The Message was immediately followed by a Government pro- posal
prolonging the President's powers for ten years, which was met by M. Eschasseriaux with a Bonapartist proposal for a plebiscite, and a proposal from M. Dufaure—M. Thiers' Minister of Justice—that as a Commission was already considering the Con- stitutional Laws, this new proposal be also referred to its mem- bers, and all be reported on together. He made a stern and vigor- ous speech, the point of which was that the Conservatives wanted to produce stability by prolonging the very interregnum every- body condemned. He was rapturously applauded, for the first time in his life, by the Left, and followed by 111. Grevy, late President of the Assembly, who informed it, amid dead silence, that its vote was illegal and revolutionary. M. Rouher fol- lowed on the same side, and at last the President, M. Buffet, put the question by ballot, in this form,—" Should the Government proposal be referred to the Commission on Constitutional Laws r That proposal was rejected by 360 to 350, or thereabouts, the latest return only giving the Government a majority of 10. The proposal was then referred to a separate Commission, who were to report on Friday, and the vote was to be taken at some early hour on Saturday morning.
