The Sun.
London, England, 1863-12-28 00:00:00

SCHARF'S CORRESPONDENCE,

PRINCE CZARTORYSKI TO M. DUPIN.
PARIS, Dec. 26.
The Opinion Nationale of the 25th publishes the
following letter from Prince Czartoryski to Senator
Dupin, in reply to certain parts of the latter's
speech on the Address :

PARIS, Dec. 21.
Monsieur le Senateur,—l have read with all the
attention it merits the speech you made in the
Senate during the debate on the Address. I could
not but be profoundly touched by the terms in
which you were good enough to speak of my late
father and of my family, but I do not the less think
myseif bound to protest against certain assertions
in your speech which attack the two things that we
dearest to me in this world—truth and my country.
You have called to mind, Mr. Senator, the 15th
May, 1848, and you believed you rememoered that
on that ill-omened day, and at the door of the in-
vaded National Assembiy " was a group of Poles.
Behold," you say, " how our sympathies were re-
warded.' But you cannot be ignorant, Mr. Senator
—and my learned and honourable friend, M.
Wolowski, has just cited the fact—that after the
day of 15th May there was an investigation and a
trial at Bourges. Well, in this trial no Pole was
found implicated; no Polish name has even been
uttered.

I am much astonished to have to recall to an
Attorney-General of such recognised merit a solemn
judgment of a French court of justice. Han
anarchical party, without conscience or scrupulous-
ness, was ahle at that time to abase the name of
Poland to attaiu a perverse end, I did not expect 15
years later to see this abuse do service in an argu-
ment in a calm and deliberate discussion.

You have also, Mr. Senator, enumerated with a
particularity too forgetful, perhaps, of true charity,
the pecuniary aid which the French Government
accorded to the wrecks of the Polish army of 1831.
That army, perhaps, hindered at the time a coali•
tion which was about to be formed against France.
The battle of Grochow and Ostrolenka contributed
at all events to the strengthening of a dynasty
which you served and supported ; so much at least
was affirmed in the Chambers over which you pre-
sided with so much brilliancy.
Permit me to remind you that there was likewise
at the end of the last century a numerous French
emigration to Poland. Of these refugees from re-
volutionary France we did not ask their opinions;
in the greeting we gave them considerations of poli-
tical interest played no part. We have never drawn
up the statistics of our hospitality ; but I can assure
you, Mr. Senator, without fear of being contra-
dicted, that the generosity of Poland at that time,t
of Poland already in misfortune and captive, was
not less than the liberality of France at the present
moment.

I pass over in silence many other allegations 0
your speech, those for example on feudalism in
Poland; on our situation in 1812, &c., which all
6,1 to prove one thin;r, namely, that your nume-
rous and honourable occupations have not left you
the necessary leisure to study the present condition
or the past history of my country. But it is im-
possible for me to omit quoting the assertion that
" The Poles, as their history shows, were dread-
fully intolerant towards the other sects, and
patronised only the Jews."
It is not only to the Jews, Mr. Senator, that Poland
has of old served as a refuge; it did not less greet
the victims of the other religious persecutions, the
Hnssites, the Huguenots, the Protestants of different
nations and different religious epochs. The great
law of our Diet of 1572 solemnly proclaimed the
civil equality of all Christian confessions, without
any distinction.

This was precisely at the epoch when religious
wars (which Poland 11,:s never known) were devas-
tating Christian Europe, in the very year when St.
Bartholomew took place at Paris, And this date calls