TOPICS OF THE DAY.
NAPOLEON'S COMPROMISE.
" T ET me act as I please, and I will let you talk as you 12 please." That is the substance of the compromise which the Emperor of the French has so "graciously" and "wisely" offered to the Chamber and the nation, and over which most of our contemporaries have been singing hymns of thankfulness and praise to the "far-sighted monarch," who has once more shown, as in Mexico, how completely he under- stands his epoch. We regret, for the sake of France and of Europe, that we cannot join in their paeans. The letter of the 12th July, which they think so marvellously wise, seems to us to contain irresistible evidence of failing insight and decaying resolution. It reads like the decree of an hereditary king, aware that the Revolution is on its way, but full of the conviction that statesmanship is but another word for wile. Foresight the Emperor never had, as witness his forecast on the American and German wars, the absurd menace which produced the British Volunteers, and the total failure of his Algerian policy ; but till now he has always comprehended France, always expressed in some rough but efficient way her latent thought. Now he fights her on the hustings on the one point on which she, who is stronger than the Emperor, be his remaining strength what it may, will take no denial, the personal government ; mistakes the whole drift of the elections ; writes in June to Baron de Mackau a letter swearing he will never give way ; tells Granier de Cassagnac early in July to state in the Pays that he regrets having neglected the "majority," i. e., the Arcadians, the party more Imperialist than the Emperor ; and then, on July 12th, gives way in such a manner as to show the hostile world he is yielding, yet not to content that world ; and finally, with- out warning, without even informing M. Schneider, in a kind of spasm of agitation, prorogues the Chamber. Nothing so illusory as his reform was ever granted to an excited people. The Emperor's enemies, half France, preferred in the elec- tions one single demand,—that he should surrender personal government, that he should cease to be the one representa- tive of the people, France incarnate, the single source of action, the sole pivot of power. The Emperor's moderate Mends, those who would accept his dynasty while denying his right to absolutism, endorsed this demand in the Chamber and formulized it, —not perhaps with absolutely perfect tact, for there were other roads to their end,—into a petition for a responsible Ministry and a free Legislative Chamber, and then before the debate, with its happy chances ; before the vote, with its possible desertions ; before he had even dismissed his obnoxious advisers, the Emperor, true to his instinct as dramatist, steps forward to anticipate all ; and succeeds in irritating all alike. He gives to his enemies nothing except new motives and new space for shouting. He grants nothing to his friends except an extended liberty of talk. He openly declares that he has denuded himself of no prerogative. He surrenders nothing except indeed the right to sign free-trade treaties, a sop to the Protectionists. Instead of the increased powers for which the Chamber asked, he gives the members the right to discuss the Estimates in chapters instead of in gross—a privilege which will enable them to make many speeches, but which they are no more likely to use for active purposes than our own Commons are likely to employ their similar or superior power. Instead of allowing members to bring in Bills, he permits them to make interpellations ; and instead of giving them a right to elect the Ministry,— the right of rights, for which they formally asked,—he graciously permits them to elect the officials of the Chamber, the Speaker and Chairmen of Committees. They are to have free permission and full power to organize themselves for nothing. One privilege, indeed, he concedes. Hitherto under the Imperial re'gime there has been one guarantee for a mem- ber's independence. He could not accept office, low or high, unless, indeed, such office were semi-divine, that of a chamber- lain, or equerry, or aide-de-camp attached to the august person of the Sovereign. This restriction has been abolished. Mem- bers may now be ministers, and may also be chamberlains, cour- tiers, officials, contractors, may, in fact, hold any office in which independence as against the Sovereign would be contrary even to English etiquette. That is literally all, the whole of the grand decree, which if we may believe the Times and the Telegraph, and the rest of the journals "authorized to be sold in all kiosks in Paris," has re-established Parliamentary government in France. On the strength of these immense concessions,
which have still to be ratified by a Senate appointed by the Emperor, which are only hinted promises in anticipation of inquiry, and which are not to interfere with "the prerogatives more especially vested by the people in Mn," Napoleon has prematurely prorogued the Chamber, lest, perchance, it should criticize the gift.
But the letter has been followed by a change of Ministry t No doubt it has, but by what kind of a change? The Sultan, finding that his most faithful Mameluke, the attorney who a few months ago said in the Chamber that he was nothing, lear than nothing, one of a band of obscure devotees called a Ministry, had accumulated on himself the odium dire to the.
re'gime, flings out his head to the populace as a peace offering, but who succeeds M. Rouher? • We say nothing of the baseness-
of the act, though Napoleon will never again have a servant like M. Rouher—never find a man fit at once to be Premier and slipper-bearer, a statesman who could govern France, and defy a French Chamber, and answer French orators, and take
orders like a valet, for monarchs have to be base when the- national interest demands baseness, but we ask in this revival of freedom who is to be Grand Vizier Does anybody even,
pretend to know ? Is there anything in the world to prevent the Emperor from stooping again like a Sultan among hia people, and seizing some able attorney like Rouher, or professor like Duruy, or henchman like Persigny, or Jew banker like- Fould, and saying, "This is my chosen representative, let him govern France V' There is virtual responsibilityto the Chamber,
says the Times; but will the Times venture to name the man who is to be virtually responsible, or give an idea, how-
ever faint, of his policy, or hint at his claims on France, or- suggest why he, more than another, should be the chosen.. head of the Executive ? There are whispers of M. Buffet- Who is M. Buffet that he is to rule France ? There is talk of M. de Parieu, of M. Segris—we share the ignorance of four-fifths of Europe, and of three-fourths of all Frenchmen,_ when we say that we know not why the "Eye of Mercy" haa.
beamed upon those doubtless deserving individuals, and are totally unable to calculate or even guess what their astounding elevation may mean. When Hatim Pasha succeeds Fazil Khan,.
who does know what has happened to the thirty millions of people, any one of whom may, in consequence, be so much the nearer office or death by the bowstring? We do not. deny—we never have denied—that the choice may be a good one. The Emperor has eyes, and when unfettered by his entourage, which, as it dies off, is ceasing to fetter
chooses for his purposes well ; but whatever his success, his choice at least is not an illustration of his accord with his people. He chooses, as a Sultan chooses, partly from insight partly from will, and his people have to accept his choice as would the choice of Heaven. We are not saying his- choice will fail, any more than we are saying that the equally capricious choice of the Parisian multitude—which chose M. Gambetta because he made a crack speech—will fail ; but its success, even more than its failure, would be due to anything- rather than constitutional principle. France is free, but the' Emperor remains sole representative of its freedom. France is free, but Napoleon selects its ruler from the unknown crowd. France is free, but if that unknown man convinces his master that war would be wise or the conquest of Paraguay ex- pedient, what in this freedom is there to arrest a declara- tion of war or an expedition to-morrow? On these principles, Turkey is also free, or Russia.
It is scarcely our business, however, to animadvert on the " reforms " the Emperor may introduce, or France may gratefully accept ; those are internal affairs' with which out- side observers have very little concern. Their business is only to estimate in the general interest of the political world the chances that the Emperor's concessions may prevent a contest between him and his Chamber, or the nation. We do not think they will prevent one. Many things are possible as we see in France, but among them hoodwinking France cannot be reckoned. There is a certain simplicity in French- men, as well as in their representatives, which is very fatal to combinations of that kind. The majority of the Corps Legislatif, backed certainly by half the nation, and probably by a large ma- jority of the nation, asked for the right to control the policy of France. They have not got it, but instead a power to talk freely of her policy, which is doubtless good, which in a country where intellectual defeat is intolerable to rulers, be- cause it means physical defeat immediately afterwards, may even be very good, but which is clearly not the thing they asked for. They will see that quickly' enough, they saw it indeed as the letter was read, and received it in profound silence, broken only by the delighted shouts of the devoted Mamelukes of the Empire ; and seeing it, our impression is they will ask their old request again, and yet again, until they either get it, or seeing that it will not be granted for any amount of asking, will proceed with more or less of ferocity to take it. We shall be told that they cannot take it while the peasants are faithful, while the Army supports the Empire, while Napoleon is the wisest man in Prance; but all those assertions, surely, involve the entire question at issue. If the peasants are so faithful, why do the peasants' representatives,—for example, the Emperor's corre- spondent, M. de Mackau—support that unfaithful inter- pellation I If the Army governs France so entirely, and can be so implicitly depended on, why attach such importance to an -election as to dismiss a Premier? And finally, if Napoleon is .so far wiser than all France, why does he fail ? He does not wish the Empire to be weak, yet if there is meaning in appearances the Empire is failing, losing ground, driven to small devices in spite of him and his farsighted policy. Opinions may and will differ about the letter of the 12th July ; its object, its meaning, its results ; but on this one point, at least, we think, opinion will be unanimous. Had the Empire been gaining strength, had the elections reaffirmed its principle, had the ground been solid beneath its foundations, had even the builder retained the full command of his genius, that letter would never have been written. The Belshazzar of to- day sees no handwriting on the wall, or he would read, and reading, understand, and perhaps evade his doom. There are men nowadays who could swindle even Fate. All he sees is that a finger, shadowy but omnipotent, undefined but irresist- ible, is writing somewhat which it imports him to read ; and he strains and stumbles blinded towards the scroll which, though invisible, he yet knows to be there, and to be his sentence. In all history there is no figure which so excites the imagina- tion as this Emperor, pressed on all sides by a force which is no force, which yields as he strikes, gives way as he springs, seems even to buoy him as he loses his feet, yet always sweeps him on relentlessly to his doom.
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