THE SITUATION AT VERSAILLES.
THE Pact of Bordeaux has become distasteful to the majority of the French Assembly, but they do not know how to get rid of it. That seems to be the meaning of the extraordinary series of intrigues, proposals, debates, and quarrels which have been going on at Versailles for the last fortnight, and have inspired all France with fear of another relapse into anarchy. Under that compact the members of the Chamber, three-fourths of whom were country magnates, elected because they were the only persons visible in the turmoil, and were therefore Monarchists of one type or another, agreed to postpone their differences with the Republicans, and support M. Thiers as virtual Dictator, until by carrying out the stern conditions of the Treaty he had terminated the German occupation. M. Thiers on his part agreed to leave the ultimate power, or, as he termed it, "the sovereignty," with the Assembly—thereby surrendering the right both of dissolution and of taking plebiscites—and to avoid any acts which should commit the country to a particular form of government. The scheme was not, for the moment, an unwise one. M. Thiers certainly was not the man whom foreign observers would have selected to lead France out of her quagmire ; but he had been elected by many departments, he was almost the only man in France not a Bonapartist familiar with office, and he was a French- man to his heart's core. At first it seemed as if the experi- ment would succeed. The "Chief of the Executive Power" succeeded in putting down the Commune ; he raised a loan of unexampled amount with great ease, and for some months he contrived, to employ his own expression, to prevent the parties within the Chamber from flying at one another's throats. The immense power always belonging to the Go- vernment in France enabled him to conduct the Administration without representativehelp, and the Army has been obedient and ready to maintain order. Of late, however, the majority within the Assembly have become dissatisfied with their ruler, with affairs, and with themselves. They had thought that M. Thiers, an Orleanist by habit, if not by conviction, a believer in strong government, and an enemy of the Ultras, would employ his authority to found a monarchy, whereas he is employing it to found a moderate Republic, with immense powers lodged in the hands of the Chief of the Executive. They had thought that he would be a Parliamentary leader, very pliable upon all points but foreign policy, and very much afraid of thorn, whereas he has been independent, exigeant, and in his treat- ment of the majority sometimes peevishly dictatorial. They had thought that the country would by degrees manifest monarchical tendencies, and agree that M. Thiers should be regarded as the locum tenens for a King, whereas they perceive, from the recent elections, from the military vote, and from the attitude of the South, that the country is accepting the Republic, that it is growing impatient of re- action, and that it turns rather towards Gambetta than towards the Comte de Paris. They begin to be anxious to get rid of M. Thiers, and could they have discovered a substitute, they would, we conceive, have long since accepted one of his too frequent resignations. Personages, however, are rare in France ; only four can be named who would not be ridiculous in such a post, and none of these four are immediately available. The Duo d'Aumale, whom they would have preferred, distinctly declined the post, fearing, it may be, to compromise the possible future of his House; fearing also, we are told, to seem to blacken his father memory by acknowledging him as a usurper. Marshal MacMahon, whom they would have endured, as a soldier likely to play the part of a Monk, did not encourage their proposals, and in fact is no politician. Gambetta they would not have, despite the latent kindness of the Right for his name, for he would have made the Republic a reality ; and M. Grevy, though repeatedly mentioned, alarmed them for the same reason. They resolved therefore to see if they could not get rid of M. Thiers' dictatorship by promotion, by declaring him President—a title which, for diplomatic and personal reasons, he greatly desired—but relegating him to the position of a constitutional King. This was the meaning of the "pro- position Rivet," according to which M. Thiers was to be President for three years, but with responsible Minis- ters, no veto, and all the rest of the compromises which we English think so excellent, and the rest of the world so ridiculous. M. Thiers would none of it. He would not be fatted hog, a king with neither dignity nor power, and he threatened if the plan were accepted to depart into private life. The majority were not prepared for this, seeing clearly that M. Thiers once away, they must either proclaim a King and so risk a civil war, or appeal to a country very likely to declare for Gambetta, and certain at all events to dismiss them. They therefore accepted a compromise, declaring M. Thiers President of the Republic, but otherwise leaving him just where he was before, with these drawbacks, that his term of office and that of the Assembly being made synchronous, he could no longer propose a dissolution, which would termi- nate his own power, and that although he could after notice ad- dress the Assembly, he could no longer mingle in its debates. This is the meaning of the "proposition Vitet," and to this also M. Thiers refused to accede unless it were accompanied by a formal recognition of his services to Prance. M. Thiers has been greatly blamed for this outbreak of "inopportune vanity ;" but though he is vain enough, with the vanity of a very old man as well as of an actor, the blame is in this instance undeserved. No statesman can live in France who suffers himself to be politically insulted, and there was insult, deep contempt for the head of the State, in the wording of M. Vitet's Bill, with its careful ignoring of his name, its cautious retention of absolute power in the Assembly, and its prepos- terous proviso that Loth President and Ministers should be responsible for all their acts, a proviso which destroys his control of his Ministers without allowing him to depend on them. It was absolutely needful, if M. Thiers were to go on at all, that the Bill should con- tain a vote of confidence, and M. Dufaure therefore demanded it on M. Thiers' behalf. The demand was acceded to, though with wretched want of grace and consideration, for M. Thiers has kept his faith with the Assembly; and the situa- tion is therefore this—that M. Tillers is President of the Re- public by virtue of a law which may be abrogated to-morrow, passed in an Assembly which dislikes and distrusts him, and which in that very law has almost in so many words com- manded him to hold his tongue. We can hardly imagine a more unfortunate position, or one less likely to endure. Had the right of the veto been conceded, M. Thiers would have been able to go on with his daily work, and let the Assembly say its say at discretion ; but without this, he must consent to carry out its policy without helping to discuss it, and without possessing in theory any option of resignation. Of course, in practice, he can resign, as he can now ; but if lie is to resign on an adverse vote, what is the sense of turning him out of the Assembly, or of making his Ministers responsible for his orders ? Even as a temporary expedient the arrange- ments is childish, much worse than the present one, under which M. Thiers is, at all events, Premier of Prance.
The truth is, the Assembly is in an impossible position, and should either efface itself till the departure of the Germans, thus fulfilling honestly the Pact of Bordeaux, or proclaim a King at all hazards, or take itself away by a dissolution. The dispute about its constituent power is a dispute about words. If it is sovereign it is constituent, and if it cannot constitute because the country disagrees with it, then it is neither constituent nor sovereign. As a matter of fact, it does nothing, and can do nothing but fret and yell. It will not go with the country and establish a Republic, because its convictions are opposed to that form of govern- ment, and it dare not proclaim a Monarchy because it knows that the country does not agree with its convictions. It treats M. Thiers as if he were a mere Premier, and the moment he offers to go it recoils in affright, thus depriving his government of all the advantages of unity, and yet foregoing any advantage that might arise from its own independence. It is morbidly jealous of its claim to sove- reignty, yet makes M. Thiers head of the Executive for a term, and then directs that he shall look to it for orders which, after all, it rather insinuates than gives. It has neither temper to wait, nor courage to act, nor resignation to submit to a dissolution. Unless some change can take place in its attitude, a catastrophe sooner or later is inevitable, and M. Gambetta in asking it either to dissolve itself or to fix a date for its dissolution is acting in the interest of constitu- tional government, and enabling the Assembly to avert the coup d'etot which otherwise in some form or other is certain
to terminate its existence. The blow may take the form of M. There' resignation, or of an insurrection of the South, or of a moral insurrection of the electors, or even of a sharp menace from the Army ; but a representative body which will neither keep quiet, nor act, nor trust its electors, and yet is beyond dissolution, is a doomed body. We presume the danger is staved off for the present, as the Chamber wants its vacation ; but there is uneasiness in the air, a feeling through- out France as if this quarrel among the postilions on the brink of a precipice were becoming intolerable, and any strong driver would be preferred. It is evident, too, that the Germans watch the state of affairs at Versailles with considerable irri- tation, and although Prince Bismarck would scarcely lift Germany once more merely to interfere in the internal affairs of France, he will undoubtedly insist on the Treaty being ful- filled, which it cannot be if the Assembly succeeds in paralyzing the Government, while refusing to take the reins into its own hands. The result of the fortnight's fury is that M. Thiers is to go on for a time, a good deal weakened by the visible discord between himself and the majority which elected him.
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