The chances seem to be in favour of Floquet being Prime Minister. He is of the section of the Chamber called 'Gauche radical,' that is to say, he falls just short of the most extreme Left. Who would be his Minister for Foreign Affairs and what would be his foreign policy I do not pretend to say. The incident in his life most talked about is his having cried out, 'Vive la Pologne!' and used some expressions taken as disrespectful to the late Emperor of Russia, when His Majesty was at the Palais de Justice, on his visit to Paris during the Exhibition of 1867. The Russian Ambassadors have, I believe, declined or avoided exchanging courtesies with him when he has since been in situations, such as that of Préfet de la Seine, and President of the Chamber of Deputies, which have brought him into communication with the rest of the diplomatic body. Russia at this moment is paying so much court to France that she might perhaps get over this.
The Left of the Chamber have hitherto been opposed to the Tonquin and Madagascar Expeditions and to an adventurous and Chauvin policy altogether; but if in power they would probably go in for pleasing the Chamber and the bulk of the people out of doors even more unreservedly than Freycinet did.
I should have regretted Freycinet's fall more, if he had not taken up the Egyptian question in the way he did. Our communications with him on that subject were becoming very uncomfortable. I am not very sanguine, however, about their being more satisfactory with his successor.
The notion, however, of having M. Floquet as Prime Minister frightened every one except the extreme Radicals so much that that gentleman was unable to form an administration, and the choice of the President ultimately fell upon a M. Goblet, who was Radical enough for most people and not much hampered by pledges and declarations. The office of Foreign Minister remained vacant, but, much to the relief of Lord Lyons, it was definitely refused by M. Duclerc. Lord Lyons had, by this time, had no less than twenty-one different French Foreign Ministers to deal with, and of these Duclerc was the one he liked least. No suitable person seemed to be available, and it was in vain that, one after the other French diplomatists were solicited to accept the office. At length a Foreign Minister was found in M. Flourens, a brother of the well-known Communist who was killed in 1871. M. Flourens was completely ignorant of everything concerning foreign affairs, and his appointment was perhaps an unconscious tribute to the English practice of putting civilians at the head of our naval and military administrations.
Lord Lyons to Lord Iddesleigh.
Paris, Dec. 21, 1886.
I have not yet had the means of improving my acquaintance with Flourens, but I expect to have some conversation with him to-morrow. He had not a word to say about Bulgaria when I saw him on Friday. He did not seem to have known anything about foreign affairs before he took office, nor to expect to stay long enough in office to become acquainted with them. Some people suppose that he is to make way for the return of Freycinet as soon as the Budget is passed. Anyway, the Goblet Ministry is only the Freycinet Ministry over again without the strongest man, who was undoubtedly Freycinet himself. When Parliament meets, things will be just as they were. There will still be in the Chamber 180 Deputies on the Right, ready to vote any way in order to make mischief and discredit the Republic; about 100 Deputies on the extreme Left, intimidating the Government and forcing it into extreme Radical measures, they being able to count in all emergencies upon getting the vote of the Right to turn out a Ministry; and lastly there will be 300 remaining deputies, who cannot agree enough amongst themselves to form a majority that can be relied upon, who do not at all like violent radical measures, but who are too nervously afraid of unpopularity to show resolution in opposing the extreme Left.
So far the Comte de Paris's declaration seems simply to have made the ultra-Monarchists furiously angry, and not to have induced any great part of the Right to think of taking the wise course it recommends.
I do not see any outward signs here of the strained relations between France and Germany and the imminent war between the two countries which the Standard announces. But it is true that among the French themselves some suspicion and distrust of Boulanger's aims are becoming more apparent.
The hackneyed saying: Plus cela change, plus c'est la même chose, was never more appropriate than in the case of the change from a Freycinet to a Goblet Government; one section of uninspiring ministers had merely given place to another, and no one in France seemed in any way the better for it.
On New Year's Dav, 1887, President Grévy broke out into Latin in congratulating the Diplomatic Corps on the already long continuance of peace, but a more accurate view of the situation was expressed by a French newspaper in the sentence: 'Jamais année nouvelle ne s'est ouverte au milieu d'autant de promesses de paix et de préparatifs de guerre que l'année 1887.' 'I do not know,' wrote Lord Lyons, 'which is the nation which wishes for war. France certainly does not, she is, on the contrary, very much afraid of it. But one would feel more confidence in peace if there appeared less necessity in all countries to be perpetually giving pacific assurances. There are rumours of a defensive alliance between Russia and France. The bond of union between the two countries, if it exists, must be simply a common hatred of Germany.'