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scale, and it was supposed that it would much exceed in display, as I believe it has in cost, the one in honor of the Republic on the 21st of May. Immense flag-staffs, which floated tri-colored flags full of Republican inscriptions and emblems; a dome of great height, richly ornamented, with a cross as the pinnacle; a Statue of the Constitution, crowned with laurels, holding the Constitution in the left hand, and in the right hand a lance; a vast assemblage of the Clergy; members of the National Assembly, and all other officials; troops in countless number; cannon roaring at intervalsall this and more was to be seen in Place Concorde. The day was raw and cold. Snow fell in large

flakes, whitening everything.

When it stopped,

sleet came on, then a little more snow-so that the bad weather hardly ceased. All the arrangements were for fine weather; but sheds, open all round, roofed over, and elevated on flooring, were reared up with French quickness at fêtes as in war, when the day broke with appearances of a storm. All was to begin at half-past eight in the morning. On the board floors canopied over, the Diplomatic Corps, where I was, and all other public functionaries, found partial shelter. The President of the National Assembly read aloud the whole Constitution for such as could hear it. General Cavaignac was there in full uniform, and wore a badge of distinction won by his gallantry in Algeria. The

presence of Prince Louis Napoleon was not observed among the members of Assembly. The weather was unfavorable for enthusiasm. Cries

of Vive la République were few, or from those so far off that I could not hear them, coming, it may be, from streets in the vicinity of Place Concorde.

I did not hear a word of the Constitution as read out; but all have seen by the papers that it is much the same as contained in the draft reported by the committee on the 19th of June, as summed up in these notes the day following. The single Legislative Chamber, single Executive, and most of the other elementary provisions remain as then framed, or with modifications unessential. The abstract declarations in the beginning are varied.

As an accompaniment to the celebration, the following document was addressed by the Minister of the Interior to the Prefects of all the departments in France:

That, the French Republic being now definitively constituted, the National Assembly had decided that the Constitution should be promulgated in every commune by being read by the Mayor to the inhabitants assembled; that the Constitution was placed under the invocation of God, and its promulgation was to be a political and religious ceremony; that prayers were to precede or follow the reading of it by the civil Magistrate, as the Bishop or other clergy might prescribe; that as this great

national Fête ought to leave a souvenir among the unfortunate, the Assembly had appropriated four hundred thousand francs, which were to be equitably distributed throughout the departments in cases only of the most poignant misery.

Finally, the prefect of each department was to cause the inhabitants to understand the importance and solemnity of this act of a great People, who, after eight months of uncertainty and disquiet, had placed themselves under the empire of a strong and durable Constitution and entered definitively upon the path of free and regular governments.

And may it prove so. But, as a looker-on since February, I cannot, with all the wishes I then had, and desire still to cherish, for the success of the Republic,-I cannot, now that its new Constitution comes forth, with but one Chamber, and other anomalies to an American, easily yield my assent to any encouraging prospects of its durability.

November 28. Go to General Cavaignac's reception; an immense crowd, consisting almost exclusively of military officers; nothing comparable to it that I have before seen at any reception in Paris for numbers. It was caused by the General's speech in defence of his course in putting down the Insurrection. His friends and adherents came in multitudes to offer their congratulations. His adversaries brought charges against him of causing blood

to flow unnecessarily at the barricades, by his acts and by his omissions. An An angry debate followed in the sitting of the 25th, and the Assembly sustained his course by a triumphant vote. Hence the crowd this evening. His rooms were filled to overflowing, so that hundreds had to remain in the garden. In making my way into the rooms to reach General Cavaignac, I was aided by my kind friends the Lafayettes, father and son, who led me along circuitous paths in the garden. The debate in the Assembly and crowd this evening are the better explained by the near approach of the election for President, General Cavaignac being prominent as a candidate.

November 30. At length I am to record the manifesto of Prince Louis Napoleon. It is out in full. On the eve, he says, of an election for the first Magistrate of the Republic, his name had presented itself as a symbol of order and security. He knew that this testimony of confidence was more to the name he bore than to himself, who had yet done nothing for his country. He was not ambitious of subversive theories: reared in free countries, and in the school of misfortune, he would be faithful to the duties which the suffrages of his fellow-citizens and the will of the Assembly might impose on him. If elected President, he would shrink from no danger or sacrifice to defend society,

so audaciously attacked. He would devote himself to the strengthening of a Republic, prudent in its laws, honest in its intentions, and great in its acts. He should consider it a point of honor to leave to his successor, at the end of four years, the government strengthened, liberty intact, and a real progress accomplished. He would strive to reconcile parties and calm hatreds. Real reforms would be best effected by economy, without disorganizing the public services; by a diminution of the most burdensome taxes; by encouraging enterprises which would develop the riches of agriculture, and give work to unemployed hands; by imparting to the laws relating to industry, the meliorations which tend to benefit the poor without injuring the rich; by restricting the number of places which depend on the Government, which often make a free people a nation of place-hunters; and by avoiding the fatal tendency which leads the state to do what private individuals could do as well or better; and by preserving the press from its two excesses, arbitrariness and license. These are points in his manifesto which touch upon home concerns.

War, he says, would be no relief to the evils of France. Peace would therefore be his dearest of desires. France in her first Revolution was warlike, because she was forced to be so. To invasion she replied by conquest. Not being attacked now, she could devote her resources to pacific improvements.

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