TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THE FALL OF THE FRENCH REPUBLIC. THE fall of the French Republic, as we have known it, is obviously at hand. Whatever lot leaps from the urn of Fate, it will not be one with the present Constitu- tion inscribed on it. We may explain as we please the feeling for General Boulanger, a phenomenon unparalleled in history since Saul was chosen King because he was the " goodliest " man in Israel, but it is impossible to doubt that its chief factor has been disgust with the Republic; and that disgust will, if General Boulanger fails, soon find another representative. The causes of this disgust are many, but the main one is not obscure to those who re- member the reign and the overthrow of Louis Philippe. During the seventeen years of his regime, France remained at peace, was fairly prosperous, and was in all depart- ments of thought unusually prolific. Except during the Revolution, France never produced such a crop of men of eminence, even the leaders of faction displaying minds of the very first order. So strong, indeed, were they, that when, after twenty years, the Imperial flood which had over- whelmed them retired again, those of them who survived stepped once more to the front as the only men, except Gambetta, recognisable by all France. Nevertheless, when the hour came, the throne of Louis Philippe fell without a stroke being struck on its behalf, and with the consent even of the class which it had most openly befriended and most deeply corrupted. A deep taint of ignobleness, penetrating into every department of public life, rotted the Orleanist regime. Foreign policy and internal policy were base alike. The King, " wise " as he was, intrigued throughout Europe for his House alone ; the Ministers, " great " as they were, were only chiefs of factions ; the electors, " devoted " as they showed them- selves, had all to be corrupted with money ; France itself, with all its vivid interior life, was no loftier in conversation, in interests, in aims, than a gigantic shop. There was neither dignity, nor disinterestedness, nor aspiration visible anywhere, and the whole structure smelt. It has been the same with the Third Republic, with the aggravations that, as hope had been higher, disappointment was deeper, and that material prosperity has not been secured. The men who were twenty-five in 1870, humiliated and soured by the great defeat, looked to the Republic, which, as they said, had never been defeated, to give them back their self-respect, to revive their prosperity, to make them again a great people before the world. They poured out money as it has never been poured out except by ourselves in the crises of the Great War, they submitted to extravagant demands foz conscripts, they obeyed every hint from the leaders at the polls, often, as in 1877, with a pathetic fidelity ; and what has been the result of it all ? In its foreign policy, in its internal policy, in its manner of daily life, the Republic has been ignoble. Its statesmen have been petty-minded persons. Its representatives have given themselves up to faction. Its chiefs have been hucksters unable to keep their households clean of sordid and direct corruption. The Republicans have not restored France to "her place in Europe ;" and if they have gained Colonies, have done it to make money. They have wasted the fortune of the nation mainly to secure their seats. They have persecuted the Church, without either abolishing or weakening it, with a feeble kind of spite. They have proscribed the House of France, out of the poorest social jealousy. They have weakened the security of property without approaching one inch nearer to a solution of the social problem, and they have overturned twenty-five Cabinets in seventeen years, without ever producing or revealing one competent administrator. The humiliated and soured young men of 1870 have grown into mature and fretful citizens, and France is still in the hands of men whose very names are unknown to her people, who talk eternally without doing anything, who gain and try to keep power by immoral combinations with the adversaries whom they profess to proscribe, and who, if not corrupt themselves, retain supporters by allowing them to be as corrupt as they please. We say, in order to be just, who are not corrupt themselves ; but the French masses, always inclined to suspicion, have believed since the Wilson scandal that they are corrupt, that they are governed by men who wish to make fortunes by their use of political power. Jobbery is rife in every department of the State ; every contractor is asked for a pourboire; and the very Chamber itself passes votes, designed at immense risk to the Treasury, to keep up a mighty speculation. With all this there is no grandeur in public life, no glitter in the externals of the State, no prosperity among the ranks of the labouring poor. There never was more suffering among the peasantry who grow corn or breed cattle, or less chance of higher wages among the artisans. France is sick of the regime, sick through all her provinces, among the vines and chestnut-trees of the Dordogne, as among the manufacturing villages and cities of the Nord. Wherever she has a chance, she pronounces against it by overwhelming majorities, and calls on General Boulanger, as the only known soldier who has pronounced against it, to sweep the Assembly away. The election for the Dordogne might have been made in partial ignorance of the true issue, though we do not believe it ; but the Nord is full of the most intelligent men in France, and the election took place after the candidate had declared himself the enemy of Parliamentatism, and had been denounced by every Radical speaker as an aspirant to the Cmsar's throne. Yet the majority in his favour exceeded 96,000 votes.
The letters of the correspondents from Paris are full of discussions as to the methods by which the Government may resist General Boulanger, and by which he may over- turn the existing Constitution ; but they are all a little sterile. The sovereignty of France resides in the electors, and if they choose to delegate their power to an individual instead of a Chamber, there is no organisa- tion in France except the Army which can resist the execution of their decree. There are no eminent men, there are no great soldiers, there are no power- ful corporations, there is no governing class. Every- thing that was once potent in France has been reduced to sand ; and now there are but three forces which are at once alive and daring,—the electors, the Army, and the mob of Paris. If either of these pronounce against General Boulanger, he may be defeated ; but what chance is there of this ? The mob, by all the best accounts, is hopelessly divided, and its most violent section is on the General's side ; the electors are pronouncing for him ; and the "Army," we may be almost sure, will not risk its discipline—for the common soldiers are with the General —in order to resist what is virtually a plebiscite. By what devices he will obtain the necessary appeal to the people, he probably does not know himself, intending as he must to be guided by the facts as they arise ; but that, unless deported by the Government or shot by an assassin, he will obtain it, is now almost past question. It is more interesting to study the position he is marking out for himself, and the extent of power which he intends to claim. On the first subject there can now be little, if any, doubt. General Boulanger intends, in the first instance, to be President of the French Republic, elected by universal suffrage, and therefore irremovable by any Chamber. He said so almost in so many words to the repre- sentative of the Figaro, and we can see no reason whatever for doubting his statement on that head. The notion that he will play the part of Monk is inconsistent with his whole attitude, which is that of a man who aspires to represent France, and with the source of his power, which is a popular mandate to set things right for himself, not to recall either Bonapartes or Bourbons. He cannot become Emperor till he has fought and won a pitched battle, and to call himself by any name implying dictator- ship would be a gratuitous effort to court unpopularity. He may think of another name, such as Consul or Constable of the Republic ; but the Presidency is better understood, and General Boulanger is much guided by his American experience. We imagine he will make himself President, leaving it to fate to grant him any higher title ; but as to the extent of power that he will claim, there is a doubt. He himself, in his talk with the Figaro, disavows the desire to be Dictator ; and it is quite possible that it is the American model to which his mind most frequently turns. A President in France of the American kind, with clerks for Ministers, and with the vast patronage of France in his hands to reward adherents, would be sufficiently master to impose his will. Moreover, it must not be forgotten that it would be on the Boulanger list that the majority of Deputies would be returned, and that in France pledges of that kind are usually kept. With such a Presidency and a nominee Chamber, General Boulanger would be Dictator in all but name ; but still, a French Chamber is always restive, and he says, in his letter of thanks to the electors of the Nord, that "the people under the Republic ought to occupy a large place which has always been promised to them, and has been systematically kept from them." To what does that refer? Is it not possible that General Boulanger intends, if the revision of the Constitution falls to him, to introduce the Referendum now adopt 3d in. Switzerland, and claim, in- stead of the veto, the right of " referring " any measure upon which he differs from the Chamber to a, plebiscite for decision. His ideas seem to tend that way ; and with the Presidency granted by direct suffrage, with Ministers responsible to himself alone, and with the right of over- riding the Chamber at will by an appeal to the mass vote, he would be armound in legal powers as Napoleon never was.
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