THE DISQUIET IN FRANCE.
THE uneasiness with which many English politicians are watching the course of events in France is probably a little premature, but there is some ground for it. It has long been noticed that a new regime in France lasts about eighteen years, and is then given up ; and that curious feature in the history of a nation is not altogether inexplicable. The French are accustomed to make revolutions and counter-revolutions when other peoples make great changes of party. They know that their social system is founded on a rock, that no party will abrogate the Code, or restore primogeniture, or abolish the conscription, or confiscate small properties ; and being at once logicians and actors, they make their changes dramatic and complete, altering the very appearance of the form of government. The date is fixed apparently by a cer- tain growth in age. By the time the voters of thirty, who set up one form of government, approach fifty, they are disappointed with it, weary of it, long for a new experiment, and cease to defend it. Then the young are left free to try their hands, and they make their attempt in the French way, by some sort of a revolution, in which the initiative rests either with the Army or the masses, but which is subsequently con-
firmed by the body of the electors. Sixteen out of the usual eighteeen years have now elapsed, and though there is no recognisable wish for revolution, there are appreciable signs of the uneasiness which in France precedes great movements. The electors who made the Republic are not content with it. It has not given them the things they like best,—peace, glory, or pecuniary ease. There has been no great war, but a great many conscripts have been used up, and a mass of treasure wasted, in undertakings which have not been very successful, and which the peasantry do not care about. The people who are conscripted do not want either Tunis, or Tonquin, or Madagascar, and only allow their con- quest when told that the effort will be slight. They posi- tively refused to go to war with China, even when retreat was not especially creditable. As to glory, there has been none. There was no war in Tunis, only an immense consumption of conscripts by disease ; the Tonquin War was not victorious, and the affair in Madagascar interests no one out of the official departments. France has no ally, is as much overshadowed by Germany as ever, and occupies in foreign countries a less conspicuous position than she did. As to prosperity, the taxes are heavier, prices lower—and in France five-sevenths of the people are producers—and the Debt growing rapidly to un- precedented proportions. The Republic is at peace, but loan follows loan, and yet the Treasury is never at ease. The Government is wasteful, yet has little to show except schools
for its expenditure, and schools, though popular enough, are hardly objects of love with Frenchmen. There has been no im- provement in the things the electors care most about, while em- ployers have been frightened by scenes like those at Decazeville, religious men vexed by petty persecutions, and the respectables worried by what they think the undue favour shown to disorderly ideas. There is discontent so deep, that already more than a third of all French electors have announced at the polls either a readiness to be done with the Republic, or at least to give it a severe lesson ; and the Republican leaders have become so alarmed, that, to check the movement, they have expelled the Princes. Their calculation is that if the electors see that the Republic is strong, they will go on obeying it, and that the violent expulsion of the chiefs of a great hostile party will be taken as proof of strength ; but the calculation of itself proves how ill at ease they are.
It is natural enough that under such circumstances the Army should be watched with anxiety, and even with sus- picion. It is known not to be quite pleased with itself or the Republic,—with itself, because it has not gained glory ; and with the Republic, because the civilians rule it so completely. It is also known that reactionary feeling is stronger in the Army than in the nation, partly because military officers are always inclined towards discipline, partly because in an Army which seeks educated officers a majority of them will always come from the class best able to pay for education. The Army is therefore watched, and its official chief, General Boulanger, has contrived of late to deepen the suspicion. His politics are scarcely known—though he was selected as a rela- tive and partisan of M. Clemenceau—but whatever they are, he is clearly trying to get the Army into his hands. He is unweariedly active, very despotic, very much inclined to pet the common soldiers—as witness his orders relaxing the rules for return to barracks at night—and wholly indisposed to allow popular officers to express opinions of their own. He shows him- self everywhere in every corner of France, and he makes speeches which are interpreted as indicating a wish that " the Army " as a separate corporation should take new pride in itself. These are the signs, some French Radicals say, which precede coups d'etat; and as they know that all Royalists are irritated, that the compromise between Liberals and Radicals cannot last, and that there may be a vacancy in the Presidency any day, they are troubled, and inclined to exaggerate. Probably they do exaggerate. There must be scores of thousands of Republicans in the French Army, and it is a fixed idea of their Generals that whatever happens, if the Army moves, it must move as a body, that, as they put it, " there must be no civil war in the barracks." It was in a great degree by an appeal to that feeling that Gambetta was able to compel Marshal Mac- mahon to resign when all was ready for a coup d'e'tat. Until the whole Army is disgusted, therefore, there will be no move- ment, which, again, must be one for some definite cause. French Generals are too jealous to let one of themselves strike for his own hand, and there is no name as yet which is generally accepted as fitting to be the war-cry of a new regime. It would take some new occurrence, such as a catastrophe abroad, or a serious emeute at home, or a victory of the Extremists in the Chamber, or the choice of a President hated by the Army, to make the whole force act together ; and till that happens, the Army, whatever its temper, is certain to wait. Still, the mere facts that if anything did occur it could act, that it possesses an efficient Commandant who is not quite understood, and that it is disposed to come a little more to the front, make serious politicians uneasy, and extreme Radicals frantic, and both have fixed their eyes with curious intentness on General Boulanger. As yet it would not be safe to say more than that confidence in the Republic is, outside Paris, decreasing ; but then, that would be true, and in France that is not a good sign. The symptoms would pro- bably pass away if there were a return of prosperity ; but there is no sign of that yet, and another year or two of depres- sion, dullness, and general failure may exhaust the thin poli- tical patience of a generation which has lost most of its original hope that the Republic would be tranquil, powerful, and cheap. The peasants, who at Gambetta's signal swerved in a mass towards the Republic, are a good deal disenchanted.
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