The position of the Government was strange and precarious; no one seemed exactly to understand it: with the exception of the extreme parties—the courtiers on one side, and the "Irreconcilables" on the other—all the actors on the political stage were moving they knew not precisely whither. M. Ollivier on one occasion (February 23rd) announced that the Government disapproved of the system of official candidatures, and would no more use pressure at the elections. No intelligence could be more unwelcome to a large proportion of the members on the Right, who had owed their seats to Government pressure, and knew that without it they had no chance of being re-elected. A split therefore began to develop itself in the ranks of the majority. But the Emperor still continued to support Ollivier and to play his Liberal game. His instincts and opinions were without doubt genuinely Liberal; and his life was consumed in the attempt to reconcile the gratification of these instincts with the conservation of his dynasty. And yet there must have been something in the apologetic tone that Ollivier often assumed in the Chamber, which must have been a little galling to Napoleon's pride. The Emperor resolved to teach his Liberal supporters a lesson and at the same time to reimpress a large and awkward fact on the minds of his enemies—namely, that he and his system were the choice of France. He instructed M. Ollivier (March 21st) to prepare a Senatus Consultum for the redistribution of powers between the two branches of the Legislature, so that the Senate—the less popular body—should be curtailed of many privileges which it had before enjoyed; while the Corps Législatif—the more popular body—would have its powers extended, especially by giving it the right of originating all money Bills. M. Ollivier introduced the measure into the Senate on the 26th of March. But a few days later he was startled on being informed by the Emperor, that since, in his opinion, the new constitutional changes involved a departure from the basis that the popular vote had ratified in 1852, he was resolved to submit them also to the ordeal of universal suffrage. Ollivier remonstrated vainly against this decision: the Emperor stood firm; and the Minister, either not seeing or not wishing to see the vast difference that his consent made in his position, agreed to continue at the head of affairs and arrange the machinery of the plébiscite.
But Count Daru and M. Buffet, more clear-sighted and self-respecting than their flighty colleague, refused to have anything to do with a plébiscite. For the meaning of it was simply this—that the popular vote covered everything, and was itself the source of right and legality; that France had no right to liberty and just government unless the masses voted to that effect; and that similarly the plébiscite of 1852, having sanctioned a system that arose out of perjury and violence, had made that system immaculate and unquestionable. In taking office, Count Daru and M. Buffet had never intended so to commit themselves; and they now accordingly resigned their bureaux. The Duc de Gramont, a courtier, received the charge of the Foreign Office in succession to Count Daru.
In resorting again to the device of a plébiscite, we cannot doubt that the Emperor had one main object in view—increased stability. The tide of Liberalism, he felt, was continually pushing him onward; piece by piece, the system of administration on which he had ruled France for eighteen years was giving way to its assault; and then, as he had once before said to M. Ollivier, "one always falls on the side on which one leans." Feeling the advances of age—conscious that his powers both of body and mind were being undermined by a harassing and incurable malady—he became more than ever desirous to secure the peaceable transmission of power to his son. If all France could be got to ratify the changes that were now being made in the system of government as decisively as it ratified his assumption of power after the coup d'état of 1851, surely the dynasty might then breathe freely. One would have thought that the friendship and the pledged word of two or three leading generals would have offered a more substantial security for the succession of his son than the illusory test of a plébiscite. Perhaps, however, the Emperor had by this time half convinced himself that a popular vote, taken on a matter which the masses cannot properly judge of, was an honest and lawful mode of devolving power, and also a mode that imparted a peculiar strength and durability to the decision arrived at. The vote was taken in all the departments of France, and separately in the army and navy, with the following result: Oui, seven millions of civilian votes, and three hundred and nine thousand in the army and navy; Non, one million and a half (within five thousand) of civilian votes, and fifty-two thousand in the army and navy.
When, in the autumn of 1852, the Emperor demanded from the popular voice a condonation of the past and a sanction for the future, the Ayes numbered nearly 8,000,000, the Noes only 253,000. The returns of the voting in 1870 marked a notable progress of dissatisfaction since the commencement of the Empire. But it is known that the nature of the military vote was that which chiefly disquieted the Emperor. These fifty thousand soldiers who, in spite of the restraints of discipline and the ties of self-interest, had, by their "Noes," expressed their disapproval of the Imperial system, could not but be regarded as the more active and intelligent spirits in the army, who were more likely, unless their aims were attained, to estrange from the Empire the still loyal majority, than to be absorbed in that majority themselves. What, then, were their aims? In a warlike nation, where the humblest day-labourer is possessed by the sentiment of military glory, the more stirring and ambitious characters in the army are prone to become impatient in a long-continued peace; and this feeling is likely to be enhanced when a neighbouring people, the rival and antagonist of the soldier's country in many an historic campaign, has been winning spolia opima, and gaining victories of extraordinary brilliancy. Such reflections must have agitated the mind of Napoleon as he thought of those fifty thousand "Noes;" and the conviction must have come upon him with a lurid clearness, that the only way to regain the loyalty of the army and to secure the succession of his son lay through war. When the ruler of a great nation, having the absolute control of its military resources, arrives at such a conclusion as this, an occasion is not likely to be long wanting.
But for a time everything wore a peaceful aspect, and the results of the plébiscite were even considered on the whole to have strengthened the Emperor's position. It was a matter of course that, on receiving from M. Schneider (May 21st) the official report of the results of the voting, the Emperor should use the language of serenity and cheerful hope. "We must," he said, "more than ever look fearlessly forward to the future." In a debate on the Bill for fixing the army contingent for 1870, M. Ollivier, to whom the Emperor's mind was a sealed book, declared that the Government had no uneasiness whatever; that in no epoch was the peace of Europe more assured; and that no irritating question anywhere existed. When, after the death of Lord Clarendon, Earl Granville repaired to the Foreign Office to take up the portfolio of the deceased statesman, he was informed by Mr. Hammond, the Under-Secretary, that in all his experience he had never known so great a lull in foreign affairs. Two hours later, a telegram from Mr. Layard, the British Minister at Madrid, communicated the decision of the Spanish Council of State to offer the crown of Spain to Prince Leopold of Hohenzollern. On the same afternoon, the Duc de Gramont informed Lord Lyons, the British ambassador at Paris, that France would use her whole strength to prevent the election of a Prussian Prince, and he requested the co-operation of Britain in warding off this danger to the peace of Europe. On the following day (July 6th) the Duc de Gramont read in the Chamber a memorandum of the views of the Government, the unusual and menacing language of which spread alarm through all the capitals of Europe. "We do not believe," he said, "that respect for the rights of a neighbouring people obliges us to suffer a Foreign Power, by placing a prince upon the throne of Charles V., to disturb the European equilibrium to our disadvantage, and thus to imperil the interests and honour of France. We entertain a firm hope that this will not happen. To prevent it, we count upon the wisdom of the German nation and the friendship of the people of Spain; but in the contrary event, with your support and the support of the nation, we shall know how to do our duty without hesitation or weakness." These words were received with wild and enthusiastic cheering.
The candidature of Prince Leopold of Hohenzollern had been first broached so far back as March, 1869, but at that time it met with no encouragement at Berlin; while M. Benedetti, under instructions from the French Government, represented that such an election could only be viewed by France with serious dissatisfaction. Now, after an interval of more than a year, the project was resumed, and that in circumstances of apparent trickery and intrigue that called forth disapprobation, not in Paris only, but also in London. At a later date the Duc de Gramont suggested, though he had no means of proving, that the idea of reviving the candidature of Prince Leopold came to General Prim from a Prussian source; and he pledged his veracity for the existence of a letter written to Prim by Count Bismarck some time in June, 1870, in which the Prussian Chancellor said that the candidature of the Prince of Hohenzollern was in itself an excellent thing, that it must not be abandoned, and that at a given moment it might be serviceable. The duke declared that though he had never seen this letter himself, it had been read by well-known eminent men. These and other details were related by the Duc de Gramont in order to bear out his theory that Prussia, and in particular Count Bismarck, was the real originator of the war, by means of a series of studied provocations and affronts, designedly framed so as to awaken the warlike passions of the French people, and hurry them into a strife for which he knew that Prussia was far better prepared than France. Whatever may be thought of this theory, it is certain that the suddenness of the whole thing (for the Council of Ministers at Madrid decided on the 5th of July to propose the Prince of Hohenzollern to the Cortes, and to convoke that body for the purpose on the 20th of July) was viewed with suspicion and disfavour in Britain, where no prejudice existed either against Prussia or France. The excitable imagination of Frenchmen immediately developed the incident into a hundred painful and humiliating consequences. "Prussia," they thought, "desires first to isolate us in Europe, and then to crush us. Just as she ruined Austria in 1866 by placing her between two fires—herself on the north, and Italy on the south—so it is her present aim to place France also between two fires—North Germany on the one side, and Spain, with a Prussian prince on its throne and its army reorganised on the Prussian system, on the other."
But the candidature was not adhered to; and this fact, in the absence of more weighty evidence on the other side than has yet been adduced, suffices in the judgment of most men to saddle France with the chief responsibility of the rupture. Lord Granville exerted all his influence at Berlin to procure the withdrawal of the dangerous candidature; and M. Olozaga, the Spanish Minister at Paris (a statesman of great experience, and sincerely friendly to France), alarmed at the terrible excitement around him, took measures with the Prince Anthony of Hohenzollern, the father of Prince Leopold, to induce him to exercise his parental authority and bring about the renunciation by his son of the honour proposed for him. Could this be accomplished, it seemed certain that the storm would blow over, for the Duc de Gramont himself said to Lord Lyons, on the 8th of July, that the voluntary renunciation of his candidature by Prince Leopold would be "a most fortunate solution" of the difficulty. Prince Anthony accordingly wrote to General Prim renouncing all pretensions to the crown of Spain on the part of his son; Prim communicated the renunciation to Olozaga, and by him it was conveyed to the French Government. M. Ollivier was greatly elated, and went about in the lobbies of the French Chambers, telling his friends that all difficulty was at an end, "l'incident est vidé." But, in fact, he was not behind the scenes: to the secret councils of the Emperor, in which the issues of peace or war were discussed, he was not summoned.
"À BERLIN!"—PARISIAN CROWDS DECLARING FOR WAR. (See p. [554].)