LAST TUESDAY IN PARIS.
WE commented last week on the apparent:content of the majority of Frenchmen with their Government of "plain men," content so surprising that it is hard for any mind full of the past history of France to believe in its reality or permanence. France has been supposed to desire a ruler like Henri IV., not a ruler like M. Tirard ; and if it has changed its taste, a new community must have risen into power. That content will be greatly increased by the occurrences of Tuesday. The peasantry, it must not be forgotten, do demand even of their "plain men" one quality which such men do not always exhibit, and in which the bourgeoisie of France usually falls short. They must show themselves determined, must put down in- surrection, whether particularist or social, at once, without hesitation, and without caring much what quantity of blood they shed. In this respect the French are not in the least like the English. The English will put down revolt among darker races with terrific "energy," and do not on such occasions count their slain ; but when the insurgents or rioters are white men and fellow-sub- jects, Englishmen use the rifle with exceeding reluctance, count the dead with a sort of humiliation, and never lose a remorseful inclination to regard the contest as at best a most regrettable incident. The French simply demand that the insurrection be suppressed at once, and being by nature logical, so long as the end is secured, condone the means, in advance and afterwards, however sanguinary they may be. Moreover, they never hate the man who has given the order. Napoleon I. was made by the slaughter he inflicted on "the Sections." Louis Philippe was despised because in 1848 he would not issue the order for the whiff of grapeshot which at that time would have scattered the unformed Republican Party to all the winds. Louis Napoleon was never so much as disliked, outside Paris, for the slaughter of December, 1851, which was a needless massacre, and would have driven English- men crazy with fury, but which, by showing that he dared slay, built up his glittering throne. Even so late as 1871, M. Thiers, after ordering a storm of the poor quarters of Paris, allowed many thousand persons, half of them crypto-lunatics, to be executed ; and, outside Paris again, lost no popularity by an " example " which grave French- men to this hour declare to be still the protection of France against the Commune. The Government of plain men on Tuesday, though they killed nobody, showed pre- cisely this kind of nerve. It is nonsense to say the Boulangists intended no mischief. They had a heavy vote in Paris, where the people are more under the dominion of ideas than the peasantry are, and they thought if they could organise a demonstration against the Chamber, that it might be swollen to enormous propor- tions, that it might terrorise the Chamber, that a regiment, perhaps secured in advance, might refuse to fire ; and that then—then anything might happen. The Govern- ment, quite aware of the plot, decided to use force— that is, if necessary, to fire volleys—concentrated a large force of gendarmes, old soldiers who "stand no nonsense," brought up from the South two regiments of cavalry, who in France are usually anti-Radical, as horsemen are apt to be everywhere, and gave the usual intimation that the demonstration would be suppressed by any necessary means. The Boulangists surrendered at once. They had no leader present, and no chance at all, for in our day the bravest mob in the world cannot get a supply of scientific cartridges, and is withered helplessly by the fire of even a small body of thoroughly equipped troops. The Boulangists were, in fact, beaten by open and visible preparations for their extinction by military force. Everybody in Paris understood, and plainly saw, what had happened; the news was immediately known all through the departments; and we may rely on it, the new respect felt for the Government is untinctiued with either humiliation or regret. The English correspondents remark on the strangeness of such a display of naked military force under Republican in- stitutions; but they are representing English sentiment, and not French thought. Frenchmen, trained, it maybe, by their history, but obeying also their own notion of what civilisa- tion means, detest disorder in the streets, or in any large district of country, and judge a Government respectfully or contemptuously, we will not say according to the severity, but certainly according to the rapidity with which such disorder is suppressed. They, in fact, respect civilisa- tion—which in their eyes is order—more than they respect citizens' lives. That this is the view of the French Govern- ment is certain, for its members themselves allege that they are at last free to govern, the vote of the country having re-established the Republic. We believe they judge accurately, and that, much as the collapse of Boulangism has done for the Republic, the method of suppressing the Boulangist demonstration has done still more. Another remarkable result follows from this occurrence. It lays bare the fact, no doubt always existing, but since 1872 rather carefully concealed, that the French Repub- licans are determined to face the old problem of French rulers in the old way. The Parisians, in their own belief, made the Revolution ; and though that is an exaggeration, both the National Assembly and the Convention repre- senting all France, they certainly succeeded in making themselves dreaded as the true Revolutionary Army. From that time forth, therefore, every stable Govern- ment in France has, openly or secretly, relied on the acquiescence or approval or loyalty of the provinces, and has at the same time held Paris by the throat. The first Napoleon, who, we should recollect, was always in much personal danger from assassins, would have fusillad.ed Parisian insurgents without scruple, and deeply as his victories gratified Parisian feeling, never left Paris unwatched. The Government of Louis Philippe, which with many excellences and a quite exceptional power of bringing great men to the front, developed the hatred of the workmen for the bourgeoisie into a sort of mania, held the city through a National Guard all belonging to one class, and consciously organised in order to repress dangerous movement from below. Louis Napoleon avowedly governed Paris by repression, and the Republic has drifted into the same course. Opposition is expected in Paris, and disregarded, because Paris contains only a twelfth of the French population, which votes in equal electoral districts, and because nine of the other twelfths—we allow for Marseilles, Lyons, and some other large towns—will cheerfully allow Paris to be moderated with the rifle. That is surely one of the strangest political phenomena in the world, and though it has been mentioned a thousand times, and the epigram, "France is a Monarchy with a Republic for capital," has graved itself into all men's thoughts, we have never seen a satisfactory explanation. Why should Paris, which is filled with the elite of all France, sucking up as it does all brain and energy from the provinces, never, except at moments, agree with France, but always want a Republic when the country desires a Monarchy, or a Dictator when the country is content with a Parliament. If it is a Republic, why is it not content when France is one also ? or if it is essentially a pleasure city, longing for the splendour and glitter of a Court, why must it always detest the King or the Ccesar who gives it what it wants ? We believe that the best explanation, though none can be perfect, is that Paris really contains two cities separated even in locality,—a city of pleasure, and a city of exces- sively hard work, made all the harder because the Parisian workman puts brain into his labour ; and that both are typically Gallic, the pleasure city being tainted with vice and a passion for frivolous expenditure, the working city being tainted with the deep envy of superiors, and especially of superiors leading joyous or " podded " lives—as the French describe the lives of well-to-do citizens—which is, next to a certain essential cruelty, the great drawback to the French character. The pleasure city can be contented by a Sovereign with a gay Court, and openly lax morality, or by a Republic with an Exhibition drawing the whole world ; but the working city never can be, for be the Government what it may, the pleasure city by its side always seem hatefully rich and gay and satisfied with itself. Whatever the cause, the fact exists, and until it can be made to disappear, the Republic must present the strange spectacle of Ministers elected by universal suffrage prohibiting a demonstration, with the threat understood and seen—for the armed force was on the ground—that all who resisted the order would be shot on the spot. There should be a remedy somewhere, and we are not sure that one might not be found in a liberal law of outdoor relief—that was the Roman plan, anyhow, under circumstances wonderfully similar, and it succeeded in stopping insurrection, though it debased the people, as every Poor-Law does in some measure—but we see no sign of its being found; and until it is found, even a Republican Government must always rely upon its soldiers,—that is, must conciliate the source of its greatest danger. For the one contingency in which the Government of plain men would break down with a smash is a great war. It is doubtful if the Army would. obey them, certain that defeat would destroy them, and. almost an impossibility—not quite, or France might despair of her future—that they should find in a victorious French General a patriot like George Washington.
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