was all in the interest
of the monarchical principle, became distrusted and unpopular.
In one year twenty-one Republicans and six Bonapartists gained
seats in the Assembly, while the Orleanist and Legitimist parties
gained not one. By 1874 the cause of royalty in France was at a
low ebb. In this year--a year after the downfall of M. Thiers--the
Duc de Broglie was defeated in the Chamber on some measure of small
importance; but his defeat turned him summarily out of office. The
Left Centre--that is, the Republicans from conviction--was the
strongest of the seven parties. The Republic seemed established
on a basis of law and order.

According to the constitution, the president was chosen for seven
years, with the chance of re-election; the Chamber of Deputies
was elected for seven years by universal suffrage, but every year
one third of its members had to retire into private life or stand
for a new election. The Senate was chosen by a complicated
arrangement,--partly by the Chamber, partly by a sort of electoral
college, the members of which were drawn from the councils of
departments, the _arrondissements_, and the municipalities of cities.
As Gambetta said: "So chosen, it could not be a very democratic
assemblage."

"Arrondissement," in the political language of our Southern States,
would be translated electoral districts either in town or country.
In the Northern States it would mean districts for the cities,
townships in the country.

The Speaker, or President of the Chamber, at Tours, at Bordeaux,
and at Versailles, until a month before the downfall of M. Thiers,
had been the immaculately respectable M. Jules Grevy, who had entered
public life in 1848. He had been deposed during the period when
the Monarchists had strength and felt sure of the throne for Henri
V., and he had been replaced by a M. Buffet. It was M. Buffet who
became prime minister on the downfall of the Duc de Broglie. Marshal
MacMahon by no means relished being governed by a cabinet composed
of men of more advanced republican opinions than his own. But it
is useless to go deeper into the parliamentary squabbles of this
period.

Then began the quarrel of which we have read so often in Associated
Press telegrams,--the dispute concerning the _scrutin de liste_ and
the _scrutin d'arrondissement_. "Scrutin" means ballot; "scrutin
de liste" means that electors might choose any Frenchman as their
candidate; "scrutin d'arrondissement," that they must