Mary Platt Parmele - A Short History of France
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Mary Platt Parmele >> A Short History of France
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Then the unexpected happened. The dramatic pledge was not to be kept.
Venetia was not to be liberated. The Peace of Villafranca was signed.
Austria relinquished Lombardy, but was permitted to retain Venice.
Cavour, white with rage, said, "Cut loose from the traitor! Refuse
Lombardy!" But Victor Emmanuel saw more clearly the path of wisdom;
and so, after only two months of warfare, Napoleon was taking back to
France Savoy and Nice as trophies of his brilliant expedition.
This liberator of an Italy which was _not_ liberated, would have liked
to restore the fleeing Austrian dukes to their respective thrones in
Florence, Modena, and Parma; but he did what was more effectual and
pleasing to the enemies of a united Italy: he garrisoned Rome with
French troops, and promised Pius IX. any needed protection for the
papal throne.
One can imagine how Garibaldi's heart was wrung when he exclaimed,
"That man has made me a foreigner in my own city!" And so might have
said the king himself.
The emperor and the empire had been immensely strengthened by the
Italian campaign. France was rejoicing in a phenomenal prosperity,
reaching every part of the land. There was a new France and a new
Paris; new boulevards were made, gardens and walks and drives laid out,
and a renewed and magnificent city extended from the Bois de Vincennes
on one side to the Bois de Boulogne on the other. With the building of
public works there was occupation for all, resulting in the repose for
which France had longed.
The Empress Eugenie was beautiful and gracious, and her court at
Versailles, Fontainebleau, and the Tuileries compared well in splendor
with the traditions of the past.
The emperor's ambitions began to take on a larger form. Under the
auspices of the government, M. Lesseps commenced a transisthmian canal,
which would open communication between the Mediterranean Sea and the
Red Sea. Then, in 1862, a less peaceful scheme developed. An
expedition was planned to Mexico, against which country France had a
small grievance.
The United States was at this time fighting for its life in a civil war
of gigantic proportions. The time was favorable for a plan conceived
by the emperor to convert Mexico into an empire under a French
protectorate. The principle known as the Monroe Doctrine forbade the
establishment of any European power upon the Western hemisphere; but
the United States was powerless at the moment to defend it, and by the
time her hands were free, even if she were not disrupted, an Empire of
Mexico would be established, and French troops could defend it.
In a few months the French army was in the city of Mexico, and an
Austrian prince was proclaimed emperor of a Mexican empire.
This ill-conceived expedition came to a tragic and untimely end in
1867. The civil war ended triumphantly for the Union. Napoleon,
realizing that, with her hands free, the United States would fight for
the maintenance of the Monroe Doctrine, promptly withdrew the French
army from Mexico, leaving the emperor to his fate. A republic was at
once established, and the unfortunate Maximilian was ordered to be shot.
The finances of France and the prestige of the emperor had both
suffered from this miserable attempt. At the same time, something had
occurred which changed the entire European problem in a way most
distasteful to Louis Napoleon. Prussia, in a seven weeks' war, had
wrenched herself free from Austria (1866). Instead of a disrupted
United States, which he had expected, there was a disrupted German
Empire which he did not expect!
The triumph of Protestant Prussia was a triumph of liberalism. It
meant a new political power, a rearrangement of the political problem
in Europe, with Austria and despotism deposed. This was a distinct
blow to the Emperor's policy, and to the headship in Europe which was
its aim. Then, too, the Crimea, Magenta, and Solferino looked less
brilliant since this transforming seven-weeks' war, behind which stood
Bismarck with his wide-reaching plans.
His own magnificent scheme of a Hapsburg empire in Mexico under a
French protectorate had failed, and now there had suddenly arisen, as
if out of the ground, a new political Germany which rivalled France in
strength. The thing to do was to recover his waning prestige by a
victory over Prussia.
The Empress Eugenie, devoutly Catholic in her sympathies, saw, in the
ascendancy of Protestant Prussia and the humiliation of Catholic
Austria, an impious blow aimed at the Catholic faith in Europe. So, as
the emperor wanted war, and the empress wanted it, it only remained to
make France want it too; for war it was to be.
Only one obstacle existed: there was nothing to fight about! But that
was overcome. In 1870 the heart of the people of France was fired by
the news that the French Ambassador had been publicly insulted by the
kindly old King William. There had been some diplomatic friction over
the proposed occupancy of a vacant throne in Spain by a member of the
Hohenzollern (Prussian) family.
Whether true or false, the rumor served the desired purpose. France
was in a blaze of indignation, and war was declared.
Not a shadow of doubt existed as to the result as the French army moved
away bearing with it the boy prince imperial, that he might witness the
triumph. Not only would the French soldiers carry everything before
them, but the southern German States would welcome them as deliverers,
and the new confederation would fall in pieces in their hands. The
birthday of Napoleon I., August 15th, must be celebrated in Berlin!
This was the way it looked in France. How was it in Germany? There
was no North and no South German. Men and states sprang together as a
unit, under the command of Moltke and the Crown Prince Frederick
William.
The French troops never got beyond their own frontier. In less than
three weeks they were fighting for their existence on their own soil.
In less than a month the French emperor was a prisoner, and in seven
weeks his empire had ceased to exist.
The surrender of Metz, August 4th, and of Sedan, September 2d, were
monumental disasters. With the news of the latter, and of the capture
of the emperor, the Assembly immediately declared the empire at an end,
and proclaimed a third republic in France.
Two hundred and fifty thousand German troops were marching on Paris.
Fortifications were rapidly thrown about the city, and the siege, which
was to last four months, had commenced.
The capitulation, which was inevitable from the first, took place in
January, 1871. The terms of peace offered by the Germans were
accepted, including the loss of Alsace and Lorraine, and an enormous
war indemnity.
The Germans were in Paris, and King William, the Crown Prince (_Unser
Fritz_), Bismarck, and Von Moltke were quartered at Versailles; and in
that place, saturated with historic memories, there was enacted a
strange and unprecedented scene. On January 18, 1871, in the Hall of
Mirrors, King William of Prussia was formally proclaimed Emperor of a
new German Empire. Ludwig II., that picturesque young King of Bavaria,
in the name of the rest of the German states, laid their united
allegiance at his feet, and begged him to accept the crown of a united
Germany.
Moved by his colossal misfortunes, and perhaps partly in displeasure at
having a French republic once more at her door, England offered asylum
to the deposed emperor. There, from the seclusion of Chiselhurst, he
and his still beautiful Eugenie watched the republic weathering the
first days of storm and stress.
CHAPTER XIX.
Immediately after the deposition of the emperor a third Republic of
France was proclaimed. A temporary government was set up under the
direction of MM. Favre, Gambetta, Simon, Ferry, Rochefort, and others
of pronounced republican tendencies.
This was speedily superseded by a National Assembly elected by the
people, with M. Thiers acting as its executive head.
During the siege of Paris an internal enemy had appeared, more
dangerous, and proving in the end far more destructive to the city than
the German army which occupied it.
What is known as the Paris Commune was a mob of desperate men led by
Socialistic and Anarchistic agitators of the kind which at intervals
try to terrorize civilization to-day.
The ideas at the basis of this insurrection were the same as those
which converted a patriotic revolution into a "Reign of Terror" in
1789, and Paris into a slaughter-house in 1792-93.
Twice during the siege had there been violent and alarming outbreaks
from this vicious element; and now it was in desperate struggle with
the government of M. Thiers for control of that city, which they
succeeded in obtaining. M. Thiers, his government, and his troops were
established at Versailles; while Paris, for two months, was in the
hands of these desperadoes, who were sending out their orders from the
Hotel de Ville.
When finally routed by Marshal MacMahon's troops, after drenching some
of the principal buildings with petroleum they set them on fire. The
Tuileries and the Hotel de Ville were consumed, as were also portions
of the Louvre, the Palais Royal, and the Palais de Luxembourg, and the
city in many places defaced and devastated.
The insurrection was not subdued without a savage conflict, ten
thousand insurgents, it is said, being killed during the last week;
this being followed by severe military executions. Then, with some of
her most dearly prized historic treasures in ashes, and monuments gone,
Paris, scarred and defaced, had quiet at last; and the organization of
the third republic proceeded.
The uncertain nature of the republican sentiment existing throughout
France at this critical moment is indicated by the character of the
Assembly elected by the people. More than two-thirds of the members
chosen by France to organize her new republic were _monarchists_!
The name monarchist at that time comprehended three distinct parties,
each with a powerful following, namely:
The LEGITIMISTS, acting in the interest of the direct Bourbon line,
represented by the _Count of Chambord_, the grandson of Charles X.,
called by his party _Henry V_.
The ORLEANISTS, the party desiring the restoration of a limited
monarchy, in the person of the _Count of Paris_, grandson of Louis
Philippe.
The BONAPARTISTS, whose candidate, after the death of the Emperor Louis
Napoleon in 1873, was the young _Prince Imperial_, son of Napoleon III.
[Napoleon II., the Duke of Reichstadt, had died in 1832.]
M. Thiers had not an easy task in harmonizing these various despotic
types with each other, nor in harmonizing them all collectively with
the republic of which he was chief. He abandoned the attempt in 1873,
and Marshal MacMahon, a more pronounced monarchist than he, succeeded
to the office of president, with the Duc de Broglie at the head of a
reactionary ministry. It began to look as if there might be a
restoration under some one of the three types mentioned. The Count of
Paris generously offered to relinquish his claim in favor of the Count
of Chambord (Henry V.), if he would accept the principles of a
constitutional monarchy, which that uncompromising Bourbon absolutely
refused to do.
In the meantime republican sentiment in France was not dead, nor
sleeping. Calamitous experiences had made it cautious. Freedom and
anarchy had so often been mistaken for each other, it was learning to
move slowly, not by leaps and bounds as heretofore.
Gambetta, the republican leader, once so fiery, had also grown
cautious. A patriot and a statesman, he was the one man who seemed to
possess the genius required by the conditions and the time, and also
the kind of magnetism which would draw together and crystallize the
scattered elements of his party.
It was the stimulus imparted by Gambetta which made the government at
last republican in fact as well as in name; and as reactionary
sentiment increased on the surface, a republican sentiment was all the
time gathering in volume and strength below.
The death of the prince imperial, in 1879, in South Africa, was a
severe blow to the imperialists, as the Bonapartists were also called,
who were now represented by Prince Victor, the son of Prince Napoleon.
Although these rival princes occupied a large place upon the stage,
other matters had the attention of the government of France, which
moved calmly on. The establishing of a formal protectorate over
Algeria belongs to this period.
Ever since the reign of Louis XIV. the hand of France had held Algeria
with more or less success. The Grand Monarch determined to rid the
Mediterranean of the "Barbary pirates," with which it was infested, and
so they were pursued and traced to their lairs in Algiers and Tunis.
From this time on attempts were made at intervals to establish a French
control over this African colony. During the reign of Louis Philippe
the French occupation became more assured, and under the Republic a
formal protectorate was declared.
In 1881 Tunis also became a dependency of France; a treaty to that
effect being signed bestowing authority upon a resident-general
throughout the so-called dominions of the bey.
The fact that in 1878 France participated in the negotiations of the
Congress at Berlin, shows how quickly national wounds heal at _the
top_! And further proof that normal conditions were restored, is given
by the Universal Exposition, to which Paris bravely invited the world
in that same year.
In 1879 M. Grevy succeeded Marshal MacMahon. It was during M. Grevy's
administration that England and France combined in a dual financial
control over Egypt, in behalf of the interests of the citizens of those
two countries who were holders of Egyptian bonds.
But the event of profoundest effect at this period was the death of
Gambetta in 1882. The removal of the only man in France whom they
feared, was the signal for renewed activity among the monarchists,
which found expression in a violent manifesto, immediately issued by
Prince Napoleon. This awoke the apparently dormant republican
sentiment. After agitated scenes in the Chamber, Prince Napoleon was
arrested; and finally, after a prolonged struggle, a decree was issued
suspending all the Orleans princes from their military functions.
Almost immediately after this crisis the Count of Chambord (Henry V.)
died at Frohsdorf, August, 1883, by which event the Bourbon branch
became extinct; and the Legitimists, with their leader gone, united
with the Orleanists in supporting the Count of Paris.
A small war with Cochin-China was developed in 1884 out of a diplomatic
difficulty, which left France with virtual control over an area of
territory, including Annam and Tonquin, in the far East.
In 1885 M. Grevy was re-elected. This was, of course, construed as a
vote of approval of the anti-monarchistic tone of the administration.
So republicanism grew bolder.
There had been an increased activity among the agents of the monarchist
party, which found expression in demonstrations of a very significant
character at the time of the marriage of the daughter of the Count of
Paris to the Crown Prince of Portugal. The republicans were determined
to rid France of this unceasing source of agitation, and their power to
carry out so drastic a measure as the one intended is proof of the
growth which had been silently going on in their party.
The government was given discretionary power to expel from the country
all actual claimants to the throne of France, with their direct heirs.
The Count of Paris and his son, the Duke of Orleans, Prince Napoleon
and his son, Prince Victor, were accordingly banished by presidential
decree, in June, 1886. And when the Duke of Aumale violently
protested, he too was sent into banishment.
In 1887 M. Grevy was compelled to resign, on account of an attempt to
shield his son-in-law, who was accused of selling decorations,
lucrative appointments, and contracts. M. Sadi-Carnot, the grandson of
the Minister of War of the same name, who organized the armies at the
revolutionary period, was a republican of integrity and distinction,
and was elected by the combined votes of radicals and conservatives.
Another crisis was at hand--a crisis difficult to explain because of
the difficulty in understanding it.
The extraordinary popularity of General Boulanger, Minister of War, a
military hero who had never held an important command, nor been the
hero of a single military exploit, seems to present a subject for
students of psychological problems; but his name became the
rallying-point for all the malcontents in both parties. A talent for
political intrigue in this popular hero made it appear at one time as
if he might really be moving on a path leading to a military
dictatorship.
The firmness of the government in dealing with what seemed a serious
crisis, was followed by the swift collapse of the whole movement, and
when Boulanger was summoned before the High Court of Justice upon the
charge of inciting a revolution, he fled from the country, and the
incident was closed.
In one important respect the Third Republic differs from the two
preceding it. A constitution had hitherto been supposed to be the
indispensable starting-point in the formation of a government. No
country had been so prolific in constitutions as France, which, since
1790, is said to have had no less than seventeen; while England, since
her Magna Charta made her free in 1215, had had none at all.
An eloquent and definite statement of the rights of a people once
seemed as indispensable to a form of government as a creed to a
religious faith. Perhaps the world, as it grows wiser, is less
inclined to definite statements upon many subjects! Our own
Constitution, probably the most elastic and wisest instrument of the
kind ever created, has in a century required sixteen amendments to
adapt it to changing conditions.
What is known in France as the Constitution of 1875, is, in fact, a
series of legislative enactments passed within certain periods of time;
these, as in England, serving as a substitute for a Constitution framed
like our own.
The French may have done wisely in trying the English method of
substituting a body of laws, the growth of necessity, for a written
constitution. But this system, reached in England through the slowly
moving centuries, was adopted in France, not with deliberate purpose at
first, but in order to avoid the clashing of opposing views among the
group of men in charge of the republic in its inception; men who, while
ruling under the name of a republic, really at heart disliked it, and
were, in fact, only enduring it as a temporary expedient on the road to
something better. And so the republic drifted. There are times when
it is well to drift; and in this case it has proved most satisfactory.
Not alone the rulers, but the nation itself, was in doubt as to the
sort of government it wanted, or how to attain it after it knew. It
was experimenting with that most difficult of arts, the art of
governing. An art which England had been centuries in learning, how
could France be expected to master in a decade? And when we consider
the conditions and the elements with which this inexperience was
dealing, the dangerous element at the top and the other dangerous
element beneath the surface, the ambitions of the princes, and the
volcanic fires in the lowest class; and when we think of the waiting
nation, hoping, fearing, expecting so much, with a tremendous war
indemnity to be paid, while their hearts were heavy over the loss of
two provinces; when we recall all this, we wonder, not that they made
mistakes and accomplished so little, but that the government moved on,
day by day, step by step, calmly meeting crises from reactionaries or
from radicals, until the confidence of the world was won, and the
stability of republican France assured.
From 1893 to 1896 was a period of colonial expansion for France. The
Kingdom of Dahomey in Africa was proclaimed a French protectorate.
Madagascar was subjugated, and in 1895 the Province of Hiang-Hung was
ceded by China.
In the year 1894 Sadi-Carnot was assassinated in the streets of Lyons
by an anarchist, and M. Faure succeeded to the presidency.
A political alliance between France and Russia was formed at this time.
It was also during the presidency of M. Faure that the agitation
commenced in consequence of what is known as the _Affaire Dreyfus_.
Captain Alfred Dreyfus, an Alsatian and an artillery officer upon the
general staff, was accused of betraying military secrets to a foreign
power (Germany). He was tried by court-martial, convicted, sentenced
to be publicly degraded, having all the insignia of rank torn from him,
then to suffer perpetual solitary imprisonment on the Isle du Diable,
off the coast of French Guiana.
The life of the French Republic was threatened by the profound
agitation following this sentence, in which the entire civilized world
joined; the impression prevailing that a punishment of almost
unparalleled severity was being inflicted upon a man whose guilt had
not been proven.
It was the general belief that the bitter enmity of the French army
staff was on account of the Semitic origin of the accused officer, and
that his being an Alsatian opened an easy path to the accusation of
treasonable acts with Germany.
The trial of Captain Dreyfus was conducted with closed doors, and the
sentence was rigorously carried out.
As time passed, the agitation became so profound, and the public demand
for a revision of the case so imperative, that the French court of
appeal finally took the matter under consideration.
The ground upon which this revision was claimed related to an alleged
confession and to the authorship of the _bordereau_, the document which
had been instrumental in procuring a conviction. Upon these grounds it
was claimed that the judgment pronounced in December, 1894, should be
annulled.
The court was compelled to yield, and an order was issued for a second
trial--a trial which resulted in revelations so damaging to the heads
of the French army that a revolution seemed imminent.
The accused man, wrecked by the five years on the Isle du Diable, again
appeared before his accusers in the military court at Rennes. His
leading counsel, Labori, was shot while conducting his case, but, as it
proved, not fatally. The conduct of the trial was such that the dark
secrets of this sinister affair were never brought from their murky
depths. And with neither the guilt nor the innocence of the victim
proven, the amazing verdict was rendered, "Guilty, with extenuating
circumstances."
Such was the verdict of the French military court. That of public
opinion was different. It was the unanimous belief among other nations
that the case against this unfortunate man had completely collapsed.
But in order to protect the French army from the disgrace which was
inseparable from a vindication of Dreyfus, he must be sacrificed.
The sentence pronounced at the conclusion of the second trial was
imprisonment in a French fortress for ten years.
This sentence was remitted by President Loubet; and, with the brand of
two convictions and the memory of his "degradation" and of Devil's
Island burned deep into his soul, a broken man was sent forth free.
Not the least dramatic incident in this affair was the impassioned
championship of M. Zola, the great novelist, who hurled defamatory
charges at the court, in the hope of being placed under arrest for
libel, and thus be given opportunity to establish facts repressed by
the military court. By the French law, the accused must justify his
defamatory words, and this was the opportunity sought.
The heroic effort was not in vain. Zola was found guilty and sentenced
to a year's imprisonment, which he avoided by going into exile. But
light had been thrown upon the "_Affaire._" And he was content.
Upon the sudden death of M. Faure in 1899, Emile Loubet, a lawyer of
national reputation, was chosen to succeed him, and his administration
commenced while this storm was reaching its final culmination.
With the release of Captain Dreyfus the agitation subsided. But before
very long another storm-cloud appeared.
A conflict between clericalism and the Government of France is not a
new thing. Indeed, it was at its height as long ago as the thirteenth
century, when Philip IV. and Pope Boniface had their little
unpleasantness, resulting in Philip's taking the popes into his own
keeping at Avignon, and in the issuance of a "Pragmatic Sanction,"
which defended France from papal encroachments.
The old conflict is still going on, and will continue until the last
frail thread uniting Church and State is severed.
The particular contention which agitates France to-day, inaugurated by
the late Minister Waldeck-Rousseau, and continued by his successor, M.
Combes, had its origin in an act called the "Law of Associations," the
purpose of which was to restrict the political power of the Church by
means of the suppression of religious orders of men and women upon the
soil of France.
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