The Sun.
London, England, 1847-11-23 00:00:00

We have received the Paris papers of Sunday.

The Presse gives the text of the letter addressed
by M. Bois LE COMTE to General DUFOUR, announc-
ing his intention of withdrawing from Berne, in con•
sequence of a safe conduct to Lucerne having been
refused to one of his attaches. The Debuts attempts
to justify this conduct of M. Boss LE COMTE, by say-
ing that he was accredited not to the Federation, but
to each of the twenty-two sovereign cantons. This
doctrine is certainly a novel one, and it behoves all
federal republics to come to some understanding with
France on the subject. The Ambassador to the
United States, for instance—is he accredited to the
Federation, or to each of the States separately ?
The fact is that M. Bois LE COMTE, in obedience
to the orders of M. GutzoT, abused the sacred cha-
racter of an ambassador, by acting the part of a
spy, and communicating to the rebels of Lucerne
every thing that was going on in the camp of the
Federation. In proof of this we quote the following
from the Constitutionnel

"We cannot, in fact comprehend the conduct
which M. Bois Le Comte is made to exhibit in
Switzerland. What had he to do with a Govern-
ment which the organs of our Ministry do not cease
to load with the grossest insults and the most odious
calumnies ? What relations was he keeping up with
the Vorort and the Diet, since M. Guizot, violating
the law of nations, fraudulently introduced arms and
ammunition into the canton Friburg, when in revolt
against the Vorort and the Diet ? What attitude
could M. Bois-le-Comte assume in a country into
which the French Government has just flung civil
war, by a support given to a powerless and rebellious
minority? In order to be consistent, it was to Lu-
cerne that our Ministry ought to have sent an ambas-
sador, in place of keeping him at Berne. We know
well that that the cannon were furnished to Friburg in
order to please Austria, and that M. Bois-le-Comte
was kept at Berne in order not to offend too much
the opinion of the Chambers. But what was the ap
pearance which the double game of his Government
gave to M. Bois-le-Comte ? He appeared to be a
spy in the enemy's camp, an agent of division and
discord in the midst of an independent nation, a
foreign conspirator invested with inviolability. Be-
sides, is not the avowed cause of his withdrawal a
truly extraordinary one ? He, the ambassador of the
Government which sent muskets to Friburg, wanted
to send a secretary of embassy to Lucerne ! General
Dufour, a very moderate Liberal, but an honest man
antisdevoted to his duty and his country, found the
proceeding suspicious, and refused' the .safe conduct
dernatide'd. We ask, what man of common sense,
what French general in his place would have
acted otherwise ? Was it not the duty of our ambas
sador, since he remained at Berne, to abstain abso-
lutely from any step that might compromise him, and
to await the tertnination of the civil war in the most
complete neutrality ? We may add, the cause al-
leged for the refusal was not the only one. \Ve
believe that we are perfectly well informed, when we
say that amongst the letters seized by the agents of
the Government of Berne on the agents of the Son-
derbund, there were several which proved the dis-
loyalty of the French Minister towards Switzerland,
or which at least gravely compromised the legation ;
and this was precisely the reason given by General
Dufour to M. Bois-le-Comte as a motive for refusing
the safe conduct. The Vorort certainly has not
failed to complain to the French Ministry of the
proceedings of the Government and embassy of
France towards Switzerland. There was, therefore,
in the situation of Bois-le-Comte every possible mo-
tive for his withdrawing. Thus we have maitt3wo
parts of the Swiss cantons ; we have
,urged":opAte
one part, consisting of those which are the stasilfch
friends of the Powers hostile to France, to revolt and
subsequent defeat ; and we have separated ourselves
for a long time to come from the others, who were our
natural friends and the defenders of our frontiers.
Such is the patriotic and intelligent work which M.
Guizot has just concluded."
It was rumoured in Paris that Lord PALMERSTON
had proposed that a congress of the representatives
of the five great Powers should be held in London
(instead of at Baden, as proposed by M. GUIZOT), on
the subject of the affairs of Switzerland, to which the
Federalists and the Sonderbund should each send
two Deputies. This proposition has, it is said, been
favourably entertained by the French Government.
The following are the particulars of the accident
on the Orleans Railway, the occurrence of which we
mentioned in The Sun of yesterday :
" The train, which had left Paris late on Friday
night, had arrived at the Pont de la Bourie, the point
of junction of the line with that of Bordeaux and
Vierzon, and was taking in passengers, when a loco-
motive, which had been employed in pushing on a
heavy train from Orleans to Paris, returned at full
speed, and, without perceiving the signal displayed
that a train was stopping at the station, dashed on,
and came with the utmost force against the carriages
lying last. The passengers were dreadfully hurt to
the number of sixteen, and three so badly as not to
hold out much hope of ultimate recovery. The num-
ber of passengers in the train was about 150, but
fortunately only three of the carriages were crushed,
the rest yielding to the shock, and running on along
the line. The men who were on the locomotive suf-
feredaeiTt nuotF iinjury, but one of them, it is said, has lost
his reason. An investivation into the cause of the
e
Passage
leebnic‘boheeproharrdeeerpeder." Cents. were done in the
on Sunday at 76f. 90c.