The Sun.
London, England, 1849-09-26 00:00:00

FRANCE

GE..N ERA L BEM.

The following; is the de,,cription of the personal
appearance of General Bern—as given by the Austrian
authorities

" K irl B-rn, General of the Insurgents, ago from 50
to 55, middlo h. iglu, thin, has a round faee. brown and
ruddy complexion, low fftehead, hair mixed wiih grey,
grey eye-,rows, nose pointed and aquiline. broad mouth,
round chin, arid a moustache. Us speaks Polish,Frcnch,
and German ; has a slight sto,ip„ It ie believed he has
(he scar of a gua shot wo.ind in toe face, received iu the
eugegewent before Pesth."

THE II thsi G-A RIAN CROWN.
The Hungarian crown, it is generally believed,
Kossuth has taken with him in hi, flight; if so, it has
for a second time crossed the frontiers of Turkey.
The past history of this crown is a curious one, and
as full of vicissitudes as the lives of some of those
who have worn it. The Migvars attach a superti-
tious value to the relic of their ancient monarchy;
there is a legend that it was wrought by the hands
of angels for St. Stephan, who was crowned in it in
1001 ; history, with a more limited faith, records that
it was sent as a present to Stephan by Pope Sylvester
the Second. In 1072 Duke Geisa received from the
Greek Emperor a golden circlet or royal band for his
brow ; when he was afterwards made King of Hun-
gary, he joined this circlet to the diadem, so that the
crown is really composed of two kingly emblems
united. When the race of the Arpads became
extinct, in 1301, there was a double election to the
vacant throne ; one party chose Robert of Anjou and
Naples, the other Wenzel, the younger, of Bohemia.
The cause of the latter did not prosper, and his affairs
were taking an unfortunate turn, when his father,
Wenzel, King of Bohemia, marched an army to Ofen,
and carried off his son and the crown with him to
Prague. The Hungarians then definitively elected
Otto of Bavaria, and old Wenzel, for reasons not stated,
gave up the crown to him. Otto, to take posses.
sion of his kingdom, had to ride incognito through
Austria, carrying the crown as a "property" with
him. It was packed in a little cask, and hung at the
saddle-bow of a German Graf, who discovered one
morning at daybreak that he had lost his precious
charge during the night. The party had then arrived
at Fischerment, below Vienna, where they were
about to cross the Donau; they retraced their steps,
and, by great good luck, found cask and crown again.
In 1307, Otto went to Siebenhurgen, on a visit to
the IVaywode Ladislas, intending to win him over to
his party. He must have failed signally in his at-
tempt, for the old IVaywode seized the crown, and
made the king a prisoner. After some time, he saw
fit to let Otto go, but kept firm possession of the
diadem for three years. In 1310, on threats of war
and extermination, he gave it up. For more than a
century after this its history is a blank; but in 1439,
on the death of the Emperor Albrecht IV., there
was again a double election, the two rivals being
Wladislaw, of Poland, and Ladislas, the infant son of
Albrecht. The Empress resolved to have the child
crowned, and for that purpose the crown was stolen
from the Castle of Wisse.;rad, by one of her maids of
honour, who undertook the task, and succeeded. In
1441 the Empress made a less dignified use of it—
she pledged it to the Emperor Frederick IV. for 2,000
gulden. It was redeemed b eforvinus, and
taken back to Wissegrad; fromwhence,a ter the battle
of Mohac, it was again stolen, and again by a woman,
in order to crown John Zapolya. Zspolya gave it in

The following is the speech delivered by M. Dupin,
the President of the Legislative Assembly, a few days
since before the Agricultural Society of the arron-
dissement of Clancey in the Nievre, then assembled at
Lorme
" Gentlemen, and dear Fellow-citizens,—The meeting
of last year opened under the most painful auspices. At
that period, the scarcity of cash, the sudden extinc-
tion of credit, the cessation of labour, the decrease of
the price of cattle, the revolutionary tax of the 45
centimes, all the misf xtunes of the time weighed
on agriculture. Now the state of things has
improved; the Government established by the Constitu-
tion works with regularity; confidence revives; the trade
of your fairs has resumed its activity, and the President
of the Republic, raised and supported by six millions of
votes, receives from that popular election, which
is your work, the .strength, as he derives from
his personal character the firm will, to maintain
order at the same time as liberty. All the interests
of the land, of commerce, and of civil transac-
tions are placed under the protection of a magistracy,
whose permanency, vainly threatened during the stormy
days we have passed through, his just been newly con.
secreted for the honour of justice, and the security of
citizens. From all parts the public wishes call ter and
seek stability. But, after so many vicissitudes, it is
more particularly useful to make mature reflections on
the past. I appeal to the good sense of all, and of those
in particular whose simplicity renders them more easy
to be deceived, but whose natural goad Bath would
bring them to the side of truth, when it is presented to
them. Why were we in such distress last sear? Why
are we better now? On what condition may our future
state more improve? In this Agricultural Society of
the Morvand, on this rough soil, confided to the culture
of a bold and penevering people, for a long time
shut up in the midst of woods, and but little ad-
vanced in the paths of civilization, in this chef-lieu of
granite, I wish to speak openly and frankly, not for
those who are the nearest to me on the platform, but for
those who stand before us, to whom I say approach,'
for those are the labourers whom I particularly wish to
see nearest to me, and by whom I most desire to be well
understood. Children of the Morvand, labourers, you
who have preserved your religious principles, who still
bend your kneels morning and evening to pray to the
Creator, and who repeat in common those precepts of
eternal wisdom.
" Un seul Dieu to acloreras,
Tes pere et mere hen Tens,
Bien d'autrui to ne prendras,"
be assured, that whatever revolutions may take place
there will always be two kinds of people. in the world:
—the honest and the dishonest—the industrious and
the idle—the economical and the spendthrift. If po-
litical commotions appear for an instant to confound
all ; if there be critical moments in which the
worst citizens appear to have the upper hand, events
and their consequences soon throw light on the real
state of things; chimeras give place to reality; every
one's reputation becomes conformable to his actions,
and that eternal order which God has wished in all
things resumes its sovereign sway. As by the side of
your bees you hear the buzzing of drones, who anxiously
seek to devour the honey which they know not how to
produce, so, in political agitations, you see audacious
firebrands endeavour to take possession of every em-
ployment at the risk of losing what they are either in-
capable or unworthy of governing ; men who, ac-
cording to the energetic expression of a Minister of the
Republic, are capable of nothing at the head of those
who are capable of everything. You see a crowd of
men ruined either by their fault or by their vices,
and sometimes also compromised by their crimes,
or already on the point of being so, who wish to
recover themselves by disturbance, and to fish in the
waters which they have themselves troubled.—(General
marks of assent.) Throw your eyes around you : in
every town, in every hamlet, observe those who are
always the first to declaim against all kinds of autho-
rity; to cause assemblages, to form clubs, to spread
alarming reports, to disseminate &Ise doctrines, to hold
out foolish hopes, to calumniate the best citizens, and
to excite, by every means, even the most atrocious
and the most odious, to tho overthrow of society; and
consider wheth tr there are not always and everywhere
individuals whose ruin was certain, and who
were, according to one of your familiar expressions,
bien pies de leurs pteies;' or, to ;the the words of a
great poet—
' lja tas d'hommes perdus de dettes et de crimes,
Q se pressent de nos lois les ordres legitimes;
Et qui, deiest iieaut do les plus ‘tviter,
Si tout n'est renvene, ne saurasent subsister,'
of people who, not having been able to gain or preserve
a patrimony, would very willingly partake of that of their
industrious and economical neighbours, without reflect-
ing that the latter would not be in a humour to allow
themselves to be despoiled, but would vigorously defend
themselves against robbery and spoliation. Such
are the principal apostles of Communism ! Such
are the men whom the new sectarians employ to
propagate their doctrines ! doctrines which when
well analysed are found to lead to the brutalising of
the human race, by the destruction of all the conditions
of liberty, honour, and morality, on which Providence
has caused civil society to repose. And, nevertheless, it
is by the aid of such auxiliaries and of such means that
public peace has been disturbed, lebour interrupted,
riots excited, and civil war lighted up! The workmen
of the towns and of the country are induced to be-
lieve that a crowd of benefits would result for them
from such a perturbation, whereas the only result
is the complete ruin of some, the embarrassment
of others, and the injury of all! I will here to call to
your recollection what I said on the subject in the in-
troduction to a little work which I recently published on
agricultural societies. I wish to address myself to your
interest, and to lay it clearly before you. When once
the rioters have succeeded in exciting civil war in
Parise what are the results? The foreigners who had
arrived from all the countries of Europe, to enjoy
the pleasures and contemplate the wonders of our civi-
lization, hasten to quit, and the furnished hotels arid
lodging-houses are deserted. The rich, those who are
nut chained by any public function or duty to Paris,
leave their hotels and give up their apartments, and go
elsewhere to seek for the peace and security which are
no longer to be had in the French capital. What then
happens? Consumption diminishes, credit is restrained,
the tradesman can no longer d spose of his goods, and
work of every kind is interrupted. Such is the imme-
diate effect of disturbances in Paris upon Paris."
M. Dupin then drew an animated picture of the effect
produced upon the departments by the diminution of
the demand for agricultural produce. Having done
this, in a way admirably adapted to the intelligence of
his hearers, he added :
" Have your orators of the clubs and public- hoeses
told you all this? No, they have taken good care not
to do sr. Bat experience has taught it to you. Do not,
then, I entr• ar, f treet the injury inflicted on you by the
6/wves of 1848, and which the genius of vil a' tempted
to renew in 1845. 'II faut quo et la finisse,' said the
President of the Republic with so much truth. It is
time for the wicked to tremble, and the gaud to take
confilence. • And sir co he suitl this the Gsver wnr-nt has
precer-ded with vigour in that course, with the Nations
Assembly and with the I tw es its etithrieity,"