The Sun.
London, England, 1851-12-16 00:00:00

TUESDAY EVENING,

THE FRENCH REPUBLIC.

We have received the Paris journals of yesterday.
The Ordre appeared yesterday for the first time
since the 2d December. It has no leading article,
and announces that it shall abstain from comment-
ing on passing events until peace shall have been re-
established.

The following letter from Count DE blorrrALEm
BEET appears in the Univers:—

" Paris, Dec. 12.
" Sir,—l receive each day letters consulting me on
the proper course to follow in present circumstances, and
particularly as to the ballot, which' commences on the
20th inst., in order to respond to the appeal made by
the President of the Republic to the French people. It
is physically impossible for me to write to each of the
persons who do me the honour to address me, and yet
I should be grieved to reply only by silence, and an ap-
parent indifference to the confidence manifested towards
me, and which has been gained for me by 20 years' poli-
tical struggles in the cause of the Church and of Society.
Permit me to express, through the medium of your jour-
nal, my opinion.
" I begin by declaring that the Act of the 2d Decem-
ber has put to flight the whole of the revolutionists, the
whole of the Socialists, and the whole of the bandits of
France and Europe; and that alone is, in rviv opinion,
a more than sufficient reason for all honest men to
rejoice, and for those who have been most mortified
to console themselves. Ido not enter into the ques-
tion as to whether the coup d' Etat (which had been
foreseen by every one) could be executed
at another moment, and in another manner: to do so I
should have to go back to the causes which produc©d it,
and to give my opinion on persons who cannot now
reply to me. I do not pretend to guarantee the future
any more than to judge of the past; I only look at the
present—that is to say, the vote to be delivered on Sunday
week.

" There are three courses open, the negative vote, neu-
trality, and the affirmative vote.
" To vote against Louis Napoleon would be to justify
the Socialist revolutioa, which, for the present at least,
is the only one that can take the place of the actual
Gove: went. It would be to invite the Dictatorship of
the Reds in place of the Dictatorship of a Prince who
has rendered for three years incomparable services to
the cause of order and Catholicism. It would be (ad-
mitting tho favourable and the least probable hypo-
thesis) to re-establish that Tower of Babel which people
called the National Assembly, and which, in spite of the
distinguished and honourable men it counted in such
great numbers, was profoundly divided in the midst of
peace and legal order, and which—there is no doubt of
the fact—would be powerless in presence of the formi-
dable crisis we are exposed to.
"To abstain from voting would be to belie all our
antecedents; it would be to fail in the duty we have
always recommended and fulfilled under the Monarchy
of July as under the Republic; it would be to abdicate
the mission of honest men at the very moment that mis-
sion is the most imperative and the most beneficial.
I highly respect the scruples which may suggest to many
honourable minds the idea of abstaining. But I know
also that great politicians, who otherwise are unscru-
pulous, and who, after having brought us to the point
we now are—after having condemned us to the loss of
all our liberties by the abuse they have made of them, or
allowed to be made of them, now come and preach to
us that we must make a vacuum round the Government.
I respect scruples; I protest against tactics. I can con-
ceive nothing more immoral or more stupid. I defy
any many alive to justify such conduct to his conscience
or to history. History will tell how all France, after the
ignoble surprise of the 24th February, recognized the
authority of the men of the Hotel de Ville, because
they offered a chance of escape from the abyss that
they themselves had opened. Let those chivalrous
persons—if any such there are—who in 1848 protested
against the destruction of Royalty—against the brutal
expulsion of the two Chambers—against the disarming
of the army—against the usurpation of every branch of
the Government—against the violation of every law—let
such persons, I repeat, claim the right to protest, and to
abstain from voting—l have no objection. But I refuse
to recognize such a right in any one of those who sent
representatives to take the places of the deputies hunted
from their benches by a horde of barbarians—to any of
those who themselves sat there, and who sat to proclaim
that the Provisional Government had merited well of the

country; and to vote for the banishment of the House of
Bourbon! The conscience that accepted such a yoke,
for fear of something worse, cannot surely feel any seri-
ous difficulty in confirming e Power that restored order
and security in 1848, and whioh can alone preserve us
from anarchy in 1852.
_

" The instinct of the masses is no more led astray now
than then. Louis Napoleon will be in 1852, as in 1848,
the elect of the nation. Such being the case, I believe
there is nothing more imprudent, I may say nothing
more insane, for men of religious feelings, and men
of order, in a country like ours, than to put them-
selves in opposition with the wishes of the nation,
when those wishes mean nothing contrary to the
law of God, or to the fundamental conditions of Society.
There are far tgo many amongst us—men worthy of re-
spect—whose policy seems to be to act quite in opposi-
tion to the general opinion. When this country went
mad for liberty and Parliamentary institutions, those
same men appealed to the absolute rights of Royalty ;
now that it is for the moment hungering for silence,
calm, and authority, the same men would impose the so-
vereignty of the tribune and of discussion. If ever the
country demand Monarchy, the men I allude to will be
condemned by such conduct to the perpetuation of the
Republic.
"' For those men who boldly declare that there is but
one sole right in political affairs, and that France can
only be saved by one principle, I can, strictly speaking,
understand the possibility of abstaining, provided these
men also abstained in 1848. But for us, Catholics above
all, who have always preferred that religion and society
co-exist with all forms of Government that do not ex-
clude reason and the Catholic faith, I am unable to find
a motive that can justify or excuse our voluntary anni-
hilation.
" I now come to the third course, viz., the affirma-
tive vote. Now, to vote for Louis Napoleon, is not
to approve of all he has done; it is only to choose be-
tween him and the total ruin of France. It does not
mean that his Government is the one we prefer to any
other; it is simply to say that we prefer a Prince who
has given proofs of resolution and of ability to those
who are at this moment giving their proofs of murder
and pillage. It is not to confound the Catholic cause
with that
power—the of a
a family—it is to arm the tem-
poralthe necessary strength to vanquish the army of crime, to
parotyolypower
possible at this day—with
or
defend our churches, our homes, our wives, against those
who respect nothing; who aim at the coat, who aim at
the proprietor, and whose bullets do not spare the priest.
It is not to sanction beforehand the errors or the faults
that a Government—fallible as every earthly institution
is—may commit; it is to entrust to the Chief, that the
nation once chose for itself, the right of preparing a
Constitution which will certainly be not mere dangerous,
or more absurd, than that which 900 representatives,
elected in 1848, bestowed on France, and against which
I had the happiness to vote. I may add that by return-
ing to the unity of power, without excluding the checks
which aro the first necessity of every y Government, we
get over the most
.difficult part of the way to a real social
restoration—that of ideas and of morals.
I have just perused the lines you permitted me to
insert in the Univers, as a rallying cry to our brothers
in dismay, on the 27th tof February, 1848—three days
after the sudden fall of the throne. I find there these
words—' The banner we have planted exclusive of, and
above all political opinions, is intact—the Catholic cause,
such as we have ever defended it, is identified with no
power, with no human cause. This sovereign indepen-
dence of religious interests will aid French Catholics in
comprehending and accepting the new social phase on
which we enter. None have a right to abdicate I' I
have nothing to add to, or take from, these words. I
beileve they are quite as suited to the day after that
which has been the revanche of the Army and of Autho-
rity against the revolution of the 24th of February.
" Observe, that I do not advocate absolute confidence
or unlimited devotedness. I give myself unreservedly
to no ono. I profess no idolatry—neither that of the
force of arms, nor that of the reason of the people. I
limit myself to the search of possible good, and to
choose, in the midst of the shocks God visits us with,
that which is least repugnant to the dignity of a Chris-
tian and the good sense of a citizen.
"If Louis :Napoleon were an unknown person, I
should unquestionably hesitate to confer on him such
power and such responsibility. But without entering
into the question of his policy for three years, I do not
forget the great religious acts which have marked his
Government so long as concord existed between the two
powers of the State—the liberty of instruction guaran-
teed—the Pope re-established by French arms; the
Church restored to its Councils, its Synod to the pleni-
tuee of its dignity; the gradual augmentation of its col-
leges, its communities, its works of salvation and of
charity.
" Without him I seek in vain for a system, a force
which can secure to us the conservation and develop-
ments of similar benefits. I only behold the wide gulph
of Socialism. My choice is made. lam for authority
against revolt; for preservation against destruction; for
Society against Socialism ; for the possible freedom of
good against the certain liberty of evil; and in the
mighty struggle between the two forces which divide
the world, I believe that in acting thus, I am, as I ever
have been, for Catholicism against revolution.
"Accept, Sir, the assurance of my sympathy,

. _
"CHARLES DE MONTALEMBERT.
The Consultive Commission is definitively com-
posed as follows :
MM. Abbatucci, former Counsellor of the Court of
Cessation (Loiret
); General Achard (Moselle), And'
(Seine), Andre (Charente), D'Argout, Governor of the
Bank of France; General Arrighi de Padoue (Corsica);
d'Audiffret, President of the Court of Accounts;
General de Bar (Seine), General Baraguay d'Hilliers
(Doubs); Barbaroux, former Attorney-General (Bour-
bon); Baroche, former Minister of the Interior and
Foreign Affairs, Vice-President of the Commission
(Charente); Ferdinand Barrot, former Minister of the
Interior (seine); Barthe, First President of the Court
of Accounts; Bataille (Haut Vienne); Bavoux, (Seine
et Marne), do Beaumont (Somme), Berard (Lot et
Garonne), Berger, Prefect of the:Seine (Puy do Dome),
Bertrand (Yonne), Bidault (Cher), Bigrel (Cotes du
Nord), Billault, lawyer, Bineau, former Minister
(Maine et Loire); Boinvilliers, former Chairman of
the Paris bar (Seine), Bonjesu, Attorney-General,
of the Court of Cessation Boulatignier; Bourbouson
(Vaucluse), Brehier (Manche), deCambaceres (Hubert);
de Cambaceres (Aisne), Carlier, former Prefect of Po-
lice; da Casablanca, former Minister (Corsica); General
do Castellane, General-in-Chief of the Army of Lyons;
do Caulainoourt (Calvados), Vice-Admiral Cecilia (Seine
Infii:ieure), Chadenet (Meuse), Charlemagne (Indre),
Chassaigne Goyon (Pay de Dome), General de Clause.