Round about France

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated.1878 Excerpt: ... VANQUISHED PREFECTS. IN unsuccessful election is always a bad thing for a French prefect; and at this moment there are fourscore and odd gentlemen of this rank, with some two hundred sub-prefects, looking wistfully towards Paris to see what will come of the battle they have lost. The defeated Ministry has taken care to reward the most active of them by valedictory promotions to the Legion of Honour. The prefect of Vaucluse has been favoured with the red ribbon. He has caused four Monarchists to be elected in the place of four Republicans; and when we recollect that it was he who last year was proved to have tampered with the ballot-boxes, so that the election of his nominee was quashed, we can appreciate the political tact evinced in singling him out on the morrow of a national Liberal vote as a fit recipient for State honours. It will be found that all the other freshly-decorated prefects and sub-prefects have been more or less successful with their official candidates: but, of course, the majority of prefects stand in deep disgrace, and it is pathetic to reflect on the position of these luckless wights, who, frowned upon by their own side to-day, may soon have to pack up their boxes at the bidding of a Liberal Ministry. Who would be a French prefect? The advantages of the post are a silver-laced swallow-tail, a palace to live in, 1,200 a year, and a good deal of small patronage; but these things are as slippery to hold as those little pigs, soaped all over, which are scrambled for in country fairs; and it mostly happens that the prefect remains emptyhanded, just as he has begun to appreciate the happiness of boons which he cannot keep. The poor man must serve two masters--the Government and the public--and please them both. If Government and the pub...