too much, or exposing her- self, and of thus imitating the other great powers, her neighbors or her rivals ? England's representative in Tunis, Mr. Wood, was one of those prudent and audacious agents who live in a state of lying in wait for a conquest to effect, an advantage to seize, and who would consider their career badly fulfilled if it were not summed up in some ag- grandizement of territory or of power for their country. The ideal of the French agent is, too often, negative ; he aspires to " cause no trouble " to his government, not to " get into difficulties," and his hierarchical supe- riors encourage him in this attitude by the fear which they exhibit of having to face an unforeseen responsi- bility, or settle a delicate case. England, on the con- trary, assures to her representatives to whom she confides / 110 THE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. distant posts an independence and a stability which en- able them to act freely, without asking incessant and minute instructions from London. The Foreign Office rejoices in their initiative, and takes good care not to impede their action ; and if circumstances compel it to disavow excess of zeal on the part of a function- ary, one thing is certain, — that this disavowal will be magnificently compensated. We have frequently, and in all parts of the world, met such athwart our path, and it must be confessed that they have managed to inflict more than one check and mortification upon our policy. In Tunis, Mr. Wood first busied himself with tight- ening the bonds of vassalage which were supposed to unite the Bey to the Sultan ; to place Tunis again under the yoke of Constantinople was to keep her at a distance from France. Then he made advances to the Italian consul, and made use of his colleague the better to combat us. He urged him on, trying to compromise him, and to make him take up some posi- tion which should involve the future. Circumstances seemed to favor his designs : France was not in a state to keep an effective watch upon her Mediterranean in- terests ; she was at war with Germany, and fortune was deserting her arms. The institution of the international financial commission, which had seemed certain to in- jure her, preserved her, on the contrary, from the loss of her influence ; the statu quo was maintained by the mere fact of the international character which the con- trol of Tunisian finances had assumed, and when, after the war, Italy, judging the moment to be favorable, threatened armed intervention, England decided that matters had altered their aspect, and that, perhaps, it was more urgent to hinder the encroachments of tri- TUNIS AND EGYPT. Ill umphant Italy than those of conquered France. So she interposed. Moreover, she perceived the possi- bility of more desirable acquisitions, and this perspec- tive disposed her delegates at the Congress of Berlin to receive with good-will the overtures of M. Wadding- ton. A little later, Mr. Wood was recalled ; feeling that it had been cheated, the Italian government sent to Tunis M. Maccio, and gave him orders to make the effort to recover lost ground. He found there M. Roustan, who, since 1875, had represented France, and had been preparing the way for her. Contest was soon forced upon us as a necessity : the years 1880 and 1881 passed in open anarchy ; both weakness and ill-will reigned on the part of the Bey, and of his ministers ; the Kroumirs in revolt made frequent incursions ; everything augured a speedy, re- vival of Mussulman fanaticism coinciding with an ad- vance of the Panislamic party ; bloody episodes, like the massacre of the Flatters column, indicated the danger of the French allowing themselves to be sur- prised. A prompt and decisive intervention might pre- vent many evils in the future. The government, when enlightened as to the situation, had no right to hesi- tate. It captured the Chambers with a demand for an appropriation, unfortunately insufficient. V The almost unanimous vote ^ of Parliament, the friendly attitude of Germany, the very faultless attitude of England, re- lieved our diplomacy of all anxiety ; Italy, discouraged, recalled M. Maccio, and public opinion transferred its wrath to Minister Cairoli, who was overthrown. General Farre, Minister of War, very sagaciously ordered preparations which were criticised because they 1 Fifty abstained from vofflng on the Right, and M. Delafosse stated objections in the name of several voters. 112 THE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. appeared to be out of proportion with the effort which was to be undertaken. The surrender was, in fact, of the promptest description ; Bizerta was occupied ; the Bey, surprised and put out of countenance by the in- difference and the refusals to receive his protest which he encountered in Europe, signed the treaty on May 12, 1881. M. Roustan was appointed Minister Resident. Two grave mistakes were then committed : we con- sented that the French troops should not enter Tunis, and the moral effect produced upon the Arabs by this unfortunate concession was considerable ; in the second place, the expeditionary force was hastily sent home, without its having been taken into consideration that the Bey's surrender did not imply that all danger had been averted in the South ; in this manner, the effects of the prudent conduct on the part of the Minister of War were annulled. In spite of the fact that circumstances appeared so favorable, it was not "without a certain uneasiness that the government had resigned itself to making the con- quest of Tunis. It is impossible to study the brief his- tory of this expedition, even in a superficial manner, without perceiving that its principal interest lay in the manner in which the new political and military machinery of the French Republic would work on this occasion. Herein, precisely, lay the cause for uneasi- ness felt by the members of the Cabinet. The ques- tion of war or peace is one of the most delicate which can be raised under a parliamentary system of govern- ment. In fact, it is difficult to find in a Parliament sufficient patriotism and self-abnegation absolutely to silence the interests of party (unless, of course, it is a question of a truly national struggle, in defence of the soil of the fatherland). On the other hand, TUNIS AND EGYPT. 113 affairs of war require prompt, secret action, decisions, which cannot be handled by a numerous assembly ; the deputies find themselves called upon to give or refuse their approbation to the acts of the government, and the freedom of their vote is hampered by this very fact. Approbation entails their responsibility in a manner which may be contrary to their conscience; disapprobation incurs the risk of augmenting the forces of the enemy by decreasing those of their own country. A strong minority pronouncing against a war loan sows distrust in the ranks of the national army, while the enemy is, by that very fact, encouraged to resistance. Such inconveniences are avoidable only if a sentiment superior to parties rules the Assembly. Such would have been the case, in France, if it had been a ques- tion of Germany ; such could not be the case from the moment when Tunis was in question. It was difficult to criticise the treaty whose terms the government submitted to the Chambers ; it perpet- uated important results acquired without great effort ; the policy which had inspired it was vulnerable upon one point only, — it might be claimed, with some show of reason, that the conquest of Tunis would bring all Europe down upon us. The opposition did not fail to give battle on that ground, and, for the first time, men heard formulated, in the French tribune, that contra- diction between the colonial policy and the continental policy which was destined, in the future, to cause so many vexations to our colonists, by leading us to sacri- fice the interests of some portion of our empire beyond the sea to the desire to oblige a friend, or to the fear of displeasing a grumbler. The attacks of the opposition found an unexpected echo in public opinion. The press of the Right, and 114 THE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. that of the Extreme Left, set their wits to work to dis- cover in the expedition "shady secrets." There was talk of jobbery and rotten business,'and while Germany, Austria, and Spain were sending congratulations to the French government, General Farre and M. Barth^lemy Saint-Hilaire saw themselves scoffed at and scorned every day, in the most offensive terms, by their fellow- countrymen.i They were accused of betraying the interests of their country to the profit of Germany; they were called "humble servants of M. de Bis- marck " ; there was no sort of rudeness or folly which was not uttered about them; even serious men became uneasy. In the Senate, the Due de Broglie constituted himself the interpreter of the rumors which represented the government as having decided to occupy Tripoli after Tunis. It was much worse when it was learned that the prin- cipal effort still remained to be made, and that an Araljian revolt was rising from the depths of the South, like the breath of the simoom, menacing not only Tunis, but all our possessions in Algeria. There was talk of abandoning the new conquest, just as, at the accession of Louis Philippe, there had been talk of abandoning Algiers. A majority of thirteen votes, which included the ministers themselves, saved the protectorate. And just then the elections were drawing near. An out- 1 They went so far as to reproach the government for not having man- aged to associate England and Italy with France, in a common action against the Bey. MM. Clemenceau, Delafosse, and Cuneo d'Ornano dis- tinguished themselves hy their exaggerations, while Eochefort, to whom amnesty had ]'ust been extended, laughed immoderately in his journal. " A strange, wanton, translunar thing," he wrote, " is, that there are no Kroumirs. The Ferry Cabinet offered thirty thousand francs to any per- son who would procure one for it, that it might exhibit him' to the army." And the Parisians began, [very merrily, to "search for the Kroutair." This game was very fashionable on the'boiilevards. TUNIS AND EGYPT. 115 break of violence signalized the opening of the electoral period. 1 In the meanwhile, our soldiers had courageously re- sumed the road of the regency ; though more serious, this second expedition was, nevertheless, less bloody and less costly.^ Sfax was bombarded and taken ; Gabds was seized, then Kairwan, the holy city, upon which a concentric march in three columns was effected. Soon the whole country was occupied ; the artillery was equal to its task, and the administrative service worked in such a manner as to inspire confidence in the future ; abroad specialists watched with interest this first trial of our new arms. Public opinion in France considered the political battle more instructive and more interesting. The elections gave a powerful majority to the Jules 1 " The fatal expedition to Tunis, which the government has been glad to envelop in obscurity, has not only had as a conseciuence the general con- flagration of Africa, but has also set all Europe against us, to the great joy of Germany." These words, taken from the manifesto published by the " deputies of Paris," MM. Louis Blanc, Barodet, Clemenceau, and de Lanessan, may serve to give an idea of the pitch to which the electoral violences rose. 2 The ministry was open to attack, above all, for its methods of pro- cedure. The expedition cost, in all, four millions for the first phase, and 13,431,000 francs for the second. " Barely," says M. d'Estournelles, " and to-day it is an incontestable fact, was a similar enterprise less onerous." Thus, the serious criticisms, like those of M. Buffet in the Senate, were levelled not at the sum, but at the manner of procedure ; transfers had been effected. Levies had been made for what was lacking for the expedi- tionary force, on the loans appropriated to the normal support of the army In France. The government replied, that, while the expenses of the expeditionary forces were greater than those entailed by its maintenance in France, they were not different in nature. The Senate condemned M. Buffet by 170 votes against 95. Such a vote made an impression. Never- theless, some uneasiness was felt with regard to the government's theory, which was dangerous in practice ; for, with such a system, the whole mili- tary appropriation voted for a state of peace may be applied to the state of war, and dispense with the sanction of Parliament, only to enter on a struggle which may be great with consequences. 116 THE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. Ferry Cabinet, to all appearances, since they collected at the Palais-Bourbon 454 republican deputies. We shall see what warrant these newly elected members had received, and how the ministry, far from being strengthened thereby, was weakened. But that which no one could logically have expected was the continua- tion, so far as Tunis was concerned, of a state of things which the agitation of the balloting had alone rendered comprehensible if not excusable. The press had so thoroughly envenomed the quarrel that the expedition was turned into ridicule. People continued to look upon it as "an electoral war." When, on October 28, 1881, the new Chamber came together, the president by seniority rose, and asked for a little silence. " He de- sired to have read an important telegram which the government had received from Tunis." They listened, j "Kairwan is in our hands. The insurrection is on the eve of being extinguished. We have accomplished this without bloodshed in a few weeks." How was this news received? By a burst of laughter. The president is astonished ; the laughter grows louder. Hilarity, peals of laughter, noisy hilarity, the news- papers report. Some one calls out : " The comedy has turned out a fizzle ! " The laughter was louder than " ever. Kairwan fell heir to the privilege which the Kroumirs had enjoyed of amusing Paris, and the hilar- ity lasted for several days. On the Extreme Left and on Right, this is a means, which is not yet exhausted, of weakening the government. The countersign is inability to listen seriously when the name of Tunis is uttered. People are still laughing on November 5, when M. FerrM has the imprudence to say: "We have put down the insurrection at Sfax." They laugh when he speaks of the victories of Ali-Bey, when he announces that the TUNIS AND EGYPT. 117 Tunisian army has fought us. If we refer to the ac- counts of these memorable sessions, there is nothing but laughter at every moment : approving laughter, if it be a question of an interruption, or of an attack from the opposition, — laughter and ironical applause ; and grins, if it be a question of a reassuring statement emitted by a minister. When M. Amagat ascends the tribune, on November 15, and makes his first speech on the Tunisian question, the prescribed forms of speech are lacking to describe the wild merriment which seizes upon the Chamber. At every word the Journal Officiel re- cords : " Laughter and exclamations, prolonged uproar, continuous noise, increasing noise, boisterous hilarity." ^ Every day the generals were vilified, and the war ad- ministration was called incapable and venial. MM. CM- menceau and Naquet called the expedition a " manoeuvre of the money-market. "2 "What you call a manoeuvre of the money-market," retorted Jules Ferry, in indigna- tion, " I call a stroke of good luck for France. Had we refrained from it, there would not have been a suffi- cient number of just reproaches, of maledictions, to dis- charge at us." The attitude of the Italian press, the journey of King Humbert to Vienna, and the demonstrations of sym- pathy between Italy and Austria seemed to justify those who insisted that, by entering Tunis, we had thrown Italy into the arms of Germany. We may per- mit ourselves to wonder whether all precautions had been taken to spare the susceptibilities of the national 1 Baron d'Estoiirnelles de Constant, La Politique Franqaise en Tu- nisie. 2 In L'Intransigeant, Eochefort depicted " our colony in Algeria three- quarters lost, wliile our soldiers strew their corpses along the roads." He stigmatized "the ministerial idiocy," and called the government "a cabinet of Natural History, a band of swindlers, imbeciles, impostors." 118 THE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. sentiment in the Peninsula, and if even the different acceptable solutions had been the subject of a suffi- ciently profound preliminary examination. It might not have been impossible to find, for Italy, under some form or other, a compensation which would, at least, have softened her regrets and paralyzed her rancor in the future. But the opposition, with us, did not speak that language of moderation, and seemed to care little to support its course with arguments of high value. The most absurd accusations, the most improbable calumnies, were those which had the best chance of producing an effect and causing the most damage. Nevertheless, a movement of evolution took shape in the ranks of the majority ; it began to feel grateful to the government for the responsibilities which the lat- ter had not been afraid to assume. But the minis- try which it thought it had received the mission to uphold had not been formed ; it existed only behind the scenes, and the men who occupied the ministerial bench took on, in the eyes of the deputies and of their constituents, a sort of vague aspect of usurpers. They were waiting for Gambetta. As for Gambetta, he listened only to the voice of patriotism ; he defended the government, and received 355 votes against 68, and 124 who refrained from vot- ing, an order of the day conceived in these terms : " The Chamber, resolved on the complete execution of the treaty signed by the French nation, passes to the order of the day." This triumph designated him more clearly than ever as the choice for head of the State. Jules Ferry understood it and resigned.^ The Tunis business had, as its epilogue, the Roustan trial. We have seen how "the attacks of Zi'Intransi- 1 The Jules Ferry Cabinet had been in power since September 18, 1880. TUNIS AND EGYPT. 119 geant had become more and more violent, in proportion as the situation grew complicated. " ^ Soon Rochef ort ^ no longer confined himself to attacking the ministers ; he set upon M. Roustan, whom he called " their associ- ate, their accomplice." At the end of September L'ln- transigeant announced with great pomp, that it had " discovered the secret of Tunis," and began its revela- tions. In order the better to act upon the public, he warned it that the secret had been betrayed to the journal by "a diplomat." He took good care not to mention his name. Later on it was found out of whom he was speaking, — "a former secretary of the Bey, Mohammed Arif Effendi, who had died three years before the expedition, and who could be exhumed without any risk." ^ The government lost patience, and requested M. Rou- stan to prosecute L^Intransigeant. In this lawsuit there was put on trial the new law concerning the press, of which Article 45 took away from the police court the judging of crimes of insult and defamation against a public functionary, and invested therewith the jury. The campaign was very cleverly conducted ; all M. Rou- stan's enemies, all those whose interests had been in- jured by his energy, seized upon so fine an opportunity for vengeance. The jury, put out by this throng of strangers who rose up before them, perturbed by the singular attitude of M. de Billing, acquitted L'lntransi- geant, which triumphed insolently. The Parisians thought this charming : frivolous and sceptical dilettanteism, which for so long was the state of mind among the frequenters of the Boulevard, was infinitely diverted by it. National questions were not, 1 Baron d'Estournelles de Constant, La Politique Fran^aise en Tu- nisie, ^ Ibid. 120 THE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. as yet, looked upon witla that respect which they were destined to inspire later on, even in the most giddy- pated; at the sight of this unchaining of petty pas- sions, this deluge of lies and calumnies, this fickleness of the public mind, more than one republican must have asked himself with anguish what would become of a system of free discussion among a people still so little master of its judgment. Rochefort, already celebrated under the Empire, nominated deputy for Paris, and, as such, a member of the government of the National Defence, was a noble gone wrong, whose real name was the Marquis de Rochefort de Lucay. His biting and Parisian spirit, his fiendish dash, have, at times, rendered him the idol of the crowd. For years, he has been writing every day in his newspaper, I/Intransigeant. The evil which he has wrought is incalculable, because of the talent with which he has always contrived to clothe his false and bad ideas. As he was implicated in General Bou- langer's plot, he managed to flee before he could be arrested, and took up his abode in London, whence, for years, he daily telephoned his " editorial " to L'lntran- sigeant. President Felix Faure pardoned him shortly after his election. The preceding details were necessary in order to determine the state of public opinion at a decisive moment of our history, at the epoch when the Repub- lic, duly established in fact, was undertaking to assimi- late itself definitely in France. If they are afflicting to read over, on the other hand, they permit us to take stock of the progress which has been made since then ; and this comparison authorizes confidence and hope. The government did not weaken ; M. Roustan, en- TUNIS AND EGYPT. 121 ergetically upheld, returned to his post, where he finished carving for himself, in the history of the regency, a tolerably fine place, to console him for his vexations. On December 1, 1881, Gambetta, having become Prime Minister, had to explain to the Chamber about the loan of 28,900,000 francs, the demand for -which Jules Ferry had presented on the eve of his retirement. He outlined, in magnificent style, the system of the protectorate, and four hundred votes approved his programme. It was, in fact, a protecto- rate which we were on the point of establishing, thus breaking with the customary routine of our colonial ways. France, made wise by the deplorable errors committed in Algeria, was about to try this system of material, administrative, and moral superposition which succeeds so well with colonizing peoples, and of which she was speedily to realize the benefits in her own case. The wise and judicious reforms which were effected under MM. Roustan, Cambon, and Mas- sicault are well known, and the manner in which Tunis rapidly reached a degree of prosperity is still unknown to our other dependencies beyond the sea. At the very moment when France found herself en- gaged in a struggle with the difficulties engendered by her action in Tunis, events were taking place in Egypt ^ which were about to force her to the unpleasant alterna- tive of interfering in a conflict replete with consequences, or of abandoning the sort of moral protectorate which she exercised over the land of the Pharaohs. It is not easy to define otherwise the bonds which unite France and Egypt. They have existed since the day when an illogical and unexpected but fruitful idea led Bona- 1 Consult M. Borelli's interesting volume, entitled : Choses d'Egypte, 1883-1895. 122 TEE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. parte to the foot of the Pyramids. They have been consolidated by the progress of a new science, Egyp- tology, which remains to this day almost exclusively French; and the piercing of the Isthmus of Suez, which seemed as if it ought definitely to consecrate the friend- ship of the two countries, is a private enterprise due to French genius and French capital. Only once has France intervened with a purely political aim: in 1841, at the time of the Convention called the Convention of the Straits, which secured the khedival throne to the descendants of Mehemet Ali. One may say that our interests in Egypt are interests of a special character ; the glory of an illustrious captain, the labors of numer- ous learned men, the gifted enterprise of a great citizen, have drawn us thither and retain us there. These are powerful motives, less powerful, however, than those obligations of a purely material character resulting from the presence in a distant land of colonists who are clearing and developing the value of a virgin soil, and who count upon the protection of the mother-country in case of peril. It is easily comprehensible, then, that France should have had, with regard to Egypt, a policy of sentiment, and a policy of calculation, and that, at a given moment, these two policies should have found themselves in opposition to each other. If the absence of good judgment and of practical sense, of which the government and public opinion gave proof in these circumstances, ought to be pardoned, it can only be in consideration of this duality of interests. The extravagances of the Khedive Ismail, the finan- cial difficulties which were daily growing worse, had instigated, in 1876, the unification of the Egyptian debt and the establishment of the foreign superintendence. But, in 1878, the Egyptian government had found it- TUNIS AND EGYPT. 123 self unable to fulfil its engagements. M. Waddington, thinking that the circumstances did not authorize France to intervene alone, had then conceived the idea of joint action on the part of France and of England. Thus was created the system of rule called that of the con- dominium. European ministers were added to the Cabinet presided over by Nubar Pasha, and divers measures of economy were adopted. Among these measures there was one whose consequences were not sufficiently foreseen. It concerned the army; a part of the troops were dismissed, and twenty-five hun- dred officers were placed on half -pay. This gave rise to the first troubles, and was the point of departure for the formation of a nationalist military party. This party, upon which we might, perhaps, have depended for support with success,^ rapidly acquired influence and prestige. At its head was a clever and active man, named Arabi ; he succeeded in deceiving many of his fellow-countrymen as to the motives of his action ; they followed him, and he soon felt himself strong enough to organize a military demonstration (September 11, 1881), the result of which was that Cherif Pasha was forced to convene an "assembly of notables." The Assembly listened to the lesson which was suggested to it, demanded a national Parliament, and the right to vote the appropriations. Gambetta had just come into power in France ; he urged Lord Granville to inter- vene ; in spite of his repugnance, the latter consented 1 MM. de Freycinet and Barthflemy de Saint-Hllalre, the successors of M. Waddington, did not seem to understand what interest France could have in acting in this manner ; the only functionary who did understand it, M. de Ring, was turned out, and the nationalists returned to the sup- port of Turkey. More fortunate than M. de Ring, Sir Edward Malet, the representative of England, succeeded in forcing the hand of his govern- ment, and induced it to encourage Arahi on the sly. 124 THE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. to the presentation of an identical note, which was placed, on January 7, 1882, in the hands of the Khedive's ministers. "The two governments," said the note, "inasmuch as they are closely associated in the resolve to ward off, by their joint efforts, all causes of complication, external or internal, which shall menace the government established in Egypt, do not doubt, etc."i The Porte, of course, protested, saying that " nothing can justify the step taken with regard to His Highness Tewfik Pasha, the more so as Egypt forms an integral part of the possessions of His Majesty the Sultan, and as the power conferred on the Khedive . . . essentially pertains to the domain of the rights and prerogatives of the Sublime Porte. " But this protest would have remained inoperative, had not the fall of the Gambetta ministry suddenly taken place on January 26, and thereby put an immediate stop to the move- ment of intervention which they were beginning to sketch out in Paris. Tergiversation began again ; the winter of 1882 passed, without their having arrived at any solution of the problem. Arabi became more and more popular, and felt that he was better and better obeyed ; he organized a sham plot against himself, collected together a court-martial, and caused the pretended culprits to be condemned with such severity that the consuls were obliged to interfere to persuade the Khedive to commute the sentence. On May 25, at last backed up by the presence of the fleets of their respective countries, which had just cast anchor in front of Alexandria, M. Sienkevicz, the Consul-General of France, and Sir Edward Malet demanded of the Khedive the dismissal of his ministers 1 This note was due to the initiative of Gambetta ; this has been proved by the Yellow Books. CH. DE FREYCINET, MINISTER AND SENATOR. TUNIS AND EGYPT. 125 and tlie removal of Arabi. Tewfik seemed to yield, and the ministry resigned ; but a few days later, Arabi, restored to his posts, recovered an almost dictatorial power. Then the Porte came on the scene, and sent to Egypt an official commission entrusted with the re-establishment of order. Dervish Pasha was at the head of it. This was almost a solution of the problem ; at least it was an expedient, and perhaps the best, to provoke the intervention of Turkey and to support it.^ But M. de Freycinet preferred to have recourse, in his desire to avoid complications, to that expedient which is so well worn that it is equivalent to a confession of impotence, — the assembling of an international con- ference. This was a proceeding appropriate to Otto- man sluggishness ; nevertheless, the Sultan did not appoint any representatives. He no longer admitted the interference of Europe in his quarrel with a vassal, and claimed the right to settle it alone. The con- ference opened at Constantinople on June 23. On June 10, four days after Dervish Pasha had set foot on the soil of Egypt, the massacre of three hundred Euro- peans had stained Alexandria with blood, and England, emerging from her state of irresolution, and now re- solved to interfere, made preparations for the combat. On July 11, while the plenipotentiaries at Constanti- nople were pacifically deliberating, presided over by 1 M. Delafosse pointed it out to the Chamber on June 1 ; hut the government seemed to have no plan and no idea upon this point. In the course of the discussion, M. de Freycinet-let slip imprudent words which bore witness to too keen an anxiety not to expose himself to complica- tions. "You have just delivered over to Europe," cried Gambetta, "the secret of your weakness; henceforth it will suffice to intimidate you to make you consent to anything! " The publication of the English Blue Books has corroborated, it must be confessed, all that had been suspected concerning the spirit of indecision which the government exhibited during this period. 126 THE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. Count Corti, the Italian ambassador, Admiral Seymour began the bombardment of Alexandria. As Admiral Conrad had received orders to withdraw from Egypt with the French squadron, the English had not hesi- tated to act alone, and to place Egypt face to face with an accomplished fact, — the fact of war, which had not been preceded by any declaration of hostilities, and which was not justified even by the tragic event which had been its moving cause. The character of the crisis had now been made clear : at the beginning, England and France had hesitated between the desire of not having to share if things turned out well, and the fear of having acted alone if things should turn out badly ; at the same time they had seen Arabi, the chief of the nationalist party, defend the prerogatives of the Sultan, and the latter officially disavow him, while his representatives en- couraged him in secret. Then while the uncertainty waxed in France, England had, little by little, grown accustomed to the idea of the heavy responsibility which her intervention would entail. Without troub- ling herself further about the conversations which the diplomats at Constantinople continued to exchange,^ she thenceforth marched straight to the goal. With 1 The conference continued its labors without any brilliancy ; it did not occupy itself with the bombardment of Alexandria, which embarrassed it, but drew up a note, called the Note of July 15, which requested the Sultan to occupy Egypt with an army, with the consent of the powers. The Porte, on thinking the matter over, consented to take part in the dis- cussions ; everything had to be begun all over again. At last, they con- fined themselves to a declaration of a Platonic understanding with a view to maintaining the freedom of the canal. The attitude of Lord Dufferin at the conference had grown more accentuated every day; at last he announced, on July 30, that the English troops would not withdraw, but that, under certain conditions, England would accept the "aid" of Turkey. TUNIS AND EGYPT. 127 US, men's minds began to get warmed up ; certain journals, forgetting the encouragement which they had addressed to England, three months earlier, now ac- cused her of treachery. The attitude of M. de Lesseps, who himself undertook to defend his canal, and had obtained from Arabi the promise that freedom of navi- gation upon it should not be impeded, excited enthu- siasm ; the more so as men awaited, in vain, from the governing powers a direction, or any declaration what- soever which should satisfy the national self-love, at least. M. de Freycinet demanded appropriations for the arming of the fleet, protesting the while, it is true, that he would not use them.^ When it was put to the vote, the appropriations were refused. Every one was in a bad humor, because each one appreciated his own share of the guilt, as well as of the forced inconsistency between their secret desires and their actions. If the government failed in its duty by not guiding, they could have compelled it, in a certain way, to intervene, by voting it larger appropriations than it asked for. And at that date there was still time for this ; the troops of the Indian army had not yet disembarked at Suez.^ The truth is, that the deputies recoiled before the very responsibility which they reproached the min- isters for not assuming ; and when the latter had re- 1 When the discussion of the appropriation came up, M. de Freycinet found himself the target for almost general attacks. He recognized the fact that, henceforth, France had "definite grievances" which gave her " the right to intervene," but he again showed his repugnance to entan- gling himself in a path which he regarded as dangerous. His attitude was blamed in the Senate; on July 25, the committee, though it ended by adopting the appropriation, addressed to the government, through the organ of its chairman, M. Scherer, an energetic reprimand. On July 29 the appropriations were rejected, and the Cabinet resigned. M. Duclerc assumed the power. 2 The disembarkation took place at the beginning of August, 128 THE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. signed, no one dreamed that a ministry of intervention could reasonably be formed. The danger was too plain ; and, in case of intervention,^ the attitude of Europe was too uncertain. In the beginning, they had not foreseen what the issue of the conflict would be ; still less had they foreseen with what incredible indifference the powers would watch it unfold itself. " Neither veto nor warrant," M. de Bismarck had said, and this countersign was put into literal execution. A few years earlier Russia, by too closely approaching Con- stantinople, had aroused the protests of all ; this time, England threw her regiments upon the banks of the Nile, and not a remonstrance was heard. In the night of the 19th-20th of August, 1882, Sir Gar- net (afterwards Lord) Wolseley, Commander-in-Chief of the British forces, occupied Port Said and Ismailia, closed the canal, for the purpose of disembarking his troops, then opened it again to navigation, announcing his intention to pay for the transit, by way of indem- nity. Had this forcible action been followed up by a prompt march forward, the English would not have encountered, at Ramses and at Gassanin, the rather serious resistance which the time lost in forming the convoys allowed to be organized. On September 23, the battle of Teb-el-Kebir opened to them access to Cairo, and, as early as the 17th, Lord Dufferin informed the Porte that henceforth it would be useless to send troops ; at the same time, England let it be understood that the condominium, had ceased to exist. ^ France was 1 This feeling was shown at a session of the Chamber on February 23, 1882, when M. Francis Charmes considered the opi^ortunity of a French military intervention, and again, at the session of May 11, following, when the question of the pretended plot against Arabi came up. 2 In Cairo, a comic act terminated the drama. Arabi was brought be- fore the court ; it was difficult not to condemn him to death. The English TUNIS AND EGYPT. 129 offered, by way of compensation, the presidency of the Commission of the Public Debt. M. Duclerc, President of the Council, refused it ; as he was anxious, above all things, to settle present difficulties, and to hold the future in reserve, he abstained from making a counter- proposal. In the month of January, 1883, he announced to the Chamber that the negotiations had ceased, and that France would retain her full and entire liberty of .action with regard to Egyptian affairs. What could she do with it ? Egypt seemed lost to her. Lord Granville had informed Europe of the result of the campaign, and had had his declarations followed up by a few brief statements as to the neu- tralization of the canal, the reorganization of the Egyp- tian army, and of the public offices ; the powers had received this communication without showing either surprise or displeasure. But it came to pass that the conquest was not organized without vexations and inci- dents of all sorts, and that even in England a certain number of men in political life insisted that Egypt should be evacuated as soon as order was re-established there. At the end of 1883, just as a part of the troops were on the point of being sent home, a disaster which befell General Hicks at the head of a body of Egyptian regulars against the Soudanese insurgents, permitted the British government to countermand the partial evacuation ; in 1884, it was the Mahdi who served as stepped in, took possession of his person, and installed him at Ceylon. They succeeded, at the same time, in screening all his accomplices from the judgment of the court-martial. This equivocal conduct gave rise to the thought that Arabi had played traitor, and that a secret compact had been entered into by him and England. Among the English, it was a current pleasantry to say that the battle of Teb-el-Kebir had been won by the "cavalry of Saint George." This was the name which they gave to the gold pieces, worth a pound sterling each, upon which was the effigy of Saint George striking down the dragon. 130 THE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. pretext, and this pretext, at least, was serious : every- one knows how General Gordon shut himself up in Khartoum, and how the expedition sent to his relief arrived too late to save him. On April 21 of that same year (1884), Mr. Gladstone convoked a confer- ence, to the extreme indignation of the ultra party, to discuss Egyptian affairs. ^ Jules Ferry cleverly seized upon this occasion to propose the establishment of an international superintendence, under the shadow of which we might have been able to re-establish our influ- ence. The indifference of Europe caused this plan to come to naught ; the conference was not a success ; no one spoke at it. Evidently, the governments which had permitted England to triumph alone in Egypt were not inclined to aid her now that she found her- self struggling with difficulties there. But England made up her mind, and remained in Egypt ; we could only work at the maintenance of the statu quo, and pre- vent fresh encroachments. 2 Such are, too briefly summed up, the events which caused France to lose a part of the prestige which she had acquired, abroad, during the preceding years, and which so deeply disturbed her relations with England. 1 Mr. Gladstone had always shown very little enthusiasm with regard to new conquests in general, and to that of Egypt in particular. In a declaration made to the House oi Commons on February 8, 1882, he repulsed the idea of an exclusive intervention, admitting not only France but also the other powers to a participation therein. He was, therefore, logical with himself, when he returned to the idea of a collective interven- tion, as soon as the adventure threatened to become tragic in consequence of the violent awakening of Mussulman fanaticism. 2 In 1883 England concluded with the Porte an agreement whose clauses aggravated the condition of affairs, and, in a certain way, legal- ized the presence of her troops on the banks of the Nile. The energetic interference of M. Flourens was exercised just in the nick of time ; the Comte de MontebeUo, our ambassador at Constantinople, communicated to the Porte a sort of ultimatum, and the agreement negotiated by Sir Drummond Wolf was rejected. TUNIS AND EGYPT. 131 Our abstention might have been as well understood in Europe as our action ; there were serious reasons for acting, and there were equally serious reasons for abstaining from action. What caused surprise, and even uneasiness, — because they were regarded as proofs that the French government was crumbling, — were the half -measures, the violences of language which were not followed up by any energetic act, those petu- lant iasults, as of a spoiled child, by which it made up for the disappointments suffered. The balance of do- mestic affairs during the year 1882 was not of a nature to heighten confidence. The French, as yet but little accustomed to the exer- cise of an impersonal system of government, and inclined to believe in men of destiny, had grown used to the idea that Gambetta held in reserve for them marvellous pro- gress, admirable reforms, and that all the smiles of fort- une rested upon him. The legislative elections of 1881 had contributed to strengthen this impression ; prepared and carried out by Jules Ferry, they were, in the eyes of all, the prelude to the arrival of Gambetta at power, and when it was known that the Republic had gained fifty- three seats in them, it was known at the same time that the Gambetta ministry was made. The President of the Chamber, on his side, was pre- paring himself for the part to which he felt himself called ; he assumed more and more the manners of a party leader upon whom already weigh the coming responsibilities of power. Sagacity and reason were mingled in his speeches with those superb outbursts of the heart which made him translate into his daring language the thought of all, so that " one really heard in him the echo of the national conscience."^ At 1 Hippeau, Histoire Diplomatique de la Troisieme Ripuhlique. 132 TBE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. Cahors, on May 28, 1881, he had again taken up the defence of the Senate, which was threatened by the ultra-republicans; he beheld it, he said, "growing, with each renewal, in democratic and liberal force," and he added these prophetic words : " Perhaps we shall become accustomed to finding therein supreme resources which you will be happy to have." If, at Tours, on August 4, and at Belleville, he had an- nounced himself as being in favor of a partial revision of the Constitution, it was because he considered it well, by sacrificing a few articles. of lesser importance from the text of the Constitution, to cause the whole to be consecrated afresh by an assembly of which the majority should be, this time, plainly republican.^ At this date Gambetta was as conservative as a republican could be ; a breeze of moderation was blowing over the country ; in the desiderata of the electors moderation in the solving of problems stood on a level with republi- can stability.^ All, therefore, was in readiness for the formation of the " great ministry." It was called thus before it was born. 1 It was with the same feeling, and in order that the republican party- might present a solid front to the electors, that Jules Ferry, at Nancy, on August 10, had also accepted the principle of a partial revision. 2 This tendency had shown itself in the municipal election of Paris, in January, 1881, even more than at the legislative elections in the autumn. M. liidouard Herve, one of those elected in January, outlined a movement of truce, if not of mugwumpery. M. Dugu^ de la Fauconnerie had openly come back to his allegiance. (See his letter to his constituents in the France of January 23.) " The army of a monarchical party," he said, " is composed of petty functionaries who cannot expose themselves every day to dismissal, and of hard-working men who require, for their subsist- ence, that things should go on. . . . There is but one part for us to play, which is both useful and worthy of us : it is to take our stand frankly on the ground of things as they are." At his re-election, which followed his resignation, he found himself opposed by a royalist, the Comte de Levis, and by a republican, M. Bansart des Bois. As he had fewer votes at the first ballot, he withdrew at the second, in favor of his republican rival, TUNIS AND EGYPT. 133 It was formed on November 14, 1881. Gambetta bad chosen for bis colleagues General Campenon, MM. AUain-Targ^, Waldeck-Rousseau, Rouvier, Raynal, Antonin Proust, Cazot, Paul Bert, Gougeaud (Navy), Dev^s, and Cocbery. For the first time men got, as by an object-lesson, a notion as to the solidarity of a Cabinet; this was homogeneous. Great things were expected of it. The Times saluted it by saying that "it would mark an epoch in European history." Now, nothing of the sort came to pass. The majority showed themselves jealous of its work ; it would not admit that which, eleven years later, it was to claim from M. Casimir-P^rier, namely, that the Prime Minister should have a policy of his own, and should apply it ; it con- fused this preponderance of the head of the government with dictatorship, and seemed to fear lest the one should lead to the other ; so that, after having spent five years in thrusting a man into power, it turned him out at the end of two months, only to grant his successor that which it had refused to him. Political customs were not sufficiently formed to permit Gambetta to govern as a man of his breadth could govern ; that is to say, as an autocratic Prime Minister. Autocratic he was by temperament ; he had proved it in 1870, and he continued to " lean to the side of that centralization which all of our governments have faithfully transmitted, and which prevented the devel- opment of local liberties, and, above all, of individual liberties."-' But his patriotism dominated all else; he constituted a supreme guarantee against all evil ambition, through a proper sense of electoral discipline. It is to be noted that the language of M. Dugue de la Fauconnerie in 1881 will be found, in 1887, on the lips of M. Kaoul Duval, and in 1891, on those of M. Piou. 1 E. de Pressens^, Various morales et politiques. Gambetta. 1 vol. Paris, 1886. 134 THE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. against every plan which was not honest and upright. The man who had, on many occasions, sacrificed his ideas and his preferences in order to make for the Republic a larger and more solid foundation ought not to have been suspected of aspiring to dictatorship ; it was only necessary to understand that the coat of the other Prime Ministers was not made for him, and to permit him to cut out one which should fit him. He left the ministry without having been able to act, never to return to it. Death claimed him on the last night of that year, 1882, which was so disappointing to France. They gave him an incomparable funeral. His last speech had been upon Egyptian affairs, and had been inspired by his ardent patriotism. He had not governed, but, as M. de Pressens^ has said, "he had twice or thrice had the honor to make the heart of France speak through his mouth." ^ That is an honor which surpasses all others. 1 E. de Pressense, Varies morales et politiques. Gambetta. 1 vol. Paris, 1886. THE JULES FERBT MINISTBT. 135 CHAPTER VI. THE JULES FERRY MINISTRY. Governmental Anarchy. — The "Long Ministry." — Legislative Work is resumed. — Angry Quarrels between the Extremist Parties. — The Revision of 1884. — Energy of Jules Ferry. — His Asiatic Policy. — March 30, 1885. The crisis of January 26, 188^, reverberated long, especially in the country districts, and its consequences ■were considerable. The politicians gave themselves up to controversy on the theory of government, the nature and prerogatives of ministerial power, parlia- mentary responsibility ; the voters, surprised and dis- illusioned, allowed themselves to fall into a state of apathy of which the adversaries of the Republic took advantage ; ^ in the Chamber men entangled themselves in bitter recriminations. The government which had succeeded to that of Gambetta had no opinion as to anything, not even as to the central mayoralty of Paris. ^ When the irremovability of the magistrates came under discussion, — whether it should be suspended or suppressed, — it allowed the principle of election of judges to be voted. ^ We have seen what its attitude 1 Republican abstentions from voting in the municipal elections caused 350 to 400 communes to pass into the hands of reactionist administrations. 2 It was the Chamber which, by a vote of 256 against 153 against the Deves-Casimir-P&ier order of the day, setting forth that it was " opposed to the creation of the central mayoralty," gave a hint to the government. s The committee appointed to consider the framing of a law presented a report, in 1883, which decided upon the establishment of the suffrage in two grades, but the disposition of the Chamber had changed ; it returned to its vote of the preceding year, and the election of magistrates was no longer in question. 136 THE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. was during the Egyptian business, and how its conduct was censured in the Senate ; the Senate presented a contrast to the Chamber by the serenity with which it studied the reform of the code of examining criminals. The passage of M. Scherer's report, to which allusion was made in the preceding chapter, ran as follows : " Gentlemen, the regret which the conduct of the Cabinet has caused us has not been inspired alone by hesitation or contradictions in the management of for- eign affairs, but we have sometimes asked ourselves whether the uncertainty of its conduct did not proceed from an exaggerated anxiety as to the parliamentary position ; without being, in the least, insensible to the difficulties which the conditions of modern society op- pose to the exercise of power, it seemed to us that the surest means of securing a majority was clearness of views and authoritative convictions. A contemporary statesman said to me : ' The great misfortune of our times is, the fear of responsibility ' ; he might have added, that public opinion is better governed by form- ing it than by following it, and that it can be formed only by energy of initiative." A few days later (July 29, 1882), Minister Freycinet was defeated on the question of the appropriations for Egypt, by 417 votes against 75. After long parleying, the Duclerc Cabinet was formed, i The talent and good- will of the new President of the Council and of his colleagues could not cope with a situation which had no way out. The Committee on Appropriations was in disorder ; M. AUain-Targ^'s scheme of appropriations, modified from top to bottom by M. L^on Say, was laboriously made up again by M. Tirard. In front of 1 It comprised MM. Devfes, Duvaux, Falliferes, HiJrisson, Tirard, Pierre Legrand, Cochery, de Mahy, General Billot, and Admiral Jaure'guiberry. TBE JULES FERRT MINISTRY. 137 them they had the Extreme Left, which continued to entertain in public opinion very dangerous errors, demanding the separation of Church and State and the • suppression of the Senate. These exaggerations re- stored some hope to the reactionaries ; there were royal- ist demonstrations in the country districts, even some appeals to civil war, while at Montceau-les-Mines the first dynamite cartridge was exploded. The year 1883 opened in a disturbing manner. The death of Gambetta caused consternation among the republicans of the government ; at the same time, it severed the only bonds which attached to the Republic certain conservatives who had been fascinated by the energy of the man now dead and the breadth of his style in speaking. Prince Napoleon published a manifesto, to which, very awkwardly, was attributed an aim which it did not possess.^ At last M. Duclerc fell ill, and was forced to resign, soon followed by General Billot and by Admiral Jaur^guiberry. M. Fallidres acted as Presi- dent of the Council, without even filling the vacancies in the Cabinet, so precarious was the ministerial com- bination felt to be. On all sides the desire was exhibited to emerge from the provisional, to escape from " combinations," to have a policy to follow, even though it were mediocre. Industrial associations sent addresses to the head of the State ; the Union of Workingmen's Syndicates demanded from him the constitution of a "durable 1 This manifesto, pasted upon the walls of Paris during the night, and signed "Napoleon," was nothing more than a long arraignment of the Republic, ending with an appeal to the people. Some radicals pretended to he greatly alarmed thereat, and husled themselves with bringing up the " question of the princes." On February 9, the Chamber of Impeach- ments declared that there was no occasion for prosecuting Prince Jerome Napoleon. 138 THE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. ministry, resolved to defend the Republic against all violence, from whatsoever quarter it might come, decided to achieve its ends"; a ministry "which should resolutely take the initiative in the social reforms which have so long been promised to us in vain, and which should be able to make the Republic respected in Europe and throughout the world." Jules Ferry, determined to defend the Republic and to attain his ends, was that man. The majority re- garded his return with satisfaction, because they felt that in him they had their true, and, henceforth, their only leader. The minority was divided between the fear of receiving blows, and the pleasure of dealing them. A fighting minister answered to their comba- tive instinct ; and above all others they preferred that one to whom, at least, they could not refuse the esteem which his life and the sincerity of his convictions in- spired. Only he remained in their eyes the man of Article 7, the instigator of the " religious persecution," and they cherished the hope of taking vengeance some day for that past which was so keenly felt. Jules Ferry was not popular in the country districts ; he was, and always remained, incomprehensible to the masses. To tell the truth, the unpopularity which eventually became attached to his name could not have been propagated had the people known the man who was its object ; but to the day of his death they failed to understand him, as often happens to pioneers. We shall have occasion, in a later chapter,^ to present 1 National Education. Jules Ferry was thrice Minister of Public Education, from February 4, 1879, to November 14, 1881 ; from January 30 to August 7, 1882 ; from February 21 to November 20, 1883. The prin- cipal laws to which he appended his name are these : that of August 7, 1879, on the establishment of primary normal schools ; of February 27, 1880, on the Supreme Council of public instruction ; of March 18, 1880, on THE JULES FEBBT MINISTRY. 139 an estimate of Jules Ferry's work as Minister of Pub- lic Education ; it offers a great character of unity, and even of moderation, but it was set forth without the precautions which would have been advisable, and imposed with a certain abruptness ; then it came to pass that the head of the University said gentle things in a violent manner. Later on he learned to make a better choice of expressions, his retorts were less trench- ant, and he exhibited more skill in self-control. In 1883 a belligerent impression was still, lingering from his first ministerial term, which helped to group around him, in the second, the whole body of republicans ; the worse side of him attracted them, and they were unable to divine his better side. Recent events, the wrath which they felt at the check and then at the death of Gambetta, engendered in them the desire for a harsh and decisive struggle, from which the Republic should emerge in final triumph, after having hurled to the earth all her enemies. With Gambetta, they would have been glad to make peace ; with Jules Ferry, they were anxious to fight. The President of the Council resumed the portfolio of Public Education which was so dear to him, and which he did not exchange until somewhat later for that of Foreign Affairs ; he sur- rounded himself with colleagues who belonged to the moderate party,^ and immediately set to work. The the bestowal of degrees, and the liberty of higher instruction ; of Decem- ber 21, 1880, on the secondary instruction of young girla ; of June 16, 1881, on the certificates of capacity for primary teachers ; of June 16, 1881, on free primary Instruction; of March 28, 1882, on obligatory primary in- struction ; of March 20, 1883, on the augmentation of grants and adyances for the treasury of the schools. 1 He entrusted Foreign Affairs to M. Challemel-Lacour, the Navy to M. Ch. Brun, War to General Thibaudin ; we shall see under what con- ditions these three portfolios changed hands shortly afterwards. His other colleagues were MM. Waldeck-Eousseau, Martin-Feuille'e, Tirard, 140 TBE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. ill-timed zeal of an exalted functionary, on the occasion of the manifesto published by Prince Napoleon, had created an agitation in connection with the " question of the princes." Jules Ferry, who was in haste, first of all, to put an end to this movement which he consid- ered useless and dangerous, retired the Due d'Aumale, the Due de Chartres, and the Due d'Alen9on from active service. He felt some regret, no doubt, but he did not hesitate over it ; in his eyes, it was of secondary importance. In practice, everything, in his opinion, fell into two categories : necessary measures, which he defended with a tenacity, a perseverance, a strength of will which no other statesman ever sur- passed ; and secondary measures, to which he very will- ingly sacrificed his personal preferences. This explains the accusation of weakness for which this very strong man sometimes found himself the target. Moreover, it was his opinion that, in the existing condition of the two Chambers and of the republican party, "the fron- tier of the majority might be moved greatly for- ward, and to a great distance in the direction of the Left." 1 Every time that the radicals found themselves face to face with a new grouping of the ministry, they pre- sented a proposal of amnesty, in order to take a census of themselves, and to inspire the Cabinet with salutary fear. This time the amnesty was rejected by 381 votes against 84. It was soon seen that this ministry did not resemble the others, that it intended to rule, and possessed the means of doing so ; it had an opinion to give on everything, and it dreaded no debate. The Meline, Raynal, Herisson ; the last-named held a more advanced shade of opinion. 1 Speech at the banquet of the National Circle, March 9, 1883. THE JULES FEBBY MINISTBY. 141 law suspending the irremovability of the magistrates, the laws about professional syndicates, about the second offence of criminals, about the election of consular judges, the liberty of funerals, the creation of fortress artillery, and the protection of minors, gave rise to ex- haustive and brilliant discussions. As several bishops censured and prohibited the manuals of civic education which the University had approved, Jules Ferry took occasion to state his ecclesiastical policy, which re- mained, though with less ardor than during his first ministry, respectful towards religion, but distinctly anti-clerical. The Council of State, when consulted as to the legitimacy of the suspension of episcopal salaries, in case of rebellion against the State, pronounced an opinion in the affirmative, and M. Martin-Feuillee, Minister of Justice and of Public "Worship, when called upon to take part in the debate opened in Parliament, did so in terms which left no doubt as to the anxiety of the government not to permit any encroachment upon the civil power. ^ Financial problems forced themselves upon the atten- tion of those in power. It was no longer possible to realize the programme which M. Ldon Say, Minister of Finance in the Freycinet Cabinet, had drawn up in three words : " Neither conversion, nor issue, nor re- sumption." The conversion from five per cent to four and a half per cent was imperatively necessary. On this occasion Jules Ferry made an important speech which displayed the many capacities of his mind.^ 1 It is to be observed that the language of M. Martin-Feuillfe, on this occasion, in nowise differs from that uttered, later on, under analogous circumstances, by M. Ribot and M. Casimir-Pdrier ; the theory of the gov- ernment upon this point remained much the same. 2 Conversion, said the explanation of the motives of the projected lavr, is accomplished in fact ; it only requires sanction. The five per cent loan, 142 THE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. Then came the debate on the contracts with the rail- ways. The negotiations, which were opened as early as the month of March by M. Raynal, did not come to an end until June and July. It was a question of obtaining from the companies the reimbursement in advance of the sums which they owed, together with a modification of tariffs, either for passengers or for merchandise, — modifications which would lower the sum-total of receipts ; moreover, it was necessary to as- sociate them with the construction of the new network. But the companies are not all on the same footing. Some have never had recourse to guaranteeing interest ; others would be unable, even at the present time, to balance their accounts without subsidies from the State. From the moment when it became an imperative neces- sity to break with the system of blind confidence which had been followed since 1878, and confess the inability issued in June, 1871, at 82.50, at 84.50 in July, 1874, was at par beginning with 1875. Since tlien it has been quoted at from 115-120 francs and to-day it is in the neighborhood of 114. That is to say, the price of money is sufficiently low to prevent the investor seeking five per cent any longer from government bonds. On the other hand, he evidently expects con- version ; for if he did not, the five per cent bonds would be quoted at a price equal in proportion to that of the three per cents, or about 132 francs. Why should the government refuse the profit of this legitimate operation? M. Allain-Targe demanded tlie conversions at three per cent; but that would have augmented the nominal capital of the debt by nearly three milliards, and deprived the State of the profit of the succes- sive conversions. It was also foreseen that the forty-one per cent would soon win the quotation of the six per cent, or very nearly that. " Under these conditions, demands for reimbursement at par are not to be feared, for it is inconceivable that any one should prefer to have 100 francs in ready money rather than receive from the government a new bond which can be sold any day for 110 or 111 francs." At last, in order to give free scope to the new four and one-half per cent loan, it was proposed to guarantee it, for five years, against all fresh conversions. The commis- sion raised the limit to ten years, and prepared for partial future conver- sions by the expedient of drawing lots, and issuing the four and one-half per cent bonds in series. THE JULES FMBBT MINISTRY. 143 of the State to defray the expenses with which it had been saddled, the simplest expedient would have been the immediate cessation of the works which had been undertaken for the execution of the E'reycinet plan.^ But, by acting thus, grave political economic and strategic interests were left in suspense. Hence the contracts were courageous and useful. Certain of the stipulations did, it is true, appear to be a little illusory ; the amount of profits beyond whose limit the State was to begin to share with the share- holders was lowered, but it is doubtful whether that sum was ever exceeded ; reductions of tariff or improve- ments of working-stock would have been more easily carried out. The maintenance of the right of resump- tion seemed illusory, also ; for the indemnity to be paid for the material and stock became the greater since the State would no longer have any claims upon the com- panies, as the latter freed themselves from their debts beforehand. And finally, the guarantee of the interest existed none the less for having been transformed ; the competition of the State system, or simply the expenses which would fall upon the companies to the account of the new lines, for the most part unproductive, would effect a reduction of the receipts, and the State would find itself forced to make up that difference between the real profits and the dividends guaranteed. In spite of this, "without being so advantageous for the State as one might have supposed, at first sight, the contracts, it was said, represented the maximum of possible con- cessions on the part of the companies, in view of the deplorable conditions under which the State had allowed itself to be driven to the wall before contracting with 1 Out of 44,000 kilometres of railways decided upon, there were still only 29,369 In operation. 144 TSE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. them and from the moment when it would not resign itself to putting a stop to the works." ^ Setting aside the violent declamations against the "plutocracy" and "industrial feudalism," the accusa- tions of trickery and of " bribery," which certain jour- nals acquired the habit of launching against the govern- ment at haphazard, an assault was made by those who advocated the purchasing of the railways by the govern- ment. Among these, M. AUain-Targ^ ingeniously maintained that it would be sufficient to buy in the Orleans line, in order to break the formidable group of the six great companies; the Orleans line which, "touch- ing the West, dominating the South, running parallel with the Paris-Lyons, would have authorized all experi- ments, all improvements, outside the narrow bounds of private interest." In spite of the repugnance of many deputies to cast a vote with which they might be reproached later on, a modest majority of 200 votes up- held the government for the vote of the six contracts, and the Ferry Cabinet emerged with honor from this laborious session, having won back its majority without sacrificing any part of its programme, and without hav- ing been thrown into the minority on any important point. 2 The elections to the General Councils were influenced by this result ; in eight departments the majority passed from the Right to the Left ; only one socialist was elected, in Ni^vre.^ 1 M. Andre Daniel, L' Annie Politique, 1883. 2 A single tallot made a personal attack on the Minister of Marine, who heing, moreover, in had health, resigned, and was replaced by Admiral Peyron. " After the elections of 1874, the General Councils comprised 1469 repub- licans, and 1531 conservatives ; after the elections of 1877, 1607 republi- cans, and 1393 conservatives ; after the elections of 1880, 1906 republicans, and 1004 conservatives ; after the elections of 1883, 2129 republicans, and 869 conservatives. THE JULES FEEBT MINISTBT. 145 The enemies of the ministry would gladly have attacked its foreign policy ; but they feared to offend public sentiment, which was beginning to show sensi- tiveness on that point. On March 13, 1883, M. Mancini had given the Italian Parliament to understand that a regular alliance united Germany, Austria, and Italy. This revelation had made the tour not only of the uni- versal press, but also of the parliaments of Europe. At Budapest M. Tisza had been questioned ; at West- minster, the government had been called on to explain, and we have already seen the fine reply which M. Challemel-Lacour made to a question that was put to him on this subject by the Due de Broglie. The Minister of Foreign Affairs now found his footsteps fol- lowed up by English diplomacy, which was anxious to counteract our action-; ^ on the other hand, our colonial awakening seemed to win for us the sympathy of Ger- many, either because Prince Bismarck was pleased to descry upon the French horizon anxieties and, perhaps, distant complications, or because he cherished the hope of future annexations which would be easier to Ger- manize than Alsace-Lorraine. Consequently, great sur- prise was caused by the abrupt attacks of the German press, called forth by the journey of the Minister of War in the East. The members of the Reichstag were suddenly convoked, while the newspapers gave them- selves over to a perfect flood of insults and calumnies 1 Not only in Tunis, in the matter of the suppression of capitulations, but also in regard to the appointment of the Governor of Lebanon ; the powers of Eastern Pasha were on the point of expiring; he had shown himself very hostile to France, who opposed their renewal. The candidate presented by the Porte was accepted by France, Germany, Austria, and Italy; rejected without plausible pretexts by England and Russia, who were favorable to Rustem Pasha. France, backed up by Austria and Germany, overcame this opposition. 146 THE EVOLUTION OF FBANCE. against France ; the Diritto, the Daily News, and even the Epoca, joined in the campaign headed by the Nord- Beutsche Zeitung. The Times was the first to perceive that there was no justification for it. However, pub- lic opinion in France was not stirred by it, and the press preserved a surprising calm. The Reichstag received notice — of a simple commercial treaty with Spain, and everything calmed down. These alarms, on which so many conjectures were based, seemed to have been casts of the lead with which the chancellor was fond of taking soundings of public opinion, in order that he might judge of its inflammability ; they pos- sessed the double advantage, in his eyes, of keeping him well informed, and of maintaining in the rest of the universe the impression that France alone menaced the general repose. Nevertheless, the Extreme Left organized, on the oc- casion of the visit to Paris of the King of Spain, a demonstration which furnished the press with an unfort- unate opportunity to destroy the good effect produced by its attitude. As Alphonso XII.'s journey to Austria and Germany had seemed to arouse some feeling in France, the young sovereign, who was very fond of our country, decided to stop there on his way home. He came there from Berlin where, according to custom, Emperor William had appointed him to be the honorary colonel of a German regiment. Now, this regiment was in garrison at Strasbourg. Nothing more was needed to permit the instigators of disorder to accom- plish their detestable work. Alphonso XII. arrived on September 29, in Paris, and traversed the capital ac- companied by insults ; he was nicknamed the " Uhlan King." The President of the Republic was obliged to call upon him, and beg him to accept the apologies of THE JULES FEBBY MINISTBT. 147 France, and consent to be present at the state dinner given in his honor at the Mjs6e. The King consented, and remained in Paris until October 1. This painful incident aroused indignation abroad, while all good Frenchmen were heartily ashamed of it.^ Jules Ferry did not waste his time in recriminations ; only one minister, General Thibaudin, had refused to go to meet the King of Spain on his arrival ; he demanded his instant resignation, and replaced him by General Campenon. Henceforth, war was declared between the President of the Council and the radicals. The latter got up tumultuous meetings, in which the impeach- ment of the ministry was voted for, — a wholly inoper- ative resolution which necessarily increased its credit with those of moderate views. ^ Moreover, the moment was badly chosen for party quarrels and internal dis- sensions ; a European war might break out any day. Russia and Germany were at odds everywhere in the East ; in Bulgaria, in Servia, in Roumania, in Greece, Germanophil tendencies were opiposed by Slavophil ten- dencies, and all minds were strained with the expec- 1 The desire to overthrow the ministry made itself apparent through the fictitious patriotic anxieties put forward by the organizers of the manifestation. The famous Petite France of Tours, the organ of M. Wil- son, son-in-law of the President of the Kepubllc, published despatches from its "special correspondent" of Mont-sous- Vaudrey, declaring that M. Grevy had refused to receive the King of Spain, and that the President of the Council was trying to force him to it. Here, also, must be noted the satisfaction shown by certain organs of the Right, although the responsi- bility of this incident falls principally upon the Extreme Left. The Pays went so far as to appeal to foreign intervention to extract us from the "republican hole," and congratulated the " happy mortals " governed by the German Emperor. This time, party hatred had been sufficiently strong to cause men to forget their fatherland. 2 At Havre, on October 14, Jules Ferry made a great speech, in which he declared that he was ready to maintain the struggle. The radicals were encouraged, on their side, by the success which they achieved in four partial elections. 148 THE JEVOLUTION OF FRANCE. tation of some event which should set fire to the powder. The opposition felt more at ease on the subject of the colonies ; the very nature of the interests at stake, the distance to the theatre of hostilities, allowed it to agi- tate public opinion, and to suggest to it that " policy of the hare on her form, who sees things in exaggerated shape, and sees them indistinctly," ^ from which our colonies have so greatly suffered. Moreover, the Presi- dent of the Council gave a handle to criticism, by the sparing amount of his communications ; he felt that, in order to accomplish his work, he was compelled to act, in a manner, without the knowledge of the masses, be- cause he knew them to be densely ignorant of African and Asiatic affairs, and hostile to distant enterprises which could not be converted into immediate profit. But with a little more art and apparent good-will, above all, by displaying more readiness to communicate news, he might have calmed their impatience. But on this occasion, when Parliament reassembled, on October 23, 1883, it found itself enlightened by an exposition of the situation of affairs in Tonkin, so luminous, so frank, so precise, that it was impossible, in view of the growing exactions of China, to refuse to the govern- ment the support which it needed. ^ The appropriations were voted, and the year ended with the capture of Son-Tay. The labor question also served as a battle-ground. 1 Jules Ferry, Le Tonkin et la Mere Patrie. 2 Jules Ferry, in a manner, forced the Extreme Left to take to the tribune the question which it had announced, and which miscarried ; 325 members, against 155, carried a vote of complete confidence. In the ballot for the Tonkin appropriations, the Right abstained from voting. Marshal Canrobert in the Senate, Monseigneur Freppel in the Chamber, alone voted "for the flag." THE JULES FEBBT MINISTBT. 149 At the beginning of 1884, propositions tending to "ameliorate tlie lot of workingmen" followed eacli other with incredible copiousness. Men affected to be- lieve in a general crisis which was paralyzing commerce and manufactures ; while precisely the last months of the year 1883 had been marked by a sort of revival in business.^ Mutuality, socialism, either Christian or atheistic, the reform of the taxes, protectionism, — everything was discussed. Jules Ferry defended the liberty of work. " We think," said he, " that the only profound social reforms are those which begin by the reform of ideas and manners, and which have their source in individual activity, initiative, and foresight. What, then, is the part which the State plays ? Is it that of substituting itself for individual initiative and foresight ? No, it is that of encouraging, aiding, sub- sidizing, if necessary, their development ; never of sub- stituting itself for them." All these obstacles did not impede legislative work ; it was accomplished with more rapidity than under other ministries which had been less attacked, so greatly do a firm will and a definite line of conduct facilitate the successful working of a government. The municipal law was promulgated on April 6 ; ^ there were still important discussions on primary instruction ; laws were passed concerning the conditional liberation of convicts, the sale of the Crown diamonds, the creation of six schools for the children of soldiers ; a convention was concluded with the Bey of 1 It Is just to state that this revival did not last ; a little later it became necessary to consent to a loan of 350,000,000 francs, which was subscribed for only three and a quarter times over. 2 It contained a clause of considerable rauge, which certainly has not, so far, resulted in any great profit, but which, nevertheless, holds the germ of a beneficent revolution : the power granted to the communes of any canton of uniting their eflEorts for enterprises undertaken at their joint cost, in the public interest. 150 THE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. Tunis for tlie conversion of the Tunisian debt. The municipal elections of the 4th and 11th of May, 1884, gave satisfactory results ; ^ abroad, as well as at home, the Cabinet which had just concluded the treaty of Tien-Tsin was solid and respected. Jules Ferry had promised a partial revision, in order to satisfy what he regarded as a profound current of public opinion.^ He warded off the general revision which the radicals demanded, and himself presented (March 24, 1884) the project for a law which limited to four points the modifications which could be made in the Constitution ; the form of government was definitely settled, and placed beyond the range of any ' discussion whatever ; its constitutional character was withdrawn from the law which regulated the manner of election of senators ; ^ the legislative prerogatives of both Chambers were definitely regulated ; and, finally, the paragraph which ordered public prayers at the re- assembling of the Chambers was suppressed. The Congress opened at Versailles, in the month of August; regrettable scenes took place ; the most unexpected amendments were proposed with the only too evident object of preventing settlements, of confusing the de- bates, and of casting discredit upon the Assembly. A Byzantine discussion sprang up as to the great and the little " quorum " (that is to say, the number upon which the majority was to be calculated ; calculated upon the legal total of the congressional forces, it was 429 votes ; 1 The conservatives retained their places ; the radicals lost, to the ad- vantage of the moderates. In Paris, the situation remained much the same. The Council comprised 34 autonomists, 27 opportunists, 7 inde- pendents, 10 reactionaries, 1 possibilist socialist, 1 revolutionary socialist. 2 No doubt, also, for the purpose of relieving the numerous deputies who had inscribed the revision upon their electoral platforms. 2 This law was destined to be modified, later on, like an ordinary law, and the irremovability of the senators suppressed. JULES SIMON, MINISTER, SENATOR, AND MEMBER OF THE FRENCH ACADEMY. THE JULES FERBT MINISTRY. 151 calculated upon the real total, it was only 420 votes). But when the adversaries of the ministry failed to pre- vent the Congress fulfilling its mission, they described it as a " defiance hurled at democracy," and published a noisy manifesto of protestation. For the first time, Jules Ferry had appeared not undecided, but as if he had lost his bearings ; ^ perhaps he was astonished at that isolation which was beginning for him and which he learned, later on, to bear so valiantly. In propor- tion as the minister waxed greater, and his energetic figure stood out more and more from the low relief of the government, a void was created around him ; in the case of certain of his adversaries, opposition degener- ated into rage ; among his former partisans, jealousy made its ravages; in addition, there was that general inca- pacity for supporting in a free and consecutive manner any government whatever. As persuasion and reasoning did not act with sufficient effect, it became necessary to employ force, that force of language which bends wills, but does not prevent their rising again afterwards. Men obeyed Jules Ferry grumblingly, and in the long run this resulted, in the ranks of the majority, in the impression of slavery, which left behind it dull ran- cors in their hearts. A pungent chapter of parliamen- tary psychology might be written about the Chamber of 1881. History will say of it, that it never was able to understand, or to second, with full good-will, the man who was the finest incarnation of the sentiments of the majority among its members. 1 This was the epoch when the law of divorce, eloquently combated by Jules Simon, was being discussed in the Senate, and when the Chamber was studying the organization of the three years' service, and passing the first protectionist law raising the duties on sugars which had been lowered in 1880. These great evolutions, both military and economioal, do not appear to have been the object of sufficiently consecutive attention on the part of the President of the Council. 152 THE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. As colonial instincts had awakened, little by little, appropriations asked for for Madagascar were granted without excessive hesitation ; on the other hand, there was a tendency to let go the prey for the shadow, to abandon Tonkin for the sake of intervening in Egypt. Tonkin was too far away ; the movements of our troops there could be followed only through the medium of fantastic information of chroniclers who were badly prepared to guide the public. The surprise of Bac-Le, the bombardment of Kelung, caused emotion in Paris ; the departure from Shanghai of the Chinese plenipo- tentiaries (August 18, 1884), and the ultimatum pre- sented by M. Patenotre, suggested hints of a general and merciless war between France and China. For lack of knowledge as to what the river Min was, and in what manner it was defended, the admirable mili- tary feat accomplished by Admiral Courbet at Fou- Tcheou was not appreciated, at first. One would have said that between Tonkin and Paris all proportions became distorted, all fears exaggerated, and that all judgments went astray. A single fact dominated the situation, and it was brutal and clear to every eye : France was at war with a great power, without Par- liament having been called upon to give its opinion. ^ To-day we can estimate with cool heads the chain of circumstances ; but it will readily be imagined that a certain amount of emotion reigned, at the moment, in face of a situation which could not be explained. Europe kept her eyes riveted on France ; the strug- gle manfully maintained by Jules B'erry to organize 1 At the news of the capture of Fou-Tcheou, M. Barodet, President of the group of the Extreme Left, wrote to the Preeideut of the Republic, demanding the immediate convocation of Parliament. M. Grdvy replied, in a strictly constitutional manner, that he would transmit the letter to the President of the Council, who, alone, was responsible. THE JULES FERBY MINISTRY. 153 parties and found a true parliamentary government interested her ; but, above all, she noted, with an in- describable sensation of curiosity, the sort of relaxation which could be divined in the relations between France and Germany. This relaxation, which had already been marked in the affairs of Tunis,^ had been accentu- ated at the London conference upon Egyptian affairs, — a conference, moreover, which ended without re- sults. It was plain that M. de Bismarck viewed with sympathy our efforts at colonization ; he became colonial himself, and took possession of the Came- roons and of Angra-Pequena, and again routed the diplomats by one of those right-about-faces in which his genius delighted. ^ What the enemies of the minister already pretended to call the Franco-German understanding was further defined by the convoca- tion of the Conference of Berlin for the commercial freedom of the African rivers, — the Niger and the Congo. This conference opened on November 15 and proceeded to important partitions. Nevertheless, the parliamentary battle became, with every passing day, more arduous to maintain. For the sake of winning back those who hesitated, and of obtaining the appropriations for Tonkin (sixteen mill- 1 Germany had been the first to renounce her privileges, judicial and other ; as early as the spring of 1882, she sent a new Consul-General, the explorer Nachtigal, who went to Bardo in the carriage of the Resident Gen- eral, in order to he presented by him to the Bey. Germany, therefore, did not content herself with urging us on to an expedition wMch might turn out profitable to her ; by its consequences she upheld us after our success, as she did before it. This ceremony made its mark in the annals of the protectorate ; shortly afterward, Lord Granville, in his turn, ordered the English consul not to address himself to the Bey's government otherwise than through the medium of the Resident General of France. 2 Nevertheless, this did not prevent his joining his colleagues of Russia and Austria, M. de Giers and Count Kalnoky, as usual. The interview took place on September 15, 188i, at Skiernievicz (Russian Poland) . 154 THE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. ions were necessary at the end of 1884, and forty-three millions for the year 1885), Jules Ferry was obliged to order the publication of all the diplomatic archives which related to Tonkin ; no one could find anything in them with which to quarrel;^ the firmness, clear- ness, and moderation of the President of the Council secured for him a majority of 100 votes, but at the price of what efforts ! This majority resembled a troop of schoolboys in the schoolroom : it had to be watched constantly, and a state of defence, at once friendly and severe, had to be maintained towards it. Thanks to a vote unexpectedly taken, the Extreme Left had, with the support of the Right, established direct universal suffrage for the election of senators; the moderates were seized with keen anxiety when this unforeseen result was announced. The peril was great. Without the loss of a moment, the President of the Council carried to the Senate the law which re-estab- lished the suffrage of two degrees, and bringing it before the Chamber, he got them to revoke their de- cision ; six days sufficed for this new sort of campaign. On January 1, 1885, the ministry entered upon the third year of its existence ; ^ in the senatorial elections of January 25, it won a fresh triumph; the radical advocates of revision failed, and the moderate repub- licans gained twenty-two seats out of thirty-seven. ^ A conflict over the appropriations, between the two Cham- 1 M. CMmenceau had violently attacked the President of the Council, accusing him of having altered an important document afterwards. It turned out that the whole affair was confined to this insignificant correc- tion : "I believe that peace is possible," in place of " I am convinced that peace is possible." 2 M. Maurice Rouvier had just been appointed Minister of Commerce, in the place of M. H^rissou. A little later, General Campenon gave up the War portfolio, which was taken by General Lewal. 8 Only 67 senators out of 300 remained on the Right. THE JULES FEBMY MINISTBT. 155 bers, and the passage of the law establishing general elections filled up the early months of the year, the last of the JUles Ferry Cabinet. It had not been possible to vote upon the budget for 1885 at an op- portune moment ; a peculiar expedient was adopted, — the receipts were voted upon apart from the expenses. After having, with great difficulty, reconciled the Chamber and the Senate on the question of certain ap- propriations which the upper Assembly would not con- sent to suppress,! ^j^e President of the Council busied himself in the attempt to get general elections accepted. Though hostile to this reform in 1881, he now perceived the great favor which it enjoyed in public opinion, and did not deem it advisable to oppose it any longer. The law was passed by 402 votes (337 republicans and 65 monarchists) against 91 (71 republicans and 20 monarchists). On March 25 the despatch from General Briere de ITsle, dated Hanoi, reached Paris : the loss of men which it foreshadowed was relatively large (260 men and 7 officers killed or wounded) ; the excitement was keen. On the following day, March 26, M. Delafosse, in questioning the Cabinet, termed the Tonkin expe- dition "the most foolish and criminal of enterprises," and, although a fresh telegram had greatly diminished the scope of the preceding one, only 259 votes against 209 pronounced in favor of the order of the day, pure and simple ; the majority was crumbling away. On 1 It was a question of the seminary scholarships, the salaries of the Bishop of Guadeloupe and of the memhers of the Chapter o£ Saint-Denis, and, finally, of the Theological Faculties. The appropriations for the department of Public Worship that year felt the effects of the anti-clerical anxieties of the Chamber of Deputies. As soon as the budget of 1885 was settled, M. Tirard brought in that for 1886, in order that it might be voted upon before the elections. 156 THE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. March 28 arrived the news of the evacuation of Lang- son, which was corrected, in the same manner, on the following day, by a more reassuring telegram. But wild panic had seized upon the deputies. The govern- ment decided to ask Parliament for two hundred mill- ions, and to send to Tonkin ten thousand men taken from the Algerian contingent, or recruited by means of voluntary enlistments. The groups put their heads together ; the lack of composure was general. The astonishing idea occurred to some one of requesting the President of the Council to resign before the ses- sion, by way of a public apology. The presidents of the Republican Union and of the Democratic Union, who applied to him in this sense, were not well re- ceived. Jules Ferry intended to appear before the Assembly, with his head held high. On March 30, in fact, he brought in the demand for appropriations and uttered the following words : " In order not to inject into a debate which should remain exclusively patriotic and national any consideration of secondary rank; in order to unite in a common effort all those who, upon whatever bench they sit and to whatever opinion they hold, set the greatness of the country and the honor of the flag above everything else, we announce to you that we shall not consider the voting of the appropria- tions as, in any sense, a vote of confidence, and that if the energetic policy to which we invite you is approved by you, in principle, you shall freely decide, by a later vote, to what hands you wish to confide its execution." The deputies did not heed this language ; they no longer had any idea of what the situation demanded ; they overwhelmed the minister with insults. That day the Palais-Bourbon presented the most disgraceful spectacle ; a little while before, the terrible news of TH:E i-ULES FEBBT MINISTBY. 157 the fall of Khartoum, the heavy responsibility for which was borne by the British government, had been received at Westminster with a calm dignity that the whole body of public opinion had rejBlected; the con- trast was all the more distressing for the friends of France. Only 149 republican votes defended Jules Ferry against the coalition of 306 votes which fear and hatred arrayed against him.^ A few hours before his fall, as to which he had cherished no illusions, Jules Ferry had presided over the opening meeting of the conference for the neutral- ization of the Suez Canal. Several weeks earlier, the final act of the Conference of Berlin had scored another success for our diplomacy. The President of the Council left France strong and respected abroad; at home he remained the true leader of the majority; people understood him thoroughly when they saw his successor continue his policy, in spite of himself, and lay claim to it. Moreover, public opinion was educated up to the mark in a few days. The telegram which arrived from Hanoi on April 1 said: "The evacuation of Langson, in consequence of the wounding of Gen- eral de Negrier, seems to have been a little over-hasty ; the situation is, on the whole, better than the exag- gerated reports which have been coming in here for the last four days gave reason to anticipate."^ On April 2 the news came that for the last five days Admiral Courbet had occupied the anchorage of the Pescadores. At last, on April 4, it became known that the preliminaries of peace had just been signed 1 A proposal to impeach him, supported by M. Delafosse, was, fortu- nately, discarded. 2 Colonel Herbinger had lost his composure to such a degree that Gen- eral Briere de I'lsle regarded it as his duty to submit his conduct to a committee of inquiry. 158 THE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. at Paris between France and China on the basis laid down by France, and without China having been led through the Langson affair, to heighten her preten- sions. These negotiations had been in progress, se- cretly, since March 22, between M. Billot, director of political affairs, and M. Campbell, the representa- tive of the Celestial Empire. It would have sufficed for Jules Ferry to make them public to justify himself, but he had preferred to maintain silence, as much for the purpose of attaining success as through disdain for his enemies. He felt "worn out," and acted accordingly. Had he not summed up his meaning on that point, by saying : " I know well that this system of incessant attacks, of daily battles, wears men out ; but what are men good for, if not to be worn out for the good, for the beauti- ful, for republican liberty, for country ? " And later on, he was to write the following profoundly patriotic lines: "When a political man leaves behind him any durable works, he must make up his mind to set down his popularity with profit and loss."^ Such maxims, which he put in practice, to the best of his ability, did not spring from an excess of resignation, still less from any lack of sensibility. There were times when he winced, in spite of himself, under these shafts : " Do not they know," he cried, in the Chamber, in the autumn of 1884, "that, instead of reaping what, in former days, was called the joys of power, one finds, after all, only a constant struggle, and, what is the worst bitterness of all, for a heart which is in the right place, the tempest of hatreds unchained, and friend- ships lost all along the road, calumnies inconceivable, which nothing tires? And you believe that power 1 Jules Ferry, Tonkin et la Mere Patrie. THE JULES FERBT MINISTRT. 159 thus wrested possesses any virtue and value in itself ? " Since his death, since the innermost Jules Ferry has become better known to us, we divine that he had a delicate nature, from which, as he himself said, with serene melancholy, "the roses budded inwards." At the present day, a sinister light illumines that long way of the cross which he had to traverse. The attempt at assassination, of which he came near being the vic- tim, caused him less pain than the incessant insults, the caricatures, the nameless mud which Paris flung beneath his feet. Then hatred grew weary, oblivion came, and, at last, the hour of justice sounded. By calling him to preside over them (1893), during the last three weeks of his life, the senators rendered pos- sible that long ovation which republican France led behind his coffin ; she recognized him, at last, as one of the noblest of her sons, the one who had proclaimed that " democracy and the Kepublic are the goal of all modern progress, and ought to concentrate in them- selves everything that was good, or great, or useful in the past." The work of Jules Ferry was threefold : he restored the idea of parliamentary government, and made it firm ; he turned the national activity and the national attention towards the colonies, and created an "ex- ternal France " ; and, finally, he made instruction and education the firm bases of the Republic. " The gov- ernment," he said, " must be a lighthouse, which lights and guides, and not a sort of twilight where all opin- ions blend." But his autocracy always remained par- liamentary and liberal. "I cannot endure the idea," he exclaimed at the National Circle, on March 9, 1883, "that the French democracy should not be able to tolerate parliamentary organization. What ! Every 160 THE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. one admits that tlie parliamentary form of government is the most noble, the most generous, the most favor- able to liberty. It is the daily battle, the peaceful battle, which shields the people from street battles; it is well-studied, progressive reform ; ... it is authority constantly held in control ; it is government founded upon the Avidest publicity. Universal suffrage, democ- racy, would be incompatible with this ideal. By as- serting that, gentlemen, you injure democracy and universal suffrage." Before following up the vicissitudes of the crisis which the fall of the E'erry ministry opened up to the country, we will cast a glance at the general aspects of the colonial policy, of that vast enterprise whose utility France seems, at last, to have comprehended, and to the pursuit of which she seems to be in the way pas- sionately to attach herself. In order to realize it, con- tinental peace was necessary. Jules Ferry, like all clear-sighted minds, considered the maintenance of peace as the first requisite of the future. He under- stood that a war, even a victorious war, would have acted as a stop-cock applied to that gigantic labor of France, the manufacture anew of her implements, and the restoration of her fortune. But he did not com- prehend any state of things between France and Ger- many but peace or war. He thought, no doubt, with Washington, that " the nation which gives itself over to continual sentiments of love or hatred towards an- other becomes, in a way, the slave of its hatred or its love," and every form of slavery was repugnant to his nature. As for those who, ignorant of his grandeur of soul, and of the profound love which he felt for his country, reproached him with having stretched out his hand, over the graves of our soldiers, to their con- THE JULES FEBRT MINISTBY. 161 queror, he replied to them by this simple desire, ex- pressed in his will : "I ask," he said, "that I may rest at Saint Di^, in that cemetery whence the blue line of the Vosges is visible, and whence my faithful heart will continue to hear the moan of the vanquished." There, in fact, reposes the great patriot, the great citi- zen who was, with Gambetta, the true founder of the Republic. 162 THE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. CHAPTER VII. COLONIAL FRANCE. Three Colonial Empires. — A National Tradition. — Obstacles and Labors. — France beyond the Sea in 1872, and in 1894. — West Africa. — Mada- gascar. — French Asia. — Problems of Indo-China. — Administrative Errors. — The Sluggishness of French Commerce. — The Educational Question. The French nation is laboring at the erection of its third colonial empire. The first was created by Francis I., Henri IV., Coligny, Richelieu, and Colbert destroyed by Louis XIV. and Louis XV. The second, outlined under Louis XVI., found its development hampered and its future ruined by the Revolution. The third is, almost exclusively, the work of the Re- public. " External France " is of distant date ; it was born of the isolated efforts of those hardy conquerors who were driven beyond the frontiers by their spirit of ad- venture and of enterprise, their taste for danger, and their love of glory. That is a very noble origin. Other peoples have early had the instinct of com- merce, and the legitimate desire for wealth ; ^ coloni- zation has been, for our people, rather a career for audacity than a career of interest ; the French have always sought to expend therein their virile force, rather than to acquire fortune ; and we shall see that this characteristic of their colonial activity has sur- 1 See M. Leroy-Beaulieu's remarkable book, on Colonisation chez les Peuples Modernes. COLONIAL FBANCE. 163 vived tlie very profound transformation of the national character ; to-day one still finds more readily men who are ready to volunteer for perilous missions than for lucrative undertakings. The period from 1365, which extends from the epoch at which several establishments already existed in Guinea, until 1628, the date of the first conflict in a distant land with England, is filled with extraordinary feats of arms, with individual deeds of prowess, which are stamped with the impulse of primitive instincts and of unreasoning ambitions. Jean de B^thencourt takes possession of the Canary Islands (1402) ; Jean Cousin attempts the discovery of the East Indies (1488). Paulmier de Gonneville, Denis de Honfleur, Thomas Aubert, Jean Parmentier, surnamed " the great French Captain," Adalbert de la Ravardidre, and many others whose names are almost forgotten, were also notable. There are also the avengers ; like the brave Ango, who captures three hundred vessels, and, ascending the Tagus, imposes peace on John III. of Portugal, guilty of having sunk French ships in Brazilian waters (1539) ; or, again, like that gentleman of Mont-de-Marsan, of Gourgues, who, setting out from Bordeaux with two hundred men, on August 2, 1567, to avenge the nine hundred French- men massacred two years earlier by the Spaniards, in Carolina,^ immolates nearly four hundred of the latter in his turn, and returns home with contented heart. All these men were preparing, without themselves suspect- ing the fact, the future expansion of France, and flaunted their splendid recklessness and their joyous brutality across the new world which loomed up on the horizon. I 1 Eibeau of Dieppe, sent to Florida by Coligny, had baptized the laud which he visited by the name of Carolina, in honor of King Charles IX. 164 THE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. Francis I., when he founded Havre (1537), is the first to point out that this expansion is the "affair of the King," which, at that epoch, was equivalent to say- ing : a national question. Coligny, later on, never wearies of forming expeditions ; he sends Jacques Cartier to Cape Breton, Villegageux to Brazil, Jean Ribaut to Florida. Several houses are founded, several societies are organized for the development of the riches which are revealed. There is one in Algeria, about 1525, whose object is coral fishery. In 1582 the Nor- mans, expelled from Guinea by the Portuguese, unite their efforts and establish themselves at Saint Louis de Senegal, and, in 1598, de Chastes, Governor of Dieppe, appointed by Henri IV. Lieutenant-General of America, forms, with gentlemen of Rouen and of La Rochelle, a trading company. The situation becomes definitely outlined : North America has attracted audacious youth, as the magnet attracts iron ; it is to become the field of European cupidity ; scarcely has Champlain founded Quebec (1608), and discovered the Great Lakes (1614-1615), than his security is menaced. The English, established in Virginia ever since the time of their first voyage thither, have taken advantage of the regency of Marie de Medici to ravage Acadie ; in 1628 they attack Canada. Quebec, of which they have taken possession, is restored at the peace of Saint-Germain (1632), but the war kindled on the banks of the Saint Lawrence will not cease for more than a century and a half. In 1661, when Montreal was founded. New France al- ready counts about twenty-five hundred Europeans ; in the following year, it becomes the property of the Crown, and the company of the Hundred Associates is dissolved. The governor and the officers sent out by the metropolis COLONIAL FRANCE. 165 form the centre of a society which studies fine manners, and strives to be polished ; and, during this time, adventurers, whose race has not died out, whose ardor does not decrease, plunge deep into the West, to the very foot of the Rocky Mountains : Louis JoUiet, Pere Marquette, explore Arkansas and Wisconsin ; La Salle descends the Mississippi to its mouth, and takes possession of Louisiana in the name of Louis XIV. The death of Colbert, in 1683, marks the apogee of our colonial empire. During the last twenty years, to Martinique and to Guadeloupe (conquered between 1625 and 1635 by d'Enambuc and his companions), we have added Sainte Lucie, Saint Barthelemy, Dominique, and San Domingo.^ Madagascar, under the name of risle Dauphine, had become the property of the Crown ; Pondichery and Chandernagor had been founded, and the India Company had been reorganized on better bases. ^ It was not so much the death of Colbert as that of the great Mongol Emperor, Aurung-Zeb, which happened in 1717, that caused the decline of French India. The power of Aurung-Zeb held in respect the English, Dutch, and Portuguese traders ; when it van- ished, the English company and the French company found themselves face to face, and having become landed powers, they pushed their rivalry even to armed con- flict. In America, numbers triumphed ; we had about fif- teen or twenty thousand colonists, while the English already numbered two hundred thousand ; they took advantage of the war of the League of Augsburg 1 French buccaneers had established themselves in San Domingo. Colbert was wise enough to protect them. 2 Henri IV. had founded, in 1604, a trading company for Hindustan. The India Company was created by Eichelieu ; in 1642 it occupied Reunion Island. 166 THE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. (1690), then of tlie war of the Spanish Succession, to attempt to subdue us ; the treaty of Ryswick (1697) left things in the same state as before, but that of Utrecht (1713) deprived us of Newfoundland, Arcadie, and the Hudson Bay Territory. France, at least, found compensation in Louisiana, where colonization was making strides, and in Maurice Island, which, aban- doned by the Dutch,i was granted to the India Com- pany (1721), and beheld, under the skilful government of La Bourdonnais, the cultivation of its soil extend and cities spring up on its shores. The treaty of Utrecht did not, however, discourage the inhabitants of Newfoundland. Between 1713 and 1744 their number rose from twenty-five thousand to fifty thousand, and, by the establishment of a line of forts on the Ohio, they maintained frequent communication with their fellow- countrymen in Louisiana, saving themselves up, in a manner, for a more happy future. During this time, great things were being accomplished in Hindustan, but it became evident that the heedlessness of the King and his ministers, and the ignorant indifference of public opinion, were rendering sterile all the efforts of our colonists. In 1739 the Mahrattas, under Ragoglu, their chief, had been forced to retreat before Dumas, Governor of Pondich^ry, who was succeeded, two years later, by the illustrious Dupleix. When the war of the Austrian Succession broke out in Europe, its results were felt afar. But Dupleix, reinforced by La Bour- donnais, seized Madras, won the victory of San Thome (1747) with two hundred Frenchman over a hundred thousand Hindus, and, finally, gloriously defended Pondich^ry against the English (1748). In this year 1 The Dutch had named it after Maurice of Nassau. Under French rule it hecame I'Isle de France. COLONIAL FRANCE. 167 the peace of Aix-la-Chapelle was signed, and Louis XV., who was making war "like a king and not like a merchant," restored Madras ! In 1750 the war over the succession to the Deccan aid the Carnatic was resumed. Dupleix, La Touche, and Bussy crushed the Mahratta cavalry in four succes- sive combats. Dupleix was powerful ; with five prov- inces, he had formed upon the shores of Orissa a regular kingdom, with Mazulipatam for its capital ; the British flag no longer floated over Madras. Then intrigue effected at Versailles what cannons had not been able to accomplish in Asia. Louis XV. recalled Dupleix (1754), and Godchen, his successor, signed a treaty with the English by which the two companies renounced "their possessions," and forbade each other to intermeddle, thenceforth, in the affairs of India. In the following year, the Seven Years' War broke out. From that moment forth the French arms were every- where beaten back. Montcalm wins only a single victory at Carillon, but the British fleet continues to ascend ; the hero is routed and killed on the Plains of Abraham. Quebec capitulates and, in spite of the fine defence of M. de Levis, the forts are reduced, one after the other. During this time, Clive has taken Chander- nagor (1757), Bussy has been made prisoner at Vanda- vachi, and the unfortunate Lally-ToUendal, Godchen's successor, capitulates in Pondichery (1761). The peace of Paris is signed in 1763 ; French India is done for ; ^ the few factories which our conquerors 1 Some French soldiers of fortune made another attempt, with the aid of the native princes, to stop the progress of the English ; some of them mere adventurers, who sought only to enrich themselves, like General Perron and La Martinifere; others, true patriots, like that Raymond, formerly an officer under Lally, who organized an army corps, in European style, for the Nizam, in 1795 ; he had eighteen thousand men trained after 168 THE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. restore to us will have for us, henceforth, only a his- torical value ; in the rest of the world we lose Can- ada, half of Louisiana, Saint Vincent, Dominique, and S^n^gal. . . . The first French colonial empire is at an end ; only a few scattered fragments of it remain. This great effort has suiJered shipwreck, and yet the colonial sap is not exhausted; it can be felt close at hand, and the government of the metropolis, this time, will watch its budding with friendly interest. Louis XVI. is on the throne, a much misunderstood monarch, whose capacities were paralyzed and whose defects were thrown into relief, by fate. He it was who, as early as 1768, sent afar Bougainville ; Bougainville, who reconnoitres Pomotu, Tahiti, New Guinea, and who will have for his successors La P^rouse (1787) and d'Entrecasteaux (1791). ^ During the war in America, the Bailiff de Suffren wins the victory of Madras, re- takes Pondich^ry,^ and in 1783 the treaty of Versailles restores to us S^n^gal and Tabago. It is the epoch when Benoiwski, by making his famous attempts at colonizing Madagascar, prepares the way for our action in the future, and when Bishop Pigneau de Behaine negotiates, between Louis XVI. and the Emperor Gia- Long, that singular treaty which — though it was not put in operation — has served as the point of departure the French manner, and bearing the colors of the Republic. Raymond perished in 1798, having been assassinated by his enemies at the Nizam's court ; this ended the French influence at Hyderabad ; he was interred there and honored as a demigod. 1 La Perouse discovered the Friendly Islands, the Norfolk Islands, touched at Botany Bay, and died at Vanikoro. D'Entrecasteaux passed through the same archipelagoes in search of him, and touched at Van Diemen's Land. 2 Pondichery, restored at the peace of Paris, had again escaped from our grasp. COLONIAL FBANCE. 169 for our establisliment in Indo-China. The legal ex- istence of the colonies begins in 1792 ; the Legislative Assembly grants to them the right of representation in Parliament. Thus the Isle de France and Reunion take a hearty share in the great national uprising ; they organize a vigorous resistance to the English, while Victor Hugues, despatched to the Antilles by the Convention, succeeds in driving them out of Gua- deloupe and Sainte Lucie. Did Napoleon cherish any ulterior views with regard to the colonies? In any case, he would have lacked both leisure and the forces to apply to them ; for the second time the policy of expansion perished, crushed by the continental policy ; the treaty of Paris of 1814, like the treaty of Paris of 1763, left to external France nothing but ruins. If circumstances should permit the resumption, for the third time, of the distant work, would the nation and its rulers be able to profit by the lesson; to choose clearly between the one party and the other ; to will, with firm- ness, that European peace which is indispensable to every enterprise of colonial expansion ? Such was the problem to which the past had set the limits. It has not been waste of time to cast a glance over that past, and to recall, in this place, its principal vicissi- tudes. Our colonies constitute one of the most power- ful bonds which unite the France of yesterday to the France of to-day. In attempting to render them great and prosperous, the Republic has remained faithful to national traditions. When the first wounds of 1870 had healed over, and we were approaching the end of that convalescence whose brevity surprised and disquieted our enemies, the statesmen in whom the country had confidence began to ask themselves to what quarter it was proper 170 THE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. that they should direct its reviving life. Many reasons presented themselves for choosing colonial expansion. Jules Ferry, more than any other man, felt the neces- sity of this. He took care to explain his meaning to the Chamber one day when an attack against the whole colonial policy was being made through his person.^ " In Europe, such as it has become," said he; "in the competition of so many rivals which are springing up around us, some by military and maritime , improvements, others by the prodigious development of their populations; — in a universe thus constituted, the policy of reserve and abstention is the highway to decadence. . . . To shine without acting, without mixing in the affairs of the world, by holding aloof from all combinations, by regarding every expansion in Africa or in the East as a trap, as an adventure, — to live thus is to abdicate ! " All the States of Europe, in fact, were launching out, one after the other, in the path of foreign conquests and of aggrandizement of their commercial horizons. To abstain from this was not only to wrong the country, but to give occasion to the enemies of the Republic to render it responsible for the stagnation which would result therefrom.^ On the one hand, the obstacles were numerous and diffi- cult to overcome. And, in the first place, shall we ever 1 It was on July 1, 1885, a iew months after the fall of the Jules Ferry- Cabinet ; it was a question of the appropriations for Madagascar, the de- mand for which had not been withdrawn by M. Brisson, the new President of the Council. 2 " I understand well the monarchical parties," continued Jules Ferry, in the speech quoted above; "when they wax indignant at seeing the French Republic undertake to do anything but exercise the policy of reserve, of pot-luck, — pardon me the expression, — they do not hide from us the fact that they think a policy capable of grand designs arid of grand thoughts is an appanage of monarchy ; a democratic government, in their eyes, is a government which humbles everything, politics as well as the rest." COLONIAL FRANCE. 171 succeed in interesting the country, in durable fashion, in an enterprise which it will not have the means of controlling day by day, and for the results of which we must wait long? Had not indifference been the cause of past lack of success? In short, a certain unpopularity has always attached to colonizations. With Voltaire, people had perceived in Canada only "roods of snow." Louisiana had excited the fancy of the Parisians, and that poor Dupleix had beheld himself turned into ridicule, to such a degree, says one of his historians,^ " that moral tales and comic operas were founded on him and on his projects." More recently, what firm will and what coherence of purpose had been required to render popular the army of Africa, whose conquests so often came near being abrogated by " the hesitations, the weaknesses, the limited views, the ignorant, narrow, or declamatory policy of the duly qualified Chambers."^ These examples were far from encouraging, and, without foreseeing that party spirit would make of Tonkin the "lists of our discords,"* a stubborn fight was to be expected, whose issue would, perhaps, remain for a long time uncertain. The first effect of the apathy and indifference of public opinion with regard to the colonies is the diffi- culty of finding good functionaries to administer, and good colonists to develop their value. The English send out to a distance picked men, whom they clothe with real authority, and whose duties are well remu- nerated as well as respected. The French colonial func- tionary, on the contrary, considers that he is exiled, his career is held in small esteem ; he remains in the background. As for the colonist, he must have an ex- tremely rare dose of courage to undertake his stern 1 M. de Saint-Priest. ^ Jules Ferry, Le Tonkin et la Mere Patrie. ' Ibid. 172 TSE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. task, and, in order that he may succeed therein, par- ticularly favorable chances. Many persons assert that the Frenchman is, by nature, a bad colonist. Nothing is less proved. 1 But the education which he receives gives him the appearance of being so, in any case. It breaks his initiative, represses his energy, trains him to fear and to obedience ; in a word, shapes him to the exact reverse of what is fitting in the future colonist. Lastly, before launching out in colonial enterprises, it was of importance to find out what was to be the economical policy of the Republic. If the mother- country is at liberty to choose between protection and free trade, is she at liberty to apply the system of her choice to her dependencies beyond the sea ? Without free trade, the greater part of the colonies cannot pros- per, and many cannot even exist. " The manufacturers of the mother-country never succeed in supplying lib- erally the market from which they have driven out their foreign competitors, and by no longer selling anything but the national products, the merchants in the colonies vegetate and languish." ^ If the repub- lican Chambers were induced to establish a protective tariff, — and from certain signs, one might predict that possibility, without being a pessimist, — what would become of the colonies? All these question marks, all these uiicertainties, all these reasons for fear in the future, did not paralyze the activity of the "colonials." They had faith in their 1 Toequeville wrote, in Democratie en AmMque, Vol. II., these lines, which remain true to this day: "I myself have seen, in Canada, the Englishman, master of the commerce and the manufactures, spreading out on all sides and crowding the Frenchman into too narrow limits." But the Canadians are placed in conditions of real inferiority by the moral and intellectual repression from which they suffer. 2 J. Chailley-Bert, La Colonisation de I'lndo-Chine. COLONIAL FRANCE. 173 work, and, seconded by bold travellers, who acted as scouts, they have created a French Africa and Asia upon which we may be permitted to cast a glance of pride, although what has already been accomplished is but little in comparison with that which remains to be done. In 1872 we possessed, in Africa, Algeria, where the military colonization dreamed of by Marshal Bugeaud had utterly failed, where the lack of care and the in- capacity of the administration rivalled the unfortunate institution of the Arab offices in extinguishing all in- itiative, and clipping the wings of all private enter- prise ; Algeria, which weighed upon the finances of the mother-country instead of relieving them,^ and which had to its credit only the fact that it had trained good officers and maintained the vigor of the troops. Our claims upon Tunis, its neighbor, had been discreetly formulated by the monarchy of July ; the Second Re- public and the Empire had confined themselves to not renouncing them. We still had S^n^gal, whence life seemed to have disappeared, where, between 1817 and 1854, thirty-one governors had followed one after the other, bringing no unity of plan, no attempt at general improvements, so that, in reply to the demands and the complaints of the Bordeaux merchants, it ended in the despatching thither of General Faidherbe, who re- established safety, founded the post of M^dine, and constructed fortified works on the river. Further down, towards the South, French factories had been 1 According to the report presented to the Senate by M. Pauliat, for the appropriations of 1891, Algeria, between 1830 and 1880, cost a little more than five milliards, and brought in 1,260,018,754 francs ; in 1891, added the report, it cost more than eighty-six millions ; now, with forty- six millions a year, England administers her colonies, that is to say, one- sixth of the globe, and three hundred and sixty million inhabitants. 174 THE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. established in 1843 at Grand Bassam and at Assinie, on the Ivory Coast. In 1870 these posts were evacu- ated, and it was a merchant of La Rochelle, M. Verdier, who, by taking the title of Resident, succeeded in pre- serving Grand Bassam to France, in spite of the efforts of the Governor of the English Gold Coast. Still further away extends the Slave Coast, the maritime front of the Dahomey country ; there, again, individual efforts had brought about happy results, such as the foundation of Grand Popo (1857), the establishment of the protectorate at Porto Novo (1863), and, iinally, the cession of Kotonou by the King of Dahomey. Then the protectorate, left without organization or re- sources, was abandoned; the English even tried to annex the territory of Porto Novo, but without success. Finally, a French Congo was founded in 1839 by Com- mander Bouet-Willaumez, who signed with Chief Denis a preliminary treaty, which was made definitive, in 1844 ; in 1849 the establishment of Libreville had been created; later on (1862), our authority was extended over the Ogoou^, and over all the territory com- prised between that river and the Gaboon; du Chaillu, Walker, de Compi^gne, and Marche had explored the country. They had had no encouragement from France ; no one knew what they were going to do "off there." No one paid much attention to them. Very different is the aspect of these same regions twenty years later. Behind Senegal a vast empire is in process of formation, which will abut, on one side, upon Algeria, and on the other upon the French Congo. This gigantic work had its birth in 1879, through the creation of the advance post of Bafoulab^ ; between 1881 and 1887, under Colonel Borgnis-Debordes and Commander Combes, the work of penetrating inward COLONIAL FRANCE. 175 ■was pursued with vigor by the foundation of the ports of Badumb6, Kita, Bammako, Koundou, Niagassola ; in 1888 Kanani was reached, the port of Timbuctoo ; ^ then Lieutenant-Colonel Galli^ni and Commander Arch- inard extended our influence as far as the sources of the Niger, and placed under our protectorate the States of Ahmadou and Samory. Dahomey is in our hands. The brilliant expedition of .General Dodds (1892) ended in the capture of Abomey, and the overthrow of a dynasty whose very name inspired terror in the bend of the Niger. Finally, the French Congo has been greatly developed, thanks to the efforts of M. de Brazza and his colleagues ; we have acquired there, by a series of treaties, a great number of territories beyond the original limits. But then arose the disputes with the European powers who had become our neighbors. Our new empire encloses Portuguese Guinea, the English factories of Sierra Leone, the American Republic of Liberia,^ the British Gold Coast, the German territory of the Cameroons, and is conterminous, for a long dis- tance, with the independent Congo State ; not to mention the isolated establishments which fortuitous circumstances or the whims of travellers have sprinkled along the shores of western Africa, and over which float the various flags of the European nations. The compact of August 5, 1890, consecrated, after a manner, the existence of the French- African West. 1 Colonel Bonnier entered Timbuctoo in 1894. 2 The Republic of Liberia was created with an aim which was both philanthropic and interested : it was believed that it might become a great centre for the material and intellectual emancipation of the blacks of the Soudan, while, at the same time, it would attract the blacks of the South- ern States of the Union in America ; by " returning them to their native land " the negro question, which weighs upon the future of the United States, would be solved in a peaceful manner. But the negroes have no desire to leave America, and that plan has failed. 176 THE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. England and Germany, by disposing of the sultanate of Zanzibar, had infringed anterior rights, whose exist- ence had been almost forgotten, even by France her- self ; they were remembered in the nick of time, and compensation was demanded. They consisted of the " Hinterland " (the interior) of S^n^gal and of Guinea, with access to Lake Tchad, which thus became the grand central square of civilization in the bosom of the Black Continent. There is, no doubt, some degree of childishness in this partition of immense territories, in- completely explored, badly defined, and which solemn diplomats assign to one or another by drawing straight lines on a map that lies outspread before them. The very next day after he had been indulging in this ex- ercise, Lord Salisbury made fun in public, in a very pleasant manner, of his own way of acting. Neverthe- less, it is not so tame an operation as it might appear. These are annexations " which a persevering diplomacy cultivates afterward as germs of claims and rights in the future."^ Moreover, were the " conquistadores " (conquerors) much more ridiculous when, in the name of their sovereign, they took possession of a land or of an ocean whose limits they did not know ? Skilfully conducted negotiations have caused these difficulties of delimitation to end, so far as we are concerned, for the most part, in success.^ But strive 1 Speech made in the Senate, April 5, 1895, by M. Hanoteaux, Minister of Foreign Affairs. 2 Among the most recent conventions, we may cite the Franco-German, of February 4, 1894, which fixed the frontier between the Cameroons and the French Congo ; and the Convention of August 14, 1894, between France and the Congo Free State, which came about in consequence of the claims which the Anglo-Congo Convention of May 22, of the same year, had called for on the part of France. Therein it was stipulated that England " took on lease" certain Congo territories, among others a strip twenty- five kilometres in width, which ran from Lake Tanganyika to Lake Albert- Edward. The importance of such a stipulation can readily be imagined. COLONIAL FRANCE. 177 as she may to keep the peace between the agents who represent her in the Dark Continent, Europe will be only partially successful in her efforts thereto ; either it is the Roman Catholic and Protestant missionaries who, forgetting their mission of Christian fraternity, arm the people subject to their influence against each other; or it is the French, English, German, Portu- guese holders of grants who seek to harm each other, not so much through commercial rivalry as through race jealousy. The result is, that even between men of the same race arise deplorable conflicts, and that petty jealousies are displayed where unity of action alone could insure any progress. In all its enterprises of conquest and of exploration, the government has been well backed up by private initiative. The French committee on Africa, and other similar societies, have rendered it the most praiseworthy and the most disinterested assistance ; the Chambers of Commerce, the Geographical Socie- ties, great daily journals and even mere private citi- zens, have defrayed the expense of expeditions whose results have been considerable. But all these sacrifices, all this devotion, have been inspired by the love of country, or of science, or by the ambition to perform some generous act, and to acquire a fame of good quality. Now, it is agricultural, industrial, and com- mercial enterprises which, more than all else, enrich colonies. But if the French are ready to give their blood for the cause of civilization, or for the aggran- dizement of the national domain, they appear less dis- posed to risk their money to procure for their new possessions that beneficent "irrigation," which alone will insure their development. After French Africa and Asia, Madagascar consti- 178 TBE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. tutes the third important portion of our present empire beyond the sea. As has already been said, our rela- tions with that great African island do not date from yesterday. The Normans established themselves there, and, nearly three centuries ago, the India Company had some unfortunate experiences there ; ^ Colbert took an interest in it, but did not succeed in interesting public opinion therein. ^ French agents prepared there, by their innumerable mistakes, the massacre of their fellow-countrymen (1672), and Louis XIV. in vain decreed the annexation of Madagascar (now become the Dauphin's Island), by a series of orders which bear the date of 1686, 1719, 1720, and 1721 ; the Malagasy would not permit themselves to be allured. The ad- venturers had better success. The history will be re- called of that corporal Labigorne who married Queen B^ty and reorganized the commercial relations be- tween Madagascar and the Isle de E'rance (1750- 1767). After him came M. de Modave and B^niowski, whom d'Aiguillon protected, and whom the Malagasy wished to proclaim king. The Convention installed a Resident at Tamatave.^ The Restoration took pos- 1 The representatives of the French company, Prouis and ^tienne de Flacourt, did not manage to make the inhabitants accept them ; the latter, in particular, rendered himself odious to them hy his severity. After it was reorganized, by Marshal de la Meilleraye, the company made a fresh, but fruitless, attempt in Madagascar. In 1671 the company restored the island to the King of France. 2 Colbert attempted, by an original innovation, to create a current of public opinion in favor of Madagascar. He disseminated pamphlets and issued appetizing advertisements. He even got up a subscription, and put down the King and the princes at the head of the list. 3 It is to be noted that, in spite of the difficulties which the Convention encountered in the interior and on the frontiers, it found time to turn its attention to the colonies, and never dreamed of abandoning them. The "colonial sentiment" did not exist among the members of the Conven- tion, who were anxious, above all, to remain faithful to their principles, to suppress slavery, and to emancipate humanity wherever they could. COLONIAL FRANCE. 179 session of Tintingue (1829) ; Louis Philippe evacuated it. No government seemed to care to draw closer the bonds which united Madagascar to France. But none dared finally to sever them. A favorable opportunity presented itself to Napoleon III. Three French trad- ers established in the island, MM. de Lastelle, Laborde, and Lambert, had acquired a great position with Queen Ranavalo and her son. The establishment of the pro- tectorate was then easy, but the Emperor, wholly en- grossed with his continental policy, wished to take England in as half -partner in the business which was proposed to him. For a long time the English had been seeking an opportunity to lay hands on Madagas- car. In 1816 Governor Farquhar had informed the Governor of Bourbon that he regarded Madagascar as a dependency of the Isle de France. His act was disclaimed, so intenable was the claim, but his manoeu- vres were secretly encouraged. Lord Clarendon, to whom the imperial government thus threw open the door, despatched to the island the Methodist Ellis, who organized British missions, where, under the pretext of a religious propaganda, anti-French action was exer- cised. The missionary Pickersgill (1877-1881) fol- lowed him. The hour was come to act or to evacuate. In 1883 Admiral Pierre seized Majunga and Tamatave; the next year. Admiral Miot blockaded the coasts, while Admiral Galiber, and afterward M. Patrimonio, entered into laborious negotiations with the Hovas. The English nursed in the latter the delusion that Nevertheless, it was a sort of merit on their part, that they paid atten- tion, at that Tery troubled epoch, to the fate of distant lands which they might have emancipated without feeling themselves bound to aid in their defence. This, assuredly, constitutes the principal claim to glory on the part of the Convention, — this care to lose none of the national territory, and to preserve everywhere its integrity. 180 THE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. Europe was favorable to them ; ^ consequently, they themselves broke o£E the parley as soon as they descried the possibility of a ministerial crisis in France, or of a refusal by Parliament of the appropriations asked for by the government. At last a treaty was signed, which ceded to us Diego-Suarez Bay, and established our protectorate. England recognized the clauses in 1891 ; but in order to vanquish the last lingering re- sistance of the Hovas, to deprive them of the last illusions and establish the French domination beyond the possibility of dispute in Madagascar, an expedition was necessary; it is now being carried out.^ There is no doubt that the great African island is capable of becoming, in the hands of a power which shall under- stand how to develop its wealth, a magnificent source of prosperity. We shall see what are the conditions indispensable for the planting and success there of French colonization. The origins of French Asia are equally distant. The first Roman Catholic missions to Tonkin date from 1625. In 1684 the India Company caused one of its agents, Le Chappelier, to explore it ; others of its rep- resentatives followed him in 1735, 1748, and 1749. At last, in 1787, a treaty was signed at Versailles between the French plenipotentiaries and the son of 1 In 1882 the Hova government had sent to Paris its Minister of For- eign Affairs. This functionary, deceived as to the attitude of the other powers, and believing that he could execute a sensational, theatrical sur- prise, abruptly broke off negotiations, and set off one evening for Berlin ; he was surprised and chagrined to find himself turned out of doors there. 2 Nothing affords better proof of the change of opinion which has taken place in the matter of colonial expeditions than the unanimity with which certain appropriations have been granted, and the enthusiasm which ac- companied the embarkation of the Madagascar expeditionary corps. The triumphal return of General Dodds from the Dahomey expedition had already indicated a change in the disposition of public opinion. COLONIAL FRANCE. 181 the deposed Emperor, Gia-Long, aided by the Bishop of Adran, Pigneau de B^haine, the instigator of this treaty. King Louis XVI. bound himself to restore to his throne the Emperor of Annam, who, in return, ceded the archipelago of Poulo-Condore, the bay and city of Tourane. As the Revolution prevented Louis XVI. from keeping his engagements, the bishop took charge of them in place of his sovereign. He chartered vessels, engaged officers and engineers, reorganized the army and the fleet of Gia-Long. Not only did the latter recover his inheritance, but he extended his rule over the whole of Tonkin, where the French engineers erected the very fortifications which our soldiers have since been compelled to capture in the face of a thou- sand perils. The death of the prelate-patriot, who had remained the confidential adviser of Gia-Long, marked the decline of the French influence (1798); half a century elapsed, and the memory of Pigneau de Behaine was pretty thoroughly effaced when, in 1858, in consequence of the massacre of French and Span- ish missionaries, and the defeat of a peaceful mission entrusted to M. de Montigny, Admiral Rigault de Genouilly, at the head of a Franco-Spanish expedition, took possession of Tourane, then of Saigon (1859). In 1852, after several victories of our arms, which were, moreover, dearly bought, the celebrated Tu-Duc con- sented to sign the treaty of Saigon. ^ An embassy despatched to Cambodia obtained from Norodom the establishment of the French protectorate. And finally. Captain Doudart de Lagr^e, having explored the course of the Mekong and traversed Laos, recognized the 1 By this treaty, the three provinces of Mytho, Bien-Hoa, and Saigon, and the archipelago of Poulo-Condore were ceded to us; the three other provinces of Lower Cochin China were occupied in 1867. 182 THE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. Song-Koi or Red River as the natural way by which China could be penetrated.^ After the war of 1870, "the Tonkin question" im- mediately presented itself ; it could not be eluded, un- less we closed to our possessions of Indo-China every outlet towards the interior, and unless we abandoned to others the precious advantages which were within our reach. A trader, M. Dupuis, installed himself at Hanoi, where he was molested by the Annamites ; during that same year, Admiral Dupr^ entrusted a mission to naval Lieutenant Garnier. Garnier had with him two gunboats and one hundred and seventy- five men ; the hostile attitude of the mandarins led to his capturing Hanoi, then to occupying the whole delta. The Annamites then called to their assistance the Black Flags, the remnants of the Chinese bands of the Tai- Pings, and in an attack upon the citadel of Hanoi, Garnier was killed. Admiral Dupr^ was one of those enthusiasts whom Tonkin so completely captivates. He wrote to the Minister of Marine, on July 28, 1873 : " I am ready, if any doubt lingers in your mind and in that of the government, to assume the entire responsibility of the consequences of the expedition which I am planning, to expose myself to the danger of being disavowed, to a recall, to the loss of the rank to which I believe I have some right. I ask neither approbation nor reinforce- ments ; I ask you to allow me to act, with the liberty of disavowing me if the results which I obtain are not those which I have presented to you." But the Cabinet which was presided over by the Due de Broglie was not very colonial in sentiment ; they decided to evacuate Hanoi and the delta, and to accept the compact, enti- 1 Captain de Lagr^e died at Yunnam, in 1868. COLONIAL FRANCE. 183 tied the compact of 1874, which established an incom- plete protectorate, and nourished the germs of conflict in the future.^ The results of this compact have defi- nitely condemned the policy which dictated it. An energetic intervention would have warded off many evils, and spared many later losses of men and money. From 1875 to 1883 was an uninterrupted period of journeys ^ and explorations, but the horizon was darken- ing ; the court of Hu^ became reconciled to the Tsong- Li-Yamen, and sent to Pekin embassies and gifts. In 1882 Marquis Tseng announced in Paris that China would not regard the Convention of 1874 as valid ; he received from Gambetta a clear and categorical reply, which M. de Freycinet soon afterwards repeated. "France," said the minister, "has no explanation to make to China." Unfortunately, the party of decision did not prevail with sufficient completeness ; uncertain- ties, hesitations, could be felt. M. le Myre de Vilers, after having exhausted all means of conciliation, beheld the situation growing aggravated, and sent to Tonkin Commander Riviere, who seized Hanoi. During this time, our minister at Pekin, M. Bouree, had brought about the acceptance there of a treaty project, which created a neutral zone between China and Annam, and 1 The President of the Republic recognized the sovereignty ol the Emperor of Annam and his entire independence of any foreign power, and bound himself to aid and uphold him, in case of need. The Emperor hound himself, in return, to conform his external policy to that of France, and never to sign any political treaties without having informed the French govern- ment thereof beforehand. Divers clauses dealing with details, some of which were advantageous to commerce, completed this treaty, but did not correct the vague and confused character of the principal clauses. 2 It is to be noted that no distant conquest was ever better prepared for from the point of view of knowledge of the country ; but the narra- tives of travellers left public opinion, in general, indifferent in France, while in England our progress was watched with jealous and uneasy attention. 184 THE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. contained, on the part of France, a stipulation that she should respect the territory of Annam. M. Bouree was disclaimed and recalled ; but Commander Riviere, who had reconquered the delta, should have been all the better supported. The Black Flags were formidable enemies ; in France, they were not yet taken seriously. On April 19, 1883, Commander Riviere was killed ; thirty dead and fifty-five wounded fell around him. On this occasion repression was prompt. Admiral Courbet was given the command of a naval division, and General Bouet that of the troops to be landed. The bombardment and capture of the forts of Thuan- An, situated at the mouth of the river Hu^, sufficed to intimidate the government of Annam,i which sued for peace. The treaty of August 25, 1883, sanctioned the protectorate of France over Annam and Tonkin ; ^ but we then found ourselves face to face with China, which had gradually substituted herself for Annam, and now sent reinforcements to Tonkin without any pretence of secrecy. Admiral Courbet took sole command ; we were conquerors at Hai-Dzuong and at Sontay. In the beginning of 1884, sixteen thousand men arrived from France under the command of General Millot ; Bac- Ninh was taken on March 12, Hong-Hoa on April 13, Tuyen-Quan on June 1 ; one might have thought that the treaty of Tien-Tsin, signed by M. Fournier on May 11, would put an end to hostilities. Nothing of the sort. China is not a centralized country ; provincial autonomy there is great ; so war began again at one point as 1 Tu-Duo had just died, leaving the throne to Hiep-Hoa, who, shortly afterwards, was poisoned and succeeded by Kien-Phuoc. 2 The treaty sanctioned, in addition to France's right to occupy the forts of Thuan-An, the annexation of the province of Binh-Thuan to our possessions of Cochin China, and the delivery into our hands of the custom- houses of Annam. COLONIAL FRANCE. 186 soon as peace was established at another point ; the imperial government profited by this situation, and sought to prolong it. Negotiations were in progress simultaneously at Pekin and at Hue, and eyen at Pnom-Penh, where Norodom experienced the efforts at revolt which M. Thomson's energy speedily quelled. ^ The surprise of Bac-Le (June 23) proved that all was not over ; satisfaction was demanded of China, which granted nothing. Then it was that Admiral Courbet ascended the river Min, destroyed the Chinese fleet of twenty-two vessels and two thousand men (August 23), then the arsenal of Fou-Tcheou (August 24), ^ and executed that marvellous descent of the river in which, capturing in reverse order the fortified posts, the bat- teries, and the forts of the Mingan pass, he successively dismantled all these works. China lost, in addition to her fleet and her sailors, more than 25,000,000 francs ; only ten Frenchmen were killed. Kelung, in the island of E'ormosa, was in our hands, and in Tonkin, General Bridre de ITsle had taken possession of the important positions Kep and Chu. The promulgation by Eng- land of the Foreign Enlistment Act did not impede our progress.^ In the beginning of 1885, Admiral Courbet occupied the Pescadores islands, and blocked Pe-Tche- Li, while General Briere de ITsle forced the Chinese to raise the siege of Tuyen-Quan. When one studies in 1 Norodom protracted the execution of the promised reforms, and refused to permit the estahlishmeut of a customs union with the rest of Indo- China. M. Thomson forced him to concede it; slavery was definitely abolished, and the system of Individual property was finally set up. 2 See Maurice Loir, L'Escadre de V Admiral Courbet. 1 vol. 3 This act prohibited the belligerents from supplying themselves with provisions, munitions of war, and coal, in the ports of the British Empire ; under color of neutrality, this measure could only embarrass the French ; the government avoided it, by creating coaling-stations at Obock, Mahe, and Pondichery. 186 THE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. its entirety that fine campaign, fulfilled with strategic skill, -with valor and victories, he understands how the surprise of Langson, whose importance was swelled out of all proportion by party hatreds in France, was power- less to restore the confidence of the Chinese ; the latter had been vanquished on all sides. The incident did not retard peace ; the preliminaries were signed at Paris on April 4, as we have seen ; the final treaty, negotiated by M. Patenotre, was signed at Tien-Tsin on June 9. Annam and Tonkin, definitively with- drawn from Chinese influence, passed under the un- contested sovereignty of the French Republic. "We have already sufficiently pointed out, in connec- tion with Tunis, the errors of speech, the exaggerations, the calumnies, the suspicions to which party spirit had lent itself in the discussions of colonial affairs; it is useless to revert to the subject, except to call attention to the fact that the success won in Tunis did not re- dound to the profit of Tonkin; the "Tonkinese" were the target for attacks of unprecedented violence, for the most lying accusations.^ Then time did its work, and, in the presence of the unanimity of the most unforeseen and least suspicious testimony, men were forced to yield to the evidence, and recognize in Tonkin "one of the richest parts of Indo-China."^ Its mines, its delta so fitted for the culture of rice, its mountain- ous regions, where immense herds of neat-cattle and 1 It was asserted in the press, in books, and even In the trihune of the Chamber, that the expedition had cost a milliard and a half, and 36,000 men. Now, on December 1, 1889, the expenditures amounted to exactly 334,802,379 francs, and the loss of men, from 1883 to 1889, reached a total of 9067. (See Jules Ferry, Le Tonkin et la Mere Patrie.) ^ J.-L. de Lanessan, L' Expansion Colonials de la France. 1 vol. Paris, 1886. See also the articles published by Prince Henri d'Orleans. COLONIAL FRANCE. 187 sheep could be raised, its salubrious climate, — all con- tribute to make of it a land essentially favorable to colonization. So it was decided, as Jules Ferry hap- pily expressed it, to receive Tonkin into the great French family, not without "sulking" at it a little, and men consented to cast a glance upon the map of the Far East, in order to see its limits and divine its needs. They are very plainly written there ; the geog- raphy of those regions is, in fact, eminently sugges- tive, and makes clear, at first sight, the European rivalry which is in question. Indo-China is not com- posed only of Tonkin, of Annam, and Cochin China, that is to say, of that portion of territory, narrow and not very fertile, which the natives have compared, with .all truth, to a stick bearing two bags of rice. Indo- China comprises, in addition, besides Cambodia, which is under our domination, the kingdom of Siam and Burmah. These different countries are traversed by numerous waterways, and chiefly by four great rivers, — the Irrawaddy, the Menam, the Mekong or Cambodia, and the Song-Koi or Red River. A very extensive mountain system extends along their northern borders, and a question depends thereupon which transcends all others, — that of the entrance to China. China has always been the objective aim of all the European powers : merchants, engineers, manufact- urers, have rivalled each other in their zeal to get its gates opened to them. For a long time, the union of Europe against China was complete ; the Western powers acted in concert, and drew from their good understanding an immense force before which Chinese immobility was, finally, forced to yield. After 1870 things changed; Germany and Italy entered upon the stage; thence arose diversities of 188 THE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. interests, which had their echo in the Far East ; and as the mandarins and the privileged classes greatly feared the invasion of European civilization (the tele- graph and railways could not but diminish their power by strengthening that of the Emperor), China was more hermetically closed than ever against the influ- ence of the West. By a sort of instinct, the evicted' powers sought to establish themselves on the border provinces. The English cast their eyes upon Burmah. Besides the fact that, with its mountains rich in mines, its fertile plains, and its forests, Burmah might, in their hands, become a magnificent colony, it facilitated for them the access to the Yunnam.^ We had a com- mercial treaty with King Thebaw, — a convention signed on January 16, 1885, which confirmed and completed the previous convention. The displeasure in England was very keen, and the conquest of Burmah was im- mediately decided upon. An ultimatum was addressed to Mandalay, and an English army invaded the Bur- mese territory.* In France, we were in a period when the advocates of colonies confined their ambition to Tonkin ; there could be no question of intervening in Burmah. But Burmah once captured, the English did not find themselves much more advanced. They 1 The Irrawaddy is navigable from Kangoon at its mouth, to Bhamo, situated on the southern frontier of Yunnam, 500 kilometres north of Rangoon. 2 It is impossible not to observe the analogy between the Burmese expedition and that of Tonkin ; the lack of enthusiasm on the part of public opinion, the importance of the struggle, the duration of hostilities, the tardiness of pacification, interrupted by a series of checks, the num- ber of troops which took part in the two expeditions, — all concur to render this analogy striking, even to the Dacoits, who played in Burmah the part of the Black Flags in Tonkin. On one point only was there a divergence : in England public opinion remained calm, coldly discussed the opportune- ness of the measures taken, and in no way impeded the liberty of action of the government and its representatives. COLONIAL FRANCE. 189 wished to reach the Chinese town of Ssu-Mao, situated on the frontier of Yunnam, and to the west of Tonkin. This could be effected only by constructing a very costly line of railway, which would infringe, morally at least, the territory of Siam.^ France was, in a man- ner, forced to intervene at Bangkok, and to encounter England there. Every one knows under what condi- tions this intervention took place, — how Admiral Ru- mann, crossing the bar of the Menam, went up and imposed upon the King of Siam an ultimatum which the latter was obliged to accept, and how negotiations were opened between France and England with the object of preventing the dreadful conflicts to which contact, excess of zeal, and too ardent ambition might give rise. It is not our duty to pronounce upon the amount of foundation of certain claims which were raised on both sides, or to blame or praise the policy which has been followed on still more recent occasions. The future will reveal whether it was wise to make French Asia participate, in a manner, in political acts of an exclu- sively European character ; that is a state of things which may become either advantageous or dangerous, according to the current of events, which is still un- fathomable. Our African possessions adjoin regions over which float foreign flags ; but French Asia is far more exposed ; in the neighborhood of China, Japan, Australia, and English India, it would suffer severely from the consequences of a European war ; the system of alliances which seems fated to be formed in the Far East is, for her, a permanent menace. I The kingdom of Siam is not homogeneous like Annam and Cam- bodia; it comprises a considerable number of principalities which are more or less independent of the court of Bangkok. 190 THE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. If it is impossible to misunderstand the grandeur of the colonial work accomplished by the Republic, it is difficult not to see, at the same time, its defective sides, and not to be struck with the fact that such an effort ought, under normal conditions, to have produced an entirely different set of results. The principal inno- vation which has been introduced into our colonial methods is the application of the protectorate. It has been tried in Tunis. There it has not only, according to the profound saying of Cardinal Lavigerie, " saved us the expense of a religious war," it has, chief of all, forced us to renounce " that spirit of system, that taste for hurried reforms, for improvised settlements, that assimilating and revolutionary mania," which are worse enemies to the colonies than war itself and the hostil- ity of conquered races. "It is because we have not understood how to take into account either the force of the past, or the resistance of social classes," Jules Ferry wrote ; ^ "it is because we have believed in the universal virtue and almost magic property of our laws, of our institutions, of our administrative processes, that we have adopted so many false measures in Algeria. The protectorate is modest enough ; it does not build upon a flat surface. The mother-country, released, thanks to it, of the responsibilities of direct govern- ment, allows it to go its own way, take its own time. As no revolution is demanded of it, it has no tempta- tion to raise one. It is in the very surroundings, the guardianship which is entrusted to it, that it is obliged to find its means of governing." Assuredly, we may conclude that if "the protectorate only has well-de- fined and coherent views, and the system does not 1 Preface written by Jules Ferry for M. Narcisse Faucon's book on La Tunisie. CARDINAL LAVIGERIE, ARCHBISHOP OF CARTHAGE AND OF ALGIESS. COLONIAL FRANCE. 191 change as often as those who are charged with apply- ing it," this form of rule is destined to become "the favorite type of our colonial acquisitions." But it is hardly necessary to call attention to the fact that the rule of the protectorate ought to differ very widely, according as it is applied to the populations of West Africa, who possess so rudimentary a notion of govern- ment and administration, or to the peoples of Indo- China, among whom the respect for traditions, and attachment to ancient institutions, is so profoundly rooted. An empire as extensive and as varied as ours cannot be governed from Paris by telegraph; the at- tempt to do so was childish. The administration of the mother-country has often exhibited an ignorance which was equalled only by its good- will. Instead of considering French Asia as a whole, it has long held to the idea of " separate protectorates," which General de Courcy tried, in vain, to resist. The result of this was a complete absence of coherence in ideas : each Resi- dent or Governor- General acted according to his own pleasure, allowing clauses of the treaty of 1884 to fall into desuetude, or attempting to apply them, in accord- ance with circumstances or with his own preconceived ideas. Between 1883 and 1891, there were twenty Residents or Governor-Generals, seven superior Resi- dents in Annam, and eight in Tonkin.^ They were often chosen lightly, but it was wrong, once they were chosen, to recall them too quickly and too easily. What respect, in a people which cherishes such an idea of authority as does the Indo-Chinese race, can a man inspire who, in the lofty function with which he is charged, remains exposed to all the fluctuations of poli- tics, and who is suddenly deprived of his prestige and 1 J.-L. de Lanessan, La Colonisation Franfaise en Indo-Chine. 192 THE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. of his power by a telegram, which may be justified in Paris, but is incomprehensible in Hanoi? Add to this the rivalry between civilians and soldiers, between the militia and the regular army, and also that detestable prejudice which has consisted in depriving ourselves of the aid of the mandarins. " To propose to the Anna- mites, either in Tonkin or in Annam, to make them happy by suppressing the mandarins, is to run counter to all their ideas, to all the principles introduced into their minds by their education." ^ However, "in practice, it may be stated, that the majority of functionaries, re- cruited by us outside the circle of educated Annamites, are less deserving than the others, are less honest, less conscientious, in the accomplishment of their duties."^ The protectorate exercised in Annam has long "con- sisted in a sort of disdainful juxtaposition of the pro- tecting government and the protected government." The results have been such as might have been fore- seen : " permanent discontent, misery on the side of the protected party, a financial deficit on the side of the protector, absence of useful works, discomfort of com- merce, weariness on the part of the mother-country." ^ Not content with keeping its functionaries under its close dependence, the administration of the colonies undertakes to give them the most detailed orders, and to foresee, apparently for the sake of sparing them the trouble, the slightest contingencies. There is in existence a circular, dated 1893, addressed to the gov- ernors of the colonies, which orders them to buy in France everything which they require, with an accu- rate list of all the towns where the purchases are to be made : bricks at Bordeaux and at Marseilles, salt 1 J.-L. de Lanessan, La Colonisation Fran<;aise en Indo-Chine. 2 Ibid. 3 Ibid. COLONIAL FRANCE. 193 pork at Havre, straw and hay elsewhere. Thus " Indo- China, whose whole soil is made of brick-clay, and which produces enormous quantities of rice, must buy its stores of bricks and rice in France ! " ^ Not only does it never occur to any one that it would be of use if those who are connected with the central adminis- tration would visit the colonies, but those who have visited them are, generally, regarded with distrust, as though they had, as a matter of course, brought back thence with them subversive ideas, dangerously auda- cious projects, erroneous views, which those persons who have never quitted Paris escape. A sort of essentially town-bred lounger spirit reigns in the government of- fices, as well as in one whole section of Parliament, " which consists in judging African and Asiatic affairs exactly from the same judicial or administrative point of view as if it were a question of a commune in metro- politan France." The concession to a colonization company of certain rights over a vast extent of uncul- tivated territory causes spasms of indignation, as if any one were speaking of "alienating such provinces as Beauce, Normandy, or Languedoc."^ And this con- cession, once obtained, does not even ensure security to the grantees ; it may happen that it is withdrawn from them, under some more or less frivolous pretext. But the administration is not alone responsible for private listlessness, and if it does much to hamper the colonist and little to encourage him, the latter, it must be confessed, does not find within himself, in general, those reserve stores of force and energy which he needs. Neither does he find in his fellow-countrymen 1 J.-L. de Lanessan, La Colonisation Frani;aise en Indo-Chine. 2 Paul Leroy-Beaulieu, Les Compagnies de Colonisatio7i. Journal des Dibats (March 7, 1895). o 194 THE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. the help which might make up for his own deficiencies ; this last leads us to say a few words on French commerce, and its relations with the different parts of the world. The value of our external exchanges has varied, during the last few years, between seven and eight milliards. 1 The commercial movement is most intense between England and France : 1,393,000,000 francs in 1894. Belgium (850,000,000 francs), Germany (635,- 000,000 francs), the United States (513,000,000 francs), come next ; then Algeria (407,000,000 francs), Russia (305,500,000 francs), Spain (285,000,000 francs), Eng- lish India (225,000,000 francs), Italy (219,000,000 francs), the Argentine Republic (218,000,000 francs), Switzerland (196,000,000 francs).^ China comes after Turkey, after Brazil, after Austria, with an amount hardly over 100,000,000 francs. As for Indo-China, it holds a mediocre rank, with the other countries of the Far East. We have no more dealings with Japan than we have with Uruguay and Colombia put together (62,000,000 francs), less with Australia (58,000,000 francs) than with Hayti (63,000,000 francs), less with the Dutch Indies (about 23,000,000 francs) than with Saint Pierre and Miquelon (33,000,000 francs). These figures are conclusive ; they prove that, on the one hand, French commerce does not bear competition well, and that, on the other hand, it is not clever at opening new outlets for itself, or at taking advantage of those which are formed outside of its immediate range. 1 In 1894 the total did not exceed 6,928,500,000 francs, though it had reached 8,190,000,000 francs in 1890, and 8,838,000,000 francs In 1894. 2 In 1889 the commercial relations with Spain were expressed hy a movement of exchanges amounting to 550,000,000 francs ; with Switzerland, 332,000,000 francs ; with Greece, 55,000,000 francs. It is impossible not to take notice of these unfortunate effects of reductions in the customs duties brought about by the return to a protective tariff. COLONIAL FRANCE. 195 Neither do French ship-builders seem to perceive the augmentation of maritime traffic. Two German lines and seven English lines, with two hundred and twenty- six steamers, representing 530,232 tons, plough the seas of China and Japan, where France is represented only by one subsidized company ; not a single service of freight steamers exists between our principal ports and the Far East. In the course of his journey round the world, M. Ernest Michel had an interesting conversation with a French engineer, M. Bonjean, at" the cotton factory of Petropolitana, which he has summed up in these terms.^ "French machines," said M. Bonjean to me, "are dearer, but their products are better, and, in the long run, they effect a small economy ; but it is difficult to deal with French houses, because they are slow or tricky, and, in any case, they lack practical sense. You see these patterns : they represent the machines mounted and taken apart, with the pieces all numbered. If I require an extra piece, all I have to do is to write to Manchester and mention the number, and the piece comes to me by the first steamer; but if a French house is in question, nothing of the sort happens. I am obliged to make a drawing of the piece, to give its dimensions, and frequently they will need fresh expla- nations which entail the loss of months, and at last the piece arrives, perhaps incomplete, or badly adaptable. I have had a hundred occasions to place important orders in France, either for railways or for manufact- ures ; I have failed ; when I telegraphed, they took a month to answer me, because such or such an inspector was on a journey, and while I was waiting, the business was ruined. When I inquired prices or estimates, they 1 A travers I'Himisphere Sud, by Ernest Michel. 1 vol. Paris, 1887. 196 THE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. answered that they could not furnish them at once, and they sent them six months later. On the other hand, if I go to the North American or to the Englishman, he shows me models, and I make my choice. If I want another, he makes it for me without delay ; he gives me estimates. Intelligent and serious men are not lacking in France ; it is certain that if they only knew what is going on in the world, they would organize their business better, they would get rid of a little of the functionary idea and routine, and would place themselves in a position to contend advantageously, at the different points of the globe, with the manu- factures of their neighbors. Up to the present time, the Frenchman remains at home, and reduces the world to Europe." This whole passage was worth quoting; it consti- tutes a criticism, unhappily but too well founded, on French industry, which preserves, no doubt, on the European markets its great position, but does not ex- ert sufficient effort to secure for itself the new out- lets that foreign countries and colonial France have placed within its reach. French manufactures and commerce have remained timid, slow of movement, uneasy and routine in character. While waiting for the reforms already accomplished to bear their fruits, and until other and more extensive reforms be recog- nized as necessary, could we not, without fear, allow free play to foreign initiative and capital? The impor- tant thing is not to permit a state of stagnation to establish itself in a colony, and, above all, in a young colony which might be prosperous. It has been said : In the eyes of a protected people, the protecting nation cannot legalize its intervention otherwise than by en- riching and developing the country. There is, no COLONIAL FSANCE. 197 doubt, some danger in abandoning to foreign hands great territorial expanses, or even the superintendence of the principal industries,^ of the most important com- mercial houses. Nevertheless, those are dangers which can be warded off, inconveniences which one can suc- ceed in neutralizing. Again the important point is, that life — intense life, the life of action, of enterprise, of novelty, of audacity — shall circulate in overflowing streams throughout the colony. In France, all the " colonials " are agreed to recognize the fact that such is the goal, not yet attained, upon which their efforts should be concentrated. The third French colonial empire is founded;, it has been well planned and well conquered ; it now remains for us to develop its full value. We shall succeed therein by dint of a large measure of decentralization, and a return to a more liberal economical policy. We shall succeed, also, by giving to our functionaries independence and stability, and by ceasing to impose upon the natives our complicated legislation, by striving to train the future colonists to independence and enterprise. This is a long task ; above all, it is an educational task. 1 M. Tirman, studying the law of progression of tlie different races at the present time represented in Algeria, has calculated that within twenty years Algeria wiU have 395,000 Frenchmen, against 440,000 foreigners (Italians and Spaniards principally) and 5,000,000 natives; in forty years, 710,000 French, against 940,000 foreigners and 7,000,000 natives; in sixty years, 1,280,000 French, against 2,000,000 foreigners and 10,000,000 natives. Will Algeria, French in fact, he injured by the preponderance of foreigners in her territory ? We may doubt it, from the circumstance that they are not all of the same nationality, and belong to countries of origin so different as Spain and Italy. In the same manner, it would be foolish to perceive danger in the share which the people of Mauritius are taking in the work of colonizing Madagascar, and the more so, as the latter have preserved French sympathies under British rule. 198 ' THU EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. CHAPTER VIII. THE CRISIS (1885-1889). The Majority melts away. — The Elections of 1885: a Reactionary Half- victory. — Mistakes and Blundering. — A Brave List of Appropriations. — Minister Rouvier. — General Boulanger's First Exploits. — Unex- pected Scandals. — Election of M. Carnot. — The Committee of the Rue Seze. —Exposition of 1889. — The Supreme Court. — The Elections : the End of Boulangism. When the emotion and wrath of the first moment had subsided, the deputies, who had overthrown the Jules Ferry ministry, and public opinion, which had gone astray in their wake, felt a presentiment of the difficul- ties and perils which the Republic would speedily be called upon to face. Jules Ferry was the only man capable of gathering a true majority in the midst of the existing Chamber. Except for him, recourse could be had only to concentration, badly upheld in Parlia- ment, misunderstood by the nation, and whose discredit was about to be increased by a series of unfortunate experiences. On April 6, 1885, after long parleying, M. Henri Brisson accepted the presidency of the Coun- cil 1 and the ungrateful task of preparing the legislative 1 He had for colleagues : MM. de Freycinet, Allain-Targe, Carnot, Goblet, Demole, Pierre Legrand, Sarrien, Herve Mangon, General Cam- penon, and Admiral Galiber. Nearly all the civil ministers in this Cabinet were politicians. M. de Freycinet and M. Carnot, who were destined, a little later on, to play leading parts, the one as Minister of War, the other as head of the State, were engineers. M. de Freycinet belonged to a noble family of the south of France. Gambetta had associated him with him- self at Tours, during the war of 1870, and the interest which M. de THE CRISIS. 199 elections. M. Brisson belonged to the advanced shade of republican opinion ; but if he had blamed the policy of his predecessor, he did not try to avoid — to the detriment of France's honor and interests — the re- sponsibilities which resulted for him therefrom. Only concessions of detail could be made to the radicals ; the Pantheon became disaffected on the occasion of Victor Hugo's funeral, and in his indulgence for the manifes- tations of May 24, which had set up seditious signs along the highway, M. Allain-Targ^ established a distinction, which has remained famous, between flags and banners. But when it became necessary to obtain Freycinet cherished for matters relating to the army dated from that period. His firmness of character was not, unhappily, equal to his ex- treme intelligence. On the other hand, this was what distinguished M. Carnot: a nobility of heart and a rectitude of judgment which are rarely met with in such a degree shone in him. Graduated, like M. de Freycinet, from the Polytechnic School, he early became a deputy for the Cote d'Or, his native province. The future President was the grandson of "the great Carnot," of the revolutionary epoch; his father had been minister in 1848. Thus it came to pass that the three generations of this illustrious family were connected with the three Republics which have governed France. M. Goblet, a lawyer of talent, and who afterwards became one of the leaders of the radical socialist party, had a rather chimerical mind. M. Henri Brissac, now President of the Chamber of Deputies and head of the ministry, enjoyed a reputation for austerity which arose, chiefly, from the rigidity of his mien and of his ideas. The ministers, with rare exceptions, were always chosen from the Parliament — more frequently from among the deputies than from among the sena- tors. Of course, once chosen, they had the right to be present at the sit- tings of the Chamber to which they belonged, as well as to those of the one to which they did not belong, and they spoke, without discrimination, from the tribune of either one. The Senate always contained a certain number of retired functionaries, former military men, former prefects, wealthy business men, and so forth. But in the Chamber, during the whole duration of the present Republic, three categories of men have pre- dominated, — lawyers, physicians, lauded proprietors. As a rule, the first were moderate republicans, the second radicals, and the last monarchists. There have been, also, civil engineers, a few journalists, and one or two ecclesiastics. The type of the professional politician does not exist in France. 200 THE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. the sanction of the Chambers to the protectorate treaties signed in 1884 at Hu4 and Pnom-Penh, when a pro- posal of amnesty in favor of political criminals and a demand for the impeachment of Jules Ferry and his colleagues were presented on the tribune, the Brisson Cabinet found arrayed before it the Right united to the Extreme Left, and found itself sustained by the mass of the Ferry forces. They supported him against their will, it is true, and with a sort of disdainful repug- nance, accepting from him no guidance, and stimulated rather by the attacks of the opposition than by the authority of the government. This majority, more- over, took form again only to melt away afresh at every moment; parliamentary enterprise took advantage of this to give itself full scope ; never was there seen such an abundance of projects for laws ; the greater part, of doubtful opportuneness, tended, by their originality, to fix in public the name, hitherto obscure, of the deputy to whose initiative they were due. The general elections were about to take place; in proportion as they approached, the uncertainty as to their probable result increased. The opposition had serious wrongs to bring forward ; the conservative party was without doubt a prey to divisions, which enfeebled it; but the Orleanists, the Victoriens, the Jeromists, could come into accord for the purpose of destruction ; on that ground recent events rendered an understanding easier. Thus the most enthusiastic advocates of the general elections, those who had hoped that, by estab- lishing it, universal suffrage would be emancipated, politics removed from local influences, and the electors brought to vote for ideas rather than for men, — even these felt their confidence shaken and asked themselves whether, by hastening reform, they had not forestalled THE CRISIS. 201 the hour when the state of electoral habits would permit it to bear all its fruits. Everything is not accom- plished when a progressive step is decreed; it must also be within the scope of those to whom it is to be applied. While continuing to admit, in theory, the superiority of the general elections, many now thought that it would have been better to retain the district elections, and fell to regretting their vote.^ It was plain that the electors, on voting day, felt that they had lost their bearings and had gone astray ; their embarrassment could be divined at the sight of that of the candidates; the political groups tried to unite against the common enemy, and, searching their platforms for the points upon which there was com- munity of sentiments on the one side and on the other, were quite naturally led to draw up vague and colorless manifestoes, where the only thing that was noticeable was that which was absent ; or they fashioned incredi- bly motley lists, of such a nature that it was impossible for honest electors to drop them in the ballot-box with- out having introduced into them a good many modifica- tions. The "Republican Alliance" of the radical and progressist committees of Paris, presided over by M. Tolain, published a manifesto whose moderate tenden- cies turned out to be almost falsified by the platform which was coupled with it; the list of candidates patronized by the Alliance ran from M. Fr^d^ric Passy 1 In the district elections (scrutin d'arrondissement) the department is divided up into electoral circles called arrondissements ; each circle nominates a deputy. The general election (serutin de liste) , on the con- trary, assumes, as its name implies, that the electors vote for a list of deputies, instead of for a single deputy. If one department has the right to eight deputies, — the numher of deputies being calculated on the nu- merical basis of the population, — every elector in that department will inscribe on his ballot eight different names. The advantages and the inconveniences of the two systems are immediately apparent. 202 THE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. to M. Lockroy, passing through MM. Spuller, Ranc, and Brisson.^ The radicals of more advanced hue drew up the "platform of the Rue Cadet," wherein something was said about "the sovereignty of universal suffrage" and "laws for the protection and emancipation of labor." Nevertheless, it could be seen that the Senate and the Presidency of the Republic no longer figured among the institutions to be suppressed. The danger apprehended sobered down the least wise, with the exception, of course, of those who consider absolute extremes of views not only as the most sacred of duties, but as the basis of all fruitful politics. Such persons, assembled in a "Central Committee of the radical- socialistic republicans of the Seine," published a "pre- cise " platform. An opinion as to its precision may be formed from the following summary : There is no longer either Senate, or President, or minister; there are only plain functionaries appointed by a single Assembly and always subject to revoke by it. The Commune shall be autonomous, the magistracy elective, education entire, taxes progressive ; there shall no longer be any appro- priations for public worship, no more death penalty, no more standing armies, no more inheritance in direct collateral line, no more difference between the natural and the legitimate child; functionaries shall be pecu- niarily and personally responsible ; the property of reli- gious bodies shall be confiscated; all contracts which have alienated public property (mines, canals, railways) shall be revoked. ... It is difiicult to say what our descendants will think of such a conception of " public affairs." Perhaps, one of these days, some of these ideas will be regarded as reasonable and capable of 1 For the details of the electoral candidacies, see I'Ann^e Politique, by Andr^ Daniel, for 1885. THE CRISIS. 203 realization ; but at the time wlien they were thus for- mulated, they represented only that silly adoration of logic and of the absolute which has so often rendered sterile the finest and most solid qualities of the French mind. The Left Centre also lacked guidance and unity of action. M. Ribot,^ in the Pas-de-Calais, M. Francis Charmes, in Cantal, united to the opportunists, and frankly admitting that some mistakes had been com- mitted, endeavored to bring about the union of the republicans; in Seine-et-Oise, on the other hand, the "liberal republican committee," in which people were astonished to find MM. Barth^lemy Saint-Hilaire and L^on Say, published a manifesto in which reference was made to "persecuting fanaticism," and in which the " Republic of the opportunists " was represented as a "permanent deficit and squandering." This state- ment was not without analogy, in its violence, with that which seventy-six deputies who had come out from the Right had made public on September 2, and at the bottom of which ten of their colleagues had refused to sign their names. The partisans of the princes entreated them to main- tain silence, in order that a favorable indistinctness might hover over the future. A central committee, presided over by M. Lambert de Sainte-Croix, exhorted the electors to make the greatest haste to "stop France on the steep road to ruin and anarchy. " There was no 1 M. Ribot was a lawyer. Later on, he played a prominent part as Minister of Foreign Affairs, of the Interior, and of Finance. M. Francis Charmes was the second of three brothers, all of whom enjoyed their hour of celebrity, either as writers or as deputies. We have frequently mentioned already MM. Barthflemy Saint-Hilaire and Leon Say, both members of the Institute. M. L^on Say, grandson of J.-B. Say, who died recently, was an economist and financier of great distinction. 204 THE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. mention of future solutions of the governmental prob- lem. " Each man hides his flag, each one conceals to which party he belongs," said Prince Napoleon of the conservative union, in a letter to a friend, to whom he was explaining his reasons for abstaining. The fact is, that in order to unite upon one list MM. de Cassagnac, Deoazes, Keller, Haussmann, Edouard Hervd, de Mun, and Robert Mitchell,^ it was impossible to be otherwise than vague and lacking in precision. The elections took place on October 4; 176 reac- tionaries and 127 republicans were elected; 270 seats remained to be balloted for again. The Nord, the Pas-de-Calais, Somme, Calvados, Eure, Finist^re, the Landes, the Upper and Lower Pyrenees, Indre, Tarn- et-Garonne, Ardeche, and Aveyron were conquered by the reactionaries. In Paris only 4 deputies were elected out of 38; the Cl^menceau list received, on an average, 150,000 votes, and the Tolain list 105,000. The revo- lutionists received 26, 000 and the conservatives 87,000. But while the disappointment of the republicans, far from degenerating into panic, rendered the union of their ranks more complete, the reactionaries appeared to be intoxicated with their triumph. M. de Cassagnac revealed too early "the mental reservations" of his 1 M. de Cassagnac, the son of a former prefect under the Empire, a mad reactionary, had founded a journal, I'AutoriU, which he still directs, and which has always been a party organ not over-scrupulous in its choice of arguments, and very violent in its expressions. The Due Decazes had played, under the presidency of Marshal MacMahon, the part which is already familiar. M. Keller was a legitimist. M. Haussmann, by his very name, was a feudal retainer of the Empire. M. !^douard Herv^, member of the Academie Fran9aise and manager of an Orleanist sheet, the Soleil, was the friend of the Comte de Paris. As for M. de Mun, a former cavalry officer, he had been long enough on the retired list to found the work of the Catholic circles of workingmen, from which much was expected, from a religious point of view, and whose effect has not been great. Evidently, it would be difficult to form a less homogeneous group. TSE CRISIS. 205 friends, and public opinion, which at bottom remained hostile to every form of revolution, had time to recover itself; the vote by ballot of October 18 only returned 25 reactionaries against 244 republicans. From the numerical point of view, the situation was much the same as in 1877, but the moral check was more serious ; it struck at institutions through men.^ The opposition on the Right now comprised 65 Bonapartists, 73 monarchists, and 64 reactionaries of undecided shade ;^ the Left, 107 radicals and 275 re- publicans, of whom at least 75 inclined to radicalism. Beginning with the very first sittings, it was easy to see that M. Brisson's appeal, which courageously ex- tolled a business policy, would not be listened to. As soon as Tonkin came again into question, the Right and the Extreme Left came to an understanding. The government proposed to carry over into the year 1886 certain appropriations which had passed the vote in 1885, had not been expended, and would complete the sum necessary for 1886. A coalition, which ran from MM. Raoul-Duval and Dompierre d'Hornoy to MM. Cl^menceau and Rochefort, decided upon the appoint- ment of a committee of thirty-three members charged with examining in detail everjiihing which was done in connection with Tonkin; twenty-six deputies who favored evacuation and seven who were opposed to it were elected, and the committee, dividing up at once 1 It may be interesting to compare the totals of the republican and reactionary votes in the elections of 1876, 1877, 1881, and 1885 ; the figures are as follows : — 1876 4,028,153 republicans ; 3,202,335 reactionaries. 1877 4,367,202 republicans ; 3,577,882 reactionaries. 1878 5,128,442 republicans ; 1,789,767 reactionaries. 1885 4,327,162 republicans ; 3,541,384 reactionaries. 2 It is to be noted that the principal leaders, MM. de Broglie, Deoazes, de Meaux, de Fourtou, had not been able to secure re-election. 206 THE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. into three sub-committees, military, diplomatic, and economical, presided over by MM. Lockroy, Andrieux, and Boysset, set ardently to work. It was not only in Tonkin and abroad that these events caused excitement ; they aroused the most energetic protests in the country districts, and under the pressure of public sentiment confusion arose among the abettors of the plot. The dismissal of General Bri^re de I'lsle, who was entirely favorable to Tonkin and constituted an exoneration for Jules Ferry, added to their embarrassment. Other tes- timony was brought forward which made it impossible for the committee to propose evacuation; nevertheless, it did propose it, in very circuitous language; the reports presented by M. Pelletan for Tonkin, and by M. Hubbard for Madagascar, were not of a nature to facilitate either the pacification of Indo-China or the happy issue of the negotiations with the Hovas. The sad debate lasted through four sittings, from the 21st to the 24th of December. The Right received almost with insult the only one of its members, Monseigneur Freppel, who pronounced in favor of the appropriations ; M. Cl^menceau sought subterfuges for the means of presenting his plan. The President of the Council, who had spoken with much energy and nobility before the committee, repeated his declarations ; on the 24th, at ten o'clock at night, the appropriations were carried, by 274 votes against 270; the absence of twenty-four sick deputies on the Right had saved Tonkin. It was a bad year for all the world: twice Europe had believed war to be imminent ; quarrels had been on the verge of breaking out between England and Russia, between Germany and Spain; finally, the Servians and the Bulgarians had come to blows ; Alphonso XII. was dead, and an Austrian regency was established at THE CRISIS. 207 Madrid. The badly secured succession in Holland, the Constitution of Denmark endangered, the question of Ireland, which was becoming more pressing day by day and more difficult of solution, — all this darkened the political horizon. For France the year 1886 was not to bring either ameliorations or changes. "The year 1886," says M. Andr^ Daniel,^ "was, at home, a year of ambiguities, fertile in trifling incidents, sterile in practical results; abroad, a year of apprehension and incoherence. The Freycinet Cabinet spent eleven months in trying to get its balance; it wasted its strength, its time, and its credit in the effort to detach from the Extreme Left half a hundred votes, and it did not succeed ; it is impossible to discern what leading thought inspired her foreign policy." The Freycinet Cabinet, which assumed power on January 7, 1886,^ inherited a situation which might well have discouraged the bravest ; the Chamber, upon which the unlucky and obscure influence of M. Cle- menceau ^ continued to weigh on the Right, and on the Left the unacknowledged intrigues of unconstitutional ambitions presented the most insecure sort of ground for a government to adventure upon ; it required M. de 1 Andre Daniel, I' Annie Politique, 1886. 2 It comprised MM. Baihaut, Demole, Sarrien, Develle, Granet, Lock- roy, General Boulanger, and Admiral Aube. MM. Goblet and Sadi-Carnot had retained the posts of Public Education and Finance, and M. de Frey- cinet had taken, together with the presidency of the Council, the port- folio of Foreign Aifairs, to which he had joined the countries of the protectorate. On December 28, 1885, M. Jules Grdvy had been re-elected, by 457 votes out of 589, President of the French Republic for seven years. 3 Though a doctor of medicine, M. Georges Clemenceau did not practise his profession long. Politics attracted him. He managed the Justice. He took pleasure in machinations, in shady and tangled organizations. Eventually, the numerous passions which he had provoked, the interests which he had betrayed, the persons whom he had compromised, turned against him, and disqualified him for public life. 208 THE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. Freycinet's incomparable dexterity to steer between the reefs, to embroil the contradictors, to ward off blows, and to obtain the passage of the double-faced orders of the day, wherein ambiguity veiled the lack of confi- dence. The Servo-Bulgarian conflict was a subject of uneasiness ; the economical crisis, from which the whole world had been suffering since 1882, was another. Strikes in the United States, modern Jacquerie (peas- ant risings) in the mining region of Charleroi, troubles in England, seemed to presage a social revolution. In France the Decazeville strike had been stained with blood by the assassination of the representative of the mining company, M. Watrin, and the act in itself ter- rified public opinion less than the savage scenes amid which it took place. And in spite of this the country, far from being weaned from the Republic, as it had appeared to be at the time of the elections, was coming back to it little by little. ^ It could be felt that the reactionary current of 1885 was already stopped; the fact became certain when one-half of the general coun- cillors were to be replaced (August, 1886); as the law compels the departmental Assemblies to keep out of politics, universal suffrage could designate the conserva- tives without a constitutional shock resulting there- from. Nevertheless, the results were rather favorable than otherwise to the republican party.^ This was all the more interesting because these elections were in progress at the moment when the ill-timed expulsion of the princes had just taken place. Nothing afforded a 1 On February 14, Ardeche, Corsica, the Landes, Lozfere, elected republican deputies. 2 Out of 1434 councillors nominated, 1002 were republicans and 432 con- servatives ; the ballot resulted in a victory lor 987 republicans and 449 conservatives. This meant for the former the loss of fifteen seats only (two new cantons had been created) . THE CRISIS. 209 better proof as to the degree in which the country would henceforth remain indifferent to dynastic agitations. In this affair the government acted with imprudence and with levity; at the beginning of his ministry, M. de Freycinet had himself rejected the law of expul- sion which the radicals presented. Had the festival given on May 15, by the Comte de Paris, on the occa- sion of the marriage of his daughter, Princess Am^lie, to the Prince Royal of Portugal, Duke of Braganza, changed the situation ? No one could seriously assert that; the republicans, by making this marriage the pretext for a law of defence for republican institutions, very awkwardly emphasized one of the favorite argu- ments of the partisans of a monarchical form of govern- ment. At that epoch, when the Republic had not as yet definitely emerged from its isolation in Europe, the royalists could logically recall the fact that alli- ances between reigning houses facilitate and create alliances between peoples and between governments; it seemed, moreover, that there were other examples within reach, and the force of this argument was even admitted by a fair number of republicans, who confined themselves to asserting that this inferiority was com- pensated for by the other advantages which the repub- lican form of government offers. Moreover, as it was difficult to expel, because of a simple reception, all the princes and princesses belonging to families which had reigned in France, they stopped short at a half-way measure which only struck at the pretenders to the throne and their male heirs in the order of primogeni- ture. This repeal of the Salic Law, and this consecra- tion of the order of succession to the throne, constituted a second and no less serious blunder. They committed a third : the princes who belonged to the army, the Due de 210 THE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. Chartres, who had fought so nobly in 1870, the Due d'Aumale, whose name will ever remain bound up with the history of the conquest of Algeria, were struck from the rolls. The Duo d'Aumale wrote to the President of the Republic a letter of protest, incor- rect as to form, noble and upright as to matter. The government was obliged to reply by an order of ex- pulsion, and the prince, on leaving France, made it a royal gift : he willed to the Institute, of which he was a member, the restored ch§,teau of Chantilly and the marvellous collections amassed there. -^ The fact that these occurrences had not exercised any influence upon the result of the elections, and that no excitement had made its appearance in the electoral circles, opened the eyes of some conservatives; one of them, M. Edgar Raoul-Duval, set about founding a "republican Right"; he did not succeed; that honor was destined to fall to others. But the remarkable speech which he made during the discussion over the appropriations of 1887 remained, as it were, a monu- ment of political good sense and honesty.^ This budget of appropriations deserves a place apart 1 In complete contrast with this chivalric conduct did the attitude of General Boulanger, Minister of War, stand out ; while under the command of the Due d'Aumale, the general had, in former days, written him sev- eral letters which contained more of the courtier spirit than of hierarchi- cal military respect. These letters were published ; at first, the Minister of War denied having written them, and was speedily convicted of false- hood. 2 The step taken by M. Kaoul-Duval responded to the need which was more and more plainly manifest to the eyes of all men in political life. "Will they understand, at last," Jules Ferry had said, on August 18, at the opening session of the Council General of the Vosges, "that, outside of the Republic, frankly and resolutely accepted, there is nothing for con- servatives who are worthy of the name, either in the way of a serious political part to claim, or of effective action to exert upon great national interests? " The same ideas, taken up later on by M. Waldeck-Rousseau, inspired him with one of his most eloquent speeches. THM CRISIS. 211 in the rather colorless history of the Republic's budgets, because of the courageous sincerity with which it was prepared by the Minister of Finance, M. Sadi-Carnot. A year earlier, in June and July, 1885, an exhaustive discussion upon French finances had taken place before Parliament.^ It had been established that the public debt (20 milliards) came entirely from the previous governments, and that the Second Empire alone fig- ured there to the amount of 12 milliards ; that, on the other hand, the redeemable debt (6 milliards) was of republican origin, but that half of it had been devoted to making over the munitions of war and the other half to public works ; and, finally, that the floating debt, which amounted to 1,400,000,000 francs, comprised 726,000,- 000 francs of deficit anterior to 1870. ^ It is not a waste of time to recall these figures here, because of the exag- gerated and unjust criticisms which the parties in oppo- sition daily bestowed iipon the republican finances. On the other hand, the fact that, in three annual budgets, it was possible to effect an economy of 75,000,000 francs on ordinary expenses, and that the supplementary appropri- ations had been brought down from 200,000,000 francs in 1882 to 30,000,000 francs in 1884, and the additional fact that in the budget for 1887 M. Carnot had been able to make a fresh saving of 50,000,000 francs on the dif- ferent ministerial departments, indicate to what a pitch the squandering had attained, and what was the cost price of that famous administration which Europe is supposed to envy us. These 50,000,000 francs did not cover the deficit which the Minister of Finance had to face. The total 1 M. Carnot, already Minister of Finance, had taken part in it, as well as MM. Amagat, Daynaud, de Soubeyran, deputies, Fresneau, Blavier, senators, and Jules Roche. 2 Andre Daniel, I'Ann^e Politique, 1885. Official Documents. 212 THE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. receipts for 1885 had been 37,000,000 francs short of the calculations in the budget, and 5,000,000 francs below the corresponding product of 1884; the first two months of 1886 already showed a yield inferior by 23,500,000 francs to the estimates of the budget, and by 15,500,- 000 francs to the corresponding yield of 1885. Hence there was a shortage of 206,000,000 francs, and the government had promised not to issue a loan, not to impose any new taxes, and to consolidate the extraor- dinary budget with the ordinary budget. M. Carnot obtained 76,000,000 francs by the reform of the tax on liquors, by doubling the price of licenses, and raising the tax on alcohol from 156 to 215 francs a hectolitre. He proposed to take the other 80,000,000 francs on the strength of Chapter V. from the Ministry of Finance, created by the National Assembly for the cancellation of the six years' bonds. M. Carnot asked leave to turn into a public debt the 466,000,000 francs of six years' bonds, that is to say, to issue government bonds, and wished to make it complete at once ; there- fore he issued 1,466,000,000 francs of permanent bonds at three per cent, in order to cover, at the same time, 152,000,000 francs of short-term bonds which the gov- ernment had been authorized to create to provide for the extraordinary expenses of 1886, 105,000,000 francs of extraordinary expenditure indispensable to complete the national armament, and 750,000,000 francs destined to reimburse the Caisse des D^p6ts, — in a word, to " release the floating debt." That certainly was a sincere and honest budget ; it arraigned " the dangers and obscurity of our finances, and simplified public book-keeping."^ 1 The loan took place on May 10 ; the State offered to suhscribe for 18,947,367 francs. The subscriptions amounted to 401,819,513 francs. Thus the loan was covered more than twenty times. But this success none the less indicated stagnation in business. • THE CRISIS. 213 But the Committee on the Budget stopped at a half- way measure, and consented only to the issue of 500,- 000,000 francs. Then, by gradually rejecting this and accepting that, it threw the whole project out of balance and proposed, at the last moment, to place a tax on the revenue.^ The disorder was complete ; the Minister of Finance wished to resign ; he only retained his portfolio from patriotic motives, in answer to the entreaties which were made to him. The budget as a whole had been sent to the committee ; never was such incoherence displayed; reductions, assessments, and reforms, all equally unexpected, were voted for.^ The suppression of the sub-prefects, which had been decided upon against the advice of the government, led to its fall. The ministry left behind it the memory of a career which was far from brilliant. Its undertakings in general had not been lucky; its hand had been heavy at Chateauvillain,^ and had sinned by its lightness in the East.* No one regretted it. M. Goblet, who had 1 It was in the course of this debate on the budget that, on November 6, 1886, M. Kaoul-Duval made the great speech which has been referred to above. 2 The Tonkin appropriations united only 269 votes against 245. s The question concerned the closing of a chapel which had been opened, without permission, in a factory. The fact that the proprietor of the factory greeted the gendarmes entrusted with the duty of closing the chapel by firing several shots from his revolver indicated the absence of the spirit of the gospel on his part, but did not justify the gendarmes in returning the fire by volleys which cost innocent persons their lives. * The Servo-Bulgarian dispute once settled, Greece had remained armed, strong in her honest rights, and still waiting for the promised com- pensations, and maintaining her claims, which it was plain that Europe would once more refuse to sanctify. M. de Freycinet wished to intervene in a friendly manner, and sent M. Delyannis, by our minister, M. de Mouy, a note in which France begged Greece to win the sympathy of Europe by not furnishing a pretext for a fresh conflict in the Balkans. The note was delivered on April 23 ; on the 25th the Greek Cabinet yielded, and on the 26th the ministers of Germany, Austria, England , and Russia were informed of it ; but that same evening, without taking any notice of France's action, 214 THE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. just rendered services to public education, assumed the presidency of the Council, and obtained the vote of two monthly instalments. ^ His language, at once firm and modest, won sympathy for him and somewhat reduced the tension of the situation. The relaxation did not last long ; the partial elections continued to prove that the country was still attached to the Repub- lic. But in the Chamber, the debates bore witness to the presence of unconstitutional parties, whose passions the apparent gravity of the situation abroad did not suffice to calm. There had been a sort of rustle of arms throughout Europe. M. de Bismarck pretended to fear the influ- ence of General Boulanger, whose attitude, it is true, had its alarming aspects, although the amplitude of his projects for military reorganization^ indicated rather proximately peaceful intentions. In reality, the chan- cellor wished to obtain the passage of the military term of seven years ; in order to effect this, by the way, he was forced to have recourse to the dissolution of the Reichstag and the intervention of the Pope. Never- theless, these rumors of war, these envenomed attacks they presented an ultimatum, before -which M. Delyanuis refused to how. On May 7 the representatives of the four powers left Athens. M. de Frey- einet, instead of, at least, leaving M. de Mouy there, requested him to come and "confer " with him, while Europe, in defiance of her word and her obligations, established a blockade on the coasts of Greece. M. de Freycinet's policy had been lucky with the Vatican. Leon XIII. put an end to the negotiations which China had entered into with the view of getting a nuncio sent to Pekin ; in that way France would have lost the influence which the protectorate of the Roman Catholic missions gives her in the Far East. 1 MM. Sarrien, Dauphin, Berthelot, and Flourens formed the new Cabi- net, with the former colleagues of M. Goblet. ^ General Boulanger had withdrawn the projects for laws which his predecessors had presented, and had replaced them with a sort of general code, which established the unity of origin of the officers. In Alsace, fif- teen protesting deputies (protestaires) were elected. GENERAL BOULANGER, MINISTER OF WAR THE CRISIS. 215 on the part of the German press, the uneasiness dis- played on the various money markets, might, by their very frequency, act upon public opinion, or at least render it nervous and irritable. Nothing of the sort came to pass. France endured this new trial with every appearance of the most haughty calm;i and when the deplorable Schnaebele incident occurred, the nation's dignified attitude and the composure of the Minister of Foreign Affairs, M. Flourens, were suffi- cient in themselves to win the mastery over M. de Bismarck's unjustifiable provocations. The chancellor had exceeded all bounds: armaments in Germany, ex- pulsions in Alsace, a campaign of the press, — every- thing had been brought into play. In the end, Europe clearly perceived whence came these projects of assassi- nation against her peace. Meanwhile in France men began to understand the danger which would be incurred by leaving the Ministry of War any longer in the hands of General Boulanger; his ways were suspicious; one could detect in him an anxiety to attract attention of which none of his predecessors had furnished an exam- ple. The popularity which he already enjoyed in cer- tain circles was disquieting for the future. Men asked themselves whether the Republic was about to enter upon an era of "pronunciamientos." The Cabinet was overthrown on May 17, 1887, on a question of appropriations ; the whole Right, insensible to an appeal which M. Goblet had indirectly addressed 1 M. Flourens did not belong to the Parliament ; he only became deputy later on, when he was minister ; this is a rare occurrence. He was sought out in the Council of State, where he had made a specialty of the study of the questions of foreign policy which were submitted to that body for examination. M. Flourens was a clever minister, but he seems, since that date, to have arrogated to himself too great a share in the conclusion of the Franco-Russian alliance, which was not so much his work as he would like to have it supposed. 216 TEB EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. to it, and to a certain firmness of character of which he had given proof, ^ voted against him; on the Left, the desire to turn General Boulanger out of power caused numerous defections in the ministerial ranks. The crisis was particularly long and difficult to unravel. Out of a spirit of opposition, the Extreme Left upheld the Minister of War; never had it shown itself more cross-grained or less tractable ; all its efforts seemed to tend to complicate the question and to render it impos- sible of solution. It certainly was one of those parties which "would lose ten republics, were there ten to lose, and which will never be surpassed in the art of precipitating democratic institutions upon the declivity of irremediable fall, where no halt is possible. "^ By getting rid of General Boulanger, we should draw down upon us the reproach of having yielded " to the fear of Germany." This reproach could already be foreseen upon the lips of radicals and monarchists ; it required courage and vigor to brave it. M. Rouvier sacrificed himself, and formed a homogeneous Cabinet, around which he invited all men of order and good-will, with- out distinction of opinions, to group themselves.^ We had not heard the last of the ex-Minister of War. On leaving the Rue Saint-Dominique, General Boulan- ger, contrary to custom, had launched an order of the day at the army ; in it he spoke of " returning to the ranks," which assuredly was far from his thoughts. When he set out for Clermont-Ferrand, where he had 1 M. Goblet had, in particular, dissolved the municipal council of Marseilles, which had adjourned its meeting of March 18, in honor of the anniversary of the Commune. 2 E. de Pressense, Various Morales et Politiques. 1 vol. Paris, 1886. 8 M. Eouvier chose as his colleagues MM. Falliferes, SpuUer, de Heredia, Dautresme, Barbe, Mazeau, Barbey, and General Ferron; he kept the portfolio of Foreign Affairs in the hands of M. Flourens. THE CRISIS. 217 just been appointed to the command of a corps, the Patriots' League, and the newspapers, La Lanterne, L' Intransigeant, prepared for him a noisy ovation ; the railway station was invaded ; the general lent himself complaisantly to these manifestations; his portraits were scattered everywhere about in profusion; he in- fused ostentation into his, most simple acts; at the review on July 14, the Parisians practised shouting, " Long live Boulanger ! " which was to become the rally- ing-cry of all the discontented. At the same time, cer- tain administrative disorders of the preceding Cabinet were discovered; in the Navy, 19,000,000 francs of ex- pense incurred without an appropriation; in the Post Office, thirty-seven employees appointed at the last mo- ment, in defiance of all regulations ; in the department of Commerce, posts created and salaries distributed out of the funds of the Exposition of 1889. ^ The radicals took a great deal of pains to make people believe in the existence of a secret compact between the ministry and the Right. In reality, there had been nothing but a laxity which was very necessary to make the govern- mental wheels work well. Moreover, the ministers retorted with deeds rather than in words : by the pres- entation of the budget of 1888, which contained 129,- 000, 000 francs of reductions, and which was regarded as simple and luminous ; by diplomatic successes in Con- stantinople, where the energetic instructions given to M. de Montebello led to the rejection by the Sultan of the Drummond Wolf Convention, ^ in Madagascar, where the question arose of the exequatur of the con- suls, and in England, where negotiations were in pro- gress concerning the New Hebrides and the Windward 1 Andr^ Daniel, I'Ann^e Politique, 1887. 2 See above, the chapter entitled : " Tunis and Egypt." 218 THE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. Islands.^ In short, the situation appeared to be in a way to improve, at home as well as abroad; neither the vote on the three years' military service, nor the attempt to mobilize an army corps, undertaken with success by General Ferron,^ had prevented the amelio- ration of our relations with Berlin, so that the inci- dent of Eaon-sur-Plaine was quickly adjusted to the satisfaction of France. And in conclusion, when the municipal council of Paris invited the other councils of the communes of France to send delegates, with a view to taking concerted action to organize the " true " centenary of 1789, its decision was annulled. Every- where activity, zeal, enterprise, were exhibited; men witnessed a real governmental revival; it coincided, it is true, with a sort of recoil on the part of the conserva- tives, who were worried lest things should go too well for the ministry, and lest the Republic should profit by them as well as the country.^ But an unforeseen circumstance suddenly changed the aspect of things, and an abyss yawned, into which, it might have been thought, the Republic would pres- ently sink. On October 7 the dismissal of Brigadier- General Caffarel called attention to a traffic in crosses of the Legion of Honor, to which many references had repeatedly been made by the newspapers, without any 1 France recovered her liberty ol action there, wMeh had been lost through a previous convention. ^ This project was due to the initiative of his predecessor. General Ferron also brought forward important projects of law, completing the 6th division of independent cavalry which had never been organized, creating eighteen new regiments of territorial infantry, improving the status of re-enlisted under-officers, and so forth. ^ The Comte de Paris chose this moment to launch a manifesto with Caesarian tendencies. The divergence of views among his councillors was reflected in the prince's expression of his thoughts, as he, in turn, vaunted the benefits of liberty and of despotism. THE CRISIS. 219 one attacliing much importance to their accusations, which were, for the most part, anonymous and lack- ing in preciseness. In the course of a search made at the residence of a certain woman named Limouzin, who had organized a regular agency for the purpose of this detestable traffic, compromising letters were discovered from M. Wilson, the son-in-law of the President of the Eepublic. The news did not cause great surprise in the parliamentary world; M. Wilson had long been regarded with suspicion. But among the masses the excitement was great. As usually happens in such cases, revelations were multiplied, were quick and overwhelming. The government tried in vain to resist the demand for a parliamentary investigation which was presented by M. Cuneo d'Ornano; it was passed by 338 votes against 230. A few days later, a demand for leave to prosecute M. Wilson was unanimously carried. Public opinion grew exasperated when it learned before long that, while the affair was under investiga- tion, two of M. Wilson's letters had been abstracted from the file, and two others substituted.^ From that day forth, it was felt that nothing could prevent the head of the State from being irreparably tainted by the moral decadence of a member of his family. Accord- ingly, people began to talk of his resignation in terms which made it next to impossible for him not to hand it in; the pressure of all the politicians was added to that of public opinion, but in vain. Then, for the sake of reaching the President, the ministry was overthrown (November 19, 1887). But M. Gr^vy would not understand; he busied himself with forming a new 1 M. Gragnon, Prefect of Police, who was responsible for this, was immediately dismissed and replaced by M. L€on Bourgeois. 220 TBE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. Cabinet. Meanwhile popular agitation increased; a surge formed, like that which on the open sea precedes certain tempests. The situation presented some anal- ogy with that of February 23, 1848 ; very fortunately, the Chamber displayed composure and restraint, and repulsed the attacks upon parliamentary liberties which were proposed to it. M. Gr^vy fought for his power, step by step. His evasions augmented the peril. At the same time the parties were engrossed with the question of his suc- cessor, which was virtually open. The first indica- tions gave rise to the idea that Jules Ferry would be elected, and from that moment the radical " leaders " transgressed all bounds; they wished to organize a riot, and held a conference with M. Derouldde, the founder of the Patriots' League, the man who advo- cated revenge at any price, the valiant soldier and dis- tinguished poet, who had not received from Heaven the gift of wisdom as his heritage, and whose pranks and excesses of language came near, more than once, causing the country serious harm. Very unpatrioti- cally certain men among them even talked of going over to M. Gr^vy, and retaining him in power rather than allow Jules Ferry to attain to it. This movement did not escape the President, who appeared disposed to take advantage of it, and, in spite of reiterated prom- ises, again put off sending his letter of resignation. At this news the excitement was intense; the sena- tors and deputies, with much dignity, contented them- selves, nevertheless, with suspending their sittings, "while awaiting the communication which had been announced." The message came at last; it concealed badly both anger and resentment, and contained' several phrases THE CRISIS. 221 whicli were out of place from the pen of a President who was politically irresponsible. But no one stopped to weigh its phraseology. Attention was concentrated upon the election of the new President : the numerous preparatory meetings left face to face, at the opening of Congress, the candidacies of MM. Jules Ferry, Floquet, de Freycinet, Brisson, and Carnot. The first ballot gave no result; in the second, 515 republican votes raised to the Presidency of the French Republic the grandson of the man who had organized the victory. The effervescence immediately subsided, and every one returned to his own affairs.^ Europe, which was watch- ing with anxiety the development of a crisis that she believed to be big with peril for France, beheld with a sort of stupor this unexpected proof of the solidity and elasticity of the republican constitution. It waited with a curiosity which was shared by France the acts of the new President. M. Carnot was a distinguished man ; he bore an illustrious name ; he had been a skil- ful and honest minister ; but his modesty and the very nature of his services had not marked him out in public opinion ; he was inferior in notoriety to his recent com- petitors ; what was known of his character disposed to sympathy, and the French believed in him when he said to them, in his presidential message, " All the strength and devotion that I possess belong to my country." The future was destined to give to these words, which to-day are engraved on bronze and marble, an august and bloody significance. The man who passed out of sight, after nine years of 1 The insults showered upon M. Jules Ferry had, nevertheless, a lamentable result. In the Chamber of Deputies, a fanatic fired a shot at him. The ball, by a miracle, was flattened against his breast; but it caused a rupture, nevertheless, which is said to have hastened the death of the illustrious statesman. 222 THE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. the Presidency, had lost his right to the nation's grati- tude. His eclipse, which was unique, — and every- thing inclines one to the belief that such it is, — is of such a nature that his memory will never be completely exonerated from it. None the less, M. Gravy's Presi- dency rendered considerable services to the Republic, as much by its duration as by its pacific character. Later on men learned on how many occasions the mod- erating influence of the head of the State had been exercised upon those who surrounded him. M. Gr^vy possessed a very penetrating mind, tact, and that pla- cidity which is produced by a non-sceptical conception of the world. The traditions which he succeeded in establishing around his loftj' function were easily modi- fied into a more supple, more charming, more generous form. The Presidency now, at least, rose above the fluctuations of parties, which had grown used no longer to drag it into their quarrels. This was an immense advantage. M. Thiers had exercised a too personal power ; the marshal, although more constitutional, had, especially after the 16th of May, sown distrust around the Elys^e. M. Gr^vy did not even use all the politi- cal prerogatives with which the Constitution endowed him; he seemed to desire to confine himself to the part of the " Chief Magistrate " rather than head of the State. It was this attitude which, by depriving the enemies of the presidential office of their complaints against the institution, permitted M. Carnot, without transgressing legal bounds, to play, for the greater good of the Republic, a more active and more brilliant part. II. The difficulties at home, which had been accumulat- ing ever since 1885, were not smoothed away by the THE CBISIS. 223 great change which had taken place. The Chamber remained in a state of decomposition and had no power; the voting went by haphazard. Public opinion was in a stationary and languid condition, which showed itself in the partial renewal of the senators on January 5, 1888. As for the ministry, formed without any pre- cise tokens, it had no hold on Parliament.^ As the budget of 1888 was naturally behindhand, recourse was again had to the monthly instalments, and again incoherence ruled all deliberations. The plan which M. Yves Guyot reported raised the tax on col- lateral inheritances and on liquor licenses ; this system was rejected. The committee refused to consider the appropriations for public worship, for whose mainten- ance, fortunately, the Chamber voted; but that for Tonkin was pitilessly refused. This anti-patriotic vote led to the resignation of the under-Secretary of State for the Colonies, M. F^lix Faure, and caused keen feeling. The Chamber was obliged to retreat from its position, but instead of accepting the sum proposed, which was 20,000,000 francs, they reduced it to 19,800,- 000 francs, and contented themselves with this slender satisfaction to their self-esteem. The time was not propitious for such pranks. A peril, upon which the enemies of the Republic were calculating with joy, was increasing. On February 28, 1888, various partial elections took place. General Bou- langer obtained, as if by accident, 12,500 votes in Loire, 11,000 in Maine-et-Loire, 16,000 in Marne; electoral placards had been distributed in his name ; the journal La Cocarde had just been set up, — with what money no 1 M. Tirard, President of the Council, had formed only a working Cabinet, with MM. Fallieres, Flourens, Sarrien, de Mahy, Faye, Loubet, Viette, and General Logerot. 224 THE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. one knew, but with what intention every one under- stood. The distributions of emblems, of portraits, and of songs became more abundant every day. Soon the rumor began to circulate that General Boulanger had abandoned his post and had come thrice to Paris with- out permission, but that, in order to do so, he had had recourse to a shameful disguise. At first no one would believe it, so unworthy did such conduct appear on the part of a French soldier. But the evidence had to be accepted. The Minister of War put the general on the retired list (March, 1888) , and the latter, immediately throwing aside his mask, showed himself in Paris sur- rounded by MM. Rochefort, Deroul^de, Michelin, Laur, Laisant, Laguerre. He stood in the Aisne, and re- ceived 45,000 votes, and a "Republican Committee of National Protest" was founded to exploit his popu- larity. M. Tirard had announced that Boulanger would be brought before a committee of inquiry composed of his peers. The committee met on March 26, at the Mili- tary School, under the presidency of General Fdvrier, and unanimously declared that there had been sufficient cause for placing Boulanger on the retired list. Public opinion did not immediately accept this decision ; a cry of injustice was raised. Taken with the rest, this was a serious symptom. The army, by the voice of its chiefs of most authority, proclaimed that a superior officer had failed in his duties ; it rejected him as unworthy, and people hesitated to ratify the verdict ! A few days later, a hurried vote on the revision of the Constitution, as to which no one seriously cared anything, overthrew the Cabinet. The radicals came into power ; as if by an irony of fate they were to follow THE CRISIS. 225 closely the end of their work of disintegration and ren- der evident their incapacity for government, to which their theories, as well as circumstances, condemned them.i During this time an agglomeration of political adventurers was forming around the "Committee of the Rue de S^ze," awaiting favors and places, and the "conservative youth" wore the red carnation, the em- blem of its dictatorial tendencies. It was in good taste to be a Boulangist; in the drawing-rooms of Paris the general reaped a harvest of smiles and also — as it was discovered later on — subsidies for his cause. With gaze impenetrable, with the peaceful manner of a man who feels himself not inferior to his destiny, however great it may be, he moved easily in the midst of the most eccentric party that ever was collected around a politician. On April 8 Boulanger was elected in Dordogne by 59, 500 votes against 36, 000. On April 15, in the Nord, he received 176,000 (among which there were a great number from the Right). He appeared twice on the tribune of the Chamber, then noisily resigned, to pre- sent himself simultaneously in the Nord, Charente- Inf^rieure, and Somme for election. One hundred and thirty thousand votes in the first of these departments, 57,000 and 77,000 in the other two, were again cast for him. It was now the royalist leaders, MM. de Mackau, de L^vis-Mirepois, de Mun, de Breteuil, who gave him 1 M. Floquet became President of the Council, and chose for his col- leagues MM. de Freycinet (War), Goblet (Foreign Affairs), Ferrouillat, Peytral, Deluns-Montaud, Viette, Lockroy, Pierre Legraud, and Admiral Krantz. Shortly before, the Russian ambassador had, at last, been au- thorized by his government to maintain relations with the President of the Chamber, who, from that day forth, was regarded as of ministerial rank. It is well known that, in his youth, M. Floquet had permitted him- self to utter insulting words against the Tzar Alexander, when that sov- ereign was passing through Paris, as the guest of Napoleon III. 226 THE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. their support ; the clergy followed. In the conservative ranks only a few rare independents expressed the indig- nation. The rumor was in circulation that the Comte de Paris had joined hands with the adventurer, hut nothing definite was yet known on that point. Bou- langer took good care not to put an end to an equivo- cal situation which served his ambitious designs. His duel with the President of the Council, and the ridi- cule which attached to having been wounded, — he, a general, by a lawyer, — the strange staff with which he surrounded himself, his solemn and empty mani- festoes, — nothing seemed capable of lessening his popularity. The situation abroad was disquieting. In the month of March the old German Emperor had died, leaving his throne to his son, now become Frederick III., and the rescript addressed to Prince Bismarck by the new Csesar had astonished the world. " While indifferent to the brilliancy of great actions which bring glory," said the Emperor, " I shall be satisfied if, later on, it is said of my reign that it was beneficent for my people." But he who uttered these noble words was himself at the gates of the tomb. A marvellous effort of will had kept him up long enough to assume the crown. Already his strength was failing. A few months later he died, and thenceforth the fate of Europe lay partly in the hands of a young prince, of whom nothing was known except that he seemed to take too much interest in military matters, and to live for war alone. Not everything at home was obscure and troubled: the President of the Republic had undertaken a trip through the provinces ; his affability, his kindness, the extremely correct manner in which he filled his lofty station, won all hearts, and the republicans with satis- THE CRISIS. 227 faction beheld this sterling popularity increasing. As for the senators, they seemed to have escaped the de- pressing influence of their surroundings ; they remained calm and sensible, like genuine "conscript fathers."^ Just then M. Floquet was preparing a plan for revising the constitutional laws, which tended to nothing if not to discredit the Senate, in anticipation of the time when it could be suppressed. The President of the Council really was not lucky; he understood no better how to appease social hatreds than to conciliate moderate public opinion, and spoke to all in ambiguous and bombastic language which in no way recalled his ad- dresses, full of taste and elegance, as President of the Chamber. Strike followed strike, in Amiens, Troyes, the mines of the Loire, in Limousin. It must be con- fessed that never had a head of the government found himself in such an inextricable situation. But why was he there ? Therein, precisely, lay the paradoxical side of the situation. The radicals themselves began to understand that energetic concentration was the sole anchor of safety, and that this concentration could be effected only on moderate grounds. At last the min- istry succumbed, in the course of the debate over the unlucky project of revision. It had just lost the final electoral battle. On January 27 General Boulanger had been elected in Paris, by 244,149 votes (of which between seventy and eighty thousand were from the Right), against 162,419 given to his opponent. This opponent was M. Jacques, President of the General Council of the Seine. The different fractions of the republican party, by uniting upon him, had given him the right to call himself the " candidate of the Repub- 1 The senatorial electors themselves shared in the calmness of the upper Assembly, as the partial elections in Eure-et-Loir prove. 228 THE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. lic."i The check had only the greater significance. Many persons believed on the eve of that memorable day that the parliamentary system of 1875 had received its death-blow, and that dictatorship was at the doors. Abroad, where the opinions of Parisians are gladly ac- cepted as those of all France, no one doubted it. But Boulangism had a very powerful and eminently Pari- sian adversary, which it had not occurred to any one as necessary to take into calculation. It was the Uni- versal Exposition of 1889. When the government of the French Republic an- nounced its intention to celebrate by a Universal Inter- national Exposition the centenary of 1789, this decision caused embarrassment in Europe. There could be no doubt, in the mind of any rational man, as to the legitimacy of the celebration of such an anniversary. Assuredly, no one could have understood how France, even if it had been monarchical, could abstain from rendering homage to the great and noble ideas under the impulse of which a necessary and beneficent evolu- tion had been inaugurated, whose character had, unfort- unately, been transformed by the course of events into a bloody revolution. As early as 1886 the German Prince Imperial (afterwards Frederick III.), when he received M. Antonin Proust at Berlin, lauded in his presence the intention of our government, which was already known, and spoke of 1789 as a "great date," ' whose centenary was worthy of being celebrated.^ In fact, the French Revolution long ago entered into the domain of history, and princes have made peace with its memory. As for their peoples, they have not for- 1 " One does not vote for a prefix," M. de Cassagnac said. "It is the prefix of the Repuhlic," his adversaries retorted. ^ Les Capitales du Monde : Berlin, by M. Antonin Proust. THE CRISIS. 229 gotten what they owe to it. One might almost main- tain the paradox that in this case foreign nations ought to have taken the first steps ; the French Eevo- lution is like fire; all the world warms itself from it; the one who sets it off is the only one who hums his fingers. Nevertheless, Europe had not sufficient confidence in our wisdom to feel quite sure as to the manner in which we intended to celebrate the centenary. She was vaguely conscious of the " lump " which M. C16- menceau put into words later on, and wondered whether our invitation did not expose it to seeing us confound in one and the same outburst of patriotic enthusiasm the 5th of May and the 10th of August, and celebrate the centenary of 1793 together with that of 1789. When the foundations of the buildings of the Champ- de-Mars began to rise above the ground, it became necessary to arrive at a decision, and the chancelleries held consultations. They almost unanimously agreed upon a very elastic formula, which consisted in accept- ing France's invitation, while appearing to refuse it. Then we beheld committees formed in the foreign capitals for the purpose of securing the participation of the European monarchies in the Paris Exposition; the governments which had declined to be officially rep- resented hastened to lend their countenance to these committees, and thereby to show their good-will and their desire to aid in the success of the enterprise. Thus they arranged for themselves a door through which they could enter and emerge from the Champ-de- Mars without compromising themselves. All would depend upon the attitude of the French government, the language of its representatives when the inaugura- tion drew near. Moreover, in certain circles the impres- 230 THE EVOLUTION OF FUANCE. sion lingered, that in choosing the date of 1889 the Republic had desired to satisfy the demands of the radicals, and that it was resolved to find a pretext for postponing the opening of the Exposition until 1890, thus separating it from the centenary properly speak- ing, which would have smoothed away all difficulties. The Republic was not guilty of that weakness ; it un- derstood that the absence of a few embroidered coats would not deprive its Exposition of much brilliancy, and was philosophical enough to pass over the slight wound to its self-esteem which these official abstentions might cause it.^ On May 5 the President of the Republic betook him- self to Versailles with the ministers and the great bodies of the State. A ceremony stamped with simple dig- nity, which everywhere produced the best impression, took place in the Gallery of Mirrors. There they cele- brated, in moderate terms, the great memories evoked by the centenary. On the following day, the splendors enclosed in the Champ-de-Mars were thrown open to the public. Those who, distantly or closely, had taken part in the great work, had let it be understood that the Exposition buildings would exercise an irresistible attraction upon the popular imagination. But they 1 Even in France people paid comparatively little heed to these ques- tions of forms. A very insignificant little group had assembled in the beginning to organize an "agitation" against the centenary. After sev- eral debates around a green table, the men who composed it, finding no echo in the country, and forced to acknowledge their impotence, separated. A few devout persons, who quivered with anguish before the "modern Tower of Babel," and a few narrow-minded ' artists, who reproached M. Eiffel with "dishonoring Paris," presented honest petitions, which were civilly buried in the administrative pigeonholes. As for the dilettanti of public opinion, they were all absorbed in the acts and gest- ures of General Boulanger, and the Exposition acquired importance in their eyes only when they learned that M. Carnot would drive to the inau- guration in an open carriage with postilions. THE CRISIS. 231 said it under their breatli, with a remnant of uncertainty and a sort of uneasy hesitation. When the flag floated from the Eiffel Tower, when the scaffoldings had disap- peared, and in the resplendent gardens the water began to flow in the fountains, all the world in Paris knew that the reality surpassed the dream. Everything had seemed to conspire against the Expo- sition; everything now seemed to aid in its success. One festival followed another, without being disturbed by a single mishap. A series of scientific, literary, and artistic congresses drew to Paris the intellectual flower of the universe. The head of the State and his minis- ters, as well as Dr. Chautemps, President of the Mu- nicipal Council, exerted themselves to the utmost to do the honors of the capital ; as all their deeds and speeches were distinguished by the most perfect tact, as order was not disturbed in a single instance, Europe felt its fears vanish; on the heels of the Shah of Persia — an unprejudiced monarch — the King of Greece and many princes entered the Elys^e. The Lord Mayor came over to represent England, and was the guest of the Paris municipality at the H6tel de Ville. The nations did not cease to manifest their sympathy; in certain coun- tries the parliaments by a vote disclaimed the attitude of the sovereign. But of all the solemnities which marked this happy epoch, none made so deep an impression as the recep- tion of foreign students ; 478 foreign delegates and 218 delegates of the Faculties of France assembled at Paris from the 2d to the 12th of August, 1889. Everywhere, in those days of mirth, were seen " the satin cap of the University of Bologna, the felt hat of the scholars of Padua, the long scarf of Geneva and Lausanne, the braided cap of Lidge and Brussels, and the silver- 232 THE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. fringed cap of the graduates of Oxford; the divers emblems of the Universities of Edinboro', Lund, Upsala, Copenhagen, Florence, Coimbre; the doublet, sword, and spurred boots of the students of Buda- pest." ^ They were especially admired at the inaugu- ration of the new Sorbonne, where all the university banners of the world defiled before the President of the Republic. Then it was that public opinion learned that France possessed students. It learned many things, this frivo- lous and garrulous public opinion, which too often judges monuments by their fa§ades. For a moment it was astounded, and speechless, as it were, in the pres- ence of sympathy and praise. It asked itself whether it were not the plaything of a dream ; if this science, this genius which revealed itself from all quarters, these rising energies, these vast and profound labors which suddenly came to light, — if all this was real, and our own. Such were the meaning and range of the centennial festivals. Probably the men who had been its pro- moters had not foreseen this. They had thought it useful to recall great revolutionary memories ; it was a hundred years of the past which they had intended to set again before the eyes of France. In vain had the men of 1789 been cast in bronze to adorn the public squares; in vain had all which could recall their ex- ploits been collected in museums ; in vain had it been repeated in every key that they had found the world out of joint and with a vigorous thrust had set it right for a series of ages, — all this was said without convic- tion, as if to acquit their consciences, and the throng 1 The festivals of the University of Paris. Supplement to the Bulletin of the General Association of students. THE CRISIS. 233 did not listen. All absorbed with the joy of resurrec- tion, it compared present prosperity with the anguish of the past ; it experienced that " sentiment of life and pride which Lazarus must have felt when he rose from the grave." ^ How far away was that unlucky day when the French, vanquished, despairing, had found them- selves face to face with "a whole France to be made over! " ^ This work had been accomplished in the twi- light; the Exposition suddenly set it forth in broad daylight. So it came to pass that, by virtue of having tasted for the space of several months the very great and very noble joy of commanding the attention of the world, the French citizen set to reading over with care the ballot which was slipped into his hand, and when he had read it, he flung it aside and took another. Cer- tain disillusions, noisy criticisms, some of which seemed justified, a sort of uncertainty and hesitation in the management of affairs, had ended by shaking his confi- dence in that republican staff which he had long main- tained in power against all men ; he now felt that the system of government under which this grand dis- play of science and labor had been prepared did not deserve to be disowned on the eve of victory. The masses had felt this at the mere sight of the Exposi- tion ; the elect, by studying details, arrived at the same conclusion. Both had noted that barometric situation which is called prosperity. A backward glance showed them the road which they had travelled in a slow but continuous march, the progress realized in almost all the branches of human activity. They regained confi- dence in the Republic ; thus was eliminated the morbid 1 E.-M. de Vogiie, A travers V Exposition. 2 E. Zola, La Debacle. 234 THE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. principle which had given birth to Boulangism. It now remains for us to narrate how the bark which bore Boulanger and those who had followed his rapid fortune suffered shipwreck. On the day following that upon which his election in Paris had crowned the series of his electoral triumphs, the general betook himself to Tours to draw up the platform of his future government. He did it in shady and equivocal terms which made no precise statements, and consequently bound him to nothing. He was in no great hurry, moreover, to behold any solution inter- posed, and desired nothing so much as that he might be able indefinitely to prolong this "preface to his reign," in which he delighted. The struggle between him and the members of the Cabinet seemed unequal. M. Tirard had again become Prime Minister; together with the presidency of the Council he had taken the portfolio of Commerce.^ He was the minister of the Exposition; it was upon M. Constans that the part of the general- in-chief of the political forces devolved ; his it was to choose his battle-ground, to fortify his positions, to regulate the attack for the grand battle of the autumn. M. Constans was looked upon as an energetic and skil- ful man; he showed himself equal to his reputation. His first measures immediately conveyed an idea of the conception which he had of his part. He hesitated not to prosecute the League of Patriots,^ nor to discourage 1 The President of the Republic had had M. Tirard summoned after the failure of a combination of Meline, Ribot, and Casimir-Perier. The ministry comprised MM. Spuller (Foreign Affairs), Constans, Rouvier, de Freyoinet, Falliferes, Thevenet, Yves Guyot, and Admiral Krantz, who died shortly after, and was replaced by Admiral Jaurfes. 2 Atchinoff, a Cossacis adventurer, disclaimed by Russia, had installed himself at Sagallo. The neighborhood of Abyssinia rendered possible intervention on the part of Italy. So Atchinoff was ordered to withdraw, and refused. Our cruisers, with a little too much precipitation, then bom- JEAN CASIMiR-PERlER, FIFTH PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC. THE CRISIS. 235 the labor agitation organized by the "syndicates and independent collective groups of the Seine," nor to open the doors of France to the Due d'Aumale, nor to sus- pend the secularization of the asylums which had already been ordered, nor, above all, to demand the passage of a law to regulate the procedure of the Senate sitting as a Supreme Court of Justice. He caused some surprise at first. Among those Vho were most disquieted at the spectacle of the progress of Boulangism, many were still ignorant of the share of responsibility which Gen- eral Boulanger had therein, his corruption, his far- reaching calculations, his manoeuvres ; they wondered, while they felt conscious of his guilt, how the Senate would succeed in proving a criminality of intentions alone. The unexpected retirement of the attorney- general, who refused to prosecute the accused, trans- formed this doubt into excitement. With that profound sense of justice which is innate in it, the French people asked themselves whether, in order to save the Repub- lic, a sort of deliberate judicial error were not about to be perpetrated. It was Boulanger himself who under- took to reassure them. He took flight, with Rochefort and Comte Dillon, ^ who were implicated, as well as himself, in the prosecution. The Boulangists were thunderstruck, and emphasized by their attitude the accusation which their leader had just furnished against barded his encampment ; five or six men were killed. It was an unfortu- nate incident. The League of Patriots immediately opened a subscription to indemnify the families of the victims, and published a violent protest against the government. The league was prosecuted, and an inquiry revealed its secret organization ; in consequence of this discovery, de- mands for authority to prosecute were lodged against MM. Naquet, Tur- quet, Laguerre, and Laisant, deputies, members of the governing council. 1 Boulanger fled to Brussels ; on April 24, at the request of the Belgian government, he left Belgium and went to London, where he remained for a time. 236 THE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. himself, and on April 4 the demand for authorizing the prosecution of Boulanger was passed by 333 votes against 199. On April 12 the Supreme Court assem- bled, and the trial began. In the republican party instinctive and absolute union came about; the shades were effaced, good-will became general. The deputies hastened to facilitate the passage of the appropriatiotis. Moreover, the situation was good. The first four months of 1889 showed a surplus of 19,000,000 francs over the income from the indirect taxes in 1888, and the Minister of Finance had doubled his authority over Parliament by his attitude in the affair of the Discount Bank.^ District elections had been re-established, at the proposal of the preceding Cabinet; a law prohibit- ing multiple candidacies was passed. The republican army had on its flanks the new group of the liberal union, which, presided over by M. Barboux, former president of the corporation of barristers, was joined by conservatives who were hostile to the dictatorship. The monarchist Right was openly making the campaign with the Boulangists.2 In the country, certain reac- tionaries drew up, with the aid of the clergy, the "memorials of 1889," in which they summed up their demands. As for the Boulangists themselves, they did 1 The fall of the Discount Bank and the suicide of its manager came near entailing financial disasters. With remarkable promptness and en- ergy, M. Rouvier saved the market of Paris by getting the Bank of France and private banks to advance the funds necessary to indemnify the depositors, the creditors of the bank. 2 His manifesto was stamped with violence and exaggeration ; together with the signatures of the Due de Doudeauville, the Marquis de Breteuil, MM. Jolibois, de Mackau, de Cassagnac, L^on Chevreau, Delafosse, and de Martimprey, it bore those of MM. de Mun and Jacques Piou. The hesi- tation on the part of their electors to believe in the evolution which brought them to the Republic shortly afterward will be readily understood. THE CRISIS. 237 not seem to be satiated with uproar and scandal. Their deputies had become regular commercial travellers for the dissemination of disorder ; they tried to get them- selves arrested in the electoral meetings and to get themselves expelled from the sittings of the Chamber, because they looked upon this as an excellent advertise- ment, i The departmental elections for the renewal of half the General Councils dealt them their first blow. Boulanger, by a manifesto in imperial style, set him- self up as a candidate in 80 cantons, selected with great care out of the 1439 which were electing general coun- cillors. He was elected only twelve times, and after balloting it was perceived that the republicans retained the majority in 74 councils out of 90. The trial before the Supreme Court dragged on slowly. The senatorial Right, after having declared itself incompetent, retired ; but when Attorney-General Quesnay de Beaurepaire's charge to the jury became known, there was no longer any doubt as to Boulanger's condemnation, and every one understood his haste to put the frontier between his judges and himself. The speech would certainly have gained much had it been briefer; and had it contained only convincing and proved facts : some of them were insuificiently attested. But the crime against the Republic stood out from the collection of testimony presented with such clearness that it was impossible to deny it, if one had the least straightforwardness. 1 The sittings of June 22, 25, 27, 29, and of July 3 were reckoned among the most uproarious and the most indecent. In order to give an idea of the pitch to which the marks of violence rose, we may quote the words of M. Laisaut, uttered in the course of a political meeting, and which resulted in their author being brought before a court-martial, as head of the terri- torial army, and dismissed from the service : " If war were declared, I would not take up my post facing the enemy, because I know that I should have behind me men like Constans and Th^venet. . . . Who knows if they wiU not, one of these days, hand their country over to foreigners! " 238 THE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. The elections took place on September 22 and Octo- ber 6, 1889; the first ballot gave 300 results: 230 republicans, 86 royalists, 52 Bonapartists, and 22 Bou- langists were elected. At the second ballot, thanks to their discipline, the republicans got in 129 of their men against 51 reactionaries. Thus the Chamber con- sisted of 359 republicans and 211 reactionaries. The desertion which took place from the ranks of the latter was more accentuated, beginning with the day after the elections, both by the strangeness of their alliance and the importance of their defeat. These friends of a day, between whom no bonds existed, unless those of ambi- tion and rancor, parted cursing each other. Each party threw upon the other the responsibility for their bank- ruptcy. Boulanger installed himself at Jersey, aban- doned and disgraced. He departed from history through the back door; he was to quit life, two years later, in the fashion of a hero of romance, after having given proof of incapacity for which he will be pardoned, and committed against patriotism a crime for which no amnesty exists.^ 1 The settlement of the affairs of " the great national party " continued to furnish food for the public press. There were scandals, revelations, duels. At Paris, on April 27, 1890, at the time of the municipal elections, the Boulangists, who were, at that time, facing towards the radical Left, made a last effort. They only succeeded in getting two of their men nomi- nated against 65 republicans, and 13 conservatives. In the Chamber, when the certificates of election were verified, 23 reactionaries or Boulangists were invalidated ; only 11 were re-elected. TEE TRIUMPH OF THE REPUBLIC. 239 CHAPTER IX. THE TRIUMPH OF THE REPUBLIC. The Workingmen's Congress in Berlin. — The Empress Frederick in Paris. — Cronstadt. — A "Novel Situation." — The General Tariff of the Custom-Houses. — The Monarchists' " Last Card." — False Calcula- tion. — Financial "Ways. — The Elections of 1893. — Minister Casimir- P^rier. — The Russian Fleet at Toulon. — National Mourning. It was easy to foresee that the electoral victory won by the Republic under decisive circumstances would have numerous effects; but it may be said that all ex- pectations were inferior to the reality. It was the two most conservative powers of the universe — the Mus- covite Autocracy and Pontifical Ccesarism — who were the first to bow before it and seek its alliance. Such an important event re-echoed, necessarily, at home ; the result was the annihilation or the disabling of the unconstitutional parties, from which the Church with- drew her support. From the very first moment it was plain, through several moderated votes of the conserva- tive deputies, and through their attitude towards the visit of the head of the State, who continued to journey about France, everywhere received with open arms and with acclamation, that the time for thoughtless ultra- views was passed. But they would not have abandoned their preferences, no doubt, and would have left to the next generation the task of forming a regular republican Right, if the initiative of the Holy See had not turned away from them a great many Roman Catholic electors. 240 THE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. "We shall have occasion to study this great movement,^ which, by common consent, is accepted as the starting- point for the speech addressed in 1890 by Cardinal Lavigerie to the oificers of the French squadron. Another result of the republican victory was to assure, at last, that stability to the ministry which had been attained only by Jules Ferry, from 1883 to 1885, and the secret of which seemed to have been immediately lost. M. de Freycinet, who assumed the presidency of the Council at the beginning of 1890, and kept it for two years, had already been at the head of the Ministry of War since the month of April, 1888.^ He had been received there with mistrust. Many persons could not easily reconcile themselves to see a civilian minister at the head of the army; on the other hand they recalled the very unsatisfactory manner in which, on various occasions, he had guided the diplomatic interests of France. But this time a new man was revealed in him ; completely devoted to the professional interests in his charge, he surrounded himself with the most authori- tative councillors,^ and carried on with coherence and method a work of great magnitude. It does not enter within the scope of this study to estimate the technical value of that work, but it must be noted that, if M. de 1 See Chapter X. : " The Republic and the Church." 2 M. Tirard, who was seeking an occasion to resign, took as his pretext a hostile vote of the Senate connected with the expiration of the treaty of Commerce of 1861, between France and Turkey. M. de Freycinet formed the new Cabinet, with MM. Rouvier, Barbey, Yves Guyot, who retained the portfolios of Finance, Navy, and Public Works, Leon Bourgeois (Public Education), Ribot (Foreign Affairs), Develle (Agriculture), Jules Roche (Commerce) , and Fallieres (Justice) . M. de Freycinet retained his port- folio under the ministries of Loubet and Ribot ; he remained for five years (from 1888 to 1893) at the head of the department of War. 8 Shortly after the advent of Minister Freycinet, General de Miribel became head of the general staff of the army. THE TRIUMPH OF THE REPUBLIC. 241 Freycinet's ^ administration aroused criticism, it found in the army itself its warmest advocates. It was the first time in many years that the presi- dency of the Council had been combined with the port- folio of War; Europe did not take alarm thereat; it understood wonderfully well that the peace party had just triumphed in France, and that the prosperity of the Republic constituted henceforth one of the guaran- tees of general tranquillity. She saw at the same time, with pleased surprise, that if military matters were maintained in Germany in the first rank of imperial interests, William II. had neither said nor done any- thing which would permit of one's attributing to him warlike ulterior designs ; quite on the contrary, he ex- hibited an unexpected solicitude for the laboring classes. The famous rescripts of February 4, 1890, consecrated in a certain way the importance and the urgency of the labor question, and in order the better to prepare for its solution, convoked in Berlin an inter- national conference. France, on being invited to take part therein, replied by an acceptance couched in wise and dignified terms, and stamped with the prudent reserve which was dictated from the political as well as from the moral point of view.^ The debates were extended and serious ; the partici- pants labored honestly and discreetly. But, judging from the manner in which, shortly afterward, the Emperor wheeled about, abandoned the "labor policy," and declared war on the socialists, it seemed as if he 1 At the review of Poitiers, which terminated the grand manoeuvres of 1892, General de Cools, in a burst of enthusiasm, proclaimed M. de Frey- cinet "the great statesman, the great citizen who has devoted all his efforts and all his life to the reconstitution of the national army." ^ France sent five delegates, among whom were MM. Jules Simon and Burdeau. 242 TBE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. had convoked the Conference of Berlin less through interest for the toilers than for the sake of emphasizing the difference between his policy and that of Prince Bismarck, for the purpose of astonishing the world, or to pave the way for reconciliation with France. What gave some color to this last supposition is that, less than a year after the Conference of Berlin, in the month of February, 1891, the Empress Victoria, widow of Frederick III., arrived in Paris semi-incognita. The avowed object of her journey was to invite the French painters to take part in the Exposition of Berlin, but men agreed in interpreting this as an advance made to the French Republic by William II. ^ It was a decisive moment; the policy of reserve ceased to be possible, the hour had come to make up our minds. For the last time the Republic found itself free to choose between three eventualities, which had been outlined, one may say, as early as the termination of the war of 1870 : a relaxation of enmity towards Germany, an un- derstanding with England, the alliance with Russia. The Emperor William made a mistake in exposing him- self, according to the expression which is attributed to 1 It is almost certain that M. Herbette, ambassador of France, only with difficulty and at the last moment obtained information of the pro- ject conceived by the young Emperor, a project which had immediately captivated the noble and generous character of his mother. The sover- eign arrived incognita, but she stayed at the German Embassy, whence Count Munster soon sent out invitations which bore the note : " To have the honor of meeting Her Majesty the Empress Frederick." Thence- forth, it was difficult to maintain the complete incognito, and a call from M. Carnot became imperative. The Empress understood this, and, anxious to make things easy, she gave notice at the Quai d'Orsay that, if the head of the State would leave his card upon her the next day, he would not find her at home, and that she would then call upon Mme. Carnot. This procedure was novel, and as ingenious as it was incorrect. Was the proto- col drawn up, or did the attitude of the ex-Boulangists, of M. Deroulfede and his disciples, inspire alarm in the government? At all events, it was thought best to regard the incognito as complete. TBE TRIUMPH OF THE REPUBLIC. 243 him, to the risk that the French would not return " the how which he made to them. " If the Empress Frederick had wished to make a simple sojourn of pleasure in Paris, ^ her visits to the artists, her strolls through our museums, would have been watched by the public with nothing but the kindly sympathy prompted by the char- acter of the sovereign, by her mourning, her well-known sentiments, and the memory of her noble husband. But people believed they could feel that her mission was to try to efface the past and to pledge the future. If Will- iam II. was well inspired in choosing his mother for the messenger of peace, he had perhaps given his mes- sage a too precise and pressing form, which was bound of necessity to awaken painful memories, to reopen wounds badly healed. The occasion was such a fine one for the professors of false patriotism and the ring- leaders of the populace, that for a long moment anxiety reigned. The very imminence of the peril, the exact knowledge that the slightest caprice would unchain the dogs of war, and the fear of the terrible responsibility which would result therefrom for them, restrained their zeal. The Empress quitted Paris without accident. The artists considered themselves authorized to with- draw their promise, and to decline an invitation which contained nothing flattering for the national self-esteem. Throughout Europe there was astonishment and dis- pleasure at this fit of unseasonable nervousness. A representative of Marshal MacMahon had previously been seen to salute Emperor William I. at Metz, and later on a French military mission, under the lead of 1 The German ambassador committed the imprudence, while taking the sovereign to visit the palace of Versailles, of making her traverse the park of Saint-Cloud, where the burned ruins of the chateau still existed. Public opinion, already nervous, took offence at this. 244 THE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. General Billot, had been seen to march behind his coffin, when it would have been such an easy matter not to send any one to Metz, and to have ourselves rep- resented at the imperial funeral by a civil delegation. The cool reception given to the Empress Frederick seemed as inexcusable as the insult dealt to the King of Spain ou his return from Berlin in 1885. The chancelleries took careful note of the only inter- esting consequence of this awkward incident ; every system of relaxing enmity between France and Ger- many had become impossible ; France showed her de- sire to remain isolated, rather than not find, in a firm and fraternal alliance with another nation, the equiva- lent of what she herself could give. England and Russia remained to aspire to this alliance. They had been much impressed in England by the defeat of Boulangism, the success of the Exposition, and the re- sults of our colonial policy. The English press was unanimous in its expression of sentiments of admira- tion. " The national energies of France are awakening to new life, and the simultaneous development of its activity from the intellectual, the material, and the moral point of view is visible," said the Daily News; " the work of the Republic will have been great ; it has accomplished marvels for the country." The English, practical people, were particularly sensible to the finan- cial service which we rendered them in the beginning of 1891, by that loan of 75,000,000 francs in gold advanced from the Bank of France to the Bank of England after the ruin of the Argentine finances.^ 1 This act of capitalistic internationalism did not displease the so- cialists; it emphasized the solidarity of the "hourgeois," and rendered legitimate that of the proletariats. When questioned on this subject, M. Laur, Minister of Finance, was approved by 419 votes against 29. M. Kouvier had all the necessary authority to exercise such a policy; THE TRIUMPH OF THE REPUBLIC. 245 Long before it was known what the French fleet was to do at Cronstadt in that same year of 1891, negotia- tions had taken place between the French Embassy in London and the British government on the subject of a "pledge of friendship," which England desired to give to her "powerful neighbor." The Queen, who had acquired the habit of coming nearly every year to pass a few weeks during the winter in the south of France, and met there with the warmest welcome, de- sired to express her gratitude. It was then decided that the French fleet, commanded by Admiral Gervais, after having visited Stockholm, should go to Ports- mouth. ^ Under any other circumstances, the recep- tion which was given to our sailors in Sweden and England would have passed for very warm ; but the ef- fect was effaced by the explosion of enthusiasm and the tremendous manifestation which rendered the meeting a-t Cronstadt the point of departure, for France, of a new era. On the morrow of the day when William II. was rejoicing at being able to proclaim the renewal of the Triple Alliance, the Franco-Russian understanding was with him surpluses had reappeared in our budgets. The quotations on the Exchange demonstrated the excellence of the public credit. Thus, for the issue of bonds bearing perpetual interest at three per cent, on Janu- ary 10, 1891, the State, which asked for 869,000 francs, was offered fourteen milliards and a half. 1 The negotiation was brought to definite terms during the stay in England of the Emperor William. His almost triumphal entry into London, his attitude at Guildhall, the rumors of England's accession to the Triple Alliance, displeased moderate public opinion. M. Waddington cleverly allowed a shadow of this to be seen, and the invitation was sent to the French squadron. Our vessels were already at sea, and soon the news of Cronstadt reached Paris. The ministry found itself in great per- plexity; the English invitation could not be refused, and, on the other hand, it was feared that the full scope of the Cronstadt festivities would be weakened if they were given a sequel, and, above all, in British waters. The tact and dignity of Admiral Gervais and of his officers triumphed over the difficulties of the situation. 246 THE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. suddenly sealed, with a simplicity and a spontaneity which showed to what a point the sympathies and interests of the two peoples were in accord. A single obstacle had prevented the Tzar from bringing about this understanding earlier in the day, — his uncertainty as to the governmental future of France. Now the Republic had been put to the proof; it put itself for- ward with all the marks of a definitive government ; it had become possible to enter into closer bonds. This was felt to be realized when the acclamations of the Russian nation had been sanctioned by official demon- strations and by an interchange of significant telegrams between the Emperor and the President of the Republic. The effect produced in France was great. It was peace afterward as before ; but instead of a peace forced, and therefore hard to bear, it was to be henceforth de- liberate peace, freely agreed to. This change ought to be enough, according to M. de Blowitz's expression, "to restore the national good humor." On the occasion of the grand manoeuvres of the East, which for the first time brought together four army corps, M. de Freycinet spoke, in his capacity of head of the government, of the " new situation" made for the country. There certainly was something new in Europe. It was this, — that France had taken her place in it again. Our enthusi- asm somewhat overstepped the proper limits ; the chords of the Russian Hymn were mingled with all sorts of festivities, even those the most foreign to politics,^ and there was sentimentality in the eagerness with which the Russian loan was taken up in the month of October, 1 Many General Councils honored themselves by addressing to the President of the Republic a respect -which was well deserved for his part in the conclusion of the Franco-Russian understanding. The conserva- tives joined in it. THE TRIUMPH OF THE BEPUBLIC. 247 1891; some sceptical persons called attention to the fact that Russia was rather prompt in claiming the price of her good offices, but the sojourn in Paris of the Chancellor of the Empire, M. de Giers, and of the Grand Dukes Alexis and Vladimir, proved that, the loan once taken, she did not intend to go back on her pledged word. The year 1891, which beheld a political alliance sub- stituted for the isolation of France, beheld, by a keen contrast, France substitute an almost complete economi- cal revolution for the system of commercial treaties. This was the work of M. M^line, deputy for the Vosges, former minister, President of the Chamber, a man of incontestable talent and of rare strength of will. With a gentle perseverance which nothing wearied, he had endeavored to obtain the formation of a protectionist majority and the establishment of that general custom- house tariff at which the Chambers had been working during the year 1891, and which went into force on February 1, 1892. The movement dated from afar. The law on sugars, passed in 1884, which raised the duties that had been lowered in 1880, had been, in a certain way, the first protective law. It favored the sugar industry, and changed the basis of the tax, caus- ing it to fall no longer on the manufactured products but on the beet-root, whence came a profit arising from the difference between the legal presumption as to the yield of the beet-root and its actual yield. Moreover, it established for two years an additional tax of seven francs on all foreign sugars. This extra tax was re- moved in 1886. In the interval taxes had been estab- lished equally (1885) upon foreign cereals. M. M^line took a great deal of trouble to convert his colleagues of 248 THE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. the Ferry Cabinet to his doctrines ; the latter had con- sented to propose raising the import duties on cattle, but had refused to do as much for cereals. It was parliamentary initiative which assumed the responsi- bility of this, and immediately a majority presented itself which the Cabinet no longer tried to resist. The duty of three francs was passed. In the following year, although the duties of 1885 had already brought about a diminution of two-thirds in the importations, the protectionists wished to go further. Beaten at first, by a weak majority, they took their revenge by causing the rejection of the convention with Italy, which the government proposed to substi- tute for the Navigation Treaty of 1862, that had expired. In 1887 a raise of iive francs was voted, then an addi- tional duty on cattle. All these concessions were not obtained without battles. Numerous were the objec- tions and hesitations, even among the ministers, who were resigned, by the fact of their presence in the gov- ernment, to feel the influence of the consequences of the protectionist current, which kept on gaining strength. Many deputies had received from their electors a sort of imperative order, and the votes bore witness to it; they differed from ordinary votes, and the interests of the department took precedence over those of party. The duty of five francs was decided by forty-three departments against twenty-two. There were only twenty-five whose representatives were divided on this important debate. The year 1888 was a year of economical re-birth; the vineyards were in great measure restored, many foreign markets were reconquered by French commerce, and a great improvement was noted in the yield of the taxes. Nevertheless, the import duties were raised on corn. THE TRIUMPH OF THE REPUBLIC. 249 then on ground rye and on rye flour. At the begin- ning of 1890 M. M^line ^ was able to found an " agrarian group " in the Chamber. Our treaties of commerce were on the eve of expiring; it was understood that they were not to be renewed, at least not on the same basis. They were denounced, and the labor connected with the preparation of a general custom-house tariff was begun. Inquiries were made of the councils, commit- tees, chambers, and syndicates; the results were col- lated, and summed up by the supreme councils of Commerce and Agriculture. The Chambers insisted on the necessity of concluding new treaties. We had two milliards' worth of importations of raw materials, they said, against 600,000,000 francs' worth of corre- sponding exportations. On the other hand, we sell 1,700,000,000 francs' worth of manufactured articles against 600,000,000 francs' worth of purchases. What would become of us without treaties ? A law was passed subjecting raisins to the same rule as wines, augmenting the import duties on corn, rice, and millet, but finally an abatement was admitted of the duties on Tunisian products, in spite of the oppo- sitions of the representatives of Algeria. It was not in France alone that the tide of protection was rising. The United States had adopted the McKinley Bill, which was equivalent, so far as the formalities with which importation was surrounded, ^ to complete prohi- bition. On March 10, 1891, a new law modified, for the tenth time in seven years, the system governing 1 M. Meline had occupied the President's chair, at the Palais-Bourbon, for the space of the Floquet ministry. He has since become President of the Council of Ministers. 2 The principal clauses of the McKinley Bill had reference to the presen- tation of authentic invoices and certificates, as to the origin of the products ; disputes were to be carried before an exclusively American tribunal. 250 THE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. sugars. Nevertheless, Switzerland and Belgium had replied to our denunciations of treaty by denouncing in their turn every sort of treaty which united them to France, and even the conventions which regulated navi- gation and artistic and literary property. Some annoy- ance was felt by M. Meline's close friends. Certain of these persons had been so simple as to believe that they could shut themselves up in the fortified stronghold of protection without exposing themselves to reprisals on the part of other countries. "When general discussion came on, the government showed itself disposed to consider the two tariffs " as the basis of commercial relations to be established between France and foreign powers: the minimum tariff for those who would make certain concessions, and the general tariff for those nations which would not consent to any.''^ But it did not wish to engage itself not to make treaty below the minimum tariff. The first part of the debate ended according to the wishes of the government, which demanded the exemp- tion of raw materials, so indispensable to our industries ; but after that the debate continued in a manner unfav- orable to its programme of "moderate tariffing. "^ The general tariff was approved on July 18, 1891, by 387 votes against 110. In the Senate, the tariff was accepted and defended with still more resignation and still less confidence than in the Chamber.^ The exam- 1 Speech of M. de Freycinet, President of the Council, made in the Chamber of Deputies on May 22, 1891. 2 When the turn of the discussion on the colonial tariff came, it was assimilated to the general tariff as to its import duties into the colonies, and the advantage of half duty for the entry into France of colonial wares was granted. 8 The product of the taxes for 1891 surpassed all expectations by more than 100,000,000 francs, and the corresponding receipts and expenditures by nearly 107,000,000 francs ; so it may be said that France found herself in THE TRIUMPH OF THE REPUBLIC. 251 pie set by France found few imitators. But it brought about a certain tension of relations and bad humor between her and her neighbors. On December 7 the Cabinets of the Triple Alliance communicated to the Chambers of Rome, Berlin, Vienna, and Budapest the treaties just signed, which proposed, by a lower- ing of custom-house tariffs, a Tariff Union of central Europe. As the squadrons despatched by way of an embassy now constituted a sort of diplomatic navy, so the means of drawing closer political alliances was to be sought in commercial understandings. Without pretending to pronounce a premature judg- ment upon the work of protection, it is permissible to furnish, as an epilogue to this brief analysis, the words uttered in the course of the discussion by a representa- tive of Beauce: "The definitive solution of the agra- rian problem does not lie in the custom-house ; it is to be found in science, in the augmentation of the yield through perfecting methods." Many of those who con- tributed to the establishment of the tariff share this view, and think that the custom-house is an expedient and that science alone holds the solution. Contrary to what had so often been seen, it was not the majority which first fell to pieces; strange to say, it was the ministry which got tired of being supported. M. de Freycinet and some of his colleagues, at a time of less peaceable parliamentary labor, had contracted the habit of balancing, and sometimes it happened that they treated the large and confiding majority which they had before them as unstable mixtures of groups upon which they had formerly been forced to seek a full industrial flight. On the other hand, provisions were made in view of the approaching change of system, so that it is difficult to regard these figures as normal. 252 THE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. precarious support. Suddenly they were again attacked by tlie fear of being compromised by the Pope or anxiety lest they should lose the secret of the famous policy of concentration. By a singular aberration, they selected the moment when Leo XIII., addressing an encyclical letter to the Roman Catholics of France, enjoined upon them adherence to the Republic,^ to bring in the project for a law concerning associations, which contained the germ of a veritable persecution of the religious bodies. A Cabinet capable of engaging in such an enterprise, in the midst of a period of pacification, ^ deserved the fate which the Chamber dealt out to M. de Freycinet and his colleagues. After long parleying, it was M. Loubet, senator, who proceeded to a sort of remodelling of the Cabinet.^ Perhaps it would have been a propitious moment at which to appeal to new and young men. For a long time the same personages had been seen passing their portfolios to each other, executing chassis back and forth which were often lacking in opportuneness ; the prestige of the government could but suffer from this. Circumstances were on the point of bringing about this political purification under awkward conditions. 1 Shortly before, the Pope had granted to M. Judet, of the Petit Journal, an interview which made a good deal of commotion . 2 The incidents which had taken place in Rome in October, 1891, during the pilgrimages of French workingmen, and which we shall touch upon hereafter, were of no importance except that they gave the Italians an occasion to display their bad feelings towards France. The French govern- ment, on this occasion, did not show itself equal to its task. 3 The crisis was long; MM. Eouvier and Bourgeois had tried in vain to solve it. M. Loubet took the portfolio of M. Constans ; MM. Barbey, Falliferes, and Yves Guyot were replaced by MM. Cavaignac, Eicard, and Viette. Shortly after M. Cavaignac, injured by a vote of the Chamber which ordered him to place the naval forces under the command of the head of the land army during the Dahomey expedition, resigned. M. Burdeau succeeded him, and confided the command of the expedition to Colonel Dodds. TEE TRIUMPH OF THE REPUBLIC. 253 The municipal elections of May 1, 1892,^ and the departmental elections of July 31 and August 7,^ had shown the constantly growing progress of republican opinion ; the centenary of Valmy and that of September 22, 1792, had been brilliantly celebrated; on June 14 French government stocks reached par ; finally, during his triumphal journey in the East, M. Carnot received a visit from the Grand Duke Constantine,^ who came to greet him in the name of the Tzar, and the brill- iantly conducted campaign in Dahomey ended, on November 17, with the capture of Abomey. This series of happy events showed the stability of the Republic, its credit, its prestige, and the force of its arms; and, in spite of all, a dull uneasiness spread abroad, which did not proceed solely from the anar- chistic crimes of which Paris was the theatre;* their frequency, their tragic character, might inspire terror in some persons and diminish the number of foreign visitors to Paris, but it had speedily been understood — and the anarchists had themselves perceived the fact — that not by such means is "an end to be put to bourgeois society." There were other things: there 1 They gave the following results : Before the elections, there were 20,642 republican municipal councils, against 15,402 reactionary; after the elections, there were 23,524 republican municipal councils, against 12,409 reactionary. Twenty-two capitals of departments or districts remained in the hands of the reactionaries, against 336 directed by the republicans. 2 They gave a net gain of 181 seats to the republicans. 3 The Emperor of Russia was then at Kiel with the German Emperor. The visit of Grand Duke Constantino was regarded as intended to remove all political significance from the interview at Kiel. * There were four explosions between February 29 and March 27. Then, when Eavachol was captured, the restaurant V^ry, the scene of his arrest, was blown up. Then the anarchists tried to destroy the ofiSces of the Carmaux Company, whdse workmen were on strike ; but the bomb was carried to the police station of the Rue des Bons-Enf ants ; there it burst, and injured many victims. 254 THE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. was a certain press, born with Boulangism, which had grown up with it and had survived it ; there was the nervousness of public opinion, which had become accustomed to Rochefort's sensational news, to his witty and caustic calumnies, and continued to spy out seasoning and shady machinations in the undercurrent of politics; and, in conclusion, there was that anxiety to find conspirators everywhere, which M. Ribot had pointed out as early as 1883. The revelations of M. Terrail-Mermeix, an obscure follower of General Boulanger, who had hastened, after the breaking up of the party, to effect a right-about face, had made known the strange conventicles in which royalists and Boulangists had taken part. The story of the three millions of francs for electoral purposes, given by the Duchesse d'Uzes, seemed at first sight a fable devoid of all appearance of truth. Then the details were made more precise, and soon people were forced to believe it. Out of devotion to the royalist cause and to the person of the Comte de Paris, the Duchesse d'Uzes had placed a sum of three million francs at the disposal of the royalist and Boulangist electoral committees, which were making the campaign to- gether. The royalists were only too ready to believe that Boulanger would consent to play the part formerly played by Monk in England, or, at least, that if he would not consent to it, he might be treated in such a manner as to compel him thereto. These romantic adventures had at first amused, then caught the popular imagination, which had become rather nervous. When an affair came up like that of melinite (1891), the public seized hold upon it, took a passionate in- terest in it, with eagerziess for unexpected details. THE TRIUMPH OF THE REPUBLIC. 255 A multitude of journals supplied them day by day, and, when circumstances were favorable thereto, hour by hour. This public was delighted to learn that M. Laur, from the lofty height of the tribune, had poured forth insult upon M. Constans, then Minister of the Interior, and that the latter, in indignation, had slapped his insulter's face;i it was in ecstasies over M. Dru- mont's violent diatribes, and regarded as very ingenious the unworthy suspicions directed against a remarkably virtuous and upright man, one of the best servitors of his country, M. Burdeau;^ and it took an interest in the efforts made to impeach the President of the Repub- lic, though he appeared to be entirely out of reach. They set their wits to work to " discover " M. Carnot, by attributing to him marked political preferences, un- constitutional meddling, or some secret design intended to secure his re-election.^ These manoeuvres found most sympathy with the population of Paris ; in the country they were taken up by those young squires who, having received no inheritance save hatred of the Republic, would have liked to see it superseded by a system of government more inclined to favor their noble indolence. The opposition of the Right sought the means to utilize 1 This incident occasioned several encounters with fists in the Cham- ber: this day was called, " the day of face slapping." When the sitting, which it had been necessary to suspend, was resumed, M. Constans made his excuses for haying yielded to a very legitimate impulse of anger. 2 M. Burdeau, who brought in the bill concerning the renewal of charter for the Bank of France, had concluded upon its adoption. Drumont accused him of having been bribed by the Rothschilds. He was prosecuted, and being unable to furnish the slightest proof of his state- ment, he was severely condemned. M. Burdeau died President of the Chamber in 1894; he never could be comforted for having been sus- pected. s People had already begun to talk of it, although more than two years had yet to elapse before the end of the seven years' term. 256 THE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. this unfortunate tendency to calumny; it was on the lookout for some enormous scandal which would put the government in the wrong. That would be its last card; it might as well be played at once. The Panama Company had failed, and this failure had fallen heavily on small savings; the enormous magnitude of the sums swallowed up in this disaster, the persons compromised, certain indications which prompted a suspicion of criminal acts, — all contributed to give to this affair an exceptional scope. So they determined to make use of it; the plot was organized in the greatest secrecy, and on November 21, 1892, M. Delahaye, deputy for Indre-et-Loire, mounted the tribune with a very mysterious air for the purpose of insinuating that the republican party, rotten to the core, had devoured in subsidies and in bribes money subscribed for piercing the Isthmus of Panama. The death of a financier of bad reputation, Baron J. de Reinach, which took place on the eve of the question and under conditions which led to the belief that it was a suicide, emphasized the opportunity in a dramatic manner. In the Chamber men were immediately united in the unanimous desire, either feigned or real, to "throw light on the subject." The President of the Council, M. Loubet, whose honesty rose in revolt, the republican deputies anxious to justify themselves with- out delay, the socialists, happy at hitting " infamous capital," the monarchists, rejoicing in the harm done to the Republic, were all in accord; the culprits, if any there were, shouted more loudly than the rest. A committee of inquiry was appointed, presided over by M. Brisson ; they demanded an autopsy on the body of Baron de Reinach, and in the meantime the ministry was overthrown, as it had expected to be. A new re- THE TRIUMPH OF THE REPUBLIC. 257 arrangement of the Cabinet took place on December 5, under the presidency of M. Ribot.^ Then it was that the sensational revelation of the Figaro intervened. There was a story concerning a nocturnal visit made to Dr. Cornelius Herz by MM. Rouvier, Cl^menceau, and Baron de Reinach, a few hours before the death of the latter. The public at large heard for the first time the name of the American advent- urer whose extraordinary influence had long been known in the world of politics, without any one being able to unravel the cause thereof.^ So far as M. Rouvier was concerned, the statement was correct ; he had acted im- prudently by undertaking — he, the Minister of Finance — to serve the interests of M. de Reinach, but his inter- vention had been usefully exercised in many analogous cases; his share in the affair of the Discount Bank, or in that of the Society of Deposit and Current Accounts, had won him the praise of capitalists, and the fall on Exchange caused by the news of his resignation pro- claimed with sufficient clearness the gratitude which these men owed to him. M. Rouvier, feeling that he was harmed, resigned, and M. Tirard took his port- folio. In the meantime MM. Charles de Lesseps, Marius Fontane, Cottu, and Sans-Leroy were arrested, and trials were ordered in the cases of MM. Emmanuel 1 MM. Brisson and Casimir-Perier had tailed in their attempt to form a Cahinet. M. Ribot retained his former colleagues ; he confined himself to replacing MM. Ricard and Jules Roche by MM. Charles Dupuy and Siegfried. M. Dupuy took Public Education; his predecessor, M. Leon Bourgeois, had the seals. M. Siegfried entered the Ministry of Commerce. 2 It was in this manner that Dr. Herz had been raised, in 1886, to the dignity of grand officer of the Legion of Honor. M. de Freycinet, who was called to account for this nomination, was much embarrassed to find an explanation. Dr. Herz was a type of the rotten American politician, a type unknown in Europe: corruption was, for him, not only a weapon but a sport. He did not content himself with making use of it ; he took pleasure in it. 258 THE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. Ar^ne, Dugu^ de la Fauconnerie, Antonin Proust, Jules Roche, and Rouvier, deputies, B^ral, Devds, Albert Gr^vy, L^on Renault, and Th^venet, senators. From that day forth there was an uninterrupted suc- cession of scandals ; everything was strange ; the Com- mittee of Inquiry assumed the airs of a court of justice ; no one knew any longer where justice resided, at the courts or in the Chamber. The deputies suspected each other and displayed "austerities to suit the occasion."^ M. Andrieux published a fictitious list of "check- takers," procured no one knew where, and to which no name was appended; there was a gap in the document where the name should have been, and through it the most monstrous calumnies could pass. Public opinion allowed itself to be caught by this coarse farce, and every one set about discovering the name of this M. X , as to whom M. Andrieux pretended unwilling- ness to give any explanation; no one knew what to invent; one day it was a question of an ambassador accredited to the government of the Republic, and the next day of a person nearly connected with the head of the State. All these calumnies had their echo abroad; sover- eigns felt themselves in peril of being insulted in the persons of their representatives, and the German press insinuated, in high glee, that henceforth it would be sufficient to send plain charges d'affaires to the Repub- lic. It became necessary to demand excuses from the Swiss government for a serious insult to France during the carnival of Berne. ^ A despicable attempt to dis- 1 Words uttered in the Chamlier by M. Ribot, President of the Council. 2 An international cavalcade contained a group representing France ; the head of the State and his ministers were shown handcuffed, and being led away by gendarmes. A. RIBOT, DEPUTY AND PRIME MINISTER, THE TRIUMPH OF THE REPUBLIC. 259 credit it was aimed at the Savings Bank and came near causing a panic. ^ Every moment we felt that we had been betrayed; now a journal, an agency for political news, was denounced as having been sold abroad. The most resounding accusation was formulated against M. Cldmenceau, by M. D^roulede, in terms of indig- nant eloquence ; the leader of the radical party paid, on that day, by seeing all hands forsake his, for the immoral pleasure which he had enjoyed of gambling in politics as men gamble on 'Change, of feeding public opinion on dangerous chimeras, of continually impeding the progress of business ; his whole political existence had had but one aim, to destroy, and but one means, intrigue. Men are most often moved by the ardent desire to surpass, to supplant each other; this man was not anxious to win himself, it sufficed him to prevent others from winning ; he desired only a negative power, and loved to exercise it unexpectedly; his morbid dilettanteism impelled him to paralyze undertakings, to discourage sincere effort, to sow distrust, to raise obstacles, to arouse hatreds, to utilize grudges; the qualities of his mind rendered his action formidable, for pure logic seemed to guide his mind, and the pre- cision of his language redoubled its force; thus he succeeded in imposing his rule upon groups formed by 1 The question of the Savings Bank had formed the object, in the pre- vious year, of a proposed law. In 1875 the sum-total of deposits did not exceed 680,000,000 francs. In 1891 it was 3,655,000,000 francs ; this result was explained by the distrust caused by the financial disasters, and by the facilities granted to depositors ; the foundation, in 1881, of the Postal Bank, the establishment of 2000 instead of 1000 francs as the maximum deposit, and so forth. Petty capitalists used the Savings Bank as a definitive invest- ment, the interest being high, instead of a temporary place of deposit. M. Siegfried proposed, in an amendment which bore his name, to author- ize the Bank of Deposits to employ the resources which came from the Savings Banks in direct loans to communes. 260 THE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. chance, which afterwards disbanded, rather confused at having taken part in the unlucky work. In a short time most of the members of the govern- ment had been changed; one man after another was disqualified, sometimes for errors more or less grave but well defined, again for unimportant peccadilloes; the mania for accusation had so upset all minds that no one could any longer distinguish the true from the false, or reprehensible acts from those which had been simply awkward or inopportune. The ministry under- went a transformation; the President of the Council took the portfolio of the Interior; MM. de Freycinet, Loubet, and Burdeau resigned;^ people did not fail to say that they felt "compromised." These successive "disembarkations" both diverted and puzzled the gal- lery gods ; not appreciating the swaggering manner in which M. Ribot withstood the storm, they reproached him with acrimony for every impatient movement, for the slightest nervousness; nevertheless, he did not weary in unmasking the odious calculation of those who had provoked this painful crisis, or in bidding the republican majority recover their calmness and composure. The President of the Chamber was not re-elected; Floquet was reproached with having dictated to the Panama Company its liberality to the press, and to have recommended to it certain journals which were favorable to the Republic in preference to others ; M. Casimir-P&ier was elected in his place. ^ As for the President of the Senate, he voluntarily and without plausible pretext quitted the post which he had so long 1 M. Develle passed to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs ; General Loi- zillon and Admiral Eieunier replaced MM. de Freycinet and Burdeau. 2 M. Casimir-Perier was replaced as Vice-President of the Chamber by M. Felix Faure. THE TBIUMPH OF THE BEPUBLIC. 261 occupied. These changes overwhelmed with delight the organs of the unconstitutional parties, who drew the inference that ingratitude is the essence even of the Republic ; they enlarged upon this philosophical theme, by making much of examples, and contrasted the eager- ness, from antiquity down to our own time, to recom- pense for services rendered, which distinguishes mo- narchical governments, with the indifference which democracy shows to those who have most faithfully served it ! Unfortunately, by attributing to Jules Ferry the inheritance of M. le Royer, the senators gave the lie to this declamatory thesis ; death seemed to be waiting until the justice of his fellow-countrymen should put an end to the ostracism which weighed upon him before it struck down the great statesman. Three weeks later Jules Ferry died suddenly, and his obsequies assumed the character of a great national reparation. ^ In the midst of all these perturbations, the voice of the pon- tiff was again raised; in a letter addressed to M. de Mun, the Pope upheld his former instructions and implicitly condemned the enterprise of the enemies of the Republic. This enterprise was about to suffer shipwreck; their calculations proved to be false; by cleverly stringing along the revelations and scandals, they had flattered themselves that they would be able to ke?p public opin- ion in good working order until the elections ; they had counted upon the resistance of the government, imagin- ing that the few failings of which they had obtained proofs were only the vanguard of an immense multitude of faults and felonies whose traces they would discover one after the other. Far from shunning the light, the government had aided in shedding it upon the subject, 1 M. Challemel-Lacour followed hlra as President of the Senate. 262 THE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. and on the whole a result was reached which was quite opposed to that which'had been aimed at. Even admit- ting that some of the decisions to the effect that there were no grounds of prosecution, rendered in favor of certain members of Parliament included in the trials, were dictated by too great indulgence,^ the result was far from that general accusation launched against an entire party, from that general suspicion in which almost the whole republican party had been massed together. On the other hand, the Panama trial had revealed strange financial ways and made known the moral decrepitude of a portion of society which did not busy itself with politics, and in whom the thirst for money had obliterated the sense of honor and of duty. In the light of this sinister discovery, what has been named "anti-Semitism" suddenly assumed a significance and a field of action ; despite the guilty exaggerations and the malicious exaltation of its instigators this move- ment of revolt was explicable and almost excusable. Only it was easy to divine that the masses, always inclined to simplification, would end by overwhelming Jews and Christians with the same disdain, and would extend to capitalists in general the responsibility for the detestable practices which had just been revealed to them. The result of this could not be other than a progress of socialistic ideas, and a force of argument added to those which the advocates of the limitation of private fortunes already wield. The political world 1 The mandates for non-prosecution once issued, the trial began on March 8, before the Court of Appeals in Paris ; MM. Charles de Lesseps, Baihut, former minister, and Blondin were severely condemned ; the rest were acquitted. In vain had the effort been made at the court of trial to turn an incident raised by Mme. Cottu's testimony into an argument against the Minister of Justice, M. Le'on Bourgeois; the latter immedi- ately resigned and defended himself in terms which left no doubt as to his sincerity. THE TRIUMPH OF THE REPUBLIC. 263 had been the most aimed at; it was the least injured. An attempt had been made to establish the venality of the "new strata " ; the outcome had been to demonstrate their resistance to a temptation of whose force and fre- quency the public, up to that time, had been ignorant; instead of proving that many votes had been sold, it was proved that there had been a great many purchasers of votes, which is a very different matter. As the Panama effervescence subsided, a ministerial crisis arose, and M. Charles Dupuy became President of the Council.^ In his statement, read before Parlia- ment, this brief phrase was noticed, which formulated with abrupt and noble frankness the moral to be drawn from recent events : " One lesson, nevertheless, stands out from these trials ; it is that a competency and fort- une are acquired only by labor, and are preserved only by correct habits and dignity of life." No one was better qualified to pronounce these fine words than the new head of the Cabinet, who, sprung from the hum- blest rank, had behind him a life of uprightness and of honest toil ; ^ but there were many who had the right to repeat them. In democracies the attraction exercised by power may lead men to consent to compromises with 1 The monthly Instalments voted at the end of 1892 having been exhausted, it had been necessary to vote more ; a financial battle broke out between the two Chambers, and the Cabinet was overthrown. After a fruitless attempt by M. Mfline, M. Charles Dupuy formed the new Cabinet. MM. Develle, Viger, Viette, General Loizillon, and Admiral Rieunier kept their portfolios. M. Poincarr^ assumed that of Public Education, M. Pey- tral of Finance, M. Gu^rin of Justice, and M. Terrier of Commerce. 2 M. Charles Dupuy, the son of a simple peasant, had contrived to raise himself, by his merit, to a professorship, and then to the functions of rector of Academy, the highest which are at the disposal of the Minis- ter of Public Education. Then it was that he became a deputy ; as the position of rector was not compatible with his warrant, he was obliged to leave it. But he continued to be particularly interested in educational matters, and made it his specialty in the Chamber. Afterwards, he be- came Minister of Public Education, then President of the Council. 264 THE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. their consciences and to flatter the passions of the populace, to whom, after all, each man is responsible. In France another danger exists : power preserves the forms and appearances of the monarchical state of things ; those who govern receive not only the trust of authority, they inhabit sumptuous palaces, honors are paid to them, they escape in a way from their habitual circle, and during the whole duration of the functions which have devolved upon them by the will of the majority, whose delegates they are, their material exist- ' ence is embellished and transformed ; these are advan- tages to which human nature is prone to accustom itself rapidly and to renounce with difficulty. If we take account of those who have abandoned without hesita- tion, if not without regret, the gilded decorations of their official residences, to resume a narrow, modest life, we shall see that the Third Republic has been served with a disinterestedness which many a monarchy has not known. The mania for accusations died out with the affair known as that of the forged papers. The journal La Cocarde announced one day, with great uproar, that it was in possession of the gravest sort of documents, which had been abstracted from the English Embassy; the editor even let it be understood that the theft had been organized through his activity. Very stupidly M. Millevoye took these documents to the tribune of the Chamber and read them; his communication was greeted with tremendous laughter, so plainly did the ridiculous exaggeration of the language and the absurd- ity of the ideas bespeak the falsity of their origin. The deputies were rather ashamed of having listened to these silly stories, and public opinion of having allowed itself to be taken in by them. THE TRIUMPH OF THE REPUBLIC. 265 Calmness had been restored to men's minds when the electoral period opened. The leaders and the important men of each party had their word to say. MM. Casi- mir-P^rier, Constans, and Spuller sounded the moderate note, and M. Goblet struck the key-note for " govern- ment socialists." M. L^on Say spoke like an old liberal and M. d'Haussonville like an impenitent monarchist; the constitutionals entered upon the scene under the very loyal leadership of Prince d'Arenberg, their lieu- tenant-colonel.^ M. Dupuy declared that he felt assured as to the success of this great national conference ; his good temper and good sense pleased the country, which was charmed to find at last a man who was sure of him- self ; confidence was, perhaps, the quality in which his predecessors had been most deficient, therefore it was all the more appreciated in him. Nothing disturbed the serenity of the President of the Council : neither the disorders incited by the students, who, seconded, then outdone, by the workingmen on strike, set one quarter of Paris into revolution for the space of two weeks,^ nor foreign complications which might involve very energetic action on the part of the French fleet in Siam.3 1 The nominal leader of the party was its founder, M. Jacques Piou. '' A certain efEervescence had shown itself in the Latin Quarter, in con- sequence of a sentence of punishment pronounced upon several students, who were guilty of having exhibited indecent costumes at the "Ball of the Four Arts." The police interfered with brutality: during a charge directed against the cafe d'Harcourt, an inoffensive young man, M. Nuger, was accidentally killed by an object thrown by a policeman ; this was the signal for regular riots which were repeated for several days, and were repressed in a violent manner. The general association of students dis- claimed responsibility by a proclamation. In consequence of these events, M. Loze, Prefect of Police, was provided with a diplomatic post, and succeeded by M. Lepine. 3 Admiral Humann forced the passes of the Menam, and dropped anchor in front of Bangkok ; an ultimatum was presented to the King of Siam, and accepted by him. 266 THE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. The elections took place on August 20 and Septem- ber 3, 1893; they returned to the Palais-Bourbon 311 government republicans, 122 radicals, 35 mugwumps, 68 reactionaries, and 49 socialists. The Republic gained sixty seats ; the persons who had had the chief share in putting on the boards the Panama tragi- comedy, MM. Delahaye, Andrieux, Drumont, failed of re-election, together with MM. Naquet, Maurice Barrds, and Saint-Martin, waifs of Boulangism. M. Cl^menceau, also, was returned to private life, while MM. Burdeau, Jules Roche, Rouvier, ArSne, and all the ministers obtained the renewal of their warrants and important majorities. Never before had universal suffrage pronounced its verdict so plainly; but its verdict was accentuated without being modified; it was still the same negative reply given to the agitated and to the "ameliorators," always the same countersign of wise, slow progress, the same repugnance for violent solutions, the same distrust of the absolute. Never was there an institu- tion more attacked and more maligned than universal suffrage ; the reactionaries beheld in it the primal cause of all the evils over which they grieved ; it represented for them what freemasonry represents to the clergy. But at the same time they still cherished the hope of some great change which might be effected, thanks to it ; they anticipated its inconsiderate rages, its change- ableness, and could not foresee the rigid perseverance of which it bore the marks. ^ "Isolated individuals 1 "Universal suffrage is the honor of the masses, legal life for all," Jules Ferry had said in 1863; " it is in it that we must, henceforth, live, hope, and believe; even as an enemy we must love it. It has heen said of governments that they are not tents of repose ; we must think of liberty, that it is not alone a portico to victory. ' ' (Jules Ferry, La Lutte jSlectorale en 1883.) THE TRIUMPH OF THE REPUBLIC. 267 who take part in an election," said Aristotle, "will be less able to judge than the wise men; but, in their union, they will be worth much more." It was re- served for the Third Republic to demonstrate how true this saying has remained through all the ages. Uni- versal suffrage has taken the present government from the hands of its founders, and has guided it amid numerous and formidable obstacles until it reached maturity. Thrice has the pressure of men and circum- stances been brought to bear upon it without causing it to deviate from its path; neither in 1877, nor in 1889, nor in 1893, has it been possible to obtain from it the condemnation of the republicans ; it had shown in 1885 that it knew how to appreciate their faults and did not remain insensible to them ; but why a revolution where a hint was sufficient ? In order to explain their successive defeats, the opponents had recourse to the easy reproach of official interference; there was some interference, it is true, thanks to that administrative centralization which gives to the prefect, the representative of the minister, a greater authority than that pertaining to the minister himself; when the prefect desires to exhibit zeal, or when his own opinions carry him further than the instructions which he has received, he has within his reach weapons of which he can make improper use ; but however energetic may be his action, it is, neverthe- less, exercised in a restricted sphere; the number is considerable of those whom it does not reach, and upon whom, on the contrary, is exercised the action, some- times far more powerful, of the great landed proprietors, the rich manufacturers. Ever since 1877, moreover, the government has loyally endeavored to secure the liberty of elections, and comparison with foreign coun- 268 . TBE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. tries will lead any fair-minded man to the conclusion that universal suffrage is in France to-day as free as public life, still so imperfect, permits it to be; it is more free, in any case, than restricted suffrage ever was. On October 13, 1893, the Russian fleet entered Tou- lon, bringing to France a new message of friendship ; the demonstrations of sympathy between the two nations, while less spontaneous than at the epoch of the Cron- stadt interview, were grander, and of more vivid sig- nificance; henceforth it was impossible to deny the existence of a durable agreement between the Muscovite Empire and the Republic ; Europe showed her chagrin, and certain correspondents of foreign journals at Paris injected |^into their description of the Franco-Russian entertainments all the malevolence of which they were capable. The people of the capital did, it is true, mingle with their enthusiasm a little childishness, and the national dignity suffered, sometimes, from its too joyous demonstrations. It managed, at least, to sus- pend them to watch the passage of the solemn funeral procession of Marshal MacMahon ; behind the coffin of the former President of the Republic, all armies were represented in a unanimous homage which was ad- dressed to the entire nation ; it found therein the just recompense of many labors, and of many efforts. At the beginning of the parliamentary session, a new ministry was formed. M. Casimir-Perier appeared to be the man required; it was expected that he would give a new prestige to the presidency of the Council. Up to that time the head of the Cabinet had been almost the equal, in power and authority, of his colleagues ; both came to an agreement and settled upon a common programme. The inconveniences of this method had THE TRIUMPH OF THE REPUBLIC. 269 been recognized, and it was considered desirable to modify it in the direction of British parliamentary- practice ; it was the place of the " premier " to have his programme, and to find colleagues who would apply it. M. Casimir-Perier, then, assumed power,^ and his predecessor, M. Charles Dupuy, exercised in his place the functions of President of the Chamber. He dis- tinguished himself there under tragic circumstances. On December 9, 1893, an anarchist named Vaillant hurled from the galleries of the hall of session a bomb whose terrible effects were lessened by a providential chance ; there were some wounded, but no dead.^ As the bomb filled the hall with smoke, and startled those present. President Dupuy uttered these simple words, thenceforth historical : " Gentlemen, the sitting is in progress. . . ." The deputies remained in their places, and the deliberations^ were hardly interrupted. Such incidents, painful and alarming as they were, could not diminish the impression of beneficent calm which per- meated all minds. Every one felt that the period of great political battles was over, and that dynastic oppo- sitions had lost all their foundations. Here, on the threshold of the year 1894, which was to be clouded by a great national sorrow, we will close this study ; to carry it further would be to incur the risk of encroaching on the uncertain future. The events 1 M. Casimir-Perier took the post of Foreign Affairs. MM. Raynal, Burdeau, Spuller, Antonln Dubost, Viger, Marty, Jonnart, General Mer- cier, and Admiral Leffevre were his colleagues. M. Maurice Lehon occu- pied the post of Secretary of State for the colonies. Later on, a ministry of the colonies was created, whose first incumbent was M. Boulanger, senator. 2 The most grievously wounded was M. L'Abbe Lemire, deputy of the Nord. 8 Most of the foreign parliaments sent to the French Chamber and to its president the expression of their sympathy and admiration. 270 THE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. which marked it have not ceased to produce their ef- fects ; but there is one whose consequences manifested themselves so instantaneously that we are able to esti- mate their value even now. The crime of June 24, 1894, conferred upon the Republic the supreme con- secration ; the wretches who conceived it had not dreamed of the counter-shocks of eternal justice. After having presented an example of all public and private virtues. President Carnot was preparing, on the com- pletion of his task, to surrender into other hands the lofty functions which he had exercised since 1887. He considered himself happy in having consecrated to his country, according to his promise, all the strength and devotion which he possessed, and intended to remain faithful to the Constitution by not accepting a renewal of his power. For the last time, in the streets of Lyons, he was tasting the joy of sincere acclamations and of a popularity which was becoming daily more emphatic. He had just made one of those thoughtful speeches in which one was certain to find an appeal to concord, a reason for being hopeful for the future, or for believing in progress. In that city which was keeping holiday, a wretch who had never seen him advanced to meet him and when he caught sight of him killed him. His friends and his enemies have said of him that he was honest; but that word ought not to have for him the same meaning as for others ; he was honest, in fact, with a rare and exquisite honesty which extended to every moment of his existence, and to all the manifes- tations of his thought, with an honesty so pure, so upright, so absolute that France sometimes forgot to notice it, as if she found it quite natural to have for chief the most virtuous of her sons. History will recount in detail the services rendered THE TRIUMPH OF THE REPUBLIC. 271 by President Carnot to his country, the prestige with which he understood how to surround his functions, the discreet but efficacious influence which he exercised upon his ministers, his love for his country, his careful encouragement of undertakings, his sympathy for young people, his serene confidence in difficulties, and his in- vincible faith in the destiny of his country. It will narrate, above all, that he has deserved to serve his country after his death, for his blood has crimsoned the summits of the Republic. The men of humble origin who have made it were all rendered great by the dagger of Caserio, and ancient Gaul felt, as she gathered round that tomb, that her new destinies and her free institutions had received baptism before the eyes of nations and of kings. 272 THE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. CHAPTER X. THE REPUBLIC AND THE CHURCH. Church and State. —Religious Policy. — The Congress of Mechlin, and the Encyclical Quanta Cura. — The Designs of Leo XHI. — The Toast of Algiers. — Constitution of the Republican Right. — Political Evolution, and Social Evolution . — The Encyclical Rerum Novarum. — Resistance : Declaration of the Cardinals. — Immovability of the Sovereign Pontiff. — The Results. —The " Gre^t Problem." It was in the logic of tMngs that a conflict should break out between the Third Republic and the Roman Church, not that Roman Catholicism and democracy are incompatible, but because the long and passionate struggle directed by the Roman Catholics of France against republican institutions must, necessarily, lead to reprisals. What, on the other hand, was not difficult to foresee was, that Rome would find in republican France a fulcrum to accomplish an evolution towards democracy. Religion, which patronized the old system of govern- ment, was reduced by Napoleon to the part of the patronized, and the Concordat riveted the chains which fettered it to the State ; that great act put an end to a situation full of perils, but it contained the germ of a serious moral misapprehension. Napoleon and his suc- cessors considered religion as a State service, and the bishops and priests as functionaries charged with ren- dering it stable ; the bishops and priests regarded them- selves as independent dignitaries, treating with the State as equal powers. Hence the intermeddling of the clergy in politics, which our various governments THE EEPUBLIC AND THE CHUBCH. 273 have by turns favored and combated, according to their origin or their tendencies. On neither side was a claim of neutrality made ; it was understood that the Church of France was governmental or in opposition ; it never entered any one's head that it could remain neutral. "Under the sceptical and indifferent government of Louis Philippe," wrote M. de Montalembert, in 1863, " the clergy regained a portion of the legitimate influ- ence which the favors of the Restoration had caused it to lose ; " and the great writer added these prophetic words: "If a new revolution were to break out to- morrow, one shudders at the thought of the ransom which the clergy would have to pay for the illusory solidarity which has seemed to reign for several years between the Church and the Empire." In fact, after having greeted with enthusiasm the revolution of 1848, after having blessed the liberty-poles and sung heartily the Domine salvamfac rempuhlicam, the French priests rallied round the Empire and beheld it crumble with regret ; they also took an active part in the struggles of the early years of the Republic, and so long as the form of government remained in question, they tried to aid in a restoration of the monarchy.^ May 16 found in them warm partisans; they openly compromised themselves in the electoral battle, and defeat left them face to face with republican grudges, summed up in Gambetta's celebrated saying : " Clericalism, that is the enemy ! " But clericalism was not Christianity. It has been excellently defined: "Politics muffled in 1 See the pamphlet of M. Pichon,' deputy of the Seine, on La Diplom.atie de I'Eglise et la Troisieme RipuUique. Therein the author studies the character of three prelates of entirely different origin, temperament, rela- tions, and opinions, Monseigneur Dupanloup, and Cardinals Pic and Bon- nechose; he shows them united in a common opposition to the republican form, for the benefit of three different monarchical solutions. 274 THE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. the mask of religion."^ Even after the 16th of May, it would have been possible for the clergy, if not to regain the good graces of the government, at least to secure its friendly neutrality, by separating its cause plainly from that of the monarchy. But to act thus was to deal a fatal blow to all the pious works which royalist money had supported, almost unaided, up to that time.^ In the ranks of the lower clergy many desired, nevertheless, adhesion to the Republic; epis- copal influence deterred them.^ The French secular priests are, in a way, infinitely respectable ; their habits are pure, but their intellectual development is insuffi- cient ; in their seminaries they undergo the tyranny of an education based on the ideas of another age, which does not strengthen the body, does not form the char- acter, and fills the mind with vague formulas. But while in the country curate there frequently reappear, under the scholastic varnish, the strong qualities of uprightness and good sense of the peasants from whom he has sprung, the bishop, isolated from his fellow-men, finds again in the rather solemn luxury of his palace, in the homage of which his person is the object, a sort of dimmed image of the part which his predecessors played under the ancient monarchy; if it does not react against his every-day impressions, he comes to imagine 1 E. Spuller, L' Involution Sociale et Politique de I'Bglise. 1 vol. Alcan, 1893. 2 This was plainly visible later on, when Cardinal Lavigerie gave the signal for rallying round the Republic. The contributions of the faithful, by the aid of which the illustrious prelate supported his African labors, underwent a decided diminution ; it was the same with the Saint Peter's Pence, so far as France is concerned, when Leo XIII. had stated with pre- cision his attitude with regard to the Republic. ^ The curate of a little town in Normandy was the first to utter in public words of adhesion to the Republic which Cardinal Lavigerie, in his turn, uttered in 1891, and which produced such a sensation. THE REPUBLIC AND THE CHURCH. 275 that lie lias the right to exercise, and sometimes that he really does exercise, an influence upon public affairs; he is thus led to give his advice on everything, to deal with electoral and diplomatic questions, to make aston- ishing distinctions between the laws, some of which he pronounces to be wise and others infamous,^ and finally to write those letters or those pastoral charges wherein he sets forth, with a sort of unconsciousness, his con- ception of the civil organization, and addresses to the public powers remonstrances or exhortations which are more than a century behind the times, as to the ideas and the habits of the present day. It is true that, as the nomination of bishops results from an agreement between the government and the Holy See, the Minis- try of Public Worship ought to be held responsible for the selections which it makes, and which are then sub- mitted for approbation to the Pope. The present epoch has seen a certain number of liberal, patriotic priests, animated by an apostolic zeal for good and filled with the spirit of charity; but such men have not always the qualities requisite for administering a diocese. The directors of Public Worship ^ have had occasion, more- over, to discover that the bishop rarely continues his character as priest, and that many ecclesiastics, rightly regarded as moderate in their opinions, become after 1 See the harangue addressed by the Bishop ol Angers to M. Andre Lebon, Minister of Commerce, in the course of one of his journeys (1895). 2 The directors of Public Worship do not share the fate of the ministers, their hierarchical superiors ; they generally belong to the Council of State and maintain good relations with the clergy, but the functionaries who are placed under their orders, embittered by continual contact with a social circle of which they understand neither the cast of mind nor the language, have too often paralyzed the good intentions of their chiefs, and have pre- vented harmony from reigning between the management and the church. The directors of Public Worship have been, since 1870, MM. Tardif, Lafer- rifere, Oastagnari, Flourens, Bousquet, and Dumay. 276 THE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. their elevation to the episcopate autocratic and ultra in their views. It is not necessary to seek the cause for this elsewhere than in the influence exercised upon them by the tokens of respect and veneration shown to them by the laity, who demand in return from their bishops their aid in political struggles. When the clericals find themselves turned out of power, they turn naturally to education; for it is by extending their domination over young people that they can pave the way for the return of their governmental influence. In France the primary school, which was destined to become in a way the corner-stone of the Republic, was in the hands of the priests. Could it remain there ? It is a prerogative of republican tradi- tions to develop education by all possible means. The Republic of 1848 did not fail to do so ; but, surrounded by the good wishes and the sympathy of the clergy, to whom it brought liberty with the end of a regimen of suspicion and stifling, it did not think it necessary to secularize the schools.^ The republicans of 1876, on the contrary, had a very definite impression that the schools would be the vulnerable point upon which the reactionaries would concentrate their efforts, the fissure through which they would attempt to introduce the pi6kaxe into the new edifice. Their principal anxiety, therefore, was to secularize them and to transfer them to trusty hands. Had the question been propounded a little less brutally,^ had the Roman Catholics, on the 1 See the circulars of M. Hippolyte Carnot, then Minister of Public Education. 2 " Everybody now knows that M. Jules Ferry's plans were submitted to the Council only as a matter of form, that the other ministers barely heard them read, without exactly comprehending their scope and the sensation which they were fated to create." (Revue des Deux Mondes. Chronique.) This assertion appears greatly exaggerated. THE REPUBLIC AND THE CHURCH. 277 other hand, formulated their demands in a less aggres- sive tone and imparted to their resistance a less violent air, the reform would not have been accomplished in so radical a manner; many compromises would have been obtained, which liberal minds have regretted their ina- bility to introduce into the law ; such as, for example, the power of the Minister of Public Worship to intro- duce religious instruction into the schools once a week, outside of recitation hours. ^ Absolute neutrality can exist only in theory ; by seeking to render complete the separation between religious instruction and general in- struction, between the priest and the schoolmaster, the latter has, in a way, been incited to regard the rep- resentative of the ecclesiastical authority in the light of his personal adversary. This resulted, especially in the small rural communes, in strained relations, which sometimes degenerated into open hostility. Such, as- suredly, was not the object of the legislator, who was ^ In June and July, 1882, during the debate upon the law concerning secondary education, Jules Ferry repulsed, in the following terms, the proposition which bore upon forbidding ecclesiastics to teach, a propo- sition which was supported, among others, by M. Madier de Montjau: "Yes, it was persecution of the clergy which ruined the French Revo- lution. That is the lesson of history, and in spite of your objections, every one who has reflected in the least upon these things is ready to recognize the fact. We told you so, when we began with you the struggle against clericalism ; we said in the Senate : Our policy is anti-clerical ; it wiU never be anti-religious. ... If you wish to talte education away from the priests, it is not because they are functionaries, it is because their doctrines alarm you. Well, you will not get the better of their doctrines by thrusting the clergy outside the law, or, as you have said, by trying to get the better of them. You will rid yourselves of the teach- ing clergy, but you will be obliged to rid yourselves also of Roman Catho- lic lay teachers. Thus it is with Roman Catholicism that you will have to wage war. Well, that is a policy which we shall never adopt, and this I say in harmony — at least I think so — with the great majority of my party; that is a policy which I reject with all the forces of my republican conscience, with all the forces of my liberal soul, and of my faith in truth, in reason, and in justice." 278 THJE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. anxious that the reform should not be applied as rapidly as it had been conceived, but progressively, in such a way as to respect as far as possible rights already acquired. On the field of secondary education the battle, though more underhand, was none the less fierce. There, in fact, one was no longer confronted by the secular clergy, democratic in origin and more easily won over to republican views; one found oneself face to face with the religious bodies, rich and powerful, proud of the important part which they had played in the past, and in advance, in many points of detail, of the Uni- versity in the line of pedagogical reforms. No doubt they might be reduced to a state of impotency by a direct or indirect prohibition to teach; not only all favors, but all positions, might be reserved for young men, who would justify this by their presence for a minimum number of years in the State lyceums and colleges; and, finally, the system of university estab- lishments might be improved in such a manner as to render them capable of entering into serious competi- tion with the ecclesiastical establishments. It is infi- nitely honorable to the republican party that it adopted this last solution of the difficulty, which was the slow- est and most laborious, but also the most just and the most liberal of the three. The second, advocated at different times by the radicals, was never considered; the first seems to have haunted for a moment the mind of Jules Ferry, but he was not slow to perceive how contrary such a policy was to the traditions and the foundations of the republican government. Moreover, how was a distinction to be established and maintained between the authorized and the unauthorized religious bodies ? " Authorization is a formality which has fallen THE REPUBLIC AND THE CHURCH. 279 somewhat into desuetude, because, far from insuring to the religious orders who provided themselves therewith a privileged situation, it augmented their burdens, and subjected them to an irritating supervision on the part of the State. An unauthorized religious body neces- sarily escapes all precise definitions. It is not recog- nized, that is evident, and does not ask to be ; it has no collective character and does not show itself under any civil form. The religious persons who compose it come under the common law. They have its burdens and its responsibilities ; they have also its advantages and prerogatives. In what way are these bodies illegal because they are not authorized ? How is their authori- zation necessary, since those who belong to them remain under the common law?"i Objections were raised to the anti-human character of the contemplative orders, to the unpatriotic education given by some of the teaching orders, and, finally, to the social danger re- sulting from the accumulation of wealth in convents. Many Christians consider that the contemplative life has been wrongly introduced into Christianity, which is a religion of action, but it does not follow that the State has any right whatever to meddle, and to' force the doors of modern Port-Royals. More important still is the question of education ; but there, again, on what principle can intervention be grounded, and in what manner is it to be exercised? If one deplores that a whole class of young Frenchmen are reared in ideas which do not appear to be those that would render them most competent to serve their country, these ideas are not, nevertheless, such that they can be dealt with as one deals with miasmas, by isolation and antiseptic treatment; it is primarily a question of a "state of 1 Ch. de Mazade, Revue des Deux Mondes. Chronique. 280 THE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. soul," and states of souls are not to be regulated either by circulars or by laws. As for the wealth in the pos- session of the religious bodies, however great it may be, — and the statistics give us information upon, this subject,! — i^ ig jiQt possible to descry therein a peril; the State has every means of defending itself, and such laws that the law of "accretion " permits of its re-estab- lishing the equilibrium between the taxes of the reli- gious bodies and those of its other citizens. The tax on accretion is even exaggerated in certain cases. It is reckoned according to the number of establishments which a community possesses. Whenever a nun dies, each establishment pays the tax. Now it is not the wealthy orders which are the most aiieeted, because the "Sisters of Saint Vincent de Paul," and the "Little Sisters of the Poor," for example, have many different establishments, and all their property goes for the benefit of the poor. It is iniquitous to make so heavy a tax rest upon them. From primary and secondary education, the conflict extended to higher education. But higher education has made remarkable progress during the last thirty years', for its progress is that of science itself. In that field the ecclesiastical professors had allowed themselves to fall far behind, to such a point that the question was asked whether any harmony between science and faith were possible. This is a vital question; it has been passionately discussed. M. Taine, in a celebrated pas- sage of his last work, contrasted the " two pictures " : "that of science, which is still in process of execution, 1 From statistics drawn up at the instigation of Gambetta, it appears that the known real estate owned by the religious bodies, authorized or otherwise, represented, in 1881, jsW ol the whole French territory, and reached a purchasable value of 712,538,980 francs. The taxes paid amounted to 157,495 francs, or 0.022 per cent. THE REPUBLIC AND THE CHURCH. 281 and on the way of advancement," whose painters "work from nature, and make continual comparisons between their painting and the model," and that of faith, dif- ferent in conception, in development, in methods. " Hence," said he, " in the soul of every Roman Catholic arise combat and painful anxieties : Which of the two conceptions must be taken as-a guide? For every mind which is sincere and capable of embracing both simul- taneously, each of them is irreducible to the other. With the vulgar mind, incapable of thinking of them together, they dwell side by side, and do not clash, except at intervals and when, in order to act, a choice must be made. Many intelligent, educated, and even learned persons, notably the specialists, avoid bringing them face to face, since the one is the support of their reason, the other the guardian of their conscience; between them, and for the purpose of preventing pos- sible conflicts, they interpose in advance a party wall, a water-tight partition which prevents their meeting and jostling each other. Others, clever politicians or persons who are not very clear-sighted, try to bring them into harmony, either by assigning to each its own domain, or by joining the two domains by phantom bridges, by wraiths of staircases, by those illusive means of communication which the dissolving view of human speech can always set up between incompatible things, and which furnish man, if not with the possession of a truth, at least with the enjoyment of a witty sally." ^ This is perfectly exact ; but the question remains un- touched, since the problem is to learn whether it is with Christianity that science is incompatible, or with the Roman Catholics, such as they are to-day. 1 H. Taine, Les Origines de la France Contemporaine. Le Nouveau Regime. 282 THE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. The clericals tried to attack higher education by- founding Roman Catholic Universities ^ and by organiz- ing scientific congresses. Many of them think that it would have been better to take positions in the State Universities and in the general congresses, instead of shutting themselves up in institutions or in discussions of an exclusive character. • But the creation of Regional Universities was one of the articles of that programme of decentralization which, during the last years of the Empire, and under the influence of Le Play, had won manj;- adherents among the great rural proprietors ; on the other hand, the most exalted envied the victories won by the clerical party in Belgium, and attributed to the Roman Catholic University of Louvain a large share in paving the way for these victories. As for the idea of convoking an assembly of "Roman Catholic learned men," it had its birth at Rouen in 1885. It was decided to exclude from the deliberations of the future congress all language and matters of discussion which had not been accepted beforehand by the com- mittee.^ Far from audacious as was this plan, it was attacked by certain Roman Catholic organs, which insisted upon seeing in it "a deliberative assembly, seeking to fix principles of exegesis, to set boundaries to science and dogma, to cause to prevail certain very 1 It must be noted that the theological faculties were suppressed under the influence of ultramontane tendencies. Jules Ferry, President of the Council, explained himself in the following terms, before the Senate, in February, 1885. " Gentlemen, I am one of that small number of persons who take an interest in the theological faculties. As Minister of Public Education, I made the most sincere efforts to put life into that institution. In order to succeed, I ought to have had the aid of the bishops and of the Roman court. But the Holy See does not care about it, and as for the bishops, with the exception of the Bishop of Rouen, they share the views of the Court of Rome, which distrusts the liberal instruction of the theo- logical faculties and prefers the courses of the seminaries." 2 Compte rendu des Travaux du Congris, Vol. I. THE REPUBLIC AND THE CHURCH. 283 broad standards of interpretation of the Scriptures.^ The first congress brought together eleven hundred members ; there was a second, a few years later. Their action was of the smallest ; by thus isolating themselves to discuss subjects which belong to all the world, the Roman Catholics condemned themselves to their own society. They seemed to confess that their faith did not agree with the data of modern science. In the same way, their anxiety to keep not only the child, but the young man also, apart from those of their comrades who have received a different education, has been inter- preted to their discredit ; in this way they give rise to the idea that religion is powerless to make a profound impression upon souls. ^ It is not alone because they believe themselves to be in possession of the only and sole truth, that the Roman Catholics have often given proofs of extreme views, and of intolerance with regard to men and ideas, it is also because they exaggerate — chiefly in France — their numerical power ; to tell the truth, it is difficult to estimate it. M. Taine has justly remarked that " faith increases in the restricted group, and diminishes in the large group. " Nevertheless, although the Roman Catholics of France are far from being so ardent, so bellicose, as their brethren of Belgium, and reckoning only those who fight, one runs the risk of making a mistake as to the force which they represent in the nation ; on the other hand, to analyze the state of the religious spirit of the nation itself, taken as a whole, 1 Compte rendu des Travaux du Congris, Vol. I. 2 Young people feel a certain indifference towards religious things. Monseigneur Hulst confessed it, saying: "Never have there been more young people reared in a Christian manner, never have there been fewer who are ready to devote themselves to a holy cause and to sacrifice to it their amusement." (ie Correspondant,') 284 THE EVOLUTION OF FMANCE. is a relatively easy matter. The first years of the Republic were marked, as we have seen, by an outbreak of very peculiar mysticism. France was consecrated to tW Sacred Heart; pilgrimages were multiplied, new devotions were created and pursued, under color of a unification of liturgy, a more complete and more defini- tive subjection of the Gallic Church to the Roman Church. These exaggerations evidently displeased the country and had a great share in turning it towards the men of the Left, to whom it gave the command to oppose the intermeddling of the priest in the govern- ment, and at the same time to guard against all measures of persecution. The men elected did not always fol- low exactly the commands of their constituents. They allowed themselves to be induced, if not to persecute, at least to harass. We find in the municipal law of 1884, as well as in the school law and the military law,^ evident traces of the sectarian spirit. In Parliament there are excesses of anti-clerical zeal; one day the stipends of the seminaries are suppressed ; another day, the salary of the Archbishop of Paris is reduced, or the form of oath is modified so that the name of God is excluded. 2 But the initiative of the deputies stopped 1 It is well to recall the fact that, when the proposal to ahrogate Arti- cle 20 of the military law of July 27, 1872, which exempted students in theological seminaries and their teachers, came before the Chamber, — M. Paul Bert brought in the bill, — MM. Jules Ferry and Constans defended with great energy, but in vain, the prerogatives of the clergy. 2 In the Senate, in March, 1882, Jules Simon represented his amend- ment passed the preceding year, but not accepted by the Chamber, and directed towards inscribing in the school law the words : " Duties towards God and towards country " (which were inscribed, moreover, in the regu- lations by the Supreme Council). "It is repugnant tome, a former pro- fessor," said he, "to see a law for education, and especially for primary education, from which the name of God has been expunged ; it shocks me, it grieves me. During the active period of my life we all had that belief in God. We regarded it as our first duty, as legislators, to write God into our laws, as it was our first duty as republicans to avenge the Republic JULES FERRY, DEPUTY, PRIME MINISTER THE SENATE, AND PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC AND THE CHVBCH. 285 there. During the first part of the present period some of them proposed, in an indefinite manner, the suppres- sion of the French Embassy to the Vatican and the separation of Church and State; these persons were the first to rejoice when the majority decided against them, so thoroughly did they feel themselves to be out of harmony with the universal opinion. This universal opinion is resolute and persevering; little by little it effaces from programmes those reforms whose emptiness and sterility it perceives. It understands that if the separation were to be effected, "there would be discord in the bosom of every family, and greater disunion among the French than at any other epoch. How long would such a crisis last ? No one can tell. As it is not the nature of crises to last, the country would wish to put an end to it. Very speedily men would again begin to talk of religious pacification, of necessary ap- peasement."^ The expulsion of the religious bodies found no echo in the country ; after a while they were allowed to return; public opinion is informed, and silence settles down upon that subject; it is satisfied with the assurance that the "government of the priests " will not be established; all the ministers give it that assurance, one after the other: M. Martin-Feuill^e, M. Ribot, M. Casimir-P^rier. It felt grateful to M. Falli^res for causing the rejection of Paul Bert's proposition, which aimed at alienating, for the benefit of the school treasury, the landed estates apportioned to the service of Public Worship in excess of the stipu- lations of the Concordat. It generally is grateful for all the conflicts which it is spared, and it demands the for all attacks made upon it when it was called impious ; we demand it also for our soldiers, and we believe that when we say to a man : ' March in front of the grape-shot,' it is good to tell him that God sees him," 1 Eug. SpuUer, L'&volution Politique et Sociale de I'Sglise. 286 THE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. statu quo, which it feels alone can maintain religious peace. What the Frenchman desires is, that he shall not be forced "to go to mass." Observe that the peas- ants, who never enter a church, insist upon possessing one so that they can have their children baptized there, can be married there, can bear thither the bodies of their dead relatives ; the enlightened man, the superior mind who gets along without a formal worship, desires, for his part, that the worship which he no longer needs shall remain within his reach. Such sentiments are nowhere so strongly developed as in France; they answer to the most profound tendencies of the Gallic soul, which is captivated by death, and takes pleasure in contemplating, during a joyous life, the disquieting and grand perspectives of the world beyond. " Our country," says M. SpuUer, "does not wish to risk its repose in an interminable series of religious quarrels and difficulties. It is neither sufficiently Roman Catho- lic nor sufficiently Protestant for that, nor even free- thinking enough. It wants religion, but in its own way ; it takes from it, and it leaves ; what it asks of the priests is that they shall remain in their churches ; it has a horror of them as soon as they emerge thence, and it goes thither to seek them as soon as they shut themselves up there." ^ On February 8, 1884, Pope Leo XIII., who for six years had occupied Pius IX. 's place on the apostolic throne, addressed to the French bishops his first letter of conciliation, exhorting them not to show hostility to the government. This was, as it were, the distant signal of the decided evolution which was in preparation. The Church at that epoch resembled those parliamentary governments 1 Eug. SpuUer, L'&volution Socials et Politique de VEglise. THE BEPUBLIC AND THE CBUBCH. 287 where, through the natural and regular working of the institutions, the parties succeed each other alternately in power, and where a powerful, liberal minority, constantly growing stronger, seems certain to replace before long the reactionary majority. Only, in the case of the Church, the currents are so concealed, the very person of the Pope, in his moral omnipotence, plays so preponderating a part, that unless one keeps a very close watch he cannot always foresee events. The reactionaries had received the new dogmas with acclamations, had accepted the Syllabus with enthusi- asm; the great movement inaugurated by Lamennais, Lacordaire, and Montalembert seemed finally to have perished. Lamennais, who was imprudent in his lan- guage, had by his impatience paved the way for his own defeat, and had discouraged his allies. Lacordaire, having sown the good word, withdrew among the young, and tried to train them with a view to the battles to come. Montalembert held his peace, and allowed the retrograde current to spend its force. Only once did he speak again. It was at Mechlin, on August 18, 1863. There was a great assembly there of two or three thousand Roman Catholics, among them Cardinal Wiseman, Cardinal Ledochowski, M. Cochin, and others.^ "The Roman Catholics," exclaimed Montalembert, " are everywhere inferior to their adver- saries in public life, because they have not yet made up their minds about the great revolution which has given birth to the new society, the modern life of nations. They feel an insurmountable mixture of embarrassment and timidity in the presence of modern society. They have not yet learned either to know it, or to like it, or 1 On this subject, see an interesting article by M. de Molinari in the Eevue des Deux Mondes, September 15, 1875. 288 TEE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. to frequent it. Many of them still belong, in heart, in spirit, without being aware of it, to the old order of things, that is to say, to an order which admitted neither civil equality nor political liberty nor liberty of conscience; that old order of things had its great and its beautiful side. I do not undertake to judge it, still less to condemn it; it is enough for me to be cognizant of one defect in it, a capital defect; it is dead! it will never be resuscitated anywhere. " "This renunciation," he said in another place, "must not be tacit and sincere. It must become a common matter of knowledge to the public ; public protest must be made, clearly, boldly, on every occasion, against any idea of return to that which irritates or disturbs modern society. Even if my respectful voice," said Montalem- bert in conclusion, "penetrates to those lofty regions where protracted errors may have such sad consequences, it cannot be mistaken there for the voice of audacity or of imprudence : God gives to frankness, to fidelity, to uprightness, a tone which can neither be counterfeited nor misunderstood." The appeal was not heeded. On December 21, 1863, the Pope expressed to the Archbishop of Mechlin his sharp displeasure; in the following year appeared the encyclical Quanta Cura (December 8, 1864), in which Pius IX. characterized as the "liberty of perdition" the right of citizens "to disseminate publicly and abroad their thoughts, either by word or through the press." ^ This demonstration 1 There was another Congress in 1866, in which Monseigneur Dupan- loup, M. de Falloux, and Father Hyacinthe Loyson took part ; the dis- cussions were stormy ; it became necessary to dissolve the Congress. The Congresses of Poitiers and of Rheims, in 1875, brought together only parti- sans of the Syllabus. Monseigneur Nardi was heard there against the diffusion of education, and M. de Mun made a brilliant but paradoxical apology for the Middle Ages. THE BEPUBLIC AND THE CHUBCH. 289 of Mechlin was the most celebrated; but others took place which showed that the liberal flame was still smouldering under the ashes, as if to feed some grand conflagration in the future. In the meanwhile, on the other side of the ocean, there was growing up that American Roman Catholicism which was to astonish the old world with its daring. Tocqueville had already noted that the Roman Catholics^ "formed the most republican and most democratic class in the United States," and thence he had concluded "that it is wrong to regard the Roman Catholic religion as a natural enemy to democracy; and that when the priests are once turned out, or withdraw from the government, as they do in the United States, there are no men who, by their beliefs, are more disposed to carry into the political world the idea of equality of conditions."^ When the American dollar began to form a consider- able part of the Peter's Pence, the Church beyond the sea attracted attention; it was perceived that it drew its strength from a return to primitive Christianity. One of its most eloquent representatives, Monseigneur Ireland, Archbishop of Saint Paul, Minnesota, ex- pressed the spirit which animates it in the following terms: "Give room for the action of each person. There is no necessity that the layman should wait for the priest, or that the priest should wait for the bishop, or that the bishop should wait for the Pope to follow his own road. The timid move in herds, and the brave march in single file. . . . The religion which is needed to-day does not consist in chanting fine anthems in the stalls of a cathedral, clothed in gold-embroidered orna- 1 When he visited the United States, there were one million Roman Catholics out of fifteen million inhabitants. 2 A. de Tocqueville, De la I)4m,ocratie en Am^rique, Vol. II. u 290 THE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. ments, while there is no multitude either in the nave or in the side aisles, and while the world outside is dying of spiritual and moral inanition. Seek out men, talk to them, not in stilted phrases or by sermons in the style of the seventeenth century, but in burning words which find the road to their hearts at the same time as to their minds." ^ These "burning words" should be placed alongside the following passage from de Tocqueville: "Nothing is more revolting to the human mind, in times of equality, than the idea of submitting to forms. Men who live in such times endure figures with impatience; symbols appear to them as childish artifices, which are used to veil or array to their eyes truths which it would be more natural to show to them unclothed and in broad day- light; they remain cold at the sight of those cere- monies, and are naturally inclined to attach only a secondary importance to the details of worship. Those who are entrusted with regulating the external form of religions in democratic countries should pay thorough attention to these natural instincts of the human intel- ligence in order that they may not fight against them unnecessarily. ... A religion which should become more minute, more inflexible, and more burdened with petty observances at the same time that men are becom- ing more equal, would soon behold itself reduced to a troop of passionate zealots in the midst of an incredu- lous multitude, while an aristocratic people is always inclined to place intermediary powers between God and man. "2 It is therefore erroneous to believe that the evolution ^ Speech delivered in the cathedral of Baltimore, on November 10, 1889, at the hundredth anniversary of the establishment of the Eoman Catholic hierarchy in the United States. 2 A. de Tocqueville, De la D4inocratie en AmMque, Vol. III. TEE REPUBLIC AND THE CHURCH. 291 of which the French Republic serves as centre and pretext has as its first and sole cause the personal moods of the Sovereign Pontiff ; it has been Catholic, like the Church itself, that is to say, universal, and that is why we may think, with M. SpuUer, that this evolution " is called upon to decide as to an entirely new direction of human societies." ^ It applies to the one set of things as well as to the other, and is only the culmination of the long and persevering efforts of the liberal party. At the beginning of his pontificate, Leo XIII. hesitated for some time before he perceived in a precise manner what the interests of religion dictated. He recalled the Germanic Holy Roman Empire and believed that monarchical power, isolated, and fortified by its very isolation, was about to resume charge of directing the world; hence his attitude toward Germany. Pius IX., his predecessor, had re-established liturgical unity, mul- tiplied the apostolic vicarships, and created in a certain way the religious press and Roman Catholic journalism, but he left the Holy See in the most difficult relations with the majority of the princes, as with the majority of the Cabinets, of Europe. These faults had to be repaired without compromising the results already attained. "Where was the strength to be found upon which to lean? The German Csesar and the Gallic democracy stood face to face, incarnations of the two powers which to-day contend for the universe. Leo XIII. , having maturely reflected upon the state of affairs, placed his hand in that of the Republic. The act appeared so sudden and created such a sensation that it disconcerted all parties, to such a degree that "in the beginning no one could or would believe it." It was necessary to emancipate Roman Catholicism 1 A. de Tocqueville, De la Dimocratie en Amirique, Vol. III. 292 THE EVOLUTION OF FBANGE. from monarchical tutelage. ^ Leo XIII. resolved to extricate it at the same time from the influence of the rich, by taking out of their hands the Gospel, pre- eminently the book of democracy. He judged that the time was come to teach laboring men " not only their duties, which are dinned into their ears, but also their rights, of which up to that time the clergy had spoken to them only in hints, with bated breath. "^ He saw that " men made in the image of the Creator are con- sidered by other men as parts of a machine, or beasts of burden, " and understood that " until their material condition is improved, it is useless to talk to them of the supernatural life."^ France was in a condition to serve the Pope's plans, as soon as he had settled upon them. America was too far away, too isolated ; the priests there are reputed to have a manner of their own of interpreting religion and of putting it in practice. Words and deeds assume a different meaning on the other side of the ocean. In England, the spirit of independence and of individual enterprise is so general, that a large measure of liberty is accorded to her, even in the theocratic domain. The blow must be dealt nearer the centre of the Roman 1 " By allying itself to a political power, religion augments its hold over some men," says de Tocqueville (De la D4mocratie en AmMque), " but it loses the hope of reigning over aU. As long as a religion depends only upon the sentiments which are the consolation of all miseries, it can draw to itself the heart of the human race. Mingled with the bitter passions of this world, it is sometimes constrained to defend allies fur- nished to it by self-interest rather than by love, and it must repel as adversaries men who often love it still, while they combat those to whom it is united. Should Roman Catholicism finally succeed in escaping from the political hatreds which it has aroused, I have little doubt that that same spirit of the century which seems so opposed to it would become very favorable to it, and that it would suddenly make great conquests." 2 Speech delivered at Baltimore, October 18, 1893, by Monseigneur Ireland, Archbishop of Saint Paul. 8 Ibid. TEM REPUBLIC AND THE CHURCH. 293 Catholic world, where liberal doctrines are fashioned alongside of intolerant doctrines, where men are not afraid to teach, in certain circles, that " liberalism is a sin," where exalted enthusiasm and blind conservatism walk side by side and elbow each other. France, more- over, had beheld the dawn of religious democracy half a century before; since that time the Republic had conquered it, without breaking the bonds established between the clergy and the State. And, in conclusion, pontiiical action there was both near and powerful. Hence it. was the best field for evolutions, as soon as quarrels of a secondary rank should have been appeased, as soon as the words of peace had been exchanged be- tween the Ministers of Public Worship and the rulers. The latter aided in the work of pacification, but nega- tively, and the Sovereign Pontiff now grasped the fact that he alone, as M. Gr^vy had written to him, could exert himself therein both actively and effectively.^ 1 The reference is to a letter addressed to Leo XIII. , in the month of June, 1883, by the President of the Republic, in response to one which he had received from the Pope ; this correspondence, which was kept secret, was known only after the death of M. Grevy ; it was regarded as having done honor to his tact and his perspicacity. The Pope asked the Presi- dent to interfere, as far as possible, to stop the progress of anti-religious ideas. "Tour Holiness," he replied, "complains with justice of anti- religious passions ; they certainly do exist, together with the opposite senti- ments of the great majority of the French people; but can one mistake the fact that these passions, which I repel, have sprung principally from the hostile attitude of the clergy toward the Republic, either at its advent, or in the struggles which it had to undergo, later on, to maintain its exist- ence, or in those which it still endures, day by day, against its mortal enemies? In this sad conflict of opposing passions, I can, unfortunately, do but very little with the enemies of the Church. Your Holiness can do a great deal with the enemies of the Republic. If you would deign to maintain them in that political neutrality which is the great and wise intention of your pontificate, you would cause us to take a decisive step toward that very desirable assuagement." It will be noticed that this letter was written in the spring of 1883, and that Leo XHI.'s, to the French bishops, which is mentioned above, bears the date of February 8, 1884. 294 THE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. From time to time a crisis arose which upset his plans ; Boulangism came near ruining his success completely, because of the clerical support which it had won. In spite of this, the psychological moment had arrived; to wait longer was to expose himself to the danger of failing, perhaps irremediably. OnNovemberl2, 1890, Cardinal Lavigerie, Archbishop of Carthage and Algiers, Primate of Africa, received in his episcopal palace Admiral Charles Duperr^ and the officers of his squadron. At the end of the dinner which he gave to his guests, he made a speech, and in a few brief and resolute words he stigmatized the conduct of the so-called conservatives, who " offer to the enemies who are watching us the spectacle of our ambitions and of our hatreds, and cast into the heart of France that discour- agement which is the precursor of final catastrophes." In order the better to set forth the prelate's words, the band of the White Fathers played the Marseillaise. When this detail became known, it caused even more surprise than the speech itself. The Marseillaise still remained for conservatives the sanguinary hymn, the echo of the guillotine ; many republicans had long hesi- tated to accept it as the national air. Since 1889 people had become accustomed to hear it frequently, but no one dreamed that the Republic was so near to imposing it upon Europe. The royalists were disconcerted; they had at first supposed it to be a caprice ; but when they beheld the cardinal still further emphasize his declara- tions in a letter to the priests under his charge, they got the impression that it was a deliberate, well-con- sidered act, authorized, no doubt, by the Pope. Never- theless, they thought that the Roman Curia, which is always prudent, would confine itself for the time being to this hint; their illusion was of short duration. THE REPUBLIC AND THE CHURCH. 295 There soon appeared a letter of approbation addressed by Cardinal Rampolla "to a French Bishop." The doctrinal and impersonal character of the document deprived it of none of its importance. These events speedily brought forth fruit. The desire for reconciliation came to light in the speeches at the opening of the General Councils (August ses- sion), and the reassembling of the Chambers witnessed the formation of that republican Right which had been talked of for so long ; it bore only the name of " inde- pendent," and the platform drawn up by its leader, M. Jacques Piou, was full of gaps and of omissions; but the impulse was given. At the same time reap- peared that plan for a "Roman Catholic party" con- ceived by Lamennais and Montalembert, and which M. Guibert,^ in 1853, had combated in a famous pas- toral charge. MM. Chesnelong, Keller, and de Mackau, with M. de Mun ^ and Cardinal Richard, Archbishop of Paris, founded "the union of Christian France, " which was to constitute its embryo. The monarchists, feeling themselves attacked, tried to separate their cause from that of the Church, in order to conceal what the Church was attempting to do on its side. M. d'Haussonville at Toulouse, and M. Herv6 in the Soleil, returned on their own account to Gambetta's formula, and repu- diated the "government of priests." It became the fashion to establish a distinction which the Syllabus had not foreseen, between the Pope talking of religion and worthy of heed, and the Pope talking of politics and deserving of no attention. 1 Afterwards Archbishop of Paris. 2 M. de Mun had already tried, immediately after the elections of 1885, to found a Koman Catholic party ; but he received no encouragement in this undertaking either from the conservatives, intoxicated by their half- victory, or from the good-will of the clergy. 296 THE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. In the spring of 1891 appeared the famous encyclical Rerum Novarum. Social evolution was sketched along- side of political evolution ; to tell the truth, the former was much the more ancient. "Christian socialism" had for a long time made recruits among the French, and its progress had been sufficiently rapid and suffi- ciently important to lead Monseigneur Freppel, MM. Lucien, Brun, Claudio Jannet, and the Due de Broglie to join together for the formation of a Roman Catholic society of social economy, intended to counteract the action of M. de Mun and his partisans.^ Nowhere in the encyclical Renmn Novarum is there to be found " a practical solution of the complex, irritating, and pain- ful questions which constitute what is called socialism. The Pope therein defends individual property, inheri- tance, the principle of the liberty of transactions, and even the independence of the individual with regard to the State. "^ But the fact that the head of the Roman Catholic Church should dare to tread upon this dangerous ground was a sufficient sign of the times ; on the other hand, workingmen were taken to him, and the Vatican welcomed them with open arms ; Cardinal Lang^nieux, Archbishop of Rheims, organized working- men's pilgrimages. In 1885 several hundred Christian employers went to salute the Pope, followed, two years later, by twelve hundred of their workmen. In 1889 and 1891 these demonstrations were repeated, and in the basilica of Saint Peter, M. de Mun proclaimed Leo ^ It is to be noted that the founders of this society had all, more or less, supported the doctrine of the intervention of the State: Monseigneur Freppel, in 1886, had demanded it, with M. de Mun, in the question of regulating the hours of labor in workshops ; M. Chesnelong, in that of the prohibition of night labor for women and children ; M. Claudio Jannet and M. Keller, in that of the establishment of obligatory rest on Sunday. 2 Eug. Spuller, L'Mvolution Sociale et Politique de l'6(jlise. THE REPUBLIC AND THE CHURCH. 297 XIII. the " workingman's Pope." In the wise and discreet speech with which he replied to M. de Mun, Leo XIII. expressed a wish for "a certain restoration of the moral principle in problems relating to the amelioration of the social condition of workingmen. " ^ This coincided, as M. Spuller remarks, with a marked evolution in French socialistic writers. Little by little they withdrew from the purely economical socialism of Karl Marx, the scientific coloring of which had allured them at first, and which after all was reduced to the quest of immediate and strictly practical amelioration of material existence. They returned to a more general and more generous conception of socialism, that which tends " to the realization of greater amount of the ideal in the establishment of a society which shall be, as a whole, more just, more enlightened, and more fra- ternal." "It is in vain that the socialism of Karl Marx offered itself to the masses as armed with all the resources of the most pressing argumentation and the most rigorous mathematical calculations. It did not speak sufficiently to the agitated heart, to the enthusi- astic mind, of the laboring masses to hold them attentive and sympathetic for long. " ^ These workingmen's pilgrimages, organized to hasten the social evolution desired by Leo XIII., came near ruining the political revolution which he was endeavor- ing to realize at the same time. The members of the " Roman Catholic youth " had accompanied the working- men pilgrims to the Yatican in 1891. The ceremonies came to an end when a sort of Francophobe riot broke out in Rome. A very slight incident provoked it; in the course of a visit made by the young pilgrims to the 1 Eug. Spuller, L'tivolution Politique et Sociale de l'£glise. J Ibid. 298 THE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. Pantheon of Agrippa, where stands the tomb of Victor Emmanuel, one of them, it is said, wrote in the visit- ors' book these words: "Long live the Pope! " Like a fire along a train of gunpowder the news spread through the city that the memory of Victor Emmanuel had been insulted by the French. A public sheet, printed as if by enchantment, and whose " improvised " numbers were fairly snatched from hand to hand, com- mented upon the fact with so much pleasure and zeal that it was difficult not to suspect premeditation, a deliberately planned trick. Not only in Rome, but in all the cities of Italy, there was an explosion of anti- French rage, in the face of which the Paris Cabinet was somewhat lacking in energy. The Minister of Public Worship, by a letter to the bishops, interdicted pil- grimages, for the time being, which was generally approved of ; but one would have liked to see the Minister of Foreign Affairs speak, at the same time, to the representatives of King Humbert in language suited to the occasion. To the ministerial missive, couched in rather curt terms, Monseigneur Gouthe-Soulard, Archbishop of Aix, replied by a document so violent that it seemed im- possible not to prosecute him. The prelate appeared, on November 21, 1891, before the first chamber of the Court of Appeals of Paris, and was condemned, with extenuat- ing circumstances, to pay a fine of three thousand francs. Cardinal Richard had offered him the hospitality of his palace. Monseigneur Gouthe-SoUlard received the con- gratulations and the allegiance of nearly sixty bishops. Never, probably, had the deplorable state of mind of the French Episcopal body asserted itself in so startling a manner ; never had the misunderstanding engendered by the Concordat been more clearly apparent. Incon- THE BEPUBLIC AND THE CHUBCH. 299 siderate expressions were noted from the sober and aca- demical pen of Monseigneur Perraud, Bishop of Autun,^ and Monseigneur Isoard, Bishop of Annecy, who had been the first to give his adherence to the declarations of Cardinal Lavigerie, tried to establish the absolute independence of the bishops with relation to the civil power. The counter-shock made itself felt in the Chamber, which discussed (December 11, 1891) a query- as to the "clerical manoeuvres." The language of some of the deputies was equal to the occasion, and one wondered whether pontifical diplomacy had not received a supreme check, and whether anything remained of the Archbishop of Algiers' generous enterprise except the memory of a chimerical hope, ironically belied by the course of events. But the Pope had made up his mind to employ patience, gentleness, and obstinacy, — means of action which almost always triumph in the end when they are enlisted in the service of a rational and timely idea. Up to that time, the upper clergy had withstood him with a merely passive resistance ; it now entered upon the path of open resistance ; Cardinals Desprez, Arch- bishop of Toulouse, Place, Archbishop of Rennes, Foulon, Archbishop of Lyons, Langenieux, Archbishop of Rheims, Richard, Archbishop of Paris, drew up a sort of long arraignment against republican institutions, which was called "the Cardinals' declaration," and which was made public on January 22, 1892. The recent precepts of the Holy See were therein combated, 1 "Beyond the prsetorium where you are about to take your seat," wrote Monseigneur Perraud to the Archbishop of Aix, " behind those mag- istrates who will be not a little surprised to see you appear before their bar for trial, all France will stand. It is to her that you will speak." At the conclusion of the affair, Monseigneur Gouthe-Soulard published a book entitled : Mon Proces, mes Avocats. It was noticed that the telegram which he sent to Cardinal Rampollia remained unanswered. 800 TEE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. not in form, but in spirit. The reply of the Sovereign Pontiff, dated February 16, restored the question to the ground whence they were trying to remove it. " Ac- cept the Republic, that is to say, the established power which exists among you," it said ; " respect it ; submit to it as representing the power which comes from God. ... In politics, more than in any other domain, un- expected changes come about . . . ; these changes are far from being always legitimate in their origin ; it is even difficult for them to be so. Nevertheless, the supreme standard of the public good and public tran- quillity compels the acceptance of these new govern- ments, established in fact in the place of the previous governments which no longer exist. Thus the ordinary rules as to the transmission of power are suspended, and it may even happen that, in the course of time, they will be abolished." On February 19, Leo XIII. addressed an encyclical letter to the Catholics of France ; on the very day before, a new question had come up, in the Palais- Bourbon ; the declaration of the cardinals had been noisily debated there, the Freycinet Cabinet had fallen under the united blows of the radical Left and the royalist Right. No one any longer doubted that we were face to face with a perfectly matured plan, the exe- cution of which would be prosecuted with inflexible will, that would not allow itself to be disheartened by any difficulty. Nevertheless, opposition increased, on the Right as well as on the Left. Cardinal Richard pub- lished a pastoral letter in opposition to the views of the encyclical. That season, there were contradictory lect- ures in some of the churches; they caused much tumult.^ 1 At Saint-Merri the lectures of Father Le Moigue on "the solution of pauperism, Marxism, possibilism, nihilism," provoked such disorders that THE REPUBLIC AND THE CHURCH. 301 The bishops did not set the example of submission. They knew that the Pope desired to see them abstain in the electoral struggles. Monseigneur Baptifolier, Bishop of Mende, wrote to the priests of his diocese recommending them to exert as much influence as possible on the votes of the municipal electors who were about to be called upon to choose representatives. " Understand well," he said, " that if a candidate appointed by you should propose and get adopted an anti-religious measure, you would be responsible for that measure before God, before the Church, before your own conscience, and you would be forced to accuse yourself, in confession, of having put into power a per- secutor of the Church."^ The Archbishop of Avignon and his suffragans published a collective mandate, in flagrant violation of the Concordat, which interdicted this sort of demonstration ; and, finally, a fresh inter- vention on the part of Leo XIII. became necessary to effect the dissolution of the "Union of Christian France," which now resisted him indirectly. On the Left, men felt rather disturbed at "having to defend the political staff, without having to defend it became necessary to suspend them. These disorders were renewed at Saint-Joseph, and also in many provincial towns, at Nancy, Beauvais, and Marseilles. The subjects chosen, in general, smacked but little of the religious character. 1 In a pamphlet designed for propagandist use, the same prelate had said : " Confessors have the right to refuse absolution to parents who do not heed this prohibition, and who shall confide their children to those schools of perdition disapproved by the Church." Monseigneur Gouthe-Soulard wrote, in the same strain, in 1892: "You must not forget, my very dear brethren, that you belong to the Church Militant. Without exaggeration, I do not believe that it has ever undergone a more clever, more Satanic, more cunning war." These last lines should he compared with those written by Monseigneur Turinaz, Bishop of Nancy: "I wonder if ever a tyranny at once so odious and so hypocritical, so absurd and so dishonora- ble, has been forced upon a Catholic clergy and a Catholic country in the last nineteen centuries." Such exaggerations confuse the imagination. 302 THE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. republican institutions," ^ which ceased to be attacked. The new converts contributed to maintain distrust by their exaggerations of language and the pretensions which they displayed, parading the zeal of a neophyte for the Republic, or proclaiming their firm intention to work at its transformation, and to drive beyond its border those who had founded it. They appealed to universal suffrage and, very foolishly, felt surprised that old republicans should be preferred to them, or that they should be called upon for a few proofs of sincerity and a little service, like plain soldiers. Little by little calm returned, the storm abated, and it was evident that pontifical enterprise had strength- ened the Republic, and dealt the last blow to monarchi- cal hopes. It was immediately perceived that this enterprise had, at the same time and without solving them, raised several vital questions, which may be briefly summed up before we close this chapter. There is one which dominates all others. When Leo XIII. declared that " Catholics ought to fight for truth and virtue, wherever they are able, and associate them- selves with men who, although full of uprightness and honesty, are still outside the Church," ^ did the Sover- eign Pontiff lay down one of those rules of conduct inspired by circumstances, which are, so to speak, pro- cedures of parliamentary tactics ; or did he formulate a great principle, a sort of new dogma, of which he per- ceived the necessity, and which, moreover, satisfied the instincts of his liberal spirit ? But in that case, it is no longer an evolution, it is a revolution. It is Roman Catholicism suddenly joining Reform ; it is the grand charter of emancipation given to the Church ; it is the 1 Eug. SpuUer, L'&volution Politique et Sociale de Vtlglise. 2 Letter to the Bishop of Grenoble. THE REPUBLIC AND THE CHUBCH. 303 liberty to act, almost the liberty to think officially ac- corded to all believers, and that less than twenty-five years after the Vatican Council ; it is, also, the door of Roman Catholicism reopened to many men who had withdrawn from it with regret, in the belief that it was decidedly incompatible with the century. Religions pass successively through three states, — superstition, logic, and philosophy. While superstition reigns, all is form, words, images, minute devotions, fragmentary beliefs ; worship appears to be deJBnitive, because of the importance which is attributed to it ; every breach of its prescriptions seems more grave than the breach of the moral law itself. With those who understand religion in that way, there may exist a cer- tain superficial tolerance, produced by natural good nature or suavity of character, but intolerance neces- sarily exists in the background. Men are generally very well satisfied, and conceive a glorious idea of them- selves, when they pass from the state of superstition to the state of logic. The thought of professing a rational religion, compatible with their exact knowledge, charms them and elevates them in their own eyes. In reality, there is no such thing as a rational religion ; the Prot- estants, who believe in the incarnation of Jesus Christ, — God made man, — do not believe anything more ra- tional, from the human point of view, than the Catho- lics, who profess that this incarnation is daily renewed in the mass. A really rational religion would exclude all idea of worship, and would consist only in a set of rules for upright living. Beyond this, one attains to the serene regions of philosophical religion. Those who dwell therein take care not to appeal to their rea- son, which they feel to be weak, vacillating, imperfect ; they think that the grandeur of the human spirit lies 804 TEE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. in its perpetual effort to mount towards the light, and not in poor results, laboriously amassed ; they dare not think that the world beyond can be subjected to the laws which govern humanity. Worship, for them, falls into the secondary rank. It has, no doubt, been asserted that, no matter how lofty the intelligence of a man, no matter how vigorous his genius, no matter how exten- sive his acquirements, he remains as remote from the divinity as the most ignorant and the least gifted of his brethren; he has not approached God, they say, any more than one approaches the sun by climbing a hill ; he is still the abject being, the " worm of earth " upon whom the Scriptures lavish humiliations, and to whom they recall the feebleness of his nature. But, in reality, science is a divine road whereon each mile-stone passed brings us nearer the Supreme Being, and permits us to conceive him more perfectly. The way is long, but the distances traversed may count. The eye of the learned man apprehends and perceives that which the ordinary man neither perceives nor comprehends. His genius elevates him, according to Saint Augustine's strong expression,^ "from the understanding of God's visible works to that of invisible grandeurs." Is Christianity, then, about to claim for its own those men who have received from it their inspiration accord- ing to the spirit, instead of recognizing as its children only those who take part in the celebration of its mys- teries ? Of such men, particularly in France, there are legions. 2 Reason, which the Frenchman so readily obeys, has finally established the necessity of the 1 The City of God. 2 The Third Republic has had great citizens who were regarded as adversaries of religion, while they really possessed the Christian spirit in the highest degree. Among these, Auguste Burdeau deserves to be men- tioned in the front rank. THE EMPUBLIC AND THE CHURCH. 305 religious sentiment. Science has shown that it is powerless to take its place. If one glances about him, he perceives how profound is the religious sentiment in our epoch. Never has the moral sense been so de- veloped, never have moral principles been more fully admitted or practised. Is all this the preface of some new form of religion, or is Christianity on the point of catching up with, by a forced march, audaciously under- taken, those popular masses which are plunging into the future without it ? A most interesting question ! In short, the point is to discover whether the spirit of tolerance is going to act upon souls, after having forced its way through institutions ; and how slowly ! Plato did not know, and " in the ancient republics there was not a head of the State who even imagined that it was possible to incorporate in the law a clause which gave citizens the right of exercising whatever religion they preferred." " During the whole duration of the Roman domination," says M. Gaston Boissier, " I see not a single wise man, were he a sceptic like Pliny the Elder, a free-thinker devoid of all prejudices like Seneca, an honest and gentle philosopher like Marcus Aurelius, who appears to have suspected that equal rights might be granted to all the religions of the Empire." ^ If it has taken so long to establish tolerance in society, it is not surprising that it should have required so long for it to take possession of hearts. We have returned to the epoch of the edict of Milan,^ when " a party was formed composed of moderate, humane persons, friends of religious peace, who would have liked to have Christianity included in that sort of fusion of all creeds which had come about at Rome after the Em- 1 Gaston Boissier, La Fin du Paganisme, Vol. I. 2 Issued by Constantine (June, 313) . 306 THE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. pire," ^ and for whicli, seeking a term which should befit all, the word divinitas was used. Here then is a first point : will evolution unfold itself even to the end, entailing incalculable conse- quences,^ or will it constitute only a generous, Utopian attempt, destined to miscarry? Has Leo XIII. thor- oughly attained his aim in France, which was to sepa- rate religion and politics? Has he not, rather, separated religion from the monarchy only to invest with its pos- session the parliamentary Republic? The Concordat, and the habits which have taken root since it has been in force, do not permit of a veritable emancipation of religion, such as has been effected in the United States. And then, in the United States, what is the future to be ? The power of the Roman Catholics there has in- creased to such a degree as to disturb certain classes of citizens, who are already banding together to root it out. Moreover, the liberals are not unopposed there : the Jesuits are hostile to them. America has in store for our descendants, no doubt, the same surprises, from a religious point of view, that she has caused us, from a social point of view. Had we not been told that the social question could not spring up upon that happy soil? In any case, one fact remains : the majestic effort made by Pope Leo XIII. to turn his Church towards a 1 Gaston Boissier, La Fin du Paganisme. 2 Those who are inclined to object that the last Roman Catholic dog- mas are incompatible with this evolution of the pontifical idea, must be reminded that the Council of the Vatican (1870) was opened and suspended, but not closed, by Pius IX., and that it remains for it to complete, by the adoption of the plan De Episcopis, the plan De Smnmo Pontifice, which has placed the Sovereign Pontiff above the entire body of bishops and of the whole church (Eug. SpuUer, L'Svolution Politique et Sociale de I'Sg- lise) . It is, therefore, possible that the work of the Council may be resumed and modified in the future. THE BEPUBLIC AND THE CHURCH. 307 new world ; the Frencli Republic has served as the , operating cause. This subject is, evidently, one of those which the historians of the future will be most inclined to discuss, either because they will seek therein the origin of a great movement whose blossoming they will witness, or because they will affirm that they have discovered the causes which have prevented its coming to anything. 308 TSE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. CHAPTER XI. EDUCATION. Primary Instruction. — The Results of Secularization. — The Teacher. — Insufficiency ol Moral Instruction. — Germanic Pedagogy. — Schools : Primary, High, and Professional. — Secondary Instruction: the Impe- rial and the Monastic Stamp. — Overdriving. — The Education of Character. — Schools for Girls. — University Revival. — Students and Professors. — The Rights of the State. The reform of the three degrees of education under- taken by the Third Republic presents this special feat- ure, — that its unity is only apparent. The aim pursued, the means employed, and the results attained essentially differ, according to whether it is a question of primary education, secondary education, or higher education. The reform of primary education has aroused violent controversies, and has necessitated, on the part of the nation, important pecuniary sacrifices ; great results were expected from it, which have been slow of ac- complishment ; in consequence of their not having been preceded or accompanied by an equivalent reform in ideas and habits, the result has not fully answered the expectations of those who instituted the law. More- over, circumstances have transformed the school ques- tion into a political question, and thus the undertaking was perverted at the very outset. Secondary education has been improved after a series of gropings and of ex- periments in details. The competition of the free es- tablishments has, perhaps, been of the greatest service ; but no one either cherished great ambitions for it or showed audacious generosity towards it. And, in con- EDUCATION. 309 elusion, higher education has undergone a radical trans- formation which, discreetly but resolutely pursued, was discerned by the public only at the moment when it was winding up the reconstitution of the regional uni- versities. There was an element of foolish confidence in the ardor with which the republicans undertook the reform of primary education. In a famous speech made at Belleville on August 12, 1881, Gambetta called the school " the seminary of the future," " That thing whence should issue forth citizens fully qualified to cope with the difficulties of life, and prepared also for the service of France abroad." All those who toiled with him at the elevation of the nation shared his en- thusiasm ; they were fond of repeating to themselves that the German schoolmaster had paved the way for avenging Jena, and they beheld the vision of the younger generations grouped around teachers solely bent upon making their pupUs participants in their hopes for the future, upon rendering them fit for the holy tasks, the heavy toils which seemed to be in store for them. In order to execute this programme, it was necessary, first of all, to effect a unity of thought and feeling, a sort of " collective soul," which should be that of young France. At that moment, religion and mon- archy were too closely united to allow of the Republic's confiding, with safety, the education of its sons to the teaching religious orders ; but, on the other hand, re- ligious passions were too greatly overexcited, the ex- cesses of some Roman Catholics had attracted too much attention to the "clerical peril," for secularization to take place with that calmness and deliberation which were fitting. The republicans did not perceive the 310 THE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. danger of mixing politics and education ; the generous and rather Utopian ideas which inspired them concealed this danger ; they did not take sufficient pains to main- tain their school law above the quarrels of the day. The law suppressed the "letter of obedience," — a simple certificate delivered by the head of a religious body, and which took the place of a diploma of capacity for the recipient. This privileged treatment consti- tuted a profound injustice towards secular institutions; it is astonishing that such a system could have sub- sisted so long. The Roman Catholics did not under- stand to what a degree the letter of obedience shocked the most legitimate instincts of democracy; it would have been clever on their part to accept its suppres- sion ; the energy which their representatives expended in defending the principle therein involved invited re- taliation, and augmented animosity to such a degree that the majority completely expunged from the school law everything that had reference to religion. ^ The adjustments which the liberals had intended to intro- 1 Passed by the Chamber in 1880, it was amended by the Senate. Jules Simon caused the words: "Moral and civic instruction," to be replaced by the words : ' ' Duty towards God and towards the Fatherland.' ' We have mentioned that an amendment was introduced, with a view to allowing the Departmental Council the power of " authorizing the ministers of the different religious denominations or their delegates to give religious instruction in the schoolhouses, on Sunday, or the other vacation days, and once a week, after the evening school session." The Chamber rejected these modifications, and the Senate was compelled to yield before the expression of its opinion, and give it up. (See the preceding chapter, "The Republic and the Church.") A number of teachers, drawing their authority from one of M. Duvaux's circulars, dated 1882, took it upon themselves, in the C6tes-du-Nord, to teach the Catechism in school, out of class hours. When questioned on this subject, in November, 1891, M. Ldon Bourgeois, Minister of Public Education, declared that he saw nothing reprehensible in this ; but if the ecclesiastical authorities continued, in certain dioceses, to add to the Catechism chapters concerning electoral duties and the degree of obedience due to the civil authorities, he would prohibit that practice. LEON GAMBETTA, DEPUTY AND MINISTER, AND PRESIDENT OP THE CHAMBER OF DEPUTIES. EDUCATION. 311 duce in it would not, perhaps, have sufficed to effect peace, but they -would have hastened it ; in any case, they would have impeded the movement in favor of free schools, and kept education from becoming a cause of discord in the bosom of the nation. In short, we must not lose sight of the fact that (as we have said in the preceding chapter), if the French are not devo- tees, still they do not admit the idea of an education which is totally devoid of religious sense. Thus it came about that a great many of them sent their chil- dren to free schools, although they did not approve of the end aimed at by the founders of those schools. In 1890-1891 there existed in France 81,990 primary schools, of which 67,318 were public schools, and 14,672 were private schools. Out of this number 63,419 were secular, and 18,571 were schools under the charge of religious bodies. There were also 3899 public schools under the charge of ecclesiastics.^ But, on October 1, 1891, the time-limit for the secularization of boys' schools expired. In Parliament, and outside it, people were curious to learn the results of the secularization of schools, which had been going on for the last ten years. An inquiry was ordered; the documents col- lected were entrusted to a committee of statistics, charged with interpreting them, and drawing from them the proper conclusions. The report of that com- mittee, drawn up by M. Levasseur, member of the Institute, referred to the period of 1879-1889. In the first place, it was ascertained that there were about 200,000 more pupils registered than before; competi- tion will always prove beneficial; but the struggle between the Church and the State had, on the other 1 The whole number of mixed schools (hoys and girls) was 19,380, of which 13,472 were kept by teachers. 312 THE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. hand, resulted in the disappearance of the greater part of the private lay schools : about 1800, containing 100,000 pupils, had perished during that period. As for the secularized schools, they represented a figure of 5063; in competition with them 2839 free schools of the religious bodies had sprung up. Before seculariza- tion, the 5068 schools counted up 648,824 pupils ; after secularization, they had only 495,963, showing a loss of 152,861 pupils, while the recently founded free schools had gained 354,473.1 Many of these free schools have been founded and continue to be supported by men who are mixed up in political struggles, or by associations like the Society for Education and Instruction, Avhose publications suf- ficiently set forth their spirit ; they have, in general, a distinctly anti-republican character. But moral in- struction is there given under the religious form, which is the one best understood by the masses ; it may not be impossible to teach morals apart from any religious idea, although the attempts in that line, so far, are not at all encouraging ; but, in order to undertake it, with what vigor of mind must not one be endowed ! What extensive knowledge must not one possess ! Neverthe- less, that is what is required of very young persons, who have hardly had the corners smoothed off in their passage through the normal school for teachers, and who would hardly be in a state themselves to receive the very delicate instruction which they are entrusted with giving to others. In order to build the schools 1 The principal teaching orders are : the Brothers of Christian Schools, who have schools in 751 localities of France ; the Brothers of Lamennais, who have 337 (of which 302 are in Bretagne, where they give instruction to 42,000 children) ; the Marist Brethren (299) ; the Brothers of Saint Gabriel (124) ; the Brothers of Saint-Viateur (119) ; the Marianists (85). {Annuaire de la Jeunesse, 1894.) EDUCATION. 813 which were needed, the representatives of the nation did not spare the public money ; ^ their zeal has often found expression in exaggerated expenditures and use- less luxury ; but no one would dream of criticising the " educational palaces " which they have reared, if one felt sure that the said palaces served to form the citi- zens for whom Gambetta longed. But it was not enough to build schools, nor even to draw up programmes, — it was necessary, in addition, to form educators ; no one thought of that, or, at all events, no success has been scored in that direction; in the programmes, a place has been made for moral and civic instruction, without a suspicion that, in order to teach patriotism and honesty, it does not suffice that the instructor should be merely honest and patriotic. The young teachers who have thronged to offer their services generally possess an education of doubtful uni- formity, a superficial judgment which easily runs into temerity, an incomplete moral culture, and a profes- sional education which amounts to almost nothing. " Too hasty studies," the director of a normal school has said, " are fatally superficial ; no assertion of the master or of the manuals can be submitted to any serious superintendence. The pupil never sees more than one side of things, the one which is presented to him. . . . The little which he knows about a question is, for him, too often, the whole question ; thus he has a tendency inconsiderately to express rash opinions and absolute judgments on men and things. In the schoolroom he often perpetrates stupendous follies, in a dogmatic tone, which seems to defy all contradiction, and it is pitiful to hear him express extreme opinions 1 The budget of Public Education in 1893 was 176,000,000 francs, of which 125,000,000 francs were for primary instruction. 314 THE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. on social, political, and religious matters, which have no longer any mysteries for him, after he has read a score or more of lines in some wretched little journal." ^ In order to mitigate the over-severity of this judgment, we must recall the fact that numerous exceptions do honor to the corps of teachers ; we must also recall the self-sacrifice which inspires their deeds. ^ They certainly did not lack good advice. " Do not believe," they were told, "that your superiors will weigh you by the weight of the parchments which your pupils have won ; attach less importance to winning a diploma or a certificate, more importance to good in- stincts and to moral education. The best master is not he who adorns himself with the greatest number of successes in competitions ; but he whose school has trained the largest number of good men. " ^ They were frequently exhorted in this manner, but they are not brought up in a way to render them capable of understanding it, still less of putting it into practice ; always, and in spite of everything, they retain the im- pression that they have a political task to fulfil ; that once provided with a post, they will be obliged to fight against certain influences, to defend certain ideas ; in- stead of the word "secular," signifying neuter, non-con- fessional, it has acquired, when the primary school is in question, the sense of anti-religious, so that "a school ceases to be secular if the name of God is uttered there."* 1 Le programme des iicoles Normales, by E. Devinat, director of the Normal School. {Revue Fidagogique, Aout, 1892.) 2 It is well known that it was the teachers themselves who demanded the suppression ol exemption from military service by which they profited. 3 Advice to Teachers, taken from a Departmental School Bulletin. ^ Le Temps, October i, 189i, It is comprehensible that things will change only when the prefects shall have been deprived of the power of EDUCATION. 315 The adversary cherishes the same perverted judg- ment; everything good and useful which the school law contains has been forgotten : the principle of compulsory and gratuitous attendance which it consecrates, and which is so strictly in conformity with the aspirations of democracy; the wisely settled programmes, that ar- dent will to act well which animated the reformers, their care to soften transitions by secularizing the schools only little by little, — all have been forgotten. Everything has disappeared before the politico-religious controversy which the law stirred up, and behind which have taken shelter all the rancors, all the hatreds of the past : only one thing has been seen in the law, — the amendments which are not there. The "moral and civic" instruction which it insti- tuted has intrinsically nothing anti-religious about it. Matthew Arnold, the celebrated English writer, relates how, while visiting the communal schools of Paris, he was present at the customary examination which the master applies to very young children : ^ "To what do we owe this beautiful schoolroom, these benches, these pretty pictures?" In place of the traditional: "To God," the pupil replies in more precise words: "To the Fatherland." Arnold withdrew in surprise, admir- ing the antique simplicity of this teaching. Who can maintain that the disappearance of the word " God " here corresponds to an impious thought ? But when it is a question of explaining to the child his duties "towards his family, towards servants, towards our appointing teachers, and the inspectors of academies shall have been emancipated from the guardianship of the prefects. Until that time, the teacher will be chosen for motives other than scholastic, and will remain a political agent. 1 Programme of the intermediate course (9-11 years) , and the upper course (11-13 years) . 316 THE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. equals," or "the elements of social morals, as of justice, of charity, of fraternity," ^ the master finds himself embarrassed. Therefore, in the detailed pro- grammes of the sections, the words : " Duties towards God," have been discreetly replaced. Permission being thus given, the schoolmaster is afraid to make use of it : his teaching would be facilitated only if he could take God as the centre of his reasoning. But, admit- ting that his personal convictions do not deter him, his self-interest prohibits it : he is afraid of compromising himself and confines himself to reading two or three phrases out of some text-book or other ; they fall, cold, formal, dead, so to speak, into the child's mind, and remain sterile there. It may be said that at this mo- ment, in France, moral instruction hardly exists in the public schools ; an indirect, but valid proof of this is to be found in the criminal statistics. While inaugurat- ing, with a remarkable speech, a recent international sociological congress, Sir John Lubbock, Chancellor of the University of London, and member of the House of Commons, recalled the great educational efforts accom- plished by England since 1870, and very legitimately attributed to them the improvement, which he took pleasure in acknowledging, in criminal statistics. "The average number of persons ordinarily in our prisons," he said, " has fallen from 12,000 to 5000. The annual average of persons condemned to prison for grave crimes has fallen from 3000 to 800. With regard to crimes committed by young persons, the result is sur- prising, and the annual number of young persons condemned has fallen from 14,000 to 5000." It is im- possible to misconstrue the close relation proved by 1 Programme of the intermediate course (9-11 years), and the upper course (11-13 years). EDUCATION. 317 these figures between education and criminality. They are of a nature to rejoice those who believe in the beneficent influence of popular education, upon habits and ideas ; but we are forced to admit, at the same time, that French criminal statistics prove an alarming in- crease in the number of crimes and misdemeanors, es- pecially of those committed by very young persons, so that, " far from agreeing to celebrate and bless, as in England, the diffusion of education, many minds have come to doubt its virtue, and others, more violent, to denounce it even as a scourge." ^ Must God be reinstated in the primary school ? The question has been timidly put ; ^ no reply to it has as yet been made ; but it is doubtful whether the reply will be in the negative. Little by little, the public are begin- ning to see that this question has nothing to do with that of the secularization of the teaching corps. The religious orders, once ejected from the schools, will not return to them; but people are beginning to perceive that everything in their pedagogical outfit is not suit- able for expulsion, and that even if the time has come to dispense with their assistance, it will be more diffi- cult to dispense entirely with their doctrines. It is not alone the system of moral teaching, but also the system of general teaching which has produced a certain disenchantment; here, it is true, the evil is less and the remedy more within reach. Too much has been expected from the mere contact of science, from the beatific contemplation of nature, not only for the train- ing of the pupils, but also for the preparation of the teachers. There has been an excess of museums, of 1 Le Temps, October 3, 1894. 2 See M. Brunetifere, Instruction et Education. {Revue des Deux Mondes, 1895.) 318 THE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. monographs ; this gift of pedantic Germany is not readily adaptable to the French spirit, which is fitted to feel the influence of ideas and of men far more than that of things. Without admitting, with M. Francisque Bouillier, that " the pupils before 1871 knew as much as those who have succeeded them, if not more than the latter, since the reign of pedagogy," ^ one wonders whether they did not understand better that which was taught them, and if the few notions very irregu- larly implanted in their minds did not germinate there more readily than is possible to the carefully labelled and catalogued notions with which they are stuffed nowadays. As for nature, it does not exercise a direct and im- mediate influence upon the child any more than does sci- ence. The human soul is covered with a sort of animal varnish, of which it must first be divested. " Some even- ing, take several of your pupils," writes M. Buisson, the very distinguished director of primary education, " a few paces beyond the last house in the village, at the hour when the sounds of toil and of life die away, and make them raise their eyes to the starry sky. They have never seen it; they have never been struck with that thought of innumerable worlds, and of the eternal order, the eternal movement of the universe. Arouse them to these new ideas! . . ." These are beautiful illu- sions. To be impressed with the thought of the eternal order of things, one must have already thought much and learned much. Another thing which shows that we have been on the wrong road is the deplorable apathy into which those who have been most assiduous in their attendance upon school, and who have seemed 1 M. Fr. Bouillier, La Pidagogie et les Pedagogues. (CoiTespondant. August 25, 1891.) EDUCATION. 319 to profit most by its instruction, fall after school.^ One must avoid making his observations upon the effects of the school law in the cities, on the children of working- men, who live in conditions where the opportunities for self-instruction are already more numerous, and where education is more appreciated. It is in the little towns, the villages, the hamlets, that the consequences must be studied. The peasants, after all, represent the great mass of the population ; and if they remain in igno- rance, while the other classes of citizens become edu- cated, a profound fissure will be made in the very heart of the nation. But there is a fact which strikes all im- partial minds : the education which is so generously disseminated does not penetrate the rural districts. The children finish their lessons, and even receive a certificate of having completed their studies, but they make upon those who examine them the impression of a pedagogical fiasco. One feels that they have retained, that they have not comprehended, and what they have retained, they forget as soon as school is over. Ought we not to return to those courses of adult education in- stituted by the Convention, and should not the mission of the schoolmaster in every commune be to give such a lesson, once a week, for the citizens, without distinc- tion of age or of sex ? It is sad to think that, after the lapse of a hundred years, we are still at that point. No one reads books ; no one reads anything but newspapers. There is an absolute famine of lectures ; the rural mu- nicipalities do not dream of organizing any even on technical subjects of immediate utility. Alongside of primary instruction, higher primary 1 Since these lines were written, a congress has been held at Havre (September, 1895), with a view of studying the organization of education for adults. 320 THE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. instruction has been created, almost complete. ^ "It is not college degenerated," said M. Ch. Dupuy, in one of Ms ministerial circulars, "but school perfected. The question is, to associate a complement of general in- struction with a beginning of professional instruction." The programmes for it have been drawn up in a manner to respond to this happy definition. Modern history, commercial geography, living languages, information as to common law and political economy, book-keeping, and some manual occupations, are ingeniously super- posed in the programme of the primary school. The probable destiny of the children who frequent these schools is, " to fulfil some one of the numerous average employments which agriculture, commerce, manufact- ures, offer to the toilers, with the prospect of a more or less easy, but always modest position. "^ in 1891, 2353 boys and 1240 girls presented themselves for scholar- ships at the upper primary schools ; in 1893, 2705 boys and 1265 girls. In 1889, 7869 pupils finished the schools for boys ; a detailed abstract permits us to verify the fact that the various professions chosen by these 7869 boys were thoroughly in keeping with the object aimed at. About 20 per cent went into trade, 27 into manufactures, 7 into agriculture, 6 into teaching ; 3 per cent went into banks, IJ into railways, 2 into the army, 4 into the administration ; 7 per cent passed into the special preparatory schools for various professions. For a moment it had been feared that the pupils of the upper primary schools would go to swell the number, already very great, of candidates for employment under the State. In 1889, out of 7869 only 294 followed that ^ It now numbers 236 schools and 528 complementary courses. The upper primary schools were reorganized by the decree of January 21, 1893. 2 Ch. Dupuy, Circular of 1895. EDUCATION. 321 path. Hence that fear was not justified ; there was cause for congratulation. It furnished the proof that the upper primary school answers to a need, and that it has been organized in the proper manner. As a municipal school committee has been instituted in each commune to superintend and encourage school attendance, so a committee of patrons has been insti- tuted for each upper primary school, whose office it is to watch over the material interests of the scholars and the good discipline of the school itself. Therein lies a complete embryo of organization,^ the development of which will render the greatest services, if the thought which gave birth to it is not departed from. The upper primary school can be made a centre of culture which will play the part, in many places, that the primary school has not understood how to fill, or been able to fill. An experiment which is useless and dangerous if it is to be generalized, but interesting if it remains unique, was made in 1888. Twenty-two young men, from fourteen to sixteen years of age, chosen from the best pupils in the upper primary schools of Paris, were placed in a special class of the Charlemagne Lyceum, to receive a classical education ; the object was to ascertain whether it was possible for young men to prepare in three years for the degree of Bachelor of Letters. Moreover, the city of Paris has created at the College RoUin scholarships for outside students, es- 1 It is, unhappily, certain that, in spite of the progress accomplished, everything in France is, more or less, superficial. The French feel the need of external harmony rather than of real progress. A minister thinks he has done great things when he has written numerous circulars ; and official intelligence too often indicates as accomplished that which has only been decided upon. In democratic times, the really rapid and pro- found results are obtained by the efforts of collective bodies formed out- side of politics and of functionaries. Y 322 THE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. pecially reserved for the picked pupils from the upper primary schools. By the side of upper primary instruction, but having more than one point of contact vrith it, professional instruction waxes strong. The law of December 11, 1880, regulated, under the name of manual schools of apprenticeship, the public or free schools founded with a view to developing technical knowledge in young men who intend to enter manual professions, and as- similated to them the upper primary schools in which exist courses or classes of professional instruction. People thought they had noticed that the value of the workman, in almost all the trade-guilds, had a tendency to degenerate. It was this which led the public powers to take up this very important question. The State created three national professional schools, at Voiron, Vierzon, and Armentieres (1886-1887). Many manu- facturing cities had forestalled it ; that is what gives to this instruction a thoroughly special character, and assures to it a fertile future. ^ The impulse has been chiefly local ; old foundations have been developed, — like the famous Ucoles de la Martiniere, at Lyons, cre- ated by the legacy of General Martin, who was born at Lyons in 1735, and died at Lucknow in 1800, after a peculiar life; or the Chambers of Commerce have taken action, — such was the case with the French school of hosiery, founded at Troyes, in 1888 ; or even individual enterprise has been displayed, — the principal of the College of Saumur has succeeded in this manner, 1 These schools -were under the supervision of the Ministry of Com- merce and the Ministry of Public Education. The law of 1882 concerning finances settled that the upper primary professional schools which have industrial and commercial sections should he under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Commerce and should take the name of Practical Schools of Commerce and Industry. EDUCATION. 323 in creating, at his own expense, in connection with his college, an industrial school. Hence these schools pos- sess that which is generally lacking in our public educa- tional institutions, — diversity. They avoid that mania for unity, uniformity, which has paralyzed so many efforts and so much good-will. The danger is, that by dint of regulations, decrees, and circulars, they may, eventually, be rendered more and more like each other, and deprived of all their elasticity. A large number of private societies aid in the distri- bution of instruction. There are : the Society for Ele- mentary Education, founded in 1815 by Carnot ; the Polytechnic and Philotechnic Associations, which date, the one from 1830, the other from 1848 ; the French Union of Young People, created in 1875 ; the Academ- ical Society of Book-keeping, of Marseilles ; the Philo- mathical Society of Bordeaux, created in 1808 ; the Industrial Society of Amiens ; the Society for Profes- sional Education, of the Rhone ; the Circle of Commer- cial Studies, of Limoges, and many others. Never will these societies be too numerous or sufficiently active. It is of importance that the old countries of Europe should cross a difficult pass. The knowledge which the least of citizens possesses elsewhere is not yet suffi- ciently complete or disseminated with them. Much science elevates, a very little science intoxicates. If popular education is not to be pushed further, all that will have been accomplished is to excite cupidity, to inflame hatreds, and to lead souls astray. When the University of France finally accepted the system of competition for its establishments of second- ary education, and when, setting itself face to face with the religious establishments, it said to them : " I will 324 THE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. take your pupils away from you by doing better than you," it won one of those victories over self which lie at the root of all revivals, and which authorize all hopes. Many, nevertheless, remained sceptical, and wondered how the University would manage to reform itself, — a condition indispensable for conflict and triumph. The University is a secular body founded by Napo- leon in view of a precise and petty task, — ^ that of plac- ing the young men of a whole country in the same harness. Its founder was not content with giving it regulations ; he fabricated for it a state of mind, which, for an association, is the crowning impediment to all progress, to all evolution. He breathed into it that spirit of hierarchy which renders obedience passive and command brutal, and assigned to it a desperately narrow, uniform, and fiat road, wherein to move. He installed it under the shadow of his protecting power, habituat- ing it to act only at his order, and assuring to it the men- tal repose which irresponsibility brings. . The fascination exercised by Napoleon's genius ; his simple, if not noble, conception of education ; the great lassitude which the revolutionary drama left in its wake ; and, in conclusion, old habits of monastic rigidity, of sombre discipline, and of preventive imprisonment, — had as their result that this plan was understood and realized, point by point. Of all the imperial institutions no other received a deeper and more indelible impress from its founder. It may be said that the destiny of France would have been modified had her pedagogy been different. The establishments of secondary instruction have fulfilled their programmes and broken the successive genera- tions which have been entrusted to them. The govern- ing classes have displayed the most complete inability not only to direct the country, but even to direct them- EDUCATION. 325 selves. That formidable lesson, the war of 1870, was needed to awaken the nation, to rouse it from its torpor, to restore to it that sense which nothing any longer imparted to it, — virile life, the art of willing and of action. In the history of the doctrines of education which our grandsons will write, the colorless strangeness of the period which is now coming to an end will appear with far more distinctness than it appears to our eyes. It will be explained only by the disorders which scientific dis- coveries have wrought in the conditions of the material life of individuals, and also by the slow yet incessant rising of the democratic tide which has hypnotized minds and disturbed ideas. Otherwise, how are we to conceive of this indifference with regard to the train- ing of man, when we know that upon that training depends the future of the nation and the greatness of the race ? One can easily understand that the Middle Ages should have been on the point of erecting into a pedagogical maxim the scorn of the body,i since their tendency was to place the ideal of life beyond the limits of this world, and to offer eternal good things as the supreme goal to the efforts of the living. But that, in an age when competition is so sharp and so universal, when all forces are needed in order to succeed, when life is incessantly compared to a battle, a whole portion of the human being should be neglected ; that the aim should be only to equip the mind, without steeling the character, or developing the corporeal balance, — this, indeed, is calculated to daze the imagination. And yet so it is. No one, for a space of many years, perceived that the Lyceum was an honest nursery of 1 But it is well known how virile was the education of the knights who were the " governing " classes of those days. 326 THE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. conscientious routine officials, condemned to mediocrity, made to be led. Those who occupied themselves with pedagogy did not seem to suspect that anything could be done about it ; they published incredibly empty works, without inspiration, without genius, without even originality, wherein the anxiety to discipline, to break, to conquer, was exclusively displayed, i When, in England, v,-as accomplished that marvellous trans- formation of scholastic education which is the prime and fundamental cause of all the aggrandizement of power which the British Empire has enjoyed in recent times, no one in France dreamed of investigating the secret of it. A few isolated appeals had, it is true, rung out here and there, but no one would see in these manifestations anything more than the complaint of a dreamer, or the fantastic fears of a wild enthusiast. Nearly everybody, in the universities, was satisfied with his lot; The professors already possessed — and the same trait most honorably distinguishes them to-day — unbounded devotion, absolute dignity of life, and the consciousness that they were toiling at a thankless but noble task. They suffered less from the slenderness of their means than from their lack of consideration ; if they could not, of themselves, rise to a conception of their pedagogical part superior to the current of ideas which was bearing them along, they at least preserved a certain independence of judgment ; they also pre- served certain democratic preferences mingled with some habits of mind which were rather censorious, and, at times, somewhat Voltairian. ^ Such was the staff which the Third Republic found in office, and whose sympathies it cost her no trouble 1 See the work of Monseigneur Dupanloup, De V JEducation. 2 See Victor de Laprade, L'Education Homicide. EDUCATION. 327 to win. As for the lyceums and colleges, they shared in the general dilapidation of the scientific establish- ments. It is true that grand and unpractical build- ings had been erected here and there ; but behind the cut-stone fagades the cabinets of physics remained empty, the chemical laboratories were deserted.^ First of all, programmes were attended to. Second- ary instruction had long been uniform in France ; it included the study of Greek and Latin, ended with the class in philosophy, and had as its sanction the degree of Bachelor of Letters. In 1852 what was called bifurcation was created. Thus those pupils who finished the third degree, and who were more espe- cially gifted in the scientific line, could take the degree of Bachelor of Sciences, the goal of their studies, in two years instead of three. In 1863 M. Duruy insti- tuted special secondary instruction. It has been said of the famous minister that he was " a precursor of the Republic " ; and, in point of fact, by virtue of his belief in progress, of his conception of education and public manners, M. Duruy belonged entirely to the reforming and innovating period which opened at the close of the war. M. Duruy's was a fine education, antique in its nobility and simplicity. Napoleon III. had valued it, the more so as he felt that it was not fitted for honors, and inflexible in the presence of flattery. There exists a celebrated engraving, which represents M. Duruy, during the gloomy days of 1870, enrolled in the National Guard, and mounting guard in front of the Ministry of Public Education, where he had so long resided as minister. Nothing more plainly shows to what a degree the learned historian of the Greeks and the Romans had assimilated to himself the 1 See M. 0. Greard, J^ducation et Instruction. 4 vols. 828 THE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. grandeur of soul of those men of whose labors he had rendered himself the contemporary and the friend. The creation of special secondary instruction ought, in his opinion, to insure to the young men who intended to devote themselves to agriculture, to manufactures, or to commerce, rapid teaching without either Greek or Latin. The principal advantage of this course of in- struction consisted in having its duration reduced to four years ; but, in 1881, a fifth year was added, and, in 1886, a sixth. Thus special instruction lost its motive of existence. On the other hand, unanimous complaint was made of the unfortunate influence ex- ercised by the degree of Bachelor upon classical studies. The Superior Council of Public Education had before it a peculiarly delicate task : from the aggregate of complaints, criticisms, plans, wishes expressed on all sides, nothing stood out distinctly which might serve to guide them ; the very object to be attained remained indistinct. Every one felt the need for reforms ; nobody knew in what direction they should be accomplished. Ingenious and alluring arraignments had been drawn up against classical studies ; war had been declared upon them by the universities themselves ; ^ they tried their hand at freedom of thought, and drew up plans for improvement with all the good-will and awkwardness which distinguish recently emancipated minds. They extolled the exact sciences, discounting the effects of a hidden philosophy, even of an unpub- lished scheme of morals of which these exact sciences 1 See M. Raoul Frary, Question clu Latin. The advocates of letters replied to this, with M. Michel Bre'al, that "it would be pure madness to labor with our own hands to destroy the studies with which our whole past is so intimately bound up." (Z)e V Enseignment des Langues Anciennes, by M. Brdal.) EDUCATION. 329 were supposed to contain the precious germs ; ^ and, above all, knowledge was no longer appreciated, ex- cept by quantity, so that programmes continued to be increasingly overweighted, technical vocabularies grew ever longer, examinations were multiplied, and the prospect that France would be subjected in the future to the Mandarin system was plainly discernible. Perhaps the task would have seemed less laborious had the Superior Council chanced to be differently constituted; if, by the side of the representatives of ofificial pedagogy, they had been clever enough to make room for the representatives of all the great social interests. 2 But the University had not yet reached the point where it allowed itself to be affected by influences from without. The ancient spirit of the institution still weighed so heavily upon its assemblies, that those who sat in them could not but feel some alarm at the idea of taking counsel from men who did not belong to their corporation, who did not hold, on many points, the same views, did not have the same habits of thought, were disposed to consider things from a different angle. But when parents are kept aloof from what concerns the education of their chil- dren, and are invited to the lyceums only on the occa- sion of a few rare and solemn festivals, they lose interest in what goes on there. They have been told : We are 1 " It [science] matures the character by communicating to it, as by a sort of contagion, the fixedness of natural laws. It teaches it both obedi- ence and liberty, by emancipating it from inferior tutelage to bow it before the sole respectable authority ; it delivers it from superstitions, and gives it true independence, by subjecting it to one sole master. Moreover, sci- ence is a poetry and a religion ; it makes the soul quiver with the noble thrill of the immense and the eternal, and by makiug it greater, elevates it, and thereby purifies it." Berthelet, La Grise de I' Enseignment Secon- daire. La Science Sducatrice. {Bevue des Deux Mondes, May 15, 1891.) 2 A resolution to this effect was formulated by M. Joseph Eeinach in one of the discussions relating to the appropriations for public instruction. 830 THE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. going to rear your children; do not interfere in any- way, — and they have taken this advice literally. Only one thing affects them strongly, — examinations. To lose a year for the lack of a few points in marks seems to them the supreme misfortune, and they are not wholly wrong in this age of regulated competition when, in many careers, worth and individual effort do not take precedence of seniority. Add to this the in- cessant progress of science, the succession of discoveries which modify points of view and transform methods, and it is readily to be understood that, even at the moment when public opinion began to feel anxious about overdriving, the University proceeded, with the firm intention of lightening its programmes, still fur- ther to overload them! As soon as overdriving was mentioned, the Acad- emy of Medicine decided that the matter pertained to its domain, and that an incursion on its part into the realm of public education would be legitimate on every score. But neither the Academy of Medicine nor the Superior Council suspected that there was something more in this than a question of programmes ; before deciding that the brain was being overworked, it was not unprofitable to recall the fact that the muscles were not working enough, so that the proper equilibrium was destroyed. It was private enterprise which was put in operation, on this occasion, to organize physical exer- cises in the very heart of the University, — and, at first, rather against its will, — and to remind people that moral education can be inculcated with physical edu- cation, and that, in any case, no moral education is accomplished with instruction alone. In the lyeeums religion occupies an accessory and little valued place; but this is not subject, from the EDUCATION. 331 moral point of view, to the same inconvenience as in the primary school. The lyceum boy has often re- ceived from his family an impress of religious faith, of severe virtue, or, at least, of sturdy patriotism. Rarely does it happen that his conscience is not awakened. What he lacks is character ; he is not taught to exercise his will ; he is not allowed the use of his liberty; he is not exercised in enterprise, in decision, and how can the masters do this when they themselves are dependent to excess, inspected, super- intended, swaddled, so to speak ?i If the free estab- lishments had understood how to organize this training of character, even in a restricted measure, to throw down walls, render life easy and. joyous to the chil- dren, to accustom them progressively to liberty, noth- ing could have saved the lyceums, neither the money generously voted to rebuild their antiquated walls and to improve their arrangements and furniture, nor the sacrifices agreed upon for the sake of reducing the price of board, augmenting the number of scholarships, facilitating the access to secondary instruction for all. But although they were engaged in open warfare with the University, the free establishments shared in its 1 An impulse of reform arose in tlie midst of the University ; supported by tlie power and authority of M. H. Marion, Professor of Pedagogy in the Faculty of Letters of Paris, a number of head masters and professors have made fortunate beginnings ; nevertheless, it is impossible to foresee what will become of their undertakings. They certainly do contain the germ of a transformation, but its development is opposed by the false advocates of reform ideas. See the works of M. Marion, and especially his Report to the Committee charged with the investigation of the proper improvements to be introduced into the system of the establishments for secondary instruction. 1889, As for instruction itself, a greater liberty is permitted to-day to the person who gives it ; he is held less narrowly imprisoned in the bonds of tradition; his talent and his success will win pardon for many bold experiments which would have appeared doubtful a few years 332 THE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. spirit and its traditions ; the majority confined them- selves to adding to its pedagogical methods a very strongly enforced religious action ; they feared equally the spirit of liberty and the spirit of innovation. During the ten-year period from 1876-1887, the state establishments for secondary education had gained 10,907 units ; from 1887 to 1891, they lost 6188. The population of the academies and colleges was, in 1887, 89,902, and in May, 1891, it was only 83,714. Four- fifths of this diminution occurs in the boarding-school section. During this period the ecclesiastical establish- ments have never ceased to grow, in slow but constant, progress : from 309 in 1876, with 46,816 pupils, they rose to 349 in 1887, and 352 in 1891 ; at the latter date they had 51,287 pupils. It is proper to add 139 small seminaries, with more than 20,000 pupils. These fig- ures permit us to establish the fact that the pupils lost by the State have not passed over to the ecclesiastical establishments, since the latter have gained only 1200 pupils, while the State has lost 6000.1 Many reasons can be assigned to explain this loss : the decree of 1887, which raised the price of school fees, the enor- mous progress of professional and utilitarian instruc- tion. But it is certain that the insignificant amount of moral education, the too exclusive anxiety for suc- cess in examinations, and the neglect of the condi- tions propitious for the formation of character and for the development of manliness count for much. If the zeal of the teaching religious bodies has been stimulated thereby, we cannot express too much admiration for the manner in which the University 1 As for free secular education, its fall has been rapid: 494 secondary establishments and 30,000 pupils were set down to its account in 1876. In 1887 it reckoned up 302 establishments and 20,000 pupils; in 1891, 250 establishments and 15,000 pupils. EDUCATION. 333 has accepted the consequences. In vain has the pos- sibility of obtaining protective legislation been sug- gested to it ; it has not even requested that the decrees of 1880, which temporarily disorganized the colleges of the Jesuits, should be applied again. ^ It has contented itself with the weapons of liberty which it had nobly chosen. Only, the warfare continues to be stern though subdued, and that is why the Univer- sity men were not particularly pleased by the appeal to " the new spirit " expressed in 1893 by M. SpuUer, their grand master at that time. The Republic has done more for the secondary edu- cation of girls than for that of boys. It may almost be said that it has created it. The history of the education of girls is that of indefinite delays which the administration, on the one hand, political insta- bility on the other, have opposed to progress long admitted to be indispensable. The Constituent As- sembly proclaimed the principle of equality of the sexes in the matter of education. Lakanal got the Convention to decree that every primary school should be divided into two sections, — one for the boys, with a schoolmaster ; the other for girls, with a school- mistress.^ Nothing practical resulted from this deci- sion ; it remained a dead letter. The statute of March 17, 1808, which settled the basis of the Imperial Uni- versity, made no mention of schools for girls. A report, drawn up in 1810 by Mme. de Genlis for the Emperor, proved negligences and abuses without num- ber. The same proofs appeared again, twenty-one 1 In 1865 the Jesuits possessed in France 14 establishments of secondary- instruction with 5074 pupils. In 1876 they possessed 27, with 89, 131 pupils. 2 Decree of Brumaire 27, Year III. (November 17, 1894). 334 THE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. years later, under the pen of M. de Montalivet, ad- dressed to King Louis Philippe.^ An ordinance of 1836 finally settled the conditions under which schools for girls might be established ; but only under the Second Republic was the obligation of the communes to estab- lish them made a part of the law. The battle over secondary instruction lasted for a long time thereafter. No doubt, Mme. Campan had conceived vast projects which she might, for a short time, have believed to be on the verge of realization. But Napoleon did not appreciate them in the least, and restricted himself to a more modest plan for the houses of the Legion of Honor. Outside of the religious boarding-schools, which were very numerous towards the middle of the present century, there existed only series of lectures, which enjoyed considerable popularity for a time ; most of them aimed rather at inculcating a taste for study than at conveying instruction. Though due to private initiative, they gradually won official favor ; the Uni- versity lent its professors, and even granted the hospi- tality of the Sorbonne. At last the time arrived for creating a regular system of secondary instruction for girls. This was the object of Camille See's bill, which, presented to the Chamber in October, 1878, and amended by Paul Bert, ended, under the ministry of Jules Ferry, in the law of December 21, 1880. ^ This law raised tempests ; the moderation and the wisdom of its principal provisions were misunderstood. 1 " A certain number of schools ranged among the schools for boys," wrote the minister, "comprise children of both sexes. Everything leads us to believe that the schools especially designed for girls have been left in a situation still more deplorable than those designed for boys." ^ See, on this subject, the very interesting statements of M. Greard, Vice-Rector of the Academy of Paris, in the third volume of his work, Education et Instruction. EDUCATION. 335 One would have said, to hear the harangues of its ad- versaries, that it was setting up a system of education based upon a monstrous assimilation between woman and man. In reality, it carried on the pedagogical traditions of Mme. de Maintenon, from which the foun- dresses of the religious boarding-schools had swerved. Scarcely had it been promulgated, when a normal school was opened at Sdvres, for the purpose of putting it in practice, and then twenty-five plans for establish- ing academies for girls were adopted, and negotiations were opened with numerous municipalities with a view to increasing the number of these establishments. The utility of a legislative measure is gauged by the eager- ness to make use of it displayed by the citizens. Another advantageous point under a democracy is, that the law is called upon to consecrate the happy initiative of its citizens. The reconstitution of the dis- trict universities furnished an occasion for this ; but such an occasion presents itself so rarely in France, that the legislator seems to hesitate to grasp it, as if the undertaking alarmed him by its audacity and its novelty. Nevertheless, the idea was not novel, and had not been regarded as audacious in less propitious times. In 1815 Royer-CoUard drew up an ordinance, by which the Imperial University vanished to make room for seventeen regional universities. This ordinance never saw the light. He who had conceived it was sufficiently liberal to appreciate the scope of such a reform, and to discount its advantages ; but the majority of Frenchmen would have discerned in this act only a deliberate reaction against the preceding system. More- over, the regional universities could not live ; they lacked everything. It seems that Guizot and Victor 336 THE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. Cousin desired to take up Royer-CoUard's plan ; but the unpopularity which then attached to any attempt at decentralization paralyzed their good-will. The law of 1850, which destroyed the University, in so far as it was a corporation enjoying a monopoly and an endow- ment, did not create universities; it confined itself to organizing, in the stead and place of this corporation, the department of Public Education, that is to say, state education alongside of free education. M. Duruy found himself pretty much in the same situation as M. Guizot. Nevertheless, he founded that School of Higher Studies, the first basis of reform, which was truly a focus of university spirit, if not of university life. It was after 1870 that the awakening took place. The part which the German students had played in the re-establishment of the Empire was suddenly perceived, and, by comparison, men ascertained that France had no students. Let us understand the matter clearly. She had nine thousand students, against twenty-two thousand in 1893. The difference is great in quantity ; but in quality it is immense. The nine thousand followed several courses, or, rather, they were inscribed with a view to certain examinations ; they prepared them- selves for these examinations, isolated, abandoned; they studied; they were not students. That which, above all else, characterizes students is solidarity, — solidarity in work, in amusements, in effort, in emotion ; solidarity not only with the older or younger comrades who come and go, but with the masters in the passionate quest of scientific progress. An individualistic university, where every man should work only at his own advance- ment, and should think only of his own future, would be, in some sort, an institution contrary to nature. Far EDUCATION. 337 from producing collective force, it would engender des- iccation and disintegration. Whenever the young men of a country are agglomerated in a place of work, if that place is a focus of national life, there exists an excess of solidarity among those who are collected there. It is a certain criterion; for, in order to have sufficient solidarity in work, that solidarity must, of necessity — when young men are in question — be ex- cessive in amusement. Clever nations attribute extreme importance to the merry demonstrations of their stu- dents ; they rarely have cause to repent. About 1875 wise statesmen felt that France lacked force in this direction ; but they then imagined that a change in the University organization would sufEce to remedy the defect. M. Waddington prepared a bill which created seven universities by grouping together academies, those of Caen, Paris, and Rennes being joined to form the University of Paris, those of Grenoble, Dijon, and Clermont, entering into the University of Lyons, and so on. The plan was doubly imperfect: in the first place, because a university, in order to lead its true life, must not be cut up into bits, and in the second place, because the name does not make the thing, and before having universities, it was necessary to train students. M. Waddington's law suffered the fate of Royer-CoUard's ordinance: it remained buried in the official pigeonholes. The government could not do much in this matter, and the work which it desired to accomplish was destined to fall to the lot of eminent men who, anxious only to raise the standard of public education, had already toiled long, outside of all politi- cal fluctuations, at the development of faculties. M. du Mesnil was one of these men ; Albert Dumont was another, zealous, persevering, indefatigable. Other workers fol- 338 THE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. lowed, who, more fortunate, beheld the crowning of the edifice : M. Liard, the eminent Director of Supe- rior Instruction, who has himself set forth the his- tory of this question; M. Lavisse, whose eloquence has so often thrilled the young members of the schools ; and others still, less conspicuously placed, but whose action and influence have been no less forcibly exerted in a more restricted sphere. It was necessary to reconstruct buildings, plans, im- plements, and to make over programmes also. The buildings were insufficient; in many places they were unsuitable. The outfit was incomplete, and, in some cases, did not exist at all. The plans of work required enlargement. The programmes were not in accord with the state of science, especially where medicine and the degree of licentiate of letters were concerned. The transformation began, very modestly, about 1879, at Lyons, at Douai, at Bordeaux, at Paris, and at Mont- pellier. In less than three years there were groups of stu- dents here and there; the germ of reformation was multiplying. Parliament did not refuse the requisite loans, which were, however, very moderate. In 1883 an investigation was instituted. A question was put to the persons interested : Is there any reason for transforming the faculties into universities analogous to those which exist abroad? The reply from the ma- jority of the faculties was : Yes. The temptation to present a law in reply to these expressed wishes again presented itself. " But," said M. Liard, " we were wise enough to wait a little longer. It was deemed better to place the faculties in a position to prove their university vocation. To that end, they were granted a liberty which they had never hitherto known, mediums EDUCATION. 339 of common life whicli were entirely new, and they were told : Live and act. The universities will be the goal and the recompense." ^ In truth, the decrees of 1885 restored to the faculties that civil personality which had ceased to exist in fact, if not in law. The General Council was created, — a sort of university senate which, in each academy, exercises scholastic, scientific, administrative, financial, and disciplinary attributes. The end was pursued, successively, of con- centrating the masters in the bosom of each faculty, and of concentrating the faculties in the bosom of each academy ; and meanwhile, the concentration of the students was being effected on the other hand. The object was not so much to create pecuniary resources, as to multiply the bonds which united the faculties to the cities, to the districts, to the citizens. In Lyons the society of the Friends of the Lyons University was founded, inspired by the spirit of enterprise which dis- tinguishes that great city. Montpellier was already looking forward to the opportunity afforded by the cele- bration of its sixth centenary to assert the intensity and the vitality of its university aspirations. But the public had not yet been taken into their confidence. The newspapers- said nothing. Consequently, people grew indignant when they saw MM. Berthelot and SpuUer transport to Lille the faculties of law and letters which were living in isolation at Douai. Peo- ple cried out against centralization in the presence of a measure preparatory to the most complete and most frank effort at decentralization which France has seen carried out in this century. " The experiment has now been going on for five years," wrote M. Liard in 1890, " and in more than one 1 L. Liard, Universitis et FaeulUs. 340 THE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. respect it has succeeded beyond the most optimistic hopes. The moment of consecration cannot be long delayed. To the fact must be added the right. It is not, please to observe, a simple affair of words, or of local vanity. We must not say : Such as they are to-day, with their General Councils, our faculties possess a life which will bear comparison with that of univer- sities abroad. They will possess but a title the more on the day when they become universities. No ; two essentials are wanting in the groups which they now form, — unity and personality. These groupings are maintained, no doubt, because they rest upon good- wUl and upon a hope ; but they constitute only a transitory, not a definitive state. Each one of the elements of which they are composed is stronger than the whole, which is a contradiction. It has legal unity, the group has not ; it has civil personality, the group has not." ^ On July 22, 1890, the government brought into the Senate a bill for a law relating to the constitution of universities. The debate opened on March 10, 1892 ; a year and a half had passed in collecting the opinions of the learned world, and, above all, in listening to the complaints of towns which deemed themselves wronged. The majority of the senators was hostile ; once more local interests carried the day over general interests. Nevertheless, the question is only postponed ; it is hardly possible to elude it. In any case. Article 7 of the law of Finances, of April 28, 1893, by ordaining that " the body formed by the union of several faculties of the State in one academic department is invested with civil corporateness," has put an end to the un- fortunate anomaly pointed out by M. Liard. In the 1 L. Liard, UniversiUs et FacuMs. EDUCATION. 341 meantime, excellent progress has been made. The university cities have made large sacrifices : " Lyons has spent seven million ; Bordeaux, three; Grenoble has given 720,000 francs for its faculties, and Caen about 900,000. Since the year 1876, 211 professor- ships, 200 complementary courses, and 129 lectureships have been created, in the old faculties, and in the faculties of medicine and law recently instituted. " ^ Finally, the nature of instruction has been modified. "Where professional anxieties reigned, more science has been introduced, and a professional task has been set to the faculties which did not possess it."^ The students have become the associates of the professors. " They no longer receive science ready-made ; they aid in making it ; they take part in the researches, the gropings, the investigations, of their masters." ^ They have united their own efforts by founding as- sociations which the public powers have ingeniously encouraged. The General Association of the Students of Paris, founded in 1884, reckoned, in 1893, nearly six thousand active members.* It played an active part in 1889, at the inauguration of the palace of the Sorbonne, which attracted to Paris the representatives of the uni- versities of the world. Its delegates have participated in more than one international scientific solemnity. If, on other occasions, it has surprised and discouraged some of its protectors, and led to a current of public opinion less favorable to their views, the fault lies in that cynicism which has too long dominated young Frenchmen, and against which they find it difiScult to react, because the preceding generation does not render 1 Paul Melon, L'Enseignment Supirieur et V Enseignment Technique en France. '^ Ibid. 3 Report of M. Ch. Duruy on the appropriations for public education, 1893. * Annuaire de la Jeunesse, 1894. 342 THE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. the slightest aid. In this respect, the presence in Paris, and in other large cities, of numerous foreign students must be regarded as a benefit ; twenty years ago their number was insignificant ; at the present time it is considerable. Their influence will not prove unavailing ; they learn to know a France which was unknown in their own homes, and they give to the Frenchmen, their comrades, a more just notion of the rest of the world. It must not be imagined that the district universities, once reconstituted, will enjoy absolute independence. The system of emancipation to which they aspire would appear intolerable to the Senate of Cambridge or to the President of Yale : they will be able to think and act more freely, and that is much. But they will not be able to escape the action of the State, which will hence- forth be exercised upon public education in France in an all but irremediable manner. At the advent of the Third Republic it was still an open question whether the State would, or would not, assume a definitive prepon- derance over free instruction ; the Republic has settled it in the affirmative. It was not obliged to do so, by its principles; circumstances, rather, have led to that result. Free instruction obstinately resisted ; at times, it presented the illusion of a half-victory, but it was only an illusion. When the political hatreds which play off the free primary school against the public pri- mary school shall have finally subsided, the former will disappear, because its means of subsistence will be exhausted : it will receive no more money, and will excite no more enthusiasm. The attempts which have been made, with a view to creating free higher instruc- tion at Paris, Angers, Lille, Lyons, and Toulouse, have ended in disappointment, and there, again, politics serve EDUCATION. 343 as a support. Only one foundation has prospered, — the free school of political sciences of Paris. This assur- edly is one of the finest creations of the present time ; but its success, like its origin, is exceptional. As for secondary instruction, besides being, by nature, fictitious and conventional, and apt, in consequence, to undergo the most radical metamorphoses, it is important to note that no serious and consecutive effort has yet been made by the State to exclude its rivals. We have already pointed out that the University had nobly ac- cepted the combat with equal weapons, but if one of its great teachers were to take the initiative in protective legislation, the majority of public opinion would hardly criticise him ; it certainly would not rise in revolt, so indifferent has it become to the fate of free education. Hence, it considers that education is a State service. The tendency to invest the State with a pedagogical role seems to be increasing in our day : in whatever direction one turns, one perceives the primary school directed, inspected, or coveted by the State ; ^ but this tendency is not new. Theologians have long encour- aged it ; Saint Thomas Aquinas admits, in plain terms, the right of the State.^ The "laws and statutes " of the University, made and promulgated on September 18, 1600, by " the order and will " of King Henry IV., im- plicitly proclaim it.^ In the time of Louis XIV., the 1 It is to be noted that the Anglo-Saxon world does not escape the gen- eral current on this point. Moreover, if the movement has been more tardy and slow in England, it is because private industry forms the citi- zen there after a definite type, which is the same for all. Under an appar- ent diversity of appearances, we may say that unity is realized to such a degree that the State would not be able to render it more complete. 2 Contra Impugnantes Beligionem. s Even disagreement between the State and the Church is provided for. Article 23 specifies that, in the teaching of the faculty, " nothing shall be contrary to the rights and dignity of the King and of the realm." (Com- payre, Histoire Critique des Doctrines de I'Sducation en France, Vol. II.) 344 TBE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. theory remains the same.^ At the approach of the Revolution, men descanted learnedly, and not without pedantry, on everything which concerned education. The majority of the great thoughts and the wild schemes of the Convention have already been announced and discussed. Diderot and Helvetius agreed in their protests in favor " of a national and civil system of edu- cation entrusted to the hands of laymen, and directed by the State." ^ And Turgot declares that "the study of the duties of a citizen ought to form the founda- tion of all other studies."^ President RoUand, in his " Plan for Education in Universities and Colleges," * proposes that all establishments created by the private enterprise should be subordinated to the official colleges, and, by the decree of August 6, 1779, the court of Paris orders that, in all cities where there are colleges, the masters of boarding-schools shall be obliged to take thither " all their boarders who are studying the Latin language, beginning with the fifth class." It is evident that old France was not liberal in the matter of edu- cation. Therefore there is no reason for astonishment if modern France has allowed the State to assume the pedagogical preponderance. Neither would there be any reason for excessive alarm, if it were merely a question of science. It is impossible to enslave science ; henceforth it dwells on inaccessible peaks. But educa- tion comprises something more than cultivation of the mind ; in order to make a man, liberty is needed. Per- haps power will belong, in the future, to collective bodies, ^ See Mimoire sur les Ordonnances. 2 Compayre, Histoire Critique des Doctrines de I'lEducation enFrancei Vol. II. 8 Memorials to the King. 4 Presented on May 13, 1768, to the asserahled Chambers of the Parlia- ment of Paris. EDUCATION. 345 whose humane ideal will have been lowered by material anxieties, or by too prolonged and too harsh a strug- gle for existence ; and these collective bodies will relax university authority ; what use will they make of it? 346 THE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. CHAPTER XII. THE NATION ABMED. A New Spectacle. — Patriotism throughout the Ages. — Its Modern For- mula. — Contradictory Problems. — A Work of Perseverance and of Confidence. — The Effect on the Nation. — Officers and Soldiers. — Diverging Tendencies. — A Socialistic Lesson in Things. — Ideal and Patriotism. It has been related that when, in the port of Cron- stadt, Alexander III. came to pay a visit to the French fleet, and reviewed the crew of the admiral's ship, he uttered these words, which were repeated to a French ear: "I did not think that the sailors of a Republic could have such discipline." If this remark was not actually made, we may affirm that the Emperor of Russia thought it, and, with him, all the princes and superior officers who accompanied him. On the day when the imperial host of the French Republic received that impression, its founders, the men of will and per- severance who had erected it upon ruins, and had con- solidated it amid a thousand storms, received the supreme reward of their energy and their devotion. Certainly not because glory and military conquests were the chief aim of their efforts, or because they had set their am- bition on creating a more formidable army than circum- stances demanded, but because the fact of their having succeeded in creating this army for the defence of their native land, and the protection of the nation, constitutes the greatest moral victory that a people has ever won over itself, and proves that its patriotism is equal to all difficulties and superior to all perils. THE NATION ARMED. 347 Tocqueville, calling to mind the dangerous influence of the military spirit on democracies, expressed a truth which no one had yet dreamed of contradicting. The aristocratic officer of former days was a person of con- sequence, independent of his rank, while promotion is the only source of consideration and honor for the demo- cratic officer, and war offers the only opportunity for promotion. Thus it comes about that the armies of nations which are the most attached to peace are those which are the most anxious for war. "These oppos- ing inclinations of the nation and the army subject democratic societies to great dangers; their armies often display uneasiness, grumble, and are dissatisfied with their lot."^ "This weakness of democratic re- publics in crises," says the distinguished writer, in another place, " is, perhaps, the greatest obstacle which presents itself to the foundation of such a Republic in Europe. In order that a democratic Republic should exist without difficulty among a European people, it would be necessary that it should be established simul- taneously with all the rest. If it should ever come to pass that a democratic Republic, like that of the United States, were founded in a country where the power of a single person had already been established, and had been accepted among the customs, like administrative centrali- zation in the laws, I do not hesitate to say that, in such a Republic, despotism would become more intolerable than in any of the absolute monarchies of Europe." ^ The United States themselves were the first to con- tradict Tocqueville. Their distant situation and their isolation seemed to favor the maintenance of peace. But in their midst existed a germ of war, which armed 1 A. de Tocqueville, De la D^mocratie en Amirique, Vol. III. 2 A. de Tocqueville, Be la Dimoeratie en Amirique, Vol. II. 348 THE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. against each other the two halves of the nation, distinct in race, traditions, and interests. After that gigantic struggle of four years' duration, no one would dare assert that dictatorship is impossible, becausfe the dic- tator was there at hand, with a party ready to acclaim him, and no scruple to stop him. It came within a few votes of the people abdicating into his hands. Probably the dictatorship would not have lasted, but how many disasters it might have accumulated in a short time ! France was much more exposed than the United States ; her liberal attempts had suffered shipwreck, and, on two occasions, she had endured, for fairly long periods, the yoke of a single man. The repub- lican system of government of 1870 had not, more- over, had time to harden ; men found themselves forced to organize the army simultaneously with lib- erty. It was an alarming task, and alarming to such a degree that it must have inspired more than one per- son with secret terror. Was there no way of elud- ing it ? "Without dreaming of disarmament, was it not possible to hint that, under the new rule, military matters would be relegated to the background ? How greatly would the release from this anxiety have facilitated the establishment of democratic institu- tions ! But the republicans repulsed the temptation. They accepted all the consequences, all the difficul- ties of the situation. Country came first, the Repub- lic second. Their example was followed, and a very noble and very simple alliance soon was sealed be- tween them and their adversaries. Every time that the professional interests of the army were at stake, men voted as Frenchmen, without distinction of party. This result is due to the transformation of patriot- THE NATION ARMED. 349 ism, whicli has become a sort of national religion. This religion must be studied, because its part in the present period has been so great that we may- compare its effects on the moral world to the action which the practical application of steam and elec- tricity have exerted upon the material world. Only, if the thing is new, the word itself is old. It has so often been employed at haphazard, that patriotism appears like an untransformable sentiment, forming part of the very patrimony of humanity. It is nat- ural for man to respect his parents, to love his chil- dren; it seems no less natural that he should love his country. One does not reflect that he has not always had a country, that the Judaic tribe, the Roman family, the Greek city, the Frank kingship, were not in the least the equivalents of what we to-day call country-fatherland. Ancient Egypt could not have known patriotism. "Between the sea and the first cataract, to Philae, five or six different countries could be mapped out," writes M. Marius Fontane.^ The idea of fatherland could not be formed in the mind of such a people, and had the notion of grandeur through unity made its way into the brain of a few, the rivalries of the great would have combated this illogical innovation. Thus, "as soon as war was mentioned, at least half the men whose age rendered them fit for service made haste to take refuge in the mountains, out of reach of the recruiting agents."^ The Jewish people knew patriotism under the form "of a national God, iden- tified with the nation, victorious with it, vanquished with it, its double, the personified genius, the spirit 1 Marius Fontane, Les iigyptes. 2 Maspero, Sous le Eigne de Bamses II. 350 THE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. of the nation, in the sense which savages attribute to the word spirit. " ^ Greece was a confederation of cities, over which soared an idea, — that of the superiority of the race, and of its predestination. That alone suffices to efface, at times, their divergences, to cause barriers to fall, and to raise up a Greece unified, for the mo- ment, to face the stranger ; but it was the productions of their genius, the golden legends of their past, which the Greeks loved and defended against the "barba- rians." At Rome there is an emblem, a sort of flag; it is the emblem of the Roman might, of that power exercised by a handful of citizens, at first over a coun- try, then over a collection of countries, and, at last, over a whole section of the known universe. The for- mula Senatus populusque Homanus does not represent a fatherland, but a state of things. The Empire, which comes next, is not a nation either ; it is an administra- tion. Vercingetorix is a patriot ; he has a presenti- ment of a moral power which shall be formed both from the soil and from the blood. He is unable to define it, and obeys it instinctively. He is still too close to invasions which drag masses of men across continents, and deprive them of all idea of territorial stability, all notion of any connection whatever between man and place, of a secret understanding between the earth and the soul. In the Middle Ages France begins to become something precise, at least in the heart of her children. " She flings herself into the crusade," charging herself " with the actions of God against the infidel." 2 On her road she creates kingdoms and prin- cipalities ; Jerusalem, Cyprus, Athens, Constantinople, have, for a time, French sovereigns ; knights go and 1 E. Renan, Histoire du Peuple d'lsrael, Vol. I. ^ E. Lavisse, Vue G^nirale de I'Histoire de I'Europe. THE NATION ARMED. 351 found a Christian state in Portugal, or chase the Sara- cens and the Greeks from the south of Italy. The expansion is effected in the name of a religious, feudal, chivalric France. But men like Etienne Marcel are there, to demonstrate that the true idea of fatherland is still confused ; that culture of mind, the most emi- nent qualities, do not suf&ce to elevate the individual to the conception of the collective mass to which he belongs. It is rather among the humble, the insignifi- cant, that this conception exists in a state of embryo. Not to mention Jeanne d'Arc, who remains incompre- hensible through the nature of her inspiration even more than through the success of her attempt, have not Guillaume I'Aloue, Philippe Le Cat,^ Bochier, and *ill those who locally take part in the national deliver- ance, at the bottom of their own hearts something like the sensation of fatherland which is about to be born ? And, later on, when the monarchy has become the cen- tral point, when " the loyalty of the nobility and the love of the people towards the sovereign take the place of patriotism," ^ in the obscure ranks of the soldiers who die for dynastic interests, beyond the figure of the King there appears, no doubt, that of country, but uncertain, without precise outlines, without determinate color. They divine rather than see it; yet, neverthe- less, they owe to it the consolation of feeling that their blood, shed in thankless causes, will fertilize the future. Patriotic monarchs, like Louis XL and Charles V., are no more. Louis XIV. loves France, as Napoleon will love her, later on, because he possesses her, and not because he springs from her. The great chieftains change their country ; they go and come, from one 1 Simeon Luce, La France pendant la Guerre de Cent Ans. 2 E. Lavisse, Vue G€n€rale de VHistoire de I'Europe. 352 THE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. nation to another, practising the trade of military and diplomatic adventurers, like Eugene de Savoie and Mazarin. Then, on the approach of the Revolution, when issue forth countries in their modern form, the enlightened classes which detach themselves from roy- alty rise to the idea of humanity as they seek their path. " Our writers of the eighteenth century," says M. Lavisse, "have rediscovered humanity, lost since the days of Plato, of Seneca, and of Marcus Aurelius, or, at least, replaced during the Middle Ages by the ecclesiastical idea of Christianity, and, later on, by the political idea of Europe."^ In Germany it is the same. "The question is always of humanity ; the idea of country is lacking."^ Leib- nitz conceived it and expressed it, but its pan-Germanic tendencies found no echo ; he spoke a language which the masses did not understand. Lessing writes that " the reputation of patriot is the last " to which he would aspire ; he proclaims himself " a citizen of the world." " Country, patriotism, are mere words," writes Goethe, in 1772, " nothing but words. If we find a place in the world where we can be tranquil with our posses- sions, a field to nourish us, a house to shelter us, have Ave not there a country ? " ^ " Patriotic interest," writes Schiller, in 1789,* " has a value only for those nations which are not yet mature, for the youth of the world." Kant and Fichte mark a slow transition ; Stein alone gets a clear glimpse of the German fatherland.^ But it is in 1814, and he is still so far in advance of his compatriots, that the whole of that portion of his work 1 E. Lavisse, Vue Ginirale de I'Histoire de I'Europe. 2 L^vy-Bruhl, L'Allemagne depuis Leibnitz. 2 Annonces Savantes de Francfort. ^ Letter to Koerner. ' Levy-Bruhl, L'Allemagne depuis Leibnitz. THE NATION ARMED. 353 remains incomprehensible. It is Hegel who will pro- claim the State, " the absolute reality," and will say that " the individual has no objectivity, verity, or morality except at such time as he is a member of the State." Among us, in 1788, the patriots keep their eyes fixed on the States-General which are about to assemble ; they await the hour to dare. Among the renunciations of the night of August 4, many are sincere. This is plain when hours of gloom arrive. All do not flee. Those in whom the notion of the modern fatherland is completely formed feel where their duty lies,^ and perform it. They are, it is true, only a handful. The great majority emi- grates ; among the emigrants some seek only safety, and lead, outside of France, a life of privation and toU not devoid of dignity, but the rest bear arms against their country, and willingly agree to restrict its boun- daries for the benefit of the strangers who shall aid them to restore the throne. Among the latter are crimi- nals who know what they are about; there are, also, many stupid persons, who have understood nothing, learned nothing, and who continue to see in France only the domain of the King whose humble servitors they are. Every one agrees, at the present day, in rec- ognizing that country was on the side of the Conven- tion. " In vain were the revolutionists disciples of the philosophers, and in vain did they follow general prin- ciples and make laws of pure reason ; they declared the national soil sacred and indivisible, treated invasion as 1 General de Marbot, at the beginning of bis Mimoires, devotes several lines to his father ; behind this physiognomy, barely discerned, one divines an "advanced" mind, which accepts patriotic duty quite naturally, al- though he does not espouse all the illusions of his contemporaries. More- over, the career of that Comte de Virieu who played so noble a part at the siege of Lyons, and always placed country above royalty, has been described with a desire to excuse his liberalism. (See the Roman d'un Royaliste, by the Marquis, Costa de Beauregard.) 2a 354 TRE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE a sacrilege, proclaimed with tragic enthusiasm and the voice of the alarm-bell the duty of all toward their country in danger." ^ " The principle of all sovereignty is lodged in the nation . . . ; the law is the expression of the general will. All the citizens have the right to contribute, either in person, or through their proxies, to its formation," says the Declaration of Rights. The nation, thus defined, presents an absolute contrast to the States of days gone by. Henceforth true patriotism exists. In America, it sprang spontaneously from the very nature of things. " In proportion as conditions become more equal, each man in particular grows more like all the others, — fee- bler, smaller. One becomes used no longer to regard the citizens, and to consider only the people ; one for- gets individuals, and remembers only the species." ^ In Europe, it was the French revolutionists who created it, by reaction against the old regimen. But the Revo- lution was exhausted by its own effort, and while other peoples are slowly assimilating the idea of fatherland and the principles of liberty which France instilled into them, France herself distorts the one and forgets the others. The imperial epic threw everything into con- fusion, embroiled everything. It dazzled eyes and dis- ordered minds. A form of patriotism appears, brutal, unjust, despotic, which surrounds itself with hatred and jealousies, and will engender terrible reprisals; the right of nations is violated, institutions are overthrown, glory is fabricated with blood and injustice. Henceforth, to be a patriot will consist less in elevating oneself than in humbling others. Patriotism will be founded upon scorn, instead of resting upon "respect for countries." 1 E. Lavisse, Vue G4n4rale de VHistoire de I'Europe. 2 A. de Tocqueville, De la Dimocratie en Amirique. THE NATION ARMED. 355 Thus understood, a special name has been conferred on it ; it is called chauvinism. The chauvin loves noise, vain protestations, grand phrases, magnanimous attitudes, irreconcilable poses. He does not in the least understand " the long memory of ancestors, the joy of meeting again our own soul in their thoughts and in their actions, in their history and in their legends ; the joy of forming a part of a whole whose origin is lost in the mist, and whose future is undefined."^ Sometimes the national hymn excites him ; but he does not hear its melody singing constantly at the bottom of his soul. On great occasions, the flag arouses his enthusiasm ; but he does not preserve the reflection of its colors all day long, in the depths of his eyes. Very different is the true patriot. His portrait has been admirably sketched by M. de Vogiie, in a speech made at the dis- tribution of prizes at the College Stanislas. "What- ever may be your varied pursuits," said the eminent academician to his young auditors, "I know what object in common will give you the most pleasure : it is the greatness of France. When you have an active profession, ask yourselves each evening : What have I done to-day for the greatness of France ? Try to set down some action to this special account every day, and, during this moment of examination, listen to what the old mother, who surrounds you with her arms in the shadow, is saying : — Child, I have made thee with long-protracted sufferings ; for the last fifteen centuries my fairest sons have toiled to prepare for thee the supreme pride of bearing our name ; to me thou owest the sweet, free cradle where life smiles more radiantly than elsewhere ; thou goest forth to pursue thy particular aim, to seek thy contentment, 1 E. Lavisse, Discours aux ^tudiants. 356 THE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. ease, glory, riches ; nothing can be more legitimate. But subtract for me something from thine effort. I ask of thee not merely the offer of thy blood in great perils, that is too easy. What I ask of thee is more difficult, — the daily sacrifice of an idle inclination, of a prejudice, of an intolerance, of a part of thine individ- ual tastes and desires, that, at this cost, thou mayest give me the elements which are indispensable to my strength, union, private peace, the certainty of being obeyed." Of patriotism thus understood, the Republic has made, in France, a sort of dogma ; she imposes it ; she regards it as a crime not to believe in it. How will this be judged by our descendants ? Everything is evolution in this universe, whether it be a question of material conditions or of moral laws. Patriotism, like religion, will change its nature again. Will it embrace certain groups of nations, then humanity as a whole, regarded from a certain philosophical angle ? No one can presume to say. But one thing is certain, that it represents, for the present time, a force of incalculable range, much greater than modern societies have had at their disposal; and it is probable that none of the larger forms which it may assume in the future will be as productive of enthusiasm. The former were too narrow ; the latter will be too vast. We have mentioned that the republicans, nobly ac- cepting the responsibility of the faults which others had committed, renounced the prospect, dear to many among them, of suppressing standing armies, and re- placing them with national militia troops. But what- ever may have been the sentiment of self-abnegation which dictated to them this conduct, the problem re- mained none the less arduous, — to make the Republic THE NATION AMMEB. 357 and the army live side by side in the beginning ; one by the other, later on. It was necessary to combine elements which seemed irreconcilable : the annual vote of a heavy war appropriation with the revival of the national wealth ; a very powerful and highly respected military power with a civil power which could live only by moral force, and had not yet had time to acquire it ; professional science and skill with the number of units; a term of service sufficiently long, and as equal as possible for all, the liberal professions being duly protected ; a system of foreign politics necessarily pacific and circumspect with the ambitions and ardors which flow from permanent contact with arms; soldiers who, springing from the bosom of the nation, were to bear with them to the regiment the republican idea, with leaders many of whom retained, at the bottom of their hearts, sympathy with the sys- tems of government now vanished, and remained im- bued with the spirit and the traditions of monarchical armies. Again, it was Gambetta who dictated the course to be pursued. His determination not to permit the intro- duction of politics into the army was manifested from the beginning, with entire clearness. When he spoke of the army, — it was at Belleville, on that August 12, 1881, when he gave proof of every sort of courage, — it was felt that, leaving behind him on the threshold his calculations as a politician, his passions as member of a party, he penetrated into a temple, as it were, where dwelt the very soul of the fatherland ; his lan- guage and his gestures expressed respect and faith. The command was obeyed, because it was given with authority and with a loftiness which placed it beyond all dispute. There were revolts. When he tried to 358 THE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. place General Miribel at the head of the general staff, Gambetta alarmed his followers. Incapable of looking afar and aloft like their leader, they did not understand that the army would, willy-nilly, republicanize the men who should consecrate to it their existence, and that solely through the effect of the sentiment of duty. Other incidents, on divers occasions, gave rise to fears as to the duration of that harmonious equilibrium which was the amazement and the admiration of Europe. It was feared lest the army should compromise peace, or that politics should compromise the army ; but no ! nothing weakened the discipline of the soldiers, or the devotion of the citizens. At times of the harshest quarrels, of the hottest electoral battles, the military question in its essence, if not in its details, remained above party, where Gambetta had raised it aloft on that first day, in the place where nations deposit their arks of the covenant. With still greater wisdom, those who governed sup- pressed the anti-republican remarks which escaped the generals between two manceuvres. The ministers and the head of the State himself contented themselves with the rather curt and sometimes rather disdainful salutes which they received from the military authori- ties. For a long time the name of the Republic was omitted from the formal addresses and the orders of the day ; certain radical newspapers waxed indignant over this, and raised a cry of treason; in high places confident serenity was maintained. It was known that the lawyers and men of humble extraction, raised to the highest posts in the State, often by talent, but some- times, also, by luck, must lack prestige with the gen- erals ; nevertheless, no one doubted the absolute devotion and patriotism of the latter. The day came when Presi- M. SADI-CARNOT, FOURTH PRESIDENT OF THE REPUBLIC. THE NATION AHMED. 359 dent Carnot, at the end of the grand manoeuvres, could review the troops, and when the enthusiastic crowd hailed him with acclamations. The higher officers grouped themselves about him, touched, at last, by the enlightened solicitude, the unalterable confidence shown by the Republic to its soldiers ; and when the Republic gave the French army the Russian army as its sister, their hearts were won ; they forgot that the commander-in-chief was a civilian ; moreover, destiny had in store for him, as recompense, the death of a soldier. During the five-and-twenty years that France has lived in a state of armed peace, her regiments have been renewed sufficiently often to permit of one's mak- ing an attempt to form a general judgment as to the results attained ; results nimierous and sufficiently un- expected, on one point, at least. Three classes of citi- zens have passed under the flags, — peasants, working- men, and men of the middle class ; and many genera- tions of officers have risen to the intermediate grades, either from the schools or from the ranks. We may reckon that, below the grade of commander, the past is mingled with the present, so far as the influ- ences experienced are concerned, while above, it is, indeed, the new army. This army is, in origin, national, and founded on equality, in the highest de- gree. If there remained, under the shelter of the petty provincial peculiarities which still exist, any leaven of real discord between the men of the North and the South, of the East and the West, it has melted away through contact. Unity was effected long ago ; the finishing touch has been put to it ; it has, in a manner, been polished. Prejudices have grown weaker ; minds have opened to new conceptions ; local interests have 360 THE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. lost their importance. The result has been a great good for the nation in general ; the peasant needed to be withdrawn from the stupefying influence of the soil ; the workingman from the deceptive mirages of the theorists who indoctrinate him ; the man of the middle class from the isolation which his rank or his fortune create for him. The promiscuousness of the regiment has effected this; the tasks accomplished, the punish- ments undergone, the forces expended side by side, in a perpetual rivalry of good humor and energy, have amalgamated the young men, taking away from them, for a space, the notion of all that divides them. But, individually, the physical and moral effect has not been the same for all. For the middle classes obli- gatory service has been the safety-anchor. Rendered anaemic by the exclusively cerebral and anti-hygienic education which he has received, the young Frenchman of the well-to-do classes often possesses just enough strength and health to resist the first fatigues of mili- tary life, but he emerges therefrom transformed, unrec- ognizable, hardened, and rested, his limbs strengthened, and his brain soothed. The novelty of his existence, the desire to become a non-commissioned officer as soon as possible, have been his moral safeguards, and of his service under the flag he preserves the memory as of something rough and healthy which has deliciously refreshed his life.i The peasant and the workingman do not draw from it the same advantages; they have not, like their comrade, excess of mental action which makes them appreciate the physical fatigue that is imposed upon them ; they serve to the best of their ability, but without taking a very keen interest in what 1 The effect might be made greater by a more intelligent and better superintended exercise of hygienic laws. THE NATION ARMED. 361 they learn, and their hours of leisure are employed in a lamentable manner. When work is over, they are turned out into the street. Where can they go ? What are they to do? No one cares anything about them. Their soldier's task is done ; no one gives a thought to the fact that they are men, and that the " whole life " is due to them during the whole time of their stay in the regiment. The officer rarely has any perception of that part of his mission.^ He is entirely absorbed in his professional duties. In some of the cavalry regi- ments there is even a tendency to rate the horses before the men ; in any case, the officer looks at the men only from the point of view of the profession, and of the services which they will have to render to the country. He would feel intimidated, and think himself ridiculous, if he had to undertake the part of educator. But that is precisely what is needed. Never has a finer field for education been thrown open to persons of good-will. If garrison life is sometimes monotonous, if one feels, at times, exasperated and discouraged by the perpetual preparation for a war which always recedes into the dis- tance, what a source of interest, of emotions, of satisfac- tion, would not one find in the effort to exercise souls as well as muscles ! With such a task to accomplish, what cause for fear would there be in that particularist spirit which, more than is generally suspected, injures the army, by sometimes uniting in over-close bonds, in routine, the officers of one branch, of the same rank, of the same origin ! If the army is, in fact, morally a unit, it must be admitted that the body of its officers is professionally divided. Infantrymen, cavalry, artillerymen, cherish 1 See the celebrated article whicli appeared in the Revv^ des Deux Mondes under the title : " J)u role social de I'officier." 362 THE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. complaints and prejudices against each other. They are exclusive, inclined to look at things in a petty way. Sometimes these sentiments, which ought to exist only in the subaltern ranks, — where one would be more dis- posed to regard them as excusable, — are displayed at the very summit of the hierarchy, and exert an influ- ence on the acts of the minister himself. The spirit of comradeship thus assumes a regrettable and injurious form. As for the engineers' corps and the commissariat department, the "fighting" officers regard them as being of a distinctly inferior rank, occupied in performing the domestic service of the army. They do not think much of the officers of the reserve. They look upon the latter as vulgar " civilians " who will never be turned into military men by either the regulation term or their too easily acquired gold braid. Another cause of discord has been introduced among them : it is science. The immensity of the effort ac- complished by the peoples of Europe, to enable them to put in the field, should occasion require, innumerable masses of powerfully armed men, has led to the creation of what may be called the trade of war. Everything has converged towards a double end: to increase the action of death-dealing engines of war, to facilitate the movements of troops ; to augment the force of the blows, and the motive powers of the combatants. Hence the officer's sphere of interest is immoderately enlarged. Everything connected with railways, balloons, elec- tricity, chemistry, mechanics, is within his province. The scientific inventions which are not of utility in preparation for battle, or in battle itself, are easily reck- oned up. They are piled up, one upon another, throwing strategy into the background. There is only one thing whose place they cannot take : personal courage, cool- THE NATION ARMED. 363 ness, bravery. And behold, two types of officer im- mediately find themselves face to face, and little fitted to collaborate in the same work : the laborious officer utilizes the leisure of peace to acquire as much knowl- edge as possible, certain that he will always find a use for it; the officer of active temperament tolerates in garrison life only that which reminds him of the life of camps and disdains the purely intellectual part of his task. The same diversity exists in the sea-army between the man who aspires only to plough the seas, and the man who aims at guiding torpedo-boats or seeks the practical formula of a submarine vessel. Neither sort can endure a long period of peace. Waiting, necessarily, entails lassitude. Therefore, un- less a European war be provoked, one must reckon upon a relaxation in the zeal of officers. This relaxation would, infallibly, have come about, had it not been for the colonial expeditions, on the one hand, — Tunis, Tonkin, Dahomey, — to make the impulsive learn patience ; on the other, a rather large military appropriation to per- mit of incessantly experimenting, of modifying, of im- proving, and thus keeping up the zeal of the workers and seekers. The often undecided attitude of the Ger- man government must also be noted, always aggressive as to one part of German opinion. The menace has been diminished, at times, but it has never completely ceased. Had it been more restrained, more unalterable, France would have become enervated, in the long run ; had it been less so, relaxation would have supervened. Thus it will be seen what service Germany has ren- dered us by maintaining the French army in a per- manent state of moral mobilization, so to speak, and thereby giving to the Eepublic the time and the means to establish itself solidly. Without the army, the 364 THE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. Republic would have been weak abroad, and in France a government which is weak abroad has no future. With the army, on the contrary, the Republic ran the risk of being ruined at home, for the benefit of some dic- tatorial power or other. The consciousness of the peril which existed on our frontiers alone has had the power to discipline the nation. That, it is true, is a service of negative value. It could not enter into the plans of the victor to aid the vanquished to recover his rank, and we have seen that if M. de Bismarck showed himself favorable to the Re- public, it was because he deemed it less capable than the monarchy of setting about the revival of France. Too late he perceived his error. But Germany's in- fluence in turning France into a military power has had two other consequences, one of which has given rise to numerous dissertations, while the other seems to escape notice. The first is the excessive augmen- tation of the taxes which weigh upon the nation be- cause of obligatory armament. Germany, it is true, suffers therefrom as well as France, and more than she, as its wealth is less considerable, and its credit less robust. The second is the progressive habituation of the citizen to socialistic organization, and this habitua- tion is going on more rapidly in France than in Ger- many, because the French army is more democratic, and more imbued with equality than the German army. When socialism is in question, people never seem to think of anything but propaganda by the idea ; but propaganda by the form is far more active. Men are anxious to know whether the diffusion of theories is rapid or slow ; they forget to observe whether their practical application is partial or local. The socialistic idea meets, perhaps, one adversary out of ten ; the THE NATION ARMED. 365 hostility of the nine others arises from the fact that they believe in the impossibility of applying it. But it is difficult not to perceive that, by becoming a real- ity, the doctrine of the armed nation, so long treated as chimerical, has done more than any other sort of preaching to aid the advent of socialism. ^ The organization of France, at the present time, is unique. Nothing of the sort has ever existed ; it has never even been admitted that it could exist. Russia and Germany are military monarchies. France is a democracy which has not war as its object, which, on the contrary, is attached to the labors of peace, and maintains in the first rank of her anxieties the develop- ment of her intellectual resources, of her wealth, of her social improvement. But the citizens of this democracy have consented, for the last twenty years, to deduct, for the collective good, a heavy share of their possessions, of their activity, of their liberty, and this consent is so unanimous, and so definite, that the young Frenchman feels a sort of solace to his conscience in satisfying a draconian law which his high spirits and his good-will incessantly ratify. On entering the army, he knows that, barring unforeseen circumstances, he will not have to fight; but he prepares to defend his native land. The confidence of the country is made up, in part, of his strength and his zeal, and it is enough to pay it for its trouble. Suppose, now, that the country, no longer threatened by dynastic ambitions, asks him to enrich her instead of to defend her, to wield an implement for her in place of a weapon ; suppose that military service should as- 1 See in the Deutsche Revue, March 1, 1893, a very curious letter from Baron de Courcel, former amhassador of France to Berlin, in reply to an inquiry as to the possibility of disarming. 366 • THE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. sume a distinctly industrial character (and the trans- formation is not, perhaps, as distant or as delicate to effect as you think), what change will have taken place? From the moment that it is a service com- manded in the name of France, to go and make a machine, to set up a timber-work, to mix mortar, is, at least, quite as noble as to clean out a stable, to fur- bish up a belt-buckle, or to black boots. If the love of country has been strong enough to turn out so many good soldiers from young men of such diverse origins, situations, habits, and intelligence, who will dare to say that the same love of country will not be able, in case of need, to turn out from them good workmen ? Given the habits of discipline and obedience acquired in the army by the young generations, we may affirm that two-thirds of the nation are ready to accept indus- trial service as soon as it is established. Our military organization is, therefore, for the French people, an immense lesson in socialistic things. Only, if the socialists wish to have the doctrines which are dear to them draw profit therefrom, they ought not to lose sight of the fact that this organization rests, in part, upon self-devotion, abnegation, and the spirit of sacrifice, in part upon the love of country. " Ideal and Patriotism " ought, then, to be the countersign. Under the present circumstances, given the state of soul of the nation and the vast experiment which is in progress, the socialists could not commit a greater mistake than to insist on the material character of the reforms which they desire to accomplish, and to accept the compromis- ing support of the internationalists and the men with- out a country. IDEAS AND HABITS. 367 CHAPTER XIII. IDEAS AND HABITS. The Survival of Ideas. — Foreign Judgments on France. — Tlie Worship of Form. — Unhealthy Scientific and Literary Stagnation. — Influence of Democracy on Letters and Language. — The Awakening: Taine and Renan. — Retaliation on Immorality. — The French Family and the French Woman. — Decrease of Population. — The Law of Succession, and Malthusianism. The task of searching out the connection between the ideas and the customs of a people has often been undertaken. Such a task, arduous enough when it re- lates to the past, really surpasses the power of contem- poraries. The connections exist ; they are close ; but in order to know them, it would be necessary to be able to determine what are the ideas of the people whom one wishes to study, at some precise moment of their history. Precisely therein lies the difficulty. It has been said that " survival is a law in the psychology of peoples. Ideas formerly dominant continue to express themselves long after they have lost their efficacy, and a man continues to employ the same language, although he may have begun to act, sometimes without being aware of it, in accordance with other principles. " ^ This truth has often been misunderstood. It does not apply to the great movements of reform, which have agitated the world, but to the slow transformations of public life. In revolutionary times, the idea precedes the act, although the act often outstrips the idea ; but 1 L^vy-Bruhl, L' Allemagne depuis Leibnitz. 368 THE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. in evolutionary times, it comes to pass that the theory is not enounced, and, sometimes, is not even formed, until after the practice, and in accordance with that. Hence contradictions — calculated to bewilder the his- torian — between the social state and the artistic or literary productions of a nation. These contradictions are still further augmented in the case of the French nation. More than any other she has been subjected, in the course of the present century, to incessant agita- tions, to abrupt changes. Her accession to modern civilization has been painful and troubled ; her quest for equilibrium has been injured by the very efforts made to obtain it ; her march towards science has been hampered, her conception of the moral law warped by men and circumstances. It has happened that she has lost sight of the object to be attained, and has no longer known whether an object any longer existed anywhere. Logically, nothing should have remained standing, after so many shocks, of that which forms the true power of a collective body, to wit, agreement as to certain gen- eral principles of conscience and judgment. The foreigner who studies contemporary France is moved to believe that such an agreement no longer ex- ists. His reason suggests it to him ; the documents which he consults confirm him in the belief. History, literature, and statistics unite, in his eyes, to condemn the French citizen ; he decides that he is ungovernable and dissolute, powerless to make the race progress, and to organize anything definite. National prosperity, he says to himself, never has sprung from political insta- bility ; never has virtue lived in thorough harmony with immorality. But immorality and instability are a double cancer with which France is attacked. There- fore, her destiny is irretrievably ruined. Such is the IDEAS AND HABITS. 369 conclusion of many works published beyond our fron- tiers "whicli have aroused our ire, and have made us be- lieve in the existence of a deliberate plan to decry us, when their authors were simply guilty of too condensed an analysis and too rigorous deductions. How often have we not challenged, as inspired by hatred, the tes- timony of writers who have endeavored to judge us according to the documents furnished by ourselves, and classified according to scientific methods ! Their reasoning was not false, neither were our recrimina- tions unjust. We are conscious of being better than the portraits which are drawn of us, but these portraits are painted with the colors fabricated by our own acts ; in order, therefore, to arrive at a sound judgment con- cerning us, it must be admitted that the manner of life and the habits of mind of the French people have long been at variance, and that there are two co-existent Frances, one of which amuses itself over what the other writes, without putting it into practice. In spite of the fact that such a duality of national existence is not rare in our annals,^ it is difficult for the mind to accept it. As for our public habits, we have belied the pre- dictions of our detractors. The preceding pages con- tain the narrative of events which are well calculated to disconcert them ; the most illustrious among them. Prince Bismarck, was the first to make the mistake, and it is sufficient to glance through the organs of public opinion abroad to gather expressions of opinion whose inexactness has speedily been emphasized by facts. But 1 At the moment of the great Eevolution, remarks M. Goumy {La France du Centenaire, 1889) , France presented an extraordinary spectacle : "Her arms had rendered her so strong that she imposed peace on two of the great powers allied against her, and those who governed her had made her so wretched that she had neither administration, nor finances, nor justice, nor police." 2b 370 THE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. when private habits are in question, it is more diificult to present the proofs. It can be attempted only in an indirect manner, by casting a rapid glance at the evo- lution undergone in the last twenty-five years by those great propagators of error or of truth, books and news- papers, and by that fundamental institution of the modern nation, the family. It is superfluous to mention the beauty and extent of France's literary patrimony ; but it is not profitless to call attention to the fact that the recent centuries have taught us to talk and to write, rather than to think. Precise traditions remain to us on this point. The worship of form has nothing but faithful disciples among iis. The subjects have varied, from one epoch to another ; the anxiety to set forth things in a deli- cate, elegant, eloquent manner has remained almost invariable. Therein lies the common relationship be- tween the very different works produced by French genius, which extreme nobility and extreme meanness have inspired, turn and turn about. The duel of great sentiments and petty passions is characteristic of French literature ; sixty years ago, it broke out again with feverish intensity. Under the monarchy of July, the battle was sharp. The condition of science remained stationary ; fruitful ideas and generous impulses were repressed ; great minds revolted ; but the durable works which came from their pens were not understood by a public which was essentially materialistic in its tenden- cies and narrow in its aspirations. Imaginative litera- ture triumphed. Commonplace souls took pleasure, by contrast, in the recital of adventures which they would not have had the audacity to face, and no one more enjoys books which are not virtuous than a citi- zen who is virtuous in spite of himself. The gate of IDEAS AND HABITS. 371 immorality was thrown open by a poet of rare charm, whose influence has since been immense and general. Everybody who can read has been affected thereby. Alfred de Musset's work has served as the book of devotions — one might almost say the breviary — of a whole generation. It contains poison for all ages and all natures, — for the simple and the refined, for youth and for mature age. Under the Second Empire, the struggle ceased. Pub- lic opinion no longer cared anything for higher educa- tion: "It contented itself with the licentiates of law and the doctors of medicine which it furnished . . . ; practical needs were satisfied." ^ In the damp obscurity of their underground laboratories, a few learned men were preparing the future : no one even ridiculed them. Writers of genius sought a publisher; only the writers of romance found one. The sickly analysis of physical love infested the romance ; debauch and adul- tery served as the theme of all tales. Poisonous sub- stances cannot be absorbed with impunity. The higher classes became rapidly corrupt. Good and evil were constrained to live in contemptible promiscuity. Ideas became gangrened. The strangest theories were ad- mitted, especially in educational matters. Certain errors of conduct were considered as a salutary experi- ence for young men, and the indulgence which was publicly proclaimed with regard to those who thus learned " to know life " was mingled with some disdain for labor and virtue. The theatre served to set forth subversive theories on marriage and the family. Art aspired to a facile ideal of voluptuous levity. French thought was lulled to sleep as in a vague revery pro- duced by opium. A curious fact ! The terrible year 1 L. Liard, Universitis et FaculUs. 372 THE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. brought neither remedy nor change. The war ended, the same taste, the same sort of reading, the same amusements, reappeared. Only the press, now become free, furnished one outlet the more for that unhealthy prose which abroad was currently denominated " French prose," and the influence of democracy was exercised in a stronger and more direct manner. Democracy spurs on to overproduction, and overpro- duction brings in its train a whole troop of ill-omened con- sequences ; social consequences in the first place. How many dreams unrealized, how many disappointed ambi- tions, which turn into bitterness, so far as society is con- cerned ! Many are the writers who are misunderstood and who deserve to be, but, convinced of their own genius, go to swell the ranks of the discontented, and form the staff of revolution. The press brings out many failures ; books bring out still more. On the other hand, those who suc- ceed have neither security nor repose. They must live in a state of constant activity in order to preserve from the caprices of fortune their painfully acquired popularity. They are constrained never to pause on the upward path, if not of fortune, at least of advertisement. This adver- tising they obtain by many means. The black pessimism of their conclusions draws attention to them, as well as their choice of eccentric or repugnant subjects. " There is a very strange school nowadays in the theatre, in poetry, in romance," writes M. Legouve.^ "The object of the leaders of this school is the study of the human soul, but in this study, they devote their attention only to what is morbid. For them, moral health, simple and natural sentiments, do not count." As soon as their notoriety permits them, they mount the stage them- selves, and substitute themselves for their work. Stroll- 1 E. Legouvd, Jean-Jacques Rousseau. (Le Temps, July 9, 1895.) IDEAS AND HABITS. 373 ing-player behavior in literary life is without bounds ; a romancer of renown who changes his residence as- sumes the airs of the chief of a mission ; he communi- cates his itinerary to the public in advance, in order to give time to the foreigners whom he is going to visit to prepare glorious receptions for him ; the frontier once passed, he keeps up telegraphic communication with the newspapers of his own country, and addresses to them, after each banquet, bulletins of victory which remind one of those from the Grand Army. On the lower rungs of the ladder of celebrity, men have recourse to reviews of mutual admiration, the joint-authors of which burn incense to each other in turn, in the most serious manner in the world. They call each other, among themselves, " powerful men," and when one of them in a pamphlet pours out against society the gall with which his soul is filled, it is said of him that he is " the fatal adversary of the institutions of the century." These perpetual exaggerations, which no one escapes,^ impoverish the language. There are epochs when everything is clearly stated, and words serve only to express ideas. There are other epochs when words take the place of ideas, when an effort is made to arrange them in an ingenious, a piquant, a harmonious manner. And, in conclusion, there are epochs when ideas seem complicated to such a degree that there are not enough words in existence to translate them. New ones are invented ; they are borrowed from foreign languages. The writer piles them up in painful gradations. It 1 A poet, member of the Acaddmie Fran9aise, exclaims, In response to the question put to him by a journalist: "I, a deputy, would I go and drown myself in the torrents of public saliva! confound myself in the rabble of chatterers and impostors!" When an Academician permits himself to use such expressions, one cannot feel surprised that common mortals abuse them. 374 THE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. seems to require an excessive effort in the direction of simplification, to enable him to put his idea within the reach of the reader. If one takes the trouble to force his way through this phantasmagoria, the central thought appears quite simple, quite easy to say, reduced to that which, in former days, would have been very briefly expressed. To read some of our modern authors, you would think you were being carried back to the palmy days of scholasticism, so great is the pleasure they take in mixing everything up.^ It is impossible to say how much time would be re- quired before the excess of such evils would bring about a reaction. Literary currents are formed with extreme slowness. Moreover, the French tire less quickly than others of what amuses them. Hence the revival which, for several years past, has manifested itself in the in- spiration and the aims of a great many of their writers is not a sign of reaction. It is the direct result of the diffusion of the scientific method. It is customary to assert that science has made marvellous progress during the last century. The fact is undeniable, but it is not fact but method which has entirely modified the condi- tions under which the faculties of the human mind are exercised, and has opened to it indefinite perspectives ; it is not results, it is the process. Men have learned that if imagination sometimes creates beauty, criticism alone reduces it to truth. Analysis and synthesis have been applied to all classes of phenomena, and, while dis- coveries in the natural order of things were being multi- plied, in the social order, valuable sources of information, 1 Decadence and symbolism are only forma of this disease of language, produced by the exaggeration of terms and the necessity for constantly reinforcing them. Thus it comes to pass that of a vivid work it is said that it is " bleeding with life," and that a captivating story becomes " as interesting as a flow of lava." , IDEAS AND HABITS. 375 hitherto unproductive, have been utilized, so that the past has been elucidated as well as the present. Com- pare Bossuet's Discourse on Natural History, and Fustel de Coulanges' The Ancient City. These books appear to have been written by beings of a different essence, whose brains were not even of the same make. Exami- nation, discussion, comparison of texts, the study of the exact value of words, precision of reasoning, rigid- ity of deductions, are the roads by which, henceforth, one marches on to certainty. This revolution in the workings of thought is, as- suredly, the characteristic of the nineteenth century. It has taken place, in great part, outside of France, and almost without France's knowledge. Lulled by decep- tive mirages, and satisfied with the easy productions of their luxuriant imagination, the French ignored, until the approach of 1870, the rising tide of science beyond their frontiers. The very word was strange to them; they employed it as the synonym of exact sciences. Very fortunately, a handful of picked men, attracted precisely by that which repelled the crowd, namely, the sternness of the labor and the austerity of the subject, had gone in search of the new Grail, and had brought it back to their native land. It is to them that France is indebted for being able rapidly to regain lost ground and time, and to escape an intellectual Sedan. At the head of these men, the first by virtue of genius and of the influence which he exercised, is Hippolyte Taine. That influence is very different from what it was, at first, believed to be ; it may be said of Taine that what he produced is nothing in comparison with what he has aroused. By introducing, for the first time, demonstrations and precise formulas into an order of facts which did not seem to admit of them 376 THE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. Taine imparted to the positive tendencies of his time " a sort of algebraic notation which has doubled their power. " 1 He has presented man as the product of the race, the surroundings, and the moment, and his favor- ite argument was : " That there is a fundamental force, a ruling faculty, whose personality, once grasped and well located, develops fully like a flower, and the work of art which follows is explicable as a natural fruit. "^ The positivists and the pessimists felt grateful to him for his demonstrations, believing them to be their own. But he hesitated at no sacrifice of ideas to attain to the truth, and he proved, eventually, that he understood how to pursue it under any disguise, and in any place, so that the most diverse schools have been able to lay claim to being connected with him, and his works fur- nish reinforcements to all armies. This is a very rare occurrence, and one which could not fail to produce an impression by its novelty. Taine began to write in the days of decadence, when men doubted everything, except the legitimateness of doubt, so that doubt had gradually come to be a negative religion, and even in order to be reckoned among the deniers one had to recite a credo. But negation could not satisfy men for long ; they were tired of denying ; they could not believe, but they longed to know. Taine proved that it was possible to learn apart from any preconceived idea, from any principle laid down a priori; that to this end it suificed to go straight ahead, paying attention to the smallest pebble in the road, and avoiding no obstacle, permitting no impediment. Such a method, even if it produced no direct results, contained the germ of unlimited improvement for him who should put it in practice. 1 A. Sabatier, Taine. {Le Temps newspaper, March 7, 1893.) 2 jj)i^_ ERNEST RENAN, OF THE FRENCH ACADEMY. IDEAS AND HABITS. 377 But these things were not known outside of a small circle of open and audacious minds. Science could not win young Frenchmen without being dressed up and rendered attractive. This was the work of Ernest Renan. In the style of Taine, " the epithet was always an argument : everything was directed towards in- structing and convincing; nothing was sacrificed to the desire to please or to charm." ^ In that of Renan, the poet appeared behind the learned man. "His erudi- tion furnishes him with new and profound views ; it opens to him, on all sides, those distant perspectives which seem to extend into infinity the subjects of which he treats."^ At the beginning of his career he estab- lished his reputation as a learned man by important works ; in that way he acquired the right to speak the aerial language of a poet. No one understands so well as he how to mingle the fancies of ingenious supposi- tions with the exact data of learning. The wealth of his imagination brightens up the links of his real logic, as dreaming divides life. He will be reproached, it is true, for the great liberty which he takes with some documents ; he breaks them, crumbles them up, " to adjust them to his plan and to compose from them, as in a stained-glass window," ^ the figure which he has conceived. It will be asked whether that which Ger- man criticism has left standing in the line of monu- ments of information concerning the history of Israel does not constitute a " canvas with meshes too large to support embroidery, and which can be filled in only by visions."* Abroad, people are even thoroughly 1 A. Sabatier, Taine. (Le Temps newspaper, March 7, 1893.) 2 Speech of M. Boissier at the Acad^mie Fran9aise (session of January 26, 1894). 8 Challemel-Lacour, Speech on his reception into the Acad^mie Pran- 9aise (session of January 26, 1894). * Tbid. 378 THE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. horrified at him ; but in France, confidence is not shaken, and the enchantment is complete. Taine had introduced science, and now, behold, Renan has bap- tized it. Henceforth, it is French. Every one desires to betake himself to her as soon as his code of worship can accommodate itself to delicacy of form, subtilty of sentiment, and admits of external grace and har- mony. And so powerful is the current created by the two influences of Taine and Renan, that it brings about a deviation of all literature of a higher order. Those who resist are dragged along with the rest. The result is that one comes to recognize the fact that everything can be acquired; that talent, and even genius, needs cultivation. Intelleetualism, "that per- version of the mind which reduces us to seeking in life only the spectacle of life," ^ receives a serious blow. The law of labor ceases to admit of exceptions : ro- mancers, like philosophers, are subject to it. Psychol- ogy vanquishes them. No doubt, they write pages on pages to analyze the frivolities of vulgar love ; their favorite heroes are useless, weak men, who measure themselves, sound themselves, contemplate themselves, who lose themselves in the labyrinth of their meagre thoughts and reason about the petty shivers which thrill over their flesh. In the cleverest of these writers, he who wields language with the most talent, Maupassant, one would seek in vain for a general type capable of lasting after the fashion of his garments had passed away. Nevertheless, there is effort, there is research and labor. Moreover, the good seed devel- 1 Henry B&enger, L'Effort. "The intellectual man of our genera- tion," says Henry B^renger, " is a more complex and elaborate being. He has exhausted all alternatives of modern thought, and he is satisfied with none of them. A lucid dryness has slowly crystallized his soul, but he suffers from it, he sometimes dies from it, and therein lies his nobility." IDEAS AND HABITS. 379 ops. Daudet had already stigmatized certain vices, without furnishing a conclusion to his satires. Bour- get clearly decides in favor of the restoration of the moral law,^ and Zola points out the necessity of a change in social relations. On the borderland of im- aginative literature, almost as much read, and quite as much appreciated, appear those who, in company with M. Eugene de Vogiie and in his train, " try to heal moral infirmity instead of winning a noisy victory over it,"^ and, in conclusion, there are the apostles of an idea, of a doctrine, — Lavisse, Desjardins, Wagner, — who catch a glimpse of some good, and wish to convert it into reality. In proportion as inspiration rises, language grows pure. There, again, the action of Renan exerts a powerful influence. "A great writer leaves behind him something more durable even than his writings," M. Gaston Boissier has said, speaking of Renan ; " it is the language which he has used, which he has rendered flexible and moulded to his uses, and which, even when wielded by other hands, always pre- serves something of the turn which he has imparted to it." These qualities of language, which appeal so strongly to the French, contribute one force the more to neo-idealism, stopping short on the lips of many a reader Voltaire's old jest, which is always ready to spring from them. But, in spite of everything, unhealthy literature does not die. It is not crushed. It draws its strength from habit, that second nature. Instead of descending from on high, it now ascends from below, where the company of its disciples has increased enormously. The porno- graphic now maintains its rights everywhere. In the 1 See, especially, Terre Promise. 2 Gaston Desohamps, Chronicle of Le Temps newspaper. 380 THE EVOLUTION OF FBANCE. newspapers, politics and commerce are restricted, in order to make room for it, and the most celebrated romance-writers feel themselves obliged to offer sacri- fices to it, that they may have the right, later on, to say honest and serious things. Note that it no longer has anything of that Gallic wit dear to our ancestors and which was the expression of their joy in living, and of the frankness of their sensations. It is neither humorous nor frank! In former days, moreover, there were many sources of mirth. Nowadays there is noth- ing but this. Hence, there is something nervous, studied, about laughter; it wearies and often nau- seates. Obscenitj'- overflows in image and in song. The law has been obliged ^ to interfere, but private initiative does not back it up. "The league against license in the streets " is approved ; but no one joins it, for fear of being ridiculed. Assemblages of boys and of young men are, necessarily, the most aifected. In the colleges, the evil which M. Sainte-Claire Deville exposed twenty years ago has not cured itself, and no remedy has been applied. Moreover, how is it to be remedied? The outside air penetrates within the col- lege, and that air is vitiated. The young man is aware of his elder's mode of life ; he enjoys it in advance. It is thrust upon him by the double attraction of that which is forbidden, and that which is within reach. Having become free, he gets intoxicated with the rest, and then bears a stain upon his brow and something like a burden on his life. Long after he has renounced 1 In 1882, in view ol the great abundance of obscene publications and pornographic books, the Chamber passed a law which invalidated the gen- eral provisions of the law concerning the press, in order to admit of a prompter and more eflSoacious prosecution of obscene publications. (See an article by M. J. Darmesteter, in the Revue Bleue, March 2, 1889, on the vile literature which disgraces France.) IDBAS AND HABITS. 381 evil pleasures, the evil thought abides with him. He has returned to the straight way, but he regrets the tortuous path. Duty has claimed him again, but the memory of his dissoluteness charms him. For it is a fact ; he does renounce evil pleasures ; he does return to the straight way ; duty does claim him again. His life is lightened and regulated. Who ef- fects this miracle ? France. France cures him by the influence of her long centuries of virtue and honesty, to whose unconscious impulsion he submits ; by the force of familiar bonds, whose meshes gently close in around him ; by the suggestion of the noble instincts and the great traditions whose awakening takes place within him. " Silent martyrs, mute sacrifices to justice and to honor, battles which have no witnesses, victories which have no triumphs," writes M. Jean Honcey,^ " we pass you by without divining your existence, and yet it is through you that we live." It is certainly thus that the Frenchman lives upon France. The na- tion has been so strongly cemented that that which would disintegrate any other nation scarcely makes any impression upon her. The year 1870 gave a collective proof of this, so to speak; the power of resistance of the French family furnishes an individual and daily proof of it. If the foreigner, of whom we spoke a while ago, not content with searching and annotating written documents, wishes to verify their exactness by living documents, he will pause in surprise before this baffling problem, and if he is conscientious, being unable to solve it, he will hold his peace. The fact is, moreover, worthy of remark ; those who know France superficially or study it from a distance, always find a thousand things to say about her; they expose her faults, re- 1 Jean Honcey, Souffles Nouveaux. 382 TEE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. form her institutions, discover the how and the why of her errors. But those who have lived there a long time, and have penetrated into the details of her exist- ence, take care not to pronounce a general judgment. They are alarmed by the contradictory elements which must be reconciled in order to do justice to that peo- ple, at once so mobile and so stable, so frivolous and so profound, so sceptical and so imbued with faith. Above all, they cannot distinguish how the division between good and evil is effected in them ; the line of separa- tion remains invisible. Almost everywhere, they ob- serve corruption of manners, at the same time that they admit the force and union of the family. This has not changed ; for centuries its foundations have been the same ; on repeated occasions, one might have thought that they were shaken ; local and transi- tory causes have produced that illusion ; but . neither political revolutions, nor economical disturbances, nor even the vices whose ravages the ruling class has often undergone, have appreciably distorted the French family. It still rests, to-day, on respect for the wife, on the con- fiding tenderness of the children, and the veneration of the dead, and on love of country. These are qualities of which no country can claim the monopoly. That they exist elsewhere is certain ; perhaps, even, if they are viewed separately, it will be found that others pos- sess them in a superior degree. Our detractors say — and there is some truth in their criticism — that the manner in which Frenchmen treat women is more com- patible with gallantry than with true respect ; the re- lations between parents and children appear to them to be stamped with roguish tenderness ; they regard the religion of mourning and of the cemetery as both vague and formal, and the attachment to the domestic hearth, IDEAS AND HABITS. 383 in its rather petty narrowness, in their eyes, imposes restraints upon great ambitions and bold enterprises. Very different, assuredly, is the family type analyzed by Le Play, which rests squarely on the strict observance of what he has called the eternal decalogue. Therein the action of the father preponderates, and his authority is absolute. The children are allured to the practice of manly virtues ; death is regarded as a normal acci- dent, and the flitting of the young birds from the nest as the inevitable law. With us, a greater space is allotted to passion, to sentiment, to dreams ; the con- ception of life is different; life itself is less austere and more attractive. This is because the influence of woman is powerfully exerted. Eloquent pages have been written about the Frenchwoman, which it is im- possible to sum up otherwise than by recognizing a very simple and very large fact; while in other coun- tries the " woman " movement is constantly becoming more accentuated, and is already producing some dis- array on the border of the family, in France, it in- cessantly miscarries; its declamatory demonstrations provoke nothing but hilarity. The repugnance to favor every attempt to emancipate the weaker sex is even shown with regard to the modifications which it would be useful to introduce into the legislative texts, and whose consequences would alarm no one. The Frenchwoman will take good care not to re- nounce, for the sake of acquiring an illusive equality, the domain of which she herself has fixed the limits, the part which she has chosen to play, the sovereignty of which she has secured to herself the usufruct. She has managed to transform marriage by introducing into it habits of fellowship, a harmonious equilibrium, an insight into each other's soul, a fusion of sentiments. 384 THE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. which do not seem to have existed in the world before her advent. She counts no sacrifice too dear for the sake of attaining the goal which she appoints to her- self, — the absolute and complete possession of her hus- band ; and in her desire to please him, to be always at his side, she avoids not the opprobrium which may attack him, although by exposing herself to them she often causes herself to be falsely judged. Her children be- long to her, above all ; she does not give them to the city, to the race ; she gives them to herself to love them, to pet them, to procure for them that for which she herself thirsts above all others of her kind, — happi- ness. She possesses neither the heedlessness of the azure-skied South, nor the resignation of the foggy North ; she takes pains to chase away the clouds, to put aside the storm ; she loves her sun all the better because it is, in some small degree, her own handi- work ; tears come only for the purpose of communi- cating to her religious fervor a precise significance which consists in obtaining, in the world beyond this, recompense for lost happiness. Such is the subtle, complex, delicate being the analy- sis of whom should precede every study consecrated to our country. Foreign sociologists who neglect this indispensable preface go astray in the edifice which they have forgotten to illuminate. Nevertheless, they lay their hand upon an accusing document, and brand- ish it victoriously ; the table of statistics on population stands for them as the criterion of a definite certainty ; between its lines of figures they find room for all the vices of which the great social decadences have trans- mitted the memory ; they call attention to the fact that the decrease in the excess of births over deaths is not, in France, an accidental phenomenon which one IDEAS AND HABITS. 385 can assign to secondary and transitory causes, for that decrease is accentuated in a fairly regular manner, i France, at the beginning of the nineteenth century, occupied the second place among the nations of Eu- rope ; to-day she stands in the fifth rank. Austria outstripped her twenty years ago. Germany, which, in 1870, had the same number of inhabitants, now reckons up thirteen millions more, in spite of emigra- tion which, every year, has deprived her of a large contingent ; and finally, England, whose area repre- sents only three-fifths that of France, and which fur- nishes colonists "to an immense empire, surpasses the French total by about three hundred thousand. How is such inferiority to be explained ? Even admitting that the life of peoples exactly reproduces the life of men, — j'^outh, manhood, old age (and this is an inge- nious and seductive hypothesis, at first sight, though historical criticism demonstrates its falsity), — can it be said that France's old age has begun ? A nation in its decline could not draw from a catastrophe such as that of 1870 such elements of renovation. It is not on the threshold of decrepitude that one undertakes such a task, sustains such an effort. And yet the brutal fact is there. It is impossible to reject the evidence ; the French race appears to be smitten with relative sterility. Although this problem, which is the chief one of our future, has not attracted public attention as much as it should have done, numerous physicians have been consulted, and their diagnoses do not agree. Some lay the blame on immorality ; others, on alcoholism ; others iln 1881, for the last time, it surpassed 100,000. In 1882 it fell to 97,000, and declined, in 1888, to 44,772. Then, for the space of three years (1890, 1891, 1892), the deaths exceeded hy 38,000, 10,000, and 20,000. Then the excess of births reappears, but always to a small extent. 2e 386 THE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. still, on the civil code and the law of inheritance. We have just seen how superficial immorality remains in France, and how it finds a true antidote in the family. As for alcoholism, it does not stop the progress of population in other countries where its ravages are still more cruelly exercised. Why should it be other- wise within our borders ? There remains that " forced partition " which the law imposes, in every generation, upon private fortunes. Those who have not read the works of M. Le Play will have difficulty in conceiving how a legal statute can cause in the life of a people the perturbations which the distinguished writer has pointed out. But reasoning explains it, and experi- ence proves it. Systems of inheritance belong to three principal types, founded on the abstention of the legislator, or on the double character of his intervention. Under the rule of the system which may be called "forced preservation," the family property (habitation, rural domain, factory, customers in trade) passes entire to a single heir, without the proprietor intervening in the choice of his successor. Under the most usual form, this system gives the property to the eldest of the male children. This is the custom of " primogeniture " of ancient France. It still exists in Italy, Hanover, Denmark, Sweden, and Norway, in certain districts of southern Germany, and of German Switzerland. Trans- mission intact to one of the younger sons has prevailed among the peasants of many Austrian provinces. The custom of absolute primogeniture, without regard to sex, reigns in the Basque provinces, and was even pre- served until recent years in Lavedan and Beam. Cer- tain distinctions, based on the nature and the origin of the property, are sometimes admitted ; thus forced IDSAS AND HABITS. 387 preservation applies in Scotland only to the real estate, in German and Scandinavian lands to the goods re- ceived in heritage. If it has sometimes succeeded in securing social stability and peace, forced preservation has, nevertheless, earned some just criticisms ; it has been reproached with enfeebling the right of property by reducing the proprietor to the rank of a life-tenant, and of investing with homes and workshops men who were unworthy of it. So far as France is concerned, this system, accepted with favor by public opinion, so long as the privileged class was raised above the rest by its virtue and its services, became odious when the nobility of the court was no longer anything but a cause of scandal. Moreover, it was unequally prac- tised. In the ancient constitution of the Ile-de-France, and of the Orleanais, forced preservation upheld exclu- sively the families of noble birth ; on the contrary, in the provinces of the Centre, the South, and in Nor- mandy, it applied to all. The " forced partition " sys- tem, according to which the property must be divided among many heirs appointed by law, has never worked in so exaggerated a fashion anywhere as in France in 1793. It extended even to the illegitimate children, and no testamentary disposition was permitted. The civil code softened this harshness somewhat. Partition exists in Russia, but only for patrimonial property, and the male children there are privileged, in addition. In certain parts of Spain, also, and of Portugal, it exists, in many cantons of Switzerland, in Turkey, in the States of Barbary; but everywhere softened in prin- ciple as well as in application. And, finally, Belgium, Holland, and the Rhenish Provinces, where it was in- troduced with the civil code, have retained it. Savoy replaced it, between 1815 and 1860, by liberty of testa- 388 TBE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. mentary disposition ; modern Italy has come back to it, in part, notably by a recent law intended to parcel out the great estates of the Roman families. In 1703 the English Parliament, aspiring to destroy the power of the Irish Roman Catholics, applied it to them by a special law. It was also with a destructive intention that the men of 1798 established it ; their feeling is clearly indicated by the discussion which arose in this connection in the heart of the Convention. Finally, under the denomination of " testamentary liberty," are grouped the systems of inheritance under which the owner can freely dispose of at least one-half of his possessions. They are numerous ; many are the com- binations by which the legislator can extend or restrict the right of the testator. In default of him, custom intervenes. Thus in England, in the case where there is no will, a law, which sums up the most widely ex- tended usages, gives the whole of the real property to the eldest of the male children ; but this law does not abrogate local customs ; all are recognized, pro- vided that they do not violate testamentary liberty ; it is only a law ah intestate According to the logic of things, forced partition ought to have a double effect : it assures to the child a part, almost fixed in advance, of the paternal inheritance ; it thus gives him sufficient security to reduce in him the sense of effort, and to relieve him of the necessity of creating a posi- tion for himself. On the other hand, it forces the father to devise to his children a divided fortune, 1 One error, widely disseminated, consists in reckoning England among the countries Tvliich hold to the right of primogeniture. England is, in reality, a land ol free testamentary disposition ; the designation of the heir is not permitted beyond the seeond remove, but the habit in certain families, of reneiving it with each generation, transforms it into perpetual designation of the second heir, and produces the illusion of the right of primogeniture. IDEAS AND HABITS. 389 lessened in consequence, and even compromised, if a commercial or manufacturing enterprise is in question, whicli does not endure division ; hence the father is incited to limit his own prosperity. Hence the devel- opment of the system of public functionaries, a repug- nance' to colonize, and, in general, to be enterprising, and a progressive lowering of the number of the popu- lation. Such is certainly the case in France ; the accessory causes, if any there be, cannot conceal the principal cause. It alone can explain the abuses of Malthusianism. Moreover, statistics furnish other convincing data ; on studying them, one perceives that the poorest depart- ments are those where the births occur in the largest numbers, and from a work recently published by a com- petent man, it appears that in Paris the birth-rate de- creases in inverse ratio to the price of house-rent. The French have given to Malthus his naturalization papers ; the practical application of his precepts is, moreover, openly avowed by many of them. The peas- ants, the agricultural laborers, whose habits of economy are lauded, and with good reason, save only with a single aim in view : to assure the future of their children, and to assure it as thoroughly as possible. One would say that their private opinion must be that the following generation will not be able to add, by its labor, to what it has received by inheritance. They wish to bequeath to their son not the little hoard which would enable him to " get his foot in the stirrup," but the big hoard which shall make him the equal of the bourgeois in whose employ the father was. This is because social equalization is fictitious ; the law effects it, in theory ; in practice, in custom, it does not exist anywhere. The various classes persist ; a man can pass 390 THE EVOLUTION^ OF FRANCE. more easily from one to the other than formerly, that is all. "In the great social staircase," says M. Taine,^ comparing the palace of ancient France to the structure reared by the Revolution, " there were many stories. Each man could mount the rungs of his own, but could not ascend higher. . . . Strictly speaking, a man born on the upper levels of one story sometimes succeeded in climbing the lowest rungs of the next story, but there he halted. In short, the people of the lower story regarded the upper story as inaccessible for them, and, moreover, as uninhabitable." The comparison is just; but if the whole edifice is open to all, each story pre- serves its own very special physiognomy, none the less : the language which is spoken there, the costumes worn, the manners affected differ from those in use on the other stories. It is not talent, still less is it virtue, which makes rank; it is not even what one possesses; it is, above all, what one spends. By renouncing certain habits of existence, a man unclasses himself. " Above a certain amount of income, of gain, or of salary, life becomes possible. Below that point it is impossible." People have been known to commit sui- cide because their property had fallen below a certain minimum ; ^ every day one sees people limit their fami- lies, rather than restrict their style of living. In the lower classes, as in the higher, the course of reasoning is identical : some have only one child, in order that they may bequeath to him more ; others will have none at all, that they may not impoverish themselves. Such is the true and sole cause of this stagnation in the French race, so contrary to ancient traditions, to the whole national past. Unfortunately, the invalid is afraid, and the physicians falter. 1 H. Taine, Les Origines de la France Contemporaine. ^ C. Wagner, La Vie Simple. H. TAINE, OF THE FRENCH ACADEMY. TEE SOCIAL qUMSTION. 391 CHAPTER XIV. THE SOCIAL QUESTION. Errors of Valuation. — An Unprecedented Experience. — Universal and Simultaneous Progress. — Political Action : Congress and Elections. — Strikes. — Anarchists. — Intellectual Mediums. — Obstacles : Petty Pro- prietorship. — Allemanists, Broussists, Guesdists, Blanquists. — Syndi- cates. — A Second Night of August i. " Lycukgus' second and boldest institution was the partition of landed property ; for the inequality between the inhabitants was so terrible, that it even constituted a danger to the city ; the majority was so poor that they had not a single inch of land, and all the property was in the hands of a small number of private individuals. ... It was immediately put into execution. He divided the land of Laconia into thirty thousand por- tions, which he distributed to the people of the country, and of the territory of Sparta he made nine thousand parcels, which he distributed to a corresponding num- ber of citizens. . . . He abolished all gold and silver money, and ordained that only iron coin should be used, and this he had made of so great weight and so little value that it required a cart and two oxen to carry a sum of ten mina,^ and a whole room wherein to store it." This passage from Plutarch has long seemed fitted to delight the hearts of the adversaries of socialism, and to vex its friends. In fact, it evokes the memory of an unsuccessful attempt to establish equality of conditions among men, and this attempt is one of the most radical 1 The mina was worth ninety-three francs (about $18.60) . 392 THE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. which has ever been made. Others, less famous, have not turned out more fortunately. Society rests upon these successive checks. It does not believe in social- ism ; it considers that it has been condemned by experi- ence as well as by reason, and watches its progress with much more curiosity than anxiety. But appearances must have been very strong to mislead Gambetta him- self, and to have led him to deny the existence of the social question. By referring to that ringing speech, which dates but from yesterday, we can measure the road traversed, and come to the conclusion that public opinion has been far from paying to social ideas the attention befitting so great a movement. In order to follow well its different phases, the first requisite would have been to guard oneself against any contact with the past ; for nothing in the past permits of our forming any conclusion as to the possibility or the impossibility of socialistic organization. If social- ism is impossible, it is because it bears within itself the germ of a capital incompetency, because it is in opposi- tion to some great sociological law, as yet undiscovered ; but it is not because the experience of mankind has pro- nounced against it. Its fundamental doctrines have been applied only locally and partially, while, by their very nature, they exact universality of time and of place. It may be said of socialism that it will become universal or that it will not exist at all. The great inventions which have shortened distances for the indi- vidual and suppressed them for thought ; modern in- dustry which has agglomerated workers and has made them more dependent upon each other ; science which has emancipated minds ; democracy which has permeated manners, — all these changes alone have rendered pos- sible the convincing experiment of socialism. THE SOCIAL QUESTION. 393 On the other hand, the word itself is apt to produce confusion, because it is employed in an absolu1?e sense, by pushing to an extreme, and even to absurdity the ideas which it expresses.-' Hence, one gets a glimpse of " a social state wherein all individual effort will be stifled, where each one of the workers will rest, sleep, and eat, at the word of command of the superiors set on guard over food, work, recreation, and the perfect equality of all."^ It is rather puerile to reason in this manner. One must not forget that the socialists are not all communists dreaming of " the absorption of all property and all enterprise in the omnipotence of the State," ^ and that many of them simply aim at a collective intervention with the object of re-establishing in society an equilibrium which is always on the point of being destroyed. In 1840 M. Thiers uttejed, in the Cham- ber, these amusing words : " Do you think that rail- ways will ever supplant stage-coaches ? " And all the deputies burst out laughing at the enormity of the sup- position ! In our day, the state of the public mind in certain circles is not without analogy with that of the deputies of 1840. Nevertheless, we need give but one glance to perceive the progress accomplished by the socialists, — a progress which is invested with precisely that character of universality without which, as we have said, socialism would have neither sense nor scope.* In Germany, the socialist party which, in 1 See M. Riohter's famous pamphlet,' Oii Mine le Socialisme. 2ie Temps (1895). 3 Sigismond Lacroix (the Radical). * Socialism appears to be the natural fruit of civilization which has reached a certain degree of advancement. It is identical for all the nations of the world which have attained to that degree, and manifests itself under a different form only in those countries which have not at- tained to it, Russia, for example, and Turkey; on the other hand, it rises superior to political constitutions. Its most powerful and formidahle 394 THE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. 1871, received 101,927 votes, and 355,670 in 1874, got 1,800,000 in 1893, and its representatives in the Reich- stag are no less in number than 46. England, that land of individualism, has seen its trades-unions give in their adherence to the collectivist platforms of the congresses of Belfast and Norwich (1893), and eleven workingmen members enter Westminster. The Belgian Parliament includes 29 socialists ; the Danish Folkethiug has 61 ; the federal Senate of the United States, 22. In France, the socialistic candidates had only 90,000 votes in 1890; in 1893 they receive 500,000, and 60 of their men were elected. " At the end of a hundred years, the order of things which sprang from 1789 has to face adversaries more rancorous and more implacable than were the privileged classes, a hundred years ago, towards the Revolution which dispossessed them."^ It is interesting to ask oneself how, particu- larly in France, we have come to such a pass, and by what means such a situation can be unravelled. Socialistic action has been triple, — political, intellect- ual, and violent. Political means have produced great results. Though decried by the impatient, they have ended, in a short time, in the formation of an impor- tant parliamentary minority ; the ballot and congresses have done more for the cause of the social revolution than strikes and dynamite. In the municipal elections of 1881, 57 coUectivists adversary, Bismarck, could not subdue it ; the liberty which it enjoys in England is no more favorable to it than the hostility with which it is con- fronted in Germany. 1 When he received a reporter of the Journal, in 1892, M. Crispi made to him this melancholy declaration : " The middle class (bourgeoisie) is strongly attacked ; it seems destined not to endure as long as the feudal power. This affords matter for gloomy meditation, especially when one reflects that the education of the fourth Estate has not been completed." (ie Temps, December 26, 1892.') THE SOCIAL QUESTION. 396 and communists presented themselves as candidates in Paris ; their platform permitted the establishment of municipal workshops, the suppression of the police, and a revenue tax. They received, in all, 14,174 votes, and not one of them was elected. In August, 1893, an effort was made, on the occasion of the elections for the General Councils, and a socialist — one only — was elected in the Nievre. In 1885, for the general elec- tions, the party drew up a manifesto which was any- thing but explicit ; it spoke of the ' ' Versailles reac- tion," and the anxiety " to wrest the Republic from the wealthy " was only sketched in the background. The socialists did not disturb the festivities of 1889; not knowing what Boulangism was about to bring forth, they postponed their projects ; soon they lost the hope of seeing the parliamentary Republic sunk in a civil war with the middle classes, and they no longer ex- pected from any one but themselves the realization of their theories. The year 1891 beheld "a significant separation effected between the defenders and adversa- ries of paternal government." ^ In 1892, at last, the socialists had a grand battle with the municipality, the result of which "figured up 160,000 votes, 736 mem- bers elected, and 29 city halls carried by assault." ^ Since that date, we may consider that the socialists form a political party which wiU exercise an influence on general politics. In fact, on the approach of the elections of 1889, a genuine concentration to their ad- vantage took place. The vanguard of the radical party came over to them. At the end of an important meet- ing held at Albi, M. Millerand writes : " The revolu- tionary socialist fractions have grasped the utility of 1 Andre Daniel, L' Annie PoHiique, 1891. 2 Manifesto ol the Guesdist party in 1893. 396 THE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. electoral action. They have proclaimed the necessity of union. All that remains is, to pass from words to deeds. In this country there is a great mass of disap- pointed electors who have made their escape from the lists and groups which have so long restrained them. Socialism can and ought to rally them. It will not fail in its task. " ^ It is an epoch of conversions on the Left. M. Jaures, who returns from the Left Centre, and M. Goblet, who comes from nearer by, are among the cate- chumens. The former is a university man, a professor endowed with remarkable talent, and no less remarka- ble activity, and always ready to place both at the service of the socialistic idea. The latter, whom we have seen in power, has been, by turns, an ad- vanced republican, then a radical, and, most of all, progressist. Ideas become modified in the socialistic sense, but with a certain moderation and relative slow- ness. In the speech which he made at Bordeaux, in May, 1893, the latter declares that, instead of allying themselves with the opportunists, true radicals must, henceforth, ally themselves with the socialists, on the sole condition that these last named "shall distinctly repudiate violence, and demand the triumph of their ideas only through legal and pacific means," and, also, that they shall cease to discard the idea of country. The ballot gives an unforeseen and surprising result ; the socialist candidates obtain 599,588 votes. Never- theless, public opinion is not alarmed. During this period, international good understanding progresses by means of congresses : national congresses, where the representatives of one people try to come into harmony, with a view to facilitating, later on, the good understanding between nations, and international 1 The Petite R4publique FranQaise, April 25, 1893. THE SOCIAL QUESTION. 397 congresses, wliere the effort is made to lay the founda- tions of that understanding. In France we are very much behindhand in organizing congresses. The one which the socialists attempted to assemble in Paris, on the occasion of the Exposition of 1878, was prohibited by the Prefect of Police. The majority of public opin- ion approves of governmental strictness ; up to a cer- tain point, it shares the distrust of the Senate with regard to the workingman, when the question of cer- tificate-books comes up (1883) ; ^ it sides with Jules Ferry when he defends the liberty of labor, in that great debate on the social question, which was opened in the Chamber in 1884. Beginning with 1891,^ congresses multiply in num- ber. In 1892 the Congress of Marseilles is marked by important debates ; the celebrated Liebknecht is heard to utter formidable words, proving that, on the other side of the frontier, socialist convictions do not weaken Germanic sentiment. Bebel still further em- phasizes Liebknecht's attitude by the declarations to which he gives expression in the following year, before the Congress of Zurich (1893). The mirage of uni- versal union and fraternity vanishes ; nationality, on the contrary, is strongly marked in the vote of the dele- gations, without the desire of effecting an understanding between the working classes of all countries, — an understanding very necessary to their hopes, — being 1 Certificate-books for workmen had been suppressed by the Chamber, the Senate consented to the suppression of the obligation, but mentioned the workman's right to have a certificate-book, which amounted to re- establishing the right of the employer to demand that the workman should produce it. 2 Between 1878 and 1891, there was a long series of congresses organized in France by different socialist groups. These congresses are important only because of the manifold divisions of opinion which were there repre- sented. We shall return to this subject shortly. 398 THE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. weakened thereby. It is a curious moment ; the dreams, chimerical hopes, sentimentalities, which have so long sustained the socialists, make way for calcula- tions, reasonings, practical resolutions. During this same year, the international congress of miners is held at Brussels ; the English delegation, which comprises eminent personages, holds its warrant from 340,000 syndicated miners.^ Bristol witnesses the assembling of the Congress of British co-operators, while Rheims and Toulouse show hospitality to socialist assemblies. Still more active is the year 1894. There are : four congresses of the general Union of the Working- men of Spain, and the Fourth Congress of the Spanish working party, which follow, one the other, at Madrid, in the month of August ; the Thirty-fourth Congress of the Trades-Unions of England,^ which opens at Nor- wich ; the Fifth Congress of the Italian socialist party, which is held in September at Imola, while in October German socialism assembles for the seventeenth time at Frankfort. In France, congresses take place at Tours, Dijon, and at Nantes (the Twelfth Congress of the French workman's party). M. Jules Guesde, who recapitulates all these manifestations with undeniable vitality, exclaims : " A party which, from one end of Europe to the other, presents the spectacle of such unity as this, is a party to whom the morrow belongs. . . . None of the great social transformations, none of the real revolutions which have changed the face of the world in the past, has ever been preceded by the 1 Out ol a total of 650,000 possessed by Great Britain. ^ As we liave said above, the trades-unions pronounced in fayor of collectivism. In 1893 they had displayed strong tendencies in this direc- tion; in 1894 they had, by a very large majority, "invited their two million members to vote, at legislative and municipal elections, only for those candidates who had accepted the coUeotivist programme." THE SOCIAL QUESTION. 399 general manifestation of such a common state of minds." ^ This quest after an international understanding no longer has anything secret or shady about it ; is it for this reason that less attention is paid to it ? Fantastic tales singularly exaggerated the danger so long as it was only a question of a handful of agitators formed into a secret society. Now that social claims are put into words, in broad daylight, by a large mass of citi- zens, security seems to be restored to their adversaries. The annual demonstration, called the demonstration of the first of May, whose importance arises, in great part, from the peaceful character which it has borne so far, is the result of the efforts towards unity of aim, and the similarity of means. It is, at the same time, a general review of the socialist forces. One finds some difficulty in taking it seriously. Nevertheless, those who saw John Burns ^ in Hyde Park, London, on May 7, 1893, harangue, from a cart transformed into a tribune, the 100,000 disciplined men massed around him, were able to convince themselves that the " Platonic " character of the demonstration was quite apparent. Of violent means the mildest is the strike, when it ends without bloodshed. In France it has rarely been stained with blood ; its legitimacy was, none the less, disputed.^ The right was denied to the workingmen to 1 The Matin, September 14, 1894. 2 The English, heing practical people, carry over the demonstration to the first Sunday in May, in order to avoid unnecessary waste of time. 8 The strike is an ancient fact in the world. It existed In Egypt, under Ramses 11. It is to be observed, that, in France, during the last century, it had already assumed most of its present characteristics. In 172i, as M. Franz Funck-Brentane relates in the Bevne Retrospective, a number of printers having been summoned from Germany to Paris by master-printers, a lowering of wages ensued, and a general protest. A young workman, Fran90is Thominet, twenty-three years of age, was at the head of the 400 THE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. defend their interests by a simultaneous cessation of labor ; such an act seemed a crime against society. With still more reason were they denied the right to strike for a moral cause. The " point of honor " has often provoked their resistance. This was notably the case in the celebrated strike of Carmaux. The work- ingmen were contending for their political liberty ; the company was contending for its right of directorship ; ^ it used it awkwardly, but it existed, none the less. Under any other circumstances one would have admired the remarkable spirit of solidarity, the power of self- sacrifice for an idea, of which tlie Carmaux strikers gave proof. But passion blinds, and their conduct was censured in an unjust and thoughtless manner. In 1892 there were 261 strikes in France, which affected 500 establishments and 50,000 workmen. In 1893, 634 strikes affected 4386 establishments and 170,123 workmen ; the latter lost, on this account, 3,174,000 days' labor. On the other hand, 5 coalitions of employers were organized : 3 by butchers and 2 by bakers. Out of the 634 strikes, 443 affected one estab- lishment only ; 72 affected from 2 to 5 ; 30 from 6 to 10 ; movement ; he was seized, and was imprisoned in secret, in the Petit-Cha- telet for many months. That same year the hosiers struck because their wages had been reduced. The syndic of the merchant-hosiers asked the Comptroller-General to proceed with rigor against the " plotters." Strike, coalition, assessments to maintain the strike, threats, attacks on the liberty of labor, — everything passed off as in our day. Only the arbitrary order of imprisonment got the better of the ringleaders. 1 It is to be noted that the same case presented itself at Saint-Denis ; the employers, being wiser, afforded to the workman elected as Mayor every facility for discharging the duties of his office. It will be remem- bered that the origin of the conflict at Carmaux was the election to the mayoralty and to the District Council of the workman Calvignac, and the discharge by the company of this same Calvignac, without any other plau- sible reason than the dignity which had been conferred on him by universal suffrage. THE SOCIAL QUESTION. 401 only 7 strikes affected more than 100 establishments ; 24.5 per cent were crowned with success ; 32.5 per cent ended in a compromise; 43 per cent ended in defeat. In the majority of cases the strike was caused by a demand for an increase of wages, or by a preliminary reduction ; 58 strikes arose out of sympathy for the discharge of workmen, or from other causes of the same nature. The force of resistance was considerable : 59 strikes lasted from 15 to 30 days ; 68, from 30 to 200 ; 7 lasted more than 100 days,^ A " general strike " has often been talked of as a formidable weapon, which would serve to para- lyze the march of affairs in the world ; but this weapon would turn first against those who forged it. However, that is a drawback which is common to nearly all strikes. "The time for strikes is over," said John Burns at Hyde Park, on May 7, 1893, thereby indicat- ing that there are other means, efficacious and less dan- gerous, for attaining the object aimed at- Moreover, it must be borne in mind that, in a great number of cases, the workmen have not acted of themselves or wholly of their own volition. Even before the social- ists succeeded in forming a compact group in the heart of the French Parliament, there existed commercial travellers who dealt in strikes, who were always ready to betake themselves to a place where a conflict threat- ened to break out. The celebrated type of the carpet- hagger, created in the Southern States of America by the emancipation of the negroes, was reproduced among us with the difference that the French carpet-bagger was often a man of convictions, and sometimes slipped in a bit of good advice among a great quantity of bad advice. Even the most spiritless strike must be ranked among 1 statistics of the Ministry of Commerce, copied in Le Temps. 2d 402 THE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. tlie class of violent means, because it always causes some damage. But it is not always spiritless; it has brought about real financial disasters which have affected the innocent ; it has even occasioned the greatest unhappi- ness, individual crimes, barbarous repression, and so forth. The scale of violence continues to ascend even to the "propaganda by deeds," dear to the anarchists. Nothing belies the theory that a contradiction exists between the anarchist conception, in which there is no longer any State, and the coUectivist conception, in which the State is everything. But one finds some difficulty in demonstrating the non-existence, in practice, of a bond between the coUectivists and the anarchists. Mr. Herbert Spencer has said that the doctrines of the communists may bring about " a return to the struggle for existence, such as exists among brutes."^ It ap- pears that an anarchist press existed from the epoch of the explosions at Montceau-les-Mines (September, 1882) . The trial of Prince Krapotkin, and of his "compan- ions '• implicated in the proceedings, proved this. Men were already enchanted with the prospect of blowing up "speculators, capitalists, and the middle classes"; but anarchy seems to be a state of mind rather than a sect. It has acted ; it has written little. The most interest- ing document in which its theories are expounded is the declaration read by Emile Henry, on April 29, 1894, before the jury which condemned him to death.^ This declaration is remarkable in more than one re- spect. Therein one clearly follows the genesis of the social hatred which develops in the hearts of the re- volters, but one does not gather the slightest elucida- 1 Letter addressed to Le Figaro, dated January 24, 1894. 2 jfimile Henry confessed the authorship of the crimes of the Rue des Bons-Enfants and the Cafe Terminus. THE SOCIAL QUESTION. 403 tion as to the solution which they have in view ; on the other hand, one does perceive the traces of an incom- mensurate pride which completely blinds them as to the consequences of their acts. " I have desired to show to the middle classes," exclaims fimile Henry emphati- cally, "that henceforth there are no more complete joys for them ! " It is evident that the " companions," as they call themselves, are, in a manner, hypnotized by the mystery with which they surround themselves, by the conversations which they hold with each other, by a sort of faith in their mission, if one may employ such terms in speaking of such criminals. The proof of this is, that, once they step out of their circle, once they are torn away from its deleterious interests, they perceive things from a different angle. Antoine Cyvoct, who was condemned to death in 1883, in con- sequence of an explosion in the Cafe Bellecour, in Lyons, and had had his sentence commuted to per* petual hard labor, sent to his friends, from the lie Nou, in January, 1894, a letter in which, after having de- clared his sympathy with them, he said to them : "Wrench yourselves away from that sort of over- excitement which prevents your having a clear view of the goal at which you aim ; resist that sort of tendency to take the bit in your teeth, which leads you to the worst excesses, and understand at last that it is not by deeds of violence, which arouse universal reprobation, that revolutions are prepared, but by winning hearts, by captivating minds. Tell yourselves, plainly moreover, that if the last member of the middle classes were to die to-morrow, things would not be any the more ad- vanced ; for you would still have against you thousands of workers, whom it would be necessary to convert to your principles before you could think of applying them." 404 THE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. " To win hearts and captivate minds," is precisely what neither politics nor violence can compass. The sensible socialists are perfectly well aware how precious for this task is " intellectual " action. While democratic insti- tutions and also military service develop the spirit of equality, the contact of extreme misery and of exagger- ated fortunes has developed the spirit of pity. The co-existence, in the city, of wealth and poverty is so universal and so ancient a phenomenon, that one is accustomed to regard it as an evil which cannot be remedied, and the hatred of the poor for the rich is no longer suitable at the present time. The articles of Pere Peinard hardly approach, in the bitterness of their demands, the Sibylline poets. ^ At certain epochs, nevertheless, and in certain countries, one would say that hatred was soothed, and that the claims become less brutal and less thoroughgoing. This takes place when wealth is fixed, when those who help earn money can see it spent before their eyes, and can, in a manner, control its employment. The peasant attached to the soil, the workman busy in the factory, revolt far less against inheritance which transmits property, or against the boss who drains the profits of industry, than against the sort of anonymous form in which the wealth, ob- tained by their efforts, is circulated. Almost all the i"Tlie rich, in order to augment their domains, and to obtain lor themselves servitors, pillage the wretched. Ah! If the earth were not fixed so far from the sky, they would contrive that the light should not be equally shared by all. The sun, purchased with gold, would no longer shine for any but the rich, and God would have been forced to make another world lor the poor." (Vol. III.) M. Gaston Boissier (La Fin du Paganisme) cites, in addition, this dream of the future which must have disturbed more than one brain: "The land will then be parcelled out among all the people. It will not be divided by limits, it will not be enclosed in walls. There will no longer be either beggar or rich man, either master or slave, either small or great ; there will be no kings or chieftains : everything will belong to all men." (II, 320.) THE SOCIAL QUESTION. 405 aristocracies of the past have been killed by absentee- ism ; and in our day, absenteeism is worse than ever before. Another germ of social hatred is stock-jobbing under its multiple forms; it permits of the rapid amass- ing of fortunes, without the right of possession, which results from its sense of legal transmission or regular labor, being perceptible to the masses. Thus a sort of financial feudal state has been created ; society " bears with all its weight upon a single pillar, — the pillar of money." ^ " On the one hand," writes Leo XIII., drawing a picture of social ills,^ — "on the one hand, omnipotence in opulence ; a fraction which, absolute master of industries and commerce, turns aside the course of riches, and makes all springs flow into it ; a fraction which, moreover, holds in its hand more than one department of public administration. On the other, feebleness with indigence ; a multitude which, with ulcerated soul, always gives rise to disorder." Not only does excess of luxury result in the increase of poverty itself, by diminishing the resources which might be employed by the rich to assuage it: it also renders it more difficult to endure. The inequality of conditions does better than merely make an impression on the mind; it explains itself philosophically and economically ; but this sort of party wall between the lavish squandering of some and the absolute destitution of others, cannot long subsist without superinducing a current of rebellion which drags along with it the fort- unate as well as the disinherited, thanks to that innate sense of justice which the passions sometimes obliterate in man, though they never succeed in entirely effacing 1 E.-M. de Yogii^, L'Heure Pr^sente. {Revue des Leux Mondes, Decem- ber 15, 1892.) 2 The encyclical Rerum Novarum. 406 THE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. them. Thus it comes about that the ringing formula launched by Tolstoy has found an echo in all circles, and that the "religion of human suffering" has gathered together disciples culled from all churches, even from that of incredulity. " A tacit, unconscious conspiracy has been formed between people whom everything sep- arates, from the proletariat which hurls itself blindly against the social machine, even to the patented conduc- tors of that machine. The conspiracy begins with hatred at the bottom, and ends in vague pity at the top ; it unites the efforts of the man of action, and the favor of the man of thought ; it draws together, unwittingly on their part, all those who suffer from the old order of things, all those who enjoy it and despise it ; by paths the most diverse, it urges them on, pell-mell, to the same goal, the goal aimed at by the one set, dreaded by the other, which marches towards it in spite of itself." ^ The party of social revolution has endeavored, by political means, to get possession of the government ; its success has been rapid and important; by violent means it tried to frighten capital, and seems not to have succeeded ; by intellectual means, at last, it has infil- trated itself into public opinion. To what extent? The future alone can tell us that. In France two capital obstacles bar its path, in a manner more apparent than real, perhaps : the first is the development of small holdings of landed property ; the second is the domestic dissensions which exist in her very bosom. The territory of France represents 52,857,000 hectares, of which 49,561,861 are under agriculture. Great cult- ure (domains of from 40 to 300 hectares) is repre- 1 E.-M. de Vogii^, L'Heuy-e Prisente. (Revue des Deux Mondes, Decem- ber 15, 1892.) TBE SOCIAL QUESTION. 407 sented by 142,088 farms ; ^ middling culture (from 10 to 40), by 727,222 ; petty culture (from 1 to 10), by 2,635,030 ; and, in conclusion, very petty culture (less tban one hectare), by 2,167,667.^ Half the population of France lives by agriculture ; one-quarter, by manu- factures; one-tenth, by commerce; four one-hundredths, by the so-called liberal professions ; six one-hundredths live without occupation of any sort.^ The statistics of the administration of direct taxes set down at 8,454,000 the number of rural and urban properties in France. There are about 4,900,000 rural proprietors, and the cul- tivators who develop their own property are, ir\ round numbers, 2,150,700 against 468,000 farmers and 194,400 who work on half shares. The system of petty holdings, which is, moreover, of very ancient date in France,* is not undergoing diminution. The number of proprie- tors who cultivate their own land was only 1,812,573 in 1862 against 2,150,700 in 1882. These few figures possess an eloquence of their own ; they show that the industrial population has no strength in comparison with the agricultural population, but that, on the other hand, nothing could resist any movement which the agricultural laborers and the industrial 1 From the number of hectares under great culture must be deducted the departmental and communal property, and that belonging to asylums, religious congregations, railways, charity bureaux, and so forth, about 5,000,000 hectares. 2 Report of M-. Tisserand on the decennial investigation of 1882. 3 Mines, quarries, factories, industrial works, give occupation to 1,130,000 individuals ; petty industries, 6,093,000. Commerce includes 789,000 bankers, clerks, wholesale merchants ; 1,895,000 shopkeepers ; 1,164,000 hotel-keepers, cafe-keepers. Railways and the merchant marine give occupation to 800,000 persons ; State employments, 805,000 ; the num- ber of persons who live on their incomes is 1,849,000. * See Les Populations Rurales de la France, by M. Baudrillart ; Les Voyages en France, of Arthur Young; and Leroy-Beaulieu, La Petite PropriUi Fonciere en France et a VEtranger. (Revue des Deux Mondes, February 15, 1888.) 408 THE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. laborers should agree upon together. Is such an agree- ment feasible ? Therein lies the whole question. The socialists do not appear to have hit upon a formula which permits them to set in opposition the two types of territorial property. But they are seeking after such a formula,! and the very term "peasant property," of which they are beginning to make use, indicates the object of their strivings. They must conquer, on the one hand, the aversion of the petty proprietor for those whom he calls the "sharers," and, on the other hand, bring about a compromise between the irreconcilables of the, party, who were still proclaiming, at the recent Congress of Dijon (1894), the inalienability of land. They flatter themselves that they shall attain this double result without much delay. It is the fashion to say that the petty proprietor regards the large estate which ad- joins his as safeguarding his rights, and that, in this manner, he is induced to defend it against all attacks. It is doubtful whether this sentiment exists beyond the possible extension of which the petty proprietor discerns the possibility ; he gladly cherishes the prospect of aug- menting his own possessions ; he does not ask that the vast domain which he will never own shall be protected.^ Moreover, his powerful neighbor often oppresses him, by hemming him in and annihilating him ; their inter- ests are not identical ; they are united, but it is possible to separate them. As for the extremists of communism, they will lay down their arms on the day when it shall have been proved to them by facts, that the absolute which they proclaim is precisely the obstacle which 1 See the articles of M. Jaurfes in the D4peche de Toulouse (October, 1893). 2 This was wittily expressed by a deputy whose personal revenues amounted to about 40,000 francs, when he demanded the imposition of a special tax on fortunes which exceeded 2,000,000 francs. THE SOCIAL QUESTION. 409 stands in the way of the realization of their plans ; such is the reasoning of the "government socialists." Neither do they disquiet themselves over the divisions and subdivisions into groups and subgroups which weaken socialism, and help to inspire its adversaries with confidence. A glance at the state of affairs in the French socialist camp will afford a better comprehension of the security of both parties. The workingmen's congresses which were held in Paris in 1876, and in Lyons in 1878, were composed almost exclusively of the advocates of the co-operation and mutualism preached by Prudhomme ; they repu- diated collectivism and the employment of force. ^ But M. Jules Guesde, by his influence, which was already great, succeeded in getting coUectivist resolutions passed as early as 1871 (Congress of Marseilles); and in the following year, at the Congress of Havre, the definitive rupture took place. Jules Guesde had brought back from London, with the same respect as Moses when he descended from Mount Sinai, the new tablets of law drawn up by Marx and Engel ; his journal, L'lEgalitS, played an important part. Still, his preponderance was not recognized by all. The amnestied members of the Commune, who had returned from Noumea, looked on him rather as an intruder.^ Paul Brousse and Joffrin, the latter very popular in his party, announced them- selves as " possibilists," that is to say, somewhat in the nature of opportunists in method. They succeeded in 1 Their leader was M. Barberet, afterwards chief of a bureau in the Ministry of the Interior. 2 Jules Guesde, whose real name is Mathieu Basile, had done nothing but manage a newspaper at Montpellier, and had supported Gambetta's candidacy there in 1871. It was known that he had expressed disapproba- tion of the massacre of hostages, and had done homage " to our brave soldiers who can fight, but who never assassinate." 410 TBE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. bringing about a new secession in 1882, at the Congress of Saint-Etienne, being aided therein by the small suc- cess which the socialist candidates had scored at the elec- tions of 1881 ; 303 groups remained at Saint-Etienne ; 32 groups, under the direction of Jules Guesde, emi- grated to Roanne. The Congress of Marseilles had divided the country into six regions, which had for their capitals, Paris, Lyons, Marseilles, Bordeaux, Lille, and Algiers. The federation of the North alone re- mained Guesdist ; the others followed Paul Brousse. But Paul Brousse was a learned man, a man of letters ; he admitted political action, which that same Congress of Marseilles had virtually condemned by deciding that the deputies and the municipal councillors could not form part of the national committee placed at the head of the party. Paul Brousse and his friends got the Congress of Paris (1883) to suppress this clause. This gave rise to a grand battle. One congress followed another ; each anathematized the others ; the rebellious syndicates entered the lists against the managers ; and in addition to the Blanquists, who from the begin- ning had remained independent, three distinct groups were formed, — the AUemanist, the Broussists, and the Guesdists.^ The AUemanist party, so called from its leader, Jean AUemane, is officially styled: the Workingman's Social- ist Revolutionary party. It is remarkable for its anonymousness and its discipline. AUemane, who enjoyed great influence in the quarter of Folie-Meri- cour, in Paris,^ is a modest man. He has taught his 1 See the remarkable articles of M. de Seilhac published in the Revue Bleue oi September 7 and 21, October 5, and November 2, 1895, from which are borrowed the greater part of the details which we have given here. 2 In 1893 the AUemanists received 50,000 votes in Paris. THE SOCIAL QUESTION. 411 disciples to distrust politicians, to impose upon the dep- uty of their choice the formality of a " blank " resigna- tion, which places the man elected under the permanent domination of his electors. He favors strikes, which he calls " war with folded arms," and believes in the superiority of economical methods. The AUemanist federations are four in number: that of the Centre (Paris) comprises sixty groups of social studies, and twenty syndicates and corporate groups; that of Ar- dennes (Charleville), sixty groups or syndicates, the principal one being the syndicate of the four thousand weavers of Sedan ; that of the East (Dijon), and that of the South (Bordeaux), each of which represents forty groups i The Broussists, who call themselves the Federation of the Socialist Laborers of E'rance, rule in many quarters of Paris and in Touraine ; they are hostile to strikes. Paul Brousse, whom the extreme views of Marx repel, is a State socialist ; he professes the " let-alone " doctrine. According to him, the pub- lic services are becoming, one after the other, general and gratuitous ; all that is needed is to aid the move- ment ; when all shall have been transformed, that is communism. The Guesdist party (the French workman's party) is the personal work of Jules Guesde, a man of high intelligence and of rare energy, which nothing daunts. When he was abandoned at Saint-Etienne, he managed to lay the foundations of a new grouping, purely politi- cal, it is true, and to which the syndicates do not give in their allegiance. It is divided into the federation of the South (Bordeaux), of the West (Nantes), of the East (Troyes), of the Centre (Paris), and of the North (Lille). It numbers 833 groups, of which 192 belong to the North alone. The organization is rather 412 THE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. unsettled, it is true, a little superficial ; but the activity is great, and the results are undeniable. As for the Blanquists (the central revolutionary committee), they form the true party of the Revolu- tion, for whom all means are good. Their centre of action is in the department of Cher ; the federations of the Cher and the AUier give it, with its Paris groups, a total of about 35,000 adherents. The divergences are numerous, as will be perceived; but if one may judge from the votes of the socialist deputies in the Chamber, they do not perceptibly interfere with a good understanding. "At the present time," writes M. Vaillant, " only shades of opinion separate the social- ists, in theory ; so far as ideas are concerned, modern socialism is the same in all countries, and for all par- ties."^ And M. Vaillant further pens the following lines, which furnish interesting food for thought, in that they show the state of mind of one of the most prominent citizens of the party : " Resolutions are merely political and social crises, which eliminate from the social order its obsolete elements, release for a new evolution the elements accumulated by the progress of events and of manners, to the free development of which the foregoing system formed an obstacle, surviv- ing, by the organized force of its government, of its privileged class, the conditions which had created it, and which, by their disappearance, bring about its fall. Assuredly, the further we proceed, the greater will be the part played by the will of man and the organized force of the socialist party in ulterior determinations, but on the condition that they are exactly in accord with the historical development, with the social evolution which it will find it easy to precipitate, but impossible to 1 Letter to M. de Seilhac (Revue Bleue, November 2, 1895.) THE SOCIAL QUESTION. 413 oppose or allay. As to tlie time, the duration of the phases, the stages to be traversed, we can say nothing." However incomplete and imperfect may be this sketch of the conditions under which socialism is developing in France, it is sufficient to establish the importance and the continuity of the movement. How is it possi- ble to imagine that such a movement can be stopped, or forced back, or even that it will become extinct of itself ? Good sense tells us that it must end in a modi- fication of the social state, which, however, does not imply the complete disappearance of present society, or the substitution therefor of the coUectivist city. The solutions which we can descry are three in number : either a power which will treat with capital on equal terms will be formed by association ; or the law estab- lished by the delegates of the greatest number will in- tervene to redress the wrongs of chance and of heredity ; or, lastly, a voluntary understanding will be effected, by means of concessions mutually agreed upon. The tendency to syndicates in France is tolerably large ; of course, it cannot be compared to that which, in Eng- land, settled the formation of the trades-unions.^ On July 1, 1893, there existed 4448 professional associa- tions,^ 637 more than in 1892. In the space of one 1 The reader will remember that, in the beginning, the trades-unions were treated with distrust by the public powers, and deprived of the guarantees which are essential to the existence of every society. A series of outrages having occurred, which alarmed public opinion, a grand com- mittee of inquiry was instituted, which proposed the system of absolute liberty. Later on, the trades-unions became " one of the recognized bases of social peace in England." 1898. 1892. Number. Members. Number. Members. Syndicates of employers 1397 114,176 1212 102,649 Syndicates of workingmen 1926 402,125 1589 288,970 Syndicates, mixed 173 30,052 137 18,561 Syndicates, agricultural 952 352,883 863 313,800 414 THE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. year the Biembers of syndicates had increased in num- ber from 723,680 to 900,236, or an augmentation' of 176,156.1 In 1885 the workingmen's syndicates num- bered 221 ; now there are 1926 of them. In 1884 there were 20 unions. Now there are 117 ; ^ 28 or 29 labor exchanges centralize the action of about 400 syndi- cates. And finally, around the syndicates are grouped creations of all sorts, — orphanages, schools, intelligence offices, disputed claims offices, bulletins, and reviews. But the effort in the direction of mediation is small ; societies for consumable commodities rose, between 1892 and 1893, only from 38 to 43, and the societies of pro- duction from 12 to 16. ^ The Frenchman has inveterate habits of individualism ; he never has recourse to asso- ciation except when he cannot do otherwise ; he has no instinct for it. When an institution prospers in France, he always seeks the man or the men to whom its guid- ance is due. The idea of collective and anonymous force, produced by a superposition of individual efforts, remains foreign to him ; he has to reason with himself in order to believe in it. That being the case, it seems very difficult for the association of workingmen to be- come sufficiently powerful in France to thrust itself on the public powers and on employers in a decisive and durable manner. The law is not like an association ; it does not have to be acclimatized. The Frenchman is accustomed to respect it and to obey it. Let a radical majority 1 Report of the Minister of Commerce on the develoi^ment of profes- sional associations during the year 1892-1893. Tliis report concerns only the associations constituted in conformity with the law of 1884 ; many are not. Consequently, the figures are very small. 2 Of which 29 are employers; 61 workingmen ; 11 mixed; 16 agricult- ural. s Le Temps, January 5, 1894. THE SOCIAL QUESTION. 415 establisli a really progressive tax, one which shall ac- tually limit private fortunes, — not one which oppress- ing means most of all leaves ■ the small and the great face to face with each other, — the socialists will only have to perfect the tool after their own ideas ; and as it represents a doctrine which is just in theory, the progressive tax will be enacted without revolt. If it is destined to ruin the country, it will take the country some time to find it out. Moreover, it will be envel- oped in a complete legal network calculated to restore the equilibrium, for the benefit of the less fortunate, of the less intelligent, and, without doubt, also, of the less laborious. But one assertion can be made at pres- ent, and that is, that the law tends to become more and more minute, and more and more provident; it looks after everything, tries to regulate everything, to penetrate everything. The solution of the social ques- tion by the law appears to be the most probable ; it would, also, be the least desirable. Conciliation alone remains ; at the point which the struggle between the classes has reached, whose very existence the optimists try in vain to deny, the hy- pothesis seems ironical. One cannot imagine the two parties face to face, signing a sudden truce, renouncing their claims, and exchanging, for the second time, a "kiss of flirtation." Moreover, if the well-to-do class were to find their road of Damascus, and were to return to the notion of the duties which are consistent with the possession of fortune, the abyss excavated between it and the laboring class would not be filled in, never- theless. It is too late to restore what Le Play calls bossism. The boss is no longer sufficiently unques- tioned to permit of his offering it to his workmen, nor sufficiently powerful to force it upon them. Participa- 416 THE EVOLUTION OF FRANCE. tion in the profits is, in their eyes, only alms, if it is not a charter of equality. The very fine enterprise of lodgings for workingmen ought, in order to succeed, to constitute a remunerative investment, and from that moment it belies its object of social upraising. These things are only expedients of real value, but very tran- sitory. Charity is an avowal. " In the practice of it," writes Edouard Rod,^ with enthusiasm, "there lies a confession of injustice which an upright spirit can- not accept ; is it not criminal hypocrisy to correct the iniquity of fate by abandoning the minor part of one's superfluity ? We have duties, or we have not. If we have not, let us drink, eat, and enjoy ourselves, with our eyes shut to the miseries the sight of which would spoil our joys, safely entrenched in a fortress of ego- tism. If we have any, let us not think that we fulfil them by a partial sacrifice of ourselves, let us not de- ceive our conscience by half concessions. We must give ourselves wholly, — our pleasures, our hearts, and our goods. . . . Give everything to the poor, and follow me. One can only obey or disobey the stern com- mand ; if one does not do all, he has done nothing." Even understood in this sublime fashion, and prac- tised with equal strictness, charity would solve noth- ing. What is needed is, to find the "formula which might be substituted for ancient injustices, without relying upon fresh injustices," ^ and, having found it, to apply it by common consent. What is needed is a second night of August 4, less tardy and more precise. But the well-to-do class does not yet know whether it is necessary " to combine resistances, or to argue about concessions."^ 1 ]lldouard Eod, Le Sens de la Vie. 2 F. Magnard {Le Figaro, March 20, 1893). s /jj,;. THE SOCIAL QUESTION. 417 The hour for learning this is about to sound. The new generation is aware of it; it foresees in its march that it is approaching a peak ; thence it will obtain a view of the vast territories which constitute the twentieth century. The dawn is very pale. It knows not whether the day which is coming is to be a cold win- ter's morning, or a spring noon-day. But it is reso- lute ; its step remains firm ; it does not allow its gaze to wander backward over the valleys which have dis- appeared. And the spirit of France is with it. 2e INDEX. Abd-ul Azis dies, 9i. Acadie, 166. Adam, Mme., 81. Africa, French, 173. African rivers, commerce on, 163. Alenfon, Due d', 140. Alexander II., 102 ; III., 81, 346. Alexandria, massacre and bombard- ment, 125, 126. Algeria, 108, 114 ; errors in, 121, 194. AUain-Targe, M,, 133, 136, 144, 199. Allemaue, Jean, 410, 411. Alphonso XII., insulted in Paris, 146. Alsace-Lorraine, 86, 145. Amagat, M., 117. Ambassadors, 82. America, French in, 164 seq. American politician, 257. Anarchism, 402 seq.; outrages, 253, 269. Andrassy, Count, 91, 93, 96, 98. Annam, 182, 184, 186. Arabi Pasha, rises to head of a party, 123 ; popularity increases, 124; sham plot, 124; bombarded in Alexandria, 126 ; routed at Tel- el-Kebir, captured, and sentenced, 128. Arago, Emmanuel, 4, 12. Arago, ifitienne, 5. Arbitration, 32. Army, crisis over changes in, 76; 346 seq. ; and the Republic, 348, 356; politics and the, 357, 358; a new, 359 ; service in the, and the middle classes, 360 ; and the lower classes, 360; officers in the, 361; watchfulness in the, 363; and taxes, 364 ; and socialism, 364, 366. Arnim, Count d', 86. Arnold, Matthew, 315. Asia, French, 189. Assembly, Constituent, summoned, 10 ; dissolved, 52. Audiffret-Pasquier, Due d', 24, 30, 48; chairman of Senate, 61. Aumale, Due d', deputy, 23 ; 38 ; epi- grammatic remark, 41; retired, 140; 210,235. Aurelle de Paladines, d', deputy, 14. Austria, 80, 81, 82, 93 ; occupies Bos- nia and Herzegovina, 99; 114. Balkan insurrection, 93, 94. Bardoux, M., 73, 74, 76. Barodet, 33, 115, 152. Basilica of Montmartre, 66. Batbie, M., 31, 37. Bazaine, Marshal, 41. Beaconsfield, Lord. See Disraeli. Belcastel, M. de, 66. Belgium, 90, 194. B&enger, enters Council, 35, 72. Berlin, Congress of, 96. Bert, Paul, 133, 284. Beule', M., 37, 66. Bey of Tunis, 107 seq. Billing, M. de, 119. Births and deaths, 384 seq. Bishops, 274 seq.; oppose the Pope, 298, 300. Bismarck, Prince, 7; forges tele- gram, 8; prevents gathering of Assembly, 10 ; increases disorgan- ization of France, 20 ; tries to pre- vent Jules Pavre's appearance at London Conference, 85 ; hopes to make France a secondary power, 86 ; the brutality of his policy, 86 ; correspondence with Count d'Ar- 419 420 INDEX. nim, 86; cannot conceive of a rational republic, 88 ; his attitude increasingly belligerent, 88; his efforts to precipitate another war, 88 seq.; his "nerves," 90; is checked, and feigns astonishment, 93; abandons Russia, 96; at Con- gress of Berlin, 96; establishes universal suffrage, 101 ; his watch- word as to Egypt, 128 ; smiles upon France, 145, 153 ; becomes colonial, 153 ; 214, 215 ; his error, 364, 369. Blanc, Louis, 48, 115. Blanche, Alfred, 4. Blanquists, 410, 412. Bocher, M., 47. Bonaparte, 121, 272, 324, 334. Bonapartists, electoral successes, 41 ; 49; 50. Bordeaux, Assembly of, 15 ; compact, 32. Borel, General, 74, 76. Boulanger, General, 207, 214-217, 223- 238. Boulangists, 254. Bourbons, 3; reconciliation of branches, 37; restoration made impossible, 39. Bourgeois, M., 240, 262. Bourget, Paul, 379. Brame, 2. Brazza, M. de, 175. Brifere de I'lsle, 155, 185, 206. Brissac, Henri, 199. Brisson, Henri, 198, 221. Broglie, Due de, leads against Thiers, 35 ; enters Council, 37 ; 43, 48, 66 ; forms Cabinet, 68; 85, 105, 114, 296. Brousse, Paul, 410, 411. Brunet, M., 68. Budget, of 1887, 211; of 1888, 223. Buffet, M., 47; his nervous policy, 50; defeated, 50, 52. Burdeau, M., 255, 260, 266. Burgoing, M., 41, 49. Burmah, 188. Csesarism, 291. Caillaux, M., 47. Campan, Mme., 334. Campenon, General, 147, 154, 198. Canada, 168. Canrobert, Marshal, 74, 148. Capitalists, 262. Caruot, M. Sadi-, 198, 199, 207, 211 ; elected President, 221 ; 226 ; opens Universal Exposition, 230; 255; assassination of, 270 ; his character and services, 270; 359. Carolina, 163. Casimir-Perier, pire et fils, a real Republic, 31 ; 35, 44 ; 133, 234, 260, 265, 268, 285. Cassagnac, M. de, 204. Castellane, M. de, 46. Centre, meaning of the term, 46. Challemel-Lacour, M., his speech on the Triple Alliance, 106 ; 139, 145, 261. Chamber of Deputies, election to, 51, 115 ; renewed every four years, 57; meets, 61; prorogued by President MacMahon, 69; elec- tions, 72, 204; its position in re- gard to Tunisian matters, 113 ; its laughter as to Tunis, 116; suffers in contrast with British Parlia- ment, 156, 157 ; poor fitness of, for colonial expansion, 171; disorder in, 255 ; bomb explodes in hall of, 269. Chambord, Comte de, issues mani- festo, 23; is reconciled to Comte de Paris, 38 ; adopts white flag, 39 ; his wise views, 40 ; death, 40 ; 84. Champlain, 164. Changarnier, General, deputy, 14. Chantilly, 210. Chanzy, General, Army of the Loire. 23; 30. Chartres, Due de, 140, 210. Chateauvillain, 213. Chauvinism, 355. Cherif Pasha, 123. Chesnelong, M. de, 39, 295. Chevreau, Henri, 2. China, France at war with, 148, 155, 180-186 ; loses Anuam and Tonkin, 186 ; the door of, 189 ; 194. Christians massacred, 94. Christophe, M., 52. Church and State, 285. Cissey, General de, 43, 47, 48, 52. INDEX. 421 Clemenceau, M., 43, 63, 114, 115, 117, 154, 204 seq., 257; gets his wages, 259, 266. Clergy, maintains reserve, in New Catholicism agitation, 66. Clericalism, a misnomer, 66; Gam- hetta opposes it, 67 ; defined, 273 ; its work and methods, 272 seg. Colonial empires of France, first and second, 162-169. Colonial policy of France, as to Tunis, 107 ; contradiction between continental and, 113. Colonies, from 1365 to 1628, 163 seq. ; in America, 164 seq. ; in India, 166 seq.; poor financial showing of, 173; in Africa, 173; empire form- ing there, 174; in Madagascar, a great acquisition, 180; in Asia, 180-186 ; too many oificlal changes in, 191 ; parochial spirit and jeal- ousy in France regarding, 192 ; the evils regarding the, and the reme- dies, 195-197 ; 205 ; 250. Colonists and explorers, French, 163 .leq. Commerce of France, 194. Commercial treaties, 247 seq. Commune, germ of, 4; established, 17 ; described, 21; a second, feared, 103. Concordat, 67, 272, 285, 298, 301, 306. Condominium, 123, 128. Congress of Berlin, 96 ; a real profit from, 97. Conrad, Admiral, 126. Constans, M., 234, 255, 265, 284. Constantinople conference, 125. Constitutions, ten in number, 53 seq. Constitution of Third French Repub- lic, birth, 45 seq. ; amendments, 31, 45 ; described, 56 seq. ; composed of three constitutional laws, 57; refutes its critics by success, 60; a stable form of government, 61 ; proposed revision, 132. Consular reforms, 104. Corti, Count, 126. Courbet, Admiral, 152, 157, 184, 185. Courcy, General de, 191. Cremieux, 4, 10, 12. Crime and education, 316, 317. Cronstadt, 245, 246. Cyprus, 98. Daudet, Alphonse, 379. David, Jerome, 2. Debates, publicity of, conceded, 55. Debt of France, rises to twenty milliards, 22 ; five milliards raised to reduce it, 22; second loan a perfect success, 23 ; war levy fully paid, 37 ; 212. Decazes, Due, 14, 43, 47, 48, 51, 52, 88, 89-91, 103, 204; his efforts to save France, 93. Decentralization, movement in favpr of, 20; Le Play's work, 21; 197. De Giers, M., 153. Delafosse, M., 114, 125, 155, 167. Delescluse, 4. Depeyre, 41. D^roulede, M., 220, 224, 259. Dervish Pasha, 125. Deves, M., 133. Diplomacy, the Republic made a new, suited to its needs, 83; ef- facement, 103; reform, 104; the French and English " agent " compared, 109. Discount Bank, 236. Disraeli, Mr., 91, 92, 96, 101. District elections, its nature, 201; 236. Divorce, law of, 151. Don Carlos, 89. Duclerc, M., 129, 136, 137. Dufaure, M., first president of the Council, 43; 47, 48, 51; head of cabinet, 52; 72; forms another ministry, 73. Dufferin, Lord, 126, 128. Dumont, Albert, 337. Dupanloup, Monseigneur, resigns from the Academy, 23 ; 273. Duperr^, Admiral, 294. Duprat, Pascal, 104. Dupr^, Admiral, 182. Dupuy, Charles, 263, 265; coolness, 269. Duruy, M., 327, 336. Duvernois, Clement," 2. 422 INDEX. Eastern Question, 95 seq. Economic revolution, 247 seq. Education, 66; 75; Jules Ferry's work as Minister of, 139, 159; 141; and Catholic Church, 276-283, 301 ; in the Third Republic, 308 seq.; primary, 308 ; secularization of, 309 seq. ; number of primary schools, secular and otherwise, 311; free schools, 312 ; poor teach- ers, 313, 314; politico-religious controversy, 315: crime and, 316; teaching about God, 317; apathy after school life, 319; higher pri- mary, 319 ; professional or techni- .cal, 322; societies for, 323; secon- dary, 323 seq.; Napoleon and, 324; onesidedness of, in pres- ent-day France, 325 ; desire to "break" by, 324, 326; charac- ter of the professors, 326 ; Duruy's work in, 327; programmes, 327 seq. ; classical studies, 328 ; at- tempts at reform in, 328, 329; overdriving and physical exercises, 330 ; failure in schools to produce character, 331 ; state and ecclesi- astical schools, 332 ; secondary, for girls, 333-335 ; university, 335-345 ; students and solidarity, 336; new departure in university, 337 seq.; General Council of, created, 339; progress in university, 341. Egypt, the connection of France with, 121 ; and Bonaparte, 121 ; the two policies of France in, clash, 122; foreign superintendence es- tablishment, 122 ; Suez Canal, 122, 126 seq.; Arabi Pasha, 123 seq.; France and England send fleets to, 124 ; massacre at Alexandria, 125 ; Alexandria bombarded, 126 ; Glad- stone calls conference, 130. Egyptian debt, 122. Eiffel Tower, 230, 231. Empress Frederick, 242, 243. England, 80, 81, 84; threatens to occupy Dardanelles, 96; Egypt and Cyprus, 98; affairs in, 101; and Tunis, 109 seq.; how she treats her agents, 109 ; joint action with France in Egypt, 123; bombards Alexandria, 126; declares her in- tention to remain in Egypt, 126; accused of treachery, 127; state- ments as to policy, 129; pretexts to remain in, 129 ; in Burmah, 188; 194; and the Republic, 244; wel- comes French fleet, 245 ; crime in, 316; education in, 326; inheri- tance in, 388. :6pee, de 1', 21. Ernoul, M., 22, 37. Europe, dismayed at Russo-Turkish War, 95; apathetic, 128, 130; its peace threatened, 147; her eye on France, 152 ; launching out in for- eign conquest, 170; dark days in, 206. Exposition, Universal, at Paris, 73, 78, 102; its good effect, 228 seq. Extreme Right, 63. Extreme Left, 114, 116, 137, 146, 164, 200, 216. Faidherbe, General, 173. Faith and Science, 304, 305. Falliferes, M., 137, 240, 285. Family, the French, 381 seq, ; its strength and stability, 382; and woman, 383. Farre, General, 111, 114. Fatherland, France and, 350 seq. Faure, Fflix, 120, 223, 260. Favre, Jules, offers proposition of dethronement, 3 ; member of Gov- ernment of National Defence, 4 ; 5; has interview with Bismarck, 10; swept from power, 12; victim of calumny, 13; deputy, 14; calls for stability of government, 69 ; 84. Ferry, Jules, member of Government of National Defence, 4; falls, 12; reappears in public life, 12; de- scribes Commune, 21 ; 44; speeches, 49, 59 ; 62, 65, 81 ; his government assailed, 116, 117 ; resigns his min- istry, 118 ; 121, 130 ; his second Cab- inet, 138 seq. ; misunderstood, 138 seq.; retires the Princes, 140; his basis of action, 140; an anti-cler- ical, 141; his Cabinet triumphs, 144; at war with radicals, 147; successful as to colonial policy, INDEX. 423 148 ; defends liberty of work, 149 ; passes important laws, 149; con- cludes treaty of Tien-Tsin, 150; bis revision of tbe Constitution, 150 ; scenes at the revision confer- ence, 150; bis power over men, 151; his battle becomes harder, 153; procures general elections law, 155 ; falls, 157 ; bis policy con- tinued by his successor, 157; his character, sufferings, and work, 157 seq. ; brings about peace with China, 158 ; attempted murder of, 159, 221 ; honor at last, and death, 159; on colonial expansion, 170; on the protectorate, 190, 198, 220, 221, 261 ; on education, 276-282, 284. Finance, 211 seq. Financial problems, 141. Flag, the tricolor, 17, 39 ; the lilies, 39. Floquet, M., 43, 221, 225, 227, 260. Flourens, M., 214 seq. Foreign policy of France, 79 seq. Fou-Toheou, 152, 185. Fournichon, Admiral, 10, 62. Fourtou, de, 43, 68, 71. France, lacks first condition of a free State, 19 ; debt of, increases to twenty milliards, 22; loans sub- scribed to wipe out debt, 23 ; com- pared with other countries as to foreign representatives, 82 ; main- tains her rank as a power in spite of Bismarck's policy, 85, 86; its honor and dignity, 89; "making an end of," 92 ; strictly neutral in Russo-Turkishwar,95 ; disappoints the Hellenes, 99, 100; situation in, after Congress of Berlin, 102; Europe distrusts, 103 seq. ; joins Triple Alliance, 105 ; her position stated, 105; opposes Turkey in Tunis, 108; establishes protecto- rate in Tunis, 121; interferes in Egypt, 121 seq. ; joint-action with England in Egypt, 123 seq. ; sends fleet to Egypt, 124; fleet with- drawn, 126 ; wakes up as to Egypt, 127 ; claims liberty to act there, 129 ; loses prestige, 130 ; negatives English agreement with Porte, 130 ; in political disorder, 135 seq. ; attacked by German press, 145 ; at war, without consent of Parlia- ment, 152; easier relations with Germany, 153; colonies and colo- nists of, 162 seq. ; in rivalry with England in the New World, 165 seq. ; in Hindustan, 165 seq. ; lack of good colonists and ofBcials in, 171 ; is forming an empire in Africa, 174 ; more patriotic than commercial, 177; secures Annam and Tonkin; 186; commerce of, 194; paucity of freight steamers of, 195 ; men of, dilatory, 195 ; tur- moil in, after the fall of Fe^ry Cabinet, 198 ; in the power of the radicals, 222 seq. ; finds that it has students, 232; takes her place in Europe again, 246 ; in trouble with scandals, 256-264 ; demands excuse from Switzerland, 258 ; neutral in religion, 285; the best field for new plans of the Church, 292 ; su- perficiality in, 321 ; university of, 323 ; the governing classes of, and the war of 1870, 324, 325 ; second- ary scholars in, 332; students in, 336, 341 ; unites all parties on the army, 348; and fatherland, 350 seq. ; and patriotism, 354 seq. ; in armed peace, 359 ; its organization unique, 365; and socialism, 366, 394 ; incessantly agitated, 368 ; de- cried, 368 ; a dual, 369 ; a country of literary form, 370 ; oblivious of the new science, 375; Taine and Benan in literature of, 375 seq. ; pornographic literature, 379 seq. ; cures the evil, 381; the family in, 381 ; woman in, 383 ; decrease of population in, 384-390 ; inheritance in, 386 ; birth-rate and house-rent, 389; division of occupations in, 407 ; people of, individualistic, 414. France, New, 164 seq. Franchise, electoral, 57. Francis Joseph, Emperor, 98. Frederick III., 226-228. French Congo, 174^176. French empire in Africa, a, 174. French slowness, 195. 424 INDEX. Frenchwoman, the, 383. Freycinet, M. de, elected as first sen- ator for Paris, 51 ; enters Cabinet, 73 ; the plan which bears his name, 74, 143; 97; reforms of, 104; 123, 125 ; his Cabinet resigns, 127, 136 ; 198 ; forms Cabinet, 207 ; falls, 213 ; 221, 225 ; Cabinet again, 240, 241 ; falls, 252; 260. Functionaries, dismissal demanded, 75; and Marshal MacMahon, 76. Gambetta, Leon, member of Gov- ernment of National Defence, 4 ; leaves Paris for Tours by balloon during siege, 10; organizes de- fence, 10 ; retires, out of spite, 13 ; makes tour of France, 25 ; cen- sured by Assembly, 31 ; second founder of the Republic, 47 ; 49 ; active in the work of the elec- tions, and his ideas triumphant, 51 ; elected four times, 51 ; charac- terizes the Commune, 63; C4; is violent in the Chamber, 67; war- cry against clericalism, 75 ; leaves ministry, 76 ; advises English alli- ance, 81; "clean hands," 97; on his defence, 104; real head of State, 105; patriotism, 118, 133; made Prime Minister, 121, 123, 133 ; falls, 124, 133; 125; the people rest on him, 131 ; but at last reject him, 133; his death, 134; E. de Pres- sensg on, 134; 137, 309, 357, 392. Garibaldi, 32. Garnier, Lieutenant, 182. Garnier-Pages, 4, 12. Gavard, Charles, 92. General Councils, reorganized, 22; elections to, 24; composition of, 144. General elections, 200 ; its nature, 201. Germany, 81, 82 ; abandons Russia, 96, 114; press of, attacks France, 145, 194. Gladstone, Mr., 101, 130. Glais-Bizoin, 4, 12. Goblet, M., 198, 199, 207, 214, 215, 225, 265, 396. God, name of, 284. Gontaut, Vicomte de, 91, 92. Gordon, General, 130. Gortehakofe, Prince, 7, 85, 91, 94; at Congress of Berlin, 96. Goulard, M. de, 43. Gouthe-Soulard, Monseigneur, 298. Government of National Defence formed, 4; an introduction to the Republic, 11. Government, changed without fric- tion for first time since Louis XVIIL, 36; transformed eleven times since 1789, 53; parliamen- tary form contrasted with others, 56; harmony between Chambers and President, 61; crisis of 16th of May essentially religious, 65; return to safe path, 74 ; beginning of third presidency sees govern- ment stronger, 77; a defect in, 104; impersonal, not familiar to France, 131; the theory of, 135; form of, definitely settled, 150; Jules Ferry on parliamentary, 159. Grandperret, 2. Grant, General, congratulates Em- peror "William, 7. Granville, Lord, 85. Greece, 213. Greeks, 98-100. Gresley, General, 76, 97. Gr^vy, President of the Assembly, 27; a safe man, 60; President of the Chamber of Deputies, 61; 62; elected third President of the Re- public, 77 ; his humble birth, 77 ; apologizes to Alphonso XII. , 14fi ; 152; re-elected, 207; family dis- grace, 219; resigns, 220; his char- acter and work, 222; on the Church and the Republic, 293. Guesde, Jules, 409, 411. Guizot, M., on Turkey and Tunis, 108. Harcourt, Marquis de, 77. Hartington, Lord, 92. Hartmann, 103. Herz, Dr. Cornelius, 257. Hicks, Pasha, 129. Hohenlohe, Prince, 91. INDEX. 425 Holy See, 83, 91, 275. Hugo, Victor, his low rank as sena- tor, 51. Ideas, and habits, connection be- tween, 367; and life, at variance in France, 369 ; gangrened, 371 ; and words, 373. Impeachment demanded by Left, 75. India, French in, 166 seq., 194. Indian army at Suez, 127. Inheritance, law of, 386. Internationale, 19. Interpellation established, 55. Investment of Paris, 10. Ireland, Archbishop, 289, 292. Italy, steps against, by the clericals, 67 ; 80, 88,90 ; accepts memorandum of Berlin, 94 ; threatens France, 98 ; 102, 103; and Tunis, 110, 117; 194; anti-French rage in, 298. Jarnac, Count de, 90, 91. Jaurfes, Admiral, 77. Jaurfes, M.,396. Jaureguiberry, Admiral, 97, 136, 137. Joinville, Prince de, elected deputy, 23; 38. JoUiet, Louis, 165. Kairwan, 115, 116. Kalnoky, Count, 153. Kerdrel, M. de, opposes Thiers, 31. Khartoum, 130, 157. Khedive Ismail, 122. " King's equipages," 38. Kulturkampf, the, 90. Labor. See Socialism. Laboulaye, M. de, his constitutional amendment, 45 ; 48, 72. Lacombe, M. de, 43. Lacordaire, 288. Lamennais, 288. Laprade, de, deputy, 14. Larcy, de, 43. La Ronciere-Le Noury, Admiral, 80. La Salle, 165. Lavergne, M. de, 48. Lavigerie, Cardinal, 190, 274, 294. Lavisse, M., 338. League of Patriots, 234. Lecomte, General, murdered, 17. Le Flo, General, his witty remark, 26 ; 77, 91, 92. Left, the, 22, 31, 32, 34, 36 ; meaning of the term, 46 ; 69, 64 ; makes ex- treme demands, 75 ; 205, 284. Left Centre, meaning of the term, 46; 203. Legion of Honor, 218. Legitimists, 41 ; ousted, 51. Leo XIII. , becomes Pope, 74 ; 101, 102, 252, 261, 286, 291, 296, 297, 299-302, 306, 405. Lepere, 97. Le Play, 386. Le Eoyer, 97, 260, 261. Lesseps, Charles de, 257, 262. Lesseps, F. de, 127. Liard, M., 338, 339. Liberia, 175. Liberty of speech, 288. L'Intransigeant, 118, 119, 217. Literature, writers, not thinkers, 370 ; great sentiments and petty pas- sions, 370 ; immorality, 371 ; under the Second Empire, 371 ; the study of the human " soul," 372; exag- geration in, 373; the scientific method, 374; the new Grail, 375; Taine's influence in, 376 ; Kenan's work in, 377 seq. ; descent of, and efforts to raise it, 378 seq. ; porno- graphic, 379 seq. Littr^, elected to the Academy, 23. Local liberties, 20; Gambetta and, 133. Lockroy, M., 33, 202. London conference, 84 seq. Loubet, M., 252; falls, 256; 260. Louisiana, 165 seq. Louis Philippe, 108. Lyceum, 325. Lycurgus, 391. Maccio, M., 111. Macedonia, 99. MacMahon, Marshal, elected Presi- dent of the Republic, 36 ; his efforts to ensure stability of government, 42 seq.; unconstitutional letter, 50 ; 60; his supposed idea, 65; pro- rogues Chambers on the 16th of May, 68 seq.; the result of re- 426 INDEX. ligious influence and a. yiolation of the constitution, 70; coup d'etat aimed at ideas and doctrines, 71 ; allows scandalous candidacy, 72; his party defeated, 73; breaks from his advisers, 73 ; ends crisis, 74; refuses to remove or change army officers, 76 ; resigns the Presidency, 77 ; greets his succes- sor, 77 ; remarks on his character, 78 ; funeral, 268. Madagascar, 152, 165, 168, 177. Magnac, M., 37. Magne, 2, 43. Mahdi, the, 129. Malet, Sir Edward, 123 seq. Malthusianism, 389. Marcfere, M., 52, 73, 97. Marion, H., 331. Marquette, Pfere, 165. " Marseillaise," 294. Martignac, de, 20. Martin, Henri, 50. Martin-Feuille'e, M., 139, 141, 285. Marx, Karl, 297, 409, 411. Massacres, in Bulgaria, 94 ; at Alex- andria, 125. Maupassant, Guy de, 378. May 16, 1879, crisis of, 65, 68, 273, 274. Mazade, M. de, declares perpetual moral war with Germany, 8 ; re- marks on constitution, 59; on Chamber, 62 ; on prorogation, 72. Meaux, de, 47, 52, 68. Meline, M., 247, 249. Memorandum of Berlin, 94. Mesnil, M. du, 337. Metz, surrender of, 9. Michel, Ernest, on French slowness, 195. Military spirit in democracies, 347. Milliere, 4. Ministerial crises a safety-valve, 60. Ministerial responsibility estab- lished, 55. Ministers, number not fixed, 58; a safety-anchor, 60; office more po- litical than ministerial, 61 ; shift- ings of, 252. Ministers first sit in legislature, 55. Ministry, demand for a stable, 138; stable ministry at last secured, 240. Miribel, General, 358. Montaigne, Admiral, 47. Montalembert, 287, 288. Montceau-les-Mines, 137. Mortemart, 14. Mourad V., 94. Mun, M. de, 295, 296. Municipal Council of Paris, 103, 150, 218. Municipal, franchise, 44 ; law, 149. Munster, Count de, 90. Musset, Alfred de, 371. Nancy, Programme of, 21. Napoleon I. See Bonaparte. Napoleon III., 3; letter to Eouher, 20; 179. Napoleon, Prince, invited to leave France, 25; 31; publishes mani- festo, 137, 140. Naquet, M., 49, 117. National education, and clericalism, 66 ; free, demanded, 75. Navy, 346 seq. ; sailors of, at Cron- stadt, 346. See, also, Army. Nemours, Due de, 38. New Catholicism, the, 65. Noailles, Marquis de, uses word " Republic," 43. Note of July 15, 126. Nubar Pasha, 123. Orloff, Prince, 86, 103. Osman Pasha, 95. Ottoman inertia, 93. Palikao, General, 2. Panama scandal, 256-263, 266. Paris, besieged and taken, 18 ; mob at, insults Alphonso XII., 146. Paris, Comte de, is reconciled to Comte de Chambord, 38 ; 218. " Parisian barometer," the, 33, 34. Party hatred, 186. " Party platform," 57. Patriotism, 354 seq. Peasants, and the Church, 286 ; and the school, 319 ; 389, 407, 408. Pelletan, 4. INDEX. 427 Persia, Shah of, 37. Picaid, Einest, i, 12, 22. Pius IX., 65, 89, 90, 288, 291. Plevna, 95. Pope, spiritual power of, 83, 89 ; tem- poral power of, 24, 66, 83. Popular indignation and the Repub- lic, 3. Population, 384r-390. Porte, protests against action in Egypt, 124; sends commission to Egypt, 125. Pothuau, Admiral, 73. [150 Prayers in Chamber discontinued, Presidency, established, 24; term fixed at seven years, 42, 58; powers and privileges, 58; crisis, 76; 202. President of the Republic, title con- ferred upon M. Thiers, 24; Mac- Mahon elected, 36 ; Grevy elected, 77 ; Sadi-Carnot elected, 221. Press, prosecutions of, 71 ; law, 119. Prevost-Paradol, defines a good citi- zen, 15. Priests, intermeddling of, 284. Prince Imperial, his majority, 41. Princes, expulsion of the, 209. Protection, 247 seq. Protectionist law, first, 152. Protectorate, 121, 190 seq. Proust, Antonin, 100, 228. Prussian plan for new campaign, 92. Public opinion in France, 60. Public worship, directors of, 275. Pupils, in schools, 332. Quertier, M. Pouyer, 22. Radical platform, a, 202. Railways, contracts for, 142; pur- chase of, 144; 393. Eampolla, Cardinal, 295. Ranc, M., 33, 37. Raoul-Duval, M., 210. Raspail, M., 63. Reinach, Baron, 256, 257. Religion, states of, 303. Religious bodies, real estate of, 280; expulsion of, 285. Re'musat, M. de, defeated by Baro- det, 33; 86. Renan, Ernest, his work, 377 seq. Renault, L£on, 72. Republic, proclamation of, 5; the condition of its existence, 16; a true, called for, 30; is estab- lished, 31; its working assured, 36 ; unwillingness to use the word, 43 ; obliged to be careful of the feel- ings of neighboring monarchies, 79; a rational, foreign to Bis- marck's mind, 88; enters for the first time the company of the great powers, 96 ; takes advantage of title-deeds in colonial matters, 107, 169; undertakes to assimilate it- self, 120; colonial work of: its grandeur and its defects, 190 ; re- action against, 198 seq.; finances of, 211 ; " candidate of," 227 ; cele- brates 1789, 228 seq. ; and regains confidence of the people, 233; electoral victories of, 238, 253, 266 ; treatment of officials of, 264 ; the value of universal suffrage to, 266 ; and Roman Catholicism, 272 seq. ; and the primary school, 276-278; and secondary education, 278, 279 ; and higher education, 280-283; is the centre of a new evolution, 291 ; is chosen by the Pope, as better than Caesarism, 291; and the Church : M. Grevy on, 293 ; Cardi- nal Lavigerie approves the, 294; the French bishops oppose the Pope and the, 298 ; pontifical strengthen- ing of the, 302; and education, 308 seq. ; adopts the public school, 342 seq. ; and the army, 348 ; and patri- otism, 354 seq. ; and standing army, 356 seq. ; the problems of the, 357 ; the army and the, 357-359. Restoration, the, and decentraliza- tion, 20. Revolution, the French, 228, 229. Ribot, M., 203, 240, 257, 260, 285. Ricard, M., 52. Rigault de Genouilly, Admiral, 2. Right, the, 28, 30-32, 35, 36; mean- ing of the term, 46, 74, 76 ; 113, 116, 154, 200, 203, 205, 225, 227, 255. Right Centre, meaning of the term, 428 INDEX. Roche, Jules, 240, 258, 266. Kochebouet, General, 72. Kochefort, Henri, 4, 5, 114, 117 ; his " revelations," 119 ; his name, char- acter, and career, 120; 205, 224, 235, 254. Rod, ifidouard, 416. Roman Catholic Church, and the Re- public, 272 seq.; and the Empire, 272, 273; and education, 276-283, 309, 310; and secondary education, 278, 279 ; wealth of orders of, 280 ; and higher education, 280-283 ; con- gress, 282, 283, 288 ; its numerical power, 283 ; the Sacred Heart, 284 ; zeal against, 284; peasants and, 286 ; and modern life, 287 ; and liberty of speech, 288; in the United States, 289, 292; strikes hands with the Republic, 291, 294 ; France the best field for new ac- tion of, 292; advice of M. Gr^vy, 293 ; " party," 295 ; and socialism, 296; the French Bishops of, 298, 299, and the Pope's reply, 300 ; and Reform, 302; teaching orders of, 312. Roman Catholic, Universities, 75 ; 282; interests, 82, 83; inheritance, 82. Rome, entered by Victor Emmanuel, 23. Roumelia, 99. Roustan, M., Ill, 112, 118-120. Rouvier, M., 216; his ministry, 217, 218 ; falls, 219 ; 240, 257, 266. Royer-CoUard, M., 14, 20, 335, 336. Russell, Lord Odo, 92. Russia, 80-82; asks warrant from Europe, 95 ; declares war on Tur- key, 95 ; defeats Turkey and makes treaty, 95 ; troublous times In, 101 ; goes forward in Asia, 102 ; 103, 194 ; at one with France, 246, 253, 268. Russo-French understanding, 245. Saint-Hilaire, Barthflemy, 100, 114, 123, 203. Sain1>Valller, M. de, 50, 77. Salle, La, 165. Salonica, 94. San Stefano, treaty of, 95. Savings Bank, 259. Say, Leon, Prefect of the Seine, 12; 47, 49, 50, 52, 72, 73, 76, 97, 136, 141, 203, 265. Scandals, 256-264. Scherer, M., report, 136. Schneider, M., 2. Schools, 311, 320. Schouvaloff, Count, 92. Science, and faith, 280, 304, 305 ; 329, 374 seq. Sedan, 2, 56. Senate, 45; suffrage, 46; elections, 50 ; composition, 51 ; success of its constitution, 58; elections of Jan- uary 5, 1879, 74 ; a republican suc- cess, 75 ; threatened, 132 ; its calm- ness, 136 ; 137 ; 202, 227, 235. Senators, age for entrance, 47; for life, 49 ; irremovability discarded, 58, 150, 227. September 4, 1870, 1, 25. Serre, M. de, 20. Seymour, Admiral, 126. Sfax, 115, 116. Siam, 189. Sienkevicz, M., 124. Simon, Jules, 4; remark as to M. Thiers, 29, 35; forms a Cabinet, 63 ; a conservative, 64 ; resists the Left, 64; on "ultra-montane in- trigues," 68; loses the confidence of the President and falls, 68 ; 151. Skobelefl, General, 95. Social Contract, 54. Socialism, 32, 296, 364, 366; Lycur- gus' experiment, 391 ; universal or none, 392; real and sham, 393; in Germany, England, etc., 393, 394; its progress in France, 394; a socialist party, 395; congresses, 397, 398, 409; the first of May, 399 ; strikes, 399 seq. ; carpet-bag- gers, 401; " propaganda by deeds," 402; anarchy, 402; absenteeism and stock-jobbing, 405; the "pil- lar" of money, 405; the progress of, and the obstacles, 406; "peas- ant property," 408; parties in, 409 seq.; importance of, and ulti- mate success, 413; professional associations, 413; and law, 414; INDEX. 429 and conciliation, 415 ; and charity, 416. Spain, 90, 114, 146, 194. Spuller, M., 234, 265, 269, 333, 339. Strikes, 227, 399 seq. Students, reception of foreign, 231 ; 336,341,380; riots, 265. Suez Canal, 123, 126 seq. ; neutrali- zation of, 129, 157. Switzerland, 82. Syllabus, 287, 288. Taine, Hippolyte, on science and faith, 280 ; 375, 390. Taxes, 364. Teachers, poor, 313, 314. Teisserenc de Bord, M., 52. Tel-el-Kebir, 128. Temple, M. de, 66. Tewfik Pasha, 124, 125. Thibaudin, General, 139, 147. Thiers, his pilgrimage, 7 ; supersedes Gambetta, 13 ; elected many times as deputy, 14 ; doubts in regard to General Councils, 22 ; title of Pres- ident of the Republic conferred upon, 24; loses credit, 25; his character and work, 26 seq., 31; his meddling in military affairs and in those of the ministries, 28, 29; lukewaimness as to the Re- public, 29; his final programme, 30; resigns the presidency, 35, 38, 44; giyes a formula, 49; deputy, 51, 60 ; goes to London conference, 84. Thomas, Clement, murdered, 17. Tien-Tsin, treaty of, 184, 186. Tirard, M., 63, 136, 139, 223, 224, 234, 240, 257. Tocqueville, de, on religious forms, 290 ; 292, 347. Tolerance, 305. Tolstoy, 406. Tonkin, 152 seq.; losses in, 155 seq.; the struggle In, 180-186 ; protecto- rate over, 183; becomes French possession, 186; its wealth, 186; 205 seq. Tour d'Auvergne, Prince de la, 2. Trades-unions. See Socialism. Tre'venenc, M. de, 22. Tricolor, 17, 39. Triple Alliance, 32, 80, 106, 145, 245, 251. Tripoli, 114. Troohu, General, 2, 4, 12, 14. Tunis, 98, 107 seq. ; works on, 107 ; France and, 108; England and, 109 ; Italy and, 109 ; financial con- trol, 110; anarchy in, 111; invaded and occupied by French, 111 ; mis- takes in. 111 ; treaty, 112 ; second expedition to, successful, 115; cost of expeditions to, 115 ; question of, a subject of excessive hilarity in Chamber, .117; protectorate in, es- tablished with eminent success, 121; conversion of debt, 150; Ger- many and England recognize France in, 153 ; 190. Turkey, insurrection and massacres, 93 seq.; at war with Russia, 95; and Tunis, 108 seq. ; 194. " Ultra-montane intrigues," 67. United States, 7, 82, 194, 249, 289, 292, 306, 347. Universal Exposition of 1878, 73, 78. Universal suffrage, 154, 160, 200, 266-268. University of Lille, 68; of France, 323, 331, 332, 336 seq. Universities, 75, 278, 282. Vaillant, M., 412. Vendome Column, destroyed, 17. Versailles, treaty signed at, 23. Victor Emmanuel, enters Rome, 23 ; death, 74, 298. Victoria, Queen, 92. Vinoy, General, his strange com- mands, 18. Vogug, Comte de, 77. Vogue', M. de, 355, 379. Waddington, M., 20, 50, 52, 73, 336 ; at Congress of Berlin, 96; his family and career, 97; 123. Waldeck-Rousseau, M., 133, 139. Wallon, M., 47. Wallon amendment, the, 31 ; adopted, 45. 430 INDEX. War, and Parliament, 112, 115, 117 ; Alexandria bombarded, 126; in Tonkin, 148, 155 seq., 180-186; in Africa, Hindustan, and America, 165 seq.; cost of, in Tonkin, 186; in Dahomey, 252, 253; ancient nations and, 349 seq.; a trade, 362. William, Emperor, 87, 241, 242. Wilson, M., 147, 219. Wolseley, Lord, 128. Woman suffrage, 57. Wood, Mr., English agent in Tunis, 109 seq. Workingmen's, pilgrimages, 296-298, congresses, 397, 398, 409. Year III., constitution of, 54 ; organic laws still survive, 54. Year VII., constitution of, 54. Zola, :6mile, 379.