NEWS OF THE WEEK
THE" crisis " in France still continues, but is a little less acute. The Chamber on Tuesday appointed the Committee to consider the Bills proscribing Princes, and elected six friends of M. Floquet's proposal to four who will support M. Dnclerc's. The votes on the selection show, it is said, 177 for the Floquet proposal, 160 for the Duclere proposal, and 66 against any legislation, but that leaves more than a hundred Deputies un- accounted for. The Ministers have met the Committee re- peatedly, and have suggested several compromises, but the Com- mittee have finally reported a Bill proposing that the Princes and their wives and children be expelled—the words " descendants " of reigning families being changed into" members "—prohibiting them from entering or remaining in the French Army, and rendering them liable, if they return, to five years' imprison- ment, with exile afterwards. The Government will resist this monstrous Bill, but the action of the Chamber is very doubtful. According to all reports, the Gambettists will vote for it, and thus throw the responsibility upon the Senate ; but the consequences would be so serious, that reason may return before Monday evening, when it is believed the vote will be taken. It is not impossible that the President, dread- ing a Floquet-Clemenceau Ministry, may announce that he will ask the Senate for a dissolution, and the idea of a dissolution without M. Gambetta will influence many votes. -Upon the whole, we should say there was still hope of a compromise, though it will be one which will compel the Princes either to leave France, or to remain at the mercy of any accidental motion. The Government, which has been weak all through, cannot last.
