The Express.
London, England, 1863-01-15 00:00:00

EXPRESS FROM PARIS.

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PARIS, WZDNIBDAY EVENING.

The Daily News is seized on account of a leading
article which, we learn by telegraph, contains some
"smart criticisms" on the Emperor's speech.
After this, the courtly journals tell us that the Em-
peror loves discussion, and is so strong in the
affection of his subjects that he fears no investiga-
tion of his sayings and doings. The Moniteur
greedily culls from the London press the most
favourable passages that it can find, and publishes
them conspicuously in its bulletin. Other govern-
ment prints (not, I will venture to say, telling the
truth) inform their readers that, with the unhappy
exception of the Daily News, all the organs of
public opinion in England abound in praise of the
speech from the throne. Surely it would have been
politic in this state of things, if only for the sake
of a little shade in the too bright picture, to have
allowed the public an opportunity of exercising its
own judgment upon the enormities of the Daily
News.

While writing I receive my copy of this evening's
Temps, and at the head of it I find a warning,
signed by Count de Persigny, for its yesterday's
article on the speech. The warning recites, "that
the article, by distorting the sense of the Empe-
ror's speech and calumniating the home and foreign
policy of France, endeavours to discredit the go-
vernment!'

I have looked through the incriminated article,
and seek in vain for any passage which any regular
and well established government could reasonably
consider dangerous. I subjoin a few extracts in
which I undertake to say that you will find the
very worst parts of the libel.
The Temps said :

The language of government' is habitually optimist, and
this consideration it is which renders the task of an opposi-
tion so necessary. Only suppose for a moment a country
in which there should be only one journal, and that such a
one as the Cons! itut ionael, to comment upon the speech
from the throne! No, the words of the monarch can only
be truly understood, tan only have their real value and
their true meaning, when they are freely discussed by free
opinions. . . . The speech is on no point so explicit
as on the Roman question. Our arms, we are told, have
defended the independence of Italy " without abandoning the
Holy Father, whom our honour and our pad engagements
obliged us to support." This language cannot be so-
cased of ambiguity. We are at Rome to support the
Pope; we are there to maintain the temporal power, since
the spiritual power is not in danger ; we are there to de-
fend the Holy Father, not against Victor Emmanuel, whom
our veto would suffice to control, but against the Roman
people; we are there in despite of international law—it is
M. Billault himself who admitted this ; we are there, it is
manifest, in the teeth of the principle of non-intervention.
But there we are, sad, since our withdrawal would inevit-
►bly involve the downfall of the papacy, there we are
obliged to stay in order that we may not assume the respon-
sibility of such a catastrophe. It is a strange situation,
and one the difficulties of which we most willingly admit ;
but it is a knot which France must of neoesrity cut sooner
or later. To remain for ever at Rome would be a defeat,
for it is a defeat for a go►ernment to alienate its liberty of
notion.

After expressing (but with great moderation, and
with an admission that relief, in some way or
other, to the starving cotton operatives is para-
mount to all other considerations) an opinion,
shared by many, that the proposed parliamentary
grant is to be regretted because it comes at a
moment when a new impetus had been given to
voluntary subscriptions, and leads to repress that
self-reliance which is so great a desideratum, the
article concludes as follows :