THE TABLET

A Weekly Newspaper and Review

D u m VOBIS GRATULAMUR, ANIMOS ETIAM ADDIMUS UT IN INCCEPTIS VESTRIS CONSTANTER MANEATIS.

From the B r ie f o f H is Holiness Pias IX . to The Tablet, Ju n e 4, 1870?

Vol. 54. No. 2025. L ondon, F e b r u a r y i , 1879.

P r ick 5d. B y P ost

[ R e g is t e r ed a t th e G en e r a l P ost Offic e a s a N ew spaper.

C h ronicle o f t h e Week —

Paee

The Presidency of the F rencli Republic.—Nature of the Crisis. —Marshal de MacMahon and the Military Commands.—Mgr. Frep•pdon the Denunciation of Public Functionaries.—Mgr. Freppel on the Encyclical.—Clerical Vocations in France.—The Irish University Question. — The Afghan Campaign.—The Zulu Army.— Army Transport.—Bishop Dorrian and our Irish Correspondent. —The Plague in Russia. —The Hampstead Small-pox Hospital.. 129

CONTENTS.

Page

P e t e r 's P ence

..133

L e a d e r s :

The Outlook in France .. . . 134 University Education in Ireland 135 The Catholic Church in Rou-

mania .. . . . . . . 136 The Taxation of the Country . . 136 The Second Latin Literature.—

St. A u g u s t in e ........................ 137 R ev iew s :

Religious Instruction . . .. 138 Roma Sotterranea . . . . . . 139 The Tudor Dynasty . . .. 140

R eview s (Continued):

Claims of the Uninstructed Deaf-

Mute to be Admitted to the Sacraments . . . . . . 142

C o r r e spo n d en c e :

T wenty Years’ Practical Experience of Catholic Literature . . .. 142 The Pope’s Encyclical Letter .. 143 Catholic Eschatology . . . . 143 Cahill v. Read . . . . • • 1 4 3 R ome : — Letter from our own

Correspondent...........................145 I

D io cesan N ews j—

Pase

Southwark . . . . . . , . 147 Clifton . . . . . . . . 147 Beverley . . . . . . .. 147 Nottingham.......................................147 I r e land :—

Letter from our own Corre­

spondent ........................... ^ 14S F oreign N ews

France , . . . . . . 149 Germany . . . . . . . . 149 Poland . . ........................... 150 M emoranda :

R e l i g i o u s ....................................... 150 Statistical . . . . . . . . 150 G en e r a l N ew s : . . . . . . 15c

CHRONICLE OF THE WEEK.

REPUBLIC. B

THE PRESIDENCY OF THE FRENCH

Y the t0 . Pri>OT time these lines have gone press there will be a new President in France. Marshal MacMahon resigned at a Cabinet Council held at 1 p.m. on Thursday, at Versailles ; his resignation was to be immediately communicated to the Chambers, and the preparations for enlarging the space in the Chamber o f Deputies, so as to accommodate both Chambers in Congress at 6 p.m., were already complete. No doubt was entertained that M. Ju les Grevy would be elected President the same evening ; and it was generally believed that M. Dufaure would retire upon the resignation o f the Marshal, and that M. Gambetta would form a Ministry, in which he would himself become Minister of Foreign Affairs, or perhaps take the Presidency o f the Chamber in the room o f M. Grevy. This is the more probable, as the election to the Presidency will be for another term o f seven years, and the candidature o f M. Gambetta for that office, as he is not as ready to compete for it with M . Grevy as he might have been in 1880, will have to be postponed for that period. The reasons for the Marshal’s resolution to resign demand some detailed explanation.

The news from Versailles for the last few ° F days *las been particularly alarming. It was crisis. reported that the Marshal President had posi­

tively refused to sign the decree for the proposed changes in the great military commands, and was contemplating resignation. The S o i r stated that at the Cabinet Council held on Tuesday morning he declared that he would refuse his sanction to measures calculated, in his opinion, to disorganise the army, and that, having made this declaration, he left the Council Chamber. Butthecorrespondent o f the l im e s maintained that the report was an exaggeration, that the proposed changes were still under consideration in the Cabinet, and that, no decree having been submitted to the Marshal, he could not have refused to sign it. However this might be, the rumour of the President’s possible resignation occasioned a serious fall at the Bourse. And what was considered even more dangerous to Marshal M acM ahon’s position than the interference with the army commands was the rumoured intention o f M. Gambetta to press for the impeachment o f the Broglie and Rochebouet Cabinets, or at least o f the latter, on the evidence collected by the Electoral Commission. I t was pretty nearly certain that if the Dufaure M inistry were to support the impeachment— which is out o f the question— or if, opposing it, they were to be beaten— which they almost certainly would be— the Marshal would

New Series, Vol. XXI, No. 534.

resign. H e is reported to have said on Sunday, “ I have not seen a single person who ventures to tell me I ought to stay should that happen” ; and the l im e s correspondent states as a positive fact that, in pursuance o f orders given by the Marshal after the reception accorded to the Ministerial declaration by the Chamber, his private residence in the Rue Bellechasse was put in readiness to receive him and his family. And M. Gambetta, having now quite broken with the Dufaure Cabinet, is resolved, so it is feared, to avenge him self upon it, and at the same time upon the statesmen who prosecuted him last year. The last vestige o f M. Gambetta’s supposed moderation seems likely thus to vanish in a storm o f political rancour. But the tribune o f the people feels that he is being jostled out of his supremacy by the crowd pressing on behind him, and it is much to be feared that he will elect to place himself at their head rather than allow himself to be left behind. After that, the deluge.

I t is generally believed that the motion will marshal de really be made for the impeachment o f the

' andth™ Rochebouet “ Cabinet o f Affairs,” though permilitary haps not o f the Broglie Ministry. It is very commands, possible that Marshal de MacMahon, having made up his mind to resign, may have deli­

berately preferred to base his resignation on his defence o f old comrades in arms rather than on resistance to the im peachment o f a Ministry in whose acts an attempt might be made to implicate himself. Eighteen great military commands are to be constituted under the new regulations, and the majority and the Cabinet demanded a change in nine now existing, four by removal to another command, and five by supersession. Among those to be transferred is the Due d ’Aumale, who is to be depended upon, M. Gambetta thinks, to resist a Bonapartist coup d ’etat, and those to be superseded are Generals Bourbaki, Lartigues, Montaudon, Bataille and du Barail. After much difficulty and opposition the Marshal signed M. Dufaure’s and M. de Marcere’s draft decrees for the dismissal o f several Procureurs Gene'raux, Prefects, and Treasurers. And eventually he did not object to the transfer o f the four generals, or to the supersession of Generals de Lartigues and Montaudon, whose conduct was suspected at the time of the general elections. But the removal of the remaining three he positively declined to sanction, maintaining that the generals were appointed for periods of three years, and that the second period would not expire till next September ; and declaring that he should blush so to treat old comrades who had done nothing to deserve such exceptional rigour. The Ministers, however, backed by the majority in the Chamber, insisted, and the President remained firm. There was nothing left for him but resignation or a personal conflict with the Chamber.