When we drove up a little later, and found the people still swaying under the influence of some recent excitement, we asked the explanation. "C'est Jules Favre qui embrasse Rochefort," was the answer. Rochefort is a symbol, and possesses, in consequence, all the superior significance possessed by a symbol over the reality. Carrying out the radical protest against the Empire made last year by his election, the Deputies assembled at the Hôtel de Ville immediately placed him on the list of the Provisional Government. I will notice, in parenthesis, they have also had the good sense not to include Thiers.

But Rochefort was not the only symbol upon which the popular instinct fastened itself. All the signs and insignia of the Empire and the Emperor were attacked, the imperial eagles torn off the Hôtel de Ville, the multitudinous busts of the imperial family shivered in fragments, the very signs of the tailors and other "Fournisseurs brevetés de l'Empereur," broken in pieces. At one establishment on the boulevard, where the individual charged with the iconoclasm had demolished the first half of the name, and there only remained -ereur, the people, perceiving the pun, cried out to leave it as it was.

The garden of the Tuileries was early invaded, but no attempt made to enter the palace. People contented themselves with scrawling over the walls, "Respect à la propriété, mort aux voleurs." "Vive la République." And all along the Rue de Rivoli was written on the palace, "Logement à Louer." In the sentry-box at the gate some one had carried the joke still farther, and written, "Parlez au concierge; chambre bien meublée à louer." Of course, the "gracious sovereign" had put for Belgium some time before. Her fanfaronades of proclamations as Impératrice Régente still decorate the dead walls of Paris, and the recollection of her declarations, "Si les Prussiens viennent, ils m'y trouveront," remain to lend a piquant contrast to the reality. The imperial family has decidedly come to the grief it so well deserved-Monsieur at

Mayence under Prussian escort; Madame at Brussels, with, it is said, the crownjewels; the little prince, after his "baptême de feu," scouring over the country with two physicians; Plon-plon at Naples, whither he fled as soon as war was declared.

Oh, dethroned princess! Oh, captive monarch! Oh, wretched prince! The day has gone by when the world will weep tears over your hapless fate; when poets will choose your woeful history as theme for their tragedies; when painters will represent you, even on the back staircase of the Tuileries, where the brush of Gros has fixed Louis Philippe forever! For the strange, extraordinary, and, at first sight, almost inexplicable circumstance in the affair, is the completeness with which every trace and vestige of imperial existence is swept away. Since the beginning of the war, the Emperor has indeed faded out of sight, but that is hardly since six weeks ago. But as late as May, the Empire seemed in the full bloom of prosperity; the plebiscite trick had succeeded beyond expectation, and given the Bonaparte dynasty an indefinite lease of life. The war, even, in concentrating all thoughts upon foreign danger, had hushed up for a moment the incessant warfare of the Opposition, and such as persisted were forcibly suppressed by the government. People submitted to every thing-the mobilization of the Garde Mobile; its incorporation in the army; the loan of 750,000,000, covered in a single day; the establishment of an Imperial cabinet; the dictature of Palikao; the atrocious silence in which all military operations were shrouded. Indeed, if the French had had only a moderate success-although the war was unpopular, although the majority regarded it as senseless and unjust-still, with success, the Empire might have been consolidated, and the proposed reckoning indefinitely adjourned. But, as La Cloche remarks this morning, "the captivity of the Emperor is the liberty of the country." L'Empire s'est donné sa démission. Not a blow has been struck, hardly a protestation made or

required, not an act of courage, or, alas! I fear that it would not have been forthcoming. But the whole gigantic humbug dissolved, melted away-eaten out and out by its own rottenness. "Je n'ai aucune commande à l'armée," said the Emperor. "Vous n'avons aucune proposition à faire," avow the ministers.

I am forcibly reminded of the famous story of Edgar Poe, concerning a man who was mesmerized at the point of death, in such a manner that his soul could not escape from his dead body. The corpse, on the other hand, could not decay as long as any soul remained entangled in its meshes, and stayed, therefore, in an intermediate condition between life and death, for three years. At the end of this time the mesmerizer reversed his passes. The spell was broken; with an immense sigh of relief, the soul shook itself free of its charnelhouse, and at the same moment the body tumbled into a liquid mass of putrefaction.

In the same way one might say that a spell had been broken which bound France to the Empire. The living soul escapes--free-the Empire melts away of itself. It is extremely important to understand this, so as not to be the dupe of the amiable sneers which will presently circulate: Oh yes, the French never are satisfied with their government. Four months ago they voted for it with acclamation, and now they want a republic again. They are not fit for a republic." This is most superficial nonsense, as is shown by the very simple consideration that it is not the same people who change, but two parties, who have constantly been at war with each other, and who have alternately obtained the power. The seven and one half millions who voted for the plebiscite will certainly do nothing for the revolution, but the million and a half who voted against it are quite capable of the task, and also of cowing into subjection the great mass of inertia that is flung like ballast from hand to hand, Any state of society whose stability reposes on an army is in a condition of unstable equi

librium that can always be upset in the twinkling of an eye. It is like an inverted pyramid, whose superficial expanse only serves to conceal the narrow base upon which it reposes. Indeed, the main thing which excites uneasiness after the joy of the 4th of September, is its resemblance, in suddenness of transition, to the 18 Brumaire, the 24 Février, and the 2 Decembre.

But in no other respect does it resemble these famous days. Never was so great a revolution accomplished in so absolutely pacific a manner. I repeat, it was less a revolution than a declaration of what really existed; and as the French boast, such a change of front, made under fire of the enemy, is almost as sublime in its boldness as in the electric shock that it has given to the panicstricken people.

Panic! It is not dreamed of. The Prussians are at Soissons-more insolent than ever. Already they dictate terms of peace from Berlin. Already are anticipated cries of rage, both from Germany and England, at the proclamation of a republic that will call into life the republics of Spain and Italy, to form a sanitary cordon of Latin democracy that shall hem in the boasted Teutonic civilization-stronghold of feudalism.

But whatever the danger, men feel that they live-that they are men. "Until now I cared little for our disasters," said the interne this morning. "What did it signify-a province more or less to the Empire? But now that the honor of the Republic is concerned, I am aroused to the gravity of our military situation." "Until now," said another medical student, "I have done my best to evade being called to the army; but to-day I have enrolled myself- for I shall be a soldier of the Republic."

The same feeling animated the boulevards all night, where the Marseillaise and cries of Vive la République certainly did not cease till two o'clock in the morning. (We were on the boulevard till midnight.) One man said: "Je n'aime pas la Marseillaise, depuis qu'il a été souilli dans le service de l'Empire, mieux vaut le chant de Départ :

"La république nous appelle,

Sachons nous battre au périr-
Un Français doit vivre pour elle,
Pour elle un Français doit mourir."

When we returned home last evening, the concierge and his wife stood at the door to greet us.

"Sommes nous aussi des Républicains?" they cried, holding out their hands to us as Americans.

The door was opened by an old Republican friend of the family. "Nous l'avons, nous l'avons!" he exclaimed. At the same moment E. R. arrived; the two men rushed into each other's arms. "Ah quelle belle journée! Nous l'avons la République !"-"Oui, maintenant il s'agit de la garder."

It is this feeling of tenderness, of affection, with which the Republic is welcomed, that is most touching. A lost ideal refound; no, it is more personalit is the exultation of a lover who finds his long-lost mistress; and, absorbed in delighted contemplation of her beauty, forgets to think even of the future that she brings back with her. It is this that rendered the manifestation yesterday so singularly joyful. No one seemed to care much whether or no the Republic could really repulse the invasion that the Empire had called down on their heads. A lady passed in a carriage on the Place de la Concorde, and cried, "A bas la Prusse!" but nobody paid any attention to her.

This appreciation of Beauty-this perfectly developed self-consciousness which enables each individual in mass to seize the character of the ensemble(I heard several people say to-day, "ah, n'avons nous pas été beaux hier!")gives a French crowd and a French revolution a physiognomy entirely different from that possible in our colder northern races. It indicates their rôle in the Etats-Unis of Europe for which the present war-started in the interest of a parvenu dynasty, and carried on in the interests of a military feudalismseems really destined to pave the way.

This unanimity of the crowd is explained in part by the enthusiasm communicated by the republicans to the

neutrals, of all shades, from the sergeants de ville to the National Guard and the bourgeois, and in part by the utter suppression of such solid sterling bourgeois as had supported the Empire, and hated the Republic, but in the moment of consternation do not dare to say any thing. One could see their faces here and there on the boulevards yesterday -cold and sneering rather than sour or provoked. Scepticism is always a Frenchman's refuge. I was furious this morning, at the hospital, under charge of P, to see the frigidity with which he received the enthusiasm of the interne who had helped to force the Tuileries yesterday, of the externe who enrolls as a "soldier of the Republic " to-day. "This is the second Republic I have seen," he remarked, and busied himself with some miserable details, affecting to ignore the whole matter.

I do not wonder that such men as Rare furious against the savants, and corps médical, who as a body assume just this rôle-sneering; accepting, fighting for all the solid crumbs of material comfort that the powers that be can place at their disposition, but whenever it is question of the people, treating them as "insensés," "hair-brained," "animés d'un mauvais esprit."

No; fraternity cannot be universal. It is the church militant that has to defend truth; and the life of every person who cares about truth must be one of incessant warfare. He must learn to render hate for hate, contempt for contempt; to keep his back and knees stiff and his head upright—proud, inflexible, uncompromising. Then, perhaps, in the course of his life-time may come to him one such day of perfect, unalloyed triumph as yesterday.

Such days, in which a people lives, in which individual lives are absorbed into a Social Being that for a moment has become conscious of itself-such moments realize the old conceptions of ecstacy among the Neo-Platonists. It is the life of Humanity that is the Infinite; it is the mysterious progress of Ideas that we understand by the "workings of Providence;" it is the unerring exactitude of

moral retribution for good or for evil, for true or for false, for sham or for reality, which represent the recompense of heaven and hell. The tremendous importance of ideas! the only reality behind the shifting phenomena of existence-how is it possible to live thirty years in the world and not have learned it? And yet how few there are who trouble themselves about such "abstract questions," who do not consider the whole duty of man to consist in raising his family in material comfort and lining

his pockets as comfortably as possible by every windfall that luck or Providence may throw in his way! Such creatures deserve to be cast out to wither, severed from the deep, fruitful life of Humanity like a branch cut off from a vine.

I have written this long letter "d'un seul coup," because I thought you would like to hear from an eye-witness how the Republic was proclaimed in Paris on the 4th of September, 1870.

Your affectionate

THE LESSON OF THE DAY.

THERE is a great lesson to be learned from the present war-a lesson of the day, and yet the lesson of six thousand years. It is, that he who sows the wind shall reap the whirlwind. The man or the nation that worships wrong, shall be by that same wrong overthrown. Napoleon III won his throne by treachery and bloodshed; he has lost it by a tenfold treachery and a tenfold bloodshed. The French people allowed themselves to be duped by his frauds and cajoleries, and now they are paying the penalty of their want of manliness and self-respect. They did not have the courage to meet and cast off the seducer, when he came with his specious promises of order, prosperity, and glory; and now, when he has brought them before an earnest foreign enemy, they must have courage, or die. Louis Napoleon, as President of the French Republic, might have lifted his country to a pinnacle of moral prosper ity and grandeur that the nation had never before reached. He might have trained his countrymen, weary of revolutions and suffering under the woes of long civil wars, to a respect for law and a love of peaceful industry which would have given their fertile and elegant genius an easy mastery of modern civili zation. He would have retired, then, in due time, from the seats of power, blessed by the gratitude and love of a

happy and advancing people. But his imagination was smitten by the dazzle of dynastic glory. He wanted to be an emperor, and to transmit the imperial dignity to his descendants; and, with that unhallowed purpose, he violated his oaths, destroyed the constitution of his country, butchered his fellow-citizens in the streets or sent them into exile, and for eighteen years maintained his ill-gotten power by corrupt favoritism and the force of bayonets. His crime was seemingly triumphant. The nations cried out, "Io Napoleon, the great warrior and statesman!" when, suddenly, the hour of trial came -a trial provoked by his own precipitate and arrogant ambition-and the entire fabric he had so carefully reared fell to pieces as the rottenest of structures. The favorites whom he had nourished by corruption, were as treacherous towards him as he had been treacherous towards his country. Those swords in which he had trusted were swords of lath, and those armies, armies of pasteboard and shoddy. All his subordi

nates had but too well learned the lesson he had taught, but too well copied the example he had set. A single earnest campaign snuffs out his pretensions; he falls without a regret, covered by disgrace and contempt, and the unmeasured ridicule of the world.

And the French people acquiesced in his crimes; they approved, by their

votes, the criminal means by which he had attained power; they approved his violations of law, of right, of sound principle, and they applauded his monstrous egotism, his theatrical falsehoods, his vain and foolish schemes of a material splendor, to be bought at the cost of their moral integrity; and now they reap the reward. In desolation and anguish, their fields trampled by invading hordes, their cities battered to the ground, their proud capital, the centre of the world's admiration, isolated, besieged, paralyzed, running with blood, they have come to the end of that heartless imperialism which they not only allowed, but embraced! Our hearts weep for their sufferings, their humiliations, and their deceptions. We would that we could lift them out of this valley of the shadow of death; but, faithless as they have been to the glorious inspirations of '89-the most glorious that were ever vouchsafed to man-forgetful as they have been of the frontal and primary truth of human equality and human rights, which they themselves proclaimed with a sublimity of devotion and self-sacrifice never surpassed, they must needs bear the burden of their wrong, till Providence shall bring release. We, too, like them, forgot the principles in which we were born; we thought that cotton was greater than manhood, till four years of strife and suffering brought us to our senses. Justice in the relations of men, the recognition by each of the rights of all, is the supreme law of life; and when we do not willingly confess it in our hearts, it will only the more emphatically assert its claims by the whirlwind and the tempest.

LIVING ABROAD AND AT HOME.

One of the morning prints publishes a strong protest against the practice of going abroad to spend their money, in which so many well-to-do American families indulge. But all the protests in the world will not hinder it, so long as New York, the metropolis, remains what it is. In local position and circumstance, there is no city in Europe VOL. VI.-36

-not even Naples-that may be compared with our own; and yet there is no city in Europe in which it is not on many accounts much pleasanter, for those who have means, to live. The greater efficiency of the domestic service, the superior convenience and economy of the apartment-house, and the provision of cheaper amusements for all classes, would alone account for the difference. But there is another cause even still more potent, and that is, the absence of that rowdy element which in New York would appear to have gotten almost the upper hand. Elsewhere, the roughs, as they are called, have a salutary fear of the police; or, if not of the police, of that self-respect and courage which prompts a gentleman to chastise insolence and rudeness on the spot. But here the roughs care little for the police, from the grasp of which they are so easily released by political favor, and still less for the better sort of people, who are too cowardly to resent insult and aggression. We have seen a single drunken loafer disturb a whole car-load or steamboatful of his superiors, without a single foot being lifted or a single hand raised to punish his intrusions. A few reckless boys will frighten an entire neighborhood out of its quiet and propriety, and not a man call them to account. The habit of wearing concealed weapons, which is common among these miscreants, is doubtless a principal cause of the timidity of those they assail. Few men care to risk their lives in order to put down a street-broil; but so long as this feeling prevails, the outrages will continue. Indeed, we see no probable end to them, until the more peaceable part of the community, in the absence of a vigorous enforcement of the law, take the law into their own hands, and, like the famous Committee of San Francisco, years ago, expel all known rascals under penalty of the rope. It is a desperate resort, we admit; but the case is quite as desperate, or will be so, unless our public man ners take in some way a decided turn for the better.