TOPICS OF T - FrE DAY.
THE IRRECONCILABLES AND THE IMPATIENTS.
THE Reds of Paris, who are hooting M. Bancel and declar- ing M. Pelletan a Judas, ill-advised as they are and disastrous as their action is likely to prove, have some reason, or rather some provocation, for their rage. Nothing is ever gained by a refusal to comprehend one's opponents, and the case of the party of the Rappel is not fairly represented in England, where, in fact, they are considered mere madmen. That party, during the late elections, possessed in some districts of Paris a clear majority and in others held the balance of power. Naturally they required their candidates to support their project, which was not the conversion of the Empire into a constitutional monarchy, but the supersession of the Empire by a Republic "Democratic and Social," that is, a Republic in which the forms of equality should be as rigidly preserved as its substance, and in which the masses should be guaranteed against hungering while the few are fed, in which, that is, the realized property of the whole people should be pledged to prevent want of work from implying death by starvation. It is so pledged at this moment in England, where we are paying £7,000,000 a year, a sixpenny income-tax, to keep our poor alive. A tax like that would satisfy the cry of the French workmen, provided it were spent in providing work, and not given in debasing charity, and for Englishmen to declare that such a demand is fatal to property is almost silly. We dislike and distrust the Poor Laws, but it is not to the rich that they are fatal. The Reds may be wrong in their demands—we think that in part they are— but they at least made them clear. They did not want "liberty as in England," but a State without rulers save such as it elected for itself from day to day, without nobles, without superior classes, and with a strong Poor Law, the two demands implying, of course, the extinction of the Empire. All the Pari- sian Deputies virtually pledged themselves to that as an ideal, and that was what the electorate expected them to seek. The Legislature, however, met, passed certain votes, created a com- motion which daunted the Court and greatly increased the sense of expectation, and finally secured—what ? For the present, nothing at all, and for the future, at best only a possibility of constitutional monarchy, for which no Parisian asked them, which seems to a genuine Republican of Paris rather more hostile to his ideal than the Empire. For the moment even this is not attained, but a single man, "Louis Bonaparte," as the Reds call him in very childish wrath, is as much master of them and of France as ever he was, and if he ceases to be master, is still to be monarch, with a court, titles, pensions, a priesthood, difference of classes, all the things your genuine Red detests and scorns, as rampant as ever. We do not wonder that the Parisian, who is neither a patient nor a confiding being, and who has lost the faculty of loyalty, "mocks himself" at the situation, grins with rage, and is ready to tear in pieces people who, as he thinks, are ready, if better may not be, to accept such a compromise. The Left is ready. It is impossible to interpret the manifesto of the Deputies in any other sense than this, that they believe they can secure liberty through a Parliamentary battle, can even demand, as they say with more heat than real vigour, satisfaction for the "insult" passed upon the nation in postponing the meeting of the Representatives Most sensible and most expedient, says the Times, and we cordially agree. But the sensible and the expedient is not what Paris sent representatives to secure, but an ideal, and it thinks itself betrayed. It is not betrayed at all, from our point of view ; but let us look at it, for one second, from theirs, and try to see what the Parisians as distinguished from the French think they see. They see a failing statesman, never loved and now disliked, master of France, governing all things, but settling nothing ; leaning on a detested Minister just dis- missed by the electors ; swayed, or seeming to be swayed, by a wife who is believed to be as devout as a Spaniard ; appoint- ing great soldiers to commands where the enemies must be the people ; surrounded by a Court of wealthy favourites, few of whom are distinguished either for abilities or character, and discussing only how little liberty may be given to the people, denying, for instance, that he intends to repeal the exemption of officials from the law. They see an Empress travelling at vast expense to the State on a mission of ceremonial. They see M. Hausmann still supported in vast evictions, paid for by taxes on the food and drink of the people he evicts ; and they see soldiers sent for at the first movement to shootts down men who are asking only for more wages. They see rents already exorbitant rising every day, the rich becoming- richer—the old families, for example, are becoming million- aires—the favourites of the Empire rioting in luxury, while the poor are more heavily taxed by the rise in prices.
They see a conscription which reaches everybody, yet pro- duces no grandeur for France abroad. One-half at least of these evils are either unavoidable, or can be explained into benefits ; but these are the things the Parisian Reds think they see opposed to them, while on their own side they see representatives who say it is expedient that these things should continue, provided only that the Master's power be exercised by a Minister.
We do not wonder in the least at the rage of the workmen,. and doubt very seriously whether it will exhale so harmlessly as most of our contemporaries seem to believe. There is something in the tone of the Reds, in their speeches, in their writings, which suggests to us that they mean mischief ; that they are aware that "the people," for the first time since 1852' —a date, be it remembered, which no workman under thirty can recall—are responding to their appeals ; that they may yet resolve to try conclusions with the Empire in the streets.
It is all very well to say the attempt would be a mad one,
and that the soldiery would put down any e'meute. That consideration did not stop the miners of Aubin only last week
from charging soldiers armed with the chassepot, soldiers in.
rank before them, actually visible to their eyes, with nothing but bits of iron to fling at their heads, and it would not stop a Parisian mob for one moment. If they have really risen, to the temper which thinks itself challenged, or have beem excited to the point at which Frenchmen do not think at all, they will charge, if they are all shot down the next moment, and the man who confidently predicts the result under- stands little of France. The soldiers may win in half-an- hour—their power to win was never so complete—but the- soldiers are conscripts, they have breathed the air of Paris ;—ito doubt, a hesitation, a cry of "Fraternity!" and all may be over- with the Imperial throne. Whether the temper of the people has risen to that point is the most difficult of questions, for- the answer really depends upon this,—has the dislike for the Empire now acknowledged to exist in Paris any deep tincture of contempt? If it has, the effort will be made ; and there are many signs that it has, the principal of them being that the ablest Liberals in France think so, that leaders of strong Republican opinions deem it needful to appeal passionately to the people against violence ; that the cruelty which among Parisians usually implies scorn has come to the surface in savage jests on the Emperor's bodily
sufferings ; and that the respectable show no desire to stir a foot in defence of the Empire, look on as at a gladia- torial exhibition in which they are not participators. That indifference, an indifference as of men who cannot bring them- selves to care for what they, nevertheless, will not attack, was the fatal symptom in 1848, and it is reappearing. Nobody- says Let us defend the Empire.' It is only, Lerus kill it in due form, in the operating theatre, the Legislative Chamber, and not vulgarly in the streets.' The Left has been hooted for its manifesto, but look what that manifesto says :—" When a great revolution, a pacific revolution, has commenced, when we daily perceive more clearly the inevitable issue, it would be bad policy to supply the Government with any pretext for gaining renewed vigour by means of an dmeute." In other words, the Empire is effete, and in Paris effete things are despised.
Our impression, therefore, is that the balance of probabili- ties is in favour of a serious outbreak in Paris either on the 26th inst., when Raspail threatens to march in state to the Chamber, or on some other day before the Session,—that once opened, France, as distinguished from Paris, regains its hold upon affairs—and the impression is the stronger because it is most reluctant. We cannot conceive a more immoral piece of political gaming than a descent into the streets just now would be, even from the Republican point of view. The Republicans know perfectly well that the Moderates are nearly as irritated as themselves. They know that a clear majority of the representatives are determined that personal power shall end, and might easily be induced to include the dynasty in their determination. They know that the Emperor cannot meet the Chambers with a strong Ministry, for he has not the men ; they know that a plebiseitum would now fail, and that authority must either accept their terms or abdicate ; and yet they seem prepared to risk a struggle in which the
chances are at least ten to one against them, and in which defeat might almost rebuild the throne. We do not think it would, for we cannot forget the silent, relentless, life-long :sentence which France passed upon Cavaignac, the one man who, in our time, has had the power and the will to build up in France a sincere Republic ; and Napoleon, in the event of insurrection, must strike as Cavaignac struck. But the struggle, with such a termination, could but postpone liberty ; could but inaugurate again the policy of repression, to be abandoned only after further changes, each of them amounting to a revo- lution. It is folly, or worse, to run such risks merely to gain -a little time,—for insurrection is as possible in the last *resort as in the first ;—it is an outrage on liberty, to deprive France of her clear right to decide on her government for herself, and to force on her the decision of her own -capital. The true policy is that indicated by the Left, to .await the opening of the Session on the 29th November, and AS the first act to dismiss the Ministers who sanctioned an
unconstitutional prorogation. The Emperor must either accept that vote, in which case the Chamber will at once be sovereign; or he must refuse, in which case the Chamber, instead of a mere party, might justifiably appeal to the people. We greatly fear, however, that this advice, which comes from the Irreconcilables, will be rejected in favour of *that which comes from the Impatients.
It is a remarkable proof of the tension of political feeling in Faris that a programme attributed on all sides to M. Rouher was rejected without discussion. The facile Minister offered -through his organ to concede all the great guarantees of !liberty, even the right of action against officials—which ,Cavour, for instance, refused—but the offer, which would hardly have been made without the Emperor's assent, was -scarcely looked at. The Impatients would not have the Em- pire, the Irreconcilables would not have a programme from :above, and the Third Party would not have M. Rouher, bring he never such beautiful gifts. The instant rejection of this -offer, like every other symptom visible in France, looks to us as if the hour of compromise had passed away, as if, whether in the streets or in the Chamber, the duel between the Empire and the people were to be fought out to the last.
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