The Evolution Of France Under The Third Republic

Excerpt from The Evolution of France Under the Third Republic Just a hundred years have elapsed since the first French Republic attained apparent stability, with high prestige and virtual paramountcy throughout Europe. The political fortunes of France since that time have been full of a strange and seemingly capricious variety. As one looks back, however, over the course of things since the revolutionary period, it becomes plain not only that the last quarter of the hundred years has been by far the best epoch for the French people, but also that the caprice and contradiction of French political history have been rather upon the surface of events, while the real life of the nation has unfolded by processes of development which make the present order in some true sense the logical and necessary outcome of all that has gone before. It has not been the task of our author in the present volume to treat of the entire century. He finds it desirable, nevertheless, briefly to recite his philosophy of the political evolution of France since the first Napoleon. His views seem to me to disclose not merely a typical French aptitude for generalization and the rationale of things, but further than that a justness of judgment and a reasonableness that inspire the utmost confidence. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.