quarters, but trained together on the benches of the Assembly, which finally handed to them the conduct of affairs.

Fallen and new-born greatness, softened passions, resignation, combinations, transactions, in one word: conciliation, the whole ended in the opus major of the Assembly, the Constitution of 1875 of which the true formula is Union of the Bourgeoisie and the Democracy within the Republic.

Wonderful is the force of the modern spirit: this unexpected Republican Constitution was the work of a Chamber of which the majority was that of the Versailles Assembly. Other works of Liberty, Equality, Laicity and Solidarity, to be accomplished by subsequent Assemblies, also lay in embryo within the institutions of the National Assembly, superior, on the whole, to all other French Assemblies in that it founded.

It opened the doors of the future, without always divining, it is true, the destruction and alluvions which might follow the torrent.

The National Assembly was great: less for what it achieved than for what it outlined; less for what it did. than for what it willed.

It was great because it truly represented France: France with her boldness and uneasiness, her cult for the ideal and her toleration of facts, her taste for riots and the clear good sense which, after exalting proper pride. and vanity, ends by clinging to that which is simple, solid and just.

The National Assembly, in its good faith, prepared for France stability, peace, and freedom, and, for Humanity, more goodness. Of it may be said what it said of M. Thiers: "It has deserved well of the country."

CHAPTER VII

FRANCE AND THE ELECTIONS OF 1876

I. Universal Suffrage.-The Nation and the Parties.-Electoral Organisation. The Cabinet and the elections.-Senatorial elections.-Composition of the Senate.

II. Legislative elections.-Candidates and Programmes.—Gambetta leads the campaign: Speeches at Lille, Bordeaux and Paris.-The ballot of the 21st February, 1876, is favourable to the Republic.

III. M. Buffet resigns; M. Dufaure is provisionally entrusted with the Presidency of the Council.-Gambetta's speech at Lyons.-Second ballots.-Composition of the Chamber of Deputies.-Formalities for the transmission of powers.-Early sittings of the Chamber and of the Senate.

A1

I

T last the moment had come when the French People might, peacefully and according to Constitutional regulations, make its will known.

First In 1871, the urgency of events and the hardness Elections. of the times had strained the expression of public feeling. The National Assembly, "elected in a day of misfortune," had been the uneasy offspring of that hour of anguish. During five years, "Representation had acted in the name of the nation. It had made peace, repressed a terrible insurrection, reorganised the fiscal system, chosen a system of government, framed constitutional laws-all that without consulting the country.

The latter was now to pronounce, to enter into the road opened out before it or to swerve aside, to accept

the harness of the Constitution of 1875 or to break it to pieces.

The difficulty for the politicians of those days-as for the historians of to-day-was to discover the obscure aspirations of those 36,000,000 Frenchmen, scattered over an immense territory, forming a mass without cohesion, unaccustomed to public business, with no respected traditions, no solid framework. In a country, where and at a time when there were now no dynasty, no nobility, no ruling classes, no provinces, no communes, no corporations, no organisations in any way forming a nucleus of public life, how could the People become conscious of itself and express its feelings?

It was both an experience and an experiment which was about to be attempted. It is difficult to judge, even after thirty years, whether the cards were well or ill dealt.

In order to explain and to judge, History requires singular perspicacity and perfect serenity. Passions which were burning brightly, are not yet extinguished. Public opinion was ignorant of itself, smoky polemics darkened everything. Consequences have not yet been fully developed. The future, and a greater light thrown on details now still unknown, will alone give us the means of pronouncing judgment. We can but attempt a first

account.

Universal

Since 1848, Universal Suffrage existed and

Suffrage was in force. But, under the Second Republic, before 1876. it had not had time to know itself, and, under the Second Empire, it had merely adhered to the will of the Prince, plébiscites being but a form of obedience.

The legendary Mayor boasted of "always having agreed with M. le Préfet, whoever he may have been." Thus practised, Universal Suffrage was but a block handled by the administrative crane. In Paris and the

larger towns, it had barely attempted a few sudden and accidental explosions.

And now, it would have to move by itself. French politics were suddenly to be decentralised and individualised. The impulse was to come from the least village. Master of himself, the elector had to give himself his "reasons. He might assume that authority of which his masters had made for themselves a monopoly by declaring him unworthy and incompetent!

It was French History set once again upon its basis, but turned, overturned, perhaps.

A double appointment was made by the new law for the electors of the whole of France: the Senatorial elections were to take place on the 30th January and the Legislative electors on the 20th February. Those twin operations realised the whole spirit of the Constitution, of which it has already been said that it sanctioned the understanding between the middle and the lower classes.

The Senatorial electors-Deputies, General or arrondissement Councillors and Municipal delegates-were appointed by an initial vote by Universal Suffrage or by its chosen. That mode of procedure, which restricted the suffrage, secured a bourgeois character for the coming first act of the Constitution; popular electors, naturally embarrassed, were bound to choose their habitual leaders, and would look for guidance to the men in frock-coats who had hitherto held the rudder. Gambetta was right when he saw in the mechanism of the Senatorial recruiting a mode of educating Universal Suffrage.

But that bourgeois élite, now imposed upon the nation by the force of circumstances, was itself very vaguely instructed in what it had to do at the second electoral operation, the Legislative elections. Everything was fluid and uncertain in the immense swirl which was taking

place; crystallisations had had no time to form, and foundation-stones were not yet laid.

Divergence between

Paris and the Provinces.

A few general outlines began to appear, however. For instance, there was a remarkable divergence of views between the great towns, especially Paris, and the provinces. Urban candidatures on the one hand, rural candidatures on the other, were bound to take into account different, sometimes rival, tendencies and interests. It was no easy thing to drive that difficult pair towards the same goal. A Republic founded by the towns and viewed with suspicion in the villages, drawn on either side by its Conservative and Revolutionary elements, presented extraordinary complications; a common programme could only be formulated by the help of singular prudence and ingenuity. As is often the case when agreement is difficult, it was to be found in common hatred rather than in similar aspirations. There was no less diversity between the Diversity North and the South, the East and the West. North and It seemed as if the suffrage offered a first

South. example of that curious, spiral development, which, bringing ideas to the different parts of the country in succession, hands them on to one locality as others leave it, and thus, by a continuous progress, ensures equilibrium and stability for the whole. The North and the East, those regions which had been invaded, were the first to come to the Republic. Gradually, the South and the Centre were to be conquered; as to the West, it was long to remain the citadel of traditional parties; even now, certain quarrels have not been settled which have long been forgotten everywhere else.

Political

By the loss of two frontier provinces, the effects of the influence of the Northern or Teutonic element was diminished. Alsace and Lorraine had always paid to France a special tribute of

loss of Alsace. Lorraine.