The rumours from France are very bad. It is impossible
to- ascertain clearly to what degree of credit they are entitled, but the story is that the Bonapartists and the Orleanists are contending for the control of the Army, and that one or the other will strike a coup d'e'tat before the week is oat. In the first case, it seems certain that the Emperor and not the Regent would be proclaimed ;-. and in the second that the Comte de Paris would be declared King, with the Due d'Aumale Lieutenant-General of the King- dom. The chances as yet are heavily with the Orleanists. It is wretched work, this recurrence to the sterile cycle of revolutions- and coups d'etat, but the Assembly has only itself to thank. It, had the sovereignty in its own hands, but no Sovereign who is afraid of Paris is fit to reign in France, and the Assembly has re- peatedly admitted that it is afraid. So imminent is the danger believed to be, that on Thursday the Assembly passed by 484 votes to 75 a Bill providing that if the Assembly is dissolved by violence the Councils-General shall elect two deputies each, who shall form a new representative Assembly. That Bill, if the Army adheres to the Pretender, is futile, as he can strike in Marseilles or as easily as in Paris ; and if it does not, there will be- civil war.
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