TOPICS OF THE DAY
THE FRENCH ELECTIONS.
FRANCE has begun to weary of the Government of Napoleon. That is, stated broadly, the result of the Elections. The Opposition, which recently numbered but five members, and even last year scarcely exceeded 25, will, there is reason to believe, this year approach, perhaps exceed, 90, or nearly a clear third of the Legislative Body, and this after counting every official candidate as devoted to the Empire. As yet all the figures are subject to correction, but on a comparison of the best accounts, it would seem certain that the " irreconcilables " already elected number 26, that 10 of these have double seats, and will nominate their substitutes, and that in 58 cases a second ballot is required because the fractions opposed to the Empire have been too strong to permit the Imperialist candidates to secure the Glees majority required by law. It is asserted that in all these cases the fractions will, with the ready tact of Frenchmen, unite on one, and in that event M. Rouher will have 94 enemies to face. This of itself is a great fact, for Ctesarism needs more than a majority, it requires a feeble opposition, but analysis vastly increases its importance. After seventeen years of the Empire, the great cities of France, cities which to an exceptional degree collect the picked brains and activities of the provinces, have decided by a majority of nearly three-fourths that they wish no more of Napoleon, that they desire a Republic, that with them hostility to the dynasty, fiery, persistent, almost cruel hostility, is the highest qualification a candidate can display. In Paris, which, whether it rules France or not, at all events leads France, regard for the Empire has disappeared. Not one Imperialist has been or will be returned, and only one man not a Republican, and he M. Thiers, of all moderates the one most opposed to the scheme of personal government. IL Cochin, the only man supported by authority who had a chance of success, is really a nominee of the Parti Pretre; and even he, though he stands for the Faubourg St. Germain, is personally popular, and has all the Legitimists behind him, is outnumbered by thousands, and on the second ballot will be defeated. Emile 011ivier, chief of the Third Party, the only statesman in France whose cry is Liberty under the Napoleons, has been beaten by two to one ; by a Red of 1849 without a modern claim ; and M. Rochefort, editor of the Lanterne, a man whose popularity is due to a felicity for epigrammatic insult on the Empire, is said to be sure of his return, and has at all events more votes than his official opponent. Both in Paris and Marseilles the largest and most enthusiastic majorities have been polled for Gambetta, the advocate, who rose to power by his single speech in defence of the accused in the Baudin " conspiracy,"—a speech which, in its scathing eloquence, its wealth of invective, and, we must add, its unreason, recalled the days of the Gironde. Judging him by his speech alone, we should say M. Gambetta was sincere ; and if so, the Empire has never aroused a more formidable opponent. Wherever a known Red has started in the cities, he has distanced all opponents, defeating not only Orleanists like Prevost Paradol and M. Herve, but Republicans of the Cavaignac school like Carnot or M. Marie. Indeed, it would almost appear that a large section of the bourgeoisie must have voted with the Republicans, for out of the 265,000 votes given in Paris, 210,000 were given to the opponents of the Empire, 12,000 to M. Emile 011ivier, who is opposed to personal government, and only 48,000 to the nominees of the Government, including M. Cochin, who fights for his own hand and the temporal sovereignty of the Pope. Napoleon, aided by the Priests, and in full possession of the irresistible administrative machine, has not succeeded in securing one-sixth the total number of votes in a city upon which he has lavished millions, in which he resides, which he has made, if not the first, at least the most brilliant city in the world.
The severity of the blow to the Empire will, of course, be differently estimated according to the opinion each observer has formed of the relation of Paris to France. There are who believe that Paris, now as for centuries, is France, and to them the vote must seem almost the death-warrant of the Empire. There are also who hold that Paris is a Republic in the midst of a monarchy, that it is essentially antagonistic to France, and that its importance arises only from the grip which its vast and semi-military mob, numbering probably 400,000 grown men, of whom half have passed through the military mill, can press upon the heart of the great organism, and these will almost exult at the stimu lus which the voice of Paris will give to the reaction, throughout France. But to those with whom we should agree, who hold that Paris neither is France, nor is antagonistic to France, but is the Nilometer of France, the register of the coming tide of political passion, a. register always accurate, though always far above the actual water level, the blow seems terribly severe. The intelligence of France, the brain which, fevered as it may be, is still nobler than the body, has condemned the Empire, condemned•. it furiously, condemned it with needless words of shrill insalt. To the Emperor himself the stroke must give almost unendurable pain. His is no peasant intelligence, no mind which can reckon only material results, no temperament content with daily food. He wants to represent these very men, who scorn him, to be their accepted chief, their pride, their leader even, not merely their master, resting on bayonets like any monarch of the old world. He has watched Paris, courted Paris, flattered Paris, and Paris at every election, in higher and sharper tones, responds only with the cry, "Ad leones I" It is to the lions, to the men who would devour him, to the " irreconcilables," who would despise Heaven if he ruled there, that his capital has striven to throw the Emperor. No ruler with a brain better than that of a tortoise could listen to such a cry unmoved ; and there is little consolation to be found as he looks abroad. The great cities respond to the summons of the greatest, and though the little cities do not, they also swell the ranks of the less fervid opponents of the Empire ; while, if our view of the result of the second ballot is correct, the Emperor has lost a fourth of the representatives for the Departments and nearly half of the total Electorate. In almost every department a heavy vote has been thrown against him, and, imperfect as the statistics are, we incline to believe, with the Times, that when the mass vote is counted, one Frenchman in every three will be found to have voted against the Empire. The Gazette de France indeed affirms that the mass vote has been reckoned, and that the hostile candidates obtained 3,248,885 votes, against• 4,053,056 given to the Empire. It must be with an unusual sense of fatigue, with a deeper distaste for all things, that the weary, melancholy man who still is France for the world must turn him once more to his work, the winning of a stable throne.
What will he do ? That he will rest content, using his majority and advancing through the next six years as through the past six, seems to us most improbable. Content is no part of his character, or of that of his people; that minority,. if he remains tranquil, will grow and grow till it destroys either his power or himself ; and his mind, though indolent, is creative. If he decides, on the other hand, as we think he will decide, on movement, he has at least four distinct policies before him. One, which will be pressed on him by the Bonapartists, is to accept the vote as a declaration of war, to withdraw the liberties he has granted, and to reign as he did for a time, as autocrat of France, rather than a Crofter. He will be pressed to try that by men like M. de Persigny, but. the pressure will not be palatable to him. He does not want to be a vulgar Emperor sitting on bayonets, but the elect of France, strong because the nation is strong, autocrat only because the nation must be autocrat, and because he is the executive expression of its latent will. Besides, despotism in France implies a despot who will work, and Napoleon year by year grows more weary of personal toil, shrinks more from details, dreams for longer and longer intervals of time. Or he may yield, as Ernie 011ivier advises, and concede Ministerial responsibility, sink in fact, if not in form, into a Parliamentary King. The elections, however, give him little encouragement to such a course as that. Their meaning is that his foes are implacable, that they have condemned him, and not merely his regime ; that they will use every power he gives to establish a Republic in which he can have no place. There is no reason either to doubt that his dislike of Parliamentary Government is sincere ; that he despises its slowness, its habit of compromise, the place it gives to mere power of talk, that he honestly believes it a bad method of representation. Frenchmen of great intelligence believe that this,—the concession of a responsible Ministry,—will be his course ; but Frenchmen of great intelligence have, from the beginning, failed to estimate the least French of all the men who have ruled France. Judging by his history, this is the last device to which the Emperor will descend, for it will be equivalent to a confession that the Napoleons have no raison d'être. Then it is not to be forgotten that Napoleon has always been on one side of his mind Socialist, that the men elected by Paris are advocates of the Republic democratic and social, that he might hope by some great stride in that direction to renew his hold upon the masses. He may have still in reserve some plan which by remedying, or rather alleviating, the social miseries .of France might bind the population to his throne ; but it is difficult, almost impossible, to see what even he could do in that direction which would compensate for the indefinite hopes held out by the Republic. Any such step,--say, for example, as the grant of the droit du travail,— Troia rouse the propertied classes, and in France there .are 5,000,000 of proprietors, five in eight of the whole electorate. Any Poor-law, even the grant of pension to the aged as aged, would be fiercely resented, and would require taxation upon the rich. Or finally, the Emperor may divert all France from politics by plunging into the great war, by fighting out the postponed duel with Germany, with Belgium for the stake. The military party wish that, and it is useless to deny that much of the unpopularity of the Empire is due to Sadowa, to the foreign policy which has ended in diminishing the preponderance of France upon the Continent. This is for England the most unpleasing of the solutions ; but Napoleon has to think of an opinion other than ours. The stakes are terrible, France does not wish them played, there may be other plans in that many-counselling brain ; but still victory there, is victory once for all. The conqueror of the Rhine might grant liberty, and yet sit upon an easy throne. There is a week for thought, the second ballot before ; but if it results as we believe it will result, the chances of European war will be terribly increased.
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