The Sun.
London, England, 1848-09-12 00:00:00

LOUIS 1)14104t).
TO THE EFITCH OF THE TI:

Sir,—Three months are pest sirce, to
Assembly, I accused the party of reaction in France of a
studied deterthination to mislead public opittion. of mis-
construing and twisting the sense Of my i:leas in a most
odious scanner, and of having %%raped against me ti.e
most dangerous of conspiracies—that of falsehood.
Here, in this country, I find the deplorable off cts of this
conspiracy in the deceit practised upon your good faith.
When, Sir, you shall be better acquainted with the facts,
you will have occasion to regret, on your own account, -
the violence of your own attacks; for it cannot be doubted
that every one must feel unhappy in having committed
an act of injustice. •
You attribute to my system and to the National A totters
—which you call my Ateliers—the miseries of the pre-
sent situation of my country. Allow me to repel, .with
all the indignation of an honest man, wetnaled in the
most sensitive part of his heart, such a horrible responsi-
bility. What! sir, my public asseveratioes, 20 times
repeated, never contradicted; the (initial doclarattens
"f M. Emile Thomas, Director of the National
.Ate-
Hers; the recent debates of the French Assembly; the
documents published in the second volume of 1110
Enguete these have not convinced you that
I was not the person «ho organized the Natibeal
Ateliers ! diet they were bruneht into existence rgainst
my wishes, against my will, in uppositiee to all: roy
principles, and even with the avowed object of counter-
balancing the it fluenee over the people' that aas attri-
buted to me. No, Sir, no I Absolutely, I wes nothing
in the creation of the National Atelie re. It was M.
Marie, then Mil:later of Public Warlia, who establish( d
them ; it was M. Emile Thomas who waa by M. Marie
appointed to the direction of them. As for myself—l
affirm it, and I defy contradiction-=-I took no part in the
formation of the National Ateliers, neither in their.or-
ganization, nor in their direction, nor in their superin-
tendence. If, then, there has been imprudence—and I
believe there has—in assembling pelhmell, in the
National Ateliers, workmen taken by chance from' all
professions ; if there has been folly in giving thenti an
uniform unproductive task, and in paying them for this
unproductive labour wages which were but alms in dis-
guise ; if this deplorable institution has become for the
State so flagrant a cause of ruin that it has been neces-
sary to crush it • if the.workmen of the Natidnal Ate-
liers, when they ceased to receive their habitual
wages, fell into despair ; if, in short, a party among
them have produced the insurrection of June under the
influence of the most terrible misery—by what strange
reversal of all the laws of justice can be imputed to me
such results? to MP, who—l repeat it—was a com-
plete stranger to the National Ateliers, who disapproved
of their being called into existence, who never put my
foot into them, and who never interfered in what con-
cerned them, neither in their establishment nor in their
organization, in their direction, nor when the question
arose of their dissolution? To each, then belongs the
responsibility of his own works.
You impute to my system, Sir, the bloody disorders
of Paris. I may remsrk that my system has, up to this
time, received only two applications, altogether partial
and confined in a very narrow circle. But, far from con-
demning my doctrines, these two partial applications
form the most striking justification of them ; fur the
association of journeymen tailors, and that of journey-
men.saddlers, which 1 founded, still exist ; they prosper,
notwithstanding all that has been done to decry them,
to 'destroy- them ; and it is to be remarked that they
did not juin in the insurrection of June—a deCisive fact,
which I recommend to the attention of all men of good
faith !
Is it meant that the popular agitation emanated from
the very nature of my principles—from their moral in••
fluence? It is this that you assert, Sir; and you reproach
me with an imputation of having sought the happiness
of one class at the wretchedness only end the misery of
another. As Ido net, Sir, doubt your honour or your
gentle loyalty, I ought to believe that you are unite-
quaieted with my writings, and that you judge me only
by the calumnies of my interested detractors. It is,
then, by quotations that I shall request permission Of
you to reply—a kind of answer evidently the most pe-
remptory.

liic thus that in L'Organi2alion du Travail I express
myself upon the natural and necessary bonds which
exist between all interests:—
" I ask, who is really interested in the maintenance of
social order such as it exists at present? No one. No.
Nobody. For myself, I willingly persuade myself, that
the evils created by an imperfect civilization sprtad
themselves, in different forms, over the whole of society."
* * * Alt! Thanks be to God! there is not
for society a partial progress or a partial retrogression.
The whole of society is elevated, or the whole of society
falls. When the laws of justice are best understood, all
conditions profit by them. When the notions of justice
are obscured, all conditions in society suffer. A nation,
in which one class is oppressed, resembles a man who
has a wound in his leg; the lame leg prevents the free
exercise of the healthy limb. Thus, however paradoxi•
cal such a proposition may appear, oppressors and op-
pressed gain equally by the destruction of the oppres-
sion. They lose equally by its continuance."—(Orga-
razor= du Travail, sth edition, page 26.)
You perceive, Sir, the principle that governs my ides.
It is that of human solidarite. It is not only in the in-
terest of the people that I have criticised the economical
system followed in France; it is also in the interest of
the middle classes, as you may easily conceive yourself,
by throwing your eyes over my little bock on the ()rya-
nizativn du Travail; and if I have required that to the
principle of individualism was substituted progressively
that of association, based upon the sentiment of frater-
nity, it is precisely because the principle of indiVidualism
has appeared to me an (nelless source of hatred, of jea-
lousy, of divbions, of tyrannies emanating from above,
of revolts proceeding from beneath.
Now, Sir, when you say that my ideas have the ten-
dency to legitimate insurrection under all circum-
stances' you hurl against me an accusation which is con-
tradicted, most undoubtedly, by every page of my books,
by each line of my speeches. Here, again, it is by
quotations that I must answer you.
Open L' HiAeire dcs Dix Ans—you will read a pas-
sage relating to a celebrated insurrection :—" It would
be to hold in too slight estimation reason and equity, to
make their triumph dependent on the chances of a coup
de main. Wisdom and time are necessary, and patience
is also &republican virtue. Assuredly it is the property
and the glory of choice spirits to be in advance of their
epoch, but to do violence to society is permitted to no
one."—(L'Elistoire des Dir Ans, tome 5, page 428 )
I have written hick wise in the Organization du Tra-
vail:—" Violence is to be feared only when discussion
is forbidden. Order has not better shields than study.
If anger sometimes chastises evil, it is impotent for the
production of good. A blind and savage impatience can
only heap up ruins under which the seeds of justice and
love would b 3 smothered. It is not the question as to
the displacing of wealth, but as to its universal expansion
and multiplication. For the happiness of all—of all
without exception—it behoves us to elevate the level of
humanity."—(Organization du Travail, page 21.)
I could, Sir, it I did not fear to make this letter too
long, multiply my quotations. I could produce here
numerous passages extracted from my speeches at the
Luxembourg, and you would perceive that I have every-
where condemned, as equally puerile and fearful, the ex-
travagances of force, end that I have always placed the
victory of justice in the calm and regular development
of public reason by the liberty of the tribune,. by the
liberty liberty of the press, by the right of diseussion.
ex-
twelve years I have written much. Well, it there
one iu
t
PmleliaiuStoP;lnveieollieehnSa'ete,i it impossible to
rudt one
force—sot
single
ex-
ists tosbr deil,iswhmhoyiwc which is books,
itso ar nu
produce such a word.
For, the rest, Sir, there is a fact which cannot be
contested,E-r which now belongs to history, and which
speaks more loudly in my favour thin all reasonings.
Whilst I remained at the Luxembourg, and when I had
it in my power to act upon the people, did the slightest
disorder take place? Was there in Paris the least
agitation? Did not the people—who, it has since been
pretended, were excited by my speeches—did they not
exhibit an admirable example of moderation, of resig-
nation? Was it not then that they pronounced
this sublime sentence—" We have three months of
misery to offer to the Republic?" But to maintain order
in Paris during the two months of passage to pow:r,
what force had lat my disposal? Speech—nothing
ut
speech. For you are not ignorant, Sir, that there
What
was
not at that period a single soldier in the eta
can possibly be opposed to so demonselrepantlieveed
What! the popular agitations only cotmhe
power of effi.
ato fact?d
from the day when I ceased to
,1-. a
isvel whom they would
cient action upon the people, this
hold responsible fur these
e " which has found
Ido not stop at the word "pi g
would be more than injusticea—angdiitt'altwttnlsa
in an article re-
beifnollt;ll.
heart and my intellect
itself,la ti re-
lating e m knowe. nIo
et
anne how,t übelieve
y my
carry calumnies against tharatPye'llo'u have wished to
meanstosuch point. For he whoshooruldevpeenrcoeifveaivnenpgililnaggeita,
would be the worst of ma
ofa destroying
misery,clMen as well as the most de-
praved of wretches
ff
of June. As to the
You recal, in rel'ationinstuorrmecet,iothne
eara
Jirasnoef, Mita%):asansdo
.
manifest that, far from having
with takenn consternation at it, part in it in any
manner whatever, I was struck
that the hatred of even my most cruel enemies has not
been able to find here any subject of accusation against
me. In what relates to the manifestation of the 15th of
May,. I reckon upon proving, by undeniable facts, that
they have sought in it only a pretext to place me at a
distance from the- National Assembly at the moment
when the constitution was about to be discussed. '
In a recital upon which I am at present engaged, and
which I shall have the honour of addressing to ,you; I
shall speak of the true causes of the troubles of May, of
the civil war of June, of the state of siege, and of the
evils which overwhelm my beloved country. In the
meantime I limit myself to the declaration, with the
authority of a conscience without reproach, that I have
never had a hand in any plot, in any attempt of violence,
in any disorder—and that to spare the pain of such to
my country, I would with joy have given all tb.e blood
in my veins.
I am, Sir, your very humble and devoted servant.
Sept. 8. LOUIS BLANC.

DIOCESB Or BATH AND WELLS.—The Lord Bishop
of Bath and Wells has licensed the following gentlemen
to curacies within his diocese:—The Rev. T. W. Boyce,
M.A., to tho curacy of St. Mary's, Taunton; the Rev.
Alexander Burroughes Campbell, m.A., to the curacy of
St. Saviour's, Bath; the Rev. A. F. Carey, 8.A., to the
curacy of 13adgwerth, Somerset; the Rev. John Evans,
8.A., to the curacy of Portland Chapel, Bath; the Rev.
Richard Quarrel!, M.A., to the curacy of Emmanuel
Church, Weston-super-Mare; the Rev. John Arthur
Jeaffreson Robcrts, 8.A., to tho curacy of Tickenham,
near Bristol; the Rev. R. A. H. Strout', M.A., to the
curacy of Saltiurd, Somerset; the Rev. Richard W'ard,
M.A., to the curacy of Wells, borner,et; the Rev. E.
Whitehead, M.A., to one of tho cuu.cics in the Abbey
Church of Bath.

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