Thus the Left abandoned to Napoleon III. our two last armies. One effort would have sufficed to overthrow this pasteboard Empire.[1] The people instinctively offered their help to render the nation unto herself. The Left repulsed them, refused to save the country by a riot, and, confining their efforts to a ridiculous motion, left to the Mamelukes the care of saving France. The Turks in 1876 showed more intelligence and elasticity. During three weeks it was the story of the Bas-Empire all over again,--the fettered nation sinking into the abyss in the face of its motionless governing classes. All Europe cried, "Beware!" They alone heard not. The masses, deceived by a braggart and corrupt press, might ignore the danger, lull themselves with vain hopes; but the deputies have, must have, their hands full of crushing truths. They conceal them. The Left exhausts itself in exclamations. On the 12th M. Gambetta cries, "We must wage Republican war"--and sits down again. On the 13th Jules Favre demands the creation of a Committee of Defence. It is refused. He utters no syllable. On the 20th the Ministry announces that Bazaine has forced three army corps into the quarries of Jaumont; the next day the whole European press related, on the contrary, that Bazaine, three times beaten, had been thrown back upon Metz by 200,000 Germans. And no deputy rises to interpellate the liars! Since the 26th they have known MacMahon's insane march upon Metz, exposing the last army of France, a mob of 80,000 conscripts, and vanquished, to 200,000 victorious Germans. M. Thiers, again restored to favour since the disasters, demonstrates in the committees and in the lobbies that this march is the way to utter ruin. The extreme Left says and bruits about that all is lost and of all these responsible persons seeing the state ship tempest-tossed, not one raises his hand to seize the helm.