VOLUME X SLICE VII Fox, George to France (continued 12)

A brief analysis of the composition of the Chamber of Deputies is always impossible, the limits of the numerous groups being ill-defined. But in general terms the majority supporting the radical policy of the bloc in the last parliament, which had usually mustered about 340 votes, now numbered more than 400, including 230 Radical-Socialists and Socialists. The gains of the extreme Left were chiefly at the expense of the moderate or progressist republicans, who, about 120 strong in the old Chamber, now came back little more than half that number. The anti-republican Right, comprising Royalists, Bonapartists and Nationalists, had maintained their former position and were about 130 all told. The general result of the polls of the 6th and 20th of May was thus an electoral vindication of the advanced policy adopted by the old Chamber and a repudiation of moderate Republicanism; while the stationary condition of the reactionary groups showed that the tribulations inflicted by the last parliament on the church had not provoked the electorate to increase its support of clerical politicians.

The Vatican, however, declined to recognize this unmistakable demonstration. The bishops, taking advantage of their release from the concordatory restrictions which had withheld from them the faculty of meeting in assembly, had met at a preliminary conference to consider their plan of action under the Separation Law. They had adjourned for further instructions from the Holy See, which were published on the 10th of August 1906, in a new encyclical Gravissimo officii, wherein, to the consternation of many members of the episcopate, the pope interdicted the associations cultuelles, the bodies which, under the Separation Law, were to be established in each parish, to hold and to organize the church property and finances, and were essential to the working of the act. On the 4th of September the bishops met again and passed a resolution of submission to the Holy See. In spite of their loyalty they could not but deplore an injunction which inevitably would cause distress to the large majority of the clergy after the act came into operation on the 12th of December 1906. They knew only too well how hopeless was the idea that the distress of the clergy would call forth any revulsion of popular feeling in France. The excitement of the public that summer over a painful clerical scandal in the diocese of Chartres showed that the interest taken by the mass of the population in church matters was not of a kind which would aid the clergy in their difficult situation.

At the close of the parliamentary recess M. Sarrien resigned the premiership on the pretext of ill-health, and by a presidential decree of the 25th of October 1906 M. Clémenceau, who had been called to fill the vacancy, took office. The Clémenceau ministry. MM. Bourgeois, Poincaré, Etienne and Leygues retired with M. Sarrien. The new prime minister placed at the foreign office M. Pichon, who had learned politics on the staff of the Justice, the organ of M. Clémenceau, by whose influence he had entered the diplomatic service in 1893, after eight years in the chamber of deputies. He had been minister at Pekin during the Boxer rebellion and resident at Tunis, and he was now radical senator for the Jura. M. Caillaux, a more adventurous financier than M. Rouvier or M. Poincaré, who had been Waldeck-Rousseau’s minister of finance, resumed that office. The most significant appointment was that of General Picquart to the war office. The new minister when a colonel had been willing to sacrifice his career, although he was an anti-Semite, to redressing the injustice which he believed had been inflicted on a Jewish officer—whose second condemnation, it may be noted, had been quashed earlier in 1906. M. Viviani became the first minister of labour (Travail et Prévoyance sociale). The creation of the office and the appointment of a socialist lawyer and journalist to fill it showed that M. Clémenceau recognized the increasing prominence of social and industrial questions and the growing power of the trade-unions.

The acts and policy of the Clémenceau ministry and the events which took place during the years that it held office are too near the present time to be appraised historically. It seems not unlikely that the first advent to power, after thirty-five years of strenuous political life, of one who must be ranked among the ablest of the twenty-seven prime ministers of the Third Republic will be seen to have been coincident with an important evolution in the history of the French nation. The separation of the Roman Catholic Church from the state, by the law of December 1905, had deprived the Socialists, the now most powerful party of the extreme Left, of the chief outlet for their activity, which hitherto had chiefly found its scope in anti-clericalism. Having no longer the church to attack they turned their attention to economical questions, the solution of which had always been their theoretical aim. At the same period the law relating to the Contract of Association of 1901, by removing the restrictions (save in the case of religious communities) which previously had prevented French citizens from forming association without the authorization of the government, had formally abrogated the individualistic doctrine of the Revolution, which in all its phases was intolerant of associations. The law of June 1791 declared the destruction of all corporations of persons engaged in the same trade or profession to be a fundamental article of the French constitution, and it was only in the last six years of the Second Empire that some tolerance was granted to trade-unions, which was extended by the Third Republic only in 1884. In that year the prohibition of 1791 was repealed. Not quite 70 unions existed at the end of 1884. In 1890 they had increased to about 1000, in 1894 to 2000, and in 1901, when the law relating to the Contract of Association was passed, they numbered 3287 with 588,832 members. The law of 1901 did not specially affect them; but this general act, completely emancipating all associations formed for secular purposes, was a definitive break with the individualism of the Revolution which had formed the basis of all legislation in France for nearly a century after the fall of the ancient monarchy. It was an encouragement and at the same time a symptom of the spread of anti-individualistic doctrine. This was seen in the accelerated increase of syndicated workmen during the years succeeding the passing of the Associations Law, who in 1909 were over a million strong. The power exercised by the trade-unions moved the functionaries of the government, a vast army under the centralized system of administration, numbering not less than 800,000 persons, to demand equal freedom of association for the purpose of regulating their salaries paid by the state and their conditions of labour. This movement brought into new relief the long-recognized incompatibility of parliamentary government with administrative centralization as organized by Napoleon.

In another direction the increased activity in the rural districts of the Socialists, who hitherto had chiefly worked in the industrial centres, indicated that they looked for support from the peasant proprietors, whose ownership in the soil had hitherto opposed them to the practice of collectivist doctrine. In the summer of 1907 an economic crisis in the wine-growing districts of the South created a general discontent which spread to other rural regions. The Clémenceau ministry, while opposing the excesses of revolutionary socialism and while incurring the strenuous hostility of M. Jaurès, the Socialist leader, adopted a programme which was more socialistic than that of any previous government of the republic. Under its direction a bill for the imposition of a graduated income tax was passed by the lower house, involving a scheme of direct taxation which would transform the interior fiscal system of France. But the income tax was still only a project of law when M. Clémenceau unexpectedly fell in July 1909, being succeeded as prime minister by his colleague M. Briand. His ministry had, however, passed one important measure which individualists regarded as an act of state-socialism. It took a long step towards the nationalization of railways by purchasing the important Western line and adding it to the relatively small system of state railways. Previously a more generally criticized act of the representatives of the people was not of a nature to augment the popularity of parliamentary institutions at a period of economic crisis, when senators and deputies increased their own annual salary, or indemnity as it is officially called, to 15,000 francs.

(J. E. C. B.)

(Continued in volume X slice VIII.)

1 By the Service géographique de l’armée.

2 The etymology of this name (sometimes wrongly written Golfe de Lyon) is unknown.

3 In 1907 deaths were superior in number to births by nearly 20,000.

4 The following list comprises the three most densely-populated and the three most sparsely populated departments in France:

Inhabitants to the Square Mile.

Seine 20,803 Basses-Alpes 42

Nord 850 Hautes-Alpes 49

Rhône 778 Lozère 64

5 Inspectors are placed at the head of the synodal circumscriptions; their functions are to consecrate candidates for the ministry, install the pastors, &c.

6 Cultures industrielles.—Under this head the French group beetroot, hemp, flax and other plants, the products of which pass through some process of manufacture before they reach the consumer.

7 Fibre only. In the years 1896-1905, 8130 tons of hemp-seed and 12,137 tons of flax-seed was the average annual production in addition to fibre.

8 The chief breeds of horses are the Boulonnais (heavy draught), the Percheron (light and heavy draught), the Anglo-Norman (light draught and heavy cavalry) and the Tarbais of the western Pyrenees (saddle horses and light cavalry). Of cattle besides the breeds named the Norman (beef and milk), the Limousin (beef), the Montbéliard, the Bazadais, the Flamand, the Breton and the Parthenais breeds may be mentioned.

9 The department is also entrusted with surveillance over river-fishing, pisciculture and the amelioration of pasture.

10 The metric ton = 1000 kilogrammes or 2204 ℔.

11 Includes manufactories of glue, tallow, soap, perfumery, fertilizers, soda, &c.

12 See the Guide officiel de la navigation intérieure issued by the ministry of public works (Paris, 1903).

13 Includes horses, mules and asses.

14 Except certain manufactures which come under the category of articles of food.

15 Includes small fancy wares, toys, also wooden wares and furniture, brushes, &c.

16 Decrease largely due to Spanish-American War (1898).

17 The administration of posts, telegraphs and telephones is assigned to the ministry of commerce and industry or to that of public works.

18 The province or provinces named are those out of which the department was chiefly formed.

19 The tax on land (propriétés non bâties) and that on buildings (propriétés bâties) are included under the head of contribution foncière.

20 With revenues of over £1200.

21 For a history of the French debt, see C.F. Bastable, Public Finance (1903).

22 In 1894 the rentes then standing at 4½% were reduced to 3½%, and in 1902 to 3%.

23 Algerian native troops are recruited by voluntary enlistment. But in 1908, owing to the prevailing want of trained soldiers in France, it was proposed to set free the white troops in Algeria by applying the principles of universal service to the natives, as in Tunis.

24 Kerguelen lies in the Great Southern Ocean, but is included here for the sake of convenience.

25 In 1906 the number of registered electors in these colonies was 199,055, of whom 106,695 exercised their suffrage.

26 In the case of Madagascar by decree of the 11th of December 1895.

27 The Indo-China budget is reckoned in piastres, a silver coin of fluctuating value (1s. 10d. to 2s.). The budget of 1907 balanced at 50,000,000 piastres.

28 St Eligius, bishop of Noyon, apostle of the Belgians and Frisians (d. 659?).

29 The assurement (assecuratio, assecuramentum) differed from the truce, which was a suspension of hostilities by mutual consent, in so far as it was a peace forced by judicial authority on one of the parties at the request of the other. The party desiring protection applied for the assurement, either before or during hostilities, to any royal, seigniorial or communal judge, who thereupon cited the other party to appear and take an oath that he would assure the person, property and dependents of his adversary (qu’il l’assurera, elle et les siens). This custom, which became common in the 13th century, of course depended for its effectiveness on the degree of respect inspired in the feudal nobles by the courts. It was difficult, for instance, to refuse or to violate an assurement imposed by a royal bailli or by the parlement itself. See A. Luchaire, Manuel des institutions françaises (Paris, 1892), p. 233.—(W. A. P.)

30 Earl of Richmond; afterwards Arthur, duke of Brittany (q.v.).

31 Olivier de Serres, sieur de Pradel, spent most of his life on his model farm at Pradel. In 1599 he dedicated a pamphlet on the cultivation of silk to Henry IV., and in 1600 published his Théâtre d’agriculture et ménage des champs, which passed through nineteen editions up to 1675.

32 Ferdinand is reported to have said: “Le capucin m’a désarmé avec son scapulaire et a mis dans capuchon six bonnets électoraux.”

33 Jean Orry Louis Orry de Fulvy (1703-1751), counsel to the parlement in 1723, intendant of finances in 1737, founded at Vincennes the manufactory of porcelain which was bought in 1750 by the farmers general and transferred to Sèvres.

34 Louis Robert Hippolyte de Bréhan, comte de Plélo (1699-1734), a Breton by birth, originally a soldier, was at the time of the siege of Danzig French ambassador to Denmark. Enraged at the return to Copenhagen, without having done anything, of the French force sent to help Stanislaus, he himself led it back to Danzig and fell in an attack on the Russians on the 27th of May 1734. Plélo was a poet of considerable charm, and well-read both in science and literature.

See Marquis de Bréhan, Le Comte de Plélo (Nantes, 1874); R. Rathery, Le Comte de Plélo (Paris, 1876); and P. Boyé, Stanislaus Leszczynski et le troisième traité de Vienne (Paris, 1898).

35 Charles Laure Hugues Théobald, duc de Choiseul-Praslin (1805-1847), was deputy in 1839, created a peer of France in 1840. He had married a daughter of General Sebastiani, with whom he lived on good terms till 1840, when he entered into open relations with his children’s governess. The duchess threatened a separation; and the duke consented to send his mistress out of the house, but did not cease to correspond with and visit her. On the 18th of August 1847 the duchess was found stabbed to death, with more than thirty wounds, in her room. The duke was arrested on the 20th and imprisoned in the Luxembourg, where he died of poison, self-administered on the 24th. It was, however, popularly believed that the government had smuggled him out of the country and that he was living under a feigned name in England.

36 T.T. de Martens, Recueil des traités, &c., xii. 248.

37 In the 14th volume of his L’Empire libéral (1909) M. Émile Ollivier gives a detailed and illuminating account of the events that led up to the war. He indignantly denies that he ever said that he contemplated it “with a light heart,” and says that he disapproved of Gramont’s demand for “guarantees,” to which he was not privy. His object is to prove that France was entrapped by Bismarck into a position in which she was bound in honour to declare war. (Ed.)