No less than eighty-two seats in the French Senate were
balloted for on Thursday, and it was expected that the Republican majority would be greatly increased. The number of municipal delegates has been enlarged since 1879, when the elections for the departments now vacant were last held; and municipal dele- gates are usually Radical. It was not so, however. The electors, for the most part, sent back the retiring Senators, and in those departments which did not, the Conservatives have obtained a gain of three seats. That will not affect the votes of the Senate, in which the great majority is Republican; but it shows that monarchical or clerical sentiment still spreads, although slowly. No new candidates of any mark offered themselves for election, and the Senate is evidently regarded as a refuge for the passes. Perhaps that fact will rather increase than diminish its power. If the Lords were all men of sixty, with nobody to succeed them, the danger of making the Upper House unpopular would not strike them as signifying much. A healthy apathy is sometimes not a bad substitute for courage, and the patient who does not care a straw whether he lives or dies has often latent vitality.
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