The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-09-09
SPIRIT or THn PRESS.
Editorial Opinions Of the leading Journals
upon Current Topics-compiled Every
Day for the Evening Telegraph.

THE EMPRESS EUGENE THE EMPIRE
AND THE REPUBLIC.
From the " Y. Herald
The Empress Eugenie, but yesterday the
most brilliant, the most powerful, the most
envied and apparently the happiest woman
in all Christendom-''the glass of fashion and
the mould of form"-the Empress of modern
society and the chosen goddess of the gay
world in both hemispheres, is to-day crown
less and houseless-a fugitive and an exile in
q foreign land. Her departure from the
Tuileries and from France was a flight as
from the wild popular vengeance of another
Reign of Terror, and doubtless in crossing
the Belgian frontier she thought less of her
imperial splendors swept away than of her
personal safety secured. She was in no dam
ger; she might have retired with deliberation
and dignity; but in the midst of that fearful
commotion in Paris how was she to know it?
Twenty-Five years before King Louis Philippe
fed rs precipitately in his pea jacket from
the ominous tumult of French revolution,
because he knew not that the horrible fero-
cities of the first French re yolutionary con-
Vulsion had passed away-that the masses of
the French people, through that hideous car
nival of crime, had risen from the revenges
of barbarism to the responsibilities of civili-
cation.
Yet it is hard to believe that Eugenie was
not in some degree prepared for this sudden
collapse of the Napoleonio empire and dy-
nasty. She has been too active and too am
bilious as o politician in the affairs of the
empire, and too familiar with the reasons of
Napoleon for every scheme of his, in his inter-
nal policy and in diplomacy or war, not to
know the dangers that encompassed him.
Yet she was doubtless, deceived by the deu-
sions of the pIe5iScite, and satisfied that, from
the glory of this war with Prussia, the en-
pire would be secured for her son, as its abso-
Lutte despotism had been secured for her hus-
band, by the will of the French people. How
could she believe that the French people, in
ratifying the empire over and over again, had
spoken under the pressure of an imperial
army, and that with this army removed they
would speak for themselves without the warn
ing of single day?
1t is all over now, and, in the light of the
restored republic, it is only matter of
amazement that the shadowy empire of Louis
Napoleon survived SO long. For eighteen
years, with the skill of a conjurer in his do
mestic and foreign policy, he had managed to
divert the public mind of France from the
outrages of his usurpation to the glories and
prosperity of his government at home and
abroad. But all this time, as we can now
see, the French people have only submitted to
the empire as a choice of evils, and that they
have been impatiently awaiting their oppor-
Iunity to replace the republic which he (Na-
poleon) betrayed and set aside, but which he
had failed to extinguish.
1t may be that in the glitter and splendors
of her imperial court, and with emperors,
kings, and queens dancing attendance upon
her, Eugenie really believed the republic
dead, the Bourbons mere tradition, and the
empire needing only the glory of the reetlf-
cation of the Rhine frontier to make its
transmission to her son scene of popular
acclamation. But show are the mighty
fallen and the weapons of war perished ~
We can hardly realize the stupendous events
of the last six weeks, or that, among them,
the Emperor Napoleon is prisoner his
Prince Imperial a wandering exile and his
Empress fugitive from back door of the
Tuileries, with only single attendant, and
anxious only to escape with her life from the
surging revolution around her. We can
hardly believe that this trembling fugitive
is that magnificent Empress who but
the other day was welcomed at Constan-
tinople by the Sultan with a reception
excelling in its Oriental splendors the royal
Asiatic welcome of King Solomon to the
Queen of Sheba. Can it be true that this
weeping exile on the Belgian frontier, plead
ing for information of her unhappy husband
and her poor sick boy, is the same person as
that glorious Empress who, in the grand
Eastern spectacle of the opening of the Sue2
Canal, eclipsed in her radiant beauty the
charms of the gorgeous Cleopatra in all hel
glory? Yes; the glorious Empress whose
presence in her imperial travels inspired the
admiration and wonder of Europe, Asia, and
Africa, and the melancholy wanderer in search
of the sick boy and his father, are one anG
the same person. 1t is only change in the
character she is called to play; and such are
the ups and downs of crowns and dynasties
and so it has been from the beginning ant
will be to the end
But the ferocious barbarism which paradet
the beautiful Queen Zenobia in chain
through the streets of Rome, which brough
the head of the beauteous Queen of Scots t,
the block, and the fair, accomplished AM
courageous Marie Antoinette to the guillo
tine, we may hope has ceased to be, or will
no more be permitted in popular or roya
revengss upon defeated kings and queens
The exiled Empress Eugene and her husban
and son have still before them fair prospec
of the quiet, philosophical retirement of Loui
Philippe and his sensible family. Or Eugeni
may perchance now find some melanchol
consolation in sympathetic communion wit
Queen Isabella, or in telling the story of he
sorrows to the still more unfortunate En-
press, ''poor Carlotta.' Nay, the Queen q
England, untroubled by the fears of revolu
ton, is unhappier, perhaps, even to-day owe
the untimely loss of her husband than is tn
gay, brilliant, and ambitious Eugene owe
the loss of the French empire. The imperit
family, no doubt, as soon as permitted
make their own arrangements, will settle i
England; for where on the Continent, sav
in Switzerland, can they hope now to rest i
peace? They, too, have proved the uncel
tainty of the highest earthly glories. ''Vi
nifty of yanities, saith the preacher, all
vanity"