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    ¦"""" ,, identified in this supreme interest . They pillage , are eVinate . burn , while invoking Vengeance , Hatred , ^ TVsnair , those infernal gods of demagogueism . Let Aeflnd and preserve ourselves , invoking Law and Jus-^ those Rods of a democracy which desires to keep from stains ; and of a people who would not perish . " The Constitutionnel says the Basses Alpes is in the wer of the " Socialists "—but this is police news , a the nickname is a police nickname adopted by the English organs of the French Police .

    NATURE OF THE CONFLICT . •< I cannot now give you much account of the awful scenes that happened here yesterday . I narrowly escaped being shot in the street , as many were ; and having entered my hotel on the Boulevards , -which were filled with thousands of troops a sudden discharge of musketry took place along the whole line—volley after volley ; not a house , scarcely a window , was spared , whether containin g combatants or not . Before I could rush from my room musket balls entered by the window , from which I had retreated but a step or two . In famil brother

    another room was a Russian y ; the , a fine young man , and his sister were both struck by balls while hastening from the room with their mother . The lady had her hand shattered , the brother was shot in the chest . I have seldom felt a more intense pleasure in my profession than in being able to give immediate assistance to these poor persons , for which otherwise they must have waited many hours . They displayed a beautiful and generous devotion , each begging me to attend first to the other . There is a house opposite ours that is breached by cannon shot fired into it at a few feet which will be

    distance . The loss of life , never published , must have been awful . With character , istic peculiarity , after the troops had performed their unworthy task , the military surgeons , at night , went from house to house to see after the wounded . One of them told me he had just seen sixty dead and eighty wounded in our immediate neighbourhood . The greater part of the injured are non-combatants , suddenly surprised in the streets or struck down , unsuspecting danger , in their own homes . Such scenes—fit enough perhaps for the storming of an Arab town—with an indiscriminate attack on

    unresisting houses , were never before known , even in Paris . " The following is an extract from a private letter , dated Paris , December 8 , 1851 : — " One of our female servants is married to a noncommissioned officer in one of the regiments of civic troops which are employed more especially in the arrests and executions now going on . We learn from her that her husband was engaged with his company the entire day yesterday in making arrests . He does

    not know how many hundred were lodged by his company in the prisons . He says they are ordered out to the Champs de Mars to-day to shoot a number reported to be 156—of those condemned by the court-martial . From the language used by the wife we infer that the soldiers , at least of that regiment , notwithstanding their enormous extra pay , are thoroughly disgusted with their work . All the usual vocabulary of abusive epithets is showered on the President , such as brigand , sctitrat , &c . last

    " After I despatched my packet evening a friend called who ought to be well informed , and assured me that a list of suspected persons has been made which includes all the English in Paris who are supposed to have any engagement in connection with the press , and especially with the newspapers , and that a person who saw that list affirmed that my name is on it . It is said to be deckled to order any one to quit France who is suspected of writing articles or letters hostile to the Government . Another friend called last evening , who is the chief

    judge of one of tho high tribunals , and also a member of the soi-disant ' Consultative Council , ' to whom 1 mentioned what I heard about the suspected list , but did not allude to my own name being on it . lie replied that he had not any knowledge of such a list , but that in the present state of things it was very probable , and that he conceived Huch a measure to bo dictated by motives of wise precaution and prudence ; that it gives France trouble enough to manage her own affairs without being embarrasHcd by the meddling of foreign journals . in Remling

    " Ah I think there is danger even letters through tho bureau of your correspondent , and as letters' addressed to the Times ( not proceeding iVom the uMial correspondent ) would ( an 1 am as-Bured ) be opened at the Pout-office , I think it bent to iuclo . se this to a friend , who will forward it . " We are now literally living under the reign ol terror . Not one word that appear * m tho l-rendi journals can be relied on . Indeed , it may be in general taken to be false . " We give the above on the authority of the Times No words of ours can ndd force to these . In confirmation of this rumour , we find the lollow-» "K Hentenee in a proclamation tiigncd J ) o Maupns : —¦

    " AH the caucus of agitation muat be BuppreHsed by l » rnctiHin on a large ncale a system of search and wrests . " Buchct d'Albufera found hia nwao in tho U » t of the

    Consultative Commission . Like Leon Faucher , ho was enraged , and wrote to M . Bonaparte a stinging letter to this effect : — " Sir , —Your uncle gave me an honourable name ; what right have you to tarnish it by placing it on your Consultative Commission ?" Afterwards he went to M . de Morny , for the purpose of protesting . On his expressing his i ndignation , M . de Morny , the new Minister of the Interior , plainly told him " they wanted his name to make use of in his department . " M . Suchet d'Albufera then said that he would announce in the

    newspapers that he had not accepted the nomination ; upon which M . de Morny said that none of the newspapers would publish it . " Then , " said M . d ' Albufera , " I shall write fifty letters to my constituents in the department . " " You may save yourself the trouble , '' retorted M . de Morny ; " for not one of them will reach them . " This is but one of several similar cases . The members protest , but the Government insists on keeping in the names , in order that the departments may be deceiued .

    The coolness of M . de Morny is astounding . Indeed nothing daunts the Elysee in the way of moral resistance . There are Englishmen and Englishwomen who frequent the Saloons of the usurper . On Monday night , when the blood in the streets had not dried up , and the echoes of the musketry in the Champ de Mars hardlj died away , the first public reception took place at the Palace of the Elysee , since the coup d ' etat . It was crowded to excess ,

    and it was found necessary to throw open additional rooms for the reception of the company . As may be conceived , there was an extraordinary number of officers of all ranks . The members of the corjjs diplomatique were also in great numbers , and there were many present who , only three days ago , were among the loudest in condemning the coup d ' etat . There was a considerable number of ladies , and among them a good , many of our countrywomen >

    " OKDER . Thiers has been set at liberty , and escorted'but of the country . The generals are still detained at Ham . Arrests have followed each other in rapid succession during the past week ; and on Tuesday the Moniteur contained a decree signed by M . Bonaparte , and countersigned by the supple De Morny . It is quite sufficient of itself to stamp the characters of master and man with infamy . " The President of the Republic , on the proposition of the Minister of the Interior—considering tliat France has need of orderlabourand security ; th * t for too many

    , , years society has been profoundly disquieted and troubled by the machinations of anarchy , and by the insurrectional attempts of the members of secret societies , and liberated convicts , always ready to become instruments of disorder ; considering that , by their constant habits of revolt against all laws , this class of men not only compromise tranquillity , labour , and public order , but authorise unjust attacks and deplorable calumnies on the sound part of the working population of Paris and Lyons ; considering that existing laws are insufficient , and that it is necessary to make modifications in them , whilst conciliating the duties of humanity with the interest of general security , decrcea : —

    " Art . 1 . Any individual placed under the surveillance of the police who shall be proved guilty of the : offence of rupture de ban may be transported , as a measure of general safety , to a penitentiary colony at Cayenne , or in Algeria . The duration of the transportation shall be five years at least , and not exceed ten . " Art . 2 . The same measure shall be applicable to individuals proved to have formed part of a . secret society . " Art . 3 . The fact of being placed under the surveillance of the police shall , for the future , Rive the Government the right of determining the place ia which the condemned must reside after undergoing his punishment . The Administration shall determine the formalities for proving the continued presence of the condemned in the place of his residence .

    " Art . 4 . Residence at Paris and in the banlicuc is interdicted to all individuals placed under the surveillance of" the police . " Art . r > . The individuals designated by the preceding article shall be obliged to quit Paris and its banlicue within ten days from the promulgation of the present decree , unless they shall have obtained permission to remain , from the administration . There shall be delivered to those who may demand it a feu tile de , route at de secours , which shall fix their route to their place of birth , or that which they may have designated . " Art . (> . In case of violation of the measures prescribed by Articles 1 and f ) of tho present decree , offenders may be transported , as a measure of general safety , to a penitentiary colony at Cayenne , or in Algeria .

    " Art . 7 . Persons transported in virtue of the present decree shall be subjected to labour ia the penitentiary establishment ; they shall In ; deprived of their civil and political rights ; ( hey shall be subjected to military jurisdiction ; the military lawn shall be applicable to them . However , in case of evasion from , tin ; establishment , tho transported shall be ; condemned to iinpriHomm-nt , which cannot exceed the time during which they may then have to remain in tiunsporlution . They shall he subjected to military discipline and tmbordination towards their chiefs and keepers , whether civil or military , during the period of imprisonment .

    " Art . H . Regulations of the hxeeutive ( Jovernment shall settle the organization , of theac penitentiary colonioH ,

    " Art . 9 .. The Ministers of the Interior and of War are charged , each in what concerns him , with the execution of the present decree . " Done at Paris , at the Elysee National , the Council of Ministers being heard , the 8 th of December . " Louis Napoleon Bonaparte . " A . De Moiiny , Minister of the Interior . " And now , reader , that you have . read that document , you will be in a proper frame of mind to appreciate the fact that elaborate arrangements have been made for taking the vote on the 20 th instant : positively elaborate arrangements to secure the integrity of the ballot-box and protect the right of voting . And this has been done while the Bonapartist faction are in possession of all civil and military power in France . Immense farce with a horrible tragedy beneath it ! The portrait of this regime of the sabre and the bullet is well described by the

    Morning Chronicle of Thursday . " We have a wholesale incarceration of nearly 200 national representatives , snatched from the midst of Europe ' s politest capital , without the shadow of a crime alleged , further than that of an obstructive policy in the Legislative Assembly of the nation—we say without an accusation ; for , if the alleged plot against the President and the asserted tampering with the army are true , why are not the victims brought to trial , and why is M . Thiers already released ? Every independent newspaper is stopped or intimidated—every possibility of telling or learning the truth is most successfully blocked up against the inquiries of eager millions . The mails , the frontiers , the army , the executive—all are secured , manipulated , and directed with the blind energy of a machine . Opinion and consent are asked at the sword ' s point—appeal is answered by the mitraille—remonstrance

    acknowledged by monster mortars—and resistance , or even repining , confronted by some five hundred thousand bayonets . And # as though the present regime were desirous to reproduce every historical detail of past despotisms , it is plainly intimated that Cayenne , as in the days of Robespierre , and Algeria , with Its novelty of horrors , await those who shall combine for the secret utterance of thoughts and hop « s which can no longer be openly avowed . So it is—at this very moment Louis Napoleon rules , and has secured submission by the identical acts or menaces which history has selected as the foulest biots of the Greek democracies , of the Roman Republic in the worst days of its civic furies , of the sanguinary Italian States—nay of France itself , in the successive tyrannies of Louis XIV ., of the Convention , and of the Empire . It has been reserved for France to see combined all these invasions of human rights in the policy of a single week . "

    But the Constitutionnel impudently dogmatises as follows . " France as a civilized nation has just raised herself in the eyes of Europe . The troops of France arc now as vigorous as they are disciplined . The public feeling has just devoted itself to the defence of family ties , and p / operty and the protection of order and of labour . France has just done justice on the coalitions against public prosperity and personal ambitions . " Among minor acts following the reestablisbment of order , is the sop to the Legitimists and priest party—the restoration of the Pantheon to Roman Catholic purposes in accordance with the wishes of " the pious founder , " said pious founder being none other than mephitic - Louis XV . of " scarlet du Barry " memory .

    The Times said all the English journals had denounced the coup d ' etat with " one base exception . " laming the week there have been four English journals contending for the honour of being the allies of the

    Till ; " TIMKS " ON LOU 18 NAl'OLHOM . On the 13 th of November , 1 Sot ) , Louis Napoleon declared in hia Message to the National Assembly of France that " he considered as great criminals those who by personal ambition compromised the small amount of stability secured by the Constitution ; that such was his profound conviction , which had never been shaken ; that the invariable rule of his political life would be , under all circumstances , to do his duty , and nothing but his duty ; that every one , except himself , was at liberty to seek to hasten the revision of the fundamental law

    that if the Constitution contained defects and dangers , the Assembly was competent to expose them to the eyes of the country ; but that , he alone , bound by his o . itli , restrained himself within the strict , limits traced by th . it act ; that whatever the future solution of all ; iii \ t w . i . s to be , it was essential to provide against it , ho that , passion , Burprise , and violence should never decide the fate of a gieat nation ; that the Hi tit duty of authorities was to inspire the people with veneration for the law , by never deviating from it theinselve-i ; and that his anxiety won not , he assured the Assembly , to know who would govern France in ldi ) 2 , but . to employ the time at his disposal

    so that the transition , whatever it might be , should be effected without agitation or disturbance ;; " for , said he , " the noblest obji .-ct , and that most worthy of an exalted mind , iB not to seek , when in power ,, how to perpetuate it , but to labour incessantly to fortify , for tin ; benefit , of all , those principles of authority and morality which defy the passions of mankind and the instability of" laws . " VVeHtill remember the joy and confidence with which these words wen ; received hy the Assembly and the French nation - —these words which must now strike their Helfeonvicted author in the midst of his . sanguinary triumph , and have a stignni on his truth and honour which the Crown of an Kinpire cannot hide or efface ; Never wan " the futo of u groat uution . " more cUcctually

    Untitled Article

    Pec . , 1851 J Stye ' 3 L * Afr * r » 1175

• Citation
  • Leader (1850-1860), Dec. 13, 1851, page 1175, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1913/page/3/