CHAPTER IX

M. THIERS

I had had many opportunities of meeting M. Thiers during the last years of the Empire. I had known him even before I came to Paris in an official capacity, had often seen him at the houses of some mutual friends, and we came to know each other very well. He was one of the cleverest, nicest little men in the world, and even among the many interesting people who abounded in France at that time, he stood out conspicuously as one of the pleasantest. He had many enemies, which is not to be wondered at if one takes into consideration the vivacity which he always displayed in his likes and dislikes, and the bitterness, or rather the caustic tendencies, of his tongue. But friends and foes alike were loud in their praise of his intelligence, and especially of his wit. I am not talking of his moral character, which was discussed in many ways and which in part justified the attacks that were levelled against it. The Legitimists could not forgive him the part he had taken in the arrest of the Duchesse de Berry, nor the attitude of the ministry of which he was a member with regard to that unfortunate Princess whose frailties were so mercilessly displayed before the public before the end of her captivity in the fortress of Blaye. The Orleanists also did not care for him, in spite of the pledge which he had given to their party; but Louis Philippe personally was fond of him, perhaps because their tastes were very much alike, and because the sternness and austerity of Guizot, his great opponent, had never appealed to the heart of the King, who stood rather in awe of that imposing figure in modern French political life. The bonhomie of Thiers, his easygoing manners, were more in accordance with the homely attitude which at that time distinguished the Orleans family circle. As Montalembert once said very wittily: “Thiers, c’est le ministre bourgeois d’une dynastie bourgeoise.”

And the remark contained a great deal of truth, though it is much to be doubted whether the brilliant Catholic leader appreciated at their real worth the sterling qualities which M. Thiers was hiding under the sometimes frivolous manner in which he treated serious subjects.

As a writer he was one of the greatest of his epoch, and his work on the Consulate and the First Empire will always rank among the classics. Few people have understood so well as he did the gigantic figure of the first Napoleon, and certainly his knowledge of history, the wonderful way in which he remembered its lessons, and knew how to apply them where it became necessary, constituted a unique thing even in France, where at that time there was a superabundance of clever writers and great thinkers, of whom he was one of the foremost.

Some enemies of M. Thiers assured me that he would have done better to confine himself to his historical studies, and that it was a mistake on his part to throw himself into the struggles of a political career. I do not share this opinion personally, because the very nature of Thiers would have protested against a life spent only in thinking without the emulation of doing. He was essentially a great patriot, far greater than the general public supposed, and if he had personal ambitions, which cannot be denied, it must also be admitted that in the great moments of crisis through which his country passed during his lifetime, he never hesitated to put all his strength, all his experience, and all his knowledge of public affairs, as well as his influence at home and abroad, at her service, sparing neither time nor trouble, nor energy, in his endeavours to help her.

During the whole reign of Louis Philippe, M. Thiers was a conspicuous figure in Paris society, and, strange to relate, this petit bourgeois had succeeded in entering the most exclusive circles of the Faubourg St. Germain, and contrived to install himself in the favours of its leaders, masculine as well as feminine. He was essentially the type of a middle-class man, in spite of the high offices which he had held, and never could rid himself of the habit of tying a napkin round his neck at meals, when he was in his family circle, neither would he go out without the umbrella that remained the distinctive sign of that epoch still known as the “époque de Louis Philippe,” where the bourgeoisie reigned supreme, and where the Sovereign tried by all means to win for himself the sympathies of the mob by coming down to its level.

M. Thiers did not care for the mob. He was of an autocratic character, and of an imperious disposition, admitting no sovereignty apart from his own. But, nevertheless, he remained the child of his generation and of his class. He rose, but neither by adapting himself to circumstances, nor to the conditions of existence around him. Original he was in mind, in intelligence and in manners, and he did not change; he always appeared to his friends as a man of happy disposition tempered with affability, and tinged with familiarity; his distinctive characteristic from the very first days he entered public life.

Thiers was essentially “un homme d’opposition,” as one of his enemies once remarked, but he was a statesman of a type such as is no longer found nowadays; an active, busy, little individual, always on the look out for his adversaries’ mistakes, and terrible in the merciless way in which he noticed them--and, what is worse, made others notice them. He had but little pity in his heart for the errors of mankind, but was wise enough not to show the disdain in which he held it. He had been at a good school, had frequented the salon of Talleyrand, and studied politics by contact with the politicians who had ranked among the foremost in Europe. He used to relate a funny little anecdote from his early days, when he had been introduced to Prince Metternich, during one of his journeys to Vienna, whither he had repaired to study certain episodes of the history of Napoleon, and examine certain documents deposited in the Imperial Archives of the Burg. The statesman to whose intrigues the great Emperor had in part been indebted for his fall received Thiers in his study, and it seems received him very badly. But the little Frenchman, far from appearing to notice it, began at once to talk with the Austrian Chancellor as if he had known him for years, and did not scruple to question him on the subjects about which he desired to learn, a thing which Metternich, who liked above all things to hear himself speak, particularly disliked. Surprised at first, then slightly bored, the Prince told Thiers that he had better question the Director of the Archives about the various points he desired to clear up, to which the historian of the Consulate and the Empire replied quite brusquely that this personage could not tell him anything worth listening to, and that he never took lessons in history from those who had only read it. Metternich, more and more astonished, asked him what he meant. “Oh, nothing very important,” was the answer; “seulement je crois que personne ne pourrait mieux me renseigner sur Napoleon que vous qui êtes parvenu à le tromper si complètement et si souvent” (“I merely think no one should be better able to give me information about Napoleon than yourself, who succeeded in deceiving him so completely and so frequently”). When Thiers told this anecdote he never failed to add that “Metternich ne trouva rien d’autre à me répondre que de sourire avec la remarque: ‘Vous connaissez bien votre histoire, jeune homme’” (“Metternich in reply could do nothing but smile, accompanying it with the remark: ‘You are well up in your history, young man’”).

Impudence, as one can see from the above, was not wanting in the character of the future President of the French Republic, and this impudence never deserted him in later years. It has been said that his vanity was intense, and that there was some truth in this accusation cannot be denied; but beneath this vanity there lay the latent consciousness the man had of his own moral and intellectual worth, and of the immense distance that existed between him and the other men of his generation. He tried to impose his ideas on others; he was despotic in his decisions, his judgments and his opinions, but he was not devoid of impartiality, and he was very well aware of his own faults. He loved France with a sincere affection, which saw through her faults, and there was no chauvinism in his feelings. He would have liked to see his fatherland prosperous and powerful, but he never rushed into extremes as Frenchmen are so often inclined. Whilst he was the responsible minister of the dynasty of July, he served it faithfully and to the best of his ability, and though he has been often accused of opportunism, yet he never would accept office under the Bonapartes, though, and this is rather curious, he always was of opinion that their dynasty was the most popular one among all those that aspired to the government of France.

When, together with the other members of the Legislative Chamber, he was imprisoned by the President on the day of the _coup d’état_ of the 2nd of December, he is said to have made the following typical remark: “Le Président nous fait enfermer, c’est son droit; espérons pour lui, qu’il saura en profiter, et ne donnera pas dans le travers de vouloir gouverner constitutionnellement. Il ne peut pas avoir de Constitution pour les Bonaparte, tout au plus peuvent ils prétendre à ce que leur règne soit celui où on parle de Constitution comme les malades parlent des mêts que leurs médecins leur interdisent de manger” (“The President is having us shut up, it is his right; let us hope for his own sake that he will know how to profit by it, and will not make the mistake of wanting to govern constitutionally. There can be no constitutional government for the Bonapartes. The utmost they can lay claim to is that during their reign the Constitution should be spoken of in the tone in which invalids speak of dishes that their doctors forbid them to eat”).

During the eighteen years that the Empire lasted, Thiers always refused to take office, though he owned later on that he felt once or twice sorely tempted to do so. But he realised that the regime could not last, and reserved himself for the moment when it would be overturned, feeling convinced in his mind that that day would be also that of his own personal triumph, and that whether the country liked it or not it would be compelled to turn to him for advice and for help.

When after the first defeats which characterised the war of 1870, the Empress Eugénie felt inclined to appeal to him to help her, and had him sounded by one of her friends who was on terms of close intimacy with him, M. Thiers replied that it was either too late or too early for him to do anything, and that as matters stood, the best thing to do was to allow events to take their course. “But the dynasty,” said his visitor; “are you going to allow the dynasty to fall like that?”

“If the dynasty were wise, I certainly would do my best to support it,” was the unexpected reply; “but the dynasty will not be wise; it will never have the common sense to bring itself to conclude peace just now, and to enforce the conditions of that peace, even by measures of violence against those who would undoubtedly oppose it. If I thought the Regent was strong enough and firm enough to arrest half the members of the Corps Législatif, and to send the other half back to their own firesides to meditate on the wisdom of a useless opposition, if she would make up her mind to govern for a time without the Chambers, then I would at once accept office; but she will never have the courage to take such a responsibility before the country, and therefore I cannot do anything for her. There are moments in the life of nations when it is indispensable for their welfare that those who govern them should feel no hesitation in resorting to violence, and France just now has reached such a moment. It is a thousand pities that the Regent or the Emperor fails to see it is the case. Under such circumstances my help would be useless to them, and it might compromise my own future prospects.”

This conversation gives a very good insight into the character of M. Thiers. It also accounts in part for the ruthlessness which he displayed in the crushing of the Commune a few months later.

Apropos of this, a few weeks before his death, I had the opportunity of talking to him about it at St. Germain, whither he had repaired to spend the summer, and where he was preparing himself for the struggle of the coming elections, which he fondly hoped would prove fatal to the government of Marshal MacMahon, whom he still expected to replace as head of the State. Thiers was in a communicative mood that afternoon, and he spoke with great vivacity of that time when he had displayed such energy, as his friends said--such brutality, as his foes maintained--in fighting the unruly and disorderly elements that had so very nearly destroyed France. On that occasion he used these memorable words: “I know that I have been severely blamed for the orders which I had given to Galiffet, to show no mercy to the insurgents, but, frankly, what else could I do? We had just gone through an unfortunate war; the enemy was at our gates, we had to execute a most onerous treaty, and above all to clear our territory from the invader, who certainly would never have left it, had he thought that this rebellion was going to take the upper hand. We had the whole country to reorganise, and this under the most deplorable conditions that have ever existed in the life of a nation. We were without an army, without any regular government, and had to fight the many ambitions of those who thought to seek their own advantage out of the general ruin. The first thing to do was to strike fear into the hearts of those who already thought that they could bring their own party to the head of affairs and thus add something to the general confusion. Don’t forget that in order to oblige the Prussians to recognise that we were strong enough to rule France, and to rule it well, we had not only to assert ourselves, but also to drive out of the minds of all our opponents, and of these there were legions, the idea that we had not got power enough on our side.

“You tell me that the Commune might easily have been subdued on that eventful and fatal 18th of March. This perhaps is true, because it did not even exist at that time, and we were face to face with a simple insurrection, not with a revolution. But would it have been wise? I don’t think so. Had we not acted as if we were in presence of a real and earnest danger, had I not retired to Versailles in a hurry as I did, the mutiny of the 18th of March would have repeated itself a few months later, and this sort of thing would have gone on continually. The government would have been weakened quite uselessly, and the prestige of France fallen a little lower than was the case already. A revolution is an incident, perhaps sad and bloody, but an incident all the same; whereas continual rebellions mean the demoralisation of a nation.

“I knew that France was demoralised in the sense I mean, but why need the world come to the same conclusion? Surely, none at all. Therefore we had to show the world that we were a strong government, that, what is even more important, we _were_ a government, a fact which many people doubted still; and that as such we were determined to enforce order, to enforce it in the most determined manner possible, even at the risk of spilling more blood than we would have cared to do at other times. Of course I could not foresee the excesses to which the Commune would resort, nor the murder of the hostages, or the destroying of half Paris by fire, but I will be frank with you, I much preferred this to the consequences which would have ensued for the future of France, in an unsettled state of things such as would have resulted had the government of which I was the head not had occasion to show its energy and its decision to make itself respected. Of course, when Bismarck saw that we could cope with the situation, that we did not require his, or anyone else’s help, he gave up all idea of making difficulties in the execution of the different clauses of the treaty of peace. The army also, having just returned from its captivity in Germany, required something to divert it from the many anxious and rebellious thoughts it had had time to indulge in, during the long months of its imprisonment in German fortresses. The Commune came opportunely to allow it to let its thoughts drift into another channel.

“To resume the main point, I do not think that more indulgence towards the rebels would have helped us to regain the position to which even as a defeated nation we were entitled. For these reasons I do not regret that I enjoined severity to the troops that entered Paris. This severity had the result that out of the moral ruins left by the Empire, and those material ruins which resulted from the fleeting victory of the Commune, rose a government which won for itself the respect of Europe, and the esteem of Germany, who, seeing what it was capable of, gave up every thought of putting difficulties in its way. No, when I remember all that happened at that time, I cannot say I am sorry for anything I did, or which was done under my responsibility. I may deplore it, but I cannot regret it. One cannot be sentimental in politics.”

I wrote down this conversation in my diary when I got home, and every time I have the occasion to read it over again, I remember the vivacity with which Thiers developed to me his ideas on this important subject, ideas which I believe have never before been made known to the public.

It is strange how, with all his penetration, and his wonderful insight into politics, Thiers did not foresee the circumstances that brought about his own downfall. There were lacunes in that remarkable mind, lacunes which proceeded from his inordinate vanity. For instance, when he had started on that journey across Europe, in order to implore her help during the Franco-German war, he never for one moment imagined that he would be unsuccessful, or that his entreaties would be repulsed. The indifference with which the fate of his country was viewed beyond its frontiers proved a terrible blow to the old man, who sadly said, or, rather, repeated, the famous words: “Il n’y a plus d’Europe,” when his last hope, his trust in Alexander II. of Russia, also proved elusive. But with his usual ability he managed to mask his defeat under the pretext that neither Italy, Austria, nor Russia would have anything to do with the Imperial regime, and that as they hadn’t been sure it was definitely to be classed among the past things of history, they had thought it best and wisest to remain neutral, and not to interfere with the course of events. Out of that circumstance Thiers made enough capital to ensure his own election as head of the government, and once established at Versailles in that capacity he felt sure that he would remain at his post until his death.

He had no real adversaries worthy of that name. With consummate skill he had succeeded in entirely discrediting the Orleans princes by the willingness with which he had helped them to get back their confiscated millions, and he knew that henceforward they had made themselves impossible. There was still the Comte de Chambord, but in his case Thiers had at his disposal sources of information that left him no doubt as to the attitude that the latter would eventually take, if offered the crown of his ancestors. The only adversaries he dreaded were, therefore, the Bonapartes; and this danger seemed, for the present, to have drifted away by the death of Napoleon III. and the extreme youth of his son.

Whether it was this last circumstance, or simply that his watchfulness had relaxed, the fact remains that Thiers never noticed the storm that was looming in the distance, and threatening him. And when an accidental circumstance brought about his fall, in quite an unexpected manner, he was more astonished than anyone else at the event.

Nevertheless, he took it quite good humouredly, and with far more philosophy than could have been expected from him. I saw him a few days after it had occurred and was struck with his indifference. I think that upon the whole he was glad that his fall had taken place for a neutral cause, and that it had been his person that had been objected to rather than his manner of conducting the government. He hoped that the future would avenge him, and though such an old man, yet he was making plans for the day when France would call him back to the head of affairs. He knew that no matter what his enemies might say, he had deserved and had earned the gratitude of his country, and won for himself a glorious page in its annals. And if the truth be told, he was rather glad to be once more in the ranks of the opposition, and thus able to live over again the past days, when a word of his could overturn a government. He devoted all his energies to the struggle which he fully intended to initiate against President MacMahon, whom he had never liked, even when he had employed him, and whom he never forgave for having taken his place. Thiers had always been of opinion that the Marshal’s intellectual capacities were of the smallest kind, and that except honesty of purpose, he possessed none of the qualifications that are required of the Head of a State. It was gall and wormwood to him, to find his place had been taken by a man who would destroy some of his work, and a great deal of his plans. So he devoted all his energies to prepare the defeat of the Marshal after the latter’s _coup d’état_ of the 16th of May.

Fate, however, interfered and carried off M. Thiers after an illness of a few hours at St. Germain, where, as I have already related, he spent the last summer of his life. In spite of his advanced age, he died in full possession of his faculties, and with his intelligence as bright and clear as it had ever been. The emotion provoked by his death was considerable. The old man was, after all, more popular than one had thought, and the nation was very well aware that in burying him, she was also burying a great patriot, who had been true to her in the hour of her greatest adversity. I followed in his funeral procession, and as we were marching towards distant Père la Chaise, I heard the following remark which left a deep impression on my mind: the more so that it was uttered by a common workman whom certainly I wouldn’t have believed to be capable of it: “Il avait des défauts, le petit homme, mais après tout c’est grâce à lui que Belfort est resté français!” (“He had his faults, the little man; but, after all, it is thanks to him that Belfort remained French”).

I think that Thiers would have thought, had he listened to these words, that they constituted the best recognition that had ever been uttered of his long life of service to the nation.