NEWS OF THE WEEK.
THE Empire has sustained a severe blow. For the first time since the coup d'etat an agricultural department has elected an avowedly Republican member. M. Huot, a most respectable candi- date, had been recommended to the peasants of the department of the Jura by all officials, and had secured the hearty support of the priesthood. His rival, M. Grevy, had been denounced by the Pre- fect as a foe of the dynasty, and as the author of an amendment to the Constitution of 1848 substituting a Premier for a President as head of the Executive was particularly obnoxious to Napoleon III. Nevertheless, the electors returned him by 22,428 to 11,135. The news has excited some emotion in the Tuileries, and it has been resolved to hold the elections for three vacant departments imme- diately, and so ascertain if the spirit of resistance has become general, or is confined to the mountain farmers. No local cause for the result is assigned even by the Government prints, and one of them acknowledges that the system of electoral tuition has received a severe check.
