could not stop the Republican wave (nothing could) but they might have controlled it and directed it instead of standing aloof and throwing the power into the hands of the Left.  We heard the well-known sayings very often those days:  “La Republique sera conservatrice ou elle ne sera pas” and “La Republique sans Republicains,” attributed to M. Thiers and Marshal MacMahon.  The National Assembly struggled on to the end of the year, making a constitution, a parliament with two houses, senate and chamber of deputies, with many discussions and contradictions, and hopes and illusions.

[Illustration:  Sitting of the National Assembly at the palace of Versailles.  From l’Illustration, March 11, 1876]

I went often to Versailles, driving out when the weather was fine.  I liked the stormy sittings best.  Some orator would say something that displeased the public, and in a moment there would be the greatest uproar, protestations and accusations from all sides, some of the extreme Left getting up, gesticulating wildly, and shaking their fists at the speaker—­the Right, generally calm and sarcastic, requesting the speaker to repeat his monstrous statements—­the huissiers dressed in black with silver chains, walking up and down in front of the tribune, calling out at intervals:  “Silence, messieurs, s’il vous plait,”—­the President ringing his bell violently to call the house to order, and nobody paying the slightest attention,—­the orator sometimes standing quite still with folded arms waiting until the storm should abate, sometimes dominating the hall and hurling abuse at his adversaries.  W. was always perfectly quiet; his voice was low, not very strong, and he could not speak if there were an uproar.  When he was interrupted in a speech he used to stand perfectly still with folded arms, waiting for a few minutes’ silence.  The deputies would call out:  “Allez! allez!” interspersed with a few lively criticisms on what he was saying to them; he was perfectly unmoved, merely replied:  “I will go on with pleasure as soon as you will be quiet enough for me to be heard.”  Frenchmen generally have such a wonderful facility of speech, and such a pitiless logic in discussing a question, that the debates were often very interesting.  The public was interesting too.  A great many women of all classes followed the sittings—­several Egerias (not generally in their first youth) of well-known political men sitting prominently in the President’s box, or in the front row of the journalists’ box, following the discussions with great interest and sending down little slips of paper to their friends below—­members’ wives and friends who enjoyed spending an hour or two listening to the speeches—­newspaper correspondents, literary ladies, diplomatists.  It was very difficult to get places, particularly when some well-known orators were announced to speak upon an important question.  We didn’t always know beforehand, and I remember some dull afternoons