The Express.
London, England, 1863-08-11 00:00:00

BRITANNIA_

Tuts Eviximo, THE 41 PE APR AND PARDON.
Int r,.!umng E GREAT UIION I EMT t.O ; Profrosor Pepper's
adaptation of )Ir. Dimas', I nveo tion. —Nlemn Woodman and
Rawka —With DlNti DoNG —And taut; IStAILD.

HIGH MATTA! AT LONDON HRIDGZ.
TOM DAT Morning. Oh (r. . Aftrramo. Oh.
10-goagOw—Morning, oh. Una .Atiornooo.

LONDON, TUESDAY, AUGUST 11.

ELEVEN years have passed away since the •
Second Empire, "by the grace of GOD and the
" national will," was proclaimed in France by the
man who three years before had taken Goo to wit-
ness his sworn fidelity to the Republic, and three
months before had freely, in the face of Europe,
announced that it was as the defender of the Re-
public that he had dissolved a reactionary National
Assembly and taken the law into his own hands.
Eleven years are but a moment of time, but a
moment long enough to let ill weeds grow apace.
The seed of violence sown in France eleven years
since has grown into a dark and spreading tree
that overshadows half the world. Marshal Foxe;
one of the heroes of his own country's subjection, ,
has bettered his instruction, and surpassed his
fame as a domestic law-breaker by his ex-
ploits in Mexico. Such an instrument
was not ill chosen, and it has done its work
admirably. The enthusiasm with which Savoy and
Nice, under the auspices of Senator Plena, an-
nexed themselves to France, out of pure gratitude
to the Liberator who left Venice to the Austrians
and Rome to the POP; is eclipsed by the sudden
and rapturous unanimity with which the Mexican
people have abolished the institutions they pos-
sessed from the date of their independence, and have
declared themselves the subjects of an Austrian
Archduke, or of any other person whom NAPOLEON
may be gracious enough to nominate and appoint
as their Emperor. Three mouths elapsed between
the first and second acts of perjury by which the
Empire of the NAPOLEONS was restored in Europe.
Marshal FOREY manages these things much more
expeditiously in Mexico. He lays siege to the in- ,
dependence of a nation by • series of parallels :
by a proclamation to the Mexican people assuring
them that he was not come to interfere in any
way with their form of government, but simply '
to obtain reparation for wrongs done to French
subjects ; by a proclamation that he was come to aid
them in restoring material prosperity, but not to
impose political changes, and that any rumours to ,
the contrary calumniated a Sovereign and a nation
whose flag was the signal of liberty and the symbol I
of civilisation wherever it appeared. After
leaning these Imperial edicts, Marshal FOREY fol-
lowed the approved precedent of the siege of Rome
in 1849, and failing to convince the Mexicana of his
peaceful and harmless mission, let loose his soldiers,
who, by way of re assuring what Marshal Fos'
declined to call a hostile population, murdered
in cold-blood every Mexican wounded in
action, and spent all 'Passion-week in burn-
ing down a populous city, putting the inhabi-
tants to the sword, rioting in fire and blood, and
committing atrocities not easily surpassed by
Russians in Poland. So obstinate was the resis-
tance of this people, whose "Notables" have recently
implored the EMPEROR to send them an Emperor,
that Puebla was stormed street by street and
house by house ; and only Marshal Fealty
knows how that desperate defence of
Puebla suddenly ceased. The day after the
capitulation, the Marshal described his triumphal
entry into the city amidst joyous acclamations and
through streets strewn with flowers. His march
to the capital was unmolested, for the Chief of the
nativeGovernmenthad withdrawn with the archives
of the State to a city in the mountains ; and while
the communications of the French army with the
sea coast were still harassed by guerillas, Marshal
FORE; ever faithful as his master to his solemn
promises, assumed the government of the
Republic, nominated a Triumvirate, and se-
lected a Council of Notables ; the Triumvirate
consisting of a military, a civil, and an ecclesiastical
traitor, and the Council of Notables of some two
hundred men base enough to sell their country to
the highest bidder. It is this Council of Notables
chosen by Marshal FOREY that, on the 10th
of July last, proclaimed Mexico an Empire,
and the Archduke MAXIMILIAN of Austria
their Emperor; and, failing the ARCHDUKE'S
acceptance, implored the EMPEROR of the
FRENCH to " select a person in whom he had
" full confidence." This is a marked advance on
the more elaborate process adopted by the French
government in Savoy and Nice, where the popula-
tions were actually invited to annex themselves by
• plebiscite, probably because • Council of
" Notables" selected for the office of selling their
country was not to be found so near the French
frontier.

Marshal FOREY is doubtless a severe classicist,
and respects the dramatic unities. Perhaps ho
has observed them somewhat too strictly in enter-
ing the city of Mexico, assuming and resigning the
government of the Republic, and obtaining from a
Council of his own selection a change in the form
of government, and the proclamation of an
Austrian Archduke as Emperor " by the will of
" the Mexican nation"—and all within one
abort month. Or are we to suppose, for
the sake of dramatic prob►bility, that ten years
have elapsed between the first act and the second,
and that the Mexican nation, duly civilised by the
humane and pious Zonaves, and taught by the
PORE'S darlings to dance the cancan, have dis-
covered the vanity of Republican institutions, and
insisted on the re-establishment of " the
" liberty of the Church" as in Spain, and
the liberty of the subject as in France?
It might inspire more confidence in the delibera-
tions and votes of Marshal Foney's Council of
Notables if the semi-official papers in Paris
were kept within at least the bounds of proba-
bility in their comments on this latest triumph of
French arms. It is notorious that French
authority in Mexico means French bayonets
and French guns ; it would be an immense exag•
geration to coward Marshal FOREY'S Council of
Notables with the French Notables who in 18.15
welcomed the Allies to Paris as the restorers ofi