The elections recently held in France have afforded an opportunity to discover the sentiment of the nation concerning the policies, radical and almost revolutionary, which have made the concluding days of M. Loubet’s incumbency an epoch in the life of France.  The result has been an overwhelming vote of approval.  In M. Fallieres, who has been elected to the presidency, there is found a man even more representative of a new France than was his predecessor.  A man of the people, the grandson of a blacksmith, a lawyer by profession, M. Fallieres has been identified with every important movement since he was first elected Deputy in 1876; has been eight times Minister; was President of the Senate during the seven years of President Loubet’s term of office; and January 17, 1906, was elected to the highest position in the state.  The appointment of M. Sarrien, with his well-known sympathies, to the office of Prime Minister, sets at rest any doubt as to the policy initiated by M. Waldeck-Rousseau, and consummated by M. Combes.

With each succeeding administration France has gained in strength and stability, and in the self-control and calmness which make for both.  The government and the people have learned that the spasmodic way is not a wise and effectual way.

The monarchist party has disappeared as a serious political factor.  There is peace, external and internal.  And there is prosperity—­that surest guarantee of a continued peace.

One source of the phenomenal prosperity of France in this trying period since 1871 has been her mastery in the art of beauty.  Leading the world as she does in this, her art products are sought by every land and every people.  The nations must and will have them; and so, with an assured market, her industries prosper, and there is content in the cottage and wealth in the country at large.

What a change from the time less than four decades ago, when, with military pride humbled in the dust, with national pride wounded by the loss of two provinces, and loaded down with an immense war indemnity, the people set about the task of rehabilitation!  And in what an incredibly short time the galling debt had been paid, financial prosperity and political strength restored.

For thirty-four years the republic has existed.  Communistic fires, always smouldering, have again and again burst forth—­demagogues, fanatics, and those creatures for whom there is no place in organized society, whose element is chaos, standing ready to fan the flames of revolt:  with Orleanist, Bonapartist, Bourbon, ever on the alert, watching for opportunity to slip in through the open door of revolution.

Phlegmatic Teutons and slow-moving Anglo-Saxons look in bewilderment at a nation which has had seven political revolutions in a hundred years!