Delafosse,
elected in the Calvados, publicly stated this in the _Matin_, and
without contradiction. During the same elections the cures were
officially forbidden to advise their people to vote for 'friends of
religion,' and those who did so advise were fined after the election to
the number of 300!

M. Cornelis Henri de Witt is one of the most active and indefatigable
promoters of what are known as the 'Conferences du Sud-Ouest.' These are
meetings of the Monarchists organised on a systematic plan, which take
place at brief intervals throughout the great Departments of
South-Western France under the superintendence of a society of which M.
Princeteau, a very influential and intelligent citizen of Bordeaux, is
the President. M. Princeteau, like M. de Witt, is not only an
indefatigable organiser, but an extremely popular and effective orator;
and it is a curious proof of the efficiency of the Conservative
machinery in South-Western France, that at the Legislative elections of
1889 the Radicals and the Socialists completely disappeared as parties
from the contest in the Gironde. Thanks to the _scrutin
d'arrondissement_, several seats from that department which ought to
have gone to the Monarchists were kept by the Government; but upon the
total poll the Monarchists and Revisionists show 84,376 votes against
83,108 given to the Government Republicans. Under the _scrutin de liste_
the eleven seats for the Gironde would pretty plainly have gone in 1889
to the Monarchists. In 1885 M. Cazauvielle, the leading Republican
deputy, received 89,153 votes, or 6,000 more than the Republican total
in 1889. As in 1889 the total poll amounted to 167,484 votes, and in
1885 to 162,286, it is clear that the Republican strength fell off, and
that the Monarchist strength increased in the Gironde between 1885 and
1889.

M. Princeteau told me that on July 14 he gave a fete in his grounds near
Bordeaux to more than five thousand working people. While the fete was
going on, a procession of Republicans with bands of music, bent on
celebrating the fete of the Bastille, passed the grounds more than once
with the obvious intent of drawing away some of his guests. This they
completely failed to do. If the 'fete of the Bastille' was celebrated at
Bordeaux as it was at Nimes, this says as much for the good taste as for
the sound politics of the Bordeaux workmen. At Nimes on July 22, more
than a week after the 'anniversary,' I found the city streets m