f a consul more than ever. The Foreign Office has sent in an acting
commission to Mr. Blount, a gentleman who may be an excellent banker,
but knows nothing of consular business, notwithstanding his courtesy. As
whenever any negotiation is to take place at a foreign court a Special
Envoy is sent, and, as it now appears, whenever a Consul is particularly
wanted in a town a Special Consul is appointed, would it not be as well
at once to suppress the large staff of permanent ambassadors, ministers,
and consuls who eat their heads off at a heavy cost to the country. I
should be curious to know how many years it would take to reduce the
intelligence of an ordinary banker's clerk to the level of a Foreign
Office bureaucrat. How the long-suffering English public can continue to
support the incompetency and the supercilious contempt with which these
gentry treat their employers is to me a mystery. Bureaucrats are bad
enough in all conscience, but a nest of fine gentleman bureaucrats is a
public curse, when thousands are subjected to their whims, their
ignorance, and their airs.

The Republic is in very bad odour just now. It has failed to save
France, and it is rendered responsible for this failure. Were the Comte
de Paris a man of any mark, he would probably be made King. As it is,
there is a strong feeling in favour of his family, and more particularly
in favour of the Duc d'Aumale. Some talk of him as President of the
Republic, others suggest that he should be elected King. The
Bonapartists are very busy, but as regards Paris there is no chance
either for the Emperor or the Empress Regent. As for Henri V., he is, in
sporting phraseology, a dark horse. Among politicians, the general
opinion is that a moderate Republic will be tried for a short time, and
that then we shall gravitate into a Constitutional Monarchy.

Little heed is taken of the elections which are so close at hand. No one
seems to care who is elected. As it is not known whether the National
Assembly will simply register the terms of peace proposed by Germany,
and then dissolve itself, or whether it will constitute itself into an
_Assemblee Constituante_, and decide upon the future form of government,
there is no Very great desire among politicians to be elected to it.
Several Electoral Committees have been formed, each of which puts
forward its own list--that which sits under the Presidency of M.
Dufaure, an Orleanist, at the Grand Hotel, is the most important of