opportunity; and Prussia could afford to humour the just claims of Napoleon by establishing between her North German Confederation and the South German states the illusory frontier of the Main. The belated efforts of the French emperor to obtain “compensation” on the left bank of the Rhine, at the expense of the South German states, made matters worse. France realized with an angry surprise that on her eastern frontier had arisen a military power by which her influence, if not her existence, was threatened; that in the name of the principle of nationality unwilling populations had been brought under the sway of a dynasty by tradition militant and aggressive, by tradition the enemy of France; that this new and threatening power had destroyed French influence in Italy, which owed the acquisition of Venetia to a Prussian alliance and to Prussian arms; and that all this had been due to Napoleon, outwitted and outmanœuvred at every turn, since his first interview with Bismarck at Biarritz in October 1865.
All confidence in the excellence of imperial régime vanished
at once. Thiers and Jules Favre as representatives of the
Opposition denounced in the Legislative Body the
blunders of 1866. Émile Ollivier split up the official
majority by the amendment of the 45, and gave it to
Further concessions of Napoleon III.
Struggle between Ollivier and Rouher.
be understood that a reconciliation with the Empire
would be impossible until the emperor would grant
entire liberty. The recall of the French troops from Rome,
in accordance with the convention of 1864, also led to further
attacks by the Ultramontane party, who were alarmed for the
papacy. Napoleon III. felt the necessity for developing
“the great act of 1860” by the decree of the 19th of
January 1867. In spite of Rouher, by a secret agreement
with Ollivier the right of interpellation was
restored to the Chambers. Reforms in press supervision
and the right of holding meetings were promised. It was in
vain that M. Rouher tried to meet the Liberal opposition by
organizing a party for the defence of the Empire, the “Union
dynastique.” But the rapid succession of international reverses
prevented him from effecting anything.
The year 1867 was particularly disastrous for the Empire. In Mexico “the greatest idea of the reign” ended in a humiliating withdrawal before the ultimatum of the United States, while Italy, relying on her new alliance with Prussia and already forgetful of her promises, was mobilizing The year 1867. the revolutionary forces to complete her unity by conquering Rome. The chassepots of Mentana were needed to check the Garibaldians. And when the imperial diplomacy made a belated attempt to obtain from the victorious Bismarck those territorial compensations on the Rhine, in Belgium and in Luxemburg, which it ought to have been possible to exact from him earlier at Biarritz, Benedetti added to the mistake of asking at the wrong time the humiliation of obtaining nothing (see Luxemburg). Napoleon did not dare to take courage and confess his weakness. And finally was seen the strange contrast of France, though reduced to such a state of real weakness, courting the mockery of Europe by a display of the external magnificence which concealed her decline. In the Paris transformed by Baron Haussmann and now become almost exclusively a city of pleasure and frivolity, the opening of the Universal Exhibition was marked by Berezowski’s attack on the tsar Alexander II., and its success was clouded by the tragic fate of the unhappy emperor Maximilian of Mexico. Well might Thiers exclaim, “There are no blunders left for us to make.”
But the emperor managed to commit still more, of which the consequences both for his dynasty and for France were irreparable. Old, infirm and embittered, continually keeping his ministers in suspense by the uncertainty and secrecy of his plans, surrounded by a people now bent Peace or war. almost entirely on pleasure, and urged on by a growing opposition, there now remained but two courses open to Napoleon III.: either to arrange a peace which should last, or to prepare for a decisive war. He allowed himself to drift in the direction of war, but without bringing things to a necessary state of preparation. It was in vain that Count Beust revived on behalf of the Austrian government the project abandoned by Napoleon since 1866 of a settlement on the basis of the status quo with reciprocal disarmament. Napoleon refused, on hearing from Colonel Stoffel, his military attaché at Berlin, that Prussia would not agree to disarmament. But he was more anxious than he was willing to show. A reconstitution of the military organization seemed to him to be necessary. This Marshal Niel was unable to obtain either from the Bonapartist Opposition, who feared the electors, in whom the old patriotism had given place to the commercial or cosmopolitan spirit, or from the Republican opposition, who were unwilling to strengthen the despotism. Both of them were blinded by party interest to the danger from outside.
The emperor’s good fortune had departed; he was abandoned by men and disappointed by events. He had vainly hoped that, though by the laws of May-June 1868, granting the freedom of the press and authorizing meetings, he had conceded the right of speech, he would retain the right of Action of the revolutionaries. action; but he had played into the hands of his enemies. Victor Hugo’s Châtiments, the insults of Rochefort’s Lanterne, the subscription for the monument to Baudin, the deputy killed at the barricades in 1851, followed by Gambetta’s terrible speech against the Empire on the occasion of the trial of Delescluze, soon showed that the republican party was irreconcilable, and bent on the Republic. On the other hand, the Ultramontane party were becoming more and more discontented, while the industries formerly protected were equally dissatisfied with the free-trade reform. Worse still, the working classes had abandoned their political neutrality, which had brought them nothing but unpopularity, and gone over to the enemy. Despising Proudhon’s impassioned attacks on the slavery of communism, they had gradually been won over by the collectivist theories of Karl Marx or the revolutionary theories of Bakounine, as set forth at the congresses of the International. At these Labour congresses, the fame of which was only increased by the fact that they were forbidden, it had been affirmed that the social emancipation of the worker was inseparable from his political emancipation. Henceforth the union between the internationalists and the republican bourgeois was an accomplished fact. The Empire, taken by surprise, sought to curb both the middle classes and the labouring classes, and forced them both into revolutionary actions. On every side took place strikes, forming as it were a review of the effective forces of the Revolution.
The elections of May 1869, made during these disturbances, inflicted upon the Empire a serious moral defeat. In spite of the revival by the government of the cry of the red terror, Ollivier, the advocate of conciliation, was rejected by Paris, while 40 irreconcilables and 116 The parliamentary Empire. members of the Third Party were elected. Concessions had to be made to these, so by the senatus-consulte of the 8th of September 1869 a parliamentary monarchy was substituted for personal government. On the 2nd of January 1870 Ollivier was placed at the head of the first homogeneous, united and responsible ministry. But the republican party, unlike the country, which hailed this reconciliation of liberty and order, refused to be content with the liberties they had won; they refused all compromise, declaring themselves more than ever decided upon the overthrow of the Empire. The murder of the journalist Victor Noir by Pierre Bonaparte, a member of the imperial family, gave the revolutionaries their long desired opportunity (January 10). But the émeute ended in a failure, and the emperor was able to answer the personal threats against him by the overwhelming victory of the plebiscite of the 8th of May 1870.
But this success, which should have consolidated the Empire,
determined its downfall. It was thought that a diplomatic
success should complete it, and make the country
forget liberty for glory. It was in vain that after the
parliamentary revolution of the 2nd of January that
The Franco-
German War.
prudent statesman Comte Daru revived, through
Lord Clarendon, Count Beust’s plan of disarmament after
Sadowa. He met with a refusal from Prussia and from the
imperial entourage. The Empress Eugénie was credited with
