We suppose we shall know when the trials are over
whether there was any seriousness in the " plot " for the overthrow of the Republic with which the French Courts are about to deal; but at present it suggests rather an inferior theatre than any grave political danger. The story is that a small group of conspirators, of whom a Captain Tamburini seems to have been the " head-centre," liberally provided with money, hired some five hundred of the roughs of Paris, trained them, purchased old uniforms for them, and proposed with their aid to kidnap President Loubet, to arrest prominent Members of the Chamber, to call the garrison of Paris to arms, and to proclaim some unknown saviour of society as master of France. Amid the dread of anarchy thus created a plebiscitum would do the rest. Prince Victor, the nominal head of the Bonapartists, sharply denies any knowledge of the affair; a plot of this kind is not the method of the Royalists; and there is no evidence that the conspirators are clericals. The plot was revealed to the police, as small plots in France usually are ; and as the penalty on conviction is death, there is little doubt that some one will turn King's evidence, and give the world an entertaining as well as striking narrative of the genesis of the affair, and the causes of its ridiculous failure.
