a Committee existed in Paris and one in the Nièvre; but neither of those Committees was composed of more than twenty members, and they had no relations with each other; therefore, they did not come under the law.

Meanwhile, the Baron de Bourgoing's election remained unconfirmed. On the proposal of the Keeper of the Seals, answering M. Goblet, the Committee question was joined on to the question of the confirmation of the election; the next day (23rd) the Assembly heard the Report of M. Horace de Choiseul, suggesting a Parliamentary inquiry to allow the Assembly to undertake judicial proceedings. The skirmish was a lively one. M. Raoul Duval opposed the inquiry; M. Ricard supported the proposition, declaring that it appeared from existing documents that the Committee of which M. Rouher had denied the existence was in working order, and that M. Rouher himself was its Chairman. M. Rouher, faced by his own declaration, could not refuse the inquiry. He accepted it, while protesting against a measure which indirectly submitted to a political assembly a judicial question interesting one of the parties within the Assembly.

The majority voted for an inquiry into Baron de Bourgoing's election, thus reasserting its AntiBonapartist sentiments; old rancours, the memory of the disasters which had befallen France, a latent Liberalism, and, above all, the fear of hated rivals, decided this vote, on the eve of the day when the Assembly had to pronounce on the régime in which the country was to take refuge.

On the 24th December, the Assembly adjourned until the 9th January, 1875.

CHAPTER III

THE REPUBLIC FOUNDED

I. Preparations for the debate on the Constitution.-The Committee of Thirty takes the initiative.-Conference at the Élysée.-Parliamentary Session resumed.-Message from the President (5th January, 1875).— The Government demands priority for the Senate Bill.-It is refused; resignation of the Cabinet.-Provisional arrangements.

II. First reading of the Bill for the Organisation of Public Powers.-First debate on the Bill for the creation of a Senate.

III. Second debate on the Bill for the Organisation of Public Powers.Sittings of the 28th, 29th, and 30th January.—-Solemn debate on Clause 1.-M. Laboulaye's amendment.-M. Louis Blanc intervenes.-The Laboulaye amendment is rejected.-The Wallon amendment.-Negotiations of the Lavergne group.-M. Desjardins' proposition is rejected.— The Wallon amendment is voted by a majority of one.-Consequences of that vote.

IV. The second debate on the Public Powers Bill continued.-Dissolution and the Revision of Constitutional Laws suggested.-The seat of Public Powers remains fixed at Versailles.-Second debate on the Senate Bill.The Pascal Duprat amendment voted.—Declarations of the Committee of Thirty and of the Government.-Dissolution demanded.-General confusion.

V. The Right offers the Dictatorship to the Marshal.-The Duc de Broglie refuses to form a Cabinet.-The Right against M. Buffet.-The Lavergne group intervenes between the two Centres.-The Marshal gives up the right to appoint Life Senators.-Agreement concluded.-The Senate Law and the Public Powers Law carried.

A1

I

T last came the opening of the session of January 1875, which was to determine the future of the country.

President Buffet had been re-elected in December. In his opening speech, he had solemnly invoked the

Lord's blessing on the labours of the Assembly, and his hearers had been struck by his emotion and his evident sense of responsibility. Indeed, that cold and reserved man, whose apparent stiffness perhaps concealed some uncertainty, was now called upon to fill an important part. The Assembly, without a programme or a leader, nominally conducted by a Government without authority, could but drift unless its President undertook to direct it.

The Moderate Rights, who still composed the leading party, stood in alternate fear of two possibilities: Dissolution and the triumph of Bonapartism. The Orleans Princes considered that the first duty was to consolidate that which existed, even if that should entail the organisation of Republican institutions: anything, to stand in the way of Bonapartism.

The Bonapartist party was full of hope. In its own eyes and in the eyes of the provinces, its strength was exaggerated. The ardent leader, whom the NeoImperialist party had found in the person of M. Raoul Duval, vehemently urged the Assembly to come to a conclusion, and constantly accused it of usurping power -a point on which the Assembly's conscience was not altogether easy.

On the Left, the partisans of Dissolution had not all laid down their arms. M. Louis Blanc calculated that twenty more votes would secure a majority for a motion. to dissolve. Such important men as M. Thiers and M. Jules Grévy had pronounced in favour of a General Election. In the Press, M. Émile de Girardin demanded the convocation of a Constituent Assembly. The Assembly had to lose no time if the course of events was to remain under its control.

Each of the various groups faced the others with the desire to play a decisive game; procrastination was at an

end.

The Moderate Right, usually so slow and so backward, prepared for the fight. The Duc de Broglie, behind the scenes, drew up the plan of campaign, which was handed to the Committee of Thirty.

Since the Government of the Marshal, a Government at once durable and provisional, was the only resource of the Royalist and Conservative parties, they decided to make it secure by solid institutions; it was also decided to perpetuate the will of the Assembly and to prolong in a new régime the chances of the Constitutional Monarchy that this Assembly had been powerless to restore. The idea was again entertained of a Second House, a Conservative Senate, which would especially "conserve the chief preoccupation which had, in vain, filled men's minds at the time of the 24th of May. The Duc de Broglie had been unsuccessful when he proposed to the Assembly the institution of this Second Chamber. His proposition, slightly modified, was now taken up again. And now, once more, the question of priority arose.

The Committee of Thirty, in its sitting of the 16th December, decided to demand, at the very beginning of the session, the immediate discussion of the Senate Bill, with M. Antonin Lefèvre-Pontalis as Reporter, instead of the Ventavon Bill on the organisation of public powers. It was thought that the Left Centre would not refuse its assistance, and thus time would be gained, while a Parliamentary survival-perhaps salvation— might be obtained by the creation of the Senate.

The Left Centre did not lend itself to that combination. M. Dufaure, who was a member of the Committee, supported priority for the debate on the Ventavon Bill, which at least formed a constitutional whole. The attitude, or, as it was called, the "falling off" of the Left Centre at that critical moment, was a heavy blow to those who had prepared the manœuvre.

The game was so important that they decided to have recourse to drastic measures.

On the 29th December, after a special convocation from the General Secretary of the Presidency, the following persons were asked to attend a meeting at the Élysée: MM. Buffet, Dufaure, Casimir-Perier, Duc de Broglie, Bocher, Duc d'Audiffret-Pasquier, Duc Decazes, de Kerdrel, Depeyre, General de Chabaud La Tour, Hamille, Chesnelong, and Léon Say. They sat round a table, the Marshal in the centre, with General Chabaud La Tour on his right and the Duc Decazes on his left ; opposite to him sat M. Buffet, between the Duc de Broglie and M. Dufaure.

It might have been thought that such a gathering of "moderate men of all parties" had assembled to tender advice to the Marshal-President on questions which could no longer be retarded. However, M. Thiers and M. Jules Grévy were not present.

It was seen by the opening speech of the Marshal, that the game was arranged in order to bring pressure upon the Left Centre, and to obtain from its eminent members a modification in the order of proceedings which would make it possible, as M. Buffet expressed it, "to constitute a Second Chamber, so that when the election becomes necessary, the Marshal should not be left alone, face to face with a new Assembly."

M. Buffet spoke in the most conciliatory manner: "He himself would try for the best; if he could not succeed, he would accept what seemed to him the next best; he would even go as far as what seemed to him. bad to a certain extent, for he was convinced that, under existing circumstances, a dissolution would be the worst of dangers."

Marshal MacMahon, with his usual good sense, said that if Dissolution were made use of to send away a Radical