THE ADMINISTRATION OF ADOLPHE THIERS
February, 1871, to May, 1873
The elections were held in hot haste. The short time allowed before the
convening of the Assembly made the usual campaign impossible. It met at
Bordeaux on February 13, 1871. The peace party was in very considerable
majority, and though Gambetta received the distinction of a multiple
election in nine separate districts, Thiers was chosen in twenty-six.
The radicals and advocates of guerilla warfare and of a "guerre a
outrance" found themselves few in numbers. Many of the representatives
had only local or rural reputation. They were new to parliamentary life,
and in the majority of cases were averse to a permanent republican form
of government. They would have preferred a monarchy, but they were ready
to accept a provisional republic which would incur the task of settling
the war with Germany and bear the onus of defeat. They were especially
suspicious of Paris, and hostile to it as the home of fickleness, of
irresponsibility, and of mob rule. They were largely provincial lawyers
and rural landed gentry, conservative and clerical, who felt that too
much importance had been usurped by the Parisian Government of National
Defence.
[Illustration: ADOLPHE THIERS]
The new Assembly, therefore, gradually fell into several groups. On the
conservative side came the Extreme Right, made up of out-and-out
Legitimists, believing in absolutism and the divine right of kings; the
Right, composed of monarchists desirous of conciliating the old regime
with the demands of modern times and of making it a practical form of
government; the Right Centre, consisting of constitutional monarchists
and followers of the Orleans branch of the house of Bourbon. Among the
anti-republicans the Bonapartists were almost negligible. Next came the
Left Centre of conservative Republicans, the republican Left, and the
radical Union republicaine, partisans of Gambetta and advanced
"reformers."
At the first public session of the Assembly Jules Grevy was chosen
presiding officer. A former leader of the opposition to the Empire, he
had not participated in affairs since the Fourth of September, and,
therefore, had not yet identified himself with any set. Among the
Republicans he was averse to Gambetta and remained so even when the
latter became moderate. On February 17, Adolphe Thiers, the
"peace-maker," was by an almost unanimous vote elected "Chief of the
Executive Power of the French Republic." It was he who, thirty years
before, had fortified Paris that had now fallen only by famine, who had
opposed the war when it might yet have been averted, who had travelled
over Europe to defend the interests of France, who had been elected
representative by the choice of twenty-six departments.
M. Thiers formed a coalition cabinet representing different shades of
political feeling, and in one of his early speeches, on March 10, he
formulated a plan of party truce for the purpose of national
reorganization. This plan was acquiesced in by the Assembly and bears in
history the name of the Compact of Bordeaux (_pacte de Bordeaux_).
France was to continue under a republican government, without injury to
the later claims of any party. Thiers, himself, as a former Orleanist,
advocated, at least in his relations with the monarchists, a
Restoration, with the _sine qua non_ that an attempt should be made at a
fusion of the Legitimists and the Orleanists. Meanwhile he was the chief
executive official of a republic.
But, even before the formulation of the truce of parties, Thiers was in
eager haste to settle the terms of peace with Germany before the
expiration of the armistice. The preliminaries were discussed between
Thiers and Bismarck at Versailles. The Germans were almost as anxious as
the French to see the end of the war, and the objections and delays of
Bismarck were partly tactical. Brief successive prolongations of the
armistice were obtained, and finally the preliminaries were signed on
February 26. Thiers made herculean efforts to keep for France Belfort,
which Bismark claimed, and finally succeeded on condition that the
German army should occupy Paris from March 1 to the ratification of the
preliminaries by the Assembly. France was to give up Alsace and a part
of Lorraine, including Metz, and pay an indemnity of five billion
francs. German troops were to occupy the conquered districts and
evacuate them progressively as the indemnity was paid. The peace
discussions afterwards continued at Brussels, and the final treaty was
signed at Frankfort on May 10, 1871.
No sooner were the preliminaries signed than Thiers returned post-haste
to Bordeaux, and obtained an almost immediate assent (March 1), so that
the Germans were obliged to forego a large part of their plans for a
triumphal entry into Paris and a review by the Emperor. Only one body of
thirty thousand men marched in through one section and, two days later,
evacuated the city.
The same meeting which ratified the preliminaries of peace officially
proclaimed the expulsion of the imperial dynasty and declared Napoleon
III responsible for the invasion, the ruin and dismemberment of France.
The same day also beheld the pathetic withdrawal of the representatives
of Alsace and of Lorraine, turned over to the conqueror.
The misfortunes of France were far from ended. Paris was soon to break
out into rebellion under the eyes of the Germans still in possession of
many of the suburbs. The enemy looked on and saw Frenchman killing
Frenchman in civil war.
It had become obvious that the division of administration between
Bordeaux and Paris was making government difficult. The Assembly, still
suspicious of Paris, decided to transfer its place of meeting to
Versailles. But Paris itself was in a state of nervous hysteria as a
result of the long and exhausting siege (_fievre obsidionale_). The
Paris proletariat were as jealous and suspicious of the Assembly as the
Assembly of them. The suggestion of a transfer to Versailles instead of
to Paris seemed a direct challenge. Versailles recalled too easily Louis
XIV and the Bourbons. The monarchical sympathies of the Assembly were,
moreover, well known, and the Parisians dreaded the restoration of
royalty. The people were hungry and penniless, and industry and commerce
had almost completely ceased. The city was full, besides, of soldiers
disarmed through the armistice and ready for riot. On the other hand,
the National Guards, a large body of semi-disciplined militia made up,
at least in part, of the dregs of the populace, had been allowed to
retain their weapons, and many of them gave their time to drunkenness,
loafing, and listening to agitators. Some rather injudicious
condemnations of leaders in the October riots merely aggravated the
dissatisfaction. All this led to the Commune.
The leaders of the Commune were, some of them, sincere though visionary
reformers, whose hearts rankled at the sufferings of the poor and the
inequalities of wealth and privilege. The majority were mischief-makers
and cafe orators, loquacious but incompetent or inexperienced, without
definite plans and unfit to be leaders, some vicious and some dishonest.
The rank and file soon became a lawless mob, ready to burn and murder,
imitating, in their ignorant cult of "liberty," the worst phases of the
French Revolution and its Reign of Terror. Still, the Communards have
their admirers to-day, and, as the world advances in radicalism, it is
not unlikely that the Jacobin Charles Delescluze, the bloodthirsty Raoul
Rigault, and the brilliant and scholarly Gustave Flourens will be
considered heroic precursors.
The idea of the Commune was decentralization. It was an experiment
aiming at a free and autonomous Paris serving as model for the other
self-governing communes of France, united merely for their common needs.
It amounted almost to the quasi-independence of each separate town. But
mixed up with the theorists of the Commune were countless anarchist
revolutionaries, followers of the teachings of Blanqui, as well as
admirers of the great Revolution which overthrew the old regime, and
socialists of various types.
The germs of the movement which was to culminate in the Commune were
visible at an early hour. The dissatisfaction of the Radicals with the
moderation of the Government of National Defence, the riots of October
31 and January 22 were all symptoms of the discontent of the
proletariat. Indeed, the proclamation of the Republic, on September 4,
was itself an object lesson in illegality to the malcontents. Organized
dissatisfaction began to centre about the obstreperous and disorderly,
but armed and now "federated" National Guards. Manifestoes signed by
self-appointed committees of plebeian patriots appeared on the walls of
Paris. These committees finally merged into the "Comite central," or
were replaced by it. This committee advocated the trial and imprisonment
of the members of the Government of National Defence, and protested
against the disarmament of the National Guards and the entrance of the
Germans into Paris.
The Government was almost helpless. The few regulars left under arms in
Paris were of doubtful reliance, and General d'Aurelle de Paladines, now
in command of the National Guards, was not obeyed. A certain number of
artillery guns in Paris had been paid for by popular subscription, and
the rumor spread at one time that these were to be turned over to the
Germans. The populace seized them and dragged them to different parts of
the city.
The Government decided at last to act boldly and, on March 18,
dispatched General Lecomte with some troops to seize the guns at
Montmartre. But the mob surrounded the soldiers, and these mutinied and
refused to obey orders to fire, and arrested their own commander. Later
in the day General Lecomte was shot with General Clement Thomas, a
former commander of the National Guard, who rather thoughtlessly and
out of curiosity had mingled with the crowd and was recognized.
Thus armed forces in Paris were in direct rebellion. Other outlying
quarters had also sprung into insurrection. M. Thiers, who had recently
arrived from Bordeaux, and the chief government officials quartered in
Paris, withdrew to Versailles. Paris had to be besieged again and
conquered by force of arms.
In Paris the first elections of the Commune were held on March 26. On
April 3 an armed sally of the Communards towards Versailles was repulsed
with the loss of some of their chief leaders, including Flourens.
Meanwhile, the Army of Versailles had been organized and put under the
command of Mac-Mahon. Discipline was restored and the advance on Paris
began.
As time passed in the besieged city the saner men were swept into the
background and reckless counsels prevailed. Some of the military leaders
were competent men, such as Cluseret, who had been a general in the
American army during the Civil War, or Rossel, a trained officer of
engineers. But many were foreign adventurers and soldiers of fortune:
Dombrowski, Wrobleski, La Cecilia. The civil administration grew into a
reproduction of the worst phases of the Reign of Terror. Frenzied women
egged on destruction and slaughter, and when at last the national troops
fought their way into the conquered city, it was amid the flaming ruins
of many of its proudest buildings and monuments.
The siege lasted two months. On May 21, the Army of Versailles crossed
the fortifications and there followed the "Seven Days' Battle," a
street-by-street advance marked by desperate resistance by the
Communards and bloodthirsty reprisals by the Versaillais. Civil war is
often the most cruel and the Versailles troops, made up in large part of
men recently defeated by the Germans, were glad to conquer somebody.
Over seventeen thousand were shot down by the victors in this last week.
The French to-day are horrified and ashamed at the cruel massacres of
both sides and try to forget the Commune. Suffice it here to say that
the last serious resistance was made in the cemetery of Pere-Lachaise,
where those _federes_ taken arms in hand were lined up against a wall
and shot. Countless others, men, women, and children, herded together in
bands, were tried summarily and either executed, imprisoned, or deported
thousands of miles away to New Caledonia, until, years after, in 1879
and 1880, the pacification of resentments brought amnesty to the
survivors.[4]
Fortunately, M. Thiers had more inspiring tasks to deal with than the
repression of the Commune. One was the liberation of French soil from
German occupation, another the reorganization of the army. With
wonderful speed and energy the enormous indemnity was raised and
progressively paid, the Germans simultaneously evacuating sections of
French territory. By March, 1873, France was in a position to agree to
pay the last portion of the war tribute the following September (after
the fall of Thiers, as it proved), thus ridding its soil of the last
German many months earlier than had been provided for by the Treaty of
Frankfort. The recovery of France aroused the admiration of the
civilized world, and the anger of Bismarck, sorry not to have bled the
country more. He viewed also with suspicion the organization of the army
and the law of July, 1872, establishing practically universal military
service. He affected to see in it France's desire for early revenge for
the loss of Alsace and Lorraine.
M. Thiers, the great leader, did not find his rule uncontested. Brought
into power as the indispensable man to guide the nation out of war, his
conceit was somewhat tickled and he wanted to remain necessary. Though
over seventy he had shown the energy and endurance of a man in his prime
joined to the wisdom and experience of a life spent in public service
and the study of history. Elected by an anti-Republican Assembly and
himself originally a Royalist, the formulator also of the Bordeaux
Compact, he began to feel, nevertheless, in all sincerity that a
conservative republic would be the best government, and his vanity made
him think himself its best leader. This conviction was intensified for
a while by his successful tactics in threatening to resign, when
thwarted, and thus bringing the Assembly to terms. But he tried the
scheme once too often.
The majority in the Assembly was not, in fact, anxious to give free rein
to Thiers, and it had wanted to avoid committing itself definitely to a
republic. It wanted also to insure its own continuation as long as
possible, contrary to the wishes of advanced Republicans like Gambetta,
who declared that the National Assembly no longer stood for the
expression of the popular will and should give way to a real constituent
assembly to organize a permanent republic.
The first endeavor of the Royalists was to bring about a restoration of
the monarchy. The princes of the Orleanist branch were readmitted to
France and restored to their privileges. A fusion between the two
branches of the house of Bourbon was absolutely necessary to accomplish
anything. The members of the younger or constitutionalist Orleans line,
and notably its leader, the comte de Paris, were disposed to yield to
the representative of the legitimist branch, the comte de Chambord. He
was an honorable and upright man, yet one who in statesmanship and
religion was unable to understand anything since the Revolution. He had
not been in France for over forty years, he was permeated with a
religious mystical belief not only in the divinity of royalty, but in
his own position as God-given (_Dieudonne_ was one of his names) and the
only saviour of France. Moreover, he could not forgive his cousins the
fact that their great-grandfather had voted for the execution of Louis
XVI. So he treated their advances haughtily, declined to receive the
comte de Paris, and issued a manifesto to the country proclaiming his
unwillingness to give up the white flag for the tricolor. Henry V could
not let anybody tear from his hand the white standard of Henry IV, of
Francis I, and of Jeanne d'Arc.
Such mediaevalism dealt the monarchical cause a crushing blow. The
Royalists had already begun to look askance at M. Thiers and hinted that
his readiness to go on with the Republic was a tacit violation of the
Bordeaux Compact. Under the circumstances, however, his sincerity need
not be doubted in believing a republic the only outcome, and his
ambition or vanity may be excused for wishing to continue its leader. By
the Rivet-Vitet measure of August 31, 1871, M. Thiers, hitherto "chief
of executive power," was called "President of the French Republic." He
was to exercise his functions so long as the Assembly had not completed
its work and was to be responsible to the Assembly. Thus the legislative
body elected for an emergency was taking upon itself constituent
authority and was tending to perpetuate the Republic which the majority
disliked.
From this time the tension grew greater between Thiers and the Assembly,
which begrudged him the credit for the negotiations still proceeding,
and already mentioned above, for the evacuation of France by the
Germans. It thwarted the wish of the Republicans to transfer the seat of
the executive and legislature to Paris. Thiers was, indeed, working away
from the Bordeaux Compact and was advocating a republic, though a
conservative one. This "treachery" the monarchists could not forgive,
though bye-elections were constantly increasing the Republican
membership. Thiers did not, on the other hand, welcome the advanced
republicanism of Gambetta declaring war on clericalism, and proclaiming
the advent of a new "social stratum" (_une couche sociale nouvelle_) for
the government of the nation.
By the middle of 1872, Thiers was the open advocate of "la Republique
conservatrice," and this gradual transformation of a transitional
republic into a permanent one was what the monarchists could not accept.
So they declared open war on M. Thiers. On November 29, 1872, a
committee of thirty was appointed at Thiers's instigation to regulate
the functions of public authority and the conditions of ministerial
responsibility. This was inevitably another step toward the affirmation
of a permanent republic by the clearer specification of governmental
attributes. The majority of the committee were hostile to M. Thiers and
were determined to overthrow him. The Left was also growing dissatisfied
with his opposition to a dissolution. He found it increasingly difficult
to ride two horses. The committee of thirty wished to prevent Thiers
from exercising pressure on the Assembly by intervention in debates and
threats to resign. In February and March, 1873, it proposed that the
President should notify the Assembly by message of his intention to
speak, and the ensuing discussion was not to take place in his presence.
M. Thiers protested in vain against this red tape (_chinoiseries_). The
effect was to drive him more and more from the Assembly, where his
personal influence might be felt.
The crisis became acute when Jules Grevy, President of the Assembly, a
partisan of Thiers, resigned his office after a disagreement on a
parliamentary matter. His successor, M. Buffet, at once rigorously
supported the hostile Right. In April an election in Paris brought into
opposition Charles de Remusat, Minister of Foreign Affairs and personal
friend of Thiers, and Barodet, candidate of the advanced and disaffected
Republicans. The governmental candidate was defeated. Encouraged by this
the duc de Broglie, leader of the Right, followed up the attack,
declaring the Government unable to withstand radicalism. In May he made
an interpellation on the governmental policy. Thiers invoked his right
of reply and, on May 24, gave a brilliant defence of his past actions,
formulating his plans for the future organization of the Republic. A
resolution was introduced by M. Ernoul, censuring the Government and
calling for a rigidly conservative policy. The government was put in the
minority by a close vote and M. Thiers forthwith resigned. The victors
at once chose as his successor the candidate of the Rights, the marechal
de Mac-Mahon, duc de Magenta, the defeated general of Sedan, a brave and
upright man, but a novice in politics and statecraft. He declared his
intention of pursuing a conservative policy and of re-establishing and
maintaining "l'ordre moral."
FOOTNOTES:
[4] The fierceness of hatreds engendered by the Commune may be
illustrated by the following untranslatable comment by Alexandre Dumas
fils on Gustave Courbet, a famous writer and a famous painter: "De quel
accouplement fabuleux d'une limace et d'un paon, de quelles antitheses
genesiaques, de quel suintement sebace peut avoir ete generee cette
chose qu'on appelle M. Gustave Courbet? Sous quelle cloche, a l'aide de
quel fumier, par suite de quelle mixture de vin, de biere, de mucus
corrosif et d'oedeme flatulent a pu pousser cette courge sonore et
poilue, ce ventre esthetique, incarnation du moi imbecile et
impuissant?" (Quoted in Fiaux's history of the Commune, pp. 582-83.)