THE PROSPECTS OF FRENCH IMPERIALISM.
IT is always a mistake to suppose that a great historical party can be literally extinguished by a merely external blow. If the death of the young Prince Louis proves to be the coup de grace to French Imperialism, it will be only be- cause it was sufficient for the purpose of destroying a languish- ing vitality, the slow decline of which almost invited a coup de grace. It would be premature, while the Republic is still so diffident, so distrustful of its own strength, as M. Jules Ferry's Bill and the prosecution of M. Paul de Caesagnac, show it to be, to build with any confidence on the extinction of active Imperialism in France. No doubt, Im- perialism is the very converse of Constitutional liberty. It encourages a certain scorn for Constitutional regulation. Its fascination consists in the licence which it sanctions and pro- vides for the political passions of the masses. The passion for a certain vulgar splendour, which cannot exist without a pageant and a throne,—and a throne of grand pretensions such as declines to be bound too rigidly by precedents and principles,—is the first popular craving to which Imperialism in France has always appealed. The passion for democratic legislation which makes the material well-being of the masses its first object, is the second popular passion to which it has consistently appealed. Finally, the popular fascination for the great Church which is the only one deeply rooted in French history, is the third popular passion to which it has appealed. The Republic ignores the first passion, and mortifies the last, while the Monarchists are very justly given no credit for caring much about the second. Whether, then, the blow struck to French Imperialism by the death of the young Prince Louis will or will not seem to any observer likely to be fatal to this cause, must depend in a great degree on the estimate that observer may form as to the restlessness of these unsatisfied popular passions, and the prospect of their ever again rising in such force as to overthrow all the bulwarks of Republican liberty which France, by her later efforts,has been fortunate enough to raise. As a hive makes a Queen, so the masses of the French people will somehow contrive to make an Emperor,—however obscure the branch of the Bonapartes from which they make him,— if ever the time comes when the people are sick of the Re- public, without being reconciled,—as they hardly ever will be, —to any offshoot of the ancient regime. In the meantime, the death of the heir of the Second Empire, and the succession to the headship of the Bonaparte family of a Democrat who is at present known as a mere Democrat, and hardly at all as the partisan of a Democratic throne, will, of course, in its immediate effects, do more to paralyse the old Imperialists and to prevent accessions to their numbers, than it will do to strengthen directly any of the other parties which divide between them the Legislature of France. We may be sure that those who have been zealous Imperialists, though they may well be paralysed by the loss of their young chief, will not easily become zealous or even respectable Republicans. Still less are they likely to become zealous or even respectable partisans of the old Royalty, either Legitimist or Constitutional. Their preference for a strong Execu- tive, for a splendid impersonation of the national authority, and for the rule of a great priesthood, would find no satisfaction in a Constitutional Republic ; while all their historic associations render them averse to a combination either, on the one hand, with the de- votee of the White Flag, or, on the other, with the Orleanist dynasty. Imperialists are by habit of mind far too much in love with showy power and religious pageantry, ever to become hearty adherents of a modest and rather secular Republic, headed by a plain citizen like M. Grevy. They are by tradition far too democratic for hearty adherence to a king like Henry V., or a mere reigning sovereign like the son of Louis Philippe. So far, therefore, as this blow affects them at all, it will not, we think, drive them over in any numbers to join the other parties in the State. The way in which it will act will be this,—it will render them, in the first place, comparatively neutral, from hopelessness, in many cases where, before this happened, they would have been active and in- triguing; and in the next place, it will prevent their ranks from being recruited by the younger generation whose political line is not yet taken. In these two ways, the blow which has fallen must affect indefinitely the ultimate fortunes of the Imperialists, but it will not, we believe, take any immediate effect in driving zealots over from Imperialism either to the Republic, or to the party of Monarchy. Again, one of the most significant elements in the Bona- partist tradition, and especially in the Conservative side of that tradition, has been its alliance with the Roman Catholic Church. Without that alliance, it could not by any possibility - have played the part it has, or collected round it so many friends of authority, as well as so many allies of the people. Now, whatever Prince Jerome may contrive to do to win the confidence of the mere friends of a democratic throne, he cannot by any possibility contrive to win for himself the sin- cere support of the Roman Catholic priesthood. Prince Jerome has been too deeply pledged to the anti-Catholic cry to over- come the suspicion with which he would be treated, even if he were now to attempt to reconcile himself with the Church; nor is, indeed, such an attempt at all probable. Now, thisisof the great, est importance in estimating the probable effect of his succession to the headship of the Napoleons on the cohesion of the Imperial- ists,—we mean even those of the present moment. Even M. Paul de Cassagnac has declared that if he had to weigh his political against his religious faith, he should not hesitate for a moment to sacrifice the former to the latter. And no doubt, amongst the constituencies the Imperialist party is largely recruited from this class of electors. It is very easy to see what effect must be produced on such genuine sons of the Church, by the succession to the headship of the family of a declared enemy of the Church. Of course, the zeal of the faithful electors—of the electors who are in hearty sympathy with their priests—will vanish at once. They will say that whatever be the magic of the name of Napoleon, it is lost when united to the person of a man who wishes to see the influ- ence of the Church destroyed, instead of quickened. Prince Jerome might indeed conceivably satisfy the views of merely de- mocratic Imperialists,—of such democratic Imperialists as Lord Beaconsfield has rallied round him from amongst the working- classes of this country,—and satisfy them better even than his cousin. But there are comparatively very few Imperialists in whom the democratic feelings are so strong as the Conserva- tive feelings. They are almost all of them democrats with a difference, democrats with strong ecclesiastical prepossessions, democrats with a morbid fear of socialism and anarchy ; and such democrats would have no belief at all in Prince Jerome's acknowledged creed, and no belief at all in him, if he were to profess a change of creed.
And here it is that we see the difficulty of M. Rouher's position. In the long conversation reported in Thursday's papers, from M. Rouher's organ, the Ordre, which republished it from the Gadois, and so gave it a stamp of authenticity, M. Rouher professes to believe that Prince Jerome may succeed to the place of head of the Imperialist party in France, with- out marring the Imperialists' hopes. But he entirely ignores the extreme distrust felt of the Prince in the Catholic Church,. and the enormous loss of social and political influence which this distrust must involve. To talk of the Napoleonic idea as "in- destructible," and still more to talk of the "rising generation" as Napoleonic, as if " Napoleonic " had a specific meaning apart from the particular character and conduct of the individual member of the family of Bonaparte who, in his capacity as chief of the Napoleons, leads the Imperialist party, is simply throwing dust in our eyes. There is, as far as we know, no political idea at all common to all the members of the Bonaparte family ; or if there be one, it is only that there resides in that family a special faculty for interpreting the wishes of France. But how the rising generation is to be Napoleonic, when the different members of the family interpret the wishes of France so divergently as the great Emperor and the present sans-culottes Prince Jerome, is, indeed, an in- soluble puzzle. Does the rising generation suppose that the head of the Napoleon family for the time being is en- dowed with a special political gift for defining ex cathedrd what France really needs and desires ? If it does, it must be a very silly generation indeed, considering that the late Emperor plunged France against her will into the midst of disasters from which she will not recover in this century. There is no such thing as a Napoleonic idea, if Prince Jerome can represent it as well as his cousin did, without revoking his published opinions. And if the mere change of his position leads to his revocation of those published opinions, how much will those who were his enemies trust the sincerity of the change ? The essence of the Napoleonic idea has hitherto been that the Napoleons have united a profession of profound reverence for the popular faith and the popular wants of France, with a dislike of Parliamentary constitutions, and a theory that Napoleons always understand France better than Parliaments ever can do. But so soon as one of these Napoleons, thus assumed to be singularly endowed, professes such a contempt for the popular faith of France as Prince Jerome cer- tainly has expressed, the thread of the "Napoleonic idea loses its chief strand, and its chief hold on popular sup- port. Mere sans-culottes need no Napoleons. M. Blanqui is as good as Prince Jerome, for those who merely profess" Red" opinions. M. Rouher may profess, if he pleases, a sort of transcendental faith in the destinies of Napoleonism, but unless he can manage to bring to the head of the Napoleonic party one who wields the influence of a certain political and religious Conservatism, as well as of a democratic policy, his faith will, to the great majority of Frenchmen, be a pure superstition. Before this blow fell, Napoleonism was a losing cause in France. Now, as we trust, it will be a cause, for the present at least, almost extinct.
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