The Stourbridge Observer, Cradley Heath, Halesowen & District Chronicle.
Stourbridge, West Midlands, England, 1870-09-24 00:00:00

Thl Times, in • leader, commenting on the above,
says :

Whoa Louts Philippe landed in Ragland, twenty-two years
since, he came under an acensatiod which obtained guieral
etc once. The Repulnie am of that time asserted teat the
rigs of the last eighteen years had been the met corrupt
in Irennit history. lhey pointed to the men who had been
in pcivcr, and to men who, without being to power, had ad-
hered to the Government far their own advantage, and
declared thrt all coneected with the f allele ely hasty had
ma-lo themralves tat at the expeure of France. For a time
thorn wee few who disbelieved these taloa It seas
u..poied that the Ministers and ex-Ministers of the
King of the French had amassed fortunes by means
which, if not ii%the wee. at least inconsistent
with an honourable s-cise of their duties. The first
Cars of tha Revolutionary Government was to detect the de-
liequencles of their predecessors and to expose them to the
worth They were hot caromed, became they had no exis.
trace. The Miniature of 11340, as well as their hitteroppouents,
the Ministers of the Opposition, were found to have rhen,
to have th,urished, and to have fallen comparatively poor
mon. There were, indeed, Dien who hail " Lathered their
mite," as it is called, under tho July Monarchy, but they
were the men who would feather their nests under any sys-
tem, and who would contrive to make aprollt out of a Repub.
he were its leaders no pure as the patriots of 1792.
Jo a few months the rumours against Gnizat and his cal-
Inahues' and against those leaders of the Constitutional
omsositfon who were almost equally suspected, died away,
and It was admitted that men might he politically wro ,g-
-healed, euamoured of a degrading entente eordiale, sod
ililbnrrlly cohtente.l with a restricted suffrage, without being
guilty of filling their pocket, with the national property.
Bat people did not so soon give op the idea that Louis
Philippe had made a go,d thing of his eightem years' reign.
Ile was caricatured as consoling his ,silo by a ceutemplation
el those immense bags of fire-franc plecis which to the
Frenchman of tie pre-Californian period represented the
aecuteulations of the millionaire.

The truth name out at last, and It was a surprise even to
C 10.16 whose charity thought no evil. The high priest of
corruption, whose malefic influence hod been so long destroy-
ing the virtue of the French people, would have been licher
II ho had always reumnael Duke of orleaus. lie had large
estates before ISSO, as well as a great deal of ready money.
One of lass us had Inherited a vast property, tad it must,
admitted that he had placed another eery well in Spain. But
it was proved that, so far from Laving enriched Mansell as
King of the French, the incalcu'able expeusts of that position
had made inroads on his hereditary wealth.. „
Another Sovereign of France has fallen, and the saute
story la abroad. Louis Napoleon Bonaparte is said to have
amassed enormous riches as Emperor of the French, and to
be quite content to retire from the role he has caused into
the splendid privacy which the reeources of France will
supply with every luxury. According to the prevailing
rumours, he has money in the Dutch funds, In the English
funds, In the American lund,, and ha railways all over
the world. That such should he the popular notion
Is not i unwitting, for undoubtedly the Court of the
Second Empire ham had the control of incalculable
Mos. but persons of discernment will ha quite pie.
pared to believe that this opinion le entirely baseless.
I There have be en Soveretgns sho have horn men of basi-
-1 mess. Louis Philippe wan supposed to be one; Napoleon
I 111, was a.ol; one at all. Whatever his faults, they were not
In the direction of parsimony and private selt-seektrg. An
eig.husitot who behoves In his name, his former, his mutiny,
his overpowering will, his unerring judgment, in not the man
to square his espendature by his income. The men who talks
' Is generally ohe svh, though he does few great things, has
the talent of doing small things welh lilts was just the le-
! verse of the ex-Emperor's character, who, the ugh till lately
he applied to the concerns of the Empira a powerful WE'.
wont, always seems to bare loft details to others. What the
Emperor's house hold most have been we may judge from
1 knowing what the Emperor', army has been. . . Lulus we
, are mielnformed, the Emperor Napoleon, who has boon the
Chief of the French State for nearly twenty-two jean, and
! its almost absolute master for nearly eighteen, retains no ran-
veto pa operty hut a small cottage which came to Alan from
1 his Call it rachnese, call it ov.rweentog confidence,
or call it a generous carelessness, It is proved my the event
that lie did not devote his reign to the accumulation of

This will surprise no one who knows anything of the Faris
of list° flare. Take, for instance, the reception of foreign
Moveteigns and distinguished guests of ell kinds, the lavish
expenditure al 1- 67, and the ems; ant entertainments at the
Tuileries throughput a great part of every 3 ear. When to
this cre mieel the gratinealleus expected and leceiveil hy
Ike iiumberlers Mends of a dominant Wyiree, we stud.
aso to wonder that the ruler, who is the paymaster of
the whole, should not have stunned a private t inane.
Napoleon 111, nil have his te/ man place o: captivity at
the cud of the war is, n.st as poor a man Oslo was whin he
catered France in this. The Empress has, indeed, her
le els, gifts at her marriage and on her fete-days; but these
are her private property, the State jewels being now In the
hand. of the French Government at Tour!; sho ho', Mathes,
an hereditary proyerty in solo, and the Prince Imperial has
a home Which has been bequeathed to Lim near Tenste.
This, we believe, is all that remains to the family which
lately was supreme in France.
Napoleon 111. has lunch to answer for at the bar of public
opinion, but the world will do him this Justice—that, though
for so long a peon dlom distributed the favuura of the most
splendid State in Europe, Le left France tu Ins eld age with
little of Ws wealth cleaving to hiss.