The French Government has not proposed to prohibit the exhibition
of religious emblems. The statement was either an invention of the Times' Correspondent in Paris, or an illustra- tion of his careless credulity. He did not, it will be remembered, give the statement on Friday last as a report, but as a fact, and in words which suggested that he was writing a precis of the Bill, to which he added nearly a column of reflections upon its consequences. He now states that the intention of the Government is only to prohibit seditious emblems, and coolly adds that the difference between " seditious " and " religious " is a mere matter of "detail." He might as well say that
the difference between sedition and religion is a mere matter of detail. As he is now engaged in declaring that M. Jules Ferry, who passed the law prohibiting the clergy from teach- ing in schools, is the only man who can save the Republic, his queer apology probably represents his real opinion, namely, that nothing is of any importance at all, and that shades of nothingness must be insignificant details. That is bad blunder- ing in the authority on French affairs who is always first read.
