NEWS OF THE WEEK.
FRANCE was in festival on Wednesday. The Republicans have thought it well to establish an annual national Republican holiday, to bring home to all men, even the lowest, the regime under which they live; and the Government has selected July 14th, the day of the fall of the Bastille in 1789. The masses and the 'bourgeoisie alike have welcomed the choice, the day was fine, and the anniversary was celebrated in Paris and the provinces as a day of rejoicing, with that mixture of military display and popular abandon which suits the temperament of the Romance peoples. The upper classes in Paris held aloof, but the people illuminated, the soldiers fraternised with the workmen ; there was a grand review ; a statue of the Republic, seventy feet high, was unveiled ; huge, good-humoured, sober mobs were in the streets ; there were endless flags, dancing in the open air, enthusiasm in all directions, coloured with sentiment and a little wine,—everything, in short, in which the soul of Frenchmen delights. Ninety-one years of comparative liberty have brought us so far. There was no disorder, no bitterness against aristocrats who would not illuminate, and no bed for 'anybody till the sun shone. There is a touch at once of pathos and of prettiness in the affair, as in a children's party, where all the babies behave well, and some are even charming ; but one cannot forget that on another July 14th, the " Feast of the Federation," it all occurred before, and did not end so very well. Absit omen!
