The Express.
London, England, 1867-02-14 00:00:00

PRINCKIIB%.

_ .....
Till Evslrnro, lIIS LEt.IS. Meson. Verner& Fenton;
Mrs. It. What, and Miss Wentworth.—And sIIAL/OW TREE
SHAFT. Messrs. Vining, Fhore, Verner, F. VllUen, Forrester,
Mellon, and Cathcart: Misses Montagu, Edmonds, sod Ralgera.

LI CCUM.

Tim !Trims, THE Tc11117;117.1. Mr. WEEMcorab.—And
ROUGE ET NOIIL Messrs. Pechter, Emery, ('owner, Moreland,
Yitztiatrt k. OJ4m, Reynol Is, bona., Andrews, Price, Ac.:
Mrs. L Murray, and Mimes Heurade, :rattan, and C. Lecleivq.

STRAND.

Tun Brunie, n BOIT ii.742-titter which will be produced
a Grand Burlesque, GUY FAWKEi.—And A EXIT OF
TWPIEWS.

ROLBORN.

Tan ZVZIFINO, MY Ti:RI7IIIEKT. Mr. Ulmer*: Mimes
Foote and Lennox.—And YLYINO SCUD. Mews. Neville, Bel-
more. Blake, Yolleiro, rte. ; limdames F. Jueepbs, C. Saunden,
Beale Foote. Mae, Lennox, Raymond, dr.

I!!!ITAjf!iTA,

.. _ ..
Ted ETIMNO, THE PRINCILIS or THE PEARL ISLAND:
OR, THE THREE KINODoMS Or PEARL, GOLD, AND
SILVER. Miss Jsooba—First•ntte Pautowimista. —And TUE
RETURN OF THE WANDERER.

HIGH WATER AT LONDON BRIDGE.

Tin DST —Morning, Oft. l'en Afternoon, OiL MIL
TO-ft,fttitorr—Yorniug, 101 l 3,101 Afternoon. llb. Um.

LONDON, THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 14.

A imosr every journal printed out of France has
published a letter purporting to be addressed by the
Count ne CHAMBORD to one of his devoted adhe-
rents, General Ds Sr. PRIEST, on the condition, the
policy, and the prospects of France, which, natu-
rally enough, the Royal correspondent found to be
all equallyunsatisfactory under the existing
The letter, ostensibly written to the loyal legiti-
mist friend, was obviously a manifesto to the
French nation, or, at least, to all who would take
the trouble to read it in the spirit of its author.
For the rest, it was very much what a Pretender's
letter should be—full of chivalrous disqui.t and
pathetic resignation, of self (lei otion and self-
denial, of idle tears and wild regrets, of exalted
hopes and abundant promises, wanting only the
possibility of fulfilment. It was not very difficult
for Count as CHAMBORD to pick holes in the lm-
perish purple ; represent Catholic France as
ashamed of the desertion ..f the Huta( FATHER ;
military France as wounded by the Prussian con-
quests ; diplomatic France as irritated at the
creation of Italian unity and the consolidation of
German power ; liberal France as pining for the
most necessary liberties, and chafing wider arbi-
trary and irresponsible government. No one
would expect the Count De CHAMBORD tO take up
his pen in this solemn and deliberate fashion for
the purpose of persuading the French people to
accept the Second Empire as the best of all possible
governments, or of suggesting that, after all, the
principle of hereditary monarchy might perhaps
be more fitly represented by a Sovereign in pos-
session of a throne, and with a son to succeed him,
than by a childlesa Prince in exile, though descended
from ST. Loots. Obviously the Count DIS CHAM-
BORD would not have been duns Ant ;tile in cele-
brating, in the dithyrambic style of the e'unatite-
Gomm,' and the Pont,, the splendour and mag-
nificence of the Second Empire in all its acts and
in all its works—in the reconciliation of the Court
of Rome with modern civilization in Italy, in the
settlement of Poland with Vie tacit assent of
French diplomacy, in the perfect restoration of
order and tranquillity at home, in the increasing
development of credit and commerce, in
the transformation of Paris by the
daring genius of Baron HAI'eMANN and an
administrative Conan issMn placed beyond the reach
of the vulgar impatience of taxpayers. Such was
not the theme of the Count Pe CHAMB:JIRD'S letter.
Why should he come forth from his retreat to tell
Frenchmen what the ConstatiCee,af and the Pays
are telling them with equal if not superior autho-
rity every day 'I No doubt there was something
strange and unaccustomed in the tone of this letter
from Frohsdorf, something that may well have
jarred upon the cars of official directors of public
opinion. HENRY V. had apparently been study-
ing the " Ideas" of another eminent State pri-
soner, who, by a marvellous destiny, has lived to
prove in his own person how much easier it is
for a theorist in prison or in exile to be a wise
and temperate ruler of a tree and happy people
than for a ruler to act up to the principles of a
Pretender. The Prisoner of Ham was an un-
sparing title in the press of the Government of
Louis Pet LIPPF, Malt has never been supposed that
the lucubration' of the Prisoner of Ham destroyed
the Monarchy of Jnly. Prince LOUIS NAPOLEON
BONAPARTE was wont to complain of the absence of
public liberties under the July Monarchy—to com-
plain publicly, though anonymously, week after
week ; but seeing that he has not enlarged those
liberties since he was able to do so, he can hardly
now believe that Louts PHILIPPE was wrong in not
assenting to them. Perhaps hu thinks that unfor-
tunate King was very wrong in letting the com-
plaints of a Pretender be published. But there
are Pret•nders and Pretenders. A Pretender who
appeals io the suffrages of ten millions of people
against r. dynasty founded on Vie majority of a
Chamber of Deputies elected by a very limited
constant :icy, is a very different adversary front a
Pretend. r who appeals from aGevernment founded
upon tin will of an entire people to a dynasty
thrice rt audiated by the nation, a dynasty without
a succeto on, a dynasty with no other definite policy
than the preservation of the temporal power of the
POPE and a war to prevent the unity of Germany.
Who w0..1d not have believed that a government
based upon the national will, and strong in the
confident affection of a whole people, would
eagerly 1_ .ve the widest publicity to such a mani-
festo as t.tis last from Frohsdorf to the Royal Fau-
bourg? Mere was one point, and one only, which
could lets l some slight significance to a letter from
the Coup' DE CHAMBORD, and of this there was
not a sign. Had HENRY V., a childless King,
announc,.l the reconciliation of the two families
of the i:oyal House, and the adoption of the
Count 0.. PARIS as his successor, it is conceivable
that son,t• too zealous or too timid councillor of
the Em...acoa might desire to conceal that an-
nouncem-i.t from the tickle eyes of the French
bourgeoioe; impracticable as in these days of uni-
versal ai..l instantaneous publicity any attempt at
wholesale suppression must be. But we are
bound t. confess, that under no circumstances
could vr. have been prepared for such an exhibi-
tion of refrant weakness and violence combined in
a Cover "lent reported to be the strongest in Eu-
rope, aft. ! fifteen years of secure sapremacy,within

a week. after the sudden abdicationbythe Sovereign
f extraordinary and arbitrary powers, and on
the eve of the meeting of a Legislative Assembly
to which the right of interpellations and the pri-
vilege of speaking from a Tribune have been re-
stored—as a Circular from the Posrmaarza-Git-
s ERA:. instructing every postmaster throughout
the empire to search and detain all covered papers
( including, it should seem, all private letters) dile,
~ Th. of containing the manifesto of the Count oz
C H vas )itti. With what degree of confidence can the
Legislature or the nation hail the promised crown-
ing of the edifice, if one of the most arbitrary and
violent outrages upon personal liberty that the most
revolutionaryand lawlesaGovernment can commitis
to decorate the cornice of this Temple of Liberty?
Perhaps the dishonour of such an order as this
may appear to be redeemed, and the mischief of
it alleviated, by its unblushing publicity. Every
sincere well-wisher to the Imperial Government
must acknowledge that with whatever reserve and
discretion it maybe obeyed—and we doubt not that
the POATITASTER-GENERAL means it to be obeyed
with the utmost moderation—it cannot fail to be
attended with the most intolerable abuses. No act
of arbitrary power creates and justifies so
much public indignation and bitter shame as
the violation of the secresy of private letters.
The beat that can be said for it is that it is
one of the misfortunes to which personal govern-
ment is exposed by the frantic servility of sub-
ordinates, whose zeal in the service of a pre-
sumed omnipotence nothing loss than omnipresence
and omniscience in the Chief of the State would
suffice to keep always within due bounds.

OUR CONTEMPORARIES.
(THIS DAY.)