The French Assembly has been agitated this week with Bona-
partist debates. On Tuesday the report invalidating the election of the Baron de Bourgoing for the Nievre, on the ground of the aid afforded him by the Bonapartist Central Committee, and of his own assertions to the electors that Marshal MacMahon de- sired his success, was submitted to the Assembly. M. Rouher imagined that the Conservatives, with whom he had voted for the Clerical University Bill, would carry M. de Bourgoing through, but that gentleman read a heavy speech, the only point of which was that he had read his address to Marshal MacMahon before publishing it, and the President gave it his approval. The only Ultra-Radical who spoke, M. Goblet, was moderate, and directed his attack on official candidatures, and the Assembly adopted the report by 330 to 310. The election was, therefore, invalidated. We have endeavoured to explain the importance of this vote elsewhere, but may briefly say here that it is a vote condemning the practice of allowing the Bonapartists to claim official favour, and will greatly impede M. Rouher's efforts to obtain a large number of partisans returned at the general election. It warns the country, in fact, once more that the sovereign power is hostile to the Empire.
