The Sun.
London, England, 1864-08-30 00:00:00

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The Article rhich led tr •
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dole w lea zo the .Suspension of
the " Courrier du DimaLueb.e."

PRICF ...4d.
STAMPED ....sd.

The whole town is talking of nothing more ear•
nestly than about the famous article from the pen
of Alfred Asso!ant in the Courrter du Dimanche,
which has brought down suspension on that weekly
organ of independence, and has so enhanced the sell,
ing price of the lset issued number that it cannot
be now procured. A brief summary of what thus
alarms our authorities may he acceptable :
Yt!s, this reign is agr eat one. We have planted
our tricolour at the four corners of the map. l'ire
have rescued the circume'sed and turbaned 'Turk
from the schismatic Muscovite; snatched the Ma•
ronite daughters of Lebanon from Turk and Druse ;
founded in Mexico an enopt-e destined to last as
long as that in France ; we miunt guard round the
Pope against his will and that of Italy ; we have
built a cathedral at Pekin, where your Chinaman
will bs baptised some of these days; we have put
our foot in all quarters—and, as far as that goes,
we are a great nation !
Don't talk to me cf what all this has cost in cash
or conscripts; you say 200,000 Frenchmen fell in
the field or died in hospital. I'm sorry for it—
there is chiar'oseure in all great pictures. What
about expense?
Are we not rich enough, as Li.
mayrac tells ~
us, to pay for our glory ? Can't a
body borrow on the security of the 88 departments,besides the 89th (,alai de la Seine), though that ba,
longs to Prefect Hausman ?
Hence both I and nine millions of my fellow
electors believe firmly that France has but to lift
her little finger to overawe
Europe as far as Ram,
skatka, and that von Bismark thinks so too.
It is true that since Feb. 17, 1852, our printing
press is in the grip of Government ; that editors and
managers are nominees of the Home Ornce as much,
as the keepers of every tobacco shop ; that 500,00 0
paid functionaries vote as one man for °Mow ca D.,
didates; that primary schools cost:but one-twentifth
of the sum wanted for soldiery; that every scar a
crop of 800,000 conscripts must be had to be dr_
in idleness or worse—all this is perhaps want ed that
we may be a great people. Aye, there's tlat3 rub ;
but let us see.

From 1792 to 1852 we have had five distinct
forms of rule—twice a republic, once an empire,
and two successive kingships. Let ns take each of
those at its acme, and pit each with what vve now
witness, also at its prob%bly highest pinnacle at the
present hour.

In 1797, after Campo Formio, France had en-
larged its old boundary with Belgium, all the left
bank of the Rhine, comprised Holland, freed Italy,.
founded the Cisalpine and Ligurian republics, an(i
would have swept it clean from " Alp to Adriatic."
had not General Bonaparte, violating the orders cf
the Directory, handed over Venice to Austria. O'ir
nation had, after five years of civil war and foreign
aggression, become the true arbiter of the Conti-
neat. Our armies were commanded by Benape rte,
Kleber, Massena, D esaix, Hoche, and Joubert ; Car-
net was our War, Talleyrand our Foreign Minister.
Monge, Caviar, Laplace, Lagrange, Volneyr, Ca-
banis, were at the Institute ; Chateaubriand came
back from emigration with his genie du Chris.
tianisnze ; Benjamin Constant and de Steel added
impulse to the mental movement; art kept pace
with science ; nor was it to the Directory that this
wondrous development was due (they were a lot of
nobodies), it was to the native energies of France
freely allowed to expand. 'Twas that the press and
the rostrum were equally unshackled, and every-
citizen felt himself a component part and active paos
ticipator in the general grandeur,
What was the case after a lapse of 15 years ?
In 1810 there was a single man erect amid the
general prostration ; he had genius, a prodigious
envy, a budget thrice as heavy as that of the Res
public; he held garrison at Hamburg and at, Seville,
shook hands with a Russian Czar, was so re-in-law
to an Austrian Kaiser, put his brothers on thrones
in Spain, Holland, and Westphalia, gave N Spies to
his brother-in-law, made his adopted son Vi ceroy of
Italy, his son Poi de Rome. Except the British
Press and Parliament, all was dumb befeare him.
His voice alone resounded through the Continental
descrt. When h 3 sneezed twenty kings 'were at
hand to cry," Gad bless him !" Was .Fratrce great
all the while ?—not a bit of it.

The conscript crop was cut twice in each. year ;
two thirds of all French families were in mourning ;
taxation crushed the country in spite of ws..r con-
tributions levied remorselessly elsewhere ; our
young men were tracked by gendarmes in the forests
in an effort to escape from the ranks; all colonial
produce was denied our homesteads ; every prefect
was a sovereign satrap, every journalist had a police
inspector at his elbow ; folks interchanged their
thoughts in a whisper ; the Corps Legislatif was
mute ; the Senate servile ; in a few years the whole
structure crumbled to earth; all was hollow, all
was rotten.

With these memories before them, our State
oracles denounce parliatnentism—that is to say they
want to revive the old danger and degradation of
France. They don't want their acts discussed: we
are to learn what has been done in the name of the
country when oar control can be of no avail ; hence
the distrust felt as much at home as abroad. Hence
England, in ironiclad panoply, rests on her riffs
within her island ; hence Prussia and the North
stand on the qui vine.
Is oar Government even feared ? Is the French
Empire even a hobgoblin (croque-mitaine), as of
old ? Nut in the least. Gortschakoff deals with
Poland ; von Bismark demolishes Denmark, in de.
fiance and disregard of what is thought in Paris ;
while we get King visitors from Madrid, with
embassies from Siam and the Tycoon.