Year: 1874




lFRoM THE REGULAR CORRESPONDENT OF THE rRIBUSEl


PARIS, March 25.-The Chief of the Republic, two
of his Minister'S the Journal O6fcie have all taken
occasion, within week. formally to define the Sep
tenndf, despite of which essays few people believe
that 1t WILL or desire that it should last years.
Everybody knows that it is but name for a truce
OF three parties united against divided fourth
party and the majority of the people, each
one OF the three only waiting, watching,
anu laDoring for promising occasion
to break the truce But although, except
IN chronological sense, seem no nearer to per-
manently established Government than when we
waited under the Pact of Bordeaux and then under
the so-caled Rivet Constitution. the situation has
greatly changed within three years. and especially
since the abrogation last May of the Rivet COnstitu
ton by the sovereign Assembly that constituted it,
Although ine-tenths of the Government majority
in the Assembly are Legitimists OF Orleansts-
Bonapartsts, in their own most generous estimate,
not counting more than 30-and although the Prime
Minister and all his colleagues except two Bona
partists are Legitimiss Oreanists, the cause of
royaism. that seemed to its intriguing partisans ap
preaching to high triumph last Autumn, has now
sunk past any but sentiment al hope of resurrection
The complimentary visit of the Count de Paris to
the Count de ChambOrd, last August, with the con-
| sequent high going attempt. encouraged by De
Broglie, to lead In q Bourbon King of France.
an enormous service rendered to Napoleon ~. 1t
first partially restored to the representative of the
Empire, as type and symbol Of hostility to the old
regime and copartner in the post revolutionary in
terests Of France the lately lost status of imperial
ism in the affections of the nation The selection
by royasts in the distress of their discontinue, of
MacMahon as the only possibly available fgure-head
for their Conservative" Government, not because
he was statesman, surely not because of the alb
sence Of any honest in their royalist ranks,
but because he an Imperial Marshal, held firmly the
only drawn sword the rOyalsts could and dared trust
themselves to, was another act of compliment. not
to say of submission, 10 the Empire and OF eminent
service TO the Bonapartsts 1t is more for its sadly
sure sagacity Of aim than for its venomous sting,
that we mustadmre that sharpshot parting sentence
with which, Hast May retiring Theirs at once trans
fixed and labeled tho Duke de Broglie as specimen
Proteg6 of the Empire That he constantly ap-
proves himself to be. A Royalist non-volunteer at
the outset still involuntary and even unconscious as
most people still think there some who are
beginning TO suppose for explanation of his policy,
that the Duke is beginning compacenty to calculate
his chances Of holdnga grateful Ministry from the
gratitude Of the next Emperor.


Blood is said TO he stronger than water. The
analysis of it in ancestral respects is curious The
Duke de Broge. acting guide philosopher, and
friend of President MacMahon, and responsible
editor of the political legislation, and more impor-
tant administration of the Septennat Government,
has three currents IN his veins. One comes of the
primal Italian source along with his first French
ancestors who came here in the suite of that other
Italian, Cardinal Mazarn; another comes of inter
marriage with the old French noblesse, and flowed
from his guilotned greatgrandfather, in 1874; and
another from Geneyan Necker, that is, from his
masculine grandmother, Madame de Stael. From
these we derive the defects and distinguishing quail
tiles of the existing ministerial Duke. There are
Italian subtlety and ingeniOusy equvocal Indefinite
ness intimately controlling honor of and combatlve
hostility to the revolutionary multitude, which in
stnctvely claims its rights and iercely exercises
its power; more than ordinary intellectual endow-
ment coupled with the candid conviction of its
Oympian superiority over the gifts and its in-
nate capacity to substitute more than the
requirements of any and all other ex-
tant French statesmen. Add now to this,
a reference to the Memorial Of st. Helena" On
the l93d and 194h pages of the edition Of 1924 of that
work the reader may learn how Madame de
Stae grandmother of the actual leading ministerial
Proteg6 of the Empire, did, Immediately after the
return from Elba send in to the restored Emperor
proposition for devotng her pen and principles to the
Imperial cause on condition that Napoleon should
see paid to her some two millions OF francs, right to
which for her house she claimed from old royal de-
crees of Lous XVI.


No calmly thoughtful outside observer of current
French history will grayely quarrel with Rouhers
statement of the impending dilemma: The
decision. whenever Franco comes to decide, is
between Empire and Republic" This is but
repetition of an opinion as clearly expressed IN
private conversation two years ago. and always heid
by few of the most capable doctrinnaire, un-
prejudiced, non-partisan but ardently patriotic
statesmen and men of affairs, whose services Illus
trate the better period OF the reign OF the late
Emperor.


Meantime commerce still declines to march, III
the testimony of traders in all kinds be accepted
with even 80 much discount; If the lamentably un-
deniable statistics of the Bureaux de Bienfaisance
are looked at and the patiently increased abundance
of street mendcants, let alone other proofs OF
misery, are considered VIC of the lucky classes must
| admit that commerce does not and that the ragged
regiment of want does march-in a somewhat excep-
tonally formidable measure this year. And yet a
foreigner Just arriving in Paris and Judging from his
ewes might excusably conclude that our prosperity
| il at its hight The women of the grand whole'
half lesser and lower vulgar fractional WORLDS
whose husbands other unthrifty paymastefS
enable them to display their charmngly rulnous
tasteful toilets to the vulgar gaze, seem nearly as
abundant as in the dear phosphorescently brilliant
latter days of the late regretted rotten Empire.
On the dra natic and theatrical side this season
has been more fertile of new plays than any other
since 1869. That Flaubert should be hopelessy, and
Justly damned with his Candidate on its second night
is as much to the credit of the current French stage
as the imitless popular success of Sardous Uncle
Sam" on the very stage where the Cdnddaf could
hold but for two nights. Fenillets SPHINX has