TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THE FALL OF M. FLOQUET. GENERAL BOULANGER has registered another success. He has overturned M. Floquet, who was about to propose repressive legislation directed against him ; and in overturning him has made government so difficult, that a dissolution, as the only means of escape from an impossible situation, has drawn perceptibly nearer. M. Floquet, though an able man, and honest in his devotion to the Republic, has not, during the struggle of the last few months, displayed much statesmanship or sagacity. His conversation with M. L6on Renault, reported in the Times of Wednesday, shows that up to the declaration of the poll on February 3rd, he fully believed that General Boulanger would be defeated in the election for Paris ; and that he actually arranged a great act—the readmission of the Due d'Aumale—because he expected the electoral victory sufficiently to increase his own authority with the Radical Party. That illusion betrays a certain inability to see the truth, which is that Frenchmen are discontented with the existing regime; as does also his incessant repetition of the idea that the feeling for General Boulanger is purely personal, a mere outbreak of the un- reasoning favouritism which mobs, like Kings, frequently betray. He thinks that if he baffles Boulanger he suppresses Boulangism, which is the opinion one would expect from a shallow foreign diplomatist rather than from a French Premier whose life has been passed in France and in vehe- ment political battle. This feeling was displayed in his pro- posal to the Cabinet to arrest and expel General Boulanger, a proposal crushed on the instant by the Minister of War, and we are not sure that it did not govern his decision to propose immediate Revision. His idea of Revision, it must be remembered, is to suppress the Senate ; and it is currently reported that, had the Congress met, he would have proposed that in order to arrange certain details of the new Constitution, and " to allow the Boulangist mania to die down," the present Chamber should be continued for two more years. Be that as it may, he reckoned that the Boulangists must support him because of their pledges, and that the Extremists would lend their aid, and insisted upon going to a division. He was utterly mistaken. General Boulanger has published, as a mani- festo, his speech prepared for the debate, and it shows that he intended, as we predicted last week, to denounce Revision unless the country had been previously consulted through a dissolution. The proposal, he says, is a farce, to which he will be no party. He gave the signal to his followers, therefore, to resist Revision, and whether through an adroit intrigue or a miracle of good luck, the debate itself brought them multitudes of adherents.
It had been intended to move an amendment on M. Floquet's proposal, in the shape of a resolution affirming the necessity for a Constituent Assembly ; but two free- lances had precedence, and the second of them provided a rare opportunity for all who hate the Floquet Administra- tion. Baron de Mackau, the Monarchist, proposed a week's delay, in order that the President should be advised to dissolve; but this suggestion was disposed of by 375 to 173, a majority which naturally made the Government feel almost secure. Count de Douville-Maillefeu, a steady Republican, and representative of an old Huguenot family —he made the statement in the debate as guarantee that he at least was not clerical—then proposed that Revision should be indefinitely postponed, upon the dangerous though perfectly logical ground that, as the Chamber had radically changed the mode of election, it had no moral right to revise the Constitution until the electors had been consulted. " The electors were the true masters ;" and to try to anticipate their decision was neither Republi- can nor sensible,—not Republican, because after the vote on scrutin de liste, an" electoral period must be held to have begun ;" and not sensible, because no two men in that Chamber were agreed what the Revision was to be like. Let business go on until it was convenient to dissolve; but let Re- vision be the work of the next Chamber. This is, of course, the Boulangist argument put from the strictly democratic point of view ; and it is said that M. Floquet perceived this, and knowing what logic is in France, grew pale to the very lips. No answer was offered—or, indeed, could be offered—to the argument except M. Floquet's, that he would not accept it; and the division showed that it had given to the enemies of the Ministry exactly the needful excuse. Reactionaries voted against Revision because M. Floquet brought it forward; Boulangists voted against it to bring dissolution nearer; and Republicans voted against it really to protract the existence of the Chamber, but theoretically because Revision ought to be reserved for new representatives. The Government, in a full House, was beaten by a majority of eighty-nine, and M. Floquet and his Cabinet at once resigned.
The resignation, as we conceive, brings the dissolution much nearer, for the following reason. It is imagined that a Ministry of Affairs will take the helm, and will keep order till October, in order that the Exhibition may succeed ; but there will be many negotiations, and while they progress, another impelling motive will become influential, probably even dominant. The earnest Repub- licans will desire to be in power when the elections come off. The Government, with its enormous patronage, its power of sanctioning local improvements, and its control of local officials, can always exercise much influence in elections, and it is fancied that this influence is greatest under scrutin d' arrondissement. No Government, however, can reckon with this Chamber even for a day ' • Boulangism spreads fast among the Deputies, who tremble for their seats; and the new Government may be thrown out on any side-issue, say the proposal, which cannot be avoided, of some new tax. The Republicans will therefore believe that if they have a good electioneering government in power, that is, a Government with an imperious Minister of the Interior—probably, it is said, M. Constans—their best policy is to dissolve at once, and not to await the chapter of accidents. They have, they will argue, a friendly government, they have a trustworthy Minister of War, they have a de- voted Commandant of Paris, and as they may any day lose one of these advantages, they had better dissolve at once. They may then secure a majority, which, with an impartial or neutral Government, they in their hearts believe to be almost beyond hope. The national horror of suspense in grand crises, the feeling which reduces a debate like that of Thursday evening to a matter of a few hours, will operate on the same side, and the great resisting " rock," the Senate, has nothing rocky in its constitution. It can hardly, to begin with, resist its own party ; it has no foothold with the masses, General Boulanger and M. Floquet equally condemning it ; and it is horribly afraid of a popular movement directed against itself alone. It is filled with rich men of middle age, to whom turmoil is abhorrent ; and if the President asks it to allow in March an appeal to the people which in October it cannot pre- vent, it will yield. If that be not the method, some other will be found, for the Chamber, in affirming as it did the argument that with the change in the electoral law its moral claim has disappeared, bound itself in logical France to get out of the electors' way.
This is not the time to speculate on the result of the elections ; but we are bound to notice one fact. While election by districts undoubtedly increases the influence of Government, it does not so increase it that elections cease to be free. There could hardly be a stronger Government than that of Marshal MacMahon, or one which fought an election—that of 1877—more desperately hard. Yet, with election by district the law of the land, and every Prefect working as an election agent, every man of Gambetta's list was placed at the head of the poll. General Boulanger has publicly announced, through an in- terview with a journalist of Paris, his intention to issue such a list; and if France wants him and his new Constitution, that list will be returned. It is the wish of France which is the doubtful point, not any wretched detail of the method of election, and that wish has now to be ascertained. The result may be a surprise, for the peasantry do not realise yet how directly their verdict may affect the issues of peace and war ; but the Republican idea, that the result may be an uncertain one, is, we feel sure, erroneous. The contest has gone too far, and it is the historic custom of France during grave crises to give distinct replies.
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