The Due de Broglie on Tuesday brought forward the question
of the Tripartite Treaty in the Senate, in a speech which was +really a declaration of policy. He asked the Government whether the alliance was or was not menacing to France. He feared it was, though France had given no provocation, either to Germany or Italy. The idea of an alliance with Russia had ended, and surely the Government was anti-clerical enough to secure Italy against any machinations from that side. Still, there was the alliance, no doubt in form defensive ; but then sometimes the mode of defence adopted was attack. "Whenever a Power meant to attack, it could always find its Kroumirs." He therefore thought concentration of force the first duty of the Ministry, and deprecated the foreign expeditions to Tonquin and Madagascar, which could not be made successful without sacrifices both of men and money. The speech was intended, of course, to discredit the Republic, which has cer- tainly n ot succeeded in diplomacy, partly from its distrust of the old diplomatic men ; but its drift in some degree justifies Prince Bismarck's idea that Germany has more to fear from a Restoration than from a Republic. The Duke suggests, with a certain truth, that a Monarchy would set itself to find allies ; and French alliances or coalitions are precisely what Prince Bismarck dreads. He has repeated again this week, through the North- German Gazette, that the Republic, even if ill- tempered, is safer than a Monarchy in France.
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