The Sun.
London, England, 1854-01-17 00:00:00

greys through Boulogne, the grateful exclamation
burst from him—" Oh, how I love to hear those
English Cheers!" For his own land, too, the Em-

peror desires peace.

" The vine covered hills
And gay valleys of France,"
vexed only by the ploughshare, and vocal with the
song of healthful labour, are the happy scenes
on which he delights to dwell, ill-exchanged
for the desolated lands ape where lurid glory
trembles on the grave, and victory summons
the vulture to its banquet. His tastes all savour
of a different character. To cultivate art—to en-
courage manufacture—to speed the industry—
increase the commerce—supply the wants, and
develope the resources of the country. These are
amongst his dearest aspirations ; and they are the
objects of a blest ambition, the truest and most
enduring trophies of a Sovereign. The first Napo-
leon, indeed, waysd his flag over every capital of
the Continent, but ho esteemed it an evanescent
triumph, when compared with the code which has
immortalised his wisdom, or those marvellous ope-
rations which have made the Alps his monument.
These were the recollections most precious to him
in the vicissitude of hisfor tune, and such recollections
his successor seems intent upon securing. In all
his progresses, you will find each visit attested by
some improvement. Evident everywhere, this
spirit is naturally most visible in Paris. Pause
and look around. What useful works ! what archi-
tectural wonders ! Here, lanes converted into ter-
races ! There, alleys transformed into streets—
streets of palaces ! The Lou yre almost perfect.
The Rue de Rivoli, the finest thoroughfare in
Europe. Roads, bridges, statues, churches, tem-
ples dedicated to the arts, to science, and to indus-
try ! Edifices everywhere at once mag
:uificent and
useful. Surely, surely—
" These are imperial arts and worthy Kings,
Give this spirit scope—give its aspirings but ten
sears of peace, and Paris, crowned with all civili-
sation can bestow, will be at once the fitting me-•
tropolis of France, and the refined, enriched, and
decorated emblem of her general prosperity.
This, in the commencement of a reign is much,
but, already he has found time for more. What
a lesson of charity and toleration has he taught to
some of the worn out, worm-eaten dynasties around
him ! While they, the " right divine" men, seal
up the Bible and bar the dungeon door upon its
readers--nay, more, while they carry their ven-
geance beyond death, and refuse even a burial to
their fellov,T-Christian.s, he respects the consciences
of mankind, and has just granted, on their own
request, a cemetery to the Mussul-mans. Nor has
he forgotten, in another instance, what was equally
due to the feelings of his people and the honour of
his throne. If

" Freedom shrieked when Kosciusko fell,"
She had a sweet and precious compensation when
Napoleon struck off the chains from Abd-el-Kader.
The glorious African ! The revived Jugurtha !
Ignoble souls might have seen danger in that deed ;
but Napoleon trusted to the honour of a hero. The
son of the desert plighted no punic faith. He has
justified the confidence of a kindred spirit.
But what of these things. All will not cancel
the crime of the coup d'etat. This is the plague
spot on which every malcontent in Europe fixes,
and with good reason too, for it was the blight
which blasted all their projects. Another week,
and anarchy would have raised the hydra bead
again. Another weak, and every subterranean
den in Paris would have disgorged again its mon-
strous brood bequeathed by '92—the orphans of
the scaffold and its heirs. The best authority, the
courts of law, have demonstrated too clearly that,
even still, there are assassins left to clutch the dag-
ger ; and, on their own vile avowal, awaiting but
the signal. The fraternity were on the watch.
The baffled outcasts and incendaries of Europe lay
crouching for the outburst which, commencing in
France, was to involve the Continent in revolution.
But, the statesmanship, the secrecy, the spirit,
which devised, matured and, just in time,
electrified treason with the coup d'etat, saved
France, and will never be forgiven. Sup-
pose the conspiracy had succeeded, what
would have been the consequence ? Depend upon
it, the evil spirit which the half rebel, half infidel
philosophy of the eighteenth century evoked, still
lingers, though it lurks. It held the first empire
in continual irritation—it detests the second, which
has scotched it, for the present. It still survives,
though restless, vigilant, ravenous as ever. The
blood of Louis XVI. did not satiate it—nor the
sacrifice of Charles X., nor the more recent immo-
lation of the Orleans ynasty. Gorged but for the
moment, the horrid monster was recovering its
vitality. Tts crest was rising, its coils unfolding,
and its mar gaping even for the republic it had
generated, when a vigorous arm struck it down,
and rescued a people from the death of its em-
braces. Fran ce is delivered, but who can say when
the danger shall re-appear. For full sixty years
the demon of _revolution has demanded and de-
voured its hum, m tribute, and it will never rest
while there is anything remaining to demand or to
devour. The tru th of this is visible in every page
of the half century,. from the regicide mob, dabbling
in the blood of Ca net, down in lineal descent to
the hereditary worthies who sacked the Tuilleries
the other day, and kiied drunk upon the pile of
plunder their own ha.uds had kindled. Who shall
say the descendants aro degenerate, to whose harpy
sires Voltaire taught faith, Mirabeau virtue, and
Saint Just, Legendre, an d Robespierre, humanity ?
It was the repetition o f such spectacles, sights
of horror and of woe, which Napoleon spared
Europe. Let them call his energy despotism if
they will, the 'question is, did not the times require
if--did not necessity demand it ? Despotism in-
deed! What despotism transcends that of the mob ?
France has experienced it—does she wish again to
do so ? Would she willingly recall her tyrant
rabble crowned with the bonnet rouge—her moun-
tain clubbists writing their decrees in blood—her
guillotine fed from the veins of the wise, the brave,
the learned and the noble—her strumpet goddess,
dethroning the Almighty! We have seen such
portents—may Heaven in its mercy avert their re-
petition ! Yes, we should have seen it, had Napo-
leon Louis either failed or faltered. There are
Miscreants enough without property or principle,
or scruple, panting to unfurl the dynastic standard
of the scaffold, the lantern, the poignard, and the
torch. Is it in the face of warnings such as these
that we are to revert to abstract principles and re-
fuse to contemplate the dreadful alternative ? Call
the Emperor by what name they may, he is the chosen
of the people—three times the chosen—chosen, too,
after the coup d'etat, and by a majority counting
by millions over that of his uncle. A great nation
is surely capable of judging for itself. It must be
left to do eo. Europe has made the somewhat
costly experiment of imposing a Monarch upon
Prance. Twelve hundred thousand foreign bayo-
nets re-erected a dynasty and the nation dug its
grave. In that grave six hundred millions of our
money lie interred—enough to surmount it with a
monument of gold.
And now, mylord, having to the best of my ability
sketched the character of Napoleon the Third, let
us consider our manifest policy respecting him,
--the policy which justice and interest equally
prescribe. We are on the eve of events which may
convulse the world. A mighty despot is bent on
realising the ambition of his race, and establishing
a universal domination. The first blow—long me-
ditated—is to be struck at the integrity of our
empire. That darling project, cherished from the
day when Catherine had " the Road to India"
painted on a mile-post, is at length upon the move.
Under pretences, false and indefensible, Turkey is
assailed—assailed in the first instance—to open a
path to India. That this has been the waking
dream of Russia for many a day, is placed beyond
a doubt by the inestimable revelations of Napoleon
the First. "If Paul had lived (said he) you would
have lost India before now. An agreement was
made between Paul and myself to invade it. I
furnished the plan. I was to have sent thirty
thousand good troops. He was to send a similar
number of the best Russian soldiers, and forty
thousand Cossacks. I was to subscribe ten
Millions for the purchase of camels, and
other requisites, for crossing the desert." cc My
troops were to have gone to Warsaw, to
be joined by the Russians and the Cossacks,
and to have marched from thence to the Caspian
Sea, where they would either have embarked or
have proceeded by land, according to circumstances."
Paul, as we know, was assassinated, but did the
project perish with him ? Hear Napoleon again.
" In a few years (added he) Russia will have Con-
stantinople, the greatest part of Turkey, and all
Greece. This I hold to be as certain as if it had
already taken place. Almost all the cajolling and
flattery which Alexander used towards me was to
effect this object. Above all the Powers, Russia is
most to be feared, especially by you." In the
natural couve of things Turkey must fall to Rus-
sia. The greatest part of the population aro Greeks,
who, you may say, are Russians." " The only hy-
pothesis that France and England may ever be
allied with sincerity will be in order to prevent this."
How strangely, how curiously prophetic, appear at
this moment these conversations of Napoleon, ut-
tered upwards of thirty years ago ! The alliance
does exist, and we have now upon the French
throne a monarch capable of appreciating its value
to the whole civilised world. For the first time in
our history we may confide in the good faith of
that alliance. The Bourbons ever had a jealously
of England. It was that jealousy which furnished
aid to Washington, and transplanted the tree of
Liberty to the Boulevards—a solemn retribu-
tion ! It is that jealousy which at this
hour animates a wicked Fusionist press to
• (sow dissension, between the countries, by repro-