The French Elections of Sunday were, all but one of
them, demonstrations for the Republicans, and mostly for the Radicals. But in the department of the Charente Inferieure, the Bonapart- ists and Legitimists uniting upon one candidate, M. Boffiuton, achieved a success. To some extent, however, this election was regarded as a demonstration in favour of free trade,—the Charente Inferieure has a long sea-board,--and partly, per- haps, in favour of dissolution, of which M. Boffinton, from a Bonapartist point of view, is an advocate. There has been an immense amount of speculation as to the effect of the elections on M. Thiers' policy. We are told that M. Goulard (the Conser- vative Minister of the Interior) declines to remain in the same Cabinet with M. Jules Simon (the Liberal Minister of Education, who said not long ago that M. Thiers had achieved the libera- tion of the territory in spite of the Assembly), and that one of them must go. The last rumour was of the formation of a Left Centre Ministry, comprehending General Chanzy, M. Arago, and M. Casimir-Perier, but nothing is really known. All that is certain is that M. Thiers will try to effect a compromise on the basis of letting the Radicals name the Government, and the moderate Conservatives rule it ;—to the former the glitter, to the latter the gold. The sane men amongst the Right might do worse than close with such an arrangement.
