BOOKS.

THE GOVERNMENT OF M. TRIERS.•

[SECOND NOTICE.]

WITH that marvellous activity which constituted so conspicuous a feature in his nature, M. Thiers started from Bordeaux the very night of the day on which be had achieved an Administration, to negotiate at Versailles with an imperious victor. He went inwardly possessed with the conviction that peace, almost at any cost, must be accepted. For the kind of popular resistance M. Gambetta and his supporters were eager to organise, M. Thiers had a profound contempt, and at this period he entertained a positive aversion for the mighty tribune, whom he looked on as a pestilential mischief-maker. Notwithstanding these feelings at heart, such was the resoluteness of manner he managed to dis- play and the indomitable vivacity of his language, that this little man succeeded in making the iron Chancellor yield in his original terms the abatement of one milliard and the abandonment of Belfort. The incidents of the discussion with the Chancellor have been put before the public before now, and notably by M. J. Favre. They are told in these volumes again, with the aid of letters from M. Thiers, but there is nothing of really novel in- terest in this account of a transaction which by its nature was removed from the area of hidden influences. The following, however, is curious, as giving confirmation to a story we had previously heard, and have just heard again, from German sources of a comically strange proceeding on the part of the Chancellor. The terms of peace having been agreed to late on tho night of the 24th February, Thiers on the 25th came to sign the preliminaries, when, to his sur-

prise, he found the Chancellor " highly excited. His manner was stiff and haughty, his language cutting, almost menacing. He charged M. Thiers with trying to spin out the discussion, and to seek grounds for renewing the war. His irri- tation had a cause our negotiators quickly recognised. He had received official intimation of the English Government intending to make representations about the amount of the war indemnity.

He went the length of saying, clearly see you have no other object than to renew the campaign ; you will have the counten- ance and support of your good friends, Messieurs les Anglais.'

M de Bismarck rejected curtly, violently, the assur- ances of our pacific intentions, which at that moment he would not have questioned, had he been self-possessed. I am an idiot,' at last he exclaimed, ' to give myself all the trouble you put upon me ; our conditions are final,—they are to be taken or rejected. I am not going to fuss myself any more about them. Bring to-morrow an interpreter ; from this moment I won't speak French any more.' And in fact, he began to talk German with an extreme vehemence." The German version of the in- cident, which the world has just received, on the autho- rity of Prince Bismarck himself, was that, losing all patience with M. Thiers' plea that certain of the terms involved an indignitj, the Chancellor, in a fit of grim humour, bethought himself to check this flow of French complaint by abruptly breaking into a profuse counter- gush of loud German speech ; and that the stratagem had the effect of a stream of cold water on M. Thiers, who, utterly taken aback, stopped his complaints, and subsided into a frame of mind which admitted of business being brought to a close. Though speaking on all subjects as if ho had omniscience, M. Thiers never acquired the most elementary knowledge of any foreign tongue, except, perhaps, Italian. The correctness of the German account is borne out by M. Simon, who writes :— " M. Thiers let it be seen that he was hurt, but he did not an

instant forego his dignity and his calmness When at ten

• Le Gourernement de dL 77siere. Par Jules Simon. 2 vols. Paris: Calman

Levy. 1878. at night the two separated, everything remained as it had been agreed to in the terms accepted on the previous days."

On March 11th the Assembly determined on adjourning to Versailles. Seven days later, on March 18th, the whole Govern- ment had to transfer itself thither, before the Commune, triumphant in Paris. The portion devoted to this episode is the most de- tailed and perhaps the most important in the book. We can-

not here follow the author through the narrative in which he seeks to establish the direct emanation of the organisation that represented the Commune from the International Association, founded at the St. Martin's Hall meeting in 1864. There is much in this part of the story which, to say the least, has a problematical aspect. We feel ourselves on safer ground when M. Simon writes of events that occurred during the siege, and unfolds the picture of incidents which marked the ushering in upon the scene of the revolutionary forces that for a period prevailed in Paris. He admits without reserve that the Government of Defence was already much coerced by those elements, which contrived to secure a commanding position in the conseils darmenient of the National Guard. By a system of " federation they con- trolled the battalions." Thus a central Vigilance Committee installed itself, which afterwards took the title of Repub- lican Federation of the National Guard ; 215 battalions were represented by delegates in it. This body absorbed sundry smaller revolutionary associations, and when the siege terminated, " its members were invested with a formidable power, which for some time they had been in the habit of exer- cising." On the other hand, the constituted authorities found themselves all at once deprived of those conservative forces which had enabled them during the siege to put down several insurrec- tionary movements. On this matter M. Simon expresses himself with severity :— " No sooner were the gates of Paris opened, than all who had the means to go ay rushed to revisit their families. The reports of the head-quarters staff of the National Guard show that sixty thousand Guards—the most trustworthy and best situated, those who had a natural interest to defend order—left Paris, as the channels of conveyance became practicable. In the course of February. the proportions between Conservatives and Revolutionaries in the National Guard changed,

therefore, all of a sudden Under the circumstances, this wholesale departure was more than an abdication,—it wa* an act of all but complicity The desertion, however, is not explained by merely egoistical desires While the revolutionary party

was marching towards the Commune, its opponents did not know -whither they were going Those who were Monarchists felt their impotency ; those who were Republicans felt irritated and dis-

couraged. Though the end of the siege had been foreseen very few, even ranongst the most sensible Republicans, would admit that in capitulating, the Government had obeyed inexorable nacos- -sity All the responsibility of the fall was thrown on its shoulders ; according to the Ultras, it had betrayed ; according to the 3Ioderatv s, it had been incapable. Alone, M. Gambetta retained his prestige; but M. Gambetta no longer formed part of the Government ; he boa had nothing to do with the capitulation. Tho Assembly was in the majority monarchical. it had put at the head of the Government

M. Thiel s, who had served King Louis Philippe for eighteen years Mow not to fear for the Republic, with this chief and this Assembly ? Many a Republican—neither Socialist nor revolutionary—felt doubt -whether in fighting for order, one was not going to fight for a dynasty."

The situation, as here depicted, was consequently the following:— On the side of order, paralysis and distraction ; on the side of revolution, organisation and the command of forces. As for regular troops, the Government, at the time of the capitulation, indeed, had under arms about 243,000 men, but "it was an -agglomeration, and not an army ; an agglomeration, moreover, in course of dissolution, since it comprised 103,000 Gerdes Mobiles. Instead of it being possible to count on these soldiers, it was essential for order that they should be disbanded as soon as possible. The Mobiles of the Seine especially no longer obeyed

their officers They had adopted the fashion of arresting and taking them to the Central Committee." In addition to these elements of active disturbance, there came the presence of sore distress, claims for arrears of rents, for bills long fallen due, all of which intensified the angry condition of an irritated population.

The charge has been freely brought against M. Thiers that he himself was the cause of the Commune, by having declined to disarm the revolutionary forces in Paris, at the time when he could have done this under the virtual protection of the German bayonets. M. Jules Fevre has theatrically asked pardon of God and men in print for having striven to prevent the Germans in- sisting on the disarmament of the National Guards. M. Simon evades this point, but is very explicit in his exculpation of M. Thiers from the charge of having subsequently conduced to the catastrophe, by incompetent arrangements, and through not having recognised the gravity of the situation. His contention is that • the Government perfectly grasped the state of affairs, and that M. Thiers throughout acted with full appreciation of what he had to contend with, and according to a deliberately formed plan. Whether on reflection M. Simon's view will be accepted is a point we cannot stop here to discuss. His statements, however, must deserve respectful attention, for they are the testimony of a witness who was then in all the secrets of the Government. The Federative Committee had two capital objects in view,—to secure munitions, and to ensure the appointment of a General by popular vote. The first was attained by seizure of the artillery parked at Neuilly, on the ground that "the cannon of the people" must not be exposed to capture by the Prussians on their entry into Paris. The plea was plausible. " The tocsin was rung, by order of the Central Committee," and by sunset the artillery was dragged through the city, and stacked on the Place des Vosges and the heights of Montmartre, that is, in the quarters of Paris where the revolutionary element had its head-quarters. " General Clement Thomas, feeling that he had no authority over the National Guard, which was wholly in the hands of its Com- mittees, and unwilling to retain a merely nominal authority, resigned his functions." M. Thiers, at this time in Paris, thought it still possible to master the danger by the selection of a fitting soldier. He appointed General Aurelles de Paladine, the victor of Coulmiers. Writing to M. Simon, he said :—" The opinion of competent persons is that the matter is not as grave as one is disposed to make it." Almost simultaneously with these optimistic utterances, Cluseret addressed to the Committee this violent denunciation :—" General Aurelles de Paladine is, next to Gambetta and Trochu, the greatest criminal against France. lie it is who, without a struggle, surrendered to the enemy the Loire

army He deserves to be brought to a court-martial ; and this man M. Thiers selects to put at your head." On March 17th, a Council was held to determine what should be done in presence of a situation that had become intolerable,—a standing "menace of civil war," which prevented "the resumption of labour, kept the Prussians from evacuating, and made payment of the ransom impossible." The decision taken was that in the following night the heights of Montmartre should be scaled, and the artillery in the hands of the Federals be taken possession of. We now have it on the best authority that this decision was arrived at against the opinion of several, and especially of General Vinoy, who commanded the small number of regular troops in the capital. " lie had had to do with the Central Committee for sometime; he was thoroughly acquainted with the temper of the non-Federal National Guard ; and as to what was termed his army, he repeatedly insisted that he had under his orders merely a body in course of formation, which it would be imprudent to take into action, as it offered no kind of guarantee. It was his opinion that the return should be awaited of some of the captive regiments from Germany." This professional advice was deliber- ately over-ruled by the President, whose influence readily induced a majority to concur with him. "M. Thiers," says his apologist, "judged the situation as a politician. If one failed on the night of the 17th with inadequate forces, the consequence was a decided check, but one to be explained and made good, which would sot

be the case were the old army, the solid army engaged There was an end of that army, were it repulsed by the insur- rection ; were it to fraternise, there would be an end of France. Once demonstrated after a decisive trial that the bulk of the National Guard failed one, it would no longer be possible to con- tend against Paris in Paris ; it would have to be evacuated and retaken. These reasons persuaded the Council." It would be in- teresting to know how many of the then assenting Ministers are still of opinion that they did right in siding with the self-confident and vivacious civilian against the professional soldier. But M. Thiers was never a man easy to drive from any opinion to which he had committed himself, and on this occasion he derived assurance from a delusive belief in the well-to-do section of the National Guard responding to a summons ; while, should this hope fail, he relied with characteristic tenacity on a plan of action he long ago. had evolved in his brain, when considering a condition of affairs that bore but a superficial resemblance to the existing one. This is clear from a very remarkable communication made on the 17th March to M. Simon by M. Thiers. " I am in hope the National Guard—that is, ours—will this time take a decisive line. Should it come in large numbers," continued M. Thiers, "its presence will ensure the faithfulness of the army. Then we shall be very strong ; the Federals will not dare to confront us ; we shall then retake the guns without a blow, and the Central Committee will be dissolved. Should the

National Guard not show itself should there be resist- ance, and the army not prove firm, then we have but one means to obviate a revolution, which would be the ruin of France, namely, to leave Paris, and remake the army at Versailles. That is the plan which succeeded with Windischgriitz at Vienna, and it is the one I counselled in the June days of 1848, in the event of the insurrection triumphing." So tenaciously did M. Thiers cling t 3 the belief that the Conservative battalions of the National Guard would appear, that, according to M. Simon, he still went on expecting them during the forenoon of the 18th, that is, hours after the contrary was plain to all. Only when the stern truth actually stared him in the face would M. Thiers recognise it. He left Paris before any other member of the Government, on the 18th March, at five in the evening, " after having given a written order for the army to go away, and for the evacuation of the forts on the left bank." We are told by M. Simon that this order was strongly disapproved of by " several Ministers," and by the Maire of Paris, " who wrote that he could hold the Hotel de Ville indefinitely with 500 men." M. Thiers would, however, not listen to these re- presentations; his only reply was a "formal command to withdraw." The ground that weighed with him was that evacuation would produce less sensation than the capture of these strong places by the insurgents.

It has been affirmed that so precipitate was the retreat from Paris, that the capital position of Mont Valerien was actually left without a garrison, and might have been captured without a shot by the insurgents on the 19th of March. M. Simon tells us a story about this matter, and it is one which does not rebut the charge :—

" On reaching Versailles, the 19th, at 4 a.m., M. Simon drove to the President, at tho Prefecture, whom he found up. He asked the latter if he had thought of troops for Mont Valerian, which, as he bad just heard, had for its whole garrison two companies of disarmed rifle- men. M. Thiers thanked him with vivacity, but said that a fel tress of this nature could not be carried by an attack of sharpshooters or by the bayonet ; that there were in it guns, a resolute officer, and that a single discharge of artillery would suffice to scatter a rabble of National

Guards The difficulty was not to despatch a regiment, if it' were forthcoming, but to find one. Several Deputies—amongst others, M. Buffet—came during the forenoon to express their uneasiness on the 1

subject At last, the 119th Line was selected; at two in the morning, of the 20th, the orders were sent to it. That very evening the Federals presented themselves before Mont Vahirien, but they found it, then, strongly occupied."

We cannot accompany M. Simon through the pages in which he narrates the doings of the Commune and the armed struggle against it. Though his command of material is vast, yet as regards the former, he necessarily writes as one who viewed it from the outside. We would repeat, however, that while by the force of things he is animated with strongly hostile feelings, he is fair in his remarks on individual Communards. He recognises the military merit of several, and emphasises that Rossel's private life was "without stain." Of course, the drift of the narrative is to show that all through M. Thiers acted with prudence and wisdom ; that his guiding maxim was not to ven- ture on military action until assured of success, and that, there- fore, the dilatoriness charged against the operations was really but the measured tread of sagacious policy. In putting this view forcibly before his readers, M. Simon only does what was to be expected. We regret, however, that in this elaborate and tem- perate defence of M. Thiers' Government, he should have virtually omitted to notice the proceedings taken after victory against those who had fallen into the hands of the victorious authorities. Incidentally M. Simon admits that the number of those reserved for trial amounted to 38,000, but as regards the manner in which many were dealt with, all he says is the following :—" It is to be regretted that cruelties were committed by the victors. They are explicable, but they cannot be justified. The Government bad given formal orders that all who gave up their arms should be made prisoners, and that was the desire of the Marshal and of the chief officers. Nothing in the world is, however, more diffi- cult than to excite the soldier when on this side the wall, and I then to ensure his being master of himself as soon as he has got to the other side. He has killed, and be goes on killing." With all respect to M. Simon, this is quite beside the case. The sum-1 mary shootings which produced so much sensation were not done by infuriated troops in the moments of passion ; they were whole- sale executions, perpetrated at the word of command, days and days after all combat had ceased. Those who were then in Paris, and happened to live near the Parc de Monceaux, have not forgotten I the lugubrious detonations which on successive days struck their i ears, and told of fresh slaughters.

Space obliges us here to pause, but there is still much of great interest in these volumes, notably regarding M. Thiers' domestic policy and the circumstances that brought about the catastrophe of May 24th, and perhaps we may have another opportunity of reverting to these points.