During the whole reign of Louis Philippe, M. Thiers was a conspicuous figure in Paris society, and, strange to relate, this petit bourgeois had succeeded in entering the most exclusive circles of the Faubourg St. Germain, and contrived to install himself in the favours of its leaders, masculine as well as feminine. He was essentially the type of a middle-class man, in spite of the high offices which he had held, and never could rid himself of the habit of tying a napkin round his neck at meals, when he was in his family circle, neither would he go out without the umbrella that remained the distinctive sign of that epoch still known as the “époque de Louis Philippe,” where the bourgeoisie reigned supreme, and where the Sovereign tried by all means to win for himself the sympathies of the mob by coming down to its level.
M. Thiers did not care for the mob. He was of an autocratic character, and of an imperious disposition, admitting no sovereignty apart from his own. But, nevertheless, he remained the child of his generation and of his class. He rose, but neither by adapting himself to circumstances, nor to the conditions of existence around him. Original he was in mind, in intelligence and in manners, and he did not change; he always appeared to his friends as a man of happy disposition tempered with affability, and tinged with familiarity; his distinctive characteristic from the very first days he entered public life.
Thiers was essentially “un homme d’opposition,” as one of his enemies once remarked, but he was a statesman of a type such as is no longer found nowadays; an active, busy, little individual, always on the look out for his adversaries’ mistakes, and terrible in the merciless way in which he noticed them—and, what is worse, made others notice them. He had but little pity in his heart for the errors of mankind, but was wise enough not to show the disdain in which he held it. He had been at a good school, had frequented the salon of Talleyrand, and studied politics by contact with the politicians who had ranked among the foremost in Europe. He used to relate a funny little anecdote from his early days, when he had been introduced to Prince Metternich, during one of his journeys to Vienna, whither he had repaired to study certain episodes of the history of Napoleon, and examine certain documents deposited in the Imperial Archives of the Burg. The statesman to whose intrigues the great Emperor had in part been indebted for his fall received Thiers in his study, and it seems received him very badly. But the little Frenchman, far from appearing to notice it, began at once to talk with the Austrian Chancellor as if he had known him for years, and did not scruple to question him on the subjects about which he desired to learn, a thing which Metternich, who liked above all things to hear himself speak, particularly disliked. Surprised at first, then slightly bored, the Prince told Thiers that he had better question the Director of the Archives about the various points he desired to clear up, to which the historian of the Consulate and the Empire replied quite brusquely that this personage could not tell him anything worth listening to, and that he never took lessons in history from those who had only read it. Metternich, more and more astonished, asked him what he meant. “Oh, nothing very important,” was the answer; “seulement je crois que personne ne pourrait mieux me renseigner sur Napoleon que vous qui êtes parvenu à le tromper si complètement et si souvent” (“I merely think no one should be better able to give me information about Napoleon than yourself, who succeeded in deceiving him so completely and so frequently”). When Thiers told this anecdote he never failed to add that “Metternich ne trouva rien d’autre à me répondre que de sourire avec la remarque: ‘Vous connaissez bien votre histoire, jeune homme’” (“Metternich in reply could do nothing but smile, accompanying it with the remark: ‘You are well up in your history, young man’”).
Impudence, as one can see from the above, was not wanting in the character of the future President of the French Republic, and this impudence never deserted him in later years. It has been said that his vanity was intense, and that there was some truth in this accusation cannot be denied; but beneath this vanity there lay the latent consciousness the man had of his own moral and intellectual worth, and of the immense distance that existed between him and the other men of his generation. He tried to impose his ideas on others; he was despotic in his decisions, his judgments and his opinions, but he was not devoid of impartiality, and he was very well aware of his own faults. He loved France with a sincere affection, which saw through her faults, and there was no chauvinism in his feelings. He would have liked to see his fatherland prosperous and powerful, but he never rushed into extremes as Frenchmen are so often inclined. Whilst he was the responsible minister of the dynasty of July, he served it faithfully and to the best of his ability, and though he has been often accused of opportunism, yet he never would accept office under the Bonapartes, though, and this is rather curious, he always was of opinion that their dynasty was the most popular one among all those that aspired to the government of France.
When, together with the other members of the Legislative Chamber, he was imprisoned by the President on the day of the coup d’état of the 2nd of December, he is said to have made the following typical remark: “Le Président nous fait enfermer, c’est son droit; espérons pour lui, qu’il saura en profiter, et ne donnera pas dans le travers de vouloir gouverner constitutionnellement. Il ne peut pas avoir de Constitution pour les Bonaparte, tout au plus peuvent ils prétendre à ce que leur règne soit celui où on parle de Constitution comme les malades parlent des mêts que leurs médecins leur interdisent de manger” (“The President is having us shut up, it is his right; let us hope for his own sake that he will know how to profit by it, and will not make the mistake of wanting to govern constitutionally. There can be no constitutional government for the Bonapartes. The utmost they can lay claim to is that during their reign the Constitution should be spoken of in the tone in which invalids speak of dishes that their doctors forbid them to eat”).
During the eighteen years that the Empire lasted, Thiers always refused to take office, though he owned later on that he felt once or twice sorely tempted to do so. But he realised that the regime could not last, and reserved himself for the moment when it would be overturned, feeling convinced in his mind that that day would be also that of his own personal triumph, and that whether the country liked it or not it would be compelled to turn to him for advice and for help.
When after the first defeats which characterised the war of 1870, the Empress Eugénie felt inclined to appeal to him to help her, and had him sounded by one of her friends who was on terms of close intimacy with him, M. Thiers replied that it was either too late or too early for him to do anything, and that as matters stood, the best thing to do was to allow events to take their course. “But the dynasty,” said his visitor; “are you going to allow the dynasty to fall like that?”
“If the dynasty were wise, I certainly would do my best to support it,” was the unexpected reply; “but the dynasty will not be wise; it will never have the common sense to bring itself to conclude peace just now, and to enforce the conditions of that peace, even by measures of violence against those who would undoubtedly oppose it. If I thought the Regent was strong enough and firm enough to arrest half the members of the Corps Législatif, and to send the other half back to their own firesides to meditate on the wisdom of a useless opposition, if she would make up her mind to govern for a time without the Chambers, then I would at once accept office; but she will never have the courage to take such a responsibility before the country, and therefore I cannot do anything for her. There are moments in the life of nations when it is indispensable for their welfare that those who govern them should feel no hesitation in resorting to violence, and France just now has reached such a moment. It is a thousand pities that the Regent or the Emperor fails to see it is the case. Under such circumstances my help would be useless to them, and it might compromise my own future prospects.”
This conversation gives a very good insight into the character of M. Thiers. It also accounts in part for the ruthlessness which he displayed in the crushing of the Commune a few months later.
Apropos of this, a few weeks before his death, I had the opportunity of talking to him about it at St. Germain, whither he had repaired to spend the summer, and where he was preparing himself for the struggle of the coming elections, which he fondly hoped would prove fatal to the government of Marshal MacMahon, whom he still expected to replace as head of the State. Thiers was in a communicative mood that afternoon, and he spoke with great vivacity of that time when he had displayed such energy, as his friends said—such brutality, as his foes maintained—in fighting the unruly and disorderly elements that had so very nearly destroyed France. On that occasion he used these memorable words: “I know that I have been severely blamed for the orders which I had given to Galiffet, to show no mercy to the insurgents, but, frankly, what else could I do? We had just gone through an unfortunate war; the enemy was at our gates, we had to execute a most onerous treaty, and above all to clear our territory from the invader, who certainly would never have left it, had he thought that this rebellion was going to take the upper hand. We had the whole country to reorganise, and this under the most deplorable conditions that have ever existed in the life of a nation. We were without an army, without any regular government, and had to fight the many ambitions of those who thought to seek their own advantage out of the general ruin. The first thing to do was to strike fear into the hearts of those who already thought that they could bring their own party to the head of affairs and thus add something to the general confusion. Don’t forget that in order to oblige the Prussians to recognise that we were strong enough to rule France, and to rule it well, we had not only to assert ourselves, but also to drive out of the minds of all our opponents, and of these there were legions, the idea that we had not got power enough on our side.