The New York herald., 1873-09-09
France and spsin-Two Important
Historical Rvouts.

1t is now four years since the world was
startled by the announcement that o revolu-
ton had taken place in Madrid and that
Queen Isabella and some Of her more imme-
diate friends and advisers had found it con-
venient to leave Spain and take refuge
on French soil. These four years have been
marked by great events and they have been
fruitful Of great results. There were many
who thought that the fight of the Spanish
|. Queen, while it implied rich blessings to
Spain, marked the commencement OF new
and happier era for all the old nations OF
Europe Events of the most startling kind
have certainly followed each other in rapid
succession, but we have yet to learn that
Spain has been made happier or that the
general condition of Europe has been i'm
proved Spain has had time to make many
and curious experiments and to taste the
bitterness of intensified national sorrow.
France has had time to measure swords
with her ancient enemy, to fall as she
never fell before and to give such evidence
of recuperatve strength as to make the world
wonder why she did not put forth her strength
Companions in tribulation for the last three
years, yet never in sympathy with each other,
France and Spain, after their strange expe-
riences, again, in very emphatic manner,
command the attention Of the world. Their
pathways are not the same; but in some mys-
terious manner their destinies seem to be
linked.
A crisis, or what may prove to be a crisis,
has arrived in France She has paid to the
German government the last franc of the five
milliards of the war indemnity and for the
last few days the exulting sounds of OH eman-
cipated people fall upon the ears of the retir-
ing foe Once again, after two and half
years occupation, France finds herself free to
decide upon her own destiny and to fix the
character of her own future. France is re-
stored to herself-the nation is emancipated,
and the factions are no longer bound by any
"Pact of Bordeaux" The time SO long
waited for has at last arrived; the truce
is ended, and the nations look on anxiously,
eager to know whether France is to go back
and seek peace and prosperity under mo-
narchical forms of government, or whether the
Republic, which has done SO much for her in
firmly and securely established. What the
surrounding nations ask France earnestly asks
herself. The struggle is imminent, but the
result is doubtful. In her continuous, though
we cannot say progressive, struggle, Spain
finds herself in condition not dissimilar in
taiy m fhot rs
provisional government of Prim failed
the government of Amadeus, which tried
and tested all the factions in turn, failed
the Republic after having exhausted the
skill and patience of the best republicans of
the land, has all but failed and if success
made under the auspices of CASTELAR, the pros
poets of the Republic must be regarded as
buried, and the restoration of the monarchy
pronounced at once necessity and a relief
After all the efforts, sacrifices experiments,
failures and lessons of the last three or four
years Spain has apparently gained nothing by
dismissing Isabella, and it would seem to the
hard worldly mind that the French
people might have done better than
urge Napoleon to war and then spurn
him in the hour of his and their mis-
fortune. When we think of the great English
revolution which began in the days of Charles
the First and ended with the flight of James
and the accession of William and Mary of
the revolution in the Netherlands which re-
suited so disastrously to Spain and so gloriously
to Holland, and even to Germany Of the com
paratively recent struggles which have respec-
lively brought about unity in Italy and unity in
Germany and won back unity in the United
States, and then look at those barren efforts
in France and Spain, We feel as if we had
no choice but to attribute failure to some
radical defect in the French and Spanish
character. With the example of Italy before
us, we cannot, as has become so much the
custom of late, get rid of the difficulty by a
wholesale condemnation of the Latin races
We are unwilling to be rash in our utterances
or too sweeping in our judgments. Better
times may be in store for France and Spain,
and it may be these times are not far distant;
but the many opportunities which have been
enjoyed and lost by the one nation and the
other, as well as the many failures which have
rewarded grand and promising experiments
almost forbid us to hope. fresh crisis, rich
with opportunity, has, as we have said, ar
rived in the history of both nations, and it
remains to be seen whether the crisis is to be
marked by fresh bungling and defeat or by
skill, courage and success,
1t is impossible not to feel convinced that
republican institutions are, so far at least as
the Old World is concerned, to large extent
on their trial. That the example of the United
States has powerfully told in favor of the
Republic as compared with monarchy in all
the nations of Europe is not for moment to
be doubted. No such example was ever given
TO the world before. Not yet one hundred
years old, the young Republic Of the West is