The Express.
London, England, 1852-09-22 00:00:00

FRANCE.

THE PRESIDENTS PROGRESS.
PARIS, TIMRDAT ETZNIKO.
At the inauguration of the equestrian statue of the
Emperor, which took place et Lyons yesterday, the
President pronounced the following speech:
Inhabitants of Lyons.—Lyonese,—Your city was always
associated by renearluble incidents with the differeat phases
of the life of the Emperor. You saluted him as consul
when he west beyond the mountalas to gather fresh
laurels; you afterwards saluted him ea all powerful Em-
peror; sad lastly, when Europe had banished him to an
hued, yen were among the fist is 1816 to again salute him
as Emperor.
Now your city is the Int to raise a statue to his memory.
This fact is a significant one. Equestrian statutes are only
meted to sovereigns who have reigned ; thus the govern-
ments which have readied me have always refused this
homage to • power, the legitimacy of which they would
not admit.
And yet who was more Legitimate than the Emperor ;
elected three times by the people, anointed by the head of
the ekureb, recognised by all the theassalai pewees of
Europe, who allied themselves to him balk by beads poli-
tical and by these of blood ?
The &spew was the mediator betimes tee ladle ages
he destroyed the old regime while re-eseablithin all that
was good is It, and he killed the revolutionise, spirit by
everywhere emelt, the hinseets seethe revolutimi se triemph ;
that h the neon why they who overthrew him Nil bad to
deplore their triumph; as to theme who defended bin, it is
aaseemeary dos me to remind you how mush they have
114111% ever his kV.
Amid se it was, that as is.. es the people saw themselves
at liberty tombs their choke, they east their eye@ es the
heir of Napalm, sad for the maw reason, from Paris to
Lyons, at every point of my yeleilie, a unanimous cry of
tt Vire Ilimpereur " hes been raked. let in my eyes this
cry is mesh sore a souvenir whisk leashes my heart than
a hope which flatters my pride.
Faithful servant of the aloes. I saves shall have but
one object, and that is to reesemdethe in this great country,
se convulsed by so many commode= aid utophian edema,
• peace bawd on conciliation themes, kliezibility as to the
principles of authority, love trt the labouring and suffering
slimes, and national dignity.
We have but Just extricated ourselves from those moments
of crisis, is which in consequenee of notions of good and evil
being confounded, the best minds have been perverted.
Prudence and patriotism demand that, at such times, the
nation should reflect before it flees its destinies; and it
is yet difficult for me to know under what name I can render
the greaten services.
If the modest title of President could facilitate the mission
confided to me, and from which I have not recoiled, it is not
I who from permsl interest would desire to change that
name for the title of Emperor.
Let us then lay on this stone our homage to ei great man;
and, in doing to, we shall honour at the rune time the
glory of France and the generous gratitude of the people ;
that act will also testify the fidelity of the people of Lyons
to immortal souvenirs.

The Illondeur states that this speech was received
with the most enthusiastic applause, and with cries
a thousand times repeated of " Vice l'Empereur."
The further telegraphic amounts from Lyons re-
present the reception of the Prince as in the highest
degree enthusiastic. In reply to a deputation of the
working classes from tho Croix-ltousse, he stated
that the object of his journey was to study the
interests of the working classes, that every subject
relating to their well being should be examined, and
that they would always he the object of his solid-

, WEDNESDAY EVENING, SEPTEMBER 22, 1852.

TREATMENT OF T
—HE ENGLISH ABROAD.
Another Instance, mays the Leicestershire Mercury,
has just come to our knowledge of the growing insolence
displayed by the despotic powers of the Continent towards
' Englishmen residing within their sway. The present cue,
too, is all the more startling because it has not occurred
either in France, Italy, or Austria. Saxes yls the kingdom
which is now striving to share the unenviable and disgrace-
ful notoriety hitherto only attaching to the governments of
those countries. Dresden, its capital, is the place of all
others chosen for the first overt avowal of adhesion to the
unholy alliance of the second half of the nineteenth cen-
tury. And the party who is the first victim to this spread-
ing absolutist hatred of the very name of an Englishmen
isms in whom we naturally feel an interest—both from his
connexion with this locality, and from his early services on
behalf of Hungarian nationality and independence. We
allude to Dr. Paget, author of the well-known work on
" Hungary and Transylvania."
This gentleman, as many of our readers are aware,
after leaving Leicester, went to reside in Dresden. There
be was leading a very quiet life, and, as be imagined,
life of security as well as peace. Suddenly, on
the 2nd of this very month, September, his house was
visited by a party of police, who mixed and carried off ell
his letters, S. note-books, diaries, and a considerable
number of books. The British minister, Mr. Forbes—
for England has a duly accredited and acknowledged re-
presentative at the court of Saxony—was, we learn, very
indignant at :this outrage. Ile at once called upon the
Saxon Minister of Foreign Affiirs for an explanation of
such extraordinary conduct, and, we should imagine, like-'
wise demanded the restoration of the books and papers so
seized. The most perfect ignorance and innocence were
pleaded by this functionary. Believe it who may, neither
Co nor the Minister of the Interior knew anything—so
they averred—of this most flagrant outrage. From them
nothing could be learned, and Dr. Paget was left utterly
in the dark as to what could he the pretext for such an un-
expected and arbitrary proceeding. Whether the deco-
' meets and property thus carried off have been returned
we bare not heard. We cannot think that the B h
mi-
nister would on any account suffer them to be detained
after he had once moved in the matter unless some clear
and indisputable justification of their leisure could be
shown and proved, That, from all we know of Dr.
John Paget, we feel persuaded, could not be done. No
set of his can have justified the Saxon government in
treating him in this manner ; and we trust that, when the
outrage becomes known, there will be met an expression of
opinion upon the subject throughout the country as shall
stimulate, if not compel, even our reactionary government
to inquire into Alio real cause and sources of this domiciliary
visit.

We use the word 0 sources" advisedly ; for the reader
will observe that this transaction has not occurred in any
Austrian state where the colliers of insurrection and revo-
lution arc still fiercely smouldering. It has taken place in
Dresden, in Saxony, against whose ruler and people no
Englishman can have any motive to intrigue and plot.
Whence, then, the inspiration—whence the orders to act
thus glaringly in violation of international treaties, and to-
wards the subject of that friendly power but for whose aid
Saxony would not now have been an independent kingdom ?
To this question we fear then" can be but one reply. '
Saxony is no longer an independent kingdom, except in
name. Its police can only have so acted under the sanction
and directions of the agents of Austria ; and the King of
Saxony can now be regarded only as a vassal of the House
of Hapaburgh—oi, rather, of the head of the Ruiso•Aus-
trian empire. We shall look with great anxiety to sea
what will be the course of our government in this affair.
Their conduct, whatever it be, will give no unimportant in-
dication of theist future foreign policy now that the great
warrior to whom the tory party professed to look up with
so much reverence, almost approaching to awe, has been
summoned to his Anal rest.

RELIGIOUS PERSECUTION IN TUSCANY.

The following letter has been addressed to the
editor of the Daily News:

Sta,—May I request you to insert the accompany-
ing letter in your columns?
The subject of it is of the deepest interest to all
Protestant Europe.
Your obedient servant,
SHAFfESBURY.

Geneva, Friday, Sept. 17, 18.52.
My. Lord,—We have the honour of announcing to
you, in the name of the Evangelical Alliance of
Geneva, the speedy arrival in London of the Comte
de St. George. He is delegated to the Protestant
Alliance, of which you are the President, to present
an important proposal on the subject of the Madiai.
If we have thought it right that the first commis-
sion of M. de St. George should be given to him by
the committee of the Evangelical Alliance, it was
because, in accordance with its very title, it feels
itself enabled to represent, better than any other
society, all that is evangelical and Christian amongst
us. But at the same time, in order that there may
be nothing wanting in the unanimity of the request
of which he is the bearer, three other letters will be
given him, from the Eglise Evangeliquo of this city,
from the Societe Evangeliquc, and from the Society
of Foreign Missions.
Francesco and Rosa Madiai, at the ago of 50 years,
condemned for the sole cause of the Gospel to tour
yearsat the galleys, repulsed by their prince on their
appeal for mercy, their hair shaved by the hand of
the gaoler, and clothed in the dress of criminals,
have just been sent to the Maremme," and are now
undergoing their sentence in the midst of malefactors.
Is there any Christian in our churches who could in
taking his morning meal, or in laying his head on
his pillow at night, think of this Christian pair, torn
from ono another and bearing obloquy for our com-
mon Master, without sharing that obloquy with
them, and without remembering that it hail been
said, "Remember them that are in bonds as bound
with them, and them that suffer adversity as being
yourselves also in the body ?"
My Lord, we remember these two prisoners. We,
too, are in the body; we suffer adversity with them,
and we feel the desire of labouring for their relieE
More, however, than the Madiai are involved :
we have everything to fear for many others. Do
we not, behind these two martyrs, sec hundreds of
Christians threatened with the like fate and for the
like crime—their attachment to the word of God?
Who can henceforth open as they did the Word of
God, and. endeavour as they did to conform their
life to it, without having in view the galleys, and
perhaps death, since the canonical laws pleaded by
the priests before the princes and judges of Italy
demand more than the galleys, and even require ex-
termination and the stake ? "Piiniontur arl lynear "
they have said (Concil. Constant., Sees. 44, Act 23).
This sentence on the Medial, if nothing is done to
check it, will have a widely-extended result. So-
lemnly pronounced in the face of Europe, confirmed
by the Sovereign, who might have used the right of
pardon and refused to do so, this sentence must not
be considered as an isolated fact. It is the signal of
a fearful transition, a return in the spirit of secular
princes to the errors of tho past; a fresh encroach-
ment of the canon law on the legislation of their
states, and a first symptom of the submission of
their conscience to the conscience of the priests,
however bloody may be its requirements. Doubtless
we knew already that their canonical laws concern-
ing
persecution are considered by them u unchange-
able because divine; we knew that the atrocious bulls
of the Popes for the extermination of heretics had lost
none of their authority in the eyes of the priests, that
the decrees of tho provincial councils of Toulouse, of
Beziers, and of Oxford, as well as the general
councils of Lateran and of Constance, require that for
all future times all such Christians as the Madiai
should be burnt alive; but these laws have for the
last century been rendered powerless by the indig-
nant voice of humanity, and it seemed as if their
application were to ne nothing henceforward but
a matter of ancient history. Now, the trial of the
Madiai marks the return of a time when the con-
sciences of judges and of princes not darii,g to make
itself heard in opposition to that of the priests,
their hands are to bs again imbrued in the blood of
the servants of God.

Now we cannot but see that the Tuscan govern-
ment has mado fearful progress in the new path
which it has struck out for itself since the trial of
Count Guiceiardine. The Medial are not merely ex-
iled on political and civil grounds as persons who
might compromise the public peace and the good of
the country. Such an act, although very revolting,
would portend much less evil for the future than the
sentence upon them on the Nth of June. They
are punished by the civil law in the name of the
Divine law, as being morally criminals; they have
offended God, they must be punished; and if that
canonical law which is pleadtd by the priests, and
which is the basis of the criminal law, were followed
out to the letter, they would be sentenced to death.
Thus we see that in order to obey God, their
sovereign has even confirmed their sentence by re-
fusing their pardon, notwithstanding their age, their
moral lives, and their unwavering meekness. While
then, at this time, we are exerting ourselves in their
favour, others besides ourselves, looking forward, may
tremble with too much reason for all Europe. 'They
may feel that the same principles and the same
laws which demand the punishment of these two
inoffensive beings at the hand of the Tuscan

• 111111CLKO to the Cw di rlffillj RIM to the Er011:010e