HISTORY OF CONTEMPORARY FRANCE

1870-1900

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BOOK I 1870-1873

BOOK II 1873-1875

BOOK III (1875-1877)

BOOK IV 1877-1890

The men of the Third Republic:

MARSHAL MACMAHON 

(1808 – 1893)

SOME seven-and-forty years ago tliere was entered at the Military School of St. Cyr a boy of seventeen, who, besides other merits, possessed that of being the son of a Peer of France, an advantage which in those days rendered others superfluous. St. Cyr was not then what it had been in the "Usurper's"—that is, in Napoleon's—time, a training place for aspirant captains of all classes. It was stocked with noblemen—Rohans, Montmorencys, Harcourts, Luynes; and the great amuse- ment of these young bucks was to go to Paris of a Sunday and make disturbances at the Theatre Français by hissing Mdlle. Mars, suspected of Bonapartism; or to pick quarrels in the streets with Liberal journalists. Perhaps the young cadet, who was by-and-by to be M. Thiers's chief lieutenant in the government of France, may have now and then planned in his dormitory how he and his friends might fasten a quarrel on the "bumptious scribbler" who was defaming Charles X in the Constitutionnel, and publishing his disloyal "History of the Revolution" in monthly parts; and it is probable that if the scribbler in question had shown himself less ready on all occasions to lay down his pen for the sword, his life might have been made so burdensome to him as to have nipped his political ambition in the bud.

Those were days when men did not keep their opinions in their breast pockets, to be displayed here and there when needful; they flaunted them high on their heads, like a set of plumes. M. Constant de Rebecque, editor of the Minerve, better known as Benjamin Constant, having fought half-a-dozen times, hired a fencing master at last to sign his articles for him, and give an account of visitors. This gentleman couched five officers of the King's Body Guard on the sward of the Bois de Boulogne within twelve months. Three-and-twenty St. Cyrians having thereupon drawn lots, and sworn to fight him turn by turn until he was worsted, he accepted the challenge, and would have faced it had not the Body Guard hit upon the much more feasible plan of loosing upon him a rival bravo named Chocquart. The honest pair met on a patch of ground where the Avenue d'Eylau now stands, the spectators being more than fifty in number, and comprising many of the leading writers of the Liberal press and the principal officers-in-waiting on the King. The duel lasted three-quarters of an hour, at the end of which time the Liberal champion, outwitted by a secret thrust, had his throat cut from ear to ear. And it is a pleasing characteristic of the period that Benjamin Constant, instead of wasting time in useless grief over his defender's fate, forthwith bethought him of hiring the vanquisher at an increased salary to take his place.

Let any one who attended the earlier performances of Rabagas at Paris or Bordeaux, and who thought them exciting, just imagine what the excitement was when, soon after Napoleon's death, it became bruited about that in a performance of Cinna, the actor Talma, who had been the Emperor's personal friend, would play the part of Augustus with his face made up like Bonaparte's! The Theatre Français was crowded from roof to basement, the entire school of St. Cyr being there, with their wliite handkerchiefs tied round their sleeves in guise of Royalist armlets. The Latin Quarter students, who, like other Liberals of the day, made—Heaven forgive them!—common cause with the Bonapartists, choked up the gallery and pit ; retired officers of the Grande Armée were everywhere to be seen with bunches of violets (the Imperialist flower) in their button-holes; and the Guards officers, in full uniform, clustered together by dozens, ready for any such pretty piece of work as buffeting a Liberal first, and then skewering him afterwards. Of course the police, having wind of all this, carefully superintended M. Talma's dressing before the curtain rose, but whether it was from accident or design the actor was no sooner on the stage than he stroked down over his forehead the well-known wisp of hair which distinguished Napoleon ; and at this the house rose en masse. The Liberals cheered enthusiastically, and the Royalists retorted with roars of Vive le Roi! Nor was this mere empty barking with no bite to follow, for, above the din of voices, slaps on the face resounded loud and frequent ; and the Quotidienne of the morrow remarked naively, "Une centaine de duels a clos cette memorable soirée; mais nous croyons qu'il n'y a eu de dénouement fatal que dans sept cas seulemen".

Brought up amid gunpowdery scenes of this kind—in the which he was always an active and foremost performer—is it to be wondered at that the young Maurice de MacMahon should have started in the army as a Legitimist fire-eater of the fiercest kind ? Handsome, brave, and well connected, he was placed at once on the staff, and the Revolution of '30 found him fighting in the Algerian Expedition. He did not, however, give in his resignation because an Orleans had succeeded a Bourbon, but it is probable that he kept the worship of the Bourbons quietly locked up in his heart. There was a very numerous class of officers like him who swore allegiance to the new state of things, accepted promotion and favours from the Government, and even fought well for it. But they never loved nor respected the dummy form of rule which was neither fish nor flesh, neither monarchy nor freedom, and which dragged on a precarious existence without dignity abroad or safety at home for eighteen years. A French soldier can understand royalism, and he can appreciate republicanism; but bis frankness and his innate good sense fret under a system composed of continual compromises and fictions. People wonder that tbe Orleanist monarchy, so sedulously nurtured and propped from '30 to '48, should have collapsed in a couple of days; but it would collapse again, and in half the time, should the French be ever so foolish as to restore it.

The ties of tradition and personal respect for the Sovereign which attach Constitutional monarchy to the English soil are wholly wanting in France. Constitutional monarchy there is an anachronism and an absurdity. From the moment when the French definitely discarded their old Royal family in 1830, upon finding that it refused to adapt itself to modern ideas, Republicanism became the only form of government compatible with the well-being and stability of the country. It would have been an immense benefit for France if officers of MacMahon's stamp had perceived this and resolutely cast in their lot with the Republicans of 1848. But in 1848 MacMahon was a colonel, an ofiicer of the Legion of Honour, a Conservative, and the rest of it. He had watched the fall of Louis Philippe with silent contempt, and attributed it all to "Liberalism;" and though he suffered himself to be promoted to a generalship by the new Government—for one should never decline favours—yet he assuredly clung to the hope that France might soon be blessed with a "regime of order" again, which generally seems to mean a regime that has been tried before and has given fitful order to the streets by introducing disorder into the public finances, into the public morals, and into the public ideas of international amity.

There is nothing in which political croakers more excel than in flinging stones at a Government like the Provisional one of '48, accusing it of weakness, and shouting " Booby !" to it because it was knocked over. How many are there who care to remember that this Government of '48, composed of honest men who had not a thought but for their country's good, was assailed by fifty thousand priests and twice that number of nobles, who sowed hatred against it in the provinces; by selfish myriads of shopkeepers, who, not having had the courage to maintain the dynasty they professed to love, were now whining for its return in the name of damaged trade ; and by gangs of Bonapartists working in the dark with money and falsehoods to stir up all the bad, envious, and ignorant blood of the country, for their own purposes ? And to support it this Government was forced to depend on what ?—an army, whose officers, like MacMahon, vouchsafed it a sulky allegiance, and were never tired of clamouring after the least street riot, "Ah, yes, this all comes of liberty!"

The re-establishment of the Empire found General MacMahon quite ready to swear a fourth oath of fealty, and to accept such good things as Providence by the hands of the Imperial dynasty might cast in his way. He would have preferred a Bourbon restoration ; but Henri V being unenterprising Napoleon III was no bad substitute. There would be no freedom now, or any nonsense of that sort. The descendant of a man who had been proscribed for his faith would no longer have his ears shocked by hearing other men proclaim their faiths and their convictions. Napoleon was to be everything, and he—MacMahon—in common with all other gentlemen and plebeians of France, nothing "but a cypher, prohibited from speaking or thinking for himself. Ennobling consummation ! And how worthy a one to be fought for and prayed for in the name of order !

MacMahon was at this time a vigorous-looking gentleman, with clear blue eyes, a firm mouth, and silent ways. He had little to say on any subject ; but he was regarded as the most chivalrous among officers ; for, as the world is ordered at present, a man who would not abet the swindling of a penny at cards may consent to aid in cheating the liberties of a whole nation from it without ceasing to be the soul of honour. Then MacMahon was a good general, and indeed, for his own comfort, perhaps too good a one ; for, finding himself suddenly Duke of Magenta, after undoubtedly saving Napoleon from a premature Sedan, he became by the same stroke a man upon whom the Imperial Government resolved to keep its eye, and whom it lost no time in despatching to Algiers, so as to get him out of the way. Poor Algiers ! The new-fledged Duke and Marshal could not ascribe it to Liberalism if everything went wrong here, as he had seen it do in France under the Republic. Most conscientiously did he try guillotine and rifle, admonitions to the press and imprisonment of journalists. Despite these encouragements, the ill-conditioned colony would persist in not thriving ; and after six years of ducal management Algeria was beginning to loom up before France as a dismal problem to be faced, when, luckily or unluckily, the "orderly" policy of that great slayer of disorder, the Emperor, turned the attention of the country to unpleasant subjects nearer home.

The accession to power of the Ollivier Cabinet was the pretext chosen for abandoning the idea of founding an Arab kingdom under military rule, and MacMahon resigned the Governor-Generalship.

On the declaration of war with Prussia he was appointed to the command of the 1st Corps d'Armée, charged with the defence of Alsace ; and on the 6th of August, 1870, was defeated between Woërth and Reichsoffen by the Crown Prince of Prussia, and forced to abandon the line of the Vosges. He had 35,000 men under his orders, the Prince was at the head of 75,000, and MacMahon's disaster was complete. He lost 4,000 prisoners, thirty-six cannons, and two standards. His subsequent retreat to Nancy with only 18,000 men was so ably conducted, however, that the Emperor confided to him the command-in-chief of the new levies then mustering at Chalons. Unluckily, he was thwarted by much interference, and tied down to act on a plan of campaign which is now allowed to have been ill-considered. Having received formal orders to march to the relief of Bazaine at Metz, he was driven by the rapid advance of the Crown Prince into the trap of Sedan, and on the 1st of September, early in the morning, after being dangerously wounded in the thigh, resigned his command to General Ducrot. He cannot, therefore, be held responsible for the mischief that followed.

After the Emperor's surrender, MacMahon was specially authorised by the King of Prussia to reside at Pourru-aux-Bois, a little village on the frontiers of Belgium, but as soon as his wound was healed he voluntarily shared the captivity of his troops in Germany. He returned to Paris on the 1 8th of March, 1871 , at the outbreak of the Communist insurrection. In the beginning of April he was appointed by a decree of the Executive power to lead the Versailles army, and on the 28th of May, after some days of desperate fighting, made himself master of the capital, and issued a mild proclamaticion.

At the supplementary elections of the 2nd of July following, several departments (among others the Seine) offered to elect him their representative, and a strong party in the Assembly desired to make him Vice-President of the Republic; but he declined these honours, and refused to have anything to do with politics. And now, these subjects having been disposed of, MacMahon stands at Thiers's right, with his hand on his sword and his lips enigmatically sealed. But why this silence? Does MacMahon ignore the fact that a word from him at this juncture, when France is struggling desperately to regain her health and strength, would fall as the most precious of balms to heal her wounds? What would be the effect on the credit, on the hopes, on the prospects of France, if MacMahon were to step out at this moment and declare himself a Republican ? There need be no abjuration, no infidelity, in such a statement. That man is no renegade who, considering his country's fall, opens his eyes to the causes which led to it. On one side is a great and generous nation over-whelmed, and yet prevented from rising and wielding her might by the unpatriotic machinations of a horde of Pretenders ; on the other, there is a man who, respected, and justly so, or his bravery and domestic virtues, has only to say a word to draw almost the entire French army after him in loyalty to the Republican flag, which is not the banner of a party or of a faction, but that of a whole people. Why does not MacMahon say this word ? He surely does not suppose that the title of High Constable which a Bourbon Restoration might give him, could rival that which would attach to his name as one of the pacificators of France and founders of French freedom ?

Marie-Edmé-Patrice-Maurice de MacMahon was born at Sully, near Autun, in the department of Saone-et-Loire, on the 13th of July, 1808. He descended from an ancient family of Irish Catholics, who followed the fortunes of the Stuarts, and took refuge in Burgundy. His father was one of the few personal friends of Charles X, who remained king of France just long enough to open the great gates of life for the future marshal, and show him the way through. He first fleshed his sword and won the cross of honour at Algiers. He was aide-de-camp to General Achard at the siege of Antwerp, and was promoted to be a captain at twenty-five. His military services have been more numerous and splendid than those of any living officer in the French army. He was at the storming of Constantino, in 1837, was wounded there, and behaved with signal gallantry. His courage, indeed, was a proverb. Having been ordered on one occasion to carry an order from General Changarnier to the colonel of his regiment, which was separated from the corps d'armée by a vast horde of Bedouins, he was told to take a squadron of dragoons with him. "They are too few or too many," he replied : "too many to pass unseen, too few to beat the enemy. I will go alone." And he went. It was he who led the famous assault on the Malakoff, which decided the issue of the Crimean War; and Marshal Pelissier, seeing his extreme danger, twice sent him orders by an aide-de-camp to retire from the perilous position he had taken up. "Let me alone," roared MacMahon at the second message ; " I am master of my own skin." It was he again down the dangerous expedition of the Kabyles, in 1857, and drove them from their mountain fastnesses, which had previously been thought inaccessible. It was he who won the day at Magenta, and turned defeat into victory. Finally, it was he who put down the terrible civil war which devastated France after her defeat by the Germans, and who saved Paris from destruction by fire. Such deeds have no faint claim to a nation's gratitude, and France has given him all she had to bestow.

It is not going too far to say that he is the most popular man in the country. He lives a retired, unostentatious life, and though he displayed extraordinary pomp when sent a few years ago on an embassy to Prussia, his manners are unpretending, and his dress plain. He seldom appears in uniform, and the only mark of distinction he wears is the red ribbon. His most marked characteristics are a love of children and a fondness for study. He made his triumphal entry into Milan with a little girl, who had offered him a nosegay, perched upon his holsters. He is probably as well versed in military history as Faidherbe, and is often busy with a child and a map upon his knees. His favourite amusement is riding. In society he is shy, almost sad, and seems ill at ease. He likes to saunter about the boulevard, with bis hands in his pockets and a cigar eternally in his mouth, when he is not on horseback; and he is seen to most advantage at home surrounded by his family.

 

MARSHAL MACMAHON (1808 – 1893)