All the semi-official papers in Paris assert that the President
will probably not receive the Envoys from Madagascar. They have come to complain of French demands, and it is intended to tell them that their Queen is not Queen of Madagascar, but of the Hovas, the dominant tribe of the interior. If they do not agree to that, they will be sent away ; and if they do, they will be informed that the Queen does not rule the Sa,kalavas, the great semi-independent tribe of the north-east, that France has acted only as their protector, and that she must be accepted as such. It is scarcely probable that the French Foreign Office will use language so crude as this, but it seems certain that the Sakalavas have been gained, and that the idea of M. Duclerc's Government is to use them as instruments for the reduction of Madagascar. We have explained the plan more fully elsewhere.
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