'THERE appears to have been no matter of special interest in the week ending the 10th of May at home, the opening of the Paris Exhibition being the most important event commemorated. We cannot but re-itas.a grave mistake that Great Britain should have joined in the boycott instituted against it by the European powers; the inconsistency is the more marked too when it is noticed that Great Britain joined freely in the centennial of the American Revolution, by which she suffered a great deal more than by the French Revolution, Tardy reparation has been made in the visit of the Prince of Wales and his family, of which we have heard by telegraph; but' to acknowledge as Great Britain has done since 1871 the annual celebration of the destruction of the Bastille, and ignore the centennial, seems absurd. Whatever the excesses deformed the French revolution, humanity was a great gainer by it; but the privileged classes suffered by it, and they still retain enough power in Europe to keep the rulers and their ambassadors away from the opening ceremony. It is gratifying, however, to know that the official frowns did not diminish the concurrence of the British exhibitors, and that our trade and manufactures are making a worthy display on the Champ de Mars. For the French are still the froest people on the Continent and therefore ournaturalallies. The St, James' Gazette justifies the official refusal of the governments of Europe to take part in the celebration, It points out that the end of a hundred ears finds France still unsettled; still in a state of permanent revolution, so far us her politics are concerned; still restless, uneasy, disorganised, distrustful of herself still in feverish expectation of a Sign or a Man; still waiting that final settlement of her constitution which has been looked for so often, and which never comes." But the fact is that the noise made by the blowing-off of the steam in Paris, which seems so alarming, is a good sign and not a bad one; it shows that the valves are open, and reduces the fears of an explosion, is not an indication of its imminence. That revolution, now supposed to be in progress, cannot be very dreadful, when its makers will tacitly agree to postpone it so as not to injure the success of the Exhibition and it is with considerable amusement that we read that in spite of domiciliary visits and all the other expedients of the police, the High Court of Justice has not yet succeeded in finding a charge to bring against the arch-conspirator, General Boulanger. Meanwhile, even the St. James's cannot but say a good word for the French people That there is another side to the question we gladly acknowledge. The Exhibition is the other side. The French have not lost their qualities of race. They are the same quick-witted, intelligent, clear-sighted, ingenious people as ever." French judgment, French taste, French frugality, thrift, and industry, have not been destroyed." The French intellect has burnt steadily and clearly all through the inglorious political night of the past hundred years. Over against the failures and futilities of 1830, and 1848, and 1870, can be set the triumphs of French art and literature and science. Against Louis Napoleon and the Commune, and the fluent pettifoggers of the Third Republic, may be reckoned names like Dumas and Vic fuge, and Millet and Meissonier. Yes. The severest critics of the French will not deny that they are still wie grand nation. They ma further. They will say that while Frenc Wit, and insight, and practical talent survive, while the French bourgeois is so keen and alert, while the French peasant is so indomi table and laborious, France cannot slip out of the ranks of great States, in spite of all the malice of fortune and the power of banded foes. But what a satire on the politics of idealists it is, that this nation, with all its wit, its wealth, its cleverness, it supremacy in so many of the arts and sciences of civilisation, should still be in all the turmoil, the confusion, and the weakness of chronic political revolution!
The Saturday Reciew leaves France severely alone this week, but is, of course, sarcastic on the Washington Centenary, and reminds our American cousins, in its notice of Mr. Chauncey Depew's oration, that "it is not flourishing at your ease which makes a people great, however big it may allow them to become." The Spec-futer's criticism is neater: "everybody could imagine what Mr. Chauncey Depew, sometimes a great orator, must say on such an occasion. He did say it, and it was of course, the usual exultation over material
as the growth of a Californian pine, but the Progreas, That progress is as. marvellous me, being a work of God, grows silently."
fut we doubt if the Spectator really wishes us to draw the obvious inference that the growth of the United States is not a work of God. The Spectator also justifies the abstention of the monarchies from the French celebration For the Monarchies have at least this much to say for their side which Radicals will not day, that the Revolution, with all its and class happiness, has not finally solved terrific expenditure of energy, human life any problem, either social or political. It is Paris in which its centenary is to be celebrated; and of all cities of earth, Paris is the one in which the social problem is least regarded as settled, in which men desire most and dread most another social cataclysm, And it is Paris, the home and centre of the Revolution, which at this moment most fiercely debates, and debates, too, with menace of bloodshed in its eyes, whether government by representatives, or by a. monarch, or by a dictator, is best for French mankind; and indicates'by its votes that the balance of opinion inclines heavily to the personal rule which the Revolution was, among other things, supposed to have overthrown, The Foreign Offices of Europe may be influenced in their disfavour for the Fete of the Revolution by mixed motives, one of them certainly being the caste pride of dynasties; but at least they are reasonable when they say that such a Fete is as yet a little premature, Boulanger is not so great an improvement on the Bourbon, or the Socialists of Paris on the men who accepted in delirium of thankfulness the Constitution of 1790.
The Fall Mall's view is shown in its singularly stiff cartoon of the Lord Mayor presenting France with a bouquet. It certainly gave a splendid opening to the Corporation of the City of London, and will not diminish the respect in which the Lor-maire" is Ropularly held in Paris. Miss Betham wards sends a sonnet, of which the intention is better than the execution; but her summary of the good effected by the French Revolution is worth reproduetio "Tt may be as well to remind the reader, that the French Revolution by a stroke of the pen abolished slavery, bestowed full li tical, civil, and religious right on Jews, protestants, and actors; gave prisoners the right of defence, and equalised taxation, up till that time borne by the working classes only, But the Legislative Assembly did much more. It proclaimed liberty of the Prem and of speech, the rexponslblity of ministers, established trial by jury, and placed the person and property' of every Citizen, no matter his creed or birth, under subverted by the Napoleons and contested by the protection of the law. These principles,
the Bourbons, each in turn, are the principles upheld by the Third Republic which ex-General Boulanger and his dus achates, Henri Rochefort, are endeavouring to overthrow."
And it is also worth while to reproduce the remarks of M. Blowitz on the advantages France gains from her republican government; for M. Blowitz is not a republican How would the 4th or Sth of May, 1889, how would the year 1889 have been spent, if France had still been governed by a Napoleon or Bourbon? What a number of mysterious precautions would have been taken to hide, 0 to speak, the return of this centenary date, 89! ¢ a number of rigorous measures would have been taken to prevent any mani-testation; how many threatening and dangerous conspiracies, secret banquets, myster Flous meetings, would have been held. in the depths of the Socialist and Republican
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.