The Sun.
London, England, 1871-02-09 00:00:00

THE ELECTIONS IN FRANCE.

The Standard says : Yesterday France elected a
National Assembly whose business and duty it will be to
perform a task far exceeding in importance and in diffi-
culty any ever before imposed upon a representative
body. The Assembly is especially convoked to
determine the question of peace or war—to decide,
in other words, whether it will be wiser for France
to accept a peace inflicting upon her a moral
humiliation and material losses, from which she cannot
hope at the best to recover in less than a quarter of a cen-
tury, or renew a war from which, according to the gene-
ral opinion, very little can be hoped, and in which much
will probably he lost. The German negotiations will be
carried on with the Assembly, and not with the present
Provisional Government, and with the Assembly
will rest the responsibility of the decision which puts
France upon her knees before the conqueror, or condemns
her to the continuance of a struggle to which it is now
apparent a very considerable proportion of Frenchmen
have, for reasons which we do not care to appreciate, the
strongest objections. The vote upon this question may
decide the destinies of France for generations, and the
members of the National Assembly who appear at
Bordeaux next Sunday will have accepted a responsi-
bility which their sense of patriotism may indeed call
upon them to assume, but which they will not be justified
in assuming unless they are resolved to subordi-
nate all personal feelings and political views to
the one object of the promotion of the true
interests of France. It is hardly possible, therefore,
to exaggerate the importance of the resolution the
National Assembly may take. They may save, they
may destroy France, so far as such words may be used in
the present condition of that country; and the composi-
tion of the new National Representation is therefore a
subject of the greatest interest.

The Telegraph observes i—Paris elected its represen-
tatives to the National Assembly yesterday, and the
provinces are about to follow its example. Yet,
on the eve of the most important elections which
France has witnessed since the great Revolution,
the country seems to be strangely listless. We hear of
o mass meetings, although the right of assembling is
free to all. The journals do not put forth fiery
philippics, although the freedo)n of the press is practically
mitless. The Legitimists are dumb, the Orleanists have
s, oken only through the Due d'Aumale, the Bonapartists
have slunk into a corner, even the Reds do not shriek
with their wonted shrillness, and the only party which
makes itself heard is that of the moderate Republi-
cans. What is the reason of so notable a change ?
The secret of such a deviation into virtue is
to be found in the tremendous realities of the struggle—
the great Prussian army which lay outside ; the inability
of the world-renowned cnnital to link itself with the
world save by the agency of 1, ;loons ; the hunger which
grew day by day like the tide which rose inch by inch
upon the martyrs who were exposed by fanaticism to
the billows of the unpitying sea ; the shells
which dropped into the crowded streets and
crashed through the roofs of quiet homes, smiting down
the innocence of childhood and the beauty of women.
Such realities stunted the conventionalities of life. They
reared up a new set of miseries which could not be soothed
by the solace of suicide, and which annulled the
temptations to commit vulgar crime. The complete-
ness with which the Germans have put to nought the
gigantic appliances for the defence seems to have crushed
the Parisians as an earthquake shakes the latent feeling
that the earth is stable. So the greatest political issue
which has affected the capital for generations seems to
have been debated with such listlessness as we English
discuss the fitness of Poor-law guardians. And
that is likewise the case throughout the
provinces. There is no agitation. All politial parties
seem to take it for granted that the victory must lie with
the moderate Republicans, as the party which holds the
reins of power. Everybody, also, seems to assume that it
is hopeless for France to prolong the fight, and that she
must make terms with Prussia at whatever cost. Even
the leaders of the nation seem to be rushing away into
holes and corners. Some will not accept a seat in the
National Assembly. General Ducrot declines, because
his heart is too full of rage and despair, to fulfil the mis-
sion of Deputy with wisdom or moderation. He is
" too much a soldier to become suddenly a politician."
General Trochu refuses because, on assuming the
Governorship of Paris, he announced that his
functions should cease when the siege should
end. The fact is that both Ducrot and Trochu are para-
lysed by the sense of despair. They see that the misfor-
tunes of France are irreparable ; that she must submit to
. the decrees of Count Bismarck ; and that the men who
take part in the final negotiations can bear only the
odium of ignominious surrender. So they hold aloof. The
spectacle is not very edifying ; but it is French, and it is
excusable.

We are officially informed that Captain ltobert
Hall, C. 8., will succeed Vice-Admiral Sir Spencer
Robinson as Comptroller of the Navy and third Larof
the Board of Admiralty.—Daily News.