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

is fnm—the despot. In an aristocratic State seve-
ral or a great many, but all are not so altogether.
In a democratic State all might to he free, ond en-
joy the same liberty as the governing classes in
England.

The Article which led to the Suspension of
the " Courrier du Dimanche."

The whole town is talking of nothing snore card
neatly than about the famous article from the pen
of Alfred Asso!ant in the Courrier du Dlmanche,
which has brought down suspension on that weekly
organ of independence, and has so enhanced the sells
ing price of the last issued number that it cannot
he now procured. A brief summary of what thus
alarms our ant }Jollities may he acceptable :
Yes, this reign is a great one. We have planted
our tricolour at the four corners of the map. We
have rescued the circumcised and turbaned Tnrk
from the schismatic Muscovite ; snatched the 111 a..
ronite daughters of Lebanon from Turk and Druse ;
founded in Mexico an empire destined to last as
long as that in France ; we mount guard round the
Pope against his will and that of Italy ; we have
built a cathedral at Pekin, where your Chinaman
will be baptised some of these days ; we have put
our foot in all quarters—and, as far as that goes,
we area great nation !
Don't talk to me of 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'oscuro in all great pictures. What
about expense? Are we not rich enough, as Li<
mayrac tells Us, to
pay for our glory I' Can't a
body borrow on the security of the 88 departments,
besides the 89th (celui de la seine), though that bee
longs to Prefect Haussman e
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 Kam,
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 Office as much
as the keepers of every tobacco shop ; that 500,000
paid functionaries vote as one man for official cans
didates; that primary schools cost:but one-twentieth
of the sum wanted for soldiery; that every year ft
crop of 800,000 conscripts must be had to be drilled
in idleness or worse—all this is perhaps wanted that
we may be a great people. Aye, there's the 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 us take each of
those at its acme, and pit each with what we now
witness, also at its probably 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, and
would have swept it clean from "Alp to Adriatic"
had not General Bonaparte, violating the orders of
the Directory, handed over Venice to Austria. Our
nation had, after five years of civil war and foreign
aggression, become the true arbiter of the Conti-
nent. Our armies were commanded by Bonaparte,
Kleber, Massena, Desaix, Roche, and Joubert ; Car-
not was our War, Talleyrand our Foreign Minister.
Monge, Cuvier, Laplace, Lagrange, Volney, Ca-
banis, were at the Institute; Chateaubriand came
back from emigration with his genie du Chris.'
tianisme Benjamin Constant and de Stael added
impulse to the mental movement; art kept pace
with science ; Bor was it to the Directory that this
wondrous development was due (they were a lot of
nobodies), it was to the native energies of Franco
freely allowed to expand. 'Twas that the press and
the rostrum were equally unshackled, and every
citizen felt himself a component part and active pars
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
army, 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 son-in-law
to an Austrian Kaiser, put his brothers on thrones
in Spain, Holland, and Westphalia, gave Naples to
his brother-in-law, made his adopted son Viceroy of
Italy, his son Roi de Rome. Except the British
Press and Parliament, all was dumb before him.
His voice alone resounded through the Continental
desert. When he sneezed twenty kings were at
hand to cry," God bless him !" Was France great
ail the while P—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 war 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 parliamentism—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 our control can be of no avail ; hence
the distrust felt as much at home as abroad. Hence
England, in ironsclad panoply, rests on her rifle
within her island ; hence Prussia and the North
stand on the gui vive.
Is our Government even feared P Is the French
Empiro even a hobgoblin (crogue-mitaine), as of
old ? Not in the least. Gortschakoff deals with
Poland; von Bismark demolishes Denmark, in dea
fiance and disregard of what is thought in Paris ;
while we 'get Ring visitors from Madrid, Isith
embassies from Siam and the Tycoon.