The New York herald., 1877-09-08
MI. Thiers' Funeral.

All Paris will to-day give itself up to the
solemn duty OF burying the great leader of
the republican party. and the day will be
one Of peculiar excitement In France if
the deaths Of men prominently identified
with liberal ideas occur at critical period
their funerals are always demonstrations
There is simple enough reason for this.
Political demonstration proper is forbidden;
but it is not possible to prevent q fu-
neral, nor to prevent sponta-
neous exhibition Of respect for the
tyranny for authority to forbid any funeral
procession, whatever, for a distinguished
citizen that it has not been tried; and when
a procession is formed it is no longer pos
sible to limit the proportions it may assume
ere the place of interment is reached. An
occasion is afforded by it for the expression
of sympathy with the principles of the de-
funct and of admiration for his life and
services, an occasion all the more readily
seized because it is 30 seldom in the power
of every citizen to contribute to the force Of
such an expression by SO simple an act as
joining his neighbors in funeral cortege.
Hence, from the time Of the funeral of Gen
eral Lamarque to the noisy demonstrations
under the Second Empire the people Of
Paris have declared themselves in this way.
Apparently the certainty that the funeral
of M. Theirs would become an occasion of
this sort was Immediately comprehended by
the Ministry and on that aspect of the case
II.
the subject. 1t needed no great perspicacity
to see that the population of Paris, which
acts on common and passionate impulses
with sympathy and unity not found in the
people Of any other city, would regard it as
a discredit and disgrace not to honor to the
utmost the memory of the great statesman.
There was to be found in his career every
element that could secure the passionate adj
miration of that enthusiastic people. He was
q historian who had told with unequalled
vivacity and success the story of the great
days Of the Revolution and the Empire, and
had so identified himself with the events he
chronicled that he was covered with the
halo of their glory. He was a statesman
whose genius became known to republicans
by the success with which for nearly a.
lifetime he opposed their purposes, but who
in the ripest period Of his Judgment made
the reparation of o sincere politician by
adopting their purposes and principles and
lending his own efforts to secure their sue
cess. He was patriot who, in the last
great period of the prostration of his country
before foreign foe, did more to save her by
his genius in the Cabinet than all the armies
and commanders had done in the field
1t was to be assumed that Paris would seize
the occasion to honor this man, and therefore,
apparently, the government determined to
be beforehand with the people, and, by pre-
tending to honor the great citizen by an
official funeral, so manage the details as to
otherwise inevitable. In his own home M.
Theirs was regarded with en- infinite admir-
alton that the veneration of the populace
will never reach, and they who thus re-
garded him would not make of the solemn
occasion of his death season of small
disputes over trivial particulars; but
they would quite as little yield
to the official presumption that was
only eager to have quietly done with
thing it apprehended. In the difference
between Mime. Theirs and the government
there is far more than has yet been made
public and we may be certain that that
lady only maintained what she deemed neces-
sary to the fame of her husband If the
purpose of the government in its proffer of
q funeral in official form had been simply to
honor great citizen this could have been
done consistently with yielding oil proper
consideration to the wishes Of his wife.
Those wishes it could only have desired to
smother when it had other and less worthy
] intentions.