produced. One of the items consisted of a sum of 2500 francs, which was represented as being carried on porters’ backs in silver five-franc pieces to the Musallis’ palace—a palpable exaggeration which was much commented on at the time. M. Roustan had hardly done protesting against these _manœuvres de dernière heure_, when the jury retired to consider their verdict. Judges in France are no longer required to sum up the evidence, or do anything more than present a list of questions to guide the jurors in their finding. In half-an-hour they returned and acquitted M. Rochefort and Delpierre upon all the counts of the indictment, and the court ordered the prosecutor to pay the costs of the suit. An hour afterwards the Boulevards of Paris rung with the shrill cries of the news-boys selling _la condamnation de Roustan_. The news was at once telegraphed to Tunis, and I shall ever remember the sensation it occasioned. For a moment even the 12th May was forgotten. The excitement was the greater, because the intelligence was wholly unexpected. The _Havas_ as usual had gently prepared us for a very different result, and when the verdict was given, omitted to telegraph it for a whole day. The Bey gave a handsome gratuity to the man who brought him the tidings, and when the newspapers at length came, they fetched fabulous prices. Translations of the trial in Arabic were at a premium, and the satisfaction reached a culminating point when the _Havas_ told us the Minister-Resident would be “promoted.” This, however, was not to be. Although, according to the speech of the Procureur-Général, the acquittal of M. Rochefort should have entailed the criminal prosecution of M. Roustan; although M. Cléry said that an adverse verdict would expose M. Roustan to the fate of being “shot like a dog or a bandit at the foot of a wall;” and notwithstanding that everybody connected with the case was perfectly well aware that the result amounted to a distinct condemnation of the Tunisian expedition, its causes, its authors, and its consequences, M. Gambetta resolved to defy public opinion, and send M. Roustan back to his dominions. His will was law; but five weeks later, the great Minister, whose incarnation France had waited patiently for during one entire decade, sustained a far more crushing defeat than that suffered by his predecessors. If M. Ferry died of Tunis-on-the-brain, M. Gambetta expired from acute Roustanophobia. The _procès_ Roustan-Rochefort had far more to do with the Ministerial crisis than the _scrutin de liste_. French Governments and French statesmen have often flown in the face of the _vox populi_, but they have almost invariably had to rue the consequences. · · · · · · · · · · The trial of Henri Rochefort dissipated every remaining illusion as to the Tunisian expedition, and France realised at last the true nature of the bitter experience she had purchased, at the cost of so much treasure and so many priceless lives.