CORRESPONDENCE.
THE STRUGGLE IN FRANCE.
Paris, November 20. IN my slight sketch which I sent you the other day of our posi- tion here, I had not time to describe fully the forces that are 'working beneath the surface, The danger at such a moment as the present depends more upon the temper and ruling motive of those who are opposed to each other than upon the actual ques- tions which are in dispute. No complication could have been in itself more serious than the disputed return of the present Presi- dent of the United States, but those who knew the temper of the American people believed steadily, and the result proved them right, that the solution would be peaceful. It is what I see of the temper of the Ministerialists here that makes me believe that France is once more drifting into troubled waters. You must have often asked yourselves in England what madness has stung the Conservative party here, and engaged them in their present task of sowing the whirlwind,—the whole crisis and trouble must have seemed to you so wholly gratuitous. Without hoping to offer you a complete analysis of the mind of the French Con- servatives, I think I can describe some of the motives which underlie their present attitude. There is a certain belief which is deeply rooted in many persons here, and is exercising considerable influence at the present moment ; it is, that France requires, that France likes the use of force. Disaffection and disloyalty begin -whenever doubts exist whether or not the hand is sufficiently strong and the mind sufficiently resolute. The Marshal's fault has been not that he has employed force or hinted at force in re- serve behind him, but that he has not employed i with sufficient openness and confidence to reassure the country. Ile has grasped but too feebly the magician's wand. The men who voted "yes" in the old days of plebiscites did so because they knew well enough that their master would not accept "no," and that the only answer be would have made to a hostile vote would have been through the mouths of his cannon. The strength of the Emperor was the general confidence in his possession of forte and his reso- lution to use it, and the strength of his successor will be in the same thing. The France of to-day is the same France that accepted him. She wishes now, as she did then, to be saved from herself, and desires to obey, if you will only give her the pretext for doing so. What argument can be used in reply to men whose minds are steeped in such a conviction ? What common interest or common feeling exists between them and -that greet mess of the nation whose heart is set on the task of -ruling itself, and carrying its own responsibilities ? In such a ease words are useless, and you can only look on while these 'believers in force try their mad experiment once more, and -dash themselves to pieces against that which they will not under- stand.
I should perhaps add that this same cynicism takes other forms. The commonest form is that which is familiar to all Englishmen, and which lays the blame of all that takes place on "cc mal- beureux esprit Francais." For you in England, self-government may be a good thing, but we are different. With this formula a great many of the most cultivated Frenchmen placidly declare themselves incapable of political progress, and condemn their country to retrace that bad road which leads back to their old misfortunes.
Independently of this abstract belief, there is another motive;
very concrete and active, which is at the bottom of the Con- servative resistance to the wishes of the country. It is the plain and simple dread of seeing the game go against them. It is the political consequences of a really Left Government which their soul cannot away with. Like the Southerners in the days of Secession, they are much exercised in their minds about the safety of certain peculiar institutions ; and like them, they feel no shame in seeking to withdraw their stakes from the table, because they see a chance of losing them. It is a wilfulness and an egoism which pass description, the wilfulness and egoism of a spoilt and privileged class,which escape from all common-sense and all right feeling. The whole world must be unhinged, lest any of the Duo de Broglie's ideas should be disturbed. Garabetta placed his finger on one of the true spots of the present confusion when he told that statesman, with that use of the personal pronoun which the forms of the French Chamber allow, that he had re- mained an aristocrat while his country had become Republican. And the stupidity falls but little short of the recklessness. Devoid of political instinct, the Ministerialists have not yet made out that the hated majority is not animated by extreme views, that property is an institution which counts almost as many friends on the Left as on the Right, that when M. J. Ferry, in his speech of the other day, divided the nation into the Clerical and the non-Clerical party, there were nearly half the voices of his party that took no part in the cheer ; that on all other questions but the present constitutional question, where the con- duct of the Right supplies to their opponents one mind and one movement, differences and divisions of every kind would make themselves felt. By a sort of fatality, almost like that of Suleiman Pasha in the Balkans, they have selected the one position to attack where every natural advantage is taken from them and given to their opponents. Some of the cooler heads amongst the Conservatives who take no active part in politics see this, and ask why they should be led to fight before the day for fighting has arrived. It will be time enough, they say, when the Church or the Army question has arisen, to make our stand. Why should we fight our battle by anticipation ?
You will see that this feeling in favour of resistance in any fashion and with any weapons is a political feeling. It is the feeling of the child who could not be brought to say the letter CY, because it knew dimly of the long list of letters that lay on the further side of that obstacle. It is not the same fueling as that social terror, to which I alluded in my last letter, and which sees behind Gambetta Belleville, and behind Belleville the Reign of Terror. But the one feeling touches and runs into the other feeling. How far the Conservative leaders believe in the peril social, how far they play with it, I do not attempt to decide.
To these feelings, considered as factors in the present struggle, you must add the weight of the Imperialist faction, Shame- less, cynical, and unscrupulous, these men are what you would expect to find them after those twenty evil years' of possessing France. Once more the prospect of golden days half opens itself before them, and they fill earth and heaven with their clamour, in the eagerness of birds of prey for the feast. On one day they praise and flatter the Marshal, on the next they blame him be- cause he is not "thorough," and ask scornfully what title awaits him if he forfeits his engagements to defend Conservatism. With scarcely an attempt to conceal their intention to sting him into taking some desperate course, they play on the old string that as a true soldier he must, under every circumstance, stay at his post, in guard over the country.
I cannot, then, disguise from myself that the party of resist- ance are mentally in a very combustible state. Disbelief in the Parliamentary system, a nervous terror of the consequences of government by the Left, a belief that the conflict is inevit- able, and that it may as well be entered on now as later, contempt for the DOW classes growing into power, and open, insolent admiration of the methods of the 2nd of December, are amongst the feelings of the moment, and are all tending in a fatal direction. In the midst of the uncertainty and confusion in which we live, there are some points which begin to stand out clearly, and may be taken as land-
marks of the course which events are likely to follow A second dissolution means civil war. The Left would not accept it, and it would inaugurate a period of two Parliaments and two armies, much resembling the commencement of the English civil war of the seventeenth century. (2.) As long as the Senate remains with him, the Marshal will not resign. His own statements on this subject have been made in language with the fullest flavour of the barracks, and not always with prudence as regards the persons who were present. "These gentlemen have wished to get
rid of me ; let them look to it that they are not swept out of the way." He may presently undergo a mental change, but this is what the chief officer of the State is thinking to-day. I can speak with certainty on this point. (3.) The Marshal is not likely to accept, under any pressure, a genuine Left Ministry. The real sore point is the command of the Army, and now that things have gone so far as they have, he would not con- sent to place in it hands that would satisfy the Left. In this respect, matters grow daily worse. Every day new rumours fill the air, and each party attributes intentions to the other which, whether true or not, increase the chances of collision. (4.) The Left Centre and moderate Left may, as I believe, be trusted not to be won over from the solid phalanx of which they now form part to support any of the bastard Minis- tries which the present moment is fertile in producing. Their attitude in the Chamber is one of such perfect adhesion to and sympathy with their party, their papers write with such vigour and earnestness, and the Whig constitutional temper seems so thoroughly roused in them, that I do not think any defection on their part is to be feared. Of course, were a great political leader in command of the Conservative party, he would have spared no effort to disengage this section by offering such a com- bination as would have been difficult for them to refuse ; but as it is, each fresh futility in the appointment of Ministers helps to render the union of the Liberals more complete. If I am right in supposing that these four points are tolerably certain,—that on the one hand, the Marshal will not resign and that he will not appoint a genuine left Ministry, and on the other hand, that the Left will not accept a second dissolution and that they are likely to continue compact and unbroken, it is not easy to see in what direction to look for a solution. Two unknown quantities remain in the calculation, the Senate and the Army. Of the statesmanship and political instinct which exist in the Senate, you can judge by that most shadowy of abstract resolu- tions which has been their last word to the country. In itself, the Senate is one of those new and artificial institutions, designed with a certain view as regards symmetry, placed in a hole dug for it at a day's notice, without hold of any kind upon the country, and damned from the first hour of its existence by the intention that it should neutralise the Lower Chamber. But cir- cumstances give it an importance for the moment which it does not possess of itself. Its assistance is counted upon to give a fiction of legality to the Marshal's party. It is to be a sort of fig-leaf for the party who wish to disregard the law, but are not prepared to dismiss all the outward symbols of decency. It is likely enough, after some hesitation, to allow itself to be used for this purpose, but if the stories are true which circulate as regards the means taken to secure a Senator's election (in this land of accu- sation, one receives every story with distrust), it becomes impossible to reckon with any confidence on its future action, and it is enough to remember that a floating and undecided group will be exposed to many and peculiar temptations. On the whole, the Senate will have power to affect the position as it lessens or increases the confidence of the Marshal, but as regards its own power to con- trol the forces that are face to face with each other, a paper screen between two trains meeting on the same line would be, I believe, as effectual.
In another letter, I shall speak of the Arrny.—I am, Sir, &c.,
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