The repulse of the assailants at the Redan did not save Sebastopol for the Russians. The margin of the proclaimed majorities by which many of the Government members of the new Chamber were returned, is so very small as to suggest of itself the pressure, in a very practical and concrete form, of the hand of authority on the returns at the polls. In twenty cases these majorities ranged from 6 to 200 votes. In one case, in the Seine Inferieure, the details of which were given to me by persons of the highest character, with perfect liberty to use their names, the Government member was declared by the prefect, after two adjournments of the counting, to have been returned by a majority of 173 votes on a total poll, which proved upon examination to very considerably exceed the total number of voters registered in the district! But, taking the general return of the votes cast at these elections as authentic, it is perfectly plain that the Monarchical party in France is stronger to-day than it was in 1885, and that the Republican party is weaker in France to-day than it was in 1885. In 1885 the strength of the two parties stood as follows:-- Republicans of all shades 4,377,063 Conservatives and Monarchists 3,608,578 _________ Republican majority 768,485 In 1889 the strength of the two parties stands as follows:-- Conservative Monarchists 3,144,978 Boulangists 629,955 _________ 3,774,933 Opportunist Republicans 2,980,540 Radicals 981,809 Socialists 90,593 _________ 4,052,542 Republican majority 277,609 Here at once we see a falling off in the Republican majority, between 1885 and 1889, of no less than 490,876 votes. This is certainly significant enough when we remember that in 1885 the Monarchists did not everywhere and openly attack the Republic as a form of government, while in 1889 the issue was admitted on both sides to involve the existence of the Republic as a form of government. But this is not all.