EDITOR'S EASY CHAIR.

Even yet the talk of LOUIS NAPOLEON, and of that audacious action which in
a day transmuted our thriving sister republic, with her regularly-elected
President, and her regularly-made--though somewhat tattered--Constitution,
into a kind of anomalous empire, with only an army, and a Bonaparte to
hold it together--is loud, in every corner of the country. It has seemed
not a little strange, that the man, at whom, three years ago, every one
thought it worth his while to fling a sneer, should have gathered into his
hands, with such deft management, the reins of power, and absolutely
out-manoeuvred the bustling little THIERS, and the bold-acting CAVAIGNAC.

Old travelers are recalling their recollection of the spruce looking
gentleman, in white kids, and with unexceptionable beaver, who used to
saunter with one or two mustached companions along Pall-Mall; and who,
some three months after, in even more _recherche_ costume, used to take
his morning drive, with four-in-hand, upon the asphalte surface of the
Paris avenues. There seemed really nothing under cover of his finesse in
air and garb which could work out such long-reaching strategy as he has
just now shown us.

Belabor him as we will, with our honest republican anathemas, there must
yet have been no small degree of long-sightedness belonging to the man who
could transform a government in a day; and who could have laid such finger
to the pulse of a whole army of Frenchmen, as to know their heart-bound to
a very fraction.

The truth is, the French, with the impulse of a quick-blooded race, admire
audacity of any sort; and what will call a shout, will, in nine cases out
of ten, call a welcome. It is not a little hard for a plain,
matter-of-fact American to conceive of the readiness with which the French
army, and all the myrmidons of that glowing republican power, shift their
allegiance--as obedient as an opera chorus to the wink of the _maestro_.

We can ourselves recall the memory of a time when that CHANGARNIER, who is
now a lion in fetters, held such rule over Paris military and Paris
constabulary, that a toss of his thumb would send half the representatives
to prison; and now, there is not so much as a regiment who would venture a
wail for his losses. This offers sad comment on the "thinking capacity" of
bayonets!

What shall we suppose of these hundred thousand scene-shifters in the red
pantaloons? Are they worked upon merely by the N