NEWS OF THE WEEK.
Tint Usurpation in France continues its lawless and perfidious career. Nearly one half of the departments are placed in a state of siege. The publicittion of the few journals not devoted to the Elysee, that are allowed to appear, is suspended if one word of independent comment is introduced into their columns, or if they refuse to insert articles sent by the Government. Ships have been fitted out to convey to Cayenne all persons the Usurpation may accuse of having been at.any time connected with secret societies. Gratuities, decorations, and flatteries, are lavished on the soldiers engaged in the slaughter of the Parisian bourgeoisie. M. Bona- parte treats France as a horse-breaker treats a spirited horse, coaxing and coercing it by turns.
It is scarcely doubted that the Usurpation will be successful for the present ; and the Usurper himself makes a show of acting on this belief. He has liberated the greater number of his distin- guished prisoners : Cavaignae, however, has, like his unlikeness Thiers, been obliged to expatriate himself; and the other Generals are still at Ham. But the edicts signed "Louis Napoleon" be- come more and more autocratic in their tone, and relate to transac- tions which a government sincerely waiting to receive the na- tional sanction of its assumption would naturally postpone. Nor is it improbable that the revolution of the 2d December will be submitted to for a time. The nation, previously split into a number of irreeoncileable parties, has been taken by sur- prise. The bugbear of " Socialism " overcomes the better judg- ment of many ; and the manufacturing and shopkeeping classes, in their passion for peace and order, are eager to secure any semblance of advantage in the passing day. Lastly, there is the perfect cen- tralization of civil functionaries, an unscrupulous secret police, an immense army, and all the appliances of railroads and electric tele- graphs at the command of the Usurper. The manipulation and scrutiny of the votes to be given today and tomorrow is en- tirely in the hands of his !agents. The sham election will very likely give him a large majority; if not, his creatures will give him the name of ode.
Yet withal there are symptoms of inherent weakness in his seeming strength. The massacre of unoffending spectators in the streets and in the houses of the Boulevards has produced a rooted hatred of the Usurper among the better classes of Parisian society. In all the five departments of Brittanny, the Conseils-Generaux have accompanied their declarations that they will maintain law and order with protests that the proceedings of the 2d December were illegal. The small proprietors of the department of Var, although in com- fortable circumstances, took part in the resistance to the Usurpa- tion almost to a man. In the three principal military schools the vote was against the President. The soldiers of the army in Algiers are understood either to have voted against or to have abstained from voting ; and this rumour is rendered probable by the fact that the state of the military vote has ceased to be pub- lished.* The votes of the navy, as reported, show an opposi- tion in the ratio of one to three. Even the alleged revival of mercantile confidence is fallacious. The increased purchases of raw Material are confined to the districts in which textile manufactures of silk and cotton predominate ; and as early as the close of the Industrial Exhibition in London it was an- nounced that they were about to receive many orders from Ame- rica and other countries. The utmost that can be said with respect
* By the telegraphic announcement this morning, dated last night from Paija, it appears that certain garrisons and squadrons of artillery had voted —giving a total of 2495 suffrates.
to the business of Havre, Lyons, and Mulhouse, is that the ex- pected improvement has not been prevented by the coup d'etat. The relation in which the moral and intelligent portion of French society stand to the Usurper is at best that of a reluctant submis- sion, biding its time to revolt. Even the agencies of force and fraud, upon which he mainly relies, are marked by symptoms of innate weakness or insincerity. A pretty numerous body of fron- deurs have already taken the field against him. Though the newspapers have been silenced, lithographic attacks upon his mea- sures—argumentative or sarcastic—are widely circulated. The armed neutrality of the political leaders of all parties in Paris, and the example set by the Councils-General of Brittanny encourage a faint hope that some means may yet be devised for rallying the nation to reestablish a Parliamentary government.
For the success of the Pretender and the extinction of Parlia- mentary government in France are synonymous terms. With the whole intelligence of the nation against him, he can only reign by the suppression of public discussion—by gagging the press and all deliberative assemblies. It would be a humiliating spectacle to see a people 'among whom intellectual activity, so varied in its characters and pursuits, is so widely diffused, both in the capital and the provinces,' nightmare-ridden by a despot so contemptible. His success hitherto has been due to profound dissimulation and a certain tact for conforming to the national tastes. His strength lies in the utter disregard of humanity, honour, and moral re- straint. He best answers the pithy description of Philip of Mace- don by Demosthenes—" a profligate and perjured liar." * What, ever he may be next week—for a sham election may give a sem- blance of national recognition to his usurped powers, that fo- reigners will be bound to respect—he is at this moment an out- law—unprotected by any laws, for he has overthrown them all. He has not, as some seem disposed credulously to expect, given peace to France ; he has plunged her back-into the vortex of revo- lutionary violence.
* adtKourra, Kat EartopKovvra, Kat YEtaioduEvov.
