The characteristic of the foreign news is still unsettlement—. steadfast
to change alone. In the French Legislative Assembly, the debate on the Education Bill is chiefly, interesting for fetching out the disposition of the Legitimists and Conservatives to pro- mote their own ends by restoring priestly power; a proposal not inconsistent in the Count de 3fontalembert, but peculiarly dis- gusting in the cold calculating adventurer Thiers. The other de- bate of the week, on the transportation of the June insurgents, exhibits a bitterness against the Government among the Republi- cans, which is even still on the increase, and means mischief. Both extremes of the Assembly testify, by their widely alienated feeling, that they accept the estrangement which the President
has offered by taking his isolated position. -
The discussions in the Prussian Parliament, on the draft of a constitution, do not place the royal intelligence in a very favour- able light. • Some important points are in dispute, and the sug- gestions directly emanating from the King are not happy. Fre- derick William proposes a most complicated kind of Upper Cham- ber, compounded of his own family, mediatized princes, hereditary peers selected from among the noble families, peers for life, profes- sional men, and elected senators—the nominees forming the larger portion. It looks like a composition to prevent confidence or prac- tical working. He makes other proposals equally infelicitous. But the suggestion that the Ministers should be responsible to "the King and the Country "- sh6vis that he has not rightly-appre- hended the limitations and defences' of Constitutional Monarchy-- that he does not understand the manner in which representative freedom can be reconciled with the Sovereign's inviolability. Fre- derick William cannot make up his mind to let go the last rem- nant of arbitrary power ; the mystic has some abiding notions of Divine right and a correlative responsibility ; moreover, he is not very clearheaded.
The conspiracy in Russia, of which the punishments have just been gazetted, looks more formidable than it was understood to have been. High names are implicated; and it Would appear that disaffection has spread very wide. It may be that the unwieldy despotism is drawing near to a Russian Runnymede.
