M. Gambetta has issued a manifesto to the Senatorial electors
in the form of a letter to a friend at Cahors. He refuses to decide on the character of the Assembly, but suggests that the historian will find "extenuating circumstances" in its acts. It wished to restore Monarchy, and arrived at the legal Republic. It tried to enslave Democracy, by instituting a Senate, and the Senate has accepted a Republican garrison. He doubts not that the people are everywhere preparing for the "salutary agitations" of the electoral period, but suggests that there are Departments in which the Republicans do not know how many they are, and advises the Liberal electors to form a Central Committee in every Department, to demand from candidates defence of the Constitution, resistance to all Monarchical pretensions, and the adjournment of all• projects of revision till 1880. France being an indestructible Democracy, the electors have only the choice between a Democracy governing itself and a Democracy debased by submission to a master. The Republicans, therefore, are the only true Conservatives. There is not much in this address, but it will wake up many Republicans, who now fear that their par- ticular Departments must be carried by the Conservatives, and therefore neglect organisation.
Previous page
