TOPICS OF THE DAY.
THE "MARSHALATE."
WE take that word from the Pall Mall Gazette, because it is the only one which rightly describes the Constitu- tion which the majority of the French Assembly have, in the teeth of the French people and by an utterly illegal stretch of their authority, forced by an intrigue upon France. It is not a Monarchy, for the title of President of the Republic has been maintained. It is not a Military Dictatorship, pure and simple, for it is to be hampered by organic laws, which a Commission is to prepare and the Assembly to vote. It is not an Empire, for the soldier to whom all Executive power has fallen is not elected for life, nor invested with the power, of dissolution, nor empowered to demand a plebiscite. It is merely a " Marshalate, ' the selection as head of the Executive, with nearly uncontrolled power, of a man whose sole claim to the office is, that the troops willprobably approve of the selection, and that, therefore, order after a fashion may be maintained in France. It was maintained quite as perfectly by M. Thiers, a civilian who struck down the Commune as rigorously as any soldier could have done ; bat the Marshal is more visibly power- ful, and the political cowardice of the Left Centre craved for a palpabl e proof that, whatever the future of France, a soldier should be Seen guarding their money-bags. They therefore voted for the Marshal without restraint upon his power of declaring any of the Departments in a state of siege, and so proclaiming himself master of France and subject to military law alone.
The coup (Mat has been effected as usual in France, partly by audacity, partly by fear of the troops, partly by the away of the commercial section of society towards the successful side. Up to Monday there was still a hope, for the Commis- sion of Fifteen had reported that the prolongation ought not to commence until the organic laws had been voted, which would occupy much time ; but on Monday the Marsha] sent down a message of extreme violence rejecting the Report, declaring that a previous discussion of constitutional Bills would render uncertain and diminish the authority of the power the Assembly wished to create, and that for himself, he would consent to nothing except the diminution of his ten years' term to seven, and that he would always use the powers entrusted to him for the defence of Conservative ideas. These imperious words, which may mean that he will resist any Liberal vote of, the Assembly by force, though they raised a terrific storm in, the Chamber, which realised for a time Charles Beade's description of "a den of wild beasts fed with peppered tongue," had their effect ; an adjournment proposed by the Right was carried, and it became clear that the Left Centre, instead of being roused, were cowed by an audacity which pointed to a coup cl'e'tat. An amendment, proposing an appeal to the people, though supported by the Extreme Left and the Bonapartists, was defeated by 499 to 88, the Left Centre trembling for their own seats ; and on the same evening the prolongation of powers for seven years was voted by 383 to 317, showing a majority of 66, instead of the majority of ten by which the original proposal had been carried, forty members of the Left Centre having gone, over to the Marshal. _ Finally, on Wednesday, the 19th of November—a date hereafter to be important in the history of France—the Ministerial proposal was accepted in its entirety by a majority of 378 to 310. Success had brought its reward, and the Assembly, by a majority, of 68, voted that Marshal MacMahon should for seven years be President of the Republic, head of the enormous Executive staff, and commander-in-chief of the army ; invested him, that is, with all the powers of the American President, which are greater than those of a King, without any obligation to consult the Senate, without any rule authorising impeach- ment, without any provision whatever for a successor should be die in the meanwhile, and without the slightest precau- tion against his declaring all France in a state of siege. This tremendous exertion of constituent power has, moreover, been made without an appeal to France, without the understood con- sent of the people, and without a debate sufficient to bring out the leaders of the Left. It is a coup cretat achieved by the Due de Broglie in favour of a man he hopes to direct in the Monarchical path, through the political cowardice of the Con- servative Republicans, the weak-kneed, selfish, much-consolled, much-educated Whigs of France.
The act, however, ie accomplished, and as we do not believe that either M. Thiers or M. Gambetta intends to resist by extra-
legal means, it only remains for them to make the best of it, by insisting on refusing any increase to the President's powers, and by liberalising, so far as they can, the Constitu- tional laws now again taken in hand. They have bound the President, so far as promises can bind any man, to remain within his legal prerogatives; and we presume they intend to defend as strongly as they can the Constitutional -laws, which may, as against the Assembly, tie his hands. Bat we confess we do not clearly comprehend their tactics. They may, of course, hope so to liberalise the laws that the President, who does not possess the veto, will either be reduced to a nominal headship, or be compelled either to strike a coup dYtat, or to resign. But they can hardly expect that the majority, with the Left Centre admitted into the Cabinet, will fail to support the man it has 'chosen, or that the new members who will now be elected will turn the balance, or that their own in- flnence will not be decreased by so tremendous a defeat. They must know that in three more years the Exile of Chiselhurst will be presentable to the people, and must be aware that the Conservatives intend to use the Marshal to pave the way for a King. Their policy in remaining silent is there- fore inexplicable, unless indeed they haVe satisfied themselves that they can 'change the 'Ministry without, changing the President, and that seven years of such govern- ment will consolidate the Repablic, till it can ba shaken only by a Revolution which only RepUblians can make. They maybe satisfied also that they can compel a' dissolution, and that the Army will obey the new Assembly as it his obeyed the old, and with' a majority at their back may dictate terms to Marshal MacMahon, but they are playing a very dangerous game. In France power accretes to the Executive, more especially if the populace rises in insurrection, and of this in the South there is every danger. The Republicans will not rise without Gambetta, and he has repeatedly refused to be a party to any such disintegration of France ; but the`Commune may, both in Marseilles and Ly-ons; and its suppression by arms would, so to speak, consecrate military rule. The leaders, how- ever, must know facts of which we are unconscious, and as they have deemed it wise to let this strange tiaurpation pass in silence, there is nothing for outsiders to do except to lament that France seems unable to break through her vicious circle ; that even when at the cost of a revolution she has obtained a representative Assembly, it insists on forcing upon her and upon itself a personal power which she'at heart detests. It is still more to be lamented that the wielder of that power is neither, like Napoleon I , a genius ; nor, lite Louis Philippe, an Ulysses ; nor, like Napoleon III, before he lost his health, a statesman of wide ideas, but that France passes, as;it*ile - bound from the dominion of Augustus to thp dorniniondittbAtiar.1
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