The French President has succeeded in forming a new Ministry
with less than the usual delay. The Premier is M. Dapuy, formerly a schoolmaster, but who has been Premier before. He soon found civilians to fill the offices, retaining M. Delcasse as Foreign Minister, but a difficulty occurred with respect to the War Office. No General could be trusted, and the only civilian whom the Army would readily tolerate was M. de Freycinet. As organiser of the War of Defence and the confidant of Gambetta, this gentleman was acceptable, though he is seventy years of age, and had been suspected of complicity in the Panama affair. M. de Freycinet at first refused, and it was only after warm appeals from the President and some old colleagues that he accepted. He did, however, accept at last, and the Ministry will meet the Chamber on Monday as a complete body. Its course on the Dreyfus affair is not yet known, as both M. Dupuy and M. de Freycinet were originally Anti-Dreyfusards, but it will prob- ably obey the decision of the Chamber, which as yet has given no vote directly upon the subject. In internal affairs the Ministry has no programme, except an Income-tax based on apparent wealth,—rent, servants, carriages, and the like ; but of course it is not by its internal proposals that it will prevail or fall. The true pivots of the struggle are Dreyfus, the prosecutions for libelling the Army, and the orders to Major Marchand.
