NEWS OF THE WEEK.
IT is still asserted most stoutly, in the Liberal journals of Paris, that a change of Ministry is at hand ; but no change has yet taken place. These papers are not less absurd in the tone of their speculations than they have been for many weeks past, but they have no longer a mo- nopoly of absurdity. The Ministerial journals have at length shaken off their silence, and in the art of talking nonsense they seem to us even greater proficients than their antagonists. Here is their estimate of the nature of the present contest, and of the rights and duties of the respective parties.
" The crisis approaches, and is inevitable ; it ought to be short and salu- tary. The Jacobin journals affect to say that the Ministry will avoid it by flight—they speak falsely to their partisans and themselves. The Ministers are ready and determined, as calm as they are resolved—they will yet receive those who will go to them, but they will solicit no man. The question of a majority is for them only one of those trifling questions given up to the gossip of coffeehouse quidnuncs. The Ministers say, and we are well pleased to re- peat it, that if they have the majority, they will save the Throne with it; if they have not, they will save the Throne without it. Certain of the support of the King and of the Royalists, who only wait for a signal, the Ministers will find in the Charter itself the means of forcing it out of the hands of the factious, who desire to destroy it because it is the work and the support of the Monarchy.
" Let them persevere in their noble and courageous resolutions, and they will see not only the majority but almost the whole of France rise up in their behalf. And what then is that pretended deliberating majority, which pre- tends not only to treat with the Throne as one power treats with another, but to dictate insolent conditions to the living law, the source of all law—to royalty itself ? Of whom is it composed? Of rhetoricians without a con- science— of demagogues without a people—of generals without any soldiers ; and they presume to call themselves the representatives and the organs of the nation. France only recognizes her King as her immortal representative. The word of the King is the expression of the sentiments, the wishes, the wants, and the interests of his people. The majority is the King."
The contest at present appears to be one of trope and epigram merely : let those who can command the greatest amount of aid from these aux- iliaries enjoy the victory. Till principles shall be at issue, it matters little with whom it may rest.
