THE TABLET

A W eekly Newspaper and Review

D u m VO B IS G R A T U L AM U R , A N IM O S ET IAM ADDIM U S U T IN INCCEPTIS V E S T R IS C O N S TAN TER M A N E A T IS .

From the Briej of H is Holiness to T h e T a b l e t , June 4, 1870.

V o l . 5 0 . N o . 1 9 5 7 .

L o n d o n , O c t o b e r 1 3 , 1 8 7 7 .

p^ sa byposts^

[R eg is tered a t th e G en e r a l P o st O f f ic e a s a N ew spaper

Page

C h ro n ic le of t h e W e e k :—

The Approaching French Elections.— M. Gambe tta's Address— A Fresh Prosecution. — M. ^ é v y ’s Charge against the Govern i . -nt. _ M. Gambetta’s Speech.—Speech by the Duc de Broglie. A French Diplomatist’s View o f M. IW r s ’s Career. — The War in Bulgaria..— The Russian Imperial Guard.—Junction of Shevket Pasha with Osman.— The Weather and the Bridges.— Sir Stafford Northcote on the War.— The Croydon Congress.— The Ridsdale Judgment and the Burials Bill. — The Avalanche and the Forest, & c . .

449

CONTENTS.

Page

L e a d e r s :

A Winter Campaign .. •• 453 German Views on Russian

Disasters . . .. . . •• 453 Lord O'Hagan on Higher Educa­

tion iD Ireland . . .. .. 454 Popular Election o f Parish

P r i e s t s .................................... 455 Cardinal Riario-Sforza . . . . 456 R e v iew s :

The Broad Stone of Honour .. 457 Spiritual Letters of Fenelon .. 458 Heir to Two Fortunes . . . . 458 S hort N otices :

Common-Sense Housekeeping .. 459 Common - Sense Papers on

Cookery .. . . . . . . 549

S hort N otices (continued)

Taylor’s Xenophon’s Anabasis C o r r e s p o n d e n c e :

Page

459

Amalgamation of Irish Unions . . 459 1 Critics and Controversialists . . 459 A W a rn in g .................................... 459 j M. Thiers and the English Press .. 460 Count Arnim and Prince Bismarck 461 A Surgeon’s Practice in the East.. 461 ; The Banished Hanoverian Ursuline

N u n s .................................... . . 462 1 R ome :— Letter from our own Cor­

respondent ......................... 465

The Late Cardinal Archbishop of

Naples .. . . . . . . 466

D io c e sa n N ews

Westminster.. Southwark .. Hexham and Newcastle , Liverpool Newport and Menevia Nottingham.. Salford

I r e lan d :

Page . . 467 . . 467 . . 468 . . 468 .. 468 .. 468 . . 468

Letter from spondent . .

F oreign N ew s ;—

Corre

~ 469

Germany . . ......................... 470 Gen er a l N ews ............................ 471

CH R O N IC L E O F T H E W E E K .

FRENCH ELECTIONS. T

THE APPROACHING

'O -M ORROW the great question which has been exercising so much speculation in England as well as in France will be answered. The French constituencies will have declared themselves, and we shall know which evil they are «most afraid of, “ personal power” or the “ Red spectre.” We have already said that nobody possesses such exact information as to justity anything like a confident prognostication, but we shall not be surprised if the Opposition have still a majority, but one considerably smaller than that which they had in the late Chamber. The French Government, however,— so we are told— calculates on winning 117 out of the 363 Opposition seats, while it thinks it has a chance of gaining 40 more, thus reckoning on a majority o f 20 votes over its enemies. The Republicans, on the other hand, are still sanguine, and expect to have 400 seats instead of 363, in accordance with M. Gambetta’s prophecy at the time of the dissolution.

M. GAMBETTA’S

ADDRESS— A FRESH PROSE­

CUTION.

In the meanwhile M. Gambetta and M. Grevy have put forth their addresses, and M, Gambetta is to be prosecuted again. The Government ought, one would think, to be very sorry to find itself compelled to institute a new process before the appeal in the former case has been heard, and so few days before the elections. But, in spite o f the outcry that has been raised in the English press against the new prosecution as a conspicuous blunder, we do not quite see how the French Ministers could have acted otherwise. F'or M. Gambetta’s address is a deliberate personal attack upon the President, and repeats in the clearest and strongest terms the very statements which formed the ground of the first indictment. After four months, he says, of suppressed Parliamentary life, of excesses on the part of the Governmental press, and the most deplorable proceedings in the way of official candidatures, France is at last about to speak. “ She will say what she thinks of the men o f the 16th o f May, allies and protectors of the men of the 2nd of December, o f the servants of Henri V ., of the agents o f the Syllabus and the Pope, all shielded by the electoral patronage o f the President of the Republic, doubtless for the better protection of Republican institutions.” “ She will say what she thinks of the personal policy of the Chief o f the State, of the aristocratic and retrograde pretensions of the Cabinet of which the Due de Broglie is the head.” M. Gambetta goes on to speak of the “ unjustifiable dissolution of the Republican and Liberal majority,” which France had “ by nearly five millions of votes charged

N e w S e r i e s , V o l . XVIII.”|No. 466.

with the execution o f its will.” H e accuses the Government of intending to saddle the country for three years more with functionaries of every grade “ flagrantly hostile ” to its chosen representatives, and speaks o f the plans and conspiracies o f these “ coalesced Monarchists,” who are preparing for 1880 “ a terrible crisis, and perhaps a revolution.” H e attacks the Marshal’s letter dismissing M. Jules Simon’s Ministry, the order o f the day issued to the troops, the Presidential manifesto of the 19th of September, and all “ the system of government which the chief o f the Executive Power arrogates to himself as a right anterior to the Constitution.” France, he says, will declare that she means to have done with “ anarchies and dictatorships,” and to found “ not moral order, but Republican order ; ” that she intends that “ the State, as well as the Commune, the nation as well as individuals, shall be definitively withdrawn from clerical domination,” that “ the priest shall be respected and confined to the temple, the schoolmaster to the school, and the magistrate to the bench, and that the arm o f the law (la force publique) shall be set in motion only by the law itself.” Within a week of the poll it is M. Gambetta’s “ profound conviction” that “ in spite of all manœuvres directed against freedom o f voting,” the country will revolt against administrative pressure, will brand with disgrace official candidature and its agents, and will reject with scorn “ the Royalists, the Cæsarists, and the Clericals ; the dishonest as well as the violent.” Lastly, M. Gambetta repeats more distinctly than ever his famous declaration that the President will have “ to submit or resign.” We must quote his exact words. “ She (France) will condemn the dictatorial policy ; she will leave to the Chief of the Executive Power, transformed into a candidature for a plébiscite, no other alternative than to submit or to resign.” For these very words the Court of First Instance has declared M. Gambetta guilty of seditious language, and whereas he was then held only to be accessory to publication o f them in a newspaper, he has now published them himself. We do not see, therefore, how, without a confession o f weakness, the Government could do less than order a prosecution. Even in England M. Gambetta’s address would constitute a manifest contempt of court. Nevertheless M. Gambetta’s constituents are not altogether satisfied with him. A t a meeting held at Ménilmontant a Resolution was proposed pledging the electors to support M. Gambetta’s candidature this time, but at the same time recording an intention to replace him by a working-man at the first opportunity, and another Resolution, declaring that he had failed in his duty, and been guilty of disrespect, in not presenting himself before the electors, was carried by a large majority.