THE FORMATION OF THE THIRD REPUBLIC.
The fall of the Commune took place in the last week of May, 1871.
We must go back to the surrender of Paris, in the last week of
January of the same year, and take up the history of France from
the election of the National Assembly called together at Bordeaux
to conclude terms of peace with the Prussians, to the election
of the first president of the Third Republic, during which time
France was under the dictatorship of M. Thiers.
Adolphe Thiers was born in Marseilles, April 16, 1797. He was a
poor little baby, whose father, an ex-Jacobin, had fled from France
to escape the counter-revolution. The doctor who superintended his
entrance into the world recorded that he was a healthy, active
child, with remarkably short legs. These legs remained short all
his life, but his body grew to be that of a tall, powerful man.
His appearance was by no means aristocratic or dignified if seen
from a distance, but his defects of person were redeemed by the
wondrous sparkle in his eyes. The family of his mother, on the
maternal side, was named Lhommaça, and was of Greek origin. It
came from the Levant, and its members spoke Greek among themselves.
Madame Thiers' father was named Arnic, and his descent was also
Levantine. Mademoiselle Arnic made a love-match in espousing Thiers,
a widower, who after the 9th Thermidor had taken refuge under her
father's roof. A writer who obtained materials for a sketch of
Thiers from the Thiers himself, says,--
"She pitied him, she was dazzled by his brilliant parts, charmed
by his plausible manners, and regardless of his poverty and his
incumbrance of many children, she insisted on marrying him. Her
family was indignant, and cast her off; nor did she long find comfort
in her husband. She was a Royalist, and remained so to the end
of her days; he was a Jacobin. Moreover, she soon found that his
tastes led him to drink and dissipation."
This man, the father of Thiers, was small of stature, mercurial
in temperament, of universal aptitudes, much wit, and a perennial
buoyancy of disposition. His weakness, like his son's, was a passion
for omniscience. Some one said of him: "He talks encyclopedia,
and if anybody asked him, would be at no loss to tell you what
was passing in the moon." He had been educated for the Bar, and
belonged to a family of the _haute bourgeoisie_ of Provence; but
everything was changed by the revolutionary see-saw, and shortly
before his son was born, he had been a stevedore in the docks of
Marseilles. His father (the statesman's grandfather) had been a cloth
merchant and a man of erudition. He wrote a History of Provence,
and died at the age of ninety-five. The Thiers who preceded him
lived to be ninety-seven, and was a noted gastronome, whose house
at Marseilles in the early part of the eighteenth century was known
far and wide for hospitality and good cheer. He was ruined by
speculative ventures in the American colonies.
Thiers' grandfather, the cloth merchant, was a Royalist, who brought
down upon himself the wrath of the Jacobins by inciting the more
moderate party in Marseilles to seize the commissioners sent to
them by the Convention, and imprison them in the Château d'If. His
son (Thiers' father), being himself a Jacobin, helped to release
the prisoners, and accepted an office under them in Marseilles. This
was the reason why he had to conceal himself during the reaction
that followed the fall of Robespierre. But all his life he bobbed
like a cork to the surface of events, or with equal facility sank
beneath them. He seems to have been "everything by turns, and nothing
long." Among other employments he became an _impressario_, and
went with an opera _troupe_ to Italy. There for a time he kept a
gaming table, and finally turned up at Joseph Bonaparte's court
at Naples. He became popular with King Joseph, and followed him to
Madrid. He was a French Micawber, without the domestic affections
of his English counterpart, but with far more brilliant chances.
His wife was left to struggle at Marseilles with her own boy to
support, and with a host of step-children. What she would have
done but for the kindness of her mother, Madame Arnic, it is hard
to tell.
Meantime Adolphe was adopted and educated by Madame Arnic. She
had provided him from his birth with influential patrons in the
persons of two well-to-do godfathers. The boy was brought up in
one of those beautiful _bastides_, or sea-and-country villas, which
adorn the shores of Provence. There he ran wild with the little
peasant boys, and subsequently in Marseilles with the _gamins_
of the city.
His cousin, the poet André Chénier, got him an appointment to one
of the _lycées_, or high-schools, established by Napoleon; but his
grandmother would not hear of his "wearing Bonaparte's livery."
The two god-fathers had to threaten to apply to the absent Micawber
on the subject, if the boy's mother and grandmother stood in the way
of his education. They yielded at last, and accepted the appointment
offered them. Adolphe passed with high marks into the institution,
and it cost him no trouble to keep always at the head of his classes.
But in play hours there was never a more troublesome boy. He so
perplexed and annoyed his superiors that they were on the eve of
expelling him, when a new master came to the _lycée_ from Paris, and
all was changed. This master had ruined his prospects by writing a
pamphlet against the Empire. A warm friendship sprang up between him
and his brilliant pupil. The good man was an unbending republican.
When Thiers became Prime Minister of France under Louis Philippe,
he wrote to his old master and offered him an important post in
the Bureau of Public Instruction; but the old man refused it. He
would not accept Louis Philippe as "the best of republics," and
ended his letter by saying: "The best thing I can wish you is that
you may soon retire from office, and that for a long time."
The influence of this new teacher roused all Thiers' faculties
and stimulated his industry. From that time forward he became the
most industrious man of his age. The bulletins and the victories
of Napoleon excited his imagination. He would take a bulletin for
his theme, and write up an account of a battle, supplementing his
few facts by his own vivid imagination. His idea was that France
must be the strongest of European powers, or she would prove the
weakest; she could not hold a middle place in the federation of
European nations.
When Thiers had finished his school course his grandmother mortgaged
her house to supply funds for his entrance into the college at
Aix. He could not enter the army on account of his size, and he
aspired to the Bar. His family was very poor at that period. Thiers
largely supported himself by painting miniatures, which it is said
he did remarkably well.
At Aix he found good literary society and congenial associations.
His friendship with his fellow-historian, Mignet, began in their
college days. At Aix, too, where he was given full liberty to enjoy
the Marquis d'Alberta's gallery of art and wonderful collection
of curiosities and bronzes, he acquired his life-long taste for
such things. Aix was indeed a place full of collections,--of
antiquities, of cameos, of marbles, etc.
Thiers' first literary success was the winning a prize at Nîmes for
a monograph on Vauvenargues, a moralist of the eighteenth century,
called by Voltaire the master-mind of his period. He won this prize
under remarkable circumstances. The commission to award it was
composed, largely of Royalists, who did not like to assign it to a
competitor, who, if not a Republican, was at least a Bonapartist.
Thiers had read passages from his essay to friends, and the
commissioners were aware of its authorship. They therefore postponed
their decision. Meantime Thiers wrote another essay on the same
subject. Mignet had it copied, and forwarded to Nîmes from Paris,
with a new motto. This essay won the first prize; and Thiers' other
essay won the second prize, greatly to his amusement and delight,
and to the annoyance and discomfiture of the Committee of Decision.
With six hundred francs in his pocket ($120), he went up to Paris,
making the journey on foot. Having arrived there, he made his way
to his friend Mignet's garret, weary and footsore, carrying his
bundle in his hand. Mignet was not at home; but in the opposite
chamber, which Thiers entered to make inquiries for his friend, was
a gay circle of Bohemians, who were enjoying a revel. The traveller
who broke in upon their mirth is thus described:--
"He wore a coat that had been green, and was faded to yellow, tight
buff trousers too short to cover his ankles, and dusty, and glossy
from long use, a pair of clumsy blucher boots, and a hat worthy
of a place in the cabinet of an antiquary. His face was tanned
a deep brown, and a pair of brass-rimmed spectacles covered half
his face."
That was about 1821. Thiers was then not a profound politician, nor
was he very clear as to theories about republicanism; but he was
an enthusiast for Napoleon, an enthusiast for France. He employed
his leisure in making notes in the public libraries on the events
between 1788 and 1799,--the year of the 18th Brumaire. His future
History of the Revolution, Consulate, and Empire began, unconsciously
to himself, to grow under his hand. He had hoped to be called to the
Bar in Paris; but as his want of height had prevented his entering
the army, so his want of money prevented his entrance to the ranks
of the lawyers of the capital. The council which recommends such
admissions required at that period that the person seeking admittance
should show himself possessed of a well-furnished domicile and a
sufficient income. Thiers' resources fell far short of this. For
a while he supported himself in Paris as best he could, partly by
painting fans; he then returned to Aix, where he was admitted to
the Bar. But he could not stay long away from Paris. He returned,
and again struggled with poverty, painting and making applications
for literary and newspaper work in all directions. At last, about
the time of Louis XVIII.'s death, Manuel, the semi-republican deputy
from Marseilles, took him up. He was then engaged upon his History,
and was private secretary to the Duc de Liancourt, to whose notice
he had been brought by Talleyrand in a letter which said: "Two
young men have lately brought me strong recommendations. One is
gentlemanly and appears to have the qualifications you desire in
a secretary; the other is uncouth to a degree, but I think I can
discern in him sparks of the fire of genius." The duke's reply
was brief: "Send me the second one."
In 1826 Thiers began to attract public notice as a clever and somewhat
turbulent opponent of the priest party under Charles X. He got his
first journalistic employment from the editor of a leading paper
in Paris, the "Constitutionnel." He had a letter of introduction to
the editor, who, nowise impressed by his appearance, and wishing
to get rid of him, politely said he had no work vacant on the paper
except that of criticising the pictures in the Salon, which he
presumed M. Thiers' could not undertake. On the contrary, Thiers
felt sure he could do the work, which the editor, confident of his
failure, allowed him to try. The result was a review that startled
all Paris, and Thiers was at once engaged on the "Constitutionnel" as
literary, dramatic, and artistic critic. He proved to have a perfect
genius for journalism, and all his life he considered newspaper
work his profession. Before long he aspired to take part in the
management of his paper, and to that end saved and scraped together
every cent in his power, assisted by a German bookseller named
Schubert, the original of Schmuke, in Balzac's "Cousin Pons." The
"Constitutionnel" grew more and more popular and more and more
powerful; but still Thiers' means were very small, and he was bent
on saving all he could to establish a new newspaper, the "National."
He was engaged to be married to a young lady at Aix, whose father
thought he was neglecting her, and came up to Paris to see about
it. Thiers pleaded for delay. He had not money enough, he said,
to set up housekeeping. A second time the impatient father came
to Paris on the same errand, and on receiving the same answer,
assaulted Thiers publicly and challenged him. The duel took place.
Thiers fired in the air, and his adversary's ball passed between
his little legs. Nobody was hurt, but the match was broken off,
and the young lady died of the disappointment. Thiers kept every
memorial he had of her sacredly to the day of his death, and in
the time of his power sought out and provided for the members of
her family.
Perhaps the most remarkable thing about M. Thiers was the unusual
care he took to prepare himself fully before writing or speaking.
He had every subject clearly and fully in his own mind before he put
pen to paper, and when he began to write, he did so with extraordinary
rapidity; nor would he write any account of anything, either in
a newspaper or in his history, till he had visited localities,
conversed with eye-witnesses, and picked up floating legends.
By an accident he became acquainted before other Parisian journalists
with the signing of the Ordinances by Charles X., July 26, 1830.
He had also good reason to think that Louis Philippe, if offered
the crown of France or the lieutenant-generalship of the kingdom,
would accept it. While fighting was going on in Paris, he and Ary
Scheffer, the artist, were the two persons deputed to go to Neuilly
and sound the Duke of Orleans. As we have seen, Marie Amélie, the
duke's wife, indignantly refused their overtures in the absence of
her husband, while Madame Adélaïde, his sister, encouraged them.
Thiers, Laffitte, and Lafayette became the foremost men in Paris
at this crisis, and at the end of some days Louis Philippe became
king of the French. He wanted to make Thiers one of his ministers,
but Thiers characteristically declined so high an office until
he should have served an apprenticeship to ministerial work in
an under secretary-ship, and knew the machinery and the working
of all departments of government.
Thus far I have not spoken of Thiers' "History of the Revolution."
It appeared first in monthly parts. Up to the publication of the
first number, in 1823, no writer in France had dared to speak well
of any actor in the Revolution. Thiers' History, as it became known,
created a great sensation. Thiers himself was supposed by the general
public (both of his own country and of foreign nations) to be a
wild revolutionist. At first the critics knew not how to speak of a
book that admired the States-General and defended the Constitutional
Convention; but by the time the third volume was completed, in 1827,
it was bought up eagerly. The work was published afterwards in
ten volumes, and the "History of the Consulate and Empire," which
appeared between 1845 and 1861, is in twenty volumes; but it is
only fair to say that the print is very large and the illustrations
are very numerous, and that the portraits especially are beyond
all praise.
From 1831 to 1836, Thiers was one of Louis Philippe's ministers,
and from 1836 to 1840 he was Prime Minister, or President of the
Council.
As soon as Thiers rose to power his mercurial father made his appearance
in Paris. Thiers was disposed to receive him very coldly. "What have
you ever done for me that you have any claim on me?" he asked. "My
son," replied the prodigal parent, "if I had been an ordinary father
and had stayed by my family and brought up a houseful of children in
obscurity, do you suppose you would have been where you are now?"
At this Thiers laughed, and gave his father a post-mastership in
a small town in the South of France called Carpentras. There the
old gentleman lived, disreputable and extravagant to the last,
surrounded by a large family of dogs.
Thiers provided at the earliest possible moment for his mother
and grandmother, buying for the latter a pretty little property
which she had always coveted, near Aix, and taking his mother to
preside over his own home. But Madame Thiers felt out of place in
her son's life, and preferred to return to the property given to
Madame Arnic, where she spent the rest of her days with the old
lady. Lamartine tells a pretty anecdote of Thiers' relations with
his mother. The poet and the statesman had been dining together at a
friend's house, in 1830, when Thiers was already a cabinet officer.
On leaving together after dinner, they found in the ante-room an
elderly woman plainly and roughly dressed. She was asking for M.
Thiers, who, as soon as he saw her, ran to her, clasped her in
his arms, kissed her, and then, leading her by both hands up to
the poet, cried joyously: "Lamartine, this is my mother!"
In 1834 Thiers married a beautiful young girl fresh from her _pension_,
Mademoiselle Dosne, who was co-heiress with her mother and her
father to a great fortune. Unhappily Thiers had fallen first in
love with the mother; but he accepted the daughter instead. The
early married life of Madame Thiers was saddened by her knowledge
of this state of things. She was devoted to the interests of her
husband, and watched over him as a mother might have watched over a
child. She was an accomplished woman and most careful housekeeper,
and had received an excellent education. She knew many languages,
and turned all English or German documents required by her husband
into French. She was also a charming hostess, but she lived under
the shadow of a great sorrow.
When Thiers was to be married, he paid his father twelve thousand
francs (about $2,500) for the legal parental consent which is necessary
in a French marriage; but he was by no means anxious to have his
irrepressible parent at his wedding. For three weeks before the
event he hired all the places in all the stage-coaches running
through Carpentras to Lyons.
In 1840 M. Thiers went out of office, in consequence of a dispute
with England about the Eastern Question. The only charge that his
enemies ever brought against him affecting his honor as a politician
was that of employing the Jew Deutz to act the part of Judas towards
the Duchesse de Berri; but for that he could plead that it solved
a difficulty, and probably saved many lives.
During the Second Empire he kept much in retirement. At first he
had thought that Prince Louis Napoleon, seeing in him the historian
and panegyrist of the Great Emperor, would call him to his councils.
But he was quite mistaken. He could not--nor _would_ he--have served
Louis Napoleon's turn as did such men as Persigny, Saint-Arnaud,
De Maupas, and De Morny. When the _coup d'état_ came, Thiers was
imprisoned with the other deputies, the only favor allowed him
being a bed, while the other deputies had no couch but the floor.
In 1869 there was a general election in France, which was carefully
manipulated by the Government, in order that, if possible, no deputy
might be sent to the Chamber who would provoke discussion on the
changes in the Constitution submitted by the emperor. Thiers thought
it time for him to re-enter public life and to speak out to his
countrymen. At this time one of the gentlemen attached to the English
embassy in Paris had a conversation with him. "For a man," he says,
"of talents, learning, and experience, I never met one who impressed
me as having so great an idea of his own self-importance;" but
the visitor was at the same time impressed by his frankness and
sincerity. Speaking of the Emperor Napoleon III., and foreseeing
his downfall, he said: "What will succeed him, I know not. God
grant it may not be the ruin of France!... For a long time I kept
quiet. It was no use breaking one's head against the wall; but
now we have revolution staring us in the face as an alternative
with the Empire; and do you think I should be doing well or rightly
by my fellow-citizens, were I to keep in the background? If I am
wanted, I shall not fail." As he spoke, the fire in his eyes sparkled
right through the glass of his spectacles, and all the time he
talked, he was walking rapidly up and down. When greatly animated,
he seemed even to grow taller and taller, so that on some great
occasion a lady said of him to Charles Greville: "Did you know,
Thiers is handsome! and is six feet high!"
When the fall of the Empire occurred, in September, 1870, M. Thiers
was in Paris; but when the Committee of Defence was formed, he
quitted the capital, before the arrival of the Prussians, to go
from court to court,--to London, St. Petersburg, Vienna,--to implore
the intervention of diplomacy, and to prove how essential to the
balance of power in Europe was the preservation of France. His
feeling was that France ought promptly to have made peace after
Sedan, that her cause then was hopeless for the moment, and that by
making the best terms she could, and by husbanding her resources,
she might rise in her might at a future day. These views were not
in the least shared by Gambetta, who believed--as, indeed, most
Frenchmen and most foreigners believed in 1870--that a general
uprising in France would be sufficient to crush the Prussians.
Thiers knew better; his policy was to save France for herself and
from herself at the same time.
[Illustration: _LÉON GAMBETTA._]
We already know the story. Gambetta escaped from Paris in a balloon,
and joined Crémieux and Garnier-Pagès, the other two members of
the Committee of Defence who were outside of Paris. At Tours they
had set up a sort of government, and there, in virtue of being
the War Minister of the Committee of Defence, Gambetta proceeded
to take all power into his own hands, and to become dictator of
masterless France. It was like a shipwreck in which, captain and
officers being disabled, the command falls to the most able seaman.
Gambetta had no legal right to govern France, but he governed it
by right divine, as the only man who could govern it.
This is how a newspaper writer speaks--and justly--of Gambetta's
government:--
"From the moment when he dropped, tired out with his journey by
balloon, into his chair in the archiepiscopal palace at Tours,
and announced that he was invested with full powers to defend the
country, no one throughout France seriously disputed his authority.
His colleagues became his clerks. The treasury was empty, but he
re-filled it. The arsenal was half empty, but in six weeks one
great army, and almost two, were supplied with artillery, horses,
gunners, and breech-loaders. The Lyons Reds had been told that
they were wicked fools, and Communists and Anarchists ripe for
revolt in Toulouse, Lyons, and Marseilles had been put down. The
respectables everywhere rose at his summons, anarchy and military
disobedience quailed."
The fortunes of war forced Gambetta and his Government from the
banks of the Loire to Bordeaux. There, at the close of January,
1871, Jules Favre arrived from the Central Committee in Paris to
announce, with shame and grief, that resistance was over: Paris
had capitulated to the Prussians; and it only remained to elect a
General Assembly which should create a regular government empowered
to make peace with the enemy.
For a few hours that night the fate of France hung trembling in
the scales. Thiers was in Bordeaux. He was known to think that
France could only save what was left by accepting the armistice.
Gambetta was known to be for _No Surrender!_ Which should prevail?
Would the dictator lay aside his power without a struggle?
Gambetta rose to the occasion during the night; but here the histories
of Thiers and Gambetta run together; therefore, before I tell of what
happened the next day, let me say a few words about the personal
history of Léon Gambetta. He was only thirty-three years old at
this time, having been born in 1838, when Thiers was forty-one
years of age.
Gambetta's birthplace was Cahors, that city in the South of France
stigmatized by Dante as the abode of usurers and scoundrels. His
family was Italian and came from Genoa, but he was born a Frenchman,
though his Italian origin, temperament, and complexion were constantly
cast up against him. In his infancy he had been intended for the
priesthood, and was sent, when seven years old, to some place where
he was to be educated and trained for it. He soon wrote to his
father that he was so miserable that if he were not taken away
he would put out one of his eyes, which would disqualify him for
the priestly calling. His father took no notice of the childish
threat, and Gambetta actually plucked out one of his own eyes.
In 1868 he was a young lawyer in Paris; but his eloquence and ability
were known only at the Café Procope to a circle of admiring
fellow-Bohemians. On All Saints Day, 1868, the Press, presuming
on the recent relaxation of personal government by the emperor,
applauded the crowds who went to cover with funeral wreaths the grave
of Baudin at Père la Chaise. Baudin had been the first man killed on
Dec. 2, 1851, when offering resistance to the _coup d'état._ The
Press was prosecuted for its utterances on this occasion. Gambetta
defended one of the journals. Being an advocate, he could say what
he pleased without danger of prosecution, and all Paris rang with
the bitterness of his attack upon the Empire. From that moment he
was a power in France. In person he was dark, short, stout, and
somewhat vulgar, nor was there any social polish in his manners.
Not long after his great speech in defence of the Press, in the matter
of Baudin, Gambetta was elected to the Chamber by the working-men
of Belleville, and at the same time by Marseilles. He entered the
Chamber as one wholly irreconcilable with the Empire or the emperor.
His eloquence was heart-stirring, and commanded attention even
from his adversaries.
When, on Sept. 4, 1870, the downfall of the Empire was proclaimed,
Gambetta was made a member of the Council of Defence, and became
Minister of the Interior. He remained in Paris until after the
siege had begun; but he burned to be where he could _act_, and
obtained the consent of his colleagues to go forth by balloon and
try to stir up a warlike spirit in the Provinces. He was made Minister
of War in addition to being Minister of the Interior. From Nov.
1, 1870, to Jan. 30, 1871, his efforts were almost superhuman;
and but for Bazaine's surrender at Metz, they might have been
successful.
Gambetta raised two armies,--one under General Aurelles des Paladines
and General Chanzy; the other under Bourbaki and Garibaldi. The
first was the Army of the Loire, the second of the Jura.
When the plan of co-operation with Bazaine's one hundred and
seventy-five thousand well-trained troops had failed, and the Army of
the Loire had been repulsed at Orleans, Gambetta with his Provisional
Government moved to Bordeaux. Thither came Thiers, returned from
his roving embassy,--a mission of peace whose purpose had been
defeated by the warlike movements of Gambetta's armies.
Gambetta in the early days of his dictatorship wrote to Jules Favre:
"France must not entertain one thought of peace." He sincerely believed
any effort at negotiation with the Prussians an acknowledgment of
weakness, and he fondly fancied that a little more time and experience
would turn his raw recruits into armies capable of driving back the
Prussians, when the experienced generals and soldiers of France
had failed.
And now we have reached that terrible hour when news was received
at Bordeaux that all Gambetta's efforts had been useless; that
Paris had consented to an armistice; that an Assembly was to be
elected, a National Government to be formed; and that to resist
these things or to persist longer in fighting the Prussians would
be to provoke civil war.
No wonder that Gambetta and Thiers, both devoted Frenchmen, both
leaders of parties with opposing views,--the one resolved on No
surrender, the other urging Peace on the best terms now
procurable,--passed a terrible night after Jules Favre's arrival
at Bordeaux, Gambetta debating what was his duty as the idol of
his followers and as provisional dictator, Thiers dreading lest
civil war might be kindled by the decision of his rival.
Hardly less anxious were the days while a general election was
going on. Bordeaux remained feverish and excited till February
13, when deputies from all parts of France met to decide their
country's fate in the Bordeaux theatre. Notabilities from foreign
countries were also there, to see what would be done at that supreme
moment.
Seven hundred and fifty deputies had been sent to the Assembly, and
it was clear from the beginning that that body was not Republican. But
the Anti-Republicans were divided into three parties,--Imperialists,
Legitimists, and Orleanists, each of which preferred an orderly and
moderate republic to the triumph of either of the other two. Moreover,
that was not the time for deliberations concerning a permanent
form of government. The deputies were met to make a temporary or
provisional government, qualified to accept or to refuse the hard
terms of peace offered by the Prussians. The two leaders of the
Assembly were Thiers and Gambetta,--the one in favor of peace,
the other of prolonging the war. We can see now how much wiser
were the views of the elder statesman than those of the younger;
but we see also what a bitter pang Gambetta's patriotic spirit
must have suffered by the downfall of his dictatorship.
The Assembly had been three days in session, clamorous, riotous,
and full of words, when in the middle of the afternoon of Feb. 16,
1871, two delegates from Alsace and Lorraine appeared, supported by
Gambetta. The Speaker--that is, the president of the Assembly--was
M. Jules Grévy, who had held the same office in 1848; he found it
hard to restrain the excitement of the deputies. The delegates
came to implore France not to deliver them over to the Germans;
to remember that of all Frenchmen the Alsatians had been the most
French in the days of the Revolution, and that in all the wars
of France for more than a century they had suffered most of all
her children. No wonder the hearts of all in the Assembly were
stirred.
"At this moment there appeared in the midde aisle of the theatre
a small man, with wrinkled face and stubbly white hair. He seemed
to have got there by magic, for no one had seen him spring into
that place. He looked around him for an instant, much as a sailor
glances over the sky in a storm, then, stretching out his short
right arm, he made a curious downstroke which conveyed an impression
of intense vitality and will. Profound silence was established
in a moment. The elderly man then made another gesture, throwing
his arm up, as if to say: 'Good! Now you will listen.' He then,
in a thin, piping, but distinctly audible voice, began a sharp
practical address. Everyone listened with the utmost attention;
none dared to interrupt him. He spoke for five minutes, nervously
pounding the air from time to time, and sometimes howling his words
at the listeners in a manner that made them cringe. He counselled
moderation, accord, decency, but above all, instant action. 'The
settlement of the Alsace-Lorraine question,' said he, 'will virtually
decide whether we have peace or continued war with Prussia.' Then,
with an imperious gesture of command, he turned away. 'Come,' he
said, 'let us to our committee-rooms, and let us say what we think.'"
Two hours later, the committee appointed to recommend a chief of
the executive power announced that its choice had fallen on this
orator, M. Thiers. At once he was proclaimed head of the French
Republic, but not before he had hurried out of the theatre. Then
the session closed, and a quarter of an hour after, Lord Lyons,
the English ambassador, had waited on M. Thiers to inform him that
Her Majesty's Government recognized the French Republic.
From that moment, for more than two years, M. Thiers was the supreme
ruler of France. His work was visible in every department of
administration. Ministers, while his power lasted, simply obeyed
his commands.
There were some amusing, gossipy stories told in Bordeaux of Thiers'
entrance into possession of Gambetta's bachelor quarters at the
Prefecture. "Pah! what a smell of tobacco!" he is said to have
cried, as he strutted into his deposed rival's study. All his family
joined him in bewailing the condition of the house; and until it
could be cleansed and purified they were glad to accept an invitation
to take refuge in the archbishop's palace. In a few days all was
put to rights, and a guard of honor was set to keep off intruders
on the chief's privacy. On the first day of this arrangement, M.
Thiers addressed some question to the sentinel. The man was for a
moment embarrassed how to answer him. M. Thiers was for the time
the chief executive officer of the Republic, but he was not formally
its president. The soldier's answer, "Oui, mon Exécutif," caused
much amusement.
At this time there was no suspicion in men's minds that it was the
intention of M. Thiers to form a permanent republic. The feeling of
the country was Royalist. The difficulty was what royalty? It seemed
to all men, and very probably to Thiers himself, that that question
would be answered in favor of Henri V., the Comte de Chambord.
Gambetta, resigning his power without a word, retired to San Sebastian,
just over the Spanish frontier. There he lived in two small rooms
over a crockery-shop. "He is jaded for want of sleep," writes a
friend, "and distressed by money matters." Much of his time he
spent in fishing, no doubt meditating deeply on things present,
past, and future.
No pains were spared to induce him to give in his adhesion to one
of the candidates for royalty. His best friend wrote thus to him:--
"Those wretches the Communists have destroyed all my illusions,
but perhaps I could have forgiven them but for their ingratitude
to you. See how their newspapers have reviled you! A time may come
when a republic may be possible in France; but that day is not
with us yet. Let us acknowledge that we have both made a mistake.
As for you, with your unrivalled genius you have now a patriotic
career open before you, if you will cast in your lot with the men
who are now going to try and quell anarchy."[1]
[Footnote 1: Clément Laurier, Cornhill Magazine, 1883.]
Besides this, offers were made him of the prime minister-ship, a
dukedom, a Grand Cordon, and other preferment; but Gambetta only
laughed at these proposals. He was a man who had many faults, but
he was always honest and true. Both he and M. Thiers were devoted
Frenchmen, patriots in the truest sense of the word, and each took
opposite views. That Thiers was right has been proved by time.
On March 16 the Government of the Provisional Republic removed from
Bordeaux to Versailles. Nobody dreamed of the pending outbreak of
the Commune; all the talk was of fusion between the elder Bourbon
branch and the House of Orleans.
Thiers was decidedly opposed to taking the seat of government to
Paris, nor did he wish a new election for an Assembly; he preferred
Fontainebleau for the seat of government, but fortunately (looking
at the matter in the light of events) Versailles was chosen.
Then, to the great indignation of Madame Thiers, the Royalists at
once took measures to prevent M. Thiers from installing himself
in Louis XIV.'s great bedchamber. "The Château," they said, "was
to become the abode of the National Legislature, the state rooms
must be devoted to the use of members, and the private apartments
should be occupied by M. Grévy, the president of the Assembly."
"M. Thiers would no doubt have liked very much to sleep in Louis
XIV's bed, and to have for his study that fine room with the balcony
from which the heralds used to announce in the same breath the death
of one king and the accession of another. His secretary could not
help saying that it seemed fit that the greatest of French national
historians should be lodged in the apartments of the greatest of
French kings; but as this idea did not make its way, M. and Madame
Thiers yielded the point, saying that the chimneys smoked, and
that the rooms were too large to be comfortable."
On seeing a caricature in which some artist had represented him
as a ridiculous pigmy crowned with a cotton night-cap and lying
in an enormous bed, surrounded by the majestic ghosts of kings,
Thiers was at first half angry; then he said: "Louis XIV. was not
taller than I, and as to his other greatness, I doubt whether he ever
would have had a chance of sleeping in the best bed of Versailles
if he had begun life as I did."[1]
[Footnote 1: Temple Bar.]
So M. Thiers went to reside where the Emperor William had had his
quarters, at the Prefecture of Versailles, and soon the palace
was filled with refugees from Paris. Many of the state apartments
were turned into hospital wards. Louis XIV.'s bedchamber was given
up to the finance committee.
The thing to be done, with speed and energy, as all men felt, was
to re-besiege Paris and put down the Commune. All parties united
in this work; but the conservatives confidently believed that when
this was done, Thiers and the moderate Republicans would join them
in giving France a stable government under the Comte de Chambord.
On Sept. 19, 1821, when that young prince was a year old, a public
subscription throughout France had presented him with the beautiful
old Château de Chambord, built on the Loire by Francis I., and
from which he adopted his title when in exile.
After the young prince had been removed from his mother's influence,
he was carefully brought up in the most Bourbon of Bourbon traditions.
When he became a man he travelled extensively in Europe. In 1841
he broke his leg by falling from his horse, and was slightly lame
for the rest of his life. In 1846 he married Marie Thérèse Beatrix
of Modena, who was even more strictly Bourbon than himself. He and
his wife retired to Fröhsdorf, a beautiful country seat not very
far from Vienna. There they were constantly visited by travelling
Frenchmen of all parties, and on no one did the prince fail to
make a favorable impression. He was good, upright, cultivated,
kindly, but inflexibly wedded to the traditions of his family. He
loved France with his whole soul, and was glad of anything that
brought her good and glory. But France was _his_,--his by divine
right; and this right France must acknowledge. After that, there
was not anything he would not do for her.
[Illustration: _COMPTE DE CHAMBORD._]
But France was not willing to efface all her history from 1792 to
1871, with the exception of the episode of the Restoration, when
school histories were circulated mentioning Marengo, Austerlitz,
etc., as victories gained under the king's lieutenant-general, M.
de Bonaparte.
During the Empire, under Napoleon III., the Comte de Chambord had
remained nearly passive at Fröhsdorf. His life was passed in meditation,
devotion, the cultivation of literary tastes, and a keen interest in
all the events that were passing in his native country. During the
Franco-Prussian war he sent words of encouragement to his suffering
countrymen, and nobly refrained from embarrassing the affairs of
France by any personal intrigues; but when the war and the Commune
were over, and his chances of the throne grew bright, he issued a
proclamation which has been called "an act of political suicide."
On May 8, three weeks before the downfall of the Commune, he put
forth his first manifesto. Here is what an English paper said of it
a few days before his next--the suicidal--proclamation appeared:--
"The Comte de Chambord does not, of course, surrender his own theory
of his own place on earth, but he does offer some grave pledges
intended to diminish suspicion as to the deduction he draws from
his claim to be king by right divine. He renounces formally and
distinctly any intention of exercising absolute power, and pledges
himself, as he says, 'to submit all acts of his government to the
careful control of representatives freely elected.' He declares
that if restored he will not interfere with equality, or attempt to
establish privileges. He promises complete amnesty, and employment
under his government to men of all parties; and finally he pledges
himself to secure effectual guarantees for the Pope [then trembling
on his temporal throne in Italy]."
The English journalist continues,--
"The tone of this whole paper is that of a man who believes that
a movement will be made in his favor which may succeed, if only
the factions most likely to resist can be temporarily conciliated.
There is no especial reason that we can see that he should not be
chosen. He has neither sympathized with the Germans, nor received
support from them. He has not bombarded Paris. He is not more hated
than any other king would be,--perhaps less; for Paris has no gossip
to tell of his career. Indeed, there are powerful reasons in favor
of the choice. His restoration, since the Comte de Paris is his
heir, would eliminate two of the dynastic parties which distract
France, and would relink the broken chain of history. And to a
people so weary, so dispirited, so thirsty for repose, that of itself
must have a certain charm."
But all these advantages he destroyed for himself by a new proclamation
issued five weeks later. In it he said,--
"I can neither forget that the monarchical right is the patrimony
of the nation, nor decline the duties which it imposes on me. I
will fulfil these duties, believe me, on my word as an honest man
and as a king."
So far was good; but proceeding to announce that thenceforward
he assumed the title of Henri V., he goes on to apostrophize the
"White Flag" of the Bourbons. He says,--
"I received it as a sacred trust from the old king my grandfather
when he was dying in exile. It has always been for me inseparable
from the remembrance of my absent country. It waved above my cradle,
and I wish to have it shade my tomb. Henri V. cannot abandon the
'White Flag' of Henri IV."
This manifesto, written without consulting those who were working
for his cause in France, settled the question of his eligibility.
France was not willing, for the sake of Henri V., to give up her
tricolor,--the flag of so many memories. Its loss had been the
bitterest humiliation that the nation had had to suffer at the
Restoration.
The Comte de Chambord's own friends were cruelly disappointed;
the moderate Republicans, who had been ready to accept him as a
constitutional monarch, said at once that he was far too Bourbon.
There was no longer any hope, unless he could be persuaded, on
some other convenient occasion, to renounce the "White Flag."
This matter being settled by the Comte de Chambord himself, all
M. Thiers' attention was turned to two things,--the disposal of
the Communist prisoners, and the payment of the indemnity demanded
by the Germans, the five milliards.
We are glad to know that Thiers disapproved of the revengeful feeling
that pervaded politicians and society, regarding the Communist
prisoners. He tried to save General Rossel, and failed. Rochefort
and others he protected. He wished for a general amnesty, excluding
only the murderers of Thomas, Lecomte, and the hostages. He said, when
some one was speaking to him of the sufferings of those Communists
(or supposed Communists) who were confined at Satory and in the
Orangerie at Versailles: "It was dreadful, but it could not be
avoided. We had twenty thousand prisoners, and not more than four
hundred police to keep guard over them. We had to depend on the
rough methods of an exasperated soldiery."
As to the indemnity, the promptness with which it was paid was
marvellous. The great bankers all over Europe, especially those of
Jewish connection, came forward and advanced the money. In eighteen
months the five milliards of francs were in the coffers of the
Emperor William, and the last Prussian soldier had quitted the
soil of France. The loan raised by the Government for the repayment
of the sums advanced for the indemnity was taken up with enthusiasm
by all classes of the French people.
The horrible year of 1871 was followed by one of perfect peace and
great prosperity. The title of President of the French Republic
was conferred on M. Thiers for seven years. "The nation seemed
re-flowering, like a large plantation in a spring which follows
a hard winter." Trade revived. The traces of war and civil strife
were effaced with amazing promptness from the streets of Paris. The
army and all public services were reorganized, and to crown these
blessings, the land yielded such a harvest as had not been seen
for half a century. M. Thiers was never much addicted to religious
emotion; but when, on a Sunday in July, 1872, the news came to him
by telegram of the glorious ingathering of the harvest in the South
of France, he was quite overcome. "Let us thank God," he cried,
clasping his hands. "He has heard us; our mourning is ended!"
M. Thiers was by that time living in Paris in the Élysée. He had
continued to reside at the Prefecture of Versailles while the Assembly
was in session, but he came to the Élysée during its recess, and
kept a certain state there. Yet he never would submit himself to
the restraints of etiquette. One who knew him well says:--
"He was _bourgeois_ to the finger-tips. His character was a curious
effervescing mixture of talent, learning, vanity, childish petulance,
inquisitiveness, sagacity, ecstatic patriotism, and ambition. He
was a splendid orator, with the voice of an old coster-woman; a
_savant_ with the presumption of a school-boy; a kind-hearted man,
with the irritability of a monkey; a masterly administrator, with
that irresistible tendency to intermeddle with everything which
is intolerable to subordinates. He had a sincere love of liberty,
with the instincts of a despot."
M. Thiers had during his long life been a collector of pictures,
bronzes, books, manuscripts, and curious relics. His house in the
Place Saint-Georges was a museum of these treasures, but a museum
so arranged that it contributed to sociability and the enjoyment
of his visitors. He had acquired this taste for collecting in his
early days at Aix. During the Commune his house was razed to the
ground, not one stone being left upon another.
When the Commune put forth its decree for this act of vandalism,
Thiers' consternation was pathetic. The ladies of his family did
everything that feminine energy and ingenuity could suggest to
avert the calamity. But when the destruction had taken place, Thiers
bore his loss with dignity. His collections were very fine, but he
had always been afraid of their being damaged, and did not show
them to strangers. When the Commune sent the painter Courbet to
appraise their value, he estimated the bronzes alone at $300,000.[1]
M. Thiers' collection of Persian, Chinese, and Japanese curios was
also almost unique. After the overthrow of the Commune, Madame
Thiers and her sister did their utmost to recover such of these
treasures as had passed into the hands of dealers. Many of these
men gave back their purchases, and none demanded extravagant prices.
A great deal was recovered, and the house on the Place Saint-Georges
was rebuilt at the public cost.
[Footnote 1: Le Figaro.]
It was on the 5th of September, 1872, that the last German soldier
quitted France and the five milliards of francs (in our money a
thousand millions of dollars) had been paid.[1]
[Footnote 1: When looking over letters and papers concerning this
period, I found among them many original notes from M. and Madame
Thiers. They all had broad black borders. I learned afterwards
that Thiers and his family used mourning paper so long as a single
German soldier remained on French soil. Thiers' writing was thick
and splashy. He always wrote with a quill pen. Early in life he
had, like Sir Walter Raleigh, projected a History of the World;
and as he never wrote of anything whose locality he had not seen,
he had made his preparations to circumnavigate the globe, when
he was arrested by the state of public affairs while on his way
to Havre.]
I borrow the words of another writer speaking of this supreme effort
on the part of France:--
"After the most frightful defeat of modern times, with one third of
her territory in the enemy's hands, with her capital in insurrection,
and her available army all required to restore order, France in
eighteen months paid a fine equal to one fourth of the English
National Debt; elected a _bourgeois_ of genius to her head; obeyed
him on points on which she disagreed with him; and endured a foreign
occupation without giving one single pretext for real severity....
The people of France had no visible chiefs; the only two men who
rose to the occasion were M. Thiers and Gambetta. If M. Thiers
showed tact, wisdom, and above all courage and firmness, in probably
the most difficult position in which man was ever placed, surely we
may pause to admire Gambetta.... Daring in all things, under the
Empire he denounced Napoleonism, and by his eloquence and courage he
guided timid millions and rival factions from the day when Napoleon
III. was deposed. Under the Empire he had yearned to restore the
true life of the nation; when the Empire was overturned he could
not believe that that life was impaired. He thought it would be
easy for France to rise as one man and drive out the invader. As
each terrible defeat was experienced, he regarded it as only a
momentary reverse. He had such abounding faith in his cause,--the
cause of France, the cause of French Republicanism,--that he could
not believe in failure. Of course, to have been a more clear-sighted
statesman, like M. Thiers, would have been best; but there is something
very noble in the blind zeal of this disappointed man."
It moves one to pity to think of Gambetta weeping in the streets
of Bordeaux, as we are told he did, when the bitter news of the
surrender of Paris made all his labors useless, and dashed to the
ground his cherished hopes. Without one word to trouble the flow of
events that were taking a course contrary to all his expectations,
he resigned his dictatorship when it could no longer be of service
to his country, and took himself out of the way of intrigues in his
favor, passing over the Spanish frontier. As soon as the Germans
were out of France, M. Thiers also was prepared to resign his power.
He called a National Assembly to determine the form of government.
There were several points of primary importance to be settled at
once; first: should France be a monarchy, or a republic?
That she would again become a monarchy was generally anticipated; but
the Comte de Chambord had, as we have seen, forfeited his chances for
the moment. If France were a republic, who should be her president?
Should there be a vice-president? Should the president be elected
by the Chamber, or by a vote of the people? Should there be one
Chamber, or two?
M. Thiers was opposed to having any vice-president, and was in
favor of two Chambers. He vehemently urged the continuance of the
Republic, saying that a monarchy was impossible. There was but
one throne, and there were three dynasties to dispute it. On one
occasion he said: "Gentlemen, I am an old disciple of the monarchy
[he was probably alluding to the opinions which his mother and his
grandmother had endeavored to instil into him]. I am what is called
a Monarchist who practises Republicanism for two reasons,--first,
because he agreed to do so, secondly, because practically he can
do nothing else."
The Assembly proclaimed the continuance of the Republic, and likewise
the continuance of M. Thiers as its president for seven years.
On several occasions after this, M. Thiers carried his point with
the Assembly by threatening to resign; and as the Assembly was
quite aware how difficult it would be to put anyone in his place,
the threat always resulted in his victory.
The immediate cause which led to the fall of M. Thiers on May 24,
1873, after he had sat for two years and a month in the presidential
chair, was a dispute concerning the election of M. Charles de Rémusat
(son of the lady who has given her memoirs to the world). M. de
Rémusat was the Government candidate for a deputyship vacant in
the Paris representation. He was at the time Thiers' Minister for
Foreign Affairs, a personal friend of the president, a distinguished
man of letters, and an old Orleanist converted to Republicanism. The
opposing candidate was M. Barodet, a Radical of extreme opinions.
The Monarchists also brought forward their candidate. He had only
twenty-seven thousand votes; but these succeeded in defeating M.
de Rémusat, who had one hundred and thirty-five thousand, while
the Radicals voted solidly for Barodet, giving him one hundred
and fifty-five thousand.
The blame of this defeat was thrown on M. Thiers. The Monarchists,
who had once called him "that illustrious statesman," now spoke of
him as "a fatal old man." They attacked him in the Assembly; the
Radicals supported them. M. Thiers was defeated on some measure
that he wished should pass, and sent in his resignation. It was
accepted by three hundred and sixty-two votes against three hundred
and forty-eight. He had fallen; and yet a _plébiscite_ throughout
the country would have given a large popular vote in favor of the man
"who had found France defeated, her richest provinces occupied, her
capital in the hands of savages, and had concluded peace and restored
order, and found the stupendous sum required for the liberation and
organization of the country, founding the Republic, and bringing
order and prosperity back once more." Indeed, the peasants even
credited him with their good harvests and the revival of spirit
in the army, till they almost felt for him a sentiment of personal
loyalty.
Expelled from power when seventy-eight years of age, M. Thiers
retired to a little sunny, dusty _entresol_ on the Boulevard
Malesherbes, where the noise and glare greatly disturbed him. At
Tours, in the lull of events before the surrender of Paris, he had
collected books and studied botany. As soon as he was installed
on the Boulevard Malesherbes he asked Leverrier, the astronomer, to
continue with him the astronomical studies with which at Versailles
he had indulged himself in brief moments of leisure, remarking
that he had seen a good deal of the perversity of mankind, and
that he now wished to refresh himself with the orderly works of
God.
Shortly after this he removed to better quarters, where his rooms
opened on a garden. In this garden he received his friends on Sunday
mornings from seven to nine, attired in a wadded, brown cashmere
dressing-gown, a broad-brimmed hat, a black cravat, patent-leather
shoes, and black gaiters. As he talked, he held his magnifying-glass
in his hand, ready to examine any insect or blade of grass that
might come under observation.
One more great service he rendered to his country. Prince Bismarck,
alarmed by the state of things in France, showed symptoms of intending
to seize Belfort, that fortress in the Vosges which had never
surrendered to the Germans, and which France had been permitted to
retain. Thiers induced Russia to intervene, and went to Switzerland
to thank Prince Gortschakoff personally for his services on the
occasion.
Thiers died at Saint-Germains four years after his downfall, at
the age of eighty-two. His last earthly lodging was in the Pavilion
Henri IV. (now an hotel), where Louis XIV. was born.
By his will he left the State, not only all his collections, which
so far as possible he had restored, but the numerous historical
materials which he had gathered for his works, as well as his house,
after his wife's death, in the Place Saint-Georges. The collections
are there as he left them; the historical documents have been removed
to the Archives.
To Marseilles, his native city, he left his water-color copies of
the chief works of the great masters in Italy.
Thiers was childless. Whatever may have been the personal relations
in which he stood to his wife, no woman was ever more truly devoted
to the interests of her husband. She seems to have lived but for
him.
People in society laughed at her plain dressing and her careful
housekeeping; but "her heart dilated with gladness when she felt
that the eyes of the world were fixed with admiration on M. Thiers."
Her manner to him was that of a careful and idolizing nurse, his
to her too often that of a petulant child. She always called him
M. Thiers, he always addressed her as Madame Thiers,--indeed, he
is almost unknown by his name of Adolphe, nor do men often speak
of him simply as Thiers. "Monsieur Thiers" he was and will always
be in history, whose tribunal he said he was not afraid to face.
Even his cards were, contrary to French custom, always printed
"Monsieur Thiers."
Both M. and Madame Thiers were very early risers, and both had an
inconvenient habit of falling asleep at inopportune times.
To the last, Madame Thiers took a loving interest in Belfort, because
her husband had saved it from the Germans. Its poor were objects
of her especial solicitude. Only an hour before her death, hearing
that the Maire of Belfort had called, she expressed a wish to see
him, and endeavored to address him, pointing to a bust of M. Thiers;
but she was unable to make herself understood; her powers of speech
had failed her.
Two rules M. Thiers never departed from: one was, as he said himself,
"to defend ferociously the public purse," the other, never to give
house-room to any but first-rate objects of art. Some of his pictures
were very dear to him. Several of his bronzes, which were pillaged by
the Commune and never recovered, were mourned by him as if they had
been his friends. He had been wont to call them "the school-masters
of his soul."