ONCE again a Bonaparte was in the Tuileries. But he was far from being a resolute, egotistical "little corporal." With all his sins, and they were many, Napoleon III was not without noble ambitions and humanitarian impulses. He desired to have power partly at least because he was genuinely persuaded that he could give France a good fortune and a happiness impossible under Bourbon, Orléanist, or any type of Republic. He was above all things a dreamer, and many of his dreams were worthy. His portraits show him with his clear blue eyes always gazing neither downward nor forward, but upward, as if in a constant reverie. His air was frequently melancholic, his personal actions usually kindly and benevolent. The man who turned Saint- Arnaud and his Janizaries loose in the Paris streets was by no means impervious when brought face to face himself with human suffering. It was his sight of the vast numbers of wounded after the battle of Solferino which went far to induce him to make a speedy peace with Austria (1859). Whether he would ever have screwed his courage to the sticking point for the Coup d'État, had there been no De Morny and other like spirits close at hand, is something that can never be told.
Napoleon III had boasted much of playing the part of the champion of the people. He, or his advisers, took peculiar pains that the French nation should not choose any other champions. The Constitution of 1852, under which the Second Empire was governed until 1860, was a "constitution" only because that word was written near the head of the document. Grim Czar Nicholas I, Autocrat of all the Russias, hardly exercised more complete power than his "great and good friend," "the Emperor of the French." The "Man of Destiny" did not, indeed, endeavor to govern without the forms of a limited monarchy. On the contrary, there was seldom a time when so much was said about "popular sovereignty" and "consulting the national will." But special care had been taken by the authors of the Constitution of 1852 that the "national will" should always coincide with the Emperor's. In his own right the powers of the Emperor were vast. He declared war, signed treaties, and appointed and dismissed all public officials. The ministers of the great departments of state were the mere creatures of his pleasure. He alone could propose new laws. Naturally, therefore, his power of sanctioning them after passage and of giving them validity by promulgation completed his grip on all legislation. The actual bills for the legislature were drafted by the Council of State (named by the Emperor), and if the feeble legislature mustered courage to make any amendments, the Council could advise the Emperor whether to accept or reject them.
The regular "Legislative Body" (Corps législatif) consisted of 261 deputies, elected by popular vote for a term of six years. It was completely under the rein and curb of the Emperor. It met at his summons, he could adjourn it and dissolve it. He named its president and vice-president. It could consider no bill except what was proposed by the imperial ministers, except with the special consent of the Council of State. The sessions were indeed public in that auditors were allowed in a gallery, but nothing of the debates could be published, beyond a very summary official abstract prepared by the president of the body, himself of course the Emperor's nominee and obligated to suppress any remark unwelcome to the Government. The deputies were supposed to vote the appropriation bills (budget), but if the Government desired, it could always get funds for an object by shifting them from one account to another. The deputies, in short, did not in any real sense possess the decisive power of the purse.
In higher honor than the Legislative Body was the new "Senate" of 150 members, some sitting in "their own right," – admirals, marshals, cardinals, – the rest named for life by the Emperor. They examined the laws passed by the deputies, and no measure could be promulgated until they had given approval. Thus theoretically they had a kind of veto power, but of course they in turn were completely at the Emperor's disposal. If there were any matters in the Government not adjusted by the Constitution, they could promulgate the necessary laws – thereby practically amending the Constitution. Finally, it should be said, this very self-important body met in secret, another aid to manipulation by its lord and master.
Much was always being said by Napoleon III about the "privileges" of being a voter in France. These often-flattered voters, however, found little left to their discretion. The Government undertook to "enlighten them" (to use an official formula) how to cast their ballots. "Official candidates" favored by the Emperor were announced. Every public functionary was obliged to work for their election. Their appeals and proclamations were printed on the official white paper. The departmental prefects distributed ballots for the favored candidates, and on a thousand pretexts could repress the appeals and meetings of the Opposition candidates. Ballot boxes were solely in the custody of Government officials, and very strange things doubtless happened while depositing and counting the vote.
Nominally there was no press censorship. In practice it was nigh impossible to subject the Government to real criticism. A heavy deposit (50,000 francs [$10,000] for a paper in Paris) had to be made for the good behavior of a journal. Press cases were tried in special courts without a jury. If a paper displeased the Government, it might be "warned." If there was a second warning, the paper might be suppressed outright. It was an offense to publish "false news"; and since to err in trivial matters is not an unknown newspaper error, almost any unwelcome journal could be prosecuted out of existence. The administration of 0these laws was often left to local officials anxious to curry favor at Paris, by showing themselves busy prosecutors. Some of the "warnings" were for utterly comical reasons; for example, two papers were admonished for printing a discussion of the value of certain chemical manures "because this can only bring about indecision in the minds of the purchasers."
Never in modern France had the country been more infested with spies, "agents of police," and all the despicable small-fry of oppressive officialdom: making arbitrary arrests everywhere, and often selecting their victims out of sheer caprice. The most innocent expressions were enough to bring persons to the lockup. At Tours a woman remarked, "The grape blight is coming again." She was seized and the prefect of the department himself threatened her with life imprisonment "if she spread any more bad news."
Education was, of course, completely in the clutches of the new Government. Instructors of all classes had to take oath to the Emperor or be dismissed, and consequently many honorably resigned. History and philosophy were discouraged as studies; they might lead to dangerous political discussions and "discontent." The Minister of Education (Fortoul) undertook to reduce all the teaching in France to an automatic lifeless system, and issued the oft-quoted order that professors were to shave their mustaches "that they might drop from their appearance as well as from their manners the last vestiges of anarchy." Under these circumstances the question, of course, is, "How could the French nation, liberty-loving, keenly appreciative of wrongs and shams, and highly intelligent, endure this régime? The first answer is that the measures of repression made any kind of resistance highly difficult. But in any case Napoleon III had three great assets: (1) The army was his. The soldiers were delighted to obey the man who promised to imitate the traditions of his mighty uncle, and who flattered and pampered them at every turn. (2) The run of the bourgeois were his. They asked only for law and order, and for steady material prosperity. The Second Empire undertook to provide them with these. (3) The clergy were at first devotedly on the side of Napoleon III. The Clericals had hated Louis-Philippe's régime. They had more or less welcomed the Second Republic. Now the Second Empire promised them honor and influence; while political conditions in Italy were such that Pope Pius IX might at any time need the support of French bayonets. In return the Clericals praised and supported the imperial régime, and (most valuable help of all) the parish priests often mustered their docile peasants down to the ballot places to vote for the "official candidates." Napoleon III was always hated by the industrial element in Paris and other sizable cities. He was irreconcilably opposed by most of the intellectual and literary leaders of the nation. But bayonets and ballots were what for the moment counted. For not a few years the Emperor could defy all mutterings of opposition.
Nevertheless, Napoleon III and the eager spirits around him never deceived themselves into believing that they were firmly rooted in power, and could remain in the Tuileries if once they became highly unpopular. To attract and retain popular imagination there must be wars, victorious, of course, and as bloodless and inexpensive as possible, but adding to the "glory" of the Napoleonic name. To satisfy the bourgeois there must also be a steady promotion of railways, steamships, commerce, etc. To conciliate the hostile industrialists, measures must be taken for the benefit of the working-men. The Emperor, in short, set out to play the benevolent despot, and it must be admitted that his intentions were good. He intended to make the Second Empire justify itself by the vast and genuine benefits it conferred upon France.
Unfortunately, to be a successful despot one must have efficient helpers: men of probity, capacity, and self-respect. But the Coup d'État had made it impossible for Napoleon III ever to command the best brains of France. The men who should have been in his ministries were in exile, or at least muttering helplessly in private life. In their stead were the personages who had managed the deed of the 2d of December, and of course many other spirits like them. It was the time for every brokendown soldier of fortune, for every nobleman of tarnished title, for every reckless promoter who seemed nearest home when he leaned over the roulette wheel, to flock to Paris from all Europe and offer his "services" to the Emperor or his ministers. Napoleon III created a magnificent and glittering court, an elegant nineteenth-century counterpart of the splendors of Louis XIV, but "it was composed of men and women all more or less adventurers. It was the court of the nouveaux riches and of a mushroom aristocracy. There were prizes to be won, and pleasures to be enjoyed, and it was 'like as in the days of Noah, until the flood came and swept them all away.'"
With such coadjutors it is perhaps a testimony to the ability of the Emperor that he was able to hold his throne eighteen years, and that the first half of this reign was on the whole a great outward success. Europe was in ferment from 1848 onward. Italy and Germany were painfully achieving their national unity. The huge conglomerate of the Austro-Hungarian dominions, which young Franz Josef was already ruling, was in unhappy labor. Russia was reaching out her iron hand once more toward Constantinople and the rest of the heritage of "the Sick Man of Europe." Foreign complications could hardly be avoided even had Napoleon III so desired, and how could he be a Napoleon and wish to avoid foreign complications? In the French army, fired now by careful references to the memories of Lodi and Jena, he had a fighting instrument which seemed the best in Europe until sudden collision with Von Moltke's new war-machine taught men otherwise. It is not fair to say that the Second Empire deliberately sought wars of aggrandizement as did the Pan-Germans in 1914. It is fair to say that the Emperor seemed well content when Russia and Austria in their turn took measures which enabled him to declare that "the struggle was forced upon him." Despite the famous promise, "The Empire is peace," Napoleon had to go to war with Russia in 1854, and with Austria in 1859. He won both of these wars, if not overwhelmingly, at least in a manner which increased his prestige, his hold upon France, and his claim to be the first figure in Europe.
It is no purpose of this volume to untangle the diplomatic mazes in which Europe was involved from 1848 down through 1870, and in which Napoleon III and his foreign ministers were tangled for their full share. It is needful, however, to see how his foreign policy reacted upon the prosperity and destinies of the great French people which had placed itself, somewhat reluctantly, indeed, under his leadership. In the first of his wars Napoleon III had the alliance of the old national enemy, England, against Russia. The Crimean War (1854-56) was not entered upon by France against Czar Nicholas I for precisely the same reason as by the British. The latter were fearful that the dreaded Muscovite was about to seize Constantinople as the outer door to Egypt and India. The French had long regarded themselves as the protectors of the Latin Christians of the much distracted Turkish Empire, and as the preferred Christian Power in all the Sultan's dominions. Nicholas was thrusting forward the claims of the Greek Christians as against those of their very uncordial brethren of the West, and in the Levant was certainly overshadowing all other non-Moslem nations by his constant interference in Turkish affairs. The personal relations of the Czar and the Emperor were also very cold. Nicholas regarded Napoleon as a mere upstart with only fictitious claims to pose as a fellow monarch. The Crimean War could have been avoided in 1854, alike by England and France, if only they had been willing to treat with the Czar in a conciliatory spirit for the liquidation of the nigh-bankrupt Ottoman Empire. It is now generally agreed that the Turks were not worth saving, and that their preservation was therefore little short of a crime. On the other hand, Russian policy was certainly aggressive, brutal, and seemingly was menacing to the Western Powers. The blame is therefore fairly distributed.
This war lasted two years (1854-56). As is well known, the superior Anglo-French navies held the Russian squadrons in close blockade. The Czar's armies soon evacuated the Balkan States, and the struggle practically resolved itself into the prolonged and desperate siege of Sebastopol, the chief fortress in the Crimean peninsula. This siege began in October, 1854. The stronghold held out until September, 1855. The story of the valor of attackers and defenders – of the Alma, Balaklava, Inkermann, and the storming of the Malakhoff and the Redan, can be left to other books. As for the French part in the struggle, it is fair to say that if the English supplied the greater part of the necessary shipping for the war, the French land contingent at the siege was always the larger, and therefore did proportionately more than the English to win the open battles, repulse the sorties, and finally to force the Russians to evacuate the city. The French troops were said to have been more resourceful than the British in meeting the awful cold and hardships of the Russian winter. Their original commander had been Saint- Arnaud of Coup d'État fame, but he died of cholera almost before the siege was begun, and Canrobert and Pélissier carried the struggle through at last to military success.
The bad roads of Southern Russia and the miserable administrative service of the Czar perhaps did more than French or British valor to bring about a victory for the Western Allies. Nicholas I had died a chagrined man in 1855. The hated parvenu and the despised English were defeating him. His successor, Alexander II, was fain to make peace, albeit on decidedly humiliating terms.
In March and April, 1856, Napoleon III had the congenial honor of entertaining the leading diplomats of Europe at the once famous Congress of Paris, which "settled" the ever unsettled Eastern Question. With the precise terms of this treaty we need not deal: enough that Turkey was given a new lease of life under the fostering protection of Britain and France, and that Russia was obliged to renounce most of her claims to meddle in Turkish affairs and even the right to keep warships on the Black Sea. The Emperor played a great part at this conference. He seemed laying the law down to obedient Europe. He dictated a settlement of the problems of Roumania that was very unwelcome to Austria. He allowed the delicate question of the oppression of Italy, and of the misgovernment of the Austro-Italian provinces, a question even more distasteful to the Hapsburgs, to be raised by Cavour, the prime minister of Sardinia. The princes of Europe recognized his great power and ceased to treat him as an upstart. The members of his family were "taken in" to the various royal houses. French pride was immensely flattered by seeing their ruler – almost as in the days of Louis XIV – treated as the first sovereign of Europe. The Crimean War, in short, had been neither very sanguinary nor very expensive and it had paid Napoleon III excellent dividends. So within five years after the Coup d'État the Second Empire was at its height. Paris was the center of wealth, elegance, and fashion. Never had all the questionable amusements of the glittering capital been so attractive, never had the famous city been so "gay." It was a time of sudden prosperity and corresponding profusion. If Napoleon's ministers and protégés were often adventurers, they were most interesting adventurers, who lived most admirably by their wits. The imperial court had needed a mistress in 1852. The Emperor's advisers cast eyes on a Hohenzollern princess and one or two other high-born eligibles; but before 1856 the old dynasties had no great ambition to mate up with a Bonaparte. Napoleon, therefore, married Eugénie de Montijo (January 29, 1853), a young Spanish lady of fairly noble descent, whose family had been especially faithful to the cause of Joseph Bonaparte when he posed as King of Spain. The new Empress was "tall, fair and graceful, with hair like one of Titian's beauties." She made an admirable arbitress of costume and etiquette, to be copied by every robe-maker and in every drawing-room in Europe. Her personal character seems to have been on the whole benevolent and worthy, but her political views were largely limited to an intense partisanship with everything friendly to the Church and a corresponding dislike of everything anti-Clerical or Protestant. Her influence was against the Italian patriots because they were anti-Papal, and against Prussia chiefly, it would seem, because Prussians were Lutherans. On the whole, therefore, she tended to embroil her husband with elements he needed as his friends.
While the Crimean War was raging, Queen Victoria and the Prince-Consort Albert visited their mighty ally at Boulogne. The Prince was a shrewd observer and in his memoranda gave interesting sidelights upon the Second Empire and its master. "The gentlemen composing the Emperor'sentourage," wrote the Prince, "are not distinguished by birth, manners, or education. The tone [of the circle] is rather that of a garrison, with a good deal of smoking. . . . Upon the whole, my impression is that neither in home nor in foreign politics would the Emperor take any violent steps, but that he appears in distress for means of governing and is obliged to look about him from day to day. Having deprived the people of any active participation in the government, and reduced them to mere spectators, they grow impatient, like a crowd at a display of fireworks, whenever there is any cessation of the display."
This was in 1854. In 1855 Napoleon and Eugénie made a return visit to England, and were received with magnificent hospitality at Windsor, passing through London "where seven years before he [the Emperor] was wont to stroll with his faithful dog at his heels to the news-vendor's stall by the Burlington Arcade to get the latest news." In 1856 came, of course, the Congress of Paris, and higher glories still. A little son had just been born to the imperial couple, the promise seemingly of a long and prosperous dynasty. The Heir Presumptive of Prussia came to accept the Emperor's bounty for a brief visit. With the Prussian suite was a modest officer, Major von Moltke. He had not yet risen to fame but, like Prince Albert, was well able to see under the surface. His letters home to Germany praised many things in the Second Empire, and dwelt much on Napoleon's good-humor and benevolence, but declared: "He suffers from the want of men of ability to uphold him. He cannot make use of men of independent character, who insist on having their own notions, as the direction of affairs of state must be concentrated in his hands." Von Moltke commends the Emperor, however, for not forgetting that "the French people like to see their sovereigns surrounded by a brilliant court."
So the Congress of Paris came and went: and Napoleon drifted on to his second great war – with Austria in behalf of Italian freedom. The Emperor had been in his youth a member of a secret society for the liberation of Italy from the Austrian yoke. His generous impulses made him sympathize with the bitter complaints arising from the peninsula at the oppressions by the Hapsburgs and by the lesser princes, their dependents. His own political theories, about the right of every nation to settle its own destinies by plebiscites, inclined him also to listen favorably to the pleas of Cavour, the very astute prime minister of Sardinia-Piedmont, that France should intervene in Italian affairs and should at least drive the Austrians out of Lombardy and Venetia.
Again we must turn aside from the highly interesting diplomatic story. In 1858 Napoleon made a secret alliance with Cavour and Victor Emmanuel to aid them to drive the Austrians from Italian soil. In return for great additions to his territory within the peninsula, Victor Emmanuel would cede to France his French-speaking districts of Savoy and Nice. In 1859, after a most exciting diplomatic flurry, Cavour maneuvered Austria into declaring war upon Piedmont, under circumstances which permitted Napoleon to say he was merely coming to the rescue of a weak ally. This Italian war, however, was not universally popular in France. Behind the Austrian stood the Pope fearful for his "temporal power"; consequently the Empress and the French clericals discouraged the whole undertaking. The bourgeois element too disliked the military uncertainties and the war taxation. Nevertheless Napoleon threw a considerable army into Northern Italy. Neither the Austrian nor the French generals displayed the least real capacity as strategists, but the French infantry were incomparably the better fighters, and under blundering leadership they carried the Tricolor gallantly through the two great victories, first of Magenta and soon after that of Solferino. The Austrians, nevertheless, were not yet crushed. There was danger of an unfriendly move on the Rhine by Prussia. The Clericals in France were anxious and angry. Therefore, leaving his Piedmontese ally somewhat shabbily in the lurch, Napoleon concluded peace with Franz Josef very suddenly at Villa Franca (July 11, 1859). Lombardy alone was to be ceded to Sardinia-Piedmont, and Venetia was still to lie in Austrian bondage. Since he had not completed his part of the bargain, the Emperor did not now insist on getting Savoy and Nice; but when a little later (1859-60) the Central and South Italian States themselves expelled their local "grand dukes" or papal legates, and united under Victor Emmanuel as "King of Italy," Napoleon exacted the promised districts as his price for closing his ears to the cries of the outraged Clericals at the direful curtailing of the territories of the Pope. So France gained two new departments, made from Savoy in the Alps, and also a fair city (Nice) on the Riviera, but at the expense of some decidedly ungracious bargaining on the part of her Emperor. The Italian war left Napoleonwith perhaps greater military prestige than ever, but at the cost of the good-will of the Clericals, while in turn the Italians did not love him. They felt that he had left them in the lurch as to Venetia, and then had exacted an unfair price for letting them consolidate most of the rest of their country without his intervention.
Nevertheless in 1859 the glory of the Second Empire was probably at its height. France was remarkably prosperous. Great public works were undertaken to win the industrial classes. Railroads were developed. Huge stock companies were floated with more or less Government patronage. Paris had been systematically rebuilt with wide, stately boulevards by Baron Haussmann. The expense was vast, but the effect was magnificent. Paris became somewhat less picturesque, but was now more clearly than ever the superb, clean, modern capital. Another object was also gained. The wide, straight avenues could hereafter be easily swept by artillery. The elimination of the crooked, mediæval-looking streets made barricade fighting a hundred per cent harder.
After 1859 it was evident that the Pope was likely to lose his entire temporal power in Rome and become, as indeed happened in 1870, the "prisoner of the Vatican." For this result the Clericals blamed Napoleon, and their support cooled. To replace them he began to favor the long-despised Liberals.
The Republicans had been suppressed with an iron hand. Prior to 1857 they had not had a single representative in the entire body of deputies. In 1857 and down to 1863 they had only five – "The Five" – chosen by districts in Paris and Lyons which even the police and the official candidates could not entirely coerce. The two brands of Royalists had been a little less persecuted, but were about equally helpless. Mails and travelers' baggage had been regularly searched at the frontiers to prevent the incoming of anti-Bonapartist literature. Now, however, the pressure was a little released. In 1860 the official Moniteur was allowed to reprint the full debates in the Chamber. In 1861 measures were taken to have the items in the budget voted separately, with some real control by the deputies over the treasury. The Chamber was allowed to reply with an address to the speech from the throne. The press restrictions were also partially lifted. Very moderate criticisms of the Government were permitted. In 1863 there were elected 35 Opposition members to the deputies. This was a very small fraction of the Chamber (set by the Constitution of 1851 at 251 members), but it involved real debates, and compelled the Government to defend itself in a parliamentary way against a genuine Opposition. In Paris only Opposition deputies were elected. This meant that Napoleon could not count on the loyalty of the nervecenter of France, a very dangerous situation in case for an instant he lost control of the army. However, having taken the first steps toward a liberal régime, it was impossible to tighten up again. In 1864 the Emperor strove to conciliate the industrialists by a law giving the workingmen a right to form labor unions (hitherto prohibited in deference to bourgeois interests), and also, of course, to "strike " to better their condition, a measure of the greatest importance for the future economic and social development of the country. Whatever popularity Napoleon III may, nevertheless, have gained by such a step was completely offset by the loss of prestige he brought on the Second Empire by his utterly disastrous and discreditable adventure in Mexico.
The "Man of Destiny" had watched the American Civil War with cynical interest. If the great Anglo-Saxon Republic could have been rent asunder and eternally weakened, there was an end to the Monroe Doctrine, and a delightful vista was opened in Latin America for every kind of imperialistic exploitation. Probably Napoleon III would have intervened in behalf of the Southern Confederacy had he been sure of the support of England, and also of French public opinion, which may not have understood all the issues in America, but which balked at spending blood and treasure to uphold a government founded on slavery. But after American hands seemed firmly tied in 1862, the Emperor determined at least to interfere in Mexico. His intervention there was the beginning of the end of the Second Empire.
Once more we have a story familiar to Americans, and only indirectly concerning the life of the French people. Mexican finances were in their normal grievous disorder, and French, English, and Spanish banking interests brought about a joint intervention by their three nations to secure the payment of the debt. But soon it was evident that Napoleon intended a direct political occupation of the offending nation. England and Spain hastily withdrew. A French army was sent up from Vera Cruz into the interior, and after some initial defeats took Mexico City (1863). The anti-Republican clericals in Mexico now played into Napoleon's hands. They caused a monarchy to be proclaimed and offered the "Empire of Mexico" to the Archduke Maximilian of Austria, an amiable prince who knew nothing of Mexican problems, and who rashly trusted to the solemn promise of Napoleon to support him with French bayonets till his new Government was well settled. In 1864 Maximilian arrived in Mexico, but the Republicans continued their resistance. The French forces sent over were not large enough to conquer the country, and the whole expedition was so expensive that the French taxpayers began to become very vocal in the Chambers. Then in 1865 the Southern Confederacy collapsed. The United States sent stern "notes" to Paris about Mexico, the Monroe Doctrine had a most ominous resurrection, and an army of Northern veterans concentrated significantly in Texas. A desperate conflict with the now armed and victorious United States was the last thing Napoleon wanted. Despite his solemn promise to the Austrian Prince, in 1867 he withdrew the French troops from Mexico and left Maximilian to his fate. How the latter remained, resisted the Republicans, was taken, and then shot is one of the best-known stories of North American history.
The Mexican affair cost Napoleon a vast deal of money; it tied up French troops in America at a time when they were sorely needed to protect national interests in Europe; it ended with the disgraceful death of Maximilian, whose friends blamed Napoleon severely for luring him to his ruin; and, of course, it brought no "glory," but only an immense onus of failure at the end. By the time it was finished, the Second Empire had lost all the splendor which had followed the Congress of Paris, and was itself obviously drifting on the rocks.
Those rocks and quicksands were now clearly lying in the direction of Germany. In 1862 Bismarck became first minister of Prussia, while Von Moltke was building that great scientific war-machine which the world was soon to learn to know so well. It had been a serious blow in certain quarters to French pride when the bulk of Italy had become united in a single powerful kingdom. Now, as by successive steps Bismarck began erecting a great well-compacted German State directly across the Rhine, the anxiety and the injured feelings grew infinitely faster. In 1864 this astute minister of King William I had induced Austria to join with Prussia in a common attack on Denmark, which was duly overwhelmed by the two Great Powers and bereft of Schleswig-Holstein. It was patent enough that the two victors in this inglorious war were bound to quarrel over the supremacy of Germany. In the issue of that quarrel France had every possible interest. If Napoleon III announced his intention of aiding Austria, all Bismarck's schemes for making Prussia dominant in Central Europe would vanish in thin air, and never did that clever Junker use his great gifts of cajolery and insinuation to better advantage than in 1865, when he visited the Emperor at Biarritz, and in several confidential interviews talked Napoleon into promising neutrality in German affairs, in return for some utterly vague hopes, and repudiable half-promises of giving France additional territories west of the Rhine while Prussia adjusted matters with Austria.
Napoleon agreed to neutrality. He did not believe that either of the Germanic Powers would be victorious promptly. The result (he expected) would be a dragging, indecisive war, into which he could presently plunge as the irresistible arbiter. So he sat back, permitted Italy to make alliance with Prussia against Austria – and waited events.
Events came with a vengeance War was declared between Prussia and Austria on June 16, 1866. On July 3, seventeen days later, the power of Austria lay crushed and nigh helpless after the great battle of Sadowa (or Königgrätz). On August 23, the final Treaty of Prague was signed, and the war was over. Austria had been obliged to resign all interest in German affairs and to cede Venetia to Italy. As for Prussia she annexed Hanover, Hesse-Cassel, Nassau, and other German States and proceeded to organize all but South Germany into the formidable North-German Confederation – very strictly under her own leadership. Prussia had thus increased her area nearly twentyfive per cent. She had increased her power and prestige in Europe infinitely more.
The news of the catastrophe of Sadowa was hardly less terrible in Paris than in Vienna. From the French standpoint the Emperor had committed a hideous mistake. He had watched a great aggressive military power spring up on the very boundaries of France, and had done absolutely nothing to prevent a vast national danger. In vain now he tried to remind Bismarck of his alleged promises of more territories for France – the Bavarian and Hessian lands west of the Rhine? – or (no creditable proposal) the permission to seize part of Belgium? Anything in short to save the shattered prestige of the Second Empire! Bismarck, more or less bluntly, refused to remember any of his fine words at Biarritz. He encouraged the Belgian proposition only enough so that he could let it leak out in 1870 to discredit France with England. He made it very plain that Prussia intended to organize Germany in her own way, and would snap her fingers at French intervention. Napoleon would willingly have considered going to war, but the Mexican adventure had tied up part of the army, while other regiments were in Rome protecting the Pope against the seizure of the Eternal City by the Italian patriots. Even with his whole forces consolidated, competent generals told the Emperor that he would still lack strength to attack Von Moltke's terrible new warmachine. In infinite anguish Napoleon resolved to keep the peace.
One last attempt he made to solace French pride by an annexation. The Grand Duchy of Luxembourg belonged to the King of Holland. The latter needed money and took no joy in this minor principality. In 1867 it was arranged to sell the little country to France. Matters seemed almost completed, when suddenly Bismarck announced that he could not consent, and informed the King of Holland if he went ahead with the sale "public opinion" in Germany might force war. Of course the King dropped the matter at once. Napoleon had again been utterly rebuffed by the Prussian, and all Europe, and especially all France, knew it.
Between 1867 and 1870 the Second Empire enjoyed its Indian summer. France was still very prosperous. Commerce and industry showed gratifying gains. The great increase of wealth enabled the munificent patronage of the fine arts. Paris was more than ever the abode of comfort, luxury, and of all alluring forms of amusement and "wickedness." In 1867 the Emperor was the host to many of the crowned heads of Europe at the Great Universal Exposition, held now a second time in Paris. But no one could conceal the fact that Napoleon III was losing prestige. He was suffering painfully from a disease of the bladder, and was unable to concentrate his attention on public affairs. The Mexican fiasco and the full consequences of the Prussian aggrandisement both came home to the French people in 1867. As Thiers, the veteran statesman, now again in politics, bitterly exclaimed, "There are no blunders left for us to make."
In 1868 a rising journalist, Henri Rochefort, dipped his pen in gall. In his organ, the Lanterne, he launched attacks like this: "I am a thorough Bonapartist: but I must be allowed to choose my hero in the dynasty. As a Bonapartist, I prefer Napoleon II. It is my right. He represents to me the ideal of the sovereign. No one can deny that he occupied the throne, because his successor was Napoleon III. What a reign, my friends, what a reign! No taxes! No war! No Civil List! Oh, yes, Napoleon II, I love and admire you without reserve!" Rochefort paid for this utterance with prosecution and exile; but the dissemination of this "scarlet pamphlet" could not be stopped. The Second Empire was being ruinously discredited.
Under these circumstances there was nothing left for the Emperor to do save to try to regain his popularity by increasing concessions to the Liberals. An attempt was made by the Government to create the "Democratic Empire." In 1868 the press laws were still further relaxed. Political meetings could be held if they were vouched for by seven responsible citizens. In 1869 there were still more ample concessions. After some discussion the Emperor granted ministerial responsibility. Hereafter the Chamber was to have real control. It could initiate laws, demand explanations of policy from the ministers, and control its own organization. The ministers were supposed to be responsible to the majority of the Chamber, although it was not until 1870 that this last step was put in practice. In this last stage the office of premier was accepted by Ollivier, the leader hitherto of the moderate Opposition, who now announced that he intended to govern according to strictly Liberal and parliamentary views. So again the wheel had turned. From Autocracy Napoleon III was swinging over to Limited Monarchy. He boasted in 1869 that he was founding at length a system of government "equally removed from reaction and from revolutionary theories"; and he appealed to the nation: "I can answer for order: help me to save liberty!"
Whether if there had been no foreign disaster the Second Empire would have lasted is at best doubtful. The memory of the crime of the Coup d'État clung around it like a poisoned Nessus shirt. The Republicans lifted their heads the moment the pressure of the police relaxed. In the elections for the new Chamber in May, 1869, the Government candidates had in all only 4,438,000 votes. The Opposition had 3,385,000. The city of Paris went against the Government by 231,000 votes to only 74,000. Fully ninety Opposition deputies were chosen. On the 2d of December, 1869, the date of the seizure of power by Napoleon, the Republicans held a celebration in honor of the Frenchmen who had died in 1851 defending Republican liberties. A young advocate, Gambetta, appeared to defend those who were promptly accused of "insulting the Government." His speech smote heavily upon the defenders of the Bonapartist régime. "Listen, you who have for seventeen years been the absolute master of France. The thing that characterizes you best, because it proves your own remorse, is the fact you have never dared to say, 'We will place among the solemn festivals of France, this Second of December.' . . . Good! This anniversary we [Republicans] take to ourselves. We will observe it always, without fail, . . . the anniversary of our dead, until the day when the country having become once again master itself, shall impose on you the great expiation in the name of liberty, equality, and fraternity."
After the Liberal reforms of April, 1870, notwithstanding all this, Ollivier undertook to assure the Emperor of a "happy old age." To bolster up the prestige of the new Government, another referendum vote was held. France was asked to ballot on the proposition: "The nation approves of the Liberal reforms made in the Constitution since 1860, and ratifies the senatorial decree of April 20, 1870." As might be expected, a great majority was cast in favor of the Government. The question had been cleverly worded so as not to make the voters reply whether they really liked the Second Empire, but only whether they approved the moves toward liberalism: 7,358,000 voters replied, "Yes"; 1,571,000 "No." The Republicans denounced the whole scheme as a dishonest trick. For the moment, however, the Second Empire seemed to have been given a new sanction and a new lease of life. Very possibly this referendum actually contributed to bring on the final disaster, convincing Napoleon III (as Lebon wrote later) "that he still possessed the confidence of the country, and that a little external glory succeeding upon so many reverses, would restore his shaken authority." In 1869 had come the Emperor's last foreign sunshine. The Suez Canal (the work of a remarkable Frenchman, De Lesseps) had been completed. Napoleon himself could not go to Egypt to attend the opening, but Eugénie went on a man-of-war, to be the guest of honor of Khedive Ismaïl and to shine as the "bright particular star" of the fête along with the Emperor Franz Josef and very many other European royalties. The international horizon seemed fairly clear in 1869 and in 1870. France had apparently submitted to the consolidation of North Germany. No great issues appeared pending. Nevertheless all men knew there was serious tension. Frenchmen talked of "avenging Sadowa" as if it had been their own defeat. Prussians talked of the need of humbling "the hereditary enemy."
In France it was keenly realized by military men that all was not well with the army. The new Prussian organization had been an eye-opener. In 1866 a genuine attempt had been made in France to reorganize the military system. The term of army service had been too long. The troops were practically professional soldiers, not short-term conscripts. There was no adequate reserve. A law of 1855 had actually allowed the payment of a money commutation for army service, and most bourgeois were glad enough to hand over the cash and to save their sons from an irksome duty. Marshal Niel proposed universal service, but the Chamber of that year (1866) had refused to listen and the Emperor had declined to force the matter through. Finally certain imperfect reforms had been voted in 1868. Had they been effected, they would have given an army of 800,000 men. For the most part, however, they were still on paper in 1870, when the great crash came. France faced Prussia in that year with her old professional army, and with practically no efficient reserves or other trained organization behind it. It was easy to be wise after the event.
Nevertheless in 1870 as in 1914 the half of the year passed with the world appearing very peaceful. The policy of Ollivier, the new Liberal prime minister, was so pacifistic, that in January, 1870, he offered to reduce the size of the French army provided Prussia would do the same. Bismarck, who knew his own plottings, waved this well-meant proposal aside. Matters thus drifted calmly on until early summer. The Second Empire seemed in less danger of foundering than at any time since 1866. Europe had quieted down. Ollivier seemed resolved to let Prussianized Germany strictly alone. It was publicly said that the international horizon was singularly clear, and many diplomats departed for their vacations. Then suddenly the great gusts blew. On July 19, 1870, war existed between France and Prussia. On September 2 "Napoleon the Little" ceased to reign.
NOTE ON THE ECONOMIC AND MATERIAL PROGRESS OF FRANCE: 1852-1870
IT is idle to deny that the Second Empire contributed much to the material betterment of the nation. In fact, it was incumbent on Napoleon III and his fellow adventurers to popularize their rule by improving the condition of the masses. The Emperor furthermore had an honest love of humanity – so long as that love did not conflict with his own aggrandizement. Many Government hospitals and convalescent homes were founded, and steps taken to establish a system of public physicians and free medicines. Self-help societies were encouraged, and the Government fostered benefit funds for the relief of old men and women; also for insurance against sickness and accidents; and in 1868 there was founded the "Prince Imperial's Fund" to advance to working-men the money wherewith to buy their own tools. The commercial treaty with Great Britain (1860) was much denounced by the manufacturing interests, but it certainly aided to reduce the cost of many essential articles for the poor. The establishment of the right of working-men to organize and to strike for better conditions has been mentioned. By one of those back-washes of reaction, which are so curious, the lawmakers of the Revolution had actually made organized "striking" a penal offense. All this was now changed.
Railroad-building was pushed with energy. There had been almost no railroads in France before 1842. There were only about 2100 miles of them in 1851. There were nearly 10,000 miles in 1870.
The magnificent reconstruction of Paris by Baron Haussmann has been explained. Besides the enormous and costly changes in the boulevards and avenues, there was a wholesale erection of new churches, hospitals, theaters, markets, barracks, etc., which added enormously to the magnificence of the capital. In addition to Paris, Lille, Lyons, Bordeaux, and Marseilles were proportionately beautified.
These great public undertakings, the stimulation of commerce and industry, etc., naturally produced a corresponding development in financial enterprises. The Crédit Foncier was founded in 1852 and the Crédit Lyonnais in 1865, to advance money to agriculturists, manufacturers, and merchants. These great establishments did much to add to the stability and prosperity of France. The Government deliberately increased the public debt to find money for its numerous undertakings, but it had no trouble in floating its bonds. In 1868 it required a loan of 400,000,000 francs ($80,000,000). There were no less than 830,000 subscribers, and they together offered 15,000,000,000 francs.
It was this wealth, accumulated between 1852 and 1870, that enabled France to recover so rapidly from the terrible maltreatment by Prussia.
Tested only from a materialistic standard the Second Empire deserved well of the nation; it was a tribute to the intelligence, moral qualities, and conscience of France that she refused to be drugged into contentment by the Bonapartist adventurers.