LITMIR.BIZ

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keep up the autocratic traditions of the past as well as to leave open the door for a revision of the Constitution at any time favourable to the monarchical cause. That this Constitution did not pave the way for the monarchy was due to several causes. Some we have named above.

      Another and perhaps a final cause was the unwillingness or inability of Marshal MacMahon to bring matters to the test of force. Actuated, perhaps, by motives similar to those which kept the Duke of Wellington from pushing matters to an extreme in England in 1831, the Marshal refused to carry out a coup d'état against the Republican majority sent up to the Chamber of Deputies by the General Election of January 1876. Once or twice he seemed on the point of using force. Thus, in May 1877, he ventured to dissolve the Chamber of Deputies; but the Republican party, led by the impetuous Gambetta, appealed to the country with decisive results. That orator's defiant challenge to the Marshal, either to submit or to resign (se soumettre ou se démettre) was taken up by France, with the result that nearly all the Republican deputies were re-elected. The President recognised the inevitable, and in December of that year charged M. Dufaure to form a Ministry that represented the Republican majority. In January 1879 even, some senatorial elections went against the President, and he accordingly resigned, January 30, 1879.

      

      In the year 1887 the Republic seemed for a time to be in danger owing to the intrigues of the Minister for War, General Boulanger. Making capital out of the difficulties of France, the financial scandals brought home to President Grévy, and his own popularity with the army, the General seemed to be preparing a coup d'état. The danger increased when the Ministry had to resign office (May 1887). A "National party" was formed, consisting of monarchists, Bonapartists, clericals, and even some crotchety socialists--in fact, of all who hoped to make capital out of the fell of the Parliamentary regime. The malcontents called for a plebiscite as to the form of government, hoping by these means to thrust in Boulanger as dictator to pave the way for the Comte de Paris up to the throne of France. After a prolonged crisis, the scheme ignominiously collapsed at the first show of vigour on the Republican side. When the new Floquet Ministry summoned Boulanger to appear before the High Court of Justice, he fled to Belgium, and shortly afterwards committed suicide.

The chief feature of French political life, if one reviews it in its broad outlines, is the increase of stability. When we remember that that veteran opportunist, Talleyrand, on taking the oath of allegiance to the new Constitution of 1830, could say, "It is the thirteenth," and that no régime after that period lasted longer than eighteen years, we shall be chary of foretelling the speedy overthrow of the Third Republic at any and every period of Ministerial crisis or political ferment. Certainly the Republic has seen Ministries made and unmade in bewilderingly quick succession; but these are at most superficial changes--the real work of administration being done by the hierarchy of permanent officials first established by the great Napoleon. Even so terrible an event as the murder of President Sadi Carnot (June 1894) produced none of the fatal events that British alarmists confidently predicted. M. Casimir Périer was quietly elected and ruled firmly. The same may be said of his successors, MM. Faure and Loubet. Sensible, businesslike men of bourgeois origin, they typify the new France that has grown up since the age when military adventurers could keep their heels on her neck provided that they crowned her brow with laurels. That age would seem to have passed for ever away. A well-known adage says: "It is the unexpected that happens in French politics." To forecast their course is notoriously unsafe in that land of all lands. That careful and sagacious student of French life, Mr. Bodley, believes that the nation at heart dislikes the prudent tameness of Parliamentary rule, and that "the day will come when no power will prevent France from hailing a hero of her choice[71]."

      Doubtless the advent of a Napoleon the Great would severely test the qualities of prudence and patience that have gained strength under the shelter of democratic institutions. Yet it must always be remembered that Democracy has until now never had a fair chance in France. The bright hopes of 1789 faded away ten years later amidst the glamour of military glory. As for the Republic of 1848, it scarcely outlived the troubles of infancy. The Third Republic, on the other hand, has attained to manhood. It has met and overcome very many difficulties; at the outset parts of two valued provinces and a vast sum of treasure were torn away. In those early days of weakness it also crushed a serious revolt. The intrigues of Monarchists and Bonapartists were foiled. Hardest task of all, the natural irritation of Frenchmen at playing a far smaller part in the world was little by little allayed.

      In spite of these difficulties, the Third Republic has now lasted a quarter of a century. That is to say, it rests on the support of a generation which has gradually become accustomed to representative institutions--an advantage which its two predecessors did not enjoy. The success of institutions depends in the last resort on the character of those who work them; and the testimony of all observers is that the character of Frenchmen has slowly but surely changed in the direction which Thiers pointed out in the dark days of February 1871 as offering the only means of a sound national revival--"Yes: I believe in the future of France: I believe in it, but on condition that we have good sense; that we no longer use mere words as the current coin of our speech, but that under words we shall place realities; that we have not only good sense, but good sense endowed with courage."

      These are the qualities that have built up the France of to-day. The toil has been enormous, and it has been doubled by the worries and disappointments incident to Parliamentarism when grafted on to a semi-military bureaucracy; but the toil and the disappointments have played their part in purging the French nature of the frothy sensationalism and eager irresponsibility that naturally resulted from the Imperialism of the two Napoleons. France seems to be outgrowing the stage of hobble-de-hoyish ventures, military or communistic, and to have taken on the staid, sober, and self-respecting mien of manhood--a process helped on by the burdens of debt and conscription resulting from her juvenile escapades. In a word, she has attained to a full sense of responsibility. No longer are her constructive powers hopelessly outmatched by her critical powers. In the political sphere she has found a due balance between the brain and the hand. From analysis she has worked her way to synthesis.

      NOTE TO THE SECOND EDITION

      The following are the Ministries of the Republic in 1870–1900:--1870, Favre; 1871, Dufaure (1); 1873, De Broglie (1); 1874, Cissey; 1875, Buffet; 1876, Dufaure (2); 1876, Simon; 1877, De Broglie (2); 1877, De Rochebouet; 1877, Dufaure (3); 1879, Waddington; 1879, Freycinet (1); 1880, Ferry (1); 1881, Gambetta; 1882, Freycinet (2); 1882, Duclerc; 1883, Fallières; 1883, Ferry (2); 1885, Brisson; 1886, Freycinet (3); 1886, Goblet; 1887, Rouvier; 1887, Tirard (1); 1888, Floquet; 1889, Tirard (2); 1890, Freycinet (4); 1892, Loubet; 1892, Ribot (1); 1892, Dupuy (1); 1893, Casimir Périer; 1894, Dupuy (2); 1895, Ribot (2); 1895, Bourgeois; 1896, Méline; 1898, Brisson; 1898 Dupuy (3); 1899, Waldeck-Rousseau.

      FOOTNOTES:

[65] They included the right to hold four more Departments until the third half milliard (£20,000,000, that is, £60,000,000 in all) had been paid. A commercial treaty on favourable terms, those of the "most favoured nation," was arranged, as also an exchange of frontier strips near Luxemburg and Belfort. Germany acquired Elsass (Alsace) and part of Lorraine, free of all their debts. We may note here that the Anglo-French Treaty of Commerce arranged in 1860 with Napoleon largely by the aid of Cobden, was not renewed by the French Republic, which thereafter began to exclude British goods. Bismarck forced France at Frankfurt to concede favourable terms to German products. England was helpless. For this subject, see Protection in France, by H.O. Meredith (1905).

[66] Quoted by M. Hanotaux, Contemporary France, vol. i. pp. 323–327.

[67] Speech of March 27, 1871.

[68] De Mazade, Thiers, p. 467. For a sharp criticism of Thiers, see Samuel Denis' Histoire Contemperaine (written from the royalist standpoint).

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