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CHAPTER IX.

FRANCE.-Dispute between the President of the Republic and M. Léon de Malleville, Minister of the Interior-Resignation of the latter, and his Defence in the National Assembly-Discussion on Foreign AffairsSpeeches of MM. Beaune, Drouyn de Lhuys, Lamartine, and Ledru Rollin-Question of the Dissolution of the National AssemblyPropositions of M. Rateau on that Subject-Speeches of M.M. de Gèze, Pierre Bonaparte, Billault, and O. Barrot-Augmentation of Taxes declared necessary by the Minister of Finance-Election of M. Boulay de la Meurthe as Vice-President of the Republic-His Address to the Assembly-Bill for the Suppression of Clubs brought forward by the Minister of the Interior-Defeat of Ministers in the ChamberDemand of their Impeachment by the extreme Republicans-Military preparations made by the Government-Speech by M. Odillon Barrot on the subject-Reduction of the Garde Mobile the occasion of a new Conspiracy-Order of the Day by General Changarnier and Proclamation by the Minister of the Interior-Report of the Committee on the question of Impeachment of Ministers--Debate in the Assembly and defeat of the Ministry-Arrest of Count D'Alton Shee-Statement by the Minister of the Interior respecting the late Conspiracy-Renewal of debate on the Propositions of M. Rateau respecting the New Legislative Assembly-Various Amendments-Speeches by MM. Lanjuinais, Felix Pyat, St. Hilaire, Lamartine, and others-Amendment by M. Sénard opposed by Ministers and rejected-The different Articles proposed by the Committee on the Election of a Legislative Assembly carried with some Modifications-Report of Committee authorizing the Prosecution of M. Proudhon carried-Persons convicted of Adultery ineligible to the Legislative Assembly-Debate in the Chamber on the Foreign Policy of the Republic in Italy-Speeches of MM. Buvignier, Ledru Rollin, Lamartine, and Cavaignac-Question of Abolition of Clubs carried-Excitement in the Assembly-Secession of the Minority-Remarkable speech of M. Lagrange-Discussion on the state of Piedmont-Speeches of MM. Bixio, Drouyn de Lhuys, Cavaignac, Thiers, and Odillon Barrot-The Assembly declares itself ready to sanction a Temporary Occupation of Italy-Determination of the Government to send an Expedition to Rome-Explanation by M. O. Barrot in the Assembly-Sailing of the Expedition under the command of General Oudinot-Trial of the State Prisoners at Bourges.

Ition, 1 was the year atly called F 1848 was the year of revoluthe year of reaction. It witnessed the gradual resumption of the sway of constituted authority in those countries which had been most violently agitated by intestine convulsions. The democratic wave, which not long ago threatened to submerge all existing institutions, and strew Europe with the wrecks of monarchy, involving law, property, and religion in one common ruin, has rapidly spent its force. Nations have shaken off the madness which for a few brief months possessed them, and no longer listen to the delusive promises of men to whom anarchy seems as necessary for happiness as well-ordered government is to others, and who, though able to destroy, are neither by capacity nor inclination qualified to construct. Many evils undoubtedly existed in the constitutions of the various European kingdoms, but the revolutionary leaders nowhere gave proofs of their competency to find a remedy. They had but one mode of dealing with real or supposed grievances, and this was to inflame the passions of the populace, and madden them into an attempt to overthrow the whole fabric of the Government, reckless of the suffering and misery which was the inevitable result, and utterly unable to control or direct the terrible power which they evoked. France, indeed, may to a certain extent be deemed an exception, as the Republic still exists, and the functions of Government are no longer paralyzed by insurrectionary violence. But the above statement applies with literal truth to those who form par excellence the Republican party in that country. We believe that they are in a considerable minority, and that the

public men in whom views and wishes of the leading

has any confidence are monarchical. There is, however, little difference except in name between the Government of France under Louis Napoleon and what it was under Louis Philippe. The liberty of individuals is not greater, the press is not more free, the power of the military is increased, and its brute force is more directly brought to bear upon questions at issue between the Government and the populace. The electoral franchise is no doubt enormously enlarged, but this, instead of being a source of strength, is the real weakness of France. Universal suffrage is the great engine by which the Red Republicans and Socialists and other anarchists still hope to overthrow the Republic as it now exists, and plunge the nation into the dismal abyss of a social as well as a political revolution.

Before the close of the year 1848, the President of the Republic became involved in a personal dispute with one of his Ministers, M. Léon de Malleville, the Minister of the Interior, which led to the sudden resignation of the latter, and revived some unpleasant recollections of passages in the former history of Louis Napoleon, which it was the interest of all well-wishers to the cause of the Republic to bury in oblivion. His unsuccessful attempts to create a revolution, first at Strasburg, and afterwards at Boulogne, had of course been made the subject, when they occurred, of state inquiry, and the papers relating to these affairs remained amongst the public archives. It was natural that the President of the Republic should feel uneasy at the preservation of records which treated him as a

conspirator and traitor, and accordingly he was anxious to get possession of the documents. This led him to address to M. Léon de Malleville the following charac teristic letter, in which he took occasion to show that he was deter mined not to remain a cypher in the hands of his Ministers.

"Elysée, December 27, 1848. "M. le Ministre,-I asked the Prefect of Police if he did not occasionally receive reports on diplomatic affairs? He replied in the affirmative, and he added that he had addressed to you, yesterday, copies of a despatch from Italy. Those despatches, you will understand, ought to be directly for warded to me, and I must express to you my displeasure at this delay in their communication.

"I request you likewise to send me the sixteen boxes I had before demanded. I must have them on Thursday. They contain documents relative to the affairs of Strasburg and Boulogne. I do not intend, either, that the Minister of the Interior should prepare the articles personal to myself. This was not the case under Louis Philippe, and should not be the practice now.

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Besides, I have not received for some days any telegraphic despatches. On the whole, I perceive that the Ministers I have named wish to treat me as if the famous Constitution of Sièyes was in vigour, but I will not suffer it.

"Receive, M. le Ministre, the assurance of my sentiments of high distinction.

(Signed) "L. N. BONAPARTE. "P.S. I forgot to tell you that eighty women still remain confined at St. Lazare, and that one of them only is to be tried by court-martial.

Let me know if I have a right to set them at liberty, as in that case I will immediately order their liberation."

This letter was followed by the resignation of M. de Malleville, and the subject was brought before the National Assembly in consequence of some interpellations or questions of which notice was given by M. Grevy, but which he ultimately abandoned. Shortly afterwards, however, a letter was published by M. Germain Sarrut in one of the Parisian journals, in which he asserted that the documents in question had been surreptitiously removed from the place of their proper custody; and on the 6th of January, during a discussion in the Assembly on the project of a decree relative to labour in prisons, M. Léon de Malleville ascended the tribune and said that he had been attacked in his honour, but had hitherto disdained replying. He awaited the announced interpellations, which were useless in his opinion, but which he did not dread. The allegations were so absurd that he declined replying to them; but to-day a journal (La Liberté) published a letter, signed by one of his colleagues (M. Germain Sarrut), who affirmed that the documents relative to the affairs of Strasburg and Boulogne had been taken out of the "Ministry," and that if reinstated, this had been after the retreat of M. de Malleville. He was not a spoliator of public documents. The Secretary-General of the Ministry of the Interior, M. Herman, had signed a certificate, which he held in his hand, stating that the thirteen boxes containing those documents were deposited in the archives, that they were sealed up, and had not been seen by any

person. M. de Malleville would not allow those documents to be displaced, because they were a public Depôt, placed under the protection of the Minister, and he should have betrayed his duty if he had allowed them to be removed from the archives. Any man who stated that he had searched or read those documents asserted a falsehood.

M. Léon Faucher, Minister of the Interior, confirmed M. de Malleville's statement.

M. Germain Sarrut, who followed, maintained the accuracy of the facts he had mentioned. He disclaimed all intention of attacking the honour of M. de Malleville; but he contended that the documents in question had disappeared from the archives of the Palace of Justice, where they should have remained. On the 16th of November last an application was made for certain of those documents to M. Pinart, AttorneyGeneral of the Republic, who replied, that no trace of them existed in the Palace. Another magistrate, to whom a second application was made, replied that they had been removed to the Court of Peers, and thence to the Ministry of the Interior. It was natural that he (M. Sarrut), and others who had been implicated in the Bonapartist conspiracies, should wish to know by whom they had been deceived and betrayed into the hands of the police of Louis Philippe. The conspiracy of Boulogne had been evidently denounced by a traitor. As to the disappearance of documents from the archives, it was not a rare occurrence. defied M. de Malleville, for instance, to find a trace of the documents relative to the inquiry of Baylen, the death of the Duke of

He

Enghien, and the affair of Grenoble, in which twenty-one unfortunate men were executed on a telegraphic despatch. Those were also historical documents of great import

ance.

M. Odillon Barrot, President of the Council, afterwards rose and said, that M. de Malleville, being the object of calumnious insinuations, owed it to his dignity, as a man and a former Minister, to repel those insinuations, and he had done so with the energy inspired in him by the sentiment of honour. He now asked what could be the political meaning of the incident, and if it was not another conspiracy, with a view to bring into disrepute all the great powers of the State? The documents alluded to were deposited under seals in the Ministry of the Interior. They had figured in a judiciary proceeding; as such they must remain in the public archives, and nobody had a right to dispose of them. If, under other Governments, such papers were thence removed, with the puerile hope of disarming in some measure the judgment of history respecting men and things, the present Cabinet would never sanction such an act. If any of the interested parties had presented documents for their justification, they had only to apply to the Courts, on whose decision they should be restored to them. As to the affectation with which certain facts were referred to for the sake of scandal, he would only say that it was neither expedient nor patriotic to attempt, directly or indirectly, to impair the moral power of the Government, elected by universal suffrage.

M. Dupont asked why M. de Malleville had retired from the

Cabinet and been replaced by another Member of that Cabinet? Were the boxes, containing certain documents, the cause of his retreat? Had the President demanded the communication of those documents, and was it in consequence of that application M. de Malleville had retired? If so, he would inquire if the President of the Republic could not constitutionally make such a demand, or if he was thus to be kept in ignorance? He would ask the President of the Council if one of his colleagues refused to communicate a document he called for, would he not consider that act as an insult to his character? Now, those documents were sealed up a few instants before the arrival of M. de Malleville by M. Pannisse, whom he superseded in his post, by the man who, when he was Secretary-General of the Ministry of the Interior in 1839, was the chief of the secret police.

M. de Malleville next ascended the tribune, and said that he had no intention to evade the obligation under which he was placed of giving the required explanations. A Minister was often asked why he entered a Cabinet, and he might consequently be asked why he left it. That right, however, had its natural limits, and he insisted on their being respected as regarded himself, as he respected them in others. He made that reservation with a view to the best interests of the Assembly, before which those explanations were given, as also in remembrance of the profound respect he owed to the man who had been elevated by the suffrages of the nation to the exalted honour of presiding over the Republic. His retreat had not been occasioned by any political differences

with his colleagues, to whose policy he firmly adhered, and which he would most resolutely support. The Assembly was aware of the difficulty arising from the double responsibility it had introduced into the Constitution of the Republic, and which placed the responsibility of the chief of the State and that of the Ministers in constant contact. It was therefore not astonishing that differences should occur; but he felt bound to say that the act which had wounded his amour-propre had been most honourably repaired. He, however, considered that the confidence placed in him had been, to a certain degree, impaired, and from that moment he resolved to retire. He would not enter into further explanations respecting the cause of that difference; he would merely say, that when he was entrusted with the care of the public security and the general police of the country, he found it necessary to supersede one of the functionaries of that department by a man whose experience and talent were known to him. That individual waited on the President, and told him, "Your Minister has dismissed me; I am coming to render you a service. There are certain documents interesting to the susceptibilities of the chief of the State," &c. He (M. de Malleville) had been applied to for those documents. He did not refuse to communicate them, but would not allow them to be displaced. This incident, however, had not been the positive, sole, and absolute cause of his retirement. He could explain the other causes if they were not beneath his own dignity and that of the Assembly. He believed that he had accomplished a duty, an imperative duty. That

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