The Sun.
London, England, 1849-02-10 00:00:00

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LONDON, SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 10, 1849.

Since the instalment of LOUIS NAPOLEON in the
Pr.lace of the Elyse Nationale, Republican France
has witnessed a very considerable degree of consis-
tency, of ability, and of patriotic determination, in
the conduct of the Prince PRESIDENT. Never were
the diffleultie3 of government more complicated, and
never have those difficulties been encountered with a
more calm or resolute . air of self-possession. After
twelve months of anxiety and involvement, the popu-
lation of Paris and the departments are beginning to
resume their confidence in themselves and in the Ad-
ministration. Commerce—debilitated by a prolonged
and almost paralytic indolence—is reviving again to
the necessities of industry and enterprise. The
secret clubs which have hitherto fomented the wicked
passions of the community are subsiding at last into a
blessed impotence. The maniacs of democracy, or
rather cf ultra-democracy, whose war cry
was Pillage et Viol ! whose blasphemous
watchword was Vive l'Enfer I whose prototype was
the Iscariot, and whose model-hero was the Apostate,
have ultimately recognised the impracticability of
their undertakings. The more sincere and rational
majority have evinced a readiness to support any Go-
vernment which could afford them protection against
the stilletoes of those political assassins and shelter from
the attacks, sometimes open and sometimes concealed,
of those lawless and sanguinary depredators. During
the first interval which followed the revolution of
February, the Government of LAMARTINE presented
to the nation the safeguard of its unsullied honesty,
and of that august heroism which must for
ever consecrate to the admiration of posterity
the memory of the Poet-Statesman. During
the second interval the Government of CAVAIGNAC
inspired the Republic with a sense of security from
the irreproachable integrity of the Dictator, and from
the enormous military force placed altogether at his
disposal. During the third interval the Government
of BONAPARTE has overshadowed France with the
protective influence of that great name which the
nation still regards as its most glorious heritage—the
name of the C2ESAR of Christendom, and of the CHAR-, '
LEMAGNE of Civilization.
While we would commend, however, in the very
highest terms the administration of affairs by the
Prince Lours NAPOLEON, since the day when he was
solemnly proclaimed President of the French Repub•
lic, we would entirely exclude from any
participation in that
eulogium the members
of his perverse and intolerant Cabinet. The
Prince\ PRESIDENT has confirmed his magnificent
popularity in spite of his Ministers. He has secured
to himself the respect and sympathy of the nation,
votwithskinding the odium which has, with full justice,
fallen upon the holders of the portfolios. He has
risen in ptiblic estimation, though he has clogged
himself with the dead weight of M. ODILON BAR-
ROT. But for the insolent deportment of the latter
towards the National Assembly, the recent feud be-
tween the Legislative Power and the Executive
Power would never—could never, by any possibi-
lity—have
broken out. The National Assembly, but
for the arrogant demeanour of the President of the
Council, would never have conceived itself called upon
to maintain the dignity of its character by the pro-
tracted extension of its existence. It would, without
any unnatural effort, have peacefully decreet the
period of its own dissolution. In all human likeli-
hood it would hare been no more before the expira-
tion of January. The insolence of the bearing of M.
ODILON BARROT—that last and feeblest emanation
from the Assembly—has nevertheless entirely altered
the attitude and complexion of affairs. When that
great Parliament—that Parliament which had pro-
claimed a Republic, that Parliament which had deli-
berated over the ilestink.s of the country in the midst
of the agonies of a rebellion, that Parliament which
:NI EWSPArraid extricated 36 millions of human beings from the
---e- ----'570—...e, the of a revolution and had built up from its very
4-''');W•lti dation% the gigantic, elaborate, and symmetrical
--;41%) •aof a Constitution—when that great Parliament,
'253‘, r.: 1;1 ay, listened to the insolent voice of M. Opir.ozi
• -,--,---(A l'7.- Rol, telling it that its hour had arrived, it, felt
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41.:-.C:7,LA ---,- itself instinctively forced into that post* of lysis-,
"N. 11 stance which has led to the recent collision between

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