NEWS OF THE WEEK.
1VIGAMBETTA did not find it so easy to form a Ministry as
• was expected. He first asked M. de Freycinet to accept the portfolio of Foreign Affairs, but after an interview of an hour and a half, found his objections insuperable, and was compelled to take it himself. He did not wish this, intending to be Premier without office ; and, it is stated, telegraphed to M.
• Tissot to become substitute for M. de Freycinet, but received an unfavourable reply. M. Leon Say also declined the Finance Ministry, objecting to the State purchase of the railways, and M. Gambetta at length fell back upon his personal following. He placed M. Allain-Targe, an economist of experience, with .a Red tinge, in the Ministry of Finances ; M. Waldeck- Rousseau, a popular advocate, in that of the Interior ; General Champenon, an old officer of energy, once em- ployed in Tunis to reorganise the Bey's army, in that of War ; M..Rouvier, a man of business who has written on eco- nomic questions, in that of Commerce ; and M. Paul Bert, the physiologist who improved upon Claude Bernard's cruel experi- ments, and who recently ridiculed all religions, and asked for an " insecticide to kill the phylloxera of Clericalism," in that of Instruction and Public Worship. The remaining Ministers, M. Goujeard, of Marine ; M. Proust, of Fine Arts ; M. Deves, of Agriculture ; M. Cazot, of Justice ; M. Cochery, of Posts and Telegraphs ; and M. Raynal, of Public Works, are less import- ant, and the last three were in the Ferry Administration,— M. Raynal as Under-Secretary, MM. Cazot and Cochery in the 'Cabinet. The list has been received without enthusiasm, and with only the remark that it is composed, like the visitors' list at a watering-place, of "M. Gambetta and suite."
