18 AUGUST 1877, Page 2

Marshal MacMahou is starring in the North-West, accompanied by the

Due do Broglie, making speeches and receiving addresses. Some of the latter are tolerably plain-spoken. At Evreux, for example, the Mayor-adjoint told the President that the town " was profoundly attached to the Republic," and that all the Marshal " could do for its maintenance and consolidation would insure the citizens' warm sympathies," and that the "Norman population ardently longed for the cessation of the present crisis." The Marshal, in his reply, affirmed that he did not menace the Constitution, and also desired the cessation of the crisis, but "through a restoration of the accord momentarily disturbed among the public powers." The Chamber of Com- merce also declared that stability could only be given to the country " by an Executive resting on an elected Parliament," to which the Marshal retorted that he had preferred, in the interests

of stability, a passing crisis " to an abasement of authority before the excessive pretensions of one Chamber." The Mat-slw'. speeches are growing more moderate ; the 2k/maim?' has denied, on his behalf, the rumour that he intended to declare a State of siege ; and the Conservatives are evidently becoming aware that they will be defeated at the elections. The Bonapartists are therefore growing furious, and tell the Marshal that if he does. not strike a coup d'elat he will be wanting to his duty. Did any- body ever strike a coup d'iftat on behalf of somebody else, unless the somebody possessed the incommunicable claim of birth?