A festival in honour of General Hoche was held at
Versailles on Monday, at which M. Gambetta made a speech on the Army, remarkable for its total absence of bitterness. He trusted it, he said, implicitly, for it represented the nation, and would never be impli- cated in any 16th of May. It felt that the Republican party desired its material and moral improvement, and shrank from no sacri- fice to promote those ends. The whole tone of the speech serves to show that M. Gambetta believes the Army to be reconciled to the Republic, and he may be thoroughly well informed. It was calculated after May 16th that half the men and a majority of the non-commissioned officers were Republican, and the proportion should be much larger now, when to be a Republican is not to be kept down. It is only in the superior ranks that a majority. are Conservatives, and a great many of them are Orkin:Lists, and not prepared to kill, although they would be delighted to bury, the Republic.
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