little the Emperor might be disposed to agree in the political views of his cousin, he was not at all displeased with the freedom with which he had expressed them.

M. Devienne replied on the following day to Prince Napoleon's speech; and M. Michel Chevalier then rose. After briefly examining the First Napoleonic Constitution-that of the year VIII., and referring to that of 1852 as based upon it with certain differences which, after the adoption of the present Senatus Consultum, will become more striking than they have hitherto been-he pointed out the main feature of both these Constitutions as establishing two assemblies, two political bodies, one making the laws, the other charged with changes in the Constitution, and contrasted it with the system adopted in nearly all other constitutional countries, of having two Chambers alike possessing and exercising both the legislative and the constituent faculties. As the two principal examples of this latter system, he cited England and the United States, noticing, in passing, the principal differences between the Constitutions of those two countries. He declared himself frankly opposed to the system that dates from the year VIII. After eloquently sketching the present greatness and prosperity of the two Anglo-Saxon countries, he combatted the prevalent notion that what they have realized is not realizable in France. Those who make and repeat this objection, he said, seem to imagine that England was born with a perfectly organized Parliamentary system, which has ever since gone on working without disaster or hindrance. He pointed out the historical incorrectness of this idea, and traced the many severe struggles through which our country passed before attaining "to a system of government magnificent in its results and admirable for the regularity with which it works." The objections made and often declared irrefutable as regards France to the regimen of two Chambers, analogous to those comprising the English Parliament, he denounced as specious and unfounded, and as condemned by reason and experience. He said,—

"Do not lull yourselves with flattering hopes that the writers and orators who represent the living strength to the national mind will ever rest until they shall have obtained the system of government which they have a thousand reasons to believe the best. You may impede the movement, but you cannot completely arrest it. And notwithstanding the repugnance the Government yesterday manifested by the organ of the Minister of the Interior, I do not fear to say that perhaps two years will not have passed before the Government, yielding to public opinion, will itself propose the change."

M. Chevalier concluded by saying that, having pointed out the deficiences in the Senatus Consultum, and the additions which he feels certain must at an early date be made to it, he should eagerly vote for it, with a feeling of deep gratitude to the great Sovereign who has taken the initiative.

In the result the Senatus Consultum was adopted by the Senate by a majority of 134 votes-only three Senators voting against it.

These were Count Boulay (de la Meurthe), the Marquis de Gerardin, and Baron de Vincent.

We should mention that in the course of the debate, in answer to an inquiry by Baron Brenier as to how far the renewal of existing treaties of commerce with England and other countries would be subject to a vote of the Chamber, M. de Forcade, Minister of the Interior, spoke as follows:

"This is the situation in which we find ourselves as regards the treaty with England. It dates from 1860; the period of ten years fixed by the treaty finishes next year; but as the treaty continues unless it be denounced' a year beforehand, it remains executory until 1871. In fact, there is a stipulation in the treaty to the effect that, on its expiration, it shall continue of right, in the absence of a contrary declaration, and in some sort by tacite réconduction. I ask pardon of the Senate for using this expression, which belongs rather to civil law than to diplomatic law, but it appears to me to define pretty exactly the import of Art. 21, I think, of the treaty of commerce with England. This, gentlemen, is the situation of affairs. Now, if I rightly understand Baron Brenier, two questions are put -first, whether a new treaty is necessary to continue the old one, and whether that new treaty will have to be submitted to the Legislative Body. Well, the treaty says that the tariffs and the Customhouse duties established in those tariffs shall be maintained until the one or the other Government shall notify its denunciation.' There is, then, no new Act to make; the treaty with England continues as a matter of course between the two contracting parties. But, says Baron Brenier, if there are modifications of the treaty with England? in that case there must be a new treaty as far as regards the articles it should be necessary to modify, and the Government considers that those modifications cannot be introduced without the assent of the Legislative Body and the Senate. But, at the same time, I desire to say that the Government, in presenting the Senatus Consultum, has had no idea of changing its commercial policy; it finds it good, it believes that it has produced great results, its intention is to defend it."

One of the most popular preachers of late years in France has been Le Père Hyacinthe, who was Superior of the Order of the Barefooted Carmelites in Paris. His views were extremely liberal, and latterly gave great offence to the ecclesiastical authorities, especially to the Ultramontane party. The consequence was that he resolved to resign his office, as he found that he could no longer preach according to the dictates of his conscience without incurring the censure of his superiors. He therefore addressed the following letter to the General of the Order of Barefooted Carmelites at Rome. It was dated Sept. 20, 1869.

"My very reverend Father,-During the five years that my ministry at Notre Dame de Paris has lasted, and in spite of the open attacks and secret accusations of which I have been the object, your esteem and confidence have never for an instant failed me.

Of this I preserve numerous testimonies written by your hand, and applying to my preachings as much as to me personally. Under all circumstances, I shall have that in grateful remembrance.

"To-day, however, by an abrupt change, of which I do not seek the cause in your heart, but in the intrigues of an all-powerful party at Rome, you accuse what you encouraged, you blame what you lately approved, and you require me to speak a language or to maintain a silence which would no longer be the entire and loyal expression of my conscience.

"I do not hesitate an instant. To use a language perverted by dictation or mutilated by reticency, I could not ascend the pulpit of Notre Dame. I express my regret to the intelligent and courageous Archbishop who opened it to me, and who has maintained me there in spite of the ill-will of the men to whom I just now referred. I express my regret to the imposing auditory which there environed me with its attention, with its sympathies, I was nearly adding with its friendship. I should be worthy neither of the audience, nor of the Bishop, nor of God, could I consent to play such a part before them.

"At the same time I quit the convent I inhabit, and which, under the new circumstances made for me, becomes to me a prison of the soul. In thus acting I am not unfaithful to my vows; I promised monastic obedience, but within the limits of the integrity of my conscience, of the dignity of my person and of my ministry. I promised under the benefit of that superior law of justice and of royal liberty, which is, according to the Apostle St. James, the proper law of the Christian. It was the most perfect practice of this holy liberty that I came to ask of the cloister, now more than ten years ago, in the glow of an enthusiasm pure from all human calculations, I dare not add free from every youthful illusion. If, in exchange for my sacrifices, to-day I am offered chains, it is not only my right, but my duty to reject them.

"The present hour is solemn. The Church is traversing one of the most violent, obscure, and decisive crises of its existence here below. For the first time for 300 years, an Ecumenical Council is not only convoked, but declared necessary: that is the expression of the Holy Father. It is not at such a moment that a preacher of the Gospel, were he the last of all, can consent to be silent, like those dumb dogs of Israel, faithless guardians whom the prophet reproaches with not being able to bark-canes muti, non valentes latrare. Saints were never mute. I am not one of them, but yet I am of their race-filii sanctorum sumus—and my ambition has always been that my footsteps, my tears, and, if necessary, my blood, should fall on the traces which theirs have left.

The

"Therefore do I, before the Holy Father, and before the Council, protest, as a Christian and as a priest, against those doctrines and practices which are called Roman, but which are not Christian, and which, by their encroachments, ever more audacious and more fatal, tend to change the Constitution of the Church, the substance as well

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as the form of its teaching, and even the spirit of its piety. I protest against the divorce, as impious as it is senseless, it is sought to bring about between the Church, which is our mother according to eternity, and the society of the nineteenth century, of which we are the sons in a temporal sense, and towards which we also have duties and tendernesses.

"I protest against that still more radical and alarming opposition with human nature, wounded and revolted by those false doctors in its most indestructible and holy aspirations. I protest, above all, against the sacrilegious perversion of the Gospel of the Son of God Himself, whereof the spirit and the letter are equally trampled under foot by the pharasaism of the new law. My deepest conviction is that if France in particular, and the Latin races in general, are given up to social, moral, and religious anarchy, the principal cause is not, most assuredly, in Catholicism itself, but in the manner in which Catholicism has long been understood and practised.

"I appeal to the Council which is about to meet to seek remedies for the excess of our evils, and to apply them with as much force as gentleness. But if fears which I will not share came to be realized, if the august assembly had not more liberty in its deliberations than it now has in its preparation; if, in a word, it were deprived of the characters essential to an Ecumenical Council, I would cry out to God and to men to demand another, truly brought together in the Holy Spirit not in the spirit of parties-really representing the Universal Church, and not the silence of some and the oppression of others. For the hurt of the daughter of my people am I hurt; I am black; astonishment hath taken hold on me. Is there no balm in Gilead? is there no physician there? why then is not the health of the daughter of my people recovered?' (Jeremiah viii.)

"And, finally, I appeal to your tribunal, O Lord Jesus! Ad tuum, Domine Jesu, tribunal appello. It is in your presence that I write these lines; it is at your feet, after having prayed much, reflected much, suffered much, and waited long, it is at your feet that I sign them. I have the confidence that if men condemn them upon earth, you will approve them in Heaven. That suffices me both in life and in death."

In his answer the General of the Order said, "You must be aware, reverend father, that I have never forbidden you to preach, that I have never given you any order or imposed any restriction on your teachings. I only took the liberty of giving to you some counsels, and of addressing to you some observations, especially on the subject of your last lectures, as in my quality of Superior it was my right and my duty to do. You were, consequently, as free to continue your preachings at Paris or elsewhere as in preceding years, before my letter of the 22nd July last, and if you have resolved not to reappear in the pulpit of Notre Dame de Paris, it is voluntarily and of your own free will, and not by virtue of measures adopted by me towards you. Your letter of the 20th announces to me that you are about to leave your monastery in Paris. I learn, indeed, by

the journals and by private letters that you have already left it, and have cast off your gown without any ecclesiastical authorization. If the fact is unfortunately true, I would remark to you, my reverend father, that the monk who quits his monastery and the dress of his order without the regular permission from the competent authority is considered as a real apostate, and is, consequently, liable to the canonical penalties mentioned in Cap. Periculoso. The punishment is, as you are aware, the greater excommunication, lata sententiæ; and, according to our rules, confirmed by the Holy See, part iii., chap. xxxv., No. 12, those who leave the community without authorization incur the greater excommunication ipso facto and the note of infamy. Qui a congregatione recedunt, præter apostasiam, ipso facto excommunicationem et infamiæ notam incurrunt. As your Superior, and in accordance with the prescriptions of the apostolic decrees, which order me to employ even censure to bring you back to the bosom of the Order you have so deplorably abandoned, I am under the necessity of calling on you to return to the monastery in Paris which you have quitted within ten days from the date of the present letter, observing to you that if you do not obey this order within the time stated you will be deprived canonically of all the charges you hold in the Order of Barefooted Carmelite Monks, and will remain under the censure established by the common law and by our rules. May you, my reverend father, listen to our voice and to the cry of your conscience; may you promptly and seriously descend within yourself, see the depth of your fall, and by a heroic resolution manfully recover yourself, repair the great scandal you have caused, and by that means console the Church, your mother, you have so much afflicted. That is the most sincere and ardent desire of my heart; it is also that which your afflicted friends, and myself, your father, ask with all the fervour of our souls of God Almighty-of God, so full of mercy and goodness."

Père Hyacinthe, however, did not yield to this remonstrance, and refused to return to the monastery. He soon after quitted France and sailed for the United States.

According to Article 46 of the Constitution, the latest day to which the meeting of the New Legislative Chambers ought to have been postponed was the 26th of October, but a decree appeared in the Journal Officiel on the 3rd of October, convoking the Assembly on the 29th of November. This gave great offence to the Republican party, and was made the ground of bitter invective against the Government. Some of the more violent members announced their intention of proceeding to the Chamber on the 26th of October, and in a letter published by M. Raspail, and addressed to "Messieurs les Ministres," he asked, "Has this postponement been suggested by a caprice of bad temper and infirm health, to preserve the idea of personal power, which henceforth no longer exists? But then, why not have indicated a date anterior to the 26th, instead of deferring the opening of the Chamber to November 29th, without any apparent motive? In swearing obedience to the Constitution