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

THE EXPRESS, TUESDAY EVENING, NOVEMBER 11, 1851.

react of all the authorities which he deems necessary. The
requisitions may be addressed directly to ell the officers,
commanders, and functionaries, who are obliged to com-
ply immediately therewith under the penalties established
by the law. The l'resident may delegate his right of re-
qutsitioa to the questors, or to one of them."
This, the Ordre holds, is identically the same in
(substance with the proposition of the questors.
But the fact is that the motion of M. Ban
and his colleagues foists in a foreign element,
which is neither contained in the constitution nor in
the quoted decree of the Constituent. The 32nd ar-
ticle of the constitution says: "The Assembly fixes
the amount of military forces established for its secu-
rity, and disposes of them." Neither here, nor in
the decree of the Constituent is there a single clause
which enables the Assembly. to appoint the com-
mander of the troops it requires for its protection.
But the bill now brought forward by the questa*
introduces a clause empowering the President of the
Assembly "to designate the officer charged to com-
mand those troops." This is a decided attempt to
encroach on the prerogative of the executive power
in its most important functions. Thus while the
President of the Republic, keeping strictly within
the letter of his attributions, is daily menaced by the
parliamentary organs with the bugbear of impeach-
ment. trial before the High Court, committal to Vin-
cennes, and what not, the official representatives of
the Assembly present a bill violating the constitu-
tion, and containing an aggression upon the righted
the executive which amounts to nothing more nor
less than high treason.
The Sleek sacs that it would have applauded the
questor& bill hiid it been proposed after the reviews
of Satory, or even after M. I.kon Faucher's speech at
ltheitns. But it opposes such a move at the present
1 moment, as really directed against universal suf-
(rage, and because there is no symptom that the
President is in any way conspiring against the state.
It is evident, from the identity of argument and
similarity of language used upon this subject by the
four papers mentioned above, that they must ham
received a mot dordre, and been inspired at theism
source.
We have in this proposition of the questors the
renewal in a more aggressive form of the attacks of
the Committee of Permanence founded on the plot
of Allais last vear. At that period the President
I insisted upon the dismissal of I. Von, the Assem-
bly's commissary of police. In order to vindicate his
authority and dignity as the head magistrate of the
nation on the present occasion, Louis Napoleon
in all probability, insist on the dismissal of the
questors.
The committee of parliamentary initiative at a
meeting this morning. heard the observations of the
Minister of the Interior upon the quistors' bill, and
adjourned till this evening, when the minister will
again attend.
To-night a general meeting of the demoemticparty
will take place, in order to deliberate upon the situn-
ation, and upon the course to be pursued with regard
to the elections of November 30.
In the Assembly's sitting of to-day the discussion
of the budget of the interior was resumed. M.
Schteleher proposed to add two chapters, granting
succour to political convicts and to the wounded of
June. M. Passy reminded the house that these
chapters had been struck out by a vote of last year,
as holding out a premium to civil war. The amend-
ment of M. Schadeher was rejected by 109 votes
against 209. The last chapters of the ministry of
the interior were voted without debate. The ministry
of commerce and agriculture followed, without raising
any incident of interest, and having been completely
voted, the budget of public works was entered upon.
Interpellations were accepted by the minister of
the interior for to-morrow, relative to the assault
during the vacation, by gendamies, upon M. Sartin,
representative of the people. To-morrow will also
come on the debate on the Lyons Railway.
The convocation of the electors of the Seine for the
30th of November is a measure which has been the
subject of much conversation without its motive yet
having been penetrated. The conservatives point to
the election as an oceasion for the democratic non-
abstentionists to vote in favour of M. de Thorigny.
But that minister is as little likely to become a fa-
vomit° with the Left us any of his predecessors. It
would take the genius and resolution of a first-rate
statesman to wrestle with the torrent of bureau-
erotic reaction in which a French Minister of the
Interior is by the force of circumstances placed.
M. de Thorigny has giten to-day a fresh prod of
his incapacity to resist the stress and bias of official
traditions. 'There was a meeting yesterday of the
Association of Musicians. Some stanzas had been
written by Victor Hugo for the occasion. The
audicucc ' waiting an hour for this.pro•

of the revolution and of society, for he has reconciled the
two. He Las deserved well of the rich, of the poor, of the
public peace, sad of France, which, of all modern nations,
will stand distinguished as the nation of universal suffrage.
Ile gives the President credit for patriotic motives, but
kit% supposing him to have been prompted by mere verso-
, nal interim,. maintains that he has still dune well, for he has
learnt that honesty is the best policy. HI. Lamartine then
attributes the failure of every government from 1789 to 1848
to the wantof thegreat saving principle of universalsuffrage.
To that principle proclaimed on February 25th, 1848, at
the Hotel do N tile, by men without authority but not with-
out wisdom, it is (he says) alone due that the republic—a
most improbable form of government—continues to exist in
spite of menaces. It was the force of that principle which
suppressed all communist sedition in the time of the con-
stituant, chastised u a sacrilege the attack upon the As-
sembly of May 15th, 1818, caused the constitution to be ac-
cepted by reluctant royalists without a murmur, presided at
the orderly election of December 10th, and procured Louis
Napoleon to be hailed as President of the Republic by his
most determined opponents, of whom H. Lamartine
was one. The reason of thin success of universal suffrage
he states to be, that it is a principle, whereas everything
else is but fiction and expedient. It is a principle fallen
from heaven, the true divine right, which was lost and is
found. After this warm tribute to universal suffrage, and
to the President for adopting it as his flag, M. Lamartine
proceeds, however, to blame very severely the terms in
which the message announe(s the change of policy. lie
accuses the President of flattering the passions and panic-
fears of the majority, and of betraying an excessive per-
sonality in his real or affected anxiety for France, if she
should not revise the constitution in order to give stability
to some one person. He ridicules the allusion of the mes-
sage to a general European conspiracy, and (amends
that the radical revolutions dreamed of by sonic few
disordered brains form no rational cause for alarm.
Ile maintains that France proved in 1848 the honesty and
good sense of the masses. Ile argues from the actual state
of all European notions, that the word was never more
safe than now from demagogic conspiracies. England, he
says, laughs at all the elements of revolution, leaving them
to be neutralised by the wise and politic liberty allowed by
her really hereditary republic. Ile objects to the use in
the message of the sinister word " Jacquerie," the exist-
ence of which in France he tctally denies. The article
concludes with an exhortation to the President to dispel
the one great danger which elands the horizon, by declaring
that lie will not accept an unconstitutional re election, and
expresses a belief that lie will yet make that declaration.
The Jwirnal du Cher of Friday states that several
new arrests have been effected at Saint Arnaud, and
amongst them is M. Itollet, a member ot' the council-
general of the Cher, arrested on the charge of being
implicated in the riots in that department.
In execution of the law voted on June 13 by the
Assembly, relative to the national guard, the bu-
reaux of the prefecture of the Sane arc nt present
actively employed in a complete reorganisation of,
that institution on new bases, better calculated than
the old ones to secure public order. The authorities
placed over the national guard of Paris have been
almost unanimously of opinion that it would be ad-
visable to act on Art. 119 of the law, which accords
to the government two years for the reorganisation
of the 7th, Bth, 9th, and 10th legions, at present dis-
solved. The general service will be thus, it is true,
somewhat more onerous on the other legions, but
still less so than it was before 1848, in consequence
of a greater number of posts being now occupied by
the troops of the line.
At the Bourse the Five per Cents. closed nt 9).30,
without change from yesterday ; the Three per Cents.
fell 10e., and closed at 35.70. The railway market
presented little variation.