The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1899-08-24
FRANCE IN A FERMENT.

1t seems that France is ripening for
a coup d'etat." The cables are telling
OF an outbreak in Paris Hundreds of
people have been killed or injured al
ready. A revolution seems imminent.
The breach between the army and the
people has widened. The civil authori-
ties are powerless. The military can
not be trusted. The people are taking
sides and public sentiment is in the
acute stages of fermentation.
A year ago the anti-Semites were in
solent and the Dreyfusards were tirnid.
The former element was so greatly in
the ascendency that the temptation to
hurt anybody did not move it. The
faction that wanted to see justice done.
even to Jew, was too weak to either
attack or provoke the ruling mob. But
the revision, the revelations at the
pending trial, the consequent change of
sentiment, the inevitable distrust of
the army and its champions, the wan
ing, influence of the general staff, the
transformation of the national admins
tration. has made lovers of justice and
fairness in France bold to rashness, and
screeners of corruption and conspiracy
frantic and revengeful.
The civil authorities of Paris have
tried to drift with the mob. After
using their authority for the purpose
of promoting rascality when rascals
We're in the saddle, they have yielded
to popular clamor at last, and are try
ing to conciliate the masses Thus they
have gained the hostility of the mill
tarists without regaining the confidence
of the public, who continue to regard
them as self-seeking opportunists
which they doubtless are.
One trouble with civil authority in
France is that its executive officers
hold their power by the tenure, always
precarious in France, of formal civil
right. The form of government could
be changed almost entirely and the
name republic retained as appropriate
ly as it has applied to France for many
years. The army long has had it in its
power to overturn civil government in
a day, provided the long expected man
on horseback" or any other leader who
could command its confidence and ODE
dience, appeared; and he could set up
almost any form of government that
pleased him.
We are not sure that such a change
would be acceptable to the people of
France. or that any change involving
a curtailment of their liberties or priv
ileges would be received by them in a
spirit Of submission. Any people who
have enjoyed freedom to any extent, or
of any kind. political or religious. and
who have had a voice in the shaping
of legislation or the selection of rulers
and lawmakers. are not going to sit
down quietly and allow any of those
rights, liberties. privileges or preroga-
tives taken away from them. Europe,
however. would be delighted to see dy-
nastic government restored in France.
It was, on the whole, quite content
with the wretched performance of 1851,
not so much on account of the fraternal
feeling of monarchs, which is always
an uncertain quantity. nor yet because
they feel that no other government
than that of absolutism can endure; but
all commercial powers are interested in
having order restored ard maintained
in the domestic affairs of France to in
sure permanence and reliability in the
foreign relations of that feverish ma
ton.
France needs a tyrant, they say, to
restore her equilibrium. Her people are
superstitious and suspicious.
Her intrigues are historical. Her trail
tors often prove to be the most con-
spicuous of her popular heroes. Like
the French drama. French history is in
complete without its heavy villains. its
traitors and its plots. These are Judged
upon their artistic merits rather than
from their moral standing. But there
may be no uprising. Ii does not seem
that there is a hand strong enough 10
strike the blow. Royalty may make the
but Frenci, royalty is decrepit
and impotent. The militarists are too
badly involved in conspiracies to trust
each other. The army has only the
atrical generals and colonies, and not
n genuine hero or leader at its front.
The revolution is ant tosdwiRdle into
mere riot. But even with peace the
outlook FOR the French people is not
hattering. Perhaps. after all. 4 civil