OUR PARIS LETTER.

Grey River Argus, Volume XV, Issue 1834, 22 June 1874, Page 2

OUR PARIS LETTER.

[from our own correspondent. J

Paris, April 18.

Phorcys had three daughters called the Grasae* In addition to being grey-hatred from their birth, they had only one eye and oxe tooth in common, which they borrowed from each other when they wanted them. The more the history of French Government is studied, the more it resembles these three old girls in possessing and borrowing the eye and the tooth ; in displaying but small penetration and foresight, and using the tooth pretty vigorously. Politics become more and more a hotch-potch, and despite appearances to the contrary, the odds are in favor that this statu quo will continue till the Republicans obtain a majority in the Assembly. The future of France at this moment would seem to depend upon the title to give Marshal MacMahon's Government. Is it to be Septennate, quite short, or Septennial — Republic, quite long 1 It is gratifying to perceive that while politicians are profoundly occupied in solving the difference between tweedledum and tweedledee, MacMahon has resolved to occupy for seven years that vestibule so much coveted by the pretenders. " God bless— no harm in blessing — the Pretender, But who pretender is, or who is King— God bless us all— that's quit 6 another thing." Strange all the noise and smoke are produced by the deputies and their journals. The country remains sage, tranquil, and expectant, maintaining a strict obedience to the laws, reclaiming without irritation or despondency some definite institutions, behind which shelter it can work and resuscitate.

The Ministry has taken a sensible step in cutting the Gordian knot respecting MacMahon's office. The Legitimist and Bmiapartist organs roundly asserted that what the Sovereign Assembly gave, that Assembly could take away. No such thing replies the Cabinet, by communiques and an official circular threatening with pains and penalties all newspapers that call in question the Septennate. For the space of seven years the Assembly has bound itself and the country in an indissoluble union to not disturb the Marshal. But all are free to fiddle over the chances of a restoration of the Oomte de Ohambord in 3880, or of the Bonapartist plau of an appeal to the people at that date. The Assembly is thus compelled to agree to the Ministerial interpretation, or to overthrow the Cabinet. It must either allow Ministers to organise the office held by MacMahon, or permit the Republicans to do so. If the Monarchical majority does neither, sustains the dog-in-the-manger policy, it must abdicate. But after indulging in school-boy freaks and revenges at the expense of its own coalition Cabinet, it will most likely swallow the leek, and Ministers must be convinced of the certainty of such a result, before bearding the lion in its den. The first and last consideration with a French statesman is the nonrsurrendering of power. The organisation of the Septennate, however, it may be metaphysically described, means the foundation of the Rupublic, and until the latter word be erased from the public documents and acts of authority, from the coin, from the public edifices, &c, the Republicans have no occasion to go into hysterics. In learning them to labor and to wait, the Septennate will render them a sigual service, for it will consummate Thiers's work— the Conservative Republic, without Thiera.

Bonapartism has received a terrible knock-down blow, just as many were conallow slanderous tale-bearers to destroy | his character in this way, and refused to confess crime by resigning his position. The upshot of all was that his spiritual lordship was taken into Court to justify the imputations he had cast on the good name of several persons upon grounds that it would be folly to speak of as evidence. In extenuation he had nothing to bring forward save the stories of the churchwardens, one of whom said it was a most important part of his office to appoint himself a detective spy upon the actions of his clergyman. He was heen by the lady prowling about the house one night, and she applitd to him the forcible, but under the circumstances, just apptlla*

eluding— but not in France -that it was coming up smiling. To apologise for the unjustifiable and premeditated war against Germany, as the last card to play in the Imperial pack to save the dynasty in its visible gravitation to ruin the Bonapartists — commanding every avenue of power and arranged according to their own will — asserted the nation desired war, which was untrue ; that everything was in apple pie order, which was a cruelly wilful deception, and above all, that the Government had secured armed alliances. Though a good deal of pathos and bathos 'took place about the debt of gratitude England and America owed France for her aid in the Crimea and during the War of Independence, the French knew neither powers would knock their heads against a stone wall. Austria and Italy w ere the allies counted upon— the latter was not expected to lend a man or centime so long as a French soldier remained at Home. Austria was the State ready to fly to arms, and the Foreign Secretary, the Due de Gramont, quoted triumphantly two lines only from a despatch from Count de Beust, affirming most positively this alleged fact. By some mysterious channel, M. de Beust's letter in full, has found its way into a Paris journal, and instead of promising to aid France by arms and mediation even only in certain cases, the Austrian Chancellor very decidedly stated his country would no more depart from neutrality" than England or the States. The French were prepared for much from Imperialism in the way of deception, but their hair stands aghast at the conduct of the Ministers de Gramont, , Ollivier, and Co. plunging France 1 into such mourning and ruin, and justifying themselves by falsified ' despatches as to ready allies. The revelation is so infamous that the Bonapartist papers throw de Gramont overboard, and hint that the light-hearted Ollivier return to Italy as soon as possible.