On Wednesday, it was announced that the French Embassy in
London is to be given to M. Decrais,—a trained diplomatist of great ability. He is further said to be well fitted to discharge the social duties of his post, to be a negotiator who likes amicable solutions, and who will not try to pose as the man who dares beard the lion in his den. Meantime, Lord Dufferin has left Paris without taking leave of M. Carnot, and is said to be in no hurry to return. This unusual course, it is asserted, is due to the fact that our Foreign Office "wishes to mark its sense of the un- seemly manner in which her Majesty's representative has been for some time treated by a -section of the French Press." No doubt the attacks have been abominable and persistent, but primd facie the French Government are not in any way responsible. If, however, our Foreign Office knows as a fact that a word from the proper quarter would have stopped the attacks, and this word was not spoken, it isliperfectlyyight to mark its sense of the manner in which the British represen- tative is being treated.
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