The Right and Left in the French Assembly have been
engaged all the week in a new straggle. The Government have shown a desire to confine the Committee of Thirty on the Constitutional Laws almost exclusively to the Right, instead of, as usual, repre- senting all fractions. Their idea at first was to admit only three opponents, but the Left, indignant at such oppression, put in blank papers, so that the half of the House never voted, This produced such delay—five days—that Paris began to sneer, and all kinds of ugly rumours to float about, until the Right at last gave way, and admitted two more of the Left Centre. The Opposition then yielded, wisely, as we have elsewhere tried to show, and the Committee is complete. That it will be thoroughly repressive is certain, but the rumour that it will prepare a con- stitution all ready for a King seven years hence rests at present on little foundation. Marshal MacMahon takes his Presidency as quite a serious affair, and French politicians very rarely look seven years ahead.
