The week's intelligence tells no important step in regaining order
abroad ; rather the reverse.
In France, the Committee of the Assembly has produced its draft of a constitution ; destined, perhaps, to undergo many changes before it receive the fiat of the whole body. A single Chamber, a President with full executive powers including the appointment of Ministers, state payment of all religious ministers, prohibition of substitutes in army and navy, and guarantee of employment for all able-bodied persons, are among the principal provisions. The prohibition of military substitutes indicates a spirit of Spartan equality and rigour directed against the rich. The guarantee of employment will no doubt find able advocacy ; but we do not observe in France either the men or the plan for adapting such a guarantee to the actual state of society; while the existing national workshops are a formidable example ad evitandunt. And, taking the constitution at the best, what can be thought of the stability and self-possession of a state which is panic-stricken at the prospect that a very harmless gentleman should return from exile ?
Berlin has again been torn by riots : the arsenal in the hands of a mob; the Landwehr called out to consolidate order, and seizing the opportunity to make demands in a spirit of mutinous peremptoriness ; the Government obliged to temporize ; the Ca- binet being in the end broken up ; in short, the Prussian capital in a state of anarchy. Bohemia, still rebellious, promises to be a spot on which general war may commence ; the Sclave revolt growing every day, but without further concentration.
In Italy, King Charles Albert has been forced to make rather a retrograde movement; and the veteran Pepe has been obliged to surrender Padua, the uncertain temper of the inhabitants ren- dering it not very tenable. There have been reports that Charles Albert had been defeated in a pitched battle ; but they are evi- dently exaggerations of the retrograde movements.
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