In the provinces this detestation of the republic sometimes becomes ludicrous. In Montpelier, for instance, "polite circles" absolutely boycott the republican official world. The prefect has a palatial residence but does not dare to throw open his _salons_, for none of "the first families" would respond to his invitation. When the mayor of the city, before whom all marriages must be performed, is invited to the reception at the house, none of the reactionary _coterie_ will have a word with him and none of their young men will dance with his daughter. I have heard similar stories from Pan, Castres, and Albi, and doubtless the same thing is true of many other cities. But royalists and Bonapartists would not feel too much out of place in the French republic, for it is astonishing, at least to an American, to see how many monarchical customs have been preserved by the present government. And this brings me to the consideration of a new source of weakness of the republic. I refer to its unrepublican features. A few examples will explain what I mean. The "military household" is one of the imperial institutions which the third republic accepted and continued. The first president, however, did not revive it. "M. Thiers never had a military household," M. Barthelemy Saint Hilaire, his private secretary and _fidus achates_ writes me; "however, in order to honor the army, he had two orderlies." But when Marshal MacMahon became president in 1873, it was only natural that he should surround himself with soldiers. At first the "Cabinet of the Presidency" consisted of three officials, one of them being a colonel. In 1875 this cabinet had grown to five members, two of them colonels, and one an artillery officer. In 1879 the "Cabinet of the Presidency" was reduced to two members with a colonel at its head, but was supplemented with a "military household"--the first appearance of this institution under the third republic--consisting of six officers, so that Marshal MacMahon had seven officers in all as his immediate attendants. At this point M. Grevy enters the Elysee. He throws out the military member of the Cabinet of the Presidency, but increases by one his military household, so that there were as many officers at the Elysee under the lawyer president as under the marshal president. Nor has M. Carnot, the engineer president, departed from the example set by his two predecessors. When I asked M. Barthelemy Saint Hilaire the explanation of this custom, he answered: "Our kings were always provided with a military household, in which marine officers also figured. It is doubtless this precedent which has surrounded civilian republicans with a body of officers. The custom is due less to necessity than to a desire to show respect for the army and navy."