The New York herald., 1871-01-18
axha-stisa Of sss Lssi. Races.


Mans repeat to us the sad story OF French
disaster which thundered over astonished
Europe from German guns at Woerth, at
Gravelotte, at Sedan and at Orleans. The
brilliant epoch Of military supremacy which
the tremendous vigor of the First Republic and
the genius Of Napoleon opened for France is
| rapidly closing, not In utter gloom, indeed,
since the resistance Of Paris-the cosmopo-
Titan city and the capital of all European
strains and races-is worthy Of the pen Of
modern Tacltus, dipped from time to time in the
ink ofPlutarch. But France, as the second en-
pre left it, is prone in the dust of defeats which
the despairing heroism Of some of her young
recruits renders only the more absolute,
decisive and irreparable. Her eastern
boundaries have been obliterated; her strong
holds-the boast Of ages-have been
entered and possessed; the sanctuary
of the ancient cathedral at Rouen can no
longer hold safely as trophy the heart
of Richard C9ur dc Lion the mysterious bar
rier of Orleans could not exclude the feet Of
the invader from the hearthstone Of Joan of
Are; the ashes and the fame of Charles Martel
have had no terror for the rude Uhlan riders
who scour the plains Of Tours, and the bonn
harding shot and shell Of the medern Neo-
Gcths from far beyond the Rhine have even
crashed in upon the repose of the great En-
peror himself which not all the vauntsd for
tresses girdling his former seat Of glory and
supreme command could shelter from the fury
nd ;vc,, koTt \ AcII sv,<
scene of devastation, the least imaginative eye
may detect striking, most instructive
emblem, such as the hand Of fact 80 often pro-
duces, as though with clear, intelligent
design-the gilded dome Of the 1nvalides
shattered and gaping in ruin above the sarco-
phagus of the modern Alexander, around
whom lay strewn the designated insignia of his
renown and the fragments of the temple
itself! Just such frail and gilded fabric has
the Napoleonic empire proven, and just such
a dead giant of the past lies beneath its debris
in the memory of what France was and what
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When We remember the numbers, the &C.
quired wealth, the conspicuous position, the
resources of the important region known as
France and her splendid colonies in every
part Of the world, and then contemplate the
terrible pr0stration that we now behold after
but seven months warfare, that began with
the cry Of "On to Berlin I" manifesto in
which imperial grandiloduence outdid itself,
and pgan to the supremacy of the 'Latin
race" and the inferiority Of all who should
dare to contend against them, we are COM
PEELED 70 look more deeply than the surface
or than any temporary existing form of gov
ernment for the reasons Of catastrophe SO
remarkably in contradiction with apparent
facts. ''The Latin races" Count Bismarck
is reported by competent authority to have
said, at recent interview with a distinguished
diplomatist, ''are worn out. The future be-
longs to the peoples of the North and the
latter are but starting in the glorious part
that they are destined to play for the
good nf humanity" Thus, from the
lips of stern ''man Of destiny"
who combines the statesman and the soldier in
one character, and draws his inspiration from
the legends, the laws and the usages of q
Gothic ancestry, we hear the words of the
situation. And these he utters at the head Of
million of the sturdiest, the most enduring, the
most selfsacrifcing, the most earnest and the
most wat,hful, while, at the same time, the
most active and skilful troops, for the time
being, In the world. They are of ''the North |
ern peoples" of Northern stock, descent and
nurture. They stand embattled on the soil of |
France, holding nearly all her chief cities of |
trade and manufacture above the Loire, grasp |
ing her capital and sitting it with hands of |
steel and fire into surrender their every fight |
a victory, their every march conquest. In
seven months they have extinguished the most
famous military empire Of modern times; have
captured an Emperor bearing the once invinci-
BILE Napoleonic name, with all his veteran
armies and most celebrated Businesses; have
overrun and now rule one-half Of Continental
France, with twenty millions of an alien, a
warlike and bitterly exasperated people of
manners, laws, language and religion different
from their own. There were arms, gene
rails, artillery, forts, numbers, fame, the
highest incentives and the largest homoge-
neous population in Europe on the side of the
French, along with the most overweening con-
fdence in themselves and perfect contempt for
foe whom they had often beaten in past
wars and SO looked upon as an inferior race.
All this is new to the records Of modern war
fare among the more masculine races nor will
the condition ofmere recruits and the brevity of
service sufficiently account for it. We, too,
had raw recruits in our American armies dur
ing our civil war, and yet they stood and
moved like veterans, equally un1inching by
night as by day, in the ordered battle or at |
the sudden alarm. With the exception of one |
or two unfortunate blunders, ascribable chiefly |