15 NOVEMBER 1873, Page 4

TOPICS OF THE DAY.

THE FRENCH CRISIS. Av. have still a hope, but it is a very thin one. To all appearance, the Left Centre have betrayed both the Republican cause and the people of France ; and the Dictator- ship is to be granted to Marshal MacMahon without the consent of France, and through the vote of an Assembly in which thirteen Departments are imperfectly represented. We left the Assembly last week just forming the special Bureau by selections from the standing Bureau; and by a happy accident the Republicans obtained a great advantage. The Due d'Aumale was obliged to attend to his duties as President of the Court which is trying Marshal Bazaine, and his bureau therefore sent up a Radical, thus leaving the pro- portions eight to seven against the proposal for a Dic- tatorship. It was evident, however, from the first that the Left Centre dreaded a rupture with the Marshal. They acceded to a vote declaring it competent to the Assembly to prolong the President's powers beyond its own duration, thus declaring the Assembly constituent ; they voted for his retain- ing power till the " organic laws " were arranged ; they gave up after a short debate, maintained chiefly by the Left, their right to interpellate the Ministry on the vacant seats ; they visited the President, and on his assur- ing them that he adhered to his Message, but would retire before any hostile vote of the Assembly, they, with the exception of M. de Remusat, expressed themselves satisfied. It is believed that they will report in favour of a " compromise,"—an extension of the Marshal's powers for five years from the dissolution of this Assembly, thus making him First President of the Republic, even if the Assembly is hostile to him ; and failing that, they will apparently vote the ten years pure and simple. Not one of them has joined in the demand for a dissolution, and it is known that they dislike the prospect as threatening their own seats,—France becoming more Republican every day ; and not one of them has suggested that the Presidency of a Legitimist Marshal, though endurable hereafter, must be fatal in the beginning to Republican institutions. In fact, they have, to all ap- pearance, yielded even on the point of the thirteen vacant seats, and are prepared to become the auxiliaries, or rather servants, of the Centre Right, the prudent party who want military repression before all things, even the Comte de Paris. Their vote, if given next week en bloc, will of course secure to the Duke de Broglie's coup d'etat a large majority, more espe- cially as he has secured the Bonapartists, who having ascertained that a plebiscite would establish the Republic, have ratted once again,—this time, it is reported, with the approval of the Empress, who cannot bear an alliance, however temporary, with Radicals who are not for Rome. The debating of next week, therefore, ought, upon every mode of calculation, to create a Dictatorship about which France has never been con- sulted, either in form or substance, and to which she is heartily opposed,—the last fact being clear from the reluctance to dissolve. The organic laws limiting the President's powers will be pottered over or voted down, the constitutional laws will be talked about for months, and meanwhile a Government of Combat will alter the suffrage; suppress the Press, forbid sedition, especially in the shape of " Vive la Republique !" and remain ready whenever the signal is given to vote the Monarchy. They may, even if Gambetta fails to suppress the threatened rising in the South as he suppressed it once before, do it by military violence, and turning to the Left Centre, quote a second White Terror as proof positive of the necessity for absolutism.

There remains, however, one single hope. M. Thiers has not yet spoken in the great debate, he has not given up his idea of meeting the "prolongation " by " the Dissolution," and he may produce arguments, or even sentiments, which will carry the Left Centre back, not to the Left, but to himself, as their natural leader and most fitting President of the Republic. He may even exercise a strong influence over the Centre Right, whose oracle he was under the Monarchy of July, by proving to them that the Dictatorship is not a step towards the Constitutionalism they profess to desire, but towards the Napoleonism they dislike, and the Clerical absolutism against which even their political timidity is ready to arrange itself. They refused the White Flag, even when presented in the name of Order, and they are now to accept a military rule destined only to prepare for it without securing the order they desire. With no opening for new careers—for the doors of the Assembly are to be dosed—with the Press extinguished, with soldiers monopolising all distinctions with the great cities held down by military force, France will be no place for peaceable people intent on counting their cash, and buying pictures, and discussing everything except action on the side of freedom. They may, remembering their constituents and their 'pledges and their fate under a Revolution, rally to M. Thiers, and enable him to use effectively the argument that even Napoleon con- descended to ask the people before he assumed the purple. It must not be forgotten that M. Thiers and M. Gambetta can offer them one great bribe,--viz. re-election, for as the Legitimists and Orleanists will 'be dismissed, their numbers will not be so formidable, and the Remusat election shows, that outside of Paris such a bargain— which will be quite fair, for they will have saved the Republim —can be most strictly kept. It is conceivable that under debate they may be won yet ; and if they are, no majority of less than fourteen will give the Marshal even the modicum of Parliamentary right which he has been persuaded to accept as a substitute for the free voice of the French people. This, we say, is our hope ; but this is a very thin one, for the men of the Left Centre have always dreaded to dispense with military- repression, have always looked on France, as a sort of box whence. any Genius of destruction might arise unkss the lid, the Army, were kept on, and sealed with the signet of Solomon,--that is, we presume, in this instance their own most prudent approval. They do not trust the people one jot more than the Legitimists, and less than Napoleon III. ever seemed to do. Their duty and, we may add, that of the extreme Left, who sometimes talk as if Republics reigned by right divine, is before all things to consult France, to ask her fairly what her will is, and then to submit quietly to that will, be it even ex- pressed in the person of the Comte de Chambord. This is what M. Thiers is believed to ask, and this is the only course- consistent with common political morality. Every or any- other course accepted by the Chamber, except as the merest temporary expedient, is a military coup d'e'tat, not even veiled by Parliamentary forms ; for if the Army were away, France would; enforce a dissolution by a pressure nothing but military violence- could resist. The talk about Constitutional Bills is talk merely, even if the Left Centre have the moral courage to adhere to- their promises. They have no right whatever to pass au& Bills before France has been consulted, and usurp her rights when they chatter about Second Chambers almost as com- pletely as when they declare her a Monarchy, a Republic, or ax Military despotism.