in a fair way, perhaps, to be swept by some favorable wind to the post
of President of the Council; while not so very long ago to have been
made sub-prefect of the first class, would have surpassed the wildest
visions of his youth. In Monsieur Claretie's romance it is the old
Member of Parliament, Collard--of Nantes--converted late in life to
Republicanism, who chose the provincial Vaudrey for his Minister of the
Interior; this may, with equal probability be Marshal MacMahon._

_"In Monsieur Claretie's romance, _Monsieur le Ministre_ is of the Left
Centre or the so-called Moderate Party, he is therefore on the side of
Law and Order. He enters into the Cabinet with the determination to
reform every abuse, to recast everything; to seek for honest men, to
make merit and not faction, the touchstone of advancement. In short, to
apply in his political life the glorious principles which--and the noble
maxims that--He is only, however, forty-eight hours in office when he
becomes quite demoralized, paralyzed and stultified for the rest of his
ministerial life. It is the phenomenon of crushing demoralization and of
complete enervation of which the public, from the situation in which it
is placed, sees only the results of which Monsieur Claretie, with a
skilful hand describes for us the mechanism and the cause. This Minister
of State, supposed to be omnipotent in office, has not even the power to
choose an undersecretary of State for himself. The Minister who only the
day before, from his seat upon one of the benches of the Opposition, sat
with his head held aloft, his long body erect, with rigid dignity, as if
made of triple brass, cannot now take the initiative in the appointment
of a '_garde champêtre_.' His undersecretaries of State, his _gardes
champêtres_, he himself, his whole environment, in fact, are only
painted dummies and the meek puppets that a director of the staff, a
chief of a division, or a chief of a bureau sets in motion, to the tune
he grinds out of his hand-organ, or moves them about at his will like