The Sun.
London, England, 1851-12-17 00:00:00

DE CE M'l3 E,ll 17, 1851.

all information, and under the terrors of martial law ;
and by thi; he asks for diciatorial power to tread
under foot all principles of constitutional liberty and
individual freedom, in order to substitute in their
place that machinery of puppets with which Napo-
leon travestied the action of a free government. Count
Montalembert comes forward to the French people
and asks them to sanction this, because such tyranny
cannot be more dangerous than the Constitution
just overthrown. "By returning to the unity of
power," says Count Montalembert, " we get over
the most difficult point of the way to a real
social regeneration, that of ideas and morals." So
that in order to correct the ideas of Frenchmen
and improve their morals, Count Montalembert
proposes the despotism (unity of power means nothing
else) of Louis Napoleon. Louis Napoleon has given
up education to the clergy ; he has restored Rome to
its old "unity of power" in the Pope; he has re-
established synods ; he has, in short, done everything
for the Church. The Church is all I care for, says
Count Blontalembert, and Louis Napoleon may do
what he will with the State. Such are the political
principles of a man of eminence and talent, the avowed
bead of the Roman Catholic Church party in France
—a party which professes itself at certain times, and
in certain places, to be favourable to the great cause
of civil and religious liberty. So blinded is Count
Montalembert by his fanaticism that in the events of
the first half of December he can see nothing but the
few barricaders shot, and can feel nothing but the
escape of society from Socialism. He has no pity for
his colleagues of the National Assembly, or the com-
panions of his legislative labours, hurried off to prison
or to exile. He is lost in admiration of the brutal sol-
diery, who kept up an hour's fire at the houses and win-
dows of the wealthiest and least disaffected quarter in
Paris, who shot down with glee every well-clad group
that stood confidingly before therraand who laughed at
the sufferings of the wounded. The " Socialists," as
Count Alontalembert calls• them, were masters for
months after February, 1848. They did not make
a single arrest nor sacrifice a single life, except in
actual combat. They left the antagonist press free.
They refused to run a muck at Europe, and sum-
moned a free assembly to decide upon the fate of
France. The "Socialists" are at least free from blood ;
whilst Louis Napoleon, the saint; whom Count Mon-
talembert holds up for the adoration of the Church,
sent to the grave more innocent victims in one day
than even Robespierre sent in many to the scaffold.
Robespierre's victims, too, were tried ; they -enter-
tained opinions hostile to the republic. However
innocent of crime, there was some pretext for their
laughter; whilst there was no pretext whatever for
that cold-blooded and wholesale massacre with which
Louis Napoleon inaugurated his reign. And yet
French Catholicism, represented by Count Moats-
lembert, would make use of the Socialist bugbear to
persuade people to set up and worship the idol of the
Elys6e. The candid, the truth-loving Montalembert
copies the Moniteur i❑ attributing every insurrec-
tionary movement throughout France to Socialism.
The peasants of the NiOvre having risen in insur-
rection, the whole town of Clamecy took up arms
against the decree of the 2d of December. But
Clamecy is the country of Al. Dupin ; the seat of
his property ; the scene of his influence. Have the
past opinions and present treatment of Al. Dupin
nothing to do with the insurrection of Clam6cy—and
is its very excess to be set down to Socialism ? The
officer in command at Lyons, a whole regiment of
artillery at St. Brieuc, divers persons and bodies in
different parts of France, have declared against the
decree and against the act of the 2d of December.
Is this Socialist ? And Paris, Lyons, Bordeaux, and
all the towns and counties consigned to martial law,
are all these Socialist ? If so, Socialism includes all
the friends of constitutional monarchy, and numbers
all those moderate Liberals of the Chamber with
whom Count Montalembert has been pretending to act
in common,when in fact he has been merely waiting the
opportunity to betray every constitutional principle
and party to the first military mountebank who put
on the cloak of piety. A greater blow to the Papal
Church in France could not have been stricken than
by this public adhesion of its chief to the most un-
warrantable act of tyranny, treachery, and violence
that ever was perpetrated in any revolution. It is
plain, and Count Montalembert avows it, that if his
priesthood be allowed full sway over the conscience
of the people, he will, in recompense, applaud a mi-
litary dictator putting his heel on the neck of the
same people. He supports the throne of Louis Na-
poleon by the confessional. He hallows the right
of the usurper; declares it quite as good as
that of the most legitimist monarch ; and he calls in
the name of the Church on the old Royalists to sup-
port it. If Count Montalembert could be supposed
to represent the totality of the French clergy
and the French Church, his present conduct, and the
reasons which be assignes for it, would be sufficient
to divorce that Church, not merely from the support,
hut even from the tolerance and respect of every
party in the State. The Legitimist he divorces and
disgusts. The Constitution be sacrifices without re-
more and without shame. Anything or body of men
more liberal, more republican, or more popular than
constitutional monarchy he devotes to the infernal
gods. He erects the Church into a perfect indepen-
dent empire within the state, quite reckless of what
becomes of that state, provided only that the clergy
live thrive and rule. The Jews were accused of thus

living in the midst of Christian countries and Euro-
pean communities, attached exclusively to their sect
and to their money bags. This, even if true, had its
excuse ; for if the Jews felt no love for state or coun-
try, it wee that state or country cared not for them.
But for a Christian church thus to consider its in-
terest apart, and to offer up every other element of
civilization than orthodoxy to the most ruthless
tyranny—that is a crime, a treason, and a baseness,
from which the Church, or the sect that cannot
purge itself, deserves to be for ever accursed and
eradicated.

NAVAL INTELLIGENCE.
We regret to hear that Rear-Admiral Houston
Stewart, C. 8., is suffering severely from an attack of
influenza.

The following officers attended the levee of Rear-
Admiral Dundas, at the Admiralty yesterday :
Captains 11. T. Douglas, J. Dalrymple, Hoy, Quin.
Commanders R. Foster, J. Hope. Lieutenants D.
Edwards, F. S. Tremlet, D. S. Partridge, F. Cutler,
T. J. Young, G. W. Rabett, G. G. Philipps, C. 0.
B. Hall, C. W. Russell. Master G. A. Waters.
Second Master 11. M. Ray. Clerk T. Donald.
Mr. Paymaster Simpson, nominated secretary to
Rear-Admiral Dundas, has arrived home from Lisbon.
Mr. Simpson was paymaster of the Leander, 50, and
has left the station with the hearty good wishes of
the whole squadron.
Commander George Edwin Patey (184 G) has been
promoted to the rank of captain on paying off the
Flying Fish, 12, after two years' service on the coast
of Africa, during which time, as we stated last week,
the Flying Fish had made more captures than any
cruiser on the station, and had served her commission
without the infliction in any one instance of corporal
punishment. This, we presume, may be considered a
special service promotion, although conferred by the
First Lord ; but we are bound to state that there are
many commanders on the list who have been waiting
long for their advancement whose services hare
equalled, if they have not exceeded, those of Captain
Patey, and who, having earned their step before Cap-
tain Patey, ought surely to have received the reward
cf their good services before this lucky officer.—
Hitrald.
Mate—ll. P. Bunce has been promoted to the rank
of lieutenant.

Lieutenant Charles Gibbons (1848) has been ap•
pointed, from the _Growler steam-ship, Mediterra.
nean, to the Encounter, 14, screw-corvette on that
station.

Lieutenant 11. W. Hire (1841) has been appointed
senior of the Fury steam-sloop, at Woolwich, for the
Mediterranean.

Mr. IV. D. llaye has entered the navy as assistant
surgeon of the Impregnable, 78, flag-ship at Devon.
port,
Clerks—John E. Stiles (1844) to the Impreg
nable_; S. S. Boxer to the Britannia, 120, Ports
mouth.
Commodore Martin, the commander-in-chief of the
western squadron, has been indisposed at Lisbon, but
by last accounts was convalescent. On the night of
tte 6th instant a fire broke out at the Gallant Com-
modore's residence, when a great deal of property
wss destroyed, and the life of the Commodore was
placed in peril. The fire originated in the drawing-
rocm. It was caused by the stove becoming over-
heated, and burning away the floor to such an extent
that in the middle of the night the stove itself dropped
through the flooring into the room below, filling the
house thereby with fire and smoke, and causing great
consternation. The Commodore, in rushing through
the house to alarm the servants, had his candle put
out, and with great difficulty he managed, whilst half-
suffocated with the amoke which filled the passage, to
scramble out to a place of safety. The Lisbon fire
brigade saved the house (the residence of the late
French Minister) from destruction.
Captain R. S. Hewlett took up his commission at
Devonpurt, on Saturday, for the Excellent, and drew
a pendant to hoist on board the Hotspur frigate as a
gunnery tender, but the Commander-in-Chief would
not allow him to hoist the pendant until further
orders.
Mr. Rae, schoolmaster of Devonport Dockyard,
has been elected actuary of the savings bank in that
establishment, vice Scott, resigned. The latter
gentleman for some time received an allowance of
150/. per annum, but in consequence of the great
decrease in the deposits at the time of the railway
mania, which was succeeded by the establishment of
building societies, enabling the workmen in a great
many instances to become the owners of their resi-
dences, the salary Was latterly reduced to 901., which
is to be further reduced on the new appointment.