with
Gambetta, a scheme improvised by him, who was neither a man of business
nor a financier, but a declamatory Bohemian, for keeping up the war
expenditure by committing France to the creation of a complete
"commercial outfit."

[1] This is the popular nickname of M. de Freycinet.

'The Republicans won the elections in 1877 by frightening France into a
belief that a Conservative victory at the polls would be followed by a
new German invasion. I am not sure, mind you, that this was an idle
scare. For under the Conservative administration of our affairs we had
cleared off in six years' time the frightful burdens imposed upon us by
the war, by the senseless Parisian revolution of 1870, and by the
Communist insurrection of 1871; and it is likely enough that Bismarck
may have made up his mind to attack us if he saw us persist in a sane
and sensible public policy. Be that as it may, Gambetta, Leon Say, and
Freycinet, between them, did his work for him by plunging the country
back into the financial morass from which the Conservatives had rescued
it. They carried the new chamber with them into Gambetta's scheme for
doing systematically and successfully what had been clumsily attempted
in the Ateliers Nationaux of 1848. France was to be made a republic by
spending nearly the amount of the German War indemnity on the
construction of railways, canals, and ports all over the country. The
sum stated in the outset was four thousand five hundred millions of
francs--rather a pretty penny you must see!'

'I remember it,' I replied, 'and I remember thinking, when the scheme
was first developed, that the adoption of it was a wonderful evidence of
the financial vigour and vitality of France.'

'Thank you,' he replied rather bitterly. 'It was just such a proof of
vigour and vitality that Dr. Sangrado used to get from his patients with
his lancet. It was a great political manoeuvre, no doubt, and it
commended itself to all the hungry politicians in France so promptly
and so warmly, that within three years' time, in 1882, M. Tirard, who
was then Finance Minister, and who is now on the box of the Carnot
coach, had to admit that the expenditure then contemplated in carrying
out this great idea could not possibly fall short of nine thousand one
hundred and fifty millions of francs! This, observe, was seven years
ago. To-day it has swelled, at the least, into eleven and perhaps to
twelve thousand millions of francs. Why not? Gambetta,