The effect of the Amnesty decreed in France has been
to let loose every kind of enemy, not only of the Government, but of society. M. Breton, for example, who, just before the murder of M. Carnot, wrote: "Not a Frenchman would pity him if he had the discomfort of seeing his wooden carcase shattered by a bomb," was welcomed in Paris by the whole Socialist party, borne in triumph through the railway station, and kissed as he ascended his carriage by four Deputies, one of them the leader, M. Millerand. M. Rochefort, again, the foe of all Governments, who strikes down an administration in malignant jocularity, received on Sunday the reception of a King, eighty thousand citizens, it is said, going out to welcome him with a kind of delirious enthusiasm. He is a Socialist whose one enjoyment in life is buying bric4-brac, and he declares that he will compel the Government to sweep out all scoundrels who make pecuniary profit out of politics and their positions. That is an excellent role to play; and no one ever accused M. Rochefort, who is Vicomte de Lucay and head of a family which was noble during the Crusades, of taking bribes, but then nobody ever accused Camille Desmoulins either. One can be paid in popularity as well as coin, and neither bribe can be pronounced invariably the cleaner. The probability is that M. Rochefort cares no more for the canaille than his ancestors did, and upsets Governments, like them, to assert a right of private war.
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