We have no occasion to dwell on the disastrous events of the war of the second French Empire with Prussia, nor on the still more disastrous results of the feeble efforts of the improvised republic to drive back the German armies from French soil. They are too painful to be dwelt on, and are, probably, as well known to our readers as to ourselves. We may, however, remark that we regard it as a mistake to represent the war as unprovoked by Prussia. The party that declares the war is not always responsible for it. Prussia, by her duplicity, her aggressive spirit, and her menacing attitude to France, gave to the French government ample reason, according to what has long been the usage with European nations, for declaring the war.
We have never been the partisans of Louis Napoleon; but it is only simple justice to say that by his concessions of January, 1870, he had ceased to be the absolute sovereign of France, and had become a constitutional monarch, like the Queen of Great Britain and Ireland, and the declaration of war against Prussia in July of the same year was not his personal act, but the act of the Liberal ministry and the French people, influenced, not unlikely, by the secret societies that had sworn the Emperor’s destruction. Perhaps, when the facts are better known, it will be clearly seen that the Emperor had really no alternative but war with Prussia, or the loss of the French throne for himself and dynasty. Though unprepared, he chose the war, as offering at least a chance of success, and it is not improbable that the result would have been less disastrous both for him and the nation if he had been loyally sustained by the French people, and had not had a more formidable enemy in his rear than in his front. The influences that compelled him to consent to the declaration of war were unfriendly to him, and both before and after the declaration were, not unlikely, indirectly controlled by that astute but unprincipled diplomatist, Bismarck,
at present Chancellor of the new German Empire, and through whose adroitness Germany has been Prussianized.
It now also appears that the disaster of Sedan was far less the fault of the Emperor than of his marshals, who acted without his orders, and without concert with one another. If Marshal MacMahon had fallen back on the capital, as Trochu says he advised, instead of attempting to relieve Metz, and given the nation time to rally and concentrate its forces, it is probable the empire would have been saved, and the Prussians been ultimately defeated and driven beyond the Rhine. Even after the disaster of Sedan, the integrity of French territory might have been saved, and peace obtained on far less onerous terms than those which were finally imposed by the conqueror after the surrender of Paris, but for the Parisian mob of the 4th of September, which compelled the Corps Législatif to pronounce, illegally of course, the escheat of the Emperor and the empire, to proclaim the republic, and to suffer a so-called government of defence to be improvised. The disaster of Sedan was great, but it was a mere bagatelle in comparison with that of the revolution effected by the Parisian mob acting under the direction of the secret societies, whose destructive power and influence were so well and so truthfully set forth by Disraeli in his Lothair, one of the most remarkable books recently published, and which shows that its author fully understands the great questions, movements, and tendencies of modern society. That revolution was the real disaster, and Paris, not Prussia or Germany, has subjugated France. The French, excepting a few lawyers, journalists, literary dreamers, and the workingmen of the cities and towns, who demanded
“la république démocratique et sociale,” had no wish for a republic, and were, and are, decidedly anti-republican at heart. The men composing the so-called government of defence were, for the most part, men who had not, and could not inspire it, the confidence of the nation, were men without faith or solid principle, theorists and declaimers, utterly destitute both of civil and military capacity, distrusted, if not detested, by all Frenchmen who retained any sense of religion or any love of country surpassing their love for their own theories. France, perhaps, could have been saved by a loyal support of the empire, and a hearty co-operation with the Imperial government under the Empress-Regent, even after the disaster of Sedan, but not by overthrowing it, and plunging the nation into the revolutionary abyss. The government of defence only hastened the catastrophe by defaming the Imperial government, calumniating it, and publishing every sort of falsehood against it that malice could invent or render plausible, as the event has proved, and all the world is beginning to see and admit.
But for the socialistic revolution, it is now known that, even after the surrender of the Emperor, the Imperial government could have obtained peace without any mutilation of French territory, and on terms, if hard, at least such as could be borne. France would have suffered the mortification of defeat, and would have been compelled to indemnify, as a matter of course, Prussia for the expenses of the war; but she would have suffered no loss of territory, and would have remained, defeated indeed, but not conquered. Europe would have mediated effectually in her favor, for the balance of power requires her preservation; but the European nations could not intervene
in favor of a revolution which was a menace to each one of themselves, and Prussia would not and could not treat with a revolutionary committee that had no legal existence and no power to bind the nation.
The insurrection of Paris on the 18th of March, 1871, against the Versailles government, was only the logical continuation of that of the 4th of September against the empire. The same party that made the one made the other. An omnibus would hold nearly all the republicans in France that differ essentially or in principle from the Paris Commune, and its suppression after a fearful struggle is the condemnation of the revolution that overthrew the empire, and also of the government that suppressed it. Its suppression, so absolutely necessary if France or French society is to subsist, was simply the revolution condemning and killing itself. No government can be founded on the revolutionary principle, for that principle is destructive and can found nothing; and hence it is that every revolution is compelled to devour itself; and to be able to reconstruct and maintain political or social order, it must deny its own principle, and as far as possible undo its own work. Yet the Commune is only “scotched, not killed,” and will rear its head again in the first moment a new political crisis comes. A republic of law and order, respecting and maintaining the rights of person and property, such as we regard our own, is at present impracticable in every nation in Europe, with the single exception of Switzerland, for it has no basis in the interior life, the antecedents, the manners, customs, and usages of the people. It was by the aid of non-republican France that the Parisian insurgents were put down. There is in Europe no political via media practicable as yet between the
absolutism of Cæsar and the absolutism of the people. Either Cæsar is in the place of God, or the people; and the only religion this nineteenth century tolerates is either monarchical absolutism or popular absolutism; and European society, as we see, only swings like a pendulum from the one to the other, and finds no liberty or chance for free development under either. Its real progress is suspended.
At this moment, France lies prostrate with the iron heel of the conqueror on her neck, and that conqueror, Prussia, a power that never was known to have a noble or generous sentiment, and that has 1806 to avenge. Prussia has not yet relaxed her hold on her prostrate foe, and will not of her own accord, so long as a single sign of life remains. France has now no legal government, no political organization, and, what is the worst, recognizes no power competent to reorganize her society, and reconstitute the state, and has recognized none since the revolution of 1789. Since that worldwide event, she has had no government which she felt herself bound in conscience to obey, or towards which she had any genuine sentiment of loyalty. No government has been able to count on the national support if it became unfortunate, and ceased to gratify the national pride or vanity. The principles of 1789, avowedly accepted as the basis of his government by the Emperor, are destructive of the very sentiment of loyalty, and deny the obligation in conscience of the people to obey authority any longer than it suits their convenience. If a plebiscitum or the popular vote could create a legal government, Louis Napoleon was and is still the legal sovereign of the French people, and, through them, of France. But the nation never had any sentiment