[17] This was perhaps due to the circumstance that Glais-Bizoin, the enfant terrible of the Republican opposition in the Corps Législatif, played the chief part in the directorship of the paper, the latter's better features being imparted to it by his co-editor, the scholarly Eugène Pelletan. It was run chiefly in view of the 1869 elections and Zola subsequently remarked that excepting himself and the office boy every member of its staff was a parliamentary candidate.
[18] "Journal des Goncourt," Vol V, p. 150 (November 13, 1874).
[19] "Papiers et Correspondance de la Famille Impériale," Paris, Imprimerie Nationale, 1870.
[20] See ante, p. 100.
[21] "L'Œuvre," p. 208.
[22] "L'Œuvre," p. 251. Alexis, p. 91.
[23] "Le Gaulois," March 26, 1869.
[24] The "Blowitz Memoirs" (London, 1903) give an erroneous version of this story, transferring the scene to the Quai d'Orsay, in Paris, and making Cavalié secretary to Paschal Grousset, "Delegate for Foreign Affairs" of the Commune of 1871. As Lord Lyons was not then in Paris, that version is obviously wrong. The incident, which the ambassador himself narrated more than once in after years, really occurred at Tours late in 1870, Cavalie's words being: "Dites donc, mon vieux, il ne faut pas se faire de bile, au sujet du patron. Allons plutôt prendre in bon bock!" Cavalié was a notorious bohemian, worthy of Murger; he had been one of the leaders of the cabal against the Goncourts' play, "Henriette Maréchal."
[25] Alexis, l. c., p. 173.
[26] This was a crisis provoked by Thiers' Presidential Message of November 13, 1872, by which he asked for the definite constitution of a Republic, a proposal which led to a great outcry on the part of those who wished to place the Count de Chambord or the Count de Paris on the throne.