The Express.
London, England, 1851-11-19 00:00:00

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LOXDON, WEDNESDAY, NOVE3IBER 19.

IT is difficult to say whether the revolutions of
18414 or the reaction of subsequent years have been
moat complete. Both can only be compared to that
dreadful wave, produced upon the ocean by an earth-
quake, which first leaves one shore dry to devastate
the opposite one, and then recoiling, inundates and
drowns all that it at first respected. Amidst
this great mediation of power and influence—this
pulling down and setting up again, the greatest ruin
has been wrought upon character. Theories which
toppled down have been built up ; armies which
shrunk into nothing before a mob, have been made
to rally and to crush by its iron projectiles the many-
headed multitude of the largest city. Military men
have recovered their ascendancy, absolutism its power.
Legitimacy is no longer looked upon as an absurdity,
aor divine right an anachronism. But what the re-
volution destroyed, and counter-revolution failed to
aiake whole again, is the character of prominent
men.
No kind of stock or of inscriptions in the money
market went down so fearfully low as the dignity,
the honesty, and the respect of princes. And these
an- the only things which have not had the benefit
of reaction, and have not risen with the return to
power and the restoration of majesty. Of French
princes we need not speak. But the Italian and the
German, who have recovered all, and more than their
pristine authority, as far as the de fade commands
of a soldiery can enforce it, have not recovered an
iota of the revereare, which still adhered to them in
NO. The counter revolution has been wrought in
all outward circumstances; but over men's minds and
opinions it has remained powerless. It has reinstated
the Faenutitais and the Pk:MANAMA on 'hat
modern throne, the military charger, but it has dune
nothing towards the restoration of their majesty in
little. mind.
There need be no better mark to show the total
decline and destruction of princely character than
the King of HANOVER. Previous to the trials and
troubles of recent years, King Ettsmsr sou consi-
dered the most retrograde of rulers, the most abso-
lotist of princes. His first net upon his accession
was to null all the concessions that °tome IV.
and the Duke of Camber istae, no ultra-reformers, had
made to the I loner :reunify would have no constit ut ion
more real or more liberal than the sham ones which
had boa granted to the German states by German
princes. Refusing to take any oaths himself, or to
he bound by those of his predecessors, King ERNEST
declared at once his determination not to submit to
parliamentary control, and on this avowal he braved
the indignation of the citizens, and, what was more
formidable, that of the professors of his own
Univuoity of Gottingen. King ERNEST kept
to his resolve. His citizens he dragooned,
the professors lie cashiered, declaring that lecturers
could always be had fur money—a mistake, for Got-
tingen has never recovered the loss, occasioned by
the withdrawal of its seven most eminent professors—
an event that gave up acael-mieul superiority to
Berlin. But, however academically as well as coast -
tationally wrong, King ElistesT was but too success-
ful politicallv, crushing all opposition throughout his
kingdom, aid without recurring to other forces than
his own. His triumph made King ERNENT the
most unpopular and most execrated sovereign of
Germany.
Yet mark what the events of the last years have
accomplished. King ERNisr, during those years,
has not swerved from his principles of regal oxen-
daney. lle has seen his people in insurrection, has
parleyed with them, discussed their demands, and
when he found them exotbitant, coolly replied that
he could not grant them. But throughout the
whole of the turmoil the old King has
newer broken faith. never made a concession, in
his weakness, which he determined to recall, or did
recall, in his strength. He never, by giving way,
duped his people into being uncontrolled democrats,
and then put down by grape-shot and bayonets
the extreme opiniena that himself had fostered. He
was not, like the King of Ssxosv, a muck liberal
111110 week, in ender to visit his own city and its inha-
Intents wit h destruction the next. Ile outlived popular
teensy without humbling himself before it, and when
react;ini allowed him to rise once more supreme above
it, lie did not exercise that supremacy with mean or
with treacherous vengeance.
An English liberal journalist is startled to find
hionnelf inditing something like a panegyric upon
the Prince, better known in this country as the Duke
of CUMBERLAND. And yet it is even so. For so
fierce lees been the reaction, so infamous the
treachery, and so unmitigated the cruelty. and
the despotism of other continental princes,
that in this reactionary age the consistent
tory of twenty years ago finds himself al-
most a liberal, and deserves credit as such. Not
unity is the constitutional conduct of King ERNEST
favourably contrasted throughout Germany, with
the hitherto wavering policy of the King of PRUSSIA,
hut the quality of his having a will and an opinion,
and sticking to them, is prized as a rare monarchic
quality of modern times. Often have we heard it ex-
eftlilll4.ll, that had King ERNEsT, with all his abso-
lutism, been in the place of the King of PRUSSIA, ho
would never have so truckled to Austria; nor allowed
the constitutional and the protestant cause of North
Germany to have been so shamefully and unjustly
over-ridden.

PARIS, TUENDAY EVENING.
The telegraph will have conveyed to you lust
night the news that the thicstors Bill was nut taken
into consideration, by 408 votes against 300, which
gives a majority of 108 in favour of the govern.
ment. Immense efforts were made by the leading
men of the conservative opposition to combat this
result. M. Thiers, after the debate was formally
closed, was permitted to make a speech, in which he
pointed to the minister of war's circular as the origin
of the bill. M. Jules Favre answered M. Thiers.
But the most important incident at the
close of the debate was the question addressed by
General Bedcau to the Minister of War, whether he
had ordered the decree of the Constituent, which re-
mained posted up in the barracks, to be removed.
General St. Arnaud confessed that he had taken
this step. This avowal produced an immense sensa-
tion, and seemed on the point of turning the scale
against the government, when the leaders of the
Club of the I'yrumidcs assembled in a group,
and decided to make every possible effort
to throw out the bill, a result which the
schism between the members of the Moun-
tain seemed to render imminent. This consultation
was divisive, and to the exertions of de Broglie and
Monte!embed must be chiefly attributed the signal
victory of the government. The sitting broke up at
eight.
The only notable feature of the sitting of the As
sembly to-day was the refusal of the Left to take any
part in the debate on the conunnnal electoral law,
in accordance with the protest of the five democratic
members of the committee, that they held the com-
munal electoral law as perfectly distinct from the
SoME natural exaggeration there may have been in
political, and therefore abstained, because the majo-
the famous declaration of Lord Cube, that in all his rity wanted to make them one and the same. When
time ho never knew two questions made upon rights the debate opened on the order of the day the whole
'nerdy depending upon the common law, unperplexed Mountain rose en mane and walked out of the house.
by acts of parliament. But there are few who will The rejection of the Questors' Bill by a majority
not concur with the stern old judge in his fierce la- of 108, will be ranked, next to the law of May 31,
nsentations over the confusion introduced by injudi- as the most important vote of the Legislative As.
cams. unlearned, or unpractised legislation. In our aemblr ; and it certainly is not the least honourable.
days. likewise, it is no unfamiliar thing to see au Had thiers and his compeers gained the day, the
linglish court of justice disgraced by quirks and issue between monarchy and the republic would have
aulnleties, by doubts and niceties, and delays, which been brought to the decision of arms ; supposing,
owe their original directly to some newly passed act that is, that a successful coup eff,tat had not inter-
of parliament, all t' ovirkiden with provisions and vaned. It was said last night that the imminent
edddions, and many times on a sudden penned or prospect of the latter eventuality had no small weight
oorreeted by men of none or very little judgmeot in in determining the votes of the Club of the Py-
law." But, when Lord Colo: wrote, and Queen milkier. The debate was memorable as befitted
Ritz %atm was reigning. the legislative re- the occasion. For the first time the charm of M. ,
aidni of the most laborious and fruitful Thiers'o oratory was declined by an overpowering
session of Parliameut formed but a very incon- majority ; and that statesman, who never appears in
tiderable portion of one moderately sized volume of the tribune hut at the turning of some perilous crisis,
the statutes. Certainly the mischief has not re- to throw his weight. into the scale fraught with ruin
omitted stationary as the bulk of legislation has in- to France, was obliged this time to endure pee
creased. but has kept pace with the growth of the tiently the suppression of his pernicious eloquence.
statute-hook in at least an equal proportion. In their This defeat of a coalition of the old parties,
kn. iwledge of law—their vigour of thought —theirekill which embraces the most eminent men of
.in jurisprudence, the framers of modern acts of par- I the Assembly, is regarded already as an
lia.uent are to the full as deficient as their pro:laces- I errs, and the first deliberate step towards the conso-
mme of the Tudor times; whilst the difcdh of nuli-Ilidation of the Republic. The names of Thiers, Mole,
plying their deficiencies in these respects has boon B,reyer, de Tocqueville, Lamoriciere, Caraignac,
enhanced. in proportion as the blunders and are to be found in the minority. That of M. de
contradictions of the amateur legislation of I Broglie also appears on the same side unaccountably,
iu t ing period have added new in- I after having joined Muntalembert and Daru in a
trieuties and entanglements to the meshes I motion for rejecting the bill. Probably the vote of
of the law. The defevtive education of our the president of the Pyramids-Club was determined
mammas is as much a matter of reproach now as in t by the avowal of St. Arnaud that lie had caused the
the days when BLNICKSTONk: mildly told them so from ; decree of the convention tube removed, in ord..r to act
his chair at Oxford. Now as then, every manof ' consistently with the opinion as to its illegality ex-
superior fortune thiuks himself burn a lawmaker, , pymed in his letter to the committee. On '
and contemns the different opinion of Ti:m.Y. The the opposite side arc to be found Dart. Montslem-
scsenec of legislation continues to be the only one to ben, Leon Faucher, Baroche, Fould, Rouher, Ihueau,
which neither apprentic ship, nor course of 'reading, . jolfuotpouj, Dumas, Chasseleop Laubat, Buffet, and
nor method of instruction, nor practical experience, in general the men of the d'Hautpoul-Baroche and
ia divined necessary. Faucher-Baroche ministries, with the mass of the
The consequence is. that our acts of parliament are Poramids-Club, and the fractions of the Left, led by
multiplied, not only beyond all former precedent, but Michel de Beurges, Girardin, Pascal Duprat, Jules
-what is more serious —beyond all present mime Farm, and Cremieux. 'fne jaeobinical section of the
sun, and are also exceedingly There Mountain represented by Marc Dufmisse, and the
are a thousand eases in which the common law—if party of the AlX...nal by Charrass, voted in fa-
searched lute —would have afforded a much better re- Tour of the bill, and generally the moderate
inielyel the kind than that which it has been made the republicans of the Sleek, nusflicring about
toilainue drudgery of Parliament during an entire forty votes, under Cavaignac and Lainoriciere.
e.i,.11 to produce. Need we mention the Health of the tiers-ea/1n represented by de Tocqueville, Gus-
'fauns Acts, as instancroof measures—purely remedial tare do Ilcauinont, Dufaure,lledeau, de Corielle, the
—or the Ecelesiastimil 't itles Act - as an instance of regenlists by Tlikrs, Chambolle, de Reinusat, Jules
another kind? This substitution of statute foremost lasteyrie, the fusiouists by Mole, Vitet, Montebello,
nitMlaw,—of adencientforaperfectmachinery,—Moot Mouliu; the Berryer legitimists and the party of the
ooly objectionable in itselt; but it creates serious Wimp?. Pia/iris declared on the side of the qua-