The Left seats no Member in the Cabinet, and we
regard with some disquietude rumours, which may of course be false, as to the reason both for this abstention and for M. Buffet's return after he had finally declined the Premiership. The attitude of the Bonapartists alarmed both him and M. Gambetta. It is stated that the President had at one moment resolved to resign, and that had he resigned an Imperialist pronunciangento might have been attempted. It is also affirmed that the sudden retirement, or rather dismissal, of the Due d'Audiffret-Pasquier, after he had accepted the Ministry of the Interior, was due to some information -which reached the Marshal of the extreme hostility of the Bona- partist officers to that statesman. Neither of these reports may be true, or both may be exaggerations of much smaller facts, but it seems clear that a sudden and irresistible pressure slid come on all parties,* and that it could have arisen only from fear of the results of a further delay. It should 'be noted also that in the very middle of the Ministerial crisis General de Cissey demanded and obtained urgency for an Act authorising the President to mobilise all reserves by decree, with- out any further formalities. This Act was passed amid profound silence, and by an Assembly almost awestruck by its own vote. As no Assembly could refuse to vote supplies for an Army in the field, this law places peace and war in the Marshal's own hand.
