M. Thiers' funeral passed off quietly on Saturday at Pere
la Chaise, and was indeed made the occasion for a magnificent demonstration of the unanimity and discipline of the Repub- licans of Paris. The day was one of cold and penetrating rain, but the streets were none the less closely packed with hundreds of thousands of men, who waited in silence to do honour to the memory of the great convert to French 'Re- publicanism. The Government entered' no appearance. Yet, according to the report in the Debats, it was not true that the advisers of Madame Thiers had conditioned that M.
'niers' old colleagues should take precedence of the Govern- ment. They had only conditioned that a place should be assigned to them in the procession,—a reasonable demand,
which the Government rejected. Not a single member of the Government attended, though the Duo de Broglie had been M. Thiers's English ambassador, and M. de Fourtou had been singled out by him for promotion. General de Cissey and M. Ponyer Quertier were, indeed, almost the only dis- tinguished politicians, not belonging to the Left, who did attend ;
but the Duo Deeazes, who was also a minister of M. Thiers' making, sent a cordial letter of condolence to Madame Thiers, acknowledging his great obligations to the deceased statesman. In fact the members of the Government stayed away in a pet, because they had not been able to exclude the hated 363 from the obsequies of their great leader.
