The Sun.
London, England, 1870-10-12 00:00:00

OT. a COTEM7OII4RIES---This hion.-dug

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TITE FUTURE GOVERNMENT OF Fit

kNeE.

The Times says the siege of Paris is at present the
central operation of the War, and it is likely to remain so
for sonic weeks or even months to come. Paris is of one
mind in its warlike resolution. The capital reflects the
political disorganization of the nation. It numbers votaries
of at least five different ways of settling the future Con-
stitution of the country, but they • are all united in the
common determination to resist the demands of Count
Bismarck as reported by M. l'avm. Under such
circumstances, it has come to be silently confessed
by the German army that the hopes, once enter-
tained, of reducing the city by mere invest
ment must be abandoned. Since the fall of the
Empire the tendency in France has been for
each Department to set up for itself, and decentralization
has .been strongly promoted by the political suppression
of the centre of the nation. Every week the war is pro-
longed must increase this movement, and it is not a
fanciful suggestion that the fall of Paris two
,or three
months hence might leave upon the hands of King
William the necessity of first subduing and then re-
casting the rest of the country. This is a task from
which the most iron resolution may pardonably shrink.
The German King - and his Ministers must treat with
the Government that exists, or modified as it may
be by an Assembly chosen under its auspices, and it is
the special force of the dilemma in which they are
placed that, if Paris be bombarded and taken, they will
most probably destroy by the operation the only Power
with which they can negotiate.

FRANCE LEADERLES.

The Telegraph remarks that a nation which, in material
wealth and power of brain, ranks with the richest known
to hiStory is devoting all its energy, all its fertility of
design, and all its recources to one object—that of
beating back the invaders from 'its soil. Yet, for the
moment, France seems powerless. Her fortress s
fall one by one ; her best armies are destroyed on the field
of battle, or they throw down their arms in despair; her
natural gaiety is eclipsed by persistent disaster, so that
she wears the look of a nation in mourning. Nevertheless,
in spite of the long aeries of dark reverses, she does not
despair or dream of yielding. The Northern States of
America found themselves in a plight which many Euro-
pean critics thought bad enough, when the troops fled
from Bull's-run, and when Lee, Stonewall Jackson, and
the other Confederate chiefs, went here, there, and every-
where, doing pretty much what they liked. But the
people of the Northern States had been accustomed to
act for themselves ; their system of self-government had
developed in crowd of men the power to organise and to
rule. At the season of need such individuals come to the
front ; and so, in the blackest night of her disaster, the
North felt sure that she would finally win, and she
kept " pegging away." France has no such resource. Her
heroes, if they come at all, must come from the clouds.
Possibly the man may be found in M. Gambetta,
who is the life and soul of the Provisional Govern-
ment. France is so far from exhaustion that- her
resources in men and money have not been sensibly
diminished ; if not buoyed up by high hopes of victory,
she exhibits no sign of a wish for a humiliating peace ;
and hence he were either a very bold or a very ignorant
observer who should confidently affirm that M. Gambetta,
or some administrator of capacity, is powerless to arrest
the ruin which might seem to threaten the nation.