And yet we must not make out things worse than they are, or attach too much importance to these lively demonstrations. Some who look on philosophically, would say that this mere talk amounts to nothing; that every question of real importance is deliberated upon and really decided in private, in the councils of the different parties, before it is brought into the arena of public debate; and that this discussion is merely a safety-valve for the irrepressible Frenchman, a way of letting off steam, a process which involves no danger, although accompanied with a frightful hissing and roaring. This is a kindly as well as a philosophical way of putting the matter, and perhaps is a just one.
Some, too, will add that there is another special cause for excitement, viz., that this legislative body is at this moment in the article of death, and that these scenes are but the throes and pangs of dissolution. This National Assembly has been in existence now more than four years, and it is time for it to die. Indeed it has had no right to live so long. It was elected for a specific purpose at the close of the war – to make peace with the Germans, and that duty discharged, its functions were ended, and it had no legal right to live another day, or to perform another act of sovereignty. But necessity knows no law. At that moment France was without a head. The Emperor was gone, the old Senate was gone, the Legislative Body was gone, and the country was actually without a government, and so, as a matter of self-preservation, the National Assembly held on. It elected M. Thiers President of the State, and he performed his duties with such consummate ability that France had never been so well governed before. Then in an evil hour, finding that he was an obstacle to the plans of the Legitimists to restore the Monarchy, they combined to force him to resign, and put Marshal MacMahon in his place, a man who may be a good soldier (although he never did anything very great, and blundered fearfully in the German war, having his whole army captured at Sedan), but who never pretended to be a statesman. He was selected as a convenient tool in the hands of the intriguers. But even in him they find they have more than they bargained for; for in a moment of confidence they voted him the executive power for seven years, and now he will not give up, even to make way for a Legitimate sovereign, for the Comte de Chambord, or for the son of his late Emperor, Napoleon III. All this time the Assembly has been acting without any legal authority; but as power is sweet, it held on, and is holding on still. But now, as order is fully restored, all excuse is taken away for surviving longer. The only thing it has to do is to die gracefully, that is, to dissolve, and leave it to the country to elect a new Assembly which, being fresh from the people, shall more truly represent the will of the nation. And yet these men are very reluctant to go, knowing as many of them do, that they will not return. Hence the great question now is that of dissolution– "to be or not to be"; and it is not strange that many postpone as long as they can "the inevitable hour." It is for this reason, it is said, because of its relation to the question of its own existence, that the Assembly wrangles over unimportant matters, hoping by such discussions to cause delay, and so to throw over the elections till another year.
But as time and tide wait for no man, so death comes on with stealthy step, and this National Assembly must soon go the way of all the earth. What will come after it? Another Assembly – so it seems now – more Republican still. That is the fear of the Monarchists. But the cause of the Republic has gained greatly in these four years, as it is seen to be not incompatible with order. It is no longer the Red Republic, which inspired such terror; it is not communism, nor socialism, nor war against property. It is combined order and liberty. As this conviction penetrates the mass of the people, they are converted to the new political faith, and so the Republic begins to settle itself on sure foundations. It is all the more likely to be permanent, because it was not adopted in a burst of popular enthusiasm, but very slowly, and from necessity. It is accepted because no other government is possible in France, at least for any length of time. If the Comte de Chambord were proclaimed king to-morrow, he might reign for a few years —till the next revolution. It is this conviction which has brought many conservative men to the side of the Republic. M. Thiers, the most sagacious of French statesmen, has always been in favor of monarchy. He was the Minister of Louis Philippe, and one of his sayings used to be quoted: "A constitutional monarchy is the best of republics." Perhaps he would still prefer a government like that of England. But he sees that to be impossible in France, and, like a wise man that he is, he takes the next best thing – which is a Conservative Republic, based on a written constitution, like that of the United States, and girt round by every check on the exercise of power – a government in which there is the greatest possible degree of personal freedom consistent with public order. To this, as the final result of all her revolutions, France seems to be steadily gravitating now, as her settled form of government. That this last experiment of political regeneration may be successful, must be the hope of all friends of liberty, not only in America, but all over the world.
CHAPTER VIII.
THE LIGHTS AND SHADOWS OF PARIS
I have written of the startling contrasts of London; what shall I say of those of Paris? It is the gayest city in the world, yet the one in which there are more suicides than in any other. It is the city of pleasure, yet where pleasure often turns to pain, and the dance of dissipation, whirling faster and faster, becomes the dance of death. It is a city which seems devoted to amusement, to which the rich and the idle flock from all countries to spend life in an endless round of enjoyment; with which some of our countrymen have become so infatuated that their real feeling is pretty well expressed in the familiar saying – half witty and half wicked – that "all good Americans go to Paris when they die." Certainly many of them do not dream of any higher Paradise.
And yet it is a city in which there are many sad and mournful scenes, and in which he who observes closely, who looks a little under the surface, will often walk the streets in profound melancholy. In short, it is a city of such infinite variety, so many-colored, that the laughing and the weeping philosopher may find abundant material for his peculiar vein. Eugene Sue, in his "Mysteries of Paris," has made us familiar with certain tragic aspects of Parisian life hidden from the common eye. With all its gayety, there is a great deal of concealed misery which keeps certain quarters in a chronic state of discontent, which often breaks out in bloody insurrections; so that the city which boasts that it is "the centre of civilization," is at the same time the focus of revolution, of most of the plots and conspiracies which trouble the peace of Europe. As the capital of a great nation, the centre of its intellectual, its literary, and its artistic life, it has a peculiar fascination for those who delight in the most elevated social intercourse. Its salons are the most brilliant in the world, so that we can understand the feeling of Madame de Staël, the woman of society, who considered her banishment from Paris by the first Napoleon as the greatest punishment, and who "would rather see the stones of the Rue du Bac than all the mountains of Switzerland"; and yet this very brilliancy sometimes wearies to satiety, so that we can understand equally the feeling of poor, morbid Jean Jacques Rousseau, who more than a hundred years ago turned his back upon it with disgust, saying, "Farewell, Paris! city of noise, and dust, and strife! He who values peace of mind can never be far enough from thee!"
If we are quite just, we shall not go to either of these extremes. We shall see the good and the evil, and frankly acknowledge both. Paris is generally supposed to be a sinner above all other cities; to have a kind of bad eminence for its immorality. It is thought to be a centre of vice and demoralization, and some innocent young preachers who have never crossed the sea, would no doubt feel justified in denouncing it as the wickedest city in the world. As to the extent to which immorality of any kind prevails, I have no means of judging, except such as every stranger has; but certainly as to intemperance, there is nothing here to compare with that in London, or Glasgow, or Edinburgh; and as to the other form of vice we can only judge by its public display, and there is nothing half so gross, which so outrages all decency, as that which shocks and disgusts every foreigner in the streets of London. No doubt here, as in every great capital which draws to itself the life of a whole nation, there is a concentration of the bad as well as the good elements of society, and we must expect to find much that is depraved and vicious; but that in these respects Paris is