The French Government has resolved to re-establish the Council of
State, the body of experienced officials who control depart- mental work, decide all quarrels among functionaries, grant per- missions to prosecute them, revise the proceedings of the Councils of the Prefectures, and draw up all needful administrative laws. The Assembly has assented to the proposal, and has seated all Ministers in the Council, but has refused by 353 to 322 to allow the executive power to nominate the remainder of the Council. M. Thiers is greatly irritated by this decision, and intends to demand that it should be rescinded, which will, of course, be done. We have suggested elsewhere that if the Assembly allows him to nominate the 16 Members of the Council who are permanent, and the Assembly gives seats in it to the Cabinet and the 25 Members of the Permanent Committee of its own body, the Council would become a Senate which could do all the regular work and be respected for its executive power, and also perform all the more useful functions of an " upper" House or chamber of revision, an institution needed to check sudden or rash decrees by the Assembly.
