Altogether the proceedings gave me a very favourable notion of the
intelligence and the practical sense of the people. If all the
constituencies in France could be handled in this direct fashion at the
national elections in September, the result of those elections might be
at least the approximative expression of the sense of the nation.

But this is not to be expected. There is much more canvassing done, I
think, by legislative candidates in France, and much less public
speaking than in America or in England, and the pressure of the
Government upon the voters is very much greater here even than it is in
America. The proportion of office-holders to the population is much more
considerable, and the recent governments have made the tenure of office
in France even more dependent upon the political activity of the
officials than it has ever been in the United States. This is one of the
many evil legacies of the First Republic. The maxim that, 'to the
victors belong the spoils,' I am sorry to say has been pretty
extensively reduced to practice on my side of the Atlantic; but it was
first formulated, not by Jackson, but by Danton. Louis Blanc tells us
that this brutal Boanerges of the Jacobins startled even his allies one
day, by cynically declaring that 'the revolution was a battle, and, like
all battles, ought to end by the division of the spoils among the
victors.'

Gabriel Charmes, a republican of the republicans, reviewing the conduct
of the governments which have succeeded each other in France with such
kaleidoscope rapidity since the death of Thiers, deliberately declares
that 'epuration is the watchword, and the true aim of Republican
politics' in France. And 'epuration' is the euphemism invented to
describe the simple process of kicking out the office-holder who is in,
to make room for the office-seeker who is out. Gambetta began this
process in December 1870, when he wrote to the Government at Paris:
'Authorise me and all my colleagues to "purify" the _personnel_ of the
public administration, and it shall be done in very short order.' Within
a month, the Minister of the Interior telegraphed to the prefects, 'you
are authorised to make all the changes among the public school teachers,
which, from a republican and political point of view, you may think
desirable.' M. Cremieux, Minister of Justice, followed the work up so
energetically, that by the end of the year 1871 he declared that he had
'weeded out eighteen hun