Orleanist, and Moderate Republican groups, their vacillation tended only to the advantage of two parties, the Bonapartists and the Red Republicans.

Lord Lyons to Lord Granville.

Paris, Dec. 26. 1871.

The New Year will open gloomily for France. The Germans appear to be alarmed, or at all events irritated, by Thiers's military boasts and military preparations. The boasts are certainly unwise, and preparations or anything else which encourages the French to expect to get off paying the three milliards are extremely imprudent. The Germans mean to have their money and keep the territory they have taken, and they say that they had better have it out with France now that she is weak, than wait till she has got strong again. The irritation of the French against the Germans seems to grow, and the Germans are angry with the French for not loving them, which after the conditions of peace, to say nothing of the events of the war, seems somewhat unreasonable.

Thiers so far holds his own, and no party seems willing to displace him, while no party agrees with him. The one thing in which men of all parties seem to agree is in abusing Thiers, and I must say that a good deal of the abuse is exceedingly unjust. But with the members of the Assembly in this inflammable state of feeling towards him, an unexpected spark may at any moment make them flare up and turn him out almost before they are aware of it. The general idea is that the Assembly would appoint the Duc d'Aumale to succeed him; the acceptance of the Duc d'Aumale by the country would depend upon the amount of vigour he showed in putting down illegal opposition by force. There are members of the Assembly who wish to declare that in case of Thiers's abdication or dethronement, the President of the Assembly is to exercise the Executive Power. This is with a view of bringing forward Grévy, who is an honourable, moderate man, but an old thoroughbred Republican. The immediate event people are looking forward to with interest and anxiety is the election of a deputy for Paris on the 7th of next month. No one will be surprised if a Red is returned, in consequence of the men of order declining to vote. The Legitimists and the Orleanists seem to be at daggers drawn again.

Arnim says that Bismarck's fierce despatch was partly intended to strengthen Thiers's hands in resisting violence against the Germans. If this is so, the ferocity went too far beyond the mark to be successful, great as the provocation on the French side was.

I will write a mild disclaimer of the accuracy of Jules Favre's accounts of his communications with me. There is no malus animus, I think, in them. My Russian and Italian colleagues are very much annoyed by the language he attributes to them.

The fierce despatch referred was a harsh communication from Bismarck complaining of the recent acquittal of some Frenchmen who had assassinated German soldiers of the army of occupation.

At the close of 1871, the Bonapartist Party, although scarcely represented in the Assembly, appeared to be that which caused the Government the most anxiety. That party had undoubtedly made progress in the country; it held out the hope of a vigorous and determined maintenance of public order, and a vast number of Frenchmen were so much out of heart, so wearied and disgusted by the results of the attempts at political liberty, and so much afraid of the triumph of the Commune, that they were prepared to sacrifice anything in order to be assured of peace and tranquillity. The peasants, shopkeepers, and even many of the workmen in the towns, sighed for the material prosperity of the Empire. They believed that the Emperor had been betrayed by his Ministers and Generals, and were willing to excuse his personal share even in the capitulation of Sedan. If more confidence could have been felt in his health and personal energy, the advocates of a restoration of the Empire would have been still more numerous. As it was, a great mass of the ignorant and the timid were in favour of it, and it was the opinion of so impartial an observer as the British Ambassador, that if a free vote could have been taken under universal suffrage a majority would probably have been obtained for the re-establishment upon the throne of Napoleon III. If the Imperialists could by any means have seized upon the executive Government and so directed the operations of a plébiscite, there was little doubt as to their securing the usual millions of votes under that process. With them, as with the other parties, the difficulty lay in bringing about such a crisis as would enable them to act, and the Emperor himself was disinclined to take any adventurous step.

The Legitimists had the advantage of holding to a definite principle, but it was a principle which carried little weight in the country in general. Their chief, the Comte de Chambord, had shown himself to be so impracticable, that it really seemed doubtful whether he wished to mount the throne, and the party had more members in the existing Assembly than it was likely to obtain if a fresh general election took place; added to which it had quarrelled with the Orleanists, a union with whom was essential to the attainment of any practical end.

The Orleanists were weakened by their dissensions with the Legitimists and discouraged by what they considered the want of energy and enterprise of the Princes of the family. The members of the Orleans party suffered from the want of a definite principle, and consisted chiefly of educated and enlightened men who held to Constitutional Monarchy and Parliamentary Government; in reality they were a fluctuating body willing to accept any Government giving a promise of order and political liberty.

The moderate Republicans included in their ranks many honest and respected men, but they had to contend with the extreme unpopularity of the Government of National Defence in which they had formed the chief part, and although the existing Government was nominally based upon their principles, they did not appear to be gaining ground. The extreme Republicans endeavoured to make up by violence what they wanted in numerical strength, and as they saw no prospect of obtaining office in a regular manner, founded their hopes upon seizing power at a critical moment with the help of the Paris mob.

Amidst this collection of parties stood Thiers's Government, supported heartily by none, but accepted by all. By skilful management, by yielding where resistance appeared hopeless, and by obtaining votes sometimes from one side of the Assembly, and sometimes from the other, Thiers had carried many points to which he attached importance, and had never yet found himself in a minority. His Government was avowedly a temporary expedient, resting upon a compromise between all parties, or rather upon the adjournment of all constitutional questions. To the monarchical parties which formed the majority of the Assembly, Thiers's apparent adoption of the Republican system rendered him especially obnoxious. On the other hand, the Republicans were dissatisfied because, the whole weight of the Government was not unscrupulously used for the purpose of establishing a Republic permanently, with or without the consent of the people.

On the centralization of the administration, on military organization, on finance, and on other matters, Thiers's personal views were widely different from those generally prevalent in the Assembly, and there was plenty of censure and criticism of him in private; but no one party saw its way to ensuring its own triumph, and all were weighed down by the necessity of maintaining endurable relations with Germany. In forming such relations, Thiers had shown great skill and obtained considerable success