A biography of M. de Giere, the new Foreign Minister
and Vice-Chancellor of Russia, has been published in the Times. According to this, he is sixty-one years old, of Swedish origin, though by training entirely Russian, and has risen, not very rapidly, through every department of his office. While abroad he served principally in Constantinople, Teheran, and Egypt, -and he has always been considered more especially familiar with the Asiatic Department of Russian foreign business. He -was much trusted by Prince Gortschakoff, has been virtually Foreign Minister for five years, and is supposed to be devoted Jto peace. The supposition may turn out erroneous. As we understand the different accounts, M. de Giers is the model of a successful Permanent Under-Secretary, extremely pains- taking, well informed, and acceptable to superiors ; and a man of that kind at the head of an empire always desires to show that be is more than an official, and to leave a name in history. M.-de Giers may give the world trouble, yet.
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