The imperial form of government has sprung up in France within seventy years, and been only slightly modified by the different administrations that have succeeded each other. And yet nothing could be more at variance with the traditions, customs, and genius of the nation. This régime is of foreign origin. It is the recrudescence of the conquest of Gaul by Julius Cæsar. It has subjected us again to a yoke analogous to the condition we were in after Gaul lost its independence. The veil that blinded us to its real nature has fallen off in the shock of momentous events. It is important to reassert a truth that will now be better comprehended. The historians of the Revolution have endeavored to show that the revolutionary movement of 1789 was purely French, and the result of national necessity; but the very violence that accompanied it proves the contrary. Natural developments are effected peacefully. Louis XVI., so far from resisting the torrent, seconded it, and abandoned himself to it. Nothing shows so fully what an effort was necessary for the triumph of the Revolution as the impossibility of its succeeding by regular means and the assent of the country. It took France by assault. It profited by circumstances, but this does not change the nature of its deeds or the character of its success. We do not deny that this pagan and Cæsarean tradition might have found its way into France with the monarchy, but it is certain that, however restrained it had been by Christian principles, it all at once broke through its bounds. Half the members of the Constituent Assembly belonged to the legal profession. Imbued with the absolutist teachings of Roman law, they energetically sought to apply them. The Revolution recalls ancient Greco-Roman days; there is nothing Christian about it. What is the sovereignty of the people but the very principle that laid the foundation of despotism in Greece? The title of “citizen” implies that all Frenchmen belong to the same city or town. This rising en masse, and the notion that every Frenchman is a soldier, are wholly pagan. The legislative corps—that means the people make their own laws, only they do so by proxy. What! the people not exercise their special prerogative! In ancient times, though the people only amounted to a few thousand voters, they never fully enjoyed the legislative power. Besides, in consequence of the institution of slavery, every shade of democracy was equivalent to an aristocracy. The legislators of 1789 only recognized the slavery of citizens with respect to the state, which induced them to create a power strong enough to counterbalance and represent their ten millions of constituents.
Their proscriptions, denunciations, conspiracies, and struggles recall the time of Marius and Sylla. It is worthy of notice that in the revolutionary documents the heroes of Athens and Rome replace the saints of the calendar. This imitation is extremely amusing. A religion utterly pagan follows. A Pantheon is opened to modern divinities, and great men deified. Catholicism undergoes a persecution unsurpassed by the persecutions of the emperors of the first three centuries. It alone is excluded from the Pantheon. Under the empire, this imitation is so striking that it is impossible to mistake it. The Napoleonic era recalls that of the Cæsars. In this new civilization, or ancient civilization revived, new terms are necessary to express the changes made. Political language is modified. First we have consuls, then tribunes, then a senate, and at last an emperor. The senatus-consultum keeps pace with the plebiscitum. The subdued provinces are governed by prefects. The judges are merely Napoleon’s delegates. The whole of this organization is of foreign, not French, origin. Our history presents no parallel to it. And the reality corresponds with the appearances: it is the engrafting of absolute power on the sovereignty of the people. For the emperor never disguised the source of his authority. He always assumed to be the representative of the people. Like Augustus and Tiberius, he derived the imperial inviolability from the tribunitian character with which he was invested. The empire had its noblesse, but a noblesse of titles and decorations similar to that of the Lower Empire. All independence was denied this noblesse. The army was likewise organized after the manner of the Roman legion. There were no longer any local distinctions. Each regiment was composed of a confused mixture of the various French peoples. The officers even did not belong to their regiments. They knew, in their nomadic life, only the will of Cæsar, on whom alone they depended, and who transported them from one regiment to another, and from one place to another. Passive instruments, they had no will of their own. Therefore, they were ready for anything.
Formerly, the army could not be employed against the nation. It represented the different social elements, and enjoyed the independence natural to these elements. The officers retained their independence, for they served at their own expense from a sense of duty. The administration, the bar, and the army under the empire depended on one individual. Neither local customs, nor municipal corporations, nor right of property could withstand this despotism. A universal levelling under the name of equality smoothed away every obstacle before Cæsar. What rank could stand before the formidable title of the sovereignty of the people? This Cæsarean power found no embodiment in one of French origin. It fell to an Italian, a Roman, to one who rivalled Plutarch’s heroes. This Italian assumed control of the Revolution without ceasing to be Italian, or rather Roman; for Roman he was, a cosmopolite. His aim was to restore the Roman Empire, or the Empire of the West. The French nation was to be the means of universal conquest, as the Gauls in the hands of his predecessors, the Cæsars. Of old France he preserved no vestige. And he carried into Italy his achievements in France. He extended the Revolution to Spain. There was nothing French in a single characteristic of his genius. And his race have obstinately pursued the imperial career which he opened. His nephew, like himself, a mixture of astuteness, violence, boundless ambition, utopianism, literary tastes, and fatalism, renewed the glory of the empire. Louis Napoleon also belonged to all lands. Italian, Swiss, German, English, American—he had something of them all. He spoke all languages as well as the French, and his French was that of a refugee. During his reign, he assembled around him none but foreigners. His apartments were never clear of the outlandish people he had become acquainted with in his wanderings. He loved to converse with them, to tell them his plans. And these adventurers enjoyed being with him. They found him as utopian as ever, as unchanged in his notions, and the phenomenon interested them. No Frenchman of note consented to serve him. France was given up to foreigners. They penetrated everywhere, and took possession of the country. Imperial cosmopolitanism attracted them, and sheltered them, and overloaded them with favors. French policy became English, Italian, American. The denationalization of France was effected by the laws, public schools, new manners, and the transformation of Paris into an European capital of pleasures and the arts: France disappeared. This system was overthrown when, arrived at the highest pitch of madness, Louis Napoleon, after effecting the unity of Italy, so powerfully aided King William in setting up the new Empire of Germany as a rival to France. He sacrificed France to the triumph of the imperial idea in Italy and Germany.
The Bonaparte family is completely destitute of patriotism. Its cosmopolitan character is constantly asserting itself. Louis Napoleon’s foreign policy was essentially anti-French. His constant desire to effect the unity of Italy and that of Germany was the wish of an alien. Our interior legislation became no less opposed to the national character. What is the civil code but the systematization of principles laid down in the Digest? The right of property restricted by the legislator, family rights suppressed for the benefit of Cæsar, and property, as well as individuals, placed under administrative direction—all this is Bonapartism as well as Cæsarism. Outside of the central power, there was no authority possessing any freedom of action in France. No municipal body was safe from dissolution. No corporation was allowed to stand alone. Obedience became the lot of the French; which does not imply order and unanimity, for the government, with contradictory aims, and without any real permanence, imposed laws that were contradictory and impracticable. The distinguishing feature of Bonapartism is the union of liberal theories with absolute power. In spite of universal suffrage and deliberative assemblies, despotism increased and was strengthened. It even relied on the opposing and controlling influences it created. The senate and the legislative corps were subservient to the empire, and sustained it. The idea of equality and liberty constantly held out by high imperial functionaries contributed to the popularity of the Napoleons. Under the late régime, Prince Jerome Napoleon was charged with representing the democratic side of the imperial government. But we know now, by the revelations of the papers found, that his opinions always coincided with the emperor’s. This was what may be called playing into each other’s hands. The tip of the ear shows itself in those liberal speeches which were apparently most hostile to the government in such a way that no one who knows how to read can fail to perceive it. Under his forcible language is concealed a faint, half-expressed, vague opinion, but which is clearly and positively opposed to the rights of assemblies. What enthusiastic liberalism did not M. de Persigny manifest! According to him, provincial liberty was upheld by the préfets, whom he styled, on one occasion, the fathers of the departments. This sally caused much laughter, but M. de Persigny did not laugh. This same minister bethought himself of some conflicting elements that had evaded the superintending eye of Cæsar. It occurred to him to place his master officially at the head of the secret societies, and he transformed free-masonry into an imperial institution.
The despotism that has weighed on France for seventy years is unknown to the rest of Europe. We do not say that other nations have not undergone various degrees of despotism, but the despotism of a dictatorship founded on the sovereignty of the people is a privilege France alone has enjoyed. A dictatorship, that institution of republican Rome, has been known here since 1789. Successive governments have been set up in the name of the people; they have all been ephemeral; they have acknowledged no other will but their own—at least, in the beginning. The dictatorship is renewed every ten years. At Rome, before the empire, it has been calculated that every three years and a half a dictatorship was established, which lasted six months or thereabouts. Our situation, therefore, is preferable. It may, however, be questioned if it is the ideal of a Christian nation. Louis Napoleon became the open apologist of Julius Cæsar: he took sides against the Gauls and Franks, who were our ancestors. This audacity excited universal astonishment. The Romans from the beginning were accustomed to absolute power and anarchy. In the vast series of revolutions that make up their history, we find no fixed form of government. The consuls, prætors, and tribunes at Rome, and in the provinces the proconsuls and governors, exercised unlimited power. The emperor was only a perpetual dictator. Roman civilization was absolute power opposed to the liberties of foreign and barbarous nations who preserved a primitive social organization, and lived under patriarchal institutions. The Roman historians acknowledge that the barbarians fought for liberty. The Romans governed the provinces as, at a later period, the Turks governed the countries they conquered. Science and literature have depicted their sanguinary course with brilliant sophistry, and erected it into a system. There is no doubt that the thousands of jurisconsults who devoted their talents to the empire never questioned the legitimacy of Cæsarism. They did not even comprehend German liberty. They often spoke of it with a rare ignorance.
Tacitus sometimes forgets the fidelity with which he has described the manners of the Germans. He passes this singular judgment on a people of Thrace whose independent spirit he mentions: Ne regibus parere nisi ex libidine soliti[169]—they obey their kings only according to their caprice or humor. To us this has no sense. Tacitus sees that these people obey sometimes, but not always. He does not perceive the link that connects these two facts. To obey through humor or caprice is not to obey at all. What is their legal obligation? It is sufficient to examine their barbarous institutions. The barbarous king is neither a dictator nor consul: he is like a father. His authority is limited by other heads of families and by their customs. The tribe obeys, but only after discussing the point in the assemblies of the nation. The people obey when the king has received the necessary approval of the established authorities. There is not, as under the Roman government, a man who rules, and a nation that obeys. This dualism does not exist among the barbarians. The king is a part of the nation, as a father is of his family, which attributes a high dignity to both king and father, but not great power. Unity of action, in this case, comes by the concurrence of wills. This concurrence is permanent, and the easier because nature, through the family ties, softens difference of opinion, lessens rivalries, and produces men of incontestable authority whose very birth commands respect. Their laws are less severe and stringent, but liberty reigns, and society is based on the affections, and not on the mere predominance of force. Tacitus would be more intelligible if he said that the people only obeyed after giving their approval according to forms which custom had established. Strictly speaking, the word libido might imply either consent or assent. The idea is somewhat obscure. But there is nothing to authorize a translator to say the people obeyed their king only through caprice or humor. Tacitus finds it difficult to comprehend the organization of the tribe, and does not regard it as of much account. He judges like a Roman who has a clear notion only of military rule and passive obedience. In spite of himself, however, he dwells on these barbarians, who inspire him with a kind of terror. He points out the effects of their patriarchal institutions from which the liberty of modern nations has sprung. His books are for us a title of honor. Our ancestors figure therein as conquered: their features are changed, but not unrecognizable. We love to find proofs that the traditions of liberty among the French race preceded the importation of despotism.
Despotism came to us by the way of revolution. This will not surprise any one. The empire is the highest and most definite form of despotism among civilized nations. Our enlightenment, or pretended enlightenment, so far from having any repugnance to it, evidently led to it. Are we more enlightened than the Greeks and Romans? Are our rulers better versed in art, law, or literature than the rulers of Athens or Rome? The idea of despotism has been so infused into the modern mind that even the extreme partisans of liberty can conceive of nothing but despotism as the basis of their theories. M. Jules Simon, the worthy successor of M. Duruy, dreams of subjecting France to the communist system of Spartan education. And hardly any one ventures to oppose him. What notions of liberty have children reared by the state? They are brought up in the official world, imbibe its sentiments and the ideas of the state, and reproduce them in their public and private life. We who cannot consent to the suppression of the family are desirous that children should bear the impress of family influences. The family yoke is sweet and light; the assimilation of children to their parents is easy. The liberty of children is guaranteed. Family authority is a less burdensome restraint than that of the state, and the multitude of families creates a sort of counterpoise, so that their minds are not formed by a single will, but develop according to their various aptitudes. If any one objects that the state teaches no doctrines, we reply that to teach none is to teach some. In fact, this is really the source of indifference, or the system of practical atheism. Is not this the doctrine that is agitating France?
Our government has been copied from the Cæsarean government. Everywhere is to be seen a gradation of functionaries who receive their orders from Paris, and are not opposed by any provincial action capable of resisting them. It is useless to enumerate all the public or collective offices in order to show how they are combined under a single impulsion. No country in Europe has attained to such perfection of the imperial régime. The Roman Empire even has been surpassed, for we have the advantage of the press, railways, and telegraphs, which increase the power of the state to an indefinite degree. New ideas have also arisen to the aid of this despotism. Political economy declares the loan to be the best of investments. The patrimony of future generations has been invested in bonds regulated by the present generation. By successive loans, all individual capital has fallen into the hands of the state. In a more or less indirect way, the state has taken possession of all the charitable or other funds created by associations or individuals. Confiscations are not nominally practised, but by the ingenuity of our fiscal system, and the skilful apportionment of the taxes, the whole value of the soil passes into the fiscal treasury in forty years. This is really a kind of confiscation. Cæsarism found out how to transform the Chamber of Deputies into a fiscal instrument. Instead of moderating, limiting, or abolishing the taxes, the Chamber of Deputies, and especially our recent legislative corps, have studied how to increase them. All the representatives of the people have looked upon their constituents as subjects to be taxed and made use of. The government has had more income from the taxes than it wanted. This work of communism has been applauded in a thousand revolutionary papers. In this respect, the republican assemblies have not differed from the imperial. Whether the deputies were chosen by the ballot, by the nomination of Parisian committees, or the appointment of the Minister of the Interior, the state of the case and the result have been the same.
The organization of our army is entirely Cæsarean. Though levied from the whole country, it takes cognizance of nothing that is local or provincial. Individual measures are repressed by the bureaucracy, which is subservient to Cæsar because it is detached from the soil, and is influenced only by the hope of promotion.