ion the value of what are commonly
called representative institutions. Strike out of the theory of
representative institutions the right divine of the people to choose the
wrong men, and what is left of it?

At the close of the election of September 22, 1889, in Paris, the major
of the 2nd or Clignancourt District of the eighteenth arrondissement of
the Department of the Seine declared that General Boulanger had received
7,816 votes out of 13,611 cast, and that he was therefore elected. Of
his competitors, one M. Joffrin, described as a 'Possibilist,' had
received 5,507 votes; M. Jules Roques, a Socialist, had received 359
votes, and for a citizen bearing the gloomy but respectable name of M.
Cercueil, or 'M. Coffin,' one vote had been cast. Obviously General
Boulanger was the man whom a majority of the voters of Clignancourt
desired to represent them. If General Boulanger for their own sake could
not be allowed to represent them, why not M. Cercueil? They certainly
did not choose M. Cercueil to represent them. But as certainly they did
not choose M. Joffrin to represent them.

What really happened? The Prefect of the Seine, on hearing the result at
Clignancourt, notified the Minister of the Interior, and orders were at
once given to correct this egregious error into which the voters of
Clignancourt had fallen as to what their true interest required. It was
probably found that an 'informality' had occurred in certain communes,
and that through this 2,494 votes must be annulled. News of this
discovery was instantly sent to the Parisian newspapers. As it was
supposed that they would give M. Joffrin a plurality of the votes to be
recognised, sundry newspapers actually printed the name of M. Joffrin at
the head of the list of candidates in the place usually accorded by a
really enlightened press to the elect of universal suffrage.
Unfortunately the official calculator is not of the blood of Bidder. It
was found at the last moment that enough votes had not been 'annulled'
to put M. Joffrin at the head of the poll, so that his name actually
appears in sundry Parisian morning papers of September 23, first indeed
in position, but over against it are recorded 5,500 votes, while the
name of General Boulanger comes second with 5,880 votes! Clearly an
awkwardness! In the _Journal des Debats_, which is a serious Republican
journal of character, the election of General Boulanger by 7,816 votes
was quietly announced, with a postscrip