nal party"
was formed, consisting of monarchists, Bonapartists, clericals, and even
some crotchety socialists--in fact, of all who hoped to make capital out
of the fell of the Parliamentary regime. The malcontents called for a
plebiscite as to the form of government, hoping by these means to thrust
in Boulanger as dictator to pave the way for the Comte de Paris up to
the throne of France. After a prolonged crisis, the scheme ignominiously
collapsed at the first show of vigour on the Republican side. When the
new Floquet Ministry summoned Boulanger to appear before the High Court
of Justice, he fled to Belgium, and shortly afterwards committed
suicide.

The chief feature of French political life, if one reviews it in its
broad outlines, is the increase of stability. When we remember that that
veteran opportunist, Talleyrand, on taking the oath of allegiance to the
new Constitution of 1830, could say, "It is the thirteenth," and that no
regime after that period lasted longer than eighteen years, we shall be
chary of foretelling the speedy overthrow of the Third Republic at any
and every period of Ministerial crisis or political ferment. Certainly
the Republic has seen Ministries made and unmade in bewilderingly quick
succession; but these are at most superficial changes--the real work of
administration being done by the hierarchy of permanent officials first
established by the great Napoleon. Even so terrible an event as the
murder of President Sadi Carnot (June 1894) produced none of the fatal
events that British alarmists confidently predicted. M. Casimir Perier
was quietly elected and ruled firmly. The same may be said of his
successors, MM. Faure and Loubet. Sensible, businesslike men of
bourgeois origin, they typify the new France that has grown up since
the age when military adventurers could keep their heels on her neck
provided that they crowned her brow with laurels. That age would seem to
have passed for ever away. A well-known adage says: "It is the
unexpected that happens in French politics." To forecast their course is
notoriously unsafe in that land of all lands. That careful and sagacious
student of French life, Mr. Bodley, believes that the nation at heart
dislikes the prudent tameness of Parliamentary rule, and that "the day
will come when no power will prevent France from hailing a hero of her
choice[71]."

[Footnote 71: Mr. Bodley, _France_, vol. i. _ad fin_.]

Doubtless the advent of a Napoleon the