felt in offering the
advantage of a cleverly written puff of a premiere to a theatrical
manager. Seeing that his arguments were of no avail, he delivered his
parting shot.

"This, then, general, is your final decision. I am afraid you'll have
cause to regret this, for we, on our side, are determined not to give
this war the benefit of publicity in our columns."

M. Emile Ollivier's original decision was the right one, but, instead of
embodying it in a temporary and exceptional order, he ought to have made
it a permanent law in times of peace as well as war. On Saturday, the
16th of July, Count Culemburg, the Prussian Minister of the Interior,
addressed a circular to the German papers, recommending them to abstain
from giving any news, however insignificant, with regard to the
movements of the troops. As far as I remember, the German editors
neither protested, nor endeavoured to shirk the order; they raised no
outcry against "the muzzling of the press." Five days later, the French
minister was attacked by nearly every paper in France for attempting to
do a similar thing, and, rather than weather that storm in a teacup, he
consented to a compromise, and condescended to ask where he might have
commanded. In addition to this, he undertook that the Government itself
should be the purveyor of war-news to the papers. Every editor of
standing in Paris knew that this meant garbled, if not altogether
mythical, accounts of events, and that even these would be held back
until they could be held back no longer. In a few days their worst
apprehensions in that respect were confirmed. While Paris was still
ignorant of the terrible disaster at Wissembourg, the whole of Europe
rang with the tidings. Then came the false report of a brilliant victory
from the Government agency. It made the Parisians frantic with joy, but
the frenzy changed into one of anger when the truth became known through
the maudlin and lachrymose despatches from the Imperial head-quarters,
albeit that they by no means revealed the whole extent of the defeats
suffered at Woerth and Spicheren.

Nevertheless, the _agency_ continued the even--or rather uneven--tenor
of its way up to the last. The Republicans subsequently adopted the
tactics of the Imperial Government, the Communists adhered to the system
of those they had temporarily ousted. In the present note, I will deal
only with events up to the 4th of September. Patent as it must have been
to the merest civilia