s just as great.

* As this ministry exercised considerable influence upon the
destinies of the country and of the world, we think it well
to give its composition: Minister of the Interior and Prime
Minister, Paul Visire; Minister of Justice, Pierre Bouc;
Foreign Affairs, Victor Crombile; Finance, Terrasson;
Education, Labillette; Commerce, Posts and Telegraphs,
Hippolyte Ceres; Agriculture, Aulac; Public Works,
Lapersonne; War, General Debonnaire; Admiralty, Admiral
Vivier des Murenes.

The office of Public Works was given to a Socialist, Fortune Lapersonne.
It was then a political custom and one of the most solemn, most severe,
most rigorous, and if I may dare say so, the most terrible and cruel
of all political customs, to include a member of the Socialist party
in each ministry intended to oppose Socialism, so that the enemies of
wealth and property should suffer the shame of being attacked by one of
their own party, and so that they could not unite against these forces
without turning to some one who might possibly attack themselves in the
future. Nothing but a profound ignorance of the human heart would permit
the belief that it was difficult to find a Socialist to occupy these
functions. Citizen Fortune Lapersonne entered the Visire cabinet of
his own free will and without any constraint; and he found those who
approved of his action even among his former friends, so great was the
fascination that power exercised over the Penguins!

General Debonnaire went to the War Office. He was looked upon as one
of the ablest generals in the army, but he was ruled by a woman, the
Baroness Bildermann, who, though she had reached the age of intrigue,
was still beautiful. She was in the pay of a neighbouring and hostile
Power.

The new Minister of Marine, the worthy Admiral Vivier des Murenes, was
generally regarded as an excellent seaman. He displayed a piety that
would have seemed excessive in an anti-clerical minister, if the
Republic had not recognised that religion was of great maritime utility.
Acting on the instruction of his spiritual director, the Reverend Father
Douillard, the worthy Admiral had dedicated his fleet to St. Orberosia
and directed canticles in honour of the Alcan Virgin to be composed by
Christian bards. These replaced the national hymn in the music played by
the navy.

Prime Minister Visire declared himself to be distinctly anticlerical
but ready to re