A DARKER situation or prospect than that of unhappy France it would be hard to imagine. As her misfortunes from without culminate in utter prostration and the threat of heavy conditions of peace, her internal malady of feverish folly seems reaching its hight. Gambetta's course is showing him utterly unworthy of a leader's position in such a crisis. On the one hand, he still continues his exhortations to a continued resistance, which would now be simple madness. At the same time he proves false to all true Republicanism, by attempting to exclude from the Constituent Assembly the officials of the late empire and the representatives of the house of Orleans. Such an attempt to constrain the popular will is an act of gross usurpation, and more than confirms all the suspicions aroused by the previous refusal of the Provisional Government to submit their authority to a popular verdict. It is to be hoped, and we think may safely be assumed, that the action of Favre and his supporters, or if necessary, the interposition of the Germans, will secure to the people the right to elect whatever representatives they may wish. There ought to be at least the guarantee which a perfectly free election implies, that the government to be set up shall have a stable foundation. What form that government will assume it seems impossible now to conjecture. Nor can we look with special hope or sympathy upon any of the rival elements. The empire sapped the moral tone and physical strength of the nation, and snapped like a rotten reed in the hour of trial; and to restore this worn out and discarded thing, would seem like accepting all the suffering and disgrace of the past as a benefit, and placing its most prominent author where he could repeat the mischief at his leisure. A “Republic” does not sound so well as it did before the foremost “Republican” leaders showed themselves as greedy to snatch and retain power as any Napoleon or Bourbon. “Constitutional monarchy,” of which an Orleans prince would be the representative, really demands as much as does a Republic the qualities of self-control and wisdom in the people. Indeed, such a time as this brings to the surface the great truth too often overlooked, that no form of government has any saving power, apart from the character of the people themselves. In the degraded peasantry and inflammable city population of France there seems to be no decent material on which to base a popular government. Crises like the present have often brought forward strong men capable of governing those who could not govern themselves. But the man for the hour has not appeared in France. We look with anxiety to the new Constituent Assembly, earnestly hoping that the great emergency may develop there a patriotism and moderation which will secure to the distracted country some opportunity to build herself up from within on a surer foundation than heretofore. We have no comment to make on the rumored terms proposed by the Germans, because only rumors vouch for them. As reported, they could only be construed as a thorough and effective scheme for so crushing France under territorial weakness and enormous debt as to absolutely forbid aggressive war for a long series of years. Whatever worldly wisdom there might be in such a course, its moral aspect as dealing most unmercifully with a nation already overwhelmed by disaster, would, we think, occasion general and strong disapprobation. We do not believe that such extreme measures will be brought forward; but it is hardly to be expected that Germany will not push her hard-won advantage with a heavy hand.—Christian Union.