NEWS OF THE WEEK.
THE fearful crisis of "May 1852 " has been antedated, and France lies prostrate before a military despotism. Louis Na- poleon has swept away the Legislative Assembly ; dissolved the High Court of Justice, convoked, in the terms of the Constitution, by the residuary members of that Assembly ; and, relying upon bayonets and cannon, reigns supreme. The Imperial usurpation of the 2d of December 1804 has been parodied by the Presidential usurpation of the 2d of December 1851.
His pretended proposals of "new constitution" and the rest are too impudent even for farce. He calls upon the nation to establish himself as Dictator of France for ten years. He orders the army to set the example to the citizens of how they are to vote ; and the alternatives on which the soldiery are asked to give their votes are not " Who is to be President ?" but " Do you eonsent-that Louis Napoleon be Dictator—yes or no ? " With the ascertained- illusory character of the provisions made to insure secrecy of voting in France, Louis Napoleon entertains no doubt of 'the decision of these regimented electors, and counts upon the ser- 'Vile imitation of his Praetorian guards by the civilians. • Havmg- thus provided for his own recognition as chief of the _state, he next takes care that there shall be no efficient check upon his absolute self-will. There is to be a representative Legislature neutralised:by a nominee Senate ; and even the Legislative As- sembly is te he chosen by a sham election. There is to be no scrutiny in_any case. The electoral lists may be manipulated and falsified by the executive officials in the provinces appointed by the President ;- and suspected electors may have their votes re- fused, without any power to appeal against the wrongful decision. .
It-is no republic, not even a constitutional monarchy, that Louis Napoleon is attempting to establish in France, but a pure unmiti- gated despotism. If the people remain quiet and submissive, he will allow them to go through the forms of election ; but if not, he relies upon the army, and his creatures with whom he has packed the executive departments throughout the provinces. If he suc- ceed, henceforth there is but one will and one power in France. This new revolution has been effected with a suddenness and completeness probably never surpassed. A kind of cleverness can- not be denied to the man who has contrived and executed such a coup d'etat. But it is the cleverness of profound dissimulation, of an utter disregard of truth, honourable sentiment, and regard for promises or the obligation of an oath. It is the cleverness not even of a Machiavel, but of the degraded pupil of the lowest haunts of gambling and profligate indulgence. It is the cleverness of the Midnight thief, moving stealthily to his nefarious purpose in the hours when burglars are on the prowL Any man who has emanci- pated himself from every sentiment of honour, who is prepared to sacrifice everything and everybody to his own selfish objects, and who can tell lies with an imperturbable countenance, is capable of
such -cleverness. ' - For a part of the first day the success of Louis Napoleon ap- peared complete. The political leaders opposed to him had been surprised and incarcerated ; the soldiery in Paris obeyed implicitly ; the public seemed apathetic ; the shops were open, carriages of all kinds circulated as usual ; after a momentary hesitation the corre- spondents of foreign journals were allowed to transmit their ver- sions of the event by electric telegraph. The people were stunned and jacqttieseent, and amused themselves by laughing at the poeti- cal justice which had overtaken the arch-intriguer Thiers. But this halcyon State of things was soon interrupted. The insur- rections in the capital have not as yet been very formidable ; but blood has been shed, arrests have multiplied, and the publication of :most of the journals suspended ; even the circulation of public carriages has been interdicted. It is admitted that resistance to
the President has reared its head in some of the provinces. There are mutterings of a rising storm ; and the new Government is every hour becoming more jealous and more tyrannical in its actions. The reign of Louis Napoleon, if it last, must of necessity be a reign of terror. The usurper may not have contemplated this, but he can only maintain the position he has assumed by advancing from one act of cruelty and oppression to another. Already he has, apparently nothing loth, commenced this career. The inearceiation of some of the most distinguished and most venerated public men in France was effected in a manner that for a time - left their families ignorant of and unable to learn their fate or place of de- tention. Domestic distress of the most poignant kind has been in- flicted to secure the aggrandizement of one man.
The prospects of France are frightful. There is no law, no legi- timately constituted authority, in the country. No man, not even he who has swept away the Legislative Assembly and the High Court of Justice, can feel secure. Power is to be scrambled for and will be retained by the strongest. If the French people tamely submit to the impostor who has played this atrocious game, they will proclaim themselves alike incapable of freedom and of sound moral judgment. They will be degraded in the eyes of the world by their submission to one who has aped his uncle's usurpation without his uncle's extenuating plea, (that there was no government in the country,) without his uncle's titles to admiration and confidence, without his uncle's capacity of statesmanship. The first Napoleon was called by his enemies Jupiter-Scapin ; the second Napoleon is the Seapin without the Jupiter. The nation has been at once outraged and insulted by this usurper : the only escape left to Frenchmen from his degrading bondage is by civil war. Dreadful predicament!
A. little more remote perhaps, but still in appalling proximity, is the contingency of a foreign war. Louis Napoleon relies upon the army. He has no antecedents of achievements and glory to dazzle it ; he must buy its support by employing, rewarding, flattering its vanity. There is not a country in Europe but sees its neigh- bour's house is on fire, and trembles lest the flames should extend to and catch its own.
Anarchy and civil war in France, confusion and a general war throughout Europe—the war of Cossack and Republican foretold by the exile of St. Helena—are the possible consequences of the crime of Louis Napoleon. France and Europe are to be convulsed that the daring adventurer may be a " prosperous gentleman."
This coup d'etat goes far to justify the views, if not the policy, of the Legislative Assembly. That the manner in which the As- sembly opposed Louis Napoleon was frequently injudicious, and cal- culated to lower it in public esteem, is true : but it is now made evi- dent that the Assembly's suspicions of the President's designs were well founded ; and its attacks upon him were made with the weapons the Constitution had placed in their hands—were within the limits of legality ; whereas in his attack upon them he has set all law at defiance. The struggle now isnot between Louis Napoleon and the Red Republicans on the one hand, or the reactionary intrigues of the Legitimists on the other, but between Louis Napoleon and every Frenchman who desires to see his country enjoy settled or- der and the government of the laws.
