Part 7

The next morning Richard heard mass in Westminster Abbey, and, on his return with sixty knights, encountered Wat Tyler and his men in Smithfield “before the Abbey of St. Bartholomew.” As it appears, Tyler had some further demands to make, not being altogether satisfied with the charter of Mile End.[11] Sir John Newton rode up to invite him to approach the king. According to some accounts the knight was received insolently. “I shall come,” said Tyler, “when I please. If you are in a hurry you can go back to your master now!” Another narrator tells us that Wat began to abuse Sir John Newton for coming to him on horseback, being met with the courteous reply, “You are mounted, why should not I be so likewise?” In a third chronicle we read that Tyler was approaching Richard covered, and was ordered by Walworth, the mayor, to remove his cap, but roughly refused. There was, at any rate, a brief dialogue between Richard II. and the peasant leader, in which the latter insisted on the immediate issue of letters of manumission to all, and added his new demand, to the effect that “all warrens, waters, parks, and woods should be common, so that the poor as well as the rich might freely fish in all waters, hunt the deer in forests and parks, and the hare in the field.” This cry for the repeal of the game and forest laws went to the heart of one of the chief grievances of the people. What reply the king gave is not recorded, nor is it easy to disentangle from the conflicting accounts any clear details. One chronicler says that Tyler came too near the king’s horse, as if intending some mischief against his majesty; others that he was simply insolent, tossing his dagger from hand to hand as he parleyed; others that blows were actually interchanged between Wat and Sir John Newton. This much at any rate is clear, that the Mayor Walworth—_John_ Walworth, as Knighton calls him; _William_, as in the other authorities—aimed a sudden blow at the bold demagogue, who fell at once from his horse, and was dispatched by one of the king’s squires, named Sandwich or Cavendish.

[11] It is possible that some of the points above mentioned were among these reserved demands. If so, the king conceded them to Tyler, verbally, before the catastrophe. But this is uncertain. The concessions are enumerated in Rymer’s “Fœdera,” vol. vii. p. 317.

With Wat Tyler died also the insurrection, and the hopes of English liberty for many a dreary year. “As he fell from his horse to the earth,” writes Walsingham, “he first gave hope to the English soldiery, who had been half dead, that the Commons could be resisted.” There was, no doubt, a touch of chivalry in the first words of the young king, “Follow me!” he cried to the people infuriated by their leader’s assassination; “I will be your captain!” They were startled, and obeyed, the king preceding them to Islington, where he was met by a large body of soldiers. There was no conflict, and the multitude slowly dispersed, being threatened with death if found in the streets after nightfall.

As soon as the king was safe it was found that his pledges had meant nothing. The promises of enfranchisement, the “letters” about which the “thirty secretaries” had been busy all the night of that memorable fourteenth of June, were treated as void. “Villeins you are,” said the king, when asked by the men of Essex to confirm his promises, “and villeins you shall remain. You shall remain in bondage, not such as you have hitherto been subjected to, but incomparably viler. For so long as we live and rule by God’s grace over this kingdom, we shall use our sense, our strength and our property, so to treat you that your slavery may be an example to posterity, and that those who live now and hereafter, who may be like you, may always have before their eyes, and as it were in a glass, your misery and reasons for cursing you, and the fear of doing things like those which you have done.” In the spirit of this royal message, commissions were sent into the country to bring those who had taken part in the insurrection to condign punishment. John Ball, the preacher, Jack Straw with the Millers, Truemans, and a host of others, were mercilessly put to death; and in that terrible autumn the scaffold and the gallows had no fewer than seven thousand victims![12] Nothing could more clearly show the panic into which this wild rough outcry for freedom had thrown the constituted authorities in Church and State. One good result, however, of the insurrection was in the vanishing of the poll-tax. Of that impost, at least, we do not hear again. And more—the people had learned their power, a lesson which in the darkest times was never forgotten.

[12] Green’s “History of the English People,” vol. 1. p. 475.

We believe in freedom now. Almost all that John Ball and Wat Tyler demanded is the heritage of every Englishman. They might have sought it, perhaps, by “constitutional methods.” Yet we must remember their times. They did but imitate in their rough way during those three days of terror the course which their masters pursued for more than three hundred years! The stroke that laid Wat Tyler low—and made Richard II., that worthless lad, the master of the situation—whatever it was, was not a blow for liberty!

Some partisan writers have associated the teachings of John Ball with the principles maintained by Wycliffe, especially in his treatise “On Dominion.” The dates, however, are against this. Ball is said to have been a preacher for more than twenty years before the insurrection. This carries us back to about 1360, an earlier date than we can assign to Wycliffe’s treatise, or to his institution of “Poor Preachers.” In fact, the chronicler Knighton takes a diametrically opposite view, and regards Ball as a _forerunner_ of Wycliffe—the John the Baptist to this false Messiah! In his fervid imagination the Leicester canon sees the apocalyptic visions fulfilled—the catastrophe of the last days! Such events can mean nothing else than the end of the world! “Much has happened since then,” and the signs of the times may perhaps be read as fallaciously by seers of to-day. There can, however, be no doubt that before the insurrection, Ball had been an adherent of Wycliffe. The demand for spiritual freedom fell in, at least, with the thoughts and impulses that had prompted the serfs of their wild irregular cry for social and political rights.

“In memory of Sir William Walworth’s valor,” writes Thomas Fuller in his “Church History of Great Britain,” “the arms of London, formerly a plain cross, were augmented by the addition of a dagger, to make the coat in all points complete.” This is still a popular mistake. That dagger, or short sword, has nothing whatever to do with Walworth, or Tyler, or Richard II., or any of the personages, good or evil, of that era. In fact, it was a relic or “survival” of the sword in the hand of the Apostle Paul, formerly engraven on the City seal.[13] St. Paul anciently figured as patron saint of London, and when in Reformation times his effigy disappeared from the City arms his sword remained. We know that in Christian art, from about the tenth century, the sword was a familiar symbol of St. Paul, the primary intention no doubt being to denote the Sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God.

[13] For this information we are indebted to Mr. Overall, the courteous Librarian of the Guildhall Library.

M. JULES FERRY AND HIS FRIENDS.

The history of the Republic up to this time has been such a course of surprises, that any forecast as to the future must be made with a large reckoning for accidents; but this much may be said, that the Republic owes its present appearance of stability to the want of commanding talents among her ruling men. The outlook could not have been so peaceful had Gambetta been alive. Gambetta had a vast ambition, and a leonine, roaring energy, which provoked furious opposition. The men who have parted his influence among them may be as ambitious as he was; but they are so for personal objects, and as there is nothing great in their characters or their policy, nothing imperious in their manner, nothing stirring or seducing in their eloquence, they are less feared than the man who wished to be a master, and said so. Nobody could denounce M. Jules Ferry as aspiring to become a dictator; yet during the past year he has held more effective power than was ever wielded by Gambetta. He is a faithful party-servant who has been allowed to exercise authority, because his employers have felt that they could dismiss him at a moment’s notice. We bear more from a humble, useful domestic, than from a self-asserting master. Louis XIV., who broke the tyranny of Mazarin, and could not brook the arrogance of Fouquet, submitted to the management of the quiet, astute Colbert.

In his novel “Numa Roumestan,” written while Gambetta was alive, Alphonse Daudet showed “the North being conquered by the South,” that is, the blustering, bragging, blarneying _blagueurs_ of Provence and Gascony enthralling the democracy with their charlatanism, and seizing upon all the public offices. Sardou had worked out the same idea in “Rabagas;” but it must be noticed that the holders of the four most important posts in France at this moment—the four Presidents, of the Republic, of the Senate, of the Chamber of Deputies, and of the Cabinet—are conspicuously exempt from the usual attributes of demagogues. They are cold-headed men, plain of speech, dry in manner; they are not Southerners, and, in fact, they are by no means representative of the French as a nation.

M. Grévy comes from the Jura, on the borders of Switzerland, a department which has for the last half century been more advanced in public instruction than all the others, and where the _bourgeoisie_ are something like the Scotch in their puritanism.

M. le Royer, President of the Senate, a hard, sententious little man, with solemn eyes peering through gold-rimmed spectacles, and a voice like the drone of a Lenten preacher—M. le Royer is a Genevan Protestant, whose father became French by naturalisation. M. Brisson was born and educated at Bourges, in the old province of Berry. He is a trim, mathematically-minded lawyer and logician, creaseless in his morals as in his dress, one of those Frenchmen to whom all the levities of French life—light literature, music, gossip, and even _cuisine_—are distasteful. M. Jules Ferry is a Lorrainer, born in the mountainous Vosges; and, like M. le Royer, a Protestant—at least so far as he confesses to any religion at all.

* * * * *

A nation must be turned upside down before a man like M. Jules Ferry can become Prime Minister. It makes one smile to think that the French have demolished three dynasties, and that countless thousands of enthusiastic revolutionists have let themselves be shot behind barricades, in order that the country may now be ruled by a Cabinet containing three second-rate journalists, and three barristers who have no names at the Bar. “No more revolutions: I have become a Minister,” wrote the late M. Garnier Pagēs to his constituents in 1848.[14] M. Ferry, to do him justice, did not conclude that progress reached its zenith on the day when he took Cabinet office; he has rather shown modest thankfulness at his own elevation, while feeling privately, no doubt, some astonishment. Now that he has been in place some time, the astonishment must have worn off, for he has learnt to know men, and to perceive that circumstances do more for most successful rulers than these accomplish for themselves. An inexperienced man at the helm soon gets accustomed to see the big ship obey the propulsion of his rudder, and if he be steering in calm weather, he may do as well as the skilled pilot. M. Ferry became Prime Minister _faute de mieux_, and he may remain so (with occasional displacements) _crainte de pire_. The course of French Republicanism is always downward, and the constant preoccupation of men’s minds under that happy _régime_, is the fear of worse.

[14] “L’ère des révolutions est fermée! Je suis devenu Ministre, et le peuple entier entre au pouvoir avec moi.”

Jules Ferry owed the beginning of his political fortune to his luck in writing for a newspaper which had a witty editor. Just twenty years ago (1865), being then thirty-three years old, he joined the staff of the _Temps_, and after contributing leaders for three years, undertook in 1868 a series of papers attacking the administration of Baron Haussmann as Prefect of the Seine. Baron Haussmann had rebuilt Paris and made it a city unique in the world for beauty and sanitation. M. Ferry could not have performed such a task, but he was able to criticise the Prefect’s work, to array long columns of figures showing how much it had cost, and to ask whether it would not have been far better if all these millions had been given to the poor. Baron Haussmann sent _communiques_ to the _Temps_ impugning the accuracy of M. Ferry’s figures; but the journalist of course stuck to his multiplication, and, as spirited opposition always made a man popular under the Empire, the Vosgian’s articles obtained more success than is usual with statistical essays. It was proposed that they should be rebound in pamphlet form and circulated among Parisian householders in view of the general election of 1869. M. Neffzer, editor of the _Temps_, then suggested that the pamphlet should be called, “Les Comptes Fantastiques d’Haussmann.”[15]

[15] A play upon the title of “Contes Fantastiques d’Hoffmann”—a book which is popular in France.

The title took, and Jules Ferry got the reputation of being a comical fellow. Resolving to make the most of this character while it lasted, he came forward as a candidate for Paris at the elections of 1869—calling himself a Radical for this purpose. He was no more Radical than comical, but if he had not taken up extreme views he could have offered no reason for opposing the moderate Liberal (M. Guéroult, editor of the _Opinion Nationale_), who was the sitting member of the sixth Parisian ward. M. Ferry defeated his brother-journalist; and in the following year, when the Empire collapsed at Sedan, he became _ex-officio_ a member of the Government of National Defence. It will be remembered that this Government was composed of the nine members for Paris, because M. Grévy and some other leading Republicans refused to accept power unless it were lawfully conferred upon them by a national assembly.

M. Ferry was of course installed in Baron Haussmann’s post; but during the siege of Paris he was very nearly lynched by some of those excellent working-men who had formerly hailed him as a friend and brother. On the 31st October, 1870, an insurrection broke out in the beleaguered city, and a vigorous attempt was made to overthrow the Government. M. Ferry fell into the hands of the insurgents, and for six mortal hours these rude men subjected him to every species of indignity. They pulled his luxuriant black whiskers, they taunted him with eating white bread and beefsteak, while his proletarian brethren had to content themselves with rations of brown bread and horseflesh, and when dinner-time came they offered him his choice between a grilled rat and some cold boiled dog. Happily the Breton Mobiles were at hand and delivered him; but from that day M. Ferry’s Radicalism perceptibly cooled, and when the Communal rebellion occurred, he took good care not to let himself be kidnapped again by the once-idolised working-man. Decamping to Versailles he remained there throughout the second siege, and did not return to take possession of his post as Prefect of the Seine until the rebellion had been crushed. It was on this occasion that alighting from his brougham near the still-smouldering Hôtel de Ville, and seeing a convoy of Communist prisoners pass, he shook his nicely-gloved fist and exclaimed: “_Ah! tas de canaille!_”

The exclamation was pardonable, for these Communists had shot M. Ferry’s friend and former Secretary, Gustave Chaudey, and the new-fledged Prefect must have imagined bullets whistling by his own sleek ears as he looked at them. However, M. Ferry’s vindictiveness went no further than words, for he exerted himself charitably to save some old journalistic comrades who had taken the wrong side during the civil war. He is believed to have secreted several of these in his private lodgings and to have covered them with his official protection while the police were hunting for them. What is more, he honorably connived at the escape of one of his vilest detractors, Félix Pyat. This charming person, always the first to preach sedition and regicide, and the first to fly in the hour of danger, had been unable to get clear away from Paris when the Commune fell. He took refuge in a convent, where the nuns harbored him for six weeks, though these poor women were quite aware that he was the Pyat who had been clamoring for the demolition of churches and the shooting of hostages. Jules Ferry happened to hear of Pyat’s whereabouts, but instead of delivering up the wretched men to a court-martial, he caused a passport to be privately given him.

Good nature abounds in M. Ferry’s character, and this quality, in combination with perseverance and a quiet talent for picking up other people’s ideas, has been the secret of his success. During the last years of the Empire while he wrote for the _Temps_, he was a daily frequenter of the Café de Madrid, and there he was appreciated as an attentive listener to no matter whose stories. He had then, as he has now, a face such as is only to be seen on the shoulders of old-fashioned French barristers and Belgravian footmen. The judges of the Second Empire did not allow _avocats_ to wear beards, so M. Ferry shaved his upper lip and chin, but his whiskers were of stupendous size. Add to these a Roman nose, a fine forehead, shrewd playful eyes, a well shaped smiling mouth, and a certain plumpness of girth which removed him altogether out of the category of those lean men whom Shakespeare thought dangerous. He always shook men’s hands with a hearty grip; he could laugh loud and long even when not amused; if conversation flagged he could light it up suddenly with a few crackling jokes, but he generally preferred to sit silent, smoking penny cigars (for he was not rich), sipping absinthe, and taking mental notes of what was being said around him. Now and then, especially if a talker appealed to him, he would nod approval with a grave closing of the eyes, which is the supreme politeness in the art of listening.

He never squandered his knowledge in small talk, so that his public speeches always took his most intimate friends aback. Gambetta once said to him: “You are the most secretive of chatter-boxes,”[16] the truth being that Ferry used commonplace ideas in private intercourse, just as some men keep half-pence for beggars. To stake gold in conversational games over a _café_ table was more than his intellectual means could afford. A _blagueur_ himself in a small way, he knew the destructive power of that light chaff which can be thrown upon a good idea while it has the bloom of novelty on it. Then he was not combative. Gambetta, a millionaire in talents, could scatter his best thoughts broadcast without ever impoverishing himself. At the Café Procope, at Brébant’s, and in the dining-room of his friend, Clément Laurier, he would pound his fists on the table and thunder out long passages of the speeches which he intended to deliver, and this without caring whether political opponents heard him. “You are showing your hand,” Laurier[17] and the still more prudent Arthur Ranc used to say. But Gambetta could win without hiding his trumps, or he could win without trumps.

[16] “Tu es le plus cachotier des bavards.“

[17] Clément Laurier used to be Gambetta’s chief political henchman. During the war he was sent to London to negotiate the Morgan Loan. But the Commune sickened him of Republicanism and he joined the Royalist ranks. He died in 1878, being then one of the Deputies for the Indre. His change of politics never impaired his private relations with Gambetta.

Ferry always went into political action with his powder dry, chose his ground carefully and picked out an antagonist whom he was sure to worst. Gambetta would rush at the strongest enemy, Ferry fired at the weakest; but this system had the advantage of leaving him after every combat victorious and unwounded. It was a great triumph to him, when, coming back among his friends, he heard their self-astonished bravos as they slapped him on the back. There is much slapping on the back in French political assemblies. Many a time has Gambetta’s broad hand descended upon Ferry’s stalwart shoulders with the shout, ”_C’est bien fait, mon petit!_”

The two were capital friends from the first, and remained so till nearly the end. It was not till within two years of Gambetta’s death, that the chief began to find his _protégé_ a little too independent. Mutinous Ferry never was, but a time arrived when, from one cause and another, he found himself second in influence to Gambetta among the Republican party. He was but Addington to Gambetta’s Pitt: nevertheless he got tired of hearing people say that he was only allowed to hold office as a stopgap; and with a proper dignity he resented Gambetta’s pretensions to act as occult Prime Minister without assuming the responsibilities of the premiership. Gambetta, as we know, wanted to become President of the Republic, or else Prime Minister with a secure majority to be obtained by _scrutin de liste_. Until he could compass one or other of these ends, he preferred to play the Agamemnon sitting in the Presidential chair of the Chamber of Deputies. M. de Freycinet and M. Ferry each humored this whim so long as it was possible, and indeed nothing could have been more amicably subservient than M. Ferry’s conduct while Prime Minister in 1881. He not only dispensed his patronage by Gambetta’s directions, but framed all Government measures according to the Dictator’s tastes, and even agreed to the performance of little Parliamentary comedies, in which Gambetta pretended to attack the Cabinet in order to dispel the notion that M. Ferry was not a free agent. This state of things, however, could not continue after the general election of 1881, when a strong Republican majority was returned—not to support the Ferry Cabinet, but to set up something better. Gambetta forgot that in putting on the gloves with his friend Ferry, simply _pour amuser la galerie_, he was apt to give knock-down blows which made Ferry look small. The cautious Lorrainer felt that he had had enough of these sparring-matches, and he had the sharpness to see that if he accepted a portfolio in the “Grand Ministère,” which Gambetta formed in November 1881, he would confirm the general opinion that throughout his premiership he had only been the great man’s puppet. For all this, it was a very brave thing he did in refusing to sit in Gambetta’s Cabinet. Gambetta was deeply offended and doubtless as much surprised as Richelieu would have been if Brother Joseph had declined to “act any longer with him for the present.” Happily the Dictator could not punish Brother Jules as the Cardinal would have chastised Brother Joseph.

He sent twice to Ferry to offer him a portfolio, wrote to him once, and ended by proposing to get him elected life-senator and President of the Upper House. But when all these favors were declined with thanks, he shrugged his shoulders and exclaimed: “_Mais c’est absurde!_” meaning that his friend Ferry had come to think a little too much of himself.