The New York herald., 1870-09-08

| of popular government on which our owr
greatness has been built up
And we may say, in this connection, that
President Grant could not perform an act that
would be more agreeable to the whole Ameri-
can people or more opportune than the issuing
OF the order to which we have referred,
instructing Minister Washburne to recognize
officially the provisional republican govern
ment of France. That is due to the past and
to the present.
The fact is that King William and Count
Bismarck have done more for republicanism
than all the ranting fanatics like Kossuth,
Garibaldi, Mazzni and Victor Hugo could
ever achieve. They have relieved the French
people from the incubus of the Bonaparte
dynasty, which might otherwise have weighed
them down and stifed their aspirations for
republican institutions indefinitely. The
Prussians have, therefore, in that sense been
the benefactors of France. as well as Of the
other nations which, following the example,
may overthrow royal dynasties and substitute
for them the great principle of popular govern
ment. Better far for the King of Prussia and
all other advocates of the divine right of
kings if the old and feeble Emperor Of the
French had been allowed to continue his rule
over France and to die In the imperial purple
for, after all, Napoleon was the friend of peace
and order, and his famous declaration after
the coup Gftat OF December 2, 1851, that the
empire was peace-'T Empire c'est la paig'-
was meant to be sincere. The same desire to
prevent needless sacrifice of life governed
him in determining ON the surrender at Sedan.
But thus it is that Providence, in the accom-
plishment of great results, often makes use of
means apparently the most opposite and impro-
bable; and If the issue of the present war is to
be the establishment of the French republic,
to be followed in time by the creation of the
United States of Europe, the world will be in
debted for the blessing to the two greatest
enemies of republicanism-the Emperor of
the French and the King of Prussia.
The War SituntiOn-The Advance ON Paris.
The dispatches this morning announce the
continued advance of the victorious Prussians
on Paris and the hurried preparations for de-
fence within the Notifications of the city. The
Germans advance by forced marches, evil
dently intent on attacking while the new gov
crnmeut is In the confusion of organization.
Inside the city, however, the new government
appears to have more method and more hearty
support than the old. While there may have
been a suspicion of lukewarmness on
the part of the French people in
the war for the perpetuation of
The Napoleonio dynasty, there is no
doubt Of their strong earnestness in the
war for the defence Of the republic. Three
heavy columns of Germans comprise the
sdvance-one on the Disc, one on the Marne
md the other on the Aube. The centre is at
Epernay, the right centre at Scissors, the
light at some point on the Disc south of st.
Quentin, and the left is at some point on the
Aube. These columns when deployed in
front Of the city will probably extend from the
Seine on the north to the Marne on the south
east, where they will confront the heavy
works of Aubervilliers, De Noisy, De Rosny
and De Nogent, immense detached fortresses
which they will have to take before they
can come within range of the inner works.
With the French enthusiasm excited by the
declaration of republic, resolute and deter
mined defence will be made in these fortresses
and in the inner lines, and Won Moltke and the
Crown Prince will find more difficult work
than they encountered at Sedan. The defence
of Strasbourg, city almost foreign to France,
may serve as a fair criterion of what the de-
fence Of the capital will be. But it is to be
hoped yet, the Napoleonic dynasty being
overthrown, that the Prussan king will recog-
nize the fact that the enemy that he came to
fight exists no longer, and that sweet peace
will hover over the whole face Of France before
the disastrous siege commences.
PRUssIA's DIFFICULTY. has Prussia
won3 Because all Germany in this struggle is
a unit. Will this unity continue 1t will be well
IT it does 1t ought not to be forgotten, however,
that the German peoples have many things to do
and not few things to settle before the Father
land, away from pressure, is an absolute
unit. Do the German peoples see the ques-
ton properly? How do the kings and the
grand dukes feel2 If, as the result of this
war, Bavaria and Wurtemburg and Baden and
Hesse do not join the Northern Confedera-
ton and emphatically endorse the empire,
France, backed by the whole force of the
South, may take terrible revenge. Germany
has done we'll, because Germany has acted
as unit 1t will be well for Germany,
and, as we think, well for the world, if the
German people fully comprehend the secret