M. DEROULEDE'S REVELATIONS.
THE Paris correspondent of the Times is not always able—perhaps we should rather say not always willing—to do justice to those whom he dit-likes. His treatment of M. Ddroulede in the very interesting letters which appeared in the Times of Monday and Tuesday is an instance of this weakness,—a weakness, we hasten to say, which we cannot regret, when it gives such point and vivacity to his style. M. Ddroulede hoe been communicating to the Gaulois his views on the question of Alsace-Lorraine. These views are ex- tremely sensible, and all the more so because they amount to a recantation of his former views on the same subject. M. Ddroulede was once the herald of a war of revenge. France was to watch at every turn for the chance of recovering her lost provinces. M. Ddroulede does not deny that this is the temper he would like to see in Frenchmen today. But he has the good sense to admit that he does not see it. He had dreamed that the generation which had witnessed the severance of the two provinces would also witness their reunion. But, he does not expect that a generation which had no abate in the war will be as anxious to undo its results as the generation which had to submit to them. " We cannot requtre of our sons what we have not known ourselves hew to do." The Times correspondent admits that M. Ddroulede reads the situation rightly. Frence is no longer in love with war for war's sake. Sue is disposed to count the cost very carefully, and where every soldier was a citizen yesterday and will be a citizen to-morrow what the civil population cares for is what the Army, as a whole, cares for also It is so easy to shut your eyes to changes which prove you a false prophet, and to persuade yourself that they are ehanges only in appearance, that we are disposed to give M. Deroulede every credit for his fratikness. The Times correspondent will not hear of ally such flattering explanation. He gives him credit., indeed, for a certain enlightenment, but it is only the enlightenment of seifiehness. M. Deroulede believes that a pldhiscite would place him at the head of affairs, and he is anxious to repudiate any doctrine which might make his chance of such a pldbiseite less. It rnLy be so, of course, hut the simpler way of accountine for the facts seems to us at least equally probable. M. Ddroille.le realises that his preaching is no longer timely, and he has the honesty to say so.
But M. De'ronlede is lessinteresting as a political moralist than as a writer of political memoirs. His interview with the --Gaulois was hardly over before he made a speech which purports to fill up some gaps in the history of his curious attempt to bring about a military revolution two years ago. It was, he says, a perfectly genuine attempt, and it was very much nearer succeeding than people sup- pose. According to bis own story, M. Deroulede had been in close communication with the Generals commanding the troops then in Paris, and M. Faure's funeral was to be the occasion of a military demonstration in favour of the Plehiscitary &public. The narrative is not very clear at this point, but it would seem that M. Deroulede had been more frank with the Generals than with his own political intimates, for he describes himself and M. Marcel Habert as busy late on the previous night in marking on a map of Paris the stations of the troops, while in the next room his friends were talking together "as much surprised at my declaration of revolt as disturbed, in some cases at least, at the close secrecy which I had maintained as to the means of action." It rather looks as though 31. Deroulede had been used by certain Generals, and had allowed them to carry him further than his political friends were inclined to follow him. However, these friends had apparently satisfied themselves that it was too late to draw back, and that they must take M. Deroulede's preparations in the best light they would bear. At this critical moment an unnamed person entered the room and put this mysterious and disturbing question to 31. Deroulede "What would you say if to-morrow the Duke of Orleans were suddenly to appear among your friends ? " The directness of 31. Deroulede's reply seems to show that this question came upon him as a revelation. He had, no doubt, been planning the overthrow of the existing Republic. But the object of this was only to set up another Republic more worthy of the name. Al. Deroulede's bells were intended, indeed, to ring out the false Republic, but only that they might ring in the true. From first to last they had been Republican bells. Yet here was one of his most trusted supporters contemplating the appearance, preparing for the appearance, of the Royalist Pretender. Clearly there could be no place for him in such a programme, and his only object in offering to take part in it must be to use a purely Republican revolution for his own purposes. M. Deroulede was resolved to leave no doubt in the mind of the emissary how the Duke of Orleans would be received. "I will take him," he said, "by the nape of the neck and say I am a Plebiscitary Republican."
So far the story has about it a strong air of probability. Up to the moment of this mysterious visit the Royalists had probably been working in complete agreement with M. Deroulede and the Plebiscitary Republicans. There was no need for them to disclose that the alliance extended only to the preliminary stages of the intended revolution, and that as soon as these had been got through they meant to take the conduct of affairs into their own hands. It must be supposed that at the last moment they began to see that M. Deroulede's Republicanism was more genuine than they had thought, and, consequently, that it was expedient to ascertain in advance what kind of reception the Duke of Orleans might expect if he pre- sented himself. The threat to the nape of his illustrious neck left no doubt on this point, and M. Deroulede's visitor at once took almost unnecessary pains to assure him that the Duke had not the faintest intention of making his appearance. Oddly enough, it does not seem to have occurred to either of them that the parts M. Deroulede assigned to the Duke and to himself might be reversed, and that the Duke, being younger and having more to gain, might make overtures to the nape of M. Deroulede's neck. Possibly they knew their man too well. From this point we pass into a region of conjecture. When the next day came is turned out that all the arrangements for the funeral had been changed by a "mysterious hand," that the officers on whom the conspirators counted were no longer in command, that the troops were no longer in the positions on which the scheme depended. This, of course, would explain the action which led to M. Deroulede's arrest. He did make an appeal to one of the Generals in command, but either he was not the General he expected to find, or he was so much upset by the change in the day's arrangements, that he had not the nerve to give the expected reply. M. Deroulede's surmises as to the treachery of his secret visitor have no great appear- ance of truth. Even if we assume that the Royalists had deceived themselves as to M. Deroulede's intentions, and had hoped up to the very eve of M. Faure's funeral that he was secretly planning a Restoration, it is not obvious what interest they bad in betraying him to the Government. The proclamation of a Plebiscitary Republic, if it had come off, would at least have caused a great deal of confusion. The action alike of the Army, of the Chambers, and of Paris would have been uncertain, and the conse- quent situation would have been of the precise kind in which Pretenders look to find their opportunity. With two rival Republics contending for the mastery the Royalists would have had a better chance of success than any that has yet presented itself. If, therefore, it was a Royalist emissary that warned 31. Dupuy, he was simply damaging his own cause in order to be avenged on M. Deroulede.
But why should the idea of betrayal be brought in ? Is it not more probable that the Government had all along been aware of M. Deroulede's intentions, and had left him to mature them in order to defeat them more easily ? By taking this course they left him no time to rejoin his broken threads. If they had changed the disposition of the troops a week in advance, M. Deroulede might have been able to make overtures to the Generals who had succeeded those he had originally approached, and at that time the temper of the Army was sufficiently uncertain to prevent the Minister from counting on their failure. M. Deroulede was left to pin all his hopes on a particular group of Generals, and then at the very last moment this particular group was removed. This hypo- thesis seems to us very much more natural and probable than the one which M. Doroulede prefers. To the Times correspondent, and, stranger still, to M. Yves Guyot, it seems immaterial which theory is adopted. Both are alike damning to M. Dupuy. Either way, says M. Guyot, M. Dupuy knew of M. Deroulede's preparations, and knowing of them he did not prosecute their author for high treason. His omission to do this makes him as much a traitor as M. Deroulede himself, and he ought at once to be impeached before the High Court. Even 31. Guyot, sensible and moderate as he ordinarily is, cannot recognise that to let 31. Doroulede off easily was by far the wisest way of dealing with him. Whatever capacities of mischief he possesses would have found ample opportunity for exer- cise in a great State trial. He would have been able to pose as a devoted servant of the Republic, anxious only to gild its refined gold by submitting the election of the President to the direct vote of the people. Where is the treason in such an attitude as this ? It seems to us that M. Dupuy did the existing Republic a far greater service by singling out for prosecution the least imposing of M. Deroulede's offences. To drag him down to the level of a Seine jury disposed of him far more effectually than if he had been raised to the dignity of a great political offender.
Previous page
