ust tell you that with an ever-increasing taste for _la
grande politique_, I daily care less and less for _la petite politique_,
which consists in simply providing each day for the requirements of the
hour. This daily bread upon which men live at Paris is repugnant to my
tastes. I am a strong partisan of our institutions, for I know of none
other possible, but they convert the government of the country into an
association for the merest chit-chat.... It is therefore for me a real
sacrifice to return to the narrow sphere of affairs of the present day,
and to speak or write thereon. I am happy where I am, and in doing what
I am now about.... Still, I will make an effort to write for you before
leaving for Germany. I see nothing very important except the Eastern
Question, which is not a _question du moment_, and which will outlive
us."

It is truly wonderful how many men eminent in various departments Buloz
managed to enrol among the contributors to the _Revue_. Of course, his
strict adherence to the rule he had laid down of rigidly exercising his
prerogative as director led many who had written a few articles for the
_Revue_ to abandon it in disgust. Still, many even of these returned
after years of separation to their old love. Buloz maintained his even
course undaunted by storms of criticism. He was to be found early and
late at work, constantly reading, correcting proofs, busying himself as
to the punctuation, the type, even the appearance of the title-pages. He
himself was wont to define his position thus: "I am the public: all I
ask is to be instructed or interested. If a work neither instructs nor
interests me, the chances are that it will produce no better effect on
the real public for whom it is written." He was always fearing that
something would intervene to prevent the publication appearing by the
1st or the 15th of each month, and became almost feverishly agitated as
the calendar pointed to the near approach of the day of publication.

He received a severe blow by the death in 1869 of Louis Buloz, an
intelligent, active and devoted young man who had already become the
sharer of his father's toils. He went off to the estate he had purchased
in 1859 in Savoy, commanding a view of the Valley of Chambery and the
Lake of Bourget. While in this charming retreat the news reached him of
the successive French defeats, culminating in the surrender of Sedan,
the revolution of the 4th of September and the march of the Ger