Thiers, in a manifesto of May 24, which we have
carefully analysed elsewhere, gives a final decision in favour of immediate dissolution. Of course he quizzes his rivals and taunts his foes for their inability to make a monarchy, an inability for which they turned him out, but the main object of his address to his friends is to induce the Assembly to dissolve itself. The people, he says,—not having yet heard the news from Nevers,—persistently desire a Republic, but, whatever they desire, it is to the people, as Sovereign arbiter, that an Assembly too distracted by divi- sions to be able to govern must refer its powers. It is from them that it must take new rights and renewed energy. It is stated that Marshal MacMahon is quite of this, opinion, and that at the next Ministerial crisis be will either take a plebiscite, or dissolve the Assembly by persuasion or force, as may appear most feasible. This would be, in fact, a violent coup d'e'tat, and probably a bloody one, and it is to avoid this, among other evils, that M. Thiers presses the voluntary dissolution.
