GAMBETTA AT GRENOBLE.
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TE fear that Gambetta has not helped himself, we trust he has not hurt the Republic, by his splendid speech at Grenoble. He seems to have achieved one of his best efforts, but it is to be apprehended that the present stage of French reconstruction does not afford the best opportunity for such a best effort. M. Thiers, with his policy of finessing, cannot, indeed, be cited as a specimen of straightforward statesmanship. Straightforward statesmanship, however, at least in the sense of telling in the most downright way to possible opponents everything which they may dislike much less a couple of years hence, is probably not the quality that is most required for the management of creatures so excessively liable to be startled as the "Conservative Republicans" of contemporary France. We could wish that the young Dictator had less enthusiasm at some moments, and we certainly wish that he had had less enthusiasm at the Grenoble banquet. We are afraid that Palmerstonianism is the thing that is most wanted in a French statesman who means to be a practical statesman ; and we cannot but see that it is very un-Palmeratonian to begin talkini, as Gambetta has talked, about ostracising political opponents and excommunicating political opponents, not to mention contemptuous denunciations of the cowardice of political opponents, especially when the enemy that is not so much to be dislodged as converted, is still in possession of so many substantial pledges of power and so many incontrovertible advantages of position. Such a line of conduct, besides, allows it to be said that the Radical Republicans are as intolerant as ever, that the Radical Republic is only to be a Republic for the Radicals, and that everybody who is not a Radical must be ready to take up arms if need be, and in any case to use every constitutional exertion, to shackle and suppress so intolerant an agi- tation. When we find so usually calm and moderate a critic as M. John Lemoinne declaring that "it is impossible not to observe in this harangue the most detestable spirit and the most execrable tendencies, and if such doctrines were to be the programme of the Radical Republic, we would see before us no prospect except civil war," it can be understood how much the inop- portune energy of the Grenoble speech has startled and exasperated even very circumspect and sensible persons. We believe, nevertheless, that M. Lemoinne is extremely unfair to Gambetta, nor is the Bulletin Ripublicain, the organ of General Chanzy and the Left Centre, much more dispassionate. If there was a word which Gambetta emphasised more than another, it was moderation ; if there was an advice which Gambetta repeated and reiterated, it was, "Be moderate." French Republicanism cannot progress like the prosperity of England, by leaps and bounds, but it can and does progress, for all that ; and M. Gambetta gave the most explicit testimony to the manner in which the process of development has pro- ceeded. "From pure reaction," said he, speaking of the Conservatives, "the transition has been made to the idea of a monarchical restoration, then to a constitutional monarchy,
and then to the essai loyal From the essai loyal they
have gone to the essay of the Conservative Republic, then they have arrived at the Constitutional Republic ; finally, as the result of certain reflections, of certain observations of various chiefs of the monarchical parties, after having shaken the tree, and, not having been able to upturn it, after having convinced themselves of their powerlessness, and above all, after having ascertained the disposition of the elec- toral current, after having proved the progress of the Definitive Republic, they have said to themselves : There is only one thing to be done ; we must become Republi- cane." This is nothing but the simple truth, and what ought Gambetta to desire more than that the metamor- phosis should be permitted to continue ? The Conservatives who have come so far may be fairly expected under the pres- sure of the same circumstances to go farther. The only danger is-lest they should be frightened back ; lest in their still but half -tamed panic at the very name of Republic, they should be-seviolently frightened as to become quite unmanageable ; le* as they have so often done before, they should welcome anybody, even Napoleon.; lest they should be driven even to patch up. their Orleans-Chambord squabble in order somehow to save themselves from the dreaded apparition of that lower couehe sodale, that lower stratum of society which has too often come to the top, and which they are so ready to believe that Gambetta, wants again to come to the top. The French Respectables, who have blundered so terribly, and who have paid as terribly for their blunders, ought not to be frightened over-wantonly, and even when a frightening might do them good a sage Republican might remember that it might also do the Republic harm.
There can be no doubt that Gambetta has met with a good deal to cross him of late. That National As- sembly at Versailles is a provoking spectacle. It must die before long, however, and the great care must be against a resurrection that would be a reproduction. Gam- betta is fully aware of the influence which fear wields over the masses in France. "It is always by fear that reactions are produced." M. Thiers carefully avoids giving a pretence to fear. At the same time, it is probable that one of the measures which M. Thiers has taken to lull the sus- picious Conservatives of the country, has been the principal reason for the passionate explosion at Grenoble. The pro- hibition of a public banquet overset the July Monarchy, and the prohibition of the public banquets in the South of France has evidently had much to do with the disturbance of Gambetta's equanimity. Such prohibitions are usually worse than useless, and we can- fully understand the indignation with which every sincere Republican must view such repulsive ves- tiges of discarded Imperialism. Gambetta ought not, indeed, to allow himself to be so deeply moved by the annoyance to which he has been subjected ; but the Reactionists, who affect to take his very natural irritation as proofs of some deep design against the Commonweal, are guilty of an incom- parably more serious offence against the public security.
We wish we 'could defend Gambetta as easily against another accusation, though this accusation, too, rests more on. &fault of style and temper. We mean the aggravating references to the First Republic in which Gambetta revels, and which afford his detractors an excuse for asserting that the ex-Dictator would be willingly a Denton or a Robespierre. Gambetta would be nothing or the kind, and for this very reason it would be better if he gave less ground for M. Veuillot's saintly, backbiting. It is, indeed, curious to notice the extent to which an involuntary clinging to tradi- tion infliiences the sworn enemies- of the hereditary principle. It is not enough for a number of French Republicans to have a Republic of 1872. It must be the Republic of 1792 into the bargain. Now, there can be nothing clearer than that there must be an enormous difference between the Republic which it will suit Frenchmen to establish to-day, and the Republic which Frenchmen were goaded to establish eighty years ago. There must be an enormous difference between the deliberative action of citizens and the maddened uprising of serfs. With all its follies, with all its crimes, the French Revolution, as it must ever be pre-eminently called, was a glorious era for Fiance and humanity. It snapped chains, it emancipated thoughts, at the reflection of its radiance Heaven's free light Alr" awoke among darkened peoples. But what it did then, and did so effectually, cannot be done over again. You cannot create a peasant proprietorship, for it is already created. You cannot storm the Bastille or abolish lettres de cachet, for the Bastille was stormed and levelled last century, and lettres de cachet have been supplanted by legal warrants. What you have to do to-day is merely, by commonplace civic prudence, to prevent Monarchic innovations, not to accomplish Repub- lican ones ; is merely to keep Madame du Barn, or for that matter, Saint Louis, from taking the place of the Conseil d'Etat or the Commission de Permanence ; not to sever miser- able Du Bard's- withered neck on a scaffold. The Republic of 1872 must be a very prosaic affair as well as an affair sui generes. There can be no Camille Desmoulins, just as there can be no War-god Broglie. When Broglie tries to be a war- god, instead of merely a very excellent, very cultivated, but very impracticable old nobleman, it will be time enough for Camille Desmoulins to be thinking of drawing pistols and jumping on tables at the Palais Royal, or anywhere else. It is no doubt a hard thing to have to see so many successful Monarchists transforming themselves into successful Repub- licans and still continuing to keep at the sunny side of life. Upon this transformation, however, the happiness of France depends, and the fiery Dictator of Tours, albeit he cannot always keep his passionate nature under control, is too good a Frenchman not to love France. Even that fire of his may be sought by the sturdiest Conservatives to warm and kindle the whole nation again some day.
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