The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-04-13


dible amount Of talking and of doing nothing
"a reputation which was amply shared by
the other Council, that of the Five Hundred
1t is difficult to establish the balance of
power very nicely between rival assemblies
The two Councils under the Directory has
been perpetually at loggerheads, and it was
doubtless to obviate any recurrence of this
that Bonaparte, in his Constitution of the
Year VIII, decided that the Senate should .
have the Corps Legislatif and Tribunal en-
tirely under its control. The number of sena-
tors was originally sixty. They were self
elected for life from a list of candidates sub
mitted to them by the Consuls and the Corps |
Legislatif. They received a salary of $4,000 |
francs, and their prerogatives were to appoint |
the Consuls andJudges of Appeal, and to elect,
prorogue, and dissolve the Corps Legislatif |
and Tribunal Under the empire the number |
of senators was raised to 1877, and their sala- |
ries increased to 36, 900 francs Moreover, as |
it was considered advisable that they should !
have q comely look on state occasions, rich
attire was given them, consisting OF gold-laced !
coat, satin breeches, mantle of violet velvet
embroidered with gold bees, and black velvet
hat with white feathers. In exchange for
these sumptuous clothes the Senate gene
rously parted with its independence, and cried
''Yes, with the utmost spirit, to all that the
emperor suggested. 1t was not till 1914, when
the dispenser of past favors had nothing more
! u.
discovered suddenly how absurd thing it was
to be afraid Nothing was ever more brave or
noble than their conduct at this juncture. 1t
did credit to human nature In the first place,
and in the next set happy precedent
to all subsequent assemblies who should be
in doubt as to how to act in puzzling contin-
gencies To the Imperial Senate succeeded
the House of Peers, the members of which
were hereditary from 1915 to 1881, and APP
pointed for life from 1881 to 1913. Although
the equality principles of 1898 had struck
sufficiently deep roots in the minds of most
Frenchmep, yet the House of Peers of the
Restoration was by no means an unpopular
assembly All the vindctiveness, intoler-
ance, and reactionary energy of the Royalists
| found refuge in the lower House, not in the
! Upper. The Peers more than once gave proof
of real Independence by resisting the mea-
sures of the Villele Ministry and it was not
until the close of Charles Is reign, when
! liberal tendencies seemed to be getting the
upper hand in the Chamber of Deputies, that
the Peers took fright and abetted that series
of well-contrived schemes that eventually
| landed the Bourbon dynasty at Goritz. Under
| Louis Philippe the Upper House was but
pale copy of its predecessor. The Peers still
kept to the blue and gold uniform which
/ Louis XVIII had devised, and pretended to
! believe themselves the first power in the
State. But nobody talked about them. 1t
seemed to be tacitly understood that, think
as they might, the Peers would always vote
as they were told; so that, excepting when NJ
! Victor Hugo or some other famous member
was going to speak, the debates excited only
the same kind of somnolent interest the
sittings of the Academic Franeaise.
! When the imperial regime succeeded for
the second time to the republic, the idea of
an Upper House recruited among all the great
men (''illustrations'D of the empire found
] T,l, hpt Of tlo
beginning of 1852 all the great men of France
were either under lock and key or in exile 1t
was impossible to find great man able and
willing to sit in the new Assembly. To be
sure, there were plenty of persons who occu-
pied eminent positions in their own esteem,
and to whom 30, 600 francs a year and the
title of Senator offered seductions not to be
resisted. But when these had been called
into requisition, on the crust and crumb
principle, they failed to impress the
country with any very vivid sense of
their grandeur, and from the earliest days
of its existence the Senate took rank in
public opinion somewhat on the same level
with that estimable assembly which voted the
seasoning of Tiberius' turbot. To make mat
ters more humiliating, the Senators at first
had nothing to do. Their mission, as stated
on paper, was the safe guarding of the Con-
stitution; but as Constitution does not run
dangers every day of the week, the ''great
men" would have been at their wits end for
employment had not the expedient been re-
sorted to of making them the recipients of
public petitions. The French are prolific in
petitions There seems to be whole class of
persons whose chief occupation is to elaborate
fantastic requests, and to drop them into the
letter box of the Luxembourg. The senator's go
through the form of reading these documents,
draw up reports on them and on set days
unanimously consign them to the waste paper
basket. This is unexciting work, but up to
1860 it was the only pastime the Senators had.
If by any evil chance there had been q dearth
of petitions in the land, the first assembly OF
the empire would have been reduced to the
distressing necessity of pocketing their sala-
ries without earning them. Since 1860, how.
ever there has been q series of changes, the
privileges conceded to the Senate keeping
pace with those obtained by the Corps Legis-
latif In 1860 came the right of voting al
address in answer to the speech from the
throne in 1866 the right of suspending for a
twelvemonth laws passed in the Lower House,
2 in 1867 the right of Interpolation; and il
/ 1869 the right of initiative. All these pre-
} negatives we're accepted at the handsof Govern
ment with perfect docillty, though without
! enthusiasm. The Senate felt no special de-
3 sire for the prerogatives. 1t had never asked
2 for them, nor would ever have been likely tc
q do so; indeed, it had often, in the gooc
s times, five or six years ago, denounced the
greater number of them as supertluous
I. fraugbt with danger and tending to anarchy
= But what Caesar wills the Senate wills. 1t il
s no dispraise of the French Upper House tha
t it has always, with admirable defcrence, sacri