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

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LONDON:
THURSDAY, DECEMBER 30, 1841.

We must direct attention to our report, in
another part of The Sun, of the meeting of the
CHRISTIAN CHARTISTS at Birmingham. It ap-
pears that they have, in imitation of the Chris-
tian Chartists in Scotland, obtained a Church in
which they perform public and divine worship.
They have considerable funds; they have esta-
blished a school, instituted prizes, own a printing
press, and exert themselves zealously and lauda-
bly, in a Christian spirit, to obtain the People's
Charter. They were addressed by Mr. J.
STuRGE, who strongly recommended them to
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 fathers, we do
not pretend to guess, but to us 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 charneh
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 QUENISSET 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. Louts 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 Louts
XV., which so terribly embarrassed the
reign of Louts 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
Oitvriers Egalitaires, may be wrong; we believe
they are ; but it is plain, from all experience,
that M. GUIZOT 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 towards 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-
priately expressed the wants of France and the
institutions adapted to the age and the country. By
that principle, and to attain that end should the
statesmen of France now guide their conduct.
M. GUIZOT has served both under the old Mo-
narchy and the empire, let him therefore reflect
whether the mental habits which he then formed
may not have more influence than present cir-
cumstances over his judgment. At least, if he
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 under
NAPoLmoil, 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
°. Ti ltia o. It is the hand of
spontaneous growth of the
hiinSiss3tcinn cntdsoiftn
is the
man, and of the circumstances of
nature guiding
•
him in his course, while the other is the hand
Asof ainrt
'FactingFrance
fromn l
83 ov, esrn in England y
imperfect knowledo•
at this day,
the great popular demand for more liberal insti-
tutions and more open trade, is founded on ex-
tensive experience, influencing the hearts and
minds of men. It confirms the assertion that
such popular instincts are more to be relied
on, fbr every Government must conform to
them, than what are called scientific theories
of government, which involve hostility to
the people, and can only be maintained by re-
straint and coercion. M. Guizor, therefore, and
his friends, would do well, in our opinion, to over-
haul their theories, and, instead of forcing the
monarchical institutions of France towards des-
potism, to temper them with republicanism, arid
so reconcile the power of the Throne with the Li-
berties of the people.

We have a stronger motive for making these
reflections than any expectation that they.
will influence the conduct of M. GUIZOT. Our
Tories share his error, and would fain make
society swallow their injurious nostrums. They-
are continually at work to harden our institutions