CHAPTER XVII

THE FRENCH CONSTITUTION: PRESIDENT AND MINISTRY

I. ORIGINS OF THE CONSTITUTION

Political Development, 1789-1870. Among the nations of continental Europe the pioneer of political democracy has been France. The Italian city-republics of the Middle Ages and the Swiss cantons and Dutch provinces of earlier modern times, although republics, were organized on an essentially aristocratic basis. Even in France the beginnings of democracy fall clearly within the period following the summoning of the Estates General at the opening of the Revolution in 1789. The France of the Old Régime was among the most absolute of monarchies. Prior to the Revolution the only organ of popular control in matters of national policy was the Estates General. It, however, consisted of three "orders," or groups, of which only one in any degree represented the people; besides, from 1614 to 1789 it was not once assembled. The local communities had almost entirely lost their earlier right to control their own affairs. "We hold our crown from God alone," reads a royal edict of 1770; "the right to make laws, by which our subjects must be conducted and governed, belongs to us alone, independently and unshared."

The government of the Bourbon kings was extravagant, corrupt, and burdensome; and in 1789 a tide of protest which had long been rising swept over the head of the luckless Louis XVI and engulfed the whole order of things of which he was a part. Already Rousseau and other philosophers had demonstrated that the people was the source of all legitimate authority; and in pursuance of this idea the Estates General of 1789, reorganized as a "National Assembly," enthusiastically adopted a Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen, in which the great principles of the Revolution were laid down as follows:

(1) that "all sovereignty resides essentially in the nation; (2) that "law is the expression of the general will;" (3) that every citizen has a right to take part personally, or through his representative, in the making of law;" and (4) that "law must be the same for all, whether it protects or punishes." These principles underlie the broadly democratic and highly efficient government of the French Republic to-day. How they won full and final acceptance, and how a great system of popular government was erected upon them, makes too long a story to be told here. Suffice it to say that after an exceptionally unsettled political career, during which no form of government lasted continuously as long as twenty years, the country came down at last to the establishment of the Third Republic, which after almost a half-century of orderly progress, and in the fifth year of a racking war, gives every sign of stability and permanence. It is the government of this France of our own day with which we are chiefly concerned.

Collapse of the Second Empire and the Problem of a New Government. The Third Republic was set up under circumstances that gave promise of even less stability than had been revealed by its predecessors of 1792 and 1848. Proclaimed in the dismal days following the French defeat at Sedan, it owed its existence, at the outset, to the fact that, with the capture of Napoleon III by the Prussians and the utter collapse of the Empire, there had arisen, as Thiers put it, "a vacancy of power." The proclamation was issued September 4, 1870, when the war with Prussia had been in progress but seven weeks. During the remaining five months of the contest the sovereign authority of France was exercised by a Provisional Government of National Defense, with General Trochu at its head, devised in haste to meet the emergency by Gambetta, Favre, Ferry, and other former members of the Chamber of Deputies. Upon the capitulation of Paris, January 28, 1871 (followed by the signing of an armistice), elections were ordered for a national assembly, whose function was to decide whether it was possible to continue the war or necessary to submit to peace, and also what terms of peace should be accepted at the hands of the victorious Germans. There was no time for framing a new electoral system. Consequently the electoral procedure of the

Second Republic, as set forth in a law of March 15, 1849, was revived, and by manhood suffrage there was chosen, February 8, an assembly of 758 members, representative of both France and the colonies. Meeting at Bordeaux, February 12, this body, by unanimous vote, conferred upon the historian and parliamentarian Thiers the title of "Chief of the Executive Power," without fixed term, voted almost solidly for a cessation of hostilities, and authorized Thiers to proceed with an immediate negotiation of peace.

Pending a diplomatic adjustment, the Assembly was inclined to postpone the establishment of a permanent governmental system. But the problem could not long be held in abeyance. There were several possible solutions. A party of Legitimists, i.e., adherents of the old Bourbon monarchy, was resolved upon the establishment of a kingdom under the Count of Chambord, grandson of the Charles X who had been deposed at the revolution of 1830. Similarly, a party of Orleanists insisted upon a restoration of the house of Orleans, overthrown in 1848, in the person of the Count of Paris, a grandson of the citizen-king Louis Philippe. A smaller group of those who, despite the discredit which the house of Bonaparte had incurred in the war, remained loyal to the Napoleonic tradition, was committed to a revival of the prostrate empire of the captive Napoleon III. Finally, in Paris and some portions of the outlying country there was uncompromising demand for the establishment of a permanent republic. In the Assembly the monarchists outnumbered the republicans five to two; and, although the members had been chosen primarily for their opinions as to peace rather than as to constitutional forms, the proportion throughout the nation was probably about the same. The republican outlook, however, was vastly improved by the fact that the monarchists, having nothing in common except opposition to republicanism, were hopelessly disagreed among themselves.1

Failure of the Monarchist Programs. As, from the drift of its proceedings, the royalist character of the Assembly began

1 Of pure Legitimists there were in the Assembly about 150; of Bonapartists, not over 30; of Republicans, about 250. The remaining members were Orleanists or men of indecisive inclination. At no time was the full membership of the Assembly in attendance.

to stand out in unmistakable relief, there arose from republican quarters vigorous opposition to the prolonged existence of the body. Even before the signing of the Peace of Frankfort, May 10, 1871, a clash occurred between the Assembly and the radical Parisian populace, the outcome of which was the bloody war of the Commune of April-May, 1871.1 The communards fought fundamentally against state centralization, whether or not involving a revival of monarchy. The fate of republicanism was not in any real sense bound up with their cause; so that after the movement was suppressed, the political future of the nation was as uncertain as before. Thiers continued at the post of Chief of the Executive; and the Assembly, clothed by its own assumption with powers immeasurably in excess of those it. had been elected to exercise, and limited by no fixed term, gave not the slightest indication of a purpose to terminate its career. Rather, the body proceeded, August 31, 1871, to pass, by a vote of 491 to 94, the Rivet law, whereby the existing régime was to be perpetuated indefinitely. By this measure unrestricted sovereignty, involving the exercise of both constituent and legislative powers, was declared by the Assembly to be vested in itself. Upon the Chief of the Executive was conferred the title of President of the French Republic; and it was stipulated that this official should thereafter be responsible to the Assembly, and presumably removable by it. A quasi-republic, with a crude parliamentary system of government, thereafter existed de facto; but it had as yet no constitutional basis.

This anomalous state of things lasted many months. More and more Thiers, who had begun as a constitutional monarchist, came to believe in republicanism as the kind of government that would divide the French people least, and late in 1872 he put himself unqualifiedly among the adherents of the republican program. Thereupon the monarchists, united for the moment in the conviction that for the good of their several causes Thiers must be deposed from his position of influence, brought about in the Assembly a majority vote in opposition to him on a question of adopting a republican constitution, and so procured his resignation, May 24, 1873. The opponents of republicanism now felt that the hour had come for the termination of a govern

1 In March the Assembly had transferred its sittings from Bordeaux to Versailles.

mental régime which all the while they had regarded as being purely provisional. The monarchist Marshal MacMahon was made President, a coalition ministry of monarchists under the Orleanist Duke of Broglie was formed, and republicanism in press and politics was put under the ban. Between the Legitimists and the Orleanists an ingenious compromise was worked out whereby the Bourbon Count of Chambord was to be made king under the title of Henry V and, he having no heirs, the Orleanist Count of Paris was to be recognized as his successor. The whole project was brought to naught, however, by the refusal of the Count of Chambord to give up the white flag, which for centuries had been the standard of the Bourbon house. The Orleanists held out for the tricolor; and thus, on what would appear to most people a question of little importance, the survival of the Republic was for the time determined.

In the hope that eventually they might gain sufficient strength to place their candidate on the throne without the coöperation of the Legitimists, the Orleanists joined with the Bonapartists and the republicans, November 20, 1873, in voting to fix the term of President MacMahon at seven years. The Orleanists assumed that if within that period an opportunity should arise for the establishment of the Count of Paris upon the throne, the President would clear the way by retiring. The opportunity, however, never came, and the septennial period for the French presidency, established thus by monarchists in their own interest, was destined to pass into the permanent mechanism of a republican state.

II. THE CONSTITUTION TO-DAY

Circumstances of Formation. Meanwhile the way was opening for France to acquire what for some years she had utterly lacked, namely, a constitution. On May 19, 1873, the vicepresident of the council of ministers, Dufaure, in behalf of the Government, laid before the Assembly projets of two organic measures, both of which, in slightly amended form, passed in 1875 into the permanent constitution of the Republic. On May 24 President Thiers retired, and likewise Dufaure, but in the Assembly the two proposed measures were none the less