St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1889-09-24
FRANCES CRISIS.

was remarked by the first NAPOLEON.
as he sat wrapped in the solitude of his
own originality on the Isle of Elba, and
pOndered over the vicissitudes of his
own career. Last Sunday confirmed
BoNAPARTE's sagacity. Only few
weeks ago, to all human appearances,
BOulangism was as dead as herring and
yet at Sundays elections the best that
the French government could do, with all
the election machinery in its own hands,
was to declare it a drawn battle between
BOULANGER and the CARNoT admins
tration. BoULANGER was in exile, and
had recently been convicted of treason to
France, and yet but for the unfair meth
DDS resorted to by the government in
Sundays elections he would have car
ried a majority of the deputies. The
prestige of victory is with his followers.
and if such a thing as fair and untram-
meled election were possible, there
would be no doubt of complete tri-
umph for .BoulangisM when the sec
ond ballot is taken. The government
cannot afford to permit such a result, so
there is a strong probability that its
efforts to prevent BOULANGER victory
will result in one of those popular in
surrectiOns for which France is famous.
1t is matter of surprise to us on this
side of the water how BoULANGER
could have regained such powerful in
fluence over the French people when
his opponents were supposed to have
succeeded so thoroughly in discrediting
nd bie1 A in liz q pnci-
ton could not have recovered power and
prestige in this country, nor in England.
But the charge of treason against
the existing form of government makes
less impression on the public mind in
France than in any other country in the
world because the French people have
not had ruler within the present GEN.
fury against whom the same accusation
has not been lodged. LOUIS XVIII,
CHARLES X, LOUIS PHILIPPE, LOUIS
NAPOLEON had all been convicted of
reasonable designs, and the charge of
treason has become such common ac-
cusatiOn against French leaders that
it is worn threadbare and the French
people are no longer impressed with its
gravity. Neither did the accusation
against BoULANGER that he had mis-
appropriated the secret fund produce
any serious effect on the French mind,
for the simple reason that nearly every
Frenchman now in authority is sus-
pected to be an embeZZler. NJ. JULES
FERRY was suspected of miSappropri-
ating the secret fund just as BOULAN-
GER is accused of having done, and it is
a matter of common notoriety that NJ.
constants. who was principal prose-
cutor against BOULANGER, is bride
taker. 1t is not so singular, then, that
the French voters failed to take much
stock in the bill of Indictment that the
French government had drawn up
against BoULANGER. The truth is that
the personal honesty or dishonesty of
the eminent revOlutioniSt cut no figure
in Sundays elections, nor did it enter
into the minds of the voters to question
his loyalty to France. The Royalists
and Reaetionists entered into a COM
bination that would have unquestiOnably
carried large majority of the arrOn-
easements if there bad been no govern
ment interference at the polls. Sundays
election developed one fact which should
be remembered in considering the play
| of forces at the next election, and that is,
while the Opportunists and the Radicals
were willing to join hands in the effort
| to get rid of BoUI.ANGER, they could
not unite on candidates for the chamber
of deputies. Their political programmes
are too antagonistic to make this union
possible. The Opportunists are salts
fed with the constitution as it is, while
| the Radicals are distinctly pledged as
| BoULANGER himself to the summary
abolition of the senate.
1t is safe to assume that the CARNoT
administration will not permit the in
tegrity of the republic to be menaced by
/ a RoULANGER victory, even if ballot
stuffing and false counts have to be re-
sorted to. The BoULANGER following
is made up of a mixed element of Roy
alists and Socialists, and would be a
very dangerous power to place. in con-
troll of the French nation. The con-
sentative classes are determined that
the vicious elements shall no longer dis
turb the peace of France. President
| CARNoT is rapidly growing in popu-
larity, and the lovers of republican in
situations in France will sustain him in
his endeavor to put an end to lotteries
and theories by RELOCATING the most au-
dacious adventurer of modern times to
the limbo of forgetfulness.