VI. Foreign misconceptions of the French people--An English statesman's notion that there are 'five millions of Atheists' in France--Mr. Bright and Mr. Gladstone the last English public men who will 'cite the Christian Scriptures as an authority'--Signor Crispi on modern constitutional government and the French 'principles of 1789'--Napoleon the only 'Titan of the Revolution'--The debt of France for her modern liberty to America and to England lxxvi VII. The Exposition of 1889 an electoral device--Panic of the Government caused by Parisian support of General Boulanger--Futile attempt of M. Jules Ferry to win back Conservatives to the Republic--Narrow escape of the Republic at the elections of 1889--Steady increase of monarchical party since 1885---Weakness of the Republic as compared with the Second Empire lxxxix VIII. How the Republic maintains itself--A million of people dependent on public employment--M. Constans 'opens Paradise' to 13,000 Mayors--Public servants as political agents--Open pressure on the voters--Growing strength of the provinces.--The hereditary principle alone can now restore the independence of the French Executive--Diplomatic dangers of actual situation--Socialism or a Constitutional Monarchy the only alternatives xcvi CHAPTER I IN THE PAS-DE-CALAIS Calais--Natural and artificial France--The provinces and the departments--The practical joke of the First Consulate--The Counts of Charlemagne and the Prefects of Napoleon--President Carnot at Calais--Politics and Socialism in Calais--Immense outlay on the port, but works yet unfinished--Indifference of the people--A president with a grandfather--The 'Great Carnot' and Napoleon--The party of the 'Sick at heart'--The Louis XVI. of the Republic--Leon Say and the 'White Mouse'--Gambetta's victory in 1877--Political log-rolling, French and American--Republican extravagance and the 'Woollen Stocking'--Boulanger and his legend--Wanted a 'Great Frenchman'--The Duc d'Aumale and the Comte de Paris--The Republican law of exile--The French people not Republican--The Legitimists and the farmers--A French journalist explains the Presidential progress--Why decorations are given 1-22 CHAPTER II IN THE PAS-DE-CALAIS--(_continued_)