The French Chamber has all the week been debating the
Clerical Budget, after an unintelligible fashion. The Deputiea apparently are not prepared to disestablish the Church, and refused a proposal of M. Roche to cut down the total grant ; but every now and then a Deputy attacks some item, and obtains a majority. For example, the salary of the Arch- bishop of Paris, perhaps the most important ecclesiastic in France, was reduced from 21,800 to 21,200. Then, the Chamber, repenting itself, restored the total grant to its old amount, and so cancelled all the detailed reductions. It would seem as if the Deputies thought their electors more hostile to the Church than themselves, but there are signs on the other side. M. Andrieux, formerly the anti-religious Prefect of the Seine, who helped to break the doors of the Convents, has announced his conviction that the Republic, if it wishes to be safe, should protect the Church. The women will else, he says, convert opinion. This speech may be the result, as he professes, of further experience ; but it may be also a bid for votes during a, reaction, which M. Andrieux, a man of adroitness, sees to be impending. There are as yet, however, few signs, of such a reaction visible to outsiders, though the vote of 244 to 240 re- storing the total amount of the clerical grant may be inter- preted as one of those signs..
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