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we are recalling told me that when Bastien-Lepage learned the fatal news he hid his tears in the pillows among which he was still to wait three months for death. Marie Bashkirtseff was struck down by one of those miasms that float about Paris. I saw volumes of Kant and Fichte lying on her desk opened at passionate pages which death prevented her perusing."

M. Maurice Barrès starts on this pilgrimage in a little book entitled Trois Stations de Psychotherapie, and describes Marie Bashkirtseff, whom he had known, whose personality he had grasped and sounded in the visit he paid the little house where she lived and died, where ten years after her death he found lying open the Kant and Fichte upon which the girl nourished herself. M. Barrès constitutes himself the biographer of Marie, talks of her in numerous articles that have appeared in the Figaro and elsewhere, and draws her portrait ne varietur, because he has often passed along a road that Marie had to traverse to reach the house of Bastien-Lepage.

Marie Bashkirtseff never lived in the Rue de Prony; she died at 30, Rue Ampère, and all the details that interested M. Barrès so deeply, the books open on the desk, are due to the chances of unpacking. M. Barrès does not tell us who showed him the house into which he cannot have entered haphazard, nor does he tell us who pointed him out the desk upon which the open books were lying.

M. Maurice Barrès, after having devoted a number of articles to the subject of Marie Bashkirtseff, learned one day that he had been taken in, that there was more artificiality than reality in the cult that was paid to Marie in the little hotel in the Rue de Prony, and after having offered too much incense before the young girl, he threw her aside in an article in the Figaro, which Marie certainly did not deserve. Following his example, others, romantically interested in Marie, on learning that certain things they had repeated about her were false, slandered her in their turn, and those who hold her memory dear have each time felt an unpleasant shock. Is Marie to blame for what has happened? Certainly not; we can only feel sorry that the truth she loved so much should have been so minimised in the parts of the Diary that have been published, and that her charming figure should not have been presented to us in its true colours.

BOJIDAR KARAGEORGEVITCH.

FRENCH FRIENDSHIP AND NAVAL ECONOMY.

Ir is frankly admitted that the British attitude towards France in the past few years has not been successful; we have lived in a state of continual irritation, and if English statesmen have been in the wrong, those of France have not been in the right; on both sides of the English Channel there have been faults. In a measure the same may be said of the Anglo-Russian relations, but English opposition, which has been mainly of a nagging character in the case of France, has been more actively hostile towards Russian policy. Great Britain has lost no opportunity of checking Russian designs. What has been the result? With irresistible force Russia has pursued her purposes, and as reward for our hostility-ready to protest, but too timid to fight-we have gained only the enmity of Russia. We have followed a line of irritating, non-effective interference, and have lost in prestige, if not in material advantages. At last the strain which has existed between England and France has been removed. This result has already suggested the possibility of a definite understanding with our neighbour, and the hope may not be chimerical that friendship with one of the Allies may lead to a better understanding with the other. It is significant that quite recently the Peterburgskiya Viedomosti should have expressed the belief that the three Powers might come to an agreement mutually beneficial. "An understanding between the Power with the strongest Fleet in the world, and Russia and France, with their huge Armies, would," this journal added, "be a lever of such universal power and such a guarantee of the peaceful solution of those questions which now occupy the world that the prospect should attract the attention of the British, proud of their civilising mission, and of the Russians, who ardently desire to give material form to the ideas which inspired The Hague Conference." The rapprochement with France, already in the way of being accomplished, will be a step in the right direction. The time is ripe for considering the possible outcome of better feeling between these two countries. Foremost in the cause of peaceful development, in the vanguard of progress, France and England should set an example.

England's defence is her Navy. If the few outstanding causes of difference between Great Britain and France can be removed by friendly discussion and conciliatory action on both sides, and the basis of a permanent friendship laid, what will be the effect upon the navy policy of the two countries? An entente cordiale in 1888 would probably have saved the British people

the heavy expenditure which the Naval Defence Act entailed, and the contest for sea-power by the nations of the world might never have led to such ruinous expenditure. The competition in fleets has reached a point when it presses hardly upon France, oppressed by financial stringency, and is regarded as a matter of regretful necessity in England. Though none of the Powers will lead the way in agreeing to a limitation of naval armaments, it is worth consideration whether an understanding between France and Great Britain might not enable both countries to effect economies in their plans for naval defence.

Ten years ago an understanding might have conduced to an immense reduction in expenditure on both sides of the Channel, but to-day unfortunately the activity of Germany cannot be disregarded. It is Germany probably more than this country which was responsible for the French Naval Programme of 1900. As soon as the German Government decided to double the Fleet so as to provide thirty-eight battleships, France followed with a scheme for raising her armoured Fleet to the same standard. In battle strength the two countries will be parallel in 1910, and consequently France is watching the action of the German authorities with extreme care, and her interest is not exclusively centred, as in the past, upon naval movements in England. In the present situation Germany is the disturbing factor in Northern waters. German policy is one of carefully organised impromptus, and neither Great Britain nor France can afford to ignore the possibilities of the future when the German Emperor has done for his Navy what his grandfather did for the Army.

Would a good understanding between England and France limit the heavy expenditure of these two countries in the Mediterranean? France and Great Britain are practically alone in the Mediterranean; Germany is not represented, and neither country has reason to regard Italy with suspicion. Her policy is peaceful, if for no other reason than because war is too expensive. The British Admiralty consider it necessary to keep in the Latin Lake a naval force which is immensely larger than the combined active squadrons of all the countries which are washed by the waters of the Mediterranean, or are represented there. In the adjacent Black Sea is a large squadron of Russian ships, and the fear that they might break through the Dardanelles is responsible in some degree for the massing of so many British ships in these waters, over and above the number which in the past it has been considered necessary to maintain to neutralise the influence of the French squadron. In the event of a definite understanding between England and France, it should not be impossible, in the interests of both countries, to arrive at an agreement for a reduction of the size of the forces kept in readiness for action.

Great Britain has in the Mediterranean no fewer than fourteen battleships of the first-class, besides two armoured cruisers, eleven protected cruisers, three torpedo gunboats, and twenty torpedo boat destroyers (eight others being in reserve). This immense fleet is kept in full commission all the year round at a cost which probably does not fall far short of five million sterling annually. France, on the other hand, maintains at full sea strength six battleships in addition to three armoured cruisers, three protected cruisers, four gunboats, and a number of torpedo craft, while partially manned there are five other battleships and two gunboats. Even if all the French menof-war were kept on a war footing, as for all practical purposes the British Fleet is, Great Britain would be still in a position of superiority. Unfortunately, there is the Russian Squadron in the Black Sea, comprising two battleships of the first-class, four of the second-class, and three of older date, a total of nine armoured ships. Nominally they are walled by international agreement within the Black Sea, but actually no statesman believes that they would remain there a day if the opportunity arose for breaking out. The time for abrogating the last of the conditions which for so many years have closed the Black Sea to the men-of-war of France, Germany, and Great Britain will come when hostilities begin in the Mediterranean, and Russia sees a chance of employing her ships to advantage. In face of this danger, Great Britain is compelled to be prepared. This peril need not, however, prevent an understanding with France for a mutual reduction of the naval forces of these two countries which are maintained in readiness for action. This might pave the way to an agreement, also, with the Muscovite Power. For every man-of-war which France placed definitely out of commission, Great Britain might withdraw one from the Mediterranean and be the gainer, and of course if the possibility of war between France and England were minimised, the chance of the Russian ships finding an opportunity for mischief would be decreased.

There is reason to believe that in France such an understanding would be most welcome, for in no country is the burden of the present contest for sea-power more severely felt. The history of the French Navy under the present Republic has not been happy; for many reasons the cost of the Fleet has been excessive. Of all purely European countries, France needs a policy of peace, retrenchment and reform. There are many reasons for this. Since everything connected with France is of interest just now, reference may not be out of place to the peculiar conditions under which the French Fleet has been built up and the causes which, given the opportunity, would lead Frenchmen to welcome a

friendly truce to naval aggrandisement, in the Mediterranean at least.

France has had thirty-two Governments since 1870, and each administration has produced its own Minister of Marine, and placed him in charge of the Fleet, oblivious to his qualifications for this position of great responsibility and power. These politicians have come and gone with lightning rapidity. No sooner has one commenced his work than his successor has arrived on the scene and requested him to vacate his position. Owing to the character of the personnel, particularly the senior officers, the Navy has survived the attentions of these thirty-two doctors, for practically every Minister has assumed office convinced that the medicine of reform should be applied without delay. Some have been energetic and have irritated the Fleet, others have been apathetic and have allowed the machinery entrusted to their care to rust for want of attention. For thirty-two years this succession of Ministers has been passing through the Ministry of Marine, each remaining as a rule just long enough to upset the plans of predecessors and to hatch other schemes for the embarrassment of those coming after. In the long line of rulers at the Ministry, Monsieur Pelletan, the present occupant of the office, has probably gained the widest fame in the shortest space of time by the series of surprises which he has crowded into his comparatively short tenure of office.

As a rule efficient control of an army or navy cannot be exercised by a democracy. It may be that the recognition of this fact led those who framed the Republican system of France to hand the Navy over to the Minister of Marine for the time being, making him practically its absolute master in all essential respects, subject to little control except such as Parliament might exercise from time to time. He is master of the Fleet's destinies, settles all important questions, promotes all the senior officers according to his own whim, and issues decrees of the most far-reaching character, which are invariably signed by the President without comment. As a rule, no one thinks of questioning his actions, however arbitrary they may be, and he can pursue a riotous course until some deputy makes an interpellation in the Chamber; even then, if he be an adept in parrying words, and his Government have a good majority, he will probably say a good deal without departing from his original intentions. The debate may indeed strengthen his hands, however reactionary his policy.

France is a country with few statesmen and many politicians, and such a position of power as that of Minister of Marine is one in which a mere politician, an opportunist, faddist, or experimentalist glories. Seated in his office in the Rue Royale he feels that by a stroke of the pen he can send squadrons flying over

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