The Sun.
London, England, 1862-10-08 00:00:00

tervals to the most grinding restrictions ? Have we
not seen him, still there at the head of his depart-
ment, and at the EMPEROR'S council-board—with
the French troops yet remaining on guard in the
Eternal City (those troops M. DE PERSIGNY
affected at one time to be so bent upon removing
thence), still remaining there, even after GARIBALDI
had been shot down in Calabria, and removed as a
wounded prisoner to a fortress in the Gulf of
Spezzia. All in effect is exactly of a piece in re-
gard to the development (by a series of anti-
climaxes), of the pseudo-liberal policy of the Em-
peror NAPOLEON 111. and his ministerial coadjutors.
The latest illustration of this fact has but just
now been afforded. It is one of the most flagrant
cases of the kind that has perhaps yet occurred since
the Second Republic merged into the Second Empire.
Not the most flagrant—but one of the most flag-
rant. We allude, of course, to the arbitrary
suppression of anything and everything relating
to VICTOR HUGO'S last grand literary achieve-
ment, his extraordinary romance, Les Miserables.
Everybody, as the phrase is (and it is certainly
less of a mere phrase in this instance than usual)
—everybody has read it, is thinking about it, is
talking about it (talking about it in France, per-
haps, for prudence sake, only in whispers, but
still talking of it there 274 whispers) has wept
over it, more or less, has shuddered over it, has
devoured its three marvellous stories, its ten won-
derful volumes. Yet M. VICTOR HUGO being
under an Imperial taboo—the existence of Les
Miserables is to be summarily and altogether
ignored ! A passing allusion to it even ix prohibited
at the Theatre des Varietes. The work is elaborately
dramatised, and is about to be presented to the pub-
lie at the Ambigu Comique. It also is prohibited.
The representation is not to be thought of. It is
true that the romance in its dramatised form has
never yet come under the notice (even in the shape
of the most scrambled manuscript) of the Imperial
Censor, the functionary answering in his single per-
son to those two distinct individualities on this side
of the water, the Reader of Plays and the Lord
Chamberlain. No matter. The mere circumstance
that such a play is known to be in preparation is
enough for the EMPEROR'S Imperial Rhadamanthus.
It comes to his knowledge quite casually in the course
of a conversation between the high and mighty
Count WALEWSKI and M. CAMILLE DOUCET, the
chief of the theatrical division of that great Minis-
ter's department. " Speaking of that," (we are
told) quoth his Excellency, "is it true they are dra-
matising Les Miserables ?" Assuredly, is the reply.
" For what theatre ?" asks Count WaLEwstit.
He is informed. It is for the Ambigu. " Tres
bien," says the Minister, with a charming air,
" then you will inform the management, M. DOUCET,
that it had better not incur charges [so conside-
rate !] for its getting up." Adding—we can ima-
gine, with the portentous "A-hem I" of a Stage
Brigand or a Giant Blunderbore—" I prohibit it I"
Even the Minister's creature is taken aback, stands
aghast before so premature, precipitate, peremptory
an announcement. " Beforehand, Excellency ?"
stammers M. CAMILLE DOUCET. "Yes, before-
hand," is the laconic rejoinder. Eh, voila tout—
c'est fini—the interview is over, the affair is settled,
the play is doomed, it is prohibited. It is only a
run of two or three hundred nights denied to the
playgoers among the Parisians. It is only a profit
of ten or fifteen thousand livres prevented from
pouring into the empty coffers of the management.
It is only one injustice the more. What does it
matter ? Even in dumb Paris there are inarticulate
grumblings at all this—nevertheless. An evidence
of insubordination so astounding that it must be
put a stop to forthwith, and quite effectually. How?
By one of those marvellous little official paragraphs
that do occasionally adorn the columns of the Monti-
Jeer. Imperial enigmas, that are very Delphic
Oracles in their ambiguity—that might (for any
Imeaning they convey) just as lief have been printed
in Arabic or Sanscrit for the vulgar multitude, as
in the French vernacular. People have rubbed their
eyes, and read it again and again, since the still re-
cent date of its appearance—that wonderful little
paragraph in the Ilioniteur about Les Miserables.
They have read it backwards, and they
have read it forwards. They have looked
at it this way, and they have looked
at it that. And—when all this is said and
done—we defy any one to deny that it comes
by right under any other category than that
to which Lord DUN DREARY would'infallibly assign
it—as one of those things a fellow will never
understand ! It is meant evidently to explain
the prohibition of Les lifiserables in its dramatised
form : but really the explanation itself requires
explanation. And so we leave it there—like one
of those little puzzling aerolites dropped oension-
ally upon this globe of ours—this last and still
smoking thunderbolt hurled from the claw of the
imperial eagle. It is one of those very comfits of
liberalism, we presume, which were promised to
France and to Europe when M. DE PERSI GNI
crossed the Channel from England to lend the light
derived from his judgment, and the strength drawn
from his experience, to the councils of the French
EMPEROR.

There can be no doubt, says Mr. GLADSTONE to
the men of Newcastle, that " JEFFERSON DAVIS
has made a nation of the'South." We think so too.
It has been impossible to watch, as it has been our
business to do, the course of things since secession
began, and to watch with the responsibility of pre-
senting just representations of it to our readers,
without perceiving the great superiority of the
Southern President. 'With his cause we have had
nosympathy. So far, indeed, as the South was
seeking the independence of separate political exist-
ence, Englishmen could not but feel an instinctive
interest in its object. But when we remember
the reason for its seeking indepen,%ll.,_,
our
English blood boils with indignation at the prosti-
tution of the word. They mean by it independenoe
to do wrong, and to commit crie.de independence of
the morality of civilised Chr%stendom ; independence
of all restraints on the t:ropagation of slavery. Be
it remembered that ;,he turning point of secession
was the claim to exter,d slavery over the free soil.
For this single purpose the doctrine of State sove-
reignty was
pressed into disunion. We do not
dislike the '.vision of North America ; better, we
that
believe,
d it should form several respectable,
well^ behaved kingdoms, than one monster
Jully of an Empire. That, however, does not
alter the vileness of Southern motives. The
South were content enough with Union, while it
governed the Union ; content with it while it
could nominate the executive, and insult England
through its official agents. But as soon as the
Republican vote declared that slavery ought not
to curse soil yet free, that the free negroes, at
least, ought to be treated as citizens; and that
a slaveholder ought not to be permitted
to live with his slaves in free States,
immediately they repudiate the election in which
they had joined; and because the voice of the
ballot box is against them, resort to the bayonets
The foundation of the Southern Republic is—„t
the love of independence, but fanatical love
'Jr the
horrid tyranny of slavery.
We believe, with Mr. GLADSTC'NE, that that
able administrator JEFFERSON will found a re,pub.
lie, but one of fa/40$ for 514yery, Bat fr,,r this

we could wish it success, but whether we wish it
success or not, we believe it will be done. The con-
sideration for England, therefore, is what ought
she to do, as a nation, in regard to the nation which
Mr. GLADSTONE says is already made. Ought we
to recognise it at once ; ought we, like President
LINCOLN, to promise recognition within ninety
days ; or ought we to leave the two belligerents to
go on till they have wearied themselves of the war.
We must reply that, as an anti-slavery nation,
we cannot recognise, unconditionally, a Common-
wealth based on the indefinite extension of the
Divine institution of slavery. All our antecedents
are against embracing a confederation of slavery
extensionists. Of men, too, who will as certainly
reopen the African Slave-trade when once they
have obtained the power to do so, as they now pro-
claim the will of Omnipotence to be, the bondage
of the African to the white man. On the ground
of humanity to the white men, who perish in
thousands on the murderous battle-field, we might
be glad to recognise the South, if so doing would
hasten the termination of the war; but humanity
to the black man has its claims on Eng-
land also ; and, when the cause of bat-
tle is to enslave him in greater num-
bers, over a wider area, and for a
political eternity, England ought to hesitate.
Tell us, we should say to the South, what you
want us to recognise. Is it your right to devise
your own plans for the emancipation of your human
property, or is it to curse the earth with creating
fresh sovereign States on the infernal system of
negro slavery ?
No question of this kind does the authorised
agent of the South, Mr. MASON, advert to in his
letter to the Stockport committee, which appeared in
Tlie Sun yesterday. He appealed to international
law as justifying acknowledgment of the nation-
ality of the South under the circumstances. They
had existed politically for more than 18 months ;
they had proved, in arms, their power to sustain
their independence, and therefore no just cause of
offence would be given by acknowledging them as
a nation. The advantage would be that it would
" dispel all illusion on the subject in the United
States." At present the holding back of Europe is
taken as an indication of its belief that the North
may yet conquer the South, or that there may be
a restoration of the unbroken Union. Recogni-
tion would also be a proof that in the judgment
of Europe the rebellion had terminated in the
creation of an independent power ; and the result
of this would be that the war would no longer
be carried on for so hopeless an object as at pre-
sent, at so enormous a sacrifice.

All this we in England would cordially
approve, but for the one consideration, that the
South is fighting to establish a nation of tyrants.
The cause of the North we know to be defective—
it is, however, a cause in which England herself
has often fought, the cause of empire, the
cause of ambition. We can understand it,
and also feel that, in the same position, we, rightly
or wrongly, should have been likely to do the same
thing. But we do not understand fighting for
slavery. If the North is not fighting against negro
slavery, it is, at least, now fighting for a policy
which will entail its extinction. It is becoming
more and more apparent to the North that it must
give up supporting slavery even in independent
States, or give up all hope of conquest. It is in
this light we read Mr. LINCOLN'S manifesto of the
22d. Throughout it is tainted with the evident
wish to get back the South with slavery, It offers, ,
as indeed Mr, LINCOLN has done from the begin-
ning, immunity from slavery as the purchase price ,
of repentance and loyalty to the Union. But Mr.
LINCOLN never offers permission to extend slavery.
That was the permission refused by him and his
party, and on which the ballot went. And its de-
cision not to permit the extension of slavery was
the one point on which the South bade farewell to
the North.

If our Government therefore discusses the ques-
tion of Southern recognition, it must ask itself on
what terms it will concede it. It is now obvious
that militarily, the South may become a vast power
in the North of America. It will, it is true, not be
near our Northern possessions, but Cuba and
Jamaica will always be coveted, and the whole of
intertropical America could present no resistance to
its overbearing temper and power. It would soon
hate England, as the leader in the opposition to its
hateful helotism, and would be ready enough to join
the ever jealous Yankees, should war unfortunately
ever arise. Of course in the day of its weakness it
uses plausible language, and may have but moderate
views, but how can we trust it. The South, inde-
pendent, would be the same government which,
when it controlled the Union, insulted England and
bullied her out of everything not worth fighting
for. The North might and did follow—but it was
men placed in office by the South who have gained
America a reputation for vulgarity, low cunning,
and insolence, unparalleled in the history of inter-
national iLtercourse.

While, therefore, we believe that the South will
be a nation, while we think it likely that recogni-
tion might, for it is by no means certain, hasten
the termination of the war, we cannot think it
would be creditable to us to recognise an indefinite
South. A South between the Mississippi and the
Atlantic, between the Gulf of Mexico and the
Border States ; with entire exclusion of its
" damning crime" from all other territory, ought
to be the least which the North and England should
accept. To this the South will certainly never
consent, and therefore we would leave it, for the
present, to its fate. We should gladly recognise
the South, if the South would but first recognise
the rights of four millions of the twelve millions of
which it boasts.

211 E QUEEN IN GERMANY.

COBURG, OCT. 3.

The Queen, accompanied by the Prince of Wales, Princess
Helena, Princess Louise, Princess Leopold, and Princess
Beatrice, left Rheinhardtsbrunn at 2 o'clock this day, and
arrived at Coburg at 6 o'clock.
Her Majesty was received at the station at Coburg by the
Crown Prince and Princess of Prussia, who accompanied
her Majesty to the Palace, where the Duchess of Coburg
received her.

The Crown Princess, with the Prince William, Princess
Charlotte, and Prince Albert Henry of Prussia, had come
from Rheinhardtsbrunn to Gotha early in the day.
Her Majesty is as well as can be expected under the
trying emotions of revisiting for the first time the birth-
place of the beloved Prince. Her Majesty has taken daily
walks and drives, with the members of her family, in the
neighbourhood of Rheinhardtsbrunn, but is unequal to much
exertion.

The inhabitants of the neighbourhood have shown the
greatest respect for her Majesty's feelings by refraining
upon all occasions from intruding upon her privacy.
The Queen's departure was delayed for two days by a
slight accident which occurred to Prince Leopold, and which
proved more difficult to cure than was at first expected.
His Royal Highness is now quite recoyared, and bore the
journey remarkably well.
omhouusubteaei
nns for
is
somee
tdeady st
oupnotnuarnt otu
onr
o
morrowPfor iont
in
Prince
oAtCrhtoehbi
uitrir,a gwr.thz

/ The Earl and Countess Ashburnham, and Ladies
Ashburnham, have arrived at Ashburnham House from a
tour of visits.
The Earl and Countess of Yarborough have re-
turned to Brocklesby Park from Convarnore, Ireland.
The Earl and Countess of Carnarvon arrived yes-
terday at Gedling Lodge, Notts, the Earl of Chesterfield's
shooting-box, from visiting the Marquis and Marchioness
of Satistury at Hatfield House, Herts.
Lord and Lady Forester are entertaining 8 select
els,* at willeyl3alr, Shroptire