The Sun.
London, England, 1852-01-27 00:00:00

TUESDAY EVENING, JANUARY 27, 1852.

the faintest murmur of our reprobation be heard in
the streets of Paris? If there are Napoleonist ideas,
there are also Briti:h ideas. Louis Napoleon in-
dustriously aud pointedly reverts to the status
quo of 1814, desires France to forget every-
thing that has happened in the intetval,
and, his uncle having committed a murder, demands to
rifle the pockets of the slain. That status quo was one
of aggression against the whole world, and it is vain to
deny—we wish it could be denied—that aggression has
actually begun. These six weeks have already reduced
Belgium to dependence. The Belgian Minister receives
Imperial missive?, and French police agents actually
keep watch within sight of the Royal and Legislative
palaces of Brussels. Why are we to wait till we are
touched ourselves? It Is of small avail to do so. Sir
Francis believes in developments; so do we. He says
that self-government invariably leads to despotism. We
say that political despotism invariably leads to inter-
national aggression. No absolute monarch in France
ever was content with France, or even contented him-
self with extra-European conquests. By speaking out
in time, and by showing that the lessons of history are
not thrown away upon us, we may possibly avert the
natural consequences of the French usurpation. By
holding our tongues, we should be both hastening and
deserving those consequences.
We are no great admirers of a Republican Govern-
ment, but, as the Example of the United States suffi-
ciently proves, we have more affinity with it than with
despotism. The descendants of Englishmen may be-
come citizens, but they will never become slaves. Self-
government, which Sir Francis considers so fatal to
order, entering largely into our own institutions, we
have every reason to feel more indulgent, or rather to
show more respect for the Government of February,
1848, than for that of December, 1851, for the former,
in fact, with all its faults, was much more like our own.
But, if the Republic has failed, whose fault is it?
Sir Francis says, " Only two months ago there
existed between the French and British people
the most friendly relations." Under what form of
government was that ? He speaks of the miser-
able results of that sel;-government which,
since 1848, has been afflicting and desolating
"all classes of the community." What conseq,et,ces
does he speak O? On the whole, France has effected a
censideraele improvement on the state into which, in
the first instance, the revolution had plunged her. The
chief disquietudes of the last twelve months, the decline
of public confidence, and the mutual suspicion of classes,
have arisen, not from the Republican part of the Go-
vernment, but from the notorious intrigues of Louis
Napoleon to overthrow that part, and to do, in fact,
what he has done. To compare the troubles of the
Republic with the tranquillity of the despotism is, in
truth, only to compare Louis Napoleon with himself—
to compare the struggle fur power with the acquisition
of power. But the respect with which, as Sir Francis
says, we have ever treated the Republic, shows that we
have no disposition to " insult" the French people. At
this moment we do not believe them to be free agents,
and therefore we put them out of the question alto-
gether. As for our insults to the army, considering
that if one musket is fired in our streets the whole me-
tropolis rings with it for a century after, and it is re-
cordedin monuments and stigmatized by anniversaries,
the French army must not take it amiss if we cannot
appreciate the massacres of the Boulevards. In this re-
spect we must own to a natural difference of tastes. As
for our insults to the clergy, considering that the
Church of France claims to be also the Church of Eng-
land, and at least one Parisian journal enters into our
theological controversies with the most delightful free-
dom of remark and the most amiable indifference to
English sympathies, civil as well as spiritual, we really
think that it is no great impertinence on our part to
notice the, significant interchange of civilities and pledges
between the high-minded clergy and the pious Prince
President of France.