The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1874-03-21


Once more has the last Premier of the Sec
ond Empire given Paris the pleasure OF sur
prise. He has presented himself as moral
hero, and has compelled the Academy to en-
roll him in the number OF martyrs to opinion.
This could scarcely have been expected from
the man who went into the war of 1870 with
"a light heart" except, indeed, as we might
assume that O man who had light heart in
those circumstances would never, in any cir
cumstances, have a very heavy one, and so
would be prepared with the requisite temper
for taking advantage Of opportunity as it
came and meeting fortune on any terms 1t
may, indeed, be this temper that has given to
the temperance of M. Olivier at happy
moment the cachet of that peculiar sort of sue
cess most likely to secure him favor with the
larger number; or it may be that
the truly earnest and loyal side Of
the mans nature has come out in his
little difference with the Academy. If it
be the latter his success will be more lasting
than in the other case; for the French, super
fetal and pitiless as they are in epigram,
have, more than any other people in Europe,
the instructive perception of real sincerity,
and respect it just in proportion as they do
not possess it. Our Paris correspondent tells
well in another column the whole story of o.
livier's latest stroke. He was elected one of
'The Forty" before his fall, and as the fauteulls
of the Academy are sacred to literature and
the white light OF human reason, it presuma-
bly, could never be known to the learned body
that one of its members had fallen; because
what are politics-what are all the coarse and
common struggles Of human effort-to people
who live in the serene atmosphere of abstract
thought? Olivier, therefore, Notwithstanding
his fall, must be received by the Academy
when it might prove convenient to him,
tor it had been necessary for him
to leave the country soon after he
was chosen to chair It proved
convenient for him to be received just in
those days when public opinion seems no
longer to remember him bitterly and when
is not so tar from the throne as people once
thought him. Olivier was to read before the
Academy paper on Lamartine, the former
occupant of his chair, in which he introduced
a reference to the relations OF Lamartine with
Napoleon I'LL, and made this the point Of
support Tor some words of warm eulogium on
the Emperor, of whom it is now treason to
speak well in such company. But the Acad-
envy refused to permit this eulogy to be read
before it, and, as Olivier refused to strike it
out, his reception is indefinitely postponed.
Never before, perhaps, was the Academy SO
useful to any man. It becomes for moment
the stage on which the adroit returning exile
is enabled to present himself to the public in
at once serious and an amiable aspect. Out
of their very admiration for courage the people
will say Bravo! I" to q man who tells an
honest truth as to the talent and good heart
of the strange ruler who has passed away, and
Of whom it has been for many months the
fashion to speak ill through the pressure
equally Of republican and royalist sentiment;
and loyalty and devotion are never wrong.
Olivier, therefore, makes very pretty coup
even if the Bonapartes never return, while if
Napoleon ". should one of these fine days
step into his fathers shoes Olivier cannot be
forgotten.