The Sun.
London, England, 1852-05-21 00:00:00

FRANCE.
The Presse, after quoting largely from the article
of M. Granier de Cassagnac, in the Constitutionnel,
against Generals Changarnier and de Lamoriciere,
says :—" What a number of avowals in those pas-
sages, and what lessons in those avowals ! After
such avowals, what value can the magnificent
sword presented to General Changarnier in 1849 be
said to possess ? After such avowals, what becomes
of the famous subscription proposed and accepted, on
condition that uo payment should exceed -20 f.? After
such avowals, what must be thought of such saviours
of society, of such palace-conspirators, so pit•
iless
however for all other conspirators, real or supposed ?
General Changarnier was long the hero, the beau-tdeal
of a certain portion of the Paris press. Well,then,
what do those journals now think of this heroi▪ c de-
ender of society, of order, and of the laws, whose fixed
dea was to seize on the dictatorship. Alas ! what would
he have done with it? Just the same as Gen. Cavaignac
did. Ask Gen. Lamoriciere, who was Minister of War
at the time. Yet that ex-Minister, he who was at
the head of the War department in June, 1848, is
now indignant that an officer's grade should be at the
mercy of arbitrary rule, and that neither persons nor
property are respected: In 1848, HI he respect
persons and property ? Did he respect persons
when he had thousands of men transported with-
out trial ? Did he respect property when he totally
disregarded establishments which it had taken long
years of stubborn labour to found ? Why then, and
on what grounds, should a military grade be less sub-
jut to arbitrary rule than a journal ?"
The Paris correspondent of the Indepenclanc.e of
Brussels says :—" To the names of M. de Pyroni and
M. Courtais, who have been amnestied, must now be
added that of M. Marc Dufraisse. He was ordered
to be exiled to Cayenne, by the decree
in London.
tne 9th
January, but is now living very quietly London.
The pardon of this ex-representative was accompanied
by romantic circumstances. In 1849 two persons
took the diligence from Perigueux to Paris. One
was M. Marc Dufraisse, who was returning from
the Council-General of the Dordogne, the other a
sons-chef of the Ministry of Public Works, M. G—.
They made acquaintance on the road, and on sepa-
rating, Dufraisse laughingly promised his travelling
companion, whose reactionary ideas had, he said,
caused him pain, that on the day of the Socialist
triumph, he would guarantee him his life and a
passport. And I,' replied M. G—, 'as a National
Guard of the 2d Legion, promise you that if I see
you behind a barricade, I will not fire on you.'
Events marched on. M. Dufraisse, who, by his
famous speech on regicide, acquired a good deal of
notoriety, became one of the chiefs of the Mountain.
G—, who, in addition to his humble functions
a t the Ministry, was secretary of M. de Morny, was,
in the morning of the 2d December summoned by
that statesman, and attached to the Ministry of the
Interior. He became chief of the censorship, and
one of the principal columns of the Administra-
tion. DI. G— remembered his companion of the di-
ligence, and he told the Minister the adventure of
1849. He demanded that the punishment should be
commuted, not for the sake of Dufraisse himself,
whose opinions he was far from sharing, but for the
honour of humanity and plighted faith. M. de
Horny understood this appeal, and M. Dufraisse,
after being provisionally detained in France, was
allowed to leave for England, The anecdote is
official."