tive—have defeated their opponents. In Bordeaux, M. authority, and no
idea of a limitation of power except in the legis- Caduc, a " decided " Radical, comes in by 45,000 votes lative department, with which M. Thiers has not interfered, except to 29,000; in the Indre-et-Loire, M. Nioche, almost a Red, by a threat of resignation. They think they give a terrible defeated M. Schneider, the Bonapartist, with his immense warning when they quote M. Thiers' great age, quite forget- local influence, by 30,800 to 29,700; in the Vosges, M. ting that for sixty-seven years, quite two generations, every Meline wins by 30,600 to 24,100; and so on in the Oise and man in France has been convinced that the regime existing at Calvados, the latter a very stronghold of reactionary feeling, the moment would last only during a life always in danger of In the Morbihan alone is there a different result. In that being cut short unexpectedly. Everybody said so in 1805, in strictly Legitimist and Catholic department, M. Martin still 1818, in 1832, in 1849, and at almost any time between heads the poll with 40,000 votes ; but his Radical rival, M. those dates. The First Empire was to disappear with Napo- Beauvais, received 30,000, or nearly double the vote he oh- lean, the Restoration with Louis XVIII., the juste milieu with tamed at the last election. The triumph for the Republicans Louis Philippe, the Second Empire with Louis Napoleon, all is nearly complete. In no case can their victory be ascribed of them lives exposed to very exceptional risk. The only to personal influence, no allegations are made of unusual difference between this time and another is that there exists official pressure, and they have as much right to claim the at this moment out of Paris an Assembly pretty sure to be large number of abstentions as indicative of acquiescence as protected by the troops, which possesses a legal right of elect- their rivals to say they indicate want of interest in the ing another head of the Executive, and that without a delay struggle. In no case either, except the Gironde, has the of twenty minutes. Since 1774 no man but Louis XVIIL result been greatly affected by the presence of any large urban has died as ruler of France under any name whatever, and it electorate, such as that which, for instance, controls elections is simply impossible that men trained for a century under in the valley of the Seine, that experience should regard a change in the ultimate execu- The result appears to have caused some surprise in Paris, tire power with the awe with which it seems to be regarded and both surprise and irritation in this country, but we by the Times, and indeed by all Englishmen, trained from child- fail almost entirely to see why. Republican successes might hood to think that the transmission of power must be unbroken, have been anticipated. The small landowners in France The peasant thinks so too, but then he also thinks it is un- have always displayed as their strongest political impulse broken, resting as it does always in himself and his comrades, an aversion to change, and the Republic being in po sea- who, but for that restless, detestable, admirable Paris, would be sion, the election of any one hostile to a Republic implies stable and persistent enough. Universal suffrage involves many a desire for a change in the near future. That sentiment mischiefs to our minds far outweighing its benefits, but it has, might not indeed be victorious against a stronger one, such as at least, this advantage. It does bring home to the people the religions feeling, or loyalty to a dynasty, or sanguine trust in fact that ultimate right and ultimate power rest with them. an individual, or an extreme sense of personal gratitude, but It is all very well to say the electors obey the Executive. -No those strong feelings have in France just now but little relative doubt they trust it, as the only powerful friend they have ever influence. Fanaticism is feeble, loyalty is dead, trust in the had ; but let Marshal Bazaine seize power for a night, and try extatic sense is not, and what of gratitude there is attaches to a plebiscite, not for Napoleon or his son, but for himself. M. Thiers. In Brittany, indeed, hereditary reverence for the Would he have a thousand votes ? We utterly disbelieve seigneurs and the priesthood, though rapidly declining, is not that since 1798 a disliked Government has ever borne for three dead, and in the Morbihan M. Martin is consequently elected, years rule in France. but outside Brittany to what was an enemy of the Republic to There is one more point upon which, as we read affairs, appeal ? To the White Flag ? That is, at all events, to a opinion in this country gravely misconceives popular opinion great and probably violent change, the benefit of which was in France. It is constantly said here—the Times is always not appreciable to a peasant, who, whether religious or not, is saying it—that in accepting the Republic the peasantry are quite determined not to pay tithe, who is not convinced about only accepting M. Thiers ; that they like personal rule, and the Temporal Power, and who cannot rid himself of a dread they like him, and therefore their acceptance of him is no that the Monarchy, even if friendly to Rome, would also be guarantee for the Republic. Why not ? Surely if the latent favourable to the old noble caste. De Toequeville, certainly desire of France is for a quiet succession of ruling persons who not a prejudiced witness, found this feeling so immovable that shall interpret her thoughts and wishes as a Parliament might, he deduced from it a theory that the old regime was worse in but with more energy, speed, and leas friction, the quickest reality than his long researches seemed to prove ; and the way to secure that end is to maintain a Republic, under which recent letter of the Comte de Chambord, if it had been made election by a majority of departments implies a complete
most popular journals of the United States have had known in time, could only have made it deeper. That letter the incredible folly and ill taste to impute to us bad faith seems to us the production of the mind we have always attri- in the matter, and to threaten us with war as the penalty buted to the Bourbon Pretender, a calm and serene mind, immut- for that bad faith. What conclusion is the British people ably convinced, but scarcely belonging to our century ; and likely to draw from such language except this,—that the more it urges a crusade which, wise or foolish, the peasant does not conciliatory our actions to the United States may be, the more want to begin. No avowed Orleanist appeared at the polls. The bullying and insolent will become the tone of the United avowed Bonapartist who did appear accepted the Republic,— States' Press I That is not a consideration which will conduce that is, promised to avoid that change to Imperial institutions much to a conciliatory policy in future. which, like the change to Monarchy, would involve the revolu- tion the peasant wishes to avert. No individual name outside the dynasties, except M. Thiers and M. Gambetta, is so much
THE RECENT ELECTIONS IN FRANCE. as known to the people of France at large. There remained RE Republic in France is still solidifying itself. We have nothing for the anti-Republicans to appeal to except the dread never been of those who are blind to the difficulties of the Republic, and this, once so potent a spell, is rapidly dying which impede that form of government in France, the wide away. The peasant did not dread a Republic because it was scope it offers to individual ambitions, the provocation it gives not a Monarchy, buti because it was weak, unstable, and un- to the grand political vice of Frenchmen—their tendency to friendly to property, and he begins to see that these are not oppress the minority—the new obstacles it raises to the pro- necessary incidents, but only temporary accidents of that form clamation of a political truce between the Church and the of government. This Republic is very strong, appears to last, sceptics, and the excessive energy it gives to an Executive has not imposed special taxation on land, has crushed the already too energetic, but it is folly to question the patent Commune, and has been attended by unusually good harvests. facts. Whether M. Thiers is too absolute or no, whether People say if it lasts Gambetta will rule. " Well," says the Gambetta is or is not at heart a Caner, whether the periodical peasant to himself, " this Gambetta fought for France, and election of a master will or will not strain the conservative says he desires ' that property should be safe, and that every- forces of the country too severely, the Elections prove that the body should have some.' " The Cure says if the Republic lasts greatest of powers in France, the peasantry, are reconciling there will be secular education. " Well, but then will not themselves to the Republic, that their inherent dislike of that education also be gratuitous I One pays at present." The change is enlisting itself upon that side. The seven elections seigneur says if M. Thiers dies there will be uproar, perhaps of Sunday, it must be remembered, covered each of them an blood-shed, or even civil war. "Well, will he guarantee the entire department, and three of them departments noted for immortality of his King?" This last idea, it is evident, weighs conservative feeling of one kind or another, yet in six of them with real force upon English correspondents, who assert that candidates more or less " Gambettist "—that is to say, Re- M. Thiers is autocratic, and quite forget that a Frenchman of publicans with an impression that M. Thiers is too Conserve- to-day has no experience of a master who did not act on his own tive—have defeated their opponents. In Bordeaux, M. authority, and no idea of a limitation of power except in the legis- Caduc, a " decided " Radical, comes in by 45,000 votes lative department, with which M. Thiers has not interfered, except to 29,000; in the Indre-et-Loire, M. Nioche, almost a Red, by a threat of resignation. They think they give a terrible defeated M. Schneider, the Bonapartist, with his immense warning when they quote M. Thiers' great age, quite forget- local influence, by 30,800 to 29,700; in the Vosges, M. ting that for sixty-seven years, quite two generations, every Meline wins by 30,600 to 24,100; and so on in the Oise and man in France has been convinced that the regime existing at Calvados, the latter a very stronghold of reactionary feeling, the moment would last only during a life always in danger of In the Morbihan alone is there a different result. In that being cut short unexpectedly. Everybody said so in 1805, in strictly Legitimist and Catholic department, M. Martin still 1818, in 1832, in 1849, and at almost any time between heads the poll with 40,000 votes ; but his Radical rival, M. those dates. The First Empire was to disappear with Napo- Beauvais, received 30,000, or nearly double the vote he oh- lean, the Restoration with Louis XVIII., the juste milieu with tamed at the last election. The triumph for the Republicans Louis Philippe, the Second Empire with Louis Napoleon, all is nearly complete. In no case can their victory be ascribed of them lives exposed to very exceptional risk. The only to personal influence, no allegations are made of unusual difference between this time and another is that there exists official pressure, and they have as much right to claim the at this moment out of Paris an Assembly pretty sure to be large number of abstentions as indicative of acquiescence as protected by the troops, which possesses a legal right of elect- their rivals to say they indicate want of interest in the ing another head of the Executive, and that without a delay struggle. In no case either, except the Gironde, has the of twenty minutes. Since 1774 no man but Louis XVIIL result been greatly affected by the presence of any large urban has died as ruler of France under any name whatever, and it electorate, such as that which, for instance, controls elections is simply impossible that men trained for a century under in the valley of the Seine, that experience should regard a change in the ultimate execu- The result appears to have caused some surprise in Paris, tire power with the awe with which it seems to be regarded and both surprise and irritation in this country, but we by the Times, and indeed by all Englishmen, trained from child- fail almost entirely to see why. Republican successes might hood to think that the transmission of power must be unbroken, have been anticipated. The small landowners in France The peasant thinks so too, but then he also thinks it is un- have always displayed as their strongest political impulse broken, resting as it does always in himself and his comrades, an aversion to change, and the Republic being in po sea- who, but for that restless, detestable, admirable Paris, would be sion, the election of any one hostile to a Republic implies stable and persistent enough. Universal suffrage involves many a desire for a change in the near future. That sentiment mischiefs to our minds far outweighing its benefits, but it has, might not indeed be victorious against a stronger one, such as at least, this advantage. It does bring home to the people the religions feeling, or loyalty to a dynasty, or sanguine trust in fact that ultimate right and ultimate power rest with them. an individual, or an extreme sense of personal gratitude, but It is all very well to say the electors obey the Executive. -No those strong feelings have in France just now but little relative doubt they trust it, as the only powerful friend they have ever influence. Fanaticism is feeble, loyalty is dead, trust in the had ; but let Marshal Bazaine seize power for a night, and try extatic sense is not, and what of gratitude there is attaches to a plebiscite, not for Napoleon or his son, but for himself. M. Thiers. In Brittany, indeed, hereditary reverence for the Would he have a thousand votes ? We utterly disbelieve seigneurs and the priesthood, though rapidly declining, is not that since 1798 a disliked Government has ever borne for three dead, and in the Morbihan M. Martin is consequently elected, years rule in France.
claim to the executive power. Surely that is a system which allows of revolution without revolt. We do not approve that form of Republic, because we hold it inimical to the true guaranteee of States, the unresisted supremacy of Law ; and because also we fear the interpreter will never remain strictly honest, will always be hungering, as Napoleon was, to express himself rather than the electorate, to secure his dynasty rather than freedom ; but still it is a form, and one far nearer the wishes of the people, if they wish for per- sonal government, than any monarchy, whether chivalric, or bourgeois, or military. If we have a fear about France, it is that she my keep a Republic, not because a Republic implies the superiority alike of law and of the people over privilege, but because she wishes to be constantly represented by an indivi- dual rather than by a Council,—that is, wishes to be represented energetically, even if she is in consequence also represented inadequately. She may, like the Catholic Church, be repre- sented through the ages by a long line of individuals who, because of the very plenitude of their power over details, tend to be over-conservative in essentials, and to stereotype society lest they should shake its fabric. That is the result of hereditary despotism, even when, as in Turkey, it does not much repress individual liberty, and we do not see why it should be otherwise with representative despotism. But to say that if France desires that dangerous form of govern- ment, she cannot most easily obtain it under a Republic, seems to us untrue. It may be a bad Republic she will get, and will certainly be an uncertain one, the representative power always modifying more or less the will of the electing power ; but it will be a Republic,—that is, the ultimate and acknowledged authority within it will be the vote of the people. An unconstitutional Republic can exist as well as an unconstitutional Monarchy.
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