

FRANCE, 



321 



'ii> Into Emperor \va* complete. 



Th<- l-'r.'in-li ( n>\ crmii'-nt deposed ft few mniret 



who li.id t IA.-II part in the demonstration, 



among tli.-m tin- hiiki- <>f I'adua, luit it was 



i >n]y ln-lii'Vi'd that t ho demonstration had 



v stri'iiL'thi'iii-il tho portion and tho 



hop,-.; of ti M . Momipartists. This impression 



rhni.-'l by tho glowing eulogy which 



Hli\ i> r, t!i,' .-x-l'ri'inier of Napoleon III., 



rich Academy on tho greatness 



Emperor. 



On M:irr!i -JTth a new and nnlooked-for 

 ;>f was made by tho Legitimist party to 

 i t!n iv-toration of monarchy. Follow- 

 ing up (lie Legitimist attack against the Septen- 

 nial p \\vr, of which M. Casenove do Pradine, 

 M. do lYanelieii, and M. d'Aboville were the 

 :anl, M. Dahirel presented a bill enacting 

 on the 1st of June, 1874, the Assembly, 

 by a public vote, should decide between the 

 monarchy and the republic. France, he said, 

 was tired of tho provisional. The Assembly, 

 while pretending to bo constituent, had hither- 

 to constituted nothing, for the present patched- 

 up state of things was no Constitution. Ho 

 moved that his bill should be considered urgent. 

 M. do Kerdrol, a fusionist, while proclaiming 

 himself as good a royalist as M. Dahirel, pro- 

 tested that not a single hour could be sub- 

 el from Marshal MacMahon's seven years, 

 unless, indeed, the marshal himself chose to re- 

 sign. On a division, the ministry was saved 

 by tin- Left, the majority against voting the bill 

 us urir.-nt being 330 to 256. Some extreme 

 Opposition deputies reproached their friends 

 with missing an opportunity to upset the min- 

 istry, but M. Gambetta and M. Ledru-Rollin 

 were of opinion that the Left could not for a 

 moment sanction M. Dahirel's doctrine that 

 the Assembly was competent to proclaim a 

 definitive government. On the same day the 

 report of the committee on the fortification of 

 Paris, which recommended a large extension 

 of the fortifications in order to make it possible 

 to take the offensive, was adopted. M. Thiers, 

 in a vigorous speech, which was listened to with 

 great attention, spoke against the report. He 

 held that the system of distant forts proposed 

 by the committee would entail excessive ex- 

 penditure and necessitate too numerous an 

 army, and proposed that the heights near- 

 est to the present fortifications should be for- 

 tified for the purpose of protecting Paris from 

 bombardment. The Assembly ultimately adopt- 

 nd the bill as proposed by the committee, by 

 8S9 against 193 votes. 



On March 28th the National Assembly ad- 

 journed to May 12th. At two supplementary 

 elections, held on March 29th, in the depart- 

 ment of the Gironde and the Haute-Marne, the 

 Republicans again obtained a very marked suc- 

 cess. In the Gironde tho Republican candi- 

 date, M. Rondier, received 68,877 votes, whilo 

 the Imperialist and Ministerialist candidates 

 polled 45,079 and 21,598 respectively. In the 

 Hauti'-Marne, M. Danelle Bernardin, tho Ile- 

 VOL. xiv. 21 A 



publican, received 23,628 votes, and M. Lecpe- 

 rut, tho Ministerialist, 13,329. Tho figures 

 show that in the wealthy department of tin- 

 (iironde the Republican candidate had a ma- 

 jority of votes over the candidates of all the 

 other parties combined, and that the Republi- 

 can and the Imperialist candidates, between 

 them, polled not far from six times the num- 

 ber of votes given to the representative of tho 

 Duke do Broglio. In tho other department, 

 one of those which suffered most by the war, 

 and were only lately relieved from the Ger- 

 man occupation, tho Government hoped for a 

 more favorable return, and was equally disap- 

 pointed. Thus, after a session which had wit- 

 nessed a full exposition of the ministerial pol- 

 icy, tho Government and the majority of tho 

 Assembly were condemned from opposite sides 

 of Franco. 



The National Assembly reassembled on May 

 13th, and roSlected M. Buffet as President by 

 860 of 887 votes, the Left not taking part in 

 the voting. On May 15th tho Duke de Broglio 

 proposed the bill for an Upper Chamber, to be 

 called the Grand Council, and to be composed 

 of 800 members. Of these 100 were to be 

 named by the Executive power ; about 150 to 

 be elected by the departments in the propor- 

 tion of one member to 200,000 voters; and 

 cardinals and marshals of France would sit 

 without election just as in the time of the em- 

 pire. Categories of eligibilities were laid down, 

 including retired judges, high functionaries, 

 members of the Legion of Honor, and the high- 

 est tax-payers. The Grand Council was to 

 have coordinate powers with the National As- 

 sembly, and moreover was to be enabled to 

 constitute itself into a High Court of Justice 

 to try ministers and the President of the Re- 

 public. The President of the Republic was, 

 however, only to be responsible to it for a vio- 

 lation of the Constitution. The President of 

 the Grand Council would be elected by the 

 Grand Council itself. In the case of his death 

 or resignation, the Grand Council would be in- 

 vested with all the rights belonging to the Ex- 

 ecutive power until further order. In case of 

 the vacancy of the Executive, the President of 

 the Grand Council would become ipo facto 

 President of the Republic ad interim. He 

 must immediately convoke the National As- 

 sembly, and the two Chambers united in Con- 

 gress would at once replace the President of 

 the Republic without being bound to invest 

 tho successor of Marshal MacMahon with the 

 same title or the same powers. On the next 

 day, May 16th, the ministry suffered a crush- 

 ing defeat upon the question of the Electoral 

 Bill, by 881 votes against 317. M. Batbio, re- 

 porter of the Committee on the Constitutional 

 Laws, asked the House to fix the first reading 

 of the Electoral Bill for the following Wednes- 

 day, whereupon M. Thery, of the Right, pro- 

 posed to give precedence to the Municipal Hill. 

 M. Raudot, ministerialist, proposed a compro- 

 mise ; but the Duke de Broglie rose and, on the 



