next, and it became evident that the state of affairs in France prevented the adoption of any definite programme for the future. M. Gambetta became more and more unpopular. The same spirit which in an evil hour prompted him to restore M. Roustan to Tunis, became evident in every act of his official life. The hero of 1870 was now denounced as “Cæsar,” “Vitellius,” “dictateur,” “tyran,” “le Louis XIV. de Cahors,” “le Coupeau de Cahors,” “bandit,” “dictateur dégommé,” “l’alcoholisé,” “le fou furieux,” and “le Napoléon d’opportunisme,” and all this in a single issue of the Parisian newspapers, on a single day in January 1882. M. Gambetta resolved to join issue with his foes. Meanwhile he told his friends that “he had other things to think of than Tunis and the Tunisians, and must postpone his African scheme until he knew his own fate and that of the grand ministry.” So the chaos was left undisturbed, and M. Roustan had nothing else to think of but his personal grievance. Taib Bey’s fate was soon sealed. Although some of his true friends implored M. Roustan to hesitate before taking the final step, he still relentlessly pressed on Muhamed es Sadek the absolute necessity of his brother’s arrest. This demand was all the more impolitic, as M. Roustan admitted on the Rochefort trial that he had himself given Taib a French passport and helped his doctor to get a present of 30,000 francs as a broker in the transaction. The Bey refused to consent, in spite of the constant persuasions of Mustapha, until on the 16th of January M. Roustan assured him, that the orders of the French Government on the subject were explicit and would brook of no delay. During the night his pleasant palace at the Marsa was surrounded by Tunisian soldiers commanded by the titular Minister of War, and on the following morning he was conveyed under a strong escort to the Bardo, in the very carriage in which he had hoped eight months before to come there as M. Roustan’s nominee to the Beylical throne. He was confined as a state prisoner in the lattice-windowed seraglio. The Bey, however, sent an aide-de-camp to assure his brother that he felt no personal ill-will towards him, and that his imprisonment was due to _Kismet_ and M. Roustan. Taib answered, “I am as you say a prisoner by God’s will; but I hope that both my brother and myself will live to see justice done by the same God to the man who is responsible for our common misfortunes.” Three months have passed since then, and Taib Bey is still a prisoner. He has even been removed to a more secure locality than the old seraglio, and in case he might suffer from the cold several of the windows have considerately been walled up. A friend of mine happened to be at the Bardo when this was being done, and noticed the zealous M. Sumaripa benevolently engaged in superintending the task. Thanks to the good offices of M. Paul Cambon, Taib Bey has now been released, and very probably will soon be one of the lions of the Parisian _salons_.