Page:The Granite Monthly Volume 5.djvu/162

 138 THE GRANITE MONTHLY.

��THE PRESENT CONDITION OF FRANCE.

��BY FRANK WEST ROLLINS.

WE Americans are apt to flatter ourselves that we are the most energetic and enterprising people of the present day, but if we could spare the time from our all absorbing interest in ourselves to scan the course of events during the last fifty years in France, the most selfish of us would willingly share our laurels with the people of our sister Republic.

No country offers such a panorama of constant change ; first it is an Em- pire, then a Republic, and between the two the bloody Commune raises its ghastly head. Still with all their changes they have marched steadily toward one goal, and that is civil and religious liberty. We may not approve ; in fact we must condemn the means by which they have attained their end ; but still we can but admire the pertinacity with which they have sought it, for "a fel- low-feeling makes one wonderous kind." As cheerful in adversity as in pros- perity ; one day the dictator of Europe, and the next paying off an enormous war indemnity as the price of peace ; yet never faltering, never for a moment forgetting the tricolor ; rallying after each defeat with undiminished courage, resolved, like their famous general, that " there shall be no Alps." France belongs to every Frenchman, and his attachment is not skin deep, for, if need be, he lays down his life, blessing his country with his latest breath.

The glory of France under the First Napoleon is familiar to us all, and the name of that man who united with the finest military strategy and executive ability the worst forms of avarice and heartless ambition, will serve as a warn- ing to despots as long as history shall continue to be made. Although we all feel more or less acquainted with the times of Napoleon Bonaparte, few of us have any conception of the enormous work which has been going on there during the last quarter of a century, quietly, but steaddy as the flow of some mighty river.

I will not carry you with me through all the details of this kaleidoscope of changing events, interesting though they might be, but will only give you re- sults. In the spring of 1867, the Second Empire appeared to have reached the zenith of its glory. The Third Napoleon was the dictator of the policy of more than half of Europe, and had assembled at his court crowned heads from Europe, Asia, and Africa. The second Paris Exposition was in prog- ress, and that city of wealth, frivolity and pleasure was one blaze of elegance and splendor. Probably such magnificence and so much wealth were never collected in a single city before. Yet notwithstanding all his display. Napoleon was tottering on his throne. He not only had reached the zenith of his power, but he had taken several long and irretraceable steps downward. His course had aroused the distrust of the people ; his wars with Russia and Austria, though successful, were impolitic and were unpopular ; but the crowning event was the Franco-Prussian war, which not only dethroned Napoleon the Third, but destroyed the Second Empire. The history of that war, the heroic but useless struggle of an ill-commanded, and hurriedly recruited army, the long weeks of starvation and bloodshed in Paris, the wonderful escape of Gambetta in a bal- loon, and at last, in spite of his strenuous efforts, the triumphant entry of the Prussians through streets filled with emaciated people, is still fresh in our minds.

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