Part 8 (1/2)
[Footnote 64: See _Turkey in Europe_, by ”Odysseus” (p. 130), for the parallel instance of the enhanced power of the Sultan Abdul Hamid owing to the same causes.]
The spread of const.i.tutional rule has also helped to dispel discontent--or, at least, has altered its character. Representative government has tended to withdraw disaffection from the market-place, the purlieus of the poor, and the fastnesses of the forest, and to focus it noisily but peacefully in the columns of the Press and the arena of Parliament. The appeal now is not so much to arms as to argument; and in this new sphere a minority, provided that it is well organised and persistent, may generally hope to attain its ends. Revolt, even if it take the form of a refusal to pay taxes, is therefore an anachronism under a democracy; unless, as in the case of the American Civil War, two great sections of the country are irreconcilably opposed.
The fact, however, that there has been no widespread revolt in Russia since the year 1863, shows that democracy has not been the chief influence tending to dissolve or suppress discontent. As we shall see in a later chapter, Russia has defied const.i.tutionalism and ground down alien races and creeds; yet (up to the year 1904) no great rising has shaken her autocratic system to its base. This seems to prove that the immunity of the present age in regard to insurrections is due rather to the triumphs of mechanical science than to the progress of democracy.
The fact is not pleasing to contemplate; but it must be faced. So also must its natural corollary: that the minority, if rendered desperate, may be driven to arm itself with new and terrible engines of destruction in order to shatter that superiority of force with which science has endowed the centralised Governments of to-day.
Certain it is that desperation, perhaps brought about by a sense of helplessness in face of an armed nation, was one of the characteristics of the Paris Commune, as it was also of Nihilism in Russia. In fact the Communist effort of 1871 may be termed a belated attempt on the part of a daring minority to dominate France by seizing the machinery of government at Paris. The success of the Extremists of 1793 and 1848 in similar experiments--not to speak of the Communistic rising of Babeuf in 1797--was only temporary; but doubtless it encouraged the ”Reds” of 1871 to make their mad bid for power. Now, however, the case was very different. France was no longer a lethargic ma.s.s, dominated solely by the eager brain of Paris. The whole country thrilled with political life. For the time, the provinces held the directing power, which had been necessarily removed from the capital; and--most powerful motive of all--they looked on the Parisian experiment as gross treason to _la patrie_, while she lay at the feet of the Germans. Thus, the very motives which for a s.p.a.ce lent such prestige and power to the Communistic Jacobins of 1793 told against their imitators in 1871.
The inmost details of their attempt will perhaps never be fully known; for too many of the actors died under the ruins of the building they had so heedlessly reared. Nevertheless, it is clear that the Commune was far from being the causeless outburst that it has often been represented. In part it resulted from the determination of the capital to free herself from the control of the ”rurals” who dominated the National a.s.sembly; and in that respect it foreshadowed, however crudely, what will probably be the political future of all great States, wherein the urban population promises altogether to outweigh and control that of the country. Further, it should be remembered that the experimenters of 1871 believed the a.s.sembly to have betrayed the cause of France by ceding her eastern districts, and to be on the point of handing over the Republic to the Monarchists. A fit of hysteria, or hypochondria, brought on by the exhausting siege and by exasperation at the triumphal entry of the Germans, added the touch of fury which enabled the Radicals of Paris to challenge the national authorities and thereafter to persist in their defiance with French logicality and ardour.
France, on the other hand, looked on the Communist movement at Paris and in the southern towns as treason to the cause of national unity, when there was the utmost need of concord. Thus on both sides there were deplorable misunderstandings. In ordinary times they might have been cleared away by frank explanations between the more moderate leaders; but the feverish state of the public mind forbade all thoughts of compromise, and the very weakness brought on by the war sharpened the fit of delirium which will render the spring months of the year 1871 for ever memorable even in the thrilling annals of Paris.
CHAPTER V
THE FOUNDING OF THE FRENCH REPUBLIC (_continued_)
The seemingly suicidal energy shown in the civil strifes at Paris served still further to depress the fortunes of France. On the very day when the Versailles troops entered the walls of Paris, Thiers and Favre signed the treaty of peace at Frankfurt. The terms were substantially those agreed on in the preliminaries of February, but the terms of payment of the indemnity were harder than before. Resistance was hopeless. In truth, the Iron Chancellor had recently used very threatening language: he accused the French Government of bad faith in procuring the release of a large force of French prisoners, ostensibly for the overthrow of the Commune, but really in order to patch up matters with the ”Reds” of Paris and renew the war with Germany.
Misrepresentations and threats like these induced Thiers and Favre to agree to the German demands, which took form in the Treaty of Frankfurt (May 10, 1871).
Peace having been duly ratified on the hard terms[65], it remained to build up France almost _de nova_. Nearly everything was wanting. The treasury was nearly empty, and that too in face of the enormous demands made by Germany. It is said that in February 1871, the unhappy man who took up the Ministry of Finance, carried away all the funds of the national exchequer in his hat. As Thiers confessed to the a.s.sembly, he had, for very patriotism, to close his eyes to the future and grapple with the problems of every day as they arose. But he had faith in France, and France had faith in him. The French people can perform wonders when they thoroughly trust their rulers. The inexhaustible wealth inherent in their soil, the thrift of the peasantry, and the self-sacrificing ardour shown by the nation when nerved by a high ideal, const.i.tuted an a.s.set of unsuspected strength in face of the staggering blows dealt to French wealth and credit. The losses caused by the war, the Commune, and the cession of the eastern districts, involved losses that have been reckoned at more than 614,000,000. Apart from the 1,597,000 inhabitants transferred to German rule, the loss of population due to the war and the civil strifes has been put as high as 491,000 souls[66].
[Footnote 65: They included the right to hold four more Departments until the third half milliard (20,000,000, that is, 60,000,000 in all) had been paid. A commercial treaty on favourable terms, those of the ”most favoured nation,” was arranged, as also an exchange of frontier strips near Luxemburg and Belfort. Germany acquired Elsa.s.s (Alsace) and part of Lorraine, free of all their debts.
We may note here that the Anglo-French Treaty of Commerce arranged in 1860 with Napoleon largely by the aid of Cobden, was not renewed by the French Republic, which thereafter began to exclude British goods.
Bismarck forced France at Frankfurt to concede favourable terms to German products. England was helpless. For this subject, see _Protection in France_, by H.O. Meredith (1905).]
[Footnote 66: Quoted by M. Hanotaux, _Contemporary France_, vol. i. pp.
323-327.]
Yet France flung herself with triumphant energy into the task of paying off the invaders. At the close of June 1871, a loan for two milliards and a quarter (90,000,000) was opened for subscription, and proved to be an immense success. The required amount was more than doubled. By means of the help of international banks, the first half milliard of the debt was paid off in July 1871, and Normandy was freed from the burden of German occupation. We need not detail the dates of the successive payments. They revealed the unsuspected vitality of France and the energy of her Government and financiers. In March 1873, the arrangements for the payment of the last instalment were made, and in the autumn of that year the last German troops left Verdun and Belfort. For his great services in bending all the powers of France to this great financial feat, Thiers was universally acclaimed as the Liberator of the Territory.
Yet that very same period saw him overthrown. To read this riddle aright, we must review the outlines of French internal politics. We have already referred to the causes that sent up a monarchical majority to the National a.s.sembly, the schisms that weakened the action of that majority, and the peculiar position held by M. Thiers, an Orleanist in theory, but the chief magistrate of the French Republic. No more paradoxical situation has ever existed; and its oddity was enhanced by the usually clear-cut logicality of French political thought. Now, after the war and the Commune, the outlook was dim, even to the keenest sight.
One thing alone was clear, the duty of all citizens to defer raising any burning question until law, order, and the national finances were re-established. It was the perception of this truth that led to the provisional truce between the parties known as the Compact of Bordeaux.
Flagrantly broken by the ”Reds” of Paris in the spring of 1871, that agreement seemed doomed. The Republic itself was in danger of peris.h.i.+ng as it did after the socialistic extravagances of the Revolution of 1848.
But Thiers at once disappointed the monarchists by stoutly declaring that he would not abet the overthrow of the Republic: ”We found the Republic established, as a fact of which we are not the authors; but I will not destroy the form of government which I am now using to restore order. . . . When all is settled, the country will have the liberty to choose as it pleases in what concerns its future destinies[67].”
Skilfully pointing the factions to the future as offering a final reward for their virtuous self-restraint, this masterly tactician gained time in which to heal the worst wounds dealt by the war.
[Footnote 67: Speech of March 27, 1871.]
But it was amidst unending difficulties. The Monarchists, eager to emphasise the political reaction set in motion by the extravagances of the Paris Commune, wished to rid themselves at the earliest possible time of this self-confident little bourgeois who seemed to stand alone between them and the realisation of their hopes. Their more unscrupulous members belittled his services and hinted that love of power alone led him to cling to the Republic, and thus belie his political past. Then, too, the Orleans princes, the Duc d'Aumale and the Prince de Joinville, the surviving sons of King Louis Philippe, took their seats as deputies for the Oise and Haute-Marne Departments, thus keeping the monarchical ideal steadily before the eye of France. True, the Duc d'Aumale had declared to the electorate that he was ready to bow before the will of France whether it decided for a Const.i.tutional Monarchy or a Liberal Republic; and the loyalty with which he served his country was destined to set the seal of honesty on a singularly interesting career. But there was no guarantee that the Chamber would not take upon itself to interpret the will of France and call from his place of exile in London the Comte de Paris, son of the eldest descendant of Louis Philippe, around whom the hopes of the Orleanists centred.
Had Thiers followed his earlier convictions and declared for such a Restoration, it might quite conceivably have come about without very much resistance. But early in the year 1871, or perhaps after the fall of the Empire, he became convinced that France could not heal her grievous wounds except under a government that had its roots deep in the people's life. Now, the cause of monarchy in France was hopelessly weakened by schisms. Legitimists and Orleanists were at feud ever since, in 1830, Louis Philippe, so the former said, cozened the rightful heir out of his inheritance; and the efforts now made to fuse the claims of the two rival branches remained without result, owing to the stiff and dogmatic att.i.tude of the Comte de Chambord, heir to the traditions of the elder branch. A Bonapartist Restoration was out of the question. Yet all three sections began more and more to urge their claims. Thiers met them with consummate skill. Occasionally they had reason to resent his tactics as showing unworthy finesse; but oftener they quailed before the startling boldness of his reminders that, as they const.i.tuted the majority of the deputies of France, they might at once undertake to restore the monarchy--if they could. ”You do not, and you cannot, do so.
There is only one throne and it cannot have three occupants[68].” Or, again, he cowed them by the sheer force of his personality: ”If I were a weak man, I would flatter you,” he once exclaimed. In the last resort he replied to their hints of his ambition and self-seeking by offering his resignation. Here again the logic of facts was with him. For many months he was the necessary man, and he and they knew it.
[Footnote 68: De Mazade, _Thiers_, p. 467. For a sharp criticism of Thiers, see Samuel Denis' _Histoire Contemperaine_ (written from the royalist standpoint).]
But, as we have seen, there came a time when the last hard bargains with Bismarck as to the payment of the war debt neared their end; and the rapier-play between the Liberator of the Territory and the parties of the a.s.sembly also drew to a close. In one matter he had given them just cause for complaint. As far back as November 13, 1872 (that is, before the financial problem was solved), he suddenly and without provocation declared from the tribune of the National a.s.sembly that it was time to establish the Republic. The proposal was adjourned, but Thiers had damaged his influence. He had broken the ”Compact of Bordeaux” and had shown his hand. The a.s.sembly now knew that he was a Republican. Finally, he made a dignified speech to the a.s.sembly, justifying his conduct in the past, appealing from the verdict of parties to the impartial tribunal of History, and prophesying that the welfare of France was bound up with the maintenance of the Conservative Republic. The a.s.sembly by a majority of fourteen decided on a course of action that he disapproved, and he therefore resigned (May 24, 1873).