In spite of grave assurances that there is no cause
for fear, the aspect of affairs in France grows more and were unsettled ; and the country is so depressed, materially and morally, that the very efforts to restore her threaten to be mischievous in their first ef- fects. An enhanced expenditure, a credit supported only by the faith that an effort is to be made, and a desperately sunken revenue, demand an act of strenuous exertion : every screw for raising a revenue has been turned home, except one, and now M. Passy proposes an income-tax. The rate of the tax is to be one per cent, and it will take in all incomes. The more needed, the less is it likely to be levied. The Bourse is as frightened as if it were a declaration of civil war. M. Passy expects to raise 60,000,000 francs ; he is more likely to raise 30,000,000 of people.
President Bonaparte has been making a tour which looks very like a tentative visit to " my people "; but if that was meant, he en- countered great discouragement at Havre. The Deputy-Mayor made scarcely disguised allusions to the rumour that the President is looking out for the imperial crown : he declared that "France has had enough of revolutions, and must stop at a republic " ; he advised M. Bonaparte "to let the love of Fraace be his crown " ; and assumed that "he would not suffer any party to attempt an impossible dynastic insurrection." The Pr t silent made no reply to these insinuations ; for Prince Louis Napoleon has a decided talent for silence.
He was taken ill on the journey, and had so sharp an attack after his return to Paris, that people already speculated on the question who should be his successor : a most obscure specula- tion.
Meanwhile, the Legitimists are about to have a demonstration at Ems, where they gather to present "his Majesty Henry the Fifth" with a brace of pistols. Do they mean typically to sug- gest to the disinherited Prince the alternative of suitide or a duel with the President ?
