The first month of Louis Bonaparte’s presidency is drawing to a close.
This is how we stand at present:
Old-time Bonapartists are cropping up. MM. Jules Favre, Billault
and Carteret are paying court--politically Speaking--to the Princess
Mathilde Demidoff. The Duchess d’Orleans is residing with her two
children in a little house at Ems, where she lives modestly yet royally.
All the ideas of February are brought up one after the other; 1849,
disappointed, is turning its back on 1848. The generals want amnesty,
the wise want disarmament. The Constituent Assembly’s term is expiring
and the Assembly is in savage mood in consequence. M. Guizot is
publishing his book _On Democracy in France_. Louis Philippe is in
London, Pius IX. is at Gaete, M. Barrot is in power; the bourgeoisie has
lost Paris, Catholicism has lost Rome. The sky is rainy and gloomy, with
a ray of sunshine now and then. Mlle. Ozy shows herself quite naked in
the role of Eve at the Porte Saint Martin; Fréderick Lemaitre is playing
“L’Auberge des Adrets” there. Five per cents are at 74, potatoes cost
8 cents the bushel, at the market a pike can be bought for 20 sous.
M. Ledru-Rollin is trying to force the country into war, M. Prudhon is
trying to force it into bankruptcy. General Cavaignac takes part in
the sessions of the Assembly in a grey waist-coat, and passes his time
gazing at the women in the galleries through big ivory opera-glasses. M.
de Lamartine gets 25,000 francs for his “Toussaint L’Ouverture.” Louis
Bonaparte gives grand dinners to M. Thiers, who had him captured, and to
M. Mole, who had him condemned. Vienna, Milan, and Berlin are becoming
calmer. Revolutionary fires are paling and seem to be dying out
everywhere on the surface, but the peoples are still deeply stirred.
The King of Prussia is getting ready to seize his sceptre again and the
Emperor of Russia to draw his sword. There has been an earthquake at
Havre, the cholera is at Fécamp; Arnal is leaving the Gymnase, and the
Academy is nominating the Duke de Noailles as Chateaubriand’s successor.