dred justices of the peace, and two hundred and
eighty-nine magistrates of the courts and tribunals.' When the
republicans of the different Radical shades got into power in 1877, the
newly elected deputies, according to M. Floquet, held a meeting, and
insisted upon a further 'epuration.' They were of the mind of the
sub-prefect of Roanne, who telegraphed to his superior, 'If Republicans
alone are not put into office, the Republicans will rise and we shall
have civil war.' In January 1880, M. de Freycinet, then, as now, a
Minister, loudly called for a 'reform of the _personnel_ of the
Administration; and M. Gabriel Charmes, speaking of the then
situation in France, tells us that only one prefect of the previous
Republican Administration had escaped 'purification,' and not one
procureur-general. 'Has a single justice of the peace,' he added, 'or a
single public school teacher in the slightest degree open to suspicion,
escaped the avenging hands of MM. Le Royes and Jules Ferry? Certainly
not.'

This was nine years ago. So thorough was the weeding, M. Charmes tells
us, that, 'even the rural constables had not escaped, and the epuration
policy had carried terror and anarchy into all branches of the public
service.'

In 1885 more than three millions of voters recorded their protest
against these methods of government, and against the deputies who had
identified these methods with the Republican form of government. This
protest was met by M. de Freycinet, on January 16, 1886, with a speech,
in the course of which he calmly said, 'Let no one henceforth forget
that liberty to oppose the Government does not exist for the servants of
the State.'

That is to say, the Republican Government, which is itself the servant,
and the paid servant, of the State, will not permit any of its
fellow-servants and subordinates, who are also presumably French
citizens and taxpayers, to form and express at the polls any opinion on
public affairs differing from the opinions held by the ministers who
make up the Government.

It was upon this simple and beautiful principle that Mr. Tweed and his
colleagues consolidated the local administration of affairs of the city
of New York. Applied to the administration of the affairs of thirty-six
millions of people in France, it ought certainly to produce results far
transcending in splendour any achieved by the Tammany Ring. For M.
Gabriel Charmes is quite in the right when he says that 'under this word