Some of the French are displaying a childish, but at
the same time most irritating temper towards Germany. Because M. Schnaebele was unfairly arrested, and then released, a party of German students who had wandered over the frontier were driven back by force, and even German music has been menaced with proscription. A French manager, M. Lamoureux,
has been threatened for playing Wagner's opera, Lohengrin, and on its first performance on Tuesday, a band of students and roughs endeavoured to get up a demonstration in the street opposite the Eden Theatre, which, but for the rain, might have been serious. Indeed, according to the Standard, it was serious, for the mob intended to attack the German Embassy, and the Cabinet, to avoid a conflict in the streets, has asked M. Lamou- reux to withdraw the piece. All this is babyish spite; but it is right to add that the Government frowns on all these demon- strations; that M. Schnaebele, who has been cool throughout, has refused a testimonial which it was proposed to offer him ; and that the better journals ridicule the effort to proscribe music on account of its nationality, describing it, with justice, as a violent limitation of the domain of art. The feeling on the frontier is, however, most excitable, and a spy mania has broken out with such fury that no casual traveller with a sketch-book escapes arrest.
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