STALEMATE IN FRANCE. T HE long-drawn struggle over the Dreyfus case,
that little cloud no bigger than a man's hand which now envelopes the whole European sky, seems this week to be advancing towards a stalemate. Passions, as we believe, are too deeply excited for that ending, and some one will upset the chess-board ; but if all the pieces remain, and all the rules are observed, that seems to close observers the most probable result. The Government, as we ventured to predict last week, carried its discreditable Bill for ham.. stringing the Criminal Chamber of the Court of Cassation by a heavy majority, 332 to 216. The Deputies simply did not dare to produce chaos by defeating the Govern- ment, and so forcing a resignation. So cowed, indeed, were the principal opponents of the Bill by the threats addressed to them, that they avoided the tribune, and left the task of exposing injustice to a strong Radical, M. Pelletan, and a Socialist of no especial weight. The Bill has still to pass the Senate, and Senators are reported to be so indignant that the Dreyfusards have even yet not abandoned the hope that the old Republicans and lawyers in that body may compel a return to legality and constitutional principle ; but it is a hope we cannot share. The Senate is more timid than the Chamber, because more disliked by the populace, and, being small, is more affected by the pressure which can be put upon individuals. The Government, and especially M. Dupuy, will spare no effort to ensure success ; not only because they fear defeat and the Army, but because M. Faure and M. Dupuy were personally implicated. in the Anti-Dreyfus proceedings. They were both Ministers when he was tried ; they were both aware, as General Mercier testifies, of the illegal method in which a verdict was secured, and helped each other to conceal it from M. Casimir-Perier, then President ; and they both must have felt that if he was pronounced innocent there would be for them no future. With the Executive, the Army, and the populace all menacing, and the State itself in peril, there will be many abstentions in the Senate, the Bill will pass, and the Court of Cassation, itself a little Parliament far too numerous to be dominated by true judicial feeling, will be left to pronounce its verdict. That verdict, it is well understood, will be sub- stantially that there have been gross irregularities of procedure, that neither the guilt nor the innocence of Dreyfus has been conclusively established, and that, in consequence, there must be another trial before another Court-Martial. Transfer to a civil Court is impossible, because Dreyfus, guilty or innocent, had no civil con- federate, and the Amy, therefore, would regard any civil trial as a direct attack upon its most cherished privilege, —its right to the exclusive trial, punishment, and custody of guilty members of its own body. Of course no such verdict will satisfy anybody, and the whole dreary argu- ment will recommence between the same parties, and upon the same—part secret, part forged. part trustworthy—mass of evidence. Meanwhile, the different colliding powers rest upon their oars. The civil power, being over- matched and deserted by its natural defenders, can- not stir ; and the Army, having no great leader, and so far getting its own way, contents itself with preparations, one of which, the formation of the League of the Father- land, has excited great suspicion. The framers of that League, which is simply Anti-Dreyfusard, and has even been joined by M. de Beaurepaire, are trying to ascer- tain the sentiments of every officer in the Army name by name. The Government, which under any other circum- stances would instantly crushAhnse_guilty of such a pro- ceeding, either approves it in the League or is afraid to act, and at all events tolerates in silence. And so all waits in France, first for the verdict of the whole Court of Cassation, which, as M. Dupuy has betted with a friend, will be delivered by March 20th, then for the verdict of the new Court-Martial, and then for —the event which in France usually upsets all such calculations.
Nobody for the hour is resolute unless it be M. Dupuy, who has the resolution of a schoolmaster confronted with a mutiny because a boy has been unjustly caned by one of the ushers of the school. M. Faure, with his great prerogatives, used to say he was only a constitutional King —which was not M. Thiers's intention at all—and affected to be placed on a throne above the whole tar- moil. The advocates of Republican revision see no chance of even expressing their view until the Chambers are sitting in Convention. The Duc d'Orleans, who was to have dared something either histrionic or grand, perhaps to have invaded France under a banner em- broidered with lilies, keeps on repeating that he is on the side of the Army, but strikes no stroke; while Prince Victor Bonaparte remains in Brussels, awaiting possibly some signal, but possibly, also, irresolute. He is, however, either a thinker, or has one near him, for he has authorised a fresh exposition of his sentiments, which is at least adroit. He does not want it to be thought that if he is called to the throne there will be immediate war in Europe. That would greatly annoy the Czar, whose alliance is so important, and with whom it is reported that Prince Victor's brother has been holding a con- ference which lasted hours. It might, moreover, lead to German interference, both Berlin and Vienna watching events in Prance with a regard which in Vienna at all events is by no means sympathetic. Moreover, it is by no means certain that though Frenchmen are sore and " humiliated," and inclined to hiss the name of our Queen, they are anxious for war. The common folk who fill the ranks are not so fond of having their sons killed, and for all their pride in France and the Army, have a vague fear that their country, being clearly in a vein of ill-luck, might once again be beaten, with consequences in the shape of losses and taxes most disagreeable to bear. Prince Victor, therefore, like Napoleon III., declares that the Empire shall be peace, that he will reduce the taxes, and that he sees his way towards a solution of the social question, the very dream which flitted for years before his cousin's filmy eyes. He may remove some obstacles in his path by this declaration, even if it disappoints some fire- eaters ; and at all events it suggests, like his previous manifesto, that he has a mind, and a power of uttering his thoughts without shrouding them in a nebulous haze of words. We shall see shortly whether he possesses, or can absorb, more resolution than his rivals, or than Don Carlos, who, in fear either of the Pope, or of the Spanish Army, or of the expense, has apparently abandoned his threatened attempt to invade Spain. He has ordered his followers in the Cortes not to vote on the Treaty with America, but to protest against the degradation of their country by staying magnificently at home ! There may be a man of action among the Pretenders, and statesmen, and Generals who are watching the rash of the State vessel of France upon the rocks ; but as yet he is not recognisable, either from within the ship or from the shore, and though you can see them hold their breath, they wait for some opportunity which may not arrive. In fact, the tendency to let "the native hue of resolution" be " sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought " which is visible in the nations, extends also to individual person- ages. They are like men who, suddenly made aware by science that the impact of sound must travel on in ether for ever, are afraid, to use their voices lest perchance they should disturb the universe. Or is it, as the series of resignations at home would seem to suggest, that the " closely watched slavery mocked with the name of power" is losing some of its attractions ? Whatever the cause, all who in France could fire the magazine continue to pile up explosives and threaten general 'destruction, but shrink from applying the match.
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