Paris of to-day : an intimate account of its people, its home life, and its places of interest . of the heavily-armedpeoples of Europe she must keep up an enor-mous standing army, in the very nature of itsorganization a constant menace to republicanprinciples. To add to the prerogatives of thePresident and make him chief of the army,as ours is, seconded by Ministers irrespon-sible before the two legislative bodies, wouldbe a serious danger with a people so easilycarried away as the French. Another vitalobjection would be found in the centralizationof her Government, so difficult for us tounder
Paris of to-day : an intimate account of its people, its home life, and its places of interest . of the heavily-armedpeoples of Europe she must keep up an enor-mous standing army, in the very nature of itsorganization a constant menace to republicanprinciples. To add to the prerogatives of thePresident and make him chief of the army,as ours is, seconded by Ministers irrespon-sible before the two legislative bodies, wouldbe a serious danger with a people so easilycarried away as the French. Another vitalobjection would be found in the centralizationof her Government, so difficult for us tounderstand. Imagine, for instance, that itwas the Government at Washington who de-cided just how many churches there shouldbe in every town in the United States, andhow they should be managed; and who di-rected every educational institution in thecountry, so that a mother with a son awayat school or college would have to write tothe capital to make so small a complaint asthat her boys clothes were not mendedproperly. I have seen lately a letter of thissort in the Paris papers. With us a thousand. THE CHAMBER OF DEPUTIES. 155 intermediary forces break the central power,and therefore not only guarantee the respectof individual liberty but preserve the countryfrom coups detat. Every part of France issubject to exactly the same laws, and theGovernment interferes at every turn withprivate life. If at the head of this were aPresident with the perogatives of ours, thecreature of a victorious power, aided by Min-isters free to abuse their power during fouryears, existence would become two tyrannies France prefers thatof the 568. The French Chamber is a less interestingplace to visit, to my mind, than either theHouse of Commons or the House in Wash-ington, and the reason of this is because ofthe political methods of this body of sover-eigns. The details of their proceedings arenot interesting. Its members, though notbrilliant orators, are generally clever speak-ers. Of suc
Size: 1344px × 1859px
Photo credit: © The Reading Room / Alamy / Afripics
License: Licensed
Model Released: No
Keywords: ., bo, bookcentury1900, bookdecade1900, bookidparisoftodayinti00defo
