NEWS OF THE WEEK.
THE situation in Paris has grown grave once more. When the report of the Bureaux in favour of the Wilson inquiry was presented to the Chamber on Saturday, a Deputy hitherto little known, M. Colfavru, proposed that "a Committee of twenty-two Deputies should proceed to a general inquiry into all facts touching the Administration which should appear to it to merit censure or repression." That is a "roving commission" indeed; but the Committee was finally voted by 445 to 84, and was, moreover, by 315 to 184 votes, invested with all powers necessary for procuring evidence. As the inquiry will thus range back through the whole period of M. Grifvy's tenure, M. Wilson's friends hoped that it would overtask the Com- mittee; but on Wednesday a new incident occurred. It was discovered during the trial of General Caffarel, that two letters addressed by M. Wilson to Madame Limousin had been abstracted while in the custody of the police, and forgeries sub- stituted for them. There is no doubt of the fact, which rests on irresistible evidence, and the hostile newspapers accuse M. Wilson of instigating the forgeries. So excited was the Chamber, that M. Bouvier was compelled to order an investigation by the Public Prosecutor, and it is asserted that a violent scene occurred in the Cabinet, the Ministry imploring M. Grdvy to give up his son-in-law, which the President bluntly refused to do. However that may be, the agitation in Paris is so extreme that any absurdities are believed, such as that M. Wilson sent burglars to abstract papers from the house of M. de Portalis, a leading opponent, and even attempted to assassinate him. A wave of heat" of this kind in the Parisian mind always forebodes serious political change ; nor should it be forgotten that the eighteen years during which a French regime appears to exhaust its popularity have nearly expired.
