The Sun.
London, England, 1868-04-13 00:00:00

THE DIPLOMACY OF REVOLU7ION.

It is satisfactory to find anywhere tokens
of reaction against theories that have hindered
the true perception oz the French Revolution
which, as Talleyrand said shortly before his
death, is " still going on." Students of truth
are here and there discovering that the " cul-
bute genbale" was not an act of Divine ven-
geance, but the result of intrigues carried on
by a few unscrupulous men. In the number
of the- Revue des Deux Mondes, there is an
article by M. A. de Broglie on M. de Bour-
goina's " Histoire Diplomatique de l'Europe
pendant la Revolution Francaise," which is
of value. It points out some of the hidden and
altogether unheroic machinery by which the
puppets at Paris were worked during the so-
called reign of Patriotism.
The foreign influence at work in the events
of 'B9-'95 will never be known, but M. de
Bourgoing is right in attributing the failures
of Valmy and Jemmapes rather to the insin-
cerity of the coalesced sovereigns than to the
valour of the revolutionary levies. In the fol-
lowing sentence, the author of the article sup..
plies, perhaps unwittingly, a clue to the mis-
takes of the Allies :

"At the furthest extremity of Europe, the
Courtesan, whose genius had by chance received
the heritage of Peter the Great, rejoiced in
the thought that while the West sank in dis-
order the road to the East was opened to
her. She quickly saw the advantage of pre-
cipitating Europe into a war for which her
troops could not arrive in time, but which left
Constantinople at her discretion and Poland
at her mercy."
M. de Broglie sketches brilliantly the diplo-
matic traditions that existed before the Revo-
lution. The subject has dazzled him, for he
attributes the present evils of Europe to the
disuse of the old diplomatic customs. The ter-
rorism under which the West crouches re-
sults, he thinks, from the inability of demo-
cratic Governments to hold diplomatic inter-
course or to enter into binding agreements.
Diplomacy has wrought its own confusion by
its denial of public law. We quote M. de
Broglie's description of the existing condition
of the Continent, though we may not agree
with him that the evils he enumerates result
from the failure of Diplomacy, but rather from
its too great success :
" The appearance of the new law is marked
by a universal disorder of which the gravity,
instead of diminishing, would seem day by day
to increase. Two great wars in less than ten
years ; all existing treaties annulled; new con-
ventions without force ; the territorial basis
of all States called in question ; the armies of
Europe complete, and every mind at work to
invent new engines of destruction. There is,
thank God, less blood than in '93, but there
is almost as much disorder. If politicians
only were embarrassed, little harm might fol-
low. It is the business of politicians to meet
embarrassments, and the business of revolu-
tions to create them. But the subject of real
surprise is that the very assertion of right,
made in the name of the people, has brought
speedy suffering on the peeple. After an in-
terval of thirty years, Europe witnesses the
reappearance, in her very centre, and with
features as hideous as under the First Empire,
of the most odious form of tyranny, the most
painful variety of oppression conquest.
Schleswig is forcibly attached to Germany ;
Hanover endures permanent military occupa-
tion; Frankfort pays a ransom. The genera-
tion that lived after 1815 hoped to have seen
no more such crimes committed. If the new
law be not guilty of them, she must at least be
reckoned an accomplice in their guilt."
Honestly aghast before the condition he de-
scribes, M. de Broglie can yet propose for it
no better cure than " a religious • respect for
treaties, and a return to the traditions of the
European balance of power, to be enforced
by guarantees and secured by new combina-
tions." Every case of public
violence ion s . ' '
Our sight has had its
says,e tdhs a t
origin in the violation of a treaty, and might
thatHe
offends
have been prevented by a more scrupulous
fidelity. The disorder of Germany, for instance,
flowed directly, by consequences visible to all,
from the rupture of the treaty of London,
which regulated the Danish succession."
Can there be a better instance than the fore-
going to show the futility of M. de Broglie's
remedy? What treaties can be of force, though
signed by every diplomatist in Europe, if their
provisions be not lawful ? Treaties are now
the chief means used for the betrayal of States
and for the disturbance of the world. How,
then, can their observance be a remedy ? Un-
less, indeed, treaties should be once more the
offspring of law, not of that " new morality,"
of which M. de Broglie speaks, " which legi-
timises crime and sears the conscience of the
criminal."

M. de Broglie
.is, we believe, a Catholic, and,
like most Catholics, he appears to dread Re-
volution as the chief danger to society. He
regards it as something apart and distinct
from himself, and from those who do not pro-
fess its doctrines. He divides society into two
camps—revolutionary and anti-revolutionary.
He is far from suspecting that the strength
of the revolutionary propaganda has its basis
in that blindness to law which exists in him
and in others, who are nevertheless conscious
of the dangers of the European condition. No
one can legitimately or success fully oppose
the flood of evil which menaces society until
he himself has learned to apply the ccmmand-
ments of God to the actions of States as well
as to those of individuals.—Diplomatic Review.

MISCELLANEOUS NEWS.

(From the Anglo-American Times)
PARIS, April 8.

I promised last week to _give_your readers some
account of what I said and did when I went out for
a stroll to get myself into writing order, and if the
narrative be not sufficiently important I must crave
their indulgence on the plea of the good-will I bring
to my task. Little matters are frequently more
interesting than great ones, in the same manner as
little miseries prove frequently the hardest to bear;
small matters are often the indices of more important
ones, and the hunchbacked philosopher of the olden
time furnished with his unstrung-bow an excuse
and case in point for more than one grave personage
of all ages. In the course of that morning's
strole beneath a sky in which the pale azure
of the spring is gradually deepening into the
darker blue of the summer, I saw in every
shop window the mils de paques of every imagin-
ablepain
d:E description.piee, tau Jambons, extending
he IFrniarsesed through the Foire au
from the ancient barrier of Paris to the Bastille,
or rather the Place of the Bastille. I witnessed the
most extraordinary specimen of puffing that I think
it was ever the lot of any human being to behold ;
and lastly, to wind up, I met with in an establish..
ment, bearing the appellation of the Society of the
United Cooks, one of the very best restaurants I
have ever discovered. First of all, as regards the
cup de paques (Easter eggs). These eggs, which
are a species of confiture, upon which the utmost
skill of the fabricant has been lavished, form
the most fashionable present at Paris during
Easter; they are made hollow, and innumer-
able are the surprises and devices which I

they contain. A humorous anecdote is related
of a celebrated actress here, who, previous to the
day upon which the ceufs de paques are generally
presented, had given directions to her soubrette as
to which rooms, more or less splendid, her admirers
were to be conducted, according to the size of the