The Comte de Chambord has desired his friends not to
vote for anything that may impede a Restoration, and it is understood that the Right, with part of the Right Centre, will therefore oppose the organisation of the Septennate. This renders the passing of any Constitutional Laws impossible, and ought to compel Marshal MacMahon and his Government to lean upon the Left Centre and Left; but they prefer, it is believed, to remain as they are, and go on administering affairs without a steady majority in the Legislature. They conceive that no party is strong enough to carry its own programme, or force a dissolution, or depose the Marshal, and that they consequently have only to wait on. This view is probably sound, but the policy founded on it leaves France without a Government, and exposed to all the risks which would attend the death or even the illness of an officer no longer young. France might be thrown into anarchy because a stout elderly man had an apoplectic stroke. That situation can- not be regarded as a triumph of political skill, but it appears to be unavoidable.
