The Governments of Europe Part 25

III. FROM THE RESTORATION TO THE REVOLUTION OF 1848

*318. The Const.i.tutional Charter, 1814.*--May 3, 1814,--three weeks after Napoleon's signature of the Act of Abdication,--the restored Bourbon king, Louis XVIII., entered Paris. Already the Senate had formulated a doc.u.ment, commonly known as the "Senatorial Const.i.tution," wherein was embraced a scheme for a liberalized Bourbon monarchy.[431] Neither the instrument itself nor the authorship of it was acceptable to the new sovereign, and by him the task of drafting a const.i.tution was given over to a commission consisting of three representatives of the crown, nine senators, and nine members of the Legislative Body. The task was accomplished with despatch. June 4 the new instrument, under the name of the Const.i.tutional Charter, was adopted by the two chambers, and ten days later it was put in operation. With some modification, princ.i.p.ally in 1830, it remained the fundamental law of France until the revolution of 1848.

[Footnote 431: Duguit et Monnier, Les Const.i.tutions, 179-182; Anderson, Const.i.tutions, 446-450; Block, Dictionnaire General, I., 505-506.]

The governmental system provided for in the Charter was in a number of respects more liberal than that which had prevailed during the dominance of Napoleon. At the head of the state stood the king, inviolable in person, in whose hands were gathered the powers of issuing ordinances, making appointments, declaring war, concluding treaties, commanding the armies, and initiating all measures of legislation. But there was established a bicameral legislature, by which the king's ministers might be impeached, and without whose a.s.sent no law might be enacted and no tax levied. The upper house, or Chamber of Peers, was composed of a variable number of members named by the crown in heredity or for life.[432] The lower, or Chamber (p. 296) of Deputies, consisted of representatives elected in the departments for a term of five years, one-fifth retiring annually.[433] Provision was made for the annual a.s.sembling of the chambers; and although the proposing of laws was vested exclusively in the crown, it was stipulated that either house might pet.i.tion the king to introduce a measure relating to any specific subject. The Charter contained a comprehensive enumeration and guarantee of the civil rights of French citizens.[434]

[Footnote 432: By law of December 29, 1831, it was stipulated that only life peers might thereafter be appointed, and the king was required to take all appointees from a prescribed list of dignitaries.

Duguit et Monnier, Les Const.i.tutions, 231-232.]

[Footnote 433: A law of June 9, 1824, stipulated that thereafter the Chamber of Deputies should be elected integrally for a period of seven years.

Duguit et Monnier, Les Const.i.tutions, 211.]

[Footnote 434: The text of the Charter of 1814 may be found in Duguit et Monnier, Les Const.i.tutions, I., 183-190; Helie, Les Const.i.tutions, 884-890; and, in English translation, in Anderson, Const.i.tutions, 457-465, and University of Pennsylvania Translations and Reprints, I., No. 3.

Summary in Block, Dictionnaire General, I., 506-508. Cambridge Modern History, IX., Chap. 18.]

*319. The Electoral System.*--The Charter prescribed the qualifications required of voters and of deputies, but did not define the manner in which deputies should be chosen. The lack was supplied by an election law enacted February 5, 1817. The system established was that of _scrutin de liste_. Under it the electors--men of a minimum age of thirty who paid each year a direct tax of at least three hundred francs--were required to a.s.semble in the princ.i.p.al town of the department and there choose the full quota of deputies to which the department was ent.i.tled. The system proved of distinct advantage to the liberal elements, whose strength lay largely in the towns, and in 1820 when the conservative forces procured control and inaugurated a general reaction a measure was adopted, though only after heated debate, by which the arrangement was completely altered. The membership of the Chamber was increased from 258 to 430 and for the principle of _scrutin de liste_ was subst.i.tuted that of _scrutin d'arrondiss.e.m.e.nt_. Each arrondiss.e.m.e.nt became a single-member district and the electors were permitted to vote for one deputy only. In this manner 258 of the members were chosen. The remaining 172 were elected at the chief departmental towns by the voters of the department who paid the most taxes, an arrangement under which some twelve thousand of the wealthier electors became possessed of a double vote. Voting was by ballot, but the elector was required to write out his ballot in the presence of an appointee of the government and to place it in his hands unfolded.[435]

[Footnote 435: Duguit et Monnier, Les Const.i.tutions, 206-209; Helie, Les Const.i.tutions, 934-936.]

*320. Liberalizing Changes in 1830-1831.*--Upon the enforced (p. 297) abdication of Charles X. in 1830 a parliamentary commission prepared a revision of the Charter, which, being adopted, was imposed upon the new sovereign, Louis Philippe, and was continued in operation through the period of the Orleanist monarchy. The preamble of the original doc.u.ment, in which language had been employed which made it appear that the Charter was a grant from the crown, was stricken out.

Suspension of the laws by the sovereign was expressly forbidden. Each chamber was given the right to initiate legislation, the responsibility of the ministers to the chambers was proclaimed, and the sessions of the Peers, hitherto secret, were made public. The integral renewal of the Deputies, established in 1824, was continued, but the term of membership was restored to five years. The minimum age of electors was reduced from thirty to twenty-five years, and of deputies from forty to thirty. Subsequently, April 19, 1831, a law was pa.s.sed whereby the suffrage--so restricted at the close of the Napoleonic regime that in a population of 29,000,000 there had been, in 1814, not 100,000 voters--was appreciably broadened. The direct tax qualification of three hundred francs was reduced to one of two hundred, and, for certain professional cla.s.ses, of one hundred. By this modification the number of voters was doubled, though the proportion of the enfranchised was still but one in one hundred fifty of the total population, and it would be a mistake to regard the government of the Orleanist period as in effect more democratic than that by which it was preceded. At the most, it was a government by and for the well-to-do middle cla.s.s.[436]

[Footnote 436: For the act of the Chambers relative to the modification of the Const.i.tutional Charter and to the accession of Louis Philippe, see Duguit et Monnier, Les Const.i.tutions, 213-218; Helie, Les Const.i.tutions, 987-992; and Anderson, Const.i.tutions, 507-513. The electoral law of 1831 is in Duguit et Monnier, 219-230. Cambridge Modern History, X., Chap. 15; G. Weill, La France sous la monarchic const.i.tutionnelle, 1814-1848 (new ed., Paris, 1912).]

IV. THE SECOND REPUBLIC AND THE SECOND EMPIRE

*321. The Republican Const.i.tution of 1848.*--With the overthrow of the Orleanist monarchy, in consequence of the uprising of February 24, 1848, France entered upon a period of aggravated political unsettlement. Through upwards of five years the nation experimented once more with republicanism, only at the end of that period to emerge a monarchy, an empire, and the dominion of a Bonaparte. By the provisional government which sprang from the revolution a republic was proclaimed tentatively and the nation was called upon to elect, under a system of direct manhood suffrage, an a.s.sembly to frame a const.i.tution.

The elections--the first of their kind in the history of (p. 298) France--were held April 23, 1848, and the National Const.i.tuent a.s.sembly, consisting of nine hundred members, eight hundred of whom were moderate republicans, met May 4 in Paris. During the summer the draft of a const.i.tution prepared by a committee of eighteen, was duly debated, and November 4 it was adopted by a vote of 739 to 30.

The Const.i.tution of 1848 declared the Republic to be perpetual and the people to be sovereign. It a.s.serted, furthermore, that the separation of powers is the first condition of a free government. In respect to the organs of government it provided, in the first place, for a legislative a.s.sembly consisting of a single chamber of 750 members[437] chosen integrally for three years, directly by secret ballot on the principle of departmental _scrutin de liste_, and by electors whose only necessary qualifications were those of age (twenty-one years) and of non-impairment of civil rights.[438]

Executive powers were vested in a president of the Republic, elected for a term of four years by direct and secret ballot, and by absolute majority of all votes cast in France and Algeria. Under stipulated conditions, e.g., if no candidate should receive an absolute majority and at the same time a total of at least two million votes, the president was required to be chosen by the a.s.sembly from the five candidates who had polled the largest votes. Save after a four-year interval, the president was ineligible for re-election. Upon him were bestowed large powers, including those of proposing laws, negotiating and ratifying treaties with the consent of the a.s.sembly, appointing and dismissing ministers and other civil and military officers, and disposing of the armed forces. With respect to the functions and powers of the ministers the const.i.tution was not explicit, and whether the instrument might legitimately be interpreted to make provision for a parliamentary system of government was one of the standing issues throughout the days of its duration.[439]

[Footnote 437: Including representatives of Algeria and the colonies.]

[Footnote 438: Electoral law of March 15, 1849.

Duguit et Monnier, Les Const.i.tutions, 247-265.]

[Footnote 439: Dupriez, Les Ministres, II., 308-312. The text of the Const.i.tution of 1848 is in Duguit et Monnier, Les Const.i.tutions, 232-246; Helie, Les Const.i.tutions, 1102-1113; and Anderson, Const.i.tutions, 522-537. Summary in Block, Dictionnaire General, I., 510-513. Cambridge Modern History, XI., Chap. 5; V. Pierre, Histoire de la republique de 1848, 2 vols. (Paris, 1873-1878); P.

de la Gorce, Histoire de la deuxieme republique francaise, 2 vols. (Paris, 1887); E. Spuller, Histoire parlementaire de la deuxieme republique (Paris, 1893); Fisher, Republican Tradition in Europe, Chap. 8.]

*322. From Republic to Empire.*--December 10, 1848, Louis Napoleon, nephew of the first Napoleon, was chosen president by an overwhelming vote, and ten days later he a.s.sumed office. In May, 1849, an (p. 299) a.s.sembly was elected, two-thirds of whose members were thoroughgoing monarchists; so that, as one writer has put it, both the president and the majority of the a.s.sembly were, by reason of their very being, enemies of the const.i.tution under which they had been elected.[440]

The new order, furthermore, failed completely to strike root throughout the nation at large. In this state of things the collapse of the Republic was but a question of time. By an electoral law of May 31, 1850, requiring of the elector a fixed residence of three years instead of six months, the suffrage arrangements of 1849 were subverted and the electorate was reduced by three millions, or virtually one-third.[441] December 2, 1851, occurred a carefully planned _coup d'etat_, on which occasion the a.s.sembly was dissolved, the franchise law of 1849 was restored, and the people, gathered in primary a.s.semblies, were called upon to intrust to the President power to revise the national const.i.tution.[442] December 20, by a vote of 7,439,216 to 640,737, the people complied. Thereafter, though continuing officially through another year, the Republic was in reality dead. November 7, 1852, the veil was thrown off. A _senatus-consulte_ decreed a re-establishment of the Empire,[443] and by a plebiscite of eleven days later the people, by a vote of 7,824,189 to 253,145, sanctioned what had been done. December 2, Napoleon III. was proclaimed Emperor of the French.

[Footnote 440: Hazen, Europe since 1815, 201.]

[Footnote 441: The text of this measure is in Duguit et Monnier, Les Const.i.tutions, 265-268, and Helie, Les Const.i.tutions, 1149-1150. H. Laferriere, La loi electorale du 31 mai 1850 (Paris, 1910).]

[Footnote 442: Anderson, Const.i.tutions, 538-543.]

[Footnote 443: Duguit et Monnier, Les Const.i.tutions, 290-292; Anderson, Const.i.tutions, 560-561.]

*323. The Imperial Const.i.tution, 1852.*--Meanwhile, March 29, 1852, there had been put in operation a const.i.tution,[444] nominally republican, but in reality strongly resembling that in force during the later years of Napoleon I. The subst.i.tution, later in the year, of an emperor for a president upon whom had been conferred a ten-year term was but a matter of detail. A _senatus-consulte_ of December 25, made all of the necessary adjustments, and the const.i.tution of 1852, with occasional modifications, remained the fundamental law of France until the collapse of the Empire in 1870. Upon the emperor were conferred very extended powers. His control of the administrative system was made practically absolute. He commanded the army and navy, decided upon war and peace, concluded treaties, and granted pardons.

He alone possessed the power of initiating legislation and of promulgating the laws. To him alone were all ministers responsible, and of (p. 300) such parliamentarism as had existed formerly there remained not a vestige, Of legislative chambers there were two: a _Corps legislatif_ of 251 members elected by direct manhood suffrage every six years, and a Senate composed of cardinals, admirals, and other _ex-officio_ members, and of a variable number of members appointed for life by the emperor. The powers of the Senate, exercised invariably in close conjunction with the head of the state, were of some importance, but those of the popular chamber were so restricted that the liberal arrangements which existed respecting the suffrage afforded but the appearance, not the reality, of democracy.[445]

[Footnote 444: Drawn up by a commission of five, under date of January 14, 1852.]

[Footnote 445: The text of the const.i.tution of 1852 is in Duguit et Monnier, Les Const.i.tutions, 274-280; Helie, Les Const.i.tutions, 1167-1171; Anderson, Const.i.tutions, 543-549. Summary in Block, Dictionnaire General, I., 513-515. Cambridge Modern History, XI., Chaps. 5, 10.]

*324. Const.i.tutional Alterations, 1869-1870.*--Throughout upwards of two decades the illusion of popular government was maintained as well as might be. The country was prosperous and the government, if illiberal, was on the whole enlightened. Discontent, none the less, was not infrequently in evidence, and during especially the second half of the reign the Emperor found it expedient more than once to make some concession to public sentiment. In the later sixties he was compelled to moderate the laws which dealt with the press and with political meetings, and in 1869-1870 he was brought to the point of approving a series of measures which gave promise of altering in an important manner the entire governmental system. One was a _senatus-consulte_ of September 8, 1869, whereby the sittings of the Senate were made public, the Legislative Body was given the right to elect all of its own officials, and the parliamentary system was nominally re-established.[446] By reason of the fact, however, that ministers were not permitted to be members of either the Legislative Body or the Senate, and that they were declared still to be responsible to the crown, the effects of the last-mentioned feature of the reform were inconsiderable. By a _senatus-consulte_ of April 20, 1870, (approved by a plebiscite of May 8 following) there were adopted still more important const.i.tutional changes. In the first place, the Senate, which hitherto had been virtually an Imperial council, was erected into a legislative chamber co-ordinate with the Legislative Body, and upon both houses was conferred the right of initiating legislation. In the second place, the provision that the ministers should be dependent solely upon the emperor was stricken from the const.i.tution, thus clearing the way for a more effective realization of the parliamentary system of government. Finally, it was (p. 301) stipulated that the const.i.tution should thereafter be modified only with the express approval of the people.[447] These reforms, however, were belated. They came only after the popularity of the Emperor had been strained to the breaking point, and by reason of the almost immediate coming on of the war with Prussia there was scant opportunity for the testing of their efficacy.

[Footnote 446: Text in Duguit et Monnier, Les Const.i.tutions, 307-308; Helie, Les Const.i.tutions, 1314-1315; and Anderson, Const.i.tutions, 579-580.]

[Footnote 447: The text of the measure of April 20, 1870, is in Duguit et Monnier, Les Const.i.tutions, 308-314; Helie, Les Const.i.tutions, 1315-1327; and Anderson, Const.i.tutions, 581-586. Cambridge Modern History, XI., Chap. 17; H. Berton, L'evolution const.i.tutionnelle du second empire (Paris, 1900).

An important larger work is P. de la Gorce, Histoire du second empire, 7 vols. (Paris, 1894-1905).]

V. THE ESTABLISHMENT OF THE THIRD REPUBLIC

*325. The National a.s.sembly.*--The present French Republic was inst.i.tuted under circ.u.mstances which gave promise of even less stability than had been exhibited by its predecessors of 1793 and 1848.[448] Proclaimed in the dismal days following the disaster at Sedan, it owed its existence, at the outset, to the fact that, with the capture of Napoleon III. by the Prussians and the utter collapse of the Empire, there had arisen, as Thiers put it, "a vacancy of power." The proclamation was issued September 4, 1870, when the war with Prussia had been in progress but seven weeks.[449] During the remaining five months of the contest the sovereign authority of France was exercised by a Provisional Government of National Defense, with General Trochu at its head, devised in haste to meet the emergency by Gambetta, Favre, Ferry, and other former members of the Chamber of Deputies. Upon the capitulation of Paris, January 28, 1871, elections were ordered for a national a.s.sembly, the function of which was to decide whether the war should be prolonged and what terms of peace should be accepted at the hands of the victorious Germans. There was no time in which to frame a new electoral system. Consequently the electoral procedure of the Second Republic, as prescribed by the (p. 302) law of March 15, 1849, was revived,[450] and by manhood suffrage there was chosen, February 8, an a.s.sembly of 758 members, representative of both France and the colonies. Meeting at Bordeaux, February 12, this body, by unanimous vote, conferred upon the historian and parliamentarian Thiers the t.i.tle of "Chief of the Executive Power," without fixed term, voted almost solidly for a cessation of hostilities, and authorized Thiers to proceed with an immediate negotiation of peace.

[Footnote 448: The best account of the beginnings of the Third Republic is that in G. Hanotaux, Histoire de la France contemporaine, 4 vols.

(Paris, 1903-1909), I. There is an English translation of this important work by J. C. Tarver.

A recent book of value is A. Bertrand, Les origines de la troisieme republique, 1871-1876 (Paris, 1911). Mention may be made also of E. Zevort, Histoire de la troisieme republique, 4 vols.

(Paris, 1896-1901), I.; C. Duret, Histoire de France de 1870 a 1873 (Paris, 1901); A. Callet, Les origines de la troisieme republique (Paris, 1889); F. Littre, L'etabliss.e.m.e.nt de la troisieme republique (Paris, 1880); L. E. Benoit, Histoire de quinze ans, 1870-1885 (Paris, 1886); F. T.

Marzials, Leon Gambetta (London, 1890); and P. B.

Ghensi, Gambetta: Life and Letters (New York, 1910). There is an interesting interpretation in Fisher, Republican Tradition in Europe, Chap. 11.]

[Footnote 449: Duguit et Monnier, Les Const.i.tutions, cxvi.]

[Footnote 450: Most of the disqualifications for voting which were enumerated in the law of 1849 were declared inapplicable in the present election.]

*326. The Problem of a Permanent Government.*--Pending a diplomatic adjustment, the a.s.sembly was disposed to defer the establishment of a permanent governmental system. But the problem could not long be kept in the background. There were several possible solutions. A party of Legitimists, i.e., adherents of the old Bourbon monarchy, was resolved upon the establishment of a kingdom under the Count of Chambord, grandson of the Charles X. who had been deposed at the revolution of 1830. Similarly, a party of Orleanists was insistent upon a restoration of the house of Orleans, overthrown in 1848, in the person of the Count of Paris, a grandson of the citizen-king Louis Philippe. A smaller group of those who, despite the discredit which the house of Bonaparte had suffered in the war, remained loyal to the Napoleonic tradition, was committed to a revival of the prostrate empire of the captive Napoleon III. Finally, in Paris and some portions of the outlying country there was uncompromising demand for the definite establishment of a republic.[451] In the a.s.sembly the monarchists outnumbered the republicans five to two, and, although the members had been chosen primarily for their opinions relative to peace rather than to const.i.tutional forms, the proportion throughout the nation was probably about the same. The republican outlook, however, was vastly improved by the fact that the monarchists, having nothing in common save opposition to republicanism, were hopelessly disagreed among themselves.[452]

[Footnote 451: G. Weill, Histoire du parti republicain en France de 1814 a 1870 (Paris, 1900).]

[Footnote 452: Of pure Legitimists there were in the a.s.sembly about 150; of Bonapartists, not over 30; of Republicans, about 250. The remaining members were Orleanists or men of indecisive inclination. At no time was the full membership of the a.s.sembly in attendance.]

*327. The Rivet Law, 1871.*--As, from the drift of its proceedings, the royalist character of the a.s.sembly began to stand out in unmistakable relief, there arose from republican quarters vigorous opposition to the prolonged existence of the body. Even before the signing of the Peace of Frankfort, May 10, 1871, there occurred a clash between the a.s.sembly and the radical Parisian populace, the upshot of which (p. 303) was the b.l.o.o.d.y war of the Commune of April-May, 1871.[453] The communards fought fundamentally against state centralization, whether or not involving a revival of monarchy. The fate of republicanism was not in any real measure bound up with their cause, so that after the movement had been suppressed, with startling ruthlessness, by the Government, the political future of the nation remained no less in doubt than previously it had been. Thiers continued at the post of Chief of the Executive, and the a.s.sembly, clothed by its own a.s.sumption with powers immeasurably in excess of those it had been elected to exercise, and limited by no fixed term, gave not the slightest indication of a purpose to terminate its career. Rather, the body proceeded, August 31, 1871, to pa.s.s, by a vote of 491 to 94, the Rivet law, whereby the existing regime was to be perpetuated indefinitely.[454] By this measure unrestricted sovereignty, involving the exercise of both const.i.tuent and legislative powers, was declared by the a.s.sembly to be vested in itself. Upon the Chief of the Executive was conferred the t.i.tle of President of the French Republic; and it was stipulated that this official should thereafter be responsible to the a.s.sembly, and presumably removable by it. A quasi-republic, with a crude parliamentary system of government, thereafter existed _de facto_; but it had as yet absolutely no const.i.tutional basis.

[Footnote 453: In March the a.s.sembly had transferred its sittings from Bordeaux to Versailles.]

[Footnote 454: Duguit et Monnier, Les Const.i.tutions, 315-316; Anderson, Const.i.tutions, 604-606.]

*328. Failure of the Monarchist Programmes.*--This anomalous condition of things lasted many months, during the course of which Thiers and the a.s.sembly served the nation admirably through the promotion of its recovery from the ravages of war. More and more Thiers, who had begun as a const.i.tutional monarchist, came to believe in republicanism as the style of government which would divide the French people least, and late in 1872 he put himself unqualifiedly among the adherents of the republican programme. Thereupon the monarchists, united for the moment in the conviction that for the good of their several causes Thiers must be deposed from his position of influence, brought about in the a.s.sembly a majority vote in opposition to him, and so induced his resignation, May 24, 1873.[455] The opponents of republicanism now felt that the hour had come for the termination of a governmental regime which had by them been regarded all the while as purely (p. 304) provisional. The monarchist Marshal MacMahon was made President, a coalition ministry of monarchists under the Orleanist Duke of Broglie was formed, and republicanism in press and politics was put under the ban. Between the Legitimists and the Orleanists there was worked out an ingenious compromise whereby the Bourbon Count of Chambord was to be made king under the t.i.tle of Henry V. and, he having no heirs, the Orleanist Count of Paris was to be recognized as his successor. The whole project was brought to naught, however, by the persistent refusal of the Count of Chambord to give up the white flag, which for centuries had been the standard of the Bourbon house. The Orleanists held out for the tricolor; and thus, on what would appear to most people a question of distinctly minor consequence, the survival of the Republic was for the time determined.[456]

[Footnote 455: Anderson, Const.i.tutions, 622-627; A.