NEWS OF THE WEEK.
EVENTS in France seem to be hurrying towards some as yet invisible catastrophe. Marshal MacMahon is firm in his seat, 'there is no chance of disobedience in the Army, and there is no probability of any large popular rising. The Government, how- ever, has been defeated in an attempt to cripple universal suffrage in municipal elections, the Left Centre has demanded dissolution, and a furious quarrel has broken out between the Bonapartists and the Republicans, in which the populace takes -sides. It is found necessary to station large bodies of police, -and even soldiers, at the railway station to Versailles to protect the Deputies ; large Republican mobs gather to hoot or applaud individual members, and M. Gambetta has actually been struck with a cane. The striker, the Comte de Sainte-Croix, a Bona- partist, acknowledges that his object was to provoke M. Gam- Betts to a duel, in which he doubtless hoped the Republican leader would fall a victim. The Assembly appears too excited to work, and it is by no Means certain that the Dissolution so long resisted may not arrive in a day. The parties appear to have become red-hot, the return of M. Bonrgoing for the Nievre having made the Bonapartists intolerably conceited and the Republicans as intolerably suspicious. Up to the latest accounts, however, no disturbance of public order had taken place, and it is possible that Marshal MacMahon may be able to maintain it until the Chamber can order or refuse a legal dissolution.
