The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-05-11
THE ANSWER OF FRANCE.
From the NJ Y. Tribune.

have the necessary fighting power afoat.
THE ANSWER OF FRANCE.
From the NJ Y. Tribune
The result of the election in France on
Sunday is for Napoleon at the same time a
victory and defeat. For twenty years he has
tried to cover successive usurpations with a
transparent veil of popular suffrage. 1t was
in the outraged name of 1000, 900 voters that
he justified the crime of December, 1851; it
was again by the farce of q forced election
that he sought absolution for the murders Of
1852. He has never ceased to style himself
the choice of the French people; he has never
ceased to implore their favor, and beg them,
not for obedience, because that he could en-
force, but for pledge of confidence in him
self and fealty to his dynasty. At every trial
he has encountered rebuff, and the last rebuff
is the worst of all. OF the actual result of
Sundays balloting there has never been any
doubt Elections under Napoleon can never
go against the Government. But no exer-
tions have been spared to secure
grand majority that by its moral effect
should depress the party of freedom
and strengthen the foundations of that
throne which awaits the Fourth Napoleon-if
q Fourth Napoleon there is ever to be. Euge-
ME on her knees before the altar, and batta-
lions on guard around the polls, alike be-
sought Providence for an affirmative vote
Police spies filed the air with the horrors of
imaginary plots, republicans by the score
were thrown into jail on fictitious charges,
liberal newspapers were suppressed on the
eve of election, liberal soldiers were drafted
off to Algeria, and all the cunning devices of
despotic power were employed to fill the
timid with fear of avowing democratic SEN
timents, and the selfish and uncertain with
dread of socialist designs which had no ex-
istence. Olivier at the same time addressed
an appeal to his dear rfellow-citizens, setting
forth the horrors of revolutions ''Do not
listen, he cried, ito those who would counsel
you to vote mo- If they were to be tri-
umphant on the 9th of May, they would
take vengeance, they would imprison aud exile,
they would establish the social republic, they
would assail the rich. If on the contrary our
friends should triumph, long period of
security, conhderce, and peace would be
assured 10 us. Relieved from constitutional
oiscussloDSS,, from interpretations, threats of
1iseur u Iances prophecies of revolution, the
E-dperor and his ministers will be able to
occupy themselves with even more solicitude
than heretofore in finding means to improve
the position of those who possess nothing
without violating the rights of those who
have property, and we shall not have to fear
those times of civil war when sons, instead
of closing the eyes of their fathers, have
their own eyes closed by their parents" No
one who knows the French people can doubt
that in the provinces the influence of such
terrorism and such appeals must have been
enormous. 1t is in the provinces that igno-
rance and vice abound and voters are most
readily swayed by fear or fayors. In our
country it is to the rural population that we
trust for the honest and enlightened express
sion of the popular will; in France it is Paris
and a few other large cities which embody
nearly all the education, the strength, and
the moral force of the country. In Paris the
majority against the plebiscitum has been
overwhelming; in the whole empire Napo-
Icons Majority in spite of official counting
seems from present returns to fall far below
the figures he obtained at the beginning of
his reign; and, though by actual enumeration
of ballots his measure has been carried, the
real answer which France returns to the
question whether she approves his past
course and his plans for the future is an un-
mistakable No.
We suppose Napoleon must have anticipated
this result; we cannot doubt that he will in
terpret it in his own manner, and take it as q
carte blanche for whatever measures of per-
sonal government he may have in contem-
plation. Still it must be a bitter sorrow.
He feels that his reign is drawing to close,
and the darling object of his ambition, the
restoration of the Napoleonic dynasty, is
further from realization now than it was ten
years ago. Old age, the sickness that knows
no cure, is creeping upon him; the sins of a
misspent youth are wreaking vengeance upon
his wasted body; the friends in whom he
trusted have one by one been
taken from him; st. Arnaud, the agent
of the coup d'etat;; Pelissier, the inexorabls
soldier, De Morny, Walewski, Marshal Mel
the soul of the army, the only man perhap;
who could have insured the succession of the
Prince Imperial had Napoleon been suddenly
taken off-all these are dead; and what has
the Emperor in his age and sickness to lool
for? Eugene has given no proof of ability
Prince Napoleon, ''the Red Prince, is not
to be trusted, for he has more than once bic
unmistakably for the succession in his owl
name. Even the army, though on Sunday i
swarmed over the barricades and crushed tn,
feeble protest of the liberal party, has cas-
an Unexpectedly heavy vote against the plebs
citum. AS a last resource the Emperor ap
peals to France, and France sullenly turn
away.
THE CHRISTIANITY OF THE HOUR.
| From the NJ Y, Standard.