FRANCE.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 1375, 24 July 1872, Page 3

FRANCE.

The Paris correspondent of the Argus writes as follows, on May 17_i; — " Taat the Parftauentory vacation has brought some enlightenment to our Nationol Assembly is clear enough, for since our deputies Lave resumed their toils they, perhaps grudgingly, but at all events most carefuPy, have followed a l : ne of moderation and goodwPl, which we ought to be the more tbanLfu! for as it seems with them to go somewhat against the g.-a' l. M. Tbiers' position is thereby strengthened and consolidated. The RepuW'.can-slook upon him as the harbinger of a firmly settled .Republic, the jran destined to ivrte what is to be, and such it the meatrTig of the homage paid by Gambetta at Angiers to M. Triers. As to the Monarchists, obliged to " ground arms " for I know not how long m presence of the non possumus of the Count de Cbspnbord and the failure of the fusion, they are aware that, M. Tiners set aside, they have only to choose the " stadtholdership " of the Duke of Aumale, the Republic of M. Gambetta, or the restoration of the Empire. Now the polemics recently entered upon by a legitiu?:st w;lter against the pr>nces of the Orleans fau>'!y prove that the Right repel the fi"st quite as zealously as they do the two others. What, then, remains for them to do ? Ea"y round M. Thiers, and thereby prolong Irs rule to the utmost. The famous " Pact of Bordeaux " is not often spoken about just now ; M. Thiers is its representative, or rather M. Thiers^is the Pact of Bordeaux in person. Now, the strengthening of M. Thiers means the maintenance of the Republic, becoming every day more and more certain. You w*ll perhaps remember what I said a few months since of the power of habit, which even ? i France grows stronger and stronger in the everyday occurrences of private life, and wb'ch is now doing just the same in public politics. With us people are. before eveiything else, and despite all cont^iy seemings, essentially Conservative ; every one reqr'res nothing else but to be allowed to live on end work quietly. People bear iv m.nd that it is good "to let well a'one," and the question is put whether, after a 1 !, the Republic is as incompatible as it is said to be with pub i; .c peace and secu.llf. We are not yet Republicans by taste, but we p^e beg'""iing t_> become such through sheer necessity. And when political indifference; which has hitherto ensured success to the boldest, and allowed the chief power to be the reward of the mos*. daring atterapto, is counterbalanced by the conviction that our fortunes and interests arc safe, all chance for pretenders wi 1 ! for ever have glided away. Business is sti'l slow to recover its briskness, and yet the Monarchists are losing ground every day. The vcy empire no longer arouses the same wrath or awakes the same hopes as heretofore. The greater the chance of success for a political faction, the greater the hatred of its adversaries. Now, the empire — or to speak more correctly, the system it personified — has lately, both in the House and iv the country at large, undergone a defeat from which it can sca> % cely recover. The question at issue was the report and the conclusion of the Special Committee of Inqu ; ry charged with the examination of the contracts entered into by the War Office after the declaration of war against Prussia. r Tho facts .were partly known, having been already pointed out in Parliament in the month of September last, but they required to be embodied and set forth by a firm, precise, honourable, and plain-spoken orator ; and well, indeed, has this task been accomplished by the president of the Committee of Inquh-y, the Duke d'Audiffret-Pasquier. During an hour and a half M. d'Audiffret-Pasquier, amidst the growing indignation of the Assembly, most eloquently showed up to our anger and laid bare before our sight the disorder, the utter negligence, the reckless waste, the disgraceful transactions by which ou\v arsecals were found empty and our resources were exhausted, at the very hour when the mad and disastrous war which cost us so dear broke out. This unanswerable demonstration was closed by a few words fraught with patriotism, nor can I do better than transcribe for you this conclusion as I find it in the Journal Ojfflciel : — " There only remains now for me, gentlemen, to lay before you one concluding observation. When we behold this long and sad procession of dishonest, heartless, griping tradesmen, who in the woes of their country see only an opportunity for making filthy lucre, we are compelled to ask, Who were the teachers of these people? (Hear, hear, and applause.) When we see our peasants so ignorant as not to know that it is wrong to prefer selling their wares to the invader of their country, we ask, Whence cometh the heartlessness ? (Hear, hear.) And when, turning away our gaze from this harrowing sight, we behold our army once more reorganised, — when we see it, silent and laborious, stand aloof from all political passion ; when we call to mind that that army saved us in 1840, and that it saved us again in 1870, and that, should needs be, it is* again ready to save us from our discords and follies, we ask if that is not the school which those ought to be sent to who seem to have forgotten it, that there they may learn how to servo and how to love their native lend. (Hear, hear, and loud cheering.) Let, then all our sons bo sent thither — (loud and repeated cheering) — and let obligatory service be the great school of our future generations !" This language required confirmation, and that confirmation wa3 immediately and fu'ly given by the unanimous resolution of tho Assembly, to wit, that the report and speech of M. D'Audiffret-Pasquier should be printed and stuck up in every parish of France. The Assembly next voted a searching inquiry into the situation of the Government arsenals and dockyards in 1870, when war was declared, und we shall soon know the whole truth with regard to those famous armaments which have swallowed up so many hundreds of millions and left our arsenals empty. One thing or the other : either France was ready, so ready as not to want, according to the expression of

Mr-shal Lebceof, then Mriiafcer of Wor, even ! a button, and that being the case how can we account- for- the utter .destitution in .wiich.pur troops Were plunged at the -outset' of-the campaign ? or the army was hot ready, and then, why wit'i " a light her' 'c " g > nd declare war ? That the Emperor was deceived by his Minister, as this Jitter was fn. his tiivn by his subordinates, is no longer a matter of doubt. Nor is the tlrng -without a precedent. The same mischance bippened to the Emperor Nicholas on the eve ot the Ci -mean war, ana this it was which wrested irom him, some 18 monfchs later on bis bed of de-th this confession, well woiihy of note iv the mouth of a Czo-v of Russia — " A good despot there iriy be, but a good despotism cannot e-'st." Nor could the Emperor Napoleon escape from this u» ; versal fatality attendant on absolute power. The " Papers and Coirespondence of the vjnpeilal Family," pub i; shed after the revolution of the 4th of September, which I spoke of ?u my letters at that time, conHm thereunto a most charactei 'stic pnecdote. A warm fr ; ud to the ex-Emperor, who had made a sufficiently long stay in Prussia to be able to comprehend the immense resources of that nation at the beginning of the wai', was te li; ng en. "itimate acquaintance of hfs that we should not get the better of it for such end such reasons, wb ; ch he expla-'ned with great lucidity. His filend much vexed, said to him, " But how is it the Emperor persists when you explira all tbis to him ?" " Why," said the-othei^ "I was not going to tc?l him anything unpleasant ; why should I rex and disturb him ? A ll the same, the pai iisans. of the fallen empire hare kicked against the pricks, and are determined not to leave unanswered the terrible accusations of M- D'Audiffret-Pa3-quier. On the morrow M. Rouher asked leave of the Houae to call upon the Minister of War to declare what measures the Government ba:l taken with regard to the facts laid before the House in the report of the Committee of Inquiry. The day appointed for the interpellation* is Tuesday, the 21st of May. This remote- date has been blamed. It seemed as though there were a kind of avowal that the question was an embarrassing one, nor did M. Rouher refrain from calling the attention of the House to this appai*ent hesitation, by declaring that he himself was ready at any earlier day that might be rsmed. It is evident that the ex-Minister of the Empirehas no other end- in view than to embai^ass. the Government by bringing about some contradiction between the . Ministry and the Committee of Inquiry or the Assembly. He wIH endeavour to make manifest that the Minister does not look upon the matter with the same eye as the Assembly, sine© none of the officers and clerks accused have been dismissed by him. Mine and countermine, suoh i is M. Rouher's mode of action. 1 It is unhappily true that the Government, and more particularly M. Thiera himself, evJnce great weakness of conduot in whatever concerns the army. I spoke to you in my last letter of the strong repugnance entertained by the President of tne Republic — and that in spite of the overwhelming evidence of his guilt brought forward by the committee of inquiry into the capitulation of Metz — to bring Marshal Bazaine before a council of wax*. That this repugnanca springs from political motives, and has no connection with the Marshal, I am sure ; but public opinion, not knowing those motives, was much angered by this leniency shown towards a man who, if the charges brought against him be found true, has deserved ten times the death suffered by sentence of the courts martial by deserters and the insurgents of the Commune. At length, so strong was the pressure from without that tho Government has been obliged to give in ; but while thus yielding, it has done so ungraciously, and with a kind of resolved on beforehand partiality. Marshal Bazaine, while the committee was still sitting, had, it appears, written to the President of the Republic, claiming his right to be tried by a council of war. Now, it ~is this letter, and not at all the conclusions of the Committee of Inquiry, that the Minister of War has put forward as his motive for introducing a bill before the House, in order to change the articles of the military code which treat of the composition of the council of war called upon to examine the conduct of the great dignitaries of the army, and whose constitution I explained to you in my last letter. It is difficult, says a leading newspaper, to laugh at the public more deliberately than General Cissey has done in this circumstance. The committee, with General Chanzy "for chairman, has taken the matter to heart, and the Minister's resignation was at first expected to be sent in. It seems, however, that an ai-rangernent has been come to. No day has hitherto been appointed for the opening of the trial ; ifc cannot, however, be long coming, for Marshal Bazaine has already surrendered himself a prisoner at Versailles. A private residence has been allotted him for his prison.; a battalion of infantry, commanded by a colonel, " captain of the place," guards the prisoner, who has been allowed to receive visitors properly authorised. Every day ho spends long hours with his counsel, Maitre Lacbaud, the eminent barrister before the criminal court. The Marshal has himself published, a few weeks since, a volume entitled " The Army of the Rhine," which is in truth nothing but a justification of bs own doings. Most of the papers have puWished long extracts therefrom, and among others, the chapter in which he proves, by authentic documents that if, after having allowed himself to be cooped up beneath the walla of Metz, he made no attempts to cut his way through the foe, he only followed the advice of all the chiefs of the army placed under his orders. It is hardly to be supposed that the Marshal will succeed in clearing himself, but very likely in the course of the trial ugly facts may come out against others, and this it is that M. Thiers would fain avoid. Whilst thus anxious to keep in the background whatever may injure the army, he is; equally desirous not to arouse the susceptibility of Prussia, and thus delay the

evacuation of our territory. It is- certain that very active negotiations, though not officially acknowledged, are being carried on between tlie two Governments. Tne general (topinion of Germany is that at the end> of the iprcsent year the six departments still occupied will be quitted by the Prussians, provided no untoward event shall have happened before that period. M. Bismarck, on the other hand, seems resolved, should any event arise likely to endanger the security of the pledge in his hands — such as a conflict between M. Tbiers and the Assembly, or a revolution in Paris, or some grievance complained of — to re-occupy immediately the six departments already evacuated, and to double -the army of occupation, which is at present 50,0? D strong, This circumstance greatly contributes to strengthen the hands of M.'Thier3-in presence of the different parties. Thence, also, bis anxiety to maintain, shall I say the friendly relations which at present exist between France and Germany, and his- care to do nothing nor let anything be done by which the hitter may be offended; This is why he personally interposed, in. order to obtain the withdrawal from fcbe. Saloon (annual exhibition of painting) several pictures, the work of some of our best artists, pourhuy'ng certain episodes of the late invasion, in which the Prussians were naturally represented in the most unfavourable light. Everyone remembers tho great success- obtained at the Saloon of 1863 by the beautiful picture by Robert Henry of "The Massacre of Warsaw," and the strong displeasure it gave to the court of the Czai\ Despots had a good memory. Who knows whether his resentmentdid not still rankle-in the breast of Alexander the Second when M. Thiers stood before him in St. Petersburg in 1870, and he refused the help solicited from him to poor defeated France.