TOPICS OF THE DAY.

THE EMANCIPATION OF FRANCE.

TO-DAY, it is stated, the last franc of the French In- demnity will be paid, and the last German soldier will quit France. The great country, not really reduced in extent

by the government of Napoleon, for Niee and Savoy made up for Alsace and Lorraine, is once more at her own disposal, and once more called upon to find a definite internal and external policy for herself. That she should do so seems to most of our countrymen almost an impossibility, and a considerable number, perhaps a majority of them, expect, from the envenomed hostility of all parties, from the distress which will be caused by the bad harvest, and from the with- drawal of external pressure, an immediate civil war. With an Assembly wholly divergent from the people, with Paris discontented and in fetters, with the great cities ruled by Clerical Prefects who seem to wish to madden their sub- jects, with serious scissions within the Army, and with

a General at its head who, with many virtues, is in- competent to found nzero motu a new political system

in France, observers take the most cheerless view, and discuss for the moment no alternatives but a clerical despotism or a civil war. Our view is more favourable to France, and we may, perhaps, be permitted to state our grounds, reasonable or unreasonable, for retaining hope.

The first of these is the character of the French people, which always appears to us to reveal, beneath a super- ficial crust of frivolity and even vice, beneath a disposition to revel because cholera has broken out, and to make pilgrim- ages to the shrine of Marie Alacoque because France has been beaten down, beneath an incapacity for public debate and

a murderous inclination for private war, a substratum of hard, cool, persistent sense, resembling that of Scotchmen, who have just the same capacity for vein mad, though their madness falls upon them much less frequently. This temper, which France has displayed in her determination, manifested for ages and under the most adverse circum- stances, to secure her own unity, was manifested once more when she rose after Sedan, sent up a million of half- armed men, obeyed the one man who would fight—the one-

eyed Italian lawyer—in preference to any General ; re- solved, when the game was hopeless, to submit to peace—

even the Piedmontese could not do that in 1848—accepted a ruler, M. Thiers, who promised nothing but peace, bore with a frightful increase of taxation, and poured her wealth into the lap of the Government, till the most monstrous tribute ever levied on a nation was paid off without injury to her strength. She then allowed the ruler who had done all this to be dismissed because it was lawful to dismiss

him, submitted quietly to a regime she despises, as being clerical, because it was legal, and obeyed the most terrible law

of conscription ever enforced upon a nation. She has acted

in fact as a nation would act which under crushing misfor- tunes remained a nation, and intended to remain one. Much,

no doubt, is due to M. Thiers, but M. Thiers is French ; much to Gambetta, whose personality stands between the Republic and the Commune; much to Marshal MacMahon, and his calm resolution that order shall be maintained.

But much more is due to the persistency of France, which amid all Revolutions preserves all she really approves, which sends up Assemblies whose fault is conservatism, and fills up an army whose vice is hatred of Socialism, and obeys every summons of the law much better than England obeys hers. We hear much of Ultramontanism in France, but let a Bishop propose to re-establish tithe. We hear much of revived respect for aristocracy, but let Sosthene de la Rochefoucanld try to prevent the division of land at death. We are tormented with Legitimism, but let Henri Cinq, even as warrior-king who had redeemed Alsace-Lorraine, propose to revoke, or rather to abolish, the Code Napoleon. These Frenchmen, whom we think so frivolous, are on all great points immovable, and one of their points is that their country shall exist ; that, let the national decision be what it will, the experiment shall for a time be obeyed by all. We have only to contrast the course of events in Spain with the course of events in France, to see the differ- ence between a race full of revolutionary passion, but never inept, and a race full of the same force, but utterly at sea how to expend or use it. "France is dead," but imagine her fleet in revolt. France is dead, but imagine her repudiating her debt. France is dead, but let the proudest power in

Europe fire upon her flag. We believe that if the departure of the Germans prove the signal of an explosion, France now, as

ever, will be stronger than Assembly, or intriguers, or soldiers, and will adopt some form of administration which will be effective, which will be strong, and which in some way or other will suit her national genius. What this form will be• we are as unable to divine as to divine why Napoleon went to war with Prussia in the teeth of his own• convictions, but we are more inclined to believe that the form will be the one existing,—a Sovereign Assembly to which any one may be elected, which merely by exist- ence keeps all careers wide open. If the Comte de Cham-

bord would abdicate or go to heaven, it might be easy to construct a Constitutional Monarchy, for that, when a legiti- mate or an approved King is on the throne, secures that opening for all careers and all parties without which France• is kept simmering with fear of violent change ; while his heir is a man ready to accept the principle. So also it might be easy to construct a Republic—we will not say " Conservative," because the word has been abused— but so strong, or swayed by so strong a man, that it would have the power to conserve all that is worth conserving, including the institution of property. It was not a King, but a mere President, removable at will, who delivered so crushing a blow to the Commune in its strong- hold. Marshal MacMahon may reign while he gives satisfac- tion, the Assembly may vote while it creates no disgust, but failing in either of the conditions, France would see its way to. the ejection of one or the dissolution of the other. Frenchmen,. with all their outward fuss, and haste, and noise, are singularly patient and persistent. They may be hot, but no other nation ever formed a queue. They may be changeable, but no other nation ever adhered as they have done, through ill report and good report, to the Bourbons, or in later times to the Bonaparte- family, which, unless all reporters are false, could, but for timidity in Paris, have remained there still. They may be variable, now sanguine and now despondent, but no other nation has ever been so persistent, not to say obstinate, in two decisions,—that France must be a great power- respected abroad, and that at home equality must be- the ideal.

This persistence in this instance will have an object. All France, without exception, intends in its heart to have Lorraine and Alsace, or an equivalent for Alsace, back within its territory, and all France knows the only way to regain its own. There must be a government strong enough to make a sufficient army, to form sufficient alliances, to allow sufficient prosperity. This feeling, which has sense at the bottom of it, is felt by all—by the wild Voltairian of Paris, who thinks a Ter- rorist would succeed quickest, as by the Pilgrim to Paray, who thinks he can by adoration drag political favour out of Heaven itself—and this sense will govern the ultimate selection. Henry Cinq I No, that means Italy linked in steel bands to Germany. Louis Philippe II H No, when did Louis Philippe I. ever fight anyone ? Napoleon IV ? A child cannot be trusted to arm France, and the Regent would be a woman sure to attack Italy. It must be a new man, and the Republic may produce him, and meanwhile Marshal MacMahon is arming us well, and there is order, and if we can but send up a few more men to weaken that Clerical majority, we shall get along very well. That is the thought of France—the France which, as Napoleon saw well enough, no despotism, or monarchy, or Assembly ever turns away from its persistent determinations—which, in. spite of all English fancies to the contrary, has never been overruled, never failed to make its will triumphant over its own administrators. We do not believe in the acceptance of the White Flag, we doubt the acceptance of the Orleanist House, we see no new Dictator, and believe that France, it may be for years, will quietly plod on, arming herself, educating herself, enriching herself, till the time has arrived when a soldier can give her back her soil. See how these Legitimists, Orleanists, crypto-Monarchists fall back into their places, after they have been home, and agree—for this reason and that reason, or for no reason, because Germany opposes, or because Marshal MacMahon adheres to the tricolor, or because the Comte de Chambord is obstinately honest, and will not perjure himself—that it is better to wait just a little longer. The stroke may be struck, but if it is and is momentarily suc- cessful, France, without civil war, will soon impose terms on the White Flag, or expel it once again. She has had many revolutions, but has never lost a liberty once secured, except when persuaded that her ruler wished to reign alone, to carry out her ideas more swiftly.