TOPICS OF THE DAY.
M. DE BROGUE AS A CONSERVATIVE.
THE Due de Broglie has saved himself once more, and has only saved himself to show that he has learned nothing by the severe warning he has received. The defeat of Thursday week was evidently followed by a struggle within the Adminis- tration, for nothing of its result was known till Monday, and even on Monday opinion was in favour of a new Cabinet, with the Duo Decazes or M. de Goalard at its head, and the Due de Broglie left out in the cold. Such a Cabinet, by con- ciliating the Left Centre, or rather by rendering its concilia- tion possible, would have made the Marshalate safe till the elections were over, and perhaps have rescued some small section of the present majority from its inevitable destiny,— dismissal. The Marshal-President, however, decided in favour of his friend, and the Legitimists promised, if nothing were done to announce the permanence of the Septennial regime— that is, to declare all monarchical intrigues disloyal—to accede to a vote of confidence, which accordingly was carried, first by 355 to 316 in secret ballot, and then by 379 to 321 in open voting,—a difference revealing this ugly fact, that there are a score of Members in the Assembly who fear disfavour with the Government more than they fear disfavour with their own constituents. Hopeless of re-election, perhaps, they still hope on for cash. The Premier, elated with a victory which, according to Continental notions, was but a moderate one, for he did not under the ballot obtain the support of a clear half of the House, proceeded on Tuesday with his Bill for the nomination of Mayors, and was opposed, to his extreme annoy- ance, by M. Christophle, President of the Left-Centre group- i.e., of all who retain the distinctive characteristics of the party —who in a brilliant but moderate speech explained to the House the historic connection of Government with the Mayors, and ex- posed the absurdity of the Bill. The Government, he declared, had made no serious charge against the Mayors that should justify such an insult as this Bill, had removed only 95 of them out of 72,000 Mayors and Deputy-Mayors—that is, for disobedi- ence to instructions—and was unable to bring forward any ground of complaint against so numerous a body. The truth was that the Nomination Bill was an election measure which had been tried under the Napoleonic re'ginze, and would fail under the re'gime of MacMahon, for to succeed it demanded a prestige which the Government had not, a policy which it was afraid to avow, and a terrorism which it would not venture to employ. He accused the Right of pressing Marshal Mac- Mahon too far in compelling him to disavow the permanence of his own status, and sat down, having produced such an effect on the Assembly that M. de Baragnon, who rose to fix some charge on the Mayors, and in default of any other, accused them of promoting civil interments, was laughed down, and only left on the minds of the audience a conviction that the power was demanded either to manipulate the electors or to promote the interests of clerics, and that the project would fail, for the dismissal of two leading citizens in each Commune would merely enlist two leading citizens in each Commune against the Ministry which proposed and the Assembly which sanctioned such excessive tyranny.
Indeed, M. de Broglie is himself aware of this fresh source of danger. On Tuesday he made another speech to the Com- mittee of Thirty—a much more convenient audience, members being less given to laughter—in which he revealed his own inner certainty that all France was against him and his policy of retrogression. He was urging the Committee to hasten their work, as the production of the Organic Laws could alone check the incessant attacks upon the Government, and mentioned incidentally the fact that the Cabinet had made up their minds as to the form of the Second Chamber. M. Dufaure, the rigid but able Parliamentarian and right-hand of M. Thiers, had proposed, and we imagine, from the terms employed, the Committee were inclined to accept, a very adroit scheme, under which the Second Chamber should be elected by universal suffrage, but selected from among men possessed of high qualifications either in money, rank, service, intelligence, or the like. That device would have certainly produced a strong Chamber, very like our own House of Com- mons—that is, a Chamber of the higher classes and the experienced classes, selected by universal suffrage, strong with the double strength of capacity and of universal sanction—but M. de Broglie would have none of it. He had discovered that "Revolutionists were to be found even in such categories," felt sure that the electors would pick them oat, and. pre- ferred that the Senators should be nominated by the Govern- ment, the Councils-General, and other similarly consti- tuted bodies. If the nominees are in the majority, as they will be, this Second Chamber will be merely the Napoleonic, Senate, which disappeared at the first breath of Revolution, dying without a struggle and almost without notice ; while, if the Councils-General elect a majority, the Second Chamber will be as Radical as the First, and quite unwilling to- modify its measures or control its freedom. The whole idea is grotesque, and amply justifies the taunt said to have been applied to the MacMahonist re'gime by M. Rouher, that it wanted nothing of the Napoleonic system except a. policy, a plebiscite, and power ; but M. de Broglie is evidently incurable. While admitting that even among " high " categories of candidates there is a dangerous number of Re- volutionists, and acknowledging that property cannot be made a qualification for the electorate, he declares that his Government desires to restrict universal suffrage by raising the qualifi- cation of age to twenty-five years, by imposing a residence of three years, and by demanding in proof of residence payment for that time of direct taxes. This is to demand a property qualification, and the effect of the measure will be to die- franchise the mobs of the great cities, whose rifles are in- finitely more important than their votes, and to leave all power to the bourgeoisie and peasantry, who, except in Paris, have become solidly Republican, so Republican that M. de Broglie cannot trust even their Mayors, but must take into his own hands their nomination. He says he must appoint the Mayors,. who are all Radicals, he allows that no category of electors can be found sure to make the Second Chamber Conservative, and yet he awakens all the dangerous susceptibilities of Frenchmen about universal suffrage, in order to give a monopoly of power to the men he wishes to supersede and the classes he cannot trust. He plays directly into the hands of the Bonapartiste, whose- most formidable lever is universal suffrage, in order to accom- plish something which he believes to be nothing all the while. We are not, be it understood, opposing his plan. It is a cool proceeding, it is true, for a temporary Government and a dis- credited-Assembly to disfranchise a sixth of the voters who themselves power ; but still his new constituency will be better than the old one, more determined to build a tranquil and strong Republic, less exposed to clerical influences, and more, infinitely more, determined to have done with him him- self. They do not forget that M. de Broglie is a Revolutionist who the instant he took office in a Republic tried to set up a throne, or that they have him to thank for the dismissal of the statesman of their own choice in favour of the soldier by whom he has been superseded, and whose pedigree has actually been sent to the " Almanach de Gotha." It was not the masses who overthrew Polignac, and a worse Polignac is. here,—a man who thinks that an Orleanist may be a Ca3sar, and calls upon the peasant to endorse a despotism while refusing the suffrage to that peasant's son. Is it the peasant land- lords and the shopkeepers who will be radical ? asks M. de Broglie, while affirming that his one "object is to prevent the legalisation of Radicalism," that is, to keep Radicalism outside the fortress to attack it, instead of inside to defend it, and we reply in the strong negative he desires. The classes to which he would confine the electorate are Conservative, not Revolu- tionary, and therefore they will keep the only form of govern- ment which cannot be overturned except by a revolution, namely, the Republic. The power he is suppressing is that of the Pretenders—among whom we rank the Assembly as the first—the power he is so steadily building up is that of the Republic. He does not intend that, of course, hoping always for a saviour of society in the Comte de Paris under his own guidance, but that is the obvious effect of the plans which he almost orders the Committee of Thirty to accept, and which will in a few days be brought before an Assembly elected by universal suffrage solely to make a peace.
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