Year: 1876




The French Republican Triumph.


From what is already known of the results
of the election in France it seems safe to
infer not merely q general victory of the
republicans over all ostensibly non-republi-
can elements, but specially victory of those
republicans who desire the welfare of the
country and not simply the success of their
theories-who are not less opposed to the
madness of the radicals than to the duplicity
of the Bonapartists. In the returns given
the number of republicans of all shades is
in overwhelming proportion to the number
of all others; but these returns are from the
great cities or from towns that are proxi-
mately like the great cities in their political
character. Paris, Lyons, st. Etienne, Mar
republican in all cases as this city is dis
tinctly democratic in all elections. Indeed,
it is the rule of French politics that the
republican vote is stronger at the great
centres and yields to the monarchical or
Bonapartist sentiments most in the remoter



because the mass of people at the great
centres are more intelligent than others,
though they are likely at least to be more
enlightened. 1t may be merely that, gath
cred in great cities, occupied in mechanical
occupations and spending their spare time
in the cabarets, the hundreds of thousands
of workmen are carried in a current Of public
opinion, made in a great degree by the
familiar arts of demagoguery; and from this
in their country homes they are saved by
the many conservative influences to which
they are there subject.


But from whatever cause it arises the
republican sentiment is stronger in the great
cities than elsewhere, and stronger in the
departments that are near the great cities or
that are much traversed by railways or oc-
cupied with manufacturing industries than
in the remoter districts that are still mainly
concerned with agriculture. Now it is pre-
cisely these points of republican strength
that are best supplied with every kind of
communication and in which the telegraph
particularly is most in use. Consequently
we hear first and most fully in an election
like the present from the points where
republican opinion is most apt to be domi-
nant, and we shall not hear for several days
from the points that will most strongly sup
port the other party. 1t follows, therefore,
that the proportions in which the republi-
cans are superior to their opponents in the
reports from the great cities will not be
maintained when the return is counted upon
q larger area But an indication in which
kind OF republicans who appear to pre-
vail are not red republicans. In Marseilles,
for instance-M -Marseilles always more radical
than either Paris or Lyons-Gambetta gets
seven thousand votes against one thousand
nine hundred for Naquet. Naquet is a sort
Of radical savage whose pet fancy is to de-
mand amnesty for the patriots" who mur-
dored the hostages in the Rue Haxo-and his
friends class Gambetta as a reactionary.


Altogether the most satisfactory feature of
the result is this indication of the character
of the republican victory. There could have
been no serious doubt following the elections
for the Senate that the Chamber would
also be substantially republican /; the great
doubt was what kind of republicanism it
would exhibit, 1t was to be apprehended
that the fervor fthe national character might
develop such spirit as would carry the party
beyond the country, and SO once more put
the Republic in the wrong. From that danger
the nation is saved. and we do not doubt but
this result is in great part due TO the new
system of voting by districts. Party leaders
in Paris did not make up tickets for the whole
counties this time; and so the result does not
represent party opinions and programmes,
but the national thought