New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1871-05-25
BFDLAM ON FIRE.

The iconoclasts of Paris have made their
last hours so Infamous that it is to be hoped
some good may result from the frightful moral
they point to France and the world. The
smoking ruins of the Tuieries are the most
impressive sermon which could be preached
on the theme of revolutionary madness. The
revolt of M0ntmartre was foupded-if IL had
any foundation except mere idleness and
rowdyism - upon the passionate worship
of Paris, which is well nigh all OF
the religion OF a haunter of the b0uleYards
II was to rescue and defend Paris-the beau
tifEI, and glorious, and enlightened home OF
idras-against the brutal tyranny OF mere
numbers that her street population took ~
arIas against the Republic There was hys-
tciical and exaggerated asCription of sacred
ness to the beautiful city which rather re-
sembled the rhaDsodies OF a lover than the
platform of revolutionary politicians. But as
soon as the insane campaign was lost, AZ soon
as the armies of France sWarmed through the
broken ramparts, these madmen turned in their
impotent fury upon the city of their love,
Us if cursing the fatal beauty which had won
their hearts and lured them into ruin.
1t was q last desperate expression of crushed
and wounded vanity that induced the Com
munist mob to destroy the Tuileries There
was no excuse, either in taste or in logic, for
this act, on the entrance of the Republican
army into the capital. There was no political
protest involved in it. There was no pile OF
carven stones in France that symbolized so
succnctly the glories of its modern history
BHilt by Catharinc de Medic it saw the death
of Henry the Fourth and the long reiSns OF
his Bourbon descendants. 1t was the armament
where the Sun-King sh0ne in the high noon
OF European monarchy. 1t witnessed the fad
ing twilight OF that glorious line through the
fevered hours of the Regency, and its red
sunset on the scaliold of the Place de In Con-
cOrde. The Republic invaded it, and the
Glory of Francc-that wild and wicked demon
which has so long enslaved her-came in and
made its chosen residence in the palace Of
Philibert DelOrme, through all the lurid years
OF the Consulate and the Empire. 1t was equally
the home of responsibility and ennui during
the vrtuOus administration OF the Burgher
King of Orleans. And that IFS claim of CathO-
lie and democratic association might be COM
Dlete it gave shelter for twenty years to
Dutchman who pretended he was a Corsican,
a dullard whs gave himself airs of wit, whose
sole capital was "A spurious name, and whose
over-anxious ambition was to found dynasty,
who came to the throne through having
mother, and lost it through having son.
There are still more alarming rumors of de-
structiOn by the Communists The galleries of
the Louvre are in great danger and taOSe of
the Luxembourg are threatened. II is scarcely
possible that the works of art in these mag
nifcent collections have been left exposed to
the chances of siege and the rage of in
surrection. But if the torch has had its
will of them, the loss is infinitely more
to be dep0red than that of the Tulle-
ries. The glory of the palace had been sadly
furnished by the rage for vulgar freshness and
adornment which possessed the paryenu Ma
pOleon. The Pavilion de Flore distgured the
river view of the great pile with its intolera
able mass of Hausmann ornament, and the
plan of the imperial architect embraced the
rebuilding of the entire western front.
II was already so prOfaned that it
had lost half its value. But the
Louvre was untouched in its beauty and haf-
monious variety, the great stone history which
begins with the sculptured loves of Henry III.
and Diana of Potiers, and ends with the no.
bic colonnade of Louis the Great Its lordly
galleries were filled with treasures of art
worth more to the world than any possible
Emperor, or demagogue, or soldier