The Sun.
London, England, 1871-02-13 00:00:00

NAPOLEON'S PEOCLAMATION.

The Ties says :—Those who aspire to the honour of
presiding over the future fortunes of France are wonder-
fully reticent as to tire policy they would pursue if in-
vested with power. They can talk freely enough
of the past; they can lament, with effusion, the
miseries of the present; but they give no hint as
to the way in which they would endeavour to re-
trieve the calamities of the last six months ; nor
do they afford an anxious people a glimpse of their
own opinions, if they have any, as to what should be done
now. The dethroned Emperor is as careful to avoid re-
sponsibility as Henry V. or the Due d'Aumale. He has
issued from the heart of Germany a Proclamation to the
French people. What is its purport?' Instead of
dealing with the questions of the hour—the
questions which put to the test the pretences of
statesmanship and the qualifications of the aspirants for
power—he has the hardihood to denounce the Provisional
Government, " a Government without a mandate," as
the cause of the present degradation of France, and to
inform the people that it lies with them to
place in their stead " the Government most
capable of repairing the naticnal disasters."
He who wantonly brought upon France the war
under which it suffers, he whose corrupt and corrupting
administration struck at the roots of public virtue, de-
bauched public life, and even ate away the strength of the
army on which it relied, he whose chosen diplomatists
were as blundering and inefficient as his chosen Marshals,
and whose favoured officers of State were selected for
their subseviency in accepting all the contradictory
impulses of his policy, ventures to tell France
that he has been "betrayed by fortune." Nay, he
takes credit for the condition in which he left the country
at the time when he himself surrendered at Sedan, when
Bazaine was shut up in Metz, and no regular forcss
were left in the field, when the single point
of support found in France—the fact that Paris
was left in a state of defence—was due to the
opponents of his dynasty, who in the moment of
peril stepped in to direct and control his Ministers ; and,
taking credit for leaving France in such a condition, he
attributes all the disasters that have befallen the nation
to the victory of violence over right in setting up tha
Government of Defence. While, too, thus freely censuring
what is past, the captive in Cassel has no word of
advice on the direction of the future. He will wait to
see what time will bring forth. Other men may under-
take the labours of the hour, and if they fail he will come
in with tardy wisdom to expose their errors, and to ask
the people of France to put them aside and make way for
his tried and approved judgment.
The Daily News observes :—The Emperor Napoleon's
Proclamation to the French people, launched in the
middle of a general election, will be read by most Eng-
lishmee with profound astonishment. The imprudence
of it if even more striking than its injustice.
The Emperor, we learn from his Proclamation,
is not moved by personal ambition in coming
forward to pronounce judgment on the men who
have been endeavouring to save the country. But
he claims to be the real representative of France. The
present Government "installed itself by surprise"—a pro-
ceeding which is naturally regarded with indignation by
the Emperor Napoleon. He protests against all acts
emanating from the present rulers of the country
as being illegitimate, and bases his protest on the
charge that they have destroyed the last institu-
tions which derived authority from universal suffrage.
When we consider what sort of universal suffrage was
brought in to condone the deeds of December—when we
turn to the spectacle of France, after twenty years of
despotism, making her first bewildered effort to breathe
freely and express the wishes of her children, it is impossi-
ble not to regard the sublime forgetfulness of this
strange manifesto with something of awe. Should
France determine to decide who is responsible for the
recent grievous misfortunes of the country, we
are not at all sure that the Provisional Government will
be the chief object of her accusations. We do not wish
to heap obloquy on a sovereign whose personal misfortunes
have been great. England has even gone out of
her way of late to find excuses for the ex-Emperor.
He is a fatalist, we are reminded—which seems to imply
a vague notion that a fatalist is an irresponsible being,
whom Providence has cm-sed with a fixed idea, certain to
bring him great fortune, or a crushing downfall. It is
not, however, a safe thing for a nation to be governed by
irresponsible persons ; and at the present hour, when
France is invited to recall the only Government which, in
the Emperor's estimation, can bring her happiness
and prosperity, she will probably count the cost of a pos-
sible mistake. And this is likely to be aided considerably
by the fact that the Emperor's Proclamation yin force
his late subjects into a minute examination of riae causes
which produced the war and its results—an examination
which can scarcely be expected to foster the Napoleonic
legend.