NEWS OF THE WEEK.
MRIBOT, French Minister for Foreign Affairs, made • on Sunday an important speech at Bapaume, where he was unveiling a statue to General Faidherbe. It had taken twenty years, he said, to rebuild the Army of which France was now proud, and to prove to Europe that a Re- public might be a Government in the highest sense of the word. Europe was now rendering France justice. A far-sighted Sovereign had publicly manifested the deep sympathies uniting her with his own country. "France is once more an indispensable factor in Europe," and it is not "at a moment when we can cultivate peace with the greatest .dignity that we shall expose ourselves to the danger of com- promising it." France will continue the policy of sang-froid which contributes to restore her to the rank she must occupy in the world. The speech was rather a stately one, but it is curious to notice among all her changes of fortune, whenever France is worthily represented, how feminine she is. In mis- fortune, she weeps through M. Jules Favre ; in prosperity, through M. Ribot, she exults first of all in recovered "posi- tion." If she died, some Frenchman would deliver an eloge on "the melancholy, but nevertheless, 0 Europe ! admit it, the statuesque beauty of her corpse."
