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THE RESURRECTION OF FRANCE.

Paris, June 30th.

Coming from London to Paris, one is struck with the contrast—London is so vast and interminable, and dark—a "boundless contiguity of shade,"—while Paris is all brightness and sunshine. The difference in the appearance of the two capitals is due partly to the climate, and partly to the materials of which they are built—London showing miles on miles of dingy brick, with an atmosphere so charged with smoke and vapors that it blackens even the whitest marble; while Paris is built of a light, cream-colored stone, that is found here in abundance, which is soft and easily worked, but hardens by exposure to the air, and that preserves its whiteness under this clearer sky and warmer sun. Then the taste of the French makes every shop window bright with color; and there is something in the natural gayety of the people which is infectious, and which quickly communicates itself to a stranger. Many a foreigner, on first landing in England, has walked the streets of London with gloomy thoughts of suicide, who once in Paris feels as if transported to Paradise. Perhaps if he had stayed a little longer in England he would have thought better of the country and people. But it is impossible for a stranger at first to feel at home in London, any more than if he were sent adrift all alone in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. The English are reserved and cautious in their social relations, which may be very proper in regard to those of whom they know nothing. But once well introduced, the stranger is taken into their intimacy, and finds no spot on earth more warm than the interior of an English home. But in Paris everybody seems to greet him at once without an introduction; he speaks to a Frenchman on the street (if it be only to inquire his way), and instead of a gruff answer, meets with a polite reply. "It amounts to nothing," some may say. It costs indeed but a moment of time, but even that, many in England, and I am sorry to say in America also, are too impatient and too self-absorbed to give. In the shops everybody is so polite that one spends his money with pleasure, since he gets not only the matter of his purchase, but what he values still more, a smile and a pleasant word. It may be said that these are little things, but in their influence upon one's temper and spirits they are not trifles, any more than sunshine is a trifle, or pure air; and in these minor moralities of life the French are an example to us and to all the world.

But it is not only for their easy manners and social virtues that I am attracted to the French. They have many noble qualities, such as courage and self-devotion, instances of which are conspicuous in their national history; and are not less capable of Christian devotion, innumerable examples of which may be found in both the Catholic and the Protestant Churches. Many of our American clergymen, who have travelled abroad, will agree with me, that more beautiful examples of piety they have never seen than among the Protestants of France. I should be ungrateful indeed if I did not love the French, since to one of that nation I owe the chief happiness of my earthly existence.

Of course the great marvel of Paris, and of France, is its resurrection—the manner in which it has recovered from the war. In riding about these streets, so full of life and gayety, and seeing on every side the signs of prosperity, I cannot realize that it is a city which, since I was here in 1867—nay, within less time, has endured all the horrors of war; which has been twice besieged, has been encompassed with a mighty army, and heard the sound of cannon day and night, its people hiding in cellars from the bombs bursting in the streets. Yet it is not five years since Louis Napoleon was still Emperor, reigning undisturbed in the palace of the Tuileries, across the street from the Hôtel du Louvre, where I now write. It was on the 15th of July, 1870, that war was declared against Prussia in the midst of the greatest enthusiasm. The army was wild with excitement, expecting to march almost unopposed to Berlin. Sad dream of victory, soon to be rudely dispelled! A few weeks saw the most astounding series of defeats, and on the 4th of September the Emperor himself surrendered at Sedan, at the head of a hundred thousand men, and the Empire, which he had been constructing with such infinite labor and care for twenty years, fell to the ground.

But even then the trials of France were not ended. She was to have sorrow upon sorrow. Next came the surrender of Metz, with another great army, and then the crowning disaster of the long siege of Paris, lasting over four months, and ending also in the same inglorious way. Jena was avenged, when the Prussian cavalry rode through the Arch of Triumph down the Champs Elysées. It was a bitter humiliation for France, but she had to drink the cup to the very dregs, when forced to sign a treaty of peace, ceding two of her most beautiful provinces, Alsace and Lorraine, and paying an indemnity of one thousand millions of dollars for the expenses of the war! Nor was this all. As if the seven vials of wrath were to be poured out on her devoted head, scarcely was the foreign war ended, before civil war began, and for months the Commune held Paris under its feet. Then the city had to undergo a second siege, and to be bombarded once more, not by Germans, but by Frenchmen, until its proud historical monuments were destroyed by its own people. The Column of the Place Vendôme, erected to commemorate the victories of Napoleon, out of cannon taken in his great battles, was levelled to the ground; and the Palace of the Tuileries and the Hôtel de Ville were burnt by these desperate revolutionists, who at last, to complete the catalogue of their crimes, butchered the hostages in cold blood! This was the end of the war, and such the state of Paris in May, 1871, scarcely four years ago.

In the eyes of other nations, this was not only disaster, but absolute ruin. It seemed as if the country could not recover in one generation, and that for the next thirty years, so far as any political power or influence was concerned, France might be considered as blotted from the map of Europe.

But four years have passed, and what do we see? The last foreign soldier has disappeared from the soil of France, the enormous indemnity is PAID, and the country is apparently as rich and prosperous, and Paris as bright and gay, as ever.

This seems a miracle, but the age of miracles is past, and such great results do not come without cause. The French are a very rich people—not by the accumulation of a few colossal fortunes, but by the almost infinite number of small ones. They are at once the most industrious and the most economical people in the world. They will live on almost nothing. Even the Chinese hardly keep soul and body together on less than these French ouvriers whom we see going about in their blouses, and who form the laboring population of Paris. So all the petty farmers in the provinces save something, and have a little against a rainy day; and when the time comes that the Government wants a loan, out from old stockings, and from chimney corners, come the hoarded napoleons, which, flowing together like thousands of little rivulets, make the mighty stream of national wealth.

But for a nation to pay its debts, especially when they have grown to be so great, it is necessary not only to have money, but to know how to use it. And here the interests of France have been managed with consummate ability. In spite of the constant drain caused by the heavy payment of the war indemnity to Germany, the finances of the country have not been much disturbed, and to-day the bills of the Bank of France are at par. I feel ashamed for my country when the cable reports to us from America, that our national currency is so depreciated that to purchase gold in New York one must pay a premium of seventeen per cent.! I wish some of our political financiers would come to Paris for a few months, to take lessons from the far more successful financiers of France.

What delights me especially in this great achievement is that it has all been done under the Republic! It has not required a monarchy to maintain public order, and to give that security which is necessary to restore the full confidence of the commercial world. It is only by a succession of events so singular as to seem indeed providential, that France has been saved from being given over once more into the hands of the old dynasty. From this it has been preserved by the rivalship of different parties; so that the Republic has been saved by the blunders of its enemies. The Lord has confounded them, and the very devices intended for its destruction—such as putting Marshal MacMahon in power for seven years—have had the effect to prevent a restoration. Thus the Republic has had a longer life, and has established its title to the confidence of the nation. No doubt if the Legitimists and the Orleanists and Imperialists could all unite, they might have a sovereign to-morrow; but each party prefers a Republic to any sovereign except its own, and is willing that it should stand for a few years, in the hope that some turn of events will then give the succession to them. So, amid all this division of parties, the Republic "still lives," and gains strength from year to year. The country is prosperous under it; order is perfectly maintained; and order with liberty: why should it not remain the permanent government of France?

If only the country could be contented, and willing to let well enough alone, it might enjoy many long years of prosperity. But unfortunately there is a cloud in the sky. The last war has left the seeds of another war. Its disastrous issue was so unexpected and so galling to the most proud and sensitive people in Europe, that they will never rest satisfied till its terrible humiliation is redressed. The resentment might not be so bitter but for the taking of its two provinces. The defeats in the field of battle might be borne as the fate of war (for the French have an ingenious way, whenever they lose a battle, of making out that they were not defeated, but betrayed); even the payment of the enormous indemnity they might turn into an occasion of boasting, as they now do, as a proof of the vast resources of the country; but the loss of Alsace and Lorraine is a standing monument of their disgrace. They cannot wipe it off from the map of Europe. There it is, with the hated German flag flying from the fortress of Metz and the Cathedral of Strasburg. This is a humiliation to which they will never submit contentedly, and herein lies the probability—nay almost the certainty—of coming war. I have not met a Frenchman of any position, or any political views, Republican or Monarchical, Bonapartist or Legitimist, Catholic or Protestant, whose blood did not boil at the mention of Alsace and Lorraine, and who did not look forward to a fresh conflict with Germany as inevitable. When I hear a Protestant pastor say, "I will give all my sons to fight for Alsace and Lorraine," I cannot but think the prospects of the Peace Society not very encouraging in Europe.

In the exhibition of the Doré gallery, in London, there is a very striking picture by that great artist (who is himself an Alsatian, and yet an intense Frenchman), intended to represent Alsace. It is a figure of a young woman, tall and beautiful, with eyes downcast, yet with pride and dignity in her sadness, as the French flag, which she holds, droops to her feet. Beside her is a mother sitting in a chair nursing a child. The two figures tell the story in an instant. That mother is nursing her child to avenge the wrongs of his country. It is sad indeed to see a child thus born to a destiny of war and blood; to see the shadow of carnage and destruction hovering over his very cradle. Yet such is the prospect now, which fills every Christian heart with sadness. Thus will the next generation pay in blood and tears, for the follies and the crimes of this.