The Press. — London, England, 1858-12-25 00:00:00

THE PRESS, DECEMBER 25, 1858. Jo sign tatrtspoitbenct. PARIS, Wednesday. THE appeal case of the Count de Montalembert was heard yesterday by the Imperial Court, and ended by the sentence upon him being reduced from six to three mouths' imprisonment, and by the fine of 1201. being maiutained. The reduction of the im prisonment tool. place in consequence ot the Court having acquitted him of one of the three charges of which he was convicted before the inferior tribunal, —namely, that of "attacking the rights and autho rity which the Emperor derives from the Constitu- tion and from universal suffrage." He consequently remains condemned,-1, for "exciting to hatred and contempt of the Government ;" 2, " attacking the respezt due to the laws." In pardoning the Count immediately after the judgment of the tribunal, the Emperor, who, in French parlance, acted on " his own inspiration alone," without consulting any Minister or legal adviser, undoubtedly did an illegal, or more properly speaking irregular, act; inasmuch as be assumed the condemnation to be definitive, whereas it was only, so to speak, preliminary. On this point legal friends tell me there are not two opinions at the bar. Consequently to have legal value the pardon must be renewed. But perhaps the Government may not think it consistent with its dignity to renew the grace, seeing that it was so scornfully rejected. Still there is no likelihood that the judgment will be acted on. It is debated whether or not the condemnation as it stands subjects Count de Montalembert to the " law of suspects," that is, renders him liable to be exiled to Cayenne or Algeria. The discussion, however, is of no practical utility, seeing that if his personal liberty and his pane remain untouched, the Government will nut think of relegating him to an unwholesome colony. But a legal friend tells me that, in virtue of a law passed in the time of the Republic, the Count will for a certain period be liable to be deprived of the glory of shouldering a musket as a National Guard, and of making one of the huge mob which constitutes universal suffrage. These deprivations, however, do not seem hard to bear. The anxiety to be present at the beating of the case was very great, though perhaps not so much so as ou the first occasion ; and as on that occasion no one was admitted without tickets, no one was allowed to take notes, and no report of the proceedings has been published. As in the first trial, too, M. Dufaure and M. Berryer were counsel for Count de Monta lembert, but their speeches, though marked with all their usual eloquence, were subAantially only a repe tition of those they delivered before the Correctional Tribunal. M. Chaix d'Est Ange, Procureur•Genera:, acted as public prosecutor; and he, I learn, not only supported the prosecution with great vehemence, but said some very sharp things of the Count, and some still sharper of England. He even, I hear, spoke with positive antipathy of our country, ridiculed the High Court of Parliament, and went the silly length of congratulating himself that he was absolutely ignorant of English, and could not even pronounce the name ot John Bright! Sir F. Head is quite right in complaining of the language which a portion of the English press thinks fit to employ towards this country, and especially towards the Emperor. It excites, as is natural, great indignation in governmental circles here, and is not admired by any party, except, perhaps, a few rabid Red Republicans, because after all it is not compli mentary to the French nation. Personally, the Emperor treats it, if not with contempt, at lead with indifference ; but lie cannot help feeling that it is an ungracious return to bo faithful an ally of England as he has been, and he cannot help seeing that he would gain great popularity by resenting it. Do your contemporaries, yes or no, want to plunge France and England into war? Do the bulk of the people who thoughtlessly applaud them wish to see war? If so, the coarse abuse of the French Emperor and people which we have witnessed of late is intelligible, and we may predict that persistence in it will sooner or later bring about the object sought. But if the maintenance of peace be desired, nothing can be more silly, mischievous, dangerous, than such language. The accounts that reach this city from Italy cause decided uneasiness in political circles. At Milan, at ' Pavia, at Venice, demonstrations against the Aus- he could not free himself, but which, under the open system, he could not be liable. The "friends of the poor " profess indeed a most virtuous horror of corrupt influences: we wish they had a int re correct notion of what cor rupt influences really are. We will give a speci men of one kind of corrupt influence. When a man of talent and celebrity addresses a large meeting of his constituents, and when, in order to injure, in the minds of his audience, one large and important class of his 1010w -countrymen, he makes assertions which are emit' ary to the truths of history, that man, if believed, exercises quite as foul and corrupt an influence on that audience, as if he were to unloose his purse-strings, and to give each man a guinea for his vote. For in stance, if any man were to assert that the great struggle, which began in 1793 with Revolu tionary, and ended in 1815 with Imperial France, was carried on, not because France attacked England, not because our safety and national independence could only be preserved by resist ance, but that the struggle was originated and maintained by the aristocracy, in order to increase their own power and wealth at the expense of their poorer fellow-countrymen, it would be to take advantage of the deficiency in historical knowledge of his audience, and to try corruptly to influence and awaken the baser passions of their hearts. What protection, we ask, could the ballot-box afford against corrupt influence of this description ? And what class of men can those be who are capable of being deceived by these false assertions ? Could a more powerful argument be adduced to show the utter unfitness of such men to have bestowed upon them the elective franchise, than if they listened to and believed these statements, to which every line of history gives the clearest and most unqualified contradiction ? If we were to judge of all the working classes by such proofs of their credulity, we should say that the day is indeed far distant when they can be safely admitted to political power. We know, however, that there are to be found amongst those classes men pos sessing such intelligence and information on both past and passing events, that they would have hooted from their presence any one who ventured to insult their understandings by such accusations. But how mean an opinion must that man entertain of his hearers—how in his heart of hearts must he despise them—when he finds them applauding assertions which he well knows he would not venture to reiterate before any assembly in which there would be an oppor tunity for exposing their baselessness ! It is recorded of Mr. Witax.s, when, at the celebrated Middlesex election, he was standing on the hustings at Brentford, next to his oppo nent, Colonel LurrnEL, and the mob were shouting and huzzaing in his praise, that he was betrayed by his feelings of contempt for them into turning round and saving to his opponent, " What a set of blackguards and fools those men " are who are bellowing below." " Suppose I " were to tell them that you said so," rejoined the Colonel ; " they would tear you to pieces." " Oh, no," said Mr. WILKES, with the most perfect indifference ; "I should deny having said so, and " then they would tear you." Something akin to those feelings of Mr. WILKES, we believe, is very generally enter tained by those men of superior intellect who debase themselves to the task of pandering to popular tastes by unworthy artifices and corrupt misrepresentations ; and to those men we say, until you cease to endeavour to influence men corruptly for your own purposes, you have no right to pretend to have such a pious dislike to influences which you only condemn as corrupt because they may be used against you. MEDICAL READERS may not be sorry to learn that Dr. Kraus, principal editor of the Universal Medical Gazette of Vienna, intends to establish in Paris, at the beginning of the new year, a periodical callei Clinique Europienne—Journal International de Medicine, which is to contain reports of the clinical lectures delivered in the principal hospitals of Europe by the most eminent professors, and which will, con sequently, be a complete compendium of the latest progresses and discoveries in the medical art. By his high standing in the profession, Dr. Kraus has succeeded in obtaining for his periodical the patronage and co-operation of Drs. Trousseau, Nilaton, Skoda, Rokitansky, Velpean, and other distinguished physicians. The journal is to appear in French and German, and, at a later period, in 1253 trians are made almost daily. Puerile, perhaps, they are; since they appear to consist for the most part in not allowing anybody to smoke cigars in the streets, in order not to swell the Austrian revenue, and in mischievous little boys ridiculing Austrian officers and soldiers, and running away to escape the merited cuff: but puerilities show the popular sentiment., as the flying straw the direction of the wiud,—and it was by puerilities of the like kind that the fierce insurrection of '4B was preceded. Naples, all letters concur in stating, is as a gunpowder magazine which a spark can cause to explode. And as to Rome and the Papal States the situation is really deplorable. Out of Rome it is said the people refuse to pay taxes, and drive away by sticks and stones the func tionaries sent to collect them. It is said, too, that the Papal Government a few days hack requested General de Goyon, Commander of the French Army of Occu pation, to assist it in getting in its money; but that he replied in one of those grand phrases which Frenchmen like, that "The French troops were at Borne to protect order, not to levy taxes !"—a reply which has made the Cardinals regard the French with more evil eyes than ever. In Rome, the situation is such, that if the French troops were taken away to-day, there would be a revolution to-morrow; and from this fact you will see that the population must needs entertain bitter animosity to those troops. On the whole, Italy is a seething and tossing volcano ; and every one here seems to dread an early eruption. In these dull times, people who take concern in politics make the most of every event that occurs, in order to carve out occupation for themselves. Ac cordingly, a flying visit which the Grand Duke Con stantine of Russia is making to this city has bad assigned to it the most formidable political propor tions, —nothing less, for example, than the settle ment with the Emperor of the preliminaries of a war which France and Russia jointly are to make on Aus tria, and cm England also, if she ventures to raise a voice in Austria's behalf. But the fact is, that the Grand Duke having received a summons to leave the Mediterranean (where he commands a Russian squadron) for St. Petersburg, on account of the serious illness of the Dowager Empress his mother, arranged to come through this► city, which is directly in his route. Owing, however, to the recovery of the Empress, his return to St. Petersburg has become unnecessary. Having, however, given the Emperor the promise of what simple people would designate " a call," he has run up to Paris to keep his promise. But he is here perfectly incognito; was not received with any honours at the railway sta tion on arriving; has been residing, not at the Tuile• ries, but at the Russian Embassy; and has had no other communication with the Emperor than what could take place in the course of a grand dinner at the Tuileries, and of a visit which the Emperor paid him. He leaves to-night. Now and then I have the opportunity of hearing a little of what takes place in the sanctum sanctorum of the Imperial palace, and I have just heard this : After the abominable attempt of Orsini to assassi nate the Emperor, his Majesty, as all the world knows, decreed that in the event of his death the Empress should be Regent, and appointed a Council of Regency, of which the Count de Morny, the Duke de Malakoff, and other great personages are mem bers, to assist her. Since then a marked change in the manner of the Empress has been noted by those who have the privilege of approaching her daily. Her Majesty, though not less kindhearted, has assumed a somewhat more stately bearing and lan guage—no longer displays the timidity which marked the early part of her career as sovereign—in a word, labours to be "every inch" an Empress. Her Majesty evidently is determined, if unfortunately she should ever be left a widow, to defend energetically the crown of her sun, an 1 is anxious to impress on the people about her that to all the touching graces of the woman, with which she is pre-eminently endowed, she adds some of the qualities of the ruler. In so acting her Majesty is politic. The Emperor, I am informed, approves highly of what a diplomatist would call the " new attitude " of the Empress ; in deed, ever since the attempted assassination his Majesty has sanctioned and admired all that the Empress has done and said, the astonishing heroism she displayed in that sanguinary affair having made a profound impression on his mind, and having, if pos sible, increased his love and veneration of her. The Parisians take lively interest, not only in their literary men, but even in their journalists ; and they have, accordingly, been very painfully affected by learning that M. Rigault, a young and spirited writer of the Journal des Dibats, whilst plying the pen a few days back sustained the awful visitation of losing instantaneously and inexplicably his mental faculties —a visitation of which be has since died. A calamity ao fearful and sudden, falling on one so young, was certainly calculated to make a profound impression, but deeper and wider sympatby has been manifested for him as a journalist than would have been shown if he had belonged to any other profession. The truth is that the Parisians admire journalism, and think that journalists who exorcise their calling with