The Portland daily press. [volume] (Portland, Me.) 1862-1921, 1873-02-27
A Troublesome Glass for the Spanish
RpnuhJic

When the French Republicans cf 1892
gained complete control of tfeir country,
they proceeded at once to exterminate, so
far as they were able, every scion of royal
or noble house who would in the future have
any motive to overthrow or disturb the Re-
public. King, queen, princes and peers were
offered up in order that the millions of the
common people of France might forever en-
joy security and happiness. For these bloody
deeds the terrorists have been held in univer-
sal detestation by mankind. In their own
. day their only prominent apologist outside of
France was Tom Paine, who, in reply to
Burke's celebrated "Letter on the French
Revolution in which the sufferings aud sor-
= rows of the aristocracy were eloquently be
walled, exclaimed s'Burke pities the plumage
but forge.s the dying bird.'' In this genera
ton we have never known a voice raised in
behalf of Robespierre, Marat and Danton and
. their compatriots, with the single exception
ofthat OF George Wilkes of the Spirit of the
Times, who, after the overthrow of the Com
mune, wrote some spirited letters from Paris
in which he entered on an elaborate defense
Of the Reds Of both the present and past gen.
erations. Perhaps the verdict of mankind is
right. Let it be conceded that it would have
been better policy and better morals to let
''Louis Capet'' and his friends keep their
heads. Yet it must be confessed that kings
and princes out of employment are perpet-
ual menace to free governments. A score of
individuals plotting in the interest of mon
archy imperil the safety, happiness and lib
erty of countless millions. The constant
restlessness of Legtimists, Bonapartists and
Orleansists has kept France in state of
alarm and confusion, with frequent interIudes
of bloodshed, for nearly century. The
revouIionists of 1913, instead of initiating
the cruel method ofthe men of '92, let Louis
Bonaparte and other imperaists share with
them the control of the government
, The wicked intriguers repaid this
ma,nanimity by overthrowing liberty and as
sassnating its defenders. There is no more
faith or honor in an aspirant to a throne or
to position beside throne than in wild
beast. The assumed Righteousness of the
end to be gained is a sufficient justification of
the means. used. The so-called French Re-
public of to-day, which lets hardly week go
by without the execution of fresh batch of
Communists, is itself in daily peril from the
Bourbons. the Imperialists and the house of
Orleans. The partisans of all these factions
make the interests OF the people of France
nothing in comparison with those of the no.
BILE families whose claims they support. They
would any of them unhesitatinsly plunge
France into bloody civil war, that would
certainly involve the misery of millions of
people and the loss of property to an indefi.
mite extent, if such a war should make
"Henry w or the Count de Paris or ''Na-
poleon "" the ruler of France.
The Spanish Republic is to be put in cor
slant jeopardy by these same men whose in
terests are antagonistic to those of the peo-
pie. Already the telegraph speaks of the ac-
tivity of the friends of Don Carlos, and the
movements of the friends of the ex-Queen
Isabella and of the Duke of Montpenser. 1t
is enough to stir the bile of any friend of
human progress and liberty TO think of the
democratic government of Spain put in peril
~ VIM SAVA VI VA @ iap, oSA7ostis Piohi5dtC Olu
woman to re- establish her residence in the
Escurial. As for the Duke of Montpensier,
one of the sons of Louis Philippe, he is the
man who was promising candidate for the
throne before Amadeus was induced to occu-
Ply it, but having quarreled with Henry de
Bourbon and killed him in duel, his party
became discouraged and he withdrew from
the competition. He is brother to the
Duke d Aumale and an uncle to the Count
de Paris who are both claimants to the French
--threAe as representatives of the Orleans fam
lily. The Spanish Republicans will not of
course initiate the example of their French
prototypes of a century ago, and put the
Montpensiers, Bourbons, Don Carlos and
their friends to death as fast as they catch
them, But it is surely a pity that tenderness
for the ''plumage" involves such dangers and
misery for ''the bird" "