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the south of France . Csesar trembles , but he trusts in Viucien Murat , the fat , has been appointed Governor-General of Algeria : he will only have to wait for the Empire , to be raised to the dignity of Vice-Roy . Vice-Emperor it should be : but what is one misnomer more i O General Haynau , after being hustled out of Beleium by public indignation , has come to Paris to find a more fond , sympathetic welcome—at the Elysee . He is staying at the Hotel de Princes , and has already made Ills ' appearance more than once on the Boulevards . In the Champs Elysees , a day or two since , a certain agitation took place when he was observed ; but he is understood to be well protected by the invisible but omnipresent Police .
The coming elections at Paris begin seriously to occupy the attention- ofthe Government , whose candidates are not yet fixed . As to the Republican party , the general desire is to re-elect Cavaignac and Carnot ; but some put forth the name of M . Goudchaux , the banker . A bale of copies of Victor Hugo s brochure has been seized in Paris . The Moniteur recounts this seizure as follows : — " The police , having been informed that certain Irochwres , forbidden by the authorities , were in course of clandestine distribution at Paris , and notably the recent publication of M . Victor Hugo , instituted a strict surveillance by its agents , which resulted in the arrest of Sieur D , residing in the quartier of the Hotel de Ville . A perquisition effected at his residence led to the seizure of a certa n number of
brochures . A significant fact has recently occurred at Orleans . Some soldiers of the 58 th of the line toolc the side of the peasantry in a quarrel of the latter with the gendarmes . In consequence of an encounter that took place , eleven corporals and a certain number of soldiers were arrested and sent off to Paris . Corporal Millot , who wrote a letter on the subject to the Moniteur dw Soir , has been deprived of his rank , and condemned to one month's imprisonment , for " having entertained communications with civilians" reports the sentence . So on the one hand we find the soldiers forbidden to hold communications with citizens , and , on the other , the soldiers taking the side of the people against the gendarmes as the representatives of the Government , and routing them .
Rigorous measures continue . Another batch of political victiins has just been transported to Algeria . Seven prisoners { detenus ) of the Department of Gers , one of Tarn , and two of L'Aude , have been embarked at Cette , on board the Ville de Bordeaux , for that destination . The " warnings" to the press seem to diminish in number . It is almost certain that the Government has withdrawn from the Prefects the right of " warning . " According to an enumeration that has been made of these warnings , of which the Prefects have made such a ridiculous usage , the number already amounts to fifty-three .
Certain Protestants were anxious to hold a meeting at Fresnoy le Grand ( Department of L'Aisne ) , for the purpose of religious lectures . The Prefect of L'Aisne forbade their meeting . The Conseil de Revision of Toulouse has cancelled tlui sentence of the court-martial at Montpellior , by which cloven citizens of Bedarrieux wero condemned to death . S .
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CONTINENTAL NOTES . # THE " TIMES" AND THE " MONI'XKUE . " M . Louis Bonavahtk has at hint broken tho " contemptuous silence" ho professed to observe towards tho denunciations of tho ' English press . An overwhelming philippic in tho Times of the 21 st of August extorted tho following complaint—for wo cannot oall it a reply—from tin- official scutum of tho Moniteur . The mock dignity of tliii second paragraph of this article would bo simply ludicrous , if tho thought of identifying the man of tho 2 nd <> f December with tho " entire nation . " ho first deceived mil tlum degraded , were not one more insult heaped upon Franco by her pretended Saviour . The rent of the article " bused on the ono enormous assumption that the word of the Perjurer in to bis believed . Our readers who have followed week by week the history of the reigning imposture in Franco nihco tho coup d ' lUul will huvo no difficulty "i unravelling tho tissue of falsehoods by which the Moniteur pretends to deny that Franco is now disinherit e d of 'dl her rights , and that political lifo exist * no longer for " French citizens ; " and they will know bow to interpret H phrases as " unlimited exorcise of the power of
election ; " " tranquillity ami good order of our universal suffrajr ,,. » « expression of tho national will , " &e . &c , ns applied to ( he existing rogimo under which Franco is now Permitted by her deliverer to " breathe at ease" and to " Jive her lifo . " In its eloquent ; vindication of the liberties ° * Fmnce and of the rights of humanity , equally trodden " ndor foot by tho man of December , tho Times trul y ¦ HHortod its pre-eminence as " the organ of a nation ; " an "Pgan of which the nation might be justly proud ; and koI-•*> m hua the giant ' B strength boon so nobly used . lu itu
execration of the man who foreswore his oath and shed innocent blood , to wade through terrorism to usurpation , the Times has asserted a principle and a feeling which are essentially English in the best sense . Who or what the perpetrator may be , whether a Marat or a Louis Bonaparte , a professed revolutionist or a professed " saviour of society , " in denouncing an odious terrorism , tho Times expresses the sound-hearted and intense conviction of nine-tenths of the English nation ; and as a warning and example to future copyists of the present culprit ( as there are copyists of Marat ) , the leading journal has done itself and all the English press honour by committing to shame the scoundrel of December . Here is the first article of the Moniteur : —
" We ha , ve had several times occasion to remark the malevolence towards the French Government of certain articles in the English journals . We remained silent as long as they only attacked persons , but at present the entire nation is attacked , and it becomes a duty to reply . The Times has devoted a long article in one of its last numbers to accumulate insult upon France . It compares it to the Bas -Empire , and condemns it to eternal infamy . If the Times was the organ of a nation , ours might be affected by its attacks , but that paper , the passionate interpreter of hostile parties since the 2 nd of December , merely represents an interested opposition ; what credit , consequently , is to be given to its opinions P What right is there to endure them ? Who ,, in fact , could believe , as
the Times dares to pretend , that we are disinherited of all our rights , and that political life exists no longer for us ? "Universal suffrage in France is the most unlimited exercise of the power of election for a nation . We have said that the Times , in our eyes , is not the organ of the nation in the name of which , it would pretend to speak . Far from us , therefore , to recriminate against the English institutions ; but could not others , less well disposed , do so ? Could not they ask the Times whether England can oppose to the tranquillity and good order of our universal suffrage its limited suffrage and its elections accomplished in the midst of all the scandals of disgraceful jobbery ? Could it not be said to the Times that m England seats in Parliament belong almost always to the richest—that in France distinctionthat there fortune
they are free to all without ; decides—that here the people choose ; that with us everything is the expression of the national will ; that the Chief of the State , the Corps-X , egisUtif , the Councils-General of Departments , Councils of Arondissement , Municipal Councils , all are elected by the universality of the citizens —that on the other side of the Channel , on the contrary , everything savours of the inequality of fortunes as well as the restriction of rights . The Times may , if it please , call this first essay of the most unbounded liberty infamy ; but does it select a happy moment to draw vanity from a system which conduces ' to the apprehension of public voting aud to the demand of the substitution of secret voting in nlace of nublic election ? The Times applauded the days
of July under the Monarchy of 1830 . It approved the republican ovations after the 24 th of February . Was that because of the conquests made by the people ? No ; it was on account of the blood winch was shed . Its glorifications then were as suspicious as its present disparagement is odious . The sarcasm against the 15 th of August was consequently the natural effect of antipathy and calculation . Vainly were propositions made to the Chief of the State to celebrate the anniversaries of tho 10 th of December , 1848 , the 2 nd and 20 th of December , 1851 . Ho would not celebrate the one , because it regarded himself alone and his triumph ; nor the other , because it was connected with a painful feeling , and because he wished , above
all , to bury in oblivion even tho last recollection of our civil discord . The anniversary of tho 15 th of August has been alono consecrated , and it happened by a fortunate coincidence that tho festival of the Virgin , tho patroness of Franco , is celebrated tho same day us that of tho Emperor . Tho nation comprehended that noblo idea , and associated itself with it throughout tho country with enthusiasm . This is tho secret of tho envenomed polemic of tho Times . Far bo it from us to entertain tho idea of stopping it . Wo trust that our prosperity will for a long period supply it with materials . But truth , manifested by facts , will , amongst serious men , ever obtain an advantage over tho anonymous pamplilet inspired by interest or by passion . "
On Saturday , tho 28 th , the Times replied to tho Moniteur , in un article , which , if only as a masterpiece of power , dignity , and eloquence , wo should be glad to have space to reproduce here . It may easily bo imagined what easy game tho Moniteur was for such an antagonist . " Wo havo received , " says Clio Times , " from the French government the only honour " which a government so constituted has it in its power to bestow—the honour implied in its fear and its hatred Our remarks , sucli as they were , seem to have penetrated into the recesses of that imperial solitude in which Monsieur Louis Bouaparto spends the happy and dignified hours which lie can save frmn Mm i . ml ill" destruction and coiiliscation . At tho head
of an enormous army , with his fool on the neck of a pros , trate nation , a few lines traced in a foreign language by an unknown hand , have shaken the impassible man of destiny , and probed tlm depths of a conscience not eunily accessible to the voice of truth . Wo cannot refuse to enter the lists with such a champion . He has a right to bo heard on his own behalf , as well as on behalf of tho hovoii million five hundred thousand votes of tho 10 th of Decem - ber . Wo only wish that he would give our reply the name extended publicity in France as we give to his vindication
in England , nut this ho dares not do . ( iroundlcsM an Monsieur Bonaparte may call our censures , he dares not make bis own nation the judge of their justice , and all tho people whom hernoekH with the name of liberty will ever know on tho subject will be ho much as it is deemed prudent to notice in tho columns of tho Monitmr True , as he says , wo are not , like tho Moniteur , tho organ of a nation ; but in this instance , at any rate , we are something more—the organ of tho conscience of the human race , tho organ of that feeling which distinguishou man
from brute , the mouthpiece of that unbending law of morality which perjured judges cannot pervert , and all the prestige of success cannot elude . " To the accusation that the Times approved of former revolutions , " not because they were conquests made by the people , but on account of the blood which was shed" No ; if we dissent from the revolution of the 2 nd of December , it is not because it has not shed blood enough . The proper anniversary is the 4 th of December , and it should be celebrated at the Marche des Innocens . The name , at any rate , might recall mothers murdered with children in their arms , old men slain on their thresholds , children of seven years old massacred , as well as the other glories which the President takes so much credit to himself for not commemorating . "
" Monsieur Bonaparte" ( the article concludes ) repudiates comparisons with the Lower Empire of Borne . Can he trace no family likeness to one personage , at least , in the sketch which Gibbon gives of Commodus ? ' Amid the acclamations of a flattering court ho was unable to disguise from himself that he had deserved the contempt and hatred of every man of sense and virtue in his empire ; his ferocious spirit was irritated by the consciousness of that hatred , by the envy of every kind of merit , and by the just apprehension of danger . ' " On Monday , tho 30 th , the Moniteur published the subjoined clumsy and suicidal rejoinder : —
" The Government is not moved at insults ; it does not answer them ; but , when facts are audaciously and outrageously misrepresented , it is always its duty to replace them in their true light . The Times , convicted of premeditated defamation , defends itself only by new calumnies . In its number of the 28 th of August , it pretends that after the 2 nd of December 1200 inoffensive and unarmed persons were assassinated by drunken soldiers in the streets of Paris . The refutation of such , a calumny lies in its very exaggeration . Everybody knows that the
official report lays the number of persons killed during the insurrection , at 380 ; that is already too much , no doubt . As to the persons accidentally wounded , the number , fortunately , amounts to eight or ten only . In the presence of positive documents opposed to false assertions , let every one judge of the good faith of the journalist . " As to the discrepancy between the " official report" of the numbers massacred in December , and the reports of eye-witnesses , recited by Victor Hugo , the Times in a second most calm and contemptuous reply , concludes as
follows : — " Any one who will take the trouble to refer to tho evidence adduced in the recent work of Monsieur Victor Hugo , must be perfectly satisfied , unless he imputes to that eminent writer the guilt of forging the statements which he asserts to have taken down from the lips of eye-witnesses , that the estimate of twelve hundred slain is much more probable than that of four hundred . No doubt these are mere guesses and approximations ; the exact amount of the butchery we shall never know . We may have overstated it ; we may have understated it . To the causo of truth and iustico a few hundreds , more or less , matter but little . Human life is sacred , and the guilt of the man who assassinates a thousand only differs in degree from the guilt of him who knowingly and vAlfidly takes a single life . "
We have italicized the last sentence as worthy of emphatic record : for in tho truth here enunciated tho whole pith of tho accusation resides . So much for the duel of the Moniteur , the servile mouthpiece of lying lacqueys , with the leading journal of the world .
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The Moniteur ( says the Daily News of Thursday last ) , after two rounds of journalistic pugilism with the London press , has retreated to the secondary position of bottleholder , handing over the rude continuation of the combat to tho 1 ' ays . If the latter paper were better deserving of its titlo—that is , if it represented more nearly the national opinion of France , tho tone of this article could not but produce some sensation on the English side of the channel ; and , in any case , as coining from what may bo now considered as the chief ministerial organ , it merits the fullest attention . It is indeed now plain that the French Govornment is bent upon using national intimidation as an instrument for compressing the independence of the English press . " The French peoples" says the J ' ay . t , " lias nover suffered , nor will ever miller other nations to intervene in its internal affairs by their newspapers . "
" The French press , " says the 1 ' ttys , " has made unheard efforts for the last thirty years to heal the old differences between France and England , and to drnw closer the two nations . " However this may bo ( and we regret to say to the contrary , that until the Revolution of 'IB the liberal press of Franco had made a stupid hatred of Kngland , and a blind adoration of the Kuipirc , its two chief weapons of party warfare -weapons by which it bus now been struck to the death ) , it is not likely that , the French people will accept this identification with their present ruler , sought to be imposed upon them by tho most servile of a servile crew , the l'uys , tho laughing-stock of the wtill independent Charivari .
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In the I ' l'esso of Tuesday , Eniilo de Girurdin replies with all his power and spirit to the nIiiIc and absurd assumption of M . diranior de Cuwugiiac , that , but for the coup d'itat of December , Franco would have been the prey of pillagers and murderers . Me points ( writes the Correspondent of the Daily News ) to the rank mid merits of tho men who have been expelled by the (< ov < rninenl . But it is needless to repeat bin arguments hero , as every one knows that M . drainer ' s bugbear is a mere invention to pen the people in Iho imperial fold out of terror for imaginary wolves . What is more to the purpose is the emphatic form of the denial . M . ( jiirardiii nays at the close of each triumphant refutation , "Sir , you are a liar , " " You are a liar and a slanderer" — language which , according to French usage , can only be answered b y an invitation to uiiiuxil from the pcu to tho uword or pistol .
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September 4 , 1852 . ] THE LEADER , » 39
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Leader (1850-1860), Sept. 4, 1852, page 839, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse-os.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1950/page/3/
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