The Sun.
London, England, 1848-12-11 00:00:00

Ob-Inina

LONDON, MONDAY, DECEMBER 11, 1848.

" The Revolution," says CHATEAUBRIAND in his
great posthumous autobiography D' Outre Tombe,
" The Revolution would have gained a supporter in
me had it not been commenced by crimes. I saw the
first head carried on a pike, and shrank back. Mur-
der can never appear, in my eyes, either an object of
admiration or a proof of liberty. I know nothing
more base, more despicable, more cowardly or more
mean than a Terrorist." The true democrats of the
European continent should bear this memorable ac-
knowledgment in recollection. It is a truth articu-
lated, by the lips of an honest and profound thinker,
from the abyss of Death. And its correctness has
been singularly verified by the events which have
transpired since the demise of the panegyrist
of C.loristianity. Those nations which have
abstained from acts of violence in their re-
cent struggles for freedom have advanced the
most steadily towards the realisation of their golden
day-dreams of liberty and constitutional happiness;
whereas the people who have dragged the banner of
regeneration through the blood of murder and the
mire of pillage have placed a formidable weapon in
the hands of their antagonists, and so far from ele-
vating themselves into freemen, have debased them-
selves into assassins. France, yielding to the angelic
inspirations of her Orator, repudiated in February
the red flag which had only made the tour of the
Champ de Mars, and selected in its stead the glorious
sttoaundard of the tricolour, which had made the
r of the world with her glory, her triumphs,
and her liberties ! Hence it is that French
democracy has hitherto been victorious over
all difficulties. The citizens of France, fighting for
their rights againstpraved Monarchy, still
bowed down in homage a
befored the genius of religion:;
Illation of the Republic,
and a little more than threeohnathsafter the procla-
d beenwboiefhpititis won without
the olive
a crime, the Archbishop
freedom of his country by dying consecrateda
d the
branch in his hand at the foot of the
Bonus pastor donavit animani suam pro ovum. sues
In consequence of this abstinence from all criminality
on the part of French Democracy, the young
Republic has been gradually consolidated and her
Constitution acquired in the midst of the convulsions
of the surrounding kingdoms. Prussia, in the same
way, has not polluted its struggles with any one pa-
roxysm of ferocity, and now, although the National
Assembly has been illegally dissolved, and although
the streets of Berlin are in the possession of the
soldiers of WRANGEL, it is proceeding steadily to-
wards the acquirement of political rights, such as
have never been conceded since the Elector of Branden-
burg was first crowned with a royal diadem.
While the absence of all atrocity in Prussia
and France has led to the consolidation o
freedom in the one country, and to the general
advancement of reform in the other, the democracies
of Italy and Austria have encountered obstacles
which, at the first glance, seem to be almost wholly
insurmountable. In this respect the Italians are in
a more lamentable situation than the Austrians. The
one isolated act of cruelty which cast a momentary
gloom over the revolution of Vienna was expiated
by the noble moderation displayed by the tri-
umphant democrats of that capital. And now
that the single death of LATOUR has been
followed by the predatory deeds of Jzi.LA-
caica and by the fiendish brutalities of WINDISCH-