were being prepared.  We all had nice little foot-warmers under our chairs, and were as comfortable as possible.  It was too warm in fact when the shooters came in and we sat down to breakfast.  We were obliged to open the door.  The talk was entirely “shop” at breakfast, every man telling what he had killed, or missed, and the minute they had finished breakfast, they started off again.  We followed one or two battues (pheasants), but it was really too cold, and we were glad to walk home to get warm.

The dinner and evening were pleasant—­everybody talking—­most of them criticising the Government freely.  W. didn’t mind, they were all friends.  He defended himself sometimes, merely asking what they would have done in his place—­he was quite ready to receive any suggestions—­but nothing practical ever came out of the discussions.  I think the most delightful political position in the world must be “leader of the opposition”—­you have no responsibilities, can concentrate all your energies in pointing out the weak spots in your adversary’s armour, and have always your work cut out for you, for as soon as one ministry falls, you can set to work to demolish its successor, which seems the most interesting occupation possible.

The great question which was disturbing the Chambers and the country was the general amnesty.  That, of course, W. would never agree to.  There might be exceptions.  Some of the men who took part in the Commune were so young, little more than lads, carried away by the example of their elders and the excitement of the moment, and there were fiery patriotic articles in almost all the Republican papers inviting France to make the beau geste of la mere patrie and open her arms to her misguided children, and various sensible experienced men really thought it would be better to wipe out everything and start again with no dark memories to cast a shadow on the beginnings of the young Republic.  How many brilliant, sanguine, impossible theories I heard advanced all those days, and how the few remaining members of the Centre Gauche tried to reason with the most liberal men of the Centre Droit and to persuade them frankly to face the fact that the country had sent a strong Republican majority to Parliament and to make the best of the fait accompli.  I suppose it was asking too much of them to go back on the traditions of their lives, but after all they were Frenchmen, their country was just recovering from a terrible disaster, and had need of all her children.  During the Franco-Prussian War all party feeling was forgotten.  Every man was first a Frenchman in the face of a foreign foe, and if they could have stood firmly together in those first days after the war the strength of the country would have been wonderful.  All Europe was astounded at the way in which France paid her milliards,—­no one more so than Bismarck, who is supposed to have said that, if he could have dreamed that France could pay that enormous sum so quickly, he would have asked much more.