vigilant champion.  To the end it must be believed that he would, as far as in him lay, have preserved it from harm.  Not long before his death, during a lull in his pain, which for a moment roused a hope of his recovery, he said to his doctor:  “I have made many mistakes, but people must not imagine I am not aware of them; I often think over my faults, and if things go well I shall try the patience of my friends less often. On se corrige!”

[Footnote 1:  Cornhill Magazine, 1883.]

When Gambetta was dead, the man who stepped into his place was Jules Ferry.  He was a lawyer, born in the Vosges in 1832.  He had never been personally intimate with Gambetta, but he succeeded to his political inheritance, became chief of his party, secured the majority that Gambetta never could get in the Chamber, and did all that Gambetta had failed to do.

His attention when prime minister was largely devoted to the development of French industry in colonies.  He began a war in Tonquin, he annexed Tunis, and commenced aggressions in Madagascar.  All of these enterprises have proved difficult, unprofitable, and wasteful of life and money.

The position of France with relation to other powers has become very isolated.  Her best friend, strange to say, is Russia,—­the young Republic and the absolute czar!  Germany, Austria, and Italy form the alliance called the Dreibund.  But their military force united is not quite equal to that of France and Russia combined.  If Russia ever attacks the three powers of Central Europe on the East, it is not to be doubted that France will rush upon Alsace and Lorraine.  The mob of Paris, in 1884, put M. Grevy to much annoyance and embarrassment by hissing and hooting the young king of Spain on his way through the French capital because he had accepted the honorary colonelcy of a German regiment, and M. Grevy and his Foreign Minister had profoundly to apologize.  The incident was traceable, it was said at the time, to the indiscretions of M. Daniel Wilson, the president’s son-in-law, whose melancholy story remains to be told.

Shortly before Gambetta’s death, occurred that of the Prince Imperial in Zululand, and that of the Comte de Chambord in Austria.

The son of Napoleon III. had been educated at Woolwich, the West Point Academy of England.  When the Zulu war broke out, all his young English companions were ordered to Africa, and he entreated his mother to let him go.  He wanted to learn the art of war, he said, and perhaps too he wished to acquire popularity with the people of England, in view of a future alliance with a daughter of Queen Victoria.  The general commanding at the seat of war was far from glad to see him.  He knew the dangers of savage warfare, and felt the responsibility of such a charge.  For some time he kept the prince working in an office, but at last permitted him to go on a reconnoitring expedition, where little danger was anticipated.  There is no page in history so dishonorable to the valor and good conduct of an English gentleman as that which records how, when surprised by Zulus, the young prince was deserted by his superior officer and his companions, and while trying to mount his restive horse, was slain.