It seems but too true that the Government of M.
Buffet has really come to the suicidal resolution to insist on the change from the mode of voting called the scrutia de lisle to that called the scruuin d'arrondissement,—the ward system, which breaks up large constituencies into fractions, each to elect its separate member,—as a proposal by which the Government will stand or fall; and worse still, there is reason to fear that a defeat would result in an indefinite postponement of the elections, instead of, as it ought to do, in an immediate appeal to the country. That sounds very like a bad French copy, under a nominal Republic, of the Stuart policy in England under a monarchy which was still held by many as almost of right divine. There is something positively grotesque in the President of a Republic who admits that he owes his election solely to the National Assembly, setting up his will not only over the will-of that Assembly, but over the will of the people who elected it, so long as he is not permitted to consult them under a device of his own for making them say what he wishes them to say and what they do not choose to say. Indeed, what he virtually declares is this, 'Let me elaborate the speaking-apparatus for you, and I will believe all it says as if it were your voice ; otherwise I shall con- sult my own inspirations as to what you wish, rather than any language of yours.'
