Untitled article | AdventAI

The Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Battle Creek, Mich. · Third-day, August 13, 1867

The Political Situation in France.

The political agitation continues and increases. The speech of Thiers was followed on Friday, July 12, by M. Emile Ollivier, one of the French Liberals who “accept the situation” and give a qualified support to the Emperor. M. Ollivier attacks the Minister of State with great force, and opinion gains ground that a change of ministry is imminent, or, at least, that it is deliberated upon by the Emperor. Certain revelations were expected from Ollivier in regard to a conversation between himself and the Emperor on the liberal decrees promulgated on the 19th of January, legislation upon which has now been postponed by the ministry until the November session. None were made, but M. Ollivier directed all his eloquence against the failure of the Ministers, and especially of M. Rouher, to carry out the good intentions of the Emperor. He is reproached with having deceived the nation by failing to proceed with these reforms which were to “crown the edifice,” as the Emperor said, and M. Ollivier boldly asserts, what many think in silence, that the Government might long since have carried the laws for the press and public meetings, had it really desired to do so. M. Rouher is further accused of having deceived the country in his statements about the Mexican Empire, and upon the condition of the finances as well. Nevertheless, M. Rouher declined to reply to M. Ollivier, and his imperial master replies for him by the gift of the diamond cross of the Legion of honor. In respect to M. Ollivier, it is further to be remarked that his abandonment of the Liberal minority with which he had so long acted is attributed by his enemies to a desire for a place in the ministry, and that he regards Rouher as a successful rival not less than an unsuccessful Minister.

The speech of M. Glais-Bizoin on the same day was one of the most open attacks yet made upon the Emperor, full of genuine devotion to liberty, accompanied by a biting wit and a power of sarcasm, which elicited roars, alternately of laughter and of anguish, from the majority of the Chamber. He declared that in every country in Europe where a constitutional government exists, except in Spain, there is more real liberty than in France. Every other representative assembly, even that of Austria, has the right of choosing its own President, of publishing its own reports, of initiating measures, of questioning the government; and all those countries have a freedom of the press unchecked by humiliating restraints. France has none of these. “Never was liberty so great in France as after the Revolution of 1848; never was its fall so great as after the blow which destroyed the work of that revolution. On the morrow of that catastrophe [i. e. the coup d'etat] the nation woke without rights, without freedom, and without dignity or security!” The demonstration of this proposition occupied the greater part of this speech, which was continually interrupted with cries and exclamations from the benches, and by warnings from the President; by none of which did M. Glais-Bizoin appear to be disconcerted. “Do you wish,” asks M. Glais-Bizoin, “a real stability? Do you wish to put a stop to those distant expeditions which give to the waves the blood and treasure of France? Do you wish to see unjust taxes disappear? Do you wish that impartial justice shall reign throughout the land? Then let the winning of liberty be the business of your life. Like that Emperor who, sleeping and waking, demanded of Varus the legions he had squandered, do you, in season and out of season, demand our liberties. Have but one cry: Give us back our liberties! This nation is indignant that you keep it so long, in the face of the civilized world, on the stool of penitence and with a fool's cap on its head!” The Chamber burst into a torrent of outcries, and M. Glais-Bizoin was called to order by the President, on the curious ground that he was attacking the whole country, to which he gravely responded, before taking his seat, “I bow with the profoundest respect to the President's call to order, and I declare to him, also, if he like, that I am flattered by it.”