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

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THE SUN.
LONDON, WEDNESDAY, OCT. 8, 1862.

Things are certainly carried with a high hand
over in Paris. NAPOLEON is there out Napoleoned.
Meaning by this that .Le Petit goes far beyond Le
Grand, in some respects at least, in the assertion of
his Autocracy. Not that the reigning EMPEROR
condescends to do this individually. His Imperial
Majesty does it coolly by delegate--through his
Ministers. Wherever the vicarious exercise of his
authority can be accomplished, it is accomplished.
And with so ineffable a complacency. It will per-
haps be remembered, indeed it can hardly by pos-
sibility be forgotten, that at the period (not so very
long since !) when M. DE PERSIGNY resigned the
embassy to the Court of St. James's (handing it
over to the veteran Count DE FLAHAULT)—his
Excellency (that is the said M. DE PERSIGNY)
assumed high administrative responsibilities
in Paris, as Minister of the Interior: a mag-
nificent flourish of trumpets being sounded the
while about the liberality of the principles he was
immediately going to apply and to establish en
permanence, as part and parcel of French jour-
nalism. Credulous people, even the most credulous,
listened and wondered—quietly awaiting proofs
of the Ministerial sincerity before flinging up their
caps in jubilation. Well, certainly they had not
long to wait after all. The looked-for proofs came
thick and fast upon an European multitude of ob-
servers—a multitude more than ever aetonished at
these flagrant and absolutely, at last, outrageous
and insulting contradictions. Scarcely had M. DE
PERSIGNY'S hand got well "in" to work as that of
the so-called Liberal Minister of the Interior (a sort
of Imperial LEDRU RoLLIN we were al-
most taught to look . for in his instance),
when one caution after another, one reminder
after another, fines, warnings, threats of im-
prisonment and of confiscation, were dropping down
upon the devoted heads of our brethren of the pen
across the Channel swift, cold, and hard as hail-
stones. 2 hose were the kind of relaxations of the I
laws regulating the press of France that befitted
M. DE Pension-vs ideas of liberality, that were
dreamt of as the halcyon visions of "Freedom of
Writing and Printing" in the empyrean of Ms
Philosophy ! So muoh had this generous-hearted
and large-minded politician, diplomatist, statesman,
and administrator profited by his sojourn amongst
ns as imperial ambassador ! The crowning of
the pyramid was—postponed. That was all.
France, not less than Dr. CHARLES MACKAY'S
disciple, was "to wait a little longer." Satisfied
with one microscopic crumb of comfort dropped
from the imperial table in the form of a
vague intimation that, when the Ruler of
France saw fit, the still slightly delayed boons
of Free Writing and of Free Speech should be
duly vouchsafed according to promise. Since when,
by the way, the time has sped on rapidly enough.
The reputed Liberal Minister of the Interior was not
only warm in his seat, but glued to it almost as
tightly,- one might think, as THESEUS to the in-
fernal throne of punishment ! So prepared has he
showed himself to be upon all imaginable subjects
—to resign hi. 3 own avowed opinions, to swallow
his indignation, to eat his words (poisonous fare
enough at all times for any mortal, let alone a pre-
tended Champion of Liberality turned a Satrap of
Despotism)—ready to do anything, to say anything,
to write anything, rather than resign his Minis-
terial chair and his Ministerial portfolio. Have we
not seen M. DE PERSIGNY still holding office as
Minister of the Interior at Paris, with the Paris
Press, nay, the Press of all France, subjected
more conspiecumasly than ever, at not unfrequent in-

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 vagrant—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 Miserable".
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 in 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
Aliserables is to be summarily and altogether
ignored ! A passing allusion to it even is prohibited
at the Theatre des liarietes. The work is elaborately
dramatised, and is about to be presented to the pub-
lic 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 WALEWSI{I 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 WALEWSKI.
He is informed. It is for the Ambigu. "Tres
biers," 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 lj for its getting up." Adding—we can ima-
gine, with the portentous "A-hem l" of a Stage
Brigand or a Giant Blunderbore—" I prohibit it!"
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 Motif
tour. Imperial enigmas, that are very Delphic
Oracles in their ambiguity—that might (for any
meaning 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-
Gent date of its appearance—that wonderful little
paragraph in the Illoniteur 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 DUNDREARY would infallibly assign
it—as one of those things a fellow will never
understand ! It is meant evidently to explain
the prohibition of Les Miserables 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 oonsion-
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 PERSIGNY
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
no sympathy. So -far, indeed, as the South was
seeking the independence of separate political exist-
ence, Englishmen could not but feel an instinctive
object.s
seeßkiuntawihnednepwendence, oure remember
the interest
reason in it
fsor its
English blood boils with indignation at the prosti-
tution of the word. They mesa by it independence
to do wrong, and to commit crime ; independence of
the morality of civilised Christendom; independence
of all restraints on the propagation of slavery. Be
it remembered that the turning point of secession
was the claim to extend slavery over the free soil.
For this single purpose the doctrine of State sove-
We do not
reignty was pressed into disunion.
dislike the division of North America ; better, we
believe, that it should form several respectable,
well behaved kingdoms, than one monster
bully of an Empire. That, however, does not
alter the vileness of Southern motives. The
South were content enough with Union, while it
overned 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 bayonet.
The foundation of the Southern Republic is--not
the love of independence,..bat fanatical love of the
horrid tyranny of slavery.
We believe, with Mr. GLADSTONE, that that
able administrator JEFFERSON will found a repub.
lic, but one of fanatics for slavery. But for this

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