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

THE YEENCH NAVY.

Rear-Admiral Berard died at Toulon, on the lib,
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 for
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 effairs,
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 are 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. He may wish to
make that power quite absolute, hereditary, dignified
with sacred sanctions and high-sounding titles—in fact,
an empire; or he 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
way be almost considered sincere. Optat quietem 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 ho 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. But,
above all, " one thing at once." Bo Emperor first, and
conqueror in due 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 or the average order. lie is seeking
empire, and apparently will grasp the glittering bauble
in a very few days. Bat " there is many a slip 'twixt
the cup and the lip," and ho dues 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 end 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 revolution. 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 aro 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
cat 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 anxious
to escape from the stigma and perils of citizenship.
That something cannot be supplied by public buildings,
by lengthening tine 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
as Imperial progress through well-prepared cities, can
only satisfy ono 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 great
current of public opinion the eddies and back
currents that now diminish and impede it. He
n wants a vast
roads,has
will have to reclaim and elevate a depressed
population. He will , have to enter
amount of material undertakings, railways, canals,
ports, packets, and other utilities, in whichh
hitherto permitted herself to be beaten by t cbountry.
But there are voids that cannot be filled up
y mere
matter, and there are cravings that rise about works of
undoubted usefulness. An army of half-a-million of
yar meeerdiotiatNaionpoils Napoleon
on
n
men will contain a largo proportion of lofty and restless
spirits whose daily study and hourel
the wars of tho Republic, and the
IdTYlietineenitgeirasmesetninrgef Foot. As
and.his Marshals, all of whom were once men like them-
selves. Their field, their talentti; their hopes are in war.
The morality, the necessity, and the utility of war are
thethe Commercial
it lecture. was delivered earted last evening
late sergeant of the 2d
to them matters of utter indifference. All that they ask WATERLOO —A
As far as they are concerned, on this now &hub.
is to be led against a foe. Morris,
it is the duty of the Government to designate the capital Hall, Chelsea. Y
to be occupied, or the fortress to be taken, and it is their battalion of the
an active part in this
place to do it. If there is to be no fighting they aro himself.taksenit
scenes and incidents of the memorable engagement,
deprived of their due, and if they aro not allowed tbehvaarvioiugour
and truthfulness far
day were described
an opportunity of promotion, plunder, or prize- studied narrative of a mere historian. surpassing The the cool and
money, they are disappointed Socialists, neglected in the sketch of the field of Waterloo, showing the exact
turer gave a
organization of labour. In the long list of public works the two armies at the commencement of the battle; he
o f
enumerated by the President there is not one that plained the mode of attack, and detailed theprogress; ofthex-
would employ a musket or a sabre indeed
, unless to keep
flght through all its eventful stages. The
impetuous
impetuous but in-
thef ctual charge of `, • •
labourers at their posts, or to collect the new taxes eolnelfougermont Cairassiers on British squares—the attack
this expenditure might entail. It may reasonably b© of the farmhous—thelconflict of heavy cavalry—the taking
apprehended, therefore that after a few years of inces-
death of Picton farmhouse
partial success of the enemy—the
sant excavation, shipbuilding,t housebuilding, and taxa- British artillery, e slaughter of the imperial guards by the
lion, the half million soldiers, backed possibly by the sanguinary
and the. various events which conducted) his
to do, •drama to its close, were entered upon with a
sympathy of the people, may ask what they are spirit which could
he rest of Ibelong to none but an eye-witness of the
and why work is not found for them as for the rest 1 scene. The
opportunity, 1 audience, which was both numerous and respect-
the people. True, they will wait for an ; able, testified their interest and approval of the narrative by
but an opportunity will soon be found in eseumreetooonce of repeated plaudits. The lecturer, Mr. Morris, is also, we an-
thosey petty misunderstandings which aret n _
_cur , derstand, an author, and has recently published a small
every now and then between two grea_ a d_ jealous I work, entitled " Recollections of Military Service," which
Powers. The ardour with which the French nation I abounds with stirring detail and interesting anecdote.—
can enter into a race, whether for an Emperor I Xining Journal, Saturday, Oct. 9.
or a Republic, for peace or war, is singularly DEATH FROM HTDROPHOBIA.—A most melancholy
; the proclamation of the Em- circumstance occurred at the tollgate near Black-hill on
exemplified to-day -n -
In this
blasphemous
Wednesday last. About six or seven weeks ago Mrs.
. by the Mayor of Sevres:
all
Aire
document Louis Napoleon receives the worship that , Newton, who keeps the toll-gate, had her little grand-
on its Caesars, and still more daughter, a child five years of age, who was playing at her
degenerate Rome lavished
~ ;
the attributes, and door, bit by a hound-dog belonging to one of her neigh-
inasmuch as the titles, the very work I
e all infamously parodied
of the Saviour aro
I Annield Plain by a number of men, who destroyed it, but
Louis Napoleon's services to France, and the obligations ! not before it had bitten several dogs on its way. The hild
under which he has laid it. No one can read this paper, I was bitten in the face and lip, which bled profusely. Medi-
the iang„ge of which is too abominable to be quoted 1 cal aid was obtained, and the child's face healed, no un-
more than once in these columns, without a painful con- j pleasant symptoms occurring until Sunday, the 26th ult.,
victim of the excesses to which passion or interest will' when the child complained of tier head; through the course
hurry our neighbours. Whether turning out and hunt- of Monday she was thought to be a little better, but at night
ing down a constitutional sovereign, or cringing to an ! she grew worse. On Tuesday two medical gentlemen at-
unconstitutional despot, or fighting an army in the tended her, and continued to do so until her death, which
streets, or clamouring for the conquest of to continent, ' took place the following evening in great agony. An inquest
was held on Friday Dist i on the body body by r.M Favell, when
or for the supremacy of an ocean, they are still the same, the verdict was, ..Died from ydrophobia, brought on from
ever running into extrsmee, returning perhaps at last to the bite of a dog. y Chronicle.
their senses, but only when they have reaped the bitter
fruits of their lolly, and, unfortunately inflicted WI Preliminary steps are being taken for the establish-
ment of a free Public library M Merylebone.