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CHAPTER XXIII.
THE HUMORS OF POLITICS
Ah! what I envy the English is that security for the morrow, which they owe to a form of government no one, so to speak, thinks seriously of questioning.
The Englishman is the stanchest monarchist, and at the same time the freest man in the world, which proves that freedom is compatible with a monarchial government. There is no French Legitimist more royalist than he, there is no French Republican more passionately fond of liberty; nay, I will go so far as to say that, in France, people would be treated as dangerous demagogues, who demanded certain liberties which the English have long possessed under a monarchy, and to defend which the most conservative of them would allow himself to be rent in pieces.
At first sight, the theory of government in England appears to be most simple; two great political parties, each having its leader, whose authority is uncontested, and who takes office amid the acclamations of half the nation. Is the country threatened with danger, party spirit vanishes, Liberals and Conservatives disappear; the Englishman is supreme.
All this appears as simple as admirable. I will show farther on, however, that if there is fixity in the form of the government, there cannot be any consistency in the politics of the country.
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Things are forgotten to such an extent in England that I have rarely seen a Liberal paper revert to the fact that Lord Beaconsfield, the illustrious leader of the Conservative party, began his political life in the ranks of the Radicals, or Conservative papers remind people that Mr. Gladstone, the leader of the Liberals, began his brilliant career in the Conservative ranks. At all events, I never saw anyone reproach these great statesmen with having turned their coats. Lord Derby, who was Minister for Foreign Affairs under Lord Beaconsfield, was Colonial Minister in Mr. Gladstone's Cabinet. Punch had a caricature on the subject, and there was an end of the matter.
Such proceedings would excite contempt or indignation in France; but to judge them in England from a French point of view would be absurd.
In France, political convictions rest on the form of government. In England, everyone, or almost everyone, is of one mind on that subject; Conservatives and Liberals both will have a democracy, having for its object the material, moral, and intellectual progress of the people, with a monarchy to act as ballast.
The only difference that I see in the history of the two parties, during the last fifty years, is that the Conservatives willingly sacrifice their home policy to the prestige of a spirited foreign policy, while the Liberals pay more attention to internal politics, to the detriment, perhaps, of foreign ones.
Here it should be added that, when an Englishman accepts the task of forming a ministry, it is, in the eyes of his partisans, out of pure abnegation, to serve his country, and, in the eyes of his opponents, out of pure ambition, to serve his own interests.
The difference which separates a Monarchist and a Republican in France is an abyss that nothing can bridge over; the difference which separates a Liberal and a Conservative in England is but a trifling step.
So the candidate for Parliament, who rehearses, in petto, the little speech that he means to address to the electors, winds up with: "Gentlemen, such are my political convictions, but, if they do not please you, let it be well understood between us that I am ready to change them." Or: "Gentlemen, I used to be a Conservative, and at bottom I am a Conservative still, but Mr. Gladstone has appointed me a Civil Commissioner at a salary of £2000 a year, and I consider that a statesman who chooses his servants so well ought to be supported by all sensible men. Besides, in my new capacity, it is not a party that I am serving, it is my country."
To speak seriously, I really see very little either in the so-called Liberal or Conservative principles that can cause an Englishman to be anything more than the partisan of a certain group of men.
Under the circumstances, it is not surprising that English politics should, above all things, consist in doing in Office what has been valiantly fought in Opposition; it is a school of incisive, passionate debate – nothing more. The following incident, which is as instructive as it is amusing, is sufficient proof of this:
When Lord Beaconsfield deftly snatched Cyprus from the "unspeakable" Turk, in 1878, and, presenting it to John Bull, asked him to admire the fine catch, John's Liberal sons turned up their noses, declared that the honesty of the proceeding was dubious, and vowed the place was not fit to send British soldiers to. "It would hardly be humane to send our convicts there," they said; "not even flies could stand the climate." Two years later the Tories went out of office, and the Liberals came to power. What happened? You think, perhaps, that the Liberals promptly restored the island to the Turks with their compliments and apologies. Catch them! Better than that. No sooner were the Tories out of office than the yachts of three leading Liberals might have been seen sailing toward Cyprus, which, it would seem, a simple change of ministry had changed into a health resort. In the beginning of May of the current year, the Liberal Government gave orders to the military authorities of the army of occupation in Egypt, to send to Cyprus all the sick soldiers, who were in a fit state to be transferred – not to finish them up, but actually to hasten their convalescence.
Ever since every householder has enjoyed electoral rights, each general election has placed the Opposition in power; and the enfranchisement of Mr. Gladstone's new couches sociales is not likely to change this state of things, which is, indeed, very easy to account for.
The necessarily guarded speech of those in office does not catch the ear of the ignorant multitude so readily as the irresponsible talk of the Opposition. The man in power has to defend a policy, the other attacks it right and left; it is he who has the popular rôle. "Ah!" say the crowd, "smart fellow that! if we could only have him in Office, things would be done in a proper manner! What has become of all the fine promises of the ministry?"
So they make up their minds to vote for the man who comes to them with fresh promises, and to throw overboard the one who has not been able to keep his.
If the Government has engaged in war, the Opposition proves to the people what a disastrous, or, at the best, what a useless war it was; if the Government has been able to maintain peace, the Opposition proves to the people that it was at the price of national honor. The Opposition is always in the right.
To think that men of talent should lower themselves so far as to flatter the populace with such platitudes to obtain their favor! How sad a sight is this vulgarization of politics! And people often wonder how it is that, in democracies, the great thinkers, the genius of the nation, refrain from buying the favors of the people at the price of their dignity! Unhappily, this is the fate of democracies; they can but seldom be ruled by the genius of the nation, by men who would not be appreciated by the masses. No system lends itself better to the reign of unscrupulous mediocrity, for no other system obliges its chiefs to come and humble themselves before the ignorant populace, by giving them acrobatic performances in order to obtain their suffrages.
Under a democracy, everybody goes into politics, and everybody requires to be pleased.
The literary man, the scholar, the artist, all are criticised by more or less competent judges; but the statesman, who is there that does not criticise him? Who does not take upon himself to judge him without appeal? Who does not drag him in the mud? Who does not cry, "Stop thief!" when he is bold enough to buy a dozen railway shares, like the smallest shopkeeper in the land?
No one says to himself, "The Prime Minister is not a fool; he ought to know what he is about; and even if he were a rogue, is it not to his interest to serve his country to the best of his ability?"
Why, even the schoolboy goes into politics nowadays.
I warrant that there is not a single man, in France or England, who does not believe himself perfectly capable of criticising the acts of his Prime Minister, and very few, who do not feel equal to filling his place, if, for the good of their country, they were called by their fellow-citizens to fulfill these arduous duties.
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There is a great virtue, a virtue eminently English, which we French do not possess; respect for the man who is down. Yet it is not that we lack magnanimity; but we also have our contrasts. Generous, of a chivalric character, with a repugnance for any kind of meanness, we yet insult the fallen man and even bespatter the memory of one who has gone to the grave. We consoled ourselves for Sedan by singing "C'est le Sire de Fiche-ton-Camp." On the death of M. Thiers, a celebrated Bonapartist journalist exclaimed that he could jump for joy over the tomb of him who had just liberated his country. Open the newspapers of to-day, and you will still see Gambetta's memory insulted.
In England, they would have forgotten that Gambetta was a party man, and have remembered only his eloquence, which that of Mirabeau alone could have eclipsed, and which made him one of the brightest ornaments of contemporary France.
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When Mr. Bright left the political arena for a world from whence jealousy is banished, and subscription lists were opened for erecting a statue to him, the Conservatives sent their contributions as well as the Liberals; they forgot the Radical, and remembered but the orator and the philanthropist. At the death of Benjamin Disraeli, Earl of Beaconsfield, it was Mr. Gladstone, the political enemy of the Tory chief, who pronounced the panegyric of that illustrious man in the House of Commons.
This is a sentiment that is found, it is interesting to notice, in all classes, even down to the English rough. When two men of the lower classes fight, and one of them falls to the ground, the other waits until his adversary is up again, before returning to the attack. Do not imagine, however, that this sentiment is born of magnanimous bravery, for this same man, who respects his fallen adversary, will, as soon as he reaches his hovel, seize his wife by her hair, knock her down, and literally kick her to death at the first provocation.
In the latter case, there is no combat; there is correction administered by the master to his slave.
If the English have more respect than we for the man who is down, it is because they forget much more quickly than ourselves. Does this prove that they have less intelligence or more generosity? No. They are less impressionable, that is all. The trace disappears more easily, because the impression is less deep. I think this is one of the most remarkable differences between the two peoples.
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In France, it is not an unwise act that ruins a political man – it is, above all things, a phrase blurted out in a moment of exultation. An act is forgotten sooner or later; but an unfortunate phrase sticks to a man, and becomes part and parcel of him, his motto, written on his forehead in indelible characters, and which he carries with him to the grave.
Take the case of M. Emile Ollivier. Since the fall of Thiers, we have had no minister, with the exception of Gambetta, whose political talent could be compared to that of the Liberal minister of Napoleon III. And yet, M. Emile Ollivier little knows his compatriots, if he thinks it is possible for him ever again to enter the political arena. To this very day, the masses ignore that it was he who proclaimed war with Prussia, but there is scarcely a child who does not know that he said "he contemplated the coming struggle with a light heart." M. Ollivier is, and will remain to the day of his death, the light-hearted man. Ridicule kills in France, and M. Ollivier is ridiculous. It is all over with him.11
M. Jules Favre was a great orator, and for that reason one of the ornaments of his century. This is forgotten. He signed the disastrous conditions of peace dictated by Prince Bismarck. That might have been overlooked. But he had said beforehand that "not one inch of territory, not one stone of any French fortress, would he yield." This sentence was his political knell.
General Ducrot was a brave soldier. On leaving Paris to go and attack the Prussians, he was so ill-advised as to declare that he would return "dead or victorious." However, he was still more ill-advised to come back alive and vanquished. Here was another only fit to throw overboard.
Our history is full of similar incidents; actions pass away and are forgotten, words remain. Ask any ordinary Frenchman, not well up in the history of France, who Mirabeau was. He will tell you that Mirabeau was a representative of the people, who one day exclaimed at the Assemblée Constituante: "We are here by the power of the people; nothing but the power of the bayonet shall remove us."
The history of France might be written between inverted commas.
Louis XIV. has gone down to posterity with the formula: "L'Etat c'est moi"; and Napoleon III. with that device, suggested by the irony of fate: "L'Empire c'est la paix." Lamartine is the man who, outside the Hôtel de Ville, cried: "The tricolor flag has been round the world; the red flag has only been round the Champ de Mars." Thiers said: "The Republican form of government is the one that divides us the least." Gambetta: "Clericalism; that is the enemy."
And to parody a celebrated proverb, I might say that French politics may be summed up in the words:
Acta volant, verba manent.
CHAPTER XXIV.
LORDS AND SENATORS
The existence of a hereditary House of Lords is a standing insult to the common sense of the English people.
England is governed by the eldest sons of the aristocracy.
Now, all who have had much to do with youth are perfectly agreed that, as a rule, the eldest son is the least intelligent in each family.
The first born is a ballon d'essai.
Moreover, the eldest son of the aristocrat is the sole heir to his father's title and estates. He knows that the fortune cannot escape him. And so, at school, he does no work; he leaves that sort of thing to his younger brothers, who will have to make their way in the world. When he leaves school or college, his chief subjects of preoccupation are Jews and jockeys.
It is needless to add that, in the House of Lords, the proportion of Conservatives to Liberals is overwhelming.
Consequently, when the Liberals are in power, the House of Lords is a dangerous institution, which may at every moment hinder the working of the governmental machine; and when the Conservatives are in power, the House of Lords is a useless institution, because its approbation can be relied upon in advance by the Government.
Does it not seem as if any second chamber must necessarily be dangerous or useless?
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There is an episode of French history which, to my mind, has been forgotten much too soon.
It teaches a great lesson on the usefulness of Upper Houses.
It was under the Second Empire.
The French Senate was then, intellectually speaking, a body of men superior to the House of Lords, since they were picked men – chosen by the Emperor, it is true, but still chosen. With the exception of Sainte-Beuve, these senators of the Empire were more or less Bonapartists; cardinals, archbishops, marshals, generals, literary men, all men of importance. The duty of the Senate was to watch over the Constitution, and to stop any bill, passed by the Chamber of Deputies, that might have endangered the existence of the actual form of Government.
Well, in July, 1870, the Franco-Prussian war broke out, and, on the 4th of September, in the same year, the Chamber of Deputies deposed the Emperor, and proclaimed the Republic.
Here was a grand opportunity for the senators of showing their power, and of earning the 30,000 francs that they each received from their master.
Yet what happened?
Not one voice was raised by the Senate against the act of the deputies.
Better still: nobody thought of taking the trouble to dismiss them officially. In presence of the strong will of the people, they packed up their traps quietly, and, to the best of my recollection, even forgot to go to the counting-house to receive their month's pay.
Poor senators! they seemed to have the measure of their power in stormy times to an inch.
In presence of the will of the nation, strongly manifested, the House of Lords would be as powerless as the French Senate was in 1870.
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A strange application of that great English principle, "the right man in the right place," is the existence of this same Upper House in England!
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What! can it be that this, the most sensible nation of the world, who has withdrawn all the privileges of its monarchs, who has imposed restrictions upon them, and will not even allow them to make the slightest political allusion in public, can it be this nation that has given itself so many masters at once? If the English do not allow their kings unlimited power, it is because, in their wisdom, they fear that those kings may be born fools, or grow into despots; but out of five hundred lords, three or four hundred may be born fools; where then is the gain? Better be governed by one fool than by three or four hundred.
Among a free people, intellect alone ought to be admitted into the councils of the nation.
No one could have a word to say against such men as the Duke of Argyll and the Marquis of Salisbury having a vote to cast into the scales of England's destinies; but would not these able members of the aristocracy of birth gain in influence and prestige, if they sat in an elected house, side by side with the aristocracy of talent?
Perhaps they may think so themselves.
The House of Lords owes its existence to the English taste for antiquities or curiosities; this people, to its honor be it said, only slowly rids itself of its trammels.
It may safely be predicted that the first great political gust of wind will blow away to pieces this sort of hydropathic establishment.
CHAPTER XXV.
WHAT FRANCE HAS DONE TO MERIT THE RESPECT OF THE WORLD
France, ruined by the wars and extravagances of Louis XIV., exasperated by the turpitudes of Louis XV., encouraged by the weakness of Louis XVI., revolts. Thrones tremble, and the whole world is awe-struck at the terrible Revolution. Kings league themselves together against her; but such is her might that, with soldiers half armed, half clothed, half fed, she puts to flight the allied armies of the enemies, who had sworn to crush her.
Up rises a man and wrests from her all the liberty she had just bought at the price of so much bloodshed. To steady himself upon an unsteady throne, Napoleon engages in dynastic wars for ten years, marching his victorious army from capital to capital, while Europe wonders and trembles. At length the eagle falls, and France, sick of military glory, beaten, but not humiliated, takes breath and submits to the Restoration imposed upon her by the allied invaders. To console herself for the loss of the Republic, a form of government least calculated to foster literature and the fine arts, she profits by the return of monarchical rule to inaugurate the Golden Age of 1830. I say the Age of 1830, for such is the name this epoch, one of the most glorious in the history of France, will be known by in the next century. Now appear, in poetry, Victor Hugo, Lamartine, Alfred de Musset, Béranger; in fiction, Balzac, Chateaubriand, Alexandre Dumas, George Sand; in history, Thiers, Guizot; in political oratory, Manuel, Foy, Berryer; in criticism, Sainte-Beuve, Jules Janin; in painting, Horace Vernet, Ingres, Delacroix, Gudin; in music, Boiëldieu, Herold, Halévy, Auber; in tragedy, Talma, Rachel; in comedy, Mars, Duvernoy; in opera, Nourrit, Duprez, Lablache, Baroilhet, Malibran.
I have mentioned but a few of the princes of talent.
To keep her hand in practice, she makes the conquest of Algeria, and, later on, having nothing else particular in hand, she takes it into her head to make the Suez Canal, a gigantic undertaking, which of itself would be enough to save the nineteenth century from oblivion. Ever enamored of great names, she re-establishes the Empire, because there is a man in the world who bears the name of the victor of Austerlitz. Smitten once more with that strange malady, the love of glory, she fights Russia in 1855 to prevent her from going to Constantinople, and Austria in 1859 to create Italian unity. Then comes that terrible year, the year 1870. With an army of 350,000 men, she sanctions a war, like the child that she is, with a nation, which for sixteen years had been silently preparing to avenge her defeat at Jena, and which had 1,200,0000 men ready to take the field. She is conquered, and, alas! humiliated. She pays her conquerors $1,000,000,000, but this she has almost forgotten, and sees wrenched from her two provinces that she loved and was beloved by; this she will never forget. The following year, she holds up her head, the richest and most esteemed of European nations. To-day, if she only had a leader, republican or monarch, she would be the strongest.
Ah, dear Foreigners all over the world, respect her, that beautiful France! I have often heard the sincerest and most intelligent of you say that no country in the world would probably have been able to do as much.
