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ascended the tribune, said, "I have a deep conviction that the Bill under discussion is necessary for the cause of order, and for the interest of society. I will clearly point out the evils and their remedy, and when I shall have done so, I have a firm hope that the most obstinate minds will be brought to acknowledge that I am right. This Bill contains two distinct parts, the one relating to caution money, and the other of a purely fiscal character. I will, in the first place, endeavour to point out the mischief, and you will afterwards see whether we have been imprudent in proposing the remedy. When the Bill was proposed, numerous members of the majority and of the minority started the idea that it was necessary to secure the efficacy of judicial condemnations. If I am able to prove to you that, in spite of serious fines pronounced by justice on the day following his condemnation, the guilty party again attacks society and preaches anarchy; if I prove to you that he does this in spite of the proceedings of justice, tell me whether remedies are not necessary? The facts I bring forward are as follows:-Since the month of August, 1848, when the caution money was imposed on the journals, 119 condemnations have been pronounced; 66 of them. have not been executed, or only partly so. The fines in the same period amount to 214,464f., and only 86,750f. have been received. The verdicts of the jury have, therefore, been without effect. Let us now see what are the characteristics of the evil. Let us ask ourselves on what misdemeanours justice has been powerless. The condemnations have been pronounced by a jurisdiction which,

I do not fear to say, has a faulty side. We shall see. By a jurisdiction which places rights in the minority; which has not all its force, because it is irresponsible; (Movement)-condemnations were pronounced on the day following, the 24th of February, which M. Madier de Montjau praised, but which I consider as a veritable catastrophe. (Outbursts of exclamations on the Left.)

On the Left.-Order, order! The President.-I request you will be silent.

The cries on the Left here redoubled, and the whole of the Mountain rose.

The President. It is not for you to call to order.

M. Baudin. It is a disgrace for the tribune.

The Minister of Justice:Í(Loud interruption.)

On the Left.-Order, order! On the Right.-Monsieur le Président, put on your hat. (Continued noise.)

The agitation in the Chamber was here at its height, and a state of confusion which it is impossible to describe prevailed in the Assembly.

The President.-I declare to youyou (Interruption from the Left.)

On the Left.-Order, order! A voice on the Right.-Monsieur le Président, put the clôture to the vote, or put on your hat.

On the Left The Republic has been grossly insulted. (Fresh outburst of cries of "Order, order!")

Another Voice on the Left.And this is by a Minister of the Republic. (Continued noise.)

The President.-I shall not obey you by calling the Minister to order. If I had been ever so inclined to do so, your present

conduct would prevent me. (Approbation on the Right, and renewed outcries on the Left.) I repeat that if I had been inclined to do so, your violence would prevent me. (Noise.)

M. Pierre Leroux here advanced towards the tribune, when the ushers of the Chamber requested him to return to his seat.

The Minister of Justice again attempted to make himself heard, but his voice was completely drowned by the loudest cries from the Left.

On the Right.-Suspend the sitting, Monsieur le Président. Other Voices.-La clôture, la clôture!

The President then put the clôture to the vote, when it was adopted.

Numerous groups then formed at the foot of the tribune and in front of the Ministerial benches.

M. E. De Girardin next appeared in the tribune. His presence there tended to increase the confusion. He held in his hand a copy of the regulations, and endeavoured to make it understood that he wished to speak on a call to order, to which, he said, he had been subjected during the confusion. He was loudly addressed by several members of the Right. On at length obtaining silence, he said that he wished to speak on the call to order, which had been addressed to him. He had, he said, been subjected to that disciplinary measure for having demanded that the Minister should be called to order for styling the Revolution of February a catastrophe.

Numerous Voices on the Right. -It is true, it is true.

Other Voices.-Read the Presse, read the Presse. (Great laughter.)

M. E. De Girardin.-He would ask what would have taken place under the Monarchy, if a Minister in the Chamber of Deputies, presided over by M. Dupin, had styled the Revolution of July a catastrophe?

A Voice. Do not make such comparisons.

M. E. De Girardin.--He declared, therefore, that either the Minister of Louis Napoleon, who had designated the Revolution of February a catastrophe, should be called to order, or all the Members of the Opposition, who sat in that Chamber, would resign their seats.

This unexpected declaration was followed by general laughter and prolonged applause on the Right.

On the Left.-That man is the scourge of every party.

The Minister of Justice advanced to the tribune. Numerous voices on the Right. No, no! not a word! Do not reply! Leave the tribune!

The Minister then returned to his seat, and the sitting was soon after adjourned.

Next day, the Secretary having read the minutes of the preceding sitting, M. Crémieux, with a number of the Moniteur in his hand, ascended the tribune, and read extracts from the report of the proceedings on the previous day, in which the Minister of Justice, alluding to the Revolution of February, called it a "real catastrophe." M. Crémieux next read a paper, purporting to be a protest of the Opposition against that expression of the Minister, in which his language was denounced as insulting to the Revolution of February, as an inexcusable act, for which the most energetic censure of the President would have been but a light chastisement, and

which, nevertheless, the general indignation of the minority could not prevail on the President to inflict. M. Crémieux was interrupted at every word by the murmurs of the Right, and when he had concluded he handed the paper to the President, who refused to take it, declaring that this mode of proceeding was contrary to the rules of the House.

The majority ratified the declaration of the President by a large majority, and the discussion subsequently opened on the first article of the Bill on the press.

It was as follows:

"The proprietors of journals or periodical publications shall lodge in the Treasury a cautionnement, or security in money, the interest of which shall be paid at the rate fixed for such lodgments generally. In the departments of the Seine, Seine and Oise, Seine and Marne, and Rhone, the security required from the journals is fixed as follows:-If the journal or periodical publication appear more than three times a week, either on a stated day or at irregular intervals, the security shall amount to 24,000f. It shall not exceed 18,000f. if the journal only appears three times a week or at more distant intervals. In the departments containing towns of 50,000 souls and upwards, the security for journals appearing more than three times a week shall be 6000f. It shall be reduced to 3600f. in the other depart. ments, and respectively to one half of those two sums for the journals and periodical publications appearing three times a week, or at more distant intervals."

M. Victor Hugo said that the sovereignty of the people and universal suffrage had received a se

vere blow on the 31st of May last. It was now the turn of the liberty of the press; so that those three great principles of the public law of France would each be sacrificed in turn. Yesterday a Minister had presented that monstrous phenomenon of a Government denied by its own functionaries. Yes, they were told that the Revolution of February was a "catastrophe" by the very Ministers it had produced! To check universal suffrage was to check the action of democracy. To check the liberty of the press was to deprive it of speech. The first object had been achieved on the 31st of May. It now remained to complete the work by gagging the press. M. Hugo next discussed the merits of the Bill. The law of 1814, relative to printing, had, he contended, been virtually abrogated by the 8th article of the Constitution, which proclaimed the liberty of the press. Such was the opinion of the most eminent men of the country, who naturally conceived that the liberty of writing implied the liberty of printing. Why, then, leave the fate of printers at the discretion of a Minister? The law, he maintained, condemned to ruin journals which had not yet been arraigned. It cynically placed two weights and measures in the hands of justice. M. Hugo next condemned the idea of stamping all books published in parts, whether written by dead or living authors. It taxed Corneille and Molière and all dramatic plays, and actually ruined the French book trade to the advantage of Belgian and other pirates. It suppressed at Paris upwards of 300 literary and scientific periodical publications. It destroyed ten or twelve great branches of national industry;

conceded the privilege of reading to the rich, and deprived the poor of that right; and re-established confiscation. Its framers had left M. Peyronnet far behind them, and if ever M, Guizot became a member of the Assembly, he trusted that he would deposit on the table a Bill of indictment against M. Baroche. In so enlightened an age, after three revolutions, there was no other Government practicable but the one that accepted all the developments of social order, and treated liberty of the press as an auxiliary and not as an adversary. That Government should manfully propose as the order of the day the fulfilment of all the promises contained in the 13th Article of the Constitution, and take the initiative in the realization of all useful ideas. A retrograde Government should never rule over France. Independently of the official Ministry there were occult Ministers. The President of the Republic was a Numa, directed by seventeen Egerias. M. Hugo said that he had cautioned two monarchies, and he now told Ministers that they were not walking but retrograding to an abyss. He was opposed to all revolution. If there were revolutionists in the Assembly they were not on this side. The real reyolutionists were the absolutists and reactionists, the apologists of the Jesuits and the Inquisition, (pointing to M. Montalembert,) of that diabolical sect, who, after preaching the murder of Kings, now preached the murder of nations, who mixed maxims of death with those of the Gospel, and poisoned the holywater urn. M. Victor Hugo then addressed the "real majority" of the Assembly, which had a few days before rejected the Municipal

ity Bill, and refused to allow the Transportation Law to be retrospective, and entreated them not to follow in their wild projects men who, because they rooted up a few poplars without resistance, imagined they could as easily eradicate that oak, the liberty of the press, from the bosom of the people, and who declared that the best journal was not worth the worst preacher. He intreated them to brand by a solemn vote and decree a Bill which, if carried, would be a peril for society. He felt the most profound respect for the religion of his ancestors, of which he blindly accepted all the dogmas, notwithstanding the assertions to the contrary of the clerical orator. (M. de Montalembert, who considered himself personally alluded to, here rose and said that the attacks of M. Hugo made no impression upon him. But he would combat with all his might the pretensions of the Jesuitical party, which sought support from Voltairians who laughed at them, and from bankers, mostly Jews, whom that party would willingly commit to the flames. He did not, however, fear them. The Jesuits were like night birds who attempted to fly in noonday. M. Victor Hugo, in conclusion, declared that all the efforts of that party would be unavailable to destroy the human mind, which was as subtle as light and as inaccessible as the sun.

M. Savoye next rose to develop an amendment to the first article. "Conformably," he said, "to the principle of liberty, equality, and fraternity, the fundamental basis of our Republican Constitution of 1848-conformably to the very essence of universal suffrage, which implies the liberty of the press and