It is this impatience of Paris with results already achieved, this desire to reach out and to embrace new forms in all departments of human achievement, which give the French city her position as an indispensable entity in the cosmos of modern life. "Boldness and boldness and boldness again" was Danton's prescription for the orator, and it might be taken as the motto of intellectual and artistic Paris. There is no hesitation, no contentment, no waiting by the wayside. New ideas and new conceptions must ever be replacing the old. Experience may teach what to avoid: experiment alone can teach what to attempt. And this not incidentally or as a passing phase of endeavour, but as a principle to be applied in every region of human effort. "The Rights of Man," "Liberty, Equality, Fraternity," "Property is robbery" are as thought-provoking (though they solve no problem) in the domain of sociology as Pasteur's achievements in physiology and medicine. Whatever changes the future may have in store for us, we who are not Frenchmen cannot dispense with the leadership and inspiration that come to us from Paris. On his return to France from America Clemenceau renewed his acquaintance and friendship with those who shared his political and social opinions, especially Etienne Arago, now an old man, and practised as a doctor in the working-class district of Montmartre. Here, by his gratuitous medical advice to the people and his steady adherence to his democratic principles, he gained an amount of popularity and personal devotion from the men and women of Montmartre which, in conjunction with Arago's advice and support, prepared the way for the positions which he afterwards attained. Meanwhile the Second Empire was going slowly downhill. The change which had already taken place was not generally recognised. Nevertheless, the failure of the ill-fated Mexican Expedition with its Catholic support, its sordid financial muddling and the degrading system of plunder carried on in Mexico itself by Marshal Bazaine, the effect on Paris of the murder of Victor Noir by a member of the Buonaparte family, and the Government's growing incapacity to handle domestic and foreign affairs all told against the prestige of Napoleon. Only a successful diplomatic stroke or a victorious war could rehabilitate the credit of the Empire. The time had gone by for either. Bismarck's disgraceful forgery at Ems was as unnecessary as it was flagitious. Sooner or later the Second Empire would have collapsed from its own incompetence. But that waiting game did not suit the grim statesman of Berlin. He knew that the French army by itself could not hold its own against the Prussian and other German forces; he felt convinced also that Austria would not move without much clearer assurances of success than Napoleon could supply; while Italy was still tied to her Ally of 1866, and England was devoted to a policy of profitable non-intervention. So Napoleon was half driven,