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LETTERS FROM PARIS. [Fkom our own Corres...
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Wn do not alter, but simply italicize, t...
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this violent taction ot the Romish Churc...
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Si R Harry Smith And The Militia Sin, Ha...
where , when I havo beaten them in one place , they have started up in another with renewed vigour to resist me . You loyal Guernseymen , would have to do and would do likewise did the foo dare to plant his foot on your shores . Heaven grant that England may never have to repel an invad er ! but , if sho should , and I had to take part in her def ence , I would not ask to lead better soldiers than you—I call you soldiers—I would not ask to lead better troops than the royal militia of Guernsey . " _t \ s _, a matter of Course the militia so handsomely comp limented roundly applauded the orator . We may now write the name of Sir Harry Smith beside that of Lord Palmerston and Mr . Disraeli , as supporters of a national army .
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Letters From Paris. [Fkom Our Own Corres...
LETTERS FROM PARIS . [ Fkom our own Correspondent . ] Letter XXXVII . Paris , September 7 , 1852 . The Empire ( we have great reason to believe ) is to be officially proclaimed on the 2 nd of December . That day , the triple anniversary of the coronation of Napoleon le Grand , of the Battle of Austerlitz , and of tbe coup d ' etat of Louis Bonaparte , is considered auspicious . Bonaparte will have just returned , from his progress in the South , his brow beaming with the new halo of glory that oflicial enthusiasm will have cast around it . The Senate will have had time enough to assemble , and to declare that the safety of the State , and the national will , demand the proclamation of the Empire ; and so Bonaparte will be Emperor !
His j ' ourney to the South is fixed one day sooner than previous arrangements ; he is to start on the 14 th instead of the 15 th , to enable him to pass one day at Bourges , where the Prefet du Chers is preparing an ovation . Singular discussions have been taking place at the Elysee for deciding which of the Ministers should accompany the President on his tour . All the arguments advanced by each of the Ministers in turn , turned on tbe hypothesis of an assault on the life of tbeir Prince . There were some who declined to accompany him from unwillingness to share his fortunes .
Persigny alleged that his pvesenee w as absolutely requisite in Paris to prevent mishap—to maintain tbe departments under the Bonapartist yoke by means of tbe telegraphs and the Prefects . St . Arnaud , Minister of War , stated that it would be imprudent for him to leave the central post , because the coup d ' etat having compromised , him , together with otber Generals , an accident to Bonaparte in the South would be tbe signal of a general revolt , which would have to be crushed at any cost ; and that as the safety of his own head
would depend on the issue , he would rather not trust it to any otber bands . General Magnan , wben called before the Council , expressed tbe same opinion . Other Ministers , on the other hand , though for the same reasons , were anxious to accompany Bonaparte , in order to be constantly au courant of any events tbat might happen , rather than be surprised by them ; " that in the South , where the President was going , there was but one line of signal-telegraphs , so that in case of any mishap in any town in the South , if only one telegraph were destroyed , Paris would get no news for a week . "
Great was the perplexity of both parties in the Council : at length they came to a decision that no more than two of the Ministers at a time should accompany the President : but that they should relieve one another at intervals of a week , at Marseilles , Toulouse , and Bordeaux : St . Arnaud to remain at Paris to keep the army together , and to he relieved from the duty of attendance " about . the Prince , " which the rest of the Ministers arc to take in turns .
The ollicial journals are full of programmes of tbe oflicial fetes wbieb are to be given to Bonaparte along bis route . The authorities of Toulouse have concluded that the best honour tbey can pay him is a grand military fete , representing by a sham light the battle of Toulouse , won by _Soult over Wellington in 1 . 814 . * Tbe _whohs of the troops quartered in tbe South have been concentrated upon throe points , Montpellier , Toulouse , and Bordeaux , leaving only a few detachments , horse
lll » d loot , in fbo intermediate towns . In caso of « ventn , " it is intended that Ibe troops shall be _conce ntrated in strong masses : 1 . To maintain among t hemselves the sentiment of duty ; 2 . To prevent fbeni _J'ei ng minoun < l < . < l and invested , or seduced and won over , hy tbe insurgent population ; il . To be ready if neces-Ki _"' to crush tbe first symptoms of revolution . Tbo _K > and object _JH _f () perpetuate tbe military regime . If "onaparte were to die wo should have a triumvirate com posed of flie threo generals most compromised , viz .
Letters From Paris. [Fkom Our Own Corres...
St . Arnaud , Magnan , and Castellane . These , and the field officers they have drawn with them , know well that they have staked their heads : that tbey have won the first throw , but tbat the game is still going on , and that if fortune turns against them tbey are irrevocably ruined . These Generals feel all tbe force of circumstances , and have resolved , in order to save tbeir heads , to maintain the military regime _evfen after the death of Bonaparte ; They will set up some phantom of a Bonaparte in power , the young Lucien perhaps , as a dummy and a blind , and behind that dummy they will rule in very self-defence . Such are the eventualities the future has in store
for us . Everybody knows it , and everybody recoils : the Republicans like all the rest . It must not be forgotten tbat the Republican party has lost nearly a hundred thousand of its bravest combatants ; the few who remain are suspect and closely watched . The work of organization is not so far advanced as to allow this party to resist the army in civil combat from one day to another . It is this that makes men temporise ; otherwise j ' ustice would long since have been done to Bonaparte . Events , however , are often unforeseen , and in the South passion carries all before it . There are but two great parties—the parti pretre and the
parti anti-pretre •* the Legitimist party and the Republican party , the Catholic party and tbe Protestant party . Now , in these two great party sections , Bonaparte is equally detested to an extravagant degree . Nothing is impossible . The journals already report the arrest of a man at Toulouse for publicly -uttering threats against Bonaparte . " The central Commissary of Police , " says the Messager du Midi , " proceeded to arrest the Sieur Loirette , draper . He was confined in the cellular prison , and placed at the disposal of the
Procureur de la Pepublique . The facts that led to his arrest are as follows : —Loirette entered a cafe in the Marcbe aux Fleurs yesterday , the 2 nd instant , and after having ordered something to drink , then and there , in cool blood , and without any provocation , publicly uttered insults against the Prince President of the Republic , saying , amongst other things , that ' if he came into the south of France he should not go back again / This- individual is known to entertain legitimist opinions /'
You perceive that nothing , as I have said , is impossible ; and out of this progress to the south may ( I do not say wilt ) spring the conflagration of the world . God help us ! At the present moment Bonaparte is suffering from an attack of pleurisy . He was shooting in tbe forest of Marly and caught a chill . He is scarcely permitted to leave his apartments till the 14 th inst ., the day of his departure . He ia said , too , to be out of spirits . The representatives of the people exiled on the 10 th of January , and pardoned a few days since , with the exception of M . Thiers , who , I believe , was
compelled by private , and exceptional circumstances to hasten his return , and M . Cbambolle , formerly editor of the Sieele , have been found very tardy in accepting tho gracious boon . Bonaparte ' s clemency is wasted . But by way of playing out tbis comedy of " clemency , " be modified the punishment of a hundred political convicts . Tbo sentences of transportation to Algeria be commuted into inlernement ( confinement within a certain district ) at home : the sentences of _interncmettt , into surveillance of the haute police . These objects of clemency , nevertheless , aro exposed to all the severities
of the police , debarred from resuming tbeir occupations , and from exercising their former pursuits . Instead of thanks , Bonaparte is continually receiving letters full of insults and reproaches , demanding transportation or exile again . Indeed , all these pretended pardons are derisory , and in no case full and complete . It is the same with tbe pretended " voluntary exiles , " which u bitter of M . Hetzel ( the publisher , who served under tin ; Provisional Government ) amply exposes and refutes . His bitter was addressed to the fndependance Pclgc , and caused tbe seizure of that journal at the Post in Paris
Letters From Paris. [Fkom Our Own Corres...
" Your correspondent , " writes M . Hetzel , " makes me a refugee without having been proscribed . I left Paris on the ninth of December by order of M . de Morny , who sent me a passport signed by himself , from which the form of words—Nous prions nos agents de donner aide et protection an porteur de ce passeport , had been effaced , and these words written in their place : M . Hetzel , going into Prussia , is enjoined to
depart out of France , and not to return . I preserve this brief autograph of M . de Morny at your disposal : it constitutes me , you see , something quite different from what your correspondent calls a ' voluntary refugee . ' Your correspondent seems to be unaware , that where a few hundreds of decrees of banishment have been published , thousands of fiats were notified secretly ( d voix basse ) to all such persons as it was deemed advisable to drive across the frontier ir . silence . " Protests like these , published m tbe foreign journals , and lighting upon France in the midst of tbe universal darkness and silence , bave a surprising echo , and are tbe more dreaded by Bonaparte , who prosecutes them with unremitting jealousy . As'often as a Belgian journal publishes any such communication it is seized at the frontier . In Prussia , Bonaparte has required of the Government to warn tbe Gazette Nationale , and the Gazette Constitutionnelle . The editor of the latter was summoned to the bureaux of the police , and there wnmpd tbat , unless be _chanp-pd bis tone be would be
subjected to ulterior prosecution . As for England , your Government being unwilling or unable to succumb to such a disgrace , Bonaparte now contents himself with threatening articles in his own journals . The Pays declares positively " that France is not disposed to allow the Elect of ber choice to be called in _question , and that the nation tbat will not respect him must beware . " Look to yourselves , then ! The Councils General have not voted tbe Empire with tbe unanimity and ensemble the Government had expected of them , and had announced at first . Out of the 85 Councils , thirty-one expressed a wish tbat tbe " chief power should bo perpetuated in the bands of Louis Bonaparte ; " nine formally demanded the restoration of the hereditary Empire ; eighteen confined
themselves to the general expression of wishes for the consolidation and stability of power ; twenty-six simply assured tbe Government of their support , without making any allusion to the secret desires of Bonaparte . As to the municipal elections , the abstention of tbe electors exceeded all anticipation . At Dieppe , tbe first result of tbe votes was null . In the majority of tbe communes of the arrondissement of Orange , it was with great difficulty tbat a bare quarter of tbe electors were got to vote , and at Orange itself , out of 2800 registered electors , more than 2000 declined to vote . At Boulogne , only 2751 , out of 8 G 84 electors , were found to vote ; at Calais , 1542 , out of 4795 ; at Tarbes , 811 , out of 3233 . In several localities , even the candidates of the Government were unable to gain tbeir election .
All these repulses are not calculated to induce tl . o Government to relent in its career of violence . Everybody is its enemy , and it returns the compliment . I have mentioned tbe measures taken against Belgian and German writers : the frontiers ( I should add ) are under the closest surveillance . Two special agents bave been despatched from Paris to Boulogne , Oalai ., and Tourcoing . At these points they search every traveller , to seize any forbidden publication . Even _passports are to be refused , until after strict inquiry , by the French consuls in Belgium , ( jermany , and Kngland . A Frenchman abroad , whose passport has expired , will find it next to impossible to procure another , to return to his country . Tbe Channel Islands are especially " tainted . "
Prosecutions of the press are unceasing : the warning now proceeds directly from the Ministry of Police . By : i singular mockery of chances a journal called La Liberie was the lirst to be struck by fhe new censors . M . de . Girurdiu is the most , distinguished of the recent " warnings . " He had told Grimier tie Cussugnac , that condottiero of journalism , that he was a liar . The Government took up tbe cudgels for its hired bravo , who was too great a coward to meet his accuser , and struck the editor of the Presse with a second " warning . "
Recourse is now bad to the reports ol the mixed commissions fo prosecute and drive out of France tbe few citizens who had been permitted to remain quietly at their business after December 2 nd . Among others , M . Meehain , brother of the ex-representative , has just received orders to leave Paris , by virtue of a decision which is dated so far buck as last March . M . Meehain bud remained utterly ignorant of tho sentence pronounced against him , and of which bo bus onl y just now received notification . In all Cafes and cabarets , too , the strictest surveillance is exorcised . A village winu-shop in the most
Wn Do Not Alter, But Simply Italicize, T...
Wn do not alter , but simply italicize , these words , _ueli our correspondent ( as a Frenchman ) writes no _J'oul _. t in perfect simplicity and good faith . It is well _known that the French claim the Battle of Toulouse as a _H'tory _, which the English " never knowing when they aro cut wore singularl y unconscious of . We can afford it . — , _j O . _dtvadcr .
This Violent Taction Ot The Romish Churc...
this violent taction ot the Romish Church , whoso excesses the better and wiser of that communion are tbe lirst to deprecate and condemn . The Revolution of' 4 H respected and exulted tho Church ; the Church betrayed the Revolution . Wo do not understand the hostilit y of the parti prf . tre to Bonaparte , their creature and willing tool . Despise him , while they use him , they may , and betray him they no doubt will , when he can serve their _piiHsions and their interests no longer . Perhaps they find it dillieult to believe in him as a truo " son of tiio Church . "— Ed . Lcadtrr .
* The parti prctrn docs not include tho whole of the Church ; nor does the parti _anti-pt _' etre imply an _ahsolute hostility to religion ; but the former means tho violent reactionary ultramontane party , ot whieh the Bishop ot ( _Hialons and M . Veuillot , of ( lie _Ifnincrs , may bo considered exponents ; Ihe party that _glorilics the Inquisition , exalts the anniversary of the massacre of the Huguenots into a solemn feast , condemns the Classics in Education , arid _bLesses the bayonets of despot ism . It is to be feared that in tbo next , revolution religion will be identified with
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Sept. 11, 1852, page 3, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_11091852/page/3/
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