The Express.
London, England, 1858-12-24 00:00:00

TIDE RIF

impie sinfeemit et tine of three Mama facts Ohl&
tell far mere then the meet brilliant declamation.
" He knewpsenenally," be mid, "e(s 'see in width
" a seam bad been sentenced by his judges to fifteen
0, dap' ingiriesnemed, and the Miniumr of the lute.
e, rim and arbitrarily endorsed upon it, toe years'
• ireseperhdien." We commend that little anecdote
of the Empire to the special consideration of its tato-
gists on this side the ChanneL With regard to the
refusal of the pardon. apart tram its legal
justification, M. HEART= espported it by
two illustrious precedents. CATAIGNAC had
refired a pardon offered to him in an " ambiguous
" maser i• the Prisoner of Ham, to whom a pardon
wee offered by Lorne Puturrs in 1844, had
eaneed to be printed, freely printed, in • Paris
piper of the day, that "it was not an act of
" clemency, but an insult, and that he rejected it."
This recoilestioa of 14 years back most have been
signally *alias to the Imperial pardoner ; and
meet have semnerhnt effectually " shut up" the
comma for the prosecution.
The melt of them magnificent exertions of
feeeneic ability and forensic courage wee a complete
messes. The only portion of the original sentence
oboe t which M. DS MONTALLM E lir or lite advisers felt

disked concern was reversed. The Judges of the Court
of Correctional Appeals found it utterly impossible
to hold that the law of July, 1849, applied to the

ones of M. Di MOSTALMERET. So int& of the
sentemse as proceeded on the third count of the
indictment has been accordingly gunshot and
M. Di MOVTAILIMEEIT ia utterly and entirely freed
by the legal judgment of a court of justioe, and not
by the doubtful seamy of • pardon, which was
rather an set of insult than an act of grew, from
the terrible penalties of the Law of Public Safety.
This is • triumph, and is universally felt to
be so. M. DE MONTALIMBEWei object has
beim achieved. The 1201. fine and the three
months' imprisonment are a bagatelle. He has
delivered himself from the power of an Executive
that, by • stroke of the pen, can convert a sentence
of fifteen days' imprisonment into one of ten years,

banishment. He has aliened for Frenchmen the
right of publicly expressing admiration of free in-
stitutions without neossearily exposing themselves 1'
to Umbers and Ceyenne. He has done more than
this. He has given a decided check to the Govern
tent which has so obstinately committed itself to
• proceeding in which every fresh step has been a
fresh blunder. Such, in the eyes of Europe, will be
scan of the consequences of that " false move " which
English journalists have not been ashamed to de-
Bounce as proceeding from • vulgar last of notoriety.
It is deeply to be regretted that such taunts should
have been heard in a land whose liberties hare been
to so great an extent built up by the dogged and
inflexible maintenance of private right against
public oppression. Lee Li Di MOSTALEMBILILT be
consoled ; the great body of thinking Englishmen do
not participate in them saws ; they honour the
persistency with which this eminent Frenchmen hoe
asserted his rights, they rejoice in the mosses with
which his efforts have ham rewarded, and as to the
masers, they sorely regard them as a handful of
Anent wits, to whom the occasional defence of public
virtue is, as Mahar DI BTAISL once phrased it.
" a liberal avirmeat"