The Express.
London, England, 1867-06-28 00:00:00

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DRITRY LANK.
THIS isuurnwo. THAT RASCAL JACK. Mews. /tome and
Neville : Mesdames AlJayne and Thompeos.—To conclude with
THE GREAT CITY. Meant Cowper, M'lntyre. Villiers. Irving,
Roma, Iltsjames, & Warner , Mesdames Robseleon & Le There.

HAYMARKET.
A WILD DOOM Hewn. &Ahern, Enekstone,
Hoye, itedees, Gordon. de.: Mesdames Bark.. Chippendale,
Dalton, Wright, 4.e. —DOE AND OWL. Moen. Butiotone and
Compton.—And FISH OUT OF MATHR. Mr. Compton, dn.

FEMME
Tnia Evsiona, TRITE TO THE CORY. Mew& Crondck, IT
Marston, H. Forrester, It. F. Edgar, &e.: %Ihe O. rauncetort
and >t W Nell? Moora.—Doon open M balt•paat seven com-
mence at eight.

T is IMMO, OUR DOMESTRTILAND.ICS —PYGMALION OR, THE
RTATUR VAIL Messrs. Thome, Junta, Re. ; Mesdames Swan-
=l& EXHIB Kariba:a,
lON Harlasal, Johnston., and Holt—And THE
IT.

parnurriruk.
Tffr, trrnmoo, 111 E HALLINASLOE ROY; OR, THE FOR.
TOERN OF AN IRISH PV.ASAN r. —Mr. 0. !Suasion*; bir. and
Mrs. M•lisfile ; Messrs. El ilJebesnd and 9renni4e —rewinding
with YLLEN AND SUSAN. Mr..). B. Howe & Miss 8. Mlles.

HIGH WATER. AT LONDON BUDGE.
TV S Day —Morning. 10h. ..Aftdreoes.lolh. 6.7 m
to-liOnow—lforztlag, Db. 24m......AJtcesioas, ILL Wm.

LONDON, FRIDAY, JUNE 28.

JUST before the Conference of London, when
war between France and Prussia seemed immi-
nent, a mot ran the round of the Parisian salons,
and it was attributed to M. THIESS. If the emi-
nent Minister of the Monarchy of July was not
the author of it, he deserved to be. It was cer-
tainly not unworthy of his wit. Some one, it
was said, had asked M. THIERS what he would do
in such a crisis if he were in power. " Send
" Prince NAPOLEON to London to bring back the
" ashes of Louis PHILIPPE," was the reply. We
have no reason to doubt the authenticity of this
bitter and incisive epigram. At all events, it
seems to have made its fortune in France.
Already it has been taken up in sober earnest,
and actually embodied in a solemn petition to
the French Senate by five members of the French
bar, learned gentlemen of independent opinions, and
not attached to the Orleanist party. M. Teresa'
mot was pregnant with comparisons and contrasts,
and ominously suggestive of reminiscences and
warnings. The Monarchy of July was incessant'y
accused by its opponents in the Chambers and
the press, and by none more powerfully than by
the present Emperor of the FRENCH, of the pro-
strate weakness of its foreign policy. But what
of the foreign policy which had culminated in the
desertion of the great enterprise of the Mexican
Empire, and in the secret purchase of Luxemburg
by way of a set off to Sadowa ; in the bargain
with M. DE BISMARCK at Biarritz, and the
" patriotic anguish " at Prussian victories ? It
was the error and the misfortune of the
Monarchy of July, while honestly profaning and
pursuing a peaceful policy, to seek a spu-
rious popularity in an unnatural alliance
with Napoleon ism ; in stimulating but not satisfy-
ing that idolatrous passion for military glory, which
it was perhaps reserved for the Second Empire to
extinguish in disappointment and disgust. One
cannot read the accounts of that voyage of tie
Belle Poole from St. Helena to France with the
ashes of the EMPRROR on board, when the gallant
Prince in command of the frigate was told tha.
war with England was expected, and prepared
to make a fight for his precious charge; of that
magnificent but inauspicious ceremonial of the
passage of the catafalque to the Invalids.—
without a melancholy smile at the irony of fame
and fortune. What a Sic cos non :obis / The son
of Louis Piimirri doing homage to the founder
of the First and of the Second Empire 1
But if the Monarchy of July was destined to be
pierced by the sword it had sharpened, and to fall at
the bath of the statue it had set up, assuredly,
those democrats and republicans who leagued
with the Bonapartist& against a government that
gave them only peace and constitutional liberty
have long since repented in dust and ashes of that
fatal alliance, and have lived to wish in vain that
they had never made a god of the EMPEROR who
became so good a liberal when he had ceased to
govern, and to sigh for a right of public meeting
as under M. Guizor, and the Press Laws of Sep-
tember as under M. Teresa.
The present petitioners to the Senate have in
the innocence of their intentions done the simplest
justice to Loves PHILIPPE, in sentences which read
like a satire on the Imperial successes. If he whose
government was so weak compared with that which
rests upon the suffrage of ten millionsof Frenchmen,
" did not fear during his reign to send one of his
" sons to bring back the remains of the Emperor
" Narotron 1." from St. Helena, how, it will occur
involuntary to those who read this petition to ask,
can NAPOLEON 111., whose government is so strong,
fear to send his cousin across the Straits of Dover
to bring back the remains of a King whose memory
in France has no other prestige than that of mis-
fortune, and whose dynasty has not even a
party in France it can call its own t No doubt
among the Imperial Senators to whom this
petition is addressed, there are men who
swore allegiance and fidelity to that King ;
but there are others in that august and devoted
assembly who can afford to be more generous to
his remains. It has been objected to the petition
that it only states three distinct claims of Louts
Blinders upon the gratitude of France; and that
these claims are rather prejudicial than tavourable
to the object of the petitioners. He made Algeria
(which the Restoration had occupied) a French
territory ; and Algeria, it is said, is a ruinous
province. Then why does the Second Empire
retain it t The Monarchy of July completed
and consolidated the conquest which the
Restoration had begun. The eons of Louis
PHILIPPA fought for France in Algeria ; if during
sixteen years' comparatively undisturbed posses-
sion of the results of that conquest the Second
Empire has not succeeded in converting a military
occupation into a colonial society, who is to
blame t Not, perhaps, the Second Empire but
certainly not Louis PHILIPP*. France owes to
the Monarchy of July an excellent law on primary ,
instruction. But, sixteen years after the esta-
blishment of the Second Errnire, it is found that
twenty-seven per cent. of the conscripts can
neither read nor write. Is this the fault of thelaw on
primary instruction, or of the Government wl•ich
has made no better use of it 1 Compare the

' number of years between the passing of that law
and the fall of the Monarchy of July with the
present duration of the Second Empire, and divide
the blame in fair proportions. To Louts
PHILIPPS'S government France owes a large system
of public by-roads. But this system is still noto-
riously incomplete after sixteen years of a Govern-
ment whose proudest boast is " public works." Is
Louts Ppitarra to be blamed for all he was
not spared to accomplish ? But the petitioners
do not confine themselves to the mention of throe
good acts of Louis PHILIPPE'S government only.
"During the eighteen years that his reign lasted
"he secured to France the blessings of peace."
" He managed the public fortnue with the strictest
" economy." Are these insignificant titles to the
gratitude of a country! Let the survivors of that
epoch, who have lived to enjoy the wars and expe-
ditions, and benefits of the Second Empire, learn
to be grateful for smaller mercies. The petitioners
say nothing of the railway system, which dates
from LOUIE PHILIPPE'S reign, nor of his great and
well-considered, though comparatively tmcostly
public works, and restorations of palaces and other
historic monuments. But they are justified in
reminding the Senators that Louis PHILIPPE fought
in his youth in the armies of the Revolution and
the Republic before France had succumbed to the
genius and the ambition of a soldier who was a
Frenchman by adoption and by conquest, for
whose grandeur and glory two gendixtions of
Frenchmen perished in their rime, and the roe-
mory of whose calamities was destined to be as
noxious to an after time as his principles to
his own.