situation, and of all dangerous persons in France. The success of the Republic, is of course, dubious, depending mainly on King William of Prussia, Providence, and the effect of the magnificent offer its chiefs for the first time in the history of France are able to make to the peasants, their exemption from the blood-tax; but, considering its means, its hurry, and its necessities, Paris, we believe, has chosen well. They say the Government was self-chosen, and in a way that is true; and the men who, with a victorious enemy at their gates, France in Revolution, authority ended, and two millions of people on the verge of despair, decide in the teeth of the laws to take the helm, and do take it, are, in all human probability, the men to whom that helm, by a right higher than legality, ought to belong. From The Spectator. THE EX-EMPEROR OF THE FRENCH. THE Sombre figure of Napoleon III., for twenty-one years ruler, and for nineteen years Emperor of the French, will always seem to have been at once one of the most curious caprices of the historical fortune of France, and one of the most striking illustrations of the immutability of the law of strict political retribution. That after two attempts on the throne of France, one of them the Boulogne attempt with the tame eagle theatrical to the most ludicrous degree, he should have actually succeeded in obtaining the suffrages of the people, and gaining for himself a real chance of seizing the power he so long coveted, seems strange enough. But that, after such antecedents, he should have succeeded per fas aut nefas in governing France for twentyone years with some repute in Europe, without any absolute disgrace, and then have thrown away his power, if not in quite so fanciful and conceited a fashion, yet in no less theatrical a fashion than that in which he attempted to gain it, is even stranger, because it furnishes one of those curious little bits of complete historical symmetry between the commencement and the close of a great political career, which is much more common in fiction than in actual life. In 1843, when Louis Napoleon was imprisoned at Ham, he published some striking remarks on the government of Louis Phillippe, which contained the following sentences:-"Some years ago, there was in the United States a man called Sampatek, who went into the following trade: he con structed, with a great deal of art, a scaffolding above the falls of Niagara, and after having raised a heavy contribution from the immense crowd assembled from the whole neighbourhood to see him, he mounted majestically to his platform, and then threw himself headlong into the boiling waves at the foot of the cataract. He repeated this perilous experiment several times, till at last he was swallowed up by a whirlpool. Alas! there are some Governments whose appearances on the scene of the world are in every respect analogous to that of the American juggler: their history is summed up in these words, fearful scaffolding, terrible fall!' On a few stakes planted in the ground, they raise a shapeless building, composed of fragments and bits borrowed from the ruins of the past; and when their task is finished, their bastard building, as without utility as it is without foundations, has only served to throw them headlong from a greater height into the abyss. What this amounts to is that raising a scaffolding is not building. To appeal to the vulgar passions of the mob is not to govern. One cannot build solidly except upon the rock." Surely these words must now come back to the ex-Emperor as a curiously accurate prediction of his own great feat. He did, at great pains and with much ostentation, erect a scaffolding out of fragments of the ruins of the past his uncle's past, which has served but for the same purpose as that described by him,- to furnish him with an artificial elevation from which to cast himself headlong into the gulf beneath. Indeed, to none of the recent unstable governments of France has Louis Napoleon's parable applied with greater force than to his own. There has always been something of the juggler about his otherwise sombre and sedate impersonation of the Imperial character. From the descent on Strasburg to the telegram about poor little Louis's "baptism of fire," there has been visible at regular intervals in the exEmperor's writings and actions a certain amount not merely of theatricality, but of ill-judged and ridiculous theatricality,that sort of theatricality which arises not from social vanity, which is often very telling, but from the indulgence of moody and solitary reverie. The laboured rhodomontade which he addressed, from his prison at Ham, "to the Manes of the Emperor," on occasion of the removal of Buonaparte's remains from St. Helena to Paris, is a very fair illustration of the purely intellectual side of this deep flaw in Louis Napoleon's mind. That any able man should have written such high-flown nonsense in the be lief that it would identify him in the popular peror's policy has been the constant balancmind with his uncle, we do not in the least ing between long-headed caution and a believe. The rhapsody was written, we are craving for brilliant effects. At first he was persuaded, not out of contempt for vulgar very prudent. The war with Russia, which minds which it was intended to please, but brought him into such close alliance with out of the unsound superstition in Louis England, was a by no means dangerous Napoleon's own understanding. He cried stroke of tentative foreign policy: indeed, out to the Manes of the Emperor,-"The that such a Power as England joined him in people have renounced your gospel, your it showed how comparatively safe, for a war ideas, your glory, your blood; when I have policy, it was. But his next attempt, the spoken to them of your cause, they have liberation of Italy, far more original, far said to me,We do not understand it.' more really grand in conception - the only Let them say, let them do, what they will. act, indeed, of his reign on which he can What matter to the mounting chariot the now count for anything like the deliberate grains of sand which fall under the wheels? praise of posterity. was far more dangerThey have vainly said that you were a me-ous; and this he himself knew, staying himteor which left no trace behind; they have self in mid career, lest he should either vainly denied you political glory; they will incur a change of fortune, or by succeeding not disinherit us of its fruits. Sire! the too completely give Italy more than he de15th December is a great day for France sired or intended. Indeed, he soon found and for me. From the midst of your sump- that the main idea of his policy was one far tuous cortége, disdaining the homage of too potent over the minds of nations to adsome, you have cast a single glance on my mit of being applied just as far as he wished, sombre dwelling-place, and remembering and no farther; and the aim of the rest of the caresses which you heaped upon my in- his reign was to attenuate what he had done, fancy, you have said:-Friend, thou strenuously supporting Rome against Italy. sufferest for me! I am satisfied with thee.'" His next great conception, the foundation That is not the sort of thing written to daz- of a Franco-Spanish Empire in America, to zle the fancy of a mob. It is the sort of balance the influence of the United States, thing which occurs to a man apt to indulge was a failure on a great scale,— an experimoody reveries of the subtle affinities which ment not even founded, like his Italian exconnect him with a great creative mind, periment, on any sound knowledge of the whose career he hopes, or at least eagerly forces actually at work. Perhaps it was wishes, to imitate. Like the Imperial get- this sense of half-failure in Italy, and comup at Strasburg, so ill-sustained by Louis plete failure in Mexico, to gain any profit Napoleon's actual demeanour when intro- by his attempt to build up his kingdoms duced to the troops there, like the tame founded on the same principle, which ineagle at Boulogne,-like many profound-duced him to attempt in the case of Gerly superstitious references to destiny' many the opposite task- much more welthroughout his writings, this rhapsody shows come to the counsellors he was most aca trace of spurious metal in the ex-Empe- customed to listen to-of splintering in ror's mind, which is not assumed for pop- pieces a new Empire of this kind in the ular purposes, but is ingrained and inhe- very moment of its crystallization. There, The prisoner at Ham was, like all again, we probably see the capricious weight solitary persons, deprived of the aid of that accorded by Louis Napoleon to his own implicit social criticism on his own most subjective impression that he was dreaming marked thoughts which living in the world a dream of destiny, and not merely indulg of itself insures, and therefore his writings ing his own political fancy. He saw himthen had much more of this extatic Bona- self breaking up and overrunning Germany partism about them than his speeches or as his uncle had done before him, and he actions have since shown. But you can see took no real paras to guage the solidity of the same kind of fixed and dreamy enthu- the rock against which he has dashed his siasm about his idea of raising up in Mex- already decaying power to pieces. ico an empire of the "Latin race" to balance the Teutonism of the United States, no less than in those dreams of destiny which have from time to time driven his slow and hesitating judgment into mad projects, like the Boulogne descent, and, let us add, the ill-prepared or unprepared invasion of Prussia. rent. The special characteristic of the ex-Em For, naturally enough, while he has dreamt these brilliant dreams of external glory, he has given himself a comparative holiday in the much harder task of driving deep the foundations of his power in the hearts of the people of France. "On a few stakes planted in the ground, he raised a formless building composed of bits and fragments of the rin of the past," and never realm. Certainly none of the unstable French Governments, which he described as raising ostentatiously a temporary scaffolding only for the sake of leaping from it into the abyss, ever took the leap with so strange an unconsciousness of the fatal whirlpools beneath, as he who is now, for the third time in his life, a political prisoner, and for the fourth time an exile from his native land. It is melancholy that a man who has spent two-thirds of his life in dreaming of power, and one-third in the exercise of it, should have to spend the remainder in regretting that he carefully made all the mistakes which he had before his accession so bitterly ridiculed others for perpetrating. From The Pall Mall Gazette. ENGLISH IMPATIENCE. till within the last eight months did he even appear to attempt seriously the laying of deeper foundations; and then he found the task so difficult and disgusting that he quickly abandoned it for a dazzling stroke of foreign policy. In regard to the external comfort of the people, indeed,—in relation to roads, commerce, and free production, the Emperor really did a good deal to make his people more prosperous. But beyond this he never got. Trusting as he did in universal suffrage, he never liked to educate the voters, lest they should cease to be dazzled by the Empire. The free Press shook his power, and he never permitted it till it seemed even more dangerous to curb it. The only creative principle of his mind as a ruler was its dreamy imaginativeness, and this he was far too cautious to apply except in foreign policy. For all experiments in developing the confidence of the educated classes at home he was too prudent. Hence the eighteen years of his rule were utterly sterile in home policy, except WE wish there were any reason to expect in relation to the development of the physi- that the war between France and Prussia cal resources of France. All his tentative will soon be over, and that then the affairs audacity was reserved for his foreign policy, of Europe will return to their old comfortand as that was not, on the whole, success- able state. Evidently a great many ful, certainly not flattering to the vanity Englishmen are very unwilling to admit of France in its general results,- he never that such a hope has no solid ground on succeeded in gaining for the Empire the which to rest. They quote the precedents affection of the people, except so far as it was of 1859 and 1866, and seem to take it algained at once by the superstitious rever- most as a personal injury that 1870 has not ence felt for his name. In one of his curi- turned out a war exactly on the same patous political reveries he once wrote:-"No tern. It is on this account, perhaps, that one can escape his destiny. Every govern- they dislike for the most part the notion of ment condemned to perish, perishes by the France being deprived of territory. They very means which it employs to save itself. have a sort of instinct that France might Espartero believed that he should strengthen take some time to settle down after having his power by the bombardment of Barce- to submit to such a blow as this, and that lona, and he only sapped its foundations. the Continent might be a good deal disThe Conservatives believed that by erecting quieted by her efforts to regain her lost the fortifications of Paris they should estab-possessions. The payment of an indemnilish for ever their doctrine of peace at any ty, they think, need have no such annoying price; but they only imitated those kings accompaniments. It would simply mean of Egypt who raised immense tombs in their an addition to the yearly expenditure and a life-time, monuments so colossal for men corresponding addition to the taxation of so little, that they buried in their immense the country consequences which would wombs, as well as the body, the very name, naturally be disliked by Frenchmen, but of the founder." What can better describe would entail no inconvenience upon the rest the ex-Emperor's own fate? His Govern- of the world. The sooner Englishmen disment, "condemned to perish," has perished miss any anticipations of this kind the better "by the very means it employed to save it will be for their own peace of mind. We itself." He took credit to the Empire for shall make no predictions as to the duration its army, and by the weakness of the Army of the war, but we will venture to prophesy the Empire has perished. He sought to that, whether it be short or long, it will save his foreign policy from the reproach leave behind it elements of disturbance that it had raised up great rivals to France, which may not be laid to rest for years to by crushing Germany to fragments, and the come. The conditions of the contest have attempt has ground his own twenty-one no parallel either in the Italian war of 1859 years' work to powder, and fearfully en- or in the German war of 1866. In both dangered the very independence of his these cases the object of the struggle was to fix the place of one of the combatants, rule by being an exception to it, we have no not in Europe, but in a certain limited area right to suppose that the extraordinary sucof territory. The battle of Solferino de- cess of Prussia will not give rise to great termined that Sardinia was to be supreme uneasiness on the part of other nations. in Italy. The battle of Sadowa determined Neither Austria nor Russia can regard her that Prussia, not Austria, was to be su- aggrandizement with much complacency. preme in Germany. Each left the combat- Austria has German subjects who will alant mainly affected by the decision with most certainly be attracted by the new Gerabundance of employment on his hands. man empire, and if she pursues her natural Sardinia had to fit herself for her new duties, policy, and tries to increase her power in Austria had to revise her aims and readjust the east of Europe by way of compensation her estimate of the comparative importance for its diminution in the west, she may arouse of the various races which make up her em- opposition which will have an echo far bepire. But neither of these processes con-yond the limits of her own dominions. cerned the rest of Europe. The unification Russia, as we have already pointed out, will of Italy and the regeneration of Austria have her internal policy directly menaced affected only the subjects of Victor Emmanuel and Francis Joseph. The war of 1870, on the contrary, threatens to change the whole face of European politics. For two centuries France has been the leading Power on the Continent. If she has been beaten, it has been only by coalitions, and the fact that a coalition has always been needed to do it is in itself a testimony to the paramount character of her position. The present war, therefore, is in the nature of a fight for the championship of Europe. If France had won, she would have taken care to disqualify Prussia from challenging her supremacy for the future. If Prussia wins, she will be equally anxious to prevent France from offering a return match. In neither case is it at all likely that so soon as the wager has been decided the two combatants will shake hands and forget all that has passed. And even if the war itself should come to an end after another battle or two, its consequences will be none the less lasting. The Powers of Europe had learned to know France: they could in some measure calculate her orbit, and guard against her eccentricities. If Prussia takes her place in the continental system, all these observations will go for nothing. Europe will have to begin the study of political as-mediately display its natural powers of selftronomy over again. It is not reasonable to expect changes of this magnitude to be effected in the space of a few weeks, and to leave no disturbance behind them when effected. It is no matter for surprise that France has not yet acknowledged herself defeated, and asked to make terms with the conqueror. A great nation is not convinced in a moment that it has no choice but submission, and if the fortune of war means anything, it means that the end of the struggle often contradicts the beginning, that the second campaign is not necessarily cast on the same model as the first. Even if we allow that in the present war France will prove the force of this by Germany as soon as Germany has a thought to spare for anything but her contest with France; and whether she rejects all intervention on behalf of the Germans in the Baltic provinces, or comes to terms with Germany on that question in order to secure her support on the Eastern question, bodes equally ill for the continued tranquillity of the Continent. If Russia resists Germany she will have to fight her; if she compounds with Germany the two together may have to fight the rest of Europe. Nor are these by any means the only reasons for believing that we are still but at the beginning of sorrows. Those who take the most hopeful view of the situation in France admit that another great defeat will almost to a certainty put a final end to the Empire. We do not profess to grieve over this prospect. On the contrary, we hold that even defeat may be a blessing to the French people if it teaches them that freedom at home is better than greatness abroad. But we see little probability that France will learn this lesson without a long course of previous suffering. The adversaries of the Empire often speak as though it had been a mere incubus upon the country, and that when once it is lifted off the nation will im government and show itself none the worse for the long disuse of them. If this is so, it will be in flat contradiction to all previous experience. The French nation has not been the mere innocent victim of the Empire. The majority of Frenchmen have been its willing accomplices, and even those who have offered an unavailing but consistent resistance show traces in every movement of the injuries they have suffered in the contest. Men who have lost the habit of self-government cannot resume their part in public affairs without blunders and shortcomings of all kinds. The Empire has done nothing for the political education of France, and whenever it passes from the stage the problems left unsettled by the revolution of 1848 will once more present themselves for solution. We cannot see that France is likely to approach_them in a better temper than then. The Provisional Government of February had faults enough to answer for, but there was an elevation of aim about its efforts which, we fear, would have no counterpart in a provisional Government formed to-day. Those who think that the Empire can be displaced without a revolution, or that revolution when it comes will be found to have lost all its terrors, are likely we fear, to find themselves grievously disappointed. they did not agree so marvellously with the conspicuous facts of the war. The French have been not only disastrously outnum bered, but their armies have fallen ludicrously short of their nominal strength. Every one who knows anything of the war knows that of the 750,000 men whom the French Army should have numbered on a war footing, barely 400,000 fighting soldiers were to be found in France before the great defeats. And if this policy of embezzling the £80 paid by every French conscript as substitute-money, has been largely pursued in some regiments, there can be little doubt that it has spread more or less throughout the whole French Army. It is a "real cause," i.e., one proved to exist, and also one adequate to produce the remarkable effects which have been produced; hence, we may fairly assume it as one of the most probable of all the hypotheses accounting for the French failure. That the same cause, gross corruption, was at work in the Commissariat department and the departments regulating the supply of Chassepôts, every one knows. Everywhere the French Army has been starved to enrich individuals. This is the more serious a lesson to us, because pecuniary corruption is the very root of the greatest and most menacing evils in every Anglo-Saxon society. It caused a great proportion of the disasters in the Crimea. It caused enormous waste and many disasters in the American Civil War. It still causes the greatest possible political A REMARKABLE letter in the Daily News of last Saturday-the Daily News, by the way, has been by far the richest in correspondence of value, correspondence with nuggets of fact in it, since the war began, -seems to afford the real key to the explanation of the gigantic failures of the French Army. The writer was told by two graziers of Picardy, as a matter within their own knowledge, that in a very considerable number of instances which they could specify the military authorities had got only 1,800 men in a full regiment, instead of 3,000, though there were 3,000 names on the rolls. The modus operandi was this. Fourteen or fif-evils in American society. It was certainly teen years ago, private societies undertook at the root of the monstrous waste of our to find substitutes for such of those drawn Abyssinian campaign, where the published in the conscription as could pay for a sub- evidence goes to show, for instance, that a stitute. While this was so, those societies good million sterling was wasted on mules received the conscripts' money, and as it never wanted, or at least never used; was, of course, the interest of the Army that "Consuls and Vice-Consuls received authorities to get the full number of men, huge commissions for a few weeks' serthe men were always provided. But since vice in procuring mules," - - we quote the law has required the money paid by from Allen's Indian Mail of the 23rd those who can pay for substitutes to be paid August, - that "a large batch of camdirectly into the military chest, it has be- els was bought at Suez the day after come the interest of those who control the Magdala was known to have fallen;" and military chest to pocket the money and put generally, that several millions were wasted sham soldiers on the rolls. These graziers on what was known to be useless to the exof Picardy told the Daily News' correspond-pedition, for the gain of various classes and ent that they could point out many compa- individuals. Unless there be some early nies which nominally consisted of 100 men, and severe check to this sort of canker at and could only muster 30, and as we have said before, they maintained that the average French regiments could not muster much above half their nominal strength. Now individual statements of this kind, made as they only could be made, from personal knowledge of a few selected cases, would be utterly worthless as evidence, if the heart of all great organizations, the No na |