Marshal Niel died, as expected, in the night of Friday
week, a terrible loss to the Empire, though possibly a great relief to the Prussian Cabinet. The Marshal really believed in war, and held that the military training of a whole people gives them in the increased development of their faculties more than it takes away,— an idea with force in it. Most Englishmen would be greatly bene- fited by two years of stern military training. It has been reported that the Marshal will be succeeded by Marshal MacMahon, but the " descendant of Irish Kings" is hardly the man to defend the budget in a querulous legislature, and there is talk of General Trochu. Whether he can speak we do not know ; that he can write every- body knows. He is the General who acknowledged that "self-pre- servation was an instinct even in a French soldier," and said of the British privates that "he thanked God there were so few of them in the world."
