PARIS UNDER THE EMPIRE
Paris of the early sixties was a very different city from the Paris of
to-day. It was still in great part the Paris of the old time, on both
banks of the Seine. Its Haussmannisation had barely begun. The Palais
Royal retained much of its ancient celebrity for the cuisine of its
restaurants and the brilliancy of its shops. But to get to it direct
from what is now the Place de l'Opéra was a voyage of discovery. You
went upstairs and downstairs, through narrow, dirty streets, until,
after missing your way several times, you at last found yourself in the
garden dear to the orators of the French Revolution, and since devoted
to nursemaids and their babes. Much of Central Paris was in the same
unregenerate state. Even portions of famous streets not far from the
Grands Boulevards, which were then still French, could scarcely be
described as models of cleanliness. The smells that arose from below
and the water of doubtful origin that might descend upon the unwary
passerby from above suggested a general lack of sanitary control which
was fully confirmed in more remote districts.
Napoleon III was a man of mediocre ability. His _entourage_ was
extravagantly disreputable. But he and his did clear out and clean
up Paris. The new quarters since built owe their existence in the
first instance to the initiative of the Emperor's chief edile, Baron
Haussmann, and his compeers. The great broad streets which now traverse
the slums of old time were due to the same energetic impulse. Whether
such spacious avenues and boulevards were constructed in order to
facilitate the operations of artillery and enable the new mitrailleurs
more conveniently to massacre the "mob," whether the architecture
is artistic or monotonous, Clemenceau the doctor must for once be
at variance with Clemenceau the man of politics, and admit that the
monarch who, as will be seen, imprisoned him in 1862, did some good
work for Paris during his reign of repression. At any rate Napoleonic
rule at this period represented general prosperity. Business was good
and the profiteers were doing well. The bourgeoisie felt secure and
international financiers enjoyed a good time. Nearly all the great
banking and financial institutions of Paris had their origin in the
decade 1860-1870. Law and order, in short, was based upon comfort and
accumulation for the well-to-do.
But the peasantry and the workers of the cities were also considered in
some degree, and the reconstruction of the capital provided, directly
and indirectly, both then and later, for what were looked upon as "the
dangerous classes"--men and women, that is to say, who thought that the
wage-slave epoch meant little better for them and their children than
penal servitude for life. Constant work and decent pay softened the
class antagonism, conciliating the proletariat without upsetting the
middle class or bourgeoisie. Such a policy, following upon two fairly
successful wars, was not devoid of dexterity. A curbed or satisfied
Paris meant internal peace for all France. Neither the miserable
fiasco in Mexico nor the idiotic abandonment of Austria to Prussia
had yet shaken the external stability of the Empire. Napoleon III and
his Vice-Emperor Rouher were still great statesmen. There was little
or nothing to show on the surface that the whole edifice was even
then tottering to its fall. The keen satire of Rochefort, of the Duc
d'Aumale, and the full-blooded denunciations of Victor Hugo failed to
produce much effect. Some genuine and capable opponents were beguiled
into serving the Government under the impression that the Empire
might be permanent, and in this way alone could they also serve their
country. Nor can we wonder at such backsliding.
Such was the Paris, such the France that saw the young medical student,
Georges Clemenceau, enter upon his preparation for active life as
doctor and physiologist. He devoted himself earnestly to his studies in
the libraries, to his work in the hospitals, and to careful observation
of the social maladies he saw around him, which made a deep and
permanent impression on his mind. But, determined as he was to master
the principles and practice of his profession, the bright, active and
vivacious republican from La Vendée brought with him to Paris too clear
a conception of his rights and duties as a democrat to be able to avoid
the coteries of revolt who maintained the traditions of radicalism in
spite of systematic espionage and police persecution. Clemenceau shared
his father's opinions in favour of free speech and a free press.
That was dangerous in those days. _La Ville Lumière_ was obliged
to hide its light under a bushel. Friends of democracy and
anti-imperialistic speakers and writers were compelled, in order
to reach their public, to adopt a style of suppressed irony not
at all to the taste of the vivacious republican recruit from
Mouilleron-en-Pareds. Then, as ever thereafter, he spoke the truth
that was in him, regardless of consequences. In this course he had
the approbation and support of his father's friend, Etienne Arago,
brother of the famous astronomer. Arago the politician was also a
playwright, an ardent republican who had taken his full share in all
the agitations of the previous period, an active and useful member of
the Republican Government of 1848 as Postmaster-General, and a vigorous
opponent of the policy of Louis Napoleon. He was sent into exile prior
to the _coup d'état_. Both then and nearly a generation later this
stalwart anti-Imperialist was exceedingly popular with the Parisians,
and, having returned to Paris, was able to aid Clemenceau in forming a
correct judgment of the situation, at a time when a less clear-sighted
observer might have striven to cool his young friend's enthusiasm.
As it was, Clemenceau contributed to some of the Radical fly-sheets
and then fêted the 24th of February. No date dear to the memory of
Republicans could be publicly toasted without conveying a reflection
upon the Empire, and as all important events in French history, from
July 14th onwards, are duly calendared according to the month and
day of the month, Clemenceau's crime in celebrating February 24th by
speech and writing was obvious. He therefore fell foul of the Imperial
police. The magistrate could admit no point in his favour, and there
was in fact no defence. Consequently Georges Clemenceau, _interne de
l'hôpital_, had the opportunity given him of reflecting for two months
upon the advantages and drawbacks of his political creed, during a
period of Buonapartist supremacy, in the prison of Mazas. This was in
1862.
Three years later he took his doctor's degree. His formal essay on
this occasion gained him considerable reputation. It was entitled _De
la Génération des Éléments Anatomiques_, and proved not only that he
had worked hard on the lines of his profession but that he was capable
of taking an original view of the subjects he had mastered. This
work has been throughout the basis of Clemenceau's medical, social,
political and literary career. I got the book not long ago from the
London Library, and on the title-page of this first edition I read in
the author's own bold handwriting, "_A Monsieur J. Stuart Mill hommage
respectueux de l'auteur G. Clemenceau_": a tribute to that eclectic
philosopher and thinker which he followed up shortly afterwards by
translating Mill's study of Auguste Comte and Positivism into French.
Clemenceau was no great admirer of Comte, and specially disapproved
of the attempt of some of that author's pupils and followers to
limit investigation and cultivate agnosticism on matters which they
considered fell without the bounds of their master's theories and
categories.
"We are not of those," writes Clemenceau, "who admit with the
Positivist that science can give us no information on the enigma of
things." This seems scarcely just to the modern Positivists, for
although Comte himself wished to restrict mankind from the study of
astronomy, for example, outside of the solar system, they have been as
ready as the rest of the world to take advantage of discoveries beyond
that system which throw light upon some of the difficult material
problems nearer at hand. And Clemenceau, too, appears to fall into the
line of reasoning with which he reproaches Comte; for, as will be seen
later, he views nature as a mass of matter evolving and differentiating
and organising and vivifying itself with the interminable antagonisms
and mutual devourings of the various forms of existence on this
planet, and possibly on other worlds of the infinitely little, and
then, when the great suns die out, disappearing and beginning all over
again as two of these huge extinguished luminaries collide in space.
This material philosophy, when carried to its ultimate issue, still
answers no question and furnishes no clue to the strange inexplicable
movement of the universe in which man is but a sentient and partially
intelligent automaton. What explanation does this give of any of the
problems of social or individual ethic, or of the impulse which led
Clemenceau the doctor to treat his patients in Montmartre gratuitously,
instead of building up a valuable practice in a rich quarter? and urged
Clemenceau the politician to pass the greater part of his life in an
uphill fight against the domination of the sordid minority and the
timid acquiescence of the apathetic masses rather than accept the high
positions which were pressed upon him time after time?
Such reflections would be out of place at this point, but for the fact
that Clemenceau has invariably contended that his career has been all
of a piece, maintaining that the vigorous young physiologist and doctor
of twenty-four and twenty-five held the same opinions and was moved
by the same aspirations that have guided the mature man throughout.
Whether heredity and surroundings fully account in every particular for
all that he has said, done and achieved is a question which Clemenceau
also might decline to answer with the definiteness he considers
desirable in general philosophy. But that his doctor's thesis of 1865
did in the main give the scientific basis of his material creed can
scarcely be disputed.
The following year, 1866, was the year of the Prusso-Italian war
against Austria. The success of Prussia, which would quite probably
have been a failure but for the incredible fatuity of the Imperial
clique at Vienna, was one of the chief causes, unnoted at the time,
of the downfall of Napoleon III. Few now care to recall the manner in
which the Austrian Commander-in-Chief, Marshal Benedek, was compelled
to abandon his entire strategy in deference to the pusillanimous orders
of the Emperor, or how Benedek, with a loyalty to the House of Hapsburg
which it has never at any period deserved, took upon himself the blame
of defeats for which Francis Joseph, not himself, was responsible.
But Louis Napoleon was equally blind to his own interests and those
of France when he stood aside and allowed the most ambitious and most
unscrupulous power in the world to become the virtual master of Central
Europe. It was a strange choice of evils that lay before the Radical
and Republican parties in all countries during this war. None could
wish to see upheld, still less strengthened, the wretched rule of
reactionary, tyrannous and priest-ridden Austria; yet none could look
favourably on the growth of Prussian power.
The further conquest by Italy of her own territory and the annexation
of Venice to the Italian crown were therefore universally acclaimed.
But those who knew Prussia and its military system, and watched the
nefarious policy which had crushed Denmark as a stage on the road
to the crushing of Austria, even thus early began to doubt whether
the substitution of Prussia for Austria in the leadership of the
old Germanic Bund might not speedily lead to a still more dangerous
situation. Either this did not suggest itself to Napoleon III and his
advisers, or they thought that Austria might win, or, at worst, that
a bitterly contested campaign would enable France to interpose at
the critical moment as a decisive arbiter in the struggle. Probably
the last was the real calculation. It was falsified by the rapid and
smashing Prussian victories of Königgratz and Sadowa, and Napoleon
could do nothing but accept the decisions of the battlefield. But from
this moment the Second Empire was in serious danger, and any far-seeing
statesman would have set to work immediately to bring the French army
up to the highest possible point of efficiency and prepare the way for
alliances that might help the Empire, should help be needed in the
near future. Neither Louis Napoleon nor his councillors and generals,
however, understood what the overthrow of Austria meant for France.
They turned a deaf ear then and afterwards to the warnings of their
ablest agents abroad, and thus drifted into the crisis which four years
later found them without an ally and overwhelmed them.