That is to say, the Republican Government, which is itself the servant, and the paid servant, of the State, will not permit any of its fellow-servants and subordinates, who are also presumably French citizens and taxpayers, to form and express at the polls any opinion on public affairs differing from the opinions held by the ministers who make up the Government. It was upon this simple and beautiful principle that Mr. Tweed and his colleagues consolidated the local administration of affairs of the city of New York. Applied to the administration of the affairs of thirty-six millions of people in France, it ought certainly to produce results far transcending in splendour any achieved by the Tammany Ring. For M. Gabriel Charmes is quite in the right when he says that 'under this word of "epuration" lie concealed the most deplorable forms of personal greed, and the least avowable personal spites and rancours.' Like other clever devices, however, 'epuration' may possibly be carried too far. If it comes to pass that no actual functionary thinks his head safe, while, at the same time, every office the Government has to give represents a dozen or twenty 'expurgated,' and therefore exasperated and disaffected, previous holders of that office, the confidence of the garrison may be shaken while the animosity of the assailants is intensified. This point may possibly have been reached in France. If it has not been reached, the influence of the Government upon the voters must be very formidable. For the average French voter is hemmed in and hedged about by innumerable small functionaries who have it in their power to oblige or to disoblige him, to gratify or to vex him in all sorts of ways; and though the ballot is supposed to be sacred and secret in France, it can hardly be more sacred or more secret there than in other countries. And whatever protection against annoyance the ballot may give to the voter, nothing can protect the candidate. What I have heard in other regions I hear in Artois, that nothing is so difficult as to persuade men of position and character to take upon themselves the troubles, and expose themselves to the inconveniences, of an important political candidacy. There are a hundred ways in which a triumphant Administration conducted on the principles of the 'epuration' policy may harass and annoy an unsuccessful banner-bearer of the Opposition. The question of expense is another obstacle in the way of a thorough organisation of public opinion against such a Government.