THE MONARCHICAL CONSPIRACY IN FRANCE.
THE English people are scarcely yet awake to the unusual depth of political profligacy involved in the Restoration of the French Monarchy in the manner now proposed. This journal has never been opposed to Constitutional Monarchy as a method of government—though it believes that France, of all countries, needs some method of changing her Executive without a Revolution, and is unlikely to adhere permanently to the English one ;—nor to the Comte de Chambord personally, if he would but adhere to the language of the letters in which in his earlier period he professes himself friendly to the Constitutional method. We have never modified our original judgment on him,—that he is a rather ordinary man, who is quite aware that he is no statesman, but nevertheless believes strongly in himself as having some mystical grace, very obstinate except when the Pope inter- feres, very unselfish, and just as clerical as Catholic Kings usually are,—that is, very deferential to the Church till it interferes with their having their own way, and then not deferential at all. But the Spectator has been opposed, and remains so, to the establishment of any government whatever in France by trick or force, by cajoling or threatening her people out of their sovereign right. And this is precisely what the Monarchical party is now doing. It is using an immense power, granted to it for very different purposes, to strike a coup d'e?at on behalf of a Prince whom France does not know, and a Constitution which France is not to be asked even to approve. The whole of its action is in the nature of a conspiracy. To this hour the Government has taken no overt part in the intrigues with the Comte de Chambord, although, no doubt, by postponing the elections to the last minute allowed by law, it has been careful to protect them. An irresponsible fraction of the Assembly—majority or minority matters nothing—relying on the ignorance of the provinces and the obedience of the Army to its chiefs, has been for eighteen months intriguing with the Comte de Chambord, has extorted from him immense and to him not wholly creditable concessions,—for his language about the White Flag, " By my unshaken fidelity to my Flag, it is the very honour of France and her glorious past that I defend," was in the nature almost of an oath,—has won over Marshal MacMahon and the soldiery, has tried to corrupt the few Members necessary to majority, has, in fact, done everything except consult either the Assembly or France. The Assembly, when won, it proposes to consult, but to France it will address no word. It will not dissolve. It will not allow fourteen vacant seats to be filled. It will not propose candidates openly pledged to the Monarchy. It refuses in the most contemptuous terms to answer questions from constituents, and it supports the Government in suppressing the independent provincial Press. It tries, and fails, to call together the Assembly before its time ; it is about to force the project of law establishing Monarchy through the Bureau; and it proposes that the debate once begun, the Assembly should sit in permanent Session, thus limiting the debate, which else might reach all France—for the Republicans could easily speak for a month—to three days at the outside. And it does all this, not as many things are done, in the entainty that France is content, that an informal plebiscite has sanctioned everything, but in the certainty that France is so discontent that the majority dare not dissolve, dare not allow a single election they can help ; in the knowledge that in the only four appeals to the people which it was beyond
their power to avoid, the very peasantry in masses sent up their opponents to resist the Restoration. They know, in fact, that France is so hostile that its anger may proceed to horrible lengths, to a jacquerie or an insurrection, and yet they persist in their outrageous claim to a Divine-Right power. There has never been such a thing done in Europe. The terrible suppression of the Berliners in 1848 was done in the name of the legitimate Government, and only restored what was. In France, the usurpation of the 2nd of December was condoned formally by the people, while the usurpation of the 4th of September was legally ratified by a free Assembly elected by universal suffrage. Our own Revolution was achieved by a Convention ad hoc, and the Act of Settlement was passed by a legal Parliament. The suppression of the Irish Legislature was no doubt almost as bad, the electorate being entirely opposed to the design ; but then the body of the people had never had votes, and there was reason to doubt whether they disapproved. In this case, a clique of gentle- men assembled for a different purpose are about, as they think, to change the whole character, motive, and tendency of the French Constitution without a single appeal to France, though they know they can control all her officials.
Just let our readers imagine such a scene in England. Suppose a Ministry with a strong majority to desire to abolish the Monarchy, to introduce a Bill for that purpose, to find that the people were in huge majorities opposed to them, and nevertheless, to force the Bill through the Peers, wring a consent from the Sovereign, and publish it as an Act, would even the traditional reverence for an Act of Parliament keep them unimpeached, keep even their persons from incessant attack Would it not be justly argued that this was conspiracy, not legislation, that the majority were not sent up to destroy, but to preserve the existing Constitution,—that they were bound to consult England by an election ad hoc before com- pleting so vast an innovation ? We should have no particular objection, except the historic one, to see the House of Lords swept away, and replaced by a House of Eminencies ; but we should undoubtedly hold the Minister a traitor who passed such an Act without a dissolution, and the French Monarchists are carrying out an infinitely greater change without a word to the people. Suppose that just before the Act abolishing the Peers was to be passed, four vacancies occurred, in Cornwall, Warwick- shire, Bristol, and Greenwich, and that all four, having been previously unconsulted, returned by immense majorities deadly enemies to the Ministerial scheme. Could it be passed i Has there ever been a Ministry so utterly lost to all principles of constitutional government as to attempt to pass it ? Yet this is what the French majority propose to do, or rather it is much less, for as the Pall Mall Gazette has pointed out, there has been a continuous run of- elections towards Republi- canism ever since 1871, the numbers being, out of 151 elections, 111 Republicans, while only three Legitimists were returned, and of them only one, in Brittany, ventured to avow himself a Monarchist. The country, in fact, is taken by surprise as much as in a regular coup d'etat; while it will be shot down if it resists in the same way, and there will be no plebiscite to condone everything. France is to be handed over like property to a family which, having been once condemned and expelled by regular vote, has no right to her throne, without popular consent,—and this not by a hero who had defended her, or by an army which had saved her, or by a man whose genius might compensate for her losses, but by a knot of humdrum gentlemen of property, employers of labour, and millionaires of all kinds, who are not now representatives of the people, and only make their coup d'e'tat because they fancy that if they do not, a Conservative Republic, elected by five millions of little proprietors, might make war upon property. They are furious with pecuniary cowardice, and will make France take a King lest a Parliament should put on an imp& progressif. We are almost unable to believe in the French people enduring such an attack upon their liberties, and still hope that at the very last moment the recollection that a detested King must be weak for war, that the conquest of Spain would only dissipate French strength, and that a policy of clericalism would leave France isolated in Europe, will carry over the waverers to M. Thiers' ranks. If it does not, if on November 12 the Monarchy 14 proclaimed, and the descendant of the man who passed the Edict of Nantes is escorted by cavalry to his throne, every party in France will in turn have resorted to coups d'e?at, and France has only to await as calmly as she may the next revolution. A Constitutional throne cannot be founded in a night by a coup de main, or by a Bourbon.
Previous page
