BOOK VII. ation of the vile multitude.' He said: 'I understand that there are men who will not forego the support of the multitude, but moral statesmen should repel it.' And then he added artfully: 'The good and true Republicans should not care for the vile multitude.' The vile multitude' was the epithet which M. Thiers applied again and again to the three millions of Frenchmen whom he was depriving of the franchise-two millions and a half of these voters being steady and orderly working men, who were compelled by the shiftings and fluctuations of their trade to repair from place to place, working a year in one town and a year in another. But they were not only anti-Orleanists: they were, in the main, Bonapartists. In ridding the representation of them the Orleanist leader reduced the ranks of his master's enemies, and cut off the main body of Prince Louis Napoleon's supporters. He also violated the Constitution. An American writer in the 'Overland Monthly' has devoted two exhaustive papers to a review of the political career of Napoleon III. shortly after his Majesty's death. They are written from an American point of view, and bear throughout the impress of an upright, impartial, and a cultivated mind. Of the Marrast Constitution and its violation in May 1850 he observes: All over this Constitution was thus indelibly stamped the sovereignty of the people, and of the whole people, and universal suffrage. No fraction of the people could exercise sovereignty. The President was to be elected by universal suffrage, the Deputies to the National Assembly by universal suffrage, every elective office by universal suffrage. Every Frenchman who had not forfeited his political rights by crime was a voter. These were all Constitutional provi 1 Napoleon III. Two Periods. First Period, 1848 to 1865. Second Period, 1865 to 1872. By John W. Dwinelle. Atlantic Monthly, March and April, 1873. sions the base, body, life, and soul of the Constitution itself. And these were parts of the Constitution which Louis Napoleon, in his presidential oath, swore to maintain. But on May 31, 1850, the National Assembly assumed to pass a law annulling universal suffrage, and striking from the lists three million out of ten million voters. The President had no veto; he could only suspend the publication of a law, and ask for its reconsideration; but if reconsidered, if repassed by a bare majority, it became a law absolutely. This law was passed by such a large majority that it was deemed wholly useless to exercise this suspensive power. 'Where now was the Republican Constitution of 1848 -the Constitution which declared that sovereignty resided in the whole people, and could not be exercised by a fraction of them, but which sovereignty the National Assembly, the Legislature, declared should thereafter be exercised by a fractional seven-tenths of the people? Where was the Constitution which declared that the President and the Deputies to the National Assembly should be elected by universal suffrage, but who the National Assembly, the canvasser and judge of those elections, declared should be elected by a vote three-tenths short of universal suffrage? "The Constitution was gone-it had ceased to exist. It was overthrown by the vote of the National Assembly, May 31, 1850-the only power which could enforce this unconstitutional law, because it was the canvasser of votes and judge of elections under the Constitution. These are not new views; they have been current among the genuine republicans of France ever since this Law of May 31, 1850, was proposed; at the time of its passage, and ever since. They have, therefore, existed as part of public history and public opinion for more than twenty-two years. CHAP IX. BOOK 'Eugène Ténot, a distinguished Republican, editor of the "Siècle" (Paris) and author of "Paris in December 1851; or, the Coup d'État of Napoleon III.," says: "The Conservatives of the Legislative Assembly, so great was their terror of a legal triumph of the Republicans in 1852, did not recoil before the idea of laying violent hands on the basis of the Constitution itself—on universal suffrage. Then was prepared the too famous Law of May 31, 1850, which, by a stroke of the pen, struck out three million electors. This evident violation of the Constitution in one of its fundamental features radically changed the situation. It introduced into the country an element of deep perturbation, left everything in doubt again, and challenged a civil war, which awaited only a question of time. In passing the Law of May 31 the reactionary majority thought they had guaranteed social order against the anarchists, and had simply purified universal suffrage by excluding therefrom what M. Thiers called the 'vile multitude.' It had destroyed itself." It is thus clear that it was a factious, conservative majority in the Assembly that overturned the Constitution of 1848, and who had in their own hands the power to enforce that perversion of the Constitution. But this fact, conceded by the leading Republicans of the day, is not thought worthy of record by Messrs. Victor Hugo, Schloecher, and Kinglake in their partisan publications.' CHAPTER X. THE RECESS OF 1850. THE Assembly remained in session after the passing of the Law of May 31 until August 11, when it adjourned to November II. But between May and August many significant facts and incidents happened. The return of Émile de Girardin, a Socialist, for the moment was welcomed by the Left, as proof that the new law was no death-blow to their party; and it encouraged them to avow that the suffrage which had been taken from the Prolétaire should be given back to him by force in 1852. On the other hand the Assembly, while refusing pensions to the heroes of February, gave rewards to the wounded of June; voted the completion of the Emperor's tomb at the Invalides and the reparation of the Versailles fountains; raised the State annuities, which workmen could purchase on advantageous terms, to 600 francs; and voted a supplementary credit of 2,400,000 francs to cover the extraordinary expenses of the President. This credit, inopportunely proposed, was received with considerable opposition. The Prince's enemies said that it was the price of his adhesion to the Law of May 31. The Monarchical factions seized upon it as an opportunity of laying the President under an obligation to General Changarnier, who was put up to support it when it appeared on the point of being lost. It was finally carried in a full House by only forty-six votes, the Monarchists and the Reds voting for the first time cordially together X. BOOK against the President. Instead of fortifying General Changarnier's position, his trick led to his downfall. VII: Another question of importance which the Assembly decided before the prorogation was that affecting the press-a question of stamps originally, but which the heat and passion of factions widened until it became one which thoroughly revolutionised-through the celebrated Tinguy amendments-the aspect of the press of France. M. Charles de Forster wrote a few months after the discussion: 'Let us note what happens in France now that the law proposed by M. de Tinguy compels the journalist to sign his articles. It was hardly proposed when a general outcry arose. The press immediately felt that this was real repression. But rage and hate fought in vain: the legislator stuck to it, and he was right. Public opinion, according to the discreetest of the papers, the "Journal des Débats," had given up the press, because its excesses in attacking constantly governors and governed had rendered all government impossible. Formerly the title of a newspaper was a banner under which readers. ranged themselves, following its campaigns. The committee who directed it, covered with mystery, were often obscure persons who were able to move that important weapon-public opinion. Now, reduced to individualities, the power of an ill-written paper falls from day to day, because people look at the signature before reading an article. According to the name on the sack is their eagerness to dip into it. Empty reasonings cannot be covered with sonorous words, since the words are those of Mr. Anybody. We now see in France individual journalists; but the old committee-a kind of Venetian Council of Ten-has disappeared. Now it is not this paper or that, but only M. Blank who affirms and argues in a certain journal, which is very different. This legis |