New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1874-05-11
FRENCH TOPICS.
NOTES FROM PARIS.

| TOWARD TIE DUNE Dfs
DEATH OF Ex-MINIsTER BEULE.
IRON THE REGULAR CORRESPONDENT or THE TRIBusE
PARIS April 29-"The executive authority is in
trusted to Marshal MacMahon, Duke Of Magenta, for
seven years, dating from the PRONUNCIATION OF the
present law. This authority shall continue to be ex-
erclsed with the title of President of the Republic,
and IN Its actual conditions, until the notifications
that may be effected in them by the constitutional
laws That Is the text of the famous resolution OF
law passed by the Assembly in the exercise Of its
sovereign constituent power on the goth November,
1873. Ever since that day, and of lato days more
diligently than ever, those who voted for it, those
who voted against it, and the French world of po-
lemlcal writer's at large have been busy with fruit
less and vouminous exegeses of it, The still unset
tied questions are: Does seven years mean
yearsf Does President mean President Republic
Republicf Do the then actual conditions remain
actualf What notifications that might be made
could be madef should they if they c0uldf
and would they, if they were made, affect the Mar
shals personal authority, or his Republican Pres-
Dental title, or the time of his wearing it'll The
approach to the opening of new session OF the Soy
eregn Assembly hf it did not renquish part of its
sovereignty by final exercise last Noyemberl, has
stimulated new wearisome vivacity to the discus
sion anew of all these out-threshed questions. One
M. lie Rochelle, high-vaulting President OF the
Light Horse Group Of the Extremely Divine Right,
has lately brought to the debate valuable contribu-
ton of irregular verbs. The gist of his published
letter is that Legitmsts were induced to vote the
Law of November by assurances from authorized
persons" that the MarshaPs intentions were
honorable l. e., that the law was merely stOp-gap
to dam irruptive republcanism, the seven years to
be taken in igurative not arithmetical, sense, and
he shal 10 ha ot.y
when Henry " was ready to enter. Thereupon the
Marshal Dukes responsible editor, Academic Duke
dc Broglie, communicates and accommodates TO
commenting journals that no never did any such
thing. But somebody did. Rochette is several
removes from an idiot, does not write before he
thinks and il an honest gentleman, let alone sort
of authorized spokesman Of his group and its royal
chief.
IT Is said and of course denied, that this chief
lately came into France 1t is characteristic OF the
general confusion which are in, and OF the gen.
eral French newspaper preference of speculative
and imaginative conclusions TO the mere reporting
of facts, that whether the Count dc Chambord did
or did not cross the frontier three days ago is to-day
az questionable as was his actual presence hero last
Autumn until after he left What is not question
able is that the extreme Right are passonately dis
content with the Duke de Broglie; that the I'M
perialists Of whom he Is the protcg6 and the in
strument, despse him, and laugh at his embarrass-
ments by which they profit; and that his minis
terial position, regarded from an English or old
French parliamentary view, is not tenabie
after the middle Of next month. 1t does
not by any means follow that this
very tenacious, and. it must be admitted
skifu performer on the slackest Of political ropes
will fall disgraced next month at the Versailles
theater The main reason which disconnected
Lcgitimists and hooking Bonapartists had for sus-
tanning him is still potent. AS cOmbatant of the
Republic he is always their champion without claim
TO future pay. Under the circumstances the former
will he induced TO say: Can we find better substi-
tute 81 and the latter: Could there be another so
cheap and efficient, profitable serVartF Were
old Republicans and latterly converted
Republicans o compact body with an
admitted leader with some one clearly
devised scheme of policy and political party action
they could take possession Of the Government and
President MacMahon. They are French, and there
fore do not, and will not He-whose somewhat
overlauded honesty may have this said in Its and
his favor that he never asked, much less intrigued
for the place he now occupies-pretty patiently
means to keep his place for seven years. There IS
no other so unpopular man in France as the Duke
de Brogle but President MacMahon holds to and
by him, as he has held and stood by MacMahon.
Turning to suicide, donot escape politics. At break
fast to-day l read in the GaulOs: To-day our
reporters bring us but attempt at suicide
doubt if selfmurder has grown to DO SO alarmingy
more frequent, so much of an epidemic within the
last two or three years in Paris, newspaper rec
ords would seem to present and help TO make II.
The careless reader of half dozen morning and
evening papers, each reporting the same
two or three or more suicides of the
fbpir mhpr
if foreign reader, adds to his early erro-
neous notions of the peculiarly French facilities of
suicide Now the dry, not TO say appropriately dead
facts. proved by the most careful statistics testify
that in proportion to the population, there arc
fewer suicides in France, year by year,
than in most northern countries; that the
rate is larger IN Protestant than IN
Catholic communities larger among Christians OF
any sort than among Jews. These are undeniable
facts with religions or moral significance If pious
sentmen tasts dried-up small statsticlans would
enlarge little their sense and field OF inquiry.
| There is doubt that the war and Commune have
not yet done with furnishing their special causal
compliments TO the yearly suicide census OF Paris,
and little doubt that the constant publication with
emotionally interesting circunstantlal details, ma
teria and moral, of each in certain widey-cir
| culated daily papers, has fed here and there the
morbid sentiments of reader and, in one way or
another, stimulated dreamy discomfort with life to
| quick efficient purpose of death.
The proprietor-editor Ia very shrewd onel OF the
| morning paper wherein l read tho phrase above
quoted, proposed some days ago, in q humanely
meant and rather clever leading article, to all his
fellow managing journalists, that they should con-
spre henceforh forever to ignore all suicides on ,ne
ground that the publicity, the sort OF fame grai'eu
| tha ~. NJ ..rba
! 90 the candidates of Tomorrow OF course, the
IL the rest VIII not.