to be a party to the new Congress charged with the contemplated organization of the confederacy. Under these circumstances a declaration of neutrality would be a proof of impotence, and the total abandonment of French interests. M. Remusat, reporter of the Committee, declared, in its name, that it persisted in all its resolutions. The probabilities were favourable to peace. Peace was now more probable than war. But until the main question which divided the two great German Powers was peaceably solved, France should be prepared for every contingency. The signs of war were every day vanishing, he admitted; but the Committee was of opinion that the Assembly, after hearing the loyal declaration of the perfect accord that existed between the executive and legislative powers made by General Lahitte, should give a formal and complete adhesion to the policy so admirably defined in the Message of the President of the Republic. War, he repeated, was less probable, but it was always possible. During the negotiations about to be opened might not demagogues be tempted to transfer the discussion from places where it would be calm, into the streets? Was it certain that the Prussian and Austrian armies were to be dissolved? Under those circumstances the Committee deemed it advisable to maintain an armed neutrality, and persist in its resolutions.

After some further discussion a ballot took place, when there appeared

For the resolution of the
Committee

483

211

272

The resolution was accordingly adopted.

The President then read the first article, appropriating an extraordinary credit of 8,460,000 francs for the immediate levy of 40,000 recruits, which was agreed to without a division. The two other articles were similarly adopted, and the entire Bill was voted by 466 to 213.

On the 10th of December, M. de Montalembert ascended the tribune, and read to the Assembly the report of the Committee appointed to examine a proposition of M. Olivier, relative to the observance of Sundays and holydays. The question, he said, interested the dignity and moral liberty of the French people. By adopting it the Assembly would honour itself and render to France and society a signal service. In every country that right was required, and the repose of Sundays considered a blessing as well as a duty. That law had received the sanction of the experience of sixty ages, and nevertheless no country had so shamefully violated it as France. The Sabbath was still observed in the rural districts, but desecrated in the towns. It was time that the law should at last restore the simplest obligation of nature and religion so long trodden under foot. The Committee openly called on the Assembly to reestablish the public homage due to the majesty of God and to the conscience of every Christian. It was the most insane illusion to suppose that respect can be enforced for the rights of society and property when the laws of morality and religion are disregarded. Nations no more than kings can violate with impunity the eternal decrees of the Al

mighty. In accord with the experience of mankind the Committee proclaims the impotence of a material remedy, and sees no other except religion, which men have so long strenuously laboured to extirpate from the hearts of their fellow-creatures. Our ancestors knew and believed that prayer and faith were the very fundamental bases of society. There is no society without religion, no religion without a worship, no worship without the Sabbath. The repose of the seventh day is the sign and symbol of alliance between God and man. Its nonobservance was a public profession of atheism, a public defiance thrown to the Creator. Modern philosophers have substituted the dignity of matter for the old religion of Clovis and Jean d'Arc. England and the United States are perhaps indebted for their prosperity to their close observance of the first .law of God. Christians of every persuasion observe the Sabbath, and the Jews still more strictly. The project prepared by the Committee offered guarantees to all, with the exception, perhaps, of those who professed no religion. ("They constitute the majority," cried a Member on the Left.) They were numerous, he knew, but the Committee thought that the liberty of believing could be reconciled with that of not believing. The non-observance of the Sabbath was an attempt against equality the only true equalityequality in the eyes of God. It affected particularly the dignity of the poor and the labourer. He (M. Montalembert) and his friends had

been often charged with indifference for the education of the people. Now, in his opinion, the greatest obstacle to that education was the sacrilegious labour on Sunday. To deprive the people of repose on that day was to deprive them of their rights and duties, and to suppress the day of the Lord was to suppress education. He cited again Great Britain and the United States in support of his opinion, and ascribed to their respect for that day the prosperity, tranquillity, and grandeur they enjoyed. In London, where the population amounted to two millions and a half, order was maintained by three battalions of infantry and a few squadrons of cavalry, while in Paris the presence of an entire army was required. M. de Montalembert next described the demoralising effects of the nonobservance of the Sabbath.

He

attributed to it the extraordinary increase of cabarets, which, according to returns submitted to the Committee appointed to institute an inquiry into the best mode of levying the duty on liquors, amounted to 332,000 in France. It was full time to remedy the evil, and it behoved the Assembly to oppose to the right to labour, invented by the Socialists, the right to repose, and minister both to the material and moral improvement of the labouring classes.

M. Montalembert then read the different articles of the project, but the question was not disposed of this year, nor did anything else occur before its close of sufficient importance to require notice in our pages.

sidered this appoinment as a remarkable honour and as a great personal reward; but at this moment, after a suspension of diplomatic relations, equally deplored by both Governments, but now happily terminated in a manner honourable for both parties, it is singularly flattering for me to be charged with the renewal of the relations whose intimacy I firmly trust may never again be changed.

"Your Majesty may have confidence in my sincere and persevering efforts to enlarge and consolidate those feelings of friendship which ought never to have been interrupted between two countries which, under critical circumstances, entertained and still hold such warm sympathy and such community of interests."

The Queen replied

"I receive with great satisfaction the letters which accredit you to my Government as Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary of my august ally the Queen of Great Britain, and this act is doubly acceptable to me from the consideration that it completes and happily terminates the state of interruption of the diplomatic relations between the two countries which has prevailed an interruption which we all have deplored with equal sincerity, and which, fortunately, has not in the least impaired the mutual esteem and the ancient connections which fraternally united both nations."

On the 5th of August the Spanish Chambers were dissolved, and a new Cortes summoned to assemble on the 31st of October. At the same time a circular was addressed by the Minister of the Interior, San Luis, to the governors of the provinces, in which,

amongst other flattering professions of candour and confidence, he said

"Far from the Government is the idea of forming a Congress in which unanimity should be secured by the exclusion of their adversaries. The only desire of the Government is that the real expression of public opinion should emanate from the electoral urns. Its sincerity, good faith, the legitimate and even personal pride of its members, are interested in seeing all those who have a claim to the Government of the country ascend the tribune, and share with them that glory. The Government will see with pleasure, represented in the new Congress, all the legal parties, who, under the ægis of the throne of our Queen, Isabella II., and the Constitution of the State, frankly and honestly proclaim a clear and regular system of government. who found their system on the ruin of those two great and sacred principles, or hoist a doubtful banner without any known motto, who usurp the respectable appellation of a political party to gratify an unjustifiable vanity, and promote the triumph of personal ambition, they are no doubt entitled to the liberty due to all, but the Government does not believe that their presence in the legislative body can be useful to the nation."

As for those

The result of the elections was almost exclusively in favour of the Moderado party, and gave a great triumph to the Government. Of the Progressistas or Liberals hardly more than twelve were returned.

On the 31st of October the new Cortes were opened by the Queen in person, who read a speech of more than ordinary length, of

which the following were the only important passages:—

I am happy to announce to you that our diplomatic relations with Great Britain have been fortunately renewed in a becoming and honourable manner for both countries.

“Our intercourse with the other Powers continues on the same footing of good understanding and friendly feeling.

"The expedition which I sent to the Pontifical State to co-operate with those of the other Catholic Powers in the great object of restoring the temporal authority of the Holy See, has fortunately returned after attaining that end. Our troops left in Italy durable recollections of their brilliant conduct and discipline. They have drawn on themselves the blessings of the Church, and the warmest testimonies of gratitude on the part of the provinces they occupied.

"In the interior, public order, the first necessity of nations, has not been an instant disturbed. Thanks to it, the sources of wealth and prosperity our country contains have developed themselves and spontaneously augmented under the vigilant protection of the Administration. In the meantime, old feuds are being forgotten, past dissensions disappear, the country avails itself without danger of the services of all its children, and I have witnessed the establishment and consolidation of a policy the most congenial to my heart the policy of oblivion, tolerance, and real liberty.

"Thanks to domestic peace, considerable reforms have been effected in the important branches of the administration belonging to the Departments of the Interior and Commerce, as respects the im

provement of the roads and internal communications, the carriage of the mails, telegraphs, lighthouses, public health, and charitable and penitentiary institutions. The Government has not been less zealous in its endeavours to remove the obstacles which oppose the complete development of agriculture, industry, and com

merce.

"In the Department of Public Instruction a reform has been introduced for the sake of giving an impulse to certain branches of science calculated to exercise a powerful influence over the development of the national wealth. Various schools, moreover, have been opened, although the general expenditures of public instruction have been reduced.

"The produce of the public revenue progressively increases, and it is to be hoped that the measures adopted for that object will maintain that progression.

"My Government will immediately submit to your examina.. tion and approbation the account of the public expenditure and the general estimates for next year, carefully adapted to the real wants of the country and the present situation of the Administration. To those documents will be added, agreeably to the prescriptions of the new law of accounts, the project relative to the supplementary and extraordinary credits granted last Session. A definitive project for the adjustment of the public debt will also be presented to you. In the course of the Legislature, several other laws claimed by the necessities of the State, and, amongst others, a Bill for regulating the fueros of the Basque Provinces, will likewise be submitted to your appreciation."