listen, both sides, both parties-I mean as they are divided on this question-divided, I am afraid, by an almost im measurable gap. We do not undervalue or despise the forces opposed to us. I have described them as the forces of class and its dependants; and that as a general description—as a slight and rude outline of a description-is, I be lieve, perfectly true. I do not deny that many are against us whom we should have expected to be for us. I do not deny that some whom we see against us have caused us by their conscientious action the bitterest disappointment. You have power, you have wealth, you have rank, you have station, you have organization. What have we? We think that we have the people's heart; we believe and we know we have the promise of the harvest of the future. As to the people's heart, you may dispute it, and dispute it with perfect sincerity. Let that matter make its own proof. As to the harvest of the future, I doubt if you have so much confidence, and I believe that there is in the breast of many a man who means to vote against us tonight a profound misgiving, approaching even to a deep conviction, that the end will be as we foresee, and not as you do that the ebbing tide is with you, and the flowing tide is with us.

Ireland stands at your bar, expectant, hopeful, almost suppliant. Her words are the words of truth and soberness. She asks a blessed oblivion of the past, and in that oblivion our interest is deeper than even hers. My right honorable friend, the member for East Edinburgh, asks us to-night to abide by the traditions of which we are the heirs. What traditions? By the Irish traditions? Go into the length and breadth of the world, ransack the literature of all coun tries, find, if you can, a single voice, a single book—find, 1

would almost say, as much as a single newspaper article, unless the product of the day, in which the conduct of England toward Ireland is anywhere treated except with profound and bitter condemnation. Are these the traditions by which we are exhorted to stand? No; they are à sad exception to the glory of our country. They are a broad and black blot upon the pages of its history; and what we want to do is to stand by the traditions of which we are the heirs in all matters except our relations with Ireland, and to make our relations with Ireland to conform to the other traditions of our country. So we treat our traditions--so we hail the demand of Ireland for what I call a blessed oblivion of the past. She asks also a boon for the future; and that boon for the future, unless we are much mistaken, will be a boon to us in respect of honor, no less than a boon to her in respect of happiness, prosperity, and peace. Such, sir, is her prayer. Think, I beseech you, think well, think wisely, think, not for the moment, but for the years that are to come, before you reject this bill.

Vol. 15-19

FAVRE

JULE

LES CLAUDE GABRIEL FAVRE, a noted French statesman, was born at Lyons, France, March 21, 1809. While a law student in Paris he entered with enthusiasm into the revolution of 1830, and he subsequently came into notice at the Lyons bar as a defender of political prisoners. He was called to the Paris bar in 1846, and in the revolution of 1848 was especially prominent. He strenuously opposed the acts of Louis Napoleon as president, but after the coup d'état of December, 1851, he confined his energies for several years entirely to his profession. In 1858, however, his defence of Orsini, the would-be assassin of the Emperor Louis Napoleon, brought him again before the public eye and secured his election to the Corps Législatif as member for Paris. In that body he eloquently opposed the emperor's policy on leading public questions, his speeches on the Mexican expedition making a profound impression. In the closing months of the empire he vehemently opposed the measures which ultimately led to the Franco-Prussian war and was among the few who opposed the declaration of war. After the fall of Sédan, Favre became vice-president of the provisional government and its minister of foreign affairs, subsequently conducting with Bismarck the preliminaries of peace. In 1871 he published his political apology, "Le Gouvernement du 4 Sep tembre," and soon after withdrew from politics for a time and devoted himself to law and literature. In 1876 he was returned to the Senate for the Department of the Rhône. His death took place at Versailles, January 19, 1880. As an eloquent opposition leader Favre appeared to best advantage, but as a diplomatist he was a signal failure. In 1867 he was elected to the Academy on the death of Victor Cousin, and while a pure Theist at that time he became a Protestant in his later years. His published works include "Rome et la République Française (1871); "Conférences et Discours Littéraires" (1873); "De la Reforme Judiciare " (1877); "Conférences et Mélanges " (1880); "Discours Parlementaires " (1881); 'Plaidoyers Politiques et Judiciaries" (1882).

66

SPEECH BEFORE THE CORPS LEGISLATIF

DELIVERED APRIL 12, 1860, AFTER THE PEACE OF VILLA FRANCA

G

ENTLEMEN,-The speakers to whom you listened during yesterday's session have apparently forborne to state definitely the questions raised by the debate now before the Chamber. It appears nevertheless that we are not able to evade them, so forcibly do they bear upon the

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situation to which France is brought by an undertaking in which her honor, and perhaps also her fate, is involved. We should be lacking in our duty if we did not endeavor to indicate, according to our light, the solutions that the dignity and the interest of the country alike require.

I know that such language may seem over-bold in the face of a constitution which gives us so insignificant a part, reserving meanwhile one so vast for one all-powerful will; of a constitution that does not permit our words to go forth from this place without undergoing the humiliation of revision, and oftentimes the insult of mutilation. Nevertheless, since the opportunity to express an opinion is given, permit me to do it with the utmost frankness.

We have to discover what have been the fruits-what must be the consequences of the glorious campaign so suddenly ended on the banks of the Mincio by a peace so unexpected.

You have not forgotten it: when a year ago at this time we had to point out the political purpose of this war we did not hesitate to affirm that it was the enfranchisement of Italy.

The official organs of the government maintained silence before you; but the only voice in this country which was and is permitted to make itself heard with authority as well as power made known to the world that we were not deceived in our apprehension of the causes and import of the great event which disquieted all Europe. To drive Austria back behind the Alps and to leave Italy free, such was the programme proposed to France; aroused and in arms, ready to pour out her treasure and her blood.

It must be admitted that this programme, despite its grandeur, was then little understood and not well received. The partisans of Italy were rare and little credited; general opinion judged them severely; it accepted too readily the ac

cusations of frivolity and of inconsistency lavished upon this generous and devoted nation, and it appeared to many minds that in giving herself to it France would undertake labor both adventurous and unprofitable. I hasten to add, gentlemen, that the Italians responded nobly to their detractors. They have shown, as we were reminded yesterday, of what self-denial patriotism is the source: they have known how to silence old rivalries that have until now divided them, to control individual ambitions, to calm the passions, to re-establish order in the midst of the fermentation of popular victory; in short, to control factions which have always been represented as ready to rend each other.

This work of pacific assimilation, the real seal of Italian regeneration, is not only a moral conquest which is an honor to France, to whose intervention it is due, it is also. for our own greatness, present and to come, a result immense and fruitful and which enables one to say that it has been an effort not alone for the success of a generous idea, but for the defence and consolidation of a great national interest.

Turn to the annals of history and you will see that since the fall of the Roman empire two rival interests have never ceased disputing the supremacy of Europe; this excessive hostility is that of two races personified, the one by Germany, the other by France. Italy has been their battlefield and their stake, as if God had reserved for her this chastisement as expiation for that servitude under whose weight she had during eight centuries crushed the entire world.

Then, in the Middle Ages, France was powerful enough to impose her rule upon the peninsula, to make of it a highway to the north, and it was toward this end that the efforts of the most glorious representatives of our monarchy tended; to-day if the interests are the same the means have changed;