The Press. — London, England, 1858-11-27 00:00:00

1149 are by nt: long time there be by the re and no France r and Ansi m any en future is nor Ansi follows f can safe to the .1 Prince all ; and was raill England French of the: with En properly be a gt stupid f Governs of the w that the "inspire intentioi reamer &kaiak frequent Letter nouncin war and of Villa ceded tc surprise conferer and the Ministe The to the I lion in The ] :ad of r press at The 2n coup-d'e to it, th a long I with an accepts' notice t ordinar all othe French the nar names pate tt alderm name, be fan rfort I lie literary think batter have a book a secrete Empire one bo out am " Popu created mainta M. Are by his Deus Rome like mi produc the cable at this Saint mild c bitter, out wil the Da going ben, w suppor "take Ravage falls a Potism threats al4 gr agitate unheat of the M.] in then When he Wm THE PRESS, NOVEMBER 27, 1858. A re by no means likely to rise in insurrection for a l o ng time to come, simply because insurrection, except there be foreign intervention, is sure to be put down by the respective Governments with the strong hand ; end no foreign intervention is possible so long as France remains an Empire. A war between France n od Austria may be " looming in the future," and many eminent political men think that it is ; but the future is certainly still distant, and neither France nor Austria has interest in drawing it nearer. It follows from this that the bounce of the newspapers can safely be treated as only of small account. As to the Pressc, notwithstanding its connection wish Prince Napoleon, it is notoriously no authority at all ; and the proof of this is that not long since it was railing at, and insulting, and talking of fighting England, though everybody who knows anything of French politics is aware that the fundamental policy of the Emperor is close, intimate, cordial alliance with England. And as to the Government organs properly so called, I can assure you that nothing can be a greater mistake than to suppose that every stupid article they contain is "inspired" by the Government. lam personally acquainted with some of the writers of these journals, and they complain that the Government scarcely ever condescends to "inspire " them at all, but leaves them to guess its intention! as best they may—giving them no encou raoement when they happen to guess right, and administering very severe rebukes to them when, as frequently happens, they are wrong. Letters have been received in this capital an nouncing that Russia a few days ago sent ships of war and troops to take formal possession of the port of Villafranca, which Sardinia some time back con ceded to her. This military display has occasioned surprise in political circles, and has, I hear, led to conferences between our ambassador, Lord Cowley, and the Minister of Foreign Affairs, and between the Minister and the Russian Ambassador. The visit of Lord Palmerston and Lord Clarendon to the Emperor at Compiegne has excited no atten tion in political circles. The Imperial visit at Compiegne is to last till the 2nd of next month, and then the Emperor and Eta press are to take up their residence at the Tuileries. The 2nd of December is the anniversary of the coup-d'etat, and it is not unlikely that, to do honour to it, their Majesties may enter Paris in state. It is a long time since the Parisians have been favoured with an Imperial pageant, and one would really be acceptable. Apropos of the sejour at Compiegne, I notice that the number of English invited was extra ordinarily large, exceeding that of foreigners of all other nations, and almost equalling that of the French. But oh ! how French journalists mutilate the names of noble lords and noble ladies ! From names that begin with an H in particular they extir pate the A with all the savage ferocity of a London alderman : even the Marquis of Hertford, whose name, from his long residence in Paris, ought to be familiar to them, they maka the arquis of Arfort ! I have beard it said that several of the great literary adversaries of the Imperial Government think the moment not inopportune for trying to batter it down by means of literary publications, and have accordingly come to the resolution to write book after book against it. M. Villemain, perpetual secretary of the French Academy, who, since the Empire was established, has hurled at it more than one book, has, I hear, promised very shortly to bring out another, of which the object is to show that "Popular Enthusiasm," by which the Empire was created, on which it is based, and by which it is maintained, is a mockery, a delusion, and a snare. M. Ampere, wbo some time ago made a great noise by his articles on Imperial Rome in the Revue des Deus Mondts—articles in which with wondrous art Rome in its worst days was made to appear exactly like modern France—has on his part undertaken to produce a work which will demonstrate that many of the most terrible passages of Tacitus are as appli cable to the rulers and people of this country at this day as they were to those of old Rome. M. Saint Marc Girardin, who in language decorous and mild can, when be pleases, say things exceedingly bitter, will, in his turn, if what is said be true, come out with a work w hi c h while professing to treat of the Danubian Principalities, will show that France is going to wreck and ruin. And Count de Montalem ben, who, as becomes a true Papist, is an ardent supporter of " authority," will perhaps go to Russia to "take a bath" in despotism, and will afterwards write a savage pamphlet to prove that the Napoleonic Empire hills as far short of the beau-ideal of Russian des potism as it does of English liberty. But all these threatened publications will not, I apprehend, do at 4 great harm to the Empire—they will amuse and agitate the salons of Paris, but will be unread and unheard of by " the masses," who form the bulwark of the Imperial Government. M. Boulay de la Meurthe, a well-known personage in theseiparts, and a great Imperialist, died yesterday. When the Emperor was President of the Republic, Ile was Vice President. lortija 10 Colonial THE TRIAL OF THE COUNT MONTALEMBERT. THE memorable trial of Count Montalembert, and of M. Dounoil, manager of the Correspondant, took place on Wednesday, before the Sixth Chamber of the Tribunal Correctional, on the charge of having published in the Correspondant, of the 25th of October, an article entitled '° Un Debat sur l'Ende au Parlement Anglais." Amongst the celebrities present were M. Villemain, the Duke de Broglie, and M. Odillon Barrot. The Government were represented by several function aries of distinction, and members of the Corps Diplo matique were also present. The defendant's wife, Mme. de Montalembert, and Mme. de Meaux, her daughter, also occupied seats in court. Precisely at five minutes past twelve the ringing of a hell an. flounced that the Judges were approaching. An usher of the Court threw open the folding doors to the rear of the bench, and announced in a loud voice their presence. There were three of them, M. Bertelin, M. I)eleveau, and M. Benoit, besides the Procureur- Imperial and his substitute. When the Judges made their appearance the Bar and audience rose, uncovered, and remained standing until they took their seats. The President announced that the Court was opened, and invited the Bar and the public to be seated. THE INDICTMENT. The President having warned the public against any unseemly display of approbation or disapproba tion, the assignation , which charged the four follow ing offences, was read Exciting to the hatred and contempt of the Emperor's Government 1. I honestly confess that I am one of those persons ; and I add that for this evil—from which it is so little the fashion to suffer now-a-days—l have found a remedy. When I feel that the stifling malady is gaining on me, when my ears ring, now with the buzz of the gossips of the antechamber, now with the din of the fanatics who think themselves our masters, and of the hypocrites who think us their dupes; when I choke with the weight of an atmosphere charged with the pestilential vapours of ser vility and corruption, I hurry to breathe a purer air, and take a bath of life in free .England. 9. In Canada a noble race of French Catholics, torn un happily from our own country, but still French in feelings and manners, owes to England the preservation or acqui sition, not only of religious liberty, bat of all the political and municipal liberties which France has rejected. Canada has seen her population increased tenfold in less than a century, and will serve as the basis of the new federation which, from the mouths of the Oregon to those of the St. Lawrence, will be one day the rival or the companion of the great American federation. 3. We possess not only the habits, but even the instincts, of those sober and orderly peoples, doomed to an eternal minority, who sometimes indulge in frightful outbreaks, but who speedily fall back into that state of civil impo tence, where no one dares to speak except by order, or by permission, with the salutary terror of a warning from authority hanging over his head, if he should be so rash as to oppose ever so little the ideas of Government or the ideas of the mob. 4. Whilst these reflections were made around me, I left this grand spectacle with feelings of emotion and satisfac tion, such as any man would experience who sees in a Government something besides an antechamber, and in a civilized people something else than an indolent and docile flock to be clipped and pastured under the silent shades of an enervating security. I felt myself more than ever attached to the liberal hopes and convictions which have always animated, during the most painful periods of our history, that chosen band of honest men whom errors and defeats have never dejected, and who even in exile, even on the scaffold, have preserved sufficient patriotism to believe that France, even as England, could bear a rule of justice, light, and liberty—a noble faith, worthy of in spiring the most painful sacrifices, and which, betrayed as it has been by fortune, deserted by the crowd, and insulted by cowards, does not the less hold its unconquerable em pire over pr9nd souls and generous minds. Attack on the respect due to the laws:- 1. We possess not only the habits, but even the instincts, of those sober and orderly peoples, doomed to an eternal minority, who sometimes indulge in frightful outbreaks, but who speedily fall back into that state of civil impo- tence, where uo one dares to speak except by order, or by permission, with the salutary terror of a warning from authority hanging over his head, if he should be so rash as to oppose ever so little the ideas of Government or the ideas of the mob. t I, for my part, was altogether amazed, so much had ' I lost familiarity with this rolling and alternate fire of daily discussion, to which we ourselves were once accus tomed, and which we carried on, perhaps in excess, but which is become impossible between organs, a few of which only have the right to say everything, and are always led, more or less involuntarily, to lure their adversaries upon the ground where the official gag awaits them. 3. This is but the application of that grand principle of common law in England by which every citizen can have p recourse to a court of justice against a public officer—an 6 immense, but insufficiently known, guarantee of British freedom, presenting a striking contrast to the inviolability of the smallest of our functionaries ordained by the con• stitution of the year VIII., which people have had the simplicity, even under the constitutional system, to number among the happy results of 1789. 111. Attack on the rights which the Emperor derives from the Constitution, and on the principle of universal suffrage 1. Besides, I readily grant that nothing—absolutely nothing—in the institutions or the political personages of France in the present day has any resemblance to the things of which, and the men of whom, I wish here to give a rapid sketch. Certainly I make no pretension to convert those disciples of progress who regard Parliamentary Government as advantageously replaced by universal ant. frage, or those political optimists who maintain that the final triumph of democracy consists in abdicating into the hands of a sovereign the exclusive direction of the external and internal affairs of a country. I write for my own satisfaction, and that of a small number of invalids, of triflers, of madmen, perhaps, like myself. 2. In a word, moral force had been openly and nobly pre- ferred to material force by the organs of a great nation, which is able and desirous of conducting its own affairs — a nation that nothing dejects or alarms ; that, is mistaken at times, but which urges to extremes neither men nor things; and, lastly, knows how to arrange everything, to repair everything without need of tutelage, or of seeking safety in anything but her own masculine and intelligent energy. 3. I have in these pages already indicated, and I again refer to it with pleasure, the most significant and the most consoling symptom in the actual state of England ; it is the persevering ardour which induces the elite of the English nation to prosecute social and administrative reforms, to improve the state of prisons, of unhealthy abodes, to propagate popular, professional, agricultural, and domestic instruction, to increase the resources of religions ministry, to simplify criminal and civil proce dure; to labour in everything for the moral and material welfare of the lower classes, not by the humiliating tute- lage of a power without control, but by the generous coali tion of every independent force and every spontaneous sacrifice. IV. Exciting to the hatred and contempt of the citizens one against another :- 1. Besides, I readily grant that nothing—absolutely nothing—in the institutions or the political personages of France in the present day has any resemblance to the things of which, and the men of whom, I wish here to give a rapid sketch. Certainly I make no pretension to convert those disciples of progress who regard Parliamentary Government as advantageously replaced by universal su f. frage, or those political optimists who maintain that the final triumph of democracy consists in abdicating into the hands of a sovereign the exclusive direction of the external and internal affairs of a country. I write for my own satisfaction, and that of a small number of invalids, of triflers, of madmen, perhaps, like myself. 2. But if by chance it has been taken hold of by one of those translators, authorized by the censorship, who feed in so strange a manner the continental press, instantly all the privileged detractors of liberty transcribe it, take note of it, get furious over it, and cry aloud, "See how England thinks, and what she says ;" and they proceed to deduce consequences of an absurdly alarming cast, now for the peace of the world, now for the security of British institu- tions, although they are sure to be promptly and shame fully exposed in their falsehood by reflection and facts. 3. Whilst these reflections were made around me, I left this grand spectacle with feelings of ewotion and satisfaction, such as any man would experience who sees in a Government something besides an antechamber, and in a civilized people something else than an indolent and docile flock to be clipped and pastured under the silent shades of an enervating security. I felt myself more than ever attached to the liberal hopes and convictions which have always animated, during the most painful periods of our history, that chosen band of honest men whom errors and defeats have never dejected, and who even in exile, even on the scaffold, have preserved sufficient patriotism to believe that France, even as England, could bear a rule of justice, light, and liberty—a noble faith, worthy of in spiring the most painful sacrifices, and which, betrayed as it has been by fortune, deserted by the crowd, and insulted by cowards, does not the less hold its unconquerable em pire over proud souls and generous minds. THE EXAMINATION OF THE ACCUSED. The name of Charles Douniol, the publisher of the Correspondant, was then called. He rose and presented himself at the bar. He admitted the pub lication of the article as ! grant or director of the Correspondant, but stated he had no knowledge that it contained any guilty matter; that he had acted with perfect honesty ; and that the article was pass3d as usual by the Secretary of the Redaction. The President then called upon M. de Montalembert to stand up. In the midst of the deepest silence he did so, standing by his counsel, and his hand repos ing on the desk, on which were laid some papers and a number of the Correspondant containing the in criminated article. The President said, — What is your name ?—Charles Count de Monta lembert. What age ?—Forty-eight. What is your profession ?—Former Peer of France. Where were you born ?—ln Paris. Do you admit the authorship of the article entitled "Un Debat snr :l'lnde au Parlement Anglais do. I admit the authorship, and assume all the responsibility of it. Ile was then examined as to the meaning of the pas sages alleged to be libellous. He was asked whether he did not mean go describe es the Imperial Govern.