Year: 1874




In France we see new crisis. The spirit
of royalty again threatens the peace of that
sorely distracted land. There we have most
extraordinary complication. There is on As
sembly without respect or authority which
came into power representing the terror of
Franco There is q Marshal-President who
means to hold power for seven years as the
servant of this Assembly. Whenever the
country speaks, through elections to fill
vacancies in the Assembly or to elect local
Officers it speaks, almost without exception,
in behalf of republic. No fact is more cer-
tain than that France is to-day as republican
as the United States or Switzerland Nor is
it q spasmodic republicanism, born in anger
aud revenge and making toward terror, but
o calm, conservative, steadily gaining senti-
ment-a conviction that kings are no longer
necessary factors in authority and govern
ment; that France and the French people are
greater than Bourbon or Bonaparte The
royalists say that they will not embarrass
the Marshal in his attempts to govern.
They will give him all the laws nec-
essary to repress sedition, manage the
press and suppress indiscreet speech. They
will vote him money and hold Office under
him. They will take his crosses and decora-
tions and emoluments but they will not allow
a single law to pass that in any way regards
MacMahon as republican President, or even
as the chief of party. He is simplya soldier
holding guard over France until the King or
the Emperor comes. Here, then, is govern
ment which is not even a usurpation, but On
accident OF pretext. It represents neither
the grace of God nor the will OF the people.
1t lacks the dignity and splendor Of the mon
archy or the majestic power of o republic. It
is simply soldier standing guard, and the
really guard over volcano.


But republican France is very patient. What
wisdom Gambetta and his colleagues have
shown Wisdom like this would have enabled
Vergniaud and Roland and their associates to
found the first Republic beyond any perad-
venture of Napoleonic usurpation. France
attends to her duties, to her wine-growing,
her spinning, her cheese and sugar-making,
and waits We read of "little political in
terest in many Of the departments The
people are SO profoundly Indifferent to politi-
cal intrigue that in large district there was
only one voter who took part in o recent
election. On all sides MacMahon is implored
to keep the peace and prevent any change.
The present Assembly, except the republicans,
do not desire dissolution. The clergy, who
feor Garhaffa l. and see onlv faint honcs of tho
reign of most Christian king the no.
bility, who do not want the tenure of land
disturbed by monarch or their titles abolished
by the socialists; the army, which breads dis
organization or perhaps disbandment; mer-
chants, alarmed at any shock to trade; the
members Of respectable families, who fright
ened at any prospect of being obliged to fly
from another revolution-all these interests
entreat the Marshal to rule with firm hand,
to watch well his volcano, and not leave it
for moment. What the republicans have to
avoid is the expression Of any anxiety or i'm
patience or agitation that may give him the
pretext to proclaim dictatorship, pretext he
would willingly accept rather than surrender
his peculiar incongruous extraordinary power.


Altogether the new year will open upon e1-
traordinary complications, and omens that the
wisest may well fail to read All signs beto-
ken important events, as grave perhaps as
any in modern history.