The Arena, Volume 4, No. 23, October, 1891

by Various

I now come to the consideration of some of the more serious causes of lack of faith in the duration of the present regime. But it should be pointed out right here at the start that many of these blemishes, most all of them in fact, have characterized every government in France, so that they are not peculiarly republican; and I hasten to add that my object in pointing them out, in analyzing them and dwelling on them, is not for the purpose of belittling or ridiculing the estimable government now controlling the destinies of France. As an American and a republican who has observed contemporary French history on the spot since 1874, who has been an eye witness of many of the crucial episodes of this critical period, who has known personally several of the leading actors and who wishes well for the present institutions, I take up this subject not so much in order to find fault with what is, as to endeavor to discover how far these imperfections and weaknesses endanger the existence of a form of government in which all Americans take such a lively and sincere interest. Nowhere else in the civilized world, not even in France itself, would the fall of the third republic cause such deep regret as in the United States. Hence it is that we desire to know what likelihood there is of such a disaster being brought about, in the hope that by calling attention to the dangers, we may, perhaps, do something to prevent such a lamentable catastrophe.

The greatest peril that has threatened the republic since its foundation in 1870, was the recent Boulanger adventure. Though this rather addle-brained general is now quite dead politically, the causes which gave him strength and nearly plunged France once more into a chaos whence would probably have issued a tyranny of some sort, still exist and are continually on the point of cropping out again. The principal one of them is the lack of union among republicans. Just as the republic owed its final triumph to the circumstance that the royalists and imperialists could not coalesce during the years immediately following 1870, so Boulanger, backed by these same royalists and imperialists, nearly won the day two years ago, almost wholly because the republicans were divided among themselves. Union among republicans is scarcely less necessary to-day than it was during the dark days of Marshal MacMahon’s presidency and the threatened Boulangist coup d’etat.

Since the republicans have had control of the two houses, the minority, especially in the chamber of deputies, has been very strong, the Right to-day numbering about one hundred and seventy deputies, and the Boulangists about thirty more, making a grand total of two hundred in a membership of less than six hundred. That is to say, the Opposition, mustering more than a third of the chamber. And when it is borne in mind that this minority is not simply a constitutional Opposition, that its advent to power would mean the eventual overthrow of the republic, we perceive how radically different such an Opposition is from that found in the parliament of other countries, where whether the outs come in or the ins go out, no vital change occurs in the nature of the government.

The existence of this recklessly revolutionary minority and the fickleness of republican union are the chief causes of ministerial instability, one of the worst features of the present regime. The ministry has changed so often during the last twenty years, that many republicans have been led to doubt the advantages of the English parliamentary system, and have turned their eyes toward its modification in the United States, where the existence of the Cabinet is independent of a vote of the House. It was this admiration of the American system which led M. Naquet and M. Andrieux—once prominent republican deputies, and the former still a member of the Chamber—to espouse Boulangism, and the general obtained not a little of his popular strength from his oft-repeated assertion that he would put an end to ministerial instability. That this evil is not exaggerated, though the proposed remedy would probably have been worse than the disease, is shown by the most casual glance at French cabinet history since the fall of the second empire.

Since September 4, 1870, up to the present day, there have been no less than twenty-eight different ministries, which makes, on an average, a new ministry about every nine months. There were three ministries in each of the years 1873 and 1877, while in 1876, 1879, 1882, 1883, 1886, and 1887, there were two each. The longest ministry was the second, presided over by M. Jules Ferry, which lasted from February 21, 1883, to April 6, 1885, or a few weeks over two years. Gambetta’s famous ministry—called in derision “le grand ministère“—lasted two months and a half. M. de Freycinet, the present prime minister, has been in power four times since 1879, the first time for nine months, the second for six months, the third for eleven months, and the fourth since March of last year. Among the shortest ministries were those of M. Dufaure, from May 18 to May 25, 1873; General de Rochebouet, from November 23 to December 13, 1877, and M. Fallières from January 29 to February 21, 1883.

The persistency with which the reactionists refuse to recognize the legal government of France, is another source of weakness in the present institutions. When M. Carnot gives a reception at the Elysée Palace you never see a deputy or a Senator of the Right advancing to salute the president and his wife, and when he offers a grand state dinner to parliament, he does not invite members outside of the republican party because he would run the risk of receiving a curt regret.[1] What is true of M. Carnot and the Elysée holds good also for all the ministers and other high functionaries: they are left severely alone by Monarchists and Bonapartists alike.

This sulking in the tent on the part of the reactionists has in it something worse than their simple absence from all official social ceremonies. The talents, experience, and patriotism of this élite are almost wholly lost to the country, and to the government. From the ministries, the judiciary, the foreign embassies, the prefectures, and the rectorships of the universities, they are necessarily excluded. The ancient nobility of the old regime with its wealth and traditions, and the younger nobility of the first and second empires; the blue blood bourgeoisée, especially of the provinces, and the aristocratic ladies of all classes, turn their backs, almost without exception, on the new order of things, and sigh for court and king or emperor.

In the provinces this detestation of the republic sometimes becomes ludicrous. In Montpelier, for instance, “polite circles” absolutely boycott the republican official world. The prefect has a palatial residence but does not dare to throw open his salons, for none of “the first families” would respond to his invitation. When the mayor of the city, before whom all marriages must be performed, is invited to the reception at the house, none of the reactionary coterie will have a word with him and none of their young men will dance with his daughter. I have heard similar stories from Pan, Castres, and Albi, and doubtless the same thing is true of many other cities. But royalists and Bonapartists would not feel too much out of place in the French republic, for it is astonishing, at least to an American, to see how many monarchical customs have been preserved by the present government. And this brings me to the consideration of a new source of weakness of the republic. I refer to its unrepublican features. A few examples will explain what I mean.

The “military household” is one of the imperial institutions which the third republic accepted and continued. The first president, however, did not revive it. “M. Thiers never had a military household,” M. Barthélémy Saint Hilaire, his private secretary and fidus achates writes me; “however, in order to honor the army, he had two orderlies.” But when Marshal MacMahon became president in 1873, it was only natural that he should surround himself with soldiers. At first the “Cabinet of the Presidency” consisted of three officials, one of them being a colonel. In 1875 this cabinet had grown to five members, two of them colonels, and one an artillery officer. In 1879 the “Cabinet of the Presidency” was reduced to two members with a colonel at its head, but was supplemented with a “military household”—the first appearance of this institution under the third republic—consisting of six officers, so that Marshal MacMahon had seven officers in all as his immediate attendants.

At this point M. Grévy enters the Elysée. He throws out the military member of the Cabinet of the Presidency, but increases by one his military household, so that there were as many officers at the Elysée under the lawyer president as under the marshal president. Nor has M. Carnot, the engineer president, departed from the example set by his two predecessors.