The Express.
London, England, 1861-12-27 00:00:00

IT._#AIIEM

TMS IFst7w. A WOMAN MILANI'S
AND AN ORo IDA: or. The 3hMI and the Monster.
Mews. V. Matthews. Istbstore, sod Sabin, Wilke. Het beet,
A. Terry. —And THIfDUAtINNO AC 110111.--Cuaamt uce at h.

111217A/1111A.
Twn Itemnya, The rastawimr. THE NINO lor THE
1 k Dr. I law* Ileum A. &why. J. Lam* Newham.
the 4 h.ntn lie KanMy.DAY.. C. lhaphas. Yrs. W. Crawford
%a.' /. LEAII3 I LCD ONL—Commammo la.

MOM WATIIII AT LAMM, BRUM.
111611 e...— Attensoon. eft 50Ii.
licwasasow-INulm IQ. Ms..— Monaca, UL Yom.

LONDON, FRIDAY, DEC. 27.

Tut Lest wary of Opposition journals in France
has been betrayed into comments which have drawn
down upon its head a " first warning" from the
Minister of the Interior. Had the substance of
its observations been packed up less neatly
than in the portable shape of an mot, they might
possibly have escaped the sinister notice of the
political police. But Imperialism in the hours of
its coquetries with Constitutionalism is peculiarly
susceptible to the arrows of wit. The Ju.trnal
Alai. is the most discreet organ of disaffec-
tion that wee ever known. Its criticisms on
Napoleonic policy are like iced wine, so cool when
tasted that one doss not at once perceive how much
liquid tire they really contain. It is the well-bred
way of the Jennie! des /Mails, hardly ever to
deign to be point-blank or palpable in its purport
to careless readers, though its reactionary purpose
and undying resentment against the 'occasion of
the House of I)ftLicass, are plain enough to than
who are most concerned.

For once, however, the temptation of a happy
phrase has proved too strong for its habitual
continence, and it has committed the strange
indecency of laying bare a political truth.
It might have dallied with the drapery of the
Imperial system without official rebuke, and in-
sinuated any variety of possible or impossible ble-
mishes with impunity, so long as it was easy to
deny the justice of the imputations, or to set people
debating whether they were true or not. But
to say compendiously and caustically that it is the
present EllrEitoK who keeps the Empire together,
not the strength or greatness of the Empire that
sustains him in his high place of power, this is
an allegation which even M. Priem:for cannot
afford tope's over—it is so true. For what does
it amount tot Let us rather ask—what does it
otif amount to 1 There is no rude protest against
things as they are ; no unwillingness to acknow-
ledge merits and designs to do better. The writer of
the offending article reviews calmly the fretful play
of factions about the advances of Imperialism
towards the adoption of Parliamentary forms of
government, and seems to be almost inclined to
sympathise with its hindrances and difficulties in
trying to come out of itself, and to be something
better than the doubtful heir of the former empire,
or the offspring of the cualictitei. His tone is con-
temptuous towards " the indit:erentists" who look
on unmoved, contumelious towards " the MI-
" patients" who want to have a whole consti-
tutional regime restored at once, and almost com-
passionate towards " the credulous and amiable "
believers in official promises, that the to-morrow
of concession will be even u yesterday, and yet
more abundant. Its only harsh words are spoken
in rebuke of the ultraimperialists, who hamper
the progress their master would make in the right
direction, and whose selfish contentment with
what they have enjoyed for ten years makes them
selfishly fearful of any change, which, though it
might suit the country better, might not
answer for them so well. All this sounds plea-
sant and almost loyal. But then comes
the ameri 4:liquid. With an ineffable air of supe-
riority to the paltry passions and perversities of
the hour, the writer lets fall, as if involuntarily,
the little catch-words —" it is the Emerson.
" who sustains the empire, not the empire the
" Ewritaiiii." Every merrymaker in tho balls of
Imperialism flushes with anger or turns deadly
pale at the ominous words, which, harmless as
they look to us at a distance, are taken to mean
a menace and a warning of Lability and of
revolutions to come, too distressing to think of.
Freely translated by the hopes and terrors of men
as they are oppositely moved, it bears the too
obvious implication that the present phase of poli-
tical society in France is not merely, or in the
ordinary sense, one of transition, but that its
duration depends upon the breath of a single
man ; that if it serves to familiarize
men's minthi once more with Parlianientaiy forms,
the worshippers in secret of the yet unrisen sun of
constitutional monarchy ought rather to be glad
than sorry• ; and that should the obstructions
which now hinder improvement prove too
strong for the temporizing tendencies of their
master, they will nevertheless be easily brushed
aside like so many rootless brambles the day
after he ceases to protect them. No molder, then,
that the whole official and semiofficial world of
Imperialism is cut to the heart by words like
these. Letter accuse them one and all of cor-
ruption, cruelty, incapacity—everything nameable
or unnameable in the shape of political or social
crime, than thus in broad noontide to dig their
graves and that of the whole system wherein
alone the> have a place. Swirr tells of a man
who was made so ill by pertinacious repetitions
of the assertion that ho was dead, that
the wretched fellow actually died of them at last.
Nobody suspects MM. Teorisisi. or De Moamv of
any such weakness. Life, as the lot has fallen to
them, is far too pleasant an affair to leave them
leisure for fatal chagrin at ill-natured anticipative
rehearsals of their political funerals. But around
and about them are an unsatisfied crowd whose
fort I mpertalissn has not yet made, and an-
other !unhand° whose fortunes it has only half
made. With what feelings must these regard the
utterance of antithetical prophecies like these of
M. ST. Mean OIRAYADIM t How urgently will
they not seek to impress upon the MINIATER of
the INTOKnoIt that before all things he must
stifle such forebodings while there is time.
Life in the palace, as elsewhere, hangs on
a frail and inscrutable thread. What chance
can there be for the stability of Im-
perialism in France, after its author, or repub-
holier in its present shape, is called away, if the
conminaity shall, beforehand, be accustomed to
hear it said that on his individual genital and
skill it depends for existence even now' It is
not for us to speculate on contingencies that may
be retook.. Our function is to deal with the
realities and reasons of the day. At no period of