FRANCE. 



323 



FRANCE, a country of "Western Europe, 

 junded on the northwest and west by the 

 English Channel and the Bay of Biscay, on the 

 northeast by Belgium and Rhenish Prussia, on 

 the east by Germany, Switzerland, and Italy, 

 on the south by the Mediterranean and Spain, 

 the Pyrenees separating it from the latter. Its 

 area, including its recent accessions of territory, 

 is 213.241 square miles. Its population in 1861 

 was, in round numbers, 37,000,000. It is di- 

 vided into 89 departments, each under the gov- 

 ernment of a prefect and a body of deputies 

 from its communes. The Government of France 

 is an empire ; the emperor is not absolute, but 

 shares the law-making power with a legislative 

 body, composed of a Senate and a House of 

 Deputies, the latter elected by the people. The 

 emperor is Napoleon III., the second son of 

 Louis Bonaparte and Hortense Beauharaais, 

 the daughter of Josephine : elected president 

 in 1850, he made himself emperor in Dec. 1852, 

 and his assumption of the imperial power was 

 ratified by popular suffrage soon after. 



To a correct understanding of the condition 

 of France, and the progress of events there in 

 1861, a brief statement of some of the occur- 

 rences of the previous year is necessary. There 

 were at the commencement of the year five 

 questions of policy which agitated the French 



people, all of them resulting from the measures 

 of the Government adopted the preceding year. 

 The first was the difficulties growing out of the 

 cession of Savoy and Nice by Sardinia to France, 

 as a compensation for the assistance which the 

 latter had rendered the former in the Italian 

 war of 1859. Against this cession Switzerland 

 protested, from the apprehension that it would 

 produce disturbances in her cantons adjacent ; 

 Prussia, from the fear that the plea of giv- 

 ing a natural boundary to France would be 

 hereafter made the apology for a demand for 

 her Rhenish provinces; and other States of 

 Europe, from the belief that the balance of 

 power would be disturbed. These protests had 

 been met by the reply that the cession had been 

 made by the Sardinian Government, and ratified 

 by the Sardinian Chamber by a vote of 229 out 

 of 285 members ; that the people of both prov- 

 inces were almost unanimously in favor of it, as 

 was manifested by their suffrage of the 12th 

 June, 1860 ; that the relations hitherto existing 

 between Sardinia and Switzerland were by the 

 terms of the treaty of cession to be maintained, 

 and finally that the emperor had no intention 

 of aggression upon any of the continental pow- 

 ers, and that he was himself deeply interested 

 in the maintenance of the balance of power. 

 A second question of importance was that of 



