, 1877-12-12

Sss Wuou tuey uIduc the COnEtlLu"
ton. were stillin hopes that circumstan.
cessriight allow them to transmute the
Republic into a Monarchy, ard they there
fore provided for a revision of the Consti.
tuition 10 1880. But remembering that
circumstances might be favourable still
earlier-for example, the Comte de Cham.
bord might die, and the legitimate King be
willing to accept both the Tricolour and a
Constltution-and that Marshal Mac Mahon
was ret unfavourable to the historic Mo-
narchy, they also provided that uron his
demand the revision might take place in
any previous Session. 1t is believed on
good authority that if the Elections had
gwen the Marshal only such a Chamber
that in the two Houses sitting together he
had a majority of one, he would have
demanded the Revision, and pressed as he
is cow by uncomfortable perplexities, at
once legalist and soldier, anxious to
keep within the law and yet to strike a
stroke Of some sort, be may fall back upon
this device. There is nothing illegal and
nothing hrmiliating in it. If the Conven-
'ion decided that the Houses sitting
together on the demand Of a majority Of
either could dismiss the President, or that
their power of election should
the moment the Revising Act was passed
ne would be out of power /; but he would
be out without breaking his pledges. or
resigning, or abandoning anybody. He
would have done his very utmost. short of
striking an illegal and impossible coup
d'stGt. to keep all his promises, and wo.ld
hpve failed, as any one must fell, because
the nation had resolved upon a change Of
Constitution. lie would even have a
logical position in making his de.
mand' tor his very best conten.
tion under the circumstances is that the
snposse is not his fault, and that the
Constitution is unavoidable. No donbt
bis friends would be ANNOYED. be-
cause q Revision now must be a Liberal
Revision; but their annoyance, if the al
tentative is resignation, might not seem TO
him we'll founded. Better Revision with
himself as head of the Executive, md
prepared, if the Liberals did anvthino
Observation-Disclosures an Established
Church for instance in the Constitution.
as the Americans did-to strike a conn
'd'st0t, than 10 permit a Revision in 1886,
with M. Grevy as President and M. Gam.
BETA possibly Minister of the Interior.
Moreover, with the demand for Revision.
the unknown is once more let loose legally
in France. A flood of new questions.
new disputes, new subjects of interest
might pour over the land, in the midst of
which the blunderings of five months, if
not forgotten, would seem to recede into
the historic distance. The Radicals would
have scope to do their very worst, while
q Conservative was responsible for order,
and the newly -cemented unity of men
with so many points of difference would
disappear like q, dream. France would be
IN the cruclble once more, and there is no
telling in what shape she might Ultimate
~, emerge. The risk would be
but rot greater than the risk involved in a
coup detat. while the act would be strict.
~ legal, a matter of no mean importance
to men who know that their heads. or
what they value as much, their fortunes,
might under certain circumstances be
exacted as penalties for outstepping the
law. And the risk to the Marshal, once
resolved on resignation, would be nothing.
AT the very worst, he could only be 81.
ientIy extruded from power without that
voluntary action which, his friends say,
ne has learned to consider shameful.
We do notasee Why either Conservatives
or Mlberals in Franco shnuId oh;ost - H..