The Sun.
London, England, 1848-08-05 00:00:00

of time, Paris found itself transformed into a field
of battle, where French blood was shed during
three days. You know too well the terrific struggle of
these three days—we shall spare you a recital or them.
The principal object of the manifestation of the 15th of
May was to dissolve the Assembly, and to establish in
its place a sort of Committee of Public Safety. In a
word, this crisis had taken more a political- than a
s,cialist character. The insurrection of the 23-I of
June has another character—it originated in the na-
tional workshops, which workshops had been formed in
the conferences held at the Luxembourg. We endea-
voured by all our means to ascertain if money had been
distributed amongst the workmen—our endeavours have
all been fruitless—and, if some isolated facts have been
proved, they do not appear to us of sufficient importance.
However, we have found it impossible to conceal from
ourselves the fact that between the occurrences of the
13th May and the month of June, there is a striking
analogy. The Assembly has ordered an inquiry into
these two two facts, of which the following is the re-
sult :--

GENERAL CAUSES.—The Commission of Inquiry
would have desired not to have carried its investigations
into facts which would demand the most severe repres-
sion. It would have desired to have been bound by
the vote of the Assembly, with reference to the acts
of the Provisional Government ; but the facts aro so
intermingled, that the Commission finds itself under the
necessity to go far back to enable them to arrive at the
causes of discontent. The acts of the Provisional Go-
vernment have sometimes been of a nature to throw
disquietude into different minds ; and, in fact, we have
too often found, in our investigation, the fatal eflects of
documents issued in the provinces by Government agents,
who have since been replaced. We have also seen agents
from the most influential clubs sent into the provinces
with money taken from the funds of the Minister of
the Interior. We have also to signalise the different
bulletins addressed to the people at the moment of the
elections, which caused such alarm in France, and which
occasioned such a heavy responsibility on the Ministry.
These bulletins have been disavowed by the Ministry
itself ; but there exists a very remarkable circumstance,
which has been unmasked by the inquiry—which
is, that these bulletins had been written by a woman
—(Murmurs)—of very eminent literary talent, it is
true—who sent these bulletins, all reduced to methodical
order, to the Minister of the Interior.—(Fresh murmurs.)
there exists also towards the same Minister a profound
difference 'of opinion walls respect to the exterior ques-
tion; and this difference has given birth to measures con-
tradictory in themselves. Besides these dissensions,
there exists another germ of difference at the Luxem-
bourg, and which has taken its origin in the principles
which have been proclaimed. These principles have
been opposed and censured by M. Arago himself, who
expressly declares that, if any favour is shown to them,
the greatest possible evils will be the consequence.
M. L. Blanc—l demand liberty to speak.—(Mur-
murs.)
M. Bouchart—The Commission established to carry
on its investigation upon the re- unions of the Luxem-
bourg has satisfied itself that all the discourses pro-
nounced at the Luxembourg by M. Louis Blanc have
not been published. It has summoned before it the
principal short-hand writer who was attached to the
Luxembourg, and !latring put him to his oath, it exacted
from him that he should produce the notes which he had
in his posseision containing those fragments of the
speeches of M. Louis Blanc which had not been
made public. Here are some fragments of these
discourses :—" My friends, it is you who are the As•
sensibly of the deputies of the people ; be it that the Na
tional Assembly shall be able to establish itself or not,
I entertain a perfect confidence that this one shall never
perish. Being but a child, I have said to myself,
"This social order is at an end.' I have sworn before
my God and my conscience, that if I shall ever be called
on to legislate for this iniquitous state of things, I will
never forget that I am only an unfortunate offspring of
the people, and I have taken the oath of Hannibal.—
(Great excitement.) When I say that proletarianism is
a state of vassalage, I utter a word in which I embrace a
vast compass of meaning, universal suffrage:-is not that
an expression of the great will of the people ? Yes, in
a state of society in which the whole world shall be
cqusl, where there shall exist a free development of the
faculties, moral and material, but in society as it is at
present constituted—no, no ! A thousand times I answer
no !" "My friends, understand this well, and take it
Wong with you : you are the only power—you are all
kings ; for in a republic all men are equal and are
kings. In a republic there are no longer the odious dis-
till ction of rich and poor—the deadly system on which
is based the present infamous state of things." The
commission cannot conceal from itself what a poisonous
influence such speeches, and publications similar, must
have had over the minds of the great body of the work-
men, audit has thought it its duty to make a strict ex-
amination into the facts hich have given rise to this
state of things. On the 27th of February the Provisional
Government had passed a decree for the establishment
of national workshops, and they are well aware of what
vast disorder these workshops have been at once the
subject and the cause. These national workshops have
been, even among the very members of the Provisional
Government itself, the subject of the warmest discus-
sions. The Provisional Government had decreed the
disbanding of the companies of grenadiers and the volti-
geurs of the National Guard. This disbanding of those
troops was the cause of. a movement which took place
even in the hall of sitting of the Provisional Government;
and we have had, every reason to be assured that the
hand of M. Causiidire, and that of M. Louis Blanc
himself were no strangers to this movement.—(Senses
tion.) „Among the clubs, subjects and questions of the
most anarchical nature were addressed to the several
candidates. They have demanded whether, in case the
Assembly was not prepared to march forward in the
path of reform, agreeably to their ideas, they were nct
ready to march, as it were, against it. In a meeting, got
together by the care of the Prefect of Police, this same
iirehereut tere
d and
were
from that
h
person declared that the Government Commissioners
much too
e lukewarm,
ist hpelac Assembly sssoemmebwlyorddids
not proceed fast enough.
M. Cauisd
which we could not catch. A number of voices wete
heard shouting, " Order, order."
M. le President—I request M. CaussidAlre to be silent;
he will presently have an opportunity of discussing the
report.
M. Bauchart—They added that if the Assembly did
not move faster, it would be a very easy thing to demo-
lish the Assembly altogether; that they had 120,000
men ready to march at a moment's notice; and that
moreover there would be no necessity for their being
possessed of fire-arms, as for all purposes chemical pre-
parations and fire balls would, be quite sufficient.—(Ex-
citement.) Besides this, we have, moreover, a letter of
the Bth of May, written by a certain M. Grand Minel to
his son, a manufacturer of pyrotechnics at Angers—" I
recommend you instantly to set about making a consi-
derable number of shells, and such destructive articles.
Above all things preserve the greatest secrecy.—
(Sensation here that it , is . utterly impossible to
describe.) A depOsition of a political personage has
appeared to us extremely curious. One evening in April,
there was a meeting at the house of M. Ledru Rollin,
for the purpose of forming a Committee of Public Safety.
Several were proposed to us: Raspail, Blanqui, Kersansie,
Ledru Rollin, and Flocon; Blanqui refused, saying that
Ledru Rollin was not an honest man, and Ledru Rollin
also refused to associate with Blanqui; Flotte was sent
during the night to Ledru Rollin, and said to him, "You
will not be one of us? Well, on Sunday we shall make
you jump through your window ! we are sure of our
business." The 16th of April came. With what object
and in what manner did that day pass we will now
examine. The choice of a staff for the National. Guard
was but a retext. According to some of the Members
of the Provisional Government the Prefect of Police
was the avowed chief of the plot. Another chief of
police says that to him may be added Barbes, Blanqui,
and Ledru-Rollin; the object was to name Ledru-Rollin
Dictator. We have found it to be the opinion of a high
functionary that such was the intention, but we have
been unable to find a positive confirmation of it.
Lei us now hear what M. Lamartine said in his deposi-
tions. He said—" M. Ledru-Rollin came to me one
morning with much animation in his manner; he told
me that we were about to be attacked by 400,000 men,
at the head of whom were 20,000 armed clubbists. He
did not conceal from use the fact that they wished to ex-
clude me and some of my colleagues from the Hotel de
Ville. I told him that he was Minister of the Interior,
and that as such., he had a right to cause the rappel to be
beaten. If the NOli,nal Guard, I added, answers to the
call, we aro Softie!: Ledru Rollin went out. I then went
to the house of Durivier, and then to the Hotel de Ville;
and as the 12th Legion appeared on the bridge, crying
out, " Vive 13 Republique !' I saluted the triumph of
moderate republicanism. That triumph was the result
of that day, and all the honour of it belongs to the Na-
tional Guard." The depositions of Gen. Changarnier
throw a new light on this event. "On arriving at the
Hotel de Ville," he said, "there were neither arms nor
cartridges. M. Lamartine came in, looking anxious, and
complaining of the divisions which existed in the Provi-
sional Government, and accusing Louis Blanc and Ledru
Rollin. As no measures were then being taken,
arranged with
M. Marrast, whose attitude had been
excellent—(Satisfaction)--and as I thought that the
rappel ought to be beaten, I addressed that gentleman,
who wrote an order to that effect. The cause of anarchy,
though conquered, was not discouraged. Numerous
proofs exist of the spirit of disorder and anarchy having
resisted the first checks—these proofs consisting in an-
archical speeches, sent in parcels, free, to the depart-
ments ; the fury of the clubs ; bills posted up calling
on the people to plunder, and emanating from the M
i-
!lister of the Interior, and published by the men of that
Ministry ; nocturnal meetings in the closets of the same
Ministry; and projects for causing those elections to be
annulled which had a character of hostility to the
Government. May 15 was devoted to these prepara-
tions. The Club of Clubs, under M. Sobrier, and that
of the Rights of Man, first fix our attention. They were
armed; the members of the Government were in corres-
pondence with them; their arms came out of the ateliers
of the state. The elections were announced, and the
clubs had the idea of centralising themselves to domis
nate the eh ctions. The Club of Clubs held its
sittings in the house N. 16, Rue de Rivoli ; there 400
muskets and 30,030 cartridges were seen to be brought.
General Courtais in vain threatened to dissolve this club.
By an inexplicable weakness, it was allowed to exist.
d men on whom they could rely, and
This club organize
sent them into the provinces, paying them at the rate of
l of. per day from funds taken from the treasury. It
is painful to observe how, in some of the documents
found at the house of Sobrier, some of the Honourable
Members of this Assembly have been attacked. With
regard to the society of the Rights of Man, the reports
of the police have made us acquainted with the fact,
that it was composed of 14,000 men in Paris, and
20,000 in the provinces. Its place of meeting was in the
vicinity of the Palace Royal. There they cast bullets
and made preparations for a civil war. The members
of the Government corresponded with the Society of,
the Rights of Man, as with the club of Sobrier, and
sought to find partisans therein. This club had