Littell's Living Age

FRANCE.

381

From The Examiner.

FRANCE.

could not be a more unerring sign of disThe cafés complain. tress than that. RECENT accounts from Paris, the results Meanwhile Bonapartist partisans flaunt of the elections for the Conseils-Généraux, their colours on the Boulevards. Brochures so far as they are known, but too com- are being issued, letters published having pletely confirm the pessimist anticipations a strong Imperialist colour, while tracts of those who, from the moment France are distributed amongst army and people was beaten by Germany, endeavoured, dwelling upon the many virtues of the that army which the with sad forecast, to map out her future." martyr of Sedan." The opinions of the That M. Thiers should have been placed army are unknown in his present position by the timid Bor- Emperor pampered with such assiduous Can it be possible, we ask, that deaux Assembly elected in a panic was care. natural enough. Who else was to be had? there is even a chance of an Imperial reThe question must seem, To have able political men, a nation must action? be political. But the unhappy history of every man who does not belong to the France has left that country at this hour section in this country that appears to bealmost as uneducated in the arts of gov- lieve a man who has once worn a crown ernment as when the great revolution can do no wrong, a suggestion fit only to blazed out. The disastrous war, the 4th be answered with a smile. Yet there are of September, the humiliating experiences breakers ahead which a more skilful pilot of the German occupation, have changed than M. Thiers would be required to read nothing, and France is as ready to obey the meaning of. The Emperor has shown whoever is in power as during the demor- so much incapacity and selfishness truly The much-abused imperial, that we should deplore that it alizing Imperial régime. Communists belonged to the only class in could be within the barest rim of probaFrance whose interest in politics gives bility that the nation might one day, not in twelve departments; hopes of the ultimate education of the na- far off, perhaps, reinstate him. But the Com- Germans are tion. France is as divided as ever. munism is scotched, not killed. The Con- there are yet some milliards to be paid. servatives are as timid as they have The Emperor William, whatever may be always shown themselves in important the professions of Prince Bismarck, cannot crises. Helplessness, in the face of the but look with uneasiness on the establishdifficulties of the hour, is the attitude of ment of a Republic in France; and the He displays that elections of Sunday show that the expelled the French elector. curious phase of mind noticed by M. Pre- house still has many open friends in vost-Paradol some years ago. He looks France who can get the support of their on at the revolution, without understand- fellow-citizens, while the great majority ing it, without attempting to control or of those returned are of that political tint influence it, any more than he would essay which accepts slavishly whoever is in to guide the winds. All he wants is to power,- would have supported M. GamM. Armand has been have an opportunity of gratifying his de- betta, as it will support M. Thiers, until sire for gain which the Empire stimulated his hour comes. into passionate fierceness. Already the elected in the Aube; MM. Rouland and Parisians are sighing over the ease and Paulmier in the Calvados; MM. Ray de luxury of the most disgraceful epoch in Loulay and Vast-Vioneux in the Charentethe history of their country. The bour- Inférieure. All these are uncompromising geoisie in all the large towns are in an Imperialists. One, M. Paulmier, is the son equally sorrowful mood. But Paris is the of a Minister of Louis Napoleon; and ancapital, where the pulse of the country can other, M. Armand, a diplomatist high in fabe most surely felt, and there we find dis-vour at the Tuileries. Whether Jerome tress and discontent. The number of David and Hubert Delisle will find seats skilled workmen killed or imprisoned as has yet to be decided by ballot. But three Communists was known to be large; the equally pronounced Imperialists, including number which have been induced to emi- a former aid-de-camp to Prince Napoleon, grate is equally formidable. The conse- have been successful in their candidature; quence is that trades such as the man- and in several departments there has been a a disposition to support men of less note, ufacture of ladies' boots, which was specialité of Paris - have been driven else- but whose proclivities are well known, the where. With the exception of the Fran- result being a success which the Republiçais, frequented mostly by persons in easy can press has deemed important enough to or comparatively easy circumstances, the make a subject of angry comment. The theatres are poorly attended, and there state of siege still continues in Paris, and

M. Thiers governs a great country from a country a settled Government. No doubt place scarcely more important than a village.

France wants peace abroad and quiet at home. She wants a Government that will stimulate, so far as a Government can, industry and commerce. Yet, unhappily, she has no statesman at her head to soothe the bitterness of her retrospect and allay the flames of a burning for vengeance which appear only too glaringly in the conversation of Frenchmen, in their private letters, and in prints published within reach of Prussian guns. The problem for a man gifted with political foresight — who saw, that come what may, the ultimate government of France must be republican, that the best part of the nation, its heart and brain, those who have an ideal for their country full of grandeur in not a few respects, are determined to reach this goal through suffering, through agitation, and if necessary through bloodshed-would have been how most safely to dispose of the army, how most securely to raise the edifice of the Republic, and how most speedily to restore industry to the position it occupied before the terrible shock of the great war. But M. Thiers is determined to be a blunderer to the last, and to close a career of mistakes with a crowning error. No man in France was more responsible for the war than he was. He, more than any other writer, deified French conquest, and fanned and flattered desires for fresh acquisitions beyond the Rhine. Has he learned wisdom from the past? He is as bent on making France a great military power now as in 1811, and as resolute on re-organizing the army, and laying the weight of an enormous military budget on the yielding shoulders of the country. By his timidity, his want of decision, his evident desire to coquet with Monarchists, he gave an excuse to the Communists, while the ferocity with which they were repressed cannot but leave dangerous elements behind. Why does he stay in Versailles now? Must he not know that, until the Government is in its natural locality, the people will never be at rest, and their deliberate opinion be more difficult to ascertain in consequence? The exports of France to the United Kingdom far exceed the imports from this country. Yet M. Thiers is about to cast the chains of protection more completely than heretofore around French commerce. The same absence of decision which characterized him in the face of the difficulties in Paris attends him still, and he makes no sign that he intends to give his bewildered

he has good reasons of his own for this. A want of ambition has never been a fault of M. Thiers, and he knows well that he rules the country solely because it is in its present unhappy state; that he is kept on the same principle as a servant is sometimes retained in a house where there is an invalid long after she has ceased either to be civil or useful lest the nerves of the patient might be still more deranged by a new face. We believe M. Thiers will pursue a policy of delay as long as he is allowed.

From The Pall Mall Gazette.

THE KING OF SPAIN AND HIS SUBJECTS.

THE King of Spain has now completed his progress, and returned to Madrid. Any one attempting to form an estimate of the character of his reception in the provinces from the description given in the newspapers here would be sorely puzzled. The ministerial organs represent the population as half frantic with delight at the sight of his Majesty, while the Republican, Carlist, Alfonsist, and Montpensierist prints chuckle over the sullen and frigid bearing of the people. The Papelito Aragonés, an acid little sheet which supports the Church, and is consequently particularly bitter against the Savoy dynasty, has a fair hit at the papers which talk of the enthusiasm with which the King was received in Saragossa as "indescribable." "Just so," says the Papelito; "who on earth could describe a thing which never had any existence?" Enthusiasm certainly is not the word. I was in the crowd when the King rode into Saragossa on the 26th, and nowhere along the route could I perceive anything that could be properly called enthusiasm. Of curiosity to see what he was like there was a good deal; but of delight at seeing him there was no sign. There were no cries of "Viva el Rey" that I could hear (as for cheering, that, of course, is a Teutonic institution not to be expected here) - nothing but a hoarse murmur of many voices like the sound of the sea beating on a beach of rolling pebbles. Still; on the whole, the reception was fairly good. If it was not exuberantly hearty, it was at least decidedly respectful, which, perhaps, was as much as could be expected. Enthusiasm is not a weakness of the Spaniards, except perhaps at a bull-fight, where it is evoked by a particularly savage bull or adroit

espada; and there is no Spaniard less ex- | Amadeo entered Saragossa surrounded by citable than the Aragonese. I am speak- soldiers"-" rodeado de soldados." For ing now of the demeanour of the populace this statement there is only one word, a in the streets, for from the windows and short one of three letters, which would be balconies along the line there was plenty an adequate description. It is unjust both of waving of handkerchiefs and hats and to the King and to the people, and therethrowing of bouquets. Perhaps if it were fore I notice it. I was within a couple of the fashion with the lower orders in Ara- yards of him two or three times during his gon to wear hats, they too would have passage through the city, and he was each been demonstrative in this way. But the time surrounded, not by soldiers, but by a Aragonese head-dress, the most senseless thick crowd of Saragossans and Aragon and idiotic, I imagine, in the whole world, peasants, some of whom took the opportuconsists of nothing but a silk handkerchief nity to put petitions into his hand. Solworn like a fillet round the head, giving a diers there certainly were. The footway stranger the impression that in some epi- at each side, from the railway up to his demic obfuscation the male population had quarters, was lined with soldiers at intertied their cravats round their heads in- vals, but being young and small they were stead of round their throats. Coming completely buried in the mass that filled from Barcelona, the King entered by the the street from side to side, and it was Ebro Bridge and the Calle de Don Taime, only by the point of a bayonet appearing where an arch had been erected by the here and there over the heads of the members of the Monarchical-Liberal Casino. crowd that their presence could be deHere he showed he possessed an accom-tected. Three or four officials rode some plishment which ought to be appreciated distance in front of the King to clear a in Spain, though more perhaps in Andalu- passage. - a useless task, for the passage sia than in Aragon a good seat on horse- they cleared was immediately filled up, back. From the centre of the arch de- and some ten or fifteen yards behind him pended a huge crown, which, as he passed, rode his staff, followed by a troop of cavwas made to open and discharge a quanti- alry and another of the mounted Guardia ty of flowers, poetry, and pigeons on his Civil. I don't think this can be by any head. One of the last, a wretched bird, stretch of language called "entrando dyed magenta colour, tried in its perplexi- rodeado de soldados." I was greatly ty to effect a settlement between the ears struck with the figure the Guardia Civil of the horse, making the animal plunge made. Theirs is a rare instance of a univiolently. What an omen it would have form at once simple, business-like, quite been for the Carlists if Amadeo I. had free from superfluous ornament, and yet been thrown from the saddle on entering showy and effective: a small cocked hat of the old capital of Aragon! Turning down the Napoleon I. build, edged with white the Corso and up the new street of Alfonso lace, a blue coat with facings of scarlet I., which promises to be the handsomest in (not the shabby garance red of French Saragossa, and already contains some of uniforms), yellow belts, white breeches, the best shops, he proceeded to the cathe- and high black boots. It is, what cannotdral of the Virgin of the Pillar, to pay his be said of most Hussar and Lancer unidevotion at the famous shrine of the tute- forms, a thoroughly manly uniform, unlar saint of Saragossa, and then remount- adulterated by any suspicion of ballet cosing, rode up the town to the Capitania tume. The King wore the uniform of a General, where he took up his quarters captain-general of the Spanish army. The during his sojourn. All along the line the photographs give a tolerably good idea of crowd was very dense, and, as a Spanish his features, but they certainly do not flatcrowd always is, orderly and well-behaved. ter him. He is not at all so swarthy as To any one mixing in a crowd in Spain they make him, nor is his actual expresthe reflection will naturally suggest itself, sion so stern. He looked very grave, it is how easy it ought to be to govern this peo- true, as he rode into Saragossa; but perple. The French have got great credit haps that was merely the effect of the for having invented the queue, but I think severe lecture which Don José Mariné, the Spaniards in a crowd show the instinct of alcalde, had just administered to him at order and discipline in a greater degree. the railway station. Royalty seems to Witness their admirable behaviour in have had the effect on this gentleman's reevery town and city in the kingdom during publicanism which scarlet has on the valthe revolution two years ago. The same our of a turkey-cock. Before the arrival little journal I have already mentioned of the King he had issued an address to (the Papelito Aragonés) says that "D the inhabitants, which might have been

written by some French maire last year in himself looked more smiling and less offianticipation of the coming of the Crown cially grave than the day before. His is a Prince of Prussia. He entreated them to better face for a monarch of modern Spain put a restraint on their feelings and to re- than many a more smiling or winning one. spect the sacred laws of hospitality; and There is something about it that indicates when he was invited to dine with the King courage, firmness, and determination, but he declined, saying he did not wish the King besides this, there is something about it to be under any mistake as to what his particularly frank and honest. He looks true sentiments were. The Madrid Re- like a King who will know how to reign, publicans are in delight at this demonstra- but he also looks like one who, if he cannot tion of severe virtue, but the majority of reign by fair means, will not care to try to the Spaniards I have heard on the subject reign by foul. Everywhere it seems to seem to think Señor Mariné's taste doubt-have been the same as at Saragossa; the ful. The second day of the Royal visit at reception became more and more friendly Saragossa was a busy one, what with early as the visit drew to a close; and this fact, mass, reviews of troops, inspections of bar- I think, augurs well for Amadeo I. In racks, hospitals, schools, and divers other Madrid, where he is well known, he seems institutions, a soirée at the Casino Monar- to be decidedly popular with the great quico-Liberal, and, of course, a bull-fight. mass of the people. He was received with Poor King, how sick he must be of bull- something very like a hearty cheer yesterfights! Three are about as much as any day in the Calle de Alcalá, as he and the one not to the manner born can stand; for Queen drove up from the railway station. besides its other unpleasantnesses, it is Personally, he is, I am inclined to think, the most tiresome and monotonous of spec- popular with the bulk of the nation; but tacles; and he has probably attended three as yet it does not go beyond this with the a week for some time back. He shows his great majority. Nine Spaniards out of ten good sense, however, in not reminding the will tell you, with that peculiar wave of Spaniards that his tastes are not Spanish in the hand which adds emphasis to a Spanevery particular. This time there seemed ish negation, that "Los Españoles no le to be more heartiness about his reception quieren;" the reason being that he is not as he passed through the streets. Per- a Spaniard. To hear Spaniards talk you haps the absence of the formality of a would fancy the Spanish throne had been State entry had something to do with it, occupied by an unbroken line of purely and so had, no doubt, the King's evident indigenous monarchs ever since the days desire to meet the wishes of the people in of King Wamba, whereas, in fact, they can everything, to do everything he was want- only show one who answers to that deed to do, and go everywhere his presence scription, and that is the unfortunate was wished. At any rate, I heard several Juana La Loca, the crazed mother of cries of Viva el Rey," about the sincerity Charles V. of which there could be no doubt, and he

TREES AND RAIN.-In Italy the clearing of the Apennines is believed to have seriously altered the climate of the Po Valley, and now the African sirocco, never known to the armies of ancient Rome, breathes its hot, blighting breath over the right bank of that river in the territory of Parma. The similar removal of the pine forests near Ravenna, about twenty miles long, induced this same desolating wind, which continued until the wool had been allowed to grow again. There is no doubt that in France the removal of the old forests of the Vosges sensibly deteriorated the climate on the plains of Alsace; and it is a historic fact that the ancient destruction of the forests of the Cevennes, under the reign of Augustus, left the large and rich

tracts near the mouth of the Rhone exposed to the steady violence of the mistral (or northwest wind), before which the area of olive culture has retreated many leagues, the orange is confined to a few sheltered points on the coast, and fruit trees can hardly be reared in places where they were famously prolific. The curtailment of the rainfall is a well known consequence of the disappearance of forests; and in Egypt, where during the French occupation, in 1798, not a drop of rain fell for sixteen months, and from time immemorial the country has been a rainless bed of sand, Mehemed Ali, by planting his millions of fig and orange trees, has since seen his country blessed with an annual rainfall of several inches.