The Development of the European Nations, 1870-1914 (5th ed.) - J. Holland Rose

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rich districts of Burgundy and the Lyonnais. Besides, military honour required France to keep a fortress that had kept the tricolour flying. Metz the Germans held, and it was impossible to turn them out. Obviously the case of Belfort was on a different footing. In his conference of February 24, Thiers at last defied Bismarck in these words: "No; I will never yield Belfort and Metz in the same breath. You wish to ruin France in her finances, in her frontiers. Well! Take her. Conduct her administration, collect her revenues, and you will have to govern her in the face of Europe--if Europe permits[60]."

      

      Probably this defiance had less weight with the Iron Chancellor than his conviction, noticed above, that to bring two entirely French towns within the German Empire would prove a source of weakness; beside which his own motto, Beati possidentes, told with effect in the case of Belfort. That stronghold was accordingly saved for France. Thiers also obtained a reduction of a milliard from the impossible sum of six milliards first named for the war indemnity due to Germany; in this matter Jules Favre states that British mediation had been of some avail. If so, it partly accounts for the hatred of England which Bismarck displayed in his later years. The Preliminaries of Peace were signed at Versailles on February 26.

      One other matter remained. The Germans insisted that, if Belfort remained to France, part of their army should enter Paris. In vain did Thiers and Jules Favre point out the irritation that this would cause and the possible ensuing danger. The German Emperor and his Staff made it a point of honour, and 30,000 of their troops accordingly marched in and occupied for a brief space the district of the Champs Élysées. The terms of peace were finally ratified in the Treaty of Frankfurt (May 10, 1871), whereby France ceded Alsace and part of Lorraine, with a population of some 1,600,000 souls, and underwent the other losses noted above. Last but not least was the burden of supporting the German army of occupation that kept its grip on the north-east of France until, as the instalments came in, the foreign troops were proportionately drawn away eastwards. The magnitude of these losses and burdens had already aroused cries of anguish in France. The National Assembly at Bordeaux, on first hearing the terms, passionately confirmed the deposition of Napoleon III.; while the deputies from the ceded districts lodged a solemn protest against their expatriation (March 1). Some of the advanced Republican deputies, refusing to acknowledge the cession of territory, resigned their seats in the Assembly. Thus there began a schism between the Radicals, especially those of Paris, and the Assembly, which was destined to widen into an impassable gulf. Matters were made worse by the decision of the Assembly to sit, not at the capital, but at Versailles, where it would be free from the commotions of the great city. Thiers himself declared in favour of Versailles; there the Assembly met for the first time on March 20, 1871.

      A conflict between this monarchical Assembly and the eager Radicals of Paris perhaps lay in the nature of things. The majority of the deputies looked forward to the return of the King (whether the Comte de Chambord of the elder Bourbons, or the Comte de Paris of the House of Orleans) as soon as France should be freed from the German armies of occupation and the spectre of the Red Terror. Some of their more impatient members openly showed their hand, and while at Bordeaux began to upbraid Thiers for his obstinate neutrality on this question. For his part, the wise old man had early seen the need of keeping the parties in check. On February 17 he begged them to defer questions as to the future form of government, working meanwhile solely for the present needs of France, and allowing future victory to be the meed of that party which showed itself most worthy of trust. "Can there be any man" (he exclaimed) "who would dare learnedly to discuss the articles of the Constitution, while our prisoners are dying of misery far away, or while our people, perishing of hunger, are obliged to give their last crust to the foreign soldiers?" A similar appeal on March led to the informal truce on constitutional questions known as the Compact of Bordeaux. It was at best an uncertain truce, certain to be broken at the first sign of activity on the Republican side.

      That activity was now put forth by the "Reds" of Paris. It would take us far too long to describe the origins of the municipal socialism which took form in the Parisian Commune of 1871. The first seeds of that movement had been sown by its prototype of 1792–93, which summed up all the daring and vigour of the revolutionary socialism of that age. The idea had been kept alive by the "National Workshops" of 1848, whose institution and final suppression by the young Republic of that year had been its own undoing.

      History shows, then, that Paris, as the head of France, was accustomed to think and act vigorously for herself in time of revolution. But experience proved no less plainly that the limbs, that is, the country districts, generally refused to follow the head in these fantastic movements. Hence, after a short spell of St. Vitus' activity, there always came a time of strife, followed only too often by torpor, when the body reduced the head to a state of benumbed subjection. The triumph of rural notions accounts for the reactions of 1831–47, and 1851–70. Paris having once more regained freedom of movement by the fall of the Second Empire on September 4, at once sought to begin her politico-social experiments, and, as we pointed out, only the promptitude of the "moderates," when face to face with the advancing Germans, averted the catastrophe of a socialistic regime in Paris during the siege. Even so, the Communists made two determined efforts to gain power; the former of these, on October 31, nearly succeeded. Other towns in the centre and south, notably Lyons, were also on the brink of revolutionary socialism, and the success of the movement in Paris might conceivably have led to a widespread trial of the communal experiment. The war helped to keep matters in the old lines.

      But now, the feelings of rage at the surrender of Paris and the cession of the eastern districts of France, together with hatred of the monarchical assembly that flouted the capital by sitting at the abode of the old Kings of France, served to raise popular passion to fever heat. The Assembly undoubtedly made many mistakes: it authorised the payment of rents and all other obligations in the capital for the period of siege as if in ordinary times, and it appointed an unpopular man to command the National Guards of Paris. At the close of February the National Guards formed a Central Committee to look after their interests and those of the capital; and when the Executive of the State sent troops of the line to seize their guns parked on Montmartre, the Nationals and the rabble turned out in force. The troops refused to act against the National Guards, and these murdered two Generals, Lecomte and Thomas (March 18). Thiers and his Ministers thereupon rather tamely retired to Versailles, and the capital fell into the hands of the Communists. Greater firmness at the outset might have averted the horrors that followed.

      The Communists speedily consulted the voice of the people by elections conducted in the most democratic spirit. In many respects their programme of municipal reforms marked a great improvement on the type of town-government prevalent during the Empire. That was, practically, under the control of the imperial préfets. The Communists now asserted the right of each town to complete self-government, with the control of its officials, magistrates, National Guards, and police, as well as of taxation, education, and many other spheres of activity. The more ambitious minds looked forward to a time when France would form a federation of self-governing Communes, whose delegates, deciding matters of national concern, would reduce the executive power to complete subservience. At bottom this Communal Federalism was the ideal of Rousseau and of his ideal Cantonal State.

      By such means, they hoped, the brain of France would control the body, the rural population inevitably taking the position of hewers of wood and drawers of water, both in a political and material sense. Undoubtedly the Paris Commune made some intelligent changes which pointed the way to reforms of lasting benefit; but it is very questionable whether its aims could have achieved permanence in a land so very largely agricultural as France then was. Certainly it started its experiment in the worst possible way, namely, by defying the constituted authorities of the nation at large, and by adopting the old revolutionary calendar, and the red flag, the symbol of social revolution. Thenceforth it was an affair of war to the knife.

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