The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-08-29

under it. But we fail to perceive in what
way their regime could be expected to restore
order and harmony to the hostile parties into
which the dissolution of the empire, or even
the restoration of peace, would resolve
France And, most of all, we fail to under |
stand why professedly republican journals in
republican country should go out of their
way to advocate the claims of a dynasty, |
which could only rule in France by prosti
tuting the influence of the republican idea to
subserve the cause of hereditary monarchy.
THE TRANSFER OF POWER IN EUROPE. |
From the N y. Nation.
We presume the warmest friends aud ad-
mirers of the Emperor Napoleon will now
admit that the character of the war has, since
the opening of the campaign, essentially
changed. The French entered on the contest
for the avowed purpose of humbling Prussia,
by breaking up the German Confedera-
States from their dependence on her,
and thus showing that the relative posi-
ton Of France in the European common
wealth was not altered. But, according to
the admission of the French Ministry the
one object of the struggle now is ''to save
the country" or, in other words, to drive the
Prussians from French soil. He must be a
very sanguine Frenchman who hopes for
more than this, or looks beyond this. But if
this were done, and it certainly will not be
done without tremendous struggle which
will shake France to its very centre, 1t would
still leave Prussia in full possession of the
position which the French SO much
covet and have so long held-that of
the leader in European politics -
and which the French have been in the habit
of describing by the well-known phrase,
"When France is satisfied Europe is tran
uuil" German ideas will hereafter have
most weight with European politicians; the
German mo" will be looked on as the great
est of all obstacles, the German eyes as the
greatest of encouragements; and German in
stitutions will inevitably furnish the model
for second-rate powers and half lf-organized
nationslities. The change-one of the most
important the world has scents permanent
too. OF this there can be no manner of
doubt. The fall of France is not the
result Of her own mad waste of strength,
as under Louis XIV, or of COM
bination of foreign powers, as un-
der the elder Napoleon. She goes down in
the very flush of her power, after twenty
years of great material prosperity, with her
armies at their full strength, and her arma-
ment as perfect as science and preparation
can make it, and under the blows of a single
enemy. That enemy, moreover, is a new ma
ton, of which Europe has hitherto known
nothing, which Napoleon 1 never encoun-
tered, and probably never even dimly foresaw
till the campaign of 1918. The force now
marching on Paris is not the old foe which
the Emperor foolishly imagined his uncle
had overthrown at Jena; it is lite
rally fresh one, as politically strange
and terrible for France as the hordes
which poured across the frontier of Gaul in
the fifth century-and in some ways as hardy,
vigorous, and as full of hope. 1t comes, too,
with all the strength of extraordinary train
ing, with a rapidly increasing population, in
| A. T,1,, 1f IL
natural result of pure family life, and with
passionate confidence in the future which
has in no degree diminished what is perhaps
nearly as necessary to the display of the
highest devotion-its strong reverence for the
past.
1t is with no desire to underrate what
France has done for the world that we say
that this transfer of the predominance in
! Europe from her to Germany will be great
gain for civilization. France for forty years
after the Revolution rendered invaluable SER
/ vice in the work of destruction. The Napo-
leonic conquests, ruthless as they were, broke
up feudal institutions and made feudal ideas
ridiculous, and gave the world the first aud
most startling illustration it had ever had of
the truth that ''rank was but the guineas
stamp" and that it was not only in the
New Testament that the stable-boy
was as good as the gentleman, but on
the battlefield. Every time Murat charged,
he taught lesson in human equality which
was carried back to every home on the Conti-
nent. But with this, and the Code Napoleon,
which has since furnished model to nearly
all the Latin states, the political value of
France may be said to end. To the work of
reconstruction, of building up better order
of ideas and better polity on the medieval
ruins she has rendered no assistance; nay,
has proved positive hindrance. 1t was the
influence of French politicians on the Conti-
mental malcontents which made the revolu-
tions of 1913 such melancholy and ludicrous
failures; and it was their follies, too, which
made possible the extraordinary attempt to
revive in France herself the system of pagan
despotism-that is, despotism resting on
simple brute force, and not on traditions and
sentiment-of which we are, it is to be hoped,
now witnessing the end. Cesarism is pro-
duct of French soil, and would not have been
possible if the French had not been ready for
it. They have now twice within the present
century placed the whole resources of their
magnificent territory, the absolute control of
their army, navy, treasury, and educational
system, in the hands of military adventurer,
and let him make what use he pleased OF
them, imposing no conditions on him what
; ever, except that he should pick quarrels every
now and then, and not be defeated in battle
in other words, letting him govern great
| Christian State on the same tenure as the
; chief governs band of brigands
> In the first instance, they had the excuse
{ that they surrendered themselves amidst the
: confusion of great social and political revo
{ luton to man of extraordinary genius. But
5 in this second case, they placed their lives
I and fortunes at the disposal of an obscure
: pretender, of whose character but little was
Q known, and that little bad, who came sur