M. Louis Blanc was followed by M. Madier de Montjau,
who was ,even more vehement, and directed his attacks particularly against those features of the new Constitution which are accepted without a murmur in the United States,—the President's indirect veto and -the non-permanence of the Assembly,—arguing that the latter is an encouragement to coups d'etat. On Tuesday, M. Buffet replied in a speech in which he made a great point of taunting the Left with having kept their views in abeyance so long, and of challenging them to a direct attack on the Ministry. M. Labou- laye, the reporter of the Committee, also defended the general principles of the new Constitution in an excellent speech, in-which he asserted that M. Madier de Montjau desired to see the Republicans fortify themselves obstinately within the ruins of- the very Republican Constitutions which had most conspicu- tovsly those of 1793 and 1848. He recognised the sovereignty of the people as much as any Ultra, but he did slot understand it in the same fashion. "The Assemblies are the
representatives of the sovereignty of the nation, but they are not the nation. The Judges, too, who in the judicial domain repre- sent the sovereignty of the nation, just as the Assemblies repre- sent it in the political domain, are not the nation. The Executive, again, is in another sphere the representative of this sovereignty," though it, too, is not the nation. "Assemblies acting alone have constantly made of the nation their scourge and their slave. It is the divided representation of the nation which guarantees the nation its true independence." M. Laboulaye was much cheered. The debate, which we have reviewed elsewhere, termi- nated without any acceptance of M. Buffet's challenge.
