The Express.
London, England, 1851-11-29 00:00:00

FRANCE.

PARIS, FIIIDAY EVENING.
To-day the Assembly proceeded with and finished
the tallier des charges of the Avignon Railway Bill.
Nothing of interest occurred. The house agreed to
adjourn voting on the articles of the bill until to-
morrow, in order to deliberate on the way in which
they should deal with the former shareholders of the
Avignon Cotnpany, whose caution-money was con-
fiscated in consequence of the non-execution of their

engagements.
M. de Vatismesnil took advantage of a pause in
the debate to move that the third reading of the
Communal Electoral Bill should be brought on the
order of the day for to-morrow. After some obser-
vations from MM. Lacrosse and Posey, the Assembly
rejected this motion by a small majority, and de-
cided that the bill should not come until after the
law on the levy of 80,000. The report on the latter
bill by General Cludinot concludes in favour of its
adoption.
Ney de la Moskowa presented to-day 75 petitions
for the revision of the constitution with a mew to
the renewal of the powers of Louis Napoleon.
The sitting broke up without further result.
In future the Assembly means to go to work an
i hour earlier in the day, that is at one o'clock instead
, I of two, in compliance with the proposition of General
' Lamoriciere.
M. de Tinguy has presented the following proposi-
-1 tion to the Assembly :
, I If the National Assembly shoxild be obstructed in the

ezerecseof its mandate by ;revolutionary event, the mem-
bers of the Councils General will meet immediately, and
oft pain of dismi•sal, at the capitals of their departments, in
, order to form with the civil and military authorities, which
are required under the same penalty to lend their concur-
; rence, a council of public safety, the duty of which shall be
' to organise and maintain legal resistance until the ristora-
; tion of the parliamentary power.
- - - - - -

The reluctance of either side of the Assembly to
take the initiative in proposing urgency tor the
Council of State's Bill is a striking symptom of the
irresolution of the parliament, in face of the increasing
audacity. of Louis Napoleon. In fact, the bill was
quite as important as a demonstration as in the shape
of an instrument, revolutions Hashing generally to
their end with a too sudden vehemence to admit the
application of elaborate legal processes. While a
meeting at M. Mole's agreed to wait and see what
i the Left would do about proposing. urgency, the
Mountain came to a similar conclusion at Leman
delay's, and decided to wait for a move on
the 'Right. Thus, both sides of the Assembly, spy-
! ing mischief in the mien of the executive, and feeling
`they have to deal with an awkward cust,mer, strain
courtesy which shall cope him first. M. Michel de
Bourges says to M. Berryer, " If you choose to bring
'
forward urgency we of this side will support you.
M. Berryer and his friends affect to regard such pro-
posals of alliance as gifts of the Greeks, but in reality
are afraid of pulling down the whole parliamentary
fabric on their heads. I invite your attention, by
the way, to the cool style in which the proprietor of
the Pa.trie (in the article given below) talks of the
suppression of representative institutions altogether
as a measure quite easy for Louis Napoleon to carry
into ettbet, and one which would cant the gratitude
of the nation. To such a pitch has faction crippled
the utility of parliamentary mechanism, nay made it
even abominable in the eyes of at, immense mass of

the people.
The Musitettr contains several changes in the pre-
fectures. Eight new prefects are created and several I
transposed.
M. Madicr-Monjau, and other members of the
Mountain, have presented a motion for suppressing
the tax on drinks, and supplying the deficit by re.
duetions in the Budgets of the Ministries of Worship,
Wur, and the Interior.
In the Paris elections, which open on Sunday, the
whole democratic and Bonapartist putties will ab-
stain from voting. The elections use expected to
pass in complete calm. 131,000 electors are in-
scribed upon the lists. M. Devinek, therefore, in
order to succeed, must obtain 33,000. In the prepa-
ratory ballot of the Electoral Union this candidate
obtained less than half that number.
The Reodution hos been seized for an attack upon
the President.
An important political dinner has been given by
Baron Pasquier, formerly president of the Chamber
of Peens. Upwards of 10 leading members of the
Assembly, of all fractions, including Mole, de Fal-
loux, anti Broglie, were present at this banquet. It
was generally agreed that hit the mom ;it the )'re-
sident had got the upper-hand, although the dupli-
city of his policy was bloused severely. It was also
admitted that the mediocrity as well us audacity of
the Elyscan ministers was a necessary result of the
critical period ; and that Louis Napoleon, it' he car-
ried the day, as there was every appearance of pro-
bability that he would, would not find any lack of
able counsellors after the difficulties of his enterprise
were once removed.
Not the least singular anomaly of the moment is
the buoyancy of the Bourse, notwithstanding the
admission on all hands that the financial outlook is
of the gloomiest. It was observed in the debate on
the Lyous Railway that the speech of M. Pasty, as
well as the reply of M. Vintry, the commissioner
appointed to speak on the financial part of the ques-
tion, both confirmed the reported imminence of a
loan of :JO millions. In fact M. Vintry admitted
that the ministry adhered to the views of the com-
mittee on the budget, who thought it would be
better to authorise the government to contract a
loan.
The .Issembh,c opposes urgency on the Council of
States' Bill, on the ground that the latter measure
ought not to wear the appearance of a revenge for
the defeat of the Questore' Bill.
'rho Opiaion Toblipte argues in favour of voting
'the Communal Electoral Bill, the rejection of which
would greatly damage the Assembly. This failure is
more probable, as M. Leon Faucher has set the ex-
ample of voting against the new bill as too liberal,
while the Elyseans and Mountain reject it fur not
going far enough.
M. Thiers and a few of his immediate disciples,
although they voted against the transportation to
Noukaliiva of the three Lyons conspirators, were the
foremost, when the law of transportation was under
discussion, to declare in favour of its retroactive ap-
plication.
A letter of the Count de Chambord has been re-
cently received at Paris, which is much talked of as
• sort of manifesto.
M. Delamarre's article in the Pattie has made as
great a sensation as Cussagnac's in the Coostitutionnel.
The abortive attempt of M. Creton to drag Casssag-
I nac to the bar of the Assembly has naturally en-
couraged a further manifestation of contempt fur
that body. The Pattie article is headed " Repre-
sentative Government."
It begins by a long historical review of the fate of the
various National Assemblies of France, since the repreven- I
tative system was "imported from England" sixty years
ago, with the object of showing that they all came to a had
end. The moral of the story, according to M. Delamarre,
is that then• is no one phase of the representative system
which has not fatally resulteci in a revolution. Ile accounts
for this by asserting that the essential nature of every
assembly or corporation is to become aggressive. He refers,
as an instance in support of his argument, to the society of
the Jesuits, humble in it, origin, but led on by thrt necessary
tendency of its organisation to aspire to the secret govern.
mint of the world. Having with on appearance of philo-
sophic impartiality, devoted four columns to the develop
sn nt of the general doctrine, he proceeds to apply it prac-
tically in the following significant strain :
"The country is now asking itself whether upon the
whole the good or the evil of representative government is
predominant? When the boor for legally revising the
coma:autism nt 181$ shall arrive, sill France stop at the
idea of simple modifying the legislative power, or will she
go on to ...at the suppression of the National Assembly ?
This is a questiou now debating in the minds of many. It
is not so idle or so puerile a question as might be suppoeed;
on the contrary, it is a very serious one."
After establishing his own character as an impartial wit-
-111/M by the remark that his interest as a journalist would
lead him to wish for parliamentary government, he says:
"If this government were to perish by a violent death,
owing to one of those events of which history turoishes
mote than one example, its fall would excite no surprise,
and p-rhaps no regret."
A lade turtlier on, he indicates, in plain terms, the .pe-
cies of annihilation which threaten. the Assembly.
" If the legislative power were to disappear and bs ab-
sorbed in the executive power, people would only say that
it had been punished in the matter in which it had sinned ;
and that for wishing to be everything it bad become
nothing."

The above nrticle has drawn forth a violent reply
from the (7,/..n, and will certainly be a fertile theme
fur all the an.l-Elysean journals to-morrow.
A report has just been made to the Chamber of,
Commerce of Nfulhausen, by MM. Schlumberger and
Co., of Gaebwiller. on a sample of cotton sent by
the prefect of Algiers for examination. They speak
in high terms of the articles thus sent, declaring it to