The New York herald., 1870-08-10
The Crisis 70 Napoleon-Ths Republic His
Only Safety.

| dynasty are numbered. The handwriting IL on
the wall The peril to the imperial family is
imminent and menacing from without and
within The symptoms of a revolutionary fer
ment in Paris are as ominous as the late defeats
of the French armies. The plebiscite was a
delusion which has led Napoleon into fatal
blunder. He entered into this war with Prus-
sia for the purpose and with tho expectation of
adding so much of glory and power to his gov
ernment that Its transmission to the Prince
Imperial would be accepted with enthusiasm
| by the French people. Instead of ''gloire"
| and 'victoire," however, he has brought
| defeat and humiliation upon France, and
though France may retrieve her disaster, expel
the bold invaders of her soil and exact an
ample reparation for her losses, the disasters
suffered by Napoleon and the empire cannot
be repaired The prestige and the glory of
the empire are gone with these browning misfor-
tunes to the third Napoleon, the whole of whose
splendid and prosperous administration has
barely suficed to excuse with the French peo-
pie the breach of faith through which he dis
placed the second republic and reinstated the
empire .'>.~G; = ,,s' +&..-s s..
This war has already convinced the French
people that the nephew has nothing Of
the military genius Of his uacle; aud 1t has
convinced the world that the present Emperor
commands nothing of that enthusiasm of the
French army which made ''the Little Corpo-
ral' master of the Continent. This war has
proved another thing-that the true policy of
| Louis Napoleon, and the policy to which he
owes his long and successful reign, was the
policy embodied in those expressive words,
''the empire is peace;" for the time has gone by
| when the old enthusiasm of the French army
| can be revived with the presence Of the Prince
| Imperial even of the house of the Bonapartes
The Emperor has told us that his veterans
wept at the tranquility displayed by his Prince
Imperial in his baptism of fire. We rather
incline to think that feeling akin to shame
| must have been that Of the French veterans in
having it thus proclaimed to the world that
they had no better cause in this war than the
cause Of that poor, innocent boy as their nexS
Emperor; for this is the year of our Lord
1870 History tells us, too, that when even
Napoleon the First began to parade his Prince
Imperial as his imperial successor he reopened
tae door to the Bourbons.
What, now, is the situation of Napoleon the
Third3 These late significant successes of the
Prussians manifestly reduce him to the choice
of the Bourbons or the republic. With
the enlargement of these succ cesses
Of Prussia she may be enabled to
dictate peace to France embracing the
restoration of the Bourbons, with the consent !
OF England, Russia and Austria. For the
present Napoleon has taken in this war the
first steps on the road TO another Holy
Alliance. Where lies his way Of escape and
Of safety from expulsion and an inglorious
ending to his glorious name? 1t lies in the
bold alternative of surrender of his personal
imperial rights and his family pretensions, in the
return of his government to the French people
from whom it was taken, and in his proclama-
ton of the republic through convention to
be elected by the free sufi,rages Of the people,
We believe the time has fully come when the
French army and people would respond to this
course otaction with unanimity and enthusiasm
which would make her as powerful against all
hostile coalitions as she was under her first
republic, though attacked simultaneously on
every side by land and sea-
Under the late ple6iscite the French people
made .heir elections as between order and
chaos, and they voted for the Emperor and
his empire as representing law, order and
peace. Now, amid the disasters of needless
war, let the Emperor proclaim his abdication
and the restoration of the republic, and he
will gain by this coup detat for France and
the glory Of his name far more than he
has lost He will initiate the successful adop-
ton of the grandest of all Napoleonic ideas
that idea which was in the mind Of the first
Napoleon when at ST. Helena he said that ''in
fifty years Europe will be republican or Cos
sack" Modern scientific inventions and means
of enlightenment have put the Cossack into the
background but they have brought republi-
can principles and popular rights so conspicu-
ously into the foreground that we may reason
! ably hope to see every State of Europe a
republic and the Continent confederation of
| republics during the present generation.
| German unity is but repetition Of Italian
unity and Austrian unity, and all these unions
| of different detachments in each case Of the
| same people are but the initial movements to
governments 'for the people, by the people,
and of the people" as our honest and
| patriotic republican Lincoln once expressed
| it. The republic, then, is the winning
card for Napoleon. Let him reinstate
The republic in France, and according
| to the American idea of popular rights and
| the enemies of France will be at once dis
armed. The Germans will rise for united
republic; the Italians will adopt the idea,
| Spain will adopt it, and Austria-which has