The " State of Siege" Bill has passed the French
Legislature, and puts an end to that opening for a legal coup d'itat which was the great fear of the constitutional party during the long suspense of October and November last. It provides that a State of Siege can only be declared by a law, and only in case of " imminent peril, resulting from foreign war or an armed insurrection." The law which declares the state of siege must specify the com- munes, arrondissements, and departments to which it applies, and fix the term of duration. In case the Chambers are not in session at the time that the peril occurs, the President, on the advice of his Council of Ministers, may declare the state of siege provisionally, but " the Chambers then reassemble of right within two days." In case a dissolution had occurred, so that there is no possibility of a reassembling of the Chamber of Deputies, the President cannot,—even pro- visionally,—declare the state of siege, unless it be on occasion of foreign war, and then only in the departments threatened by the enemy. If, when a provisional state of siege has been de- clared by the President, the two Chambers on meeting cannot agree as to whether it shall be maintained or raised, the state of siege is raised, ipso facto, by their disagreement. It will be seen how very carefully this law stops up all the gaps by which an uncon- stitutional bias might show itself, had the law been less explicit.
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