f a
war-panic the French people, whose dread and dislike of republics in
general had been lulled, as I have shown, into repose by seven years of
a Conservative Republican rule, were led into granting the untested
Republic of Gambetta the credit fairly earned by the tested Republic of
Macmahon and of Thiers.

M. Grevy, thought the incarnation of thrift, of peace at any price, and
of commercial development, was elected President in 1879. M. Leon Say, a
man of wealth and of business, from whom more circumspection might have
been expected, lent himself, as Minister of the Finances, in combination
with the rather visionary M. de Freycinet, to a grand scheme devised by
M. Gambetta 'in a single night,' like Aladdin's Palace, for spending
indefinite millions of money upon docks, railways and ports all over
France, wherever there was a seat in the Chamber to be kept or won. The
'true Republicans,' as they call themselves, must be kept in power, the
Republicans who hold it to be their mission--no, not their mission, for
that word smacks of a Deity--but their proud prerogative, to rid France
and the world of the Christian religion, to abolish all forms of worship
and of monarchy from off the face of the earth, and generally to fashion
the felicity of mankind, in and out of France, after their own mind.
They went to work without delay. Having made the Executive, in the
person of M. Grevy, a puppet, they began at once, in 1879, to pour out
the money of the taxpayers like water, for what we know in the United
States as 'purposes of political irrigation'; to 'purge' the public
service, in all its branches, from the highest to the lowest, of all men
not ready to swear allegiance to their creed; to create new posts and to
fill them with the dependents and parasites of the Republican party
chiefs.

The balance of 98,291,105 fr. 28 c. (to be exact!) with which the
Republic of Thiers and Macmahon had closed the year 1876, rapidly
vanished.

On April 20, 1878, M. Leon Say announced to the Chamber of Deputies that
he expected the country to spend for 1879 a sum of 3,173,820,114 francs,
and to meet this expenditure with an estimated income of 2,698,622,014
francs!

In 1876 the expenditure of France had reached 2,680,146,977 francs, and
the income of France had reached 2,778,438,082 fr. 66 c. Two years had
sufficed to reverse the situation, and to convert an excess of receipts
over expenditure under the Government of the Marechal-Duc, amo