THE BONAPARTISTS IN FRANCE.
THE importance of the decision passed by the Assembly on Tuesday against the validity of M. de Bourgoing's election for the Nievre will be missed by those who do not understand the policy now pursued by the Bonapartists. The leader of that party, in spite of certain differences with Chiselhurst, where, until King Alfonso had failed, they were growing weary of waiting, is still M. Rouher ; and M. Rouher's plan is clearly to accusto-m the people to the idea that the heir of all this confusion is Napoleon, that the only possible alternative to the Republic now in being is the Empire, which exists fully armed, with all its machinery prepared ready to "obey the call of France,"—that is, to accept the first sign that France would tolerate the re-erection of the Imperial throne. In furtherance of this plan, he desires, first of all, to keep up in the popular mind the Napoleonic legend, the only tradition which seems still to be strong in France ; and secondly, to imbue the people with the idea that his view is entertained by the men at the head of affairs, that the Government, while tolerating the Republic, is still not unfriendly to Bonapartism as its only pos- sible alternative. The Committee over which he presides, though he denied the charge upon his honour, devotes itself to the first object with some success, circulating pamphlets, speeches, and above all photographs, in numbers which show of themselves that the Government is not very willing to press hard upon the party. That the peasantry will be convinced by the pamphlets, or taken in by the speeches, or fascinated by the photographs, is not very likely ; but M. Rouher is not seeking either to fascinate, or deceive, or convince the mass of the people, but to keep up in their minds a remembrance which, should anything alienate them from the Republic, or should a coup d'état ever become possible, would make them turn readily towards the Empire as the natural alternative. It was a tradition of this kind, kept up for thirty-three years with extreme persistence, though with- out Committees, which in 1848 made it possible for Louis Napoleon, till then an unknown man, to obtain five millions of votes from men who knew nothing of him, except that he was his uncle's nephew, and would rid them of the Republic. The means adopted appear to most Englishmen somewhat trivial, but they are so successful that Prince Louis Napoleon, residing at Chiselhurst, and studying war with an English regiment, has many times the following of the Orleanist Pretender, though he resides at Paris, writes in the Revue des Deux illondes, and sympathises with many of the workmen's demands. They are so successful that at the coming elections all the Conservative classes may be compelled either to abstain or to vote for the Bonapartist candidates,—of itself a great triumph of tactique, almost as great as the triumph achieved by M. Gambetta's moderation. They are, above all, so success- ful that the heads of the Executive in France and the highest Conservative personages are half convinced that M. Rouher is right, and that the only Conservative government possible in France, should the Republic prove ultra-Liberal or anarchical, is the Empire. We do not believe that the President is an Imperialist at heart, as the Reds suspect, or that he would break up the Republic in order to give himself a master ; but he undoubtedly thinks a certain organisation, including a very strong Executive, indispensable to France, and would ac- cept the Empire if convinced that the Republic could not give
it. It is incredible that M. Buffet, who resigned office under Napoleon ; or M. de Broglie who is a convinced Orleanist ; or M. Dufaure, who is a law-and-order man, wish for another Revolu- tion, but still they all wish to keep this door of escape open. M. Rouher wishes to cultivate this feeling, to make it manifest, to bring it home to the peasantry as a fact, and his candidates, therefore, always imply by one means or another that they have the Government behind them. And indeed, up to the limit we have indicated, they had the Government behind them. When M. de Bourgoing, standing for the Nievre, went too far, declaring that Marshal MacMahon had approved his address— which was probably true as to its Conservatism, and imagi- nary as to its Bonapartism—and when M. Gerard found the pro- gramme of the Bonapartist Central Committee in a railway
carriage, and official inquiry revealed a dangerous conspiracy, the Government were most unwilling either to unseat M. de Bourgoing or to reveal the whole of their discoveries. They were not accomplices, either with M. de Bourgoing or M. Rouher, but they thought it most indiscreet either to cancel an election because the candidate thought the President friendly to Napoleon, or to break finally with a party they might one day have to help to power. They shielded the Bonapartists to the last, so carefully as to raise among the Radicals the cry that they were crypto-Bonapartists, and throughout the country the much more true impression that they were not indisposed to regard the Empire as a conceivable alterna- tive.
The question therefore which the Assembly had to decide on Tuesday was whether it also acquiesced in this view, whether it considered that the Government were right in tolerating the public assertion that the President, though he accepted the situation, was friendly to Bonapartism—whether, in fact., the Assembly, like the great Conservative personages, was willing to regard the Empire as the heir of the Re- public, if the Republic, as now constituted, should die— and the decision was not so certain as might be thought. In the first place, it could not be proved that M. Bour- going had misrepresented the Marshal, without subjecting the President to a cross-examination from which all parties shrunk, and if he had not misrepresented him, then the point in dispute was the right of official candidature, upon which subject one-third of the Assembly avowedly is friendly, one- third nominally most hostile, and all perhaps just a little dis- honest. The Government of France which would abstain from favouring any candidate it really wished for is yet to seek, though no doubt the extent of the favouritism would vary very greatly with Ministers of different parties. Then an immense body of Members, including Conservatives of almost all shades, felt that after all they were very like the officials, —that they did not like Bonapartism, but that, under certain circumstances, they might have to support Bonapartists. And finally, the question was just one of those, so attractive to all Assemblies, upon which it was possible to give the ruling majority a good heavy rap, without upsetting everything or throwing a Constitution once more into the crucible. The result was therefore at first dubious. Fortunately, the different sections of the Left perceived the importance of the vote, and resolved that they would not allow Bonapartist candidates to plead official favour, and so stood together to the last man. Fortunately, M. de Bourgoing is a typical Imperialist Deputy, a heavy person who obeys capitally, but does not make much impression on an audience when he takes to read- ing manuscript pamphlets, and is so bewildered that he cannot find the leaves ; and most fortunately of all, the extreme Left put up a man of sense and moderation to speak for them. M. Goblet, with his quiet exposure of the facts, almost convinced the Right Centre, and the division being taken on the same day, the result in a crowded House was a vote of 330 to 310 against the election. This Assembly, the most Conservative France has ever had, has, in fact, condemned official candi- datures, and censured the Government for allowing it to be thought that it was, on the whole, not unfriendly, if the Republic failed, to the Empire as a substitute. The effect of that vote will be to cripple all the crypto-Bonapartists in the Administration, and it is not impaired by the vote of confidence which on Thursday M. Buffet took the opportunity of asking.
We shall be told that we have omitted all mention of the Committee of Appeal to the People, and we have done so de- signedly. No doubt the existence of that Committee, with its plans for organising a revolution, had its effect on Deputies, but we question if it was quite so great as is imagined. If the Assembly had desired to tolerate Bonapartism as a possible alternative policy, it would not have been much troubled about the machinery of the party, nor is that machinery very formidable while it cannot be put in motion. The public mind must be in a certain condition before the Imperialist machinery, however complete, can be of
any use, and we have preferred to consider M. Rouher's plan for bringing that condition about. It is, we believe, as we have described it, and whether his machinery is smashed up or not, he has received a severe rebuff. His tfollowers are men who will dare anything when success is possible, but they are not the men to stay out in the cold for years like the more fervent Legitimists, waiting for that change in the feeling of France which never arrives. If M. Rouher is baffled in preparing his mine, the number of his followers ready to apply the fuses does not matter much.
Previous page
