The Press. — London, England, 1857-06-20 00:00:00

friend. Even though the matter involved our whole fortunej is it consistent with the feeling of a religious mind, only to appear before the Creator to make him a confidant in a question of avarice? To the struggles ex cited by covetousness, God is indifferent ; or if he inter feres, it is only to aid courage and perseverance. it is therefore by work, and not by wishes or vows, that we can hope to succeed. In running across a plain, suddenly the ground gives way, and I am thrown down. " Save me, omy God!" is the cry which nature inspires me to utter. But how will God save me ? By a miracle, in suspending the action of the laws of gravity? No—such an expectation never crosses my mind. I implore God to find me some protecting stay, instead of allowing me to sink into the abyss. But this branch or support is there, in the very direction of my body. If it were so placed before I uttered my prayer, I have prayed needlessly ; if it were not, and God has placed it at the moment, the miracle is not less surprising than would be a suspension of the laws of gravity. Thus, my prayer, seriously addressed, becomes the formal demand of a miracle. In reality, it is but the nnrefiecting instinct of a weak being, who feels that he is about to perish, and invokes the God from whom he de rives his existence. If we were always sensible of what we do when we pray, we should not so readily ask for miracles, neither should we request them, to obtain another day upon earth of absence from God. But, at the same time, even in this disserta tion on " Prayer," there are some statements which we cannot accept, and which, in our apprehension, are not parallel to scriptural assertions. We are made constantly to recol lect that, though M. Jules Simon is a Christian philosopher, he was reared in the Roman Catholic faith. We are induced to think that this forcible writer has dieted his mind on Bossuet. Thus, in his panegyric on natural religion, he says : Natural religion ;.E1 the enemy of superstition. Its pecu liar characteristics are perspicuity,precision, and sincerity. It makes no pretensions to knowledge beyond its attain ment ; it does not conceal ignorance under high-sounding words; it admits candidly that there are secrets inacces sible to science, and attempts only to determine with cer tainty points that can be accurately ascertained, and those which, through the limited nature of human intelligence, are difficult to discover. It imposes its own boundaries, and suffers nothing within them to remain obscure and unexplained. It never dreams or loses itself in clouds, but is always clear, rational, and methodical. There is nothing in it which cannot be reconciled to common sense. It is intelligible to ordinary understanding, while it satisfies spirits of a higher cpality. The poetry with which it abounds is vigorous and healthy. It furnishes a sound and solid nourishment to the mind, equally distinct from materialism and ecstasy. He then makes some reflections, to which if we had space we should take strong critical exceptions, and afterwards bursts forth into a strain that reminds one of the " eagle of Ileaux:-- We believe and admit creation, although we make no attempt to explain it, fur it has no analogy with any human act. In like manner, we follow with love and respect the development of the views of Providence, without repre• sewing God to our minds as an unskilful and uncertain artificer. The true God has no human attributes. Passion, inconstancy, and effort, belong not to his nature ; that serene and omnipotent will extracts worlds from nonentity, with all their incalculable developments; that unlimited intelligence comprehends at the same moment all time and all space; that supreme love embraces simul taneously all created beings, and sees every one present before him in his individual identity. God has placed us in the world to govern while we traverse it. We pass along under his eye and hand, but in the fulness of the liberty derived from him, sustained by the eternal decrees of his power, animated by the never•ceasing love which he feels for the creature he has made. Through him, nothing is wanting to us here below in our only important under taking, for he has given us duty and freedom ; through him, nothing can fail us in the future, for in death he will satisfy the desires of our hearts and minds by giving us himself for nourishment, by filling us with the eight of his glory, and the overflowings of his love. What signifies it that we must tread even over flints upon briars, to arrive at such a termination? True happiness must be conquered to ascertain its real value. We accept the trial coura geously ; and we convert our sacrifices into a hymn of praise to the glory of the God who supports and calls us. This world, so completely filled with his divinity, is no longer a prison, but a temple. And here is a passage from " The Demonstra tion on Providence," which reminds us forcibly of both l3ossuet and Pascal : Thus liberty, far from being the origin of disorder in the composition of man, is essentially a benefit. The incon veniences to which it gives rise are amply repaid by the corresponding advantages. Sometimes the part assigned to it on this earth is not confined only to what concerns mankind and human society. The presence of such an intelligent spectator in the world, such a co-operator with the forces of nature, cannot be regarded as an episode. The organic and inorganic phenomena of the world are so disposed as to furnish food to our activity ; the absence of roan would render a vast number of them inexplicable. %Awl he then adds a noble resection worthy of Pascal's finest style : If man had no existence, tho world would resemble one of the palaces which have Lem restored aud rtfuruisluti THE PRESS. after a revolution, that they may be preserved to history and art. All has resumed its place—the council-table, the crown, the sceptre—nothing is absent but the king. We are glad that this work has been trans lated, though we doubt whether it will receive a large circulation in this country. Its accom plished editor has added some excellent notes which render it fit for Protestant readers, and he has drawn attention to the fact that the work "disposes the reader to return once more with " deeper reverence and gratitude to the in " spired Word of God." It confutes Atheism, and it repels Pantheism, and its object is, therefore, laudable. In justice to its trans lator (Mr. J. W. Cole), we may say that his version preserves much of the smooth grace and fluent ease of the original. Histoire de la Chute du Roi Louis Philippe, de ht Republique de 1848, et du Ritablissement de l'Empire. By M. A. Granier de Cassagnae. Paris : Plon. (Second Notice.) M. DE CASSAGNAC, after mentioning the gross insult to the Prince President from General Changarnier, quoted in . our last, proceeds to record the principal events that subsequently occurred. These events were,—the adoption by the Assembly of the bill for restricting the suffrage, which " for one week" established concord between the President and the Par liament; the ungracious manner in which the Assembly increased from 24.000/. to 120,0001. sterling the allowance to the President for the expenses of receptions ; the squabbles between the Assembly and the newspapers that sup ported the Presidential cause; the visits of the Prince President to and his speeches at Lyons, Strasburg, Cherbourg. and Caen; the commencement of the breach between General Changarnier and the Prince President; the famous review at Satory, which created so much sensation, and which had no small in fluence on the fate of the Republic and the " re-establishment of the Empire " ; the ab surd affair of the " Society of the 10th Decem ber," in which it was gravely alleged that partisans of the Prince had deliberately planned the assassination of the President of the Assembly and of General Changarnier ; the Prince's solemn appeal to the Assembly in his Message of the 12th November, 18)0, to aid hint in removing the public disquietude ; the demonstration made by the Assembly in support of General Changarnier, whom it re garded as its instrument in the designs it contemplated for upsetting the Constitution ; the dismissal by the Prince of that general from the command of the Army of Paris—a measure accomplished with really astonishing firmness, but at the same tune accompanied with the greatest moderation ; the wrath of the Assembly at that dismissal, and the de monstrations on the part of that body to which it led ; the insolent rejection by the Assembly of a new dotation for the President, rendered necessary by the extraordinary expenses to which ho was subjected; the dissensions in the Assembly on the proposal to remove the exile of the Orleans family; the petitioning of the Councils-General and of the people fur the revision of the Constitution—a petitioning which proved the desire to keep the Prince President at the head of the Government and to get rid of the republican form ; the debate on and refusal of the revision by the Parliament; and the proposal of the President to repeal the law which restricted universal suffrage. On all these subjects—and on the changes of Ministry which the President deemed it advisable to effect, the threatened impeach ments of the President, &c.—M. Granior• do Cassagnac gives full, but not too prolix, details, and on not a few he throws a new light. We must content ourselves with stating that the upshot of the whole was a profound and irreconeileable dissension between the Legis lature and the Prince President, and the con• sequent necessity of the Assembly deposing the President, or the President getting rid of the Assembly. As to both or either of them waiting quietly until the expiration of the period for which they wore elected, and allow ing a new Assembly and a new President to be chosen in their room, it was nut to be thought of ; for the Red Republicans and the Socialists were prepared, the moment they re. SATURDAY, tired, to seize the supreme power by force of arms, and the triumph of those terrible fac tions would have plunged France into anarchy. Besides, it is not right to speak of the Assem bly as a collective body, for it was rent by internal discord, and the parties constituting it thirsted for each other's destruction. These are truths too well known to all students of con temporary history to requiredemonstration-- especially well known are they to such of our readers as happened to be in France, and par ticularly in Paris, at the end of 1851. Tho Prince, then, on the one hand, and the Assem bly and the parties in the Assembly on the other, were forced to contemplate the execu tion of a coup•d'etat. M. de Cassagnac says : These insensate conflicts led to an abyss ; and such was the state of dissolution to which all parliamentary forces had fallen, that history almost knows not on whom legis lative responsibility devolves. The selfish parties, and the turbulent even, of the Assembly, who prepared the way for extreme measures, by rendering them every day more necessary, were in the highest degree conscious of the perils they excited. The principal of them were even seized with terrors as great as they were imaginary. As if they had thought that a coup•d'etat was justified by their violence, they believed that one was about to break out immediately. In the night of the 13th of November about one hundred deputies, Orleanist and Legitimist, remained permanently in the Assembly ; and a group of five or six, conducted by M. Haze, one of the Questors, explored with precaution the vicinity of the Elysee (the Prince's resi dence ), frightening benighted passers-by with their mysterious aspect, and the dim light of their lanterns. As if this situation were not grave enough, certain parties in the Assembly conceived and acted on the mad project of investing the Assembly with the command of the military force—that is to say, depriving the Prince President of it, though it was solemnly placed in his hands by the Constitution. This mea sure, which was a coup-d'etat of itself, was vigorously resisted by the President and his Ministers, and it gave rise to a scene of fright ful tumult in the Assembly. After a debate which could scarcely be heard from the noise and excitement, General St. Arnaud, Minister of War, made the frank declaration, in answer to a question put to him, that he had ordered to be removed from the barracks in which they had been stuck up copies of a decree of the 1 lth May, 184 S, requiring colonels of regiments to obey the orders of the Assembly : The Assembly, on hearing this language, so firm and resolute, and at the same time so faithful to the principles at stake, assumed all at once a revolutionary aspect. The most vehement, the most rabid cries were exchanged be- tween the different benches in the midst of the general tumult. Everything seemed again put in question. The Left hesitated, in spite of the resolutions it had announced, and the Royalist deputies were seen in the midst of the Montagnards, apparently endeavouring to draw them into a universal coalition. A large group of Conservatives, faithful to the policy of the President, approached in terror the Ministerial bench, urging that after such an incident, and after the avowal of the Minister of War, it would be very difficult to vote with the Cabinet. "Do what you will, gentlemen," firmly replied M. de Thorigny, Minister of the Interior; " we are ready for everything!" On hearing these words, which were spoken with calm- ness, the representatives exchanged glances ; and, certain not to place their courage at the service of a timid Govern ment, they went to vote resolutely. The gravest incidents all at once gave an almost sinister character to the end of the debate. General Changarnier, approaching the Commissary of Police of the Assembly, who was placed near the tribune, addressed to him a few words, which were generally believed to bf. an order to prepare to close the outer doors of the Palace. A coup de theatre was visibly in preparation. At the same time, vehement menaces were made from the different benches against the Ministers. " Arrest them all ! Arrest them all, at once !" was the cry. M. de Morny, who had a part to play near the person of the President in case the Assembly should have displayed violence, left before the division. General de Saint Arnaud on his part, seeing the revolu tionary character of the situaticn, whispered in the ear of M. de Thurigny, " Suppose I leave ?" " Yes—go," replied the Minister of the Interior, " we will remain hero till the end." General de Saint Arnaud immediately left, after having addressed a significant glance to General Megrim', Commander-in-Chief of the Army of Paris, who was seated with M. de Manpas, prefect of police, in one of the tribunes. As he arrived at the door, he laughingly said to a colleague who expressed surprise at seeing him leave before the division, " They are making too much noise, and I must seek for the guard !" And he went as he said. At the same moment an officer of the 49th Regiment of the Line went to the tribune in which General Magnan was, and, tapping him on the shoulder, said, " Leave quickly, for orders have been given to arrest you! " The general rose at once, followed by M. de Maupas ; and both proceeded to the headquarters of the Army of Paris at the I aileriea. The Minister of War had arrived there before them, to make the last arrangements; and they went to the Elysee for their final orders. The result of the vote was totally unexpected ; the , proposition of the (Nesters was rejected by a majority of