In April he was back in Paris for the opening of the exposition on May 1. The French capital seldom seemed so gay as in the spring of 1867. Although the Second Empire was undermined and was soon to tumble like a house of cards, it had all the glitter of tinsel splendour. Louis Napoleon, in the heyday of his career, presided royally over the exhibition which his government had assembled, and he honoured Canada, the youngest nation, by the appointment of McGee as an examiner for prizes. But amid Parisian magnificence, McGee was not forgetful of those affairs which surrounded the birth of the Canadian Dominion. One political event filled him with uneasiness. The Reformers who followed George Brown began to kick against the traces of the coalition. They had agreed to support the government upon all questions directly affecting confederation, but they announced that just as soon as the constitution became law they would withdraw their support. Brown with his pronounced puritan earnestness and sledge-hammer methods preached that all coalitions were evil, and none more evil than that formed by John A. Macdonald. In the estimation of McGee, there were grave dangers involved in the renewal of party warfare. Federation was by no means out of the woods. The hostile attitude of large numbers in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick combined with the recommencement of party strife in the Canadas might well imperil the structure so painfully erected. On April 9, 1867, he penned his fears to Macdonald who was then in London. "There seem some rather embarrassing symptoms of old party warfare getting up again, before confederation has even had a trial. Theoretically, it is true, the work is done, but practically it is only beginning. At such a real crisis personal and party politics might afford to listen awhile."