THE VOTE OF THE FRENCH ARMY.
THAT the recent vote of the French Army has been a surprise, as well to the enemies as to the friends of the Second Empire, it is impossible to doubt. The Emperor him- self was in such a hurry to show, or to endeavour to show, that he at least had no doubts as to the fidelity of his soldiers, that before the official proclamation of the vote on the Plebiscitum, he put forth a manifesto to the Army which bore on the face of it marks of the haste with which it had been composed. In his letter to Marshal Leboeuf his Majesty actually ignored the recent title he had conferred on the Minister of War, and addressed him as "my dear General," instead of "my dear Marshal "! The returns of the regimental vote at the different garrisons, which had at first been published, were stopped by superior order when it was found that at some of the most important stations, at Havre and Nantes notably, the " Noes " had actually obtained a majority. Of course, when the vote of the Army became known, and it was found that one out of every seven soldiers had thrown a "Non" into the ballot-box, the Republican journals went into ecstasies, and spoke of nothing less than the soldiers shooting down their officers and proclaiming the Republic. In spite of the absurdity of such predictions, it is evident that the vote of the Army has caused great annoyance in more than one quarter. If any proof of this were needed, it would be found in the orders of the day which have been issued by the colonels of the recalcitrant regiments, the order of the Colonel of the Gist, for example, expressing fear of punishment on the whole regiment. There are two totally opposite explanations of the unex- pected number of " Nons" in the Army. The first, that of the irreconcilable papers, the, Marseillaise, the Rappel, and the like, is that it is now clear that the Army is a mere broken reed in the hands of Napoleon Ill. ; that it is really Republican at heart, and that the appearance of nearly 50,000 negative votes, in spite of the immense pressure put on the soldiers, is a sign that a far larger proportion would have voted against the Empire had they dared. Hence they con- clude that there is little or no danger of the soldiers using their chassepots in case of a general uprising. The second explanation is that of the Government papers, and—if we may conclude from their silence on so important a matter— of a good many of the Liberal organs as well, viz. :—That the soldiers as a rule are, if left to themselves, little better than overgrown children, and will vote one way or the other, as the whim of the moment may incline them. They maintain that many of the "Nons" maybe attributed to such trifles as the badness of the food in some particular barracks, the un- popularity of certain colonels ; or again, the wish of some of the conscripts to show at once their independence and to annoy their sous-ojiciers, it being natural to the conscript mind to hate the man who teaches it the goose-step. Again, it is remarked that there is great jealousy between the soldiers of the Line and those of the Imperial Guard, and it is averred that the mere fact of its being known that the Guard would vote " Oui " was quite enough to make the Line do the con- trary. These different theories being nearly all ex parte, they must be taken for what they are worth ; but we think that anyone who knows French soldiers, and who recollects how entirely their ideas are centred in their regi- ments, will be ready to grant that it is more than likely many votes were prompted by causes wholly distinct from political. French officers are as highly-instructed and as intelligent, to say the least, as those of any other nation, all of them true soldiers, loving, as a rule, their profession, and not mere aristocratic idlers, like the officers of a neighbouring country ; but with the private soldiers the case is different. Seven-eighths of these latter are peasants, and the sort of pea- sants whose brains have been dulled by a long process of natural selection,' the sharpest sons having all gone to be workmen in the large towns, and the dullest having stayed behind to misarrange the hereditary half-acre and to beget children as thick-headed as themselves. From them is drawn the vast majority of the rank and file of the French Army. They make good soldiers enough in time, becoming mere machines, and often with little more intelligence. Although reading is now taught in the military schools, a studious soldier is not looked on with a favourable eye by his superiors. Newspapers especially are regarded by but too many commanding officers as devices of the Evil One, to lead the conscript astray. Indeed, a French soldier reading a newspaper is as rare a sight as an English one without his cap on one side, or walking without a stick in his hand. There exists, too, a good deal of discontent in the French Army as to purely military questions, such as the maintenance of the term of engagement at seven years, instead of its reduction to three. Rightly or wrongly, there is a very general belief in the ranks that the Emperor promised some time ago to have the term of service reduced to three years, and it is quite possible that many of the men who have already served three years consider them- selves ill-used, and voted " Non " just to give his Majesty a reminder. For these reasons, looking to the extreme diffi- culty of a propaganda (and the conscripts are certainly not born Irreconcilables) in favour of a Republic, in the ranks, we are inclined to oonclude that but a small proportion of the negative votes recently given can be fairly attributed to a feeling of hostility to Napoleon III. among his soldiers. To our mind, it would be of infinitely greater importance to know how the officers voted on the 8th of May. For it seems to us that, seeing the stupidity and ignorance which prevail to an extent of which only those who have had personal ex- perience of it can form an adequate conception, among the private soldiers, their votes, one way or the other, are of little or no moment. But the very unimportance of the vote of the rank and file makes that of their officers of doubly great moment. With these latter it is quite another matter, they—and doubtless a good many of the sous-olliciers as well—have all well defined political opinions, either for or against the existing re'ginie, opinions which are not to be influenced by the popularity of their colonels, or by any of the trifling motives which weigh with the men under their command. That a considerable number of French officers, some of them in high positions—. General MacMahon is a notable instance—are, theoretically at all events, in favour of a Republican form of government is no secret in Paris. Even at a time when the horrors of the Coup d'Etat were still fresh in men's minds, many who would shrink with horror from swearing fidelity to the Emperor in order to obtain any civil office did not hesitate to enter the Army, and to take the oath as soldiers, which they would never have done as citizens, considering that in so doing they were binding themselves to serve France, and not her ruler. Hence, among French officers may be found men of all shades of political opinion, Orleanists and Legitimists side by side with Republicans and Imperialists. For this, if for no other reason, we suspect there is, among the officers at all events, but little of that blind unreasoning worship of the name and dynasty of Napoleon which some of our contemporaries are so ready to attribute to all grades of the French Army.
It argues, too, a grave ignorance of France and of French institutions to compare, as is too often done in England, the French Army to the Praetorians of the Roman Empire, and to suppose that its chiefs can change the destinies of forty millions of men. Only once in the present century, and then under peculiar circumstances, which, from the very fact of their having occurred once, are not likely to occur again, have French officers and soldiers allowed themselves to be made the tools of a knot of conspirators against the liberties of their country. Some months ago, unless we are misinformed, several of the most influential General Officers met together in order to consider what should be their own line of conduct under the new re'gime, and at the same time to take the opinion of their brother officers as to the disposition of the men under their orders. The result of their deliberations is said to have been this :—" If a truly Liberal Constitution be granted by the Emperor, we answer both for ourselves and the men we com- mand; we and they will fight for a Liberal Empire like one man. But if, as some of the journals which are in a position to be well-informed pretend, a sedond coup d'e'tat is to be attempted, we answer for nothing, neither for the obedience of the men nor our own willingness to attempt to aid such a scheme." The significance of such a resolution is evident, and it is not surprising if it had an influence on the person most nearly concerned. We imagine that the above reply resumes very fairly the general feeling of the vast majority of French officers ; they, in common with all the members of the middle and upper classes—to which, it should be remembered, two- thirds of them belong both by birth and education—deter- mined to check resolutely all disorders in Paris or elsewhere, all attempts to change by violence the existing order of things, whether those attempts emanate from the Faubourg du Temple or from the Palace of the Tuileries. Just so long as the Emperor continues to keep the enlightened classes on his side, and at present they are with him, will the Army support him ; that they will maintain him on the Throne, or support the claims of his heir, against the wishes of the majority of the educated, we can see no reason to believe.
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