Year: 1874

TIE DEBATE TO-DAY at TRRSAILLES.


There is so much electricity in tho air just
now about Versailles that it is impossible not
to feel some interest in regard to the debate
which is to take place there to-day upon the
Interpolation of NJ. Lebrun in regard to the
course the Government has taken in the sus-
pension of the reactiOnary newspaper, the
Union, which published the late manifesto OF
the Comtc de ChambOrd. 1t is not that the
suspension of a newspaper more or less Is a
matter of much Importance in France. That
is far too common an occurrence to excite any
interest when the papers visited are Repub-
lican or radical. But the suspension of this
clerical and Legitimist organ has greatly ex-
cited the aristocratic and bigoted members of
the Right who voted for Marshal MacMahon
in the expectation that he would teach the
free-thinking journals to behave themselves,
and who are naturally outraged to see him
laying the secular arm upon the mouthpiece
of their own monarchical and ultramontane
cause.


The principles of the freedom or censorship
of the press will therefore cut no appreciable
figure in this debate. All sides, it is to be
feared, are only too ready to suppress the ex-
preston of any opinion hostile to themselves.
The only important question to be developed
by the days debate is how far the adherents
of the Comte de ChambOrd can rely upon
assistance from other portions of the Chamber
to form a coalition against the MacMahon
Government. 1t was yesterday reported that
they were seeking an alliance with the Left
on the ground that this branch of the AS
sembly ought, in accordance with its avowed
principles, to come forward to the defense OF
the liberty of the press assailed by
power But it is in the highest degree
improbable that the Republicans of the
Left will consent to act as a catspaw
to overturn government nOminally Republi-
can in the interest of party avOwedly reac-
tionary. There seems little more intrinsic
probability in another rumor that a coalition
is in progress between the Right and Left
Centers for the purpose of promoting the pas
sage of NJ. Casmir-P6rier's Constitutional
Scheme. If they have been weaned from the
fancy that they can establish limited
monarchy without the concurrence of the
French people, and have come to see that
their only choice now lies between the Repub
lie and the Empire, there would seem no more
moderate or reasonable ground to stand upon
than the proposition of NJ. Casimir-P6rier to
organize the Septennate at once in Republi-
can sense.


Whether there is any truth or not in the
report that the Comte de Chambord is again
at Versailles, 1t is evident that his supporters
are preparing for final and desperate effort
to place him upon the throne from which his
own dull obstinacy, as much as anything else,
has kept him SO long. A few days will de-
termine the result and we can only note to-
day the feverish agitation in both the I'm
perialist and Legitimist camps which would
seem to indicate that both these factions feel
that no time is to be lost, and that if the Re-
public is now suffered to be organized, even
in the provisional form of the Septennate, it
will be serious work to overturn it hereafter.