Proud Tower - Barbara W. Tuchman [141]
With the retrial of Dreyfus ahead, the Affair was moving toward climax. To retain office under the terrible buffeting he could expect, Waldeck deliberately chose to form a Government which, by being equally obnoxious to both sides, would cancel the blows of either. He selected a Socialist, Millerand, as Minister of Commerce and a military hero, the Marquis de Galliffet, “butcher” of the Commune, as Minister of War. The tumult in press and parliament that greeted this remarkable expedient was unequalled. “Pure madness … absolute lunacy … monstrous … infamous!” came from both sides. The appointment of Millerand not only infuriated the Right; his acceptance created a scandal and a schism in his own party and in the Socialist International of major proportions and historic significance. Acceptance of office in a capitalist Government was a betrayal comparable to that of Judas. Profoundly saddened, Jaurès begged Millerand to shun the offer, but Waldeck had knowingly selected a man to whom the lure of office was strong. The Socialists now had to face the choice whether or not to support the Waldeck Government when it came to the Chamber for a vote of confidence. If the Government lost, the prospect was chaos. Jaurès was persuaded by Lucien Herr’s argument: “What a triumph for Socialism that the Republic cannot be saved without calling on the party of the proletariat!” The Guesde faction, however, clung to the class struggle. Socialists, stated Guesde, “enter Parliament as though we were in an enemy State only in order to fight the enemy class.” Jaurès warned that if Socialsm persisted in this attitude it would sink to the level of “sterile and intransigent anarchism,” but he did not prevail. The Union Socialiste broke apart; twenty-five of the parliamentary members agreed to support the Government; seventeen refused. Guesde enchanted his group with the exciting suggestion that it should greet the new Government’s appearance in the Chamber with cries of “Vive la Commune!” but, so as not to find themselves allied with the Right, abstain when it came to a vote.
For ten minutes next day they stood hurling “Vive la Commune! A bas les fusilleurs! A bas l’assassin!” at the new ministers. The object of it all, General the Marquis de Galliffet, Prince de Martigues, nearly seventy, with red-bronze face and bright eyes, looked mockingly on the scene, half-gratified, half-disgusted. He had fought in the Crimea, Italy, Mexico, Algeria and at Sedan, where he had led his regiment into the last cavalry charge with the reply to his commanding officer, “As often as you like, Sir, as long as one of us is left.” Impressed by the great Gambetta’s patriotism and fighting spirit, Galliffet became and remained a loyal Republican and openly despised Boulanger. The eyes in his highly colored face were sunk on either side of a nose like the beak of a bird of prey, but his figure was vigorous and young and he still wore “the same air that had made his fortune, as of a bandit chief who feared nothing or a grand seigneur who cared for nothing.” Despite a silver-plated stomach and a limp from old wounds, he played tennis in the Tuileries Gardens and his love affairs, recounted with sparkle and ribaldry, were the delight of the Bixio. He told how Mme de Castiglione showed him her nude portrait by Baudry, and when he asked if she was really as beautiful as that, she disrobed and posed on the sofa. “The picture was better,” Galliffet concluded. He was called the sabreur de la parole because he told