The Sun.
London, England, 1848-05-30 00:00:00

without any rational motive, but I obeyed because I
desire above alltobe a good citizen, and never to be-

come a brand of discord:

(Signed) " ' E. THOMAS.'"
As this correspondence appears merely in the
Presse, we do not place any very implicit reliance on

t 8 authenticity. M. EMILE DE GIRARDIN, the pro-

. _
prietor and editor of that journal, has always been

celebrated as a roreancist, and the Presse is now

the organ of the Orleanist party—a party which
never hesitated to back up falsehood by forgery, and
which, during the seventeen years of the reign of its
head, had attached to each department of the Govern-
ment a bureau of forgery, the employes of which
were bound to produce documentary evidence of
every sort from a dispatch, by an Ambassador, to a
bill of exchange, that their patrons might require.
We do not, therefore, place implicit reliance on the
authenticity of this alleged letter from M. EMILE
Tnosus.

The Journal des Debuts gives the following ac-
count of the progress made in their labours by the
Committee on the Constitution :
" Several journals have given very incorrect accounts
of the proceeding of the Committee on the constitution.
According to rumours in the Salle des Conferences, the
Committee from the first day of its organization charged
its President, M. de Cormenin, to draw out a plan of
proceedings to be followed by the Committee. Con-
formably to this espos6, the Committee were of opinion
that the new constitution should rather consist of an
enumeration of great principles than in a long and tech-
nical development of laws and theories. M. de Lamme-
nais, who was then a member, appeared to share in the
opinion of his colleagues as to these preliminaries. It
appeared also certain that these two celebrated writers
would be agreed on the principal points which should
serve as the basis i
of the future constitution of France.
M. de Lammenais, n withdrawing himself from the
Committee, gave as his reason the state of his health
and the multiplicity of his occupations; but the real
cause is said to be that he feared it would be impossible
to succeed in forming a constitution perfectly homoge-
neous in a Committee of eighteen members, which it
was threatened to increase by the addition of an equal
number from the bureaux of the Assembly for the dis-
cussion on the amendments. We are decidedly agreed
with M. de Lammenais in this opinion, and it is to be
he that the Assembly, when the project of the con-
stitution shall be submitted to it, will devise a means of
preventing such a decision, which will throw confusion
into a work of this nature, and which should perfectly
agree in all its parts.
" The most excellent feeling is said to animate all the
members of the Committee, and the most honourable
sentiments of union and conciliation to pervade them—a
very rare thing to be found among men whose political
opinions are so much at variance as those of MM. Mar-
rest, Dupin, Considerant, de Tocqueville, Coquerel,
Vivien, and Martin (de Strasbourg.)
" The Committee, it is said, at its last sitting, came to
a provisional resolution on the two important points
which must dominate all the project of the constitution.
It admitted, on the :proposition of the president, that
there should be one chamber and one president, who
should be named directly by the whole people. The
Committee was divided in opinion on the period of dura-
tion of the elections of the president and the chamber.
Some members wished it to be fixed for three years,
others demanded that the elections should take place
every four years.
" The Committee has not yet deliberated on the prin-
ciple of the formation of a council of state, or on the
judicial power. It is, however, thought that the Com-
mittee will have decided on all the other points of the
constitution in about a fortnight or three weeks. It will
afterwards occupy itself with the definite arrangement of
all the articles. The Assembly, therefore, may have the
constitution laid before it at the latest by the end of June.
This may be said to be doing business in a very prompt
manner, when it is remembered that the drawing up the
constitution in 1791 occupied eighteen months."
We read in the Democratie Pacifique :—" Several

iournals giae very incorrect accounts of the proceed

.. _
ings of the Committee on the Constitution, The
Committee assembles every day. After a general

discussion, it passes to the consideration of the dif-
ferent chapters. The discussions are long and se-
rious, but almost all the decisions are come to unani-
mously, or with a very large majority. The
Committee has declared that the political constitution
of France is a democratic Republic, one and in-
divisible. We believe we are correct in say-
ing that the project of constitution is preceded
by a declaration which recognizes, in addi-
tion to former rights, that of gratuitous education,
employment, and assistance. The Committee after-
wards occupied itself with the Legislative Govern-
ment. The legislative body will be composed of 750
Members. In case of revision of the Constitution,
the Constituent Assembly will be composed of 900
Members. The election will take place by department
and by ballot from a list. As to the Executive Go-
vernment the Committee have admitted a President
named directly by universal suffrage, for four years,
without possible re-election. Two millions of votes
will be required for the nomination. The Commission
is now engaged on the attributions of the President
and of the Ministers."
When the club of BARBES was closed by order of
the authorities, the following curious document was
found among its archives :
" EXAMINATION PRACTISED WITH REGARD
TO AFFILIATION.

F
l REQUIREDed i
n the CAT.Society
tNDdlensaLEr
os
,t s
Onrno
"121slu(a) Lo InFei cs Ah
lo Nb se Te
de I'Homme who does not present
the following gua-
rantees:—
" 1. He must evince the most perfect self-denial, and
in the most absolute manner, for the service of the
society. The society in return •
engages to put him in
a position to defend himself, or, not,if t n i
revenge
him. This is the way in which mutual responsibility s
understood.
" The organization of the society
tary, he will hold himself at the disposal •
of the society
whenever the central committee shall decide on being
es permanence, either armed or unarmed. It' he should
absent himself when called on he cannot bring forward
in excuse either family ties or personal affairs. In any
case in which his duties as a citizen and as a member of
the society may clash, he must •
produce
a discharge from
the commissary from the arrondissement.
regulations " 8. He will adhere to the of the society
and to the declarations of the ' rights of man and of a
citizen without any restriction.
" 4. He will attend the meetings either of the Central
Club or any other club pointed out by his chief of the
section in order to perfect his political education if such
be not the case, or to propagate his doctrines
if he is so.
" 5. When a candidate is considered by a sect'onar
as fit to enter the society he must himself to Y entthe
present
chief of the section nearest to him. The chief will
examine him, and will present him at the next meeting
of the section. His inscription as candidate will specify
his family and surnames, his profession, his residence,
and the means of arming himself in his possession."
The following remarks on the " tissue of lies and
calumnies" put forth by the traitor Bourbon
King, who
directed the massacres at Naples, appears in the' Con-
, stitutionnel:—
~ The proclamation which the King of Naples had
placarded on the 16th, on the walls of his faithful
capital, is nothing but a tissue of lies and calumnies.
There is not a word said of the pillage and the murder
ordered by the King himself, and which took place un-
der the protection of his troops after the fighting was
over. It is false that the Chamber ever constituted it-
self into a Provisional Government, and that a Com-
mittee of Public Safety was named. The deputies, to
the number of 95, had assembled in the Palace Monte
Oleveto to hold a preparatory sitting. While the massa-
creing was at its height, and cannon were pointed on the
palace, they sent a deputation of six members to entreat
the King to stop the firing. This is what is styled a
Committee of Publia Safety.
"It is not difficult to explain the vagueness and con-
fusion which pervades all the accounts received from
Italy. All the correspondence has been seized at the
Post-office by the Neapolitan police. For a fortnight
before the massacres, and when the project of a coun-
ter-revolution had been decided on at the palace, the
sanctity of the Post-office was violated; journals and
letters only reached their destination mutilated, and in
a most irregular manner. After the coup d'etat of the
15th, the mails did not leave Naples—the journals of
the Opposition did not appear—all the writers of any
talent were either massacred or arrested. The Italian
press is, therefore, reduced to the conjectures, and often
contradictory versions, of some traveller who escaped the
carnage.
" A loud cry of indignation was raised from one end
of the Peninsula to the other, as soon as the events at
Naples became known. The journals which we have
just received are filled with imprecations against the
' traitor King,' the ' tyrant,' and the ' parricide.' His
escutcheon has been dragged in the mud, and burnt
amidst the hooting of the indignant crowd. The news
that the Calabrians have risen, and are marching towards
the capital, is at least premature. On the evening of the
18th, Jean Andre Romeo was still on board the Fried-
land, amongst the numerous refugees who had escaped
the massacre on shore. It is, therefore, physically im-
possible that in so short a time he could have reached
Calabria and even Salerno, as some of the Italian jour.
nals state.
"At Rome a collision appears to be imminent. The
retrograde party and a certain number of Cardinals,
encouraged by the example of the King of Naples, will
endeavour to incite the Transteverins and the populace,
and to sow discord in the ranks of the National Guard.
God grant that blood has not already been shed. For
a long time some persons have entertained the project
of carrying off the Pope to Subiaco, in order to after-
wards publish to Europe that the Roman people, for-
getful and ungrateful, had wished to do violence to the
Sovereign Pontiff. Let us hope that the lofty mind of
Pius IX., who unites the purest feelings of religion to
the most ardent patriotism, will defeat the scheme of an
incorrigible coterie, whose egotism and cupidity will
hesitate at no means to prevent or retard the opening of
the Legislative Chambers.
Up to a late hour last evening Paris was perfectly
quiet, the display of military force made by the
authorities having been sufficient to keep in order the