FRANCE. 



293 



the seconds was that no duel took place. Just 

 before this incident Gen. Boulanger had inti- 

 mated, in a conversation that was made public, 

 that during the ministerial crisis he had repelled 

 two incitements to a coup cFetdt, one proceed- 

 ing from the Monarchists, and one approved 

 by ninety-four generals of the army. 



Irritation against Germany. The increase of 

 armaments and greater attention to military 

 precautions in both France and Germany led 

 to acts and incidents that intensified the ill- 

 feeling between the two countries. The Ger- 

 mans expelled a great number of the citizens 

 of Alsace-Lorraine, including a deputy in the 

 Reichstag, named Antoine, and a German offi- 

 cial decoyed a French functionary to the fron- 

 tier, and there had him arrested. (See GEE- 

 MANY). Military trials in Germany afforded 

 proof that Gen. Boulanger had elaborated a 

 system of military intelligence that required 

 the services of many paid agents in Germany. 

 The French have cried out against German 

 spies for years, but have not been so success- 

 ful in detecting their methods. An official in 

 the French War Office was in March detected 

 in giving up documents to the military attache 

 of the German embassy. Several arrests of 

 supposed German spies were made by local 

 officials. The feeling of hostility against Ger- 

 mans was so strong that persons of that nation- 

 ality were nowhere safe from insult. The 

 provocations on both sides were less frequent, 

 and irritation subsided after the retirement of 

 Boulanger, but in the beginning of August the 

 closing of a factory belonging to a German 

 who had burned a French flag at Embernil was 

 followed by the expulsion of French railroad 

 officials from their homes in a German village. 



The Mobilization Experiment. Gen. Boulanger 

 had planned a mobilization test on the German 

 frontier, but his successor was unwilling to 

 take such a course without an understanding 

 with Germany. After some diplomatic corre- 

 spondence it was decided to make the experi- 

 ment on the Spanish frontier, where no fears 

 would be aroused. Four days before the orders 

 were issued the main features of the scheme 

 were divulged by a person who had access to 

 the War Office, and were published in a news- 

 paper. Some changes were made in the plan 

 on this account. The bills for the mobilization 

 were issued on August 30. The 17th Army 

 Corps, including the departments of Arriege, 

 Haute-Garoune, Gers, Lot-et-Garonne, and 

 Tarn-et-Garonne, was ordered to concentrate 

 in the neighborhood of Castelnaudary, in the 

 Aude, to meet a supposed enemy marching on 

 Toulouse. The troops reached the point of 

 concentration in from two to six days, and 

 during the ten days following carried out vari- 

 ous manoeuvres, ending with a march, to the 

 frontier against the putative invader. Serious 

 defects were observed in the administrative 

 services, especially the commissariat, and offi- 

 cers responsible for failures were displaced. 



Manifesto of the Comte de Paris. On September 



14 the Comte de Paris published a manifesto 

 in the form of instructions to the representa- 

 tives of the Royalist party, in which he defined 

 the system of monarchy that he would set up in 

 France. The main features of his scheme are 

 the restoration of the royal prerogative and 

 the re-establishment of an aristocratic senate. 

 He would even deprive the popular represen- 

 tatives of their control over the budget. The 

 restoration of the monarchy might take place 

 by the vote of a constituent assembly or by a 

 plebiscite, and preferably by the latter method, 

 which, however, could not be invoked to un- 

 seat the king, who would be resuming his his- 

 toric right and reviving the covenant with the 

 nation which has its sanction in historical tra- 

 dition. The most important paragraphs of the 

 document are the following: 



It is to direct universal suffrage that the choice of 

 deputies ought to belong. Thanks to its early origin 

 and its recent establishment the monarchy will be 

 sufficiently strong to reconcile the custom of universal 

 suffrage with the guarantees of order which the coun- 

 try, disgusted as it is with the republican system of 

 parliamentary government, will demand of it. The 

 country will desire a strong government, because it 

 clearly understands that even the real parliamentary 

 system, which under the monarchy cast so much 

 splendor on the years from 1815 to 1848, is not com- 

 patible with an assembly elected by universal suf- 

 frage. The method of election must be modified in 

 order to fit it to this new and powerful agent. Under 

 the republic the Chamber governs without control ; 

 under the monarchy the king will govern with the 

 concurrence of the Chambers. 



By the side of the Chamber of Deputies an equal 

 authority will belong to the Senate ; which will be 

 partly elective, and which will unite in itself the rep- 

 resentatives of the great forces and interests of society. 

 Between these two assemblies royalty, having its 

 ministers as interpreters and able to lean for support 

 on either the one or the other, will be enlightened 

 and guided, but not enslaved. It needs but a modi- 

 fication of our parliamentary system to maintain this 

 equilibrium and to obviate all exclusive domination 

 or one Chamber or the other. The budget, instead 

 of being voted annually, will be in future an ordi- 

 nary law, and consequently can only be amended by 

 the agreement of the three powers. Every year the 

 financial project will include only the modifications 

 proposed by the Government on the last budget. If 

 these proposals arc rejected all the public services 

 will not be thrown out of gear, nor will private inter- 

 ests be compromised, as they now would be by the 

 rejection of the budget, and meanwhile real constitu- 

 tional principles will be respected, for no new tax can 

 be imposed, no new expense can be determined on, 

 without the consent of the representatives of the na- 

 tion. 



To these representatives will also fall the task of 

 fully discussing all the subjects which interest the 

 country, of listening to all complaints which the action 

 of the Government can relieve. If these complaints 

 are legitimate, the representatives will be the first to 

 give them utterance, and the adhesion of the other 

 assembly will not fail them. But a caprice of the 

 Chamber of Deputies will no longer be able unex- 

 pectedly to paralyze public life and the national poli- 

 cy. The monarchy will have to re-establish economy 

 in finance, order in administration, and independence 

 in the exercise of justice. The monarchy will have 

 to raise by peaceful means our position in Europe, to 

 make us respected and pur alliance sought after by 

 our neighbors. The ministers who serve the mon- 

 archy in this great undertaking will not be able to 

 persevere in the realization of its views if they are 



