The Express.
London, England, 1851-10-13 00:00:00

THE EXPRESS, MONDAY EVENING, OCTOBER 13. 1851.

They have shown themselves loot taw exonerated, net
more observant of welestostical rules, in speaking of facts
of a miraculous nature, which the church, ever proceeding
in them matters with the greatest circumspection, has
neither acknowledged nor approved. They have raised
all the recent discussions, moat unseasonable U some
of them were. They have tendered those condi-
tions which were harshest to the civil power, and made
war in the most galling form against it. They have stirred
up the chiefest difficulties, and without knowing how to
resolve them. fily this imprudent press the sanctuary hes
been troubled, the ecclesiastical authority ignored and often
compromised, the clergy divided. The scandalised and
sometimes wavering believers ask with alarm where is the
government of the church ? Woe to the bishops also cam-
plain, or who act against the decisions of the journal ! It
pries and scrutinises into their words, to try to embarrass
and compromise them thereby in some manner with the Holy
See, whose exclusive defender it declares itself to be, hoping
thereviitkud to fortify its boldness with impunity. lithe
bishops warn these writers to be more charitable in their
polemics, more humble in their language, and less acrid,
end personal in their articles, as best befits reli-
gious writers, they take no account of the paternal remon-
strance. We speak from more than one passage of our ex-
perience.
It is impossible to figure more accurately the pre-
sent state of things in this and the sister country.
But then there is not a single SIBOUR upon the
Roman catholic bench of bishops. The vulgar ty-
ranny of their Tablets and Ramblers and so forth
must be to the full as intolerable to the Irish and
English catholics as the more polite oppression of
rtiairers and l'Ami aprars to be in France. But,
once more, there is no btnout to denounce it. What
episcopal demonstrations we have seen are quite the
other way. The Tablet and the Itambkr, the Lump
and the Vindicator, et hoc genus cow, aro not cen-
sured, but thanked, recommended, and encouraged in
every pastoral. It is, therefore, not in Ireland or in
England that the Roman catholic bishops have the
right which incontestably belongs to the good Arch-
bishop of l'ants of declining the dangerous respon-
sibility thrust upon them by their advocates.
On the other hand, they are under the painful
necessity of acknowledging the shining qualities of
this virtuous prelate, and the thousand titles he pos-
' sesses to the popularity which he enjoys. The'
silence of their sullen press gives consent to the
same confession. They know that there is nothing
which even the Inquisition itself can reprehend in
Mgr. Stumm, unless, indeed, it be his avowed unbe-
lief in the winking virgin of Bimini—an unbelief
to which he alludes in the extract last cited; or the
following pregnant passage upon the Inquisition
itself.

What shall we say of the long and ill-timed polemic upon
the Inquisition which the Univers has commenced, and con-
ducted with so much violence; and with that intemperauce
of style, examples of which it gives but too frequently ?
Such a polemic cannot hare other than fatal effects upon
the flock confided to our cares. Here again we have had
to use our authority, and the pain to see it despised. We
have, us bishop, expressly forbidden I' Unirers to pursue that
controversy. But, trampling our sacred authority under
foot, the writers of that print have only redoubled that.
violence.

His services to the church, in fine, are quite in-
disputable. His good deserts towards the people arc
not less so. Out of sixty pastorals and mandates
addressed by him to his flock since his elevation to
the primacy of France, more than one-halt are
devoted to charity. The rest belong to the general
administration of his province. Ho is adored by his
flock. He is approved at Rome—iso much so, that
the present authorities there have been compelled,
very much against their will, to ratify upon appeal
his heavy condemnation of I 'Unfree', and the
catholic press in general, from which we have
extracted so largely; and yet those self•constituted
organs of Roman catholic opinion pretend to ignore
his existence even as a prelate of their church! The
reason is obvious ; it is that which the estates of Pro-
vence had for ostracising NiTTUBEAU. What he said of
the temporal aristocracy we may say of the spiritual ;
that in all countries, m all ages, the prelates have
implacably pursued the friends of the people, and
when by sonic wondrous combination of chances one
I such fru•ad has arisen in the (mama of themselres, it
is against him &ewe all that theg hare aimed their
stabs anxious to inspire terror by their choice if a
victim.

That Mgr. Stnoun well deserves such enmity we
have sufficiently shown. Nevertheless, the follow-
ing confession of his political and social faith de-
livered upon a great religious occasion, is so admira-
bly characteristic of the man, and of his immea3ure-
able superiority over the creatures who arc aping
the style and strut of primatical dignity, that we
cannot refrain from quoting it. It shall be our last
extract:

The true end of the social state is not society itself, but
the happiness of the individual ; for society cannot be its
own end. It is the means of perfecting the al and
physical condition of DIM who indeed are called upon to
associate together and form a civil community, only to I
become better and happier men. 'thus society is for tho
individual, and not the individual for society • therefore, in
endeavouring to reach its sublime end, which is the moral
perfection and the well-bein4 of its members, society ought
to respect their nature, their dignity, their rights. Other-
wise it goes at once against the intention of the Creator, and
against the destiny of man—it overthrows all the
foundations of justice, by insulting and trampling under
foot the living imago of tied, in his person, freedom,
labour, property; in all the rights, in tine, which flow
from the exercise of his spiritual and bodily powers. To
despoil man of these rights, under pretence of making him
more happy, is to dry up the chief source of his happiness;
it is to degrade him, in order to make him more great ; it
is to annihilate his humanity, in order to exalt ;it is,
we repeat it, to kill him its order to cure.

One observation more, and we have done. Either
that proud and time-honoured boast of the church of
Rome, " Semper eadem," is the vainest of boasts and
the idlest of mockeries, or else the present Archbishop
of PARIS represents the true doctrine and discipline
of that church. In the latter hypothesis, what be-
comes of Cardinal WISE MAN, Dr. CULLEN, and tho
rest, who for the last twelve months have been play-
ing the mountebank and bully in this country and
the sister isle? If Monsignor SIBOUR is of the
slightest authority, such excesses are not essential to
Homan catholic orthodoxy, but, on the contrary,
greatly detract from it. They may be restrained by
the strong arm of the law, without injury to the
liberty of conscience.

article of Lamartine in the I'ays, who in resigning his
own claim to be considered as a candidate for the Pre-
sidency seems to waive his title to a certain number
of republican suffrages in favour of Louis Napoleon.
Lamartine says that if he had ever seriously in-
tended to start as a candidate for the presidency, he
should not have become a journalist. Not less re-
markable is an article by 'iron, who avers in the
Coutitationnel of to-day, that tho l'resident being,
like all honest men, of an unsuspicious nature, was
duped by the burgraves into passing the law
of May. They came and said to him, " There
is only one way to serve the country, and
I defeat all attempts at rebellion ; and that is for the
executive power and the National Assembly to form
only one. Let us suppress as many electors as pos-
sible. It is true that the President lose the au-
thority of an immense majority, but ho will gain the
union and fraternal support of the old parties." The
President embraced without distrust the seeming
fair proposition, and found it a snare ; for no sooner
had he passed their law than, conceiving that they
had him in their power, they encouraged the inso-
lence of Changarnier, and then pretended to
avenge his fall. Dr. Vt,ron gives at the close of this
article the words which I have quoted above as
having been used by the President at the late cabinet
council. Lastly, (iirardin comes out in the Proem
with some clenching arguments in his best style.
The following dressage of this article has been parti-
cularly remarked : If, knowing what I know, a
doubt could have remained upon my mind as to the
abrogation of the law of May, resolutely pro-
posed by the Elect of December, that doubt would
have been entirely effaced by the two articles
of the D• beta and AsseinliPe Nationale, in defence
of the law." These three articles of the Constant/on-

nel, the Pays, and the Presse have occupied public
attention to-day, as much as serious political events
could have done. Louis Napoleon seems at last to
have opened his eyes to the policy of the burgraves.
It was no doubt the cue of the royalists to deceive
him up to tho last moment with a show
of adherence to his candidature as a pis-ance,
and the only practicable solution, and then after they
had by this means saved the law of May, to pitch
him over for Ckangarnicr, and impeach him before
the High Court as guilty of treason, in putting for-
ward an unconstitutional candidature. This policy,
, strongly resembling the stratagem by which in the
' Arctic region wolves arc said to approach a stag, :n
a semi-circle, and drive him over a precipice, at the
bottom of which they may feast on his carcase at
leisure—this policy, I say, has been unmasked by the
gradual stealthy convergence of all the leading organs
of the party of order to the candidature of t he Pmsiden is
old rival, the ex•commander of the armyof Paris. No
sooner was the whole cabal made manifest than the
President must have felt persuaded that it was time
to rouse himself to action, and as Prospero defeats
the conspiracy against his life by a flourish of his
wand, to resort to the magic diversion of a new
ministry with a new programme. It would cer-
tainly be curious if we were to sec on the
• approaching anniversary of the fall of M.
Odilon Barrot a fresh inauguration of a Bonapartist
policy upon a broader and more popular base.

PARIS, SUNDAY ETExisn.
There is nothing new this morning to communi-
cate on the sahject of the ministerial crisis. The
Patric says:
" ' • •

There is much talk about a ministerial crisis, caused by a
divergence of opinions between the President and the cabi-
net upon an important point of general policy. If we are
well intbrmcd there have been only in the council of minis-
ter, some serious conversations on the law of the 31st of
May. Nu resolution with regard to the course to pursue
on this matter will, however, be taken before next Tues-
day. Upon that day the President, who has not yet mani-
fested his sentiments, will make known lui decision.

As the Cioistilittionne/ appears to have represented
the p'resident's opinions oa the law of May, it is na-
tural to infer that the abolition of the oetrnis and
other reforms advocated in that organ will form
secondary features in the new ministerial programme.
In the meanwhile all lists of new ministers are to be
regarded as premature and apocryphal. No leading
parliamentary man has been summoned to the
Elysi.e with the view of sounding him on the con-
ditions of accepting office.
Girardin says: " The ministers have resigned con-
ditionally. What does conditionally mean? It
means that they have given the President until
Tuesday to reconsider his determination to propose
the abolition of the law of May, in order that they
may, in this interval, bring to bear upon him the
engiriery of intimidation calculated to change his
purpose." The article is headed intimidation.
Changarnier arrived in Paris yesterday morning.
the Committee of Permanence is expected to hold
an extraordinary sitting, to deliberate on the minis-
terial crisis and the recommendation of the President
to propose the abrogation of the law of May.
the Fable adds some details of the account of the
serious conflict between the gendarmerie and the
friends of M. Sartin, at Monhicon. Shots were ex-
changed between 12 and 1 o'clock on the night of the
gth, on the road to Commentry. The twenty
gendarmes lodged sixteen prisoners, among whom
one was a woman, at five in the morning, in the jail
of Nlonlucon. The gendarmes discharged their
carbines upon the hostile population, and severely
wounded three persons.
The main difficulty of the President's position is to
reconcile the conservative policy upon which the
nation's confidence in him is based, with the restora-
tion of unlimited suffrage. It is the object of the
parliamentary majority and their organs to deter
Louie Napoleon from proposing the abolition of the
law of May, by representing this step as the sacri-
fice of all that has been gained by the united exer-
tions of the party of order during the last three
years, and as the destruction of the only dyke which
has yet been reared with any chance of success
against a social cataclysm. Now, if Louis Napoleon
rest his claim to the confidence of France upon
the suppression of anarchy, he must identity
his rule with the maintenance of those institutions
which afford the strongest guarantees of order. If
he abandon the chief conquests of the party of which
he is the declared head, does ho not expose himself
to the charge of sacrificing the national interest to
his private ambition? Will not the necessary con-
seqUence be the disaffection towards the President of
those classes most strongly interested in the subjuga-
tion of democracy, and hitherto his staunchest sup-
porters on that account ? Such are the questions
which would at the first blush present themselves to
an impartial observer, and such, no doubt, arc the
arguments with which M. Leon Faucher would ply
the head of the state. But the answer is not diffi-
cult. It has not been yet proved that this great
anti-democratic engine, the law of May, is capable
of being practically worked. Hitherto, in the partial
elections which have taken place since its enactment,
more than two-thirds, even of the electors inscribed
upon the present restricted lists, have, upon an
average, abstained from voting, and the suc-
cessful candidates have rarely polled little
more than the one-fourth of the inscribed
votes necessary to their election. Thus, in the two
latest elections of the Morbihan and Finisterre, out
of 70 and odd thousand electors in each of these con-
terminous departments, about 30,000 abstained.
Similar results have been repeated in the Nord and
other departments. No juster criterion of opinion on
the merits of the law can be presented than these
practical demonstrations. Say that even one-third,
instead of two-thirds, protested against the applica-
tion of the law, the peril, if not the impracticability,
of enforcing its execution in six departments at a
time by a concentration of the military is manifest.
Into the merits of the law, or the grounds of its un-
popularity, it is not necessary now to inquire; it is
enough that the fact of that unpopularity is demon-'
strated beyond dispute. The law of May, therefore,
has overreached its mark, and, instead of being a bar-
rier of defence against socialism, it is an engine of '
offence against the conscientious rights of the citizens.
After the assay which has been made of it, the l're-
sident can safely demand its abrogation, upon
grounds of national interest, without justly
incurring the charge of deserting from con-
1, servative principles, and playing into the hands
of the democratic party to achieve the ends of his
own ambition. A broad distinction may be drawn
between the two courses which the Iljbats and As-
s mGI Nationale seek purposely to confuse, namely
a lax and unprincipled back-sliding into the evils of
democratic government, and the resolution to de-
ma::d the repeal of the law of May. It is really of
little matter for the burgraves to tell the President
that he was not duped into restricting universal suf-
frage; that he took the leap with his eyes open;
that he was forced by the public terror at the Paris
electi on to adopt, in conjunction with the Assembly,
en instant remedy against the victories of socialism.

Supposing even there were any stringency in the
logic which infers that Louis Napoleon is bound to
adhere to the flag which is now become that of the
minority of the nation, because he embraced it when
it was the flag of the majority, still he has a quiver
full of home-replica for the parliamentary
leaders. He might ask what is become of
that union of the party of order of which'
the law of May was at once tho issue and the
pledge. What clearer proof that one edge of the
law was turned against himself, when immediately
after its enactment royalist intrigues broke out
shameless on all hands, and Claremont and Wies-
baden became centres of overt conspiracy, flocked to
by the very men who had cajoled him with promises
of support into clipping his own wings, and becoming
what he now so resolutely repudiates—" La branche
saddle do safraye tailsersd." No, the game was
not fairly played against the President, and the ap-
plause which followed on the full of Changarnicr
, proved that France was of this opinion. Changer-
, flier is still their man; to him they will commit their
standard of the law of May. But once more he will
be rolled over as before, and for the same reason, for
' France is not with him. France will not be deluged
with civil war to enforce an impracticable law.
France will nut be dragooned and gendarmed into
the old pays legal. Once admitted, the broad
distinction between the sacrifice of conservative
principles and the sacrifice of the law of May, there
is no need to suppose the President will be obliged
to cross the floor of the Chamber to seek his new mi-
nisters. It may be almost safely affirmed that he
will not do so, if it were only for the sake of mark-
ing clearly to the national eye the perfect compati-
bility of a decided opposition to democracy with the
grand feature of the new programme. A great deal
has been said about the visit of Girardin to St. Cloud,
and about the probability of Lamartine being called
to the helm. Girartlin may, indeed, be considered a
negotiator for the support of the Left in the question
of revision ; and Lumartine as the statesman of
highest character who could undertake, consistently
with his expressed opinions, the repeal of the law of
May. But it is hardly probable that the emi-
nent publicist of the Presse would be invited, or
the foreign minister of the provisional government
consent to take a post in a government too far coin-
promised in the course of compression suddenly to
relax into a liberal administration. There is no as-

surance that we shall not hear, even after the repeal
of the law of May, the same complaints from the de-
partments of the tyrannous molestation of private
society by the armed police, of the same absurd
pranks of prefects, of the same persecution of the
press. The continuance of these evils is, whatever
wind set in the high regions of policy, but too pro-
bable ; and the bureaucratic tendency to keep aloof,
shake off, or pervert liberal ministers, exerts an
action which deters a liberal and philosophic states-
man like M. de Lamartine, from engaging in the
ungrateful task of government. The question now
presents itself, whether the parliamentary majority
of 500 which curtailed universal suffrage, will now
consent to abolish the restrictions they voted in
1530. For the moment their chief organs, the
DAres and -IssentWe stoutly affirm they will not.
Still it may be questioned if any but the stubborn
fraction of Thiers and Cliangarider will finally resist
the pressure which will be brought to bear on them
of the executive government on the one side, and the
republicans out of doors on the other. Supposing
the law abolished, Girardin promises a constitutional
majority in favour of revision. In fact it is out of
the question to suppose that an intrigue of the roy-
alists to throw out revision, merely to incapacitate
the President from being re-elected, could ever be
ultimately successful. 'l9w nation would not tolerate
a manifest royalist cabal of that kind for crushing'
Louis Napoleon ; and the defeat of Changarnier at
the head of such a cabal, would be eventually certain.
The voices of men who rose in November against the
revision which they advocated in July, merely to bar
the reelection of the President, would be scouted by
the popular contempt and indignation. The law of
May abolished and revision carried, the l'resident
might look forward with sonic confidence to receiv-
ing once more from the hands of the French people
the delegation of that power which he will have
vindicated equally against the assaults of democracy
and the intrigues of royalism.
As for the popular boon of the suppression of the
actrois, which is indicated by rumour as a secon-
dary feature in the new ministerial programme, it is
caught up invidiously by the parliamentary journals,
and stigmatised as a sop to the masses; but such a
measure, were it really contemplated, affords but a
small margin for erecting thereon the favourite charge
of bribing the republicans.
M. Alexis de St. Priest, formerly peer of France,
and member of the French Academy, died on the
29th September, of typhus, at Moscow, whither he
had gone to visit his aged father.
The interference of the gendarmerie with the
dinner to M. Sartin at Commentry has led to very
serious troubles. The government organs speak of a
bloody battle as having taken place between the
troops and the mob. It appears certain, by the ad-
mission of M. Sartin himself, in a letter to the
Er,,,Airent, dated Nlontlucon, October 10th, that the
populace of Commentry turned out, paraded the
streets singing the 3larseillaise, and proclaiming
loudly their determination not to allow any arrests
to be made. They were as good as their a ord. They
resisted the gendarmes, and twice rescued several
prisoners, who were as often re-captured. Three men
were wounded by the fire of the troops. The Patrie
speaks of two gensdarmes as being severely wounded.
According to M. Sartin's account, however, the re-
sistance of the populace was passive merely; but one
gensdarme was hurt, and that acidentally,
while wrenching his musket from the hands of
an artisan who had seized it in self-defence. The
Patrie evidently makes the most of the deplorable
occurrence, to lay a foundation for the favourite
nlyitne of the state of siege, which will doubtless soon
be applied to the department of the Allier. Accord-
ing to the latest accounts, the disturbance was far
from being at an end, and the people were in a most
alarming state of irritation. Several squadrons of
cavalry arrived at Commentry, by forced marches,
from Moulins, and on the 10th they escorted 13 pri-
soners, handcuffed, to the prison at 3lontlucon. The
proeureur-general and several members of the Court
of Appeal of Ilium have arrived there, and were met
by the general commanding the district and the pro-
cureur-gencral of the republic. A legal inquiry is
going on, which will probably lead to fresh state trials.
M. Sartin conjures the people to cease a useless re-
sistance, which can only aggravate the position of
the prisoners, and distract attention from the original
provocation of the gendarmes. Ile repeats his deter-
mination to complain to the Assembly of the flagrant
violation of the sanctity of a private house, and the
illegal attack upon his person, which led to these
lamentable results.
Accounts have just arrived of disturbances at
Bagniaes, on the 9th of October, occasioned by an
interference by the gendarmes With the customary
amusements of the annual fetes.
The question between France and Germany rela-
tive to the navigation of the Rhine is expected to be
settled definitively before the Ist of January. Mean-
while Bavaria, Baden, Nassau, and Hesse have
agreed to admit France to the enjoyment of equal
rights of navigation on that stream up to Decem-
ber 31. The Bulletin th Paris asserts that Prussia,
who bad hesitated, has also consented to this
arrangement.
The Malouin, with 110 emigrants for California,
sailed from Havre yesterday morning.
Three " bloomerists" made their appearance on
the Boulevards yesterday, and attracted so much in-
convenient attention that they were obliged to take
refuge from the crowd in a brougham.
The ministerial crisis being adjourned till Tuesday
the principal personages concerned seem determined
to have a short respite from care. The President is
enjoying this fine day at the Chantilly races; M. Be-
reclie is at Nlculan, M. Leon Faucher at loguy,
M. Carlier is on a shooting excursion, and M. Fould
is fishing in the neighbourhood of St. Cloud.

---
DENMARK AND THE DUCHIES.

The Minister of Finances of Denmark communi-
cated to the Chambers on the 6th the budget of re-
ceipts and expenditure for 1852 and '53. The re-
ceipts, not including Schleswig-Holstein, arc valued
at 13,300,000 thaler3, and the expenditure at
18,630,000; the deficit is to be covered by a million
from Schleswig, and the surplus by the emission of
treasury bonds.- The minister added that this state
of things would oblige him to reproduce the project
of law establishing an income-tax.