electrical phenomena. An American astronomer recently wrote to him, as to American views of the self-light of comets, "I cannot speak with authority for any one but myself; still I think the prevailing impression amongst us is that this light is due to an electric, or, if I if I may coin the word, (far better not) "an electric-oid action of some kind.” this Dr. Huggins himself remarks:

On

"The spectroscopic results fail to give conclusive evidence on this point; still, perhaps, upon the whole, especially if we consider the photographs of last year, the teachings of the spectroscope are in favour of the view that the self-light of comets is due to electric discharges. Those who are disposed to believe that the truth lies in this direction, differ from each other in the precise modes in which they would apply the known laws of electric action to the phenomena of comets. Broadly, the different applications of principles of electricity which have been suggested, group themselves about the common idea, that great electrical disturbances are set up by the sun's action in connection with the vaporisation of some of the matter of the nucleus, and that the tail is probably matter carried away, possibly in connection with electric discharges, under an electrical influence of repulsion exerted by the sun. This view necessitates the supposition that the sun is strongly electrified, either negatively or positively, and further, that in the processes taking place in the comet, either of vaporisation or of some other kind, the matter thrown out by the nucleus has become strongly electrified in the same way as the sun-that is, negatively if the sun's electricity is negative, or positively if the sun's is positive. The enormous disturbances which the spectroscope shows to be always at work in the sun must be accompanied by electrical changes of equal magnitude, but we know nothing as to how far these are all, or the great majority of them, in one direction, so as to cause the sun to maintain permanently a high electrical state, whether positive or negative." Unless some such state of things exist, Sir John Herschel's statement, "That this force" (the repulsive force forming the tail) "cannot be of the nature of electric or magnetic forces," must be accepted, for, as he points out, "the centre of gravity of each particle would not be affected; the attraction on one of its sides would precisely equal the repulsion on the other." Repulsion of the cometary matter could only take place if this matter, after it has been driven off from the nucleus and the sun, have both high electric potentials of the same kind. Further, it is suggested that luminous jets, streams, halos, and envelopes belong to the same order of phenomena as the aurora, the electrical brush, and the stratified discharges of exhausted tubes.

All this, it will be noticed, is at present merely hypothetical. It is, however, worthy of notice that outside of electricity there is nothing known to physicists which seems to afford even a promise of explanation, so far at least as the grander and more striking (also the most mysterious), of comatic phenomena are concerned. It may well be that with our advancing knowledge of meteors and meteor systems, the spectroscopic analysis of the next few comets of the larger and completer typescomets like Donati's comet, the great comet of 1811, and the comet of 1861-may throw unexpected light on mysteries which still remain among the most profound and unpromising problems presented to modern science.

R. A. PROCTOR.

CONTEMPORARY LIFE AND THOUGHT
IN FRANCE.

PARIS, 10th Sept. 1882. HE forebodings I expressed in your July number, as to the unfortunate turn events would take, but too soon proved to be

THE

true

The Freycinet Ministry has fallen a victim to its own want of resolution, and to the kind of intellectual and political anarchy that characterizes the present Chamber of Deputies. The fable of the bat who contrived to please alike both birds and rats is well known :

Je suis oiseau, voyez mes ailes;

Je suis souris, vivent les rats.

The bat's policy may succeed for a while, but a time is sure to come when birds and rats will combine against a hybrid creature regarded by both as an intruder. The session of the 18th of July was the premonitory symptom of M. de Freycinet's fall. From the outset, the head of the Cabinet and the Minister of the Interior, M. Goblet, had let it be understood that they were ready to give Paris a complete municipal autonomy and re-establish a central Mayoralty with an elected Mayor, instead of the existing system, which relegates the powers vested in the Mayor to the Mayors of the arrondissements nominated by Government, and to the Prefect of the Seine, who is likewise an agent of the executive power. Whether M. de Freycinet and M. Goblet really were convinced of the good, or at least the harmlessness, of the innovation or whether they were only trying to conciliate the Extreme Left by promises possibly never to be fulfilled, it is difficult to say; but it is certain that diverse projects had been entertained and discussed by the Minister of the Interior and the Prefect of the Seine, M. Floquet, without their coming to any conclusion-whereupon, thanks to Egyptian affairs, attention was diverted from these municipal questions, and the Ministry could hope they were for a time forgotten. This was all the more

needful because, in the very heart of the Ministry, the most important and influential men, MM. Ferry, Say, Tirard, were strongly opposed to a central Mayoralty. The strange crotchet of the deputy. for Cochin China suddenly broke the calm. M. Blancsubé, a man however both of ability and intelligence, impatient no doubt of the little attention paid to colonial questions, and not wishing that Cochin China should be represented in Parliament for the first time, as it now was, by a silent member, took it into his head to ask the Government when a bill relative to the Paris Mayoralty would be brought forward. M. de Freycinet, following his usual habit of eluding embarrassing questions, would neither openly renounce his project for a central Mayoralty, nor engage to carry it out, but asked for an adjournment. The adjournment was rejected by both the partisans and the opponents of the central Mayoralty; the latter succeeded in securing a large majority by a motion expressly condemning the proposed innovation, and the Ministry resigned. The resignation was withdrawn, it is true, the following day, and the Chamber of Deputies, from a sense of its own powerlessness, far more than from trust in M. de Freycinet, passed a vote of confidence which seemed to re-establish it more firmly than ever.

a

Clearsighted minds were not, however, to be taken in. With a Chamber so divided in opinion; with deputies so incapable of understanding the necessity of forming a governmental majority on definite programme; with a Ministry at war within itself, seeing that MM. Léon Say and Ferry were by no means agreed with M. de Freycinet; with a head of the Cabinet, whose real policy has remained a mystery, who perhaps never had any at all, a crisis was sooner or later inevitable. Eleven days after the affair of the central Mayoralty, the Freycinet Ministry was overthrown, or rather it collapsed of itself. The Ministry, in which an immense majority had, on the 19th July, passed a vote of confidence, on the 29th counted only 68 votes. What was strangest of all, and most tended to complicate the political situation, was that in this session, which witnessed the overthrow of the Ministry, the majority of deputies had shown themselves averse to all military action in the East, and that at bottom M. Freycinet too was opposed to it. He went out on a question on which he and the Chamber were agreed, and his fall was only due to his not having stated his opinions openly.

Egyptian affairs had advanced with rapid strides from the moment when I was writing my last article. England, seeing the hesitation of the Conference of Constantinople, had determined to act, had urged France to act with her, and seeing her indecision, had acted alone. Alexandria was bombarded and occupied, and the French fleet retired; but without the Ministry's having declared itself opposed to the policy of intervention. On the contrary, it applied to the Chambers for a loan of ten millions, not for the purpose of intervention, or even of

participation in the occupation of the Suez Canal, but for making maritime preparations that might eventually serve that end. This time the discontent was general, and every one knew that in the Council of Ministers, MM. Billot, Ferry, and Say had asked for much larger credit and a more decided policy. The partisans of intervention derided this timidity, and its opponents accused M. de Freycinet of hypocrisy, and pretended that he wanted surreptitiously to draw France into the war on pretext of repairing her old ships. The storm burst in the Senate, and by a strange anomaly it was the Senate that showed a warlike, the Chamber a pacific spirit. M. Schérer's report on the demand for a loan was an act of accusation against M. de Freycinet and his shuffling. The Senate intimated its willingness to grant much larger supplies in view of energetic intervention in Egypt, and granted those the Ministry demanded. With the Chamber it was otherwise. The majority of Republican deputies wanted at all cost to avoid every chance of war, and required absolutely pacific declarations from the Ministry; whilst the Gambettist deputies, in favour of the English alliance and the policy of intervention, ridiculed the supplies demanded by the Ministry, and wanted serious preparations for war to be made. Faithful to his dilatory policy, M. de Freycinet had everybody against him. Sixty-eight deputies alone still sided with · him ; and those voted for the Ministry, not so much because they approved of its policy as from fear of a ministerial crisis.

This time M. de Freycinet fell for good and all, and his ministerial career is probably ended for ever. It would, in fact, be difficult for him, after being twice President of the Council, to take office in another Cabinet in a subordinate capacity, and this is greatly to be regretted, for, if he is wanting in the qualities essential to the head of a government-clearness of thought and decision of character-in many respects he is a remarkable man. A first-class engineer, of an inventive mind, a good organizer, a seductive and stirring orator, he has, both as Minister of Public Works and as M. Gambetta's chief auxiliary in 1870, rendered services to his country which no Frenchman can or ought to forget. But, like many other scientific men, he is deficient in general ideas, and apt to be led by illusions. When at the head of affairs, with no guide but himself, he drifts hither and thither as in a dream; he confounds the cleverness that gets over a difficulty with the practical mind that solves it, and, with every outward semblance of firmness and energy, he ends in inaction and incapacity. Never was a better demonstration of the truth of the well-known line

Tel brille au second rang qui s'éclipse au premier.

With regard to the Egyptian question, he would seem to have subordinated his whole policy to a false idea: the desire to wrest Italy from the Austro-German alliance, in order to win her back to the French. The idea may have been a good one, could it have been realized, but it

was a mere delusion, round which no policy could have been made to turn.

Two questions had to be faced at the moment of M. de Freycinet's fall, one of external, another of internal policy.

The different attitudes of the Senate and the Chamber of Deputies clearly showed the two currents of opinion in France with regard to Egyptian affairs. In general, in the higher classes of society, in the financial, commercial, and industrial world, in literary and learned circles, and in the higher ranks of the army and navy, people were in favour of French intervention, especially at the outset in January, when it might have taken place without any great outlay of men or money; but even in July it would still have been welcomed. Great anxiety prevailed as to the safety of the commercial and scientific interests of France in Egypt, the maintenance in the East of French prestige, and the preservation to France on the Nile and in the Suez Canal of a position equal to that which England held. Such were the views and feelings expressed by the Senate; whilst, on the other hand, amongst the mass of the population, the small tradespeople, peasants, and artisans, a totally different feeling prevailed. The essentially pacific disposition of the nation manifested itself with extraordinary force, even to denying the importance of French interests in Egypt; above all, it could not admit that these commercial interests (for the masses do not understand what political interests are) were worth the lives it would cost to protect them. There was a vague fear that Germany would take advantage of the loss of strength an expedition to the East would inflict on the nation; above all, there was the dread of the unknown issue of an undertaking in which all the European powers might, one after the other, find themselves engaged. It was by this decidedly pacific current of opinion, timid it might even be called, that the Republican majority in the Chamber of Deputies let itself be carried away. Though in some respects the view of the peace-at-anyprice party was a petty one, and although it can only be regarded as an instinct, not an intelligent conception of a general policy of quiet reserve and non-intervention, the instinct was far from being false after all, and many, who in July criticised the timidity of the Chamber most severely, now congratulate themselves on France having escaped all implication. They see the sacrifices an expedition to Egypt must have entailed, the European complications that might have ensued from French intervention, and the danger a country internally still so weak and unsettled, would incur by rushing without evident necessity into extensive foreign enterprise. England's situation cannot in any way be compared with that of France. The English army is composed of men who have voluntarily chosen the military career, and are ready to fight anywhere and anyhow; the French army is the nation itself, which is reluctant to spend its blood but for a great national cause. The governmental stability of England is greater than that of any other nation; she has no frontiers; she has rivals in Europe, but no enemies. Her hands are free to act.