The Express.
London, England, 1851-08-20 00:00:00

FRANCE.

PARIS, \I"EVENING.

A rumour of great importance, if well founded, en-
gages public attention. It is said that ministers,
alarmed at the prospect of simultaneous elections
throughout France in 1452, and fearing that large
masses of the people, disfranchised be the law of the
31st of Ntay, will present themselves to vote at the
polling booths, have resolved that the elections shall
take place successively in six departments
only at once. This scheme would enable a
sufficient body of troops to be collected in any given
spot, to enforce the observance of the restricted
suffrage of the list of May. The report goes so far
as to sac that a commi:sion of general officers is
already designated to lay down a plan for the IleCCS-
sary military combinations. I can hardly believe
that such a serious resolution can have been
definitively taken so long before the elections.
Considering the great probability of ministerial
changes after the meeting of the Assembly,
and the uncertainty of the turn which the revision
debate may take. any such determination must now
lie premature. The 'known and expressed opinion of
the President that the law of May 31 was applicable
only to the Assembly, and not to the election of a
president. is also an argument that M. Louis Napo-
leon would not desire to commit himself on the point
before it should be absolutely necessary to do so.
flowerer, the report, as I have given it. is very ex-
tensively credited.
In the meantime, it is clear that the President has
no power of himself to regulate the elections, a law
being necessary for the purpose. Should the Assem-
bly be disposed to pass any such law, they would
have to encounter one of those doubtful questions of
interpretation with which the constitution abounds.
The 31st article says, "The National Assembly is
elected for three years, and is renewed in its integ-
rity. Forty-five lava, at the latest, berme the end of
the legislature. a taw determines the period of the
new elections. if no law intervenes within the delay
fixed by the preceding paragraph, the electors as-
semble in their ownrighton the3tithday preceding the
end of the legislature." To prove the plan suggested
to be legal it will be necessary to show that the ex-
pression "the period," will bear straining to mean
" the period or periods," a construction not very vio-
lent or unreasonable, but still pregnant with that
danger which must ever attend the raising of an ar-
gument upon the fundamental
The Ordrr has consulted several eminent juriscon-
sults and members of the council of state upon the
question, whether the existing decree of banishment
against the Orleans family is any legal bar to the eli-
gibility of the Prince (Josnville) either as President of
the Itepublic or as a member of the -Assembly. The re-
sult of the opinions is published at length this morn-
ing, not. however, attested by the names of those!
who have given them. The opinions are unani-
mous in holding that the Prince is eligible in both
cases. although it is admitted that in either case his
election might fail to be effectual if the Assembly,
after the election, were to refuse to repeal the decree
of banishment. It is scarcely to be doubted that
this opinion is correct. When Louis Napoleon was