On Thursday, however, only two days after, M. 011ivier had
an experience as to the value of a nominee majority. On Wednesday, M. Picard and others asked if the Government abandoned the practice of official candidatures, to which the Minister of the Interior replied dubiously that he did, but that the Government would tell the electors whom it preferred to see in the Chamber. This contented the majority, but it so irritated the Left that on Thursday, M. 011ivier, who had openly agreed with his colleague, qualified his speech by saying that the Government would be absolutely neutral, that " it would not abandon those who had supported the Empire for eighteen years," but that it would not revert to the ideas of a different regime. This very mild form of Liberalism so excited the Right that they threatened to desert, and in the division the minority against Government rose to 56. These men will yet force on the free election which will dismiss them into obscurity.
