The Sun.
London, England, 1830-10-21 00:00:00

~_ t

STAIR OF PUBLIC OPINION IN PARIS.

(From the Timms) t
The Paris Papers of Sunday are chiefly filled
with discussions on the recent attempt of the
Ministers and the Chamber of Deputies to im-
plicate the King in the responsibility of a law
intended to save the Ex-Ministers from capital
punishment, should they be condemned. The
people, whose heroic generosity and magnani-
mous forbearance were so justly celebrated in the
hour of victory, seem to have been seized with a
ferocious appetite for blood long after their pas-
sions might be expected to be cooled. rhe
walls of Paris are covered with the most atro-
cious incentives to tumult and vengeance at the
idea of extending mercy to the prisoners, and
there can be no doubt that though their guilt
had been manifest, their condemnation could
not have been the less certain, from the influence
of these menaces on the fears of their judges.
The petitions of the wounded, the speeches of
popular orators, thee dramatic effect of a night
sitting, and the popularity of the King, seem all
to go for nothing in arresting the sanguinary fury
of the lower orders. In the mean time, the
Chamber, the Ministers, and the King are so-
lemnly pledged in the face of Europe to save the
culprits from the extreme rigour of the law ; and
if they yield to popular fury, in a point which so
nearly concerns their honour, their feelings, and
their principles, they can have no security for
the undisturbed possession or exercise of power
in other instances.

'lie violent men who are labouring to whet
the vengeance of the multitude by appeals to:their
passions, and who are intimidating society by
the phantoms of a former revolution, are quite:
aware of the formidable 'dilemma in which they
have placed the Government. They know that
they are making it destructive to its character,
firmness, and consistency, to execute the crimi-
nals, and dangerous to its existence to pardon
them, While they strongly censure the IVlinis-
ters for endeavouring to shelter themselves be-
hind the King's popularity in recommending the
new law, they plainly intimate that his Majesty
• • 1
cannot with safety exercise m this case the pre-
rogative of mercy. The Ministers confess their
defeat by attempting_ to retrace their steps,
They have announced that the new project of
law for amending the criminal code is to be al-
lowed to take its due course in Parliamentary
discussion ; but they have done nothing more:
to allay the general fermeOt. They have not ex-
. • •.
plained why they were so precipitate at one time,
and so slow now,—why they did not rather, wait
the result of the trial, and advise the King to
exercise his prerogative of mercy, than interfere
with tid existing impeachMent, and anticipate' a
capital conviction by an abolition of its corm•
sponding punishment.
A Republican,Peper of Sunday informs us,
that at the review of the National Guard, the
, ,
cries of Death to Polio= was heard,—that as
the King passed through, the • streets, his ears
were saluted with the demand of justice,—that
the placards on the walls, , invoking-vengeance '
on the heads of the nriaouere, are known, in
many instances, to be the composition of work-
men and labourers,-that in every quarter of the
city the question of firing upon the populace in .
cane of their attacking the Luxembourg has been
diecuesed by the National Guard, and decided
in the negative. • •
We give, among the following extracts, . some'
observations of the Patriots (a popular Journal)
on the, subject.
(From the Pairiar.)
" The Ministry, we are assured, has renounced'
its prole et of aholiihing the puniditnent of death,—
it beads before the expressed Will of' the 'people..i.
Ought that,rerninciation to inspire its with greater
eontitleeee in the Oevernment ? Ought we to consv
Sider it es a proof of its intention to identify itself
with the nation Certainly not.
,uie raising the Munition of the abolition of the
punishinent of death, the Ministers have only lied a
single object—that of saving the authors of the or.,
dinances July. If they had not bud tilts. mai-
address to publish the fact by some of their organs
is the Chamber of Deputies, 'one might have be.
' lieved that the propositino bad- been made in a spirit
entirely philosiophledthat is to say, with a view
of depriving tyranny of its capability to ;abuse the
powers which it might have usurped, or Which might
have been granted to
It was thought right to hose this. proposition
upon vhilanthropy ; but its 'authors started upon a
false principle, inasmuch as a philanthropic idea is
olwayi general, and has no conneation with private
interests. Thus the abolition of the. phrilelimeott of
death, philosophically speaking, ought to be applied
without distinction to every crime which is liable to:
capital punishment ; it ought to preserve from the
last punishment the man who has killed a private
• hidividnel, as well as the man who has conspired
against his Sovereign.
" Whatolien, do we sac In the proposition raised
by Ministers ? The project of withdrawing' from
the scaffold those who shell be -guilty of political
erimes. Was it a love of humanity wineli excited
them to bring it forward in a moment of revolution
No; they imagined that by flattering the inclintition
of the people, which leads to generosity, they would
succeed in seducing it and in diverting its attention:
they flattered themselves also, thatin the general
confusion the dangers which would inevitably follow
the abolition of the penalty of death would not he
perceived. lint the nation saw through the snare,
ft perceived that there war, too strong a tinnttast be.
tweets that law, in appearance generous, and the
acts of the Ministry; it perceived in whose favour
the abolition was proposed, and it rose en matte
against the will of the Government.
". If law 3 of a more liberal .elnuacter had preceded
that propositioo,—if the pteople had. obtained a full
and entire liberty, it inight, per;OPsi have believed in
the loyalty of Ministers ; hut how ce:.lld it believe in
their generosity-how could it fail to perceive im-
mediately their after-thoughts, whenthey earuo Fos
vered with the arms of despotism to demand a lase '
favourable to conspirators' Of what importance
is that law to us ? Are the people conspirators ?
.Did they "conspire in darkness, when in July. lot
they fought in broad shy-light against the battalions
,tif Charles X.,--when they swore vengeance on
the stilipidpitating bodies of their felloW-ettizensr-.
when they drove the perjured -monarch from his
throne? No, the people never conspire; they know
not lune to conspire. If it takes to itself a King,
it is to maintain order in society; and if that King
*isles to twit against the people the forte with
whirr lot has beers armed,' the people erect their
• headtrin &cadent, and the tyrant is destroyed.
0 The abolition of the garnishment of death for
politiral•rtifeueest ,tot being is lanetit to the people,
tonnes it fines not conspire, whom (Ws it benefit ?
lone intriguers, sonic ambitions men, who odic
pleasure in riothing but troubles, who orgard.-Les
coospiraoies for on other object alien to mount to
power,-,—who often waske wretched and aiiatq-lighted
mars mingle in them by promising to Ohara that:
'power with them, and who abassdon them afterwaeds
to the rigour of the laws.
mk
"Urn us auppose tar a moment that titer atm
litirrti of the imaiahaiirat tit tie itit • 1. W
i *apt thoto than ''1444 rimsipliZ'rerisw I :tilt
our immediately afterwlictk. 'Vise )0"1":
waiting- for the mtraloit ei( Its pm.
take up arms;- for already are they I,,,„;ehi„;
IteeeNAty of-revolt,
Let us not beikve that to save the Ministeis'is'
their sole desire. They aspiGi also to bring
145 Me imbecile Clatiik tail his grandson. Volignee,