NEWS OF THE WEEK.
BY the latest accounts from Paris, we find it confidently stated that the Cabinet is falling to pieces—nay, that it is actually dissolved ; a con- summation on which, of course, the Liberal Journals congratulate themselves, and which, should it take place, might possibly restore the King to some portion of their favour. Perhaps the report may yet be found to resolve into a mere form of hostility to the IVIinistly, for we can find nothing in the events of the week to render it impera- five on the King to dismiss the Ministers of his choice at this parti- cular juncture. On the contrary, it might not very unwarrantably have been concluded, that Princ,e POLIGNAC would have less diffi- culty, for the future, in preserving his position, if any inference was to be drawn from the fact that the ingenuity of his antagonists of the press had exhausted itself in the invention of charges against his principles and designs. For three days before this reported chancre, the Liberals were actually without a theme—their tropes enjoyed' a respite from the hard duty of the last four months. Here is the latesl,.,of their previous flig4ts :
The King talks 6 f taking up his residence for some time at St. Cloud ; from which it is inferred that he intends to make some attempt upon the liberties of the people, and is determined to be away from the capital for safety during its execution."
Now may we not conclude, without violating logic, that the condi- tion of a Cabinet is not altogether desperate to which its bitterest enemies can impute no design specifically bad, but by the aid of in- ferences which a lunatic might be ashamed to employ? And how is it possible to believe that the country should long continue to cherish towards such an Administration feelings of hostility as deep as those in which the vanity of the .Liberal declaimers who bear sway in the salons of Paris has prompted them to indulge ? We put these ques- tions not in any spirit of partisanship,—not, certainly, from any feeling of admiration for Prince POLIGNAC and his coadjutors,—but simply be- cause we think that declamation has had its day, and that the oppo- nents of the present Ministerial arrangements in France should by this time have learned to rest their opposition on something specific and intelligible, or to be silent. They may be very honest in their appre- hensions of danger to the constitution, but the direction which their zeal for its safety has taken for a long time has been excessively ridi- culous. They would have us believe that Absolutism is preparing to swallow up all that is dear to Frenchmen—all for which they have struggled during forty years past. They tell us they see these mea- sures in rehearsal. Such is their reading of the signs of the times. On the other hand, our contemporary the Chronicle has an eloquent cor- respondent who reads these signs very diligently too, and he would per- suade us, on quite as strong grounds, that these Liberals themselves are preparing to effect changes every way as portentous as those which they deprecate, that Republicanism is rousing its energies, and that al the thrones in the world must disappear before it in less than a quartel of a century. We, for our parts, can perceive but little change at pre- sent in the relative amount of moral force which Legitimacy and De mocmcy can put in motioaae and nothing to warrant the belief that the sort of equilibrium which they have for a mood many years main tamed, can be materially affected by the continuance or dissolution of the POLIGNAC Administration.
