326 



FKANCE. 



of the Government, produced a great excitement 

 throughout France during the summer months. 

 M. Mires was tried and sentenced to a long im- 

 prisonment and mulcted in a ruinous money 

 penalty, but appealed his cause to a higher tribu- 

 nal, and on a decision against him by that court, 

 has again appealed to the court of last resort. 



The less of the usual- export trade to the United 

 States, which amounted ordinarily to from forty 

 to fifty millions of dollars, and the consequent 

 dulness in the manufacturing interests, the suf- 

 fering of the working classes for want of employ- 

 ment, the high rate of discount maintained by 

 the Bank of France, and above all the certainty 

 in August and September of an alarming deficit 

 in the crops, combined to produce in the early 

 autumn a condition of depression and restless- 

 ness, which occasioned much apprehension on 

 the part of the Government. It was ascer- 

 tained that the deficit in the grain crops 

 amounted to over eighty millions of bushels, 

 and the reserve of specie in the Bank of France 

 had, in spite of the high rate of discount, fallen 

 much below its usual amount. 



The emperor saw that some measures must 

 be taken to improve the condition of the 

 finances, and to restore the confidence of the 

 mercantile and manufacturing classes, which 

 was greatly shaken in the Government. In 

 September, as was generally believed, at the 

 instance of the empress, M. Fould, the ablest 

 financier in the cabinet, had been offered a dif- 

 ferent portfolio, and had in consequence re- 

 signed. The emperor now proposed to recall 

 him to the department of finance. M. Fould 

 would not consent except upon condition of 

 stating beforehand to the emperor, in a carefully 

 drawn paper, the reforms in finance which he 

 deemed indispensable, and receiving the impe- 

 rial guarantee that they should be undertaken. 

 The emperor consented to his terms. The 

 finances of the country had been severely de- 

 ranged from the fact, that while the " budget," 

 or estimate of expenses and receipts for each 

 year, was reported to and acted upon by the 

 legislative body, the emperor retained the 

 power, and almost invariably exercised it, of 

 opening supplementary credits, often of very 

 large sums, during the period when they were 

 not in session, and thus a floating debt of large 

 amount was constantly incurred, and the esti- 

 mates for taxes and other revenue measures se- 

 riously disturbed. Thus, if the emperor deemed 

 it desirable to increase the army or navy, to 

 place himself in a hostile position to another 

 nation, to grant a subsidy to another power, or 

 to engage in any great enterprise at home or 

 abroad, a supplementary credit was opened to 

 furnish the means for such expenditure. 



The power of thus increasing at will the 

 national expenditure, M. Fould proposed that 

 the emperor should relinquish ; that henceforth 

 the legislative body should have the sole right 

 to fix the amount of Government expenditure, 

 and that the emperor should confine himself to 

 this ; that in case of any great emergency re- 



quiring increased resources, an extra session 

 of the legislative body should be called. This 

 measure, he argued, would restore confidence 

 to the tax-payers and order to the finances, and 

 would at the same time prove the most effect- 

 ual guarantee of the pacific intentions of the 

 emperor towards adjacent nations. 



To the credit of Napoleon III., it should be 

 recorded that he consented promptly and grace- 

 fully to this material abridgment of his prerog- 

 ative, and yielding to a body elected by the 

 people the control of the national expenditure, 

 surrendered one of the two great elements of 

 absolute monarchy, the power of the purse. 



The capture of Mason and Slide!! by the San 

 Jacinto, occurring almost immediately after the 

 accession of M. Fould to the cabinet, threatened 

 for a time to thwart his plans of financial re- 

 form, as in the event of war between England 

 and the United States which seemed imminent, 

 the effective force of the army which had risen 

 during the year from 392,000 to 467,000, and 

 the naval force which had been similarly in- 

 creased, could not, it was thought, be materially 

 diminished ; but the intelligence of the peace- 

 ful solution of the difficulty removed this ob- 

 stacle. The course pursued by the emperor 

 towards the United States on this occasion was 

 eminently dignified and conciliatory ; the French 

 Government did not, in any event, propose to 

 unite with Great Britain in a war against the 

 United States, but made a courteous expression 

 of their view of the question to the U. S. Gov- 

 ernment, indicating their partial concurrence in 

 the position taken by Great Britain, though 

 from other motives, and such as accorded with 

 the past policy of France. The correspondence 

 which took place between the two Governments 

 is given under the title of DIPLOMATIC COBEE- 

 SPONDENCE. 



Among the other events of importance in the 

 history of France in 1861, was the Mexican 

 expedition, in which she united with England 

 and Spain. This was projected in June, and 

 the object was ostensibly the securing of sub- 

 stantial guarantees for the payment of the large 

 amount of indebtedness due the three countries 

 from Mexico ; but it was supposed that meas- 

 ures of State policy, and possibly the providing 

 a throne for one of the Austrian princes, had a 

 place in the views of the allies. The expedition 

 sailed in September, and France reenforced her 

 portion of the troops in December. (See 

 MEXICO.) 



In the latter part of October, the Society of 

 St. Vincent de Paul (an organization at first of 

 a strictly charitable and praiseworthy charac- 

 ter, founded by the Abbe Ozanam, in 1833, but 

 within the past two years perverted into a so- 

 ciety for the promotion by questionable meas- 

 ures of the designs of the clergy against the 

 Government) was suppressed. Its suppression 

 occasioned for the time considerable excite- 

 ment, which, however, speedily subsided. 



The Italian question continued to agitate the 

 public mind, and the French occupation of 



