Chapter VI: IN THE SOMME--(continued)

Amiens--Party names taken from persons--The effect of Republican
misrule at Amiens--Why the Monarchists acted with the
Boulangists--The Picards incline towards the Empire--How the
Republic of 1848 captured France--Armand Marrast and the
French mail coaches--Mr. Sumner's story--The political value
of paint--Paris and the provinces--M. Mermeix offers with a
few million francs and a few thousand rowdies to change the
French Government--General Boulanger's campaign in Picardy--Capturing
the mammas by kissing the babies--The Monarchical
peasantry--The National Accounts of France not balanced for
years--Conservatives excluded from the Budget Committee--The
Boulanger programme--Expenses of the political machine in
France, England, and America--The Boulangist campaign conducted
by voluntary subscriptions--General Boulanger and the
army--The common sewer of the discontent of France--The
local finances of a French city--Municipal expenses of Amiens--Pressure
of the octroi--A local deficit of millions since the
Republicans got into power--The mayor and the prefect control
the accounts--Immense expenditure on scholastic palaces--Estimated
annual increase in France since 1880 of local indebtedness,
10,000,000_l._ sterling--M. Goblet on the growth of young men's
monarchical clubs--History of the _octroi_--General prosperity of
Picardy--Rural ideas of aristocracy--Land ownership in Ireland
and France--'Land-grabbing' in Picardy a hundred years ago--The
corvée abolished before the Revolution, but it still exists
under the Republic, as a _prestation en nature_--Public education
in Picardy two centuries ago--Small tenants as numerous under
Edward II. in Picardy as small proprietors now are--Home rule
needed in France--'The opinion of a man's legs' 95-124