After considering all these humours and graces of the most recent French Republic, as set forth by the senatorial mayor of Amiens, for the edification of Picardy and France, it was interesting to walk with Mr. Ruskin from the Place de Périgord up the 'Street of the Three Pebbles,' past the theatre and the Palais de Justice, to the south transept of that glorious cathedral which has not as yet been taken down by night, under the senatorial mayor or his friends the ministers, M. Spuller and M. Yves Guyot. Why should this 'Parthenon of Gothic architecture,' as M. Viollet-le-Duc calls it, be left standing when the Calvary of the poor at Amiens is cast down and sawn in pieces?
For surely Mr. Ruskin, who has written many true and eloquent things, has written nothing truer than these words with which he brings to a close his remarkable paper called the 'Bible of Amiens':—
'The life and gospel and power of Christianity are all written in the mighty works of its true believers, in Normandy and Sicily, on river-islets of France and in the river glens of England, on the rocks of Orvieto and by the sands of Arno. But of all, the simplest, completest, and most authoritative in its lessons to the active mind of Northern Europe, is this on the foundation-stones of Amiens. Believe it or not as you will—only understand how thoroughly it was once believed—and that all beautiful things were made and all brave deeds done in the strength of it—until what we may call "this present time," in which it is gravely asked whether religion has any effect on morals, by persons (senatorial and other) who have essentially no idea whatever of the meaning of either religion or morality.'
CHAPTER VI.
IN THE SOMME—continued
Amiens
Where party names are taken from persons, there we may be sure that the people are either losing, or have never had, the political instincts which alone can make popular government a government of law and order. The Englishmen who are readiest to proclaim themselves 'Gladstonians,' whatever may be their other merits, are hardly perhaps the most devoted champions either of the British constitution as it is, or of strictly constitutional reform. In France to-day, the Republican party is made up of clans, each taking the name of its chief. There are Ferryists and Clementists, as there were Gambettists; and the Government of the day is putting forth all its strength to check the drift over of what I suppose I may without impropriety call the Republican residuum into Boulangism. Here in Amiens the tide seems to be too strong for the authorities at Paris, and for that matter throughout the department of the Somme. At the election nearly a year ago, on August 19, 1888, of a deputy to fill the vacancy caused by the death of a Royalist member, M. de Berly, General Boulanger came forward as a candidate and was elected by an overwhelming majority. There are 160,400 electors in the department. Of these, 121,955 voted. General Boulanger received 76,094 votes, and his Republican competitor, M. Barnot, only 41,371, General Boulanger having been elected at the same time for the Nord and the Charente-Inférieure. General Boulanger resigned his seat and his Republican followers cast their votes for a Royalist, General de Montaudon, who was elected. In the arrondissement of Amiens, with 57,527 registered voters, General Boulanger had a majority, in 1888, of 15,274 voters, the whole vote thrown there being 42,609. Yet, in 1881, on a total registration of 47,923 voters, the Republican candidates for Amiens, M. Goblet and M. Dieu, were elected by a combined majority of 7,094 votes. If the Boulangists carry Amiens, therefore, at the legislative election this year, it may be taken for granted, I think, that M. Goblet and his friend the senatorial mayor have not educated their fellow-citizens into very staunch and trustworthy supporters of the Republic.
M. Fleury, the editor-in-chief of the Conservative Echo de la Somme, who made a pretty thorough canvass of the department before the election of August 19, 1888, gives me some curious details as to that election.