ly one half of
the 123 seats carried by the Republicans. So that the Radicals finally
muster 101 out of the 331 Republican home members of the present
Chamber, and are, therefore, practically masters of the situation so far
as the Republic is concerned. They made this perfectly clear as soon as
the Chamber met by insisting upon and securing the election of M.
Floquet, a Radical of the advanced left wing, as President of the
Chamber. Were the Radicals to withdraw their support from the Government
on any issue, it would be left with 254 members to face a combined
opposition vote of 229 members, which might at any moment be converted
into a hostile majority by the action of less than a third of the
Radicals. When we remember that these 101 Radicals are represented in
the Chair of the Chamber by a leader who was locked up for a year in
1871 for his participation in the revolt of the Commune, and who voted
in 1876 for the full pardon of the convicts of the Commune, it will be
obvious, I think, that the Republicans 'have committed suicide to save
themselves from slaughter.'

M. Floquet, imprisoned in 1871 for complicity with the Commune, was made
Prefect of the Seine in 1882 by the men who have since made M. Carnot
President of the Republic. As President of the Chamber, M. Floquet,
under the existing regime in France, is now the superior of M. Carnot.
Can there be any mistake as to the meaning of this? In 1882, as Prefect
of the Seine, M. Floquet maintained the closest relations with the
Municipal Council of Paris. M. Ferry's bill making primary education
obligatory, and 'laicizing' that education, finally became law on July
26, 1881. The war against God in the schools began at once vigorously,
and nowhere more vigorously than in Paris. M. Paul Bert had insisted, in
his Report of 1879, upon the importance of protecting teachers who were
scientific and philosophical Atheists against the pangs their
consciences would suffer were they obliged to read or to hear recited
passages from 'what is called Sacred History, that is to say, a mixture
of positive history, with legends which have no value except in the eyes
of believers.' In this spirit of the peddler who tried to 'scrub out the
blood-stains' at Holyrood the law of 1881 was conceived. How it was
executed we learn from M. Zevort, a distinguished inspector of the
Academy of Paris, and by no means a Catholic. In some places the
authorities ordered the words 'Love God, respect y