a republic was again tried.  But the imperialist idea revived when Louis Napoleon was elected President.  In 1851 he carried out his famous coup d’etat, and again the Constitution was swept away.  In the following year he was accepted as Emperor by an almost unanimous vote.  Thus France again elected to be ruled by an irresponsible head.  The Third Empire ended with the capture of Napoleon III. at Sedan in 1870, and since then France has carried on her third experiment in republicanism.  But still the fatal defect of disorganization retards her progress; the Legislature is still split up into contending factions, and in consequence it has been found impossible to maintain a strong executive.  Occasionally the factions sink their differences for a time when their patriotism is appealed to, as they have agreed to do during the currency of the present Exhibition, but it is abundantly evident that France can never be well governed till the people are able to organize two coherent parties.  There is ground for hope that the monarchical and imperialist ideas are declining, and that the people are settling down to the conviction that there is nothing left but the republic.  What makes recovery difficult is that the national character has been affected by the continual strife in the direction of excitability and desire for change.

Those who wish to understand the forces which brought about the different changes and revolutions, traced by one who has grasped their meaning, should read the account in the first volume of Mr. Bradford’s “Lesson of Popular Government.”  His conclusion only need be quoted here:—­

As has been said, that which constitutes the strength of the English.  Government, that which has made up its history for the last two hundred years, is the growth and continuity of two solid and coherent parties.  Occasionally they have wavered when available leaders and issues were wanting, but as soon as a strong man came forward to take the reins the ranks closed up and the work of mutual competition again went on.  On the other hand, the curse and the cause of failure of representative government on the Continent of Europe is the formation within the legislature of unstable and dissolving groups.  In France the Extreme Eight, the Eight, the Eight Centre, the Left Centre, the Left, and the Extreme Left are names of differing factions which unite only for temporary purposes and to accomplish a victory over some other unit, but which are fatal to stable and firm government.  The same is true of Italy, Spain, and Austria, and if not of Germany it is because military despotism holds all alike in subjection.

Mr. Bodley has come to the same conclusion in his work on “France.”  He writes:—­