The Committee of Petitions of the Corps L6gislatif has rejected
the petition of the Orleans Princes for permission to return, after a most discreditable speech from M. (Xavier. Instead of declaring that their exile was a political necessity, he averred that had they addressed themselves to the Emperor, and declared that they accepted the national will, they might have deserved consideration ; but having passed over the Emperor and appealed to the Chamber, they had virtually offered themselves as candidates for the throne. If the Chamber received their petition, the Emperor would be outraged, the Government degraded, and a dissolution imperative. And this is M. 011ivier, devotee of constitutional government, of the responsibility of ministers, and of the sovereignty of Parlia- ment Well may be affirm that the plebiscitum was "the Sadowa of the Opposition."
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