The Sun.
London, England, 1870-09-16 00:00:00

LONDON, FRIDAY, SEPTEMBER 10, 1870.

No wonder Franoe has again become Republican.
The key to it all is furnished by the Kolnische Zeitung.
Reading that journal, we cannot, in the least, be as-
tonished to find the French populationreverting with a
sense of inexpressible relief to the Democratic form of
Government. This is the third time it has done so, and
the " third is the charm," according to proverbial
philosophy—not Mr. TUPPER'S. It flies the monar-
chial, and with reasons enow, surely, when all is
told. According to the Kidni.sche Zeitung, the tale
that is told at Nancy and the surrounding places—
here and there, in fact, all over Alsace and Lor-
raine—the tale that is not only seriously told, but
is also accepted and believed with the fullest
confidence, is this. That the collapse of
the whole military system of France at Sedan, in
point of fact throughout the whole of the campaign
from Weissemburg to Sedan, has been a matter of
deliberate barter between King WILLIAM and the
Emperor NAPOLEON. Maisha/ MacMAHON'S army
they say was not defeated. It was simply bought
and sold. The price is known, It was paid
in gold, that estimated in francs amounted to
200,000,000. It was all a foregone conclusion,
having been quite deliberately arranged before the
two sovereigns met. The bargain was prepared
before hand. When KING and EMPEROR came
together—then simply came the payment. Two
hundred million francs in gold were then and there
handed over by WILHELM to NAPOLEON. At that
sum the latter estimated the value of his army,
and of his crown, and of his son's
chanoe of carrying on the fortunes of the
dynasty. No wonder the peasantry were indulging
in day-dreams only very recently as to the probable
capture of Berlin by the French fleet ! Yet these
are the very people some of whom, because of a
fancied insult having been offered to the name of
the huckstering Emperor, roasted a loyal landed
proprietor to death in a dry ditch, holding him
down under the burning branches piled over
him, and stirring up the flames as he writhed. As
SHAXSPERE'S Sir HUGH EVANS has it, "0 what
the ignorance is !" Believing this portentous
atrocity on the part of the EMPEROR, it is no wonder,
indeed, that among the French people the name of
NAPOLEON has become a byeword, a scorn, and a
derision. No wonder the N's, and the Crowns, and
the Eagles are chopped off, and rubbed out,
and broken away in a sort of frenzy
of indignation—that the busts of the Imperial
caitiff are smashed to atoms, that his por-
traits are stabbed, to be afterwards torn into
ribbons, that his bronze effigies are decapitated, that
his palace is nobly turned into an ambulance, and
that in the midst of beleagured Paris the whole
system of Kingcraft is set at defiance by the banner
of Republicanism being exultantly for the third and
the last time unfurled. The belief in the possibility
of such Imperial meanness and treachery renders
comprehensible the outrages wreaked by the
Parisians upon the mere insignia of Imperialism,
and the passionate welcome accorded by the mob to
Republican institutions.

HAPPY Buckinghamshire ! Happy Mr. DISRAELI !
While Europe is convulsed they are tranquil. War's
alarms do not terrify them. Revolutions do not
make them afraid. They can shear their sheep and
gather in their harvest as tranquilly as ever. Nay,
more, they do not even care to think about imprisoned
Emperors and vanquished armies. Their talk is
ever of bullocks, as though Sedan were still the
insignificant place that It was a fortnight ago, as
though it had not become memorable through all
time as the scene of one of thoSe great historical
catastrophes which the Seer of Patmos saw in his
vision of Armageddon. Mr. DISRAELI, ex-Premier
of England, has just been holding sweet con-
verse with the farmers of the Vale of Aylesbury.
He spoke to them about barley and malt, about
watercourses and tanks. No doubt, thougk the re-
porters do not tell us so, he repeated his confession of
faith in crossing Buckinghamshire sheep with
Southdowns. We think we see the right hon.
gentleman, a true Corydon, piping his pastoral pipe of
peace to the listening swains around him just as if
mitraillenses and needle guns had never been
invented; just as if there were no more formidable
weapon in the world than the reaper's
sickle and the shepherd's shears. If those of us who •
live in cities, who have been devouring half a dozen
editicns of our journals daily, watch with
amazement this stolid indifference to great
national caatclysms on the part of a
statesman, we must remember whom he was address-
ing. True, Aylesbury is within an hour or two of
London, but then Buckinghamshire is as completely
out of the current of the world's politics as if it
were Galway or Caithness, and even an ex-Premier
must suit himself to his audience. After all;
there is no more reason to be surprised at Mr.
DISRAELI just now choosing to talk about barley
and tanks than there is at the Paris Soir offering its
readers day alter day in this crisis of national agony,
a translation of " Lothair." Let us de Mr.
DISRAELI justice, he did wind up his
agricultural oration with a reference to Conti-
nental dlairs. He spoke of them, it is true, in that