M. Gambetta delivered a great speech on Friday week to
his constituents at Belleville, defending his recent action in accepting a Constitutional Republic. We have analysed his speech else- where, but may mention here that he added some remarks about Church and State which indicate that he leans to their total dis- connection as the ultimate solution of the problem. He was very cautious, but affirmed that France must be a " lay " Republic, her " lay " character having been her glory and her strength throughout her modern history. "We are not theologians, but men of affairs." This part of his speech was warmly applauded, and the whole appears to have satisfied the work- men that he meant honestly by the Republican cause. It has not, moreover, irritated his enemies, while it has been received in this country as a new evidence that the ex-Dictator, though still a Radical, is not seeking the impracticable. A very short lease of power taught him that it is not possible to govern men on abstract principles alone.
