TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THE " ACTE ADDITIONNEL" OF NAPOLEON III.
NAPOLEON III., like Napoleon I., has superimposed an " Ade Ad- ditionnel " upon his imperial constitution. Liberty has not "crowned the edifice" of 18.52, but liberty, as it is understood in the Tuileries, has opened a very narrow postern into the edifice of despotism.
Wishing "to give a striking testimony of our confidence, We," the Emperor have decreed ; That the Senate and Legislative Body may vote and debate an address in reply to the Imperial speech at the opening of each session ; that Government Commissioners, "Ministers without a portfolio," shall be present in both Houses to defend the measures of the Government and answer questions on home and foreign policy ; that the Legislative Body shall ex- ercise some undefined "right of amendment" (but whether in public or secret sitting is not clear); and that the debates, taken down verbatim by reporters, shall be published in extenso in the Moniteur and sent to all the journals. Such is the substance of the ImperialReform Bill. The "more direct participation in the general policy of the Government," which the Emperor intends to permit, is not very extensive in it- self, but, relatively to the institutions which it enlarges, it is of considerable amount. The mere permission to debate the policy of the Government. not as a favour at the hands of a President, but by right, is in itself a great change. The right to exact ex- planatory statements, implies the right of framing questions cal- culated to extract information. Then, if the rirht of proposing amendments be conceded, this implies divisions after debates, and gives room and reason, for an Opposition. Further, this Opposi- tion will have a public audience : we do not allude to "the strangers in the gallery," but Mlle readers of the journals, and this public audience cannot fail to brine- out a public opinion, which must act upon the elections. We are led even further. The publication of the debates, implies the right of criticism, and the concession of the right of criticism involves the suppression of the negative censorship, and the system of "warnings," and "suppressions" practised at the caprice of the Minister of the In- terior. The appointment of Ministers without portfolios, to act as the "advocates '. of Ministerial measures, is an experiment we shall be glad to see tried, but which we should be sorry to see imitated. Such is the view, en beau, which we are disposed to take of the Imperial Reform Bill. The view, en noir, is that the despotic action of the Government may--we do not say that it will—reduce the concessions to nothingness. To adopt either view at present, would be to travel beyond the limits of fact. There are the written words of the decree; what the Emperor, his governmental machinery, and the French people will make of them, no man can foresee. We may remark, however, that the change of Ministers is favourable to the view of those who assume a bonfi fide intention of reviving free institutions on the part of the Emperor, because we have a right to suppose that the incoming men are heart and part in the reform. Count Walew- ski, though he be no favourite with us, is less of an unconstitu- tionalist than M. Fould. Count de Persigny is bold and frank, and not afraid of a little political freedom ; and as M. Billault, who has proved to be a tyrannical administrator of a tyrannical system, gives way for the Count de Persigny, we may infer that the latter approves of his master's decree, and intends to work it out. M. Flahaut, sent to England, may be taken to mean a de- sire to conciliate England, but he can hardly be a firmer friend of the "English alliance," than the Count de Persigny, and he may be a wiser, but not a heartier supporter of that arrangement than M. Fould.
If the most interesting question for Frenchmen is the quality and quantity of liberty accorded to them, the most interesting question for us is why have these changes been made ? They come upon us like the coup d'etat and the famous utterance of January 1, 18.59, almost without a warning. What has made them possible and desirable ? We are told that the policy now pursued is the natural development of the Emperor's farseeing designs, the true sequence of the Act of 1852, a step in progress towards a complete edifice of Government with liberty for its end and crown. We are also told that it is the reply of the Em-
peror to the semi-seditious onset of the prelates and priests of France' that the Emperor is arming the representatives of the
people that they may fight with him and for him against the army of Ultramontanes. Another reason given is that the Go- vernment finds itself too much alone ; that the burden of re- sponsibility has become too great even for the mind of the Em- peror, tempered and hardened as it has been in the fires of great adversity and great success. We can imagine that all these in- fluences may have combined to produce the cautious and guarded measure of reform. The Emperor desires to found a dynasty. He has laid the foundations of his throne on a broad national vote ; on public works which recall the first Empire, and vic- tories which recall the Grand Armee. He has restored to France that tremendous influence which satisfies the national thirst for glory, but blinds the nation to the dangers resulting from the distrust it inevitably inspires. So far all looks like strength. But the Emperor may have felt that these foundations are too ephemeral. His uncle did far more of the same kind ; but he fell nevertheless. Perhaps Napoleon III. desires to avoid the errors Napoleon in this as in other respects, and hopes to secure the footing of his dynasty while there is yet time, by taking the nation into closer partnership. Let us bring together two distant periods, and look at the ques- tion for a moment by the light of 1815. On the 7th of November, 1852, when the Empire was reconstituted, Louis Napoleon said to. his Senators and Legislative Body, and through them to France- " What now most affects my heart is the thought that the Spirit of the Emperor is with me ; that his ideas guide sac; that his shade pro- tects me." That situation was the counterpart of the foundatiom of the first Empire. What happened in 1815? The Emperor re- turned and found a party who desired institutions less servile than those which existed, but one year before. Napoleon half- accorded with an ill grace, and by his own power, the liberty to be found in the Acte Additionnel. His reasons for the concessions, as they are reported by Benjamin Constant, are remarkable. France, he said, had enjoyed twelve years of repose from political agitation and one year of repose from war. " Ce double repos lui a rerula un besoin d'activite. Elle veut on croit vouloir une tri- bune et des assemblees he gout des constitutions, des debats, des harangues, parait revenu. . . . S'il y a des moyens
de gouverner par une constitution, a la bonne heurc Je ne hais point la liberte. Je 1 'carte lorsqu'elle obstruait ma route ; maim je In eomprends, j'ai Ste nourri dans see pensees. . . . . L'on n'est pas a quarante einq ans cc qu'on etait a trente. La repos d'un roi constitutionnel pent me couvenir ; ii conviendra. plus sfirernent encore a mon film." From these striking phrases, and from those in the same conversation, where he declares him- self not only the Emperor of the soldiers, but of the peasants and . plebeians of France, we may catch a glimpse of the Spirit of the Emperor conceding constitutional reforms. The only act in the life of the first Napoleon analogous to that in the- third Napoleon, just accomplished before our eyes in the grant of- the " Acte Additionnel." Both were promulgated in the same way, by decrees in the Moniteur. Is it irrelevant to ask whether- the "spirit" that inspired the remarks we have quoted, whether the " ideaa " they express, have had any influence in producing the recent decree P Is it felt that after eight years of compres- sion, le gout for constitutions, debates, harangues, has returned, and that it is not desirable to resist ; that liberty, which was re- moved as an obstruction, must now be restored, because the na- tion wishes or believes she wishes for liberty ; and is it felt that when one is forty-five or fifty years of age, the role of a constitu- tional monarch is more likely to agree with one and still more with one's heir The spirit of the Emperor's policy was to cal- culate effects, as they bore upon himself; and we havethe highest authority for saying that the spirit of the Emperor's policy in- spires the resolves of his successor.
However that may be, whether the Emperor feels that there is something wanting to give stability to the present and still more- to the future ; whether he has been struck by the spectacle afforded by contemporary history of the vices inherent in a des- potic system; whether he believes that the taste for debates and constitutions has come back' whether he desires to diminish the discord between himself and public opinion; or whether be only
wants additional support from the people for purposes inscrutable; in any case, we can only rejoice that he has increased the liberties of Frenchmen, by making it possible for independent men to take a seat in the national Parliament. With the means placed at their disposal, restricted as they are, the Constitutionalists of France can do much if they set to work in the right way. And if the Imperial policy of gradual instalments of freedom prove an efficacious solution of the problem of Parliamentary Government in France, a means of educating statesmen, politicians, and con- stituents iu political conduct, then the Emperor will have been one of the greatest benefactors of France, and not the least of the benefactors of Europe. For our parts, we have no faith in such a result, although we admit that, under certain conditions, it is a_ result that might be achieved.
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