The Sun.
London, England, 1852-10-13 00:00:00

THE FRENCH NAVY.

Rear-Admiral Berard died at Toulon, on the ith,
in his 56th year:after a long illness.
Orders have been given for the Gomer steamer,
and the Heron and the Narval, to leave Toulon fur
the Levant.

SPIRIT of the PUBLIC JOURNALS.

FROM THE MORNING PAPERS OF THIS DAY.

TlMES.—There is a limit to the powers, and even to
the ambition of man, which generally confines his atten-
tion to one thing at once, so that whatever minor affairs,
whatever distractions, or recreations, or subsidiary em-
ployment may occupy him for a while, he cannot be
really, to use an intelligible figure, hunting two foxes at
once. Now there aro two great objects which may very
naturally engage the attention of a man who, like Louis
Napoleon, finds himself in possession of all but absolute
power in a great and warlike nation. Ho may wish to
make that power quite absolute, hereditary, dignified
with sacred sanctions and high-sounding titles—in fact,
an empire; or ho may surrender himself to the military
genius of his nation, and seek to extend its boundaries,
to repair its reverses, or to acquire for it international
supremacy. These are wholly distinct objects, and no
man of the smallest discretion who had not tho-
roughly mastered one would put his hand to the
other, unless, indeed, as was the case at the begin-
ning of this century, conquest should happen to be
the only way to empire. The President's reply to
the President of the Chamber of Commerce at Bor-
deaux admits of the simplest interpretation, and
may be almost considered sincere. °Mat guietem Tan-
talus. No man has so good reason to wish for peace
at this moment as Louis Napoleon. Peace brings him
an easy triumph through the provinces which ho has
long claimed and never yet seen. He appears every-
where as the author of peace. That is the only victory
which can by any possible flattery be ascribed to him.
War would be a cloud on the fairest day that ever rose
on the dreams of selfishness. War would bring trouble,
reverses, expense, rivals, and risks of all kinds. Bur,
above all, " one thing at once." Be Emperor first, and
conqueror in duo time. Empire is actually offering
itself. It is possible that Louis XIV. and Napoleon
liked war for its own sake, and were ready to risk their
thrones for conquest and glory. There are men, too,
who like fighting as others like hunting, shooting, fish-
ing, and decoying. Bat Louis Napoleon's taste and
faculties are alike of the average order. He is seeking
empire, and apparently wilt grasp the glittering bauble
in a very few days. But " there is many a slip 'twixt
the cup and the lip," and he does not want war. In
this sense there can be no doubt that the empire is
peace. It is peace so long as it can only be obtained by
peace, and so long as the only motive for vesting empire
in the man who asks for it is the memory and the
suffering of civil disorders. France has just passed
through, if indeed it has passed through, a terrible
crisis. Various " families of Ideologists," demo-
cratic, socialist, legitimist, and imperial, have
struggled for the mastery, and, as usually
happens in an old nation, the imperial has
hitherto carried the day. Soon or late the army con-
quers a street mob, and an emperor, the creation of an
army, reaps the harvest of a :evolution. We know this
in England, and the great reason why Englishmen
won't have a democracy is, that beyond that democracy
they see a certain vision of cold-blooded despotism. The
Parisian mob is not so prudent; and they have brought
about a state of things so intolerably bad, that France
accepts a despotism as the lesser evil of the two. In
this conflict of " ideas" the Napoleonic have triumphed,
for the simple reason indicated by Louis Napoleon him-
self, that they are less of " ideas, and more an affair of
physical force, than the rival ideas. In a street row
the frightened do not run to a street orator for pro-
tection, or even to an archbishop, but to a policeman;
if the row becomes worse, they leave him for a soldier;
and so on till they find themselves behind camps and
fortifications. This is not a matter of moral prefe-
rence or deliberate choice, but of immediate necessity,
just as a man who is pursued by a bear will throw
himself into the sea, or, if his house is on fire, will
leap out of the window. France has jumped into
Louis Napoleon, and both are making the best of it;
indeed, they are quite right to do so. The act might
not be very glorious, and the refuge might not be much
more honourable than the meanest recesses to which the
pursued have sometimes betaken themselves; but the
only rule of these questions is necessity. Necessity
understands the proportion of the means to the end far
better than philosophy. In the fable the fox had a
thousand means of escape, and was afraid of no hounds.
The cat, on the contrary, confessed its terrors, for it had
only one resource. The hounds came; the cat ran up a
tree, and the fox, after much turning and winding, was
run into and killed. French philosophy is the fox that
exhibited so much superfluous and unprofitable wisdom.
The common sense of the French nation at large is the
oat that found a hole, no matter where, but it answered
the purpose. Louis Napoleon, however, has no sooner
heralded his triumph and his title to empire, than he
distrusts his own " peace." The idea must be sus-
tained. Brilliant as was the achievement of the 2d of
December, it was hardly sufficient for the founda-
tion of an eternal dynasty. A thousand years
hence Napoleon the Hundredth will hardly rest
the claims of his dynasty on the massacre of the Boule-
vards in 1851, or even the provincial tour of 1852. Long
ere that day comes something else will be required to
sustain the flagging loyalty of the people, now so dnxious
to escape from the stigma and perils of citizenship.
That something cannot be supplied by public buildings,
by lengthening fine streets, by rebuilding cathedrals, by
enlarging the circle of fortified towns, or by scraping
the outside and painting the inside of the Tuileries.
Architecture, upholstery, and the stage management of
an Imperial progress through well-prepared cities, can
only satisfy one phase of the national mind, and that
phase is but a short one. Louis admits the difficulty,
and glances at the conquests still in store for him, when
he has effected a safe return to the capital and tri-
umphed over the scruples of the Senate. He will still
have to conciliate factions, and to throw into the greata
current of public opinion the eddies and
i b
He
back
currents that now diminish and impede t.
will have to reclaim and elevate a depressed
population. He will eehave to enter on a vast
amount of material undertakings, railways, canals, roads,
ports, packets, and other utilities, in which Franco has
hitherto permitted herself to be beaten by this country.
But there are voids that cannot be filled up by mere
matter, and there aro cravings that rise about works of
undoubted usefulness. An army of half-a-million of
men will contain a large proportion of lofty and restless
spirits whose daily study and hourly meditation is on
the wars of the Republic, and the career of Napoleon
and,his Marshals, all of whom were once men like them-
selves. Their field, their talent% their hopes are in war.
The morality, the necessity, and the utility of war are
to them matters of utter indifference. All that they ask
is to be led against a foe. As far as they are concerned,
it is the duty of the Government to designate the capital
to be occupied, or the fortress to be taken, and it is their
place to do it. If there is to be no fighting they are
deprived of their due, and if they are not allowed
an opportunity of promotion, plunder, or prize-
money, they are disappointed Socialists, neglected in the
organization of labour. In the long list of public works
enumerated by the President there is not one that
would employ a musket or a sabre, unless indeed to keep
the labourers at their posts, or to collect tho new taxes,
this expenditure might entail. It may reasoneilice7
apprehended, therefore that after a few yearse
sant excavation, shipbuilding, housebuildink and bythe
taxa-
tion, the half million soldiers, backed
theypossibly are to do,
sympathy of the people, may ask what
and why work is not found for theflan opportunity,
as for the rest of
theta
the people. True, the,
but an opportunity will soon b
will
weai found in some one of
those petty misunderstandings which are sure to occur
every now and then between two great and jealous
Powers. The ardour with which the French nation
can enter into a race, whether for an Emperor
or peace or war, is singularly
exemplifieda
todayin
the proclamation of the Republic, for
Em-
pire by the Mayor of Sevres. In this blasphemous
document Louis Napoleon receives all the worship that
degenerate Rome lavished on its Cessars, and still more,
inasmuch as the titles, the attributes, and the very work
of the Saviour are all infamously parodied to describe
Louis Napoleons services to France, and the obligations
under which he has laid it. No one can read this paper,
the language of which is too abominable to be quoted
more than once in these columns, without a painful con-
viction of the excesses to which passion or interest will
hurry our neighbours. Whether turning, out and hunt-
ing down a constitutional sovereign, or cringing to an
unconstitutional despot, or fighting an army in the
streets, or clamouring for the conquest of a continent,
or for the supremacy of an ocean, they are still the same,
ever running into extremes, returning perhaps at last to
their senses, but only when they have reaped the bitter
fruits of their folly, and, unfortunately inflicted alt

equal shure of suffering on all the rest of the world
within their reach.

lIERALD.—The University of Oxford yesterday did
its best to supply the great vacuum caused by the death
e
spleen
f W e Wellington. oen. nv
yThhaast
hs eeae tn weaxsp he
ni gdhelny
icr
theetc d
c,
naliandnanmuchs nf
the Morning Chronicle, and other Tractarisn journals,
that it should be filled by the Earl of Derby. Any-
thing that man could do, they would have undertaken
to defeat the Premier. But the only thing that was
in
fea
ttehe i r
dt
hpowery
ews.a s tAo
nd startth a
tascoarnt d iodfa t ee
n, t
earnd be d
pr
se they
hee-
y
could not persuade themselves to enter on. A
foolish maundering was set up at last about
an alleged precipitancy." The Vice-Chancellor
showed that there had been none. The former
precedents of vacancies occurring in the long vaca-
tion made it clear that it had been usual to fill up
the chair in the following month. Four weeks elapsed
between the death of the late Chancellor and the elec-
tion of the present ono. In what other post, in Caurch
or Sate, would this be called precipitate ? But, if tho
truth must be told, this complaining of the Tractarians
is the sheerest hypocrisy. They have: exclaimed about
the indecknt haste of Lord Derby';; friends; but they
themselves were the first to commence ! They have
exclaimed against the insufficiency of Lord Derby's
pretensions; yet they themselves were anxious to pro-
pose a candidate, whew qualifications they dared not,
on redaction, bring into comparison with Lord Derby's.
In every possible way they have been beaten ; but, in-
stead of submitting with a good grace, they Ivep tip a
snarling and sneering noise, up to the very end of
the
chapter ! A more discreditable exhibition, on the
whole, we never yet saw made by any set of men what-
ever.

POST.—Among Englishmen of sufficient education to
read a newspaper, and of common sense enough to put
a plain meaning on simple facts, there has lone been but
one opinion as to the dishonest and disloyal course of
the Romish priesthood in their late, and still-continued,
attempts to increase their own power in this country--
by bitter hostility to the Established Church, by defi-
ance or evasion of the law, and by strenuous opposition
to all progress in enlightened opinion and true know-
ledge. In Ireland especially, where Rome had the
strongest material at hand, and the readiest tools to work
with, the dullest power of sight, and the laziest habits
of inference, must have had forced on them both the ob-
jects and the intentions of that desperate and
unscrupulous body which is, unhappily, so largely
represented in the present Parliament. The asso-
ciation, the professions, the appeals and the threats of
the friends of religious equality, as it is interpreted by
Rome and understood in Ireland, wore hardly
needed to show that the great Parliamentary effort of
the day was to bo the robbery of the Established
Church, and that no pains would be spared to organize
the burglary, and to secure efficient accomplices. The
speech of Mr. Bright at Belfast, which we lately
noticed, is only one of the signs of the utter want of
conscience or decent consistency by which the two chief
enemies of our Church are characterised. If Mr. Bright,
and " those who think with him," know anything at all,
they know that the power of the Church of Boma
cannot be put forward one hair's breadth without
forcing backward, in a tenfold degree, all that the
Progress Party—the self-styled Liberals—pretend such
anxiety to advance. If they can see anything at all,
they must see that the maintenance of priestly influence
involves the extinction of that free suffrage of the
people—that legitimate and open system of re-
presentation which they profess to long for
with such eagerness. Dr. M`lialo need hardly fear
Mr. Grote. The cunningest perfection of the ballot-
box would be but a flimsy screen between the votes of
the people and those keen eyes and bitter tongues which
watch and drive into the chosen path the harassed Sock
of Papacy. All this, and more, the so-called liberal
enemies of the Church of England know right well.
But they well know also that, without the Irish vote to
swell their numbers, they cannot show, on any one Ties-
Lion that can be raised, any but the weakest and moat
meagre front in the new House of Commons. Therefore,
if the Member for Manchester is to be accepted as the
mouthpiece of the party for which he speaks, they are
now driven, by their desperate condition, to confess their
readiness to sell, for the practical substantial price of a
few votes, all their fine-sounding professed principles of
progress in education, advancement in constitutional
liberty, true freedom in religious opinion. Against all
these things, in Ireland, and wherever its foot is set, the
Papacy has sworn with its whole faith, and will contend
with its full strength. It is easy, and may not be un-
profitable, to take by this standard the measure of the
honesty of Liberal professions, and of the uprightness
of Radical practice. If any one be found hardy
enough to deny how completely tho religious equality
of Romish priests and Irish members is in reality iden-
tified with religious tyranny, we would recommend to
his notice a singular correspondence which will be found
in another part of our paper, between Sir Culling Eard-
ley Eardley and Mr. Lucas, the member whom the
priesthood, assembled in council, commanded the people
of Meath to return as their representative. We do not
propose to discuss hero the system and the laws of the
wretched Government under which the Madiais have
been cruelly sentenced ; neither shall we examine the
propriety and advantage of such remonstrances with Fo-
reign Powers, on their internal arrangements and judi-
cial practice, as are projected by the body on whose part
Sir Culling Eardley has very fairly and logically invited
the co-operation of Mr. Lucas, as the foreman and agent
of the friends of religious equality. The act from which
these pour people are suffering is that of the Church which
is supreme over Tuscan imbecility, and whose supre-
macy, wherever it may he established, involves the
same degree of bigotry and oppression. Where that
most imperious and tyrannical of institutions has suc-
ceeded in shaping the judicial power to its bad ends, we
see how it deals with religious equality. It treats the
open profession of tenets differing from its own with
the strong and effective argument of denunciation as a
crime against the State, and stops the free progress of
adverse opinions by the short way of the prison or the
galleys. With us it happens that this cannot be done.
But let it not be forgotten that, whatever the Romish
Church can do to punish and torture all who would
struggle out of its fetters, it does as firmly and unscru-
pulously in Ireland as in Italy. It caunot obtain
sentence of imprisonment by law against those whom
it hates, for hearing and preaching what they firmly
and conscientiously believe; but it can and does pro-
nounce its own heavy sentence against them, not only
for religious but for political disobedience. By the
power which ignorance gives to the servants of
Rome, that Church can and does condemn its victims in
Ireland to moral tortures as heavy as man can bear.
The worst dungeon that can be the lot of the Madiais is
often, we fear, surpassed in protracted misery and horror
by the atmosphere of persecution with which a poor
wretch is surrounded, whose rashness in thinking and
acting for himself may have drawn down on him the
wrath of a Romish priest, thundered from the altar of an
Irish chapel. This Church, which so sternly and fiercely
punishes all attempts at proselytising within the sphere of
its own dominion, is, be it remembered, the most uncom-
promising, the most unwearied, the boldest, as well as
the most insidious of encroaching foes wherever the
dominion is with others, and its object is to proselytise
for itself. In this kingdom, where Roman Catholicism
is, thank heaven, so greatly in the minority, we know
and see daily how strenuously its ministers and emissa-
ries pursue the work which, where the Church has the
power, it visits with such cruel penalties—the extreme
of judicial persecution, where the Government and the
law are its slaves—the full weight of moral vengeance,
where a carefully maintained ignorance perpetuates the
servitude, and ensures the obedience of a wretched
people. It is by this priesthood that the Member for
Meath, and those who act with him, have been no-
minated. It is as the agents of a Church existing on
such practices that they are returned to Parliament, to
impose
recogniseo them
ef
harangue, intrigue, and bully for what they call reli-
gious equality. W
ecan
on
u s
as
Reformers,
m in
ne
ros ,other
s shall
kpancoiwtyt.hiaft httheeypretence try to
is as thin as the burglar's crape,
and shall be at no loss to say what lies under it. Let
them by all means combine with the Manchester school.
Let that body incur the last disgrace of uniting their
fervour for liberty of every kind with the friends and
servants of the bitterest and most absolute tyranny that
ever enslaved men's minds. Let this happy combina-
tion raise the cry of religious equality, and attempt, in
ever been
have
concert, the robbery of our Church; and, unless com-
mon sense and common justice have died away i
thno mos;
Eng-
land, we look to their bringing on themselves
signal exposure and utter disgrace that
justly inflicted on a wicked and
the
impudent sham. The
auccessfal exhibition
day has long been gone by for _
Romanism in Ireland,
of the rapacity and bigotry of
faith; and the
suffering
whom Mr. Brigyht la-
time is fast approaching when
school will be equally under the guise of opprehsesedalalinedsthe true objects and
ap
principles of the Manch
parent with those of t
anxious to

WATERLOO.--A lecture was delivered last evening
on this now doubly interesting s.ubiect, at the Commercial
Hall, Chelsea,
by Thomas Morris, late sergeant of the 2d
battalion of the 73d Regiment of Foot. As the lecturer had
himself taken an active part in this memorable engagement,
the various scenes and incidents of the day were described
with a vigour and truthfulness far surpassing the cool and
studied narrative of a mere historian. The lecturer gave a
sketch of the field of Waterloo, showing the exact position o f
the two armies at the commencement of the battle • he ex-
plained the mode of attack, and detailed the progress' of the
fight through all its eventful stages. The impetuous but in-
effectual charge of Cuirassiers on British squares—the attack
on Hougermont—the:conflict of heavy cavalry—the taking
of the farmhouse and partial success of the enemy— the
death of Picton—the slaughter of the imperial guards by the
British artillery, and the various events which conducted his
sanguinary drama to its close, were entered upon with a
spirit which could belong to none but an eye-witness of the
scene. The audience, which was both numerous and respect-
able, testified their interest and approval of the narrative by
repeated plaudits. The lecturer, Mr. Morris, is also, we un-
derstand, an author, and has recently published a small
work, entitled " Recollections of Military Service," which
abounds with stirring detail and interesting anecdote.—
Min* Journal, Saturday, Oct. 9.
DEATH FROM HYDROPHOBIA.—A most melancholy
circumstance occurred at the tollgate near Black-hill on
Wednesday last. About six or seven weeks ago Mrs.
Newton, who keeps the toll-gate, had her little grand-
daughter, a child five years of age, who was playing at her
door, bit by a hound-dog belonging to one of her neigh-
bours, which was in a rabid state. It was followed as far as
1 Annfield Plain by a number of men, who destroyed it, but
not before it had bitten several dogs on its way. The child
was bitten in the face and lip, which bled profusely. Medi-
' cal aid was obtained, and the child's face healed, no un-
pleasant symptoms occurring until Sunday, the 26th ult.,
when the child complained of her head ; through the course
of Monday she was thought to be a little better, but at night
she grew worse, On Tuesday two medical gentlemen at-
tended her, and continued to do so until her death, which
took place the following evening in great agony. An inquest
was held on Friday last on the body by Mr. Favell, when
the verdict was, "Died from hydrophobia, brought on from
the bite of adog."—Netecastls Chronicle.
Preliminary steps are being taken for the establish-
moat of a free palic library in AtitrYiebctin,