The Express.
London, England, 1848-03-06 00:00:00

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NEWS FROM PARIS.

4/"•••414 44111--a.,

hour of this maturity, as they dishonour themselves when
they allow its escape. Monarchy and the republic are not in
the eyes of true statesmen absolute principles engaged
in a death struggle—they are things which stand in con-
trast and which can live face to face on a mutual under-
standing and with mutual respect. War is not then the
principle of the French republic, as by a fatal and glorious
necessity it had become in 1792. Between 1792 and
1818 there is half a century. To return after half a century
to the principle of 1792, or to the principle of conquest of
the empire, would be not to advance but to retrograde with
time. The revolution of yesterday is a step In advance,
not in arrear. The world and ourselves alike wish to
march to fraternity and to peace.
If the situation of the French rerublic in 1792 explained
the war, the differences which exist between that period in
our history and the preseht will explain peace. Endeavour
to understand these differences, sod to make them under-
stood by those around you.
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In 1792 the nation was not united. Two people existed
on the same soil—a terrible struggle was continued between
the class deprived of their privileges and the class who had
conquered equality and liberty. The privileged classes
united with dispossessed royalty, and with foreign powers I
jealous of France, and wishing to reimpose on her a monarchy,
an aristocracy, and a theocracy, by force, To-day there
are no longer distinct classes. Liberty has freed all—
equality before the law has levelled all. Fraternity of
which we proclaim the application, and of which the
national assembly will organise the benefits, will unite all.
There is not a single citizen in France, be his opinion what
it may, who does not join himself to the principle of his
country before everything, and who by this adhesion renders
her unassailable by the temptations and anxieties of invasion.
In 1792 it was not the entire people who took the reins of
government, it was the middle class who could exercise
and enjoy liberty. The triumph of the middle class was
than selfish as is the triumph of every olligneohy ; it 'Walled
to aggrandize to itself the rights
.acquired by all. The
moans was to operate a strong diversion to the advent of the
people, by precipitating them on the field of battle, to pre.
vent them from taking part in their own government.
This diversion was war—war was the dream of the
" blonarchians" and the " Girondins " it was not the wish
of the more able democrats, who wished, like us, the govern-
ment complete and regular of the people itself, is compre-
hending in this name all the classes composing the ration
without exclusion and without preference.

In 1792 the people were but: the instrument of the revo-
lution ; they were not the object. To-day the revolution is
made by the people, and for the people. The people are
identical with the revolution. In adopting it, they bring
with them new wants of labour, industry, instruction, agricul-
ture, commerce, morality, well-being, property, cheap sub-
sistence, navigation, in a word civilisation, which are all
neceeities of peace. The people is identical with peace ; it
is the same expression.
In 1792 the ideas of France and Europe were not prepared
to understand and accept the great harmony of nations
together, for the welfare of the human race. The idea of
the age which was then finishing existed but in the mind of
some philosophers.
To-day philosophy is common. Fifty years of liberty of
thought, speech, and written intercourse have produced
their results. The books, the journals, the tribunes have
wrought the change in European intelligence. Reason
resplendent has shone on the nation' of the earth, and has
created that great national intellect which will be the com-
pletion of the French revolution and the aealing of fraternity.
In short, in 1792, liberty was a novelty, equality a scandal,
a republic a problem. The title of the people, hardly dis-
covered by Fenelon, Montesquieu, Rousseau, was so forgot-
ten and profaned by the old feudal, dynastic, sacerdotal
traditions, that the most legitimate interference of the people
in their own affairs appeared monstrous to statesmen of the
old school. Democracy caused thrones and society to trem-
ble. To-day thrones and society are accustomed to the
term, the form, the regular agitations of liberty exercised in
different degrees in almost all even monarchical states. They
are accustomed to the republic, which is its complete form
among more advanced nations. They acknowleage that it
possesses a conservative liberty ; that in a republic not only
may order exist, but order of a higher grade.
But beyond these disinterest,d considerations the soy
interest of the duration and consolidation of the republic
must inspire the statesmen of France with desire of pea e.
It is not the country which incnrs risk in war, it is liberty ;
war is almost always a dictatorship. Soldiers forget the
institutions for the men. Thrones tempt the ambitious.
Glory eazzles patriotism. The halo of a victorious name
veils the attempt against the national sovereignty. She is
doubtless desirous of glory, but she desires it for herself,
not for a Cassia or a Napoleon.
Deceive not yourself, however. Thew ideas, which the
provisional government charges you to present to the foreign
powers as a pledge of European security, have not for their
end to induce them to pardon the republic the audacity of its
birth, still less to demand cringingly the place of a great right
and a great people in Europe; they have a nobler aim, to
lead the sovereigns and the people to reflect, and not permit
them heedlessly to deceive themselves on the character of
our revolution ; to give a right aspect and true colour to the
event t to give pledges to humanity, in short, in preference
even to our rights or our honour, if they should be miscon-
strued or threatened.

The French republic will not therefore of itself undertake
a war. She:need not say she will accept it if it be forced on
her. The sentiments of the men who now govern France
are these : Happy France, if they declare against her and
compel her into war thus to increase her power and her
glory in spite of her moderation. Awful responsibility
for France if the republic itself declare war with-
out being driven into it. In the tint case her
martial genius, her impatience of action, her power,
accumulated by so many years of peace, will render her in-
vincible at home and perchance redoubtable beyond her
frontiers. In the second case she will turn agsinst her the
remembrances of her conquests, and will compromise her
first and highest alliance—the mind of the people and the
genius of civilisation.
On these principles, monsieur, which are the principles of
France, in her calm principles, which she can avow without
fear and without distrust to her enemies and friends, you
will observe

The treaties of 1815 exist no longer as a right in the Oyes of
the French republic; however, their territorial limits are a
fact which it ad mite as bases and starting points in her relations
with other nations. But if the treaties of 1815 only exist as
facts to be modified by common consent, and if the republic
declares aloud that she has for right and for minion to
arrive regularly and pacifically at these modifications, the
good genes, the moderation, the conscience, the prudence
of the republic exist, and are for Europe a better and
more honourable guarantee than the letters of these trea-
ties, so often violated or modified. Endeavour, mon-
sieur, to cause to be comprehended and admitted
candidly this emancipation of the republic from the trea-
ties of 1815, and to show that this frankness is by no
means irreconcileable with the repose of Europe. Thus
we say it openly, if the hour for the reconstruction of
some oppressed nationalities in Europe, or else-
where, appear to us to be announced in the de-
crees of Providence—if Switzerland, our faithful ally,
was constrained or menaced in the movement of growth
that she is effecting within herself, to lend an additional
farce to the mei:restate of democratic governments—if the
independent states of Italy were invsded—it limits or
obstacles were imposed upon their internal transformstions
—if, by force of arms, their right should be disputed
of forming alliance among themselves for the consolidation
of an Italian country, the French republic would believe
herself authorised to arm for the protection of these legiti •
mate movements of the growth and nationality of those

people.
The republic, you see, has at her first step bounde
over the era of proscriptions and dictatorships. She is de-
cided never to veil liberty at house ; she is equally decided
never to v, it her democratic principles abroad ;—she will
never permit the hand of any one between the pacific
of her liberty and the eyes of other nations;—she pro-
claims herself the intellectual and cordial ally of all
rights, of all progress, of all the legitimate developments
of the institutions of nations, who desire to live on the
same principles u her own:—she will make so secret
or incendiary propagandism among her neighbours. She
knows that there are no durable liberties but those that
spring from themselves upon their proper soil. But she
will exercise by the light of her ideas, by the spectacle
of order and of peace that she hopes to give to the
world, the sober and honest proselytism the pro-
selytism of esteem and of sympathy. It is uut war,
it is nature. It is not the agitation of Europe, it is the life.
It is not to inflame the world ; it is to shine from her place
upon the horizon of nations—to advance and to guide them
at once. We desire for humanity'a sake that peace may be
preserved. We even hope it. A sole question of war had
been laid down a year ago between France and England.
This question of war was not proposed by republican
France, but by the dynasty. The dynasty bears away
it this danger of war that she had raised for Europe, by an
ambition altogether personal of family alliances in
Spain. Thus this domestic policy of the fallen dynasty
which weighed for seveuteen years upon our national
dignity, weighed at the same time, by its pretensions
to another crown at Madrid, upon our liberal alliances
and upon peace. The republic has no ambition. The re-
public has no nepotism. It does not inherit family preten-
sions. Let Spain rule herself; let Spain be independent
and free. France counts more for the solidityof this natural
alliance, upon conformity of principles, than upon succes-
sion of the house of Bourbon.
Such, air, is the spirit of the councils of the republic.
Such will invariably be the character of the frank, strong,
and liberal policy that you will have to represent.
The republic, at the moment of its birth, and in the
midst of the heat of a contest not provoked by the people,
have pronounced three words which have revealed its soul,
and which will tali down upon its cradle the benediction of
God and of men—liberty, equality, fraternity. She imme-
diately gave, by the abolition of the penalty of death for po-
litical offences, the true commentary of these three words at
home ; give to them also their true commentary abroad.
The sense of these three words, applied to our fort ign rela-
tions is this liberation of France from the chains
which have weighed upon her principles and her dignity ;
restoration of the rank which she ought to occupy on a
level with the great European powers ; in fine, declaration
of alliance and friendship with all people.
If France rightly understands her shire in the liberal and
civilising mission of the age, not one of these words signifies