THE TABLET

A Weekly Newspaper and Review.

D um VOBIS GRATULAMUR, ANIMOS ETIAM ADDIMUS U T IN INCCEPTIS VESTRIS CONSTANTER MANEATIS.

From the Brief o] His Holiness to T h e T a b l e t , June 4, 1870,

Voi. 42. No. 1754. L ondon, N o v e m b e r 22, 1873.

Pr i c e 5c!. B y P ost 5%d.

[R eg ister ed a t th e G en er a l P ost O f f ic e a s a N ew s pa p e r .

C h ro n ic le o f t h e W e e k : The

Page

Victory of the French Conservatives.— The Attitude of the Comte de Chambord.—The Report o f the Committee of Fifteen.— Marshal MacMahon’s Second Message.— Final Disagreement between the Government and the Committee.— Debate on the Prolongation of Powers.—The Final Debate and Divisions. — Resignation of the French Ministry. — The Last French Elections.— The New Appointments.— The Ashantee Expedition.— The Executions in Cuba. — The Lahej Affair.— The Election to the See of Fulda.— Civil Registration in Prussia.— Prussia and the Foregn Press, &c., &c. . 641

CONTENTS.

Page

L ea d e r s :

The Dwellings of the Poor . . 645 The “ Contemporary Review ” on

Authority .

. • 645

Signor Paolo Grassi and the Ro­

man Inquisition . _ . _ . . 647 Irish Prosperity.— Fisheries . . 648 The Secularization of the Vacouf

Property *

649

IR eview s (continued) :

The Month .

Page • 653

IS h ort N o t i c e : I Millington’s Illustrated Transla­

tions of Virgil .... 654 ; C orrespondence :

The Religious in Rome . . 654 i J .M .J .C .—The Church of Corpus

O ur P r o t e s t a n t C on tem po raries:

Ultramontanism .... 650 R e v iew s :

Hill’s Elements of Philosophy . 651 Père Louage’s Course of Philo­

sophy . - . . . • 651 Wrecked Early in Life . . . 652 Lottie Darling .... 652

Christi, and the Sacrileges of the Reformation .... 655 ! The Battersea Mission . . . 655

The Governess and Strangers’

Home ..... 655 I The Oldest Priest in England . 655

“ The Staffordshire Cure” . . 655 R ome : I Letter from our own Correspondent 657

D io ce san N ew s :

Page

Westminster ..... 658 S o u t h w a r k ...................................... 658 B e v e r l e y ...................................... 659 Clifton 659 S h r ew s b u r y ......................................659 Scotland— Eastern District . . 660 I r elan d :

Letter from our Dublin Corre­

spondent ...................................... 660 F oreign N ews :

France

661

G e r m a n y ...................................... 661 United States .... 662 M em o randa :

R e l i g i o u s ......................................663 E d u c a t io n a l ...................................... 663 L i t e r a r y ...................................... 663 G en e r a l N ew s . . . 663

CHRONICLE OF THE WEEK.

OF THE FRENCH CONSERVATIVES. T

THE VICTORY

HE Conservatives at Versailles have won their victory, but we fear that it will prove a deception in the end. They have resisted the project of the Committee, because it rendered the prolonga­

tion of Marshal MacMahon’s powers conditional on the passing of the organic laws; but they have themselves consented to follow up the voting of the prolongation by the re-introduction of those laws. I f they objected to the scheme of the Left because it implied the establishment of the Republic, it is hard to see how their own device will save them from that consummation. Marshal MacMahon is appointed for seven years President of the Republic, on the understanding that organic Constitutional Laws are to be at an early period discussed and passed. But if these laws are to be organic and Constitutional, we may take for granted that they will organize a Constitution. What that Constitution is, appears from Marshal MacMahon’s t itle ; it is the Republic organized and made the legal •Constitution of the country. There can scarcely be a President of a Republic unless there is a Republic of which he is President. This is the trap into which the French Monarchists have fallen once already, and they are walking into it again. It is of no use to say that the arrangement is strictly provisional; for if so, what is the meaning of the words “ irrevocable powers,” “ organic •“ and Constitutional laws ” ? The Monarchists are lending their hands to the creation of a system of Government which is self-contradictory and therefore self-destructive. What they probably mean to establish is this : a sort of Constitutional Monarchy without hereditary right for seven years, in which time they hope, as M. Jules Simon said, to effect what they have failed in doing in three months. But in the meantime, what is to be the position of the President ? His powers are irrevocable, but he has also pledged himself to retire if he cannot execute the orders of the Assembly. In the face of a Radical Assembly he must either lean entirely ■ on the Upper House, if it will support him, and resist the Lower, or take a Radical Ministry, which he has said by implication that he will never do.

THE ATTITUDE OF THE COUNT DK CHAMHORD.

It is therefore not improbable that the note published by the Liberté as “ a voice from “ Frohsdorf,” if not actually what it professed to be, may yet be a not unfair resumé of the

Comte de Chambord’s opinion of the situation. The Prince is therein made to express his conviction of the Marshal’s honesty and disinterestedness, but also his inability to understand why he has lent himself to the demand for dictatorial powers for a term of years. “ This Dictator-

ship must either be a consecration of the Republic”—

New Series. Y o l , X . No. 263.

which it seems to us to be— “ or, in spite of the Marshal, “ render an usurpation of some sort possible.”

THE REPORT OF THE COMMITTER OF

FIFTEEN.

On Saturday, M. Bethmont, the Secretary to the Committee of Fifteen, having declared that it was uncertain when the report would be ready, as the Committee had resolved to consider several amendments, the assembly, after considerable tumult, agreed to Mr. Johnston’s motion to adjourn for two hours, an intimation to the Committee to be ready by that time. MM. Jules Simon, Gre'vy, Jules Perry, and de Pressensi had been heard before the Committee on the previous day in defence of the counter project of the Left, and the amendments now before the Committee being of a kind to complicate the issues— they had reference to matters such as the mode of election of the President— were speedily disposed of, and when the Assembly resumed its sitting M. Laboulaye read his report. The Bill, as drafted bythe Committee, enacted : (1) that the powers of Marshal MacMahon should be continued to him for five years from the date of the meeting of the next Legislature; (2) that until the passing of the Constitutional Laws, his powers should be exercised on their present conditions ; (3) that the prolongation enacted in the first article should be inserted in those organic laws, and should not possess a constitutional character till after the passing of those laws ; and (4) that within three days after the promulgation of this present law a Committee of Thirty should be named in the bureaux to examine the Constitutional laws laid before the Assembly in May last. The report concluded with an elaborate plea for the definitive Republic, and warned the Assembly that, if the existing state of uncertainty was protracted, the country might very probably get “ disgusted with “ Parliamentary institutions.” This is perhaps the place to correct the version which has appeared in the English papers of the story of M. Laboulaye’s inkstand. That famous utensil, M. Baragnon’s allusion to which elicited such inextinguishable laughter from all sections of the Chamber, was not, as the correspondent of the Limes said it was, a present from the Emperor on M. Laboulaye’s conversion to the plebiscite, but was presented to that deputy by his constituents as a mark of their confidence in his independence, and was said — it now appears falsely— to have been demanded back again when he wrote in support of the Imperial appeal to the people. The report which had emanated from it having been read, the debate was adjourned till Monday.

MARSHAL MACMAHON’S

SECOND MESSAGE.

But on that day a fresh element was introduced into the discussion. As soon as the Assembly had met the Due de Broglie ascended the tribune and read another Message from the President. The Marshal had in the meantime had an interview with the Bonapartists— according to