We have mentioned in another place the only point of
note or- novelty in the pamphlet attributed to the ex-Emperor, of which the Daily Telegraph gave a summary on Thursday. Of Prince- Napoleon's letter to M. Jules Favre which appeared yesterday, we will only say that it is elaborately epigrammatic and bitter, that. it makes a great profession of candour by admitting the "great faults" of the Empire, while it asserts that all the " disasters"' date from the Government of National Defence :—" The faults. belong to the Empire, the disasters to you ; and I ask myself if, amid the faults of the Empire, its greatest has not been to have tolerated within itself your criminal attempts." The classification is neat, but hardly scientific. Even if Sedan be a "fault," and. the Communistic insurrection a "disaster," the disaster is even more due to the Napoleonic re'llime than the fault. The brave Prince calls the Government of National Defence "a Government without name," and asks, but " What is this Government ?. Is it the National Defence ? No, for you have done nothing but capitulate,"—a practice of which the Emperor certainly set a bright example, the Prince himself not having done even as much as that. In real truth, the "Government of National Defence" has little enough to boast of, but its excuse is that the nation had been emasculated by the regime which immediately preceded it, and which prepared not. only its own catastrophe, but that of the nation.
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