Litchfield enquirer., 1874-08-13
France and her Standing Army.

odicals.
 France and her Standing Army.
 The French Assembly has finally ad iourned for three months, during which period Royalists will be busy trying to agree on a dynasty-luckily no easy mat ter-Napoleonists will intrigue for Meir Restoration, and Republicans will be or ganizing to prevent tho saddling of the country with another Bourbon or another BOnaparte To the American, the fact that the Republicans can carry nearly every election seems to settle the consti- tntional question ill favor of the republic We find it difficult to conceive what an Assembly of Royalists Gan hope for from a people that in repeated elections have chosen Republicans, with now and then a Bonapartist, but never Royalist. The key of this mystery is to be found in the fact that the Supreme Court of France, by which all her great constitutional questions are finally decided, is her stand ing army. That army is strong enough when united and well led to beat the peo- pie. The great Napoleons "whif of grape shot" that ended the great Revolu- tion of 1789, and the lesser Napoleon's coup E ctat winch ended the lesser revo- lution of 1S4S, was simply m assertion of the supreme authority of army over peo- pie.
 Were the French army like the English or German standing force. a body of pie bians ofIicered by patricians-in which the loyal sword of the aristocrat does not fear the rebellious bayonet of the democrat,- there would be no more political instabil- ity in France than there is in Austria or in England. But the French urIny i. as democratic as an army we'll can be. It differs from the English army just as our regular force differed from our volunteer force in the war. Our regulars" are body of common laborers at the work of war, officered by educated gentlemen. in which the private or non-commissioned officer has no hope of rising from the ranks. To the volunteer of merit, how. ever, promotion was always open. As in the old French war Napoleon's best mar shals were men who had risen from tho very bottom to the very top, 80, in our war, our best colonels and brigadiers were the men of the people who had prov ed the aptest pupils in the school of act ual war. Probably the present French army is far from being as democratic in constitution as that which overran Flu rope seventy years ago. It needs much hard fighting to officer an army we'll in that way, and, in time of peace, commits sions are given to young men trained in schools rather than to common soldiers who have no opportunity for showing such special talent or courage as should raise them from the ranks. Still, it is by far the most democratic standing army known to modern history, and out of that pecu- iiarity has resulted the peculiar part it has played in so many revolutions.
 "Bayonets' thus democratically officer ed. and looking back to great democrat ic revolution as their period of greatest glory, are apt to ''think" on great occa- sions. They are of the people. intimate with the people; and, when the people become thoroughly aroused and anything like unanimous in opposition to 0 govern ment, the bayonets are apt to ''fraternize" with them and then the government must take to its heels. But when the people at large are wearied with political agitation, the army is apt to obey orders, to dis perse a legislature, or to shoot down the ''mOb," as directed and the government triumphs. They do not mako and un- make emperors as did the Pretorians of imperial Rome. but they decide great po- they obey orders, popular risings prove abortive; if not, the popular rising at once becomes a revolution.
 Keeping these facts m vIew, we have a clew to the strange proceedings of the present Assembly. The majority of that Assembly is Bourbonist, desiring a res- toration either of it's older Legitimist, or, its younger, Orleanist dynasty. But the army does not love the Bourbons. It has failed them four times during the past eighty years: first under Louis XVI, in the great revolution De Broglie, an an- cestor of the late Minister of that name, trying in vain to command them); next when Louis XVIII "trundled peacefully out of France" on one side, soon after Napoleon entered it from Elba, on the other; again, in 1880, when the people repudiated the elder Bourbon line; and, for the fourth tune, when Louis Philippe representing the Orleans dynasty, retired so England, ,as plain sMr. Smith, Fin 1848. Hence. when the Bourbons of the Assem- bly overthreW Thiers. they made Nc Ma hon President in his place, simply be- cause they suppose that Mo Mahon can control the army, and with the army on their side they care nothing for the peo- pie. Still, experience having taught them that they may offend the people so deeply as to lose them the support of the army, they hesitate to meddle with uni SersaI suffrage, the great reliance of Re-