The French Republicans are already preparing for a great centenary
celebration of the storming of the Bastille three years hence, in 1889, and are hoping to make the three years' pre- paration useful for the purpose of organising a demonstration against the Royalists, at whose recent successes they are evidently dismayed. A Committee has been formed for the pur- poses of a great Republican organisation, and the Committee appeals to all Republicans to aid in reorganising the party for a political attack on the recent successes of the Reaetionists. Organisation is to consist in the old mechanical methods. A Congress is to be summoned, with delegates from all parts of the country, to lay down the basis of the Republican propaganda. Every canton is to have its propaganda committee, and every propaganda committee is to have constant meetings for sounding the praises of Republicanism. All this seems to us very artificial. Where there is fullness of life, there is no occasion to go about confiding to each other how full of life we are ; nor, as a matter of fact, do we begin to boast of our vitality till we find it failing. If the French Republicans would try the policy of courage and confidence, instead of the policy of panic and pre- caution, we think they would do a great deal better. If they would leave every religious community in fall enjoyment of its liberty, and allow peaceable princes to share that equality for which they cry out for peaceable peasants, they would not find it necessary to indulge in all this chatter only for the purpose of reassuring each other that they have nothing to fear. It is conscience, certainly, that makes cowards of the French Re- publicans.
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