During a discussion on Wednesday in the French Chamber on
foreign affairs, a new Parliamentary figure appeared. The Marquis de Breteuil, a Royalist Deputy from the Hautes Pyrenees, not yet forty years old, made a speech which riveted the atten- tion of the Chamber. He maintained that France should not be precipitate, for that with time the League of Peace would dissolve ; the Emperor of Germany was ill, and it had been noted in history that conquerors do not leave conquering successors. France should keep friends with Russia—with whose designs, including Constantinople, she had no point of rivalry—but discreetly, and should steadily make friends with England, especially in regard to Egypt ; behaving, too, towards Italy as if she did not fear Italian "expansion." If France was only moderate, and avoided changing Ministries at the rate of seventeen War Ministers in seventeen years, time would work for her. The policy sketched in this speech is impracticable; but it is a policy, and one which, if Russia were more trustworthy and France less susceptible, might be the basis of an understanding. It is uttered, too, with a certain frankness, and unaccompanied by the usual vague talk of French honour and foreign ambitions. France just now is so poor in men, that the rise of a moderate and capable politician who knows what he means, even when he is ill-informed, may be watched with interest.
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