The Express.
London, England, 1861-06-21 00:00:00

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LONDON, FRIDAY, JUNE 21.

TO OUR READER&

SPOOMINO IITELLIOIZSCR.

A late edition of the ErprrM is published every
evening during the racing season, containing the
results ut the day's mesa

No subject interested the French Chamber
during the late session in comparison with the reli-
gious, or rather the Roman, .mestion. Protection
uttered a few dying howls ; the liberty of the
press, the economy of expenditure, had each
their solitary champion, but scarcely excited a
debate. The budgets of the several departments
were very curs.mily despatched. One voice pro-
tested against the extravagame and unramonable-
nem of the military and naval estimates. Even
these were slipped through with a facility unknown
to our own House of Commons. The Commis-
sary of Marine, who sate to defend the budget
of his Department, declared, that with regard to
armaments, " he had dune his duty and had done
" no more—he had bye millions to spend, and he
" did so in the most effective manner." The only
fact that camo out, and was admitted on all sides,
was the extreme discontent which pervaded the
officers of the French navy, there being in that
service no chance or possibility of that advance-
ment which rendered service in the army so
popular.

There was one portion of the French Budget'
which, considering the interest taken in religious
affairs by the Legislature, we are somewhat sur-
prised to find did and provoke discussion—this
was the Budget of Public Instruction. None
were wont to excite keener debates. Nothing of
the kind took place this year, fur the plain reason,
that the champions of liberty knew that they would
not be listened to; whilst the partisans of the
Church and of ultra-religious influence have ovoid,-
thing they desire. A few complaints were made of
the insufficiency of funds allotted to the payment
of schoolmaster,, whilst not one word was said on
the subject of schoolmistresses. The truth is
that the French Government is pursuing what
must prove the meet suicidal of couizes ;
it is gradually committing the primary education
of the people, not merely to the clergy, but
to the monastic orders. This is already
accomplished in a great degree, so far as
the female population is concerned. Nuns,
or Sisters as they are called, have been intro-
duced into almost every French village, where
they soon supersede all primary schools for girls but
their own. They are the most ignorant of creature,
They read and write badly themselves, and have
no instruction to convey, save the most bigoted sal
stunted formularies of religion. Thus, whilst we
woman who has not taken vows is permitted to open
a school without undergoing a very difficult exami-
nation, nuns have full powers to open what are
the merest ignorance shops.
It is not so easy to accomplish a similar counter-
revolution in France with regard to males. For,
although the friars are increasing rapidly, even
against the express enactments of the law, they
have as tyet been allowed to seize no more than
certain professorships. Villagers would not yet
stand a friar as a village schoolmaster, though they
accept the Sisters as the village schoolmistresses.
But the good time is coming for the friars. M.
Leemie us LATERONS calculates that there are
quite as many monks in France at present as
before the Revolution, and more nuns than there
at that time ! The middle classes contemplate this
ecclesiastical tumour with a shrug of disgust, but
console themselves with the reflection that, after all,
monkery is better than communism. They forget
that one species of ignorance and error has always
a tendency to produce another of its own kind, even
in the way of antagonism, and that what is doing
in this respect in France is a vain endeavour to
enact the two last centuries over again.
The marvel is, that the Emperor NATOLION
should have imagined that he consolidated his
Government and dynasty by favouring this un-
necessary ascendancy of tho clergy ; or, rather,
the marvel is that, pursuing this policy at home,
he should have run in so signal a manner counter
to it in his invasion of Italy, and in the acts
which have followed it. His domestic opponents
have taken full advantage of the Emeseoe's
blunder. Whilst he has in his own despite ap-
peared the persecutor of the Church of Rome, not
only the Legitimists but the Grleaniat doctrinaires
have come forward as its champions. M. GUIZOT
himself has given a tear, • calculated tear, to the
Pure. IL L►vsaugs seeks to prove that the
clergy had not too much property in 1789. The
quondam liberals have not • word to say in favour
of freedom of education, once their great hobby.
The columns of their journals are as silent on the,
subject as the tribune of the Corps Ugislatif.
These circumstances are, however, not without
profitable results. They have convinced the Freest
Kw mem that the Church all constituted, taking lre
spirit from Rome, as Rome was constituted, are do
reverse of friendly to his dynasty and his system
The bishops have shown themselves not merely
Legitimist, but some of them thisenist, and the
entire clergy just as ready to fly in his face se If
he had been their foe and their persecutor. If
ever Rome and its clergy committed • blunder, it
was this. For never, in fact, had nionereh the
Papacy so completely in his power m now
bee N•rohr.ox the Tullio. He has not, indeed,
the power to crush or obliterate it. Any attempt