THE PROBABILITIES OF A COUP D'ETATIN FRANCE. T O-MORROW week the
French Elections will come off, and as yet nothing, or only one thing, has occurred to affect the Liberal anticipations of their result. The Government has made no step in advance. It has done nothing to conciliate the people, and nothing adequate to frighten them. The most moderate member of the Cabinet has put forth his address, but he has said nothing to do away with the effect of the Marshal's Manifesto, which, it is now clear, profoundly irritated French amour propre. The Due Decazes is modera- tion itself, but he is not trusted enough for his moderation to influence electors. The excessive and foolish violence of the Bonapartist and Clerical Press has not been re- strained. The petty persecutions of all persons supposed to be propagandists of Liberal opinions has not ceased. The Ministers, in fact, retain their attitude,—that of a body of ushers who are afraid a school will break out, and are striving to re- store discipline by petty tyrannies. On the other hand, the discipline of the Liberals has not been relaxed. The candi- dature of M. Bonnet Duverdier, a very wild Red, has been, as it were, "hushed" down. No second list of candidates has been so much as discussed. M. Grevy has been elected by the whole party, the Ultras included, to succeed M. Thiers as leader, and ultimate President of the Republic. The policy of silence recommended by M. Gambetta has been universally accepted. Nothing, in fact, has changed in the situation, unless it be that the Clericals have become a little more out- spoken in the elections. The charges of the Bishops have indicated that the Church desires very strongly the victory of the Conservatives,—so strongly, indeed, that it is suspected she would pardon very violent measures, if only taken to secure it. This change, however, will scarcely affect the elections, or will affect them in a non-Conservative sense. The political power of the priesthood is not extinct in France —that is a dangerous fallacy—but as in Ireland, it is only great when it is in some sort in accord with the feeling of the population. As all the priests together could not prevent Irishmen from voting for a secure tenure, so all the priests together could not induce the French peasants to vote for another Revolution. The electors who are Monarchists or Imperialists already will be much more ardent if they feel the Church is with them, but the electors who are Republicans will only be the more irritated by its interference. They will not pelt the cure, but they will vote the other way. The great probability therefore is that the Government, unless something entirely unexpected occurs within eight days, will be more or less defeated, and the one preoccupation of the French mind is the result of that defeat.
We continue to doubt, though with increasing reserve, pro- duced by the rumours of the resignations of the Duke de Broglie and Gen. Berthaut—neither of whom would agree to a display of military violence—that the Marshal intends a coup d'dtat, or that he can be betrayed into one by his more unscrupulous advisers. The elections must end in one of three results. The Ministry may win, and in that case there will be no occasion for a coup d'e'tat. The majority will be Bona- partists, and they, secure of the confidence of the country which has returned them, will use the three years which remain before 1880 to prepare for the legal restoration of the Empire. They could not act by a sudden blow, for they are not ready ; the army is divided, some compromise must be made with Germany, and they must be insured against an insurrection of the great cities. It is true that their Clerical allies desire to act during the lifetime of the present Pope, but a Bonapartist is never a sincere Clerical, and once successful, will smilingly pass the Bishops by. Unless the Prince Imperial is very ill-advised, he will prefer restoration by a vote to restoration through a massacre ; and whenever his (lances become serious, it is he, and not the Cassagnaes, who will rule his party. Or again, the Ministry may be defeated, but may find themselves before the Chamber with a much larger minority than at present. This is a possible if not a probable result, the official pressure, though foiled in the great centres, proving irresistible in remote places where the Peasantry are afraid to resist without the Cures. In this event, the Government, admitting into its ranks one or two moderate Conservatives, will probably try to worry along, use the Senate as a vetoing power on Liberal laws, employ the threat of dissolution with effect, and abstain as far as possible from legis- lative proposals of its own. The Marshal may even contrive to work with a Left-Centre Cabinet—for partial success will bring him many adherents--until the Chamber, by efflux of time, becomes again intolerably Liberal, when he may again dissolve, avowedly for the Revision which is to take place in November, 1880. He would probably prefer this lino to the enormous risks of a coup d'e'tat, and the Bonapartists without a majority could not overbear his resolution. Or finally, the Liberals may win, as they expect, and the Government find itself in pre- sence of a Chamber in which 400 members obey M. Gambetta, to 150 who are ready to follow the Duke de Broglie. This is what M. Gambetta, who is well informed, and who pos- sesses much of the tact of a keen electioneering agent, avowedly expects, and this is the most probable of all results ; but in this case, the President, his Ministers,.the Army, the Senate, all upon whom the Reactionists rely, will have to endure the tremendous impact of a great popular decision. The return of four hundred Liberals will mean that, in spite of the pressure of the State, hitherto so irresistible, in spite of the open urgency of the Church, in spite of an appeal to the dreaded Red Spectre, three-fourths of all Frenchmen condemn the Government, and desire the continuance of the Republic. It will mean that the Marshal has no popularity, his Ministry no following, his advice no weight. We well re- member the sort of stupor which fell on all defeated parties in France when the vote of 1848—which was free, power being in the hands of his rivals—carried Louis Napoleon to the Presidential chair, and crushed Cavaignac, just before almost dictator and complete master of the Army, out of political existence ; and indeed it is difficult for any but the strongest minds to resist the impact of such a shock. The hostile roar of a nation shakes all but men of the martyr spirit. We doubt greatly if it will not be felt by the Marshal himself, who has hitherto been assured, and has probably believed, that the Liberals triumphed only by a misuse of his name, who will be told by the vote itself that a plebiscite could not be taken for MacMahonism, and who will see that no party, except the Repub- lican, can for the time rely upon the people. Even if the shock does not induce him to resign, or if he considers himself pledged in honour to stay till 1880, it is certain that the vote will affect the Army, which desires to anticipate, not to punish, the decision of France ; and will completely cow the Senators, two-thirds of whom are liable to re-election, and who, rich, old, and timid, are not the men to declare themselves con- temptuous of the visible decree of France. The Marshal- President, it should be remembered, has always left himself one loophole. He has always declared that he relied upon the assistance of the Senate, and that if the Senate opposed him as well as the Chamber, he should consider that he was opposed by both the Conservatives and the Radicals, and should resign his trust. Without the Senate he cannot dis- solve, and without the power of dissolution the Chamber could soon render his situation intolerable. If, therefore, he strikes a coup d'etat, it must be in the most direct way, by pure military violence, in the teeth of a plebiscite, instead of in the hope of one, against an unresisting people, and through an Army every General in which has just been informed, in the most earsplitting of tones, that his ancient comrade and rival, the victor of Magenta and vanquished of Sedan, in whose genius lie does not at heart believe, has no hold upon the con- fidence, or the affections, or the vanity of France. A coup d'etat needs conspirators, and with whom is the Marshal- President to conspire confidentially ? It is nearly impossible to us to conceive that Marshal MacMahon would make such an attempt, and make it for the benefit of a Prince to whom he is not bound by any of the ties which in other countries and other stages of society induce men to efface themselves quietly before a dynasty. Mactlahon cannot be Monarch, and what temptation is there to steep his soul in crime and render his name execrable all through history in order to be Monk ? That bait, at least, does not glitter, and as the Marshal is not a devotee either of Frohsdorf or the Vatican, what other is there ?
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