Part 39 (1/2)
Two rules M. Thiers never departed from: one was, as he said himself, ”to defend ferociously the public purse,” the other, never to give house-room to any but first-rate objects of art. Some of his pictures were very dear to him. Several of his bronzes, which were pillaged by the Commune and never recovered, were mourned by him as if they had been his friends. He had been wont to call them ”the school-masters of his soul.”
CHAPTER XIX.
THREE FRENCH PRESIDENT'S.
Marshal MacMahon, the Duke of Magenta, was of Irish descent, his ancestors having followed James II. into exile, and distinguished themselves at the Battle of the Boyne. Their descendant, Patrice (or Patrick), the subject of this sketch, was the sixteenth of seventeen children.
He was born when French glory was at its height, under the First Empire, in the summer of 1806. When he was seventeen he was sent to the military school at Saint-Cyr. There his Irish dash and talent soon won him renown. In Algeria he acquired fame and fortune and the Cross of the Legion of Honor. In 1830 he went to the siege of Antwerp, at the time when the French insisted on promoting a revolution in Belgium, and the moment that enterprise was over, he retired to Algeria. At twenty-five he was a captain and had distinguished himself at the siege of Constantine, fighting side by side with the Duc de Nemours and that other French officer of Irish descent, Marshal Niel. At forty-four he was a general of division, and had seen twenty-seven years of service. The Arabs called him the Invulnerable.
He went to the Crimean War, and there led the attack on the Malakoff, holding his post until the place was won. Devoted to his profession, he was diffident in society. He was named a senator by Napoleon III. after his return from the Crimea, but declined to take his seat, refusing at the same time some other proffered honors. He was sent back to Algeria at his own request, and stayed there, fighting the Arabs, for five years. Then, returning to Paris, he took his seat in the Senate, where he opposed some of the arbitrary decrees of the emperor.[1]
[Footnote 1: Temple Bar, ”Courts of the three Presidents, Thiers, MacMahon, and Grevy,” 1884.]
In the Italian War in 1859 he fought with distinguished bravery, and on the battlefield of Magenta was made a Marshal of France and Duke of Magenta. After being amba.s.sador at Berlin he was sent to bear the emperor's congratulations to King William on his accession, and to attend his coronation. He was again sent to Algeria as its governor-general. He had already married Marie, daughter of the Duc de Castries. She was very rich, and connected with some of the most opulent bankers in Vienna.
Marshal MacMahon came back to France at the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War, and was given the command of the First Army Corps; but the emperor insisted on commanding his own armies as general-in-chief. The day before the surrender at Sedan, Marshal MacMahon had been badly wounded, and had to resign his command to General Ducrot. Ducrot being also wounded, it became the sad duty of General Wimpffen to sign the capitulation. Marshal MacMahon was taken as a prisoner to Wiesbaden, where he remained till the close of the war. He got back to Paris forty-eight hours before the outbreak of the Commune. A commander was needed for the forces of France. M. Thiers chose Marshal MacMahon, who with tears in his eyes thanked him for the opportunity of retrieving his lost reputation and doing service for France. After he had collected his army, which it took some weeks to bring back from Germany, to equip, and to reorganize, his men fought desperately for seven days, pus.h.i.+ng their way step by step into the heart of the capital, till on May 28, 1871, the marshal addressed a proclamation to France, informing Frenchmen that the Commune was at an end. He then pa.s.sed out of public sight, eclipsed by the superior radiance of Thiers and Gambetta. But as time went on, and it was determined by the Monarchists to coalesce with the extreme Radicals and get rid of M. Thiers, who was laboring to establish a law and order Republic, the newspapers of both the Conservative and Radical parties began to exalt the marshal's merits at the expense of ”that sinister old man,” M. Thiers. After six months of this trumpet-blowing by the opposition Press, the idea was planted in the minds of Frenchmen that Marshal MacMahon was the statesman who might bring France out of all her difficulties.
It was ascertained by the Monarchists that Marshal MacMahon would accept the presidency if it were offered him, and would consider himself a stop-gap until such time as France should make up her mind whether the Comte de Chambord or some one else should be her king.
The attack on M. Thiers was then organized. M. Thiers was defeated.
He sent in his resignation, and it was accepted by a small majority in the Chamber. A moment after, Marshal MacMahon was proposed as his successor, and immediately elected (May 24, 1873).
At this time the parties in the French Chamber were seven, and their policy was for two or more of them to combine for any temporary object. Legitimists, Orleanists, and Bonapartists formed the Right; Anarchists, Red Republicans, and decided Republicans formed the Left; while the Centre was made up of men of moderate opinions of all parties who were willing to accept an orderly and stable government of any kind. This party may be said to represent to the present hour the prevailing state of public feeling in France.
The three parties on the Left quarrelled fiercely among themselves; the three parties on the Right did the same. Both Left and Right, however, were eager to rally the Centre to their side. The coalitions, hatreds, and misunderstandings of these seven parties const.i.tute for eighteen years almost the entire history of the Third Republic.
In 1873 the Monarchists,--that is, the three parties on the Right--were stronger than the combined parties on the Left, but not so strong if the Moderates of the Centre voted with the Left Republicans.
Again, if the Legitimists, Orleanists, and the Centre should unite, and the Bonapartists should go over to the Left, the Left would be the stronger.
The Duc de Broglie, an excellent man, grandson of Madame de Stael, was made President MacMahon's prime minister. So far the Monarchists had prospered. They had command of the president, the a.s.sembly, and the army. These were all prepared to accept Henri V., provided he would retreat from the position he had taken up in 1871, consent to become a const.i.tutional sovereign, give up his White Flag, and accept the Tricolor. The Monarchists appointed a Committee of Nine to negotiate this matter with the prince at Frohsdorf; but Marshal MacMahon gave them this warning: ”If the White Flag is raised against the Tricolor, the cha.s.sepots will go off of themselves, and I cannot answer for order in the streets or for discipline in the army.”
With great difficulty the nine succeeded in procuring an a.s.surance from the Comte de Chambord that he would leave the question of the flag to be decided in concert with the a.s.sembly after his restoration. Meantime he came to Versailles and remained hidden in the house of one of his supporters. Everybody urged him to accept the conditions on which alone he could reign, and fulfil the hopes of his faithful followers. They implored him to ascend the throne as a const.i.tutional sovereign, and to accept the Tricolor, in deference to the wishes of the people and his friends.
He pa.s.sed an entire night in miserable indecision, walking up and down his friend's dining-room, debating with himself whether he would give way. It had been arranged that the next day he should present himself suddenly in the a.s.sembly, be hailed with acclamation by his supporters, and be introduced by the marshal-president himself as Henri Cinq. The building was to be guarded by faithful troops, the telegraph was prepared to flash the news through France, the very looms at Lyons were weaving silks brocaded with _fleurs de lys_. But Henri V. could not bring himself to comply. He fled away from Versailles before dawn. ”He is an honest man,” said M. Thiers, ”and will not put his flag in his pocket.” A few days later he published at Salzburg a letter in which he protested against the pressure his friends had brought to bear on him. ”Never,” he said, ”will I become a revolutionary king,” by which he meant a king who reigned under a const.i.tution; never, he protested, would he sacrifice his honor to the exigencies of parties; ”and,” he concluded, ”never will I disclaim the standard of Arques and of Ivry!”
”The count,” said an English newspaper, ”seems to have forgotten that Arques and Ivry were Protestant victories.”
”My person,” continued the count, ”is nothing; my principle is everything. I am the indispensable pilot, the only man capable of guiding the vessel into port, because for this I have mission and authority.”
Thus ended all chances for Henri V. The Orleans princes, having concluded a compact with him as his heirs, felt themselves bound in honor to refuse to accept any compromise which ”the head of the family” did not approve.
It can be easily imagined how provoked and disappointed were all those who had rallied to the king's party. There remained nothing to do but to strengthen the Republic and to provide it with a permanent const.i.tution. A Committee of Thirty was appointed to draw up the doc.u.ment. The const.i.tution was very conservative. It has now been in force nineteen years, but it has never worked smoothly, and the object of the extreme Republicans, who have clamored for ”revision,”
has been to eliminate its conservative elements and make it Red Republican. It is impossible for a people who change their government so often to have much respect or love for any const.i.tution.
The Marshal-Duke of Magenta had accepted the presidency without any great desire to retain it; nevertheless, he established his household on a semi-royal footing, as though he intended, as some thought, that there should be at least a temporary court, to prepare the way for what might be at hand. M. Thiers had been a _bourgeois_ president; the marshal was a _grand seigneur_. M. Thiers' servants had been clothed in black; the marshal's wore gay liveries of scarlet plush, and gray and silver. When M. Thiers took part in any public ceremony he drove in a handsome landau with a mounted escort of Republican Guards, and his friends (he never called them his _suite_) followed as they pleased in their own carriages. But the marshal's equipages were painted in three shades of green, and lined with pearl-gray satin. They were drawn by four gray horses, with postilions and outriders. To see M. Thiers on business was as easy as it is to see the President at the White House. Anybody could be admitted on sending a letter to his secretary. To journalists he was always accessible, believing himself still to belong to their profession.
But to approach the marshal was about as hard as to approach a king, and he hated above all things newspaper writers.
In 1873 the Shah of Persia came to Paris, and the marshal entertained him magnificently. He gave him a torch-light procession of soldiers, a gala performance at the Grand Opera, and a banquet in the Galerie des Glaces at Versailles. The Parisians regretted that the visit had not been made in M. Thiers' time, when society might have been amused by stories of how the omniscient little president had instructed the shah, through an interpreter, as to Persian history and the etymology of Oriental languages; but society had a good story connected with the visit, after all. During the state banquet at Versailles the shah turned to the d.u.c.h.ess of Magenta, and asked her, in a French sentence some one had taught him for the occasion, why her husband did not make himself emperor.
The marshal was content to hold his place as president, and the Duc de Broglie governed for him, except in anything relating to military affairs. On these the marshal always had his way.
The Duc de Broglie's government, which was all in the interest of the monarchical principle, became distrusted and unpopular.