No man perhaps had more earnestly sought and more passionately striven
for the fall of the Empire than Victor de Mauleon; and perhaps no man was
more dissatisfied and disappointed by the immediate consequences of that
fall, In first conspiring against the Empire, he had naturally enough,
in common with all the more intelligent enemies of the dynasty, presumed
that its fate would be worked out by the normal effect of civil causes--
the alienation of the educated classes, the discontent of the artisans,
the eloquence of the press and of popular meetings, strengthened in
proportion as the Emperor had been compelled to relax the former checks
upon the license of either. And De Mauleon had no less naturally
concluded that there would be time given for the preparation of a
legitimate and rational form of government to succeed that which was
destroyed. For, as has been hinted or implied, this remarkable man was
not merely an instigator of revolution through the Secret Council, and
the turbulent agencies set in movement through the lower strata of
society;--he was also in confidential communication with men eminent for
wealth, station, and political repute, from whom he obtained the funds
necessary for the darker purposes of conspiracy, into the elaboration of
which they did not inquire; and these men, though belonging like himself
to the Liberal party, were no hot-blooded democrats. Most of them were
in favour of constitutional monarchy; all of them for forms of government
very different from any republic in which socialists or communists could
find themselves uppermost. Among these politicians were persons
ambitious and able, who, in scheming for the fall of the Empire, had been
prepared to undertake the task of conducting to ends compatible with
modern civilisation the revolution they were willing to allow a mob at
Paris to commence. The opening of the war necessarily suspended their
designs. How completely the events of the 4th September mocked the
calculations of their ablest minds, and paralysed the action of their
most energetic spirits, will appear in the conversation I am about to
record. It takes place between Victor de Mauleon and the personage to
whom he had addressed the letter written on the night before the
interview with Louvier, in which Victor had announced his intention of
reappearing in Paris in his proper name and rank. I shall designate this
correspondent as vaguely as possible; let me call him the Incognito. He
may yet play so considerable a part in the history of France as a potent
representative of the political philosophy of De Tocqueville--that is,
of Liberal principles incompatible with the absolute power either of a
sovereign or a populace, and resolutely opposed to experiments on the
foundations of civilised society--that it would be unfair to himself and
his partisans if, in a work like this, a word were said that could lead
malignant conjecture to his identity with any special chief of the
opinions of which I here present him only as a type.
The Incognito, entering Victor's apartment:
"My dear friend, even if I had not received your telegram, I should have
hastened hither on the news of this astounding revolution. It is only in
Paris that such a tragedy could be followed by such a farce. You were on
the spot--a spectator. Explain it if you can."
DE MAULEON.--"I was more than a spectator; I was an actor. Hiss me--
I deserve it. When the terrible news from Sedan reached Paris, in the
midst of the general stun and bewilderment I noticed a hesitating
timidity among all those who had wares in their shops and a good coat on
their backs. They feared that to proclaim the Empire defunct would be to
install the Red Republic with all its paroxysm of impulsive rage and all
its theories of wholesale confiscation. But since it was impossible for
the object we had in view to let slip the occasion of deposing the
dynasty which stood in its way, it was necessary to lose no time in using
the revolutionary part of the populace for that purpose. I assisted in
doing so; my excuse is this--that in a time of crisis a man of action
must go straight to his immediate object, and in so doing employ the
instruments at his command. I made, however, one error in judgment which
admits no excuse: I relied on all I had heard, and all I had observed, of
the character of Trochu, and I was deceived, in common, I believe, with
all his admirers, and three parts of the educated classes of Paris."
INCOGNITO.--"I should have been equally deceived! Trochu's conduct is a
riddle that I doubt if he himself can ever solve. He was master of the
position; he had the military force in his hands if he combined with
Palikao, which, whatever the jealousies between the two, it was his
absolute duty to do. He had a great prestige--"
DE MAULEON.--"And for the moment a still greater popularity. His _ipse
dixit_ could have determined the wavering and confused spirits of the
population. I was prepared for his abandonment of the Emperor--even of
the Empress and the Regency. But how could I imagine that he, the man of
moderate politics, of Orleanistic leanings, the clever writer, the fine
talker, the chivalrous soldier, the religious Breton, could abandon
everything that was legal, everything that could save France against the
enemy, and Paris against civil discord; that he would connive at the
annihilation of the Senate, of the popular Assembly, of every form of
Government that could be recognised as legitimate at home or abroad,
accept service under men whose doctrines were opposed to all his
antecedents, all his professed opinions, and inaugurate a chaos under the
name of a Republic!"
INCOGNITO.--"How, indeed? How suppose that the National Assembly, just
elected by a majority of seven millions and a half, could be hurried into
a conjuring-bog, and reappear as the travesty of a Venetian oligarchy,
composed of half-a-dozen of its most unpopular members! The sole excuse
for Trochu is, that he deemed all other considerations insignificant
compared with the defence of Paris, and the united action of the nation
against the invaders. But if that were his honest desire in siding with
this monstrous usurpation of power, he did everything by which the desire
could be frustrated. Had there been any provisional body composed of men
known and esteemed, elected by the Chambers, supported by Trochu and the
troops at his back, there would have been a rallying-point for the
patriotism of the provinces; and in the wise suspense of any constitution
to succeed that Government until the enemy were chased from the field,
all partisans--Imperialists, Legitimists, Orleanists, Republicans--would
have equally adjourned their differences. But a democratic Republic,
proclaimed by a Parisian mob for a nation in which sincere democratic
Republicans are a handful, in contempt of an Assembly chosen by the
country at large; headed by men in whom the provinces have no trust, and
for whom their own representatives are violently cashiered;--can you
conceive such a combination of wet blankets supplied by the irony of Fate
for the extinction of every spark of ardour in the population from which
armies are to be gathered in haste, at the beck of usupers they distrust
and despise? Paris has excelled itself in folly. Hungering for peace,
it proclaims a Government which has no legal power to treat for it.
Shrieking out for allies among the monarchies, it annihilates the hope of
obtaining them; its sole chance of escape from siege, famine, and
bombardment, is in the immediate and impassioned sympathy of the
provinces; and it revives all the grudges which the provinces have long
sullenly felt against the domineering pretensions of the capital, and
invokes the rural populations, which comprise the pith and sinew of
armies, in the name of men whom I verily believe they detest still more
than they do the Prussians. Victor, it is enough to make one despair of
his country! All beyond the hour seems anarchy and ruin."
"Not so!" exclaimed De Mauleon. "Everything comes to him who knows how
to wait. The Empire is destroyed; the usurpation that follows it has no
roots. It will but serve to expedite the establishment of such a
condition as we have meditated and planned--a constitution adapted to our
age and our people, not based wholly on untried experiments, taking the
best from nations that do not allow Freedom and Order to be the sport of
any popular breeze. From the American Republic we must borrow the only
safeguards against the fickleness of the universal suffrage which, though
it was madness to concede in any ancient community, once conceded cannot
be safely abolished,--viz., the salutary law that no article of the
Constitution, once settled, can be altered without the consent of two-
thirds of the legislative body. By this law we insure permanence, and
that concomitant love for institutions which is engendered by time and
custom. Secondly, the formation of a senate on such principles as may
secure to it in all times of danger a confidence and respect which
counteract in public opinion the rashness and heat of the popular
assembly. On what principles that senate should be formed, with what
functions invested, what share of the executive--especially in foreign
affairs, declarations of war, or treaties of peace--should be accorded to
it, will no doubt need the most deliberate care of the ablest minds. But
a senate I thus sketch has alone rescued America from the rashness of
counsel incident to a democratic Chamber; and it is still more essential
to France, with still more favourable elements for its creation. From
England we must borrow the great principle that has alone saved her from
revolution--that the head of the State can do no wrong. He leads no
armies, he presides over no Cabinet. All responsibility rests with
his advisers; and where we upset a dynasty, England changes an
administration. Whether the head of the State should have the title of
sovereign or president, whether he be hereditary or elected, is a
question of minor importance impossible now to determine, but on which I
heartily concur with you that hereditary monarchy is infinitely better
adapted to the habits of Frenchmen, to their love of show and of honours
--and infinitely more preservative from all the dangers which result from
constant elections to such a dignity, with parties so heated, and
pretenders to the rank so numerous--than any principle by which a popular
demagogue or a successful general is enabled to destroy the institutions
he is elected to guard. On these fundamental doctrines for the
regeneration of France I think we are agreed. And I believe when the
moment arrives to promulgate them, through an expounder of weight like
yourself, they will rapidly commend themselves to the intellect of
France. For they belong to common sense; and in the ultimate prevalence
of common-sense I have a faith which I refuse to medievalists who would
restore the right divine; and still more to fanatical quacks, who imagine
that the worship of the Deity, the ties of family, and the rights of
property are errors at variance with the progress of society. _Qui
vivera, verra_."
INCOGNITO.--"In the outlines of the policy you so ably enunciate I
heartily concur. But if France is, I will not say to be regenerated, but
to have fair play among the nations of Europe, I add one or two items to
the programme. France must be saved from Paris, not by subterranean
barracks and trains, the impotence of which we see to-day with a general
in command of the military force, but by conceding to France its
proportionate share of the power now monopolised by Paris. All this
system of centralisation, equally tyrannical and corrupt, must be
eradicated. Talk of examples from America, of which I know little--from
England, of which I know much,--what can we more advantageously borrow
from England than that diffusion of all her moral and social power which
forbids the congestion of blood in one vital part? Decentralise!
decentralise! decentralise! will be my incessant cry, if ever the time
comes when my cry will be heard. France can never be a genuine France
until Paris has no more influence over the destinies of France than
London has over those of England. But on this theme I could go on till
midnight. Now to the immediate point: what do you advise me to do in
this crisis, and what do you propose to do yourself?"
De Mauleon put his hand to his brow, and remained a few moments silent
and thoughtful. At last he looked up with that decided expression of
face which was not the least among his many attributes for influence over
those with whom he came into contact.
"For you, on whom so much of the future depends, my advice is brief--have
nothing to do with the present. All who join this present mockery of a
Government will share the fall that attends it--a fall from which one or
two of their body may possibly recover by casting blame on their
confreres,--you never could. But it is not for you to oppose that
Government with an enemy on its march to Paris. You are not a soldier;
military command is not in your rode. The issue of events is uncertain;
but whatever it be, the men in power cannot conduct a prosperous war nor
obtain an honourable peace. Hereafter you may be the _Deus ex machina_.
No personage of that rank and with that mission appears till the end of
the play: we are only in the first act. Leave Paris at once, and abstain
from all action."
INCOGNITO (dejectedly).--"I cannot deny the soundness of your advice,
though in accepting it I feel unutterably saddened. Still you, the
calmest and shrewdest observer among my friends, think there is cause for
hope, not despair. Victor, I have more than most men to make life
pleasant, but I would lay down life at this moment with you. You know me
well enough to be sure that I utter no melodramatic fiction when I say
that I love my country as a young man loves the ideal of his dreams--with
my whole mind and heart and soul! and the thought that I cannot now aid
her in the hour of her mortal trial is--is--"
The man's voice broke down, and he turned aside, veiling his face with a
hand that trembled.
DE MAULEON--"Courage--patience! All Frenchmen have the first; set them
an example they much need in the second. I, too, love my country, though
I owe to it little enough, heaven knows. I suppose love of country is
inherent in all who are not Internationalists. They profess only to love
humanity, by which, if they mean anything practical, they mean a rise in
wages."
INCOGNITO (rousing himself, and with a half smile). "Always cynical,
Victor--always belying yourself. But now that you have advised my
course, what will be your own? Accompany me, and wait for better times."
"No, noble friend; our positions are different. Yours is made--mine yet
to make. But for this war I think I could have secured a seat in the
Chamber. As I wrote you, I found that my kinsfolk were of much influence
in their department, and that my restitution to my social grade, and the
repute I had made as an Orleanist, inclined them to forget my youthful
errors and to assist my career. But the Chamber ceases to exist. My
journal I shall drop. I cannot support the Government; it is not a
moment to oppose it. My prudent course is silence."
INCOGNITO.--"But is not your journal essential to your support?"
DE MAULEON.--"Fortunately not. Its profits enabled me to lay by for the
rainy day that has come; and having reimbursed you and all friends the
sums necessary to start it, I stand clear of all debt, and, for my
slender wants, a rich man. If I continued the journal I should be
beggared; for there would be no readers to Common Sense in this interval
of lunacy. Nevertheless, during this interval, I trust to other ways for
winning a name that will open my rightful path of ambition whenever we
again have a legislature in which Common Sense can be heard."
INCOGNITO.--"But how win that name, silenced as a writer?"
DE MAULEON.--"You forget that I have fought in Algeria. In a few days
Paris will be in a state of siege; and then--and then," he added, and
very quietly dilated on the renown of a patriot or the grave of a
soldier.
"I envy you the chance of either," said the Incognito; and after a few
more brief words he departed, his hat drawn over his brows, and entering
a hired carriage which he had left at the corner of the quiet street, was
consigned to the station du --------, just in time for the next train.