, 1875-03-24
THIRD FRENCH REPUBLIC.
(Fromthe SPECTATOR

OF the nature OF coup d6t0t. There is
nothing unusual, therefore, or unhistorical
in the breathless rapidity with which the
Assembly, under the influence of the
Violet Spectre, has swung round, has set
aside Monarchy in all it's forms, and has
established, SO far as law may do it, a
Constitutional Republic. Nor is the haste
of itself any proof that the work accom-
plished will not last for any appreciate
period. The National Assembly of 1889
abolished feudalism in o night august A.,
and the system has never even partially
revived. The personal power of Napoleon
was established in 1899 in six hours, and
he reigned under one name or another for
sixteen years. The Monarchy was restor-
ed almost by an accident and by a foreign
proclamation, and Louis XVIII. died tran
gully IN his bed u~ndisputed King Of
France. The three days of July 3Oth, with
their dramatic and unattended ending,
were followed by a regime of eighteen
years; and though the Republic of 1848,
proclaimed in q moment, died in four
years, the Dictatorship established in a day
lasted for seventeen. There is therefore
no evidence, though much fear, that the
new regime may not endure, and the reasons
for hope are the stronger because it has
so obviously made itself. The ironv Of
history, the vanity of human projects, the
controlling power of circumstance over
men, were never shown upon a larger or
more glaringly-lighted stage. The Sove~
reign Assembly, elected to make peace,
was found to contain a majority DESTROYS
of re-establishing Monarchy in France.
By a supreme effort Of ambition or self
sacrifice, the branches of the House to
which that majority looked for a King
were fused into one family, accepting the
law of succession usual in Europe and
preferred by all Monarchists not Moham-
medan or Chinese. The majority dismiss
ed q chief of the Executive who had ac-
cepted Republicanism, and appointed
a soldier who declared himself Conserva-
tive, and vowed to obey the order of tho
Assembly. The people, h~alfstupefed by
misfortune, half hoping that safety might
be found in the old path, awaited, appa-
rently acqulescent, the decision of the
Assembly. And then,-then the Assem-
bly, plunged into q dispute of eighteen
months, and growing apparently more and
more divided every day, suddenly, under
an overmastering impulse, whether pro-
duced by WEAKNESS, by circumstance, or
by fear, established the Republic. Half
the Monarchists proposed it. The Conser-
vative Head Of the Executive fostered it.
The people gladly acquiesced in it. In
less than a month of debating, a Constitu.
ton Republican in its essence, President,
Senate, and Representatives being all alike
elective, though in different ways, and for
varying terms, was legally established as a
permanent form of government for France.
And this work has been accomplished
by an Assembly devoted to Monarchy, by
q Commander-in-Chi honestly Conserva-
tive, and by a people supposed, when the
Assembly began its labours, to consider
q Republic a kind Of semi-organised
anarchy.
There never was q more extraordinary
transaction, or one in which men looked
more like the instruments of some external
force, and its exceptional character is most
OF all manifest in the proceedings of the
last few days. The Assembly, which had
only a fortnight before decreed the election
OF the Senate by universal suffrage, de-
creed, by much larger majorities, that a
fourth of it should be appointed by itself
for life, and the remainder by the suffrage
of the C0untv Parliamente and Mupio;nol