THE NEW BONAPARTIST MANIFESTO.
AN enemy to the French Republic hitherto disregarded has appeared this week in a new and formidable light. It has been the custom to assert that Prince Victor Bonaparte, though the undoubted head of the family and a Prince of the house of Savoy, was a man who from laziness, indifference, and bourgeois tendencies in general need not be reckoned among serious Pretenders. The hopes of the Bonapartists, it was alleged, rested upon his brother Louis, a Colonel of Russian Artillery, a man of singularly reserved character, and, personally, rather a favourite in the Russian Court. For some weeks past it has been rumoured, however, that the plan of nominating Prince Louis as a candidate had been abandoned, that Prince Victor declined to abdicate, that his brother had accepted the second position in the future Empire, and that the Empress Eugaie, though with some reluctance, bad agreed to the scheme, and had made arrangements as regards her property which would enable the brothers to command large funds. These reports might have been classed with the rumours which are always going about of intrigues against the Republic, but on Tuesday the Matin of Paris, a serious journal often used by the Foreign Office to explain its objects, published a statement profess- ing to give on the authority of a close friend and agent of Prince Victor an account of his political views. That account, as any one who reads it can see, is either a carefully considered manifesto from the Prince, or an astounding indiscretion by an intimate, and in either case deserves most careful attention. We believe it to be the former, if only because the indiscretion would be a little too gross, and because the programme is so utterly unlike anything which the Pretenders to the Crown of France periodically put forward to remind theirfollowers that they are still alive. If the account was dictated by Prince Victor, he is a very different man from what he has been described as being, and if it was submitted to him at all, he is capable of recognising and sanctioning a very bold and decided course of action. Instead of the vague flummery usual in such documents, the " militant member" of the faction declares that in Prince Victor's opinion " indifference and apathy have so weakened characters in France "—an indubitable truth, though we should give a different explanation of it—that he will not shrink, if necessary, " from a coup de force," and that his brother, who will shortly be General Bonaparte, will be found beside him on the day of action, and will " give him the support of his prestige and •military talent." Considering how Pretenders usually talk, that is plain speaking with a vengeance ; for it can only mean that the Bonapartist chiefs intend to head a military insurrection, and have either secured or have grounds for expecting military support. There is not in France, outside the Army, the material for a coup de force, nor would any one whatever who understood politics brand any kind of popular rising by anticipation with such a phrase. If the Prince is not libelled in a very strange way, he has resolved that truthfulness will serve him best, intends to strike a military coup d'Itat, and believes that while the announce- ment of his intention will inspirit the Army, it will cow the civil population. Then comes the eternal Dreyfus question, and here again a surprise awaits the reader. One would have expected a Pretender who avowedly relies on the Army to express a full belief in the guilt of Dreyfus, and some sort of sympathy with Anti-Semite feeling. Prince Victor, however, is either a much abler man than he was supposed to be, or has abler men about him whom he trusts. He recognises the need of not alienating the impartial men in the Army, or the intellectual men in the civil population, and tells France that the Jews have only gained their abnormal position through the mis- management of French finance, that his accession would deprive them of any " prerogatives which they have unjustly acquired," but that he does not understand, and will not concede, the demand for the expulsion of the caste. The next demand might be for the expulsion of all Protestants, — a rather rough reminder to the Church. He believes the complications of the Dreyfus affair to be wholly due to the weakness of successive Ministers, but delivers his own opinion in the following significant sentence, which is given in the first person, and intended to be considered a verbatim report :—"I have always been, I am, and shall never cease to be with the Army that I love passionately. I fail to understand how the unjustifiable attacks made on it can be tolerated. It cannot be made responsible for the conduct of certain officers sufficiently forgetful of the traditions of honour and loyalty to knowingly distort truth, whatever be the motives by which they may pretend to have been inspired. The Flag must be above everything; but I do not admit that patriotism can be accepted as an excuse for committing a forgery." The man who wrote those sentences, whether ' he is a Pretender, or only a Pretender's counsellor, will, if he gets the chance, go far. He perceives clearly the melancholy fact that if the Prince gains the Army, the annoyance of all other classes at his audacity will matter nothing, and is statesman enough to believe that however deeply passion may have been stirred, the French people, like every other people, instinctively expect and will welcome impartiality from an Emperor, and it is as Emperor that Prince Victor is trying to speak. It is possible, remember, that it is not with the Intelligence Department that this Pretender has relations, but with Generals unsmirched by the Dreyfus scandal, and there- fore capable of forming, even if they have never expressed, a just opinion.
Will this new and most audacious bid for a throne succeed ? We sincerely hope not, for greatly as the Republic, with its expenditure, its factions, and its per- secution of religion, has disappointed us, we cannot trust a Pretender nursed in the Napoleonic tradition, or believe that an avowedly military regime can be otherwise than disastrous to France and to the world. He must, by the conditions of his power, suppress all forms of liberty, suspend the intellectual life of France, and call to power politicians who, by arrogating all initiative as well as the restraining power, will leave the next generation.as devoid of men at once capable and experienced as in the Dreyfus affair the Republic has shown itself to be. The people, the Army, and the foreigner will all expect that a Bona- parte on the throne will make war in some direction, and if the expectation is not fulfilled there will be an im- mediate sense of failure and disappointment. If the Emperor attacks Germany to revindicate the lost Pro- vinces the very existence of France may be endangered ; if he threatens Great Britain the calamity will be felt in every quarter of the world; and if, as he will be sorely tempted to do, he makes a grand rush on Spain, " to vindicate the policy and avenge the defeat of the heroic founder of my race," he will light a torch sure within a short period to set fire to the whole of Europe. No one has ever conquered Spain who did not colonise Spain, and France has not the population with which great settlements abroad can be made. We feel no hope in such a revolution, even if it be true that France, whenever she is in confusion or despair, turns to a Person as the only possible guide and con- solidating force. Tyrannies will no more prosper in the twentieth than in the nineteenth century. But it is folly in considering foreign politics to blind oneself to facts, and we can have no doubt that if Prince Victor wrote or accepted that declaration of his views, a most formidable competitor for the sovereignty is in the field, means to try a rush, and, wisely or unwisely, believes himself so strong that he dare at once avow an audacious design and avoid a popular promise. It is easy to overrate the strength of the enemies of the French Republic, but impossible to overrate the weakness of its friends.
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