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Show 'THK FICKLE CROWD." . A lew short months ago France by :i vote of nearly tfix to one endorsed the Empire and the Napoleonic dynasty, dy-nasty, liut now, it is reported, the popular feeling against Napoleon is one of hatred and contempt. Napoleon was tinsueees.-ful, outgeneralled and made a prisoner, and defeat cannot be tolerated in a ruler. A few short weeks ago, and the republican clement of Europe was making demonstrations in favor of France, denouncing kinirs and queens, and threatening direst vengeance against the enemies of the French Republic. But the wily rulers soothed it with promises, pat:ed its shaggy mane, and it calmed down ; and now that the very national exist- ence of France is in deadly peril it is quiescent and silent. The spasmodic fit of pas-ion is over, and the wordy threatening. have amounted to nothing. noth-ing. Republicanism in Europe is a very different thing from republicanism in America. On the other side of the Atlantic its warmest exponents are impracticable im-practicable theorists, and the great bulk of the people are incapable of uiders'audmg the difference between that freedom which guarantees equal rights to all, and that license which t iey crave and under which they could do as they please irrespective ef the rights of others. This the rulers of Europe uuderstand, and they yield a little to satisfy momentary popular clamor, that, whin opportunity offers, thay may tighten the reins of goveru-mjnt goveru-mjnt again. The traditions of centuries centu-ries are not easily overthrown. "The divinity which doth hedge round a King" is too much believed in throughout Europe, and hence they who repudiate belief in Kings too often repudiato belief iu divinity as well; and this belief which, however crude it may be, has been the controlling control-ling impulse of the masses for ages, wben taken away leaves them rudderless rudder-less on the sea of chance, driven by every gale of human passion that may aris?. Europe is yet far from understanding understand-ing republicanism; and before the goal - is reached which the aspirations of its friends oa that continent point to, thero will be many more bloody battlefields, battle-fields, much more terrible suffering, and a slow process of growth until "the fickle crowd" ries much higher above it? fickleness, and learns that true sovereignty is that which has its origin in native superiority, and not in the accidents of birth or fortuitous circumstances. |