TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THE THIRD FRENCH REPUBLIC.
GREAT changes in France are always made under the influence of fear, and always partake, therefore, more or less of the nature of coups d'etat. There is nothing unusual, therefore, or unhistorical in the breathless rapidity with which the Assembly, under the influence of the Violet Spectre, has swung round, has set aside Monarchy in all its forms, and has established, so far as law may do it, a Constitutional Republic. Nor is the haste of itself any proof that the work accomplished will not last for any appreciable period. The National Assembly of 1789 abolished feudalism in a night (August 4), and the system has never even partially revived. The per- sonal power of Napoleon was established in 1799 in six hours, and he reigned under one name or another for sixteen years. The Monarchy was restored almost by an accident and by a foreign proclamation, and Louis XVIII. died tran- quilly in his bed undisputed King of France. The three days of July 30, with their dramatic and unintended ending, were fol- lowed by a regime of eighteen years; and though the Republic of 1848, proclaimed in a moment, died in four years, the Dictator- ship established in a day lasted for seventeen. There is there- fore no evidence, though much fear, that the new regime may not endure, and the reasons for hope are the stronger because it has so obviously made itself. The irony of history, the vanity of human projects, the controlling power of circumstance over men, were never shown upon a larger or more glaringly- lighted stage. The Sovereign Assembly, elected to make peace, was found to contain a majority desirous of re-establish- ing Monarchy in France. By a supreme effort of ambition or self-sacrifice, the branches of the House to which that majority looked for a King were fused into one family, accepting the law of succession usual in Europe and preferred by all Monarchists not Mohammedan or Chinese. The majority dismissed a chief of the Executive who had accepted Republicanism, and appointed a soldier who declared himself Conservative, and vowed to obey the order of the Assembly. The people, half-stupefied by misfortune, half hoping that safety might be found in the old path, awaited, apparently acquiescent, the decision of the Assembly. And then,—then the Assembly plunged into a dispute of eighteen months, and growing apparently more and more divided every day, suddenly, under an overmastering impulse, whether produced 'by weariness, by circumstance, or by fear, established the Republic. Half the Monarchists proposed it. The Conservative Head of the Executive fostered it. The people gladly acquiesced in it. In less than a month of debating, a Constitution Republican in its essence, President, Senate, and Representatives being all alike elective, though in different ways, and for varying terms, was legally established as a permanent form of govern- ment for France. And this work has been accomplished by an Assembly devoted to Monarchy, by a Commander-in- Chief honestly Conservative, and by a people supposed, when the Assembly began its labours, to consider a Republic a kind of semi-organised anarchy.
There never was a more extraordinary transaction, or one in which men looked more like the instruments of some external force, and its exceptional character is most of all manifest in the proceedings of the last few days. The Assembly, which had only a fortnight before decreed the election of the Senate by uni- versal suffrage, decreed, by much larger majorities, that a fourth of it should be appointed by itself for life, and the remainder by the suffrage of the County Parliaments and Municipal Bodies. The Orleanists, supposed to be secretly Monarchists, left the President without veto or right of seating nominees in the Senate, and voted for the succession of elective Chiefs. The Republicans, supposed to dread the Executive power, voted for long Presidential terms, for transferring the right of disso- lution from the popular body to the President and Senate, and for the President's right of nominating the Council of State,which examines and modifies, and may even reject, all new projects of law. And both, supposed to be at once irreconcilable and dis- orderly, enforced among themselves a discipline like that of an army, voted in ranks like soldiers, rejected illusory amendments like Englishmen, and routed their adversaries in a silence which even Englishmen could not have maintained, To see a French Left voting down a proposition "that the sovereignty of France resides in the body of French citizens," and voting for the right of Royal and Imperial personages to become Presidents if the Assembly choose, and disregarding an appeal to utAke Paris the seat of Gevernment, i enough to make all ob- servers incredulous, and cause them to doubt whether a modera- tion so unnatural can possibly last. Nevertheless, it has lasted long enough to secure the law, and France from February 25th will be under a Republican Constitution which can march.
We have no desire to-day to discuss the provisions of this Constitution. Everybody can see that it contains "Conserva- tive "elements,—that is, that the President, with his unequalled patronage, his control of the Army, and the immense position always belonging in France to the Head of the Executive, will exercise great influence on the Senate, which, in its turn, can
check the action of the Chamber of Deputies. Every- one can also see that the Chamber, if moved by strong feeling and possessed of a steadfast majority, can over- ride all opposition except that of the President, and that the collision of these two powers, both irremovable and absolute within their spheres, is a possibility. And everybody can see also that the Conservative guarantees may fail, that a majority might appear in both Houses of the same colour, and might appoint a President who would be a mere Registrar of their decisions ; but these obvious defects in the Constitution. are but the difficulties of the future, and we turn from them to discuss the difficulties of the present. It is quite clear, even to. observers at Versailles, that the new Constitution must be administered by a new Ministry, and to observers abroad that it must be followed by a new election. The first necessity, it would seem, is recognised by the President, and will, in appearance at least, be acted on at once. The majority of the Assembly is animated by dislike and dis- trust of Bonapartism, and fortunately a group of states- men, more or less Conservative, more or less Republican, and strongly anti-Bonapartist, is ready to the President's hand. A Ministry in which M. Buffet is Premier, and the Due Decazes Minister for Foreign Affairs, and General Cissey Minister at War, and M. Leon Say Minister of Finance, and M. Renault, or the Due d'Audiffret-Pasquier, Minister of the Interior, and M. Dufaure Minister of Justice, would, from differ- ing motives, be honestly Republican, and with an infusion of stronger Liberals in the lesser Cabinet offices, particularly the Ministry of Instruction, would represent very fairly the tone of the majority, without irritating too much the personal pro- clivities of the President. Such a Ministry, with all its work to do in breaking up the Bonapartist organisation, may hold power for a considerable time, at all events as time is counted among French Ministries, and may at least be able to put the now system—for among a logical people a new Constitution implies in many respects a new system—into working order. The new Ministry will be formed, but the collection of the new Assembly will be a more difficult task. It seems, of course,. to Englishmen obvious that there must be one. There is no other method, to begin with, of securing the formal popular ratification of the Constitution, without which the Bonapartists will always be able to allege, and allege plausibly, that the- Republic was established by a momentary majority, and has never been accepted by the, nation as a whole. Then, under the new Constitution, the National Assembly consists of two bodies, the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies, elected in two different ways ; and only one of them is as yet in existence, while the election of the other involves, by the same law, the dissolution of the first. By a curious clause, the object of which we scarcely see, the date of the creation of the Senate is fixed at one month previous to the first dissolution of the Assembly. And finally, it would seem indispensable that the existing Assembly, having done its constituent work, should give place to another, elected under the system it has created, a system which may of itself, merely by being established, have affected the mind of every elector. He may think that under a Republic he must for safety's sake vote for a Conservative representative, or for consistency's sake for a candidate of much more advanced principles. At all events he is certain to demand new pledges of the man of his choice, and for that man to remain after such a Revolution without re-election is to cease to be a representative. There must be a dissolution, but nevertheless, the difficulties in the way of dissolving are very great indeed. Till the Senate is elected the right of dissolution remains with the Assembly, and the Assembly is most unwilling to dissolve. The Right know they will never come back, the Right Centre fear they will never come back, the Left Centre dread an irruption of Bonapartists, and the Left want the new Government to become cus- tomary before everything is thrown into the crucible again. They believe they will have a majority, but they want a majority heavy enough not only to control the Bonapartists, but to render them hopeless of further agitation, until, at all
events the Republic has in some way visibly failed. Add to hard, but there is a growing contempt for all bishops these political motives the secret dislike of a great majority of French, and for that matter of English, representatives to a troublesome, expensive, and most uncertain contest, and we have at once reason sufficient for a hesitation which has given rise to the strange report that there is to be no Dissolution. The Assembly, it is said, in voting the Republic has shown so just an appreciation of the feeling of the people, that the necessity for dissolving no longer exists. We do not believe this report, but we do believe the Assembly will stand in need of some pressure to induce it to vote that its members shall again appear before the constituencies. This pressure ought to be applied by public opinion, but if it is not, it will, we presume, come from the fear entertained by Marshal Macmahon that, with no Senate in existence, the Assembly, still uncontrolled, may take some ill- advised step, or even repeal the Constitution. He trusts very much to the Senate, more especially as regards the election of his successor, and pressure from him to create one may supply just the momentum sufficient to overcome the reluctance of an Assembly which, wise as its recent action may have been, we must yet pronounce one of the most selfish and ill-organised bodies that ever falsely professed to reflect the political opinion of a nation.
Previous page
