[Bonaparte's Financial Maneuvers.—
Military Despotism]^[557]

Paris, May 27, 1858

The dilapidated state of the Bonapartist Exchequer cannot longer be said to form a matter of dispute. It has been openly proclaimed by the "savior of property"[558] himself. In no other way is it possible to account for General Espinasse's circular to the French Prefects[a], calling upon them to use their influence, and, "if need be, their authority," in order to induce the trustees of hospitals and other charitable institutions to convert the real property from which they derive their revenues into three per cent consols. That property amounts to $100,000,000, but, as Bonaparte, in the name of the poor, bewails, does riot report an income of more than 2½ per cent. If invested in the Funds the revenue would improve by at least one half. In his paternal solicitude Bonaparte had recently bid the Council of State to initiate a law for this conversion of the landed property of the charitable establishments into funded property, but, strange to say, his own Council of State doggedly declined to take the hint. What he thus failed in effecting in the legislative way he now tries to get at in the "executive way," by a military ordre du jour. There are some people silly enough to fancy that he only intends increasing the funds by the maneuver. Nothing can be further off the mark. If the above-named landed property was sold at its nominal value of $100,000,000, a great part of that purchase money would of course be forthcoming from capital till now invested in consols and other public securities, so that the artificially created demand for the funds would be met by heaps of them thrown into the open market. The operation might even result in a further depression of the security market. However, Bonaparte's scheme is of a much sounder and more intelligible character. For the 100,000,000 of landed property he intends creating 100,000,000 of new Rentes. With the one hand he wants to seize the property of the charitable establishments, and with the other to indemnify them by drawing a cheque upon the "grand livre"[b] of the nation. On a former occasion, when examining the French Bank act of 1857[c], we dwelt upon the enormous privileges Bonaparte had bestowed upon the Bank, at the cost of the State, with a view to secure himself a miserable loan of $20,000,000[d] We considered that Bank act as a financial cry of distress on the part of the savior of society, but since that time the disasters overwhelming French commerce, industry and agriculture have rebounded upon the Exchequer, while its expenses were increasing at an awful ratio. The different ministries for 1858 actually require 79,804,004 francs more than they did in 1855; the expense for the army alone amounting to 51 per cent of the total receipts of the country. The Crédit Mobilier[559], unable to pay a dividend to its own shareholders, and whose last report[e], if closely scrutinized, shows a considerable surplus of liabilities over assets, cannot, as it did in 1854 and 1855, come to the rescue, and help raise, loans on "democratic" principles. There remains, then, nothing for Bonaparte but to return, in financial matters, as he has been forced to do in political ones, to the original principles of the coup d'état. The financial policy initiated by the theft from the Bank cellars of 25,000,000 francs, continued in the confiscation of the Orleans estates, is now to receive a further development in the confiscation of the property of the charitable establishments.

The latter operation, however, would cost Bonaparte one of his armies, his army of priests, who administer by far the greatest portion of the charitable establishments, Already, for the first time since the coup d'état, the Univers dares openly dissent froth the savior of society, and even implores the Siècle to make common cause against this intended encroachment upon "private property."

While the "eldest son of the Church"[f] is placed in this rather equivocal position toward his holy army, his most profane army simultaneously threatens to become unmanageable. If he should interfere, in real good earnest, with the amusements of such heroes as Messrs. De Mercy, Léaudais and Hyenne, he will lose his hold on the only portion of the army on which he can rely. If, on the contrary, he allows that pretorian corruption[560] which he has so systematically fostered since the days of the Camp of Satory[561] boldly to show its front, all discipline will be at an end, and the army prove unable to withstand any shock from without. Another such event as the assassination of the rédacteur, of the Figaro[g], and that shock will take place. The general exasperation prevailing may be inferred from the one fact, that when the account of the duel got to Paris about 5,000 young men flocked to the bureaux of the Figaro, requesting to be inscribed upon a list, as ready to fight with any sub-lieutenant who might be forthcoming. The Figaro, of course, is itself a Bonapartist creation, heading that literature of scandal and chantage and private slander which suddenly shot up after the violent extinction of the political press, and found in the soil and atmosphere of the lesser Empire all the conditions for a luxuriant growth. It is a fine trait of historical irony that the signal for the impending conflict should be given by the murderous quarrel between the literary and the military representatives of the Bonapartist swell mob.

Notes