Cassell's History of England, Vol. 6 (of 8) / From the Death of Sir Robert Peel to the Illness of the Prince of Wales

by Anonymous

"In view of the existing state of affairs the Chamber names a Commission of Government and of National Defence.

"A constituent Assembly will be convoked as soon as circumstances will permit."

The three propositions were referred to the bureaux in the usual way that a committee might be appointed to report upon them. But while deliberation was going on in the bureaux (which met in committee-rooms distinct from the Legislative Chamber itself) events occurred that soon brought their labours to an untimely end. The Chambers were invaded by an unruly mob and the President was compelled to suspend the sitting. Gambetta with most of the Paris deputies proceeded to the Hôtel de Ville and there proclaimed the Republic. The Government of National Defence was constituted with General Trochu as its President. Already the Empress had fled and the Senate quietly dispersed without the slightest attempt to assert its authority. The other Ministerial posts were thus distributed:—Foreign Affairs, Jules Favre; Interior, Gambetta; War, General Le Flô; Marine, Admiral Fourichon; Justice, Crémieux; Finance, Picard; Public Instruction and Religion, Jules Simon; Prefect of Police, Count Kératry. M. Etienne Arago was appointed Mayor of Paris.

The Corps Législatif did not resign itself without an effort to the violent suppression that had been effected. A deputation of its members, headed by M. Grévy, presently waited on the Provisional Government. M. Grévy stated that a considerable number of members of the Corps Législatif, holding the same principles as those that animated the Provisional Government, and prepared to accept the fall of the Napoleonic system as an accomplished fact, were desirous of continuing the sessions of that body in a spirit of co-operation with the Government at the Hôtel de Ville. It was arranged that a meeting should be held at the Presidency at eight o'clock the same evening, when Jules Favre and Jules Simon, as a deputation from the Provisional Government, would inform their former colleagues of the decision arrived at in reference to M. Grévy's proposal. The subject was then anxiously debated. M. Glais Bizoin informed the Ministers that he had taken upon himself to close the doors of the hall of the Corps Législatif and seal them. This energetic proceeding it was deemed upon the whole advisable to sustain. The continuance of the Corps Législatif would lead, it was feared, to political intrigues and complications of various kinds that would be unfavourable to that concentration of every one's faculties on the task of national defence which it was so desirable to promote. At the meeting in the evening, M. Thiers being in the chair, Jules Favre explained to the members present the reasons that actuated the Provisional Government in declining the co-operation of the Corps Législatif. Thiers replied with exquisite finesse, spoke of Jules Favre as his "cher ci-devant collégue;" said that he could not approve of what had happened, but that he desired none the less earnestly that the courage of those of his colleagues who had not withdrawn before a formidable task might be profitable to the country and gain for it that success which was the ardent desire of every good citizen.

In England the news of the fall of the Empire and the Revolution of the 4th of September was received with mixed feelings. A very general opinion prevailed that the Emperor had been overtaken by a just retribution, though this feeling was qualified by the recollection of the real friendliness that Napoleon had generally manifested towards the country, and in which his sincerity cannot be doubted. With regard to any change the revolution just consummated might make in the position of France, and in the duties of the neutral Powers in her regard, the Government of Mr. Gladstone gave no indication of a belief that, either now or hereafter, interference (unless Belgium were attacked) could become the duty or the interest of England. But, as far as words went, the Provisional Government could not complain of any lack of cordiality. The British ambassador, Lord Lyons, was the first of all the foreign representatives to call on M. Jules Favre at the Foreign Office on the morning of the 5th of September. Lord Lyons was full of good will. He reminded the Minister that his Government had offered its mediation to France, which had refused it. He could not conceal that public opinion in England was still hostile to France and that the mind of the Queen was strongly acted upon by the influence of relationship in favour of Germany. Yet it was possible that, in the course of events, the feeling in England might change; and that a sense of common interest might, if Germany pushed her successes too far and too unscrupulously, make the majority of Englishmen think that of two evils intervention was the less. In reply, M. Jules Favre, after laving great stress on the circumstance that the Imperial Government which rashly began the war had been overthrown, and that the party now in power had from the first been opposed to war, enlarged on those considerations which seemed to him to prove that England had a manifest interest in interfering to prevent France from being seriously weakened. England, he thought, would sink in reputation, and lose the respect that her magnanimous conduct at the beginning of the century had won for her among the nations of Europe, if she tamely suffered a people to which she was bound by so many ties to be destroyed piecemeal. England was now in a position, relatively to France, which might be likened to that in which France stood, relatively to Austria, after the battle of Sadowa. France then extended a generous and protecting hand and saved Austria from ruin; so let England now act towards France. Lord Lyons promised to bring M. Jules Favre's observations under the notice of his Government and, after expressing the strong feeling of sympathy with France in her misfortunes by which he was personally animated, took his departure.

CAMDEN PLACE, CHISLEHURST (NAPOLEON III.'S HOME IN ENGLAND).

At the time of the formation of the new Government Jules Favre was honestly of opinion that the change in her representation would powerfully recommend the cause of France to the neutral Powers. The Emperor, he argued, made war upon personal or dynastic grounds; the Emperor is overthrown; the true France now makes her voice heard; declares that she would not have gone to war if she could have helped it; that her ideas all lie in the sphere of peace and solidarity of peoples; and that the other Powers of Europe may safely make a collective representation to Prussia in order to bring about peace, because the Republic in France is a guarantee that no wanton aggression will ever be practised towards Germany hereafter. That this view should commend itself to an ardent Republican was natural, but that it should be shared in by other nations, and above all by Germany, was most improbable. Count Bismarck, though Jules Favre did not as yet know it, had already caused it to be understood that Germany held France, not the French Government for the time being, responsible for the declaration of war; and would not now grant peace till she had obtained the most solid guarantees for the future.

Still, though England held back, might not France hope to be aided in her hour of need by one of the other Powers, or by a combination of them? M. Favre was firmly persuaded that both gratitude and interest ought to bring about a collective intervention on the part of the neutral Powers, which should force Prussia to negotiate for peace. Yet the grounds that he himself alleges for this persuasion are vague and inconclusive. The greatest among the neutral Powers "could not," he says, "open its annals without finding glorious instances of the devotedness of our chivalrous nation. All had enjoyed her hospitality, had found her generous, kindly, ready for any sacrifice, and seeking no recompense." Every word of this might be admitted, though not without qualifications; but what then? Admiration for the geniality and fertility of the French mind, recollection of cheering and stimulating hours passed within her borders, ought not to have blinded the neighbours of France to considerations of justice, nor to have induced them to shelter her altogether from the effects of the just resentment of Germany. That intervention was not resorted to later may be a legitimate subject of regret; but no neutral will be convinced by M. Favre's reasoning that it was the duty of his country to intervene immediately after the fall of the Empire. Unless, indeed, there were some special pre-existing obligation, by which a particular nation might be bound, in gratitude and honour, to come to the assistance of France. Jules Favre thought there were two nations thus situated—Austria and Italy. With regard to Austria, the blunt explanations of Prince Metternich, who called at the Foreign Office soon after Lord Lyons, dispelled all expectation of aid in that quarter. Austria had been saved by French intervention after the battle of Königgrätz; Prince Metternich did not think of denying this, nor of extenuating the claim to which such a service rendered his country amenable. He attempted to explain away the belief of the Duc de Gramont respecting words that had fallen from Count Beust. "It is not impossible," he said, "that M. Beust may have spoken of preparing 300,000 men if we were free to do so; but it is just this freedom that has always been denied us. The Emperor and his Ministers will never brave the will of the Czar. Now the latter has threatened that if we were to declare ourselves for France, he would join Prussia. Our hands are therefore bound; but we will do nothing against you; we will even aid you in everything that is reconcilable with our neutrality." These words clearly define the position of Austria at that time. She would willingly have aided France, but the Court of St. Petersburg, impelled by strong family and dynastic ties to sympathy with Prussia, had intimated that if Austria interfered for France, the sword of Russia would be thrown into the opposite scale.

Italy remained: could the nation that owed its very existence to France refuse to lend its aid to its benefactor in this time of peril? To the Italian Ambassador, who called after Prince Metternich, M. Favre used decided, almost peremptory, language. M. Nigra was embarrassed and sad; perhaps he was thinking of the return that the Italian Government were at that moment preparing to make for the generous aid of France in the shape of the annexation of the Papal territory. He did not contradict one of Jules Favre's assertions, but only took his stand on the impossibility of isolated action on the part of Italy. She was ready to unite with other Powers, and even to lead them if they would follow. But nothing was to be done without the support of England or Russia.