The Express.
London, England, 1852-01-26 00:00:00

THE EXPRESS, MONDAY EVENING, JANUARY 26, 1852.

FRANCE.

THE NEW MINISTERS.

PARIS, SATURDAY ETUNDICI.
I mentioned yesterday that General do St. Arnaud
bad tendered his resignation of the ministry of war
rather than consent to the decree confiscating the pro-
perty of the House of Orleans. The Moniteur of this
morning confirms this report, but adds that the Pre-
sident has persuaded the minister of war to remain
in office. What arguments were used to work this
remarkable conversion is not stated. But Louis Na-
poleon may live to regret that ho is served
by ministers who allow the potency of any
arguments, however solid, to prevail against the voice
of conscience, and to push them fronethe path of duty.
The words of the official journal aro these :—" The
Minister of War and the Minister of Marine had
offered their resignation, but have withdrawn it
upon the instances of the President of the Republic."
General de fit. Arnaud had served under the orders
of the Duke d'Aumale, in Algeria. His scruples
against tho decree of confiscation were natural and
honourable; but it would have been far better fur
his reputation as a statesman and a soldier to have
concealed those scruples altogether, than to admit
that they were overruled. M. de Mentalembert
has acted apparently with more firmness and tact.
He has seized, not without dexterity, en honourable,
occasi .n for backing out of the desperate adventure
in which he had engaged, to the scandal of all who
believed that such eminent talents could not exist
without some grain of morality. The tinkers of
to-day announces that he, M. de lifrode, and M. do
Mortemart, have resigned their seats in the Commis•
sum amsttl Meier. As this step is evidently motived
by the decrees which appeared yesterday in the
.llonitettr, it means of course a complete rupture
with the government on the part of those notable
men, and a refusal to form part of the Senate or
Conseil d 'Etat. It is expected from this manifesta-
tion on the part of the leader of the church purty,
that the poor curates will renounce the provision that
is made fur them out of a portion of the confiscated
property. Tho conduct of M. de Nlontalembert is
the more important, as the curates will have immense
influence in the elections by universal suffrage,
which will shortly take place for the corps Vilislattt:
M. Fiulin de Persigny, the presiding spirit of the
new ministry, has been lung quoted as the com-
pletest representative of the Ires Nitro/ea/deems,
the fides .1, halts of the l'resident, his shadow,
and through nll administrations his most intimate
counsellor. Whatever ministers were in office, the
influence of M. do Persigny was behind the curtain.
Born in 1810, he became a pupil of the school of
Saumur, and entered in 1829 the 4th regiment of
humus. I laviug retired from the army, he founded
in 1833 the Recite de 1' Occident Fran air, in which
he published an elaborate examination of the impe-
rial system. This publication first introduced him
to the acquaintance of Louis Napoleon, with whom
he formed henceforth the closest ties of intimacy.
M. Fialin figured among the most sanguine adventu-
rers in the expeditions of Strasbourg. and
Boulogne. In the latter he was taken prisoner, tried
before the Court of Peers, and condemned to twenty
years of imprisonment. He had already suffered
more than a third of this term of captivity in the
prison of Doulleus, when he was released by the
revolution of February. 1 need hardly say that M.
de Pcrsigny has not shown much gratitude to his
great liberator, Bonapartism, of which he is the soul,
Irving been one long campaign against the men and
inetitutions of 11418. M. do Persigny's diplomatic
missions to Berlin and other courts are too well
known to need further mention here. Meanwhile, it
will be important to remember that this confidant of
the President recently undertook a journey to
Brussels, for the sake of urging up9n Leopold certain
measures for the repulse or rigorous treatment of re-
fugees, and fur the coercion of the press. No one has
been astonished, although many have been grieved at
the tame compliance of the Belgian government with
the dictates of the Tuileries. The expulsion of M.
Carnet, of Alexandra Thomas, and several other
cotimable men, and the violence allowed towards
the exiles liberated from Item within the Belgian
territory, are sufficient evidence that the independ-
ence of Belgium is gone. M. de Persigny, it is
thought, will soon succeed to the Ministry of Foreign
Affairs. It is to be hoped that his administration
will be such as to give no colour to a fear very
widely felt, and that the absorption of Belgium may
not, like the confiscation of the Orleans property, be
proclaimed to the world by a decree.
M. Abbatucei, the new Minister of Justice, has
always formed one of the leading advisers of Louis
Napoleon. Until the appearance of his name in the ,
seam ministry w ith M. de Pervigny he was esteemed
one of the moderate party. Under the monarchy of ;
July he was a member of- the Chamber of Deputiee
and a judge of the Court of Appeal at Orleans.
After the revolution of February he became a judge '
of the Court of Caseation and representative of the
Loiret- In both assemblies he was dumb, and is, '
therefore, consistently an advocate of parliamentary
mutisen. Ile is called M. Abatucci pere, to distin-
guish him from his son, the representative of Corsica,
to which island the family belongs.
M. Bineau, the new Minister of Finance, was, as
you are aware, Minister of I'ublic Works in the
ministry of MM. Baroche and Fould. For the latter
department he was not ill calculated, having been
formerly head engineer of mines, and of diligent,
business-like habits.

I have already explained the chief motive for ere-
athig the ministry of state. In fact, you will have
observed that the constitution of Jan. 11 suppresses
the council of ministers, which bored the President,
and offended his despotic notions by the usage of
debating the measures laid uporrthe council board.
Tho " new and simple politique," as M. do blorny
calls it in his circular, does not admit of discussion.
The ministers will learn the President's will through
his Minister of State, who is charged with prectst ly
the same functions that were discharged by Maret,
Duke of Bassano, under the Emperor. M. Xavier de
Casablanca, to whom this peat is confided, was
formerly the advocate of the claims of the Bonaparte
busily, and probablysuggested some of the chicaning
emmiderations upon which_ the decrees of yester-
day were founded.
M. do Pensigny has appointed as his chef dm cabi-
net M. Theophtle do Montour, formerly ono of the
editorial staff of the Patric, then redactcur of the Pou-
roir, and lastly of the Public., the halfpenny news-
paper recently set up.
The announcement that M. Piotri is to succeed M.
de Maupas, seems somewhat distrusted, as the state-
ment of the Patric to that effect has not been copied
by several of the morning papers. Hence it is sup-
posed that the censure cancelled the paragraph as
inexact.

I hew that an authorization will be required for
all existing journals, as well as for those which are
to appear here after.
The morning papers are silent with regard to the
decree of confiscation. The Patric of last night con-
fesses that the flr.t impression will be a painful one.
But it hopes that after reflection people will see the
hand of Providence in the retribution inflicted upon
Louis-Philippe's family, for having placed upon hi)
own head a crown that had fallen from the brows of
an old man and a child, his relations. " Alas," ex-
claims the Patric, " fortune has strange reverses,
and politics have inflexible necessities.' This is a
line of defence which gives up the whole question.
Maria Lopez, the actress, has been set at liberty,
owing, it is believed, to the interference of the
Princess Mathildo.

It is intended to augment the number of serge»
cis rilk and of republican guards in Paris.
M. Tieblin, chef de cabinet at the prefecture of 'sp-
lice, has been appointed chef do cabinet to M. do
Maupas, the Minister of Police; ace M. Faujoux has
been appointed private secretary.
A " communicated" note in the evening edition of
the Petrie, just out, says that the organic law of the
Council of State, and the list of members composing
it, will appear on Monday. This seems to imply
that the senatorial list is not ready.
M. Fabre, tho Chief Judge of the Civil Tribunal
of Rodez was arrested on January 18.
M. Silvan Blot, who was secretary-general to M.
do Maupas, is doing the duty of Prefect of Police
provisionally until the appointment of a new prefect.
Count Joseph Szembeek, chamberlain to the King
of Prussia, has just arrived from Berlin upon a spe-
cial mission.

The Minister of Police will have under his direc-
tion six prefects of police, who will reside at Paris,
Lyons, Marseille'', Strasbourg, Bordeaux, and Lille.
A marble cutter, named CArtron, riNiding in the
flue St. Martin, was arrested yesterday, and sent to