e Commune hangs over every serious crisis in French politics. The
radicals jump to the belief that the interests and rights of the people
have been betrayed and that the traitors should be exterminated. Good
Frenchmen suffer during those crises from an obsession of suspicion and
fear. Their mutual loyalty, their sense of fair play, and their natural
kindliness are all submerged under a tyranny of desperate apprehension.
The social bond is unloosed, and the prudent bourgeois thinks only of
the preservation of person and property.

This aspect of the French democracy can, however, easily be
over-emphasized and usually is over-emphasized by foreigners. It is
undoubtedly a living element in the composition of the contemporary
France; but it was less powerful at the time of the Commune than at the
time of the Terror, and is less powerful to-day than it was in 1871.
French political history in the nineteenth century is not to be regarded
as a succession of meaningless revolutions, born of a spirit of reckless
and factious insubordination, but as the route whereby a people,
inexperienced in self-government, have been gradually traveling towards
the kind of self-government best fitted to their needs. It is entirely
possible that the existing Republic, modified perhaps for the purpose of
obtaining a more independent and a more vigorous executive authority,
may in the course of time give France the needed political and social
stability. That form of government which was adopted at the time,
because it divided Frenchmen the least, may become the form of
government which unites Frenchmen by the strongest ties. Bismarck's
misunderstanding of the French national character and political needs
was well betrayed when he favored a Republic rather than a Legitimist
monarchy in France, because a French Republic would, in his opinion,
necessarily keep France a weak and divided neighbor. The Republic has
kept France divided, but it has been less divided than it would have
been under any monarchical government. It has successfully weathered a
number of very grave domestic crises; and its perpetuity will probably
depend primarily upon its ability to secure and advance by practical
means the international standing of France. The Republic has been
obliged to meet a foreign peril more prolonged and more dangerous than
that which has befallen any French government since 1600. From the time
of Richelieu until 1870, France was stronger than any of he