France and the Republic

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1890 by William Henry Hurlbert in the Office of the Librarian of Congress, at Washington

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CONTENTS

INTRODUCTION PAGE

I. Scope of the book--French Republicanism condemned by Swiss and American experience--Its relations to the French people xxiii

II. M. Gambetta's Parliamentary revolution--What Germany owes to the French Republicans--Legislative usurpation in France and the United States xxvi

III. The Executive in France, England, and America--Liberty and the hereditary principle--General Grant on the English Monarchy--Washington's place in American history xxxvii

IV. The legend of the First Republic--A carnival of incapacity ending in an orgie of crime--The French people never Republican--Paris and the provinces--The Third Republic surrendered to the Jacobins, and committed to persecution and corruption--Estimated excess of expenditure over income from 1879 to 1889, 7,000,000,000 francs or 280,000,000l. li

V. Danton's maxim, 'To the victors belong the spoils'--Comparative cost of the French and the British Executive machinery--The Republican war against religion.--The present situation as illustrated by past events lxviii

VI. Foreign misconceptions of the French people--An English statesman's notion that there are 'five millions of Atheists' in France--Mr. Bright and Mr. Gladstone the last English public men who will 'cite the Christian Scriptures as an authority'--Signor Crispi on modern constitutional government and the French 'principles of 1789'--Napoleon the only 'Titan of the Revolution'--The debt of France for her modern liberty to America and to England lxxvi VII. The Exposition of 1889 an electoral device--Panic of the Government caused by Parisian support of General Boulanger--Futile attempt of M. Jules Ferry to win back Conservatives to the Republic--Narrow escape of the Republic at the elections of 1889--Steady increase of monarchical party since 1885---Weakness of the Republic as compared with the Second Empire lxxxix

VIII. How the Republic maintains itself--A million of people dependent on public employment--M. Constans 'opens Paradise' to 13,000 Mayors--Public servants as political agents--Open pressure on the voters--Growing strength of the provinces.--The hereditary principle alone can now restore the independence of the French Executive--Diplomatic dangers of actual situation--Socialism or a Constitutional Monarchy the only alternatives xcvi

CHAPTER I

IN THE PAS-DE-CALAIS

Calais--Natural and artificial France--The provinces and the departments--The practical joke of the First Consulate--The Counts of Charlemagne and the Prefects of Napoleon--President Carnot at Calais--Politics and Socialism in Calais--Immense outlay on the port, but works yet unfinished--Indifference of the people--A president with a grandfather--The 'Great Carnot' and Napoleon--The party of the 'Sick at heart'--The Louis XVI. of the Republic--Leon Say and the 'White Mouse'--Gambetta's victory in 1877--Political log-rolling, French and American--Republican extravagance and the 'Woollen Stocking'--Boulanger and his legend--Wanted a 'Great Frenchman'--The Duc d'Aumale and the Comte de Paris--The Republican law of exile--The French people not Republican--The Legitimists and the farmers--A French journalist explains the Presidential progress--Why decorations are given 1-22

CHAPTER II

IN THE PAS-DE-CALAIS--(continued)