The Wheeling daily intelligencer. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1865-1903, 1869-04-09
REpUBLICANIsm IN FKAEcE.
How the French Liberals CIrcumVenl
the governmental Public ASSEM-
bly, I'm the French CapitnI-Eu.
Iogy on Abraham Lincoln.
Correspondence Of The No" York Times.

was The life and death OF the glorious
martyr, Abraham Lincoln.
BY :" little ingenuity the Liberals of
Paris manage to get together in a public
meeting, and then, by a good deal of
ingenuity, they manage to talk of lib.
erty without being sent before the PO-
ice CO1TectiOnelLe, the rock that French
liberty loving peopls are sure at last to
wreck upon.
Under the new law allowing public
meetings the workmen mDle, iall'
and finish in prison, while the men &C
complished in the tricks of the tongue
talk all day on tho borders OF the gulf
without tumbling in. The one says
brutally what he thinks and wants, and
gets snapped up for II, while the other
steers clear with an ingenious allusiOn,
which stings the deeper, because il re.
quires more study to penetrate its
meaning.
The workmen hold their meetings
under various pretexts: questions of
salaries, trades unions, education wo-
mems rights.
The President of the meeting is held
bv law to keep the speakers TO tho
text: If he fails in his duty the Com
missary of Police is there to call him
and the meeting to order, and If they
do not then obey, he declares the meet
ing adjourned and calls in his aids to
evacuate the place.
IL men, dS IldS frequently
lately, the audience make an attempt
at the uGTSciLiGiSc, or at hurrah for
the Republic, or cry OF "DOwn with
the Emperor" the few Jealous ones
are carried off to prison and punished.
1t was some time after the law of
last year was passed before any meet
ines were held. When people have
had policeman's hand on their collar
for a long time they hardly know what
to do when they get loose. They feel
their way tenderly at first, and only
take large strides after many timid ex-
periments of the ground they walk on.
So that the meetings which commenc-
ed timidly, but in good faith, as con-
situations for social and industrial re-
forms, grew bold after while and
transformed themselves into something
very like political clubs. Here and
there snatches of socialism began to
peep out; the end of the red flag was
seen pushing its way above the heads
of the crowd, fierce popular orators
men of yesterday-who did not hesi-
| tate to denounce the men in power,
and even the rich, in the most approx
ed terms of the revolutionary epochs.
This was too much for the Government,
| and last week more than half the as
semblages called meetings of the ban
LieWe were broken up by the authori-
ties.
The physiognomy of these 6Gmlicuc
meetings, it must be confessed, was not
very assuring even to the friends OF the
| largest liberty. Is barbarism a natur-
al instinct of French nature, or are
these crude and dangerous ideas the re-
suit of the despOtic institutions of the
county? One speaker, for example,
exclaimed that he wished to overthrow
the Emperor, the Deputies, and every
thing opposed to revolution. He de-
sired to exterminate the middle classes,
the capitalists gorged with money
while the poor were starving. He
wished the people to appear at once in
the streets with arms in their hands
not tomorrow, but to-day! He NOR
tally hated all those who possessed pro-
perty and lived by the sweat OF the
poor, no matter who they were. Blood,
| lie cried, is necessary to revenge the
sufferings and miseries of the people!
Another orator, of the same current
of ideas, exclaimed, "AudacitY! &C
ton! and you will arrive AT revolution,
the overthrow of the Empire, and the
establishment of radicalism ~
There may be democracy in these
doctrines, but there is no republican,
ism. With such leaders as these there
can be no hope of a Republic in France.
Their language frightens the moderate
people of all parties, and retards the
great event that all ought to desire-the
| eSLaDllSnuleHL VI IL IhilOuul anu
Republic.
Fortunately there are leaders much
more likely to carry the majority with
| them, when The critical moment comes,
than these. They, too. have organized
public meetings on various preIeNts OF
charity and education, but in reality
| with u view to an exchange OF ideas
with the public on the political situa-
alton. 1t was at one of these, called in
aid of the new dragged schools" or
ganiZed by charity, that the culogy of
| Lincoln was pronounced.
Professor Labouiaye presided and
was the first speaker, and NJ. AuGuste
Cochin, the distinguished writer and
orator on emancipation the Wilberforce
of France, was the orator of the Occa-
sion. The first spoke for half an hour,
the second for two hours, and not man
or woman OF the seven thousand per-
sons who crowded the vast circus moved
| from their seats.
We never had moro emotions crowded
into two short hours and a half. Lin
coin, liberty, the Republic, were the
texts of the orators, and at every men
| ton of one of these magic words the
house was shaken 10 its very founda-
| tions by the cheers of the vast crowd.
Professor LabOulaye, with that Won
derful command OF language for which
he is celebrated, drew comparison be-
tween the American system and the
present regime in FraGce, which avoid
ed the law so adrOitly as to excite the
hilarity as we'll as the enthusiasm OF
tho audience. Every mention of the
Republic, of Washington, of Lincoln, of
Mrs. Beecher Stowe, threw the audi
ence into an excitement we have never
before seen in France.
Mr., Cochin was warm and eloquent
in his eulogy of Abraham Lincoln. He
traced his life from his boyhood up to
his death, and held him up AS n model
of a patriot, statesman and Christian
man. He quoted from his speeches
and writings 10 show that he was a
great political thinker, and that his
! ideas were of that class of elementary
| ideas on which great Governments may
| be built and great deeds accomplished.
| If you have not yet. awakened to the
fact in America, you will soon do SO,
that Lincoln is hereafter to take a stand
as one of the great landmarks in histo>
ry. If you do not yet comprehend the
! immensely of the role he played in the
political progress of mankind, these
people do. While you are still embar-
raised with certain crudities in his
character, these people see nothing but
| his grandeur, and desire to see nothing
more. They have elevated for him in
their hearts and memories pedestal as
high as Washington's. He and Wash
| ington and Mrs. Stowe are to be the
levers on which all liberal propaganda
ism is hereafter to turn.
The few ambitious men who started
the slavery rebellion have had many
humiliatiOns to swallow, but none will
be SO bitter as to be condemned to see
placed in the highest row of inches in
| the worlds Of Tho