The Sun.
London, England, 1841-08-02 00:00:00

of an extension of the suffrage have been pre- 1
vented from dining together, lest in their after-
dinner harangues they should insist upon amend-
ing the representative system. As representation
is not direct inFrance. as with us, the bulk of the
poorer classes never come in contact with the
Deputies, and thus their voice is never heard,
save in the hoarse rumbling of an insurrection.
The Press, too, is fettered—an evil which would
be of the utmost magnitude were the Press of
France so constituted as at any time to be an
echo of public opinion. But this, from the ab-
sence of public meetings, and the defective sys-
tem of reporting, the Press of France is not, and
never has been. A newspaper in France is the
aggregate of the opinions of a few clever writers,
who can only judge of public opinion among
the masses by the popularity of their
political, commercial, and literary views,
and by. the countenance which they
receive from the leaders of a faction in the Cham-
bers. In England, on the contrary, the columns
of_ a newspaper, whenever the public mind is in
the slightest degree agitated, are monopolized
by the proceedings of vast assemblages of the
people, over whose movements the newspaper
itself may exercise no control whatever. Thus
the Times, the Post, and the Herald, are daily
filled with the doings of Mr. O'CONNELL in Ire-
land; while the Chronicle, the Advertiser, and
The Sun, are constrained to pay as much atten-
tion to the vagaries of Sir R. PEEL as to the
manifestos of Lord J. RUSSELL. Here public
writers are oftenest to be found in the rear of
public opinion; but in France no public voice
but the Editor's or the Deputy's is heard till the
clangour of arms, and the first shocks of a revo-
lutionary earthquake apprise the Press, the
Chambers, and the Government, that the mea-
-1 sure of popular endurance is exhausted.
The, French character, as exhibited in their
celebrations of the triumphs of liberty, differs so
widely from that of the people of England, that
we doubt whether they could maintain, for any
length of tune, such a form of Government as
that under which we live. To the sterner virtues
they are in general strangers. They have nut
learned to offer a passive resistance to wrong.
They cannot appreciate a freedom which knows
nothing of dramatic effect, and never appeals to
public sympathy through the medium of strong
excitement. "Liberty," in the language of a
writer who had carefully studied Frenchmen in
their history, their institutions, and their ma

tiers, " must have its festivals, its garlands, its
altars, and when these fail, or are soiled, its tra-
gic stage, its scaffolds, its daggers, and the slider
of the guillotine. Otherwise the interest soon
flags—they would be sick of it in a month." In
England the anniversary of the Reformation is
never heard of, much less celebrated ; and yet
the people act as if it constituted their only Sab-
bath—formed the only pivot upon which their
thoughts turned; while in France a succession
of shows, illuminations, and myriads of mumme-
ries are required to perpetuate the memory of
the Revolution of July. Freedom seems a
French instinct ; it is an English principle.

But in admitting that the institutions which
best harmonise with the moral and physical con-
formation of so phlegmatic an animal as JOHN
BULL may be unsuited to the mercurial disposi-
tion of the French, we cannot admit for au in-
stant that their greatest happiness is pro-
moted by the present administration of the
Monarchy of July. There are some vices and
many weaknesses in the French character which
a more extensive exercise of political rights
would not fail to eradicate. A system of direct

representation would not make them less noisy,
but it would make them more self-dependent, and,
by materially adding to their sense of their own
importance as recognized members of the body

- -
politic, increase their solicitude for the promotion
of its general happiness. The habit of indulging
in grievance-dinners might neither increase their
sociability nor improve their eloquence ; but it
would dissipate a great deal of political bile, and
expend in angry words burning thoughts and feel-
ings which, if denied a vent by the mouth, would
resolve themselves by the hand in acts destructive
of all law and social order. There is no just rea-

son why the franchise should not be as extensive
and as direct in France as the conscription.

Every man bound to find a soldier for the State
should have a voice in making the laws by which

hat State is governed. Where the law of enlis

anent is imperative, as in France, the right of
voting for Members of the Legislature, when de-

manded by the subject, ought to be equally so
-- . _

The right which obliges a man to shed his blood
to save his country, can never be more im-

perative than the indefeasible right which

as a citizen, he inherits to preserve it
by his wisdom and his integrity. His wisdom is

not less clue to his country than his valour. Bu

neither individuals nor nations learn to discharge
all their public functions intuitively. It is after
repeated failures that communities arrive at per-
fection in the exercise of the simplest political

rights. What we would then claim for France

is a fair trial, in order that the world may judge
how far she is capable of that self-government
which discovers not in its own happiness a justi-
fication of any interference with the self-satisfied

repose of others. As yet no such trial has been

allowed to France. She has been judged by her
conduct in the delirium of a revolution, the mad-

ness of which thrilled through the strongest heads
in Europe. Men are the creatures ofcircuristances ;

and institutions are circumstances which, above

all others, give an impress to national character.
The gravity which the study of medicine and

theology impart to the French character may
be equalled, at least, by a more extensive know-
ledge of, and direct interest in, the administra-
tion of government, acquired through the exer-
cise of political rights.