The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-01-06
FRENCH POLITICS.

From the Boston Traveller.
The condition of affairs in France is an apt
practical commentary on French politics. Ma
poleon LII, having made up his mind to
abandon that system of personal government
which he had pursued for almost eighteen
years-if we count from the coup d'etat of
December, 1S51-seems determined to give
the constitutional system full and fair trial;
and that under circumstances and conditions
which will not leave its votaries any ground
for reasonable or unreasonable complaint OF
criticism That they do complain of and
criticise his course is clear, even from the
meagre accounts of their words and their
deeds that we obtain through the telegraphic
dispatches; but that does not prove that ttht.oif
language and their action are reasonable--or
that they are even what could be called un-
reasonable; for, generally speaking, the
tongues and the pens aud the hands of French
politicians are SO employed as to convey a
very vivid impression that their owners are
as mad as hares are reputed to be in March
There are but one or two instances in French
history of the existence of political parties
that should not have been sent to Charenton,
to promote the safety of the French Empire,
republic, or kingdom-O -Oharenton having been
for more than century the seat of the French
Bedlam. Insanity Is the exception with the
political parties of England and the United
States and sanity the rule Twice, perhaps Gin
1910 and in 1860, have parties gone mad in
this country; and four or five times have Eng
lish parties so acted as to be compelled to put
in the plea Of insanity in bar of the Judgment
Of history, But even when most crazy,
English and American parties have not 50
borne themselves as to leave the impression
on the mind of the sane observers Of their
afliiction that they were hopelessly mad. Re-
mission might speedily come, and that would
l,a fol hv aIlra than n lOnu
of health would set in. With French parties
the case is very different. Insanity is with
them the long rule, and sanity the rare ex-
ception. Trace them back through almost
six centuries-from the time of Napoleon III
to Philip Augustus, in whose reign France, as
we moderns understand the name, began to
exist-and you will find them, with very few
| exceptions as mad as madness could make
them, and thus making of the French world
"a mad world my masters I" Imperialists
and Republicans, Orleanists and Legiti-
mists, White Terrorists and Rcd Ter
rorists, Constitutionalists and Royalists,
Jacobins and Thernidorians, Hebertists
and Cordeiers, Girondins and Eeuillans,
Parliamentarians and Absolutists, Jansenists
| port Royalists) and Jesuits, Mazarinists and
| Frondeurs, Huguenots and Leaguers, Bur-
| gundians and Armagnacs Mobiles and Jacques,
Albigenses and Romanists, and so on, down
of these French parties, or rather factions,
and you are to be excused if you come to the
conclusion that you are perusing the annals
of Charenton, compiled by faithful, an
impartial, and conscientious editor. The
exceptions are so few that we think it is
tolerably safe to say that the Politiques OF
the sixteenth century formed almost the only
really sane purity over known in 1.-THE plea
SAINT land of France, where men are addicted
to such very unpleasant proceedings in poll
tics. Sane politicians are not unknown, anC
never have been" unknown, among the
French, but sound-minded parties are al
but unknown to that lively and polished
people, who claim to be, and not altogethel
unreasonably on some grounds the first o
existing races; and in. no other country are
political leaders SO often led as the,
are in France, where the many-headed man,
control the clear-headed few There i
hardly religious or political excess men
toned in French history-and that history i
full of instances of eXcesses perpetrated il
the names of religion and poitics-that wa
not the work of mobs, calling themselve
the people The horrors OF both tor
rors, white as well as red, were th
work of the rabble not of their leaders
most of whom would have been glad I,
! spare blood; and it is all but certain tina
Robespierre's fall was owing as much to hi
desire to put an end to butchery as to all tn
evil of which he was guilty. That his over
throw was followed by reaction against tn
terror was due to accident, not to design
Danton and his friends had fallen-ha
! ''sneezed in the sack k"-because they ha
sought to lessen the requisitions that wer
made upon the executioners and their over
worked assistants. So it has been throughou
the entire career of France, no party bein
satisfied with victory over its rival, but think
| ing itself badly used if not allowed to enjo
the luxury Of exterminating it-thus justify
, ing the bitter remark Of that veteran poIt