8 FEBRUARY 1851, Page 15

PUBLIC AFFAIRS IN FRANCE.

HAVING succeeded in dismissing General Changarnier, the Preaident of the French Republic is bringing in his little bill to the National Assembly ; a claim which that august body alternates with debates upon the Prince de la Moskowa's treading on M. de in Croissette's corns ! Such are the subjects to which the President and the Assembly have descended.

Prince President Louis Napoleon cannot gratify his fellow-citizen subjects with state pomp and live within his income too; though France, young and old, so wills it. The two ideas are incompatible ; so he lets thrift shift for itself. Now, although the French like luxury, they hate paying; and thus, while the many enjoy the President's saloons, the Assembly grudges him the money ; and he is driven to the beggarly device of petitioning for an annual endowment. He does so amid the humiliating reception of jeers from the Mountain and frigid silence on the part of the Conservatives. This is a miserable descent for the "Nephew of my Uncle." The other affair is of proportionate dignity. The Prince de la Moskowa is separated from his wife, and M. de la Croissette was the advocate who succeeded in the suit _against the Prince. The Prince retorts by an elaborate system of treading on M. de la Croissette's toes and calling him a scoundrel. The Assembly is bound to defend M. de in Croissette, his toes and honour ; and so it will not allow public affairs to divert it from the investigation of the kicks and insults. Past indiscretions will have been raked up against the rash son of Ney, and old grudges will be indulged.

But what is all this to the state of public affairs ? France is as unsettled as ever; but the Assembly finds time to deliberate with grudging parsimony on the Prince President's pocket-money-which he consents to ask ; it plays mediator and referee between the Prince of Moskowa and M. de la Croissette's corns. France may wait, while personalities take precedence. France must undergo the most Royal oppression from her canting Republican masters; but eager sympathy rushes to the rescue of Colonel ' de In Croissette's callosities. Faction goes unrebuked ; but the Assembly is diligent in correcting the naughty boy of Moscow !