Clemenceau, the Man and His Time

by H. M. Hyndman

And so Clemenceau, thus prepared to meet what the future might have in store for him, returned to Paris. There are cities in the history of the human race which have taken unto themselves a personality, not only for their own inhabitants, but for succeeding ages, and for the world at large. Babylon, Athens, Jerusalem, Rome, Bagdad, Florence, each and all convey to the mind a conception of chic individuality and collective achievement which brings them within the range of our own knowledge, admiration and respect, which raises them also to the level of ideals of culture for men living in far different civilisations. They are still oases of brightness and greenery amid the wilderness of unconscious growth. The wars of old time, the cruelty of long-past days, the records of brutality and lust are forgotten: only the memory of greatness or beauty remains.

“Terror by night, the flaming battle-call, Fire on the roof-tree, dreadful blood and woe!— They cease for tears, yet joyful, knowing all Is over, long ago. Knowing, the melancholy hands of Time Weave a slow veil of beauty o’er the place Of blood-stained memory and bitter crime Till horror fades in grace. The mournful grace of long-forgotten woe And long-appeased sorrows of the dead, The deeper silence of those streams that flow Where ancient highways led.”

Among the great cities of the past which is still the present Paris takes her undisputed place. In youth, in maturity, in age, the charm of intellectual and artistic Paris ever affects not merely her own citizens, but the strangers within her gates. And the young Vendéen Clemenceau was from the first a Parisian of Parisians. The attraction of Paris for him was permanent. From his arrival in 1860 until the present time practically his whole life has been spent in the French capital. Many years afterwards he gave expression to the influence Paris had upon him. Paris for Clemenceau is the sun of the world of science and letters, the source of light and heat from whose centre art and thought radiate through space. “Intuition and suggestion spreading out in all directions awake dormant energy, sweep on from contact to contact, are passed on, dispersed, and finally exhausted in the inertia of material objects. Here is the radiance of humanity, more or less powerful, more or less durable as time and place may decree.”

It is this impatience of Paris with results already achieved, this desire to reach out and to embrace new forms in all departments of human achievement, which give the French city her position as an indispensable entity in the cosmos of modern life. “Boldness and boldness and boldness again” was Danton’s prescription for the orator, and it might be taken as the motto of intellectual and artistic Paris. There is no hesitation, no contentment, no waiting by the wayside. New ideas and new conceptions must ever be replacing the old. Experience may teach what to avoid: experiment alone can teach what to attempt. And this not incidentally or as a passing phase of endeavour, but as a principle to be applied in every region of human effort. “The Rights of Man,” “Liberty, Equality, Fraternity,” “Property is robbery” are as thought-provoking (though they solve no problem) in the domain of sociology as Pasteur’s achievements in physiology and medicine. Whatever changes the future may have in store for us, we who are not Frenchmen cannot dispense with the leadership and inspiration that come to us from Paris.

On his return to France from America Clemenceau renewed his acquaintance and friendship with those who shared his political and social opinions, especially Etienne Arago, now an old man, and practised as a doctor in the working-class district of Montmartre. Here, by his gratuitous medical advice to the people and his steady adherence to his democratic principles, he gained an amount of popularity and personal devotion from the men and women of Montmartre which, in conjunction with Arago’s advice and support, prepared the way for the positions which he afterwards attained. Meanwhile the Second Empire was going slowly downhill. The change which had already taken place was not generally recognised. Nevertheless, the failure of the ill-fated Mexican Expedition with its Catholic support, its sordid financial muddling and the degrading system of plunder carried on in Mexico itself by Marshal Bazaine, the effect on Paris of the murder of Victor Noir by a member of the Buonaparte family, and the Government’s growing incapacity to handle domestic and foreign affairs all told against the prestige of Napoleon. Only a successful diplomatic stroke or a victorious war could rehabilitate the credit of the Empire. The time had gone by for either. Bismarck’s disgraceful forgery at Ems was as unnecessary as it was flagitious. Sooner or later the Second Empire would have collapsed from its own incompetence. But that waiting game did not suit the grim statesman of Berlin. He knew that the French army by itself could not hold its own against the Prussian and other German forces; he felt convinced also that Austria would not move without much clearer assurances of success than Napoleon could supply; while Italy was still tied to her Ally of 1866, and England was devoted to a policy of profitable non-intervention. So Napoleon was half driven, half tricked into a hopeless campaign, and every calculation on which Bismarck relied was verified by the results. Nay, the plébiscite which Louis Napoleon risked eighteen years after the coup d’état went entirely in his favour, and it was in reality quite unnecessary, from the point of view of internal politics, that any risk of war should be run. The Empress, however, has always had the discredit of not having been of that opinion. Hence steps were taken which played into Bismarck’s hands.

At first, as I have heard Clemenceau say himself, it was almost impossible for a patriotic Republican to desire victory for the French armies. That would only have meant a new life for the decadent Empire. Sad, therefore, as was the long succession of disasters, and terrible the devastation wrought by German ruthlessness, not until the culminating defeat of Sedan, the surrender of Napoleon and the decree of Imperial overthrow pronounced by the people of Paris, could men feel that French soldiers were really fighting for their country. Thenceforward the struggle was between democratic and progressive France and autocratic and reactionary Prussia. The Empire for whose humiliation the King of Prussia had gone to war existed no longer. A Republic was at once declared in its place. Any fair-minded enemy would directly have offered the easiest possible terms for peace to the new France. But that was not the view of Prussia. France, not merely the Second Empire, was to be defeated and crushed down, because she stood in the way of that permanent policy of aggression and aggrandisement to which the House of Hohenzollern, with its Junker supporters, has always been devoted. This was the moment when England should have interfered decisively on the side of her old rival. It was not only our interest but our duty to do so, and the whole nation would have enthusiastically supported the statesmen who had given it a vigorous lead in the right direction. Unfortunately Queen Victoria, then as ever bitterly pro-German, was utterly unscrupulous in enforcing her views upon her Government: the men then in office were essentially courtiers, who combined servility at home with pusillanimity abroad: the laissez-faire school of parasitical commercialism which regards the accumulation of wealth for the few as the highest aspiration of humanity held the trading classes in its grip. Consequently, the monarch and the ruling class of the day thought it was cheaper, and therefore better, to leave France to her fate, and make a good cash profit out of the business, rather than courageously to withstand the beginnings of evil and uphold the French Republic against the brutality and greed of Berlin. It is sad, nearly fifty years later, to reflect upon the results of this mistaken and cowardly policy. The war was continued, owing chiefly to English indifference, until France lay at the feet of the conquerors.

No sooner did the news of the defeat and surrender of Sedan reach Paris than a general shout for the overthrow of the Empire went up from the people throughout the French capital. The collapse of the Second Empire was in fact even more sudden and dramatic than its rise. The whole imperial machinery fell with a crash. There was not a man in Paris among the friends of the Emperor in good fortune who had the courage and capacity to come to the front in the time of his distress. The bigoted Catholic Empress, against whom Parisians cherished an animosity scarcely less bitter than that which their forbears felt for Marie Antoinette, was with difficulty got safely out of the city, and Paris at once took control of her own destinies. A Republic having been proclaimed, Republicans, Radicals and Socialists, harried and proscribed the day before, rushed to the front the day after, and forthwith became masters of the city. Clemenceau as one of them was immediately chosen Mayor of Montmartre, at the instance of his old friend Etienne Arago.

It was a period for action, not for argument, or reflection, or propaganda. Clemenceau understood that. In his capacity as Mayor of Montmartre, by no means an easy district to manage, he exhibited marvellous energy, as well as sound judgment, in every department of public affairs. Everything had to be reorganised at once. There was no time to respect the inevitable details of democratic authorisation and delay. Clemenceau with his natural rapidity of decision was the very man for the post. Patriotic and revolutionary excitement seethed all round him. Society seemed already to be in the melting-pot. The enthusiasm evoked by eloquent orations in favour of Socialism was accompanied by the discharges of cannon and the rumbling of ammunition-wagons. But public business had to be carried on all the same. Clemenceau was indefatigable and ubiquitous. He prevented the priests from intriguing in the municipal schools, he established purely secular education, hurried on the arming of the battalions and kept a sharp eye on the defences of the city. Simultaneously he set on foot a series of establishments for giving warmth, food and general help to the number of people who had sought refuge on the heights. He acted throughout practically as municipal dictator, raising, arming and drilling recruits for the new republican army, as well as organising and administering all the local services.

It was a fine piece of work. Having been so closely in touch with the bulk of the population of Montmartre, he was able to act entirely in their interests and with their concurrence throughout. They therefore warmly supported him against the reactionists and religionists who, then as always, were his most virulent enemies. It was no easy task to maintain order and carry out systematic organisation at this juncture. The downfall of the Empire occurred on September 4th, the Republic, with General Trochu—the man of the undisclosed strategical “plan”—as President and Jules Favre as Vice-President, being declared the same day. On September 19th Paris was invested by the Germans. Seeing that there were then no fewer than 400,000 armed men, at various stages of training, in the capital, with many powerful forts at their disposal, while the Germans could spare at the beginning of the siege no more than 120,000 men for the attack, the French having still several armies in the field, successful resistance by the Republic seemed by no means hopeless. Paris might even have had her share in turning the tide of victory. Clemenceau was of that opinion.