What has been the result? It cannot be more exactly stated than in the words of the official organ of the Russian Empire at Brussels, Le Nord, a journal certainly not predisposed in favour of the House of Orléans by the success of the Orléanist Prince Ferdinand in Bulgaria. 'The appearance of this young exile,' said Le Nord, 'on the soil of France, not as a pretender or with political ideas, but simply as a Frenchman coming to establish his moral rights as a citizen by claiming to be allowed to perform his civic duties, and this with a rare combination of youthful dash, irreproachable modesty, and skilful self-possession was admirably fitted to awaken, and it has awakened, the sympathy of all who are politically disinterested.'
This is strong language coming from the only great power in the world to which France can look as a possible ally in the present condition of Europe. It was emphasised by the ablest and most active of the French Imperialists, M. Paul de Cassagnac. 'To keep this young prince in prison is impossible. To do so would make him King of France within three years. To let him go, after keeping him for a week, is no longer a generous and magnanimous act. It is simply obeying the vigorous kick administered by the masters of the Government, the French people, who have been saying of the Orléans princes, "they won't move," and who now see a young Duc d'Orléans move forward with a gay virility which has a flavour of Henri IV.! If the young Duc d'Orléans is as intelligent as I am told, and believe that he is, he wouldn't change places with Carnot to-day!'
Every 'ministerial crisis' which weakens the Government will strengthen the prestige acquired for the Monarchy by the young duke. He has won the women by his pluck, the fathers of families by his deference to the Comte de Paris, the Catholics by asking for a chaplain at Clairvaux, and the chauvins by his military ardour.
A friend of mine showed me in Paris ten days after the arrest of the prince a letter from Normandy, in which the writer said, 'Millions of francs would not have done what has been done by this simple act to revive and invigorate the monarchical party throughout this whole region.... Le petit conscrit will be the prince of the people from this day forth. The gray-beards among the peasants shake their heads and say, "All the same, it is not such a nice thing, this conscription, and since he was out of it why run into it?" But the women reply, "Since our lads have to go in, it is plucky of the Comte de Paris to put his son in too!"'
To make a handsome young prince a martyr of patriotism in the eyes of the women and the conscripts of France, is a highly original way of blocking the progress of his father to the throne!
The Mayors at Peyreguilhot were all of one mind as to the fiscal conduct of the Republican Government. It was 'making life impossible for the agriculturists of all categories. The tax on the revenue of the land in the Lot-et-Garonne was levied still on a cadastre drawn up in 1837; so that lands now lying idle were taxed as they were taxed fifty years ago when covered with vines. Thanks to this system, forty-two departments in France pay more than their due proportion of this tax, and the others less than their due proportion. The Aude, which is a very rich department, producing, if you take good and bad years together, more than 20,000,000 francs of wine alone every year, pays a million of francs less, and the Lot-et-Garonne nearly a quarter of a million more, than its due share of this tax.'
M. de Witt confirmed these statements. The inequalities in national taxation, he tells me, are one of the crying grievances of France under the existing régime. Corsica, for example, pays only ninety-five centimes per cent. of revenue tax, while the Corrèze pays seven francs ninety cents, and there is one commune in the Gironde which actually pays ninety francs per cent. Besides the people pay the door and window tax, the furniture tax, the prestations en nature, the permanent personal tax, and the octrois and the centimes additionnels levied for educational and other purposes.
The taxes levied as centimes additionnels for the Departments of France increased from 1878 to 1886 by 24,692,266 francs, and the taxes levied as centimes additionnels for the Communes (exclusive of Paris) by 34,246,647 francs, while from 1878 to 1885 the total of the debts of the Communes increased at the rate of 55,000,000 francs a year! The departmental loans during the same period increased no less than 95 per cent., or from 128,417,499 francs in 1876 to 249,188,700 francs in 1886.
Since the new Chamber met the air has been full of rumours of new loans, and of modifications of taxation. These modifications may ease the pressure on one point, but only by increasing it upon another point. No financier in France pretends to put the annual burden borne by the French people at much less than double the annual taxation of Great Britain. M. Méline, a Republican of the Republicans, admitted before the Chamber of Deputies on February 10, 1885, that the people of France were more heavily taxed at that time 'than those of any other country in the world.' He put the taxation of England at 57 francs a head, of the United States at 59 francs a head, of Germany at 44 francs a head, and of France at 104 francs a head.
And to-day the French people are more heavily taxed than they were in 1885. The mere general expenses of collecting the revenue of France are set down in the Budget for 1890 at 107,343,926 francs, or, in round numbers, 4,293,745l.; divided as follows. Direct and assimilated land taxes, 19,838,175 francs; registrations, domains, and stamps, 19,143,950; customs, 31,077,301; indirect taxes, 37,284,500 francs.