time has not yet come when a general
survey can be taken of this important epoch, its successive phases seen
in their true relations and proportions, and its character fully and
correctly appreciated. The overthrow of the Second Empire was clearly
not the closing scene of the drama, and even within the last few weeks a
sudden turn in the line of events has awakened curiosity afresh, and
prepared us for the introduction of new elements or new complications,
with results which can only be conjectured. For lack of that key which
the Future still holds in its hand the most acute and comprehensive mind
must be at fault in the endeavor to analyze the workings and appreciate
the significance of the conflicting principles. If Professor Adams has
had no such misgivings, this seems to be accounted for by his ready
acceptance of a theory which has long passed current in England and
America, and which springs from a habit peculiar to the people of these
two countries of regarding the movements of all other nations, when not
on a parallel course, as deviations from a prescribed orbit. According
to this theory, the excesses of the First Revolution, due in part to the
passions engendered by a long course of misgovernment, in part to wild
speculations and experiments, produced an anarchical spirit which has
frustrated every subsequent attempt to establish a solid government of
any form, including the constitutional monarchy of Louis Philippe,
patterned on the English model--the resemblance being in fact that of a
castle of cards to its Gothic prototype--which offered the proper
compound of liberty and authority in sufficiently balanced proportions.
The French people having thus proved itself incapable of uniting liberty
with order, the one great need is the destruction or suppression of the
revolutionary spirit, to which end a strong government of whatever kind
is the first requisite, and some form of Napoleonism the most available,
it being improbable that the nation would accept permanently anything
better. Such is the view of Professor Adams, one with which all readers
have long been familiar, but which most independent thinkers have come
to reject as shallow and false. However obscure the issue, however
doubtful the solution, it cannot but be apparent to all who, casting
aside prejudices, have studied the history of France in its entirety and
recognized its special character, that its course during the period in
question exhibits no