FRANCE. 



329 



cruisers are to be built, some of them having 

 already been begun. 



The navy was manned in 1890 by 27,685 war- 

 rant officers and sailors and officered by 15 vice- 

 admirals, 30 rear-admirals, 100 captains of ves- 

 sels, 200 frigate captains, 700 lieutenants, 420 

 ensigns, and 290 cadets. The marine infantry 

 numbered 19,565 officers and men ; the marine 

 artillery, 5,774. In the budget of 1890 the sum 

 appropriated to the navy, exclusive of the colo- 

 nies, was 205,214,225 francs. 



Imprisonment of the Duke of Orleans. 

 Louis Philippe Robert, Duke of Orleans, eld- 

 est son of the Count of Paris, on Feb. 6, 1890, 

 the day on which he attained his majority, 

 set out from Lausanne, where he was following 

 the course in the Military Gymnasium, in com- 

 pany with his friend the Due de Luynes, deter- 

 mined to brave the law of expulsion by offering 

 himself as a recruit in the French army, in 

 which every Frenchman owes three years' serv- 

 ice from his twenty-first year. Having chosen 

 the military career, he desired as a Frenchman 

 to enter the French army rather than take serv- 

 ice under, a foreign government, and therefore, 

 without consultation with his father, who was 

 in the West Indies, he hastened to present him- 

 self at the recruiting bureau, telegraphing to 

 his mother in Spain that he could not attend 

 the funeral of his grandfather, the Due de 

 Montpensier, because duty required him to be 

 in Paris. On the following day he arrived in 

 Paris, and, going to the recruiting office, said 

 that he was the Duke of Orleans, and asked to 

 be entered as a recruit of the class of 1887. The 

 law of expulsion prevented him from obtaining 

 a commission, but it did not forbid him, he said, 

 to be a common soldier and perform his three 

 years of service like everybody else. The offi- 

 cer in charge said that he was not on the list, 

 and told him to go to the Mairie, where the 

 names to be drawn are inscribed. From the 

 Mairie he was referred to the Ministry of War, 

 and, obtaining no satisfaction, he presented his 

 case in a letter to the Minister of War, which 

 was scarcely dispatched when the commissary of 

 police came and conducted him to the prefect 

 of police, who sent him under arrest to the 

 prison of the Conciergerie. From there he wrote 

 a letter to President Carnot, saying that, whereas 

 Jules Grevy's Government had turned him out 

 of his country in 1886, the present Government 

 had gone farther by throwing him into prison, 

 when his only thought was to serve his country 

 as a private soldier. A descendant of Henry 

 IV and of many princes who had died on battle 

 fields, he appealed to every one who loved the 

 profession of arms and the tricolor and who un- 

 derstood what a Frenchman owes to his country. 



The Cabinet had concluded to have him quiet- 

 ly conducted to the frontier, and M. Constans 

 was still of the same opinion, when the letters to 

 the Minister of War and to the President of the 

 republic convinced M. Tirard and the other 

 members of the Cabinet that the law should be 

 invoked. As the prince had been caught in the 

 act, it was held that the preliminary investiga- 

 tion could be dispensed with. 



The law of June 22, 1886, forbids the terri- 

 tory of the republic to chiefs of the families that 

 have reigned in France and their direct heirs in 



the order of primogeniture, and prescribes the 

 penalty of from two to five years of imprison- 

 ment for him who in violation of the interdict is 

 found in France, Algeria, or the colonies, direct- 

 ing that at the expiration of his punishment he 

 shall be reconducted to the frontier. The duke 

 was taken to the police court on Feb. 8, and said 

 that he came to get enrolled as a common soldier 

 under the law of July, 1889, which was a law of 

 equality, while the law under which he was ar- 

 raigned was a law of exception. At the sugges- 

 tion of Andre Buffet, son of the ex-Premier, he 

 applied for three days' postponement, to which 

 he was entitled, in order to be defended by coun- 

 sel. On Feb. 10, Cazenove de Pradine, formerly 

 an adherent of the Comte de Chambord and one 

 of the Royalists who strongly disapproved the 

 alliance with Boulangism, moved in the Cham- 

 ber the repeal of the law of expulsion. M. de 

 Thevenet, the Minister of Justice, said that the 

 time was badly chosen when the law of 1886 

 had been violated to demand its repeal, and the 

 proposal was rejected by 328 votes to 171. To 

 the Royalist Deputies and Senators who placed 

 themselves at his disposition, the duke replied 

 that he had no counsels to offer on political sub- 

 jects, as that was his father's affair. He was 

 brought before the correctional tribunal on Feb. 

 13, and to the interrogatory of the presiding 

 judge he answered that he came to France to 

 be a soldier, not to meddle in politics ; that he 

 knew what he exposed himself to, but loved his 

 country and wanted to serve in the French 

 army, and was therefore guilty of no crime ; 

 that he desired his counsel to offer no defense, 

 having no need of indulgence or wish for clem- 

 ency ; that he honored the French magistracy 

 and" respected its decisions, but was certain if 

 they condemned him that the 200,000 conscripts 

 of his class and all honorable people would ac- 

 quit him. Maitre Rousse, his counsel, interposed 

 to describe his act as one of high spirit and pas- 

 sion, prompted only by his youth and his heart, 

 that serious people had called a childish freak ; 

 but he prayed that in the hour of danger they 

 might have among them many children like this 

 one. His argument, which he placed in the hands 

 of the court, since his client disclaimed all legal 

 defense, was that the general law of 1889, re- 

 quiring even expatriated Frenchmen to appear 

 at the recruiting office and imposing severe pen- 

 alties and stigmas for non-compliance, repealed 

 all former acts to the contrary, and consequently 

 the exceptional and revocable law of 1886 in so 

 far as it was incompatible with the absolute pro- 

 visions of the law of 1889. The court decided 

 that the contravention of the law of banishment 

 had been proved, and condemned the duke to 

 two years' imprisonment. The deliverance of 

 the sentence was followed by a noisy demonstra- 

 tion of Royalists and the arrest of many persons. 

 When the statutory ten days passed without an 

 appeal being made, the Cabinet deliberated 

 whether the duke should be pardoned and es- 

 corted across the frontier or sent to prison. The 

 Royalist newspaper writers and politicians had 

 in the mean time extolled the young prince as a 

 hero and hailtd him as a political leader. Still 

 M. de Freycinet and M. Constans, as well as 

 President Carnot, were in favor of pardon, 

 while M. Thevenet, M. Spuller, and others, were 



