Page:The Royal Family of France (Henry).djvu/11

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Introduction.
7

country to the ever same end: breaking the heart and sucking the brains of France, and unsettling the peaceful relations of European Powers. In short, whatever be the policy and views of the men of that party—be they those of a tame and apathetic King Pétaud or those of the one-eyed Opportunists with their packs of mad and sanguinary hounds—the ever same conclusion appears the only practical and wise one to come to with nations strangers to such Schools of politics: some evils, worse than any we know of lurk beneath the attractive name of a pure "Democracy," Republican first, and patriotic next.

In the present instance, we are judging from the stormy sky. And we may safely foreshadow the future by the past, and predict with certainty that the end (however far distant it may be), will crown the conduct of the piece at the Elysium: political dishonour and suicide will terminate the career of contemporary Republicans in France, just like the exasperating and disgusting policy of their predecessors stopped short the latter on their perilous way, and caused the ignominious and timely fall of the first two Republics. Were they fair-minded men, Republicans and other partisans everywhere else, as much as among Frenchmen, would read History, and take its warnings to heart, clinging as fast to History and to the good institutions of their country, as to a life-saving buoy. Molyneux, who first formulated the case of Ireland, lays down a proposition which is as true of the current political and social transactions of the French, as of the transaction to which he applies it: "If a villain, with a pistol at my breast, makes me convey my estate to him, no one will say that this gives him any right, and yet such a title as this has an unjust conqueror (Republican or Imperial, political or social), who, with a sword at my throat, forces me into submission."

It is acknowledged all over the world, that MM. Léon Gambetta and Clemenceau are the past, present, and coming Head Managers of the Third Commonwealth of the French. As to M. Gambetta, facts show how soon and how miserably that dethroned