The Sun.
London, England, 1848-09-29 00:00:00

is incapacitated from injuring them. For once in
his life the quondam Prince has seen his cue, and
acted in accordance with circumstances. He has
wisely eschewed all external symptoms of rejoicing,
he has saved himself from his " friends," by literally
tearing himself from a group of servile courtiers in
London, and by hiding himself from his noisy adu-
lators in Paris. Alone and incognito he repaired to
France, and almost unaccompanied he took his seat
in the Assembly. In Paris and in the Assembly he
has been regarded with curiosity, and received with
respect and nothing more. No shouts of " Vive
l'Empereur !" greeted him on his way. If, in his
heart of hearts, the " citizen " cherished " some yet
Imperial hope," that hope must by this time be
considerably abated, if not wholly destroyed.
Yet such hopes are peculiarly tenacious of
vitality ; too often they only cease to exist
with the breath that nourishes them. Perhaps,
while he was chilled by the silence and the manifest
republicanism of the Parisians, NAPOLEON Lours
consoled himself by reflecting upon the proverbial
fickleness of the crowd. Perhaps he called to mind
the cries of " Vive l'Empereur !" for ever associated
with his childhood—perhaps he thought upon
the cries of " Vive le Roi !" which were
shouted round the bathing carriage which conveyed
him a prisoner to the Chateau of Boulogne, and
contrasting them with the present evidences of
republicanism, drew some hopeful augury from
such demonstrations of inconstancy. If he did so,
however, he has again deluded himself with dreams.
Fickle as may be the popular will, it is not generally
disposed to relinquish the substance for the shadow.
The people of France have now within, or almost
within, their grasp the substantial rights and privi-
leges, which they will not be very ready to barter for
the shadowy glories with which an Imperial Court
might invest them. The teaching of the past, the
necessities of the present, and the hopes of futurity,
all cry aloud to Prince NAPOLEON to abandon every
Imperial hope. At this solemn moment the words
of his uncle may recur to him, where,
in answer to the accusation that he had
usurped the crown, he said, " The people
themselves placed the crown upon
Qa-un respects ses (ides r Louts NAPOLEON may
profitably think upon this now the people themselves
have established a Republic, and selected him as one
of its supporting pillars ; let him respect that choice.
Now in this, her hour of political transformation,
France has need of the service of every head and
hand and heart among her sons, and Bo-
NAPARTE may rejoice that he is not
shut out from the glorious labour, but that he is
called upon to co-operate in the regeneration of his
country. His service will be doubly welcome and
twice blest, for he comes with a worthy offering in
his hand—the sacrifice of his youthful dreams and
his personal and family ambition. He comes, let us
hope—for then alone will he come worthily, then
indeed will he come triumphantly—repeating the glo •
rious words of ALPILONgE DE LAMARTINE--" Let our
properties, our reputations, our very individualities
themselves, be ground down and pulverised in the
movement of human affairs, so that the Constitu-
tional Republic be founded, so that the people be
aggrandised in knowledge, in morality, in rights,
and in happiness ! Such is the only justice which
I demand from my generation and from my
country."

THE FRENCH REPUBLIC.

We have received the Paris papers of yesterday.
In the National Assembly, the amendment in
favour of two Chambers, proposed by M. DUVERGIER
DE HAURANNE, in Article 20 of the Constitution, was
negatived by a majority of 241. The numbers being,
for the amendment, 289 ; against it, 530. The ad-
vocates of a second Chamber, hoping that they
might have better success in a new Assembly, pro-
posed, by way of amendment, that Article 20 should
be voted only provisionally. This gave rise to a very
animated discussion. Ultimately the debate was
postponed to the following day.
The following is a resztine_of the speeches of MM.
Lamartine and Odillon Barrot, on the question of
one or of two Chambers :
M. do Lamartine said that he came forward to op-
pose the amendment now under discussion. He did so,
however, with the utmost respect for the opinions
brought forward in its favour. He had most maturely
considered the subject, and he had come to the conclu-
sion that really good laws could enable two Chambers
to be tolerated ; but he considered that a single one was
better calculated to suit the character of the French
nation. "I, too," said the !Hon. Representative, "if I
was ascending the tribune four years later, in place of
at present if I was to speak when the Republic, in-
stead of being a new matter, had become for the country
a habit—in the absence of all emotion from abroad, of
all agitation, of every circumstance that calls impe-
riously for tho strength and unity of the Govern.
ment—perhaps I, also, would not be opposed to two
Chambers. The great truth to be insisted on at this
conjuncture is the word of Plutarch, that good laws
are the daughters of time ;' but, for the Constitution,
we can wait for the course of time to show where it is
strong or weak; we must decide at once, according to
our judgment." It was necessary, he said, to make the
Constitution not a mere word, but a great fact, to guide
the people. In England and the United States two
Chambers were established, but under very different
cases from the position of France. In England, the
House of Lords existed, because there were immense
aristocratical interests to be defended. The Com-
mons had, by degrees, established itself in opposi-
tion to that power, and was constantly gaining ground
against it. In America the case was different ;
there, no aristocratical interests were to be defended,
and in consequence, the Senate was a decided
imperfection, a defect—(Hear, hear)---such as pre-
vented the Republic from reaching that point of perfec-
tion which it might have arrived at, and which he hoped
to see France at present attain to.—(Hear, hear.) 'l'ho
Hon. Gentleman then argued that the aristocratical feel-
ing had been destroyed in France, and that consequently
a second Chamber would be inopportune and powerless
—for this reason, that the country would look with an
eye of suspicion on whatever appeared to it calculated to
found an aristocracy of any sort whatever. To establish
a second Chamber was undoubtedly to set one body of
men above the rest, and France would not permit such
a result. He argued that from 1789 the nobility and its
power had gradually declined, and that at present uni-
versal suffrage had been established. A second Chamber,
to which ideas of superiority would always be attached,
would be dangerous and out of place. Ile warned
the Assembly to pause when the democratic feel-
ing was increasing, not only in France, but
all over Europe and not attempt to check its
progressr
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time to do away with these actions of the olden time, as
being no longer suited to the present time. The
Honourable Representative then referred to the objec-
tion brough forward by the advocates of two Chambers,
via., that collisions must arise between the President and
the Assembly, if only one existed. The President, he
said, was not to be established in a kind of royalty, but
with limited powers, and without power to dissolve the
Assembly. Far from such division being likely to
occur when there was but one Chamber, he thought the
probability much greater under two. Was the
President to decide on any measure with one Chamber
orAwith the other, or with both together ? As he
was not to possess the power of dissolving thorn, they
could certainly oppose him better when two in
number than when ono. He looked on it as certain
that it was with two Chambers that collisions were
more likely to occur. But how was the second Chamber
to be elected ? In what category was it to be placed !
How was it to escape being either first or second ?
Supposing that the intelligence arising from age and
experience was to cause a certain number of men to be
chosen for the Upper Chamber—suppose that white
hairs were to place a man in the higher rank—would not
the second Chamber be left without men of necessary
information and knowledge of business ? This would be
the case, when to such men as Royer-Collard and
Franklin would be said, " Begone, leave these benches,
and go and place yourselves amongst the old men in the
Chamber at the Luxembourg !"—(Hear, hear.) Thus
the Assembly of the people, properly so called, would by
degrees fall into disrepute, and be, as it were, absorbed
and annihilated by the other ; or, should that not occur,
they would be rivals. The Hon. Representative then
drew a sketch of the spread of democratic ideas in
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and a dictatorship.—(Applause.)
The sitting was than suspended for a few minutes.
M. 0. Barrot said that it sometimes occurred, that in
a discussion a speaker suddenly came on a truth which
told against his own opinion. This is what had occurred
to M. do Lamartine; and as he had said, the whole
question was whether a dictatorship was or was not to
be erecteds—(Hear.) That Hon. Gentleman had done
good service to the Assembly and to the country, by
tearing away the veil which hung over the question, by
leaving aside mere commonplaces, and stating what the
matter really was. There were two points in which this
question was to be examined—one of expediency relat-
ing to the present circumstances and the other of or-
ganization. The Hon. Gentleman then proceeded to the
question in these two particulars. The Convention, he
observed, when it flung down the remains of the Mo-
narchy, never for a moment contemplated having any
other power by its side—it took care to keep the au-
thority all in its power. Did the present Assembly in-
tend to establish a sovereign power by its side?—(Loud
cries of " No, no.") Then it was the old Convention
that it was intended to sot up at present—(Crica of