The Express.
London, England, 1851-06-11 00:00:00

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TO CORRESPONDENTS.
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LONDON, WEDNESDAY, JUNG 11.

Til disenseirms which took place in the committees
of the French National Assembly, on the revision of
the constitution, are certainly unique in the his-
tory of a nation. Each committee being supposed to
debate with closed doors, the utmost freedom of
opinion and of speech was of course ble. And
each member of the legislature avowed his hope and
predilections—some for a monarchy founded on legi-
timacy and divine right—some for a constitutional
monarchy; others, again. declared for a moderate eir
Ibr an immoderate republic.
If this great diversity of opinion be shared by the
nation at large, which, however, is greatly to he
doubted, it will require either great hobnob!. MI
the part of all classes of people themeless. or • SSW
aiderable concentration of power and tyranny NM/
where to keep them from civil strife. On tibia=
of secondary importance, a majority my bbd a
abierity; but in matters so grave as the ropy 'bras
or essence of government or of religion, large mino-
rities are seldom contented to succumb.
They are less content to do so when these large
minorities are principally of one class, bound to-
gether by common interests and common ideas, in a
country through which intercommunication is as
quick and universal as light
Perhaps no more mad or hopeless idea ever en-
tered into the head of a maniac, than that enter-
tained and pursued by the French religionists and
legitimists, who purpose remedying all the ills and
dangers of the existing state of things, by attempts
to restore that state which prevailed in past centu-
rice, when the population bowed down in body and
in mind before the feudal lord and the monkish
elergy. The possibility of ever restoring Frenchmen
to feelings of loyalty towards the BoranoN race, and
to contentment under their rule, because they de-
scend from HENRY IV. or Lore; XIV., is about as
rational as a proposal to establish the Talmud as a
code of laws. Yet there are clever men who
dream this, and act upon it, and who would
compel the France of 1851, with its million more of
people, its journals, its milrocubs, its popular army,
its peasant populace, and its respect for nothing, to
become all of a sudden the France of 1551.
It is more modest, but we doubt it it be more feas-
ible. to restore the constitutional monarchy. As a
monarch, the Count of PAitis or the Prince Dr. JOlN-
would be supported by the middle class and
the notables of the last reign ; but with a large sec-
tion of the upper class, all the rA.nlouv clergy, and
the entire popular party against him, such a personage
would take his stand upon a rucking pedestal, on
which he might maintain himself by. skill in balawc-
ing and by prudence in never swerving front the line
of gravity. But his weakness would be so evident
to the nation and to himself that both would pro-
bably demand to be released from a position so pain-
ful and so purposeless.
In fact. French society has irrevocably passed
through two great phases ; and it has entered a third,
of which it must accept the laws and inconve-
nienties. The tirst phase was that feudal sovereignty
and aristocracy, in which the lower mid middle classes
were so few, so poor, so scattered, so ignorant, and
so saturated with doctrines of obedience to all autho-
rities, that the lower and middle elastics may be con-
sidered to have then formed a species distinct from,
anti inferior to, that of free and civilised man. M.
DE Fat.tovx would restore the reign of feudality
be might as well attempt by a magic wand to estab-
lish universal apedom.
The other great phase is that of intimate depend-
ence of one clam upon another, and of political power
being shared between them according to their require.
masts, or at least in such a way as nut to call forth
violent discontent. This is the phase of English so-
ciety and polities. 13,1 t what was the case in France ?
The law and the distribution or ;invert, keutierea
the greater part of the lower orders,.or the families
[rum winch the lower orders spring, that of the
peasantry, completely independent of any one above
them. the ideas generated in such a nursery were
felt by the workmen who migrated to towns and re-
evived salary from a master. Whilst this gulf was
created socially between the employing and employed
elsasca, the constitution gave all power to the employ-
log : the electoral franchise was confined to some two
or three hundred thousand persons in a nation of thirty
millions. Hence arose a war of class, which, had
such men as LAWN PIIILIPPE and M. Guam kept
their eyes open to the plain state of things before
them. must have attracted their attention and re-
quired their care. Yet when tumults and discon-
tent arose, they attributed the intrigue to a passing
effervescence. And so they were swept away in
their blindness and their ignorance.
Who or what shall now put an end to this war of
classes, social and political ? Will the restoration of
legitimacy ? It is but another name for tyranny and
coercion. Will the restoration of an ORLEANS and
the family charter? No; fur the government in
that case would, like that of Loris NAPOLEON, have
to expend all its care. time, and efforts in the mere
aim of keeping up its existence, without making any
provision for the state, or the people, or opinion.
The first desideratum in all countries is a govern-
ment that can stand by itself, and that no monarchy
at present can do in Prance. A republic, we see,
does; and were all the enlightened and influential
men to rally frankly to the republic, there would
not be the least fear of that great bugbear, the pre-
domintmettorcommunismorexelusivelylow class ideas.
Anything, even in the most conservative seine, might
be made of a republic. Nothing, except in the
way of subversion, can be made of monarchy in
France.

-
At the same time there is one great cause of con-
fidence and consolation, that none of those parties, be
they ever so remote from practicability or success,
propose to employ violence. The legitimist prince
himself and his followers profess that they await their
recall from the will of the people. The Orleanists
profess to have no other hope or title. In this they
display good sense. For, after the moral fore° of
legittinacT as a principle had died away, and after
the expenment of a king, appointed by parliament
for and on behalf of the people, had failed,
there really remained no Iswis of government,
no anchor for the state, no principle of sovereignty,
but popular suffrage. The broader too the better.
The elect of universal suffrage has a title that none
dent gainsay. And hence the danger of the law of
the 31st of May, restricting universal suffrage. Was
that law, indeed• merely what it pretended ; was it
merely an exclusion of vagrants and paupers
from the electoral urns, few would complain. And
were the present suffrage a fair suffrage, correspond-
ing to household or domicile, it might command
respect. But a one-sided law of election, that admits
the peasant and excludes the honest artisan, unless
he can secure his identification by his master, this ex-
clusion of the artisan, renders so large, and intelligent,
and unfortunately so revolutionary &Clan/ in France dis-
contented, that the law of the 31st May may be
considered a premium upon, and a generator of
imager. . .

Thus have the French taken care to nullify and
sap every principle of sovereignty. They have
scouted legitimist right, kicked out the constitutional
with even more ignominy, and finally, they have so
falsified the principle of universal and popular suf-
frage as to make it a delusion,and stump it as &claw
election, not a popular one.
110 such a people and such a legislature as this,
deserve to have a government at all?

Tex synod summoned by. Bishop PUILLPOTT3 to
ansemble on the 2dth inst., in the cathedral clinch
of Exeter, will, it is now to be hoped,bs redaeed to
its proper dimensions, viz., a voluntary sad private
meeting of that prelate and a few of the clergy of
his diocese who concur in his extreme opnwns,
and join in his exciessuillnklatian of Archbishop
Emma.
For already a ocamiderable body of his beneficed
citify have, Ivry sensibly, 'Exclaimed any obedience
to hissi=let and unwarrantable attempt to exar-
sin authority OM them, sad base /*plied