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

THE SUN, LONDON,

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
this 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
those 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 he 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 MIN 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 LAAIARTINE 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 abolished 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 belore or since. She
exhausted her vocabulary of panegyric in singing his
eulogiutns, and displayed the love and admiration
with which she regarded him by depositing in the
urns of election upwards of three millions of rotes.
And it is against this man—" under whose nostrils,"
to use an expression lately uttered by the remain,
" 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 otwriere, the bourgeoisie, and the
aristocrats—are being poured out to-day like ashes I
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 LAMAILTINH had conspired with the
insurgents of the 15th of May, LAMARTINE himself
answered that accusation from the tribune of the
National Assembly. He said—everybody remem-
bers it—" Yes ! I have conspired with those men, I
have conspired with them as the lightning conductor
conspires with the thunder cloud !" The metaphor
was splendid, and has been verified by events. The
lightning conductor of the Revolution, other wise the
tame of LAMARTINE, has beef 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. LAMIJZTINB
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 LAMARTINS was not actuated by
ambition—he was a patriot to the extent of selt-
sacrifice—he consented, with his eyes open, to pul-
verise his 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 LAMARTINE.B character—
and in allusion to these same whispers and inuendoes
he has himself written thus to the Conatitutionnel—
" There is no answer—there is only a cry of indigna-
tion which rises from the bottom of my soul, and
which 1 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 ♦erse must sometimes recur which he wrote in
the Garden of Gethsemani, on the death of his young
daughter—
" Je fus des la mamelle un homme de douleur ;

Mon ccrur, au lieu de sang, ne route que des larmes,

i Ou plutot, de ces pleurs Dieu m'a ravi les charmer,
Il a petri.fle les larmes dans mon cmur ;
L'amerturne est mon miel, l& tristesse est ma joie ;
Un instinct fraternel m' attache a tout cerceuil,

iNul chemm ne m arreta, a mains que je n'y voie
Quelque ruine ou quelgue deud I"

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 France 1" That was the mainspring of their grief,
ORLEANS would never be King of FRANCE. Alas,
for the blindness of human prescience 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 son's ,

death will inevitably be peculiarly grievous
to LOUIS PHILIPPE; 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-called
great—seem to be invested with a peculiar interest,
they constitute that " touch of nature" which " makes
the whole world kin." When a king weeps as a
man every man recognises in him a brother, and
sorrows for him with a brother's sympathy. LOUIS
PHILIPPE has already experienced this—he has expe-
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 of
France also sorrow for the agony of his father's heart,
as truly as they rejoice in the disappointment of his
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 hare 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 flew-de-lis would have flourished in
France under the guardianship of HENRY V., while,
if 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 floe 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 des Debats publishes the letter from
M. Da LAMARTINII which appeared in The e'en of
Saturday, in reply to the charges brought against
the late Provisional Government, and also the follow-
ing letter from MM. GARNIER PAGES and PAO
rilllilil :

"Paris, July 6.
" Sir,—Your journal of the day before yesterday con-
tains an article which we cannot safer to remain unan-
swered. As long as we formed part of the Government
we thought it necessary to maintain silence in presence
of all the attacks of the journals. At present our duty
is to reply when facts are disfigured, and when public
opinion may be set astray to the detriment of order and
truth. We consequently declare to you that all the
details contained in your article on a plan of barricades
which the Provisional Government are said to have ar-
ranged against the National Guards, and which the
insurgents of June borrowed from it. are all fo.. ts 7,
give the most formal contradiction to all the statements
you have made on that head. We pray you, in the in-
terest of the public, still more thax an ours, to publish
this declaration in your next number.

" Accept, Sir, the assurance of our distinguished con•
sideration.

" GARNIER PAGES.
" PAGNERRE."
To these denials the Journal des Debate makes the
following reply :

" We fully admit the double contradiction of M. de
Lamartine and of M. Gamier Pages, and we are happy
to register it; only it comes somewhat late, and it is not
to us that it ought to be addressed. If we have been led
into error, it is by a journal which has always defended
M. de Lamartine, which defends him still, and which M.
de Lamartine has more than once made the depository of
his thoughts, the Bien Public. The following is the
manner in which that journal expressed itself on July 2,
in an article on the insurrection of June:—' Now to this
vague, confused, undetermined, and undisciplined army
of the agitation must be added the reinforcements
which the Republic was sure to furnish. First of all,
the barricade bataillon. After the revolution of Fe-
bruary, in the midst of the apprehensions of the victors,
and in the fear of an offensive reaction of the monarchy,
a corps was formed, charged to study the formation of
barricades, their military arrangements, their inclination,
the strategic points, where they ought to be raised and
connected together in all the streets, in all the open
places, and at all the barriers. A map of detached
torts by the aid of paving-stones, and in the interior of
Paris, was drawn up, shown, and taught to a company
of men who had almost all passed through the baptism
of insurrection, but, when the danger was dissipated,
this company was dissolved; in place, however, of dis-
persing, it remained organized, and passed almost to a
man to the party of the insurrection.' Did we say any-
thing else? A body has been formed, called the barricade
bataillon, in the fear of an offensive re-action on the part
uf the monarchy. That body had been charged to study
the whole strategy of barricades; maps were prepared for
its use; the warfare of the streets was taught to these
men. The corps was, in truth, dissolved, but it re-
mained organized, and passed almost to a man to the side
of the insurrection. Once more ; it is the Bien Public,
the journal of M.de Lamartine, which so expressed itself
in its number of July 2, and no one sent it a contradic-
tion. Will it be said that we added that this battalion
had been formed under the auspices of the Government?
But is it not evidently what results from the article in
the Bien Public ? A body was formed and organized—
by whom? It had been charged with the task of study-
ing the strategy of barricades—by whom ? A map was
drawn up for its use,:--by order of whom ? It was after-
wards dissolved—by whom ? We believed, and we
were justified in believing, that the barricade be-
talion was of the same nature as so many other
irregular bodies, such as the corps of montag-
nerds, for instance, the formation and existence
of which the Provisional Government, without any
doubt, was aware of and tolerated. In making these
observations our object is to place our sincerity under
cover, and by no means to call in question the contradic-
tion of M. de Lamartine and M. Gamier Pawls. We
were mistaken; so much the better! We regret only
one thing—that a rectification which it was so easy to
address to the Bien Pailic did not prevent our error.
Without doubt it is not to us that M. de Lamartine
makes allusion in speaking of the madness of calumny,
We have been often calumniated in the most odious
manner; we never calumniated any one, and M. de La-
martine less than any other! Men calumniate those
whom they hate; we do not hate M. de Lamartine—we
pity him. What his position might have been, and what
it is, only produces in our mind one sentiment—that of
a deep and bitter grief r

M. MARIE has, as a member of the late Provisional
Government, also addressed a note to the journals,
denying all knowledge, on his part, of the existence
of a " Battalion of the Barricades."

In the sitting of the Assembly on Friday, General
CAVAIGNAC announced that the state of siege in Paris
would continue for some little time longer, and that
there were .50,000 troops of the line in Paris and its
neighbourhood. In the same sitting the law for re-
imbursing the holders of Treasury bonds, and the
depositors in the savings' banks, was passed. The
savings' banks depositors are to be paid in Five per
Cent. Stock, at 80 ; and the Treasury bond holders
in Three per Cent. Stock, at 55.

•
The Gazette des 71.-ibunotai gives the following, on
the subject of the rumoured " infernal machine" plot
for the assassination of General CAVAIGNA.
" We will not make ourselves the echoes of the alarm-
ing rumours to which the change in the programme
of the funeral ceremony in honour of the defenders of
public order, who fell victims in the insurrection of
June, has given rise in Paris. It appears that nume-
rous warnings, emanating from different sources, but
reaching the authorities too late to make it possible
to verify the exactitude is a sufficiently complete manner,
caused it to be feared than an attempt of the nature of
that of Fieschi might be directed against the Members
of the National Assembly. Such, it is said, was the
motive which caused that of the programme relative to
thesernoyal of the bodies of the victims from the Place de