The Portland daily press., 1872-10-05
Fire rs a Democratic Agent


The decade just begun is unfavorable to
rogue palaces. st. Cloud, the Tuilleries, and
now the Escurial have been destroyed by fire.
The regret excited in the American mind by
the ruin of the French palaces was much tenn
pered by the remembrance of the wrongs
against humanity which were committed by
their occupants, Of the erection of them on
the blood and bones of millions of wretched,
untaught peasants, and most of all, of the
fact that the continued existence of these
magnificent structures is continual invita-
ton to the numerous vagrant heirs of differ
ent royal families to return and occupy them.
Royalty can hardly exist in these days with
ont its conventional accessories, its crowns,
it's jewels, cruelty extensive civil lists, and its
palaces, chateaux and country seats. The
King of Yvetot, with cotton night-cap in
stead of crown, would hardly do for mod
ern sovereign. Royalty becomes more cruel
as it becomes more and more an anachron-
ism, till now its vast estates and the immense
military establishments, necessary to keep the
hands of the people from tearing down so
monstrous an institution, eat up the whole
patrimony of the people in the personal in
terest Of the sovereign and the aristocracy
surrounding his throne. Gorgeous palaces
are the most important of these essential &C
cessories of royalty, and being destroyed, it
is difficult on account of their cost to restore
them. The building of Versailles excited
murmurs against even the Grand Monarch;
King William himself could hardly do SO
heartless thing now without exciting an in
surrection. The races of brutes, fools, drunk
ards and madmen that inhabited st. Cloud
and the Tuileries still have their representa-
tives lowering on the frontiers of "Fair
France" ready to swoop down upon it at the
earliest opportunity. Some one of them may
sometime succeed temporarily in his purpose,
but the present generation of Frenchmen will
never permit him to rebuild those nests of
unclean birds. Fire alone could cleanse them
after the polluting presence of the last dull
eyed, Bourbon-like Bonaparte Let us hope
that old Theirs, who is certainly not demo-
cratic enough to alarm anybody, may long
keep his modest state in the Palais Royal in
stead of giving way to the race of brainless
tops who used to feed on human flesh at St.
German, Luxembourg, Versailles and Fon-
tainbleau. The Emperors who held their
conference at Berlin the otherday could hard
ly congratulate their brother William very
heartily after all. For what has he done?
Established a Republic in one of the most
powerful of continental nations-a Republic
already drawing near the close of its second
year and exhibiting more signs of vitality and
permanence than ever the French Republic
did before at the end of it's second year. With
Theirs and Gambetta in substantial accord,
and both laboring to place the commonwealth
on a firm foundation, VIC may hope that Bon
apartists, Orleanists and Bourbons and such
other anthropophagi may soon follow where
the fire of the Commune has sent two of
their late residences.
Thomas Jefferson wrote home from France
that there was not European monarch reign
ing in 1855 whose intellectual qualities would
entitle him to the most unimportant office in
the United States George Ill was a mad
man, the Prince of Wales, afterwards George
Nv, hog, the successor of the great Fritz
also hog and Louis XVI fool, according to
the author of the Declaration of mdepend-
ence, who knew them personally. So says
Mr.. Parton in the last atlantic. But the
palace of the Escurial, said to have been
burned on Wednesday, has sheltered not one,
but score of kings who were in madness.
swinishness and idiocy far below the princes
mentioned by great-souled Thomas jefferson,
N1ho "a !.
king of men. The record of the Bourbons in
Spain from the first French usurper down to
the fat and sensual old Messalina called Isa-
bella, who fed before Gen. Prim's cohorts in
1868 is one Of the most humiliating chapters
in human history. 1t is to be hoped that the |
destruction of the Escurial hog-pen, in which
they wallowsd, will tend in some small degree
to hasten the day when men like CASTELAR,,
the divine orator and kindly friend of the hui
man race, will rule by popular choice in the
land where an accidental Amadeus nov
rcigns by virtue of his royal birth.
Philip III built the Escurial, beginning in
1853, at cost of $15,OOO,OOO and twenty-one
years labor. The feeling of sentimental re-
greet that the telegraph tries to inspire over
the ruin of the castle on account of the al
legged loss of the library and picture gallery il
entirely Fictitious. Both books and pictures
have been largely depleted by the French, by
previous fires and by removals to Madrid.