M. de Freycinet has got over the difficulty of the
political quarrel concerning Clause 7 of the Ferry Education Bill, with some address. First, he told the Senate that he could not propose any further comproinise, as he regarded that clause itself as a compromise ; and that as they will not agree to it, he must fall back on the old laws respecting non-authorised religious bodies, and enforce them so far as under his responsi- bility as a Minister he thinks it needful to do so. Having made this statement in the Senate, where he had been beaten, and which, of course, rejected the cool proposal made to reinsert the expunged clause, he let the Chamber of Deputies know that he would resist any interpellation demanding wholesale expulsions of the non- authorised Orders under the old statutes,—any, indeed, which proposed to restrict at all the free exercise of his Ministerial responsibility in the matter. So on Tuesday the Education Bill passed, with the amendments and omissions carried in the Senate ; and M. de Freycinet having repeated in the Chamber the declaration made the previous day to the Senate, a vote of confidence in him was carried by 372 to 98. M. de Freycinet is well known always to have felt strongly the objectionable character of the defeated clause, and he will certainly not use the full powers conferred on him by now obsolete statutes. Something he must do, to satisfy the Radical feeling of the Chamber, and appease the offended dignity of that assembly ; but he will do as little as may be done, consist- ently with an assertion of the power of the State to keep these non-authorised religious Orders on their good behaviour. Pro- bably he will revise the statutes of the non-authorised Orders,— possibly give foreign Jesuits notice to quit,—and allow the French Orders to gain authorisation on easy terms. M. de Freycinet, as well as a vigorous admininistrator, is evidently no inconsiderable parliamentary strategist.
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