So confident is M. Buffet of success, that he has
adopted quite a new and defiant tone to the Permanent Committee. They met on Thursday, and proceeded to question the Premier upon a Circular he had sent into Savoy, upon an order allowing papers to be prohibited from sale in the streets, and upon the decree forbidding M. Gambetta to make a speech at Marseilles. M. Buffet asserted that his order about the Press was'legal under the law of colportage—a statement strenuously denied—but blankly refused to answer any questions as to his electoral acts. The Committee, he said, had no right to interpellate him, and he should explain only to the new Assembly, or the present one, if called together. He was asked whether the Senatorial electors would meet in the Prefectures, where they would be under restraint, and replied that he should be guided by his informa- tion; refused to pledge himself to grant " electoral facilities" in cities under a state of siege, and in fact, conducted himself as if already secure of impunity from censure. His attitude has greatly irritated the Liberals, who threaten, when the Assembly
meets, to call him to a severe account,—a menace which he, on his part, hopes to meet, if the Senate is properly Conservative, by a counter-menace of dissolution.
