Décazes took advantage of the occasion actually to suggest a secret alliance with England for the protection of Holland and Belgium, and stated that if it were ever signed, he should communicate to no single person except the Marshal himself. It is hardly credible that he could have been in earnest in making this suggestion, for not only are Foreign Secretaries not in the habit of making secret treaties unknown to their chiefs and colleagues, but Lord Derby was the last person who would be likely to enter into an enterprise of this description. In the meanwhile Bismarck, as an impartial friend, was warning Lord Odo Russell that Décazes was only waiting for an opportunity to throw England over, in order to prove his devotion to Russia, and there was little doubt as to which alliance he would prefer if he could have his choice.
Exercising his right, Marshal MacMahon prorogued the Chambers, and it being foreseen that there would be a general election in the autumn, his Government set to work at once in preparing for the fight by getting rid of as many Republican functionaries as possible, in accordance with well-established custom.
Lord Lyons to Lord Derby.
Paris, May 25, 1877.
Neither the private history of the dismissal of Jules Simon, nor the attitude of the successful party, is calculated to give one good hope for the future.
The Marshal is supposed to have been mainly influenced by M. de St. Paul, a Bonapartist and intimate friend of his, of whom he sees a great deal; by Monsignor Dupanloup, Bishop of Orleans; by the aides-de-camp and people about him, and (it is whispered) by Madame la Maréchale. Fourtou may have been in the plot, but I believe Broglie was taken by surprise. Décazes wanted to get rid of Jules Simon and Martel, but to put temporarily in their places some members of the Left, who would have got on for a time with the Chamber. Jules Simon had proved a complete failure as Prime Minister; he had neither the confidence of the Marshal nor even that of the Cabinet, and he had lost all influence in the Chamber. He would very soon have fallen of himself if he had been left alone.
The language of the Right tends to accredit the supposition which will be most fatal to them in the country. They speak and act as if the question was one between the aristocracy and the canaille. In fact they wound the sentiment of equality which is the strongest political and social sentiment in France, and consequently the present crisis is beginning to be looked upon as the last struggle of the old society against the new.
As regards the great question as to what is to be done when the Marshal finds himself finally defeated by the Chamber, the party now triumphant talk of the use of military force. The Marshal has often declared to his friends that nothing shall induce him to resort to an extralegal use of force, but the wilder spirits of the party say that if the Marshal will not use the army, a general will be found with less scruple, and they hint at Ducrot. But this would be falling into the most fatal of all systems, that of military pronunciamentos. The Marshal himself might do a great deal with the army, and would probably keep it together, but it does not by any means follow that any one general seizing power in Paris would be submitted to by the rest. It is believed that even now, General Berthaut, the Minister of War, was with difficulty induced to remain in office, and yielded only to the Marshal's special request, on condition that he should be relieved in the autumn.
It is however to be hoped that all this talk about military coups d'état is simply talk; and that we shall get out of this difficulty quietly at last. In the meantime the upper ten thousand in Paris are indulging themselves in all sorts of illusions, and the Paris shopkeepers are dreaming of the restoration of a Court and of a great expenditure on luxuries.
The Chambers met again in June, and although the country was perfectly quiet, the scenes which took place in the Chamber of Deputies were a sufficient indication of the fury with which the politicians regarded each other. The violent and disorderly conduct was chiefly on the side of the Right, there being a certain number of Bonapartists who provoked disturbances with the object of discrediting Parliamentary Government as much as possible.
On the other hand even the moderate men on the Left began to talk of revolutionary measures to be adopted when they got back into power again, such as the suspension of the irremovability of judges, the impeachment of Ministers, and the dissolution of religious congregations. On June 22, the dissolution was voted by the Senate by a majority of twenty. It was decided that the elections should be held in three months' time, and both parties made their preparations for an uncompromising fight, Marshal MacMahon beginning the campaign with an order of the day to the army which smacked disagreeably of a coup d'état, not to say a pronunciamento. Subsequently, having been assured of the support of the Comte de Chambord—a somewhat questionable advantage—he proceeded on an electoral tour in the South.
The general election took place in October, and resulted in the crushing defeat of the Marshal and his Ministers in spite of the labours of prefects, magistrates, mayors, policemen, and priests, who had all been temporarily converted into electioneering agents. The exasperation of parties reached an almost unprecedented point, and Décazes admitted that the country was in a state of moral civil war. The partisans of the Government talked of a second dissolution, of proclaiming a state of siege during the new elections and conducting them with even more administrative vigour than the last. The Republicans announced their determination to annul the elections of all the official candidates and to impeach the Ministers and even the Marshal himself, if he did not retire or name a Ministry having their confidence. As for the Marshal himself, he found little support at this crisis from the monarchical parties, except on the part of the Orleanists, who saw that he must be kept in at all hazards; but the Orleanists had recognized that France, for the moment at least, was Republican, and their press owned openly that to persist in Personal Government instead of reverting to Constitutional Government was to march to certain disaster. The Marshal, in fact, found himself confronted with two alternatives: either he must accept Gambetta's demand to submit or resign; or he must run the risk of getting rid of his difficulties by means of a coup d'état.