[Footnote 57:  It of course led up to the Communist revolt.  Bismarck’s relations to the disorderly elements in Paris are not fully known; but he warned Favre on Jan. 26 to “provoke an emeute while you have an army to suppress it with” (Bismarck in Franco-German War, vol. ii. p. 265).]

Despite the very natural protests of Gambetta and many others against the virtual ending of the war at the dictation of the Parisian authorities, the voice of France ratified their action.  An overwhelming majority declared for peace.  The young Republic had done wonders in reviving the national spirit:  Frenchmen could once more feel the self-confidence which had been damped by the surrenders of Sedan and Metz; but the instinct of self-preservation now called imperiously for the ending of the hopeless struggle.  In the hurried preparations for the elections held on February 8, few questions were asked of the candidates except that of peace or war; and it soon appeared that a great majority was in favour of peace, even at the cost of part of the eastern provinces.

Of the 630 deputies who met at Bordeaux on February 12, fully 400 were Monarchists, nearly evenly divided between the Legitimists and Orleanists; 200 were professed Republicans; but only 30 Bonapartists were returned.  It is not surprising that the Assembly, which met in the middle of February, should soon have declared that the Napoleonic Empire had ceased to exist, as being “responsible for the ruin, invasion, and dismemberment of the country” (March 1).  These rather exaggerated charges (against which Napoleon III. protested from his place of exile, Chislehurst) were natural in the then deplorable condition of France.  What is surprising and needs a brief explanation here, is the fact that a monarchical Assembly should have allowed the Republic to be founded.

This paradoxical result sprang from several causes, some of them of a general nature, others due to party considerations, while the personal influence of one man perhaps turned the balance at this crisis in the history of France.  We will consider them in the order here named.

Stating the matter broadly, we may say that the present Assembly was not competent to decide on the future constitution of France; and that vague but powerful instinct, which guides representative bodies in such cases, told against any avowedly partisan effort in that direction.  The deputies were fully aware that they were elected to decide the urgent question of peace or war, either to rescue France from her long agony, or to pledge the last drops of her life-blood in an affair of honour.  By an instinct of self-preservation, the electors, especially in the country districts, turned to the men of property and local influence as those who were most likely to save them from the frothy followers of Gambetta.  Accordingly, local magnates were preferred to the barristers and pressmen, whose oratorical and literary gifts usually carry the day in France; and more than 200 noblemen were elected.  They were chosen not on account of their nobility and royalism, but because they were certain to vote against the fou furieux.