The Express.
London, England, 1859-09-16 00:00:00

M. LEDRU ROLLIN AND THE IMPERIAL

AMNESTY.

TO TIM IDITOI OF 1111 EILPIT.BIS.
- _ _

Sia,--When I first received the Intelligence of an
amnesty saythonghtigonmerahreted the murderous
climates of Guiana and Africa, that will only retain
too many tombs already, and I exelalmed," At last !"
and I rejoiced sincerely.
Then I said to myself that for a great party there
is something less sterile than mental indignation and

Why, then, renounce ourselves these deeds, this
activity, whenever they may prove possible ?
Banished without right, recalled without right,
through mere force, every one of us, in my opinion,
had to ask himself this question : Am I likely to
set more usefully, to serve our cause better, if, In-
stead of protesting, I put at once to profit an exist-
big fact, or at least reserve to myself the faculty of
benefiting by it, at my own day and hour, according
to the offerings of chance ?
Such was, to my understanding, the most practi-
cal, sionaequently the most political, conduct to be
kept ; and therefore I did not protest myself—there.
fore my advice went to not protesting, whenever,
from the various regions of the proscription, my
friends did me the honour to ask for it.

Withal, as far as I am personally concerned, I
followed apparently a right inspiration. It so
happens that any end ail protestations at my hands
would have proved not only inopportune but even
ridiculous; inasmuch as the threshold of Franco, re-
opened to all, yes to remain closed •to me, the
government declaring that I am not comprised in
the amnesty.
Not, however, that I am excluded nominally—
that would bare been an appeal to public qmpathy.
I am thrown out without noise, jtiaitically, by
means of one of those unexpected distinctions which
Tartuffe might have envied. I sm limply refried to
be considered as a political convict—l am but a com-
mon murderer. 0 hypocrites:
If the shift is, on the face of it, too clumsy to
deceive a single individual, at least it reveals one
odium character more of that prosecution in contuma-
cious got up against me some two years ago, and
the r( al meaning of which, at the time, appeared to
many people unaccountable. Why, they ask, con-
demn him twice to the same punishment
In fact, it was not intended to have me condemned
more amply, bat under a different head, in order,
first, to deprive me, if possible, of every right of
refuge, and, at all events, to exclude me, without
even mentioning my name, from a general amnesty,
sooner or later unavoidable.

I will not revert to that legal enormity ; public
feeling has condemned it. What could it avai ',indeed,
to mention again, to the lasting confusion of the
French courts of justice, that a man whom I never
saw, a man whose name I was Ignorant of, • man
who himself was never able to articulate my own
name, having declared he thought he had seen me
at • certain place whence I departed without even
pronouncing a single word—that was deemed suffi-
cient to strike me as one of his ace= Hoes ? True,
for this service he was soon afterwards pardoned.
Once more, it would be useless to insist any longer
upon that grotesque and wretched sham, in which
nobody ever believed, not even the British cabinet of
the time. Certee, they seemed readily dispireed to
hand me over. We were at that moment yet in the
happiest days of concessions end the alliance. Ne-
vertheless' they have since publicly recognised,
through Lord Clarendon's mouth, that the allegations
brought against me were of such a futile nature that
extradition could not bat be at once refused.
Bach are the fundamental facts of the case.

As to its formal character in point of law, I was
arraigned for a plot (complot), tending to a feloriori
attempt (ottestat) against the chief of the state.
Now, under the French law, a plot (complut)
means necessarily a politics! offence.
An attentat likewise implies of necessity a political
crime, both words being specially introduced, in
legal parlance, in order to better designate a crime of
an exceptional and public character.
It is Bien only by dint of the most forced, the most
outrageously impudent of all imaginable political
fictions, that such an offence (ottmatal) was raised in
the scale of penalties to the height of parricide.
[The man of the 2nd of December a father of his
subjects !] Ah, forsooth, it is not nature, it ;.1 poli-
tic alone that is capable of indulging in such
monstrous assimilations.

Let me add, in hoe, that deportation, the very
punishment indicted on me, is a penalty excluaively
political.
Therefore, accusation and penalty clearly charac-
terising the offence, such a crime, in supposing it had
ever existed in substanoe, never was, never could be,
anything else but a political crime.
I challenge any and all French lawyers to deny
the strictness of this conclusion, without even ex-
oepting such as have, through their baseness, now
disgraced that respectable title—a Dapin,a Baroohe,
or a Traplong.
Now, the fraud being unveiled, what remains in
reality ? Two political enemies, face to face, the one
of whom thinks it useful to isit the other with
ostracism.

Well and good. Bat is not this hatred so grossly
enraged against one man somewhat curled away,
and wanting in cleverness?
He that proclaims himself noskakeably enthroned,
who has the audacity of hewing out of granite and
porphyry the long lice of his dynasty's mausoleum,
be, above all, who pretends to making Europe trem-
ble before him, does be play a clever game in ap-
pearing to tremble himself before the sound of a
name? Public opinion will decide.
As for me, but for the powerlessness to which I
am reduced in serving the case of liberty, I have
no occasion to complain of this new blow. lam
served the same policy I applied myself to Mr.
Bonaparte, with this difference, however, that I
acted openly, frankly, without organising falsehood
as a system, and setting to work the moat perfidious
machinations.

Minister of the Interior, I ordered the body of Mr.
Bonaparte, yet an outlaw, to be *sized ;
Member of the provisional government, I voted
against repealing the laws that banished his family;
Member of the executive commission, I was en-
trusted with supporting, in parliament, the preserva-
tion of those laws.

And I did fulfil this task with eagerness, be-
come I felt it was necessary to shelter the masses
against their own mistaken impressions ; because I
foresaw the people, scarcely emancipated, would,
under the deluding charm of tradition, soon be re-
plunged into the servitude of the first Empire.
History will tell whether I was wrong.
One thing, at any rate, I am forthwith entitled to
affirm, as being manifestly evidenced: If Air. Bona-
parte had been far away from France—if all hope
of returning had been closed to him for ever—he
would neither have had the leisure nor the means of
preparing, in concert with the reactionary party,
thoee bloody and nefarious days of Juno, 1848, that
entombed the republic.
If, for evil and tyranny, this strength has con-
sisted in acting slowly, patiently, but inoessaotly,
aby then should we, who have public welfare and
the triumph of liberty in view, deprive ourselves of
the means of acting?
Let us not forget that every republican who re-
turns to France without having degraded himself*
in spits of all, a light-lipreading focus and a soldier
ready for the coming day.—l am, &c.,
Sept. 14. LEDRU ROLLIN.

Toe Levant Herald of the 7th says Ws hays
beard, with a regret which Is shared in by all who know him,
of the Intended apostacy of an accomplished and hitherto
respectable physician of oar c Anotualtj—well known at
OrtakieuL The credits:As rarity with which inch defections
take plats amortise Englishmen nukes ibis unhappy ars all
the more to be lamented, and we should rejoice if any public
appeal that we amid rinks to the judgment and salt respect
of the gentleman concerned were et all more successful than
ths rational asposinlationa of his many privet* friends.
Wilfred the remotest with to narrow the limits of a religious
• we confess to so nu cc want of faith in, or respect
foe aay renegade whatever—be ha Christian or Turk; bat
mar negative a:street of ainverta genteelly dies Into indig.
neat contempt when the crowed motives of the person am
low pera.nal aggrandisement. To suck admitted Inducement
his idle to add Use penance of 'reface, conviction,' io which
the veriest bigot to Stamboul would sot for one moment
believe."