M. Gambetta is losing ground in Belleville. In one meeting
there, he had to be protected from the mass of electors ; and in another, when he faced them, they only hooted him. Yesterday week, he addressed a meeting held with tickets and closed doors, the mob beating angrily against them, and doing their best to drown the speaker's voice. M. Gambetta, however, succeeded in putting forth his programme, which on this occasion con- tained no further reference to the revision of the Constitution. His most important declarations in this speech were declarations against property held in mortmain, which M. Gambetta thought ought to be "resumed," "suppressed," and "abolished ;" while the parochial Clergy should receive more than they do at pre- sent from the State, which might, however, as we understand him, recoup itself by laying hands on the property in mortmain. M. Gambetta wished, he said, to make the Clergy the respectful servants of the Republic ; and this was the policy he thought much better adapted than disestablishment to that purpose. He spoke in favour of an income-tax, which would touch many never reached, he said, by the property-tax ; and on foreign policy, he advocated a vigilant, prudent, courteous diplomacy, which should keep the hands of France both free and clean, and which would eventually, he thought, bring about the day when, "by the majesty of right, of truth, and of jus-
tice," the French people would regain and reunite to them- selves their lost provinces.
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