The Government of M. Thiers, from 8th February, 1871 to 24th May, 1873. From the French, etc

Chapter I. The Work Of Legislation

When the Assembly resumed its meetings at Versailles at two o'clock on the afternoon of Monday, the 29th May, after the final defeat of the Commune, it had existed but three months and a half, and yet it already had a history. This short history embraced three great events : the vote upon the preliminaries of peace, the refusal to sit at Paris, and the armed struggle with the Commune. A close scrutiny of the Assembly, taking into account its votes, the measures it had already passed, its language, its attitude, might result in the following judgment : It was patriotic, liberal, a foe to centralization, keenly hostile to the Empire. It desired peace. It regarded the Republic VOL. II. B as a form of government at once impracticable and fatal. It regarded Paris as a constant menace to the liberty and the tranquillity of the country.

It was painstaking, inexperienced, and undisciplined. As is common with the ignorant, it was easily carried away by passion, and imagination. There were but few real men in it — a great misfortune for an Assembly ; and, what is perhaps still more deplorable, it failed to recognize those whom it possessed, save M. Thiers, whom it appointed to negotiate and to reign, and M. Grevy, whom it selected as its President. From the first day antagonism existed between Paris and the Assembly. The Assembly did not like the Republic, and Paris had made the Republic. The Assembly was irritated by what it termed the Dictatorship of M. Gambetta, and it was Paris that had entrusted rule to M. Gambetta, and had inspired him with her own ideas and passions. The re actionists cherished an old grudge against the city of the Encyclopædists, as did all the Legiti mists against the city of '93.

Old ideas of decentralization, revived by the excessive and oppressive centralization of the Empire, still embittered the " Rustics " against Paris. The " Rustics ! " The name had been fastened upon them in contempt ; they accepted it as an honour and a challenge. One of their first acts at Bor deaux, and one full of meaning, had been the refusal to sit in Paris. They desired Fontainebleau or even Bourges. Can it be doubted that at the time when this decision was arrived at, everything that could possibly have lessened the offence of it to the capital should have been done ? What was, in fact, said and done ? The Commercial Bills Act had to be three times amended, and all the extensions of time three times renewed ; the Assembly constantly main taining that it was granting too much. The barely indispensable only was wrung from it.

Starving, decimated, ruined Paris, exasperated by the shame of the capitulation, and the brutal insult inflicted upon it by the conquerors, when they encamped in the Place de la Concorde itself, full of discharged soldiers, of families from the suburbs whose houses had been destroyed, of convicts let out during the war and the siege, of adventurers come to hide from justice, or to profit by the general disorder, full of foreigners also, Poles, Hungarians, and Italians, — Paris had been guilty of an enormous crime ; it had allowed the Commune to be established. The Assembly trembled for France, for itself; but, it must be confessed, was more angry than frightened, for it did not fully b recognize the danger, which, at first, was extreme. The Assembly displayed implacable and determined resolution ; — partly from a con viction that the right must not be called in question ; to a large extent, also, from the cumulation of its old feelings against the supremacy of Paris.

It desired to push the war to unconditional submission, and when that submission had been obtained, to continue repressive measures till the revolutionary forces were extinguished. Nothing was done for that majority of the people of Paris who had been oppressed and driven to despair by the Com mune. The efforts made for conciliation, and, at a later date, clemency, were criminal in the eyes of the Assembly. The Government, which maintained the struggle with undeviating steadfastness and unparalleled skill, but yet passionately desired to bring the civil war to a close, permitted it to be known that in case of submission it would be severe only towards the leaders, but would treat those whom they had misled with leniency : the Chamber, however, was a prey to a concealed irritation to which little expression was given, either during the struggle or at the moment of victory, but which at last broke out in the speech of M. de Broglie, on the 24th May, 1873.

One of the strange occurrences of that day was the condemnation of the very Government which had annihilated the Commune on account of its pretended leniency towards that Commune. The Republicans, attached to the city of Paris for the same reasons which rendered the enemies of the Republic hostile to her, repeatedly sought, after the defeat of the insurrection, to bring back the Government and the Assembly to the capital. They thought, and not without reason, that neither France nor the world would believe we had returned to our normal condition, so long as Paris remained in disgrace and the parliament in exile. But the Right showed itself inflexible. Not content with resisting all the proposals of the Left, it multiplied measures on its own side which were destined to give permanence to a state of things fatal to business, to parliamentary government, and to the fame and prosperity of the country.

Finally, in defiance alike of good sense and good feeling, it made the residence of the Government and of the Assembly at Versailles an Article of the Constitution, so that the forthcoming Congress must meet before the two Chambers can be brought back to Paris ; and we have to shut our eyes to a formal violation of the Con stitution in the residence of Marshal MacMahon at the Elysee, where he has lived almost uninterruptedly since he became President. In inserting so singular a clause into the Constitution, the Right was swayed by both hate and fear (hate more than fear), by a hope of embarrassing the Paris deputies, who were actually on the point of votings against the whole Constitution, because of this Article; and lastly, by the conviction, more or less concealed, that a restoration of the monarchy was possible at Versailles, and was not so in Paris.

Apart from all other con siderations which lend importance to the resolution of the Assembly not to quit Versailles, the fact must be taken into account, that sooner or later, all men, even the most obstinate, yield to the influence of their surroundings. Unless a liberal deputy be as firm as a rock, old parliamentary tacticians dislike to see him choose his seat among the members of the Right. He goes out of bravado, to rise when they remain sitting, and sit when they rise ; he ends by growing tired of contradiction, and allows himself to be carried away by the example of his neighbours. The Assembly, after the melancholy victory of May, might without danger have sat in the Palais Bourbon; but the coalition of the Rue des Reservoirs was not willing to sit in the Rue de Poitiers. The "Rustics" quartered on Ver sailles till the end of their term felt themselves more secure in their own resolutions, and so to speak, more completely masters of themselves.

When the defeat of the insurrection rendered it possible to commence the reorganization of the country in earnest, the Assembly had before it a tabula rasa,. No Government existed ; nor any other laws than those of the old code, a legacy from the revolution, remodelled by the first Empire. All that the second Empire had done it looked upon with suspicion. All that the Government of Defence had done, the defence itself excepted, was invalid. As it had not quailed before danger, so it did not shrink from its task ; to its honour be it said. Its weakness lay in not comprehending either the nature or the magnitude of that task ; believing that no more was necessary than to disarm the Republicans, to lend moral influence to the priests, and to patch up a chance restoration with the help of one of the three monarchies which offered themselves.

The Assembly, which wanted to be a constituent body, and loudly proclaimed that it was about to reform and to transform everything, was more reactionary than productive. All the commotion of those first days of freedom resulted in two negations, a Decentralization Commission, and some Committees of Inquiry. Had it even accom plishedthe impossible and brought forth amonarchy, TH1. - it might still have been said, having regard to the essential and unchangeable Republicanism of our habits and customs, that it had pledged itself to negations. An inquiry into the Government of the Deft i an inquiry into the Deputation of Bordeaux, an inquiry into the agreements concluded, an inquiry into the 1 8th March, followed. Half the Chamber was holding inquiries, of which the other half was the object, and if it be asked in which of these two categories were the Bonapartists, it was the former.

Count Darn, a former minister under the Empire, presided. He was nominated Presi dent of the Committee of Inquiry upon the 18th March, he also presided as substitute for M. Saint Marc Girardin, who was ill and over-fatigued, at the inquiiy into the acts of the Government of the Defence. The members of the latter Govern ment, not excepting those who were still ministers, had to appear before colleagues, of whom some had voted in favour of the war, almost in the character of accused persons. All their dignity and all then* vigour were needed to enable them to reassert their true positions. A good idea of what the sittings of a Committee of Inquiry were like, may be obtained by reading the examination of General Trochu, who, never theless, was a member of the Right. The hostility of the questions and the haughty tone of the answers cannot be exceeded.

He is pressed as if he were on his defence, he retorts as if he were a judge. France for more than a year presented the same spectacle as the Chamber. In her Court Martials she was occupied with trying thirty thousand political defendants, and with sifting the conduct of her generals, from Trochu to Bazaine. The press was daily engaged in the same way. Such accusations were met from the tribune by counter-accusations no less vehement. The conquered nation, instead of thinking of nothing save the foe, makes it its business to display its faults, its divisions, its grudges, its misfortunes, and its failures. Wiser counsels prevailed in the end, but the beginning was sad indeed. In addition to the time spent in inquiries and interpellations, which are only inquiries condensed .and conducted in public, the Chamber found itself at every moment with some pressing affair on its hands ; at first treaties with the enemy which had to be ratified, loans which had to be con cluded in order to pay the indemnity, new taxes which had to be imposed in order to provide for the formidable increase of the debt.

After wards there was a number of special Acts, and pohtical enactments of secondary importance ; no small amount of baggage to carry, -which hindered the march of the Assembly. It was, it must be remarked, not simply a legislative power, it desired to be a constituent power, and, without proclaim ing the fact or confessing it to itself, an executive power. M. Thiers was constantly repeating to it, " You have the right to make a Constitution, but you will be wiser not to do so." It retained the right, and did not object to its wisdom being extolled, promising itself that at the con venient moment it would cease to deserve such a compliment. He would also say, " I am but your delegate ; I govern by your authority, and under your eyes;" but his determination was to govern alone till he should be dismissed.

The Chamber, on the contrary, desired a share in everything ; every day questions were asked in the House, now about the negotiations, now about the war; and it complained if disclosures which would have laid all our secrets open to the whole world were withheld ; committees were appointed to assist the Government, or in other words, to observe it and to act in place of it, had they been able. M. Thiers, in the very midst of his military operations or of his struggles with the generals of the army of occupation, was summoned to give information before parliamentary committees. Apart from this taste for interference, which was natural to a sovereign assembly, circumstanced as this one was, the nature of things compelled the deputies to legislate for the passing hour, and not to confine themselves to permanent laws.

The act, or more properly, the acts, delaying forfeitures through lapse of time, and the act relative to payment of rent, are examples of what had to be done with such questions. The Commune here made short work, it frankly took the side of the debtors against their creditors; with the Assembly, which could not disregard the rights of proprietors, the case was different. It granted time to debtors, because they had been subject to violence, and because it was essential to avert failures so numerous as would have changed all our social and industrial or ganization. The consequences of the Commune claimed its attention frequently, and at great length. Court Martials had to be appointed, and entailed heavy expense. The maintenance and the security of thirty-seven thousand prisoners claimed attention ; localities to which they could be transported had to be found and appropriated ; and the conditions of their transportation had to be fixed ; nor could these things be done by means of decrees and proclamations, legal enactments were indispensable.

The former reigning families desired to return, they had been banished by law ; an act was accordingly passed to open to them the frontiers of France and the doors of the Chamber; another passed restoring their property confiscated under the Empire to the Orleans princes. We shall find in the questions affecting these princes, and in some others relating to Prince Jerome and the Imperial family, some of the thorns, and by no means the least sharp ones, which beset the Government of M. Thiers. His own position occasioned much embarrass ment and loss of time. The more provisional his power, the more sittings were wasted over the regulation of it, sometimes writh the object of making it more stringent, at other times with that of making it more provisional. Was he to have the sole right of remitting punishments, or was he to share it with a Com mittee of the Assembly ?

Had he the power to proclaim a state of siege ? subject to what limita tions ? under what conditions ? Should he com bine the functions and privileges of a deputy with those of the head of the executive power ? Should he be only permitted to defend his policy by deputy, or might he in person mount the tribune and take a share in the discussions ? Should he be held to be responsible as president in addition to his ministerial responsibility ? Could the pre sident be dismissed, like a minister, by a vote ? On the other hand, ought his authority to be confirmed definitely for a term of two years, of five years, for life, for the term of the Assembly, for whatever time might elapse before a definite constitution was voted ? Paris, again, though vanquished, still disturbed the Assembly. The entire Left demanded that the sittings should be held in the Palais Bourbon ; the Left centre was to the full as decided and as pressing as the extreme Left.

The Right desired to remain at Versailles, to establish the Assembly there permanently and constitutionally, to bring thither all the chief administrative offices. Lastly, enemies of the Assembly existed both within and without its own body, who suggested to it that it should simply disappear. Peace was signed, the insur rection was overcome, a provisional government existed ; France, they said, had not required more than this of those whom she appointed on the 8th of February ; and in prolonging its own exist ence the Assembly was committing an act of usurpation. The Assembly would have been overtasked had it had no other difficulties to overcome than those which arose in the course of politics and events. But could it suffer laws to continue now that freedom prevailed, which had been passed under the second Empire for the purposes of despotism?

Its decentralization committee also proved very fertile of bills ; private deputies had, rightly enough, retained the right to introduce bills under the very slight restriction of an in troduction commission, whose duty it was to place preliminary difficulties in the way of legislative ardour. And the Government itself, while carry ing on its struggle against the Commune, the in surrections in several great towns, and the revolt in Algeria; while negotiating with Germany, opening subscriptions for loans, contriving fresh taxation, and while talking over everything every day with the Chamber, yet managed to find time to prepare bills embodying laws of fundamental importance. The Assembly did not shrink from its task. At one period fifty-two committees were at work at the same time, some of which consisted of thirty members.

A mass of legislation, which we can divide into four categories, was the result of all this labour. The first includes all those temporary enactments which have disappeared along with the circumstances which gave rise to them, and which have but little historical importance. We shall leave them aside, and group together all those acts which related to the conventions made with the enemy for the evacuation of the territory. These were the treaty of peace, and the conventions appended to it, and the loans and taxes. We shall similarly group the enactments which relate to political modifications of the Government and the Assembly. Lastly, we shall make a se parate class for those fundamental and permanent laws which more specially represent the legislative work of the Assembly, such as the municipal elections act and that on the selection of mayors, the act relative to councils general (conseils generaux), the Treveneuc act, the acts relative to the election of consular judges, to the council of state, to trial by jury, to military service, and the various acts relative to public instruction.

These acts, like all legislation, are unquestionably political in their nature, but they are less so, for example, than the Rivet proposal. They are rather laws than occurrences. They represent the legislative labour of the Assembly just as those enactments which we term political are the outcome of party strife. The manner in which the question of municipalities was introduced to the Assembly is well known ; it would, howTever, have forced itself into notice under any circumstances. The Republican deputies of Paris proposed it as a special measure and a political bill of the first importance, undertaking to put a stop to the insurrection, if the Assembly would give to Paris the right to elect its own municipal council and its mayor. M. Thiers represented, and with reason, that it was impossible to come to decisions of such weight on the spur of the moment.

Nor was it advisable to legislate for Paris alone. Although there may be no equality between a city of two millions of souls and the other communes of France, the very existence of the insurrection stood in the way of this exceptional legislation, which would have looked like a concession made to popular tumult. What had Paris demanded since the commencement of the disturbances ? Communal rights. From every point of view, therefore, a law to regulate communal rights was what was required. M. Thiers announced that a bill should be brought in in forty-eight hours. This was extremely short notice, but never was a matter more clearly pressing, and decision upon it more indispensable. This, too, is one of those questions upon which all politicians have occupied their minds for long, and one consequently which requires no preparation.

M. Picard, the Minister of the Interior, was in a position to lay the Government bill before the Assembly at its sitting of the 22nd March. The bill proposed that the municipal elections should at once be held throughout France. All the powers conferred by these elections should be limited to three years. In the townships of departments and arrondissements, and in all towns of over six thousand inhabitants, the mayors and deputy-mayors were to be chosen by the executive ; in other communes they were to be chosen by the members of the council ; in neither case could they be taken from outside the municipal council. The municipal council of Paris would be composed of sixty members, elected by voting-paper, in the twenty arrondissements, at the rate of three members of council for each. The qualification of electors was to be one year's residence in the city of Paris, that of candidates three years' residence in the arrondissement.

The Municipal council of Paris annually appointed a president, vice-president, and secretary. In each arrondissement a mayor and three deputy-mayors were to be appointed by the head of the executive power. This bill raised a clamour, not only among the adherents of the insurrection, but among that large Republican population, who, though they dreaded and hated the Commune, claimed muni cipal franchises for Paris on the most extended basis, and who were firmly convinced that were a single mayor and a municipal council agreed to and made eligible, the one and the other by universal suffrage, the object and the power of the insurrection would be taken from it, without any risk to the authority of the Central Government. The journals asked how M. Picard himself would VOL. II. c have received his own bill, when he was, under the Empire, one of the leaders of the opposition.

No justification for these attacks existed. The Republican opposition had, under the Empire, asked for the election of mayors ; but it would have accepted, as an immense step in advance, an elective municipal council for Paris, and for the other constituencies, a return to the law of 1831, which entrusted the Central Government with the nomination of all mayors, simply restricting its choice to members of the council. They had, it is true, claimed more, for they had desired the restoration of the 10th section of the law of July, which gave to communes of over six thousand souls, the right that their town council should elect the mayor, but they had never thought of anything beyond that, and that was exactly what M. Picard's bill proposed. The bill did not propose that Paris should have only one mayor, whether elected by the citizens or the town council.

This system had been tried under the first Republic, but it had not been fortunate ; it had not proved durable ; it was not regretted. Restored in 1848 in the hour of popular triumph, it disappeared after the appointment of the Assembly, and the Republicans had not at that period asked for its re-establishment. M. Garnier Pages and M. Armand Marrast had, in turn, borne the title of mayor of Paris in 1848. In reality they were no more than prefects nominated by the Government. The Constituent Assembly suppressed the title without remonstrance. M. Etienne Arago received it afresh in 1870, under the same conditions as M. Garnier Pages and M. Armand Marrast, and held it for an even shorter period. Neither in 1848 nor in 1870 had any mayor of Paris been elected. An elected mayor at the head of a city of two millions of inhabitants could neither be subject to a king nor subordinate to a president.

As there is no analogy between the mayors of arrondissements, and a mayor of all Paris, it did not seem indispensable that the former should be elected, for they take no share in voting estimates and in distributing expenditure. There was a fear that if they were elected a second municipal council would be created, which would hold the first, and even in some cases, the central authority itself in check. This was a reason of great weight at a crisis such as we then were passing through. At ordinary times the mayors of the wards never think of holding meetings among themselves, or of considering themselves as representatives and guardians of those who had elected them to preside over marriages, and keep the registers. They perform no political function whatever, and there c could be no kind of danger in their being made elective, if such a measure were generally demanded.

The side on which the bill was most assailable was the clause which required a year's residence in Paris as the qualificaton of an elector, and three years' residence within the arrondissement as that of a candidate. Paris had been deserted by many of its regular inhabitants, and a nomadic population had come and usurped power in the press, the clubs, and the civic guard, and great irritation existed. Such requirements would always have been considered decidedly excessive. It is not necessary to live in an arrondissement in order to know its wants ; and further, a member of the council, whatever may be the arrondissement which elected him, represents all Paris, and takes his full share in voting and appropriating the estimates. This portion of the bill was to be regretted, for while it was of no practical use, it helped to render the measure unpopular.

The discussion proceeded rapidly, and was not marked by any remarkable incidents. The majority of the Assembly entertained a profound distrust of Paris, and had no intention of placing a mayor, chosen by election, at the head of this great city and this great administration. The proposal was made by a member of the Extreme Left ; but it only secured a few supporters in that section of the Assembly, and obtained none at all among the others. Even the election of a president of the municipal council of Paris for one year was objected to, and it was resolved that the president, the vice-president, and the secretary should be elected only for the term of the ordinary sitting. M. Randot, wishing to attack the root of the evil, proposed to divide Paris into twenty communes, each with its own mayor, deputies, council, and regular municipal rights.

This proposal was negatived, because it would be impossible to have twenty budgets for one single city ; and after its relinquishment for the arrondissements, the question of the election of mayors was not seriously pressed, for these are purely civil officials. Four members of council for each arrondissement were agreed to in place of the three proposed by the Government, but in order to avoid election by voting-paper, it was decided to elect them in their own ward, and by separate ballot. Lastly, the attempt to make the qualifica tion of electors and candidates in the commune of Paris an exceptional one was abandoned. It was decided that the electors of every commune in France should be qualified to vote at twenty, and eligible for office at twenty-five. No one could be a voter in a commune unless he had had his actual domicile there for one year.

On this head, M. Batbie, the reporter, remarked that " a considerable difference exists between political and municipal elections. In the former it is right that wherever the elector may be, he shall have the opportunity of expressing his wish. Since the business is that of nominating representatives of all France, at whatever point of the territory the citizen resides, his vote ought to be taken. For this reason a residence of six months only is required, that is to say, long enough for him to be registered. Residence, even though prolonged, may be only temporary or accidental, and it is not there that the true foundation of the right to elect the corporation of the commune lies. We require a year's actual residence, because at the expiration of that time the new comer will have gained a right to his share in the advantages which membership of a commune confers, and will be bound to contribute to the expense of it."

The Committee, which shared the views of M. Picard as to the qualifications of the elector, showed itself far more liberal than he in the matter of eligibility. " We have from the first," said M. Batbie, " put aside all idea of restricting eligibility by special conditions, they would be a contravention of the rights of the electors, and appear to us useless precautions. Nomination by the electors carries its own guarantee, and it is not right that we should exhibit distrust, want of confidence in an act passed in order to invite them to make choice of their delegates. The majority of the Commission have, therefore, negatived that provision of the bill which required three years' residence as essential for eligibility. It is to the qualification of the electors that we must look for judicious elections in the interests of order."

The Assembly, however, did not go so far as its Commission. One fourth only of the members of the council might be chosen from electors who were non-resident, and under the stipulation that such non-residents, if elected, must pay one of the four direct taxes in the commune. After this the regulations for subdivision were settled. In every description of election it becomes necessary to subdivide the too extensive con stituencies. Under the Empire this division into sections was accomplished by the decree of the prefect, and was by no means the least power ful instrument of official candidature. The right of deciding upon subdivision, and of tracing the boundaries of the sections, was transferred to the common council. In all these arrangements, and in all the speeches made on the subject by the members of the majority, there is a certain liberality.