The Express.
London, England, 1864-01-13 00:00:00

EXPRESS, WEDNESDAY EVENING, JANTJARTi 41:f.c1864.

EXPRESS FROM PARIS.

ODOM 017 E SPNCIAL

PARIS, TOINDLY EVIIIIIIIG:

It will be long before the sensation caused by
M. Thiers' magnificent speech will subside. In-
deed the pitiful, pettifogging restrictions upon the
comments of the journals on the debates, to which
the government clings with blind pertinacity, are
likely to prolong the excitement. If the news-
papers could, u in England, freely analyse the
speech, point the moral which it contains, repro-
duce conspicuously the most salient paragraphs,
and make reflections upon them, they would do so
simultaneously, and once for all ; and then it might
well happen that, as new subjects are started
in the course of the debate on the address, M.
Thiers' speech might be in great measure forgotten.
But, as things stand, the public throughout France
will only gradually be made aware that a great
light has been seen. The Paris papers, not daring
to say all they think on the first day, will cogitate
over the matter, return to it again and again, and
exercise their ingenuity to awaken public attention
by all sorts of circuity and inuendo to the fact that
there exists in print a grand political manifesto
which it behoves every citizen to read. In this way
it will come to pass that every elector who can
read will know that in the Moniteur of Jan. 12
there is a monumental speech by a great statesman
which explains that the imperial constitution is not
what it should be, and points out what improve-
ments are urgently called for. Those who have no
other opportunity of seeing a paper will read the
Moniteur posted on the walls of their commune ;
and in this instance the length of the speech will
deter few intelligent people from reading to the
conclusion, for there is a point in every paragraph.

Outside the narrowest official circles there is but
one voice to land and magnify M. Thiers' speech.
Even the Siicle and Opinion Nationale, which did
what they could to prevent his name from being
placed on the list of opposition candidates in M►y
last, are unreserved in their praise. M. Emile de
Girardin, while calling to mind that he Las been
often bitterly opposed to M. Thiers in old parlia-
mentary times, says that he has read his speech not
only with admiration, but with "emotion." He
considers the speech as one not only of a great
orator but of a great citizen, who, having no per-
sonal object to gain, and being far above the in-
trigues of ambition, tells the truth to bis
country. " The tone of the speech," says the
Preme, "from one end to the other is not that of
opposition which seeks to overthrow but of con-
viction which seeks to found. May that convic-
tion spread to the higher regions where we should
wish to see it dominant !" Referring to the con-
cluding word of M. Thiess' speech to which M.
Rouher took exception in the commencement of
his reply, the word exigent—meaning that if liberty

were not now granted to the respectful requests
of the advocates of the people it was to be feared
that the time might come when they would
"exact" it—M. de Girardin agrees with M. Jules
Fevre that the Minister of State put a forced
construction on the expression when be affected to
treat it as an appeal to physical force ; the word
eriger the editor of the Preset wittily says is a
perfectly " constitutional verb."
Among the many admirable things said by M.
Thiers, I was greatly struck by the happy way in
which he demolished the standing government
argument that parliamentary government is only
suited to the atmosphere of England, and will not
do for the French character. He showed that ever
sirce the time of Charlemagne the governments of
England and France had been essentially the same,
the military, the feuds!, and the parliamentary
succeeding each other nearly contemporaneously in
each country. To call parliamentary government
Euglish was like saying the steam-engine was an
English machine.
Nothing could be more weak than M. Rouber's
reply. It reads like the speech of the small pro-
vincial procureur which he took the opportunity
of saying he was some years ago. As to the liberty
of the press he contradicted himself flatly without
seeming to be aware of it—in one sentence de-
nouncing liberty of the press as bad in itself, and a
" monopolised means of aggression," and in the
next saying that he was not opposed to
it, but only wanted a counterpoise. His
whole speech was merely a series of affirma-
tions that whatever was was right under the
empire, and that whatever might be done by the
Emperor hereafter would also be right. In the
latter part, however, be admitted the possibility of
the constitution being further improved, but said
it could only be in the Emperor's own good time.
M. Jules Fevre took care to nail the minister to
the latter admission, and observed that between
him and M. Thiers there was only a question of
time as to the perfectibility of the constitution.
The Daily Rocs is seized.

WEATHER REPORT.-(THIS DAY.)

IrarirllDAY, J.UrOAKT IS.

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