ADVANCE OF REPUBLICANISM

and a subscription was opened for a monument. The Republican newspapers that supported the movement were prosecuted, and were defended by Gambetta, who attacked the coup d'état in violent language, calling for a great national expiation. Democratic principles began to spread throughout the bourgeoisie, the middle class which had hitherto supported the Empire. When the Chambers were opened on January 18th, 1869, the Emperor denounced from the throne the revolutionary spirits whose aim was to disturb public tranquillity. During this session the Opposition gained a victory in the vindication of the liberties of Paris. It was settled that the budget of the city was to be voted by the Municipal Council, under the sanction of the legislative body, and was no longer wholly dependent on the will of the Government.

The result of the elections held in May, 1869, furnished further The "Cent proof of the spread of Republicanism and of opposition to the Seize." Empire. At their close the Government secured 4,438,000 votes, the Opposition 3,385,000. In Paris the Opposition had a large majority-231,000 against 74,000. Out of ninety candidates of the Opposition, about forty were irreconcilable to the Empire. The Emperor was determined to proceed in the path of Liberalising the institutions of his Government, doubtless satisfied that it was the best means of securing the throne to his son. In 1866 the Liberal movement had been supported by 42 Deputies; in 1869 personal government became unpopular. An interpellation put forward by the Left Centre, the old Third Party, received a number of adhesions, at first 70, then 100, then 116, and the new party entered into French history as that of the Cent Seize (the Hundred and Sixteen). Their principles soon secured the public sanction of the Emperor, and on July 12th, when the business of parliament began, Rouher read a message from the throne consenting to their programme. Their main object was to establish Parliamentary Government. The office of Secretary of State was abolished and the new Prime Minister was to be a member of the Chambers and to speak in their name. In these circumstances Rouher tendered his resignation, and his long reign was at an end.

Unfortunately, having taken the great step, the Emperor Legislative proceeded with hesitation. Indeed, he was at this time very ill, Reforms. and in August his life was despaired of. He seemed to be afraid of the consequences of his action. In the place of Rouher, who became President of the Council, he made Forcade de la Roquette, the great supporter of official candidatures, Minister of the

The Dawn

of 1870.

Socialistic

Interior, and shrank from giving office to men who, in the opinion of the country, were the most prominent advocates of the new regime. In September the draft of the decree giving effect to the reforms indicated in the message of July 12th was accepted by the Senate. The Legislative Assembly became a parliament on the British model; it chose its own president and secretaries, and had the right of initiation, of discussing and voting the budget, of discussing amendments of it in detail, instead of voting large portions of it in the mass. The Senate was transformed into a deliberative assembly with public sittings; it could discuss laws brought up from the Lower House and discuss them in detail, while the Ministers were responsible and could be impeached. There was, however, a party in favour of personal government, supported by the Empress, and called the Arcadians or the Mamelukes, and Rouher still had access to the Emperor's private

ear.

The Chambers opened on November 29th, and the Emperor in his speech said that the new state of things should be founded on order and liberty, avoiding reaction on the one hand, and revolution on the other. He would be responsible for order, but it was the duty of the Chambers to assist him in preserving liberty. On December 27th the Emperor wrote a letter to Émile Ollivier, asking him to nominate the persons who might form with him a homogeneous Cabinet faithfully representing the opinion of the majority of the legislative body, and bent on carrying out the new Constitution both in letter and in spirit. The formation of the new Ministry was very difficult, but on January 2nd, 1870, the names were published in the Moniteur. Daru became Minister of Foreign Affairs, Buffet of Finance; Lebœuf, who had succeeded Niel, remained Minister of War. These changes had roused more curiosity than interest in the country. The Ministers were known to be honest men, enlightened and incorrupt, faithful servants of their sovereign and country. The new order of government was looked upon with hope rather than with suspicion, and was generally popular. The year 1870, which was to prove the last of the Empire and the most tragical in the history of France, opened under the most favourable auspices for peace and liberty.

Nevertheless, the Ministry had from the first great difficulties Triumph. both in Parliament and the country. Ollivier was supported by the official Ministerialists, who gave him a large majority, but the extreme Independents were hostile and ready to take advantage of any mistake he might commit. The forty Republican

THE BONAPARTIST ENFANT TERRIBLE

Deputies had no real power, but represented the inhabitants of the great towns, the working classes, and the educated middle class. Gambetta, their most prominent member, declared for a proposal which included universal suffrage, the entire freedom of the Press, absolute right of meeting and combination, the separation of Church and State, and the suppression of a standing army. There were also Socialists belonging to the International, preaching Republicanism and Revolution to the workmen of the great cities, organising trade unions, and supporting strikes. In November Rochefort was elected for Belleville by 17,900 votes, in place of Gambetta, who had chosen to sit for Marseilles, and this was regarded as a triumph for the Socialists and the party of Revolution.

Prince

An event now occurred of a dramatic character, which Victor Noir hastened the fall of the Empire. Prince Pierre Bonaparte, third Killed by son of Lucien, a man of fifty-three years of age, was living in a Pierre small house in the Rue d'Auteuil. He was a thoroughly bad lot, Napoleon. an unreclaimed and uncivilised Corsican, who got into mischief wherever he fixed his abode. He was the enfant terrible of the Bonaparte family and a constant source of anxiety to the Emperor. A quarrel arose between him and some newspapers which had abused the Bonaparte family, and Paschal Grammont, the editor of the Marseillaise, sent him a challenge, which was conveyed, among others, by a young man of twenty-one, called Victor Noir. The envoy did not behave with discretion, a shot was fired by the Prince, and Victor Noir was killed. On June 11th the Marseillaise came out bordered in black, with the heading, Assassination of Victor Noir by Prince Pierre Napoleon Bonaparte.' On the following day the victim's funeral was attended by 100,000 persons, and disorders occurred which it was the duty of the Liberal Government to put down. A more ungrateful task could not have fallen to the lot of Ollivier, and this untoward episode cast a shade on the new policy of Parliamentary Government, and deepened the clouds gradually closing round the head of the State.

Ollivier soon found that the task he had to perform was not Ollivier's the conversion of the Empire into a Constitutional Monarchy, Task. but the preservation of the Emperor. In dealing with Republicans and Socialists, he was obliged to have recourse to the detested methods of absolutism. He arrested Rochefort for taking part in the funeral of Victor Noir, and also arrested the editor of the Marseillaise, and kept the leaders of the International under police supervision. Pierre Bonaparte was acquitted of murder by the

A Favourable Plebiscite.

High Court of Tours, but this did not allay the public ferment nor tend to reassure the Tuileries.

It was a fundamental part of the Constitution that no change could be effected in it without the ratification of a plebiscite, and on April 23rd the nation was summoned to vote on the question whether it approved of the Liberal reforms effected in the Constitution since 1860, and whether it ratified the vote of the Senate of April 20th, 1870. The Emperor announced that his object was to avert the peril of revolution, to establish order and liberty on a firm basis, and to assure the transmission of the crown to his son. The voting took place on May 8th, and showed 7,358,786 "Ayes" and 1,571,939 " Noes," there being 1,894,181 abstentions.

This result seemed to have given strength to the Empire, and Napoleon, in acknowledging the vote, called upon his subjects to contemplate the future with confidence. Changes were made in the Ministry, the Duc de Gramont taking the portfolio of Foreign Affairs and Plichon that of Public Works.

In June, 1870, France appeared to be both powerful and prosperous, and on the last day of the month Ollivier was able to assure Jules Favre that on whichever side he looked there was an absence of troublesome questions, and that at no moment had the maintenance of peace in Europe been better assured. These momentous words were spoken sixty-four days before the fall of the Empire at Sedan.

CHAPTER VII

The Beginning of the END

for France.

To provide against the eventuality of a war with Prussia, it was Possible necessary, first, that France should have a strong army, and, Alliances secondly, that she should have allies. But what allies were possible? Russia was estranged in consequence of her Polish policy; Great Britain was indifferent and unwilling to be mixed up in foreign complications. Only two alliances could be contemplated-with Austria and Italy. But between Austria and France there were serious causes of disagreement-the Battle of Solferino, the hesitating conduct of Napoleon in the war of 1866, and the betrayal of Maximilian. On the other side there were the interview of Salzburg and the visit to Paris.

At this time Beust was Chancellor of the Austrian Empire, a Position of man of moderate talents but great ambitions. He was jealous of Austria. Bismarck, who, he thought, prevented him from being the dominant figure in Europe, and desired to avenge the misfortunes of 1866, which he could not hope to accomplish without the aid of France. Gramont, the new Minister of Foreign Affairs, was strongly in favour of an alliance with Austria. He detested Bismarck and the Prussians; as an aristocrat of ancient Europe, his sympathies naturally turned to the successor of the Holy Roman Empire. At the same time there were many grave reasons to deter Austria from entering upon a war. The consequences of defeat would be disastrous, involving dismemberment of the Empire. Besides, desire to avenge Sadowa was not felt among the motley nations of which Austria was composed with the intensity that it evoked at Vienna. Hungary, nearly as important a member of the Empire as Austria itself, was strongly opposed to war, and there was danger lest an alliance with France might give rise to a counter-alliance between Berlin and St. Petersburg.

There was, of course, a prospect of making a triple instead of a dual alliance by including Italy in the arrangement; but Austria would have to grasp the hand of her former enemy, and Italy condone Mentana and forget her suspicions of Napoleon and her recent relations with Bismarck. Above all, there was the question