THE MARSHAL'S SUBMISSION.
WHAT was a false hope last week is a verified fact this. The Marshal has submitted at last, and M. Pouyer- Quertier appears to have had thecredit of doing what the eloquence of M. d'Audiffret Pasquier had failed to do. From day to day the soales have swayed to and fro between the gloomiest and the most hopeful prospects. One day the Duke d'Audiffret Pasquier had almost been insulted by the Marshal for telling him a few plain truths concerning the situation, and yet people read the insult rather as indicating that the Marshal wished to alienate the doubtful party in the Senate, in order to get a definite excuse for resigning, than as a sign of fighting. Another day a Dissolutionist Ministry had actually been formed, and the Senate were to have the screw applied to vote an unconstitutional dis- solution. A third day the Marshal was going to ask for a Pl6biscite,—a thing unknown to the present Constitution, —as to the people's wish that he should stay or resign. All the possible changes have been rung on all the possible expe- dients, constitutional and unconstitutional, but through them all, sober people have seen that if the people could but keep quiet, and the Deputies could but adopt the Marshal's motto, " J'y suis, j'y reste," for their own, the logic of facts would give them, as it has given them, the victory. Still it must be admitted that "the logic of facts" never met with a more actively resisting medium than the mind of the Marshal, and that it needed heavier metal than the Duke d'Audiffret Pasquier's to penetrate it. That heavy metal was fortunately discovered in the well-known financier and Protectionist,—it is only fair to note the fact, whenever a Protectionist shows a real and vigorous grasp of the true drift and meaning of financial transactions,—M. Pouyer-Quertier, a jovial, easy-going, strong-voiced man, who does not take sentimental or indeed in any high sense " earnest " views of politics at all, but who has for that very reason means of making himself understood by such a man as the Marshal which the high politicians and statesmen do not possess. It would be well for France if there. were more of the leaven- ing influence of such men as Pouyer-Quertier in both political parties. Such men interpose valuable buffers between the collisions of party spirit, and they bring politics down out of the clouds into the region in which blunt soldiers like the Marshal, with a vast aptitude for not understanding political principles, can follow them. The Tunes' correspondent's most amusing account of the mode in which this worthy man's big guns were opened on the Marshal, after he had got his Dissolutionist Ministry ready for action, gives us one of the most instructive episodes in modern French politics. " He began to speak in a loud tone, and with the Norman impetuosity characterising him." He had declined with vehemence to be the Financial Minister of such a Ministry, giving as his reason no high motive, but that it would be hazarding all hie fortune, and much more than hazarding it. The Marshal would have to go without a legal budget. He would have to impose the taxes by his own— or at any rate less than constitutional—authority. Thousands and hundreds of thousands would refuse to pay them. The case of all these recusants would be brought before the tribunals. Even the French tribunals would hardly decide that there was the legal authority to impose such taxes, and if it was not so decided, the Minister of Finance, with the whole Government, would be responsible to every shilling of their fortunes for illegal attempts to extort taxes not sanctioned by law. In a word, it would be civil war,—with the Government pecuniarily responsible for all the incidents and consequences of that war. This emphatic " objurgation " of the Dissolutionist policy, and this very vivid picture of what it would mean to the private purses of the Marshal and his Ministers, struck an awe into the President of the Republic, which the Duke d'Audiffret Pasquier's more refined and ethical manner of pressing the constitutional duties of the President had quite failed to produce. And the result was, we are told, that the Marshal gave way absolutely, sent again for M. Dufaure, and authorised him to choose his own Cabinet as to him might seem fit, giving him a promise to sign at once the necessary official decrees. It is further stated that the Marshal had, on the day of the break-down, used these almost pathetic words, in relation to his ignorance of his own position since the 24th of May, 1873 :—" On the 24th of May, 1873, the Due de Broglie told me I had been chosen as the soldier who was to rescue the Army from the hands of the Radicals ; that I was to defend the imperilled interests of the country, like a.
sentinel guarding a post, but that as to politics he undertook all that. At that moment, and ever after, I regarded M. de Broglie as a second President. I was the Military President. As to his policy, you have seen how he has managed it. For my part, I understand nothing of all these questions of Rights and Lefts, Right Centres and Left Centres. I merely wished to remain faithful to the watchword, and save my honour. Since the 16th May, however, I have had to sign un tas de papiers of which I do not even remember the number, and which made me enter into engagements which will sully my name, if this goes on. I have had enough of it.
I will haie no more of all these schemes, which are too subtle for me. I am not a schemer ; I am a soldier." If that be the substance of what Marshal Machlahon really said, after listen- ing to M. Pouyer-Quertier, he is—even now—more to be pitied than blamed. But what an impression it gives of the necessity for immense solidity and for physical obtrusiveness— so to speak—in the guarantees of a Constitution which is to be worked through such agents as these Had there not been an absolute necessity for getting money to carry on the Government, an absolute impossibility for procuring it law- fully, except with the consent of the Chamber of Deputies, and the greatest pecuniary risk in trying to procure it unlawfully, the Marshal would be signing his " tas de papiers" still, unconscious of the articles of the Constitution, or their bearing on what he ought to sign and what he ought not to sign. The spur of financial necessity, as interpreted by the loud, objurgating voice of M. Pouyer-Quertier, was the only instrument by which the Marshal was really to be converted,—if, indeed, he really has been converted, —to constitutional modes of procedure. That is what comes of putting soldiers in the plea() of politicians. It is clear enough, if this account of his confessions be authentic, that the Marshal was quite innocent of any opinion as to whether M. Gambetta was entitled, or was not entitled, to say that in the end he must either submit or resign. The ' insult ' was not appreciable to the Marshal, but was discerned for him by the political and legal advisers whom he now accuses of having got him into a host of subtleties, for the grasping of which he is quite incompetent. The upshot, however, is that those who are anxious to make the Presidency the equivalent of a Constitutional throne might have been justified in choosing the Marshal, since that is the highest political position for whichhe thinks himself in the least qualified. But certainly those who wished to make of the Presidency a substantial political factor, far wider than that of any constitutional king, were not warranted at all in choosing such a one as the Marshal to fill it. For the manager of a political policy they should have gone to a politician ; and M. de Broglie should have nomin ated him- self for the place which he has attempted, without success, to fill by proxy. As far as we can judge, the submission, if it is genuine, is even now not too late to save the Marshal till his term ex- pires in 1880 ; and it will have this great additional influence on the Constitutional future of France as well,—it will tend to fix the idea of the President as a Constitutional monarch, to be guided by his successive Ministries, rather than as a Republi- can chief of large independent discretion. Whether that tendency is for good or for evil, we will not say ; but it is hardly one which the Marshal's late friends will regard with unmixed satisfaction.
Previous page
