The Government of France—­strengthened not only by the success of the Exposition, by its great triumph at the elections, and by the discomfiture of its enemies, but also by the conviction forced upon parliamentary leaders that the country was weary of mere talk and discord, and demanded harmony and action—­now became the strongest Government that France had enjoyed for a long time.  The Republic had passed the point of danger, the eighteenth year, which had been the limit of every dynasty or form of government in France for over a century.  It rallied to itself men from the ranks of all its former enemies, but its greatest victory was over the Monarchists.  The wreck of their cause by the alliance with a military adventurer was a blunder in the eyes of one section of the Royalists; in the eyes of another, it was a dishonor that amounted almost to a crime.

Boulanger had rallied to himself the clerical party in France by the promise of a republic strong enough to protect the weak,—­“a republic that would concern itself with the interests of the people, and be solicitous to preserve individual liberty in all its forms, especially liberty of conscience, that liberty the most to be valued of all,"[1] Such a republic it seems possible the Third Republic may now become, especially since it is on all hands conceded that there is a reaction in France in favor of religious liberty, for those who are religious as well as for those who are “philosophers.”

[Footnote 1:  Speech at Tours.]

President Carnot has been an eminently respectable president.  He has committed no blunders, and if he has awakened little enthusiasm, he has called forth no animosities.  The worst that can be said of him is embodied in caricatures, where he always appears ready to serve some useful purpose, as a jointed wooden figure that can be put to many a use.

The French army is now stronger and better disciplined, and more full of determination to conquer, than any French army has ever been before.  But no ruler of France can be anxious to precipitate a war with Germany; and judging from the present state of feeling among the French, there appear to be no serious political breakers ahead.  Of course in France the unexpected is always to be expected, and what a day may bring forth, nobody knows.

Sir Charles Dilke tells us that in 1887, when a friend of his was going to France, he asked him to ascertain for him if General Boulanger were a soldier, a mountebank, or an ass; and the answer brought back to him was, “He is a little of them all.”  The general, after his interview in London with the Comte de Paris, took up his residence in the island of Jersey.  He cannot but have felt that his popularity had failed him, and that his enchanter’s wand was broken.  From time to time he made spasmodic efforts to bring himself again to the notice of the public.  He offered repeatedly to return to France and stand his trial for conspiracy, provided that the trial might be conducted before a regular court of justice, and not before an especial committee appointed by the Chambers.