THE 16TH OF MAY AND THE FALL OF MARSHAL MACMAHON
When, after the fall of M. Thiers, the Duc de Magenta was elected second
President of the Third Republic, it was generally understood, as I have
mentioned already, that he would only be the representative of a
transitional government, and that, accepting the tacit conditions under
which he had been appointed, he would contribute all the weight of his
authority to secure the return of France to the flag of the old
Monarchy.
But Marshal MacMahon, when he became Head of the State, did not show the
slightest disposition to enter into that scheme. Not only did he
disappoint the party which had voted for him, because it had believed
that he would be an instrument in its hands, but he showed strong
sympathies for the Left side of that Assembly which had overthrown the
previous President more out of pique than anything else. He took
ministers holding opinions directly in contradiction to those which he
himself had been supposed to profess, and when at last, in November,
1873, the Comte de Chambord arrived secretly at Versailles, as I have
already related, and asked the Marshal to grant him a secret interview
during which the political situation was to be discussed, the latter
refused, with the hypocritical words that, though he was quite ready to
sacrifice his life for the Prince, he could not do the dishonourable
thing that was asked of him.
It was that word “dishonourable” that upset the Comte de Chambord.
Himself the soul of honour, he could not but be affronted by the
supposition that he could have had the intention to ask from the Duc de
Magenta anything that could have compromised his loyalty as a man or as
a soldier. I believe this had more than any other thing to do with the
discouragement that made him seize the pretext of his white flag in
order to renounce his pretensions to the throne of his ancestors. A good
many years later, talking about Marshal MacMahon at Frohsdorf, he told
me that “C’est un imbécile, et ce qui est pire, c’est un ambitieux, qui
ne veut pas se l’avouer, et qui cherche à dissimuler ce sentiment sous
le grand mot de son honneur” (“He is an imbecile, and what is worse, he
has ambition, which he doesn’t want to own, and tries to hide under
those great words, ‘his honour’”).
I don’t think anyone ever made a more scathing and more true
appreciation of the character of the Marshal than the last descendant of
the Bourbons when he voiced that judgment.
Once the possibility of a monarchical restoration was put aside, and
especially after the Prince Imperial had fallen in Zululand, by which
the Bonapartists were reduced to impotence, it seemed as if the Republic
was to be the only possible government in France.
I was in Paris when the heir of the Napoleons ended his short existence
so gloriously and so tragically, and I do not think that I heard one
single person doubt that this Republican regime was certain to last.
Until then great hopes had existed, even among the former enemies of the
Empire, that the young Prince would be able, by one of those freaks of
political life which occur so often in the existence of nations, to step
once more upon the throne from which his father had been overthrown. He
was supposed to possess courage, cleverness, great steadfastness of
character, strong principles, and an ardent love for his country. That
alone constituted certain guarantees for the future.
The Orleanists knew very well that until the country had altogether
forgotten the incident of their claiming back their confiscated millions
at a moment when the country was smarting under the unparalleled
disaster of 1870, they had no chance of being called back to power. The
Comte de Chambord had made himself impossible; the Republic was
acceptable to but very few; the Prince Imperial had therefore the
possibility if not the probability of returning to France as its
Emperor, and this solution was wished for even by people who, before the
war and the changes which it had brought about, would have recoiled with
horror at the idea of being thought supporters of the Bonapartes. But
when fate intervened, and the tragedy which was enacted in Africa put an
end to all hopes and calculations that had been made, it became evident
that the country must resign itself to a Republican government. And I am
persuaded that apart from the ardent Monarchists, who fought for a
principle more than for a dynasty, every reasonable person in France
thought so.
The whole situation rested on the fact that in the opinion of many, the
Republic ought to be essentially Conservative, whilst in that of others,
who were gradually to increase in number, its first duty was to show
itself distinctly Radical, and determined to follow the glorious
principles, as they were qualified, of 1789.
The Duc de Magenta, who found himself in a certain sense called upon to
decide between these two currents, did not very well know what to do.
His own leanings were distinctly Conservative, and he was no admirer of
the Radical programme, scarcely even of the moderate Republican one.
Nevertheless he imagined that he could have the necessary authority to
appoint ministers of moderate views. There were still men of great
valour in their midst, like M. Buffet and M. Dufaure, not to speak of
the Duc d’Audiffret Pasquier, who had made a name for himself by his
famous speech against Napoleon III. in the first National Assembly, nor
of the Duc de Broglie, to whose help the Marshal was to have recourse
later on. There were soldiers like General Changarnier and General
Chanzy, who had fought so valiantly whilst in command of that army of
the Loire which had made the last effort to free France from the
victorious Prussians; politicians like M. Ribot, whose austerity and
loyalty of principles have never to this day been doubted. There were
also, even in the ranks of the Left, men like Leon Say, whose presence
in a ministry was in itself a guarantee that it would never yield to the
demands of the extreme Socialists, or like Gambetta, who, whatever can
be said against him, was a great patriot, incapable of imperilling the
existence of his country by an alliance with anarchism. Any man blessed
with the slightest common sense, and possessed of frankness in his
dealings with his colleagues, which unfortunately for him Marshal
MacMahon never showed, might have consolidated the Republic by making
use of these various elements. He was unable to do so, however, and went
on from blunder to blunder, from concession to concession, reminding one
of no one so much as Louis XVI., who also accepted everything and
reconciled himself to nothing.
When the vote of the Chamber had made Jules Simon President of the
Cabinet, Marshal MacMahon might easily have found in him an ally and a
supporter in his wish to establish the Republic upon bases which would
have strengthened the position of France in the eyes of Europe.
Jules Simon was a man of high principles, unsullied honour, a thinker, a
writer, a philosopher, of austere life and strong convictions--one who
was not guilty of meanness nor permitted himself anything base. He was a
staunch Republican, a sincere Liberal, a true follower of whatever was
good and great in the Revolution of 1789; he abhorred excesses and
extravagances, no matter in what shape or under what colours they
presented themselves.
When he became Prime Minister he tried earnestly and sincerely, as his
duty, to convert the President of the Republic to his views. These he
was convinced would conciliate the different parties that divided the
Chamber of Deputies, as well as the Senate, and if he had found the help
he sought from the Head of the State, it is probable that the whole tide
of events in France would have taken a different turn. But that help
failed him, and after having on the 15th of May parted from Marshal
MacMahon on the best of terms, and received from him the assurance that
he would do his best to co-operate with him in the direction which he
wanted to give to the government of the country, Jules Simon was
startled by receiving the next morning the famous letter from the
President of the Republic, refusing to lend himself to his plans. He
replied by handing in his resignation.
It is to the honour of Jules Simon that whenever he discussed the event
in later years he always refused to accuse the Duc de Magenta of
duplicity, as many in his place would have done. When the electoral
campaign began, he, of course, took an important part in it, but even
then his attitude in regard to the Marshal was most correct, and he
never allowed himself to say a word that might have been construed in
the light of personal animosity. He was a real philosopher, and a
political man to whom no suspicion had ever been attached. In France
such are rare, and the example he gave must not be forgotten.
The Marshal called to his help men belonging to the Extreme Right, such
as the Duc de Broglie and M. de Fourtoul. He could hardly have done
anything else, because it is not likely that even a moderate Republican
would have cared to risk the unpopularity that was bound to follow all
those who had taken part in this mad venture. They accepted office only
because they imagined that by dissolving the Chambers the elections
might give them a majority which would have called back the Orleans to
the throne and restored the Monarchy.
People who knew the Duc de Broglie well affirm that he put the condition
quite clearly to the Duc de Magenta, and told him that he would enter
the ministry only if he were given a free hand as regards the future in
case the country supported him by sending his followers to represent it
in the new Chamber.
Whether this is true or not I have not had the means of discovering, but
long after the death of Marshal MacMahon, his widow one day allowed a
word to escape her which might have been taken as a tacit acknowledgment
of the fact. She was conversing with a friend about the events that had
accompanied and followed the _coup d’état_ of the 16th of May, and
replying to a remark that friend made to the effect that very probably
had it succeeded the Duc de Magenta would have remained President of the
Republic until his death, she exclaimed: “Oh no, my dear, the 16th of
May, even if it had been successful, would not have kept us at the
Elysée.”
Had MacMahon possessed a scrap of dignity he would have resigned after
the country had pronounced itself against him, and the obstinacy with
which he clung to his place after his defeat is one of the most
extraordinary happenings in the history of modern France. I have often
wondered, and have not been the only one to do so, what he had hoped to
gain by staying discredited and despised at a post which could hardly
have been a bed of roses. Duty had nothing to do with it. It might have
been his duty to listen to Jules Simon, at least his constitutional
duty; it certainly was not to his advantage that after having
ignominiously failed in carrying through his attempt to create a
Monarchical Republic, he remained the head of a Radical one.
Gambetta, whose verdict was nearly always right and just, when he
troubled to utter it seriously respecting men and things, once defined
the Marshal, and did so perhaps even better than the Comte de Chambord
had done. When asked to what motive he attributed his having remained at
his post “envers et contre tous,” he replied simply: “Il est resté,
parce qu’il n’a pas compris qu’il devait s’en aller” (“He remained
because he did not understand that he ought to go”).
But when the Senatorial elections took place, and sent to the Upper
Chamber the same majority that already existed in the Lower Chamber,
even an intelligence as obtuse as that of Marshal MacMahon understood
that he had better leave to others the task of governing the Republic.
He retired much too late for his personal dignity, and with him the last
hopes of a Conservative Republic disappeared for ever. After some
discussions, M. Jules Grévy was elected his successor. Some other names
had been put forward, amongst them M. de Freycinet. M. Jules Ferry was
also mentioned, who was to go down to posterity as the author, later, of
that famous Article 7, which was so strongly opposed by the clergy and
all the parties in the Chamber, with the exception of the Radical and
extreme Republican parties. He was certainly a statesman of broad views.
Moreover he was honest and sincere, and his personality was highly
respected; but he did not care to become an automaton as was desirable
in a President of a constitutional Republic. On the other hand, he was
so intensely disliked by all those whom he had contrived to wound by
his political attitude that he was very soon eliminated from the list.
As for M. de Freycinet, a clever, quiet, resolute individual, his
opponents dreaded his great abilities, and perhaps also the subtlety of
his reasonings. He had just enough friends to praise and to propose him,
but not a sufficient number to ensure his election. After a few hours’
discussion the general choice fell on M. Jules Grévy as Chief Magistrate
of France.
M. Grévy was an advocate of Besançon, who had signally distinguished
himself by more or less violent attacks against the Empire. He was not a
brilliant man, but one gifted with strong common sense, an orator of no
mean value, but whose eloquence was cold and quiet, like his whole
character. He disdained to appeal to the passions of the crowd. He had
the reputation of being an honest man in the full sense of the word, one
who would never have consented to any indelicacy, and who represented
the perfect type of the French bourgeois of the time of Louis Philippe,
when the lust for luxury and the hunt after notoriety had not yet
invaded public life.
When the first National Assembly gathered together at Bordeaux after the
war, he was unanimously elected President, and in the delicate functions
of that position he showed great dignity, singular impartiality, and
firmness combined with extreme politeness. His task was excessively
difficult, and no one did anything to lighten it, so that, after an
incident of a personal nature by which he thought himself wounded, he
sent in his resignation. It was accepted with alacrity by the Right,
which feared that he would be an obstacle to its plans and intentions,
and which, dreaming already of the fall of M. Thiers, was desirous of
having a President after its own heart, which it found in M. Buffet, the
irreconcilable enemy of Grévy.
But when Marshal MacMahon had at last made up his mind to retire, and
when the various candidates had been eliminated for one reason or
another, the name of M. Jules Grévy immediately met with sympathy, and
he was elected by common consent. He made a good chief of a Democratic
State--dignified, calm, gifted with tact, and animated by the most
sincere desire to govern according to the wishes of the majority that
had elected him. He brought with him to the Elysée the manners of the
bourgeoisie to which he belonged, proved hostile to everything that
savoured of ostentation and luxury, and went on living the same life he
had led at Besançon, when, as a young advocate, he had had to fight his
way in the world. Madame Grévy was also an excellent woman, a good
mother and an exemplary wife, who mended her husband’s socks and never
attempted to meddle in matters that did not concern her. Under her rule
festivities were but rare at the Elysée, but charity was practised on a
large scale. M. Grévy did not show himself the nonentity he was later on
represented to be, and several of his ministers, with whom I had an
opportunity of discussing the President, told me that his advice always
proved most valuable to them, and that, whenever serious matters came to
the front, his strong common sense and clear judgment generally found
the best way to put an end to the difficulties which had arisen. He was
not a genius, but he had statesmanlike views, and these, more than once,
proved useful to France.
Unfortunately, M. Grévy survived himself, politically speaking. Had he
retired at the end of his first seven years he would have been
remembered with gratitude by his country as well as by his family. But
several untoward events and scandals gave a sad celebrity to his term of
office.
One was the affair of the Union Générale; the first and the last
attempt of French aristocracy to meddle with finance. Since that time it
has grown wiser, and has had nothing more to do with banks, except
marrying bankers’ daughters. But under the Presidency of M. Grévy it
hoped to make up for its defeat in the field of politics by securing a
great triumph in the field of finance. In M. Bontoux it thought it had
found the man capable of retrieving its fallen fortunes, and almost all
the proudest names of France co-operated in the enterprise which he
started, and which he fondly hoped would rival the power of the
Rothschilds and of Jewish finance in general. For some little time
everything went well, and the shares of the Union Générale rose out of
all proportion. Then one fine day the end came suddenly and crushingly,
M. Bontoux was imprisoned, and all the numerous enterprises of which he
had been the promoter suffered disaster.
Later on somehow, in other hands, the venture proved prosperous, and his
creditors recovered something like ninety per cent. of their money. But
at the moment that the catastrophe occurred half France was ruined by
it, and as of course the Jews were accused of having brought it about, I
think I am not much mistaken in saying that it is from that period that
anti-Semitism began to flourish in the country, and that people like
Drumont became popular.
The crash of the Union Générale and the Panama scandal, which began to
ooze out among the public, would have been enough to throw a shadow on
the Presidency of M. Grévy, but the drama which closed it stamped it
with a shame that he himself did not deserve, and which, whatever has
been said about it by his enemies, he felt acutely.
As everybody knows, Mademoiselle Grévy, the President’s only daughter,
had married Daniel Wilson, the son of a very rich sugar refiner, who in
the merry days of the Empire had formed part of that _jeunesse dorée_,
whom the Café Anglais still remembers. He had grown bald, and he had
become poorer since those halcyon days; but he had a sister, Madame
Pelouze, the owner of the lovely château of Chenonceaux, in the valley
of the Loire, who had considerable influence over him, and who imagined
that by arranging a marriage between him and the daughter of the
President of the Republic he would retrieve his fallen fortunes. Daniel
Wilson listened to her, and soon found himself installed at the Elysée.
Once there, the rest was easy for a man of his intelligence, and this is
a quality that his most bitter adversaries concede to him. He soon
acquired unbounded influence on the mind of his father-in-law, and M.
Grévy, grown old and perhaps even lazy, was very glad to find in his
son-in-law a person capable of helping him and of bringing to his notice
many things which he might perhaps have otherwise forgotten, as well as
to give him good advice when he needed it. Very soon M. Wilson became a
political power, and this brought him many friends, even more
flatterers, and a host of demands. At first he was careful, then he grew
bolder, at last he quite forgot that he was at the mercy of the least
indiscretion, and finally, when it became known that he had accepted
monetary considerations in return for promotions in the Order of the
Legion of Honour, the scandal became so immense that poor M. Grévy, who
had known nothing at all about it, was peremptorily asked to resign his
functions as Head of the State.
To those who read of this now, the whole affair cannot but appear
strange, especially if they have followed the course of events in France
since that day, and they can but wonder at the sensitiveness of public
feeling then. To-day, when almost everything from the great Cross of the
Legion of Honour down to a modest _bureau de tabac_ is to be had for
money in France--and quite recently rumour spreads to the other side of
the channel--one can only grieve for poor M. Grévy that he had been born
too soon, and had not become President of the Republic some fifteen
years later.
In the scandal that accompanied his fall the real services which he had
rendered to the State, and his sincere attempts to restrain the great
development of Radicalism in the country, were quite forgotten. He had
been weak in many things, blind in some others, but he had always been
honest, even when his son-in-law was doing questionable things in his
name. And certainly at the time of the Schnaebele incident it had only
been by his intervention and his wisdom that a war with Germany had been
avoided. He had, in that dangerous moment, shown both dignity and
firmness, and succeeded in settling with honour difficulties which but
for him might have led to the most serious consequences. France, when
thinking of him or talking about him, should never forget this.
When he resigned, there was again a question raised as to who should be
asked to become his successor, and the name of Jules Ferry was once more
put forward. But Jules Ferry was considered as far too Conservative by
the Paris Municipal Council, which sent delegates to the National
Assembly to warn it that, should he be chosen, the population of the
faubourgs would come down to Versailles in order to signify its veto. To
tell the truth, Ferry’s energy was feared, and it was dreaded that he
would prove himself a master rather than a President. M. de Freycinet
was out of the question, when suddenly M. Carnot’s candidature was put
forward by M. Clemenceau, who was beginning already to assume the
leadership of the Radical party, and to make himself respected by all
the others.
At that moment Sadi Carnot was Minister of Finance. He had quite
recently been the object of an ovation in the Chamber of Deputies when
he had refused to exonerate M. Wilson from the payment of certain taxes
which he owed to the State, and from which he had attempted to escape,
thanks to his relationship with President Grévy. Carnot was the
personification of that caste which is called in all the old memoirs of
the eighteenth century, “les grands bourgeois de Paris.” His past career
had been irreproachable, he had perhaps few friends, not being at all
pliant, but he had a remarkable absence of enemies. His personal
appearance was grave and solemn, not to say dull; he did not speak much,
and his manners were always cold and distant. He made an excellent
President, and had he not come to such a tragic end, it is probable that
no one would ever have given him a thought after he had left office.
When he was murdered the Radical party had already secured a very large
majority in the Chamber as well as in the Senate, and all thoughts as to
the possibility of a Republic governed according to Conservative
principles had long ago vanished. For a few brief months his successor,
Casimir Périer, tried to fight against the tide of anarchism which was
slowly rising, but after him no one attempted it, and the Republic fell
entirely into the hands of M. Clemenceau and his friends.