The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1874-06-16

watch with the deepest attention the efforts of
the French to fashion government that will
unite order aud liberty, that will combine
peace and prosperity with perfect freedom.
For ourselves, wishing all happiness and honor
to France, because of her friendship to America
in the days when we needed aid and because
of what she has done for enlightenment and
liberty, We feel the profoundest interest in the
success of the Republic. Although that sue
cess is not hopeful, and the work has been
attended with discouragements and disap-
pointing outbreaks like the Commune, an out
break quite as disgraceful and almost as brutal
as the draft riots in New York, and although
the recent signs in France are not apt to give
the republicans much comfort, we still believe
that there can be no stable government that is
not republican in form and spirit. We put
aside as unworthy even of serious considera-
ton the sentiment which the American mind,
in its moments of excessive political vanity,
is so apt to fondle, that '.the French people are
unfit for self-government" France has
never shown so much progress and real
national strength as under the Republics The
Republic has always meant peace, while every
other form of government meant war. The
republican wars were made in self-defence, to
protect the territory from kings and princes
who came as enemies Of freedom. The mon
archical and imperial wars were mainly in
vssions to conquer and extendand save dynas-
ties Never has republicanism shown its fit
ness more clearly than since Sedan. We do
not think the Republic of Gambetta or Theirs
especially exalted forms Of free government,
but they are forms that have been honestly
administered. When Napoleon was living in
the pampered luxury of Cassel as a war pris-
oner, when his marshals were squandering
the armies Of France by treachery and incom-
potency, a republican government that came,
as Bismarck said, from "the pavement"
struck the only heroic blow that was struck
for France during the war. When the
country was PROSTATE. and bleeding and ap-
parently dead, another republican government
lifted her, bound up her wounds, rescued
her soil from the conqueror and showed the
world her marvellous resources. From that
time to the present there has been peace.
Why is it now that we see discord and agita-
ton?
The reason is q plain one, and it cannot be
too carefully studied by republicans all over
the world. The antagonist of the Republic is
Napoleonism We can understand how the
first Bonaparte could make Napoleonism a
system, but only such q man could do it.
Since his time what have we seen? Begin
ming with the eighteenth Of Brumaire-em-
bracing the invasion of Spain and Russia,
the murder Of Duo d'Enghien, and
the needless catastrophe of Waterloo
what was the career of the transcendant
genius who then ruled France, but a
splendid, Jove-ike imperial tyranny, which
had no purpose that was not selfshness which
never hesitated to use every power to gain its
purpose? To make kings of the dreaming
Louis, the foolish Joseph, the gaudy Murat
and the worthless Jerome, Napoleonism
squandered the blood of hundreds of
thousands Of Frenchmen on fifty bat
tie fields, and surrendered to the alliance
of kings all that Napoleon's genius, which was
great, and the genius Of revolutionary France.
which was greater, had gained. This was
the fault OF the magnificent genius whose
glory astonished the world, and to which
the world has always pardoned so much. It
was the eagle-and since then we have had
the vulture and the crow. Can we find more
fitting emblems for the Third Empire? Con-
cede to Napoleon Ill as an exponent Of Ma
poleonism all that his eulogists claim, and
what is his system but another phase of
subtle, successful, gaudy and, in the end,
ruinous tyranny? He reigned twenty years.
During that time he was master of France,
the richest country in some respects in the
world. He was SO weak that he permitted
wanton war, and when war came it was
found that, Notwithstanding the millions
France had lavished on the army there
was no army. The millions had gone
no one knows whittier, and France was
at the mercy of a justly angered and irwin
chile enemy. Wherever menace or an adven-
ture with weak power could serve his pur-
pose Napoleon was strong. He could fight
Russia with the aid of England and Austria,
assisted by Italy, but when it came to an
actual war with an armed enemy he was de-
feated. We look in vain through the career of
this ruler for any Of those fascinating, and,
in the eyes of the world, redeeming
qualities which gave glory to the founder OF
his dynasty. He was gigantic meddler and
bully. When we had our rebellion he showed
his hatred OF liberty by sending an army to
suppress the Mexican Republic and put an
Austrian prince on the throne. History
already shows that he was on the point Of an
a1 into in If tho Gc,th
All he did for united Italy was furnished by
his course towards Nice and Savoy, and his
protection of the temporal power His first act
as ruler of France was to swear to support the
Republic; his second was the coup detat.
He began his career by breaking his oath,
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