For the last week the antics of the more volatile Parisians have been unpleasantly reminiscent of General Boulanger to the harried cabinet of M. Chautemps. Thousands of police and brass-hatted Republican Guardsmen guard the Chamber of Deputies and other government buildings. Meanwhile, mobs of otherwise respectable citizens scurry up and down the boulevards, battling with the constabulary. The streets have been torn up and impromptu fortifications constructed; all cafes have closed their doors and brought their tables inside; rioters have braved the charges of the gendarmes and ruined all efforts of mounted squadrons to disperse them by tossing magnesium flares at their horses.

The reason for this turmoil is, of course, the unsavory scandal created by the revelation that members of the government were connected with the Stavisky affair. No one is directly implicated, but the mere breath of rumor has been enough to inflame French public opinion to a fever pitch; the incompetence and mismanagement of which the government has been guilty have shocked and disgusted the public. In addition to this there is ample reason for assuming that the "suicide" of M. Stavisky was arranged by the police as the most efficient means of keeping that unfortunate financier from talking indiscreetly.

Naturally, all the disgruntled factions have seized this as a glorious opportunity for embarrassing the government; for the Royalists, in particular, the present state of affairs is highly comforting, for it affords them a fine chance to express their feelings with great violence. Were the demonstrations limited to more riots, obviously staged by antagonistic elements, they could be dismissed as simply an excited reaction to corruption in high places. There is, however, reason to believe that the dissatisfaction in more than superficial, that, in fact, it shows a collapse of the French belief in parliamentarians and in the Republic. If this view is correct, then the present crisis is more than just a passing storm and may well mark the beginning of the end of representative government in France; if it is to be saved, what France needs is a man of the character of Clemenceau or Waldeck-Rousseau; but no such giant is apparent anywhere on the political horizon. Consequently, it will be necessary to appoint some lesser man to fill the place vacated by Chautemps. Whether or not he will be able to preserve the present government it is impossible to predict, for French domestic politics change with mercurial rapidity, and to chart their course in advance hardly falls within the powers of mortal man. NEMO.