France certainly is the land of change if not of
progress. Bight weeks have scarcely elapsed since the Usurpation of the 2d of De- cember, and already one Cabinet of not remarkably scrupulous Ministers give in unable or afraid to keep pace with the head- long and headstrong President. Messieurs de Moray and Fonld have resigned, and Messieurs de Persigny and Casablanca occupy their places. By this change one of the last feeble resemblances of the new constitution to that which has been subverted is effaced. So long as M. de Moray and his colleagues remained in office, a distinction was preserved between the Ministry of State and the President's Household. These two establishments have been found as incom- patible as a President and an independent Legislative Assembly. Under the Republic, M. de Persigny, M. Bonaparte's major-domo, controlled or compelled to resign_ every successive Ministry ; under the Usurpation he has done as much for X. de Morny and his colleagues. And now, like his chief, disdaining any longer to veil his power or act by the instrumentality of ofherkhe weave tat the scene in proprut persona. Henceforth, Nance and the Presi- dent's Household are to be administered by the same officers; France the estate, and the Tuileries the mansion, are put undeithe same land-steward.
The first fruit of this simplified administration is open, bare- faced robbery—the confiscation of the property of the house of Orleans. A large portion of the estates of those princes has been torn from them, not even by the decorous hypocrisy of a judicial sentence, but by an arbitrary decree. The rest they are ordered to Bell within a year, under pain of forfeiture. The first fruits of the spoil are already divided : a small portion is offered to the prole- tariat class, to bribe them to aquiesoe in the plunder of the rich; another small portion is given to the Church, as the brigands of Italy pay tithes out of their plunder ; and a third is allotted to the soldiery : but the lion's share is reserved for the State—that is for M. Bonaparte and his parasites, bravoes and other convenient agents. Meanwhile, the President-Dictator carries on incessantly and assiduously the work of completing the organization of his despot- ism. A Ling and laboured circular—" magna et verbose epistola a Caprteis "—has been addressed to the Prefects of the depart- nimbi instructing them how they are to influence the elections to the Legislative Body. They are told that, under the new consti- tution, it is no longer necessary for them to canoes' their interfer- ence in the elections ; and they are instructed to transmit to the President the names of eligible candidates in order that he may re- commend them to the constituencies.
At the same time steps are taken to make all persons in the service of the State—even the military—feel how entirely depend- ent they are on the absolute will of the President. By a decree published in the ifoniteur, three of the banished ex-Representa- tives are deprived of their commissions in the army. M. Bona- parte seems determined to merit the hostility of every class of so- ciety in France. The leaders of what is called good society, the literary and political notables, continue to stand aloof from the Elysee ; the lawyers are kept in a state of irritable alarm by threats levelled at the independence of the judges • the bourgeoisie are
affronted by the dissolution of the National judges; ; every owner of property is alarmed by the robbery of the Orleans estates ; the Republicans and Socialists are hunted down like beasts of prey; and now the officers of the army are made to feel that the tenure of their commissions is insecure.
