So rapid a decadence under the influence of anti-social principles has permitted neighboring nations to renounce the traditions that bound them to us. The admiration they felt for the superiority of our civilization yielded to the fear of falling under a despotism as unprincipled as it was senseless. It was from the hotbed of Bonapartism, the inheritor of revolutionary traditions, that have sprung the various revolutions which from 1814 to 1830 ensanguined all Europe. The republic of 1848, exhausted in the course of ten months, consigned its stock of revolutionism to Louis Bonaparte. He made it yield with usury. Until 1859, he hesitated and felt his way, being fettered by public sentiment, which was more conservative and Christian than he could have wished. He skilfully got rid of the honest people around him, and, once started, he never stopped again. From that fatal period, he was no longer his own master: he was the ready tool of the Revolution. It is surprising that the Bonapartes are not satisfied with reigning over France; they think they have a right to all Europe—a right to substitute the sovereignty of the people and elective governments for all the hereditary monarchies. The mission they claim secures the complicity of all the malcontents. The rulers assuredly take note of all this danger. They understand that their enemy in France is not France itself, but the Revolution.
The German Empire rekindles the fears that Louis XIV. inspired and Napoleon made us realize. Owing to a remnant of feudalism, it is founded on a much more solid basis than the French Empire was. When it attains its utmost limit, there will really be only one power in Europe. Even now, no one would think of denying its preponderance. The balance of power can only be preserved by the alliance of the secondary powers—France, Russia, Austria, and England. No one disputes the superiority of Prussia. In order to attain it, it would have been sufficient to be preserved during the half-century just elapsed from the revolutions that have so lowered France and Austria. Prussian statesmen labored energetically to unite Germany. By directing the mental training in the universities, the secret societies, the press, and the diplomacy, they have shown a system and energy that in France would have enabled statesmen of another stamp to bewilder and crush the genius of France, and bring our nation down to the dust. The Napoleonic Empire was one vast treason. It only allured France in order to deliver it up to foreigners. By giving her the choice between universal rule and annihilation, he placed her in an absurd position, and subjected her to certain ruin for the greater glory of Napoleon. It may here be remarked that no man ever made a more lavish use than Napoleon of the word “glory,” which the pagans so constantly had on their lips. It was comprehensible to people that lived to serve masters who, having all that could gratify pride and power in this world, aspired to glory as the supreme recompense. It was under similar circumstances that Napoleon and his nephew sought and obtained glory. Their names are imperishable. They are connected with catastrophes human memory will forever retain. They refused to reign peaceably by fulfilling their duties as sovereigns. Rejecting a divine authority, and recognizing no higher power, they made use of the people as the instrument of their passions. One had a passion for conquering Europe, the other for revolutionizing it. And France had to promote these designs, be drained of men under the First Empire, and be revolutionized under the Second, in order that the revolutionary contagion might be spread throughout Europe. War, coming to the aid of this work, led to the third invasion—the crowning achievement of the Third Empire.
The sole prejudice the French manifest in favor of the empire is that it maintained the honor of our army, and restored order. This is only true with respect to the Revolution. For the Revolution was absolute disorder. And the aim of the empire was not to substitute order for revolution, but to organize the Revolution by making it possible to the vulgar mind. It proved, therefore, wholly incompetent to the work of reorganizing society. Napoleon succeeded republican anarchy, and would have left us in it at his downfall, had it not been for the House of Bourbon, which saved us from foreigners and revolution. The nephew likewise succeeded his mother, the republic, whose death he hastened. And everybody knows that his natural death at the Tuileries would have been followed by a triumphant republican rising at Paris. He made every preparation for that. The republic of the 4th of September, 1870, was established almost as a matter of course, without violence, without noise. The régente had orders not to oppose anything. General Montauban declared to all who would listen to him that he should only offer moral resistance to the expected demonstration of the 4th of September. In fact, after Wissembourg, there was no imperial government. That government, then, was anarchical in essence and administrative by accident. It only rose momentarily above anarchy, and speedily sank into it again. It dreaded nothing more than a peace that would strengthen institutions, create new influences, and diminish Cæsar’s personality. Louis Napoleon was perpetually remodelling the different institutions, and without any apparent object. It was in this way he did away even with the traditions of the First Empire, and subjected the army to so many ridiculous experiences.
It doubtless seems singular—to accuse the uncle and the nephew of anarchy, when their putting down anarchy was precisely their title to govern France. But anarchy is not the only feature of the empire: there was despotism besides; and with these original principles there was an ingredient of political order which we do not deny. When this side of things became apparent, the people threw themselves into the emperor’s arms, and hailed him as the saviour of the country. When all was lost, they took hold of the first thing that presented itself. In our modern France, the empire and the Napoleons are the only memories capable of fixing every eye and directing every vote at a given moment. The salvage obtained, half the work remains to be accomplished. In the latter part of its task, the empire always fails. Its principles hinder it; they only favor order under conditions which prevent its solidity. Why this special hatred kept up by the Bonapartes against the House of Bourbon? The Bonapartes have nothing against the Bourbons; our kings had long lost their power when the Bonapartes seized it. There is no personal difference between them and the Bourbons. We must look beyond to find the connection between the cause and effect. The Bourbons and the Bonapartes are above all that is individual and personal. They represent two opposite causes. By the intrigues of Louis Napoleon, the offshoots of the House of Bourbon have disappeared from the thrones of southern Europe. They are a living protestation against revolutions. The Bourbons have in vain allied themselves with the revolutionary party, and ruined their own cause; they never succeeded in gaining the good-will of their adversaries, so effectually have their principles, which they cannot divest themselves of, protected the monarchical cause against themselves! The House of Bourbon, in its downfall at Naples and Madrid, was elevated by its fall. The dethroned Neapolitan king has shown himself more Christian, more kingly, than before he fell. The Spanish monarchy, by the mouth of Don Carlos, has expressed sentiments truly worthy of a king, and contrasts with the attitude of the elective and liberal king who has just left. The House of Bourbon has been purified by the crucible of revolutions, because, in spite of its failings and misfortunes, it represents the principle of right. The Bonapartes remain true to themselves. They do not vary in their rôle or in their pretensions, and remain attached to principles irreconcilable with the peace of France and all Europe. The recall of the Bourbons is an European necessity. It will be more easily effected when the wall of prejudice, which has barred the way, is wholly broken down. This European war had been foreseen from the beginning of the empire. Louis Napoleon, in throwing the responsibility of it on France, acknowledged that he yielded to the fatality of his position. What could be a more decisive proof, and what other could be wished, that the empire is war? No one in France desired war. Nothing was ready. The liberal party curtailed every year the budget of the army. Prussia gave us no excuse for aggression; all the chancelleries advised peace. It was then that, a prey to the evil genius of his family, to obsessions that deprived him of sense and foresight, Louis Napoleon made a sudden attack on Germany, without looking to see if he was followed, or how he was followed.
Our fault was in not being ready, say the Bonapartists. That is an illusion. At no price could the empire have been ready. The military organization, weakened by perpetual changes, the corruption and lack of discipline diffused among the soldiers and under-officers by means of the public journals and secret societies, the limited resources available under a system which affected a kind of communism in the civil order, and constantly encroached on future supplies, rendered reform impossible. Everything set aside the thought of attempting it. The budget paid 400,000 men, and our army did not really exceed 200,000! A reform in France on the Prussian model would have required several years and the overthrow of all our modern institutions. Can we imagine, with the other expenditures of our budget, eight hundred millions more for the army? Prussia has been half a century in achieving its present organization. Germany has its gradation of ranks and classes. A numerous nobility forms the basis of its military institutions, and furnishes, in time of war as well as peace, the natural leaders of the whole nation. And we Frenchmen—we are still under the elective system, which is that of children at their sports. Leaders who are improvised remain necessarily without authority, unless they have been prepared for their rôle by their previous life. Our military organization corresponds to our social organization: and it is the empire, a military régime, but also a Saint-Simonian régime, that has co-operated actively in the military dissolution of France. It was by being mixed with Saint-Simonism that it returned to the extreme notions of 1789 and 1793. This socialism that was to sustain the empire against the clergy, the conservative party, and the republicans, did it weigh one ounce in his favor? At the first reverse, all the socialism in authority disappeared. And Louis Napoleon has had no adversaries more implacable than all these socialists whom he fed, and who are making up for their former servility by their present abuse.
We must not weary of meditating on these words: France fights for an idea. This idea, under various names, is the Revolution, socialism, and the principles of 1789. Louis Philippe, that emperor on a small scale, and that “best of republics,” pursued the same crooked way. He classed his wars and foreign intrigues under the mild term of “liberalism.” He propagated in his way, by the assistance of the Assemblies, the principles of the Revolution. He gradually but persistently violated the treaties of 1815, which had put an end to twenty-five years of social war in Europe. It was in violation of these treaties that he ascended the throne. He interfered in Belgium in the name of the Revolution; he aided greatly in the downfall of the Bourbons of Spain; he occupied Ancona, in spite of the Holy See, and indicated a course to Gregory XVI. that was identical with the terms of Louis Napoleon’s letter to Edgar Ney. Finally, less Catholic than M. Guizot, he applauded the ruin of the Sonderbund, and refused Prince von Metternich the support of France in protecting the interests of the smaller cantons, our friends and ancient allies. By his inaction, he favored the revolutionary cause when he did not serve it with his forces. The revolutionary triumph at Berne soon extended to Paris, and Louis Philippe had to withdraw more speedily than he came. He propagated revolutionism in Europe during the whole course of his reign, with less display than Louis Napoleon, but with as much perversity. Certainly, neither Prussia, nor Austria, nor Russia were deceived as to the cause and tendency of the Revolution of 1830. They protested in vain. England alone took sides with Louis Philippe: thence the subserviency of our policy to that of England. Louis Philippe made the most of that ally of the Revolution: through party spirit, he sacrificed even the interest and honor of France. We recognize there the soldier of 1789, the former usher of the Jacobin club. And Louis Napoleon, for the same cause, humiliated himself more profoundly. He put his ministers, his assemblies, his diplomacy, our commerce, and our industries at the feet of England. And he certainly was not ignorant that England would never send him a shilling or a man. But he knew that England protected revolution on the Continent. He bound her to the revolutionary cause by the Crimean war and the commercial treaty. England powerfully seconded it in Italy and Spain. It was Bonapartism that English policy has developed even while thinking it was making use of it. Coming events will tell whether England has not, by violating her traditions, hastened a decline already evident and even alarming.
It is possible that, by rejecting the pretended English alliance, which was never anything but a lure, France would have been forced to closer relations with the Continent, and to conform to the European law of nations, which would have saved Europe from great calamities. The sovereigns, then, have some interest in withdrawing France from English complicity. The Restoration alone understood the practice of French policy, and alone maintained a firm attitude with respect to England. Its whole policy, interior as well as exterior, was national and uninfluenced by England. The conquest of Algiers was the most brilliant result of that policy. The Restoration made successful wars, and wars Europe had no reason to complain of; for they were carried on with the consent of the powers, and to re-establish the law of nations settled by the treaties of 1815. Such was the character of the war with Spain in 1823. Peace reigned then among all the great powers of the Continent, and it was solely to the House of Bourbon it was owing; that house overthrown, a spirit of revolt broke out on all sides, and made thrones totter. What profit did France derive from it? Condemning herself by her institutions to perpetual war, France pronounced her own sentence of death. She conquered under Napoleon only by the ability of her leader, when she found herself contending with one or two nations. She successively defeated each of her enemies. At length her armies were made up of recruits from every country in Europe; she incorporated the vanquished through the same policy as ancient Rome. It was an army composed of soldiers from all parts of Europe that Napoleon led into Russia. The disaster of 1812 freed Germany. Then, for the first time, a serious coalition was arranged, and Napoleon was defeated by the combined forces in 1813, 1814, and 1815. Louis Napoleon attacked Russia and Austria separately. He isolated Prussia from the great powers, but his policy of nationality brought on German unity. And it was the whole of Germany that confronted him when he merely wished to confront the King of Prussia. The King of Prussia, had he been defeated, would have appealed to the Emperor of Austria and the czar, who would not have failed him. Our revolutionary tendencies will always draw a coalition upon us. The late events have weakened the revolutionary party in Europe to such a degree that the support it offered us, and on which we relied, will be of no more avail. Europe, surprised by the outburst of 1789, yielded to our arms for twenty years. She then united, and, imitating the imperial military policy, carried it to a degree of perfection that left us behind. What remains for France and all Europe but to agree in re-establishing peace by conformity of political principles? And in 1873, as in 1815, this peace depends solely on the recall of the House of Bourbon to France. It is to this work that Europe is invited if she does not wish to perpetuate a revolution which, after ruining France, will not leave one of the great powers standing.
The French Revolution has till now been the object of public attention. Princes and people have bestirred themselves for a century to oppose or sustain it. The inability of the principles of 1789 to establish anything, and the invasion of 1870, have opened the eyes of France, and better disposed it to make terms with Europe henceforth. But beside the French Revolution, now growing powerless, rises a political element that suddenly overawes and disturbs European equilibrium. A policy of defence and preservation ought to be directed against the Empire of Germany, not to destroy it, but to guarantee the safety of other governments by a general alliance and a new law of nations. France will never declare war against Europe again. Louis Napoleon is the last to make such a challenge. Personally, there was nothing warlike in him; but he represented a system that tends to war. To him this war was an amusement, a distraction. To divert himself by a general war, in order to escape for a moment from national affairs that perplexed him! The diversion was powerful; as well blow out one’s brains to drive away ennui. The mass of the French people did not participate in the madness of the Bonaparte system: they are victims as well as Europe. Only we have come to that phase of the system which is more particularly humiliating to France. The three great allied powers of the North have nothing more to fear from France. But this alliance of the North is no longer on terms of equality. We say great powers! There is now but one great power—Germany. And she necessarily threatens Austria and Russia by her military strength and by her expansive power, through her hardy and laborious race, that is filling the United States with swarms of colonizers, extending to the neighboring Sclave countries in Russia, and putting forth its shoots even on French soil. German preponderance will pursue its course. It is not universal rule, but a preponderance that will tend to it, unless a union of the secondary powers oppose it with a strong, resisting force. Germany herself will not be wanting in prudence. Her reign will last its time; it is sure of only a short triumph. In twenty-five years, Russia, in consequence of the progress of science and industry, will be able to subjugate Germany. Germany will then have need of France.
By a law of Providence, nations that rise from an uncertain beginning seem to attain their height suddenly, and almost as speedily begin to decline. We Frenchmen have had our day of power and glory in the middle ages. The age of Louis XIV. was our era of intellectual superiority and political preponderance. We have come down from that pinnacle; there is no denying it. Germany, by its material strength, is rising far above the point we attained. England, France, Russia, and Austria no longer have any influence, by their diplomacy and alliances, over the hundreds of petty princes and peoples that constituted the German Confederation. They are shut out of Germany. Any pretension to interference would make them a laughing-stock. All these powers, Russia excepted, have pursued a foolish policy, and are receiving the recompense due to their shrewdness. Inheritor of Richelieu, the French Revolution so disturbed Germany as to overthrow all its princes. The German nation has survived, and by the concentration of its unity has acquired a power of aggression and conquest it was incapable of under its former organization. The Revolution of 1789 resulted in the immediate elevation of England, which from the third rank rose almost to the first—a rank she would still have, had she not replaced the policy of Pitt and Burke by the policy of Lord Palmerston and his followers. Louis Napoleon created the Empire of Germany, but England applauded his course. All her statesmen have rejoiced in the humiliation of France that has resulted from it. Those debaters and merchants have advocated the establishment of an immense military empire in the heart of Europe, without perceiving that peaceful and industrious England would thereby lose its influence. She is destined to decline still further. Her influence on the Continent depended on the old balance of power, and preponderated through her alliance with Austria. In 1859, she betrayed Austria, and shamefully disavowed the treaties of 1815. Austria turned to Russia, or to Prussia, or to both at once.
The old kingdoms, the historic nations, are breaking in pieces. In reality, it is the Prussian Empire that has been founded, rather than the German Empire restored. Germany retains enough of Catholic life to give her a tone of moral and intellectual grandeur that render her superior to Russia and the United States. There is nothing to disturb her but the future, and a future not far distant, if the people of Southern Europe continue to abandon themselves to revolutionary principles. We are far from believing that France can never rise again. She rose after 1815: the same causes produce the same effects. What concerns Europe is that France will never resume her rôle of agitator. Bonapartism is still powerful. It prevails through the habits and necessities which concentrate and direct the whole political, moral, and mental activity of France. This storm over, the name of Napoleon will again disturb the public mind, and unite the suffrage. The republic of 1870 is dragging along in the old beaten track of imperialism. It has merely set up the men of 1848 or 1830—old, worn-out functionaries, whose incapacity has increased rather than diminished. It is time for a reaction against childish prejudices. The motto of the liberal school is: Revolution and Progress! It is well to know that a revolution is, etymologically speaking, a turn back. Our liberals cling to the days of 1789. In a few years, they will be a century behindhand. France rapidly rose from her helplessness of 1815 to the Spanish war of 1823, and the conquest of Algiers. Then a fatal revolution arrested its progress, and it fell back to a state bordering on that of ‘89. Louis Philippe kept us in subjection eighteen years. He was overthrown by the socialism which he restrained, but which with a bound returned to the theories of ‘93 in the name of progress! These sudden relapses disorganize and destroy the social machine. The Restoration alone was successful, because it was the regular government. The House of Bourbon is able to give interior peace to France. It is not the government of a party, for it does not derive its title from the popular vote. It appeals to the conscience and reason like a natural law and a national necessity. It has no other ambition but to make France once more a Christian kingdom by ensuring the general peace of Europe on the basis of a new public law. What great power will dare refuse her its aid, when so strongly interested in the same cause?