Minister of Foreign Affairs stated that the Government of the Republic had received formal recognition by the Courts of Spain and Belgium.

May 30. Prince Louis Napoleon makes a communication to the National Assembly. It is dated London, the 25th of May. Having learned, he says, that it had been proposed in the committees to maintain against him alone the decree of banishment against his family in 1816, he calls upon the Representatives of the people to say how he has deserved such severity. Was it, he asks, because he had publicly declared his opinion that France was not the appanage of any one man, family, or party? Was it because, wishing to make triumphant the principle of sovereignty of the people which alone could terminate French dissensions, he had twice been made a victim to his hostility to that Government which the Republic overthrew? Was it because, in deference to the Provisional Government, he returned to a foreign country, after hastening to Paris at the first report of the Revolution? Was it because he refused to be a candidate for the Assembly, having resolved not to re-enter France until the new Constitution was firmly established? Such are his earnest interrogations. He further says, that the same reasons which made him take up arms against Louis Philippe would lead him, if his services were

required, to devote them to the defence of the Assembly, chosen by universal suffrage; and, he adds, that in face of a king elected by two hundred deputies, he could boast of being heir to an Empire founded by the assent of four millions of Frenchmen. In conclusion, he says, that he will claim no more than the rights which belong to him as a French citizen; but these he would incessantly claim, with all the energy which the consciousness of never deserving ill of his country could give to an upright mind.

May 31. M. de Tocqueville visits me. He is one of the committee of eighteen appointed by the National Assembly to prepare a draft of the new Constitution. We have much conversation on the subject. The work is advancing, and he thinks from present appearances that the committee will report in favor of a single Executive and a single Chamber.

Mr. Buchanan, our Secretary of State, had transmitted to me, unofficially, some thoughts, embodying the great American doctrine that our State Constitutions were the only sure pillars of the Constitution of the United States, which works by its own inherent force in some things, and through the States in others; the latter instrumentality exemplifying the federative principle, the former the national principle; and the combination of the two giving to our Union its efficiency, and securing thus far its duration. Mr. Buchanan's paper was well

drawn, and pointed to the elementary differences of our system from the Swiss Confederation, that of the seven United Provinces, and the federation of the former circles of Germany; the defects in all which confederacies, and in others more ancient, were in the view of the framers of our Constitution, and sufficiently guarded against as we believed. I had shown this paper to M. de Tocqueville, that he might judge how far, in the new Constitution preparing for France, the French Provincial Parliaments might be more or less assimilated to our State Governments, so as to make the political machine work efficiently to results such as we witnessed in the United States. We had conversed before on these topics, and now again; but I found him little sanguine of the successful application of the two principles in France, where the idea of centralization was so deep-rooted.

June 1. The papers state that the Executive Committee have presented to the Assembly a full Report on the conspiracy of the 15th of May, and that the details are very voluminous.

June 2. At Madame de Tocqueville's reception last night I had more conversation with M. de Tocqueville on the new Constitution. Among prominent names on the committee are those of Dupin, Dufaure, Cormenin, Odillon Barrot, Coque

rel, Lamennais, Marrast. The Abbé Lamennais resigned his membership after preparing a draft of the Constitution which was not adopted by the committee but in several parts approved.

June 5. In a letter from Commodore Read, commanding our squadron in the Mediterranean, written from his flag-ship in the Bay of Naples, he informed me that he received numerous applications for the presence of vessels of war at various points within his command; but that his small force would not admit of his complying with the wishes of all who apprehended inconvenience and even danger in various ports of the Mediterranean at this juncture of European affairs.

Considering the disturbed state of Europe, and that countries bordering on the Mediterranean may be agitated more than they have yet been; considering also the unsettled condition of France, and that none can say what irregularities may chance to happen in her ports before she gets through all the consequences of her late Revolution, though I would not foreshadow ill of the Republic, it would seem to me best that our force should be increased in that sea. Accordingly, I wrote last week to our Government to that effect. I advert to the fact that thirty years ago our naval force in the Mediterranean was much larger than that now under Commodore Read, although our commerce at that

day was scarcely half its present amount; nor was it so large then to protect our vessels from capture by Algiers or other Barbary Powers, whose piracies we had previously stopped by our cannon—the sole argument they would listen to. Happily for commerce and civilization, France, by converting Algiers into Algeria, had broken up that nest of pirates.

June 10. There was a bustle in the National Assembly to-day.

Several members were observed contending for the tribune, each desiring to speak. The President decided in favor of M. Heeckeren. This member announced to the Assembly that rumors had just been circulated that when the National Guard went out from Troyes to meet a regiment of infantry arriving there, it saluted the troops with Vive la République! to which the troops replied by the cry of Vive Louis Napoleon!

Numerous voices called out, Why tell such rumors?-they are all false.

In the midst of the sensation produced, General Cavaignac, Minister of War, rose and declared that the Government of the Republic had received no information of the kind, and pronounced it calumnious. He accused no one; he had no right to do so, no right to believe guilt in the person whose name was unfortunately put forward; but added that he would hold up to public execration any man who