BAZAINE’S SENTENCE AND ESCAPE
A letter which Prince Frederick Charles wrote in his favor only added to the wrath of the people, who cried aloud for his execution. But, as though the judges themselves felt a twinge of conscience at the sentence, they at the same time signed a petition for pardon to the president of the republic. MacMahon thereupon commuted the punishment of death into a twenty years’ imprisonment, remitted the disgrace of the formalities of a military degradation, without canceling its operation, and appointed as the prisoner’s place of confinement the fortress on the island of St. Marguerite, opposite Cannes, known in connection with the “iron mask.” Bazaine’s wealthy Mexican wife obtained permission to reside near him, with her family and servants, in a pavilion of the sea-fortress. This afforded her an opportunity of bringing about the freedom of her husband in the following year with the aid of her brother. After an adventurous escape, by letting himself down with a rope to a Genoese vessel, Bazaine fled to Holland, and then offered his services to the republican government of Spain.
In 1875 the constitution under which France is now governed was adopted by the republicans. It provides for a legislature of two chambers; one a chamber of deputies elected by the people, the other a senate of 300 members, 75 of whom are elected by the National Assembly and the others by electoral colleges in the departments of France. The two chambers unite to elect a president, who has a term of seven years. He is commander-in-chief of the army, appoints all officers, receives all ambassadors, executes the laws, and appoints the cabinet, which is responsible to the Senate and House of Deputies—thus resembling the cabinet of Great Britain instead of that of the United States.
This constitution was soon ignored by the arbitrary president, who forced the resignation of a cabinet which he could not control, and replaced it by another responsible to himself instead of to the Assembly. His act of autocracy roused a violent opposition. Gambetta moved that the representatives of the people had no confidence in a cabinet which was not free in its actions and not republican in its principles. The sudden death of Thiers, whose last writing was a defense of the republic, stirred the heart of the nation and added to the excitement, which soon reached fever heat. In the election that followed the republicans were in so great a majority over the conservatives that the president was compelled either to resign or to govern according to the constitution. He accepted the latter and appointed a cabinet composed of republicans. But the acts of the legislature, which passed laws to prevent arbitrary action by the executive and to secularize education, so exasperated the old soldier that he finally resigned from his high office.