, 1875-02-27

NJ. CARAYoN-LAToUR, the irreconcilable
champion Of Monarchy, when he said it
was a truce of so many years to enable all
the various parties to begin their battle
anew. It now comes clearly out that
when the %Septennate was decreed, the
very men who decreed it, and had paved
the way for it, and schemed for it, had
very different purposes in introducing it.
Marshal MACMAHoN's w Interpretation
of the Septennate is that he was placed in
power for seven years Internationally, and
without arriere pens6e-to keep order, and
hold the Republic together for that time
come what might. That is the interpreted
ton of the arrangement of the Goth Novem-
Der which the VENTAvON measure proposes,
to ratify and to realize. But the late de-
bates have made it perfectly clear, if any
BODY needed any new evidence of the fact,
that many of those who chiefly helped to
nlace Marshal IMAGINATION in power made
mentally a very different Interpretation of
the object and the conditions of the Septen-
nate. They put Marshal IMAGINATION in Of
flee as a sort of chief of the police to keep
things quiet, to prevent the Republicans
from takingpossession of tn goyernmenta
the country, while they We're preparing for
some sort of Monarchy. They would be
willing, if needs were, even to extend or
renew his lease of power, but they assume
that, if at any intermediate time their
plans were ready, the Marshal would be
equally ready, and would yield to them.
If therefore the VENTAvON measure were
carried, and if under It's operation things
even ran their appointed course, all that
could come of it would be so many years
of truce. Perhaps in the meantime the
Senate to be chosen " under the conditions
regulated by q special law" would have
so far obtained the mastery Of the situation
that it could help the Monarchists to elbow
the Republicans out of their chance tor
the moment but there would be no more
of a political settlement obtained than just
such as a coup d 6tat might be capable OF
bringing about. Some party or person
would be in power, to hold there as long
as it or he had strength enough, aud that
would be all.
1t is not therefore merely the subtleties
of the political controversy which cause
so much Indifference in the public mind
of France. 1t is not because people find
it difficult to grasp the reality Of the
difference between those who support the
personal and those who support the i'm
personal Septennate, or between the mea-
sure brought in by NJ. DE VENTAvoN and
that which was introduced last year, and
is likely TO be introduced again this year,
by NJ. CAsIMIR PERIER. The origin of
the general feeling of WEAKNESS aud dis
trust must be traced more deeply. 1t
is to be found, we b lieve, in the almost
universal conviction that schemes of COM
promise mean nothing among French
parties, and that no measure which the
wit of statesman could devise would be
accepted by any partisan leader as decisive
against his own particular plans. The
nation in general declines, and perhaps
not unreasonably, to regard the present
Assembly as a national and supreme
authority for the making of a Constitu-
ton. The various parties in the Assembly,
even while they are exciting themselves
over the result of a division, have no idea
whatever of allowing that division to
settle anything for good, except in so
far as it suits them. What is the use,
therefore, the outer public asks, of worry
ing ourselves about settlements which
we know perfectly we'll will settle no.
thine2 To what avail accommodating