The scene in the French Assembly to which we make
allusion elsewhere, arose on Saturday during the pro forma' business of reading a report from the Committee on Petitions. The reporter, M. Lorgeril, a Legitimist, used the phrase, "the provisional Re- public," whereupon somebody, presumably a Radical, shrieked out "this is a provocation,"—and Bedlam broke loose. M. Bethmont was understood to assert that M. Tillers' official title was "Presi- dent of the Republic," and not of the provisional republic ; and this brought up M. Giraud, who said he had voted for the President, but held his title to be provisional ; and then everybody cried for in cloture, and M. Lepere rising to speak to that, everybody roared and screamed and gesticulated at once, till M. Grevy, who all this while had been ringing his bell, with about as much effect as if he had been ringing it in Paris, put his hat on his head and declared the discussion closed. These scenes recur con- stantly, the Assembly being apparently determined to justify Charles Reade's description of the Assembly of 1848 as a collec- tion "of wild beasts fed with peppered tongue." Every scene of the kind brings a coup d'etat so much nearer, but no one, not even M. 'Thiers, suggests a remedy, though he scolds when they interrupt him.
