France, one is at liberty to suppose. There was something shockingly
ludicrous in charging the hero and victor of the Days of June with
designs against property; but the charge may have led Cavaignac to have
doubts whether he had not himself been a little too ready to believe
the charge of Agrarianism when preferred against a large number of the
people of France, whom he had treated with grape-shot by way of teaching
them respect for the rights of property. There is nothing like bringing
injustice home to a man to open his eyes to its evil nature. Of all
public men of our generation who have signally failed, Cavaignac must
be held the most unfortunate; for his intentions were excellent, and he
died just as circumstances were about to afford him an opportunity to
retrieve his fame. His last days must have been the reverse of agreeable
in their retrospect; for it must constantly have been forced upon his
mind that he had been made the chief instrument in the work of fastening
upon the country he loved the most odious of the many despotic
governments it has known,--a government that confesses its inability to
stand against the "paper shot" of journalists, and which has shackled
the press after the fashion of Austrian and Russian dynasties; and all
this had taken place, as he must have seen in his retirement, as the
consequence of his having mistaken the voice of a party for the voice
of France. The lesson is one that ought to go home to the hearts of all
public men, and to those of American statesmen in particular, some
of the ablest of whom are now engaged in doing the behests of an
oligarchical faction in the name of the interests of property.

* * * * *


BULLS AND BEARS.