Of what weight or avail in the policy of the parliamentary oligarchy which calls itself the Third Republic are the counsels of men like M. Léon Renault, M. Jules Simon, M. Ribot, M. Léon Say, who have tried in vain to constitute in France the Conservative Republic of M. Thiers? M. Léon Say left his seat in the Senate before the recent elections and presented himself in the Pyrenees as a candidate for the Chamber, with the well-understood expectation of finding himself eventually put into the presidency of that body. This was to be a guarantee of the Conservative Republic!
Who actually fills that most important post?
M. Floquet, who first distinguished himself under the Empire by publicly insulting the Emperor of Russia in the Palais de Justice during the visit of that potentate to Paris, and who resigned his seat as a deputy for the Seine in March 1871 to share 'the perils and sufferings,' as he put it, of his constituents, the Communards of Paris! For this M. Floquet was arrested at Biarritz and locked up at Paris till the end of the year 1871.
How can France hope to find liberty within her own borders, or peace with honour abroad, under the domination of such men?
On December 19, 1888, during a discussion of the budget of 1890 in the French Senate, M. Challemel-Lacour, a Republican of the Republicans, who actually allowed the red flag to be hoisted instead of the tricolour on the Hôtel de Ville of Lyons while he was prefect of the Rhône, and who represented the Republic for a time as Ambassador in London, made a remarkable speech, in which he warned his colleagues of the fate which they were preparing for the Republic. He is one of the three Senators of the Bouches-du-Rhône, and one of the four Vice-Presidents of a body now controlled by the Government, and therefore virtually by the majority of the Chamber of Deputies. He is more than this. An elaborate speech of his, delivered in the Assembly on September 4, 1874, in which he denied the 'right to teach' as threatening the 'moral unity of France,' was the signal of the deliberate war against all religion afterwards proclaimed by M. Gambetta, and since prosecuted by M. Jules Ferry. Out of that speech grew the policy of the Third Republic. Yet what did he say in 1888? He plainly declared his belief that the policy of the Government was driving the Republic headlong to its ruin. He spoke as a Republican, passionately reaffirming his faith in the Republic, and his desire to see it solidly founded in France. 'I conjure you, therefore,' he said, 'to take order, that the Republic may once more become the reign of law; that all may be protected in their persons, in their property, in their faith, not only against disorder in the streets, but against moral disorder, moral anarchy, defamation, calumny, against the fury of an unbridled, uncontrolled, irresponsible press. It is time to arrest the threatening ruin which must affect the humblest lives, if our sad fate be to witness the catastrophe of liberty!'
M. Challemel-Lacour is an orator. The Senate was shaken and roused by his earnest appeal. A motion was made that his speech be ordered to be printed and posted on the walls of Paris. But the night came, and with the night the pressure of the powers indicted by the speech, and so no more was heard of it, and the budget of 1890 was voted by the outgoing Chamber, and the incoming Chamber has re-established in it a Secret Service Fund of 1,600,000 francs for the Minister of the Interior—and the work of 'invalidating' the elections of troublesome deputies goes merrily on, and in the remote valleys and hills of France poor village curates are mulcted of half their humble stipends for the offence of calling upon their parishioners to vote for the candidates who do not attack their religion.
From this intolerable position there are two obvious ways of escape. One is the familiar Parisian way of the barricades. That way is not likely to be tried in the interest of liberty or of law. The other is the way which France sought to adopt in the recent elections, of a deliberate Revision of the Constitution, now hopelessly perverted into the instrument of a parliamentary oligarchy. The actual Government has just prevented a Revision in the interest of a Republican Dictator, which after all must have been more or less a leap in the dark out of a window.
As between the only available window and the only available doorway of a dwelling in flames, it is intelligible that an emotional inmate, with the smell of the fire on his garments, should make for the window. But, the window being barred, what should restrain him from walking rationally out of the doorway? Any one of a dozen possible emergencies may compel a Revision of the Constitution—and any Revision of the Constitution now must mean either a Radical revolution, or a restoration of the hereditary Executive. Either of these would be a doorway; for France would know whither either of these must lead. M. Thiers, it is said by persons who ought to be well informed, might have led France thus out of a doorway in 1871, and into a restoration of the Monarchy. M. Thiers was an exceedingly able man, but it is hard to see how he could then have gone about to achieve this result. France in 1871 was still a conquered country occupied by the German armies. The Third Napoleon and his son were both then living. The Comte de Chambord was then in the strength of his years. The Comte de Paris had not then taken the steps which he afterwards took with so much wisdom and moral courage, to make an end of the rupture between Henri V. and the House of Orléans.
The situation now is materially changed. The Imperialists are divided between Jerome the father and Victor the son. The Royalists are united. The France of Henri IV. and of Charles X. is represented to-day by the grandson of Louis Philippe. The vox Dei and the vox Populi meet in him as they met in the Prince of Orange when England, forty years after the criminal catastrophe of 1649, was driven by the flight of James II. into seating William and Mary, the grandson and the granddaughter of Charles I., upon the abdicated throne.
How can an independent Executive ever be restored in France excepting in the person of Philippe VII.? Had the Revolution of 1830 never occurred he would now by the ancient law of succession be King of France and Navarre. Had the Revolution of 1848 never occurred he would now be King of the French under the Charter. If the era of revolutions is ever to be closed in France, must it not be by an Executive who shall be at once King of France and King of the French—King of France, as representing the historic growth into greatness and unity of the French nation; King of the French, as representing the personal liberties and the private rights of every citizen of the French commonwealth?