date and was elected by an
overwhelming majority. There are 160,400 electors in the department. Of
these, 121,955 voted. General Boulanger received 76,094 votes, and his
Republican competitor, M. Barnot, only 41,371, General Boulanger having
been elected at the same time for the Nord and the Charente-Inferieure.
General Boulanger resigned his seat and his Republican followers cast
their votes for a Royalist, General de Montauban, who was elected. In
the arrondissement of Amiens, with 57,527 registered voters, General
Boulanger had a majority, in 1888, of 15,274 voters, the whole vote
thrown there being 42,609. Yet, in 1881, on a total registration of
47,923 voters, the Republican candidates for Amiens, M. Goblet and M.
Dieu, were elected by a combined majority of 7,094 votes. If the
Boulangists carry Amiens, therefore, at the legislative election this
year, it may be taken for granted, I think, that M. Goblet and his
friend the senatorial mayor have not educated their fellow-citizens into
very staunch and trustworthy supporters of the Republic.

M. Fleury, the editor-in-chief of the Conservative _Echo de la Somme_,
who made a pretty thorough canvass of the department before the election
of August 19, 1888, gives me some curious details as to that election.

The monarchists, both royalists and imperialists, gave a general and
tacit, and in many cases an overt and active, support to General
Boulanger, their object being the same as his--to bring about a repeal
of the existing law of 1884, which was passed to prevent any real
revision of the constitution in a sense hostile to the existing
republican form of government. Of course if the people of the Somme had
really cared anything about the Republic as a form of government, they
ought to have defeated General Boulanger. It is the opinion of M. Fleury
that the people of the Somme, and indeed of Picardy, not only care
little or nothing about the Republic as a form of government, but
actually and by a considerable majority prefer some monarchical
form--probably, on the whole, the Empire.

They are not in the least likely to express this preference at the
polls, because, in common with the vast majority of the electors
throughout France, they have been born and brought up to take their form
of government from Paris. So long as the government at Paris--be it
royal, imperial, or republican--controls the executive, the people of
the provinces are extremely unlikely to make an e