all depending on the continuance of order and tranquillity. Anterior deficits, including those of 1848, 1849, and 1850, would amount to 646,000,000f. In the opinion of the Minister, the situation would neither be endangered nor embarrassed thereby. To meet that deficit, the State possessed important resources. The increase in the revenues, and the annulling of several credits, should also be taken into account, and he valued those items at 43,000,000f. The Government had, moreover, been authorized to sell forest lands to the amount of 25,000,000f. The concession to private industry of the Paris and Avignon and the Western Railroads, so warmly recommended in the Presidential Message of the 12th of November, 1850, would, he was certain, be granted by the Assembly, and thus enable the Government to realize important additional resources to reduce still more the above deficit. The floating debt, however large its amount might be-577,000,000f. -was not of a nature to cause uneasiness or apprehension. The cash on hand in the Treasury or Bank of France exceeded 94,000,000f. The loan concluded by his predecessor would afford 38,000,000f., of which 31,000,000f. remained to be paid. The debts of the Rouen and Northern Railway Companies would supply upwards of 40,000,000f. more. In the floating debt figured the bonds of the Communes, the deposits of the savings banks, &c., for 364,000,000f. That sum was not likely to be withdrawn. The treasury bonds, amounting to 113,000,000f., on the other hand, would in all probability be renewed, notwithstanding the duction in the rate of interest. There was no danger, either, of the Bank of France claiming its debt, for the most profitable and safest use it could make of its capital was to loan it to the Treasury. M. de Germiny regretted the necessity of suspending again, in 1852, the action of the sinking fund, but expressed confidence that the ordinary expenditures would be covered by the revenues of the State. He then enumerated the modifications made in the estimates of the different departments, and estimated the entire receipts at 1,382,675,607f., and the expenditure at 1,372,978,928f., leaving a surplus of 9,696,679f. The debate on the Dotation Bill commenced on the 10th of February, when M. de Royer, Minister of Justice, rose and said that the Government did not intend to take part in the discussion of the question. It referred the Assembly to the exposé des motifs of the Bill, and would await its decision with calmness, and, he would say, with confidence. Last year the Assembly had voted a similar credit. The Government did not make it a question of money, but, as the report stated, a question of the highest political order. It was its duty to protest against the reception of the demand by the Committee, at the beginning of the discussion, influenced by a sense of honour and propriety which the Assembly would appreciate. The Committee, he regretted to say, personally attacked the President, without heeding his Ministers, who would not desert the ground they had not chosen, but accepted. It charged him with having exercised an undue influence, when it was obvious to all that in every speech he pronounced he renewed All his oath to the Constitution. his acts had been eminently patriotic. Remember the reply he made to the Mayor of Lyons, on the 15th of August, two days after the prorogation, when he thanked the population of that great city for not having credited the rumours of coups d'état. Remember his speech at Strasburg, when, 'surrounded by all the delegates of manufacturing Alsace, he claimed no other title than that of an honest man. His political acts had reanimated confidence and labour all over the country, and merited for him and the Assembly the sincere and serious gratitude of France. M. de Royer then called on the Assembly to be more equitable towards him than its Committee, and entreated it in the name of the country and society not to weaken a power established by 6,000,000 votes. Consult, he said, the population, the municipalities, the Councils-General of the departments he traversed last summer, and they will tell that he everywhere left deep traces of his passage favourable to order and society. The Assembly might admit or reject the credit, but whatever its decision was, it would not change the President's respect for his oath nor his devotedness to the policy of order, in which he felt honoured to have met with the loyal and firm co-operation of the National Assembly. When the Minister had concluded, numerous voices cried in different parts of the hall, "Let us vote! Let us vote!" The majority, however, refused to close the discussion. M. Dufougerais then rose, and undertook to prove that it was the President who had separated from the Assembly, and not the Assem bly which had separated from the President. He then referred to the Message of the 31st of October, 1849, which the Assembly had accepted too lightly; to the dismissal of General Changarnier, who had identified himself to a certain degree with the sentiments of the majority. The refusal of the Assembly to grant the dotation was not an act of hostility towards the President, nor would it compromise the existence of the Parliamentary regimen, as some of its voters apprehended. If any sentiment of distrust animated the Assembly, it was against the last Ministry and its Imperial tendencies. In conclusion, he protested that the President had no enemy in the Assembly. M. de Montalembert said that he had hoped the vote would have been silent, in order to conceal from the country the schism of the majority and the Executive, and in the ranks of the majority itself. When, however, he considered the report of the Committee, which drew up a bill of indictment against the policy of the President, he could not remain silent; the more so as he had been pressed to protest, in the name of his friends of the majority, who had remained faithful to the mission they had received from their constituents. Had he been consulted, he would not have advised the presentation of such a demand last year or this year, but, having been presented, it should not be refused. That refusal would come with a bad grace from a Legislative Assembly more amply remunerated than any previous Assembly in France. Leaving the question of money, he would examine the question of power and authority which it involved. A portion of the former majority had, with the best intentions, no doubt, vowed a systematic hostility against the Government. M. de Montalembert withdrew the word systematic, which displeased certain persons, and substituted for it the word " permanent." He did not come forward as the advocate or friend of the President, but as a mere witness; and he declared, with his hand on his heart, that Louis Napoleon had faithfully accomplished the mission he had received of restoring society, re-establishing order, and repressing demagogy. The same men who now so violently attacked Louis Napoleon openly placed themselves under his ægis after the 10th of Decem. ber, when they wished to assure their own election. He had witnessed and could bear testimony to their Bonapartism, as member of the Electoral Committee of the Rue de Poitiers. Six millions of citizens, in elevating to the Presidency the son of a King and the nephew of the Emperor morally killed the Republic. When that Prince was elected, three things were required of him. The peasantry believed that they were choosing an Emperor. Did he respond to their expectation? No, notwithstanding the many oppor tunities he had had to overthrow the Republic. Others simply asked him to put an end to the Republicans of the eve-to that equivocal system practised after the revolt of June. Did he not accomplish that engagement? He did. A third class of electors wished him to establish a neutral ground on which all honest men, whatever their political opinions might be, could meet for the defence of order and society. Did he respond to their appeal? He did, VOL. XCIII. by coming forward immediately to take the oath to the Constitution of the Republic, and appointing a Cabinet uniting all shades of opinion, from M. Bixio to M. Falloux. The President, he contended, had ever since remained faithful to his oath, and deserved well of the party of order. He had even done more than he had promised, and did not imitate other princes who promised more than they were willing to perform. Every Government was liable to commit faults, and he only reproached the President with one-the letter he wrote to Colonel Ney, at Rome, for which he had since amply atoned. The Message of the 31st of October, 1849, so often alluded to, was, in his opinion, the commencement of the era of social restoration. He then maintained that, long before the prorogation, the majority had shown itself hostile to the President. Part of it had coalesced with the Mountain to oppose the law on Municipalities, and to name the Permanent Committee, which had astonished the country. He next referred to the dismissal of General Changarnier, whose conduct and votes since then sufficiently explained to him its motives. Here General Changarnier rose and invited M. de Montalembert to mention the facts which in his opinion had justified his dismissal. M. de Montalembert replied that the General misunderstood him; that he only spoke of his conduct and votes subsequent to his dismissal. The language he had since held in the Assembly had revealed to him an hostility so systematic that it had explained to him the antipathy he must have inspired. The President had rendered homage to the right of control and censure exercised by the Assembly [P] by sacrificing his Ministers, and nevertheless the report now applied to the President that distrust which it had manifested to his Cabinet. The Assembly, he added, had adopted a fatal course, deplored by all the friends of order. The men whose suggestions it obeyed had spent their lives in caressing certain passions. He knew he would be called a partisan of the Elysée, but he preferred that denomination to that of flatterer of anarchy. Nevertheless, he would bear testimony to the honesty and sincerity of the President, and protest against an ingratitude, which was as blind as it was unjustifiable. The Restoration had succumbed, because respect for authority had been destroyed, not by émeutes, but by political men in high stations. Louis Philippe had been overturned by the same means and the same men who now were actively engaged in sapping the authority of Louis Napoleon. There was one condition indispensable to establish authority-that was to defend it when out of power, and even when contrary to one's opinion. He knew no other legitimate power than that which was possible. In speaking of the principle of authority, he did not mean that exercised by such monsters as Nero and Robespierre; nor those Governments having no root in the country, and whose existence was ephemeral. The sovereignty reThe sovereignty resided in the people, who delegated its authority to an Executive Power and a Legislative Assembly. The report said that the President was not a King. Now, constitutional monarchs were mere hereditary presidents, when he said hereditary, not always. (Laughter.) The President was a sort of temporary king, who directly derived his power from the people. The Constituent Assembly had rejected the amendment of M. Grévy, and the President elected by the nation was, in its eye, the source of authority. How often, he asked, did Monarchy in England use the right of veto, which the Constitution denied the President, since 1692? Not once. Charles X. and Louis Philippe had been reduced to spend their noble old age in exile, although not responsible, and their Ministers, Prince Polignac and M. Guizot, freely returned to their country. He was not an admirer of the Constitution, against which he had voted, but he could not help praising the doctors who had framed it, in not having constituted a single and unlimited power, and sharing the Government with another directly elected by 6,000,000 electors, who had delegated to it an immense authority, which he was wrong in comparing to that of a king. The President equally represented the national will. Ask the peasant for what representative he voted; he will reply that he did not know, that he voted either for the white or the red list. But ask him whom he elevated to the Presidency, and he will at once tell you Louis Napoleon Bonaparte. The country was alarmed at those sterile collisions and fatal coalitions, formed by the same chiefs and under the same pretext. Those collisions might have charms for certain minds. These were their premières amours, and they always returned to them. The country did not travel to Wiesbaden or Claremont, and was not even at Satory. The Assembly had left it tranquil, and found it tranquil on its return. The two powers had too long waged an impious war on each other, to the detriment of the peace, labour, and credit of the country. In conclusion, he entreated the majority not to persevere in that fatal course, if it did not wish the people to say, in 1852, that they had placed a private idol on the altar of the country, and disregarded the general interests. The peasantry will naturally say, "the Whites have always disagreed, let us name the Red." Then, France will neither have the Empire nor the Parliamentary regimen, but Socialism. He trusted he should be a false prophet. M. Piscatory next rose and disclaimed all hostility to the President, declaring that it was a mere warning that the Assembly wished to give. The discussion was closed after M. Piscatory's speech. A division was then called for, and the ballot gave: 102 Majority. The Bill was accordingly rejected. An attempt was now made to indemnify the President for this refusal on the part of the Assembly to increase his income, by getting up a national subscription, but this he firmly refused to allow. He knew too well the advantage of having a grievance, and his official organs proclaimed that he deemed it his duty to sacrifice a personal satisfaction to the repose of the country. "He knows that the people render him justice, and that is sufficient for him. The President, therefore, declines all subscriptions, however spontaneous and national their character may be." The "provisional" Ministry appointed on the 9th of January had continued in office longer than was contemplated, owing to the difficulty of forming one from amongst members of the Assembly with any chance of stability and permanence. At last, on the 11th of April, after many ineffectual efforts, the following new Cabinet was announced in the Moniteur, composed chiefly of those who had formed the Ministry displaced at the beginning of January: M. Léon Faucher-Interior. M.Chasseloup-Laubat—Marine. tion. com This Cabinet was of a plexion friendly to the President, but did not carry much weight in the Assembly. The only two names of distinguished note were those of M. Fould and M. Léon Faucher, men of decided ability and character. The chief fault of the latter was the want of a conciliatory manner and temper, which, for the exigencies of the position of Ministerial leader in a popular Assembly, is no mean part of statesmanship. On the same day, after the new Ministry had been constituted, M. Léon Faucher, Minister of the Inte rior, rose and said :-"Gentlemen, after an ad interim Administration, which leaves behind it most honourable reminiscences, at the moment when the new Ministry presents itself before you for the first time, it is its duty to inform |