pressure of the powers indicted by the speech, and so no
more was heard of it, and the budget of 1890 was voted by the outgoing
Chamber, and the incoming Chamber has re-established in it a Secret
Service Fund of 1,600,000 francs for the Minister of the Interior--and
the work of 'invalidating' the elections of troublesome deputies goes
merrily on, and in the remote valleys and hills of France poor village
curates are mulcted of half their humble stipends for the offence of
calling upon their parishioners to vote for the candidates who do not
attack their religion.

From this intolerable position there are two obvious ways of escape. One
is the familiar Parisian way of the barricades. That way is not likely
to be tried in the interest of liberty or of law. The other is the way
which France sought to adopt in the recent elections, of a deliberate
Revision of the Constitution, now hopelessly perverted into the
instrument of a parliamentary oligarchy. The actual Government has just
prevented a Revision in the interest of a Republican Dictator, which
after all must have been more or less a leap in the dark out of a
window.

As between the only available window and the only available doorway of a
dwelling in flames, it is intelligible that an emotional inmate, with
the smell of the fire on his garments, should make for the window. But,
the window being barred, what should restrain him from walking
rationally out of the doorway? Any one of a dozen possible emergencies
may compel a Revision of the Constitution--and any Revision of the
Constitution now must mean either a Radical revolution, or a restoration
of the hereditary Executive. Either of these would be a doorway; for
France would know whither either of these must lead. M. Thiers, it is
said by persons who ought to be well informed, might have led France
thus out of a doorway in 1871, and into a restoration of the Monarchy.
M. Thiers was an exceedingly able man, but it is hard to see how he
could then have gone about to achieve this result. France in 1871 was
still a conquered country occupied by the German armies. The Third
Napoleon and his son were both then living. The Comte de Chambord was
then in the strength of his years. The Comte de Paris had not then taken
the steps which he afterwards took with so much wisdom and moral
courage, to make an end of the rupture between Henri V. and the House of
Orleans.

The situation now is materially changed. The Imperialists a