The Sun.
London, England, 1863-04-10 00:00:00

THE FRENCH ELECTIONS.

The approach of the general elections has origi-
nated the rumour that a coalition kill probably be
formed among the old parties for the purpose of
mutually aiding each other in endeavouring to
secure the success of their candidates. It may be
remarked that a similar report has almost always
got into circulation on preceding
occasions, but
1 without being ever ri alised. The Paris journals,
however, have taken np the question, and discuss
with laudable gravity the legality of sueb arrange-
ments. Amongst the rest, the Temps lately pub-
lished on coalitions in general, and on electoral
coalitions in particular, an article which is chiefly
remarkable for containing a great numberof truisms,
and ends by citing three examples worthy of enlo-
gium—the committees on the affair of the poor
woman Doize who was unjustly condemned, on the
subscription for the distressed cotton operatives,
and on that for the relief of Poland. The Siecle
now declares that the idea which it has formed of a
political coalition differs in Lobo from the views of its

proceeds to explain its mean-
ing eonteinmptheersaeryt, deramus:il
"If that (the committees spoken of above) is
what is understood by the word coalition in politics,
the affirmation may be truly made that men pass
their lives in forming coalitions; thus, whether we
are democrats, or royalists, or partisans of the tem •
poral power, we all coalesce when we form part of
the same bureau de bienfaisance, of the same com-
mittee instituted to patronise a lottery, a ball, or
charitable subscription. Men of all opinions who
found themselves by chance assembled in a salon to
hear a reading would have coalesced to applaud a
poem or a tragedy. The master of a house
who regularly assembles a certain number of
persons belonging to different shades of politics,
therefore invites them once a week to coalesce
for dinner. No, neither the Doize Committee,
nor the Polish one, nor the Cotton one, is a
coalition in the ordinary acceptation of the word ;
men the most opposed to each other in political
sentiments, meet together, thank God, every day on
the ground of philanthropy and charity, without
any one feeling astonishment at it and seeking to
oppose it ; why therefore that singular indignation
of the Temps :—" And the idea is, forsooth, to wrest
from the most generous aspirations that can animate
a people, from the justest sentiment, and from
liberty, that noble and characteristic privilege of
calling together men of intelligence from all corners
of the horizon I' But whoever thought of wresting
all that from you ? What made you talk to U 9 of
petty churches and formularies apropos to the
Polish Committee and to the subscription for the
cotton weavers ? Who therefore wishes to prevent
all citizens from descending into the constitutional
arena in the name of any principle they may please
to choose What journal has demanded that any
particular party should be deprived of the right of
voting ? Let us pass over the words ' formulary'
and petty church,' which have no great significae
tion : the world is full of petty churches, and the
7 emps itself is one, for which we do not reproach
it. When it discusses a particular poet, philosopher,
or historian, and condemns his doctrine, does not
the Tenzps indirectly recommend its readers not to
peruse the work ? Does it not create fornaulariea
in poetry, in philosophy, in histor3 ? If what is
permitted in literature is interdicted in politics; if,
in the name of liberty, a man is prohibited to say to
his friends—those are the principles which we ap-
prove and those which we reject—what, therefore,
is liberty P "