Constitutional Amendment

Beds. Versailles is a small town. Last week there were not beds enough for some 300 Senators and 500 Deputies who journeyed out from Paris to constitute, in joint session, the National Assembly of France. All provident, the Government of veteran Premier Poincare despatched from Paris a truckload of beds and bedding, caused them to be distributed to good advantage among the hotels of Versailles. Came dawn. Through the forethought of M. Poincare, the Senators and Deputies arose refreshed, complacent, found themselves even provided with a special bar outside their meeting hall where viands and vintages of every sort were dispensed at prices far from high. M. Poincare had not been extravagant in his preparations. He was about to ask the National Assembly to amend the Constitution --a grave step for Frenchmen, whose Constitution had sustained but two amendments since it was promulgated at Versailles in 1875. M. Poincare would shortly demand that the internal debt of France be irrevocably guaranteed by making constitutional the recently passed legislation (TIME, Aug. 9 et seq.) creating an autonomous sinking fund outside Parliamentary control from which the internal debt will be repaid under the supervision of non-partisan experts. Beside the accomplishment of this great purpose the cost of a few beds, of a little beer and wine, was not consequential.

Kings. The Senators and Deputies dawdled in--into the now musty, once sumptuous theatre which Jacques-Ange Gabriel built for Louis XV in the north wing of the stupendous chateau of his great grandfather, Louis XIV. Where now poor or purseful demagogs lolled, once strode Louis XIV, the "Sun King," dazzling all Europe with the golden rays of his fabulous patronage, supreme over France which was then supreme over Europe, both in arms and arts. Did the Deputies of France, who have so often earned the name of "demagogs," shiver with uneasy shame as they entered the chateau of Le Grand Monarque, a sovereign who not only boasted that he was, but was the State? Reds. Though a clear, overwhelming majority of the National Assembly were determined to rush through the amendment with all speed, they were resisted with raucous violence by an odd seven score of Left partisans--Communists, Socialists. The aged President of the Senate, M. Justin Germain Casimir de Selves, 78, presided over the National Assembly in dignified, impeccable evening dress, was nearly driven to distraction by the often flagrantly seditious outbursts of the "Reds." M. Leon Blum, astute obstructionist leader of the Socialists, presented something like a logical protest against the amendment, intoned once more the Socialist perennial demand that a levy be made upon the capital wealth of France forthwith for repayment of the national debt. M. Blum sat down and was succeeded by the "bomb boy orators" of the Left. M. le Communiste Depute Doriot, a pale passionate young man, shouted sedition and hurled defiance until literally dragged from the Tribune by an incensed one-armed World War veteran, General Pelletier. Thrice the venerable President was obliged to put on his hat, thus suspending the session--a scandal almost without precedent at a meeting of the National Assembly. . . . At last, after a furious debate which had continued intermittently from 9:30 a.m. to 8 p.m., the amendment was put to vote-- passed 671 to 144. Next day the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate adjourned for the summer, left Premier Poincare to direct the substantial franc saving machinery which he has erected with such titan industry.