15th April. M. Francois E. Louse, the new President of the French Republic; is a Son of the Soil, His father was a member of " the bold peasantry, their country's pride," a well-to-do yeoman, farming his own land, and these men are the backbone of the French nation, As the Spectator says: "Man has never yet rid himself of the instinctive feeling of respect for the soil which feeds him, ortheprejudicethat it is better to be born under the roof of a freeholder, however small his possession, than under that of a shopkeeper artisan." This is a good augury for France, for nations are like the giant Antious, the son of Terra, and renew their strength when they come in contact again with their mother earth. The Spectator continues: "M. Loubet will never be taunted with his birth as Thiers, the locksmith of Marseilles, Gambetta, the grocer of Cahors, and Faure, the tanner of Havre,—all our Kings, by the way, spring from a tanner of Falaise" (there is nothing like leather)—" so constantly were. 'The fact will relieve him of that uneasiness about his dignity which so worried his predecessor, and he may, if France is fortunate, inherit some of the peasants' virtues,—their tenacity, their immovable patience, and their dislike for wastefulness of every kind." We should rather have said that he does inherit them' than he may. M. Loubet's career rather resembles that of President Cleveland, and a country lawyer does not rise to the dignity of President of the State, unless he has inherited and acquired such virtues. Lowell intended the lines satirically when he wrote:
"God sends country lawyers, and other wise fellows, To guide the world's team when it gets in a slough;" but there is many a true word spoken in jest, and we may fairly anticipate that this is the case with M. Loubet.
According to our Paris correspondent, M. Loubet gumed the Presidency by an accident, but these freaks of Fate which we call accidents often have a serious design behind them which is not recognised till afterwards. He tells us that M. Clé- menceau, a politician who has missed being a statesman, "discussing the situation in the Aurore on the morning after the President's death, declared all the likely successors equally mediocre, and added, ironically, that he would give his vote for M. Loubet. The Anti-Semites and Nationalists jumped to the conclusion that M. Loubet was the Dreyfusite candidate and attacked him tooth and nail. The Radicals and Socialists, who should otherwise have been obliged to vote for the unpopular M. Brisson, promptly took
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.