Page:The Annual Register 1899.djvu/253

 FOREIGN AND COLONIAL HISTORY.

CHAPTER L

FBANCE AND ITALY. I. FRANCE.

When the year opened it was not only parliamentary govern- ment in France which seemed in peril, but it was the very existence of the republic which was at stake, and many doubted if it would find defenders. The Army seemed ready to rise against the nation. The constitution of 1875 was apparently so unable to bear the strain upon its provisions that M. de Marcere, a former minister of Marshal MacMahon, opened a campaign in favour of its revision. The enemies of the republic openly pushed forward their plans, and day after day an unbridled press cried aloud for a military coup d'etat. Throughout the provinces discharged soldiers formed themselves into groups or federations, taking their instructions from the central committee, composed of the leading Nationalists, whilst in order to get hold of the nouvelles couches of the electorate they got hold of the younger men as they were released from military service.

The Clerical propaganda, undertaken by the Assumptionist Fathers, at the same time made war to the knife on all loyal servants of the republic throughout the country. With the aid of furious newspapers, which adopted the names of the ancient provinces (La Croix du Maine, de Bourgogne, de Guienne), they hoped to familiarise their readers with the idea of a return to the ancien regime. The conspirators managed so well that they made it seem ridiculous for any one to call himself a Republican ; and in a country like France where fashion reigns supreme this symptom was most serious. Above all the Government was presided over by a politician who had not shrunk from making himself in Parliament the apologist of political inconsistency, and who had taken credit to himself for the promptness with which he had shifted his rifle from one shoulder to the other. It would be doing no wrong to M. Dupuy's Cabinet to say that it was despised by all parties. It was believed to be capable of resorting to any subterfuges to save itself, and the public dis-