BLANC, JEAN J. L. 



67 



in the Senate they have a majority of seven 

 instead of four. The latest programme of the 

 Clerical party embraces among other points 

 the abolition of the Ministry of Instruction, 

 and the solution of the educational question by 

 the introduction of the English voluntary sys- 

 tem. The continual deficit in the public ac- 

 counts will disappear with the contraction of 

 the state school establishment. The Clericals 

 propose, when they come into power, to extend 

 the electoral franchise, and to secure the self- 

 government of the provinces and the com- 

 munes which is threatened under the Liberal 

 regime of Frere Orban, the present President 

 of the Council. The diplomatic relations with 

 the Papal court would naturally be speedily 

 resumed. 



LEGISLATION. Dissension arose among the 

 Liberals over the question of the property 

 qualification for suffrage, which is the payment 

 of forty francs in taxes. The Clericals de- 

 manded a reassessment, which would increase 

 the number of rural voters, which was ac- 

 corded. A portion of the Liberal party pro- 

 posed instead the amendment of the Constitu- 

 tion and the substitution of an educational 

 test. 



An extradition treaty has been concluded 

 with the United States, in which for the first 

 time in euch an instrument the attempted as- 

 sassination of a ruler is made an extraditable 

 offense. 



Sainctelette, the Minister of Public Works, 

 who retired in July, on account of his health, 

 introduced the practice of employing women 

 in the railroad, postal, and telegraph services. 

 The innovation found many indignant oppo- 

 nents, but his successor, Olin, is determined to 

 make it successful. 



FINANCES. The Chambers have authorized 

 various loans, amounting in all to 209,015,124 

 francs, at three per cent interest. Rothschilds 

 and Belgian banking-houses took 133,000,000 

 francs at 82 per cent of the par value. The 

 budget for 1883 places the revenues at 300,- 

 153,390 francs, 3,505,681 francs more than 

 the expenditures authorized for 1882 ; and the 

 expenditures at 312,566,885 francs that is, 

 12,413,495 francs more than the revenues. 

 Among the items are 104,433,556 francs for 

 public works, 88,805,919 francs for interest on 

 the public debt, 44,727,300 francs for army 

 and navy, 20,474,734 francs for public instruc- 

 tion, 16,051,411 francs for the administration 

 of justice, 15,649,980 francs for the depart- 

 ment of finances, 10,090,580 francs for inter- 

 nal administration, 3,496,900 francs for the 

 gendarmery, and 2,335,830 francs for the for- 

 eign department. 



BLANC, JEAN JOSEPH Louis, French states- 

 man, historian, and socialistic theorist, died De- 

 cember 6th, at Cannes. He was born at Mad- 

 rid, October 28, 1813. His father was finan- 

 cial overseer under King Joseph, his mother a 

 Spanish lady of earnest temperament, belong- 

 ing to the family of Pozzo di Borgo, whose 



hostility to Napoleon she shared. The family 

 were ruined in fortune by the Revolution of 

 1830. Louis was recalled from his studies to 

 Paris and became a clerk in a lawyer's office. 

 In 1832 he became tutor in a family residing 

 in Arras. Returning to the capital in 1834, he 

 entered upon a journalistic career, contribut- 

 ing to journals of radical tendencies, like "Le 

 Bon Sens," the " Revue Republicaine," which 

 was suppressed in 1835 by Thiers, and the 

 "Nouvelle Minerve." He was editor of the 

 first periodical from 1836 to 1838, and left it 

 because the proprietors objected to his writing 

 in favor of the nationalization of the railroads. 

 He established "La Revue du Progres," in 

 which he advocated 'socialistic ideas, and pro- 

 posed the organization of a league of demo- 

 cratic associations. He was waylaid by masked 

 men, who beat him and left him for dead, short- 

 ly after the appearance of an article in praise of 

 Bonapartist liberalism. It was popularly be- 

 lieved that the police were concerned in the 

 outrage. The notion that he was a martyr for 

 his opinions greatly extended the influence of 

 Louis Blanc, whose admirable style and origi- 

 nality of thought had already won him many 

 readers. After his recovery he wrote his essays 

 on " The Organization of Labor." In these 

 not only the doctrines of French communism 

 were unfolded in a more convincing and capti- 

 vating form than previously, but a practical 

 scheme for their accomplishment was presented 

 which has remained to this day the goal of 

 French socialism. They were issued in book 

 form in 1841, in which year was published also 

 the " History of Ten Years," a work which 

 greatly added to his literary reputation and 

 raised him to the position of a popular leader 

 of the revolutionary movement against the 

 monarchy of July. This political tract, which 

 summed up the sins of the reign of Louis Phi- 

 lippe and the hopes of the French democracy, 

 helped to precipitate the Revolution of 1848, 

 When the revolution came, Louis Blanc, who 

 was looked upon by the working-men as their 

 prophet, was made a member of the Provision- 

 al Government. He secured the adoption of a 

 law abolishing the death-penalty for political 

 offenses, but when he enunciated some of his 

 revolutionary projects they were received so 

 coldly that he resigned, but resumed his posi- 

 tion in the Provisional Government when the 

 opportunity of carrying out the experiment of 

 the organization of labor was offered him as a 

 bait to the masses who were ripe for a social 

 revolution. He called together the Labor Com- 

 mission, of which he was appointed president, 

 in the Luxembourg Palace, and invited before 

 it masters and laborers. When the working- 

 men of Paris saw the delusive character of the 

 revolution, they called upon Louis Blanc to as- 

 sume the dictatorship. By declining, he lost his 

 power over them. He was elected a member 

 of the National Assembly. He brought for- 

 ward the law repealing the sentence of exile 

 against the Bonaparte family. After the Po- 



