The Paris correspondent of the Times, who, with many patent
foibles, is a shrewd observer, takes a very despondent view of the French Parliamentary campaign which opens on October 9th. He evidently thinks the dissensions among the Republicans incurable, and expects M. Floquet's fall and the rise of M. Clemenceau, who is now willing to take office. The Bonapartists, he implies, have recovered their own confidence without recovering that of the country ; while the Royalists have abandoned the great principle of Legitimacy, promising, if they attain power, to take a plebiscite. He looks, there- fore, for the success of the " charlatan " party, which combines the votes of all the discontented,—that is, of the followers of General Boulanger. Predictions about the course of French affairs are never worth much ; but it should be noted that the coming visit of the Emperor of Germany to Rome is not regarded in Paris as it is in London. It exasperates political Frenchmen to the last degree, bringing home to them a sense of the isolation of France as nothing else could. They think themselves, not without historic warrant, the natural leaders of the Latin peoples ; and while they are alarmed by the hostility of Germany, grow savage at that of Italy, which they regard as at once an insult and an ingratitude. This sense of humiliation strengthens any party which promises a. substitute for a Republic that in seventeen years of effort and expenditure " has recovered nothing." Observe, however, that the views of political Frenchmen and of French peasants are- not necessarily identical.
