The Press.
London, England, 1858-08-28 00:00:00

lortign anb 6olonial

FRANCE.

itb
ofnd
at lyx. depart-
menthe
TofsetislseioLnoiorfe twbaesCootptennceildGoenner;ilo
y
Count de Persigny, who has been appointed its pre-
sident. Upon that occasion the count made an
eloquent and very interesting speech, of which a
portion ran as follows. Count de Persigny said:—
Long accustomed to dread the slightest movements of
France (alternately revolutionary and conquering), Europe
did not at first behold without uneasiness the re.eatab6h.
ment on the French throne of a family proscnbed by the
treaties of 1813. But, whatever may have been the reelect-
timents of the great Powers at the moment of the reel.
nition of the Empire, it is certain that all now congratulate
themselves on seeing in France a strong and powerful
Government, respeco.d and wise, which, after a glorious
war, has been able to make ano less
glorious peace. Such
is the universal satisfaction at beholding the strength
which the re-establishment of the Empire has givrn in
Europe to principles of order and to monarchical ideas
that it effaces the impression which the rivalry of the
Powers may have received from the new greatness of
France. And to-day it may be said that never since lels
have the relations of France with Europe been at once
so honourable and so friendly. Nevertheless, a cloud,
which might have been dangerous, has lately obscured
our relations with a country whose alliance had been most
happily cemented and fruitful, and it has required
nothing less than all the wisdom and all the reciprocal
friendship of the two Sovereigns to prevent a coldness be-
tween those two Powers. Happily, as was said by the Em.
peror at Cherbourg, if it were sought to revive the rancour's
and passions of another period, they would fall before the
good sense of the public. In fact, gentlemen, the interests
of the two nations are now so closely united that it would
be difficult even for the blindest passions to bring them to a
complete rupture. So great has become this community
of interests that if to-morrow London or Paris were burnt
down, we should reciprocally have to support enormous
commercial losses ; and, while a catastrophe occurring to
Berlin, Vienna, or St. Petersburg would excite but our
sentiments af commiseration, in London, on the contrary,
our interests would suffer almost as severely as in Paris
itself. Now, when two nations have reached that pone,
they are evidently destined daily to draw closer their
present union. Let us first consider the interest of the
English alliance for France. With England, we are
masters of the seas, and consequently we have nothing to
fear for our frontiers. No coalition against us is possible;
general peace is assured. Our country can therefore
devote itself, without any mental preoccupation, to the
utmost development of its activity, and may pescefully
complete the foundation of its institutions. We have,
moreover, no longer any material rivalry with England,
since she has opened to our commerce, as freely as to her
own, an access to her immense colonies ; it is nut her fault
if, persisting in our sy-tein of production at high prices, we
do not know better how to profit by it.

As to England, her interest in the French alliance is,
perhaps, still more manifest. She completed in 1514 soil
1815 the conquest of the maritime and colonial supremacy
which was the object of her desires, and to which she was
in some sort destined by our insular position, and by the
genius of her inhabitants. That supremacy she now
enjoys beyond dispute, and she says to herself that if she
bad another struggle with France, even if (which GA
forbid') the fate of battles should reserve for us new dis-
asters, the only result she could obtain would be the main-
tenance of her possession of what she alrt tidy has, that is
to say, of her maritime and colonial supremacy, and con•
sequently she would have much to lose and very little to
gain by a war with France. By a complete transforma-
tion of her interests England, then, has arrived at this—
that she to-day desires the friendship of France as much
as forty years ago she was hostile to her; and such is, in
fact, her present repugnance to separate her inters ets from
ours, that, in two grave circumstances—in determiniug to
make, in concert with us, first war and then peace .she
perhaps took counsel ( was influenced by) rather from our
situation than from her own. How, then, in the reciprocal
disposition of the two countries, shall we h
account for what
passed after the anent& of the 14th of January ? BY the
most vulgar explanation—by a series of misunderstandings
on both sides the Channel. Already, since the peore,
public opinion in England had taken umbrage at certain
diplomatic incidents; but, on learning the altentat of the
14th of January, England was unanimous in stigmatizing
the odious crime. At that period the true English public,
that public which in reality directs and governs the State,
which is accustomed to see order come out of the flltate,st
agitations, to disdain all the excesses of the press, to ta"
no heed, in short, of any of the exaggerations cif liberty—
the English public, 1 say, knew nothing tither of the
previous attempts organized in England against the
Emperor, nor of the doctrines professed by a poruon of the
refugees ; it was, in all sincerity as ignorant of all that
infamies as it was innocent of them. It was,
moat painful astonishment that it thought it Raw, though
assuredly erroneously, in the speeches made at Pat is, under
the impression of the public emotion, a disposition on
the
pert of France to render England responsible fur .
atlentat of thd 14th, and to look upon her suspicious*.
From that moment public opinion in England, unanituoues
in denouncing assassination, suddenly stopped in Oils
theu, with the
midst of the manifestations which it on all sides
the
making. Then, when the change, good or bad, ie
passport sj stem-80 unjusitly represented to the publieso,
an act of distrust towards the English themselves,
tea
especially the addresses of the army—carne to rut
.11e_
climax to the irritation amen's minds, then occuuta