The Sun.
London, England, 1830-09-27 00:00:00

MONSIEUR JACQUES LAFITTE.

James Lufitte, the newly.elected President of the
French Chamber, of Deputies, was born at Bayonne,
in 1768, of humble parents, and, being destined for
cominercial pursuits, be went to Paris at an early
age., He was admittedinto
Perregaux, the bankers,in the capacity of books
the house of Messrs.
.
keeper; and, after some time, he became partner
with the son, on the death of the elder M. Per-
regaux. His diligence and abilities soon promoted
the prosperity of that flourishing concern, which
now ranks with the first banking-houses of the
capital, He was nominated, in 1813, Judge of the
Tribunal of CoMmerce at Paris; and, in April, 1814,
he was appointed Governor of the Bank of France,
by the .Provisional Government, in the room of M.
Jaubert, who had followed the Empress Maria
'Louisa to Blois, on the entering of the Allies into
France. He preserved this employment, without
any remuneration for his services, till 1820, when
he was removed by the Government of Louis
XVIII., in consequence of his being a friend of
liberty. In the month of May, 1815, he was
elected, by the mercantile interest of Paris, to
the Chamber of Representatives. On the second
capitulation of Paris, in July, 1815, when the
French Treasury was empty, and unable to furnish
the necessary advances for the subsistence of the
French army in its retreat beyond the Loire, the
most painful consequences were dreaded from the
non-fulfilment of the treaty, or the necessity of in.
juring public credit by drawing supplies from the
Bank. In this emergency M. Lafitte patriotically
advanced from his private fortune the sum of
84,000!., and placed it in the bends of the Minister
and thus saved the metropolis from exac-
tions and Spoliation. In January, 1816, :he made a
report on the Batik of France, remerkablelor its
perspicuity and precision, in which he ;proved that
n spite of the warfare, trouble, and confusion of
' 1815, the affairs of the Bank, though conducted in
a city which was the head-quarters of hostile armies,
were in u flourishing condition—its notes were pre.
ferred to gold—its aid was administered to the Qos
vernment—it discounted to the amount of 9,000,000/.,
land secured to the proprietors of its stock a divi-
dend of 6 2,sths per cent. M. Lafitte was after-
wards nominated to a commission in the Budget,
and by his flnaticial talents contributed essentially
to restore public credit in France; and in the
month of October, 1816, the Electoral College
of the dePertmoit of the Seine chose him for
their Representative in the Chamber of Deputies,
where his liberal principles were the greatest sup-
port of the cote gauche and of commerce. • Whilst
that, Legislative Body was occupied with important
discussions on the Revenue of France, M. Witte
displayed his fmanciel knowledge to the greatest
advantege, and might properly be styled the flume
of the French House of Commons. At the nOit
getieral election, in 1817, he shad a great mhioritY
in his favour, notwithstanding. the vast exertions
made by the Ministry to oust him, and to get a Re-
presentative of .their own party fur the capital, and

PRICE 7D.

has ever since held a sent in the Chamber. During
the election of July last he was returned again as
their Member, notwithstanding all the influence of
the Polignae Administration was aimed against all
thoie Deputies who voted in the majority on the
Budget question. Though a man of immense
wealth, he is a warm friend to the principles of
liberty and the freedom of the Press, which he most
strenuously advocated in the Chamber, and showed
the impolicy of the censorship in a free and com-
mercial country as one of the most tyrannical
weapons Ministers could hold, He was one of the
first to protest against the Royal (or imbecile) or-
dinance of July last, which caused the downfall of
Charles X. and his oppressive Ministers. On the
meeting of the Chamber after the accession of Louis
Philippe 1. to the, throne, and the restoration of
tranquillity, M. Lafitte was elected President of that
legislat►ve body, and is considered the great support
of the liberal and commercial interests in France.

is daughter is married to the Prince of Moskwa,
eldest son of the ill-fated Marshal Ney, who was
shot at Paris on the 7th D. cember, 1815, conform-
able to the rtoyal ordininie of Louis XVIII., on
his restoration to the throne. -

M. Latta was banker to the late Emperor Na-
poleon, who at his death, at St. Helena, May 6,
1821, bequeathed a large sum of money, stated to
have been phiced in his hands, to procure drafts on
America, but which were never presented. These
legacies he r"fused to pay, and the subject is now
before the Tribunal; the result is looked to with
the greatest interest in France.

REPORT OF Al. BERENOER,
SECRETARY of the COMMISSION appointed for the
ACCUSATION of the MINISTERS.

The Commission you have appointed to examine
the proposal of accusation egainst the Ex•Miuisters
who had signed the ordinances of the 25th of July
last, have given to that task all the attention which
was claimed by a subject to which the thoughts of
so many are directed.
At the moment of entering into that career which
the charter opens for you to obtain the repression of
acts which have so gravely compromised our social
order, it wus right that you should wish that a reli-
gious observance of judicial analogies should be
united to the elevated views of policy, in the exer-
cise of a right which springs forth froM the bosom of
our institutions.

That wish imposed upon your Commission duties
of which it has understood all the extent. The
members of it have felt that yon invested them with
a . magistracy whose impartiality ought to be its
principal character.
It was to be worthy of that trust that at first they
rest.lved to request of yett to delegate to thorn a
part of your powers: those powers were necessary
to them, as . much perhaps to legalise the 'deteotien
of those of the late Ministers who had been arrested
on public clamour, as to fix, by the concurrence of
their declarations with the affidavits, the true point
of view under which the accusation ought to be
considered.
An instruction has .therefore been commenced :
four of the ex-Ministers, detained at Tours and at
St. Lo have been transferred to Vinceenes, in con-
sequence of modals dimmer issued by your Com-
mission, They have been. examined itnmediately,
andimmediately those 'wold, have been changed,
into modals de deptit ; witnesses have been heard.
The different Government -offices have been re-
quested to furnish those documents which might
form the elements of the accusation; those docu-
ments have been carefully examined., Everywhere
he orders and tulndats of your Commission, exe-
cuted by the officers of the Chamber, have been
readily obeyed.
This preliminary instruction, which fixes and
sanctions your rights, has had another object in view,
—the want to enlighten you, and to furnish the ac-
cused with all the latitude of defence which they
have a right to claim. •
However, the documents obtained from the seve-
rid Governmerit pffices are but seamy: it is certain
that at the moment of the catastrophe, the most
important of them have been destroyed, so that still
a veil covers the greatest part of those schemes, the
development of which Was to 'ensure the execution
of the fatal ordinances.

But taking those orditumees in the reference they
bear to each other, it has bacome impossible for
your Commission to look upon them as a single ac-
cident, that is to say, as an isolated feet, sprung
from temporary circumstances, end without con-
nexion with the past.
Your Commission hsve therefore examined that
past, and we have acquired the sad certainty that the
Ordinances of the 25th July were the completion of
a plan which the Crown meditated to execute many
years
It would be with reluctance, however, that your
Commission would trace as fur back as the Prince,
author of the Charter, the conception of such a
plan. hardly seated again upon the throne of his
ancestors, Louis XVIII. was able to appreciate the
projects of his courtiers, and those of the members
of his, family; such they were when et the begin-
ning or our revolution they had left France : such
were they also when he returned with them from
their 'emigration.
That long exile in a foreign land, those days of
adversity which for so many would have become
the matter of useful lessons, had been fruitless for
them, Louis XVIII. struggled hard against their
exigencies; ho did it sometimes with success, but
much oftener without it.

By the side of his Government were formed
other councils, the action of which was impercep-
tibly felt in all the branches of the administration,
and which paralysed its motions : ulready one could
perceive two Governments in the State.
The o'd age of.. Louis XVHL submitted to the
sad influence of those councils: under his reign
began that ministry of six years, the mission of
which seems to have been to accomplish the counter-
revolution t under his reign, and perhaps in spite
of him, Spain saw a French army smother her as-
pirations after liberty, and the celebrated qrdinance
annulled defacto at the moment of its publication.
At the death of that Monarch, the projects
sketched under his reign began to be exectited.
The new King hastened to satisfy the clergy by
means of the law on sacrilege, the emigrants by
means of the law on the indemnity he tried to
abolish the liberty of the Press by means of a prtdei
de loi, which raised against the Ministry, which wa,
the author of it, such just outcries; he endeavoured
to 'enslave that profession tyhiclr Is the mast awful
to mankind, by another projei de tof on the medical
juries and the schoole of Medicine; he tritidib pre-
pare the minds of men for the' suppression of the
jury, in proposing that suppression for the clinics
of barratry and piracy.
In that chamber, however, where the Ministry
had secured so many tools, was forming an.opposi-
tion, which, warmly seconded by public opinion,
began to cause herself to be feared. •
Threatened with the loss of the majority in the
Chambers' the Government' boldly resolved to'con-
colleges : they hoped,
efyriolaik e
Aimii
tlosnu:tra:4levi
obhich 4111 right-minded mfyritedvrimeoretbiarrtaneolsaAe stoleifeerutdetrti
urns;
and it is thus that On gave rise to that universal
forth
same time, and in
against theM.
Chamber of Peers, they tilled it with their crea.