mitigated their rancours by assuring each of its fair share of influence, and by preventing any one of them from oppressing the others. Not only did M. Grévy fill no such place as this, but he nullified, as far as in him lay, the role of President altogether, while the scandals which accompanied his fall threw discredit on the very institution of the Presidency itself. From this discredit M. Carnot might have redeemed it. His honesty is above all question. His official duties as the representative of the nation are as ably fulfilled as M. Grévy's were systematically ignored. But more was expected of him. He was expected to give a directing impulse, to supply the nation with a will. He was to be the rallying-point of the country against Boulangism. But either he would not or he could not. Instead of making himself the supreme arbiter of all parties, the elected of the nation, he saw in himself the choice of the Republicans alone, and the representative of Republican concentration—of that same negative and ambiguous policy which has all along been the discredit of our Parliamentary system. He began by dismissing the Rouvier Ministry-the only one which had been able to win the toleration, if not the support, of the Conservatives; he left the Tirard Ministry to its fall; and he entrusted the affairs of the country to M. Floquet, whose policy has simply consummated the alliance between the Conservatives and the Boulangists. Even after the General's extraordinary successes-after his triple election in August, and his triumphant return for Paris in January-for Paris, that sanctum and citadel of Radicalism-M. Carnot remained unmoved, and continued to insist on a mixed Ministry of Moderates and Radicals together, under the presidency of M. Tirard, the most excellent, but the mildest, of men.

This Ministry was, however, very well received, and great satisfaction was felt at the stroke of energy by which-thanks to M. Constans, the Minister of the Interior-it succeeded in dissolving the Ligue des Patriotes, which M. Déroulède was utilizing as an electoral agency for General Boulanger. One is glad to be rid of the question of revision, so unskilfully and inopportunely brought forward by M. Floquet; and one soothes oneself with the hope that, what with the Universal Exhibition, and what with the substitution of the " one man system for the scrutin de liste, the Republicans may hold their own at the October elections against Boulangists and Conservatives combined. We must guard ourselves, however, against being carried away by any illusions, and must look at things as they really are.

For my own part, this is how I should sum up the chances of the future. I should first lay down one point which must, I think, be taken as certain. When once the Conservatives had been returned to Parliament in formidable numbers, and the Republican majority broken up, it was only to be regretted that the success of the Conservatives

had not been more complete, and that they had not a clear majority in the Chamber. Held in check by the Senate and the President, and divided themselves into Royalists and Bonapartists, they would have been powerless to change the form of government; they would have had to be content with simply governing. Their partisans would have been wonderfully pacified at finding that the avenues of power were not closed to them; if they had governed with moderation they might have secured the alliance of the Left Centre; and if they did not govern with moderation, the Republicans, under the lead of the moderate section, would soon have regained their majority in the country. As to Boulangism, there never would have been any. Boulangism is an invention of the Radicals, who first insisted on making the General Minister of War, and then helped him into power by their own unpopularity.

But such an evolution is much more difficult now; for the Boulangist movement has disorganized the Conservatives as well as the Republicans, and party passion has risen to a height unknown to it four years ago.

Nevertheless, I still think that if M. Carnot could seize the meaning of the situation, he would at once place himself in communication with the more discreet representatives of the Conservative party— particularly with the members of the Senatorial Right-would endeavour to bring about a meeting between them and the moderate members of the Left, and would set about preparing men's minds for a peaceful accession of the Right to power under his Presidency. I even think that the best chance for the maintenance of the Republic is to be found in the return of a non-Boulangist Conservative majority. I make no doubt that after a period of Conservative government, which might serve to repair some of the errors of the Republican party, that party would return to power with wiser dispositions and a better comprehension of the essential conditions of good government. The Republic would then be definitively established, and would consist of two parties, a Right and a Left, alternating with each other in office. But if, on the contrary, the Republicans are returned to Parliament in a majority, but a majority divided as it is at present; if they recur to their old game of upsetting Ministry after Ministry, and endlessly discussing laws which are never to be put to the vote; and if the Radicals ever become strong enough to carry out their scheme of doing away with the Presidency and the Senate, then the catastrophe is inevitable, and the Republic has had its day.

If the majority of the new Chamber should be composed of Conservatives and Boulangists combined, it is difficult to say what will happen. The Conservatives would have to give way to the Boulangists, unless the latter allied themselves with the Republicans, who in their turn would be at their mercy. Under such circumstances the

Republicans would be under a very strong temptation to keep office for another year without a majority (the Budget for 1890 having been voted already by the present Legislature), and to dissolve the Chamber in the autumn of 1890. Such a policy would lead almost inevitably

to a violent crisis.

There remains the possibility of a Boulangist majority. I have already explained why this would seem to point of necessity to a dictatorship, whether the General intended it or not. It must not be forgotten that he has his sleeping partners behind him, and they have not been financing him for nothing. They will expect to take back their own with usury. The General will need to have all the funds of the State at his disposal, like Louis Napoleon in 1852.

The situation is therefore serious enough, and it is difficult to see how it could be lightened, unless M. Carnot had been a man to dominate and direct the course of events. Still, I do not see that we need despair of a peaceful solution (even apart from some happy chance that might lead to the disappearance of M. Boulanger), whether by the Conservatives gaining the victory, and making a wise use of it afterwards, or by the Republicans being miraculously returned in sufficient numbers to take up the conduct of affairs in a firm and effectual manner.

But there are two conditions, without which the Republic will never be sure of the future. One is, that the Conservatives shall feel that they are not excluded from a share in the Government, and in the various administrative offices. The other is, that the Executive shall be allowed its proper scope and influence, at the expense of the exaggerated claims of Parliament. What is wanted for this purpose is not so much a modification of the Constitution as a change of

manners.

In any case the Republic must remain exposed to many and great dangers, some of them accidental, and some constant and, so to speak, constitutional. I reckon amongst the accidental dangers those which may spring from acts of violence, Socialist risings, Boulangist conspiracies, or foreign war. We do not in the least know how far the army or the police could be reckoned on to suppress an attempt on the supreme power by General Boulanger.

The permanent dangers are those which arise from over-centralization, from the military system, or the clerical spirit. Clericalism, by its very nature, seeks to dominate; and it cannot be sure of dominating without the support of a monarchy or a military despotism. It must always in principle be hostile to the Republic, and the Republic must always apprehend some treason on its part.

The excessive development of the military spirit naturally tends to a military dictatorship-not only that of a successful general in time of war, but that of any general at all in time of peace, so long as he

knows how to touch the patriotic chord. This is what General Boulanger has done. He has incarnated the idea of victories yet to be. When we are training all our citizens for soldiers, when we are setting war before them as the highest of all duties, what can we expect but that their enthusiasm will some day centre in a General who can speak to the popular imagination? Enthusiasms and admirations it must have: it cannot do without them. A Parliamentary Republic is not exactly adapted to evoke them. It is the very negation of the military spirit. It ought to adopt another course -to bend all its efforts and apply all its resources to developing the wealth of the country, and improving the lot of the lower classes. Instead of this, it is ruining itself to support an army which protects the territory indeed, but threatens the Republic. A monarchy alone can maintain at once a great army and a consistent foreign policy, because the will of the king restrains the ambition of the army, and affords a guarantee for the fixity of political principles.

Finally, nothing is more difficult than to work a Parliamentary Republic in a country so centralized as ours. A king is more or less independent of parties, and watches over the independence of the administration. But with us, when once a given party is in power, the administrative centralization of the country affords a formidable instrument of local tyranny.

The truth is, that the temperament of the majority of the French nation a temperament at once military and democratic-a levelling, but not a liberal spirit-is a Cæsarian temperament; and our administrative organization, centralized to excess, is also favourable to a Cæsarian government. A constitutional kingdom is not easy to maintain, for want of the royalist sentiment; a Parliamentary Republic is out of keeping with the very character of the nation and its social organization. If the Republic is to last, it must be by fortifying the executive power, by decentralizing the administration, and by curbing the excesses alike of the parliamentary and the military spirit. If not, then France is destined sooner or later to a dictatorship of some sort, whether General Boulanger's or anybody else's.

G. MONOD.

II.

THE IMMEDIATE FUTURE.

THE

HE interest taken by the English in French affairs is one of the most exceptional of international feelings. The English do not interest themselves in any other foreign country in the same way, and the French do not at all reciprocate the English curiosity about France. The French generally care and know as much about England as the English care and know about Spain, and some of them even know less: I recollect meeting with two Frenchmen, masters in a provincial college belonging to the French University, and therefore decidedly above the average in education, one of whom did not know that there was a University at Oxford, whilst the other asked me if the Queen of England had ever been married, so I told him she was a widow with several children of both sexes, all happily provided for.*

Still, although the English take an interest in France, and read a good deal about it in their newspapers, they are peculiarly liable to error with regard to that country. I use the word "peculiarly" with an intention, and the reason for using it is that the English are more likely than continental nations to be misled by home experience. They naturally and inevitably refer, as all people do, to what they know, and reason from that about what they do not know; but this process, when applied by people living in England, with an exclusively English experience, to what goes on in France, does and must lead to misunderstanding. England is a very peculiar country: there is no other country resembling it, either in habits of thought or in political action; there is no other country that could be described as conservative and changeful in the same way. Now, there is one point *This instance is the more remarkable that the Prince of Wales is often mentioned in the French newspapers. Probably the Frenchman' in question had often seen his name without knowing that he was a son of the Queen.