A new election for Paris dismays the Reactionaries and Quiet-
ists. M. Vidal had been elected for the Department of the Lower Rhine as well as for Paris, and, making- choice of the country constituency, he leaves a vacancy for the capital. The opportu- nity once more brings forth M. Emile de Girardin,—hated and feared by all parties for his cleverness, which-makes him inde- pendent of them. It is to the incapables at the head of affairs that the new commotion is most painful : always shaking in their seats, every new disturbance makes them fear a fall. The very, means they take to obtain security contribute to in- crease the danger : the army has in a great measure supplied the support of the Socialist candidates ; the officials are striving to cheek that alliance by punishing the Socialist soldiers--by reduc- tion to the ranks, and even by transfer to the service in Algeria : the consequences are illustrated by the obstinate mutiny of a whole regiment in the Paris garrison.
The 'uneasy state of feeling is shown in the rumour, as yet both unconfirmed and undisproved, that the President had been insulted in accidentally passing through a fair, and menaced by an evident disposition to violence. The rumour was first kept secret; when it got abroad it gravely affected the public funds : the Minister of War gives it a formal contradiction ; but the facts seem to be too well known to be got rid of by special-pleading.
