American Life in France: 1851

AUGUST 12TH. — We are in France. We entered it by the way of Calais. Our first impressions were delightful. I had wished to go directly on to Paris without stopping at Calais ; but I was quickly converted to the contrary opinion when we came to the hotel where we were to pass the night. The court-yard was gay with flowering-shrubs. Large vases, with plants in full and vivid bloom, stood on each side of the doorsteps, and were ranged along the entry. Coming from the dingy, stifling boat, it was like passing into fairy-land. We had a charming suite of rooms, looking out on a beautiful garden. The people of the hotel were more than courteous ; they were kind. If we had been expected guests in an old-fashioned, large-hearted house, where all the domestics had the habit of hospitality, we could not have been waited on with more solicitude.

We arrived in Calais yesterday, the 11th. We came on to Paris to-day. We are at the Hotel de Londres.

August 15th. — Yesterday we went to see M. Gachotte’s school. It is in a very pleasant part of Paris, — the Faubourg St. Honore. The house has a court-yard about sixty feet square. Behind the house are the play-grounds, shaded by large trees. M, Gachotte showed us everything, even to the kitchens, and told us all particulars in regard to study-hours, playtime, food, etc.

The boys have eight hours’ study in the day ; but are never allowed to work more than two hours at a time. I had neard so much about the light diet of French boarding-schools, that I had felt some misgivings on this point ; I was not, therefore displeased, to hear M. Gachotte say that “boys who work well must eat well.”

The dormitories are spacious rooms, with little white beds ranged along the sides. A master sleeps in each dormitory. A most exact order reigns in everything. The rules of the school are very strict. No books are allowed, except those used in the school, or such as are provided by the head master. The boys are not free to employ even their leisure moments in their own way. In study-time they must study ; in recreation-time they must recreate.

It may be a good thing for American youth to be subjected to this discipline for a time ; but I should think it would be very cramping to boys who have never known any other system.

It seems that the boys in French schools are never allowed to walk in the street alone. Even in going home, or to a friend’s house, and returning, they must have an attendant. We asked M. Gachotte to exempt our boys from this necessity, and to permit them to come home by themselves when we do not call for them.

It is vacation at the school now, but the boys are to enter at once, that they may become familiar with the language before the term begins. Next Monday, the 18th, is the day fixed upon. We have stipulated that we are to take them out frequently, during the vacation, to see the monuments, galleries, etc., of Paris.

August 17th. — A very remarkable paper has just appeared, signed by Lamennais, Schoelcher, Michel de Bourges, and other eminent Republicans. It foreshadows the Republic of the United States of Europe. It has called a storm of rage, as might be supposed, on the heads of the signers. The Univers speaks of this project as “a grotesque idea,” and ridicules the enthusiasm with which the writer of the paper “ describes the happiness of the republican world.” But ridicule is not the worst assault that these men, and men like these, have to encounter. The names I have given are associated, surely, with goodness, courage, and ability ; but appended to a document which sketches a better future for suffering Europe, they represent men to be denounced as “enemies of religion, of the family, and of property.”

Accusations like these are the favorite weapons of the reaction ; and they are effective ones. They detach from the reformers all the timid good, a numerous flock, who find safety and force by herding closely together, and who do not suffer themselves even to turn their regards towards the quarter from which they are told danger threatens, but bless themselves that somebody somewhere is on the lookout for it. It alienates from the reformers the ignorant and humble good, who content themselves with the practice of the modest virtues and who have not the presumption to believe that their voice could aid in making the world a better one for others, which they do not ask to have made better for themselves.

The selfish side with the selfish, as of course ; this is a solidarity which never fails. There remains as audience for the innovators the class of those who unite in themselves probity, courage, intelligence, and instruction ; a class from which are still to be withdrawn those who, from constitution of mind, from habit, from respect to revered elders, brace themselves against suggestions of change ; and those whom engrossing employments withhold from examination of theories which do not seem to be of immediate application. Of those who receive a truth and welcome it because it is truth, the greater part enjoy its satisfactions serenely in their own minds, not seeking to impart it, still less to carry it out to practical result.

Thus it is that ideas of the greatest simplicity, of, it would seem, the easiest acceptance, stand long before the world, disregarded apparently, but, more and more, unconsciously perceived and admitted, until their day comes almost unheralded, and they enter on their reign as if it had always been their recognized right ; as if it had not once been denounced as the reign of anarchy.

But those who pleaded and battled for the ignored truth in its adverse times, those who were persecuted and maligned for it, — they do not always triumph with their work. The world has many an injustice yet to repair, as it has many a delayed sentence to execute.

The judgments of our country upon European merit or demerit ought to be like those of the other world. But too often our sight is dazzled by a delusive halo, too often it is hindered by the mists of defamation gathering about a noble head. We ought to be on the watch to hail our own, to offer them that cordial of sympathy which hearts strong and brave enough to do without it crave, perhaps, even more than weaker ones.

That evil is spoken of men whose only offence is love of humanity, cannot surprise us. It was foretold that this should be part of the earthly portion of those who work for God in godless times. All efforts to revive primitive Christianity are met as primitive Christianity itself was.

When I hear Lamennais numbered among “ the enemies of religion and the family,” there comes to my mind a passage in his Book of the PeopleIt concludes the chapter on The Family : —

“ If there be upon earth true joys, a real happiness, these joys, this happiness, are found in the bosom of a wellordered family, whose members are strictly united by duty. For happiness here below does not consist in the uninterrupted enjoyment of what are called the goods of this world, but in the mutual love which softens the ills inseparable from our present existence, and mingles with them I know not what distant emanation from a future, mysterious felicity.”

Does this man know what a home is ?

Monday, August 18th. — To-day we set off at half past nine in the morning to look for an apartment. We drove about through the streets to which our search was limited, stopping whenever we saw the yellow placard which indicates furnished apartments, until two o’clock. Then we went back to the hotel to take the boys to their school. Willie -was very eager to go. Dear little fellow, I hope he will like it as much as he thinks he shall, but he does not know what it is to be away from home My heart was very heavy when the great gates banged to, shutting us out and them in.

Alfred will be contented as soon as he is once fairly at work. But how will it be with our little republican of eleven ?

In London, Willie was telling us one day what he should do when he got to Paris. Among other things, he talked of making exploring expeditions about the city. I told him he could not do this ; he would not be allowed to go beyond the school enclosure. " But I shall go,” he said. " You cannot ; it is against the law.” " What ! against the law of France ? ” “ No ; but of the school.” “O,” with a movement of the head expressive of sovereign disdain, " I shall not obey it. I shall say it is unconstitutional.”

I do not know what you would say to another suggestion he has thrown out with regard to life in France. You know we arrived in Liverpool on Sunday. This and our not going to church made it seem so like a week-day, that the children could hardly believe it was indeed Sunday. Willie was particularly struck with this novel order of things, and asked many questions as to what was and what was not done on Sunday in England. His sister told him that, in France, they amused themselves more on that day than on any other. Whereupon mamma remarked sagely that, of course, American boys in Paris would keep to the customs of their own country. " Well, I don’t know,” said Willie, with quite a man-of-the-world air ; “ perhaps it is as well to conform to the customs of the country you are in, in some respects.”

Tuesday, August 19th. — The home is found. We went round yesterday all day, as I told you. unsuccessfully. This morning we set forth again. White placards abounded, and invited to pleasant-looking houses ; but the yellow ones were not only fewer in number, but also, it seemed, far less attractive in what they bad to offer. We went up, however, into a great many apartments. In some we only gave a glance round and retired, apologiving for the trouble we caused. Others we explored very thoroughly, and considered and reconsidered, trying to think that this defect or that inconvenience was counterbalanced by certain prettinesses or advantages. As the day wore on, I was ready to sit down and take possession of every apartment we looked at which had the requisite number of rooms and was within a reasonable distance of M. Gachotte’s school. Happily, I was overruled.

Half past two was our time for going to see the boys. So at half past two we turned our horses’ heads in the direction of the Faubourg St. Honoré. As we were passing down a pleasant street into which we turned from the Avenue des Champs Elysees, we caught sight of a yellow placard. We spoke to the coachman and he stopped at the gate. After a brief parley with the portress, our courier opened the door of the carriage. We alighted, passed through a court-yard, up a broad flight of steps, into a handsome entry, from which a pretty staircase led to the apartment. The staircase was carpeted, — a thing to be noted in Paris. Everything was fresh and well cared for ; unlike some of the houses we have seen to-day, in which the entries and staircases were like public thoroughfares. The apartment corresponded to the idea I had formed of it while we were mounting the stairs. It seemed to have been planned precisely for us ; the right number of rooms and the right sort ; large enough, not over large. They seemed to have been furnished by the persons who had lived in them ; not by an upholsterer, to order. The salon had an air of quiet, simple elegance, with a something of old-fashioned about it too, that suited me entirely. What is more than all, the windows look into beautiful gardens. One thing that I liked very much about this apartment was that the sleepingrooms of the domestics were nicely furnished. It looked as if good and considerate people had presided over the arrangements.

In all the other apartments in which I had installed myself in imagination, I looked forward to a large share of that domestic satisfaction which is found in ingenious expedient, in skilful arrangement, in triumph over difficulties. In all those apartments I said. " But these things will look very differently when it is our home.” This apartment announced itself at once as our home ; our real home, exactly prepared for us.

The proprietor, who bears an historical name, occupies the rez-dechaussée. His sister has the rooms over those we were looking at. They are the only occupants of the house, so that it will be very quiet. I am for engaging the apartment at once. I am afraid somebody else will take it if we do not secure it. But — there must be a but to everything in this world — it is “ far off.” “ You must not go above the Rond Point,” every one tells us. If we come here, we shall transcend the American limit. We shall be far from the theatres, far from the shops. But then we shall be near M. Gacliotte’s school, within a walking distance ; and that is everything to me. And again, this is the healthiest part of Paris. But it was not worth while to be precipitate. We went to the boys’ school. M. Gachotte received us, and, after a few polite expressions, sent for the boys. He withdrew discreetly when they appeared. I knew they would be homesick, and the first glance told me that they were so indeed.

“What is it, Alf ? ” I asked, for he was looking very dignified.

“ O, it is so monotonous ! ”

Only imagine an American boy, who has always enjoyed a complete independence, even as regards his studies, finding himself in a place where everything is planned out for him, no call or opportunity for the exercise of his own will in any direction. It is hard.

Willie, in the mean time, was standing close to me, holding my hand. I knew by the tightness of the pressure that his heart was full. But he was brave still.

We asked all the questions we could think of, and did not find that there was anything amiss, except the dulness and the separation from home. We were chiefly solicitous about Willie, because he has not been well lately. The voyage, the irregular hours which we cannot avoid when we are travelling, have told upon him. Within a few days he has lost his bright color, and has had a sedateness which does not belong to him. If he had not been so determined to go to school at once, we should not have sent him, but we thought it better to let him have his own way. We hoped that the regular hours and quiet life of the school might prove to be the best thing for him ; but to-day his eyes looked so large and wistful, and his little cheeks so delicate, that I feel very heavy-hearted about him.

M. Gachotte came back before we went. We asked him his opinion of the situation of the apartment we had seen. He answered that it was in every respect desirable ; and that it was a great advantage to have a proprietor with whom we could never have any petty, vexatious questions.

The boys went with us to the gate.

“ Well,” said their father, ‘‘you know you need not stay a day longer than you like. Only say the word and you shall go back to the hotel to-night.”

They are not at that point yet. No doubt the consciousness that they have the whole responsibility keeps them from rash decisions.

We return to our apartment; I, on the way, indulging in visions of receiving the boys in it on Saturday. But is it ours ? Will it be ours ? The yellow placard is in its place, — a favorable sign. The courier rings the bell and puts his head in at the opening gate. I half expect to see him withdraw it, obedient to a negative sign and brief explanation from the portress, and then to see the gate close, while he returns with, “ Engaged, ma’am, since you saw it.”

Carter steps back from the gate, but remains with his face towards it. It closes; but only as a preliminary to the opening of the great gates. The portress has accepted our return as a proof of serious intentions. She sees in us future patrons ; our carriage is worthy to enter the court-yard and to draw up before the very steps.

The lady who has the charge of letting the apartment arrived while we were taking our second survey. The matter was soon arranged ; the contract drawn up and signed upon the spot ; so that the apartment is now our own. No, not quite ; that is the only disappointment; we cannot have it until Saturday at noon.

It will, I believe, add to the interest of our apartment in your eyes, as it certainly does in mine, that it was once occupied by the wife of Henri de la Rochejacquelein, the hero of La Vendee. Our proprietor is their son.

When we had decided to take it, M. de la Rochejacquelein came in to see us. He is a stout, elderly gentleman, very republican in his appearance and dress, although a stanch legitimist, as one of his name should be. I remember to have seen reports of his speeches in the Assembly. We have engaged the apartment for three months. This fixes us in Paris for that period ; but I do not believe we shall be willing to leave the boys even then.

Wednesday, August 20th. —We went to see the boys again to-day. We felt very anxious as to how we should find Willie. His father told me to make him talk freely, and to ascertain whether he was staying because he really wished it, or out of pride or consistency. I find that he knows what he means, and that he had not been looking forward to school life as to a life altogether of pleasure. He was evidently aware that there was to be a good deal of tedium and hardship. But he says he knows “ it will be better for him in the end ” ; that he “ shall be more of a man for it.” Alfred has no doubt about staying, and I know be must feel satisfied that Willie is well off as to essentials, or he would advise us to take him away.

August 22d. — This morning our courier called our attention to a curious circumstance. A white dove had alighted on the head of the bronze statue of Napoleon in the Place Vendome. We went out upon the balcony and saw it. It remained there for more than an hour. Crowds collected round the monument, looking up. It was a very striking and beautiful sight, this pure white dove on the top of the black figure. Without doubt this singular circumstance will be received as an omen, and will be variously interpreted, according to the different political views. On the one hand, white is the color of the Bourbons. It might seem to signify the supremacy of this race over that of the Napoleons. But the Napoleonists may view in it a visible manifestation of the Divine favor ; a descent of the Holy Spirit upon the head of the house of Napoleon ; perhaps a consecration of that family to the imperial office. And the Republicans ? They do not ask after signs. But, while I was looking at the lovely apparition, I could not but see in this white dove of peace an emblem of the pure republic, which, more beautiful for the hard, black, soulless age on which it will descend, shall one day fix all eyes and draw all hearts.

Our future neighbor, Monsieur de la Rochejacquelein, is the candidate of the liberal legitimists for the Presidency. L'Ordre of to-day, August 22d, has an article signed A. Chambolle, which gives a short account of each of the parties in France. It speaks thus of the party of which Monsieur de la Rochejacquelein is the leader : “ The Gazette de France would have a right to complain if we were to omit the legitimists of the Droit National and of the Oriflamme,who demand universal suffrage more loudly than the Mountain, and who find themselves able to reconcile in their programme, we hardly know how, a genuine monarchical fidelity with many republican maxims and revolutionary traditions ; who, in short, find themselves admirably represented by their candidate for the Presidency of the Republic, Monsieur le Marquis de la Rochejacquelein.” The candidate of L'Ordre itself is the Prince de Joinville, who, it is maintained, may legally be a candidate for the Presidency, though not for a seat in the National Assembly, to be eligible to which his name must be found on the electoral list. The Constitution only requires the President to be a Frenchman, thirty years of age, in possession of his civil rights. Of these exile has not deprived the Prince. There is no legal objection to proposing him as a candidate for the Presidency, although the Assembly might prevent his election by refusing to revoke the decree of exile. Such are the views of the supporters of this candidateship. In the mean time it is not understood that the Prince de Joinville has proposed himself for it.

The candidate whose pretensions are most talked of is one who is certainly and avowedly ineligible, — the actual President.

By the terms of the Constitution, he cannot be a candidate until after the expiration of four years from the time of his going out of office. It is understood that he intends to evade this provision by not going out of office at all. Precisely how this object is to be accomplished is as yet obscure. Various plans are attributed to him. Some of them are of an incredible audacity,— incredible to American ears, at least ; and the coolness with which they are referred to, and the evidences of their existence discussed, would seem to indicate that there is no profound apprehension of their reality.

The first and most obvious means to his end is a revision of the Constitution with a view to the abrogation of article forty-five, which prevents him from offering himself as a candidate for the Presidency in the elections of 1852. The Constitution provides for its own revision, but has taken its precautions to prevent rash changes, carried by surprise. A decree of revision by the Assembly requires three fourths of the whole number of votes. The Assembly which decides on this measure is not the one to carry it outA new election must first take place, that the people may choose their representatives with a knowledge of the responsibility to be intrusted to them.

Louis Napoleon has already attempted to obtain a decree of revision from the National Assembly. The measure was defeated through the determined opposition of the Republicans.

The Republicans do not regard the Constitution as incapable of improvement ; but they believe that, under the present circumstances, any change in it is more likely to prejudice than to benefit the Republic. In any case, they will not hear of revision until the electoral law of the 31st May, 1850, shall have been repealed. They maintain that an Assembly elected under the restrictions of that law will not have been legally elected ; that all the acts of such an Assembly would be invalid ; that the revision of the Constitution whose framers were elected by universal suffrage can be made only by an Assembly the result of universal suffrage.

August 23d. — We are here at a most interesting time. The magnitude of the consequences to Europe and to the world of what is about to take place in France gives to the controversies and discussions now going on here a solemn importance. The legal term of the present government is approaching. What is to succeed ? This is the all-engrossing question, which each one answers according to his hopes or fears. All feel that what is before France is, in fact, a revolution, though perhaps a peaceful one. All agree that 1852 is to see a new order of things. Is it to see the liberation of the Republic ? the restoration of the old Mcnarchy ? the passage of a member of the house of Orleans through election to the Presidency, to election to the throne ? Finally, is it to see the empire ?

Of all the parties which are watching and working, each on its own account, the Republican, the most depressed at the present time, appears the most confident of the future. The Republicans have the Constitution on their side; they believe that they have the majority of the people with them. Imperialists and Royalists must rely on the aid of exceptional measures ; but the regular, legal course of things conducts the Republicans, so they believe, to certain triumph in the elections to which all are looking forward.

The first step towards this victory and its necessary condition is the repeal of the law of the 31st of May, 1850. This law, by which suffrage was restricted, and which has been, ever since its passage, a source of agitation and discontent throughout the country, they hope to see abrogated in the next session of the Assembly, which is to come together early in November.

When the people found themselves, in 1849, called upon for the second time to choose their legislators by universal suffrage, they thought that all was settled, their privileges secured beyond recall. Great pains had been taken to inspire them with distrust of the liberal leaders, whom they had been taught to regard as erratic, untrustworthy men ; immoral, ambitious, mere self-seekers, who flattered them to delude them. In short, it had been instilled into them that the most dangerous enemies of the Republic were the Republicans. The Royalist candidates, meanwhile, themselves condescended to cajolery, and, when it served, were eloquent in praise of poverty and labor. The people chose as their representatives these men, whose names were familiar to them ; men to whom they had been in the habit of looking up ; men of education, talent, and position. It did not occur to them that such men could be false to a trust. It is to be feared that some of them accepted this trust only to be false to it. What is certain is, that the majority of this Assembly, chosen by universal suffrage, soon showed itself openly reactionist, and early in its second year presented the monstrous spectacle of a representative assembly disfranchising its constituents.

This law of the 31st May, 1850, by which, in violation of the Constitution, three millions of electors had their names struck from the electoral lists, was, by the President who proposed it, and by the majority of the Assembly which passed it, intended as the deathsentence of the Republic. He saw in it a means of the revision of the Constitution for his own advantage ; they, a safe and easy way back to royalty.

But this measure, designed for the utter discomfiture of the Republicans, proved the instrument of their defence and vindication. It justified them before the people, who had been sedulously taught that the Republican chiefs were enemies of all law, all government, all rights ; but who now saw in them the defenders of the law, the supporters of the true government, the maintainers of rights legally acquired and arbitrarily withdrawn.

This measure had not, even from those whom it did not personally affect, the approbation that was expected. Many who would have approved a restriction of suffrage legally accomplished, saw that if the Constitution could be thus violated in one of its most important provisions, the Constitution was a mere farce, and there was no security for any right held under it. There is a large class of people whom this law does not instantly affect, but who may easily, by a change of circumstances, be brought under its exclusions. These cannot be friends of the law or of its framers. As for the disfranchised millions themselves, it is not to be doubted that the first use they make of their recovered privileges will be to reward their champions of the Assembly and the press.

This law does not seem to have profited its contrivers. At least, it has not profited the reactionist majority of the Assembly. There are those who think that Napoleon entrapped them into this imprudent measure, and that it is among his designs to take the initiative in proposing its repeal, thus placing himself before the country in the attitude of the defender of popular rights, and leaving to the Assembly the whole burden of their joint usurpation.

There is not now among the different parties of the Royalists the harmony there was, when in 1848 they united in Louis Napoleon to prevent the Republic from founding itself. The old Legitimists think it very audacious in the Orleanists to be setting up a candidate of their own, and are disdainful of the Legitimists of the new school, who see that, if royalty is to return, it must return republican.

The primitive Legitimists, and the Orleanists, however inimical on other points, are agreed in clinging to restricted suffrage.

Will the Royalist majority of the Assembly yield their ground on this question ? They must desire their own reelection, and can hardly obtain it by universal suffrage. And then, in case no one of the candidates for the Presidency receives the number of votes required for election by the people, the choice falls to the Assembly. Such an occurrence would greatly change the face of affairs for the Royalists. And it is more likely to happen under restricted suffrage.

But it is hoped that, in view of the unpopularity of this law, and, above all, in view of the dangerous designs now freely imputed to the President, a sufficient number of the members of the Right will unite with the Republicans, to remove this cause of agitation and pretext for usurpation.

In the mean time, the Napoleonist cry is for “revision” and “prorogation ” ; for the elimination, that is to say, of the inconvenient article fortyfive from the Constitution, and the extension of the Presidential term.

The President and his partisans are working zealously to influence the public mind in favor of these measures. Agents are sent into all the departments to win adherents, by whatever means. Efforts are made to obtain evidences of a popular demand for revision, in the form of resolutions of the councils of the arrondissements, and of the councils general of the departments ; as also in that of signatures to petitions industriously circulated.

Great account is made of the resolutions of councils favorable to revision ; and no hint is given that these councils, whose business is simply to administer the affairs of their department, are exceeding their province in volunteering an opinion upon national questions. But if a council happens to entertain views different from the President’s, as the council of the arrondissement of Limoges, for example, mark what happens. This audacious council passed a resolution to the effect “ that the Constitution ought to receive its entire execution ; and that the laws contrary to the Constitution ought to be repeated or modified.” It instanced the laws concerning the freedom of the press, and the right to hold meetings.

The President of the Republic forthwith issues a decree declaring that “ such resolutions are illegal ; that they are insulting to the great powers of the state, and an interference with the rights of the Legislative Assembly A

The effrontery of this government would be laughable, if it were not formidable.

Saturday, August 23d : Evening. — We took possession of our apartment this afternoon. At eight o’clock we were all in order and sent for the boys. They are enchanted to be at home, although they are now almost reconciled to the school. Alfred admits that it is a good school. He says that the eight hours’ study are so divided that they do not seem more than five.

August 27th. — The Bonapartists are giving up all expectation of obtaining a revision of the Constitution from the National Assembly. There is no hope of a three-fourths vote in its favor. The opposition of the Republican mimority is too determined. “ The mountain,” says La Patrie, a leading Napoleonist journal, “ with its two hundred members perfectly disciplined and resolved, would suffice to prevent the revision of the Constitution.”

What does this avowal say for the “ Mountain,” for the Republican minority of the Assembly ? In a time of corruption, of intrigue, of treasons, more or less plausibly varnished, — of unprincipled selfishness, in short, — this little band of two hundred stands firm for France. What would not Napoleon give to seduce ten or twenty of these men from their allegiance ? What might not these leaders aspire to who must now see the places which are theirs by every right of character, of ability, of energy, of patriotism, vauntingly enjoyed by their revilers ?

The hope of revision through a vote of the Assembly as at present constituted being thus abandoned by the Napoleonist party, new schemes arise to take its place. One truly Napoleonic is put forth by La Patria.

The National Assembly is elected for three years. At least forty-five days before the expiration of its own term, it must fix the time of the new elections. If it should fail to do this, the electors have a right to assemble thirty days before the close of the session, and elect a new Assembly, which shall enter on its functions the day after those of the preceding one expire.

La Patrie asserts that, though the Constitution requires the Assembly to fix the time for the election of a new one at least forty-five days before its own dissolution, yet there is nothing to prevent it from fixing this time much earlier. “ To obtain the object proposed,” says that journal, “ it is necessary that these new elections should take place early in December.” “ Doubtless,” it proceeds to explain, “the Constitution has fixed at three years the duration of the legislative assemblies, but that is a right which is conferred, not a necessity imposed. They have the power, but not the obligation, of sitting three years.”

But how can the party of order assure itself that the vote taken in December will be favorable to revision and to the prolongation of the powers of the actual President ?

“ There is a very simple means,” says La Patrie, “ of assuring to the electors complete security and the most entire liberty.”

This means is a law which shall direct that the elections, instead of taking place on the same day, shall be held on different days in each of the departments composing a military division. “ Each general might, therefore, send successively to the different points where an election was taking place the troops necessary to prevent the guilty excesses of the demagogical party.”

Under these conditions, it is thought that the elections cannot fail to result favorably to revision and prorogation. Under similar conditions universal suffrage would not probably endanger the hopes of the empire.

Now, which of these parties feels itself strong with the people ? The Napoleonists who know and own that they must rely for success on armed force ; the Royalists, who have no hope, except in restricted suffrage ; or the Republicans, who, without other means of control than logic and eloquence, ally their prospects with the free and universal vote of France ?

That Napoleon does not feel himself well assured of his own popularity, is proved by the repressive measures which are found necessary. Day after day we hear of editors or writers fined or imprisoned for seditious articles. Day after day appear announcements of the removal or suspension of mayors of communes, suspected of “demagogical opinions.” Here, a municipal council is dissolved ; there, the National Guard disbanded. The village fetes are, it seems, so many scenes of revolutionary demonstration. Not only political, but social meetings among the country people are becoming illegal. The police listen under the windows to their songs ; and, if they catch an objectionable word, such, perhaps, as liberty or fraternity, burst in. They command silence. The singers assert their right to sing Republican songs under a Republic. This persistence is a resistance to authority; then arrests, rescue, reinforcements to the gendarmerie ; general disturbance ; quiet at last, through free use of carabines and swords. The prefect arrives the next day, looks around ; “ his presence restores calm.” Follow announcements in the papers of an attempt at insurrection in such a place, evidently a part of a general plan, baffled by the promptitude and zeal of the authorities. All meetings and fetes of every kind are forbidden in that neighborhood until further orders. Nor is this the end. The authors of the disturbance — not the gendarmes, of course — are to be tried and punished. To have been wounded by a bullet or a sword-thrust is in itself a proof of guilt. A still more conclusive proof is any superiority of talent or education, if this is found in company with Republican principles. To be accused, on such a charge, is to be sentenced. And so these young men, — for it is commonly the younger men who thus compromise themselves,— these young men, a week before the hope of their humble homes, and full of their own happy hopes, are candidates for imprisonment ; perhaps for that worst doom that a Frenchman can meet, — deportation. Wretchedness settles down on the cluster of villagers which had sent representatives to the annual fete. They are not probably converted to Napoleonism, or supposed to be so. They are fit subjects for the application of martial law on the first occasion.

M. L. P.