After all the reports on the subject, and the counter-reports,
the assertions and denials, a great stride has been made in the dis- armament of France : one-fifth of the army is abolished. M. GUIZOT has thus emphatically taken his stand upon a pacific policy. The solid measure comes well after all the small manceu- verings and petty sham measures which the Opposition have been burnishing up for the approaching campaign in the Chambers. It looks as if it would crush them by the mere weight and substance of reality. It is consistent with the breadth of view and moral courage which have been ascribed to M. GUIZOT, that he should thus meet the renewed struggle by a renewed and more forcible assertion of his own policy, instead of any compromise : that would have been to court defeat in its most humiliating shape of nugatory concession to inferior foes; now, M. GUIZOT may be abandoned in his loftier course and borne down by force of num- bers, but he will fall unvanquished It will be interesting to see whether the weight of the statesman's practical wisdom will enable him to stem the impetuous eddies of opinion by which he is sur- rounded, so as to break up and calm the troubled waters of political agitation in France—whether such a policy is too inconsistent with the mercurial temperament of the nation to tell upon it? It has at least this chance : it is striking and imposing from its decided cha- racter, and as such it may conciliate the politico-dramatic taste of French patriotism. It is needless to enlarge upon its happy effect beyond the frontier.
