THE PATRIOTIC LEAGUE.
THE French Ministry still avoid an open conflict with General Boulanger, but they are creeping nearer and nearer towards it, and have commenced hostilities against his bodyguard. We doubt their success, for reasons given below ; but it must be admitted that this time they are entirely within their right. No Government in the world, certainly not the British, would endure an organisation such as there is reason to believe the Patriotic League had become. That League was originally an imitation of the famous Turnerverein, organised by Stein and Hardenberg after the disasters which followed Jena, to train the whole youth of Prussia in readiness for a war of enfranchisement. It was, in fact, a federation of young men's clubs formed to practise military gymnastics, and keep alive the readiness of the new generation for the war which would one day be waged to revindicate the two lost provinces. It numbered at one time two hundred and forty thousand members, all of them passed soldiers, and all bound, in the event of war, to help one way or another in securing victory. Gradually, the discontent of France with the Republic invaded the League, its chiefs thirsted for a stronger and. more military government, great numbers of its members became Bou- langists, and in 1888 there came a split. A considerable number seceded rather than oppose the Republic, and the remainder placed themselves at the disposal of a small central committee, which it was quite understood would take its final instructions from General Boulanger. The League was especially strong in Paris, numbering, it is said, seventy thousand men, all of them armed with re- volvers, a fact little noticed, because the habit of carrying the revolver is now more general in Paris than in New York or Chicago. As there is no National Guard, and all other Leagues are prohibited, this is by far the strongest civilian body in Paris, so strong that if during any crisis it marched on the Chambers, it could only be resisted by calling out the garrison, and, if necessary, fighting a battle in the streets. According to the Procureur- GemSral, it was completely organised, was bound to obey words of command from the centre, and had received orders to hold itself in permanent readiness for mobilisa- tion. If the young men are sincere, which is probable, the League constitutes the best army of revolution seen in Paris since Commandant Henriot was thrown on the dung- hill, and according to Continental ideas, is quite outside the possibility of tolerance. Indeed, the English or American Governments would not tolerate such a body, though the former, since Joseph Hume exposed the plans of the English Orangemen and the Duke of Cumberland, have had no experience of this form of menace. The Cabinet, therefore, after seizing the papers necessary for evidence, and formally dissolving the League, applied to the Senate for permission to prosecute M. Naquet, and to the Chamber for permission to prosecute MM. Laguerre, Turquet, and Laisant, as members of an illegal secret society. And on Thursday, after violent debates in the Chamber, permissions were granted.
It seems to us wholly unfair to blame the Government. The Penal Code is as clear as possible ; and if it were not, the prosecution would be justified by the principles which govern the administration of all civilised States. If a Government is bound to allow an army, unrecognised by law and irresponsible to any legal authority, to be organised within its own capital, avowedly for the overthrow of existing institutions, political society is impossible, and the safety of a State must always be at the mercy of any crowd of persons fanatical enough to risk a contest with the soldiers. It is easy to say that the soldiers must win in any conflict, and that Governments may therefore wait in calmness till the Leagues descend into the streets ; but the business of Administrations, even when secure of the event, is to prevent civil war, not to bury the victims and then congratulate the country on the successful restoration of order. In France, more- over, the event is by no means assured. No human being can be certain, most assuredly the Minister of War is not certain, that the troops will fire upon men parading in the name of General Boulanger; and a Govern- ment so situated is bound not to allow its enemies that chance. The prosecution is therefore justified, and, indeed, imperative unless the Ministry are to pick and choose what laws they will execute and what dis- regard; and our only doubt is as to the result. Neither a decree of dissolution nor a prosecution, sure to be a pro- tracted affair, will cause the League to cease to exist. Senator Naquet and his three colleagues are not necessary to its existence. The contingency of a decree of dissolution has, it is admitted, been foreseen, and the officers of arrondisseraents, sections, quartiers, and groups of streets, know quite well where they can obtain final orders. The League can move to-day just as well as it could a month ago. It is true that, as the correspondents say, energy always succeeds in France ; but then, is the action taken ener- getic? It has certainly struck no terror, for the " pro- test " of the League is a pure defiance, and we question whether the members of the organisation are in the least alarmed. What do they care about a lumbering prosecu- tion of four of their ostensible leaders, which must last weeks, and may end in an acquittal, the jury being chosen from among the majority of Paris electors. True energy, in French apprehension, would have inspired a prose- cution of the General, and a sudden, well-planned, and complete disarming of the League, whose mem- bers have no more legal right to carry arms than any- other Parisians. No decision short of this will dissolve- the League, or induce Parisians to believe that the Govern- ment regards General Boulanger as an ordinary Deputy,. and will, whatever the consequences, carry out the law: If the Ministry struck those strokes, and struck them successfully, they would be considered "strong," and might retain power for a few months longer,—that is, until the elections become legally due ; and great as the risk would be, and averse as President Carnot is to decided action, it is, we believe, to this or a similar course that they will at last be driven. France never tolerates long the punishment of subordinates only, and M. Constans is no Frenchman if he- is not inflamed by the praises heaped on him for the new- " energy " which he has infused into the Executive. He will want to go forward ; and as the Ministry is the last possible combination, and would tumble to pieces without him, he will probably get his way.
Whether a successful blow levelled straight at the General, a prosecution, for instance, on the charge of con- spiring, followed by a verdict and a sentence of imprison- ment, would greatly affect the elections, it is impossible to say. In the case of any other man, we should suppose that such an occurrence would have the usual effect of defeat in France, that the electors would be disenchanted, and that the favourite of an hour would in an hour be powerless ; but the relation of General Boulanger to the people is wholly separate and abnormal. They like this "man on horseback" best when he is flung. As the favour shown towards him by the masses has no reason, so also no reason seems to operate in his disfavour. He has been proved guilty of falsehood under his own hand, he has been dismissed from his commands, he has been defeated by a civilian in a duel, and he has been denounced in the strongest language of contempt by all whom the masses are supposed to trust,—and all without the smallest visible injury to his reputation. Not only is he elected by con- stituency after constituency, not only does he obtain a majority on a ple'biscite of the capital, not only does- " society " hurl itself at his feet, but the fear of him, entertained by Republican leaders visibly increases. They hate him more than ever, but the tone of their denuncia- tions has changed, and the " CEesar of the music-halls" in now treated and described as a" Pretender," as "a veritable danger," as a man so formidable that revolutionary energy is required to check his advance towards the throne. The Republican leaders are justified, for the progress of the General is unmistakable, and it was after his fall that the Patriotic League—in other words, the energetic and well- to-do youth of France—modified their successful organisa- tion, in order to direct it more effectually and exclusively to his support ; but then, where is the explanation of facts so completely out of accord with precedent ? To judge by the history of France, an imprisoned General is a General on his way to the scaffold or oblivion ; but to judge by the history of General Boulanger, the prison for him would be but a road to a popular dictatorship. In the presence of a situation so absolutely abnormal, unprecedented, even absurd—if there can be an absurdity which has no humour in it—calculation is worthless, and one watches as one would watch a landslip or a volcanic eruption. There is everything for Republicans to hope and everything to fear, and no visible ground whatever either for fear or hope.
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