The Express.
London, England, 1852-04-27 00:00:00

,THE EXPRESS, TIIESbAY

mien be repired. It new stand bats my min& to ask
than a twain about IS. I Mid dim Ilia slips Will
wanted is pat a itamse• uses% sma um ill set know
when. sod they sever WWI as rapperiaa about IL
• • • •

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To ow IV ell, let se reptedie; the reemieseds-
this el the emedttee :

not orramille aisamblps, et an age sad Wrath
seenneare the restos et MIKA piasessnis an la titte
=eai dgeiewoaYe
yeeea eesiaanee do alawanneee soy
Madly to eanyfai ed mesh a smosisn. TIM the ramps
dermiumisat d dr vide radio nollimo issielise
the essatry, la Ike mat eilimplaWasil 1.1111111., is mast
&Ninth* as a mar he die josimmilis strew
No advise or roomaiontlados as sounder

The min pawibility of invading ear bland would be
its ruin. la war, ea in awl/antry, essile premier
eds. Tim =mat as sassy sub his foot he►
en ear afraid, mew if immediately driven
all prestige, all credit, all security will vanish
from Great Britain. We must not wait to deal with
him in our fields, apes our hills, in our streets, or
even upon our sea EOM. Our navies can make
invasion impossible; a militia never can.

Tits decision of tho Tribunal of First Instance
of the Department of the Seine on the question of
jurisdiction in the action instituted by_ the ORLEANS
family against the agents of Louis Niiroteoir, who
have seized the domains of Neuilly and Monceau:,
is the most cheering event that has occurred in
France since the 2nd of December.

The great safeguards of civil liberty and personal
property and security are the separation of the execu-
tive, judicial, and legislative functions of govern-
ment, and their attribution to different and inde-
pendent officials. In rude and barbarous societies

these functions are not distinguished, and are dis-
charged by the same person or knot of persons. It
is consequently in the rwer of the government,
when any private individual has incurred
its enmity, to crush him, under the pre-
text that he has violated the law, by affecting
to proceed against him judicially, when in fact it is
enacting a new special law for the occasion, or by
exerting its executive authority without waiting for
a preliminary judicial investigation. When kings
were at once administrators, legislators, and judges,
it was not always easy to discover in which capacity
they acted in any particular case; nor was it always
safe to remind of their irregularities those who had
it in their power to pass an extempore law, decide
that the provoking critic of their proceedings
had violated it, and carry into execution their own
decision.

Even where the sovereign has retained the legisla-
tive authority in his own person the establishment of
independent judges has been found to afford no con-
temptible guarantee of tho rights and interests of
private individuals. Even without the protection
of an elective legislature, the judicial sense of duty,
or merely the judicial pride of office, supported by a
vague sympathy or acme of interest in the general
public, has often inspired judges with courage to
arrest tho hands of a despot. The history of the
French parliaments is replete with instances of this
kind; English courts of law have saved the consti-
tution ere now, when deserted or trampled under foot
by venal parliaments; even in the despotic era of
}REDERICK TUE GREAT, a German court of law

compelled that monarch to do justice to a miller.
Sumo the usurpation of the 2nd of December, the
French PRESIDENT has virtually united in his own
prison the executive and legislative authorities. lie
asserts a right to make the laws that are to control
his own actions as well as those of the rest of the

community. If he is allowed in like manner to
supersede the courts of law and combine in his own
person the characters of law maker, judge, and axe-,
cutiener, his despotism will be complete.
Against this progress of his usurpation, the Tri-
bunal of First Instance of the Department of the
Seine has madco stand. It has declared that the

PRZOIDRIT shell sot arbitrarily suspend or subvert
the laws which protect private property, under pre-
text of making a new law and carrying out a mea-
sliest/executive government. If the other courts to
Italie the code allows an appeal from the judgment
fl the Tribunal of First Instance are equaßy true to
their duties—if public opinion in France is suffiel
fatly enlightened and freely expressed to make the
PRESIDENT feel that it wild be unsafe for him to
tamper with the independence of the courts of law—
bis ewer of usurpation may be regarded as virtually
eiesked.
After the events which have occurred in France
within the last few months, it would be rash to speak
confidently. But theie are reasons which warrant
a hope that the collision with the courts of law
which tho PRESIDENT bits provoked by the confisca-
tion of the ORLEANS property, will ultimately lead to
the discomfiture of his tyrannical aims. Looking
back to the history of the French law courts—both
before and since the first French revolution—it will
be' found that the judges of France have, with a fee
lamentable exceptions, displayed clear-sightedness
and courage in the discharge of their important du-
ties. The traditional purity of the bench in France
is as unquestionable as the traditional honour and
bravery of the soldiery. A boas and degrading com-
pliance with the arbitrary and unjust requirements
Ttzs
of the PRESIDENTi a
would expose the j to
sense of self-degradation and universal con-
tempt, that few men can brave. eelleade
evinced by. the judges of the Court of Oweeliso,
when, sitting as a High Court of Justice, therm,
nounced the deeheanee of M. BONAPARTE, is fr
augury for the firmness of the whole body.
That the judge* will be supported by popular epee
pathy seems also pretty evident. Ilia not the fortune
of the house of ORLEANS alone that are at stake : it
is the property of every private citizen of Frames
however humble or poor. If the executive govess-
meat may arbitrarily withdraw the protection of the
laws and courts of justice from the ORLEANS Indy,
it may do the same in respect of every man against
whom it conceives an enmity. The applausowithwhich
the judgment of the Tribunal of the Seine was re-
ceived shows that Frenchmen mean to their danger.
A scene which was witnessed at the Opera on the
evening of the day that the Tribunal of the Seine
ced its judgment is deeply significant. The
rernnear was present, but renamed hid from
sight is the innermost recess of his ham The
lidleeraleho had vended the day in the Tribunal of
the Bet= was Me proult, and so great wail the
eagerness of the sere illatioggiehril auditors to mark
their personal mpg to his, that he dot it
prudent to withisw etas serlrbear, leg it
provoke bayed power et selfeesteei the us*
usurper who sat watching _hies mow The Pas.
sionetta mills sin West hatelealt of so cam
fortate empienirm If Iss wil& his grass pof the
Onus* progeny, he enollotireehoess, and invites
relortftecks. I be posit la hie kyle+ will, and
6ms* upon the isisgselleemos aft seeds et law,
b. ea" himself feared and hated by every Preach-
areo who has anything to lose.
ilie decision of the Tribeel of the Seine may
prove the turning point of the hitherto amain
fortunes of the PRESIDENT. The asp
=serial December took Frame sod Pressehass
The mutual c eat jeahlosiss
iisidelVts, constitutional sad
with all their Tarbes edidivideme, pre-
toted the French people boo rallying resod the
eteadard of parliamentary goverment. A Wald
reluctance to expose France to the devastodieme if
civil war has hitherto kept men acquicsceat is the
usurpation. But the independence of the courts of
law is still something left them to struggle for; and
the universal sense of the vital importance of main-
taining that independence may re-awaken hope, and
suggest means of struggling for the regaining of
lost liberty without an appeal to arms. The French
army is not entirely debauched. There aid
among its officers some of the most highly
educated and intelligent men of France—men
quite capable of discerning clearly the limits
of their duties as citizens. These men possess more
OT less the confidence of the soldiers. Their less
scrupulous comrades may not be prepared to quarrel
with them a routrowe. The members of the National
Assembly who recorded their unanimous protest
against the coup d'aat have not recoiled from the at-
titude of passive resistance they then assumed. All
that is distinguished in French science and litera-
ture—all that is most respectable in French society
—still stands coldly and proudly aloof from the Ely-
sec. Even M. me 'Wear has shown that he is not
prepared to incur the risk of provoking anarchy, and
eivilear, and universal spoliation in France to which
implicit compliance with the will of the PRFAIDENT
might lead. Tho fears of the wicked, and the illtelli-
gence and morality of the good, may lead to a coalition
sufficiently strong, not only to arrest the usurper