The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1869-11-30
TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 80, 1869.
NAPOLEONS SPEECH TO THE
FRENCH CHAMBERS.

FRANCE, the land of revolutions, has enjoyed
a new sensation in the remarkable speech de-
iyered by the Emperor yesterday. The worst
foes of Napoleon must at least concede that
he is not despot of the common order.
While ruling with imperious sway, he con-
stantly attempts to impose on the people the
fiction that his guiding principle of action is
q regard for their welfare, and that instead of
being himself an enemy of freedom, he is the
only true conservator and promoter of liberty.
In view of his antecedents, he displays the
very sublimity of audacity when he says:-
''France wants liberty with order, and
order I answer for. Help me, Messieurs,
to secure liberty" He calmly ignores the
cruel and treacherous nature of the scheme
by which he gained imperial power, and CON-
placently assumes that by its success he be-
came so absolutely master of che situation
that all the rights of the nation centred rim
himself, and that his own reluctant and en-
forced consent to an enlargement of popular
and representative rights is an act of grace
for which the whole body of Frenchmen
should be grateful. Absurd as such pretensions
would appear in any other country, they are
partly explained by the fact that the fear of
new tumults is so active among large body
of peace-loving citizens, that his declaration
that he would answer for the preservation of
order was greeted with protracted and enthu-
siastic applause. "Order" at any price seems
to be the maxim of the busirsss portion of
the Parisians. Napoleon has satisfied them of
his ability to maintain this, and as all
other considerations are deemed of
inferior or secondary Importance, he is suf-
fered to afix such limits as he deems proper
upon the undying aspirations for liberty of
the progressive spirits of the nation. And
yet he seems fully conscious of the Importance
of conoiliating the French Republicans. Pre-
tending that no concessions can be justly de-
manded, he yet makes many, and studies to
create the impression that he wishes to make
all that are consistent with the maintenance
of internal peace. His promised reforms
extend not only to an improved parliamentary
organization which will secure "a more direct
participation of the nation in its own affairs"
but to an extension of municipal freedom
and of the number of officials elected by
universal suffrage. Claiming the right to
withhold everything, and positively as
suring the timid trading classes that
he will withhold enough to make a vigorous
rebellion impossible, he still comedies varied
and valuable additions to the political powers
of the people, and establishes his claim to be,
for the moment at least, the most liberal of
despots, the most democratic of autocrats,
and the most republican of imperialists. His
real intention is to maintain all the powers ne
deems essential to the perpetuation of his
dynasty at all hazards, but he has been forced
to the conclusion that it was his true policy
to make a surrender of all the governmental
control which he could no longer safely with
hold from its true owners, and he has trans
ferred back to the people the rights of which
he had previously robbed them in the most
pretentious and imposing manner he could
invent