"had always wished to bring about a change in the
constitution, but, originally, he had hoped to be able to do
this with the aid and approval of some at least of the
statesmen and eminent generals of the country." But, "although
there were numbers in France who would have been heartily glad
to see the Republic crushed by some able dictator, there were
hardly any public men who believed that in the President of
the Republic they would find the man they wanted. Therefore
his overtures to the gentlemen of France were always rejected.
Every statesman to whom he applied refused to entertain his
proposals. Every general whom he urged always said that for
whatever he did he must have 'an order from the Minister of
War.' The President being thus rebuffed, his plan of changing
the form of government with the assent of some of the leading
statesmen and generals of the country degenerated into schemes
of a very different kind; and at length he fell into the hands
of persons of the quality of Persigny, Morny, and Fleury. ...
The President had been a promoter of the law of the 31st of
May, restricting the franchise, but he now became the champion
of universal suffrage. To minds versed in politics this change
might have sufficed to disclose the nature of the schemes upon
which the Chief of the State was brooding; but, from first to
last, words tending to allay suspicion had been used with
great industry and skill. From the moment of his coming before
the public in February 1848, the Prince laid hold of almost
every occasion he could find for vowing, again and again, that
he harbored no schemes against the Constitution. ... It was
natural that in looking at the operation which changed the
Republic into an Empire, the attention of the observer should
be concentrated upon the person who, already the Chief of the
State, was about to attain to the throne; and there seems to
be no doubt, that what may be called the literary part of the
transaction was performed by the President in person. He was
the lawyer of the confederacy. He no doubt wrote the
Proclamations, the Plebiscites, and the Constitutions, and all
such like things; but it seems that the propelling power which
brought the plot to bear was mainly supplied by Count de Morny,
and by a resolute Major, named Fleury. M. Morny was a man of
great daring, and gifted with more than common powers of
fascination. He had been a member of the Chamber of Deputies
in the time of the monarchy; but he was rather known to the
world as a speculator than as a politician. He was a buyer and
seller of those fractional and volatile interests in trading
adventures, which go by the name of 'Shares.' ...
{1376}
He knew how to found a 'company,' and he now undertook to
establish institutions which were destined to be more
lucrative to him than any of his former adventures; ... It
seems, however, that the man who was the most able to make the
President act, to drive him deep into his own plot, and
fiercely carry him through it, was Major Fleury. ... He was
daring and resolute, and his daring was of the kind which
holds good in the moment of danger. If Prince Louis Bonaparte
was bold and ingenious in designing, Fleury was the man to
execute. ... The language held by the generals who declared
that they would act under the authority of the Minister of War
and not without it, suggested the contrivance which was
resorted to. Fleury determined to find a military man capable
of command, capable of secrecy, and capable of a great
venture. The person chosen was to be properly sounded, and if
he seemed willing, was to be admitted into the plot. He was
then to be made Minister of War, in order that through him the
whole of the land forces should be at the disposal of the
plotters. Fleury went to Algeria to find the instrument
required, and he so well performed his task that he hit upon a
general officer who was christened, it seems, Jacques Arnaud
Le Roy, but was known at this time as Achille St. Arnaud. ...
He readily entered into the plot. From the moment that Prince
Louis Bonaparte and his associates had entrusted their secret
to the man of Fleury's selection, it was perhaps hardly
possible for them to flinch, for the exigencies of St. Arnaud,
formerly Le Roy, were not likely to be on so modest a scale as
to consist with the financial arrangements of a Republic
governed by law, and the discontent of a person of his quality
with a secret like that in his charge would plainly bring the
rest of the brethren into danger. He was made Minister of War.
This was on the 27th of October. At the same time M. Maupas or
de Maupas was brought into the Ministry. ... Persigny,
properly Fialin, was in the plot. He was descended on one side
of an ancient family, and disliking his father's name he seems
to have called himself for many years after the name of his
maternal grandfather. ... It was necessary to take measures
for paralyzing the National Guard, but the force was under the
command of General Perrot, a man whose honesty could not be
tampered with. To dismiss him suddenly would be to excite
suspicion. The following expedient was adopted: the President
appointed as Chief of the Staff of the National Guard, a
person named Vieyra. The past life and the then repute of this
person were of such a kind, that General Perrot, it seems,
conceived himself insulted by the nomination, and instantly
resigned. That was what the brethren of the Elysée wanted. On
Sunday, the 30th, General Lawæstine was appointed to the
command. ... His function was--not to lead the force of which
he took the command but--to prevent it from acting. ... Care
had been taken to bring into Paris and its neighborhood the
regiments most likely to serve the purpose of the Elysée, and
to give the command to generals who might be expected to act
without scruples. The forces in Paris and its neighborhood
were under the orders of General Magnan. ... From time to time
the, common soldiery were gratified with presents of food and
wine, as well, as with an abundance of flattering words, and
their exasperation against civilians was so well kept alive
that men used to African warfare were brought into the humor
for calling the Parisians 'Bedouins.' There was massacre in
the very sound. The army of Paris was in the temper required.
It was necessary for the plotters to have the concurrence of
M. St. Georges, the director Of the state printing-office. M.
St. Georges was suborned. Then all was ready. On the Monday
night between the 1st and 2d of December, the President had
his usual assembly at the Elysée. Ministers who were loyally
ignorant of what was going on were mingled with those who were
in the plot. ... At the usual hour the assembly began to
disperse, and by eleven o'clock there were only three guests
who remained. These were Morny (who had previously taken care
to show himself at one of the theatres), Maupas, and St.
Arnaud, formerly Le Roy. There was, besides, an orderly
officer of the President, called Colonel Beville, who was
initiated in the secret. ... They were to strike the blow that
night. ... By and by they were apprised that an order which had
been given for the movement of a battalion of gendarmerie, had
duly taken effect without exciting remark. ... The President
entrusted a packet of manuscripts to Colonel Beville, and
despatched him to the state printing office. It was in the
streets which surround this building that the battalion of
gendarmerie had been collected. When Paris was hushed in
sleep, the battalion came quietly out, and folded round the
state printing-office. From that moment until their work was
done the printers were all close captives, for no one of them
was suffered to go out. ... It is said that there was
something like resistance, but in the end, if not at first,
the printers obeyed. Each compositor stood whilst he worked
between two policemen, and, the manuscript being cut into many
pieces, no one could make out the sense of what he was
printing. By these proclamations the President asserted that
the Assembly was a hot-bed of plots; declared it dissolved;
pronounced for universal suffrage; proposed a new
constitution; vowed anew that his duty was to maintain the
Republic; and placed Paris and the twelve surrounding
departments under martial law. In one of the proclamations, he
appealed to the army, and strove to whet its enmity against
civilians, by reminding it of the defeats inflicted upon the
troops in 1830 and 1848. The President wrote letters
dismissing the members of the government who were not in the
plot; but he did not cause these letters to be delivered until
the following morning. He also signed a paper appointing Morny
to the Home Office. ... The order from the Minister of War was
probably signed by half-past two in the morning, for at three it
was in the hands of Magnan. At the same hour Maupas (assigning
for pretext the expected arrival of foreign refugees), caused
a number of Commissaries to be summoned in all haste to the
Prefecture of Police. At half-past three in the morning these
men were in attendance. ... It was then that, for the first
time, the main secret of the confederates passed into the
hands of a number of subordinate agents. During some hours of
that night every one of those humble Commissaries had the
destinies of France in his hands; for he might either obey the
Minister, and so place his country in the power of the Elysée,
or he might obey the law, denounce the plot, and bring its
contrivers to trial. Maupas gave orders for the seizure at the
same minute of the foremost Generals of France, and several of
her leading Statesmen.
{1377}
Parties of the police, each under the orders of a Commissary,
were to be at the doors of the persons to be arrested some
time beforehand, but the seizures were not to take place until
a quarter past six. ... At the appointed minute, and whilst it
was still dark, the designated houses were entered. The most
famous generals of France were seized. General Changarnier,
General Bedeau, General Lamoricière, General Cavaignac, and
General Leflô were taken from their beds, and carried away
through the sleeping city and thrown into prison. In the same
minute the like was done with some of the chief members and
officers of the Assembly, and amongst others with Thiers,
Miot, Baze, Colonel Charras, Roger du Nord, and several of the
democratic leaders. Some men believed to be the chiefs of
secret societies were also seized. The general object of these
night arrests was that, when morning broke, the army should be
without generals inclined to observe the law, that the
Assembly should be without the machinery for convoking it, and
that all the political parties in the State should be
paralyzed by the disappearance of their chiefs. The number of
men thus seized in the dark was seventy-eight. Eighteen of
these were members of the Assembly. Whilst it was still dark,
Morny, escorted by a body of infantry, took possession of the
Home Office, and prepared to touch the springs of that
wondrous machinery by which a clerk can dictate to a nation.
Already he began to tell 40,000 communes of the enthusiasm
with which the sleeping city had received the announcement of
measures not hitherto disclosed. When the light of the morning
dawned, people saw the Proclamations on the walls, and slowly
came to hear that numbers of the foremost men of France had
been seized in the night-time, and that every General to whom
the friends of law and order could look for help was lying in
one or other of the prisons. The newspapers, to which a man
might run in order to know truly what others thought and
intended, were all seized and stopped. The gates of the
Assembly were closed and guarded, but the Deputies, who began
to flock thither, found means to enter by passing through one
of the official residences which formed Part of the building.
They had assembled in the Chamber in large numbers, and some
of them having caught Dupin, their reluctant President, were
forcing him to come and take the chair, when a body of
infantry burst in and drove them out, striking some of them
with the butt-ends of their muskets. ... Driven from their
Chamber, the Deputies assembled at the Mayoralty of the 10th
arrondissement. There, upon the motion of the illustrious,
Berryer, they resolved that the act of Louis Bonaparte was a
forfeiture of the Presidency, and they directed the judges of
the Supreme Court to meet and proceed to the judgment of the
President and his accomplices. These resolutions had just been
voted, when a battalion of the Chasseurs de Vincennes entered
the courtyard. ... An aide-de-camp of General Magnan came with
a written order directing the officer in command of the
battalion to clear the hall, to do this if necessary by force,
and to carry off to the prison of Mazas any Deputies offering
resistance. ... The number of Deputies present at this moment
was 220. The whole Assembly declared that they resisted, and
would yield to nothing short of force. ... They were carried
off, some to the Fort of Mount Valerian, some to the fortress
of Vincennes, and some to the prison of Mazas. ... By the laws
of the Republic, the duty of taking cognizance of offences
against the Constitution was cast upon the Supreme Court. The
Court was sitting, when an armed force entered the hall, and
the judges were driven from the bench, but not until they had
made a judicial order for the impeachment of the President."
A. W. Kinglake,
The Invasion of the Crimea,
volume 1, chapter 14.
ALSO IN:
E. Tênot,
Paris in December, 1851,
chapters 1-4.
V. Hugo,
Napoleon the Little.
M. de Maupas,
The Story of the Coup d'État.
B. Jerrold,
Life of Napoleon III.,
book 8 (volume 3).
FRANCE: A. D. 1851.
The bloody Triumph of the Coup d'État.
Destruction of the Second Republic.
"The second part of the Coup d'État, which drenched the
boulevards with innocent blood, has cast a shade of horror
over the whole transaction that time has been unable to
efface. Paris is never so reduced in a crisis, whether the
cause be just or unjust, that she is bereft of hands to erect
and defend barricades in her streets. In the Faubourg St.
Antoine an incipient rising on the 2d was suppressed
immediately by the troops. The volcanic district from the
Hôtel de Ville northward to the boulevards also showed signs
of uneasiness, and throughout the morning of the 3d the
military were busy pulling down partially completed barricades
and dispersing small bodies of insurgents. There seems to be
little question that the army was embittered against the
populace. If this were so, the proclamation circulated by the
president through the ranks on the 2d was not calculated to
appease it. He styled the soldiers as the 'flower of the
nation.' He pointed out to them that his interests and theirs
were the same, and that they had suffered together in the past
from the course of the Assembly. He reminded them of the years
1830 and 1848, when the army had fought the people in the
streets of Paris, and concluded by an allusion to the military
grandeur of the Bonapartes. During the afternoon of the 3d and
morning of the 4th the troops remained inactive; pending
orders from the minister of war, and in this interval several
strong barricades were erected in the restless quarters. On
the afternoon of the 4th the boulevards, from the Madeleine to
the Rue du Sentier, were occupied by a great body of troops
awaiting orders to move east through the Boulevard Bonne
Nouvelle upon the barricaded district. The soldiers stood at
ease, and the officers lounged about, smoking their cigars.
The sidewalks, windows, and balconies were crowded with men,
women, and children, thoughtless onlookers of the great
military display. Suddenly a single shot was heard. It was
fired from a window near the Rue du Sentier. The troops at the
head of the column faced sharply to the south, and commenced a
deliberate fusillade upon the crowded walks and balconies. The
battalions farther west caught the murderous contagion, until
the line of fire extended into the Boulevard des Italiens. In
a few moments the beautiful boulevards were converted into a
bloody pandemonium. The sidewalks were strewn with corpses and
stained with blood. The air was rent with shrieks and groans
and the breaking of glass, while the steady, incessant
rattling of the musketry was intensified by an occasional
cannon-shot, that brought down with a crash the masonry from
some fine façade.
{1378}
This continued for nearly twenty minutes, when a lack of
people to kill seems to have restrained the mad volleys of the
troops. If any attempt was made by officers to check their
men, it was wholly unavailing, and in some cases miserable
fugitives were followed into buildings and massacred. Later in
the day the barricades were attacked, and their defenders
easily overcome. By night-fall insurgent Paris was thoroughly
cowed. These allegations, though conflicting with sworn
statements of Republicans and Imperialists, can hardly be
refuted. The efforts of the Napoleonic faction to portray the
thoughtless crowd of the boulevards as desperate and
bloody-minded rebels have never been successful, while the
opposition so brilliantly represented by the author of
'Histoire d'un Crime' have been too fierce and immoderate in
their accusations to win public credence. The questions as to
who fired the first shot, and whether it was fired as a signal
for, or a menace against the military, are points on which
Frenchmen of different political parties still debate. It is
charitable to accept M. Hugo's insinuation that the soldiery
were drunk with the president's wine, even though the fact
implies a low state of discipline in the service. To what
extent was the president responsible for the boulevard horror?
M. Victor Hugo and M. de Maupas do not agree upon this point,
and it seems useless to discuss it. Certain facts are
indisputable. We know the army bore small love toward the
Parisians, and we know it was in the streets by order of the
president. We know that the latter was in bad company, and
playing a dangerous game. We may discard M. Victor Hugo's
statement as to the orders issued by the president from the
Elysée on the fatal day, but we cannot disguise the fact that
the boulevard horror subdued Paris, and crowned his cause with
success. In other words, Louis Napoleon was the gainer by the
slaughter of unoffending men, women, and children, and in
after-years, when referring to the 4th of December, he found
it for his interest to distort facts, and make figures lie.
... Louis Napoleon had expressly stated in the proclamation
that astonished Paris on the 2d that he made the people judge
between him and the Assembly. The citizens of France were
called upon to vote on the 20th and 21st of December 'Yes' or
'No' to the question as to whether the president should be
sustained in the measures he had taken, should be empowered to
draw up a new constitution, and should retain the presidential
chair for a period of ten years."
H. Murdock,
The Reconstruction of Europe,
chapter 2.
ALSO IN:
V. Hugo,
History of a Crime.
E. Tênot,
Paris in December, 1851,
chapters 5-6.
M. de Maupas,
Story of the Coup d'État,
chapters 18-24 (volume 2).
Count H. de Viel Castel,
Memoirs,
volume 1, chapter 4.
FRANCE: A. D. 1851-1852.
Transportation and exile of republicans.
The dictator's constitution for France.
Rapid progress of despotism.
The Second Empire ordained.
Elevation of Napoleon III. to the throne.
"The struggle was over: terror of the victors followed.
Thirty-two departments were in a state of siege. More than
100,000 citizens were languishing in prison. Trial followed
trial in rapid succession, the cases being classed under three
heads: 1st, persons found armed, or against whom serious
charges existed; 2d, persons charged with minor offences; 3d,
dangerous persons. The first class was judged at once by a
council of war, the second sent to various tribunals, the
third transported without trial. Many prisoners were not even
questioned. Numbers were set free; but multitudes were still
held. Under these conditions the date of the plebiscite,
December 20 and 21, approached. Notices were posted to the
effect that 'any person seeking to disturb the polls or to
question the result of the ballot would be tried by a council
of war.' All liberty of choice was taken from the electors,
many of whom were arrested on suspicion of exciting others to
vote against the president of the republic. When the lists
were published it was found that the 'ayes' had carried the
day, although many did not vote at all. Indubitably the
figures were notably swelled by violence and fraud. ...
December 31, ex-Minister Baroche presented the result of the
ballots to the prince-president,--a strange title now given to
Louis Napoleon, for the time being, in lieu of another. ...
Next day, January 1, 1852, Archbishop Sibour celebrated a Te
Deum in Notre Dame, the prince-president sitting under a
canopy. ... While the man of December 2 lodged in the palace
of kings, the chief representatives of the republic were cast
into exile. The executors of the plot treated the captive
representatives very differently according as they were
conservative or republican. When the prisoners were told that
a distinction was to be made among them, they honorably
refused to give their names, but they were betrayed by an
usher of the Assembly. The republicans were then sent to
Mazas, and treated like common thieves, M. Thiers alone being
allowed a bed instead of the ordinary hammock. The other party
were soon set free, with but few exceptions, and on the 8th of
January the generals imprisoned at Ham, with their companion,
Questor Baze, were sent to Belgium. Next day a series of
proscriptions came out. All persons 'convicted of taking part
in the recent insurrections' were to be transported, some to
Guiana, some to Algiers. A second decree expelled from France,
Algiers, and the French colonies, 'as a measure of public
safety,' sixty representatives of the Left, including Victor
Hugo and certain others, for whom it was reserved to aid in
the foundation of a third republic. A third decree commanded
the temporary absence from France and Algiers of eighteen
other representatives, including the generals, with Thiers, De
Rémusat, and several members of the Left, among them Edgar
Quinet and Emile de Girardin. ... The next step was to
establish the famous 'mixed commissions' in every province.
These commissions were to try the numerous prisoners still
held captive. ... The mixed commissions of 1852, as the
historian of the coup d'état (M. Eugène Ténot) declares,
'decided, without legal proceedings, without hearing of
witnesses, without public trial, the fate of thousands and
thousands of republicans.' They have left the indelible memory
of one of the most monstrous events known in history. An act
equally extraordinary in another way was the promulgation of
the new constitution framed by the dictator alone (January 14,
1852). ... The constitution of 1852 began by a 'recognition,
confirmation, and guarantee of the great principles proclaimed
in 1789, which are the foundation of the public rights and
laws of France.'
{1379}
But it did not say one word about the freedom of the press,
nor about freedom of clubs and association. ... 'The
government of the French republic is intrusted to Prince Louis
Napoleon Bonaparte for the term of ten years.' In the preface
Louis Napoleon threw aside the fiction of irresponsibility
'which deceives public sentiment'; the constitution therefore
declares the leader of the state responsible to the French
people, but omits to say how this responsibility may be
realized; the French people have no resource save revolution.
... The legislative body was to consist of 262 members (one
for each 3,500 electors), chosen for five years by universal
suffrage. This body would vote upon the laws and taxes. Louis
Napoleon, having profited so largely by the repeal of the law
of May 31, could scarcely refuse to retain direct universal
suffrage, but he essentially altered its character by various
modifications. He also so reduced the importance of the only
great body still elective, that he had little or nothing to
fear from it. Another assembly, the Senate, was to be composed
of eighty members, which number might be increased to 150. The
senators were irremovable, and were to be chosen by the
president of the republic, with the exception of cardinals,
marshals, and admirals, who were senators by right. The
president might give each senator an income of 80,000 francs.
The Senate was the guardian of the constitution and of 'the
public liberty.' ... The executive power chose all mayors, and
was at liberty to select them outside the town council. In
fact, the constitution of 1852 surpassed the constitution of
the year VIII. as a piece of monarchic reaction. It entailed
no consulate, but an empire,--dictatorship and total
confiscation of public liberty. ... Despotism spread daily in
every direction. On the 17th of February the liberty of the
press was notably reduced, and severe penalties were affixed
to any infraction. In fact, the press was made dependent on
the good-will of the president. Education was next attacked, a
decree of March 9, 1852, stripping the professors of the
University of all the pledges and principles granted by the
First Empire. ... The new power, in 1852, labored to turn all
the forces of the country to material interests, while it
stifled all moral interests. It suppressed education and the
press, and constantly stimulated the financial and industrial
movement. ... Numberless railroad companies now sprang to
life, and roads were rapidly built upon a grand scale. The
government adopted the system of grants on a long term of
years,--say ninety-nine,--plus the guarantee of a small rate
of interest. In everything the cry was for instant success, at
any cost. Great financial operations followed on the heels of
the first grants to railroad companies. ... This year's
budget, like the constitution, was the work of a single man.
The dictator settled it by a decree; then, having ordered the
elections for his Chamber of Deputies, just before his
constitution went into operation, he raised the universal
state of siege (March 28). This was only a feint, for his
government was a permanent state of siege. ... The official
candidates presented, or rather imposed, were generally
elected; the republicans failed to vote throughout a great
part of the country. ... March 29, the prince-president
proceeded to install the great state bodies at the Tuileries.
It was thought that he would hint in his speech that he
expected the title of Emperor, but he left that point vague,
and still talked of preserving the republic. ... During the
session a rumor was current that Louis Napoleon was to be
proclaimed emperor on the 10th of May, after the distribution
of eagles to the army; but this was not carried out. The
dictator had no desire to be made emperor in this fashion. He
meant to do it more artfully, and to make it seem that the
nation forced the accomplishment of his wishes upon him. He
therefore undertook a fresh journey through the provinces. ...
The watchword was everywhere given by the authorities and
influential persons, whose example was imitated by the crowd,
irreconcilable opponents keeping silent. ... He returned to
Paris, October 16, and was received in state at the Orleans
station. The official bodies greeted him with shouts of 'Long
live the Emperor!' ... Next day, the following paragraph
appeared in the 'Moniteur': 'The tremendous desire for the
restoration of the empire manifested throughout France, makes
it incumbent upon the president to consult the Senate upon the
subject.' The Senate and Legislature were convened November 4;
the latter was to verify the votes, should the Senate decide
that the people must be consulted in regard to a change in the
form of government, which no one doubted would be the case.
... The Senate ... passed a decree for the submission of the
restoration of the hereditary empire for popular acceptance
(November 7); the senators then went in a body to St. Cloud to
inform the prince-president of this decision. ... The people
were then called upon to vote for the plebiscite decreed by
the Senate (November 20 and 21). Republican and legitimist
protests were circulated in despite of the police, the
government publishing them in the official organ, the
'Moniteur,' as if in defiance, thinking that the excessive
violence of the republican proscripts of London and Guernsey
would alarm the peace-loving public. The result of the vote
was even greater than that of December 20, 1851; the
authenticity of the figures may indeed be doubted, but there
is not a doubt that there was really a large majority in favor
of the plebiscite. France abandoned the struggle! On the
evening of December 1, the three great state bodies, the two
Chambers and the State Council, went to St. Cloud, and the
president of the Legislature presented the result of the
ballot to the new emperor, who sat enthroned, between his
uncle Jerome and his cousin Napoleon."
H. Martin,
Popular History of France,
1789-1878, volume 3, chapter 15.
ALSO IN:
H. C. Lockwood,
Constitutional History of France,
chapter 6, and appendix 9.
FRANCE: A. D. 1853-1856.
The Crimean war.
See RUSSIA: A. D. 1853-1854, to 1854-1856.
FRANCE: A. D. 1857-1860.
Allied operations with England in China.
See CHINA: A. D. 1856-1860.
FRANCE: A. D. 1858.
The Orsini attempt to assassinate Napoleon III.
Complaints against England.
See ENGLAND: A. D. 1858-1859.
FRANCE: A. D. 1859.
Alliance with Sardinia and war with Austria.
Victories of Magenta and Solferino.
Liberation of Lombardy.
Peace of Villafranca.
Acquisition of Savoy and Nice.
See ITALY: A. D. 1856-1859, and 1859-1861.
{1380}
FRANCE: A. D. 1860.
The Chevalier-Cobden commercial treaty with England.
See TARIFF LEGISLATION (FRANCE): A. D. 1858-1860.
FRANCE: A. D.1860-1870.
Modifications of the imperial constitution.
"Originally ... the power of the Legislative Body was limited
to voting and rejecting as a whole the laws submitted to it by
the Executive; there was no such thing as criticism or control
of the general policy of the reign: but the year 1860 opened a
period of development in the direction of liberty; by a decree
of the November of that year the Emperor permitted the
Deputies to draw up an address in answer to his speech, giving
them thereby the opportunity to criticise his policy; by that
of December 1861 he allowed them to vote the budget by
sections, that is to say, to discuss and, if desirable, reject
its items; by that of January 1867 he substituted for the
Address the right of questioning the Ministers, who might be
delegated to the Chamber by the Emperor to take part in
certain definite discussions; lastly, by that of September
1869 he gave to the Legislative Body the right of initiating
laws, removed the restrictions hitherto retained on the right
of amendment and of questions, and made the Ministers
responsible to the Chamber. Thus the Constitution was
deliberately modified, by the initiative of the Emperor
himself, from the form of imperial despotism to that of
parliamentary monarchy: this modified Constitution was
submitted to a plebiscite in May 1870, and once more the
people ratified the Empire by over seven million votes against
a million and a half."
G. L. Dickinson,
Revolution and Reaction in Modern France,
chapter 7, section 8.
FRANCE: A. D.1861-1867.
Intervention in Mexico and its humiliating failure.
See MEXICO: A. D. 1861-1867.
FRANCE: A. D. 1862.
Commercial treaty with Germany.
See TARIFF LEGISLATION (GERMANY): A. D. 1853-1892.
FRANCE: A. D. 1866.
Withdrawal of troops from Rome.
See ITALY: A. D. 1862-1866.
FRANCE: A. D. 1866-1870.
Territorial concessions demanded from Germany.
The Luxemburg question.
War temporarily averted.
See GERMANY. A.D. 1866-1870.
FRANCE: A. D. 1867.
Last defense of Papal sovereignty at Rome.
Defeat of Garibaldi at Mentana.
See ITALY: A.D. 1867-1870.
FRANCE: A. D. 1870 (June-July).
"The Hohenzollern incident."
Unjustifiable declaration of war against Prussia.
"Towards the last of June, 1870, there arose what is known as
the 'Hohenzollern incident,' which assumed so much importance,
as it led up to the Franco-German War. In June, 1868, Queen
Isabella had been chased from Spain, and had sought refuge in
France. The Spanish Cortes, maintaining the monarchical form,
offered the Crown of Spain to Prince Hohenzollern, a relation
of the King of Prussia.
See SPAIN: A. D. 1866-1878.
The French Minister at Madrid telegraphed that Prince Leopold
Hohenzollern had been nominated to the throne of Spain, and
had accepted. This produced the utmost excitement and
indignation among the French people. The Paris press teemed
with articles more or less violent, calling on the government
to prevent this outrage, even at the cost of war. The journals
of all shades were unanimous in the matter, contending that it
was an insult and a peril to France, and could not be
tolerated. The Opposition in the Chamber made the incident an
occasion for attacking the government, alleging that it was
owing to its weak and vacillating policy that France was
indebted to her fresh humiliation. The government journals,
however, laid the whole blame upon the ambition of Count
Bismarck, who had become to them a bête noire. ... Both
parties vied with each other in showing the extent of their
dislike to the great Prussian Chancellor. Much pressure was
soon brought to bear in the proper quarters; the result of
this was the withdrawal of the Hohenzollern candidacy.
Explanations were made, better counsels seemed to prevail, and
all immediate trouble appeared averted. It seemed quite
certain that all danger of a war between France and Germany
was at an end, and all being quiet on the banks of the Seine,
on the 3d of July I left Paris in pursuit of health and
recreation at the healing waters of Carlsbad, of far-off
Bohemia. I was in excellent relations with the Duke de
Gramont, and everything appeared to be serene. I had hardly
reached Carlsbad, when scanty news was received of a somewhat
threatening character. I could hardly believe that anything
very serious was likely to result; yet I was somewhat uneasy.
Going to drink the water at one of the health-giving springs,
early in the morning of July 15th, my Alsatian valet brought
me the startling news, that a private telegram, received at
midnight, gave the intelligence that France had declared war
against Germany. The news fell upon the thousands of visitors
and the people of Carlsbad, like a clap of thunder in a
cloudless sky, and the most intense excitement prevailed. The
nearest railroad station to Carlsbad, at that time, was Eger.
... I rode all night from Carlsbad to Eger. Taking the
railroad from Eger to Paris, and passing through Bavaria,
Baden, Darmstadt and the valley of the Rhine, the excitement
was something prodigious, recalling to me the days at home of
the firing upon Sumter, in 1861. The troops were rushing to
the depots; the trains were all blocked, and confusion
everywhere reigned supreme. After great delays, and much
discomfort, and a journey of fifty-two hours, I reached Paris
at ten o'clock at night, July 18th. The great masses of
people, naturally so excitable and turbulent, had been
maddened by the false news so skilfully disseminated, that
King William, at Ems, had insulted the French nation through
its Ambassador. ... It soon turned out that all the reports
which had been spread over Paris, that King William had
insulted the French Ambassador were utterly false, and had not
the slightest foundation. The French Ambassador, M. Benedetti,
denied that he had received the least indignity from the
Emperor. The plain truth seemed to be that the French
Ambassador courteously approached the Emperor, while walking
in the garden of the Kursaal, and spoke to him in relation to
the pending difficulties then existing between the two
countries. The good old king was kind and polite, as he always
is to every one with whom he comes in contact, and when M.
Benedetti commenced talking in relation to matters of such a
grave character, he politely stated that he would have to talk
upon such questions with the German Foreign Office. All that
was very proper, and nobody thought of it, or supposed that
there was any indignity, as there was not the slightest
intended. ...
{1381}
The exaggerations in Paris and France of this simple incident
surpassed all bounds, and they were apparently made to inflame
the people still more. It really appeared that the Government
of France had determined to have war with Germany, coûte que
coûte [at all costs]. The alleged causes growing out of the
talk that Germany was to put a German prince on the throne of
Spain were but a mere pretext. The Hohenzollern candidature
had been withdrawn, and there was no necessity or sense in any
further trouble. But the truth was that, after eighteen years
of peace, the courtiers and adventurers who surrounded the
Emperor seemed to think that it was about time to have a war,
to awaken the martial spirit of the French people, to plant
the French eagles in triumph in the capital of some foreign
country, and, as a consequence, to fix firmly on the throne
the son of Napoleon the Third, and restore to the Imperial
crown the lustre it had lost."
E. B. Washburne,
Recollections of a Minister to France,
volume 1, chapter 2.
ALSO IN:
W. Müller,
Political History of Recent Times,
section 25.
G. B. Malleson,
The Refounding of the German Empire,
chapter 11;
W. Rüstow,
The War for the Rhine Frontier, 1870,
chapter 6 (volume 1).
FRANCE: A. D. 1870 (July-August).
Disastrous opening of the war.
Defeats at Wörth, Spichern and Gravelotte.
Bazaine's army shut up in Metz.
"July 23d Napoleon intrusted the regency to the empress for
the period of his absence from Paris. ... On the 28th, ...
accompanied by his son, [he] left for Metz, to assume command
of the army. ... The army consisted of eight corps. Of these,
the 1st, under Marshal MacMahon, was stationed at Strasburg;
the 2d, under General Frossard, at St. Avold; the 3d, under
Marshal Bazaine, at Metz; the 4th, under General Ladmirault,
at Diedenhofen (Thionville); the 5th, under General Failly, at
Bitsch; the 6th, under Marshal Canrobert, in the camp at
Châlons; the 7th, under General Felix Douay, at Belfort; the
8th,--the Imperial Guard--under General Bourbaki, at Nancy.
Accordingly, the French forces were divided into two groups,
the larger stationed on the Moselle, and the smaller in
Alsace. To the latter belonged the 1st and 7th corps, both of
which were placed under the command of Marshal MacMahon, with
orders to prevent the crown prince's army from entering
Alsace. The larger group comprised the 2d, 3d, and 4th corps.
... The 6th and 8th were to have formed the reserve; but the
greatly superior numbers of Prince Frederic Charles and
Steinmetz, who were advancing against this larger group,
necessitated the immediate bringing of those corps to the
front. The connection between the two groups was to be
maintained by the 5th corps, stationed at Bitsch. Skirmishing
of the advanced posts and collisions between reconnoitering
parties began on the 19th of July. The most important of these
minor engagements was that at Saarbrücken, on the 2d of August
[the French claiming a victory]. ... August 4th the crown
prince crossed the French frontier and attacked the town of
Weissenburg, on the little river Lauter. ... Weissenburg was
successfully carried by Prussian and Bavarian battalions
combined, and the Geisberg by sixteen battalions of Prussians
alone. ... August 5th MacMahon with his corps took up his
position at Wörth, fortifying the heights westward from
Sauerbach, together with the villages of Froschweiler and
Elsasshausen, in the intention of meeting at that place the
advancing columns of the crown prince, whose attack he
expected on the 7th. To strengthen his army sufficiently for
the task required of it he endeavored to bring up General
Felix Douay's corps from Belfort and Mühlhausen, and that of
General Failly from Bitsch; but only one division of the
former arrived in time, and a division of the latter which was
sent to his support did not reach the neighborhood of the
battle-field until the evening of the 6th, in time to afford a
partial protection on the retreat. Consequently, MacMahon was
left with not more than 45,000 men to face the crown prince's
whole army. ... On the morning of the 6th the advance guard of
the 5th corps became involved in a sharp action with the
enemy," and "from a mere skirmish of the advance guard
resulted the decisive battle of Wörth. ... After Wörth itself
had been carried, the fighting was most severe around the
fortified village of Froschweiler. This was finally taken, and
a desperate charge of the French cuirassiers repulsed.
Thereupon MacMahon's army broke and fled in wild confusion,
some toward the passes of the Vosges, others to Strasburg or
Bitsch. ... The trophies of victory were numerous and
valuable: 200 officers and 9,000 men prisoners. ... The French
lost 6,000 dead and wounded; the German loss was 489 officers
and 10,153 men--a loss greater than that of Sadowa. ...
MacMahon, with about 15,000 of his defeated troops, reached
Zabern on the morning of the 7th, and set out thence for
Châlons, whither Generals Douay and Failly were also directed
to lead their forces. A new army was to be formed at that
point, and northern Alsace was abandoned to the crown prince's
victorious troops. The Badish division received orders to march
against Strasburg, and by the 9th the whole corps was
assembled before that city, Hagenau having been taken by the
cavalry on the way. ... Preparations for a siege were made, a
regular siege corps being formed ... and placed under the
command of General Werder. With the remainder of the third
army the crown prince left Wörth on the 8th of August, marched
through the unguarded passes of the Vosges, and entered Nancy
on the 16th. ... Detachments were left behind to blockade
Bitsch and Pfalzburg. At Nancy the prince rested for a few
days and waited for decisive news from the Saar and Moselle. A
second victory was won on the 6th of August at Spichern [or
Forbach]. Like the battle of Wörth, this action was not the
result of a strategical combination, but rather of a
misunderstanding. ... Frossard [whose corps was encountered at
Spichern] fell back on Metz by way of Saargemünd. Bazaine, who,
although not more than seven or eight miles from the field of
battle, had made no attempt to come to Frossard's assistance,
led his corps to the same place. In this battle, owing to the
unfavorable nature of the ground, the losses of the conquerors
were heavier than those of the conquered. The Germans had 223
officers and 4,648 men dead, wounded, and missing; while the
French, according to their own reports, lost 249 officers and
3,829 men, 2,000 of whom were taken prisoners. August 7th the
victors continued their forward march, capturing great stores
of provisions in Forbach. On the 9th St. Avold was taken, and
foraging parties advanced almost to Metz.
{1382}
Marching through the Rhenish Palatinate, part of Prince
Frederic Charles's army directed its course toward Metz by way
of Saarbrücken, and part through Saargemünd. ... In the
imperial head-quarters at Metz the greatest consternation
prevailed. ... It was [finally] decided to concentrate five
army corps on the right bank of the Moselle, at Metz, and to
form a second army, consisting of four corps, under MacMahon's
command, in the camp at Châlons. The first line of defence on
the Rhine and Saar had been abandoned, and France was to be
defended on the Moselle. By this decision Alsace and Lorraine
were surrendered to the foe at the very outset." On the 9th of
August the French emperor transferred the chief command from
himself to Marshal Bazaine, while Lebœuf at the same time
withdrew from the direction of the staff. Simultaneously, at
Paris, the Grammont-Ollivier ministry resigned, and was
succeeded by a cabinet formed under the presidency of Count
Palikao (General Montauban). "New levies were called into the
field, comprising all unmarried men between the ages of 25 and
30 not already enrolled in the 'garde mobile.' ... In the
German head-quarters ... it was resolved in some way to make
Bazaine's army harmless, either by shutting him up in Metz or
by pushing him northward to the Belgian frontier. ... The task
was a difficult one. ... All depended upon what course Bazaine
might conclude to pursue, and the energy with which he
executed his plans. It was his purpose to leave Metz with the
field army and join MacMahon at Châlons. There would then be
300,000 French at that place to block the German march to
Paris. In that event the Germans would have to leave 60,000
men before Metz ... and Diedenhofen, and would not have enough
left to venture an attack on the united and well-intrenched
armies at Châlons. Accordingly, the union of those two armies
must be prevented at any price, and Bazaine be attacked before
Metz. The execution of this plan led to the severe fighting
near that city--the battle of Colombey-Nouilly (Borny), on the
14th, Vionville on the 16th, and Gravelotte on the 18th." The
battle of Gravelotte was "the first battle in the war in which
a pre-arranged plan [Moltke's] was actually carried out. ... It
was a brilliant victory, and followed by important results.
Bazaine's army was shut up in the fortress and among the
outlying forts, and rendered unavailable for further service
in the field. The losses of the French amounted to about
13,000 men, including 600 officers; the German loss was 899
officers and 19,260 men, of whom 328 officers and 4,909 men
were killed outright. The number of combatants on the side of
the French was about 140,000, on the side of the Germans
178,818, the former having 550, and the latter 822 cannon. It
must be remembered, however, that the French occupied a
position very much of the nature of a fortress, which had to
be carried by storm."
W. Müller,
Political History of Recent Times,
section 25.
ALSO IN:
Count H. von Moltke,
The Franro-German War of 1870-71,
section 1.
Colonel A. Borbstaedt and Major F. Dwyer,
The Franco-German War,
chapters 10-29.
FRANCE: A. D. 1870 (August-September).
Investment of Metz by the Germans.
Disastrous attempt of MacMahon to rescue Bazaine.
The catastrophe at Sedan.
"The huge, stubborn, vehement and bloody conflict waged in the
rural tract between the northern edges of the Bois de Vaux and
the Forest of Jaumont, which the French Marshal called the
'Defence of the Lines of Amanvillers,' the French Army, 'the
Battle of St. Privat,' and the Germans the battle of
'Gravelotte--St. Privat,' established the mastery of the
latter over 'the Army of the Rhine.' Marshal Bazaine had not
proved strong enough to extricate the Army he was suddenly
appointed to command from the false position in which it had
been placed by the errors and hesitations of the Emperor and
Marshal Lebœuf. ... The German leaders forthwith resolved, and
acted on the resolve, to take the largest advantage of success.
When the broadening day showed that the French were encamped
under the guns of the fort, and that they did not betray the
faintest symptom of fighting for egress on any side, the place
was deliberately invested. ... Soon the blockade was so far
completed that only adventurous scouts were able at rare
intervals to work their way through the German lines. As early
as the forenoon of the 19th, the King had decided to form what
came to be called the 'Army of the Meuse' out of the Corps
which were not needed to uphold the investment of Metz, and
thus place himself in a condition to assail the French Army
collecting at Chalons. ... This formidable force was put under
the command of the Crown Prince of Saxony, who had shown
himself to be an able soldier. Consequently, there remained
behind to invest Bazaine, seven Corps d'Armée and a Division
of Reserve under General von Kummer. ... One Army had been
literally imprisoned, another remained at large, and behind it
were the vast resources of France. Three Marshals were cooped
up in the cage on the Moselle; one, MacMahon, and the Emperor
were still in the field; and upon the forces with them it was
resolved to advance at once, because prudence required that
they should be shattered before they could be completely
organized, and while the moral effect of the resounding blows
struck in Alsace and Lorraine had lost none of its terrible
power. Therefore the King and General von Moltke started on
the morrow of victory to march on Paris through the plains of
Champagne."
G. Hooper,
The Campaign of Sedan,
chapter 10.
"While the German invasion had thus been rolling from Lorraine
into the flats of Champagne, the shattered right wing of the
army of the Rhine, with reinforcements sent off from Paris,
had been drawn together in the well-known plains made
memorable by the defeat of Attila. By 20 August the first and
fifth French corps marched rapidly from the Upper Moselle to
the Marne, had been joined by the seventh corps from Belfort
and by the twelfth formed in and despatched from Paris; and
this force, numbering perhaps 130,000 men, with from 400 to
500 guns, had been concentrated round the great camp of
Châlons. Macmahon was given the supreme command, and the first
operations of the experienced chief showed that he understood
the present state of affairs, and were in accord with the
rules of strategy. Bazaine, he knew, was in peril near Metz,
and certainly had not attained the Meuse; and he was at the
head of the last army which France could assemble for the
defence of her capital.
{1383}
In these circumstances, impressed perhaps by the grand
memories of the campaign of 1814, he most properly resolved to
fall back towards Paris; but as Bazaine was possibly not far
distant, and a position on the flank of the German advance
might afford a favourable opportunity to strike, he withdrew
northwards on the 21st to Rheims, in the double hope that he
would approach his colleague and threaten the communications
of the advancing enemy. This, we repeat, was following the art
of war, and had Macmahon firmly adhered to his purpose, there
would have been no Sedan and no treaty of Frankfort. Unhappily
the marshal, a hero in the field, was deficient in real
strength of character, and at this critical moment evil
counsels and false information shook, and at last changed, a
resolve that ought to have never faltered. A new
administration had been formed in Paris, and Palikao, the
minister of war, devoted to the Empire, and especially bent on
satisfying the demands of the excited capital, which
passionately insisted on the relief of Bazaine, had conceived
a project by which he hoped that this great object would be
effected and the 'dynasty' be restored in popular opinion. The
army of the Meuse, he argued, was near that stream, round
Verdun; the third army was far away to the south; there was a
considerable interval between the two masses; and the army of
Châlons, then at Rheims, was not far from the Upper Meuse. In
those circumstances it was quite practicable, should Macmahon
rapidly advance to the Meuse, to overpower with his largely
superior force the army of the Meuse before support could be
sent from the distant third army; and the enemy in his path
being swept aside, the marshal could then descend on Metz,
fall with the collected strength of the army of Châlons on the
divided fragments of the investing force, and triumphantly
effect his junction with Bazaine, having routed, perhaps, the
first and second armies before the third could appear on the
scene. The defiles and woods of the Argonne and the Ardennes,
stretching between the French and the German armies, Palikao
insisted, would form a screen to conceal the advance of the
army of Chãlons, and would greatly facilitate the proposed
movement. This project reached Macmahon on 21 August, and may
be pronounced one of the most reckless ever designed by a
desperate gambler in war. ... Macmahon at first refused to
listen to what he condemned as a hopeless project; but bad
advisers found their way to him, and his resolution was
already yielding when a calamitous event fixed his shifting
purpose. A despatch from Bazaine, obscure and untrue,
announced that he was on his way northward. Macmahon inferred
that his beleaguered colleague had left Metz and eluded his
foes, and, thinking that he would reach Bazaine before long,
in an evil hour for France and for himself, he consented to
attempt the march to the Meuse."
W. O'C. Morris,
The Campaign of Sedan
(English Historical Review., April, 1888).
"It was not until the afternoon of August 23 that MacMahon's
army passed through Rheims. Anxious, and knowing that
everything depended on speed, he addressed some columns as
they toiled onwards, reminding them that French soldiers had
marched thirty miles a day under the sun of Africa. The
difference, however, was great between raids made by a few
light regiments and the advance of a raw unwieldy mass; and
though the marshal endeavoured to hurry them forward, he was
confronted with almost insurmountable obstacles. Scarcely had
the army made a march towards establishing itself at
Bethniville, on the Suippe, when commissariat difficulties
obliged him to re-approach the line of the railway. He made a
movement on his left, and reached Rethel on the 24th, in order
to obtain for his troops several days' subsistence. This
distribution occupied the whole of the 25th. ... As the
direction of the French movement could not now be concealed,
at this point MacMahon made arrangements for marching with all
possible rapidity. It may be doubted, however, whether
Napoleon himself, at the head of the grand army could have
made the haste which the marshal designed with his raw and
partly demoralized troops. ... His army was altogether unequal
to forced marches, and moved at this critical moment with the
sluggishness inherent in its defective organization.
Encumbered with stragglers, badly pioneered, and checked by
hindrances of every kind, it made hardly ten miles a day; and