FRENCH REVOLUTIONS.

Westport Times, Volume V, Issue 760, 7 January 1871, Page 2

FRENCH REVOLUTIONS.

Within the last seventy-five years, France has been a republic, three times a Bourbon kingdom,"'once a Constitutional monarchy ■ under Louis Phillippe, and once'a military- Dictatorship under Cavaignac. ! But even that statement does not show all the changes in < the form of Government within the period named. The first Napoleon was Consul for a term of years, then Consul for life, then Emperor. Louis Napoleon was first President, then President for ten years, then President for'life, then Emperor. Of all these various form's'of 'government the republics have been the shortest lived, with the single exception of the " hundred days " of the first Napoleon from March to June, IS 15. The duration of the rule of Louis Napoleon from 1848 to 1870, as President and Emperor, was the longest of all; and next to that was the reiga ■of the ''constitutional king," Louis Phillippe, ,from. 1880 to ; -T84S. Of those who'were sovereigns for life, or who' have 'held executive- power (for a specified term of years in France, from the days of Louis XV. down to the present time only one man, Louis XVIII., reached the end of his term. Louis XVI. died on the scaffold,; his " republican successors " were either guillotined or assassinated -/.the First Consul declared himself; Emperor, and ,then died, in exile; Charles, X, was driven from the throne by the Revolution of IS3O atal died in exile ; -■ Louis Phillippe was dethroned by the Involution of lS4B,.and ended;his career as an exile; the Provisional Kepublij of Lamartine, which succeeded him, was a short-lived failure, succeeded by the Military Dictatorship of Cavaignac; then came the Presidency of Louis Napoleon, which was ended 5 by his coup d'etat of December, 1851,'t0 be followed by the " Empire "in. December, 1852 ; and this, after a lapse of eighteen years, is followed by captivity, dethronement, and exile in 1870.