A FRENCH DIRECTORY.
AGOOD many French Republicans are in favour, when the Revision comes—and for all the resistance of the moment, it is certain to arrive—of abolishing the Presidency altogether. They wish, they say, to be rid of the "one-man power" which is essentially undemocratic, and is either an occult and intriguing force, as it was under M. Gr(Svy, or monarchy under another name, as it was under Marshal MacMahon. The number of Deputies who hold this view is said to be considerable ; but when they propound schemes for realising their object, they betray a radical difference of drift. The Parliamentary Repub- licans would, like M. Gr&uy when in the fullest of his strength, be content to abolish the Presidency, and transfer its " representative " functions to the President of the Council, or, as we call him, the Premier. He would be France for all ceremonial purposes, or pur- poses of national expression. This would be the English system of government with the Sovereign left out, and if a Parliamentary system would work in France, might possibly succeed, the outgoing Premier "sending for" his successor, as in England he now " advises " the Sovereign to send for him. Some power of self-suppression would be required from successive Premiers, and some reverence for the public weal ; but still, those qualities cannot be assumed to have entirely died in France. The growing theory among French Radicals, however, is that a Parliamentary regime is not good for France, that the Executive must be made more independent, and that the work of government and the work of legislation are divisible things. It follows that the Executive must be appointed for a term; and as an irremovable person always in France tries to become absolute, politicians are casting about for an alternative. It is said that they have discovered one, and that it is this one which General Boulanger intimated to some inter- viewers from the Figaro office his willingness to accept. According to the St. James's Gazette, it is the device of M. Naquet, an able though extreme Radical, who has un- doubtedly much influence with the General, and is briefly this. He would abolish the Presidency, and confide the executive power to a Directory of five, who would be, we presume, Ministers or Directors of the Interior, of Foreign Affairs, of Finance, of War, and of Legis- lation, and would be appointed or reappointed by each successive Chamber for its own term—though other methods of election are considered—thus, in theory at least, ensuring a certain harmony. The Directory would be irremovable, would be independent of the Chamber, and would possess a suspensive veto as regards any law, and the right of demanding a plebiscite if the law involved a constitutional change.
That is a thoughtful scheme, and would, when discussed in Congress, exercise this practical attracting force, that it would give the leaders of the great divisions in the Republican Party a hope of sharing in the reconstituted executive power. M. Floquet, for instance, would be a natural Director of the Interior; M. Rouvier, of Finance ; M. Flourens, of Foreign Affairs ; M. Climenceau, of Legislation ; leaving the military directorship to General Boulanger. That would be a strong Government at first, at all events ; but we suspect events would soon show that it possessed some deeply seated defects. It would not, to begin with, prevent the grand danger apprehended,— the establishment of a personal dictatorship. The Mili- tary Director, if a popular man and fairly successful in war, would hold the Army in the hollow of his hand, as the Minister of War does now, would be supreme in the Directory, would overawe the Chamber, and would, in truth, be President as fully as if he were called by that name. There would be no power of removing him except by impeachment, and no power of preventing him from insisting that a ple'biscite should be taken. He could, in fact, take it by suspending the Constitution, just as the President could, and un- less a " No " leaped from the urn, there would be no practical mode of punishment. Again, the scheme provides no appellate authority, and internal dissension would paralyse the Directory. Suppose, for example, that in the case we have imagined, M. Flourens and General Boulanger differed as to the expediency of threatening Great Britain, who is to decide on the policy to be finally adopted ? Clearly the Directory as a whole, the very idea of the new Constitution prohibiting a reference to the Chamber ; but would the defeated Director submit to that? If he did, he must either carry out a policy of which he disapproved, or he must resign and become at once a powerless individual, without office, without seat in the Chamber, without, perhaps, the power, owing to his oath of office, of explaining to the country his reasons for retire- ment. An Englishman or an American might accept such a position ; but would a Frenchman, with his high self- esteem, his certainty that he is right, and his strictly enforced responsibility to his own followers ? Could M. Floquet, for instance, and any colleague agree as to the removal of the Prefect of the Seine from the Hotel de Ville? We doubt it greatly, and should look for the most serious dissensions within the Directory, even if it kept on terms with the Chamber, which, be it remembered, must in any serious emergency, even if the regular Budget is voted for a term, control all extraordinary expense. Dissensions within a Cabinet whose members did not resign and could not be dismissed, would in no long time be fatal to the action of the State. We are aware that in England under such circumstances a modus vivendi would be found, and one man would bear sway ; but in France that one man would want to make his ascendency mani- fest, and unless he were outside rivalry, like Napoleon, or Thiers in 1871, would find all his colleagues too jealous to be of use.
We may be told that this did not happen with the Com- mittee of Public Safety, which, whatever its other faults, was secret, energetic, and undivided; but the precedent is one for the rhetorician rather than the statesman. That Committee had, after all, an absolute referendary, the Convention ; it was conducting a war, internally and externally, throughout the whole period of its existence ; and unanimity within it was enforced by "sanctions," as they say in Ireland, only possible during a period of revolution. The members had their lives in their hands the whole time, and blew perfectly well that if they could not agree, they could and would be sent to the guillotine. The object now is to make a Government which shall have no referendary, yet shall work effectually and rapidly in ordinary circumstances and under the ordinary penalty, which is practically loss of office, with or without loss of reputation. We question if a Com- mittee could be such a Government, unless, indeed, it so distributed work among its members, and so isolated the responsibility of each, that no general Govern- ment existed at all. It is, perhaps, irrelevant to men- tion that such a system precludes the rise of a great man, because the suppression of great men would be its principal object; but it is not irrelevant to point out that it also precludes any development of loyalty. The body of the people, themselves free from direct responsibility except for legislation, would have no one before them whom they could consider chief of the State, and an object either of reverence or dislike. Not only would there be no Sovereign, but no Premier, and, except in the Chamber, no leader of a party. The Americans get along very well without these persons, and even elect "dark horses" to the Presidency ; but then, their Constitution is federal, they have no Army, no dangerous enemy, and no Colonies, and they do not change a fundamental law once in a generation. It is very doubtful whether France would reverence an impersonal Committee, with no revolutionary tribunal behind it to make it awful, and quite certain that the Army would consider the Military Director the real and the sufficient Head of the State. Nevertheless, we should not wonder if, between impatience of the existing Constitution and dread of a Military Dictator, this plan of a Presidency in commission, but with greatly increased powers, were actually tried.
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