THE FRENCH ELECTIONS.

(FROM OCR SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT.) April 9a, 1863. OF the various topics which have of late supplied matter for dis- cussion, no one has so much engaged the attention of the French as the electoral question ; and naturally so. Whatever may be the interest or the desire of the Imperial Government to keep to- gether as long as possible a Chamber whose servility is trammelled by no scruple and tempered by no sense of self-respect, the time is fast approaching when master and servants must part. The electoral colleges will be called together before long, and those have to buckle on their armour who think it worth their while to prepare for a legal fight.

In justice to Napoleon, I will own at once that, up to the present moment, little or nothing has been done to thwart either the Orleanist meeting, held at the house of the Duke de Broglie, or the Democratic meeting, held at the house of M. Carnot. Perhaps the French Government shrinks from a persecution which might be construed by Europe into a confession of unseemly fear and moral impotence ; perhaps this unwonted display of forbearance is only meant to feel the pulse of the opposition, to ascertain the com- parative force of the divers elements of which it is composed, and will not survive the attainment of the object in contemplation. However it may be, no step has as yet be taken towards enforcing the enactments against meetings of more than twenty persons ; and the Orleanista on one side, the Republicans on the other, have availed themselves of this temporary toleration to enter upon the task of forming electoral committees, with a view to rally the forces of the opposition, to secure the convergence of individual efforts, to control the exercise of the franchise as per- verted by the practices of the "administration," and to enlighten, or try to enlighten, the ignorant masses as to the choice of tho candidates best fit for the parliamentary strife.

Strange to say, the only man who has been found to protest against this most urgent, most unobjectionable, and welcome mode

of action, is M. Emile de Girardin, the editor of La l'resse, whose devotion to the cause of freedom is undeniable, despite his connection with the Palais Royal. It is true that If. Emile de Girardin dislikes so much anything that smells of common-place, that he will run headlong into all manner of absurdities rather than speak and appear to think as other people do. A man of sparkling talent, full of contrivance, endowed with a mind essentially projective, if not original, Id. Emile de Girardin is tormented by an unhealthy thirst for paradox. Like M. Proudhon, he loves to fire a pistol in the street, for no other purpose than that of collecting together the passers-by, and, like M. Proudhon, he turns out very often to be the most dangerous enemy of the cause of which he professes, not in- sincerely, to be a supporter. When he came over to London, at the time of the Exhibition, I saw him, and was perfectly startled at hearing him say that the reason why Government had no busi- ness to muzzle the press, and why freedom of thought should be left untouched, was, that a free press can do nothing, can prevent nothing, has no power for good, no power for evil, and that con- sequently any attempt to crush it is wrong, because ridiculous.

One of the fallacies which the French democratic party have for a very long time suffered to alloy the purity of their political creed, has consisted in holding universal suffrage to be aprinciple, whilst it is merely a process, and wise or foolish, according as it is practically made to square or to jar with the social aim, that is the moral, intellectual, and material improvement of the whole community.

When certain Continental democrats speak of the sovereignty of the people, it would seem as if by people they meant a unit, instead of a number composed of units. But the idea of people is essentially a complex idea, expressing a variety of interests, and feelings, and passions, and tendencies. Call the sovereignty of the people to decide on any given question. Some will say yes, others will say no—which shows that the sovereignty of the people is, after all, and cannot be anything else, than the sovereignty of one section of the people over another section ; or, if the question be solved by the plurality of votes, the dominion of the majority over the minority. Now, on what grounds would the decision of the majority be made to prevail ? Shall we magnify a number into a principle? Shall we declare it conformable to the dictates of reason that all the rights belonging to men in society should flow from this strange fountain : a figure ? Is the science of government in- cluded in the art of numbering? Is the sanction given to despotism by addition, of a higher character than that which, amongst savage tribes, despotism receives from the superiority of physical forte? Hence the consequence that the claim of the majority to have their decisions respected and acted upon can have no other legitimate foundation than the supposition that these decisions are just and likely to be conducive to the welfare of all the members of the community. On the other hand, who will deny that the learned are less numerous than the ignorant, the heroes less numerous than the selfish, the great men less numerous than the rabble, and that a thousand Thersites will be where there is only one Achilles?

The social convention that the expressed will of the majority shall be obeyed, has therefore no value whatever, except as a pro- cess intended for the selection of the less numerous by the more numerous, so that the honest should be called upon to do what requires honesty, the men of talent what requires talent, and the men of genius what requires genius. In other words, the power of the majority must consist in putting power, for the sake of the majority itself, in the hands of the minority, it being contrary to the very nature of things, as Jean Jacques Rousseau says, " Que I4 grand twnible gouverne et gm is petit soli gone& Contrat Social," liv. iii. chap.

But how will the majority be able properly to perform their function if they are shut out from all means of discerning command- ing virtue and superior knowledge ; if discussion on the merits of the candidates is stifled ; if the press is gaged; if no public meetings are allowed to be held for electioneering purposes ? Universal suffrage, when operating in the dark, is nothing as' a right, and far worse than nothing as a process; for, through its instrumentality, the welfare of the community is made entirely to

depend upon the uneducated classes, left guideless. Thus, to use the felicitous expression of M. Billault—I mean M. Billault de La veille, not M. Billault du lendeniain—small change is preferred to

large coin ; the ignorant masses are brought to serve the ends of oppression ; universal suffrage, which might have been a blesaing under the guidance of an enlightened minority, becomes the greatest of evils, and is, in fact, a loaded pistol in the hands of a child. However, no great practical results are, I am afraid, to be imme-

diately expected from the efforts of the electoral committees, even supposing they will remain unchecked to the last moment ; and the chief reason of it lies in a difficulty not to be easily overcome, having its root in the inmost recesses of conscience.

The correspondent of the Times must have known very little, indeed, of what has been going on at M. Carnet's, since he describes the members of the meeting which was held there squab- bling among themselves about monarchy and republicanism, ban- dying angry retorts about reaction and backsliding, quarrelling about things which nobody will ever settle, and agreeing on no one point but to create confusion.

The following is the true statement of the case :— The policy of abstention has been, strictly speaking, abandoned.

A government may sink under its own weight, without being pushed, as it were ; it may fall like a rotten fruit, which hardly needs a breath of wind to shake it from the tree. But it is unsafe to wait, with folded arms, till this happens. Torpor bears too close an analogy to death to be indulged in with impunity, and systematic want of exercise is the surest way of losing the use of one's limbs. No one now denies it. Even those whom a keen sense of their personal dignity, and a feeling of irrepressible con- tempt for the powers that be, induce to keep aloof, urge the young and the ardent to enter the lists, and to fight with whatever weapons they have nearest at hand.

But opinions differ as to whether questions of principles must make room unconditionally for a mere question of expediency. Such as have for years struggled hard, and tugged, and suffered, for what they conceived to be the truth, cannot bring themselves to regard the aim of their whole life as a thing of a secondary im- portance, while those are prone to mind only the main chance and think only of doing what seems most in haste, whose recent appear- ance on the political stage inclines them to look forward to the future irrespective of the past, not without a disposition to come to terms with the present.

It must be borne in mind that, since the establishment of the empire, thousands upon thousands have entered public life, who form, at present, a considerable fraction of the democratic party. These men, brought up under a re'gime acting after the fashion of a pneumatic engine, have not received the same political education as their seniors, have not the same range of mind, the same iron con- victions, and they are reluctant to submit to the austere guidance of men belonging to another generation.

Under the circumstances, the most practical course, as a mere matter of policy, appears at first sight to be that which is recom- mended by the Temps. Freedom being the one great desideratum equally felt by all parties out of the official pale, freedom ought to be adopted by them all as their common, nay, more, as their unique watchword in the electoral strife. Let no other programme be issued by the opposition ; let all that is likely to cause division be set aside, and the only thing be proclaimed in concert which is likely to promote union ; let all differences of opinion among the Government's opponents be merged, for the moment, into a mighty coalition, having one object in view and one only—to conquer free- dom; let Republicans of every denomination, Clericals, Orleanists, and Legitimists, remember that, by means of freedom, any other conquest can be achieved, whereas the situation, without freedom, is absolutely hopeless.

This is the opinion set forth by the editor of the Temps, M. Nefftzer and in which the Sack and the Debate seem ready to concur. But there is a great deal to say, and a great deal is said, against it.

When, a few days ago, the Republican writer M. Edgar Quinet, in a most touching and conciliatory appeal addressed to the clergy, entreated them to unite their efforts to those of the democratic party in favour of Poland, what was the reply of the Bishop of Orleans ? Why, Monseigneur Dupanloup had no hesi- tation in declaring that, even in the act of helping the Poles, the clerical party would have nothing to do with revolutionists like M. Edgar Quinet, whom the charitable bishop roundly styled Vultures. The fact is characteristic enough.

Besides, to be moral, to be valuable, were it only from a purely practical point of view, an alliance must rest on the assumption that the various parties it includes are sincere, so far, at least, as the particular object of the alliance is concerned ; and there can be no watchword really common to all unless understood by all in the same manner. Would this be the case? Freedom for every one without distinction is what M. Nefftzer and the Republicans who stand by him mean and have always meant. "La libeW pour nous et nos ands" is the only kind of freedom which is wanted by the Legitimists, the Clericals, and a section not inconsiderable of the Orleanist party. Did not the clerical paper, the Monde, publish a year ago, with all due reverence, a translation of the encyclical letter tnirari vos, in which Gregory XVI. anathematizes as principles actually pestilential the liberty of the press and the liberty of conscience? Did not M. de Monta- lembert, immediately after the coup d'elat, on the 12th of December, 1851, when the streets of Paris were still reeking with blood, write a public letter expressive of his stern delight at seeing "all the banditti of France and Europe routed ?" Was it not, at that time, asserted by him that France was greedy of silence, "affirm& de silence?" Was it not for the express and avowed pur- pose of opposing order to liberty, as if order and liberty were incom- patible, that M. de Montalembert, M. Guizot, and their followers, laid the foundations of the too famous coalition of La rue de Poitiers? How could, then, the Republicans enter, under the banner of freedom, into a close alliance with men whose principles and tendencies they know so well, without being the accomplices or running the risk of being the dupes of a lie?

This is the view which a great many Republicans take of the question, and I find them expressed, this morning, in an article signed " Peyrat," which appeared in the Temps itself—a circum- stance all the more remarkable, because M. Peyrat has just been admitted among the contributors to that paper.

My intention, in penning the first lines of this letter, waa to handle the most delicate question of the oath, and to state the arguments that are urged for and against taking the oath of alle- giance to the Emperor ; but want of space compels me to put off that part of the subject to some future occasion. Suffice it to say that the difficulty of satisfactorily solving the question of the oath, whichever solution may be adopted, tends in no small degree to make the situation intricate to the utmost. Unhappy France, where one is not sure to give a practical advice, one worth being listened to, even when he says, as old Maynard did in 1889, &propos of the bill for declaring the Convention a Parliament, "A man in a revolution resolving to do nothing which is not strictly according to established form resembles a man who has lost himself in the wilderness, and who stands crying, Where is the king's highway? I will walk nowhere but on the king's highway.' In a wilderness a man should take the track which will carry him home !"

A FREEMAN.