The New York herald. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1840-1920, 1874-03-17
The Meeting ~ Chiseihurst-The APP
peal TO the People.

peal 20 the People.
The assemblage at Chiselhurst seems to have
been of placid character. The ladies in
Paris quietly attended church. and the gentle
men, with well waved mustaches ''demon-
strated' along the boulevards. with violet
flowers in their coat lapels The Chiselhurst
Gay was cordially spent and the young Prince
bore himself in an admirable manner. Nothing
In the way of department could have exceeded
the grace and tact with which he welcomed
the friends and supporters Of his father under
the stately oaks of Camden Place. As tor his
| speech, it was worthy of M Rouher and the
committee of literary Bonspartists who con-
structed it. According to this address the
Prince will wait until France ''pronounces
He will be Emperor by universal suffrage or
not at all. If France wants an eighteen year
old lad, now studying engineering and mathe-
MATES, to come and ''save the nation" he
Will come, accompanied by his Spanish
mother, and do what Gambetta and Theirs and
MacMahon have not yet succeeded in doing
namely, pacity and consolidate France
The thought that there is really a large
party of the most intelligent people in Che
world who believe that this slender, amiabe
STRIPPING is really the only person who can
''save France is grotesque to us, with our
republican feelings and our belief that it re-
quires man, and strong, great man to rule
an Empire. We could understand how this
Prince might be symbol, decoration. an
emblem of power like the Queen; how he
might ascend the throne as constitutional
ruler sustained by able Ministers. But such
a proceeding would not be Napoleonism. This
lad, who is now of age and who tomorrow
might be Napoleon w., would ascend the
throne as master of France, monarch with
absolute power untrammelled by any con-
siderations restrictions, and beyond the
reach Of any legislature Napoleonism means
an appeal to the people whenever it suits the
pleasure of the Napoleon. It may be made
once in year or once in twenty years, and
after this appeal there remains unrestricted
authority over army, navy and treasury to the
Napoleon in power. The only time it was ever
attempted to combine Napoieonic ideas
with constitutional government there came
coup detm. The two systems have no SYM
pathy. They are as powder aud fre-only
meeting to explode. This young man is re-
ported as saying that he did not wish to be
Emperor, clogged with the dragchain
of the I'd OF December. We presume
some epigrammatical Bonapartist has said
it for him but it indicates that the party
means to play a new drama. For we can
never understand Napoleonism unless We look
at it as a comedy or a drama A Bonaparte
of the throne is playing part, the throne is
meant after all Any ''love for liberty or
universal suffrage or republican institutions
is like the eloquence of Mr.. Booth as Hamlet
or of MIR. Wallack as Alfred Evelyn. Mr..
Booth and Mr.. Wallack show how gifted and ac-
compllshed men express the emotions OF heart
and soul. A Napoleon shows us how to ex-
press the emotions and passions of liberty.
The people are simply those who come into
the theatre and pay. The players act because
they love their art and live by it as profess
sion. The imperial players act because they
love power and would earn their livelihood by
governing France.
This is the view we take of Napoeonism
But it would be narrow and limited view if
more. Our interesting and elaborate inter
view with u Olivier shows the influence
Napoleonism exercises upon one of the first
minds of France. M. Olivier has the cour-
age of his convictions, and he shows
that the Bonaparte party is one of the
ruling influences in France. 1t rests upon the
prestige Of the most famous man of modern
of ,b<,, 1a Id
''the foremost man of all this world" AL
though criticism and the maturer Judgment of
history have diminished the prestige of Napo-
leon as a general and ruler, he was a character
calculated largely to influence the magma
tons of Frenchmen, and not only of French
men but other nations. His influence stamps
itself upon the literature and thought and
policy of the nineteenth century. Take Ma
poleonism out of this century and it is as
barren as the eleventh or twelfth. The i'm
agination of France sees in Napoleonism the
power which carried its flag into nearly every
capital of Europe, which overthrow empires,
reconstructed nations, rooted out old dynas-
ties and founded new ones, and made the
French name unspeakably glorious. Any
yearning for Napoleonism is the natural wish
of France for triumph and revenge, for re-
turn OF the old days of Austerltz and
Marengo, when Frenchmen ruled from
Hamburg to Milan. We may argue
that this is an illusion; that Napoleon
ism is in many essentials sham; that its
glory was as fleeing as the purple-goden
summer cloud; that its victories were barren;
that France was sacrificed to the selfish pur-
poses Of master whose browning ambition
was to make kings out of his foolish brothers,
and who used France as preserve or an es-
tate, as personal possession for his own COM
fort and uses. We may demonstrate that
never in its darkest days, not even when