No. 108.
Mr. Noyes
to Mr. Evarts.
Paris, December 7, 1877. (Received December 20.)
Sir: I have the honor to inform you that the political crisis in France culminated last evening in the decision of President McMahon to form a new ministry acceptable to the Republican leaders, and with such guarantees on the part of the Marshal as, it is believed, will preclude the recurrence of such a condition of affairs as that which has brought the French nation into great distress and peril.
Mr. Dufaure has been charged with the formation of the new cabinet, and will, perhaps, be one of its members as president of the council and minister of justice. The names, as reported at this hour, which have been so far chosen for the various departments, are Mr. Leon Say, minister of finances; Mr. de Marcere, interior; Mr. Christople, public works; Mr. Teisserenc de Bort, commerce and agriculture; Mr. Waddington, public instruction. AH of these gentlemen formed part of the Jules Simon ministry, and their names command the highest respect in France and the confidence of the great body of the Republicans. The other portfolios, war, marine, and foreign affairs, are still undetermined, and the Marshal desires to retain the present incumbents, and to treat these departments as outside of partisan politics.
The conditions presented by Mr. Dufaure and agreed to before he would undertake the task of forming a cabinet from the distinguished moderates of the left were that the government should be in truth parliamentary; that is, that the ministers should not be disturbed by the President so long as they could command a parliamentary majority for their measures; that they, and not he, should be responsible; that they should control the appointments to office; that the bill prohibiting the proclamation of a state of siege, and the bill taking away the present heavy restrictions upon peddling and sale of newspapers, should be adopted and voted as government measures. Other minor questions have been also discussed, and it is expected that the President will yet formulate his declaration in a message to the assembly.
The details of names and measures above given will no doubt be somewhat modified, and you will have the result by telegraph before this dispatch reaches you, but the cardinal fact that the President of the republic has abandoned the prolonged and threatening contest with the Chamber of Deputies and the majority of France is now certain, and with it comes an immediate and universal feeling of relief. The upward movement of the Bourse, the tone of the whole press, and the conversation of all I met, testify this sentiment.
[Page 167]The contest has not been a mere straggle for portfolios. It is not temporary. The enormous and complicated machinery of this centralized government has been through generations in the hands of an army of functionaries, numbering hundreds of thousands, whose training, social position, and monarchical tendencies made them an almost insurmountable obstacle to progress toward real republicanism. The tenure of office is practically permanent. The present office-holders generally came into their places and have received their slow promotions at long intervals, under the empire or by the patronage of men of noble families or kindred influences. They are the men who have administered, in its details, the government of a republic, a form of government they detest. It is common to hear men occupying high and responsible positions express the belief and hope that the republic will soon break down with all its train of vulgar and distasteful necessities, the result of popular suffrage. This is one of the reasons why those surrounding the Marshal continued this struggle against the majority so long, even when it seemed vain for them to hope to hold their adherents longer in place. And this is why Mr. Dufaure asked that the new ministry should have complete liberty in appointing and removing place-holders, a condition without which it would be useless to approach the leaders of the republican majority.
I have, &c.,