The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1877-09-27


man in ell BIZ; the highest sense, his rep
utation was worldwide before 1870, and
was genuine. But it in for his services to
France that Thiers will be longest and
most honoraoiy remembered, and his
real services 70 France before 1870 had
been of q negative kind. To speak more
plainly, he had done France moro harm
than good. To hims more than TO any
other man, was due the survival and per-
petuation Of the Napoleonic superstition.
nire," from beginning to end, is one long,
poleon, which only its consummate, lite
rary art saves from wearisome fuIsome-
ness. Its circulation surpassed every
thing ever heard of in the annals of his
toIical literature. Nearly million and
half volumes had been sold within a
year after the work had been completed.
It made the Second Empire nossible. for
the Second Empire was built, in the be-
ginning, upon nothing but the memory
of the First. NJ. Thiers must ever bear
large portion of the responsibility of
that great crime, and of the disaster
which it finally brought upon France.
His opposition to the adventure of Prince
Louis his arrest ON the night Of the I'd
of December; his long exile from public
life; his return to it when parliamentary
opposition became possible, and his pro-
test against the declaration of war in 1870.
are all to be set down to his credit
But they are hardly more than the record
of good intentions and unavailing efforts
to undo some of the ill he had already
done. TO the same period belongs, also,
his unhandsome opposition to the unity of
Italy and Germany, and his champion
ship of the temporal power of the Pope.
HIS real greatness and the period of his
real usefulness to France begins after her
disasters. His journeys over Europe In
search of an ally for France were unsuc-
cessful, and so were his first efforts for an
armistice; but his negotiations in 1871
saTad something for his country; and
his work while Chief of the Executive
Power was on q scale which entities him
to have place among European states.
men next after-with long interval, no
doubt-Prince Bismarck himself His
effo.ts toward the foundation of the Re-
public are to be placed even higher than
those by which the debt 10 Germany was
paid and the soil of France freed from
hostile occupation. 1t is the fashion
among Radicals have heard it in New
York as we'll as in Paris-to reproach
bim with the putting down of the Com
mune, or rather with the severity visited
upon the Communists. There was, per-
haps, some needless killing by the troops,
but the peril vas Of q kind which not
only justified but demanded a relentless
severity. The least suspicion of COM
plicity with the Commune -H1id have
been fatal to the Republic. The Com
munists have not forgiven this any more
than the Orleanists forgave him differ
ent proof of the same abiding principle
his devotion to his country; to the
whole of his country, rather than part
nor than the Ciericais forgave his re-
fussi to be the tool of the Ultramontanes.
whose cry is Rome first, France afterward.
Nj. Veuillot, the Ultramontane professor
of charity and, brotherly love, intimates
in his polite way that NJ. Thiers is now
roasting in hell. "God did not leave him
time to die. Now see him, perhaps,
among those who wish they had never
livedW The Bonapartists hsted him as
q party Of horse.iockeys and brigands
might we'll hate the man who stood i'm
movably in their reckless path to another
reign of plumber and oppression. But
the people of France believed In him,
and trusted him. Here in England,
eulogy. is on every lip, and sorrow in ali
loyal hearts. 1 began this long letter
meaning to cay something about his place
in English opinion, but must content
myself with saying thet his old animosi-
~ tc England, snd distrnst end jealousy
cf her, has not alienated English respect
Ior his character, or cooled English admi-
ration for his splendid abilities. The
feeling of profound regret for his death,
and, above all, for his death at this crisis,
is universal among those Englishmen--
and they are an immense majority-who
wish we'll to the French Pepublic.
q w 6