Chapter XVII: Part 17

The Orleanists, who had been unanimous in supporting the king, disagreed, after their victory, as to what powers he was to be given. The Left Centre, led by Thiers, held that he should reign but not govern; the Right Centre, led by Guizot, would admit him to an active part in the government; and the third party (tiers-parti) wavered between these two. And so between 1836 and 1840, as the struggle against the king's claim to govern passed from the sphere of outside discussion into parliament, we see the rise of a bourgeois socialist party, side by side with the now dwindling republican party. It no longer confined its demands to universal suffrage, on the principle of the legitimate representation of all interests, or in the name of justice. Led by Saint-Simon, Fourier, P. Leroux and Lamennais, it aimed at realizing a better social organization for and by means of the state. But the question was by what means this was to be accomplished. The secret societies, under the influence of Blanqui and Barbès, two revolutionaries who had revived the traditions of Babeuf, were not willing to wait for the complete education of the masses, necessarily a long process. On the 12th of May 1839 the _Société des Saisons_ made an attempt to overthrow the bourgeoisie by force, but was defeated. Democrats like Louis Blanc, Ledru-Rollin and Lamennais continued to repeat in support of the wisdom of universal suffrage the old profession of faith: _vox populi, vox Dei_. And finally this republican doctrine, already confused, was still further complicated by a kind of mysticism which aimed at reconciling the most extreme differences of belief, the Catholicism of Buchez, the Bonapartism of Cormenin, and the humanitarianism of the cosmopolitans. It was in vain that Auguste Comte, Michelet and Quinet denounced this vague humanitarian mysticism and the pseudo-liberalism of the Church. The movement had now begun.

The Bonapartist revival.

At first these moderate republicans, radical or communist, formed only imperceptible groups. Among the peasant classes, and even in the industrial centres, warlike passions were still rife. Louis Philippe tried to find an outlet for them in the Algerian war, and later by the revival of the Napoleonic legend, which was held to be no longer dangerous, since the death of the duke of Reichstadt in 1832. It was imprudently recalled by Thiers' _History of the Consulate and Empire_, by artists and poets, in spite of the prophecies of Lamartine, and by the solemn translation of Napoleon I.'s ashes in 1840 to the Invalides at Paris.

Parliamentary opposition to the royal power.

All theories require to be based on practice, especially those which involve force. Now Louis Philippe, though as active as his predecessors had been slothful, was the least warlike of men. His only wish was to govern personally, as George III. and George IV. of England had done, especially in foreign affairs, while at home was being waged the great duel between Thiers and Guizot, with Molé as intermediary. Thiers, head of the cabinet of the 22nd of February 1836, an astute man but not pliant enough to please the king, fell after a few months, in consequence of his attempt to stop the Carlist civil war in Spain, and to support the constitutional government of Queen Isabella. Louis Philippe hoped that, by calling upon Molé to form a ministry, he would be better able to make his personal authority felt. From 1837 to 1839 Molé aroused opposition on all hands; this was emphasized by the refusal of the Chambers to vote one of those endowments which the king was continually asking them to grant for his children, by two dissolutions of the Chambers, and finally by the Strasburg affair and the stormy trial of Louis Napoleon, son of the former king of Holland (1836-1837). At the elections of 1839 Molé was defeated by Thiers, Guizot and Barrot, who had combined to oppose the tyranny of the "Château," and after a long ministerial crisis was replaced by Thiers (March 1, 1840). But the latter was too much in favour of war to please the king, who was strongly disposed towards peace and an alliance with Great Britain, and consequently fell at the time of the Egyptian question, when, in answer to the treaty of London concluded behind his back by Nicholas I. and Palmerston on the 15th of July 1840, he fortified Paris and proclaimed his intention to give armed support to Mehemet Ali, the ally of France (see MEHEMET ALI). But the violence of popular Chauvinism and the renewed attempt of Louis Napoleon at Boulogne proved to the holders of the doctrine of peace at any price that in the long-run their policy tends to turn a peaceful attitude into a warlike one, and to strengthen the absolutist idea.

Guizot's ministry.

In spite of all, from 1840 to 1848 Louis Philippe still further extended his activity in foreign affairs, thus bringing himself into still greater prominence, though he was already frequently held responsible for failures in foreign politics and unpopular measures in home affairs. The catchword of Guizot, who was now his minister, was: Peace and no reforms. With the exception of the law of 1842 concerning the railways, not a single measure of importance was proposed by the ministry. France lived under a régime of general corruption: parliamentary corruption, due to the illegal conduct of the deputies, consisting of slavish or venal officials; electoral corruption, effected by the purchase of the 200,000 electors constituting the "_pays légal_," who were bribed by the advantages of power; and moral corruption, due to the reign of the plutocracy, the bourgeoisie, a hard-working, educated and honourable class, it is true, but insolent, like all newly enriched parvenus in the presence of other aristocracies, and with unyielding selfishness maintaining an attitude of suspicion towards the people, whose aspirations they did not share and with whom they did not feel themselves to have anything in common. This led to a slackening in political life, a sort of exhaustion of interest throughout the country, an excessive devotion to material prosperity. Under a superficial appearance of calm a tempest was brewing, of which the industrial writings of Balzac, Eugène Sue, Lamartine, H. Heine, Vigny, Montalembert and Tocqueville were the premonitions. But it was in vain that they denounced this supremacy of the bourgeoisie, relying on its two main supports, the suffrage based on a property qualification and the National Guard, for its rallying-cry was the "Enrichissez-vous" of Guizot, and its excessive materialism gained a sinister distinction from scandals connected with the ministers Teste and Cubières, and such mysterious crimes as that of Choiseul-Praslin.[35] In vain also did they point out that mere riches are not so much a protection to the ministry who are in power as a temptation to the majority excluded from power by this barrier of wealth. It was in vain that beneath the inflated _haute bourgeoisie_ which speculated in railways and solidly supported the Church, behind the shopkeeper clique who still remained Voltairian, who enviously applauded the pamphlets of Cormenin on the luxury of the court, and who were bitterly satirized by the pencil of Daumier and Gavarni, did the thinkers give voice to the mutterings of an immense industrial proletariat, which were re-echoing throughout the whole of western Europe.

Guizot's Foreign Policy.

Campaign of the banquets.

In face of this tragic contrast Guizot remained unmoved, blinded by the superficial brilliance of apparent success and prosperity. He adorned by flights of eloquence his invariable theme: no new laws, no reforms, no foreign complications, the policy of material interests. He preserved his yielding attitude towards Great Britain in the affair of the right of search in 1841, and in the affair of the missionary Pritchard at Tahiti (1843-1845). And when the marriage of the duc de Montpensier with a Spanish infanta in 1846 had broken this _entente cordiale_ to which he clung, it was only to yield in turn to Metternich, when he took possession of Cracow, the last remnant of Poland, to protect the _Sonderbund_ in Switzerland, to discourage the Liberal ardour of Pius IX., and to hand over the education of France to the Ultramontane clergy. Still further strengthened by the elections of 1846, he refused the demands of the Opposition formed by a coalition of the Left Centre and the Radical party for parliamentary and electoral reform, which would have excluded the officials from the Chambers, reduced the electoral qualification to 100 francs, and added to the number of the electors the _capacitaires_ whose competence was guaranteed by their education. For Guizot the whole country was represented by the "_pays légal_," consisting of the king, the ministers, the deputies and the electors. When the Opposition appealed to the country, he flung down a disdainful challenge to what "les brouillons et les badauds appellent le peuple." The challenge was taken up by all the parties of the Opposition in the campaign of the banquets got up somewhat artificially in 1847 in favour of the extension of the franchise. The monarchy had arrived at such a state of weakness and corruption that a determined minority was sufficient to overthrow it. The prohibition of a last banquet in Paris precipitated the catastrophe. The monarchy which for fifteen years had overcome its adversaries collapsed on the 24th of February 1848 to the astonishment of all.

The Revolution of Feb. 24, 1848.

The industrial population of the faubourgs on its way towards the centre of the town was welcomed by the National Guard, among cries of "Vive la réforme." Barricades were raised after the unfortunate incident of the firing on the crowd in the Boulevard des Capucines. On the 23rd Guizot's cabinet resigned, abandoned by the _petite bourgeoisie_, on whose support they thought they could depend. The heads of the Left Centre and the dynastic Left, Molé and Thiers, declined the offered leadership. Odilon Barrot accepted it, and Bugeaud, commander-in-chief of the first military division, who had begun to attack the barricades, was recalled. But it was too late. In face of the insurrection which had now taken possession of the whole capital, Louis Philippe decided to abdicate in favour of his grandson, the comte de Paris. But it was too late also to be content with the regency of the duchess of Orleans. It was now the turn of the Republic, and it was proclaimed by Lamartine in the name of the provisional government elected by the Chamber under the pressure of the mob.

The Provisional Government.

This provisional government with Dupont de l'Eure as its president, consisted of Lamartine for foreign affairs, Crémieux for justice, Ledru-Rollin for the interior, Carnot for public instruction, Gondchaux for finance, Arago for the navy, and Bedeau for war. Garnier-Pagès was mayor of Paris. But, as in 1830, the republican-socialist party had set up a rival government at the Hôtel de Ville, including L. Blanc, A. Marrast, Flocon, and the workman Albert, which bid fair to involve discord and civil war. But this time the Palais Bourbon was not victorious over the Hôtel de Ville. It had to consent to a fusion of the two bodies, in which, however, the predominating elements were the moderate republicans. It was doubtful what would eventually be the policy of the new government. One party, seeing that in spite of the changes in the last sixty years of all political institutions, the position of the people had not been improved, demanded a reform of society itself, the abolition of the privileged position of property, the only obstacle to equality, and as an emblem hoisted the red flag. The other party wished to maintain society on the basis of its ancient institutions, and rallied round the tricolour.

Universal suffrage.

The Executive Commission.

The first collision took place as to the form which the revolution of 1848 was to take. Were they to remain faithful to their original principles, as Lamartine wished, and accept the decision of the country as supreme, or were they, as the revolutionaries under Ledru-Rollin claimed, to declare the republic of Paris superior to the universal suffrage of an insufficiently educated people? On the 5th of March the government, under the pressure of the Parisian clubs, decided in favour of an immediate reference to the people, and direct universal suffrage, and adjourned it till the 26th of April. In this fateful and unexpected decision, which instead of adding to the electorate the educated classes, refused by Guizot, admitted to it the unqualified masses, originated the Constituent Assembly of the 4th of May 1848. The provisional government having resigned, the republican and anti-socialist majority on the 9th of May entrusted the supreme power to an executive commission consisting of five members: Arago, Marie, Garnier-Pagès, Lamartine and Ledru-Rollin. But the spell was already broken. This revolution which had been peacefully effected with the most generous aspirations, in the hope of abolishing poverty by organizing industry on other bases than those of competition and capitalism, and which had at once aroused the fraternal sympathy of the nations, was doomed to be abortive.

The result of the general election, the return of a constituent assembly predominantly moderate if not monarchical, dashed the hopes of those who had looked for the establishment, by a peaceful revolution, of their ideal socialist state; but they were not prepared to yield without a struggle, and in Paris itself they commanded a formidable force. In spite of the preponderance of the "tricolour" party in the provisional government, so long as the voice of France had not spoken, the socialists, supported by the Parisian proletariat, had exercised an influence on policy out of all proportion to their relative numbers or personal weight. By the decree of the 24th of February the provisional government had solemnly accepted the principle of the "right to work," and decided to establish "national workshops" for the unemployed; at the same time a sort of industrial parliament was established at the Luxembourg, under the presidency of Louis Blanc, with the object of preparing a scheme for the organization of labour; and, lastly, by the decree of the 8th of March the property qualification for enrolment in the National Guard had been abolished and the workmen were supplied with arms. The socialists thus formed, in some sort, a state within the state, with a government, an organization and an armed force.

The June Days.

In the circumstances a conflict was inevitable; and on the 15th of May an armed mob, headed by Raspail, Blanqui and Barbès, and assisted by the proletariat Guard, attempted to overwhelm the Assembly. They were defeated by the bourgeois battalions of the National Guard; but the situation none the less remained highly critical. The national workshops were producing the results that might have been foreseen. It was impossible to provide remunerative work even for the genuine unemployed, and of the thousands who applied the greater number were employed in perfectly useless digging and refilling; soon even this expedient failed, and those for whom work could not be invented were given a half wage of 1 franc a day. Even this pitiful dole, with no obligation to work, proved attractive, and all over France workmen threw up their jobs and streamed to Paris, where they swelled the ranks of the army under the red flag. It was soon clear that the continuance of this experiment would mean financial ruin; it had been proved by the _émeute_ of the 15th of May that it constituted a perpetual menace to the state; and the government decided to end it. The method chosen was scarcely a happy one. On the 21st of June M. de Falloux decided in the name of the parliamentary commission on labour that the workmen should be discharged within three days and such as were able-bodied should be forced to enlist. A furious insurrection at once broke out. Throughout the whole of the 24th, 25th and 26th of June, the eastern industrial quarter of Paris, led by Pujol, carried on a furious struggle against the western quarter, led by Cavaignac, who had been appointed dictator. Vanquished and decimated, first by fighting and afterwards by deportation, the socialist party was crushed. But they dragged down the Republic in their ruin. This had already become unpopular with the peasants, exasperated by the new land tax of 45 centimes imposed in order to fill the empty treasury, and with the _bourgeois_, in terror of the power of the revolutionary clubs and hard hit by the stagnation of business. By the "massacres" of the June Days the working classes were also alienated from it; and abiding fear of the "Reds" did the rest. "France," wrote the duke of Wellington at this time, "needs a Napoleon! I cannot yet see him ... Where is he?"[36]

The Constitution of 1848.

France indeed needed, or thought she needed, a Napoleon; and the demand was soon to be supplied. The granting of universal suffrage to a society with Imperialist sympathies, and unfitted to reconcile the principles of order with the consequences of liberty, was indeed bound, now that the political balance in France was so radically changed, to prove a formidable instrument of reaction; and this was proved by the election of the president of the Republic. On the 4th of November 1848 was promulgated the new constitution, obviously the work of inexperienced hands, proclaiming a democratic republic, direct universal suffrage and the separation of powers; there was to be a single permanent assembly of 750 members elected for a term of three years by the _scrutin de liste_, which was to vote on the laws prepared by a council of state elected by the Assembly for six years; the executive power was delegated to a president elected for four years by direct universal suffrage, i.e. on a broader basis than that of the chamber, and not eligible for re-election; he was to choose his ministers, who, like him, would be responsible. Finally, all revision was made impossible since it involved obtaining three times in succession a majority of three-quarters of the deputies in a special assembly. It was in vain that M. Grévy, in the name of those who perceived the obvious and inevitable risk of creating, under the name of a president, a monarch and more than a king, proposed that the head of the state should be no more than a removable president of the ministerial council. Lamartine, thinking that he was sure to be the choice of the electors under universal suffrage, won over the support of the Chamber, which did not even take the precaution of rendering ineligible the members of families which had reigned over France. It made the presidency an office dependent upon popular acclamation.

Louis Napoleon.

The election was keenly contested; the socialists adopted as their candidate Ledru-Rollin, the republicans Cavaignac; and the recently reorganized Imperialist party Prince Bonaparte. Louis Napoleon, unknown in 1835, and forgotten or despised since 1840, had in the last eight years advanced sufficiently in the public estimation to be elected to the Constituent Assembly in 1848 by five departments. He owed this rapid increase of popularity partly to blunders of the government of July, which had unwisely aroused the memory of the country, filled as it was with recollections of the Empire, and partly to Louis Napoleon's campaign carried on from his prison at Ham by means of pamphlets of socialistic tendencies. Moreover, the monarchists, led by Thiers and the committee of the Rue de Poitiers, were no longer content even with the safe dictatorship of the upright Cavaignac, and joined forces with the Bonapartists. On the 10th of December the peasants gave over 5,000,000 votes to a name: Napoleon, which stood for order at all costs, against 1,400,000 for Cavaignac.

Expedition to Rome.

For three years there went on an indecisive struggle between the heterogeneous Assembly and the prince who was silently awaiting his opportunity. He chose as his ministers men but little inclined towards republicanism, for preference Orleanists, the chief of whom was Odilon Barrot. In order to strengthen his position, he endeavoured to conciliate the reactionary parties, without committing himself to any of them. The chief instance of this was the expedition to Rome, voted by the Catholics with the object of restoring the papacy, which had been driven out by Garibaldi and Mazzini. The prince-president was also in favour of it, as beginning the work of European renovation and reconstruction which he already looked upon as his mission. General Oudinot's entry into Rome provoked in Paris a foolish insurrection in favour of the Roman republic, that of the Château d'Eau, which was crushed on the 13th of June 1849. On the other hand, when Pius IX., though only just restored, began to yield to the general movement of reaction, the president demanded that he should set up a Liberal government. The pope's dilatory reply having been accepted by his ministry, the president replaced it on the 1st of November by the Fould-Rouher cabinet.

The Legislative Assembly.

"Loi Falloux."

Electoral law of May 31.

This looked like a declaration of war against the Catholic and monarchist majority in the Legislative Assembly which had been elected on the 28th of May in a moment of panic. But the prince-president again pretended to be playing the game of the Orleanists, as he had done in the case of the Constituent-Assembly. The complementary elections of March and April 1850 having resulted in an unexpected victory for the advanced republicans, which struck terror into the reactionary leaders, Thiers, Berryer and Montalembert, the president gave his countenance to a clerical campaign against the republicans at home. The Church, which had failed in its attempts to gain control of the university under Louis XVIII. and Charles X., aimed at setting up a rival establishment of its own. The _Loi Falloux_ of the 15th of March 1850, under the pretext of establishing the liberty of instruction promised by the charter, again placed the teaching of the university under the direction of the Catholic Church, as a measure of social safety, and, by the facilities which it granted to the Church for propagating teaching in harmony with its own dogmas, succeeded in obstructing for half a century the work of intellectual enfranchisement effected by the men of the 18th century and of the Revolution. The electoral law of the 31st of May was another class law directed against subversive ideas. It required as a proof of three years' domicile the entries in the record of direct taxes, thus cutting down universal suffrage by taking away the vote from the industrial population, which was not as a rule stationary. The law of the 16th of July aggravated the severity of the press restrictions by re-establishing the "caution money" (_cautionnement_) deposited by proprietors and editors of papers with the government as a guarantee of good behaviour. Finally, a skilful interpretation of the law on clubs and political societies suppressed about this time all the Republican societies. It was now their turn to be crushed like the socialists.

Struggle between the President and the Assembly.

But the president had only joined in Montalembert's cry of "Down with the Republicans!" in the hope of effecting a revision of the constitution without having recourse to a _coup d'état_. His concessions only increased the boldness of the monarchists; while they had only accepted Louis Napoleon as president in opposition to the Republic and as a step in the direction of the monarchy. A conflict was now inevitable between his personal policy and the majority of the Chamber, who were, moreover, divided into legitimists and Orleanists, in spite of the death of Louis Philippe in August 1850. Louis Napoleon skilfully exploited their projects for a restoration of the monarchy, which he knew to be unpopular in the country, and which gave him the opportunity of furthering his own personal ambitions. From the 8th of August to the 12th of November 1850 he went about France stating the case for a revision of the constitution in speeches which he varied according to each place; he held reviews, at which cries of "_Vive Napoléon_" showed that the army was with him; he superseded General Changarnier, on whose arms the parliament relied for the projected monarchical _coup d'état_; he replaced his Orleanist ministry by obscure men devoted to his own cause, such as Morny, Fleury and Persigny, and gathered round him officers of the African army, broken men like General Saint-Arnaud; in fact he practically declared open war.

Coup d'État of Dec. 2, 1851.

His reply to the votes of censure passed by the Assembly, and their refusal to increase his civil list, was to hint at a vast communistic plot in order to scare the bourgeoisie, and to denounce the electoral law of the 31st of May in order to gain the support of the mass of the people. The Assembly retaliated by throwing out the proposal for a partial reform of that article of the constitution which prohibited the re-election of the president and the re-establishment of universal suffrage (July). All hope of a peaceful issue was at an end. When the questors called upon the Chamber to have posted up in all barracks the decree of the 6th of May 1848 concerning the right of the Assembly to demand the support of the troops if attacked, the Mountain, dreading a restoration of the monarchy, voted with the Bonapartists against the measure, thus disarming the legislative power. Louis Napoleon saw his opportunity. On the night between the 1st and 2nd of December 1851, the anniversary of Austerlitz, he dissolved the Chamber, re-established universal suffrage, had all the party leaders arrested, and summoned a new assembly to prolong his term of office for ten years. The deputies who had met under Berryer at the _Mairie_ of the tenth arrondissement to defend the constitution and proclaim the deposition of Louis Napoleon were scattered by the troops at Mazas and Mont Valérian. The resistance organized by the republicans within Paris under Victor Hugo was soon subdued by the intoxicated soldiers. The more serious resistance in the departments was crushed by declaring a state of siege and by the "mixed commissions." The plebiscite of the 20th of December ratified by a huge majority the _coup d'état_ in favour of the prince-president, who alone reaped the benefit of the excesses of the Republicans and the reactionary passions of the monarchists.

The Second Empire.

The second attempt to revive the principle of 1789 only served as a preface to the restoration of the Empire. The new anti-parliamentary constitution of the 14th of January 1852 was to a large extent merely a repetition of that of the year VIII. All executive power was entrusted to the head of the state, who was solely responsible to the people, now powerless to exercise any of their rights. He was to nominate the members of the council of state, whose duty it was to prepare the laws, and of the senate, a body permanently established as a constituent part of the empire. One innovation was made, namely, that the Legislative Body was elected by universal suffrage, but it had no right of initiative, all laws being proposed by the executive power. This new and violent political change was rapidly followed by the same consequence as had attended that of Brumaire. On the 2nd of December 1852, France, still under the effect of the Napoleonic _virus_, and the fear of anarchy, conferred almost unanimously by a plebiscite the supreme power, with the title of emperor, upon Napoleon III.

But though the machinery of government was almost the same under the Second Empire as it had been under the First, the principles upon which its founder based it were different. The function of the Empire, as he loved to repeat, was to guide the people internally towards justice and externally towards perpetual peace. Holding his power by universal suffrage, and having frequently, from his prison or in exile, reproached former oligarchical governments with neglecting social questions, he set out to solve them by organizing a system of government based on the principles of the "Napoleonic Idea," i.e. of the emperor, the elect of the people as the representative of the democracy, and as such supreme; and of himself, the representative of the great Napoleon, "who had sprung armed from the Revolution like Minerva from the head of Jove," as the guardian of the social gains of the revolutionary epoch. But he soon proved that social justice did not mean liberty; for he acted in such a way that those of the principles of 1848 which he had preserved became a mere sham. He proceeded to paralyze all those active national forces which tend to create the public spirit of a people, such as parliament, universal suffrage, the press, education and associations. The Legislative Body was not allowed either to elect its own president or to regulate its own procedure, or to propose a law or an amendment, or to vote on the budget in detail, or to make its deliberations public. It was a dumb parliament. Similarly, universal suffrage was supervised and controlled by means of official candidature, by forbidding free speech and action in electoral matters to the Opposition, and by a skilful adjustment of the electoral districts in such a way as to overwhelm the Liberal vote in the mass of the rural population. The press was subjected to a system of _cautionnements_, i.e. "caution money," deposited as a guarantee of good behaviour, and _avertissements_, i.e. requests by the authorities to cease publication of certain articles, under pain of suspension or suppression; while books were subject to a censorship. France was like a sickroom, where nobody might speak aloud. In order to counteract the opposition of individuals, a _surveillance_ of suspects was instituted. Orsini's attack on the emperor in 1858, though purely Italian in its motive, served as a pretext for increasing the severity of this régime by the law of general security (_sûreté générale_) which authorized the internment, exile or deportation of any suspect without trial. In the same way public instruction was strictly supervised, the teaching of philosophy was suppressed in the _Lycées_, and the disciplinary powers of the administration were increased. In fact for seven years France had no political life. The Empire was carried on by a series of plebiscites. Up to 1857 the Opposition did not exist; from then till 1860 it was reduced to five members: Darimon, Émile Ollivier, Hénon, J. Favre and E. Picard. The royalists waited inactive after the new and unsuccessful attempt made at Frohsdorf in 1853, by a combination of the legitimists and Orleanists, to re-create a living monarchy out of the ruin of two royal families. Thus the events of that ominous night in December were closing the future to the new generations as well as to those who had grown up during forty years of liberty.

Material prosperity a condition of despotism.

But it was not enough to abolish liberty by conjuring up the spectre of demagogy. It had to be forgotten, the great silence had to be covered by the noise of festivities and material enjoyment, the imagination of the French people had to be distracted from public affairs by the taste for work, the love of gain, the passion for good living. The success of the imperial despotism, as of any other, was bound up with that material prosperity which would make all interests dread the thought of revolution. Napoleon III., therefore, looked for support to the clergy, the great financiers, industrial magnates and landed proprietors. He revived on his own account the "Let us grow rich" of 1840. Under the influence of the Saint-Simonians and men of business great credit establishments were instituted and vast public works entered upon: the Crédit foncier de France, the Crédit mobilier, the conversion of the railways into six great companies between 1852 and 1857. The rage for speculation was increased by the inflow of Californian and Australian gold, and consumption was facilitated by a general fall in prices between 1856 and 1860, due to an economic revolution which was soon to overthrow the tariff wall, as it had done already in England. Thus French activity flourished exceedingly between 1852 and 1857, and was merely temporarily checked by the crisis of 1857. The universal Exhibition of 1855 was its culminating point. Art felt the effects of this increase of comfort and luxury. The great enthusiasms of the romantic period were over; philosophy became sceptical and literature merely amusing. The festivities of the court at Compiègne set the fashion for the bourgeoisie, satisfied with this energetic government which kept such good guard over their bank balances.

Napoleon III.'s ideas.

If the Empire was strong, the emperor was weak. At once headstrong and a dreamer, he was full of rash plans, but irresolute in carrying them out. An absolute despot, he remained what his life had made him, a conspirator through the very mysticism of his mental habit, and a revolutionary by reason of his demagogic imperialism and his democratic chauvinism. In his opinion the artificial work of the congress of Vienna, involving the downfall of his own family and of France, ought to be destroyed, and Europe organized as a collection of great industrial states, united by community. of interests and bound together by commercial treaties, and expressing this unity by periodical congresses presided over by himself, and by universal exhibitions. In this way he would reconcile the revolutionary principle of the supremacy of the people with historical tradition, a thing which neither the Restoration nor the July monarchy nor the Republic of 1848 had been able to achieve. Universal suffrage, the organization of Rumanian, Italian and German nationality, and commercial liberty; this was to be the work of the Revolution. But the creation of great states side by side with France brought with it the necessity for looking for territorial compensation elsewhere, and consequently for violating the principle of nationality and abjuring his system of economic peace. Napoleon III.'s foreign policy was as contradictory as his policy in home affairs, "L'Empire, c'est la paix," was his cry; and he proceeded to make war.

The Crimean War.

So long as his power was not yet established, Napoleon III. made especial efforts to reassure European opinion, which had been made uneasy by his previous protestations against the treaties of 1815. The Crimean War, in which, supported by England and the king of Sardinia, he upheld against Russia the policy of the integrity of the Turkish empire, a policy traditional in France since Francis I., won him the adherence both of the old parties and and the Liberals. And this war was the prototype of all the rest. It was entered upon with no clearly defined military purpose, and continued in a hesitating way. This was the cause, after the victory of the allies at the Alma (September 14, 1854), of the long and costly siege of Sevastopol (September 8, 1855). Napoleon III., whose joy was at its height owing to the signature of a peace which excluded Russia from the Black Sea, and to the birth of the prince imperial, which ensured the continuation of his dynasty, thought that the time had arrived to make a beginning in applying his system. Count Walewski, his minister for foreign affairs, gave a sudden and unexpected extension of scope to the deliberations of the congress which met at Paris in 1856 by inviting the plenipotentiaries to consider the questions of Greece, Rome, Naples, &c. This motion contained the principle of all the upheavals which were to effect such changes in Europe between 1859 and 1871. It was Cavour and Piedmont who immediately benefited by it, for thanks to Napoleon III. they were able to lay the Italian question before an assembly of diplomatic Europe.

The War in Italy.

It was not Orsini's attack on the 14th of January 1858 which brought this question before Napoleon. It had never ceased to occupy him since he had taken part in the patriotic conspiracies in Italy in his youth. The triumph of his armies in the East now gave him the power necessary to accomplish this mission upon which he had set his heart. The suppression of public opinion made it impossible for him to be enlightened as to the conflict between the interests of the country and his own generous visions. The sympathy of all Europe was with Italy, torn for centuries past between so many masters; under Alexander II. Russia, won over since the interview of Stuttgart by the emperor's generosity rather than conquered by armed force, offered no opposition to this act of justice; while England applauded it from the first. The emperor, divided between the empress Eugénie, who as a Spaniard and a devout Catholic was hostile to anything which might threaten the papacy, and Prince Napoleon, who as brother-in-law of Victor Emmanuel favoured the cause of Piedmont, hoped to conciliate both sides by setting up an Italian federation, intending to reserve the presidency of it to Pope Pius IX., as a mark of respect to the moral authority of the Church. Moreover, the very difficulty of the undertaking appealed to the emperor, elated by his recent success in the Crimea. At the secret meeting between Napoleon and Count Cavour (July 20, 1858) the eventual armed intervention of France, demanded by Orsini before he mounted the scaffold, was definitely promised.

The peace of Villafranca.

The ill-advised Austrian ultimatum demanding the immediate cessation of Piedmont's preparations for war precipitated the Italian expedition. On the 3rd of May 1859 Napoleon declared his intention of making Italy "free from the Alps to the Adriatic." As he had done four years ago, he plunged into the war with no settled scheme and without preparation; he held out great hopes, but without reckoning what efforts would be necessary to realize them. Two months later, in spite of the victories of Montebello, Magenta and Solferino, he suddenly broke off, and signed the patched-up peace of Villafranca with Francis Joseph (July 9). Austria ceded Lombardy to Napoleon III., who in turn ceded it to Victor Emmanuel; Modena and Tuscany were restored to their respective dukes, the Romagna to the pope, now president of an Italian federation. The mountain had brought forth a mouse.

The Italian problem.

The reasons for this breakdown on the part of the emperor in the midst of his apparent triumph were many. Neither Magenta nor Solferino had been decisive battles. Further, his idea of a federation was menaced by the revolutionary movement which seemed likely to drive out all the princes of central Italy, and to involve him in an unwelcome dispute with the French clerical party. Moreover, he had forgotten to reckon with the Germanic Confederation, which was bound to come to the assistance of Austria. The mobilization of Prussia on the Rhine, combined with military difficulties and the risk of a defeat in Venetian territory, rather damped his enthusiasm, and decided him to put an end to the war. The armistice fell upon the Italians as a bolt from the blue, convincing them that they had been betrayed; on all sides despair drove them to sacrifice their jealously guarded independence to national unity. On the one hand the Catholics were agitating throughout all Europe to obtain the independence of the papal territory; and the French republicans were protesting, on the other hand, against the abandonment of those revolutionary traditions, the revival of which they had hailed so enthusiastically. The emperor, unprepared for the turn which events had taken, attempted to disentangle this confusion by suggesting a fresh congress of the Powers, which should reconcile dynastic interests with those of the people. After a while he gave up the attempt and resigned himself to the position, his actions having had more wide-reaching results than he had wished. The treaty of Zürich proclaimed the fallacious principle of non-intervention (November 10, 1859); and then, by the treaty of Turin of the 24th of May 1860, Napoleon threw over his ill-timed confederation. He conciliated the mistrust of Great Britain by replacing Walewski, who was hostile to his policy, by Thouvenel, an anti-clerical and a supporter of the English alliance, and he counterbalanced the increase of the new Italian kingdom by the acquisition of Nice and Savoy. Napoleon, like all French governments, only succeeded in finding a provisional solution for the Italian problem.

Catholic and protectionist opposition.

But this solution would only hold good so long as the emperor was in a powerful position. Now this Italian war, in which he had given his support to revolution beyond the Alps, and, though unintentionally, compromised the temporal power of the popes, had given great offence to the Catholics, to whose support the establishment of the Empire was largely due. A keen Catholic opposition sprang up, voiced in L. Veuillot's paper the _Univers_, and was not silenced even by the Syrian expedition (1860) in favour of the Catholic Maronites, who were being persecuted by the Druses. On the other hand, the commercial treaty with Great Britain which was signed in January 1860, and which ratified the free-trade policy of Richard Cobden and Michael Chevalier, had brought upon French industry the sudden shock of foreign competition. Thus both Catholics and protectionists made the discovery that absolutism may be an excellent thing when it serves their ambitions or interests, but a bad thing when it is exercised at their expense. But Napoleon, in order to restore the prestige of the Empire before the newly-awakened hostility of public opinion, tried to gain from the Left the support which he had lost from the Right. After the return from Italy the general amnesty of the 16th of August 1859 had marked the evolution of the absolutist empire towards the liberal, and later parliamentary empire, which was to last for ten years.

The Liberal Empire.

Napoleon began by removing the gag which was keeping the country in silence. On the 24th of November 1860, "by a _coup d'état_ matured during his solitary meditations," like a conspirator in his love of hiding his mysterious thoughts even from his ministers, he granted to the Chambers the right to vote an address annually in answer to the speech from the throne, and to the press the right of reporting parliamentary debates. He counted on the latter concession to hold in check the growing Catholic opposition, which was becoming more and more alarmed by the policy of _laissez-faire_ practised by the emperor in Italy. But the government majority already showed some signs of independence. The right of voting on the budget by sections, granted by the emperor in 1861, was a new weapon given to his adversaries. Everything conspired in their favour: the anxiety of those candid friends who were calling attention to the defective budget; the commercial crisis, aggravated by the American Civil War; and above all, the restless spirit of the emperor, who had annoyed his opponents in 1860 by insisting on an alliance with Great Britain in order forcibly to open the Chinese ports for trade, in 1863 by his ill-fated attempt to put down a republic and set up a Latin empire in Mexico in favour of the archduke Maximilian of Austria, and from 1861 to 1863 by embarking on colonizing experiments in Cochin China and Annam.

The policy of nationalism.

The same inconsistencies occurred in the emperor's European politics. The support which he had given to the Italian cause had aroused the eager hopes of other nations. The proclamation of the kingdom of Italy on the 18th of February 1861 after the rapid annexation of Tuscany and the kingdom of Naples had proved the danger of half-measures. But when a concession, however narrow, had been made to the liberty of one nation, it could hardly be refused to the no less legitimate aspirations of the rest. In 1863 these "new rights" again clamoured loudly for recognition, in Poland, in Schleswig and Holstein, in Italy, now indeed united, but with neither frontiers nor capital, and in the Danubian principalities. In order to extricate himself from the Polish _impasse_, the emperor again had recourse to his expedient--always fruitless because always inopportune--of a congress. He was again unsuccessful: England refused even to admit the principle of a congress, while Austria, Prussia and Russia gave their adhesion only on conditions which rendered it futile, i.e. they reserved the vital questions of Venetia and Poland.

Thus Napoleon had yet again to disappoint the hopes of Italy, let Poland be crushed, and Germany triumph over Denmark in the Schleswig-Holstein question. These inconsistencies resulted in a combination of the opposition parties, Catholic, Liberal and Republican, in the _Union libérale_. The elections of May-June 1863 gained the Opposition forty seats and a leader, Thiers, who at once urgently gave voice to its demand for "the necessary liberties."

The régime of concessions.

It would have been difficult for the emperor to mistake the importance of this manifestation of French opinion, and in view of his international failures, impossible to repress it. The sacrifice of Persigny, minister of the interior, who was responsible for the elections, the substitution for the ministers without portfolio of a sort of presidency of the council filled by Rouher, the "Vice-Emperor," and the nomination of V. Duruy, an anti-clerical, as minister of public instruction, in reply to those attacks of the Church which were to culminate in the Syllabus of 1864, all indicated a distinct rapprochement between the emperor and the Left. But though the opposition represented by Thiers was rather constitutional than dynastic, there was another and irreconcilable opposition, that of the amnestied or voluntarily exiled republicans, of whom Victor Hugo was the eloquent mouthpiece. Thus those who had formerly constituted the governing classes were again showing signs of their ambition to govern. There appeared to be some risk that this movement among the _bourgeoisie_ might spread to the people. As Antaeus recruited his strength by touching the earth Napoleon believed that he would consolidate his menaced power by again turning to the labouring masses, by whom that power had been established.

Industrial policy of the Empire.

This industrial policy he embarked upon as much from motives of interest as from sympathy, out of opposition to the _bourgeoisie_, which was ambitious of governing or desirous of his overthrow. His course was all the easier, since he had only to exploit the prejudices of the working classes. They had never forgotten the _loi Chapelle_ of 1791, which by forbidding all combinations among the workmen had placed them at the mercy of their employers, nor had they forgotten how the limited suffrage had conferred upon capital a political monopoly which had put it out of reach of the law, nor how each time they had left their position of rigid isolation in order to save the Charter or universal suffrage, the triumphant _bourgeoisie_ had repaid them at the last with neglect. The silence of public opinion under the Empire and the prosperous state of business had completed the separation of the labour party from the political parties. The visit of an elected and paid labour delegation to the Universal Exhibition of 1862 in London gave the emperor an opportunity for re-establishing relations with that party, and these relations were to his mind all the more profitable, since the labour party, by refusing to associate their social and industrial claims with the political ambitions of the _bourgeoisie_, maintained a neutral attitude between the parties, and could, if necessary, divide them, while by its keen criticism of society it aroused the conservative instincts of the _bourgeoisie_ and consequently checked their enthusiasm for liberty. A law of the 23rd of May 1863 gave the workmen the right, as in England, to save money by creating co-operative societies. Another law, of the 25th of May 1864, gave them the right to enforce better conditions of labour by organizing strikes. Still further, the emperor permitted the workmen to imitate their employers by establishing unions for the permanent protection of their interests. And finally, when the _ouvriers_, with the characteristic French tendency to insist on the universal application of a theory, wished to substitute for the narrow utilitarianism of the English trade-unions the ideas common to the wage-earning classes of the whole world, he put no obstacles in the way of their leader M. Tolain's plan for founding an International Association of Workers (_Société Internationale des Travailleurs_). At the same time he encouraged the provision made by employers for thrift and relief and for improving the condition of the working-classes.

Sadowa (1866).

Thus assured of support, the emperor, through the mouthpiece of M. Rouher, who was a supporter of the absolutist régime, was able to refuse all fresh claims on the part of the Liberals. He was aided by the cessation of the industrial crisis as the American civil war came to an end, by the apparent closing of the Roman question by the convention of the 15th of September, which guaranteed to the papal states the protection of Italy, and finally by the treaty of the 30th of October 1864, which temporarily put an end to the crisis of the Schleswig-Holstein question. But after 1865 the momentary agreement which had united Austria and Prussia for the purpose of administering the conquered duchies gave place to a silent antipathy which foreboded a rupture. Yet, though the Austro-Prussian War of 1866 was not unexpected, its rapid termination and fateful outcome came as a severe and sudden shock to France. Napoleon had hoped to gain fresh prestige for his throne and new influence for France by an intervention at the proper moment between combatants equally matched and mutually exhausted. His calculations were upset and his hopes dashed by the battle of Sadowa (Königgrätz) on the 4th of July. The treaty of Prague put an end to the secular rivalry of Habsburg and Hohenzollern for the hegemony of Germany, which had been France's opportunity; and Prussia could afford to humour the just claims of Napoleon by establishing between her North German Confederation and the South German states the illusory frontier of the Main. The belated efforts of the French emperor to obtain "compensation" on the left bank of the Rhine, at the expense of the South German states, made matters worse. France realized with an angry surprise that on her eastern frontier had arisen a military power by which her influence, if not her existence, was threatened; that in the name of the principle of nationality unwilling populations had been brought under the sway of a dynasty by tradition militant and aggressive, by tradition the enemy of France; that this new and threatening power had destroyed French influence in Italy, which owed the acquisition of Venetia to a Prussian alliance and to Prussian arms; and that all this had been due to Napoleon, outwitted and outmanoeuvred at every turn, since his first interview with Bismarck at Biarritz in October 1865.

Further concessions of Napoleon III.

Struggle between Ollivier and Rouher.

All confidence in the excellence of imperial régime vanished at once. Thiers and Jules Favre as representatives of the Opposition denounced in the Legislative Body the blunders of 1866. Émile Ollivier split up the official majority by the amendment of the 45, and gave it to be understood that a reconciliation with the Empire would be impossible until the emperor would grant entire liberty. The recall of the French troops from Rome, in accordance with the convention of 1864, also led to further attacks by the Ultramontane party, who were alarmed for the papacy. Napoleon III. felt the necessity for developing "the great act of 1860" by the decree of the 19th of January 1867. In spite of Rouher, by a secret agreement with Ollivier the right of interpellation was restored to the Chambers. Reforms in press supervision and the right of holding meetings were promised. It was in vain that M. Rouher tried to meet the Liberal opposition by organizing a party for the defence of the Empire, the "Union dynastique." But the rapid succession of international reverses prevented him from effecting anything.

The year 1867.

The year 1867 was particularly disastrous for the Empire. In Mexico "the greatest idea of the reign" ended in a humiliating withdrawal before the ultimatum of the United States, while Italy, relying on her new alliance with Prussia and already forgetful of her promises, was mobilizing the revolutionary forces to complete her unity by conquering Rome. The chassepots of Mentana were needed to check the Garibaldians. And when the imperial diplomacy made a belated attempt to obtain from the victorious Bismarck those territorial compensations on the Rhine, in Belgium and in Luxemburg, which it ought to have been possible to exact from him earlier at Biarritz, Benedetti added to the mistake of asking at the wrong time the humiliation of obtaining nothing (see LUXEMBURG). Napoleon did not dare to take courage and confess his weakness. And finally was seen the strange contrast of France, though reduced to such a state of real weakness, courting the mockery of Europe by a display of the external magnificence which concealed her decline. In the Paris transformed by Baron Haussmann and now become almost exclusively a city of pleasure and frivolity, the opening of the Universal Exhibition was marked by Berezowski's attack on the tsar Alexander II., and its success was clouded by the tragic fate of the unhappy emperor Maximilian of Mexico. Well might Thiers exclaim, "There are no blunders left for us to make."

Peace or war.