I wonder if things
would have been very different if Louis Philippe and his family had not
walked out of the Tuileries that day!
I often asked W. in what way France had gained by being a republic. I
personally was quite impartial, being born an American and never having
lived in France until after the Franco-Prussian War. I had no particular
ties nor traditions, had no grandfather killed on the scaffold, nor
frozen to death in the retreat of "La Grande Armee" from Moscow. They
always told me a republic was in the air--young talents and energy must
come to the front--the people must have a voice in the government. I
think the average Frenchman is intelligent, but I don't think the vote
of the man in the street can have as much value as that of a man who has
had not only a good education but who has been accustomed always to hear
certain principles of law and order held up as rules for the guidance of
his own life as well as other people's. Certainly universal suffrage was
a most unfortunate measure to take from America and apply to France, but
it has been taken and now must stay. I have often heard political men
who deplored and condemned the law say that no minister would dare to
propose a change.
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