to establish and consolidate the republic upon a basis of peace and order, what are the figures which are so noted down as forming part of the sum-total, as the approaching conclusion of the revolutionary year is about to make up its accounts? As regards the Assembly, increased confusion, disunion, bitter conflict of exasperated parties, suspicion, mistrust, disaffection, violence. How stands the government of the country after the year's republicanism? At its head is the Republican President, elected by the immense majority of the country, but elected upon a deceptive basis--elected neither for his principles, which were doubtful; nor for his qualities, which were unknown or supposed to be null; nor even for his name, (although much error has been founded upon the subject,) which, after all, dazzled only a comparatively small minority--but because he was supposed to represent the principle opposed to republicanism--opposed to the very _régime_ he was elected to support--opposed to that spirit of which the man who had once saved the country from anarchy, and had once received the country's blessings, was considered to be the type--because hopes were founded on his advent of a change in a system of government uncongenial, and even hateful, to the mass of the nation; whether by the _prestige_ of his name he attempted to re-establish an empire, or whether, as another Monk, he formed only a stepping-stone for a new monarch. Elected thus upon false principles, the head of the government stands in an eminently false position. He may have shown himself moderate; inclined to support the republic upon that "honest" basis which the better-thinking republicans demand; firm in the support of a cabinet, the measures of which he approves; and every way sincere and straightforward, although not in all his actions wise: but his position remains the same--placed between the ambitious hope of a party which might almost be said to exist no longer, and which has become that only of a family and a few old adherents and connexions, but which attempts to dazzle a country vain and proud of the word "glory," like France, by the somewhat tarnished glitter of a name, and the prospect of another which calls itself legitimate;--the _point de mire_ of the army, but, at the same time, the stalking-horse of a nation miserably wearied with the present hobby, upon which it has been forced unwillingly to ride, with about as much pleasure and _aplomb_ as the famous tailor of Brentford--and, on the other hand, suspected, accused, and denounced by those who claim to themselves the only true and pure essence of veritable republicanism. It is a position placed upon a "see-saw"--placed in the centre, it is true, but liable, in any convulsive crisis, to be seriously compromised by the violent and abrupt elevation of either of the ends of the plank, as it tosses up and down: for the feet of the president, instead of directing the movements of this perpetually agitated "see-saw," and