A History of the Third French Republic Part 3

CHAPTER V

THE ADMINISTRATION OF JULES GReVY

January, 1879, to December, 1887

The resignation of the marechal de Mac-Mahon was followed by the immediate gathering, in accordance with the const.i.tution, of the National a.s.sembly, which chose as President for seven years Jules Grevy.

The new chief magistrate, elected without a compet.i.tor, was already seventy-two, and had in his long career won the reputation of a dignified and sound statesman, in whose hands public affairs might be entrusted with absolute safety. He represented a step beyond the military and aristocratic regime which had preceded him. The embodiment of the old _bourgeoisie_, he had, along with its qualities, some of its defects. Eminently cautious, his statesmans.h.i.+p had been at times a non-committal reserve more than constructive genius. His parsimony soon caused people to accuse him of unduly saving his salary and state allowances, while his personal dislikes led him to err grievously in his choice of advisers, or rather in his elimination of Gambetta, to whom circ.u.mstances now pointed.

Jules Grevy hated Gambetta, undeniably the leading figure in the Republican party since the death of Thiers, and neglected to entrust to him the formation of a Cabinet. Thiers himself had shown greater wisdom.

He, too, had disliked the raging and apparently futile volubility of the young tribune during the Franco-Prussian War, but Thiers got over calling Gambetta a "fou furieux." On the contrary, just after the Seize-Mai and before his own death, when Thiers was expecting to return to the Presidency as successor to a discredited Mac-Mahon, he had intended to make Gambetta the head of his Cabinet. For Gambetta with maturity had become more moderate. Instead of drastic political remedies he was gradually evolving, as already stated, the policy of "Opportunism" so closely linked with his name, the method of gradual advance by concessions and compromises, by taking advantage of occasions and making one's general policy conform with opportunity.

If Gambetta, as leader of the majority group in the Republican party, which had evicted Mac-Mahon, had become Prime Minister, it is conceded that the precedent would have been set by the new administration for parliamentary government with a true party leaders.h.i.+p, as in Great Britain. Instead, Grevy entrusted the task of forming a Ministry to an upright but colorless leader named Waddington, at the head of a composite Cabinet, more moderate in policy than Gambetta, who became presiding officer of the Chamber of Deputies. The consequence was that, after lasting less than a year, it gave way to another Cabinet led by the great political trimmer Freycinet,[9] until in due time it was in turn succeeded by the Ministry of Jules Ferry in September, 1880.

It must not be inferred that nothing was accomplished by the Waddington and Freycinet Ministries. Indeed, Jules Ferry, the chief Republican next to Gambetta, was himself a member of these two Cabinets before leading his own.

The lining-up of Republican groups, as opposed to the Monarchists, under the new administration was: the Left Centre, composed as in the past of ultra-conservative Republicans, constantly diminis.h.i.+ng numerically; the Republican Left, which followed Jules Ferry; the Republican Union of Gambetta; and, finally, the radical Extreme Left, which had taken for itself many of the advanced measures advocated by Gambetta when he had been a radical. One of its leaders was Georges Clemenceau. Between the two large groups of Ferry and Gambetta there was little difference in ideals, but Gambetta was now the Opportunist and Ferry made his own Gambetta's old battle-cry against clericalism.

[Ill.u.s.tration: JULES FERRY]

The Chamber elected after the Seize-Mai was by reaction markedly anti-Clerical, and the Waddington Cabinet, to begin with, contained three Protestants and a freethinker. Obviously steps would soon be taken to defeat the "enemy." In this movement Jules Ferry was from the beginning a leader, by direct action as well as by the educational reforms which he carried out as Minister of Public Instruction. Jules Ferry became, more than Gambetta, the great bugbear of the Clericals and the author of the "lois scelerates."

During the Waddington Ministry Jules Ferry began his efforts for the reorganization of superior instruction, and among his measures carried through the Chamber of Deputies the notorious "Article 7" indirectly aimed at Jesuit influence in _secondary_ teaching as well: "No person can direct any public or private establishment whatsoever or teach therein if he belongs to an unauthorized order." The Jesuits had at that time no legal footing in France, but were openly tolerated. The Senate rejected this article under the Freycinet Ministry and the law was finally adopted thus apparently weakened. But Jules Ferry, nothing daunted, immediately put into operation the no less notorious decrees of March, 1880, reviving older laws going back even to 1762, which had long since fallen into disuse. By these decrees the Jesuit establishments were to be closed and the members dispersed within three months.

Moreover, every unauthorized order was, under penalty of expulsion, to apply for authorization within a like limit of time. The expulsion of the Jesuits was carried out with a certain spectacular display of pa.s.sive resistance on the part of those evicted. Later in the year similar steps were taken against many other organizations.

It is evident from the above that the promotion of educational reform under Republican control was definitely connected with measures directed against clerical domination. The French Catholic Church, on its part, treated every attempt toward laicization as a form of persecution. But Jules Ferry unhesitatingly extended his policy when he became Prime Minister. His measures were genuinely neutral, but his reputation as a Voltairian freethinker and a freemason inevitably afforded his opponents an excuse for their charges.

Jules Ferry's reforms in education, extending over several Cabinet periods as late as 1882, included secondary education for girls, and free, obligatory, lay, primary instruction. To Americans accustomed to such methods of education it is difficult to conceive the struggles of Jules Ferry and his a.s.sistant on the floor of the House, Paul Bert, in carrying through these measures for the training of the democracy.

In foreign affairs Jules Ferry inaugurated a more active policy symptomatic of the return of France to partic.i.p.ation in international matters. At the Congress of Berlin, France had avoided entanglements, but, even at that early period, Lord Salisbury had hinted to M.

Waddington, present as French delegate, that no interference would be made by England, were France to advance claims in Tunis. This suggestion came, perhaps, originally from Bismarck, who was not averse to embroiling France with Italy. That country longed for Tunis so conveniently situated near Sicily. England, moreover, was probably not desirous of seeing the Italians thus strategically ensconced in the Mediterranean.

In 1881, financial manoeuvres and the plundering expeditions into Algeria of border tribes called Kroumirs afforded a pretext for intervention, to the indignation of Italy, which was thus more than ever inclined to seek alliances against France, even with Germany. Here, indeed, was the germ of the Triple Alliance. An easy advance to Tunis forced the Bey to accept a French protectorate by the Treaty of the Bardo on May 12, 1881. Later in the year the situation became rather serious, and new and rather costly military operations became necessary, including the occupation of Sfax, Gabes, and Kairouan.

Thus France came into possession of valuable territories, but at the cost of Italian indignation. Moreover, Jules Ferry, who was always one of the most hated of party leaders in his own country, reaped no advantage to himself. His enemies affected to believe that the whole Tunisian war was a game of capitalists, or was planned for effect upon elections to the new Chamber. The boulevards refused to take the Kroumirs seriously and joked about "Cherchez le Kroumir." Finally, on November 9, 1881, the personal intervention of Gambetta before the newly elected Chamber of Deputies saved the Cabinet on a vote of confidence.

Jules Ferry none the less determined to resign, and Gambetta, in spite of Grevy's aversion, was the inevitable man for the formation of a new Cabinet.

Gambetta's great opportunity had come too late to be effective. The undoubted leader of the Republic, he had grown in statesmans.h.i.+p since his early days, but was still hated by men like Grevy who could not get over their old prejudices. Then the advanced radicals, or _intransigeants_, thought him a traitor to his old platforms or _programmes_.[10] They blamed his Opportunism and said that he wanted power without responsibility. Gambetta's enemies, whether the duc de Broglie or Clemenceau, talked of his secret influence (_pouvoir occulte_), and accused him of aspiring to a dictators.h.i.+p, in fact if not in name. Their suspicions were somewhat deepened by Gambetta's ardent advocacy of the _scrutin de liste_ instead of the existing _scrutin d'arrondiss.e.m.e.nt_.[11]

It was a.s.serted that Gambetta wanted to diminish the independence of local representation and marshal behind himself a subservient majority.

To Gambetta the _scrutin de liste_ was the truly republican form of representation, the one existing under the National a.s.sembly and abolished by the reactionaries under the new const.i.tution.

Thus, Gambetta had against him, during the campaign for renewal of the Chamber of Deputies in the summer of 1881, not only the anti-Republicans but also timid liberals like Jules Simon, the influence of President Grevy, and the _intransigeants_. The Senate was averse to the _scrutin de liste_ and rejected, in the spring of 1881, the measure which Gambetta carried through the Chamber. Gambetta, formerly the idol of the working cla.s.ses of Paris, met with opposition, was hooted in one of his own political rallies, and was re-elected on the first ballot in one only of the two districts in which he was a candidate.

The elections of the Chamber of 1881 resulted in a strongly Republican body, in which, however, the majority subdivided into groups. Gambetta's "Union republicaine" was the most numerous, followed by Ferry's "Gauche republicaine," and the extremists. A certain fraction of Gambetta's group, including Henri Brisson and Charles Floquet, also tended to stick together. They were the germ of what became in time the great Radical party.

It had been hoped that Gambetta would bring into his Cabinet all the other leaders of his party, and at last form a great governing ministry.

But men like Leon Say and Freycinet refused their collaboration because of divergence of views or personal pride. Gambetta then decided to pick his collaborators from his immediate friends and partisans, some of whom had yet a reputation to make. The antic.i.p.ated "Great Ministry" turned out to be, its opponents said, a "ministere de commis," a cabinet of clerks. The fact that it contained men like Waldeck-Rousseau, Raynal, and Rouvier showed, however, that Gambetta could discover ability in others. But it was declared that the "dictator" was marshalling his henchmen. The extremists, especially, were furious because Gambetta also magnanimously gave important posts to non-Republicans like General de Miribel and the journalist J.-J. Weiss.

The "Great Ministry" remained in office two months and a half and came to grief on the proposed revision of the const.i.tution, in which Gambetta wished to incorporate the _scrutin de liste_. In January, 1882, it had to resign and Gambetta died on the last day of the same year. Thus, the third Republic lost its leading statesman since the death of Thiers.

The year 1882 was filled by the two ineffective Cabinets of Freycinet (second time) and of Duclerc. Under the former, France made the mistake, injurious to her interests and prestige, of withdrawing from the Egyptian condominium with Great Britain and allowing the latter country free play for the conquest and occupation of Egypt. Thus the fruits of De Lesseps' piercing of the Isthmus of Suez went definitely to England.

The death of Gambetta under the Duclerc-Fallieres Ministry[12] seemed to reawaken the hopes of the anti-Republicans, and Jerome Napoleon, chief Bonapartist pretender since the decease of the Prince Imperial, issued a manifesto against the Republic. Parliament fell into a ludicrous panic, various contradictory measures were proposed, and in the general confusion the Cabinet fell after an adverse vote.

In this contingency President Grevy did what he should have done before, and called to office the leading statesman. This was now Jules Ferry.

At last France had an administration which lasted a little over two years. But Ferry was still intensely unpopular. He had become the successor of Gambetta and the exponent of the policy of Opportunism, which he tried to carry out with even more constructive statesmans.h.i.+p.

But he was totally wanting in Gambetta's magnetism, and his domineering ways made him hated the more. The Clericals opposed him as the "persecutor" of the Catholic religion, and the Radicals thought he did not go far enough in his hostility to the Church. For Jules Ferry saw that the times were not ripe for disestablishment, and that the system of the _Concordat_, in vogue since Napoleon I, really gave the State more control over the Clergy than it would have in case of separation.

The State would lose its power in appointments and salaries. Jules Ferry knew that the Church could be useful to him, and the politic Leo XIII, very different from Pius IX, was ready to meet him part way, though the Pope himself had to humor to a certain extent the hostility to the Republic of the French Monarchists and Clericals. Jules Ferry, like Gambetta, also had to put up with the veiled hostility of President Grevy, working in Parliament through the intrigues of his son-in-law Wilson. Moreover, Ferry was made to bear the odium for a long period of financial depression, which had lasted since 1882, starting with the sensational failure (_krach_) of a large bank, the Union generale. So his career was made a torture and he was vilified perhaps more than any man of the third Republic.

The extremists had in time another grievance against Jules Ferry in his opposition to a radical revision of the const.i.tution. The enemies of the Republic still feigned to believe, especially when the death of the comte de Chambord in 1883 had fused the Legitimists and Orleanists, that an integral revision would pave the way for a monarchical restoration.

The Radicals demanded the suppression of the power of the Senate, whose consent was necessary to summon a const.i.tutional convention. A Congress was summoned in 1884 at which the very limited programme of the Ministry was put through. The changes merely eliminated from the const.i.tution the prescriptions for senatorial elections. After this, by an ordinary statute, life-senators.h.i.+ps were abolished for the future, and some changes were made in the choice of senatorial electors.

Jules Ferry was what would to-day be called an imperialist. In this he may have been unwise, for the French, though intrepid explorers, do not care to settle permanently far from the motherland. The north coast of Africa might have been a sufficient field for enterprise. But Jules Ferry thought that the Triple Alliance of Germany, Austria, and Italy, formed in 1882, was going to isolate France permanently in Europe. So she was to regain her prestige by territorial annexations in the Sudan, the Congo, Madagascar, Annam, and Tonkin.

The French had some nominal rights on Tonkin since 1874, and disturbances there had caused a revival of activities. When the French officer Riviere was killed in an ambuscade in May, 1883, Jules Ferry sent heavy reinforcements and forced the King of Annam to acknowledge a French protectorate. This stirred up the Chinese, who also claimed Annam, and who caused the invasion of Tonkin by guerillas supported by their own troops. After various operations in Tonkin the Treaty of Tien-tsin was signed with China in May, 1884, by which China made the concessions called for by the French. Within a month Chinese troops ambuscaded a French column at Bac-Le and the Government decided on a punitive expedition. Thus France was engaged in troublesome warfare with China, without direct parliamentary authorization. The bombardment of Foo-chow, the attack on the island of Formosa, and the blockade of the coast dragged along unsatisfactorily through 1884 and 1885.

While Jules Ferry in the spring of 1885 was actually negotiating a final peace with China on terms satisfactory to the French, the cession of Annam and Tonkin with a commercial treaty, and while he was categorically affirming in the Chamber of Deputies the success of military operations in Tonkin, a sudden dispatch from the East threw everything into a turmoil. General Briere de l'Isle telegraphed from Tonkin that the French had been disastrously defeated at Lang-son and General de Negrier severely wounded. The news proved to be a grievous exaggeration which was contradicted by a later dispatch some hours after, but the damage was done. On March 30, in the Chamber of Deputies, Jules Ferry was insulted and abused by the leaders of a coalition of anti-Republicans and Radicals. The "Tonkinois," as his vilifiers called him, disgusted and discouraged, made little attempt to defend himself, and his Cabinet fell by a vote of 306 to 149. On April 4, the preliminaries of a victorious treaty of peace were signed with China.

The fall of Jules Ferry was a severe blow to efficient government. It marked the end, for a long time, of any effort to construct satisfactory united Cabinets led by a strong man. It set a precedent for innumerable short-lived Ministries built on the treacherous sands of s.h.i.+fting groups. It paved the way for a deterioration in parliamentary management. It accentuated the bitter hatred now existing between the Union des gauches, as the united Gambetta and Ferry Opportunist groups called themselves, on the one hand, and the Radicals and the Extreme Left on the other. The Radicals, in particular, were influential, and one of their more moderate members, Henri Brisson, became the head of the next Cabinet. Brisson's name testified to an advance toward radicalism, but the Cabinet contained all sorts of moderate and nondescript elements, dubbed a "concentration" Cabinet. Its chief function was to tide over the elections of 1885, for a new Chamber of Deputies. In antic.i.p.ation of this election Gambetta's long-desired _scrutin de liste_ had been rather unexpectedly voted.

The workings of the new method of voting were less satisfactory than had been antic.i.p.ated. Republican dissensions and a greater union of the opposition caused a tremendous reactionary landslide on the first ballot. This was greatly reduced on the second ballot, so that the Republicans emerged with a large though diminished majority. But the old Left Centre had practically disappeared and the Radicals were vastly more numerous. The great divisions were now the Right, the moderate Union des gauches, the Radicals, and the revolutionary Extreme Left. The Brisson Cabinet was blamed for not "working" the elections more successfully and it resigned at the time of President Grevy's re-election. He had reached the end of his seven years' term and was chosen again on December 28, 1885. He was to have troublesome experiences during the short time he remained in the Presidency.

The Freycinet, Goblet, and Rouvier Cabinets, which fill the rest of Grevy's Presidency, were largely engrossed with a new danger in the person of General Boulanger. He first appeared in a prominent position as Minister of War in the Freycinet Cabinet. A young, brilliant, and popular though unprincipled officer, he soon devoted himself to demagogy and put himself at the head of the jingoes who called Ferry the slave of Bismarck. The expeditions of Tunis and Tonkin had, moreover, thrown a glamour over the flag and the army.

Boulanger began at once to play politics and catered to the advanced parties, who adopted him as their own. He backed up the spectacular expulsion of the princes, which, as an answer to the monarchical progress, drove from France the heads of formerly reigning families and their direct heirs in line of primogeniture, and carried out their radiation from the army. The populace cheered the gallant general on his black horse, and when Bismarck complained that he was a menace to the peace of Europe Boulanger's fortune seemed made. At a certain moment France and Germany were on the brink of war in the so-called Schnaebele affair.[13] So, when Boulanger was left out of the Rouvier Cabinet combination in May, 1887, as dangerous, he played more than ever to the gallery as the persecuted saviour of France and, on being sent to take command of an army corps in the provinces at Clermont-Ferrand, he was escorted to the train by thousands of enthusiastic manifestants.

Meanwhile, President Grevy was nearing a disaster. In October, 1887, General Caffarel, an important member of the General Staff, was arrested for partic.i.p.ating in the sale of decorations. When Boulanger declared that the arrest of Caffarel was an indirect a.s.sault on himself, originally responsible for Caffarel's appointment to the General Staff, the affair got greater notoriety. The scandal a.s.sumed national proportions when it was found to involve the President's own son-in-law Daniel Wilson, well known to be a shady and tricky politician, who had the octogenarian President under his thumb. The matter reached the scale of a Cabinet crisis, since it was by an overthrow of the Ministry that the President could best be reached. Unfortunately, Grevy could not see that the most dignified thing for him to do was to resign, even though he was in no way involved in Wilson's misdemeanors. For days he tried to persuade prominent men to form a Cabinet; he tried to argue his right and duty to remain. But finally the Chamber and Senate brought actual pressure upon him by voting to adjourn to specific hours in the expectation of a presidential communication. He bowed to the inevitable and retired from the Presidency with the reputation of a discredited old miser, instead of the great statesman he had appeared on beginning his term of office.

FOOTNOTES:

[9] Gambetta's former a.s.sistant during the national defence after the first disasters; a brilliant organizer, but in general policy a _nolonte_, to use the term Gambetta coined about him on the basis of the word _volonte_. As Minister of Public Works he initiated at this period great improvements in the internal development of France, especially in the railways.

[10] Especially as to the unlimited revision of the const.i.tution and the _immediate_ separation of Church and State.

[11] Gambetta's contempt for the parochialism of the elections by district was great. He felt that departmental tickets would favor the choice of better men. One must remember how large a proportion of the French Deputies are physicians to appreciate the scorn of Gambetta's saying that the _scrutin d'arrondiss.e.m.e.nt_ produced a lot of _sous-veterinaires_, that is, men who were not even decent "horse-doctors."

[12] M. Fallieres took the place of Duclerc as President of the Council during the last days.

[13] The French claimed that a government official had been lured over the frontier and illegally arrested.

CHAPTER VI