The Sun.
London, England, 1841-12-30 00:00:00

abstain from the use of all intoxicating drinks,
as a certain means of obtaining the rights
they demand. They were also addressed by
Colonel PERRONET THOMPSON, who is indefa-
tigable in devoting himself to the people's ser-
vice. What the landed aristocracy and the
clergy may think of this falling away of the peo-
ple from the old customs of their fat!iers, we do
not pretend to guess, but tons such meetings are,
as the Nonconformist describes them, evidence
"of the existence of a strong under-current of
feeling in favour of political equality. They are
the first escapes of steam which aristocratic
tyranny has been for some time past generating."
We presume the landed aristocracy, and the
priesthood do not mean to coerce the people into
obedience to their arbitrary will; and if they do
not--if they do not design to make a charnel-
house of our goodly country, the sooner they
take the various indications of the direction in
which opinion is setting into favourable consi-
deration, the more advantageous it will be for
themselves and the community.

For many years France has been subject to
almost continual political disorders, and has
tried almost every remedy without obtaining a
cure. Extreme Republicanism, and an Imperial
despotism, alike caused bloodshed and tyranny.
A temperate and mixed Monarchy ended in re-
volution, and in the establishment of the dynasty
which is now hurrying on to despotism. Before
the first Revolution, France had an immense
Church establishment, which was the parent of
the grossest immorality and the most disgusting
impiety. To the same period it was blessed
with the uninterrupted and uncontested sway of
a long line of Kings, who involved the nation
in endless profanity and immense debts, and of
their hideous rule the terrible Revolution was
the necessary corrective and end.
The generation which grew up in. Europe, and
has almost passed away since that series of events
began, was so forcibly impressed with them that
it saw neither their causes nor their conse-
quences, and for a long time treated. them as
the results of furor or innate wickedness of
Frenchmen, subject to no general law, and only
to be repressed, like lunacy, by putting the
nation under the constraint of strict laws. The
student of history is aware, that the terrible ex-
cesses of the Revolution have some parallels at
many antecedent periods in the existence of
France, and that they only appeared so terrible
to this generation because it witnessed them
ignorant of previous excesses, and suffered bit-
terly from their consequences.
Through all this long series of events, and pro-
tracted existence of great social evils, the theory
has been professed and acted on, that the law, be
it what it may, must be obeyed and enforced.
Whether the law expressed only, as in the period
antecedent to the time of Cardinal RICHELIEU,
the brutal will of the Seigneurs, tempered some
little by the doctrines of religion, and the cun-
ning resistance of the men of law growing gra-
dually into power; or whether it expressed, as
subsequent to that period, the somewhat more
refined and statesman-like views of the Monarchs
and Ministers of France, it was, through all the
ages of French history, rigorously and even
terrifically enforced.
France is the country of Europe where the
law—whether it emanated from the Court or the
Parliaments, considered as the antagonist and
the curb of the popular will which had neither
meetings nor institutions to give it voice—was
pre-eminently the rule of society. Everything
was regulated and everything ordained; and,
till the beginning of the Revolution, the popular
turbulence of England, in contra-distinction
to the well-regulated and suppressed popu-
lar feelings of France, was a standing theme of
reproach to our great and growing community.
France has long been a monarchy par excellence,
and at no period of its history has any portion of
its people been capable of disputing the power
of the law, or in any way resisting it, except by
a violent revolution, or rushing into civil war.
The result has been ages of disorder and of
tumult, ending as the latest event in the attack
of QUENI'SSET on the lives of the Royal Family,
and its consequence forboding another period of
anarchy, in a collision betwixt the Government,
intent on administering and maintaining a bar-
barous and inefficient law, and the Press.
Nor have the periods of greatest internal tran-
quillity, when the law was completely supreme,
been free from dissasters. Louis XIV. was obeyed
unresistingly in every part of his dominions, or
he enforced his will by the sword. His success-
ful tyranny excluded religious liberty from
France, and deprived her of some of her best
arts and of her best citizens. It was the precur-
sor, also, of the financial and moral disorders of
the Regency and of the reign of Louis
XV., which so terribly embarrassed the
reign of Louis XVI., from its commence-
ment, and brought him, far less deservedly than
CHARLES 1., to a criminal's end. The internal
tranquillity which generally prevailed during the
short sway of NAPOLEON was accompanied by a
most terrific waste of blood and treasure, by fos-
tering a military spirit which could not save
France from conquest, and has, ever since his fall
been a source of unquietness, trouble, and expense., Such a brief bird's-eye view of the condition of
France through many centuries, contrasted with
the present condition of the United States, where
the progress of society surpasses whatever was
before known, while the peace and prosperity of
the people are uninterrupted, is calculated, we
think, to make the considerate and wise men,
who now stand at the head of affairs in France,
such as M. GUIZOT and his friends, and whom,
we believe, to be animated by the best inten-
tions, suspect, and even doubt, the truth of their
favourite doctrine, that society can be made pros-
perous by laws, and that nothing but obedience is
wanting in France to promote the national hap-
piness. The Communists, and the clubs of
Ouvriers Egalitaires, may be wrong; we believe
they are ; but it is plain, from all experience,
that M. G UIZOT and his friends must be
wrong. Their system of governing France by
coercive laws—of putting down what they call
the bad Press, or what they consider dangerous
opinions, has been tried through a series of ages,
under a succession of Kings, during the dis-
orders of the Republic, and through the stillness
of the Imperial despotism, and has invariably
failed. It has led, as we have shown, to great
and continual disorders. Common sense now

imperiously dictates a different medicine.
The whole of the institutions of France are
monarchical. Political society there cannot
now, by any possibility, be otherwise organized ;
but those institutions should, by the Administra-
tion, be tempered to wards liberty—biassed towards
Republicanism, not hardened towards slavery,
and twisted into an Imperial Crown. The Re-
volution of 1830, founded on a popular principle,
embodied in it the instinctive 'wisdom which
grows from experience. The popular sentiment
expressed by the Phrase, a
CITIZEN-KING, or
Republican institutions with a Monarch, appro-
prejaPlicatuebiyexnpressed the wants of France and the
andt the country. By
at end should the
institutions adapted
Farnadnctetoo the
natoltel guide their conduct.
M. GUIZOT has served both under the old Mo.
n attain ignielim therefore reflect
statesmen
that
spmr principle, i polfe
whethera :
med
may not have more influence than present cir-
'cilYantldietmheenemt7lhiraeb, its which he then. tor
cumstances over his judgment. At least, if lie
pursues his present career, the democratic Part
of society will not fail to convict him of being
much better adapted to be a Sub-Prefect tinder
NAPOLEON, than a Minister of a Republican

Monarchy.
A scientific theory of 'Government is much
more likely to be erroneous, let, us tell M.
GUIZOT, than such a popular sentiment as was

embodied in the principles of the Revolution of

830. That is the spontaneous growth of the

nstincts of man, and of the circumstances of

his condition. It is the hand of nature guiding
him in his course, while the other is the hand

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oc art, acting from very imperfect knowledge.
As in France in 1830, so in England at this day,
the great popular demand for more liberal insti-