nounces this other formula: " Every citizen a soldier and trained."

He thus draws out the main lines of a Government programme. But he adds that everything must rest on a new constitutional system, and he denies to the Assembly the right to found this system. "In the first rank of reforms, says he, you know that I place the election of a Republican Assembly. I expect nothing from the Assembly at Versailles. Dissolution, that is the first reform which we must go for.

"

M. Thiers let himself be carried by the stream; he took the first step in the direction of a reconciliation with Paris. Escaping, in a sense, from the superintendence of the permanent Committee, he gave a great reception at the Elysée. The crowd of guests pressed into the apartments of the Chief of the State, open for the first time since the war. Would

the Republic take the form and figure of a Government ?

CHAPTER VIII

THE APOGEE

The Opening of the Session-Interpellations-Debate on the War Contracts-Inquiry upon the Capitulations; Marshal Bazaine sent before a Council of War-Negotiations for Payment of Three last Milliards of Indemnity-Discussion and Vote on the Army Bill, July 27, 1872-Convention of June 29-Budget of 1873; fresh Taxes-The Three Milliard Loan -Parliamentary Situation; left Centre adheres to the Republic; Attempt at "Conjunction of the Centres"; the Council of Nine; Manifestation of the "Bonnets à Poil ". The Holidays: M. Thiers at Trouville; oratorical Campaign of Gambetta-Situation of Alsace-Lorraine-Agitation of Parties; Expulsion of Prince Napoleon; the Comte de Chambord and the Orleans Princes-Religious Manifestations-Elections of October 26, 1872.

Session of

I

The Chamber reassembled on the 22nd April 1872 of April, 1872. The Session was to last till the 3rd of August of the same year. This is the high-water mark of the Government of M. Thiers.

During fifteen months since the first sittings when the National Assembly meeting at Bordeaux entrusted M. Thiers with the mission of saving and restoring the country, a first cycle of events had been accomplished. The Peace had been wrangled over and signed, the last convulsions of the crisis had been suppressed, a Government had been inaugurated, the Administration had been got to work, France

had recovered the sense of her existence and her resources, she had had her first experience of liberty.

M. Thiers had said at Bordeaux: "To pacify, reorganize, raise credit, revive work, that is the only policy possible and even conceivable at this moment."

The task thus limited was in part accomplished. M. Thiers had also foreseen from the first the difficulties which were to hamper his work, and the necessities which were to hurry it or perhaps interrupt it. He further said: "When this work of restoration is completed, and it cannot be very long, then will the time have arrived for discussing, for weighing, theories of Government." The work of restoration was not yet completed, but already the hour of the " theories of Government " had struck, so necessary to men are politics!

The taste for authority is inherent in human nature, no less than that for obedience. The struggle for power is the first act of social activity. Men begin by quarrelling; by dissension they arrive at union. It might in truth be said that their first love is to hate one another.

The Republic was founded in the midst of the chaos of parliamentary struggles. But the natural evolution of the crisis still imposed burdens, which the Republic alone, as had been seen, was able to take up. The monarchical parties had hesitated; in the presence of such heavy tasks as the conclusion of peace, the suppression of the insurrection, the creation of fresh taxes, that peculiar condition of Republican anonymity was required, or rather it was necessary that, by favour of this formula, the responsibility should be spread and diffused over the whole nation, in order that the

nation should bow before the consequences of its errors and accept the whole burden.

Now, circumstances were such at the period to which we have come, that in spite of the vehement ambition of parties and the restlessness of their aspirations, the Republican form was still imposed upon them. They detested it; they were the masters, and they could not reject it. The past was still too near; M. Thiers had already said this in by no means measured terms.

"Wait eight days. never seem near completion.

But these eight days

The enemy still occupies the national territory; the war indemnity is not all paid; the great financial and military Bills are not yet passed. And then the conduct of the past awaits liquidation, the definition of responsibilities, those for the war, those for the Commune. Formidable clouds are still gathering overhead; they must break in order that feelings may be appeased and the atmosphere cleared.

Thus this session is to spend its sittings upon the triple necessity which is so pressing: completion of the liquidation, work of re-organization, struggle for the constitution. The past and the future are in active collision under the eyes of the busy, wise old man, who labours to prepare the issues and deaden the shocks.

At the outset a kind of warning indicated to the Assembly how precious this life still was to the country. M. Thiers had appeared at the sitting on the day of re-opening; the following day he was said to be seriously ill. Immediately the alarm spread, stocks went down, anxiety as to the future of France was universal. Happily the indisposition was only of a temporary nature. M.

Thiers was soon more alert, and more nimble than ever. He signed on the 23rd of April the decree by which M. de Goulard, Minister of Agriculture and Commerce, was definitely appointed Minister of Finance in place of M. Pouyer-Quertier, M. Teisserenc de Bort, of the Right Centre, replacing him at the Ministry of Commerce.

Opening of the

Session

This work of repair passed almost unnoticed, and the attention of the Assembly was already absorbed by the skirmishes of the opening of the Session; an interpellation of General Ducrot on the appointment of the Mayor of Châteauroux; another pointing to the addresses sent in by the General Councils; another attacking the foreign policy of the Government; another drawing attention to the presence of the Mayors at the banquets offered to Gambetta. This last alone had any importance. It constrained the Government of M. Thiers to make a public declaration on the question of dissolution. M. Victor Lefranc, Minister of Home Affairs, being questioned by M. Raoul Duval, declared that the Assembly alone had the right to fix a term to its labours. M. Raoul Duval declared himself satisfied and withdrew his interpellation in the midst of so great an agitation that the sitting was suspended for ten minutes. This declaration and satisfaction given to the Right did not astonish the Left, although they saw the President declare himself against the position taken by Gambetta. Thus the aged Comte Jaubert, full of mistrust, cried out, while darkly frowning, in the sitting of the 27th of April : "I have never seen a Left so Ministerial."

་་

But all attention was already held, all Inquiry into Re- passions were at the pitch of excitement sponsibility over the serious question, long confined in