TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THE FUTURE OF FRANCE. I.—THE DARK SIDE.
flow is it possible to exhaust all the ill omens for the political future of France which seem to throng over and darken the horizon as we look forth ? We can but attempt to enumerate the leading classes of symptoms of evil augury.
Foremost stands the worst omen of all, that the two parties or factions of France are not divided about a political ques- tion, or a political principle, or even a political mode of life, but at bottom about tolerating each other in any shape or way. There is no common ground between them at all on which they can even negotiate. The party of movement, the party of the cities, take apparently for their motto Proudhon's audacious watchword, Destruction first, construction after- wards,' Destruam et cedabo.' The party of caution, the party of the peasants, take apparently for their watchword destruc- tion first, conservation afterwards, Destruam et conservabo.' The Communists would destroy the whole system of French society, in order to reconstruct it. The country party would destroy the specific blossom and fruit of social life in the great towns, in order to extirpate the cancer that threatens property and quiet. The cry of the cities is,' See what a galling and ignominious tyranny these peasants try to impose upon 118 ; we have been ruled by their ignorance and cowardice for twenty years ; now let us have our turn, and subject them to the principles which have fired us with enthusiasm.' The cry of the country,—repeated, we are told, in hundreds of letters received every day by members of the Legislature,—is, Paris must be destroyed, Delenda est Carthago,—there is no compromise possible with the spirit of sheer anarchy and self-will which raves of a new order of society, without enumerating one intelligible principle of national life.' And there neither is, nor, we are afraid, can be, any middle party of any strength and consideration, to bridge the chasm which separates these internecine political foes, and hold the scales evenly between them,—and that for a very simple reason, that there is no possibility of gradual transition from the one position to the other. The party of movement understand the destructive part of their creed clearly enough, but beyond that they hardly look. The stand-atill party understand the drastic policy which shall annihilate agita- tion well enough, and beyond that they do not even wish to look. Where, then, is even the hope of mediation between antagonists, the first article of whose creed is to smite the other as the Jews smote the Canaanites, till politically it could hardly lift up its head again I This, then,—the violent and ungraduated antithesis between the opposing parties,—is the darkest omen for the future.
Next comes what is an omen of a hardly less threatening character, that neither the town nor the country party appear to have political leaders in whose principles they have the smallest trust. Suspicion is the order of the day on both sides. Amongst the civilian Communists Assi succeeds Louis Blanc, and Pyat succeeds Assi, and each in his turn is an idol trodden under foot ; amongst the military, Bergeret succeeds "Lullier, and Cluseret succeeds Bergeret, and still the cry of treachery goes up, and at last the only men who can get a little faith are the two semi-foreigners, Cluseret the American and Dombrowski the Pole, whom the people distrust less than they distrust their fellow-countrymen. If it is not quite so bad on the side of the Government, it is only from conscious- ness of a greater numerical strength and less imminent danger. Yet M. Thiers is accused on all sides of treacherous intentions, by the Legitimists of collusion with Paris, by the Republi- cans of collusion with the fallen dynasties ; and if he retains his place, it is less from any common feeling of confidence, than from the want of any other statesman who would not be even more passionately distrusted. In fact, nothing could be more significant of the utter absence of an idea than the election of M. Thiers by so many Conservative constituencies, for M. Thiers represents only that kind of Conservatism which succeeds a series of unsuccessful experiments on all conceivable forms of political change, and which cries with the Preacher, " Vanitas vanitatum, omnia vanitas1 " after all. No wonder that with foreign leaders on the one side, chosen only because they are less suspected than the men at home, and a leader on the other side chosen only because one who has successively tried, and relinquished in despair, Napoleonism, Orleanism, and the European Revolution, must be less suspected than
any statesman who has not thus exhausted the whole circle oS political faiths, the tie between the people and their leaders is• of that frail and feeble kind which so soon ends in the: monotonous cry, " We are betrayed!"
And it adds, to our mind, to the peril of the situation, that the French people,—both the city and the country faction,— are so docile, so easily led by any one who will give the word. of command. That might seem like a great capacity for organization ; but, in reality, docility without loyalty, pliancy- without trust, is not a facility for true organization at all.. Where docility arises, as it seems to arise so often in France,. from mere weakness, from the dislike to resist masterfulness,. not from the confidence placed in leaders, it is at once an en- couragement to weak and vain men to try experiments on the- nation, and a discouragement to strong and loyal men to
a career in which they know that they may at any
time be foiled by the apathy of their followers. The political condition of France reminds one of the chemical condition, of those substances in which the affinities of the constituents for each other are so slight that almost any of them' may at any moment escape into combination with some• wandering atmospheric element, and so break up the unity of which it formed a part. The party which will' obey the first extemporized leader who bids them follow- him, without any clear notion either of his purposes or their own, is in far too fluid a condition for real organization. If the resistance to haphazard dictation were stronger than it is in. France, the hope of a solid organization would be far greater.. Asit is, the leaders and the followers alike seem to guide their- gravest steps by the cropping-up of those vagrant happy thoughts,' by which our keen English humourist has so skil- fully illustrated the loose and sandy purposelessness of modern thought.'
Another of the evil auguries of the time in France is that. the party of change, the party of progress, is hardly in any perceptible degree the party of light and knowledge. No doubt nothing can be more densely ignorant and superstitious- than the conservative peasantry of France who offer the resist- ance to progress. But then the party which assails them is. not the party of higher education, but only of passionate revolt.. Its leaders see none of the limitations to the principle of revolt.. They follow in the old grooves of 1792, when the system. of society was one of unscrupulous oppression of the poor,. and take up mere destruction as a principle of progress,— which to some extent it then really was,—but which it can. hardly ever be again. The ignorance of the peasantry is dense, but the ignorance of the Communists is little less dense. They know no more of social and political economy than they do of optics or acoustics, and yet they plunge into these problems with all the rashness of the revolu- tionary era, but without the excuse of that profound misery prevalent in 1792,—a misery at least incapable of any serious enhancement. They are quite unaware both of the tyranny and of the terrible wastefulness of socialistic schemes... Even in their crusade against the priesthood, they do not meet de- spotic spiritual influences by the spiritual influences of freedom,. rather, on the contrary, by the explosion of that fierce passion,. which will always be conscious of its own need of self-control,. and therefore always in danger of falling back into subjugation. The Reds ' propose to conquer Sacerdotalism and Reaction. not by Sweetness and Light,' but by 'Bitterness an Heat,' which are not conquering, though they are violent and destructive forces ; and they will fail. Successful revolutions have always been headed by the courage which is born ofi wider knowledge and calmer self-reliance than any of which the Reaction can boast. Is there any sign of such courage now among the leaders of Revolt in Paris ? The men of thought and science shrink away from it in fear and anger.
And if the highest qualities of beneficent and successfu' revolution are wanting in the leaders of the Commune, are not the highest qualities of beneficent and successful Con- servatism in great degree wanting in the country party doubt the tenacity with which that party clings to proprietary ideas, to the strict maintenance of personal property and of public order, is the germ of all social Conservatism. But where are the qualities which transmute the Conservatism of self-interest into the Conservatism of a noble and dis- interested national pride Where is the heroism in defence of the soil, the heroism in defence of the community, the heroism which makes villages faithful to each other, the heroism which is eager to die for tried and proved patriots ? Where is such heroism as was shown in the Tyrol,—a Catholic and peasant population like that of France,—during its invasion by Buona- parte Is it not the common talk of France that in every occu- pied town the German General had his table covered with communications in which French citizens betrayed the plans of their leaders, the secrets of family life, the very hiding-places of their own soldiers ? There has been far more of fidelity to each other among the Reds of Paris than was sometimes shown by French peasants and tradesmen during the German invasion. Now, Conservatism which rests on a strong proprietary instinct and a sensitive dislike to change, can never be really strong unless it blossoms into the fidelity and loyalty of a common faith rising far above the level of proprietary interests ;—and of this loyal faith we find amongst the country party—the Conservative party—of France, but far too little trace.
Such are the evil omens as they appear to us of the French situation,—a total and violent opposition between the party of change and the party of order, which admits of no com- promise, because there is no common ground on which to meet ; a complete absence of leaders of known character and eminence whose past lives are a guarantee for the future, and a consequent readiness to impute treachery to the makeshift leaders they have ; a servile readi- ness to obey any one, which naturally involves an equal readiness, when the first temptation comes, to disobey ; a terrible want of knowledge and calmness among the party of progress ; and a terrible want of faith and loyalty among the party of order. We are happy to think that this is but one side of the picture, but it is indeed a fatally dark one. Taken alone, it would seem to imply that what France needs is regeneration,—regeneration for Revolutionists and Conser- vatives alike ; the birth of a new spirit, rather than the institution of a new regime.
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