There is a great newspaper hubbub about the it Ministerial
crisis" in France ; which is prolonged, at least in the imagination of journalists, though the "facts" are none of the clearest. " In- trigues," " coalitions," and the like, are portentously hinted at; the facts are said to be " incredible " if they were not corroborated on all sides : but what they are is not distinctly stated. Politi- cians reason about them as arithmeticians might about an unknown quantity in algebra ; the substantial thing pondered being occult. We must therefore take it for granted that they are incredible, momentous, and most significant, and fullyprove the danger of the Ministry ; and, taking the existence of the proofs for granted, we may admit the whole matter to be proved. Still we don't know what it is that is proved, any more than we know what proves it. Hazarding a guess at the meamng of all this oracular discussion, we may infer that the crisis turns on no very new point. Count Mole,, a Conservative, whci has rather discoun- tenanced than pertiaadowsly- oppoeed the fioult-Onizet Cabi- net, has now declared war a revtruince. M. St. Marc-Girardin and some other Minieterialistat dissenting from the Foreign Minister's compromising policy an respect to Morocco wad Tahiti, have joined the new section of the Opposition. The Thiers party, instead of being extravagant and Anti-British, are to be discreet, and to cultivate the British alliance, not on terms of equivocal compromise, professing peace and preparing for war, but on a distinct settlement of disputes and a friendly independence. The King, to keep up appearances, supports his Ministers while they are in, and congratulates them on their Parliamentary victories, but often has interviews with Count Mole ; secretly abets those who vote against the Cabinet ; and is prepared, as soon as Minis- ters are fairly defeated, to turn them adrift. Such is what seems to be meant by that kind of rumour in which politicians who see through all things with half-shut eyes delight, because you can make them, in their vague obscurity, mean any thing. What there is so very shocking or " incredible," we cannot divine.
