Year: 1875

that sort parliamentary chance medley; for,
while the imperialists are set upon from
every side-hawked at by the Left, assailed by
the Right, trampled upon by the government
and shouldered out of the way by both
Centres, dealt with on oil hands as a party
which it is dishonest and unpatriotio not to
despise-yet the only tangible result of the
whole melee is in their favor, for they come
out with the noteworthy advantage that they
have separated the government from the ma
jority 70 which it owes all that it has done,
and upon which it must depend for any fur
ther support in the process of organizing the
Republic. They have thus discounted the
republicans and put the government for the
time in an awkward predicament. In the
presence of parties charging upon the Bona
partists with equal fury from opposite sides
the Bonapartists have adroitly slipped out of
the way and let their opponents come in col
lision to their mutual astonishment


All the animus of the battle is, of course, In
tho natural hostility of the parties; but the
immediate cause of the present conflict is the
decision on the election in the Department of
the Nievre. M. Bourgoing, a Bonapartist,
was returned in the election held in that de-
parment last year. But the way in which
the canvass was conducted in his behalf led
to protest and inquiry and finally to an in
vestigation by committee of the Assembly,
and that investigation brought forth to public
view the most startling page of modern
French history. Early in its inquiry the
committee found it necessary to determine
whether there was in existence body called
the Committee of Appeal to the People"
apart from the group of members in the
Chamber who we're commonly and vaguely
regarded as the advocates of such an appeal
whether there was committee so called that
acted as the head Of the Bonapartist party in
France and directed that party with more or
less strict discipline upon decisions taken at
Chiselhurst and gave inspiration and i'm
pulse to the imperialist propaganda.


To determine this point the committee
called M. Leon Renault, the Prefect of Police,
and his deposition laid bare the whole organi-
zation of the imperial party. With the ideas
that prevail in Cur country as to the extent to
which political parties may carry their organi-
zation and their efforts to rally the people in
support of their candidates and their princi-
pies, and against the party that possesses the
governnnt for the time, we can scarcely COM
prehend the effect this disclosure had in
France. With us no party is the country
and we conceive of the frame and fabric Of
the government as quite distinct from the
party that holds il and administers the law.
Therefore an opposition party is never con-
templated as in operation against the govern
ment, but only against the party that is in
power; and as the men of our race are gen.
orally not believers in the paternal relations
of government to people-do not regard gov
ernment as the friend and defender of the
people, but as q natural enemy and plum
derer-it is never easy to direct public opin-
ion against an opposition on the ground that
it is pursuing an immoral, improper and u1s
justifable course, or even that its endeavor to
displace the government is unpatriotic.


There was one period at which parties with
Us were in a position that presented this case
in different light. At one time the republi-
can party was practically the country. and its
principles and purposes were SO identified
with the national cause that the success of
the one was Justly regarded as inseparable
from the success of the other. At that time
hostility to the republican party was so nearly
treason TO the nation that many intelligent
people did not care to discriminate between
the two. 1t was only the ingrained notion of
the sacredness of every mans right to hold
his own opinions and to express them that
prevented such outbursts as would have effec-
tually silenced the democrats or sent them
over the lines; for it was freely declared that
the other side of the lines was their proper
place. People who remember how the country
comprehend how Frenchmen regard the oper-
ations of the imperial party in France.


Let us suppose that when the democrats
we're in their deepest discredit with public
opinion-when they were looked upon as the
friends and associates of our enemies and as
party that represented the policy of surren-
der to what 1T was felt must necessarily be the
ruin of our freedom-let us suppose that it
had then been discovered that they had fully
organized government of their own in our
midst; sort of council of ministers in this
city, with subordinate functionaries in every
State and city; that there was regular hier-
archcal relation and regular correspondence
between the parts Of this machinery; that
regular contributions were made by the faith
full to its treasury, and that, in short, it was
q sort of double Of government that stood
ready to step forward and assume Office and
power upon any day that an unlucky stroke
of fortune should prostrate the government
set up by the people. II we suppose this
and conceive the indignation, perhaps alarm,
with which we should have learned the facts,


we shall place ourselves as nearly as possible
in the condition Of mind with which the
French received Renaults deposition; for he
ahowed all this with regard to tha Ronorort