The Express.
London, England, 1867-03-22 00:00:00

DRURY LANE.

Tins rasysnen, PATST. Mr. Phelps, Messrs. E. Phelps, F.
Hanby. Fitzjames, Harcourt. il'lntyre, Warner, and W. ilani-
son : Herman redn. Mrs. 11. Vanienhoff,tt Isabel Adams.
—And WANTED HUSBANDS YOR SIX. Miss Hudspeth.

MIL TIIIAIK ET.

Tau Evirmen. DAVID OAIIIIOE. Warm Boehm, Duck-
stone. Chippendale. linnets. Clot. : Mesdames Moore, Chip-
pendale. Ac —TIIE sKRIOUS IPASIILY. Mears. linekstooe,
Bowe, rtc.—And JENNY LIND AT LAST. Min Darks.

?ftIIICIIII,S.

TES I, IpS. HIS Lin LEG —Metre. Verner* Fenton:
lira B. White and Slim Wentworth.—And THE STREETS OF
LoNDON. Messrs. Vining. ►. Villiers. Shore,Calhaein,Forreater,
and Mallon ; Mm. 11. Marston, Misses Montagu and *Wien

STP.AND.

TRIM Er/IN INO luau P.D DAUGHTERS AND YOUNG HUS-
II A N DS. —ES NI ERA LOA ; OR, TIIE SENSATION GOAT. Messrs.
Th,,roe, Jam*, Robson, /MI Turner ; Mesdames Swanborough,
Hughes, Newton, Weathersby, dc.—And A SUIT OP TWYMYS.

HOLBORN.

THis ErKIM, MY TUBB NBZT. Yr. Betimes Mose
toot* and Leniaes.—And ILYLWG PA;UD. Maws Neville, Bel-
twee, Blake, Voltaire, &c. ; lieedlames ►. Josephs, C. ativradera.
liessle Foote. Fiddiss, Leaser, Raymond, Ike.

BBITANA'L►.

TUN 1VE111,141, TIM iiLllCl.ll—e—sara. Reynolds, Cranford,
and Einwinni: Mrs. Lane & Madames Edwin and Macarthr.—
After which TUE ViATERMAN. Mlle Father Jacobn—Tu con.
chide with Till LAST LL'4K OF LOVE. Miss S. Miles.

HIGH WAT AT LONDON BRIDOL

311. :Net.
T949oamoir—Mornlair. AL Attersoon, 4h. 13111.

LONDON, FRIDAY, MARCH 22.

Ir would be an injustice to the courageous Liberal
minority of the Corps Lecgialatif of France, and in
some degree to M. Revues as the organ of the Go-
vernment in that assembly, to take the brilliant
discursive speeches of M. THIERS as complete illus-
trations of French sentiment and French policy.
Undoubtedly M. Taigas may be regarded as a
personification of what was once the ruling pas-
sion of his countrymen, the passion for military
glory, for armed intervention, for an aggressive
and domineering diplomacy—in a word, for the
continental supremacy of France. No man, it is
true, was ever more French in temperament and
intellect than VOLTAIRS ; and VOLTAIRE, we know,
was never tired of laughing at the vaingloriousness
of his countrymen, and ridiculing the atrocious
folly of war. But VOLTAIRE was a philosopher,
and so was his intimate enemy, FREDERIC 11.,
who was fond of writing verses on the horrors of
campaigning and conquests. VOLTAIRE paid the
penalty of his good sense by living in exile. The
French people have always been enamoured of war,
and no wonder, considering the admirable soldiers
they make, but those who escape the conscription
are apt to be especially warlike in their tastes.
The poor peasants would rather stay at home and
wring a humble pittance from the land, but the
political and professional classes in Paris and the
large towns delight to draw the sword of
France, more or less figuratively, on the slightest
pretext. In the great debate which recalls the
best days of French parliamentary eloquence, this
inordinate, and to Englishmen almost incon-
ceivable, pretension of all parties in France to
regulate and determine the policy of other
great European States according to the exclusive
interest and convenience of France, has been
lamentably and, considering the condition of
public liberty in their own country, ludicrously
asserted by the leading orators of the Corps kfgia-
latif. It seems to be an ineradicable French
idea that France has only to frown and flourish
her sword to make every other European Power
tremble for its existence. One would suppose
that after the severe lessons of experience the
fancy that no Power would dare to fire a shot
without leave of France had subsided into
a more modest and more intelligent apprecia-
tion of the value of boasting, and the calm-
ness of conscious strength. In almost all
these liberal speeches, in many other res-
pects worthy of admiration, abounds the
idea that France, and France alone, has the
right to possess herself of strength and unity, and
that the unity of Germany or of Italy is an insult,
a menace, a danger to France. Let us note, how-
ever, the speech of M. GARNIER PAOREI as a noble
exception. He was a member of that much
abused Provisional Government of 1848 to which
history will do justice for the honesty and mode-
ration of its dealings at home and abroad, and he
emphatically protests against a policy of selfish
arrogance and envious provocation. So does
M. EMILE OLLIVIER ; but, unfortunately, with-
out the authority which belongs to a political
independence beyond suspicion. M. Rouliza,
as the spokesman of his Imperial master, repu-
diates by order the outworn policy of inter-
vention and dictation ; he declares that all that
has taken place in Italy and Germany was due to
natural causes, and that far from exciting the jea-
lousy or the apprehension of the Imperial Govern-
ment, it has been hailed as a consecration of that
principle of national sovereignty on which the
Second Empire reposes. M. ROCKER is one of
those facile declaimers who are never at a loss for
grand phrases and fine sentiments. He has a
plentiful supply of all aorta, and the Legislative
Corps may take its choice. He is as wise before
as after the event, only the wisdom is of a
different pattern when the Mexican expedition is
in full career and when the French army has
left MAXIMILIAN in the lurch at the outset of
the German war, when the EMPEROR is expecting
Prussia to be beaten and the Rhine to be the
prize of French mediation, and when the
battle of Sadowa has filled him with " patri-
" otic anguish," and Count BISMARCK, in reply
to M. Daours DE Lanus, regrets that he cannot
spare the smallest slice of German territory to the
saviour of Austria. When M. Taigas and M.
JULEs FAVRE expose with unanswerable force the
capricious, irresolute, and incoherent policy of a
personal Government, privately instigating the
Italian war in 1859, and halting suddenly at Villa-
franca ; privately instigating the German war in
1867, and publicly crying for peace after Sadowa ;
marching to Mexico to establish an Empire, and
marching out again to re-establish the Republic,
all impartial witnesses will acknowledge
the severe justice of the indictment ; but when M.
Ames Favite exclaims, " You might have pre-
" rented the alliance of Italy with Prussia," M.
ROCKER is justified in asking him how, if not by
an unwarrantable act of hostile intervention, or, in
plain words, by an act of war. And when M. Taigas