An expedition, 4,000 strong, and commanded by Sir Garnet Wolseley, was sent against them. On his arrival at Cape Coast, in October 1873, General Wolseley had a road laid to Coomassie, his goal, and minutely organised his expeditionary corps.

He only started at the end of December. On the 30th, accompanied by 3,000 men, he reached Agamassie, where the Ashantis, numbering 20,000, were massed. He gave the signal for the attack on the morning of the 31st. The battle lasted until night : the Ashantis, though beaten, continued to stand their ground. After a sanguinary encounter at Ordahsu, on January 4th, 1874, General Wolseley entered Coomassie, the Ashanti capital, which had been abandoned by King Coffee and his troops. The English had 300 men killed or wounded.

As the rainy season was drawing near, Sir Garnet Wolseley returned to the coast. He was joined on the way by some emissaries from King Coffee, demanding peace; a treaty was signed on February 13th, and, on the 19th, the English army made a triumphant entry into Cape Coast Castle.

Thus did Great Britain acquire a new colony in West Africa.

The

She also kept her eyes fixed on the road Suez Canal to India, open to international navigation since November 17th, 1869, by the cutting of the Isthmus of Suez.

Now that M. Ferdinand de Lesseps' great project had become an accomplished fact, the English Government was keeping a close watch over this new artery of the world's commerce.

A difficulty arose between the concessionaire Company and the ship-owners over the interpreta

tion of the word " Concession.

tonnage" inscribed in the Act of

Decisions in favour of the Company's interpretations had been pronounced by the Courts of Appeal in Paris. At the request of Great Britain, a technical international conference met in Constantinople, and imposed a new mode of measurement.

In spite of exhortations from the Duc Decazes, M. de Lesseps, Chairman of the Company, tried to resist. But, on April 25th, 1874, he was informed by the Khedive that the Porte had fixed the inauguration of the tariff for April 29th, and had ordered this resolution to be executed by force, if necessary, even if it meant taking possession of the Canal.

On the very next day, military measures were taken. M. de Lesseps gave way, not without protesting against the violence done to him. The polemics which arose from that conflict soon led to international complications, which it was already possible to foresee.

The success of the Suez Canal opened an era of great international undertakings. At the beginning of 1874, an American Mission, led by Major MacFarland, crossed the Isthmus of Darien in order to study the possibility of an inter-oceanic canal by the Nicaragua route.

At the same time, M. de Lesseps issued the project of a railway, which, had it been executed, would have hastened events singularly: the "Asiatic Grand Central." Starting from Orenburg, on the river Ural, this railroad would have gone as far as Peshawar, on the Indian frontier, joining the Russian system to the Anglo-Indian system of railways, across Central Asia.

M. de Lesseps read a paper on the subject to the Paris Geographical Society and to the Academy of Sciences. It would have been a communication between the Trans-Siberian on the one hand, and the Bagdad railway on the other. The object was to join European railways with Anglo-Indian railways and beyond, with future Chinese railways. M. de Lesseps was met with international difficulties which again prevented his project from being fulfilled. But here again his boldness gave a decisive impulse, and the events which will hereafter decide Asia's fate were in embryo in the remarkable fore-project of which his energetic and far-seeing genius took the first initiative.

France

and

French influence was also noticeable in the very extremity of Asia, in Japan. Japan The revolution which brought about the downfall of the Tai-Kouns, and the coincidence of the Franco-German war, had diminished the authority which, in memory of her former services, France still exerted in Japan. However, already, in 1872, the Mikado, of his own accord, dismissed his German instructors and recalled those of French nationality.1

A mission of engineers and naval officers built the docks, and factories of the arsenal of Yokoska, near Yokohama. French lawyers were also called in to draw up the new legislative jurisprudence of Japan.2

1 A French military mission directed the execution of several important works in Japan. Colonel Meunier and Captain Jourdan studied the system of fortifications of the Empire; Captain Lebon founded, in 1872, the military arsenal of Yeddo; about the same time, Captain Orcel erected an important powder magazine near Yeddo, etc.

2 M. Georges Bousquet remained from 1872 to 1876, Legal Adviser of the Mikado's government. See G. Bousquet, Le Japon de nos jours, 2 vols. 8vo., 1877.

Thus, even defeated, France preserved in distant lands some of the renown and long-recognised authority which were soon to open fresh fields to her reviving greatness.

CHAPTER IX

FALL OF THE DUC DE BROGLIE

I. The session resumed--Discussion of the Majority of the 24th of May-The Mayors' Act: its application-Explanation of the Marshal concerning the duration of his powersResistance-Elections of February 27th and March 1st, 1874-Bonapartist manifestations on the occasion of the Prince Imperial's birthday.

II. The Republican Party-The Gambetta Lepère interpellation; M. Challemel-Lacour's speech-The Duc de Broglie declares the Septennate to be "incommutable"Rupture with the Extreme Right-M. Thiers-Dissolution proposed-Easter holidays-Elections of March 29th, 1874. III.-Laws of re-organisation-The Liquidation accountsWater-ways-Military administration--The frontier problem-Two Eastern lines of fortifications-Paris fortifications.

IV. The summer session-The Duc de Broglie's constitutional projects--Representation of "interests "-Universal suffrage expurgated "-Organisation of Legislative and Executive powers-The Bills on Municipal Electorate and Political Electorate-Bill for the creation of a second Chamber--Fall of the Duc de Broglie: Its causes and consequences.

Last

struggle

IT

T is said that dying men see, in a rapid evolution, the panorama of their past between life; thus, in a supreme spasm, the history Royalty of ancient France was reproduced at the Aristocracy very moment of its death struggle.

and the

The constant drama of the "ancien régime" had been the struggle between Royalty and