Year: 1872




Month after month passes on, without bring
ing the fulillment of the predictions of those
reactionary prophets who forcsaw the speedy
end of the Republic in France and the re-
establishment of one of the mOnarchies which
have successvey made use of that country.
The Government which came into existence on
the 4th of September 1870, springing full
born from the curb-stOnes of Paris, has never
been so strong as to-day. 1t is true that in
the Chamber there is majority OF men OF
the traditional parties, elected in the darkest
hour of the nations agony, to make peace and
get the Prussians out of the country. There
was no talk of politics in those days of
terror and despair. The people went to the
polls and voted for their friends and neighbOrs
who had sufficient leisure and wealth
and position to enable them to gain
the attention of their fellOw-ctizen.
The result was very unusual proportion OF
men Of rank and wealth on the benches of
the Assembly. 1t was Parliament not
wholly unlike that of Louis Philippe, which
was elected under high property qualifca-
ton, and which seemed almost like a salon of
good society. But the assemblies of the Mon
archy of july decorous and reputable as their
members were, taken singly, were destitute OF
that energetic initiative aud efficiency which
characterizes Legislative bodies sent up by the
masses of the people. The present Assembly.
although the product of universal suffrage,
has something of the same character. For in
the election which produced them the excep-
tonal circumstances of the case deprived
universal suffrage of its true charac-
teristics and its proper authority. Thence
arose that spectacle of "six dukes setting all
" in rowr which OccasOned such ludicrOus con-
sternatiOn among the Radicals of Paris. Ever
since the Assembly began its sessions the
Right has sat in solid phalanx, always ready
to applaud any reference to the cause of
order and the necessity of promptly re6stab-
fishing the throne, or to sneer or howl as the
case may be at any word which might be
uttered in favor of the cause of liberty or any
other abstract and annoying subject.


| The world has been so long in the habit of
taking its impressions of France from hostile
sources, and of French Republicanism es-
pecially from the accounts given by the ILL
informed and unfair writer's of England, that
| it is slow to learn that it is tho Republicans
of France to-day, just as 1t was in 1851, who
form the party of law and order. While the
adherents of Bonaparte are plotting and
scheming to lay their hands up6h some bor-
ton of the army, through which they hope to
assassinate the commonwealth again; while
the Legdmists are striving to bring in the
bigot king whose every breath is OF OPP
position to the now time-honored democratic
constitution of the State and of society ;
while the Orleanists are secretly working to
capture the Government by money and by
ruse, it is tho Republicans, more than any
other party, who stand by the established
order of things with steadfast honor and
loyalty. Among all his old friends of the
bourgeoisie, of the faubourg, and of the
ministry, there are none upon whom Nj.
Theirs can so thoroughly rely in emergencies
as upon those radicals who are daily painted
by the reactionists in colors as dark as fear
and hate can make them


They are not only loyal. but discreet as well.
They seem TO be the only section of the Cham
Der who have learned anything by the expert
ences of the last year or two. A notable IN
stance Of this was seeu N tho proceedings