Then the brief and delicious dialogues of M. Capus, who would miss them? To see the name of Capus to a half-column of dialogue on a topic of the hour is to be glad you have lived another day. It was by sheer imperturbable good-humour that the _Figaro_ so splendidly fought the governmental campaign during the severe crisis it passed through after the verdict of Rennes, and out of which it came so triumphantly. Since the Revolution no French Government has had such an hour of triumph as that which the brave and excellent old man, M. Emile Loubet, and his brave and able Minister, M. Waldeck-Rousseau, enjoyed on the 22nd of September, 1899, at the unforgetable banquet of twenty-two thousand mayors of France, come from all parts of the country to gather enthusiastically round the head of the State in a loyal protest against all the base and scandalous machinations of his enemies. It is not often one can congratulate a French editor on the political conduct of his paper, and M. Cornély deserves hearty congratulations for his skilful management of the governmental campaign in the columns of the _Figaro_. It is true he was magnificently supported by M. France, a host in himself, whose witching satires on Nationalism will remain among the most delicate and dainty of contributions to political literature of this or any country. It was a battle worthily won, the weapons, used with a surprising dexterity, being wit, charm, grace, and humour. The _Figaro_ has also an old contributor, Le Passant, who out of nothing will fabricate you a half-hour of delicious hilarity, and for articles of a more serious and intellectual quality, the distinguished woman of letters who writes under the pseudonym of Arvède Barine. Add to these intellectual features the bright interspersion of graceful little Parisian notes on anything, from a cabmen’s or washerwomen’s strike to the fraternity of European soldiers in China, from the weather to the circulation of false silver, the literary and theatrical chronicle at the end of such papers as the _Temps_ and the _Débats_, always intrusted to writers of wide renown. For the criticism of books in Paris is done by competent critics, who sign their articles, or is not done at all. Unsigned reviews in Paris are regarded merely as publishers’ advertisements; and as well-known and responsible critics are few, it wisely follows that few books are ever seriously noticed. This is as it should be. If the London Press would adopt this manner, and suppress the daily trivial reviews of trivial books, less time would be wasted on mediocrities, and more time devoted to the few makers of literature. It is, thanks to this indifference to the large majority of incompetent and unoriginal scribblers in France, that here there are far less spurious reputations than across the Channel, where popularity and frantic eulogies in the columns of the newspapers seem to be based on the possession of no conceivable literary quality.