The Situation in Paris

Paris, January 28. The danger of a popular rising has for the time being been averted by the Chamber’s vote against the urgency of the ban on clubs, i.e. against the ban on clubs in general. But a new danger is emerging: the danger of a coup d’état.

Let anyone read today’s National and say whether the fear of a coup d’état does not shine forth from every line.

“Today’s vote is a mortal blow to the cabinet, and we challenge Messrs Odilon Barrot, Faucher and tutti quanti to keep their portfolios any longer.”

So far the National still seems to be in good spirits. But listen to the qualifying clause:

“—without breaking into open revolt against the spirit and the letter of the Constitution!”

And what would Mr Odilon Barrot, Faucher and tutti quanti care about breaking into open revolt against the Constitution! Since when have Barrot and Faucher been enthusiastic about the Constitution of 1848!

The National no longer threatens the ministers; it demonstrates to them that they must resign; it demonstrates to the President that he must dismiss them. And this in a country where, after such a vote, the resignation of ministers has been a matter of course for thirty years!

The President of the Republic, says the National, will hopefully realise that the majority and the cabinet are in complete discord, that by dismissing the cabinet he will tighten the bonds between himself and the majority, that between him and the majority there exists only one obstacle to good understanding: the cabinet.

Indeed, the National is trying to build the ministry a golden bridge for retreat: it wishes the impeachment of the ministers to be dropped. The vote is punishment enough. This last resort should be kept in reserve until the ministers have really violated the constitution by a completed act.

“Yes,” it finally exclaims, “everything makes it the duty of the cabinet to withdraw; its own words bind it to such an extent that we hesitate to believe it will dare to retain power. Mr Barrot declared this evening that, if the urgency were rejected, the Assembly itself would assume responsibility for events. Good, where responsibility ceases, power too must cease. If the cabinet does not want to be responsible for events, it must not direct them either. Mr Barrot laid down his resignation from the tribune by declining responsibility.”

In short: the National does not believe in the voluntary resignation of the ministry, nor in its dismissal by the President.

But if the ministry wants to defy the vote of the Assembly, nothing remains to it but—a coup d’état.

The dissolution of the National Assembly, and the preparation of the monarchist restoration by military force—that is what lurks behind the National’s fear of the ministry’s staying on.

Therefore the National and the red papers implore the people to remain calm, to give absolutely no pretext for intervention, since any riot could only prop up the falling cabinet, could only serve the royalist counter-revolution.

That the coup d’état is drawing ever nearer is proved by the incidents between Changarnier and the officers of the Mobile Guard. Cavaignac’s butchers have no desire to let themselves be used for a royalist coup; therefore they are to be disbanded; they are grumbling, and Changarnier threatens to have them cut down and puts their officers under arrest.

The situation is becoming seemingly complicated; in fact, however, it is becoming very simple, as simple as it is every time on the eve of a revolution.

The conflict between the Assembly and the President together with his ministers has come to a head. France can no longer exist under the impotence by which it has been governed for ten months; the deficit, the depressed state of industry and commerce, the pressure of taxation ruining agriculture, become more intolerable daily; great, incisive measures are becoming ever more pressing, and each new government is ever more impotent and inactive than the previous one; until finally Odilon Barrot has driven inactivity to its peak and in six weeks has done absolutely nothing at all.

By doing so, however, he has greatly simplified the situation. After him, no ministry of the honest Republic is possible any longer. The mixed governments (the Provisional Government and the Executive Commission), the government of the National, the government of the old Left—everything has been tried, everything worn out and used up. The turn now comes to Thiers, and Thiers is the undisguised monarchist restoration.

Monarchist restoration or—the red Republic, that is the only alternative in France now. The crisis may drag on for a few more weeks, but break out it must. Changarnier-Monk with his three hundred thousand, who are entirely at his disposal for 24 hours, seems unwilling to wait any longer either.

Hence the National’s anxiety. It recognises its inability to master the situation; it knows that any violent change of government will bring its most bitter enemies to power, that it is lost under monarchy as under the red Republic. Hence its sighs for a peaceful transaction, its politeness towards the ministers.

We shall see very soon whether, for the final victory of the red Republic, it is necessary that France should pass for a moment through the monarchist phase. It is possible, but not probable.

But this is certain: the honest Republic is collapsing at every corner, and after it, even if only after a few little intermezzos, the only thing possible is the red Republic.