All sorts of explanations and interpretations of this astound- ing
decision of a unanimous Cabinet,—as we are assured that it was,—have been given, which we have discussed at some length elsewhere. Perhaps after all the simplest explana- tion may be the truest, that after prosecuting all kinds of little enemies, their pride would not permit of their, letting the great enemy suppose that they were afraid to attack him. The French are apt to be logical, even when it would be much better for them to ignore logic). When they make a prolific blunder, they go on making all the progeny of blunders lineally descended from that blunder, even though in doing so they come upon one which is so formidable that, like the serpent transformed from Aaron's rod, it swallows up all the others, and remains master of the field. The Government are not doing things by halves. They prefer, perhaps, to live in history as the worst Government which ever pretended to be constitutional, than to be forgotten as one too lukewarm to be hated or even remembered.
