The French Conservatives and Liberals are playing the stran- gest
antics. The Secret-service-money Bill came before the Peers, and the new Conservative Opposition could not let it pass without, some sparring. Accordingly, Count Mole delivered a sort of lee-. ture to M. Guizot on the dishonesty of sticking to office when yon cannot perform efficiently the duties of government ; and M. Guizot retorted with sneers at the Count's invidious hankering after office : then followed a world of incriminations and recrimina- tions, between all and sundry, of corrupt, mercenary motives, in- consistency, and want of patriotism ; all spiced with bad lan- guage and threats of the pistol ; and finally a lecture on good beha- viour from old Duke Pasquier—who must have thought himself dozing in a criminal court,, with convicted misdemeanants ban- dying exposures. Ministers boast of a majority ; Opposition, of alarger minority than any on such an occasion since 1830. In the other House, the two parties have been playing at hide and seek, dodging each other in and out of the Chamber, in order to prevent a quorum, or to surprise their antagonists and cheat them of a vote. In a series of these tricks, Ministers have been de- feated ; but whether in a real trial of political strength, or only in agility and tact at playing " I-spy," the unenlightened foreigner cannot guess. If M. Guizot finds it difficult to hold his party together, we would recommend him to change the game to one in which the boys hold hands as fast as they are caught by the chief—that of " widdy, widdy, way-cock warning."
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