porary altar. On the right of the king was the crown prince in the uniform of a field marshal, and then to the right and left were the leaders of the hosts which had made that king emperor, while at the left of the semicircle of which the king was the centre, and separated by more than a yard from any one else, stood Count Bismarck. And psalms were sung and prayers were said and court preacher Rogge preached a sermon of which the burden

"God hath done wonders in this land, and we have done them for Him." And then amid such waving of swords and helmets and hurrahs as fitly greet great conquerors, William was hailed Emperor of Germany, and with tearful eyes received the congratulations of princes, dukes, and lords of his empire.1

Is it not a scene of a thousand years ago, with Charlemagne and his paladins standing by a conquered city and declaring that there is no law but force? A scene repeated, not by a Corsican adventurer of genius trampling upon anything and everything which opposed his will, nor in principle by a mob of poor, ignorant, and suffering men in an outbreak of passion, but by the so-called legitimate rulers of a civilized nation. What word was there on behalf of the welfare of nations or the progress of humanity, of European public opinion or of international arbitration? They proposed to appropriate territory acquired by the might of the sword, their avowed intention being to fortify and strengthen themselves against a certain reaction of hatred and revenge. Comparing the results of two systems of government, as they stand before us, one is at least justified in not throwing the whole condemnation on the popular side.

1 W. H. Russell, "My Diary in the Last Great War."

IN

CHAPTER XIV

FRANCE-THE THIRD REPUBLIC

N a study of the future prospects of popular government there cannot possibly be a more interesting element than that of the Third Republic of France. It turns, as the whole history of the country has done since 1789, and as that of the United States has done during the same period, upon the relations of the executive and the legislature. No doubt France is under a highly centralized government, all administration radiating from Paris, and with almost no local political life; while the especial characteristic of the United States consists in the limited functions of the federal government and the intense activity of the numerous local organizations. The difference is not less great in the character of the two peoples, the lower education and the degree of ignorance in that of France, their lack of initiative, their submissiveness to authority and desire to be governed, their subjection to the discipline of the Roman Catholic Church varied only by violent revolt; as compared with the higher intelligence, the individuality and self-reliance, and the mental independence of the people of the United States.1 But

1 We must again point out, however, that these differences are less the result of racial qualities than of historical conditions. 'Europe has been in continued war for three hundred years. There is no people in this state of things which has not need of dictatorship and therefore of destroying those smaller powers and local liberties, so dear to Tocqueville, which from within are liberties and from without are weaknesses. . . In a Europe at war there can be only despotisms, pure and simple, or centralized and authoritative democracies, and if one resembles the other the conditions show that nothing is more natural. And is it not evident that the Euro

throughout these differences there stands out the same problem of creating an executive strong enough to govern, but restrained by responsibility constantly enforced through the legislature.

What popular government, such as it was, had already accomplished in this century in France, apparently abandoned to a blind conflict of force, was shown in the negotiations for peace. When at one in the morning of January 29, 1871, Jules Favre brought back from Versailles to his colleagues in Paris the final agreement for an armistice, the first thing to be done was, in concert with the railway directors, to provide for feeding Paris. But the Council would not separate before completing the arrangements for summoning an Assembly. Both time and authority were wanting for preparing an electoral law. That of March 15, 1849, was substantially adopted, the last electoral law of the Republic and which may be thus summed up: Vote upon general ticket by cantons, the electors being twenty-one, the elected twenty-five, years of age, including all Frenchmen not under sentence of the law.

The elections were fixed for the 8th of February and the meeting of the Assembly at Bordeaux for the 12th, justifying Prince Bismarck's exclamation when Favre announced the decision to him that it was impossible. More than a third of the departments were occupied by the enemy and administered by German prefects. The conduct of the elections had to be intrusted to the local

pean nation-dear to Tocqueville - which has remained most decentralized and most aristocratic, and which can even permit itself a half and very honorable attempt at liberal federation, is the nation which, at anchor in the middle of the seas, has less to fear than any other from the perpetual war which weighs either as a threat or in reality on all Europe? - ÉMILE FAGUET, "Essay on De Tocqueville," Revue des Deux Mondes, February 1, 1894.

The most interesting question of the future is whether the development of local institutions and of popular government will do anything to modify this state of war.

officials under the favor of the conqueror. The other departments were in relations only with Gambetta, who was bitterly opposed to the peace and still more to the candidacy of the Bonapartists. The railroads were in a deplorable condition, the tracks torn up, the road-beds encumbered, the bridges broken, the material scattered and dispersed. Six long months of war had disorganized the municipal administrations; the voting lists had not been corrected, in many cases they had been lost; the employees were not at their posts. There had to be done in a week under such conditions that which in ordinary times takes several months. The elections having taken place it was necessary within four days to count the votes, proclaim the results, and forward the certificates to Bordeaux. The new deputies, to arrive in time, had to start almost within an hour of their election, especially as many of them finding no direct route would be obliged to make long detours; others would learn in the prisons of Germany at the same time of their candidature and their election. And as if to render the complication wholly inextricable a conflict arose between the government in Paris and the delegation at Bordeaux on the question of excluding from the Assembly at Bordeaux the partisans of the Empire. The tact and skill with which that conflict was averted and all Frenchmen appealed to on the same footing call for unqualified admiration.

On the 12th of February, at three o'clock in the afternoon, the deputies came together in the green room of the Grand Theatre at Bordeaux, and without any delay for a consideration of circumstances declared the Assembly constituted. The next day began the verification of powers, and when on the 16th the Assembly proceeded to elect the permanent officers there were no less than 533 voters. Neither the Paris government nor the Bordeaux delegates had thought of defining the powers of

U

the Assembly or of fixing a term of its duration. It was evident that as the outcome of universal suffrage it possessed absolute and sovereign power, and that from the moment of its meeting its authority was sole and supreme in France. The largest fraction consisted of the Right Centre or constitutional monarchists, and it contained the most men of high ability and character. Next came the Republicans, nearly as numerous, then the Legitimists, and lastly the Bonapartists, only thirty-six in number.

If the Right Centre had voted together they would have held the balance of power, and might have repeated the experiment of 1830. In their division lay the safety of the Republic. Among them was a group of one hundred clear-headed men, conservative on the one hand and attached to liberty on the other. The Republic inspired them with distrust, which in some cases at that time reached the height of aversion. But they were persuaded that they would have to choose between the Republic and the Empire. They rejected legitimacy as chimerical and dictatorship as odious; they preferred a liberal monarchy to a moderate republic, but they did not think it would be right to bring about a revolution simply that they might make the presidency of the Republic hereditary. The head of this party and the inspirer of its principles was M. Thiers. His personal history, whether as a statesman or in his motives of action, had not been wholly satisfactory; but his long connection with the government, his attitude of opposition to the Empire from the time of his election for Paris in 1863, his protest against the war, his journeying about Europe in search of aid for his country, had made him the most prominent man in France. He had not only been elected in twenty-six different places but had obtained important minorities in others, and the total number of votes for him exceeded