The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-09-20
FRANCE.
THE CONSTITUENT ASSEMBLIES.
Prevtoua Couvocations-Hequfre ements and
ReauIfe.

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new constitution. The order for an election
for Constituent Assembly is among the first
acts of the present Provisional Government
of France. As soon as 1t meets, the Provi-
sional Government will probably-as in 1913
resign its powers into the hands of the As
sembly, who will proceed to provide both a
government and constitution. Hence the
circumstances under which the two preceding
Constituent Assemblies were convoked and
the works they effected are of extreme in
terest in their relation to the present occa-
sion. While it is the belief and hope of the
best friends of France that the coming AS
sembly will give her republican form OF
government, it will yet be within the powers
conferred upon the Assembly by the people
to make their country once more monarchy
or even an empire.
France, in 1856, was seething with dis
content. The fires of the first revolution
were smouldering beneath the mass. Louis
XIV had left the legacy OF quarrels with par
liaments to his successor, with the caution,
''Let my grandson take care of them, for it is
mere than probable they will endanger the
CROWN" and the Abbo Perigord, afterward
to become illustrious as the prince of diplo-
matists, Talleyrand, had Just remarked that
the miserable affair of the diamond
necklace may overturn the throne"
The extreme deficiencies in the finances
of the State had compelled the convening
of levying increased taxation. In dismissing
that assemblage, which had come together
from all parts of the kingdom, the Arch
bishop of Toulouse made the startling an
nouncement of the coming change-that the
Tiers Etat, i. g., the people, as a matter of
justice, should be represented by another
assembly of number of votes equal to that
of the clergy and mobiles taken together.
Marshal Segur said to the King that the
assembling of the Notables might be the seed
of the States General; if SO, it was of
rapid growth, for the pressure of
both mobiles and clergy compelled, in
August, 1888, the order for the convocation
of the national estates or States-General for
the list of May, 1889. Each of the three
estates, mobiles, clergy, and people, expected
to control this assem- blage, which was cleo
tive and so far as the Tiers-Etat was con-
cerned, resulted in the selection of repre-
sentatives of the popular will. Neckar, the
Prime Minister, procured the authorization
by the Kings Council of the measure which
doubled the number of the deputies repre-
senting the Tiers Etat. The assemblage of
the representatives of the three-Estates thus
collected on the 5th of May, 1880, was COM
posed of 1928 persons, and was called also
the Constituent Assembly.
1t consisted of 293 representatives of the
clergy, 270 of the nobles and 565 of the Tiers
Etat, thus quite realizing the proportion of
numbers to the latter named by the Arch
bishop of Toulouse. Of the representatives
of the clergy, more than two-thirds were
cures; 62 out of 1OS mayors and magistrates
in the Assembly were elected by the people,
and from the latter there came also 279 law
yers. 1t will be perceived that the preponde-
rance of intellectual activity, as we'll as of
numbers, might naturally be expected on the
side of the Tiers-Etat. One of the earliest
measures taken by the representatives of the
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lines on the 18th of June, 1888, they
took to themselves separately the title
of the National Assembly, and
Neckar prepared plan for constitution, in
which the distinction was further indicated by
providing for their meetings in different
chamber from the mobiles and clergy. But
five days afterwards 14S of the clergy left the
rest and Joined themselves to the National
Assembly. An endeavor to disperse the States
General on the part of the King was resisted
by the National Assembly; Immediately 46
mobiles, among whom was the Duke of Or
leans, followed in the footsteps of the clergy,
and went over to the resisting body, and at
last the King ordered the remainder of the
mobiles and clergy to join the opposition, and
the National Assembly embraced all the men,
bers of the States General.
There were, however, two other important
classes who already endeavored to contest the
Government with the Grown and the National
Assembly-the army of France and the popu-
lace of Paris. Treachery among the troops
has ever been coincident with disasters to the
French monarchy. The National Assembly,
if it did clearly perceive the distinction be-
tween the voice of the people and the vio-
lence of the mob, was powerless to quell the
Partisan insurgents, who, in the successful
storning of the Bastile, on the 14th of July,
1889, learned alike the power of the popu-
lace and the weakness of the crown. But
with these insurrectionary movements,
which afterwards extended to other
cities, and with the formation of the
National Guard, which dates from that day,
began the growth of that military spirit and
training which eventually made France a
nation of soldiers. On the Sth of October
followingl the mob seized the person of the
King and conducted him, virtually their
prisoner, from Versailles to Paris, where he
was permanently detained in obedience to the
popular behest. On the 20th June, 1871, the
King attempted an escape, but was arrested
at Varennes and reconducted to Paris by three
commissioners from the National Assembly
That body the next day passed decree sus-
pending temporarily his kingly functions. 1t
would have been far better for France to
have permitted his escape. These acts were
unquestionably among the gravest political
errors of the Assembly, and can only be re-
garded as weak concessions to the violent ex-
pressions of popular sentiment.
The great work accomplished by the Con-
stituent Assembly was the overthrow of the
feudal forms of government aud the recogni-
ton of the rights of man. Its enactm ents
provided for extended suffrage; for reforms
in the systems of law and administration of
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