The boasts, in which the reactionaries of Paris and their
friends in this country have been so lavish, as to the inevitable result of the elections to the vacant seats in the National Assembly, have been refuted by the actual election of the three Socialist candi- dates, with large majorities—acquired in the largest poll yet taken by universal suffrage, and in spite of the fact that some ten or twenty thousand Socialist voters have been struck off the register by an official quibble. This victory of the Socialists they have achieved without violence—nay, resisting temptations and provo- catives to attack the "friends of order." From the distribution of the voting, it would appear that the bourgeoisie sided with the extreme Republicans and Socialists : another refutation of the story that the shopkeepers had slided back from the position of February 1848. The army, too, appears to be more Socialist than not : a third refutation. In foot, the party of Ministers and the majority in the Assembly,-" the party to save society "-is at a discount, and begins to take alarm. General de la Hitte and M. Ferdinand Barrot have resigned; and the President is reported to be in the agony of choosing between "three courses "-a middle and trimming course, a decided reactionary Cabinet, or an ultra- Liberal one. The worst of it is, that there appears to be no lead- ing man that owns sympathy with the people, and is therefore at once able to command and to conciliate affection.
Previous page
