M. de Marcere has ceased to be the French Minister
of the Interior, in consequence of his extraordinary weakness in relation to the inquiry concerning the secret misd.oings of the French police. That inquiry was set on foot in consequence of the revelations of the Lanterne, which seems to have got much of its information from dissatisfied police subordinates, who informed against their superiors. M. de Marcere at first conducted it vigorously. Then he began to waver. He wished the inquiry to be secret, whereupon many members of the Committee of Investiga- tion resigned. He supported his prefect of police, M. Albert Gigot, and then accepted his resignation. In short, he did not know what he would be at. And his defence of himself in the Assembly was feeble and incoherent. Moreover, he was at- tacked by a very able and rather bitter Radical, M. Cl6menceau, the Member for Montmartre, who is becoming a rather pro- minent figure on the Left, and who insisted on ignoring all M. de Marcere's complaints of the libels with which he had been assailed, with the cold question, Are there no law-courts ? Let us discuss here matters of public policy, and not private reputations.' In short, M. de Marcere was abandoned by his colleagues, who were weak enough neither to ask for his resignation nor to defend him, and so the manner of his resigna- tion has injured the Government hardly less than it has injured M. de Marcere's own prestige.
