M. About has been discharged, and has pointed out to
his German judge that the result of his imprisonment will be to give an enormously increased circulation to his forthcoming book, to put money in his pocket, to make his election to the National Assembly tolerably certain, and generally to multiply enormously the importance of his views and the influence of his attacks on Germany. This is, no doubt, the exact fact, and how the Germans could have been so clumsy as to apprehend M. About for the sole purpose of increasing his éclat, we fiud it very difficult to conceive. Possibly they will say they don't care a button about M. About's éclat. Very well. Then why did they attach so much import- ance to his old letters in the Soir? Indifference would have let
him alone. It looks something like a positive passion for blunder- ing to seize, alarm, threaten, and discharge him.
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