collected around their small nucleus a large proportion of those waiters upon fortune, that never fail to collect around the holders of public patronage. General Cavaignac is their impersonation. They support his candidateship, and promote it by every means, including the most unscrupulous. The whole machinery of government is at their disposal, and they work it with unsparing activity. It is this which gives to a party, so insignificant in number and ability, the importance and power which they now possess. They profess to advocate a respectable republic; and knowing the aversion of the great majority of the French people to a low democracy, and the necessity of consulting this majority to give the least hopes of permanence to the government, they oppose themselves to the ultra-democratic party. It cannot be denied, that if a republic be established at all, it ought to be such a republic as they could advocate.

Next comes the democratic party, represented by the journal "La Reforme." At the head of this party is the popular tribune, Ledru Rollin. He goes further in democracy than the party of the National, but stops short of socialism, still more of communism. He is an advocate for paper money, glories in the name of the mountain, and delivers speeches at public meetings, and democratic banquets, eulogistic of Robespierre, and the old mountain of '93.

Lastly, comes the low democracy of socialism aud communism, the type and idol of which is Raspail. Even M. Prudhon, extreme as are his views, is regarded coldly by this party, "faute de mieux. They show him some favor, but they think he is behind the age, and yet M. Prudhon declares christianity to be a fable, and family a joke. He says that the progress of events must inevitably dispel the illusion of religious fanaticism; he denies the existence of a God, and of every moral law than that of which the public will is the origin, yet that individual is a sort of reactionaire in the eyes of the supporters of M. Raspail.

These four parties, represented among the candidates for the Presidency, by Prince Louis Napoleon, General Cavaignac, Ledru Rollin, and

Raspail, constitute the entire body of French citizens. The first consists of the great majority of the French people. In the second is included a large body of persons who would attach themselves to the first, and will do so if Louis Napoleon is elected. Exclusive of these waverers, this second party is comparably the smallest. The third, represented by Ledru Rollin, is more numerous, and the fourth, or extreme democratic party, still more

so.

The political phenomena developed by the presidential election, are not the least memorable events of this most memorable year. General Cavaignac, after the suppression of the bloody insurrection of June, and after having thereby preserved Paris from pillage, and from a reign of terror, attained the summit of power.

Soon afterwards, Prince Louis Na poleon, the eldest son of the ex-King of Holland, Louis Bonaparte, the eldest brother of the Emperor Napoleon, and Hortense Beauharnois, the daughter, by her first marriage, of the ex-Empress Josephine, was elected a member of the Assembly. Popular disturbances being feared, and the possibility of an imperial movement apprehended, Prince Louis, under the advice of his friends, addressed a letter to the president of the Assembly, resigning the seat to which he had been elected, assigning as his reason, that the peace of France was dearer to him than his own personal ambition. Another election took place, by which he was again returned, and for a still greater number of departments. This time he was advised to accept. Some technical objections to his qualifications were noised abroad as being intended to be offered by the party of the government. The formidable amount of the suffrages, however, which he had obtained, prevented this project, and it was abandoned. He accordingly took his seat as one of the representatives of the department of the Seine.

While these events were in progress, the candidateship of General Cavaignac for the presidency was put for ward; but it was evidently hopeless, unless the moderate party, which constituted the great majority of the country, could be propitiated. To General Cavaignac, personally, there

was neither objection nor aversion. A moderate man, endowed with much firmness of character, and free from any ambition injurious to freedom, he was more or less acceptable to all parties; but his " entourage" was odious to the moderates. He was selected by the republicans of the veille, not on account of his own personal qualities, but as a tribute to the memory of his brother, Godefroy Cavaignac, and his father, the notorious member of the convention, and the agent of the terror. As a first homage to this relation, Cavaignac, after February, was nominated Governor-General of Algeria; but as the situation of the capital became more and more precarious, and as the outbreak which took place in June became more imminent, the executive government felt the necessity of having beside them a soldier, on whose democratic principles they could place full reliance. To General Changarnier they owed the defeat of the conspiracy of the 15th of May; but General Changarnier was known as a legitimist. General Cavaignac was therefore recalled from Africa, and appointed Minister of War previous to the insurrection of June. He was thus, in the eyes of the moderate party, and, indeed, in reality, personally identified with the party of the National, and more especially with M. Armand Marrast, afterwards President of the Assembly. It was from this individual General Cavaignac was understood to derive all his inspirations; he was his alter ego, and perhaps public opinion even exaggerated the influence thus exercised over the chief of the state. Be this as it may, General Cavaignac, in the eyes of the moderate party, was looked upon as the creature of the National, and, as such, was peculiarly obnoxious. To have faced the electoral body as a candidate for the presidency, covered with such odium, would have been most imprudent. It was, therefore, arranged, by the advice of the party of the National, that a" rapprochement" should be effected, if possible, with the moderate party. Negotiations were accordingly opened with them, the result of which was, the appointment of M. Dufaure to the Ministry of the Interior, in place of M. Senard, and M. Vivien to the Ministry of Public Works, in place of M. Recurt. M. Senard was a repub

M.

lican of the veille, and M. Recurt was the friend and associate of Pepin, and was more than suspected of being privy to the Fieschi plot. This measure was, therefore, in a double sense, a concession to the moderate party-a concession, by the appointment of two of its leading members to the Ministries of the Interior and Public Works, and a further concession, by the removal from the ministry of two republicans of the veille, one of whom was particularly obnoxious. But this step had hardly been taken, when the party of the National, as it were, shrunk with timidity from the advance they had made, and seemed alarmed at having gone so far in what the more exalted democrats denominated reaction. Two appointments were accordingly made, to counteract these which have been just mentioned. Recurt was placed in the Prefecture of the Seine, at the head of the municipality of Paris; and M. Trouvé Chauvel, another democrat of the veille, was advanced to the Ministry of Finances. It was, moreover, ascer tained that these appointments were arbitrarily made by General Cavaignac, without previously consulting the two ministers of the moderate party whom he had just appointed. This step naturally created much indignation, and exasperated the moderate party even more than would have been the case if MM. Dufaure and Vivien had not been appointed. Indeed, these two personages were much lowered in the estimation of their own party, because they did not throw up their offices upon the appearance of the appointments of MM. TrouvéChauvel and Recurt in the Moniteur.

General Cavaignac thus threw down with one hand what he had erected with the other, and he ultimately presented himself to the electors as a candidate for the presidency, subject to the hostility of the entire moderate party.

While these things were in progress, the name of Prince Louis Napoleon was put forward by his friends as a candidate for the presidency, and that name instantly produced an electric effect throughout the country. It became manifest that a large proportion of suffrages would rally round it in all the departments. The moderate party were, during this time,

holding counsel as to the candidate whom they should put forward. They had, however, came to no decision until the candidateship of Prince Louis hade made such progress, that the effect of their putting forward any candidate would, inevitably, as they imagined, so divide the suffrages, that none of the candidates would have an absolute majority, and that consequently the election would fall into the hands of the Assembly, who, it was well known, would elect General Cavaignac by a large majority.

The question, therefore, which the moderate party had to decide was, whether by putting forward a candidate of their own, they would ensure the election of General Cavaignac, or by abstaining altogether from voting, they would give a chance to Cavaignac to have so great a minority as still to throw the election into the Assembly, or finally, by giving their support to Prince Louis, to ensure for him an absolute majority, and thereby throw out Cavaignac.

They adopted the last-mentioned course; but the result of the election, as now known, renders it very doubtful whether, even though the leaders of the moderate party had abstained, or even if they had set up a candidate of their own, whether still the "entrainement" of the populace would not have carried the election of Prince Louis.

The result of the election has placed the chief of the executive and the assembly in a false position. Prince Louis has been elected by eighty per cent. of the electoral body. Had the election taken place in the Assembly, General Cavaignac would have been elected by exactly the same proportion of the representatives.

It is, therefore, demonstratively certain, that four-fifths of the representatives themselves, elected by universal suffrage, are directly opposed to fourfifths of their constituents; on this point Prince Louis is the nominee of four-fifths of the electors; and yet

four-fifths of the representatives are his inveterate opponents.

How, it will be asked, can so singular an anomaly be explained? The solution is not difficult to an attentive observer of the events of the year. The assembly was elected in Aprilthe country was in a state of alarmfears were entertained of a civil warto have returned a large reactionary majority would, it was supposed, have inevitably produced this result. In the election, therefore, a certain amount of concessions were made by the majority to the democratic party, and the result was, that the assembly was more democratic in its constitution than was the electoral body by whom it was returned. If the election took place now, after the successive repres sions of the attempts of the 15th of May and the 24th of June, an assembly, representing more faithfully the opinions of the country, would be returned.

But whatever solution be accepted, the political dilemma is apparent: the Assembly are on one side, and the presi dent and the electoral body on the other they are opposed to each other— and, while they are so, it is impossible to conceive that the machinery of government can move smoothly.

The necessity, therefore, of a speedy dissolution of the Assembly is generally felt. It is certain that another Assembly now elected would be composed of a majority in harmony with that of the electoral body, but it is precisely for that reason that the proposed dissolution of the Assembly is objected to by all the organs of the republicans of the veille and the ultra-democrats. The organs of the red republicans do not dissemble their intentions, and openly declare that, if any attempt to dissolve the Assembly by direct or indirect means were used, they are ready to go down into the streets and fight for it. What the practical result of this situation may be, time alone will show. Perhaps before these pages are in the hands of the reader, those results may be foreshadowed.