The Press.
London, England, 1858-01-30 00:00:00

THE FRENCH AMBASSADOR AND THE

CORPORATION OF LONDON.
THE Lord Mayor, and a deputation from several
members of both courts of the corporation, waited
upon the Ambassador of France last Saturday, for
the purpose of communicating to his Excellency the
resolution to which the Court of Lord Mayor, Alder-
men, and Commons, in common council assembled,
had unanimously agreed on Tuesday week. We
believe that the following is a more full and correct
report of the proceedings than has yet appeared :
The Loan MAYOR, in addressing his Excellency,
said if it had not been for the shortness of the notice
to the representatives of the several wards, a much
larger number of the members of the corporation
would have accompanied him upon the occasion, to
manifest the strong and unanimous feeling of horror
and detestation with which the late diabolical attempt
upon the lives of the Emperor and Empress of the
French was regarded by the citizens of London.
There was but one feeling of horror at the diabolical
crime, and that was united with the feeling of grati-
tude to Almighty God for the preservation of the
lives of their Imperial Majesties. The resolution
passed in the court was as follows :
Resolved unanimously,—That the Court of Lord Mayor,
Aldermen, and Commons, in common council assembled,
have beard with feelings of horror and indignation of the
recent attempt to assassinate their Imperial Majesties the
Emperor and Empress of the French.
That this court, while sympathising with their imperial
Majesties in the pain they must feel at the sacrifice of
human life, and the suffering of many innocent victims,
take the earliest opportunity of offering to their Imperial
Majesties the heartfelt congratulations of this corporation
on their providential escape from the atrocious plot laid
for their destruction, and to express an earnest hope that
an ever•watchful Providence may still preserve their

perial Majesties, and that they may be spared to rule over
a great and prosperous people.
It was, the Lord Mayor added, the earnest wish of
the corporation that his Excellency would, with as
little loss of time as possible, cause the resolution to
be transmitted to the Emperor and Empress of the
French, in order to show the strength of the abhor-
rence with which the representatives of the citizens
of London contemplated the desperate wickedness of
the offence.

The French AMBASSADOR thanked the deputation
in the name of his sovereign for an address to which
he attached peculiar importance. M. de Persigny
further said :

France is at this moment shocked and agitated by the
frightful crime which foreigners have just attempted
against the person of her sovereign. And seeing the
series of attempts at assassination which are periodically
made by foreigners living in England, she is filled with
anxiety and alarm that such dangers can approach her
from a country, side by side with whose soldiers she has
just shed her blood on the battle-fields of the Crimea. T,
who live amongst you, thoronghly comprehend the sincerity
of the friendship which England bears to France, for I
daily see the most convincing proofs of it. I am aware
also of the noble and lofty principles which are the founda-
tion of your legislation.
I especially admire and reverence, in your country, that
right of asylum which is the honour and the boast of
England ; the shelter which you yield to all the victims of
the political passions of the Continent is your glory, and
it is not France who would wish to see it diminished.
Far from complaining, we are glad that here illustrious
princes, fallen from the throne, should find the respect
due to great misfortunes; and we honour you for the pro-
tection and asylum which you "give to all the sufferers of
our political struggles, to whatsoever party they may be-
long. Let them live, then, in England, in peace, in
security, in independence, and with every freedom of
action. My country too well understands what is honour-
able feeling, ever to demand from the friendship of Eng-
land anything which could touch her honour.
Permit me, then, to tell you what is the true question.
It does not lie in the attempts at assassination in them-
selves, nor even in the crime of the 14th January, which
your Government would have hastened to have warned us
against if it could have known it beforehand ; the whole
question is in the moral situation of France, which has
become anxiously doubtful of the real sentiments of Eng-
land. Reasoning in effect by analogy, popular opinion
declares that were there in France men sufficiently in-
famous to recommend in their clubs, in their papers, in
their writings of every kind, the assassination of a foreign
sovereign, and actually to prepare its execution, a French
Administration would not wait to receive the demands of
a foreign Government, nor to see the enterprise set on
foot. To act against such conspiracies, to anticipate such
crimes, public notoriety would be sufficient to set our law
in motion, and measures of security would be taken imme-
diately.
Well, then, France is astonished that nothing of a like
nature should have taken place in England, and French-
men say, " either the English law is sufficient, as certain
lawyers declare ; and why then is it not applied? or it is
insufficient, which is the opinion of other lawyers; and in
this case, why does not a free country, which makes its
own laws, remedy this omission ?" In one word, France
dors not understand, and cannot understand, this state of
things ; And in that resides the harm, for else may tau.