The Sun.
London, England, 1848-07-10 00:00:00

THE SUN, L01,47D0N1

lips came those words of eloquence which only a day
or two back thrilled through the heart of Christen-
dom. Every citizen in France felt the sincerity of
till., man's enthusiasm—it was attested, indeed, by the
purity, the consistency, and the dignity of a whole
life. Every citizen in France, moreover, recognised
the splendour of this man's genius—it was visible not
only in the " guinea-stamp" of popularity which is
ephemeral, but in those golden creations of poetry, of
oratory, and of history which are all of them, when
lifted above a certain elevation, eternal. Knowing
these things, France responded to the
call of LAMARTINE ; she saw him, with
that courage which belongs alone to true heroism,
flinging back the red flag in the teeth of a rabble,
infuriated by the delirium of success—she heard him
apostrophise that tri-colour which had made the tour
of the world, and which he defended at the risk of
his life, because in it be beheld the symbol of liberty,
of equality, and of fraternity—she saw him, with the
pikes and bayonets of the mob brandished over his
head, defying, repelling, and ultimately conquering
with his single voice the defenders of communism, of
terrorism, of anarchy, of bloodshed, and of spoliation.
France saw and heard all this—she recognised on
the instant the sincerity, the genius, the goodness, the
patriotism, and the devotion of LAMARTINE—she felt
that he, above all other men, was THE MAN of the
Revolution, THE MAN calculated to become the first
statesman of the Republic, and the one to whom she
might with confidence entrust the sacred responsi-
bilities of Government. Animated by these emo-
tions, France raised LAMARTINE to supreme power
on the shield of the national gratitude. What was
more, she obeyed the inspirations of his humane and
poetic eloquence ; she sacrificed a century of ven-
geance to the magnanimity dictated by emancipa-
tion—she abolLbed capital punishment for political
offences, and virtually by that act exorcised the
ghastly demon of the guillotine; she decreed the
illegality of negro slavery in the French colo-
nies ; she offered the hand of peace and
friendship to the nations of Europe, and aban-
doned that old ambition of conquest which was un-
suited to the epoch, now that the march of armies
had become incompatible with the march of civili-
zation. By these noble and generous proceedings
was the young Republic of 1848 inaugurated, and
its inauguration was effected under the immediate
auspices and guidance of LAMARTINE. Europe per-
ceived all this, and her different Cabinets respected
the Provisional Government of February, a Govern-
ment which must inevitably, under other circum-
stances, have been exposed to the miseries of suspicion
and the dangers of intrigue. Paralysed and darkened
as her judgment was for the time being by the
torment of her late tremendous struggle, France like-
wise saw all this as clearly as the Cabinets of
Europe. And how did France evidence her sense of
the brilliant and glorious services of her Great
Citizen ? By an ovation of three months' duration,
such as no man without the prestige of military gran-
deur has ever received either before or since. She
exhausted her vocabulary of panegyric in singing his
eulogiums, and displayed the love and admiration
with which she regarded him by depositing in the
urns of election upwards of three millions of votes.
And it is against this man—" under whose nostrils,"
to use an expression lately uttered by the Semaine,
" she had recently burned the last grain of her in-
cense"—it is against this man that the slanders
of all parties in the Republic are now directed,
as by a species of infamous unanimity.
It is upon his head that the jealousies of all—
Legitimists, Communists, Bonapartists, Orleanists,
Bourbonists, the amariert, the bourgedkisie, and the
aristocrats—are being poured out today like ashes!
It is against him that the obloquies of the Parisians
are being thrown unstintingly, as if to afford to future
historians a new and unparalleled example of the mu-
tability of political fortunes, of the vicissitudes of
popularity, and of the fickleness of the people.

But there are doubtless reasons for this sudden
change in the opinions of French citizens. 0 yes,
there are reasons. When it was said after the first
insurrection that LAMARTINB had conspired with the
insurgents of the 14th of May, LAMARTINE himself
answered that accusation from the tribune of the
National Assembly. He said—everybody remem-
bers it—" Yes I haw conspired with those men, I
have conspired with them as the lightning conductor
conspires with the thunder cloud 1" The metaphor
was splendid, and has been verified by events. The
lightning conductor of the Revolution, otherwise the
fame of LAMARTINE, has been melted, warped
literally blasted by carrying off the terrible
electricity of the conspiracies. To shield France
from peril, the poet statesman called down upon his
own head the lightnings of terrorism. LAMARTINE
has secured the salvation of the Republic, but only
by the sacrifice of his immense and magnificent popu-
larity. As has been nobly said already of this great
man, by one speaking from the opposite side of the
Channel—" M. DE LAMARTINE was not actuated by
ambition—he was a patriot to the extent of self-
sacrifice—he consented, with his eyes open, to psi-
cerise hi* name, in order that he might preserve the
National Assembly." That is the explanation of this
otherwise inexplicable problem, that is the solution
to the enigma of the downfal of the Executive Com-
mission, that is the clue which can alone guide our
reason through the labyrinth of these extraordinary
and bewildering occurrences.
Hitherto there have been only whispers and
inuendoes in depreciation of LAMARTINZS character—
and in allusion to these same whispers and inuendoes
he has himself written thus to the ComatiNtionnel—
" There is no answer—there is only a cry of indigna-
tion which rises from the bottom
_of my soul, and
which I pray you simply to register." Ultimately
the truth will be revealed ; but meanwhile to AL-
PHONSE DE LAMARTINE himself, in the midst of his
undeserved desolation, we can fancy that that mourn-
ful verse must sometimes recur which he wrote in
the Garden of Gethsemani, on the death of his young
daughter—
" Je fus des la ntomelle un hamme de douleur ;

Mon ccrur, au lieu de sang, ne route que des larnses,
Oa plut6t, de ces pleurs Dieu m'a ravi les choruses,

Il a petrffie les larmes Bans mon cceur ;
L'amertuzne est mon mid, la tristesse est ma joie.i
Un instinct fraternel ne attache a tout cerceuil,

Nul cheminne m'arreta, a mins que je n'y vole
Quelque ruine ou quelque deuil f'

If we may gather sermons from stones and good
from everything, it is not surprising that the dates
in the almanac, as they are successively pointed out
to us by the silent finger
.of Time should be fraught
with a peculiar and significant importance. Ever
and anon the recurrence of some particular day calls
up a crowd of historical reminiscences associated
with it, and noiselessly reads us a lesson on the
mutability of human fortunes. This has been,
latterly, in an especial manner the case with regard
to France, where extraordinary political vicissitudes
have invested particular anniversaries with an unusual
interest. For example, the beginning of the month
of May exhibited to us the Young Republic of
France weeping over the tomb of the Empire, and
now the beginning of July, fraught with similarly
mournful souvenirs recalls the time when, as Mr.
Mr. SMYTHE has eloquently sung,
" One common woe had made two rivals friends,"

and England and France, forgetting their then
hostility, mingled their tears over the grave of
ORLEANS. Seven years have elapsed since the son of
Louis PHILIPPE was snatched away by a violent
and premature death from his father and his family,
and his promised crown. Seven yearshave passed away
since that mournful procession trod the road to
Neuilly, when a royal family, forgetting their royal
estate, walked humbly along the high road following
their beloved dead. That royal family wept not as
ordinary parents, and brothers and sisters weep, their
sorrow was augmented by the peculiar position of
him they mourned. What unutterable anguish
thrilled the old man's heart as he wept, a father for
his son, and a sovereign for his heir. How much of
parental tenderness and hopeful ambition were buried
in that young grave may be learned from the fond
pride and partiality revealed in the bereaved
mother's ejaculation—" What a misfortune is this
for (trance !" That was the mainspring of their grief,
ORLEANS would never be King of FRANCE. Alas,
fur the blindness of human prescience 1 They wept
that ORLEANS was lost to France, never dreaming
that if he had lived France would be lost to ORLEANS.
Nevertheless, although that great cause of his sorrow
is now removed, the anniversary of his 801111

death will inevitably be peculiarly grievous
to Louis Pun'Pre; this will be the first
occasion since his unhappy death, that the father and ;
family of the Duke of ORLEANS will have failed to
commemorate that unhappy day, by paying a visit
to his tomb and honouring his memory, and evincing ,
their affection by the performance of solemn funeral
rites. The sorrows of the great—of the so-caled
great—seem to be invested with a peculiar interest,
they constitute that" touch of nature" which "mares
the whole world kin." When a king weeps as a
man every man recognizes in him a brother, and
sorrows for him with a brother's sympathy. Loves
PnILIrF has already experienced this—he has exie-
rienced it, to quote again from Mr. SMYTHE,
" By our own England's wail o'er his young dead;"
and he may rest assured, as the melancholy anniver-
sary approaches, that the people of England and d
France also sorrow for the agony of his father's heart,
as truly as they rejoice in the disappointment of hi:
monarch's ambition. As we said at the commencement
of these remarks, the dates of the almanac are without
doubt most significant and most suggestive. Here, for
instance, in the approaching anniversary of the death
of him who was the supposed future King of France,
what an admirable text is afforded for a lecture on
the instability of human hopes—a subject, however,
which scarcely requires new exemplification, for it is
almost daily suggested to us in some conspicuous
manner. If some new FENELON were now desirous
of instructing those young Princes, whose brows may
hereafter be girded with a diadem, however attractive
and appropriate a theme might be afforded by the
early death of the Duke of ORLEANS, cut off in the
morning of life and the full bloom of hope, we are
inclined to think, nevertheless, that the royal mentor
would have little occasion to cite examples from
among the dead, when there are those now living
whose very existence conveys an invaluable les-
son to Princes anxious to learn how to reign.
What, for example, could be more sugges-
tive, under such circumstances, than a glance
at the position of the three young heirs or
pretenders to the French crown now existing ? The
young Bourbon, who deems it his by hereditary
right; the young BONAPARTE, who aspires to it by in-
herited right of election ; and the young ORLEANS,
who may claim it in right of his grandfather's recent
possession. The princely scholar will not require the
wisdom of a FENELON nor the wit of a MACHIAVELLI
to instruct him when such examples are before his
eyes to teach him by unmistakeable signs that a royal
pedigree, or a glorious name, or an unquestioned
right of inheritance, are in these times quite insuffi•
cient to invest their possessor with the insignia of
royalty in defiance of the popular will. The popular
will is now the custodian of crowns and sceptres, and
that popular will is only to be bribed into complai-
sance by a devotion to the popular rights. Had the
old Bourbons been but half such zealous sticklers for
the popular rights as they were for the regal prero-
gatives, the fiemr-de-/i8 would have flourished in
France under the guardianship of HENRY V., while,
it the Citizen KING had manifested in preserving
these popular rights one particle of the anxiety with
which he once courted the popular will, without
doubt the Count of PARIS might have realised those
hopes which now lie buried in the tomb of the Duke
of ORLEANS. The lesson suggested by these indis.
putable facts is worthy of the consideration of both
People and Princes.

THE FRENCH REPUBLIC.

We have received the Paris papers of Saturday
and yesterday.
The Journal det Debcds publishes the letter from
M. DE LAISARTINE which appeared in The Sifil of
Saturday, in reply to the charges brought against
the late Provisional Government, and also the follow-
ing letter from MM. GARNIER PAGES and PAG-