M. TRIERS.
" rERE are no faults left for you to commit," was M. Thiers' neatest and most deadly epigram on the French Empire
after the success of Prussia against Austria in 1866. He was mistaken. There was left to commit a far deadlier blunder than any hitherto made by the Empire, and while it has cost the Bonapartes their dynasty, France millions of money and hun- dreds of thousands of soldiers, it has gained for M. Thiers himself one more great political opportunity,—one chance of showing that in finding an epitaph for the Second Empire he was not also summing up the retrospect of his own career. At the age of seventy-four, after passing through every conceivable shade of political opinion, after hymning the fiercest moods of the great Republic, after glorifying the First Consul and Emperor, after contributing a large proportion of the venom to those stings by which the Bourbon restoration was stung to death, after giving effect at different times under Louis Philippe to the most opposite policies, without pretending to have any other guide for his gyrations than the expediency of the moment, after pacific tacks and warlike tacks, and after venturing to throw the obloquy of ultimate pusil- lanimity on the King whom he served, after giving in his adhesion in 1848 to the revolutionary party in Europe, which he declared he never would betray, and within only a few weeks veering round to the party of the Conservative bourgeoisie and supporting every repressive measure adopted against that same European revolution, after voting for the Presidency of Prince Napoleon, for the expedi- tion to Rome, and all the despotic measures of the executive, and reaping his reward in the coup d'e'tat which expelled him for a short time from France, after resuming long years afterwards his Parliamentary career only to denounce the independence of Italy, and to rouse in France the fiercest jealousy against the growing power and unity of Germany, after attacking free trade with his keenest fallacies, and at the last critical moment weakening the Imperial Executive by his bitter condemnation of the German war, the causes of which no other Frenchman had done so much to foster,—after all this, M. Thiers has at last reaped the reward of his exhaustive experience of political em- piricism, error, and passion, in the profound sympathy of the French nation with his indomitable vitality, his vigorous though short-sighted penetration, his keen apereus for momentary expedients, and his dry dislike of heroic measures that don't succeed.
We have no wish to suggest doubts of M. Thiers' public spirit at the present moment. That he has ever understood what an historical principle, what a political principle, what even an economical principle means, we do not in the least believe. He has admired with his whole soul every form of French energy by turns ; he has riddled with his satire every form of French imbecility ; he has assailed with inexhaust- ible vivacity every kind of even successful power which he could regard as hostile to his own influence ; but through everything, though he has believed in nothing else, he has believed in France, and he believes in France still. It was his belief in France which gave the fire to his descriptions of the great Revolution, which gave the ecstacy to his worship of the genius of the First Consul, which gave the passion to his hatred of the Bourbon restoration, which encouraged him to swagger as the minister of Louis Philippe, to adhere in an episode of frenzy to the principle of European revolution, to resist it when he thought he saw it producing French anarchy, to favour monopoly and protection—which is always the policy of shortsighted nationalism—to vent immeasurable wrath on the prospect of a risen Italy and
a united Germany, and to shrink at last from the awful
danger of the impending collision with the armies of the Hohenzollern. Thiers has been, on the whole, a selfish states-
man ; but almost more selfish for France than for himself,— which is another way of saying that he has, perhaps, loved France better than himself. Like all statesmen who could never see beyond the principle of national selfishness, he has had no glimpse of true national greatness. But in his own French way he has loved France sincerely, and has shown his love honestly in his recent inglorious mission to beg aid of the various countries he had threatened, in his weary and vain negotiations in November for an armistice with the hard vassal of the Hohenzollerns, and in his shifty management now of the various intractable elements of the Bordeaux Assembly. And France has not been ungrateful. She has recognized with pathetic unanimity her political desti- tution in fixing on the statesman without a creed or a principle in the world (except shortsighted devotion to herself) as her only sheet-anchor in time of trouble. Her men of principles, so far as she has any, are divided against themselves ; the Republicans will not dishonour the Republic ; the Legitimists will not dishonour their King; the Orleanists will not endanger their influence by ceding French provinces. M. Thiers,- the one intelligence without a principle, the quick-witted, short- sighted man of many experiences, with scarcely a fault left to commit, and the less hesitation, therefore, about appearing to commit what perhaps is not a fault,—is still left to France, and she cries out for him to come and save her. Poor France indeed, with such a saviour! And yet there is in Thiers the grain of pure patriotic feeling which makes him not wholly un- worthy of the task. As he sat the other day in the Bordeaux As- sembly—listening to the fervent cry of Alsace and Lorraine that they should not be abandoned to the enemy, and to the Repub- lican echo of that cry, his hands, as the Daily News' corre- spondent described them, stiffly fixed upon his knees, his eyes glancing sharply to and fro noting whence the onesided enthusiasm proceeded, measuring his own support in the Assembly by its inaction, and taking his prompt resolve to bring to a test at once the powers which would be accorded him to negotiate peace,—that " haughty insensibility of a parvenu" with which he has so often been charged was turned to no ignoble purpose. There was valour in the old man of seventy-four as he piped out his desire for an imme- diate decision on the great question of his power to nego- tiate the best terms of peace he could get., in the face of that excited and despairing crowd of patriots. The " Mirabean- mouche," as Thiers used to be called, was certainly never less of a mere blue-bottle, never showed so much of the rapid valour of Mirabeau as in that difficult moment. Still, one cannot envy the country that falls back as its last resource on this shifty saviour, this man of expedients, whom France loves for being as short and quick-witted for her as he is for himself, for his high appreciation of theatrical success, and his positive hatred of heroic failure. When Prussia lost the services of her Stein by the enmity of Napoleon, she had still her Harden- berg. When Italy lost her Cavour, she still had her Ricasoli. When Hungary lost her Bathyani, she had her Deak. But France in her agony can find no statesman of character and prin- ciple to whom to turn for help. She can only cast her appealing glance on the cunning literary craftsman who has stripped himself of every principle in her service without ever coming near to his wits' end ; and she makes much of him because in all his veerings and vanities he is true Frenchman still. When the old Breton noble refuses to bow his proud head,
and the stern Republican tribune will make no sign of defeat, the "haughty insensibility of the parvenu " may be turned to some profitable account. " It does not want names at the
bottom of it, but heads at the bottom of it," said M. Thiers in relation to some declaration of revolutionary principle in 1830. He is experiencing the same imperious necessity from a different cause in negotiating the peace of 1871 ; and it is at least some tribute to his gallantry to say that he shrinks as little now as then.
Still, say what you will in his favour, never was any forlorn sufferer content to find shelter under a more diminutive frag- ment of rock in a weary land, than France under the states- manship of M. Thiers,—a man with no political faith, hope, or charity,—with no principle to steer by but the look-ont, no national ideal before him but peace at any price, no international sympathies to alleviate the wreck of all national hopes. He has lived his whole life on the hand-to-mouth principle, both as litte'rateur and statesman. He got up his knowledge as a writer just where and when it was wanted for the making of his books. He took his policy as a politician from the quick impressions of the moment. He never had a real belief in Republic, Empire, House of Bourbon, or House of Orleans ; and he has none now. He never had a real belief as to any policy of peace or war, free trade or pro- tection, education or no-education, except that what- ever promised the most immediate return of popularity was best. He may be the- statesman for the exigency of the moment,—:to turn the difficult corner where the path of France skirts the precipice ; but if France is to have a future, and grow into a firmer texture of self- restraint and resolve, her first necessity, after the exigency of the moment is satisfied, will be to put at the head of affairs some statesman of deeper faith and character, of steadier pur- pose and of less twinkling intelligence than M. Thiers.
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