IF M. GREVY RESIGNS?
WE do not expect that the French President will resign in consequence of what is known as the Caffarel affair, though it is not unnatural that politicians in Paris, heated with an overstrong diet of libel, should suppose so. M. Gravy is rich, old, and weary, and most desirous to end his career with- out accepting the frightful responsibilities which, in the event of war, would fall upon the head of the French State. His whole action as President has been directed by a wish to prolong the great truce. He has, moreover, been through life a sin- gularly respected man, much shielded from criticism by the defects as well as the merits of his character ; and he feels the newspaper attacks to which he has recently been subjected, with the acuteness of a man whom custom has not hardened to pen-prickings. To resign, however, in consequence of any clamour would be to give clamour its justification ; and whatever the result of the attack made 'on his son-in-law, which as yet appears to be purely malignant, the old Republican doctrinaire will have the fortitude to maintain his own dignity and that of his great place. We do expect, however, that if the Chamber, once more thrown into confusion, deserts M. Bouvier, and compels the President once more to weave his political rope of sand, he will take advantage of his unfair treatment to declare that the burden of his years presses too heavily upon him and upon France, and to resign his chair. This possi- bility, believed by many to be a certainty, weighs heavily on all the saner politicians and all the greater parties in France, and we do not wonder at their agitation. M. Gravy, who holds the Presidency to be a mere excrescence in the con- stitutional scheme, and who wished that the President in Council should be the avowed Chief of the State, has so exercised his great function that foreigners half forget how extensive its prerogatives might be made. The Constitution was drawn by Monarchists to be the instrument of a King. The powers to be devolved by the retiring President are far greater than those of a Constitutional Monarch. The Ministers in France are responsible to the President, and this responsi- bility could easily be made real. The President can legally dismiss any Minister, and, unless the Cabinet resigns to pro- tect him, can always find among the crowd of aspirants an eligible successor. He legally possesses the entire patronage of the State, and though he does not exercise it directly, his assent to any great appointment is indispensable, and
it is not etiquette, in regard to smaller posts, to refuse to attend to his recommendations. Patronage in France, where all members of the directing classes seek place, is far more valuable than in England ; and merely to be able to influence Gravy upon this subject makes of M. Wilson a great and envied personage. Upon important occasions, M. Chevy takes part in the deliberations of the Cabinet, which he therefore necessarily influences more than any other member ; and in some departments—notably Foreign Affairs—nothing is ever written to which he has not, whether willingly or reluctantly, assented. The new President would have all these powers, and one more, as great, perhaps, as all of them put together,—the right of recommending to the Senate a penal dissolution. M. Gravy has this right under the Con- stitution ; but he is believed to hold that it is a strictly Monarchical prerogative, and like the veto on legislative acts, is opposed to the Republican idea. At all events, M. Orevy pledged himself when he was elected never to dissolve, and under circumstances of the gravest provocation he has kept his pledge. It will not, however, bind his successor, and the next President will be as powerful as any head of the Executive, except perhaps the President of the United States, who can, under all ordinary circumstances, veto any law.
It is improbable almost to impossibility that a second dis- tinguished Frenchman will be found who holds M. Gravy's views of his duty, or who will keep himself so much in shadow that an acute observer like Sir Henry Maine could, in 1884, write of the French President that he was the one Chief of the State in Europe who neither reigned nor governed. The instinct of a Frenchman is to make his personality felt, and so to use all his prerogatives that he may be admired for their use. The next President, we may be sure, will be the greatest as well as the most visible personage in the State, as Marshal MacMahon, for example, was ; and the parties per- ceive that, and look forward to the election as one that will determine the character of the Republic for the immediate future. They will put in motion every device to overawe the Assembly, even an appeal to the populace or the Army ; and it might well be that the election, if protracted, would be the occasion for civil war. Parties in France have not the temper to bear the prospect of extinction for a time ; and just now the election would deepen sharply that division upon foreign policy which lies below all the names and all the war-cries of the three great factions. It is by no means impossible that either Marshal MacMahon or General Boulanger might be named and supported by large votes, and behind either are entire systems of government, European alliances, and a declaration of peace or war. No such struggle could be conducted in a country like France as a mere electoral contest, and it is in this fact lies the one hope—and it is a serious hope—of a quiet transfer of power. The right of electing the President belongs not to the people, or to any Council nominated ad hoc, but to the "Assembly,"—that is, to the two Chambers sitting together. They can meet and vote at once if they will, and with Paris seething round them, and all Europe looking eagerly on, they will, if the occasion arises, probably act with the rapidity which often renders French crises so intensely dramatic. The very necessity for avoiding external inter- ference will make the election as speedy as that of a Pope, under pressing circumstances, has occasionally been. The President will be elected, to use ecclesiastical terms, " by Adoration." An evening may suffice for the ballotinge, and the forces which make for anarchy are not so rapid as that. There is, be it remembered, no great personality left in France for whom a great party will sacrifice itself, no individual whose election or rejection would cause a descent into the streets, or even a grand outburst of emotion. There is not even a soldier great enough to make the will of the Army a factor in the situation. Of all the candidates as yet named, no one has, apart from his politics, a party in the State ; and if the Assembly, as is possible, chooses some "dark horse," the people will accept him as readily as any of those before their minds. Nobody, indeed, is before them except in the newspaper way. Nothing has been more remarkable of late years than their carelessness as to the names of successive Premiers. They have accepted each as he came, without disgust and without enthusiasm, and in that indifference may be found a security for the freedom of the Assembly in its choice. The resignation may not come, probably even will not come, unless M. Gravy is ill, for he will be overwhelmed with dissuasions which to him must seem so reasonable ; but if it comes, we venture to predict that M. Gravy's successor will be "the man who divides us least," whoever he may be, and that his election will be as rapid as a scene in a sensation play.
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