Jules Ferry owed the beginning of his political fortune to his luck in writing for a newspaper which had a witty editor. Just twenty years ago (1865), being then thirty-three years old, he joined the staff of the _Temps_, and after contributing leaders for three years, undertook in 1868 a series of papers attacking the administration of Baron Haussmann as Prefect of the Seine. Baron Haussmann had rebuilt Paris and made it a city unique in the world for beauty and sanitation. M. Ferry could not have performed such a task, but he was able to criticise the Prefect’s work, to array long columns of figures showing how much it had cost, and to ask whether it would not have been far better if all these millions had been given to the poor. Baron Haussmann sent _communiques_ to the _Temps_ impugning the accuracy of M. Ferry’s figures; but the journalist of course stuck to his multiplication, and, as spirited opposition always made a man popular under the Empire, the Vosgian’s articles obtained more success than is usual with statistical essays. It was proposed that they should be rebound in pamphlet form and circulated among Parisian householders in view of the general election of 1869. M. Neffzer, editor of the _Temps_, then suggested that the pamphlet should be called, “Les Comptes Fantastiques d’Haussmann.”[15] [15] A play upon the title of “Contes Fantastiques d’Hoffmann”—a book which is popular in France. The title took, and Jules Ferry got the reputation of being a comical fellow. Resolving to make the most of this character while it lasted, he came forward as a candidate for Paris at the elections of 1869—calling himself a Radical for this purpose. He was no more Radical than comical, but if he had not taken up extreme views he could have offered no reason for opposing the moderate Liberal (M. Guéroult, editor of the _Opinion Nationale_), who was the sitting member of the sixth Parisian ward. M. Ferry defeated his brother-journalist; and in the following year, when the Empire collapsed at Sedan, he became _ex-officio_ a member of the Government of National Defence. It will be remembered that this Government was composed of the nine members for Paris, because M. Grévy and some other leading Republicans refused to accept power unless it were lawfully conferred upon them by a national assembly.