The Sun.
London, England, 1849-10-24 00:00:00

fourtbWilition

FRANCE.
(FROM OUR. CORRESPONDENT.)
PARIS, TUESDAY EVENING.
There is not an honest Frenchman in the land
whose cheeks are not burning with shame at the
infamy of tho National Assembly declaring, by solemn
votes on Saturday, that the Pepe shall have carte
blanche to murder, imprison, exile, confiscate, and
oppress, under protection of the French legions sent
to Rome on the lying pretence of defending Roman
liberty. And no wonder that Frenchmen hang the
head with humiliatiois, fur never, never did legisla-
ture of any nation give such an audacious disavowal
of its own previous acts, cast such a stain on the
country's honour, or commit such monstrous iniquity
towards a friendly people.
In this deplorable business, however, President
Bonaparte figures most pitiably. He is personally
insulted and disgraced ; branded as a foolish mad-
cap.l whose solemn acts are treated as of no account ;
scoffed, jeered, kicked ,humiliated, as not only no Prime
Minister of a great nation, but no man with the slightest
sense of his own dignity was before submitted to. Oh !
how the shadow of the Napoleon which haunts the
Invalides must have started with astonishment, and
his eyes have gleamed fierce with wrath at seeing his
degenerate nephew, the unworthy bearer of his own
great name, submit to have France so humiliated, and
he himself so dishonoured !
But " out of evil cometh good ;" and whilst we weep
with the oppressed and betrayed Romans, and express
indignation at the atrocity of the French Govern-
ment, we have at least the satisfaction of knowing that
Prince Bonaparte has henceforward rendered himself
perfectly harmless in the land, and sunk himself to the
contemptible position of the baffled and ridiculous
conspirator of Strasburg and Boulogne, from which his
election to the Presidency drew him. In consenting
to allow Thiers to treat with contumely his letter to
the Aide-de camp; Ney, and in permitting his Mi-
nisters to advocate from the tribune a policy of which
he notoriously disapproved, he has voluntarily
stripped himself of the prestige which
his name, and
his almost miraculous election, gave him in the eyes
of the gullible multitude. He is no longer an object
of dread to the Republicans. His schemes of esta-
blishing an empire are no longer to be feared. Any
prolongation even of his Presidency need no longer
to b 3 apprehended. He is henceforth a stick in the
hankie of his Ministers and the majority of the As-
sembly—a dog to fetch and carry, and be spurned
and kicked at will. Nay more ; he cannot even boast
of being President of the Republic in aught but in
name, as the power which the Constitution confides
to him, and for the exercise of which it makes him
responsible in liberty, fortune, and life, has been
audaciously, and in the presence of all, taken away.
The man in truth is now politically a nonentity—he
is politically dead.
Although the majority of the Assembly appear by
its recent vote to be as compact as heretofore, the
truth is that it has received a shock from which it
can never recover ; and it is certain that it will very
shortly fall to pieces. Its dissolution will be a bless-
ing to the country, inasmuch as it may probably
avert a sanguinary insurrection. A more abominable
and unnatural coalition never existed ; it consists of
parties whose principles are as wide as the poles
asunder, and destructive of each other, and has no
other object than that of securing to itself place,
power, privilege, and of maintaining a system of taxa-
tion so iniquitously devised as to cast nearly the whole
burden on the toiling people.
I hope that in England you place no confidence in
France with respect to the Turkish question. If so,
you are doomed to grievous disappointment. Beyond
a milk and watery note, and perhaps the sending of a
few ships to share in any demonstration which may
be made by the English fLet, expect not France to
go. Iler Government is too selfish, too timid, too
traitorous to the Republic and to the people, even to
think of assuming a bold and becoming attitude to-
wards the Russian Autocrat. As for engaging in
war, should one ensue, you might as well expect her
to fight fur the moon. It is rot under a Louis Bona•
parte, a Barret, and a Thiers, that she will
consent to fire a shot or spend a sous for
a cause of chivalry and generosity. Has not
her Government need of almost every man
of her vast army to overawe the population at home ?
And are not the few troops she sends abroad destined
to slaughter nascent Republics, and end in extinguish-
ing the liberty of foreign nations ?
The clouds which have so long hung over the
political horizon have not cleared up; they seem, on
the contrary, to become blacker and heavier every
day. The present state of things cannot last—it can-
net. It is wearing away the vital forces of the nation
as consumption wears away the human frame. It is
filling every heart with hatred, every mind with
desp :cadency. All wish to see it overthrown; but,
strange to say, scarcely any flare to :hasten it down-
fal, as it is feared that its destruction, though
ine iitcible, will be the signal fur the unloosing of all
r e passions of faction—perhaps for the drawing of
the sword of civil war.
Ali ! tremendous is the responsibility which weighs
on the moo who have brought things to the crisis
in which they stand; who have Ferrevedirhe pure and
holy Revolution of February; who have poisoned
the stream that was declared to give life and hope to
the 11.1 f starving my/lids of this wreteLed land ; who
have :nade another revolution inevitable, and done
uttnr.t to render it implacable and as sangui-
n,ry as the terrible '93 : vast is their responsibility,
but let them bear it, and let all its consequences fall
on them.

Rumours of a change of Ministry continue to
prevail. It is morally certain that the Cabinet, as at
present constituted, cannot possibly hold together
long, and the probability is that it will be
replaced by one in which Theirs and Mole, and
their set will be predominant. Tant mieux, a few
months rule of such men would bring things to a
crisis, and, if I mistake net, so disgust the population
with their faction and their doctrines as to win uni-
versal favour to the Republic, the only form of
government henceforth possible in France.
In financial circles there is a talk of a loan being
shorty rui,ed by the Government. I entreat your
readers to have nothing to do with anything of the
kind. It would be treason to liberty to lend money
to the present Government of France ; and it would be
folly besides, for the financial embarrassments are so
fearfully great that it will require nothing short of a
mirc!e to avoid national bankruptcy.
BLEU-BLANC-ROUGE.

Count. Charles Berando de Pralormo presented to
the President of the Republic, yesterday, letters from
his Sovereign, accrediting him as Envoy Extraor-
dinary aid Minister-Plenipotentiary of Sardinia in
Fra.xe. Ou Sunday Mr. Richard Rush delivered
to the President of the Republic letters from his
Government, terminating the mission he filled in
France as Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Pleni-
potentiary of the United States of America.