The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-11-02
THE POSITION OF FRANCE

The cable kilograms continue to give deplo-
rable accounts of the position of France.
With horrors accumulating and new disasters
impending which are even greater than those
she has already suffered, no wise and firm hand
is stretched forth to protect or save her
Selfshness, treachery, imbecility, and inca
pacity rule the hour. For the most imminent
dangers no better safeguards than the de-
struction of French property by French
orders and the issue of wordy
proclamations are devised. Notwith-
standing the protracted defense of
Paris no attempts are made from without to
raise the siege, or to seriously embarrass the
operations of the investing army. The gov
ernment at Tours and the populous districts
of Southwestern France have devised no plan
worthy of the name for the rescue of the
doomed capital, and its fall, either by bom-
bardlhent or starvation, is hourly becoming
more inevitable. 1t is said of French soldiers,
when they are badly beaten in battle, that
they are more prone than any other troops to
abandon all semblance of organization, and
to seek safety by individual effort. The whole
nation has now apparently adopted these
tactics by common consent. There is no
government which commands general obedi-
ence. After centuries of Capitalization, COM
munities unaccustomed to the exercise of the
simplest forms of local self-government have
suddenly acquired freedom which they do not
know how to use; and the Provisional
authorities, instead of setting them an illus
trious example, are rapidly losing all influence
by their inability to check the invasion and
their tenacious clutch of shadowy power. The
continued postponement of the elections for
members of Constituent Assembly and the
consequent establishment of government
representing the whole people, protracts in
definitely this chaotic condition, and clouds
the whole future of France. Each new
proclamation of Gambetta grows more
and more ridiculous. 1t is
the height of folly for men charged with rule
TO content themselves with denouncing
capitulations at time when nothing is done
to avert new surrenders or to tell soldiers
who have neither the numbers, the leaders,
the supplies, nor the discipline required for
successful encounter with the enemy, that
they are safe guardians of the destiny of the
country. We can scarcely WONDER in the
face of such Babel-work, that even the hopes
of the Imperialists are apparently reviving,
and that the Empress, in company with
Bazaine, is reported TO have visited the
Emperor at Wilhelmshohe, for the probable
purpose of devising schemes for the re-
establishment of the Imperial dynasty. I'm
practical and iniquitous as such an intrigue
may appear, its chances of success ere in
creasing with each new exhibition of folly at
Tours, and there is a growing danger that the
republican experiment will be wrecked by the
delay of avowed republicans in proving the
sincerity of their professions by giving the
people of France an opportunity, in this
distressing hour, to shape their own desti-
MES. Heretofore, France, whether she
was nominally ruled by king, a
cardinal, a convention, council, an emperor,
or president, and whether she styled her
self monarchy, an empire, or a republic,
has found q stable government only under an
overruling one-man power, and the anarchy
now prevailing increases the probability that
she will again be forced to seek refuge in a
real or disguised despotism. There is now
no all-controlling master-spirit, and so many