did so only unwillingly. We shall presently see to what use Bonaparte put the money. After this aggravating after-play, that followed upon the heels of the abolition of universal suffrage, and in which Bonaparte exchanged his humble attitude of the days of the crisis of March and April for one of defiant impudence towards the usurping parliament, the National Assembly adjourned for three months, from August 11, to November 11. It left behind in its place a Permanent Committee of 18 members that contained no Bonapartist, but did contain a few moderate republicans. The Permanent Committee of the year 1849 had numbered only men of order and Bonapartists. At that time, however, the party of Order declared itself in permanence against the revolution; now the parliamentary republic declared itself in permanence against the President. After the law of May 31, only this rival still confronted the party of Order.
When the National Assembly reconvened in November, 1850, instead of its former petty skirmishes with the President, a great headlong struggle, a struggle for life between the two powers, seemed to have become inevitable.
As in the year 1849, the party of Order had during this year’s vacation, dissolved into its two separate factions, each occupied with its own restoration intrigues, which had received new impetus from the death of Louis Philippe. The Legitimist King, Henry V, had even appointed a regular Ministry, that resided in Paris, and in which sat members of the Permanent Committee. Hence, Bonaparte was, on his part, justified in making tours through the French Departments, and—according to the disposition of the towns that he happened to be gladdening with his presence—some times covertly, other times more openly blabbing out his own restoration plans, and gaining votes for himself On these excursions, which the large official “Moniteur” and the small private “Moniteurs” of Bonaparte were, of course, bound to celebrate as