Chapter XV: Fall of the Second Empire (1)

Social condition of the Country in 1870--Mr. Bright’s “Six
Omnibuses in Temple Bar”--Opening of Parliament--Mr. Gladstone’s
Irish Land Bill--Amendments to the Bill--Dual-Ownership
Established--The Bill and the House of Lords--The Revolt of Lord
Salisbury--The Education Bill--Mutiny of the Liberal
Dissenters--Mr. Lowe’s Second Budget--The Civil Service opened to
Competition--Mr. Cardwell’s Failure at the War Office--The Queen
and the Army--Mr. Childers and Admiralty Reform--Mr. Baxter and
Navy Contracts--The Wreck of the _Captain_--Lord Granville and the
Colonies--Death of Lord Clarendon--The Franco-Prussian
War--Collapse of the French Armies--Sedan--Fall of the Bonapartist
Dynasty--Proclamation of the Third Republic--Investment of
Paris--The Government of National Defence at Tours--M. Gambetta
Rouses Prostrate France--Gallant Stand of the Mobiles--A Passing
Glimpse of Victory--The Queen and the War--Prussia and
England--Russia Repudiates the Black Sea Clauses of the Treaty of
Paris--Papal Infallibility and the Italian Occupation of Rome--King
William Proclaimed German Emperor--Opening of London
University--Betrothal of the Princess Louise--Death of General
Grey--Death of Dickens--The Novelist and the Queen--Garden Party at
Windsor Castle--The Red River Expedition.

If the social condition of Ireland when the year 1870 opened was gloomy, that of England could not be considered bright. Trade was still bad, and desponding critics began to hint that it would not for many years recover from the disaster of 1866. Raw cotton was still scarce and dear, and high prices had rendered the demand for manufactured goods stagnant. The feud between the capitalists and the trades unions was still disturbing the peace of the industrial world, and the political horizon of the Continent was heavy with the bodeful war cloud that broke during the latter half of the year in the sudden storm that wrecked the Second Empire. Irish land tenure, the establishment of a national system of elementary public instruction in England, and the admission of candidates to the Civil Service by competitive examination, were the topics that were most keenly canvassed in the early weeks of the year. From this discussion it was clear that public opinion was set against what was derisively called “the one-horse system of legislation”--that is to say, the exhaustion of the Session by one great measure like the Irish Church Bill. At least four measures were expected from Parliament ere the year closed--the Irish Land Bill, the Primary Education Bill, the Bill abolishing University Tests, and a Bill introducing Election by Ballot. In the end of 1869 a few changes had occurred in the composition of the Ministry. Mr. Layard had been appointed Minister to Madrid. To him Mr. Ayrton succeeded as First Commissioner of Works, while Mr. Stansfeld took Mr. Ayrton’s place as Financial Secretary to the Treasury. Lord Cairns resigned the leadership of his Party in the House of Lords, and it seemed likely that the Duke of Marlborough or the Duke of Abercorn would be his successor. But from this calamity the Tories were saved by the self-denial of Lord Cairns, who withdrew his resignation and resumed his post. Speculation was busy as to the Ministerial programme, and Mr. Bright’s speeches at Birmingham, in which he dwelt on the difficulties of legislation, had a depressing effect on the country. “You cannot drive six omnibuses abreast through Temple Bar,” was the phrase with which Mr. Bright endeavoured to moderate the expectations of the people. On the other hand, Mr. Forster, addressing his constituents at Bradford, endeavoured to neutralise Mr. Bright’s pleas for delay. It was true, he said, that it was hopeless to drive six omnibuses abreast through Temple Bar, but that was no reason why they should not go through one after the other. The “Irish Land Omnibus” said Mr. Forster, must go through first, after which the “Education Omnibus,” driven by himself and Lord de Grey, must follow.

Parliament was opened by Commission on the 8th of February with a Queen’s Speech, from which, at the last moment, paragraphs congratulating France on the re-establishment of constitutional government, and rejoicing over the reception of the Duke of Edinburgh in India, had been mysteriously excised. The Royal Speech promised reduced estimates, an Irish Land Bill, an Education Bill, a Licensing Bill, a Land Transfer Bill, an Intestacy Bill, a Bill to legalise Trades Unions, and a Merchant Shipping Bill. The Ballot Bill was ignored, and the Bill for the abolition of University Tests dimly alluded to, rather than definitely promised. In the House of Lords Opposition criticism was in the main a complaint that the Government had abdicated its functions of maintaining order in Ireland. In the House of Commons Mr. Disraeli admitted that the Irish policy of the Cabinet was not _per se_ the cause of Irish disturbances. But it had been so susceptible to misapprehension that it had sent Ireland into “spontaneous combustion” and “riotous hallucination.” It was a policy which had excited the wildest of false hopes, both as to the Repeal of the Union, and the transference of the landlords’ property to the tillers of the soil. But both Lord Cairns and Mr. Disraeli avoided committing their Party either to a demand for coercive legislation in Ireland, or to any position on the Land Question that would prevent them from attacking or supporting the Ministerial Bill when it was produced. On the Liberal benches, however, it was felt that the only weak point in Mr. Gladstone’s policy touched by his Tory critics was what he called “the discriminating amnesty” to the Fenian prisoners. It was generally admitted that if Ministers had only clearly said at the outset that they did not intend to extend their amnesty, the hopes that had unsettled and agitated the Irish people during the recess would never have been raised.

On the 14th of February Mr. Gladstone introduced his Land Bill, which legalised all Ulster customs of selling tenant-right, gave the tenant a right to compensation for his improvements and for capricious eviction, and provided means for peasants buying their holdings through advances made out of the Irish Church surplus, in cases where the tenant deposited one-fourth of the purchase-money. Mr. Disraeli was, on the whole, generous in his treatment of the Bill. Irish landlords, like Lord Granard, recognised its moderation, and, though they did not quite approve of its principles, they deprecated all factious opposition. It was soon seen that the Tory leaders meant to let the measure pass. But Mr. Disraeli, ever mindful of the great secret of successful leadership, resolved, with masterly strategic skill, to show his followers “sport” by advising them, at a meeting held in Lord Lonsdale’s house, to attack three points. On each of these they were in full accord with him. On one of them they had a chance of winning; on another they might safely yield, and yet get great credit for the highest patriotism; whilst on the third, though defeat was probable, it could not be attended with dishonour. The first point was that police-cess--incurred to protect landlords from assassination--which the Bill divided between landlord and tenant, should be paid by the latter alone. The second was that where there was doubt about an improvement, the law should presume it was made by the landlord, and not, as stipulated, by the tenant. The third was to cut out of the Bill everything that interfered with freedom of contract. In other words, Mr. Disraeli desired to leave landlords and tenants free to contract themselves out of the Bill in a country where the landlord, and not the tenant, was really the only one of the two contracting parties who could be plausibly called free. Upwards of three hundred amendments to the Bill were, however, put down before Easter, and the first clause, legalising Ulster customs, took twelve hours’ debating before it passed the ordeal of Committee. The Government soon found it necessary to modify the measure so as to separate compensation for improvements, from compensation for eviction. Then they struck out a clause which enabled landlords to get rid of all claims by offering a tenant a thirty-one years’ lease. These changes, Mr. Disraeli alleged,

formed a breach of the terms on which he had promised the Government conditional support, and for a time factious obstruction prevailed.[321] For the clause enabling landlords to nullify the Bill by offering leases, Ministers substituted a clause permitting landlord and tenant to come to a voluntary arrangement for a thirty-one years’ lease, but allowed the Courts to take this offer of a lease, if it were refused, into consideration in assessing compensation for eviction. Mr. Disraeli’s argument here was far-seeing. He said these changes would tempt the landlords to use ruthlessly the only power left to them by the Bill--that of eviction for non-payment of a rent which, however, they were permitted to raise, till it was impossible for any tenant to pay it. This, indeed, was what happened. At first the Bill, as has been explained, compensated eviction by the offer of a thirty-one years’ lease. The moment that clause was withdrawn, and eviction was compensated by damages, it was recognised that occupancy, _per se_, gave the occupier certain rights in the soil; in other words, the dual-ownership of landlord and occupier was then recognised as a principle. A long and weary struggle in Committee, in which the defence of the Bill was brilliantly conducted by Mr. Gladstone and Mr. Chichester Fortescue, followed, and the Opposition, aided by some crotchety Liberals, attempted to smother its principle by loading it with incompatible details. As Easter drew near, it was despondently whispered that the measure would have to be abandoned. Under unseen pressure from the constituencies, however, the action of the House was quickened after the Easter Recess, and all attempts at re-opening the controversy over the principles of the Bill under the pretext of improving it in detail, were crushed. Considerable concessions were made to the Tories. Mr. Gladstone’s original scheme provided that no tenant who paid under £100 a year of rent could contract himself out of the Bill. The Government lowered the limit to £50 of rental. The clause creating the presumption that improvements were made by the tenant, was limited as regards those made before the Act took effect. In Committee nothing was done for tenants who were evicted after it was known the Land Bill would be brought in. Nothing was done for reclaiming occupiers under middlemen, whose own tenancies expired with their leases from superior landlords. But before Parliament adjourned for Whitsuntide the Bill had passed through the House of Commons substantially unchanged. The landlords’ friends preferred to accept it as an alternative to further agrarian agitation, though Mr. Hardy threatened that the House of Lords would abrogate the penalty on evictions.

Lord Cairns had by this time been compelled through ill-health to finally resign the leadership of the Tory Party in the Peers, which he had reluctantly resumed, and the Duke of Richmond had been chosen as his successor. The new chief’s first speech on the Irish Land Bill was moderate and business-like, and his proposed amendments were to exempt all landlords from the Bill if they offered twenty-one instead of thirty-one years’ leases, to fix a date beyond which no tenant’s claim for improvements would be considered, to let landlord and tenant settle their disputes privately, without going into court, and to cut out a clause limiting distress for rent to persons who had contracted to submit to it. Though he disapproved of the Bright clauses creating a peasant proprietory, they were defended by Lord Salisbury and Lord Cairns. Lord Athlumney, as an Irish proprietor, said the Bill contained nothing which a humane landlord would object to accept, and the Duke of Abercorn gave the measure a general support. Lord Derby’s criticism was more subtle. The Bill did not apply to large farms. That was offering landlords an inducement to clear out small tenants, for it gave landlords what the custom of the country had denied them--a moral right to evict on paying damages for the privilege. Lord Lurgan on the Second Reading said the Bill no more hurt him than would a Bill legalising his debts of honour, but Lord Leitrim objected to it “from the title downwards,” and thought that disputes between landlords and tenants should be settled by Quarter Sessions--a tribunal composed of landlords alone. In Committee amendments were passed cutting down the scale of compensation, denying compensation to assignees not approved by the landlord (Duke of Richmond), enacting that no tenant paying more than £50 a year was in any circumstances to get compensation for eviction (Lord Salisbury), asserting that the presumption of law was to be that all improvements were made by landlords (Lord Clanricarde), prohibiting tenants from letting gardens to their labourers (Duke of Richmond), in fact, with the exception of the Bright clauses, the Peers mangled the Bill so as to make it utterly useless to the tenants. The excitement usually stirred up by a conflict between the two Houses grew every day, and men began to talk of an autumn session, the rapid passing of the Bill again through the Commons, and a creation of new Peers to force it through the House of Lords. For this dead-lock Lord Salisbury was chiefly responsible, for he practically ousted the Duke of Richmond from the leadership. After a day’s reflection, however, the Peers, influenced by Lord Cairns and Mr. Disraeli, retreated from the perilous position they had taken up. They withdrew their amendments on report, accepting instead a few plausible but transparently illusory compromises suggested by Lord Granville by way of saving their dignity. The result was that, for a time, Lord Salisbury was discredited, and the position of the Duke of Richmond, whose hand he had admittedly forced, was strengthened in the leadership. The Commons accepted all the amended amendments of the Peers except three,[322] and so the Bill passed. It marked an epoch in the political development of England. It was the first great constructive measure which recognised the right of the poorest class as distinguished from the middle class, to participate in beneficial legislation. It recognised the justice of legislating for the interests of the masses on the principle that it was not safe to leave them to the mercy of Supply and Demand, and of the economic Moloch of _laissez-faire_.

The other great measure of the Session--Mr. Forster’s Education Bill--illustrated the change in the drift of English legislation during the Victorian age still more strikingly. On the 17th of February Mr. Forster introduced his Education Bill. The problem to be solved, as Mr. Forster said, was “how to cover the country with good schools.” The conditions under which it must be solved were two: (1), the interests of the parents and children must be harmonised with those of the ratepayers; and (2), the new system must not be so built up as to destroy the old one where it was efficient. England was mapped out by Mr. Forster into school districts.[323] If in any of these more schools were needed, the people would have a year of grace in which to provide them, by voluntary subscription. If not, an elected local School Board would provide them compulsorily, and maintain them out of fees, rates, and the usual Government “Grants in Aid.” Religious teaching was not proscribed--the kind and quantity of it to be given, subject to a Conscience Clause, being left to the Boards. The Boards might also assist existing schools, or adopt compulsory education if they chose, and the Bill dealt with children between the ages of five and twelve. Where districts or Boards refused to provide efficient schooling for the people, the Education Department was to have power to force them to do so. The opposition to the Bill centred round the religious question. As Mr. Lowe said in his speech on the Second Reading, the House agreeing on the general principle, fixed their whole attention on one narrow point, like a “fierce herd of cattle in a large meadow deserting the grass which is abundant about them, and delighting themselves by fighting over a bed of nettles in a corner of the field.” The opposition of the Anglican clergy was anticipated. They naturally objected to any system that gave the parish schoolmaster something approaching the endowed status of the parish priest, and which released him from abject servitude to the Church. They could not conceal their hostility to a scheme of education which was National without being Anglican, and in which the principle of religious equality, so fatal to the claims of an Established Church, was not only recognised, but endowed by the State. But what had not been foreseen was the opposition of the Dissenting ministers and churches--an opposition that culminated in personal animosity to Mr. Forster. Representative Dissenters, like Mr. Winterbotham, told the House that they would prefer to delay the settlement of the whole question, till the country was prepared to accept secular education pure and simple. Their belief was that the Bill would tempt the different religious bodies to fight for control over the School Boards, so as to influence their decision on the question of religious teaching, and that in this struggle the Established Church, from the _prestige_ of its connection with the State, would again assert its ascendency. The Party of Free Thought, led by Mr. Mill, joined the Dissenters in their attacks on Mr. Forster, Mr. Mill’s objection to the Bill being, that under it the whole body of the ratepayers might be taxed to pay for teaching a particular religion to the majority. Lord Russell, who also pleaded for delay, advocated

(_From the Bust by J. E. Boehm, R.A., in the Possession of the Queen._)]

a compromise which would have legalised formal Bible-reading and hymn-singing during school-hours, divorced from any distinctive religious instruction, whereas Mr. Mill and Mr. Fawcett would have preferred compulsory secularism, to permissive sectarianism. Bible-reading, without note or comment, it was felt, might be unobjectionable in the case of children reared in religious families. But it was obviously useless to the “wastrels” of the gutter whom it was the primary object of the Bill to instruct. The great majority of Englishmen believed that moral teaching was a powerful agent for civilising this class of children, and that though catechisms and formularies should be excluded from new rate-built schools, it was not wise to fetter the discretion of the teacher, in explaining the Bible to the best of his judgment and ability. But as to the old denominational schools, it was generally admitted that Parliament could not do more than ask them to separate their sectarian, from their secular instruction by a “Time-table Conscience Clause.” It would not have been just to insist that they should submit to be virtually secularised,[324] under pain of forfeiting their share in the school-rate or the Imperial Grant in Aid. Mr. Forster was willing to concede vote by ballot for the Boards, and the Time-table Conscience Clause. But he refused to give effect to the national feeling in favour of excluding from rate-built schools denominational creeds and formularies, and leaving religious teaching to the discretion and good taste of schoolmasters and school managers. Moreover, he failed to meet the reasonable demand that a School Board should by law be established in every parish, so as to provide a competent authority for keeping the education of the district up to the proper standard of efficiency. At length the Government bent before the tempest of agitation which the Secularists and Dissenters raised. Mr. Gladstone accepted an amendment of Mr. Cowper Temple’s, excluding from all rate-built schools denominational catechisms and formularies. But instead of limiting the power of denominational managers to control religious teaching in cases where they did not supply a large moiety of the school funds, he entirely severed the connection between these schools and local authorities elected by the ratepayers. They were to depend on the Imperial Grant alone, but then this Grant to _all_ schools was to be raised so as to cover not one third, but about one half of their expenses. Mr. Disraeli, with an eye to the Radical Secularist “Cave,” scoffed at the compromise as a scheme for endowing “a new sacerdotal caste.” Lord John Manners lamented that it would ruin denominational schools. The Dissenters averred it would encourage them by doubling their Grants in Aid. They seemed to argue that parents who preferred denominational education should themselves pay a special price for it, whereas, parents who desired secular education should get it at the expense of the State. Mr. Gladstone’s compromise, however, was accepted, and the Bill was passed by both Houses. But it created a feud between the Dissenters and the Liberal Party, which irretrievably weakened the Government.

With the exception of a Bill to enable persons in Holy Orders to get rid of Clerical Disabilities when they desired to quit the ministry of the Church, and a Coercion Bill for Ireland, the legislative results of the Session were not of much importance. Mr. Lowe’s second Budget, introduced on the 11th of April, showed the amazing surplus of £7,870,000 on the accounts for 1869-70. He had spent out of this sum £4,300,000 for the Abyssinian War,[325] £1,000,000 in retiring Exchequer bills, and the remainder in swelling the Exchequer balances in hand at the Bank, which stood at £8,606,000--a sum which, he admitted, was excessive. He had sold £3,000,000 of new Consols privately to the public, and £4,000,000 of them to the National Debt Commissioners, which enabled him to pay the cost of buying up the telegraphs. To wipe out this fresh debt of £7,000,000, he had created terminable annuities which would cease in 1885. For the coming year he estimated a revenue of £71,450,000 and an expenditure of £67,113,000, so that, if taxes were not altered, he would have a surplus of £4,337,000. Of this he disposed by reducing the Income Tax to fourpence in the £, halving the sugar duties, and altering the tax of 5 per cent. on the passenger receipts of railway companies to 1 per cent. on their gross receipts. After these remissions, Mr. Lowe still kept in reserve a probable surplus of £311,000. He proposed, however, with the consent of the Committee, to increase the rigour of tax-collection, to substitute for game licences, licences to carry guns, and to abolish hawkers’ licences and several other trade licences. The Budget was well received, but it was not one that strengthened the Government politically. With such a large surplus, Mr. Lowe might have conciliated the farmers by dealing with the Malt Tax, more especially as he admitted he owed much of his surplus to the fall in wheat. In three years it had dropped from 72s. to 42s. a quarter, and cheap food had produced an increased consumption of dutiable articles, _i.e._, an “elastic revenue.” Still he was credited with having influenced one decision of the Ministry which was extremely popular in the country--their decision to throw the whole Civil Service, with the exception of the Foreign Office, open to competition, like the Civil Service of India. This heavy blow at privilege was struck on the 4th of June, when the Queen signed the Order in Council which gave rich and poor alike the same passport to the service of the State, and relieved members of Parliament from the annoyance of being pestered for “nominations” by aggressive constituents.

The management of the defensive services of the country in 1870 further illustrated the susceptibility of the Ministry to democratic pressure. Mr. Cardwell, however, failed to get credit for that portion of his work which was good, mainly because he gave the House of Commons the impression that he strove to evade inconvenient questions by cloudy verbosity, that he was too much at the mercy of his official subordinates, and had not the knowledge or the vigour to check the accuracy of the soothing and roseate

statements which they poured through his facile lips into the House of Commons. His estimates (£13,000,000) showed a reduction of £2,000,000, and, with Reserves and Auxiliaries, he asserted that he had a force of 322,000 men in the nine military districts of the United Kingdom. He proposed that recruits should serve for six years in the Line, and six in the Reserve, and he reduced the number of subaltern officers. These estimates and figures were, however, vitiated by the suspicion that the strength of the Army was mainly on paper, that it lacked efficient transport and artillery, and that even when Mr. Cardwell said, as he did towards the end of the Session, when the Franco-Prussian War created a panic as to national defences, that he could detach for active service a perfectly-equipped force of 30,000 men, he had an inadequate conception of national wants. The Ministerial policy raised up two different classes of opponents. To conciliate the Radicals, the Government cut down the Estimates by reducing the fighting power of the Army. The militant Radicals, however, declared that they desired to increase, rather than reduce the strength of the Army, and complained that the money for this purpose was not obtained by checking waste at the War Office and Horse Guards. The Party of “the Colonels” in the House of Commons were incensed against the Government for making reductions, that interfered with their professional interests. In midsummer, however, Mr. Cardwell effected one reform, by sanctioning which the Queen won great popularity at the time. Her Majesty, by signing an Order which made the Duke of Cambridge, Commanding-in-Chief, subordinate to the Secretary of State for War, ended a conflict which had been waged for years between the War Office and the Horse Guards. Every Sovereign of the House of Hanover had fought with stubbornness for the direct control of the Army, and Parliamentary influence over it was still indirect. To make it absolute, it would have been necessary to refuse supplies, and the Secretary of State, as the agent of Parliament, could only address requests, and not orders, to the Commander-in-Chief. Mr. Gladstone’s ears were quick to hear the first murmurings of the democracy against exempting this Department of the State, from Parliamentary control and supervision. There was also a suspicion abroad that no reform could be forced on the Army, whilst the Queen’s cousin held absolute power over it as the Queen’s agent. Rather than give enemies of the Monarchy a pretext for a Republican agitation based on a popular cry, Mr. Gladstone advised the Queen to surrender to the Secretary of State that part of the Royal prerogative by which the internal discipline of the Army was entirely regulated by her direct action.

Mr. Childers, not being hampered by a rival authority like that which the Duke of Cambridge wielded over the army, was able to adopt a vigorous policy of Reform at the Admiralty. His estimates amounted to £9,000,000, and for that sum he promised to strengthen the fleet by fifty of the most powerful iron-clads in the world, and to build at the rate of 13,000 tons a year till twenty more first-class iron-clads were afloat. He reduced the clerical staff of his office, effected sweeping reductions in the dockyards, and instead of keeping vessels in dock, sent as many to sea as were fit for service. Mr. Baxter, the Secretary to the Admiralty, abolished the old system of making purchases by contract, and instead, bought stores in the open market after the manner of private firms. The outcry raised against both Ministers from the vested interests which they assailed was loud and deep. Their policy was unscrupulously misrepresented, and it created for the Government a host of active and irrepressible enemies. The fatigues of office and the harassments of the attacks which were made upon him in the House of Commons for saving the taxpayers’ money, undermined Mr. Childers’ health in June, and for a month he had to abandon all work. The loss of the turret-ship _Captain_, one of the most powerful iron-clads in the Navy, which was capsized off Cape Finisterre in a gale in September, with all her crew--including her designer, Captain Coles, and Mr. Childers’ son, who was serving on board as a midshipman--clouded the naval administration of the Government. The ship went down because she was overmasted and overweighted, and had not enough freeboard. It was, moreover, unfortunate that naval experts who had in vain pointed out these defects to the Admiralty had warned them that she was unsafe before she was sent to sea.

Lord Granville’s Colonial policy, it has been stated, was directed to further the severance of the Colonies from the Mother Country. The controversy was chiefly fought out over New Zealand, which had been seriously grieved by the withdrawal of Imperial troops when she was engaged in Maori warfare. After much irritating discussion, Lord Granville attempted to conciliate the colonists by a niggardly offer of a guarantee for a loan of £500,000, which was rejected by the Colonial Commissioners. But in May he became alarmed when he found out that his policy was forcing separation on the colony, and that the idea of separation was hateful to the English people. He then offered to guarantee a loan of £1,200,000, and this was accepted as a token that the scheme he was supposed to favour--that of cutting the Colonies adrift--was, for a time, abandoned.[326] But the death of Lord Clarendon on the 27th of June enabled Mr. Gladstone to transfer Lord Granville to the Foreign Office, and Lord Kimberley reigned in his stead over the discontented Colonies.

Lord Clarendon’s death happened at an evil time, for Europe was distracted by the war between France and Prussia which had at last broken out. It is a curious fact that at the beginning of the year none of the diplomatists--not even Von Bismarck himself--had the faintest suspicion that ere six months had passed, this war would be declared. The Emperor of the French was watching in July, 1869, with straining eyes the election of a new Legislature. This election, as we have seen, ended in the return of a strong Opposition, headed by M. Thiers, M. Jules Favre, and M. Emile Ollivier, whose criticism of personal Government drove Napoleon to make popular concessions. A Parliamentary Constitution was granted, and at the end of the year the Emperor had induced M. Ollivier and a few moderate Liberals to form a Cabinet charged with the mission of reconciling Parliamentary Government with Universal Suffrage and the claims of the Imperial dynasty. The Emperor discarded the old friends who had been the servile instruments of his will, but shrewd Liberals still held aloof from the Imperial Court and Government, apparently distrusting his sincerity. And they were right. The Emperor considered that his new Liberal Constitution should be revised by the Senate, and the ever-subservient Senate accordingly inserted in it a provision authorising the Emperor to “go behind” his Parliamentary Ministry, and submit any question to a _plébiscite_. This of course meant that whenever Parliament thwarted the Emperor, he could set aside its decision and appeal on a confused issue to a hasty vote of an ignorant democracy, whose verdict was pre-arranged by subservient Prefects. The new Constitution itself was submitted to such a vote, and though M. Ollivier remained in office, most of his abler colleagues resigned. By a majority of five and a quarter millions against a million and a half, the people cast their suffrages for the Emperor. The issue on which they voted was nominally whether they approved of the Constitution reforms which he and the Senate had effected. In reality, it was whether Napoleon III. should, in spite of Parliament, be allowed still to rule France from above. The first result of the vote was the appointment of a Ministry in which M. Ollivier was the sole representative of Liberal feeling, or Constitutional instincts. The Duc de Gramont became Minister for Foreign Affairs, and Marshal Lebœuf, the Minister of War. But fifty thousand soldiers had voted against the Emperor in the _plébiscite_, and Napoleon III. was accordingly warned that to conciliate the army something must be done by France to eclipse the fame which Prussia had won at Sadowa. His envoys and agents in Germany assured him that the German States hated Prussia, and in their hearts looked to France for deliverance. As a matter of fact, it was German hatred of France and the German terror of a French occupation, that was binding them closer to Prussia. French intrigues might have delayed the union of Germany, but French aggression was certain to precipitate it, and yet Napoleon resolved to adopt an aggressive policy. As for the means, they were ready to his hand. Did not Marshal Lebœuf report that the re-organised army of France could go anywhere and do anything? There was not even a button wanting, and the new _chassepot_ and _mitrailleuse_ must annihilate any troops that faced their fire. The pretext for the quarrel was soon found. Spain had long been looking for a King. She offered her crown to Prince Leopold of Hohenzollern. On the 6th of July the Duc de Gramont angrily declared in the Legislature that if Prussia permitted a Prussian Prince to accept the Crown of Spain, France would consider his acceptance as a cause of war. In vain did the Opposition warn the Emperor and his Ministers that such a war would be unjustifiable and disastrous. Paris went into a frenzy of delight at the prospect of a march to Berlin. Ever anxious to promote the cause of peace, the Queen personally strove to avert hostilities, and so far as Prussia was concerned with some success. The English Court and the English Cabinet induced King William to advise Prince Leopold to refuse the Spanish Crown. King William’s magnanimity and moderation in making this concession to the arrogant demands of France were ill-requited. M. Ollivier, it is true, announced to the Legislature that the dispute was at an end, and Europe breathed freely. But to the amazement of everybody it soon appeared that M. Ollivier had been duped, for instead of crossing the golden bridge of retreat which the King of Prussia generously built for him, Napoleon put forward a fresh demand. It was not enough, said he, that Prince Leopold’s candidature should be withdrawn. King William, as head of the Hohenzollerns, must give a pledge that he would never in all time coming permit a Hohenzollern to aspire to the Crown of Spain. The insolent claim was rejected. A sensational and mendacious statement in the French Ministerial Press, to the effect that King William had rudely refused even to grant an audience to the French Ambassador, lashed the Parisians into a warlike mood. This insult, the Duc de Gramont, amid a tempest of cheering, told the French Chamber could only be avenged by a war--a war into which M. Ollivier airily observed he went “with a light heart.” On the 16th of July the French Declaration of War was delivered at Berlin, and French armies were moving towards the Rhine, with Parisian screams of “_À Berlin!_” ringing in their ears.

Napoleon commanded in person, with Lebœuf as his lieutenant; Marshal Macmahon led the right wing, or Army of Strasbourg; Bazaine, with Frossard, Douay, and De Failly, commanded the corps that held the line northward as far as Metz and Thionville. The aggressiveness of France had flung the German States into the arms of Prussia, and Napoleon delayed his march so long, that he lost his only chance of thrusting himself between the

hosts of Prussia and her South German allies. The administration of the French army was soon seen to be in confusion, and its strength only on paper. Its transport and commissariat broke down, and almost from the outset it acted on the defensive, while the Imperial Staff seemed ignorant of the geography of their own country. In the meanwhile Von Bismarck biassed the opinion of England against France by publishing, on the 25th of July, the draft of a secret Treaty which our ally Napoleon III. had proposed to the King of Prussia, by which France was to consent to the union of Prussia, or North Germany, with the States of South Germany, in consideration of Germany helping France to seize Belgium. As England stood pledged to defend Belgium, such a proposal revealed a depth of perfidy which disgusted Europe with Bonapartism.[327] It was a plot to make war on England, concocted by Napoleon at the very time (August or September, 1866) when he was pretending to be her ally.[328] North and South Germany swiftly mobilised their armies under the supreme command of the King of Prussia, with Von Moltke as Chief of the Staff. The Crown Prince of Prussia, with Blumenthal as his Chief of Staff, led the South German troops. His cousin, Prince Frederick Charles, and General Steinmetz, commanded the corps that marched on the valley of the Moselle. When the Parisians were vaunting the success of the French troops in a slight skirmish at Saarbrück, the Crown Prince defeated the French at Weissenburg on the 4th of August, and on the 6th shattered Macmahon’s army at Wörth, while Steinmetz--the “blood spendthrift,” as Bismarck called him--crushed Frossard on Spicheren heights. A German corps was sent to invest Strasbourg, whither part of Macmahon’s army had fled. The Crown Prince started after the rest of that ill-fated force, then retreating on Châlons. The relics of Frossard’s army had fled to join Bazaine near Metz, whose design was to unite with Macmahon at Châlons. The Emperor of the French had appointed the Empress as Regent when he took command in person of the army near Metz. This command he now resigned to Bazaine. The Legislative Body, infuriated by the defeats on the frontier, turned the Ministry of Ollivier out of office, and General Montauban, Duke of Palikao,[329] was called to power. To secure the Emperor from the political consequences of retreat, Bazaine had delayed his departure from Metz to Châlons for a fortnight after the rout at Wörth. This obviously enabled the Germans to come up in time to prevent him from joining hands with Macmahon. On the 14th Steinmetz held him for a day at Courcelles. Then Prince Frederick Charles advanced and harassed Bazaine with impetuous cavalry charges till reinforcements arrived, which drove the French back on Gravelotte St. Privat. On the 18th the Germans fought and won the battle of Gravelotte, but at the cost of one-seventh of their effective strength,[330] and finally shut Bazaine up in Metz. Von Moltke immediately made arrangements to crush Macmahon’s reorganised army at Châlons. It is due to Macmahon to say that he himself and the Emperor desired to fall back on Paris, but the Empress-Regent, fearing that the Emperor’s appearance in Paris, with an army in retreat, might have bad political results, foolishly insisted on Macmahon hastening eastwards to Metz to relieve Bazaine. Macmahon obeyed these orders, and, as might have been expected, was intercepted and surrounded by the Germans at Sedan, where the Emperor and his army, after a disastrous fight, surrendered to the King of Prussia as prisoners of war on the 1st of September. The Second Empire was consumed in the circle of fire at Sedan. On the 4th of September the Imperial dynasty was deposed, and a Republic proclaimed. The Empress and the Ministry fled for their lives, the Empress making good her retreat to England. A Provisional Government was formed under General Trochu, Commander of the garrison of Paris, M. Jules Favre, M. Gambetta, and M. de Rochefort, and M. Thiers undertook to roam over Europe in the futile attempt to get some of the European Powers to mediate between France and Prussia.[331] Germany now demanded the cession of Alsace and Lorraine, and on the 19th of September Paris was invested and practically cut off from all communication with the rest of France. M. Jules Favre opened up pacific negotiations with Von Bismarck, but, as he refused to admit that some transfer of strongholds and territory to Germany was necessary, they were broken off. “Not an inch of our territory nor a stone of our fortresses,” was the reply of M. Favre to the Prussian Minister’s proposals. Bazaine might have escaped from Metz and relieved Paris, but then the result of his skill and the valour of his army would have been to strengthen the new-born Republic. He delayed too long, and he also opened up negotiations with Von Bismarck through a secret envoy, General Boyer. Bismarck had only one object--to conclude peace with some kind of French Government which would be strong enough to keep its pledges. Hence he had been willing to consent to an armistice, so that the Government of the Republic might, by means of a General Election, obtain an authoritative mandate from the people. This project having failed, he was quite willing to conclude a peace with the Imperial Government covered by Bazaine’s bayonets. He was willing to let Bazaine leave Metz and proceed with his troops to some place where they might form a rallying-point for the defeated dynasty.[332] The Empress-Regent in England was consulted, but she declined to consent to any proposals which made cession of territory a basis of peace. On the 25th of October the King of Prussia wrote to the Empress that negotiations were at an end, and on the 28th the great army of Metz--the last hope of the Bonapartes--surrendered unconditionally. Bismarck’s policy was now to foster the Third Republic till it became authoritative enough to undertake and uphold Treaty obligations.

Though Paris was invested, a delegation of the Government of National Defence, headed by M. Gambetta, a brilliant and eloquent young advocate, who leapt into popularity by his attacks on the Emperor during a political trial, escaped to Tours in a balloon, and on the 9th of October he set up a civil and military administration for provincial France. M. Gambetta displayed astounding courage, irrepressible energy, and the highest practical administrative ability. Armies rose at his word as if by magic, and a force of from 150,000 to 200,000 men, with 506 guns, under D’Aurelle de Paladines, was concentrated on the Loire. Had Bazaine only held Metz for another month the siege of Paris must have been raised. But the fall of Metz liberated the investing army of Prince Frederick Charles, and Gambetta’s legions were for the most part raw militiamen. Hence, when D’Aurelle de Paladines drove Von der Tann out of Orleans he could not follow up his victory. Prince Frederick Charles came up with the army of Metz, and Manteuffel stood between the besiegers of Paris and any relief from the south-west. In vain did D’Aurelle de Paladines and Trochu by concerted movements endeavour to break the ring of steel which encircled Paris. Their rough, raw peasants and improvised officers fought with the utmost gallantry, as if in contrast to the Imperial troops at Sedan and in the battles before Metz, where the rank and file in too many cases shrank from closing with the enemy. But they could not stand against the superb troops of the German States led by the ablest generals in Europe. After the recapture of Orleans by the Germans on the 4th of December, D’Aurelle de Paladines was superseded. His army was broken up into two corps, and under Bourbaki and Chanzy retreated to the south-east and south-west of the right bank of the Loire. The “Red Prince” (Frederick Charles) pursued Bourbaki, and the Duke of Mecklenburg, after a series of obstinate conflicts, pushed Chanzy slowly but surely from his positions near Marchenoir. The French Government had now to quit Tours and remove to Bordeaux, whereupon Chanzy retreated westwards. In the north-west, Faidherbe, the only strategist of signal ability whom the war brought to the front on the French side, had many toughly contested engagements with Von Goeben and Manteuffel, in which the Germans usually had the advantage. But after Christmas the French leader fairly claimed to have beaten his German antagonists at Noyelles, where he held his main position in spite of the attacks of the enemy, though he voluntarily evacuated it next day, and fell back on his old line at Lille.[333] Werder was not fortunate in the east. He could not hold Nuits, and he had to let Dijon fall into the hands of Garibaldi, who, in a fit of Republican enthusiasm, had given his sword to France after the Empire fell. The net result of the war at the end of the year was this: Paris was

completely invested. But, thanks to M. Gambetta’s fiery genius and practical organising power, France, after the surrender of the regular troops of the Third Empire, with their trained officers at their head, had actually more troops in the field than she possessed when Napoleon III. advanced to Saarbrück. These improvised armies of the infant Republic consisted of the rawest recruits. But they freed Normandy and Picardy, and all accounts showed that on the whole they fought with more pluck than the Imperial legions who surrendered at Metz and Sedan.

The effect of the war on English public opinion was curious. At the outset Englishmen of the better sort without distinction of class seemed to sympathise with Prussia. But the Roman Catholics both in Ireland and England became partisans of France. After Sedan a change took place. The enthusiasm of the Roman Catholic party rather cooled, whereas the working-classes and the advanced democrats in England transferred their moral support from Prussia to France. The Queen, though she felt the deepest personal sympathy for the fallen Emperor and his consort, was naturally drawn to the German cause. It was freighted with those high aspirations after German unity, which had been the central idea of her husband’s foreign policy. The brilliant victories of the South German armies had been won under the leadership of her favourite son-in-law, in whom the romance and chivalry of mediæval Teutonic Knighthood seemed to live again. The husband of her favourite daughter and constant correspondent (the Princess Louis) was a Divisional commander in the great host, whose iron grasp held Bazaine in Metz. Writing in July to the Queen, the Princess says, “How much I feel for you now, for I know how truly you must feel for Germany; and _all_ know that every good thing England does for Germany, and every evil she wards off her, is owing to your wisdom and experience, and to your true and just feelings. You would, I am sure, be pleased to hear how universally this is recognised and appreciated. What would beloved papa have thought of this war? The unity of Germany, which it has brought about, would please him, but not the shocking means.”[334] Unfortunately the personal relations of friendliness which often bind Courts have in these days but slight influence on the relations that subsist between Governments. The Prussian Government was not contented with English sympathy. England, said the Prussians, might by timely diplomatic action have prevented the outbreak of the war.[335] But she had a selfish motive in eliminating Imperial France from Europe as a dominating force. Prussia, in crushing France, was incidentally doing the work of England in defending Belgium, and hence England made no effort to keep the peace. Then there had been some trivial exports of arms from England to France, and the Prussian Minister--forgetting how Prussia had supplied Russia during the Crimean War--pretended to consider these exports a breach of neutrality. Oddly enough, though the Americans had engaged much more extensively in this traffic, Prussia made no complaint against them. The German case, as argued by Count Bernstoff, was obviously weak. So long as a country carries on its trade with belligerents, not as a partisan but as a neutral, it is impossible for diplomacy to stop that trade. Count Bernstoff, however, argued that as Prussia did not need to buy arms from England, whereas France did, the English trade in arms with France must be necessarily one-sided or partisan. His despatches laying down his eccentric doctrine of “benevolent neutrality” simply amounted to the assertion of a new principle. The usage had been that the neutral was free, subject to the usual risks, to trade with either of two belligerents just as if there were no war at all. The new principle asserted by Count Bernstoff was that the neutral, before selling a belligerent anything, must consider carefully whether the transaction will confer a benefit on him which it is beyond anybody’s power to confer on the other belligerent on the same terms. Neutral traffic must, according to the Prussian Foreign Office, cease whenever its results give one belligerent certain advantages direct and indirect over the other. Lord Granville had little difficulty in disposing of a chimerical doctrine which would have cast on a neutral the burden of weighing his lawful trade with belligerents to see that each got exactly the same fair share of it. But the absurd paradox was advanced merely to give Von Bismarck an excuse for conniving at an act of diplomatic hostility to England, on the part of Russia, his connivance being the price he had to pay the Czar, who held back Austria, for “benevolent neutrality” in 1870-71.

In the middle of November the Russian Government suddenly issued a Circular repudiating the clause in the Treaty of Paris which prevented Russia from keeping a fleet in the Black Sea. Lord Granville protested with high spirit against the claim of Russia to repudiate any clause in a Treaty she had signed, save with the consent of the cosignatories. Austria, Turkey, and Italy supported England, but Bismarck told Mr. Odo Russell, who was sent on a diplomatic mission to the King of Prussia at Versailles, that Prussia had always thought the Treaty needlessly harsh to Russia, and that, as German interests were not involved, he had no intention of taking any notice of the Russian Circular. “Resolved, as Bismarck therefore was,” says Mr. Lowe, “to let the Russians have their own way, and even help them to attain it, his only care was how to do this in the manner least objectionable to England. The Black Sea Clause had been knocked on the head, and was already as dead as a door-nail; but there was no reason why it should be flung into a ditch like a dog, and not interred with the decent ceremony of undertakers’ woe.... Thus too, doubtless, thought Bismarck when he proposed that the Powers should meet and wail a doleful dirge over the lamented body of their lifeless offspring. Ingenious idea! A coroner’s inquest in the shape of a diplomatic Conference to sit on the murdered body of the Black Sea Clause!”[336] Lord Granville’s position was an embarrassing one. It has already been pointed out that the Black Sea Clause was in many respects indefensible, and it was not possible to offer the English people any adequate return for the money and blood that must be spent in waging a futile war with Russia to maintain the Treaty. Yet the manner in which Russia had “denounced” it was meant to be humiliating to England, and it needed some adroit manœuvring to extricate the country from the situation which had been created for it by the foolish diplomacy of 1856. When the Conference met on the 17th of January, 1871, the representatives of the Powers kept their gravity when the President (Lord Granville) said that it met without any foregone conclusions. To save the honour of England and put on record a formal avowal of theoretical belief in the sanctity of Treaties, the Conference unanimously agreed to declare that no State could recede from its engagements with other States, save with the consent of these States. Then Russia was released from the obligations of the Black Sea Clause, which she had already declared she had no intention of respecting.

For a time the revolutionary forces in Spain were stilled by the election of the Prince Amadeus of Italy (the Duke of Aosta), second son of Victor Emmanuel, to the throne of the Cortes. The collapse of the French Empire naturally led to the annexation of Rome by Italy, and it was a strange coincidence that the year which saw the extinction of the temporal power of the Pope, saw his spiritual power asserted more firmly and extensively than ever. The Assembly of Roman Catholic prelates at Rome known as the Œcumenical Council, met at the beginning of the year to proclaim the dogma of Papal Infallibility. The opposition to this proclamation was organised by the most eminent of the English, American, German, and Hungarian bishops, and at one time it was feared they would triumph. The Pope had, however, secured a majority of votes by the somewhat sublunary method of creating new bishops governing mythical sees. The doctrine of Infallibility was accordingly proclaimed a few days after the declaration of war by France against Germany, a war which had been vigorously promoted by the secret agents of the Vatican, who had acquired a controlling spiritual influence over the French Empress. After the annexation of Rome by Victor Emmanuel on the 20th of September, the Pope refused to hold any intercourse with the Italian Government. Immuring himself in the Leonine City as a voluntary prisoner, he pathetically appealed for sympathy to the blunted sensibilities of a wicked world.

As the year wore on, and the German armies strengthened their hold on France, it became clear that German unity under Prussian leadership was an accomplished fact. The autumnal negotiations for the absorption of the South German States in the North German Confederation ended well, mainly because Bismarck made generous concessions, reserving the sovereign rights of Bavaria and Wurtemberg, and abandoning on the part of Prussia an exclusive right to declare war. The King of Bavaria, the Grand Duke of Baden, and the other Sovereign Princes, then invited King William of Prussia to assume the Imperial Crown, and on the 18th of January, 1871, he was proclaimed German Emperor in the Hall of Kings at Versailles.[337]