became clear that things were ripening for a crisis, unless the credit of the Emperor was to be saved by his death; yet none but fanatic Red Republicans, ready to believe in everything they longed for, could have fancied the end of the Empire so imminent.
The year ‘68 must have been one of great searchings of heart at the Court of the Tuileries. The interview of the German Emperors at Salzburg, although followed by all manner of satisfactory assurances, kept minds uneasy as to the new relations of France with her neighbours, and stimulated the audacity of those reckless men who fish for profit and popularity in troubled waters. Ugly omens multiplied towards the close of the year, urging the Emperor towards some decided if not desperate resolution. The incident in the Hall of the Sorbonne, when, at the distribution of prizes, young Cavaignac refused to receive his at the hands of the Imperial Prince, must have shaken the Emperor’s faith in the hold Imperialism had on the upper classes, while of a sudden the turbulent democracy discovered a martyr in Baudin, one of the victims of the Coup d’Etat, and even the eminent veteran Berryer contributed a letter and a subscription to the agitation.
The Emperor’s resolution was taken. He would use his personal power and what remained of his prestige to promulgate a scheme of comprehensive Constitutional reform. Judging by the course of events, we may well doubt whether the resolution would have served him had he taken it earlier. As it was, he was late then, as he had so often been before. It seemed as if he was graciously making a gift of the power he felt slipping through his fingers; and after all, the gift, such as it was, was in a degree illusory. For the future his Ministers were to be responsible to the Chambers; they were to be chosen by the party that commanded a parliamentary majority, they were to hold office by the votes of the House, as in England. But so long as the Empire maintained its traditional electoral machinery the Emperor assured himself an enormous working majority, happen what might. The masses of the rural voters were drilled by obsequious Préfets on their promotion, and the different circumscriptions were manipulated, so that in most instances the votes of the stolid and loyal country should swamp those of the feverish radical towns. In the towns, if the voters were not bribed, and bought with hard cash, they were delicately conciliated by the concession of serviceable public works – town-halls, lines of railway, free bridges. The Autocratic Empire had consolidated its popularity on a system of corruption; it would have been simply suicidal had it reformed and become pure all of a sudden. There had been another unlucky coincidence for the shaking Empire. The Assembly had been dissolved, and there had been a general election. Of course, the Government obtained its commanding majority; but, unfortunately, Paris and the great cities had returned Opposition members as a rule. The logical deduction was obvious – the intelligence of the country is opposed to Imperialism, and the Opposition represents a moral force out of all proportion to its numerical strength. It is notorious that in France, the inert masses are swayed to one side or the other, as they receive the impulse, and it became clear that any day an accident might derange the existing equilibrium. The various chiefs of the Opposition attacked, with the whole weight of their eloquence and their influence, the vicious electoral system that made politics a comedy and falsified opinion. Excited mobs in the town shouted for the Republic and Rochefort. The Emperor was being forced towards abdication or a Coup d’Etat. He decided again for the Coup d’Etat, but this time it was altogether a Constitutional one. Cæsar proposed a ‘senatus consultum,’ which resigned the power he had held in trust into the hands of the people, from whom it had flowed originally, and charged responsible Ministers with the exercise of the people’s authority. The stanch Imperialist Ministers shook their heads at this putting new wine into old bottles. Rouher, Duruy, Lavalette, and Baroche resigned. Prince Napoleon made a remarkable and characteristic speech, which gave some colour to the theory of certain political seers that, with the assent of the head of his house, he held himself in reserve in case of a political catastrophe that should prove fatal to his cousin. The Prince approved the measure in the main, although, in his opinion, it was not sufficiently thorough. He avowed that he was not one of those who believed the Empire incompatible with the most absolute liberty, and he boldly touched all those burning topics which the official orators had carefully shunned. It was remarked at the time that the daring speaker had a long interview immediately afterwards with his Imperial cousin, and it was understood that they separated on the most cordial terms. It is probable the Emperor, having lost self-confidence, was in painful uncertainty as to the direction in which unforeseen circumstances might hurry him. The Home Minister, M. Forcade de la Roquette, proclaimed the programme of the Court in language sufficiently precise. The Empire hoped to succeed in solidly founding liberty, where the Governments of the Restoration and of July had failed, ‘because its principle is stronger and more popular; because it rests upon the national will several times proclaimed, and because it defies surprises.’ At that moment it felt so strongly that its existing titles were discredited that already it was thinking of a fresh appeal to the democracy; while it was the suspicion of surprises in store that had suggested its present attitude. Weakened and compromised by the secessions, the last genuinely Imperialist Ministry resigned, and the Emperor had recourse to the flexible Liberals, as represented by Emile Ollivier and his colleagues.
We may judge him with tolerable confidence after the event, and, enlightened by results, we may estimate pretty fairly the formidable difficulties against which he precipitated himself. The fact remains that at that time men who would rather have been rid of the dynasty believed it so firmly established that the best and most patriotic course was to come to an understanding with it. Men patriotic or ambitious, like Ollivier, Buffet, and Daru, accepted office and undertook the execution of the new programme. Yet the signs of the times were thickening. Not the least significant was the retirement of Haussmann, whose magnificent schemes – half developed, and arrived at a stage where perseverance might have been the truest economy – had so terribly embarrassed the finances of the capital. It was an acknowledgment that the Empire had reached the limits of its lavish expenditure and pushed to an extreme the fatal principle of national workshops. Yet it was plain that if the men who had so long been subsidized became idle, needy, and discontented, the streets of the capital would be crowded with turbulent émeutiers, ready to swell the ranks of the Reds, and to force the hand of the Government when prudence and patriotism should alike suggest a cautious game. A sinister incident occurred on the very day when the Chambers met the new Ministers. Prince Pierre Bonaparte shooting Victor Noir at Auteuil threw a weapon into the hands of the Red Republicans which they were not slow to lay hold of. Rochefort’s language in his Marseillaise exceeded all measure. Noir was made a martyr, and the Empire was in more imminent danger on the day of his funeral than men suspected at the time. Had Rochefort been as daring in action as in speech, had his nerves not failed him before the starting of the funeral cortége, and had the impetuous Flourens taken his place at its head, it is hardly doubtful that there would have been a sauguinary collision in the Champs Elysées. The Empire would have triumphed for the day, for it was well prepared. But in its discredited condition a second carnage among the citizens of Paris could scarcely have failed to be a fatal defeat for it.
On the eve of the famous Plébiscite the position of the Olivier Ministry was more treacherous than ever, and the attitude of the Government was visibly ill-assured. The Ministry trembled between Liberalism and extreme Imperialism, and one of its genuinely liberal measures had terribly multiplied its difficulties by allowing full licence of language to all its most unscrupulous enemies. In throwing the rein to the Press, Olivier had said that they trusted it in future to the control of a healthy public opinion. It is hard to believe that either the Minister or the Emperor could have had any such confidence. Opinion had so long been stifled and gagged that it was debauched and thoroughly diseased. It was inevitable that the régime of repression should be followed by the reaction of excess, and the Empire suffered from the vice of its origin, and paid the penalty of the system by which it had hitherto succeeded. Now that writers could speak out, they reverted with justice to those crimes of the Coup d’Etat, when the President for motives they assumed to be purely selfish, had violated the oath of the Constitution, and abused the responsibilities he had solemnly accepted. They raked up the details of all those high-handed proceedings that had necessarily been received at the time in sullen silence. They denounced the sensational foreign policy that had been dictated by dynastical motives. They attacked the luxury and extravagances the people, and especially the middle classes, had been taxed for. They had facts enough at command,