'Now observe the consequences to the taxpayer of Amiens! The Church of St.-Leu, as it happens, owned the greater part of the school-buildings. The church began proceedings against the city, and in August 1881, the tribunal ordered the city to give up the buildings seized by this adventurous mayor, and to withdraw its lay teachers. The upshot was that the performances of M. Petit, in one way or another--although M. Goblet, then in the ministry at Paris, came to the rescue of his demagogic ally--cost the taxpayers, in round numbers, some fifty thousand francs. Now you see why the laicising Republicans are so anxious to shake the whole system of the French magistracy. There may be judges at Berlin. It is not convenient there should be judges in Republican France!' This recalled to me what I heard the other day at Calais about the functionary decorated at Bapaume by President Carnot, because the tribunal had given a decision against him in a case raised by certain Christian Brothers whom he had unlawfully put out of property which, under the law, belonged to them. 'You think that a remarkable case!' said the Picard friend to whom I mentioned it. 'It is an everyday affair. Wait a minute! Let me show you the documents in regard to a performance of our worthy mayor and senator, which throws President Carnot into the shade. They are as amusing, too, as they are instructive, and I will give you copies of them which you may use as you like. You tell me people in England and America have no idea of what is going on in France? I assure you that people in France who know what is going on around them, have no idea of what it all means, or of what it must lead to in the end. 'Sometimes I think we were so stunned as a nation by the invasion and the Commune that we are still staggering about like a man knocked on the head in a dark road.