The Sun.
London, England, 1851-10-30 00:00:00

INAUGURATION OF THE STATUE OF
WILLIAM THE CONQUEROR AT FALAISE.

SPEECH OF M. GUIZOT.

Oa Sunday the inauguration of the fine equestrian
statue of William the Conqueror, which was exhi-
bited recently in one of the squares of the Champs
Elysee, took place at Falaise, the birth-place of the
conqueror. Several speeches were delivered on the
occasion, among which was the following, by M.
Guizot :
" You present, gentlemen, to-day, a rare example,
the example of a long and faithful memory after
the lapse of ages ; nearly eight centuries have passed
since King William died neglected in Normandy,
which he had rendered so illustrious. It was with dif-
ficulty that there were found a few servants at Rouen
—the scene of his death—to watch his remains. A:few
feet of earth were hardly obtained at Caen wherein to
deposit his remains. On the present occasion you
repair that indifference of his cotemporaries by your
persevering care ; and owing to the talent of an emi-
nent artist King William is again beheld in his native
town. Falaise repays him, after eight centuries, the
glory which it received from him. It is a glorious
deed to render justice to a great man. Great men,
however, must not be flattered, neither after their
death nor yet during their life; their errors, their
faults, their vices, their crimes, when they have com-
mitted any, oureht not to be kept a secret, but ought
rather to be judged with severity. It is the right, as
it becomes the duty, of impartial history. But this
just severity once exercised—the evil once recognized
and treated as it deserves—a truly great man still
remains—great in the midst of all the imperfections
Lis history discloses ; and then it is our duty to ad-
mire and pay signal honour to his memory, inasmuch
as great men are the giery of a nation, even where
their despotism has been rude and dearly purchased.
" William was indeed a great man, and if the
greatness of princes be estimated, as it ought to be,
by the difficulties of their deeds and the importance
of their results, there are few who have been superior to
him. You will not have forgotten, gentlemen, a deed
which was accomplished in our time—the expedition
of 1830 to Algiers ; the attempt to embark and trans-
port to the other shore of the Mediterranean an army
of 30,000 men to obtain from a barbarian the satis-
faction due to us. What immense preparations were
then made ! What mighty efforts, what powerful
means were employed by the aid of our advanced state
of civiiizetion ! And all that was deemed absolutely
necessary, because the undertaking was difficult. You
have now the proof that none of these precautions
were unnecessary for a view to their success ; and
the success of that enterprise has become the glory
of its leaders.

"In the 11 th century, scarcely issuing from a
barbarous condition, without any of the resources
now furnished by civilization and science, Duke
William assembled together, embarked, conveyed to
the other side of the blanches, and landed on the
enemy's territory more than 30,000 men; and scarcely
bad he landed, when he won battles, and conquered
for himself a kingdom. So much for the difficulty
of the enterprise. Now for the greatness of the re-
sults. William not only tragersed the sea in small
and fragile barques with a mighty army—not only
did he conquer a kingdorn—he did still more, he
founded a state. 14" e strongly and solidly established
Ma power on a foreign soil—his race, and a new lan-
guage, and new institutions. And his work hes lasted
for ages, and it still endures. And it is in the tongue
that King William spoke that the Engli3h Parlia-
ment still addresses its Noble Queen, and in it she
replies.
. " We have seen, gentlemen, conquests more vast,
more dazzling, than those of King William. They
disappeared as rapidly as they were made. The phe-
nomenon is, indeed, rare of invasion founding a state.
Yet William accomplished such a deed. William
was in harmony with the spirit and the permanent
interests of his age ; he was as deeply imbued with a
conservative spirit as he was gifted with the genius of
a conqueror.
" We are right in rendering him this justice, as
his glory has cost us dear. 11., was the origin of
that national struggle which lasted more than
three centuries between France and England. It
was William who, by establishing between two na-
tions partial and precarious ties, began between them
that epoch of terrible hostility, and all the wars which
lasted until they terminated in a complete separation
of the two countries. We were the conquerors in
that mighty struggle. We successively won back all
the parts of our territory, and ended gloriously by
securing our national independence. We definitively
drove the Norman invaders to the soil conquered by
them, and whither we had sent them. That glorious
creature, without parallel in the history of the world
—with a nature half angelic, half heroic—Joan of
Arc, for ever destroyed what the successors of Wil-
liam the ConTieror laboured to effect in France ; and
it was on this same spot of earth, in this very city of
Rouen (where King William met his death) that the
Virgin Warrior sealed with her martyrdom the do-
liverance of her country.
" Yet I care not to dwell on those glorious but
soddening memories of the past. I rather love to
contemplate ourselves and the history of our own
days. In our times, also, ships without number
crowd our coasts, and convey thousands upon thou-
sands of voyagers to the shores of England. But is
it for another war that they thus depart ? No, no!
It is benign Peace that beckons and guides them to
a foreign land and feeds them back again. Their
desire is not fir chivalrous adventure, nor is their
ambition that of conquest. They crowd thither to offer,
or bring back, the pledges of reciprocal prosperity.
The intercourse between the two nations is now as
pacific, as it is frequent and animated. A Crystal
Palace, where they cefngregate in thousands ; an in-
visible thread—a flash of lightning shooting beneath
the wave, which conveys from the one to the other
the message of their mutual wants and their mutual
services—such, gentlemen, are the bonds which now
replace those that William the Conqueror wished to
establish!

" Which of the two periods, gentlemen, is the hap-
pier ? Which spectacle is the nobler, the more glo-
rious ? In the midst of the troubles and disquietudes
which weigh upon us in our present agitated and pre-
carious condition, we yet have a right to be proud of,
and full hope in, our own age--provided our hope
and our pride do not impel us into the pride of mad-
ness. We may justly speak of the benefits and the
marvels of our civilization, provided that our civiliza
tion be not itself like a Crystal Palace, which all
men admire, but which all Pt once disappears ; and
that it cannot b 3 said of it, in the language of the
great poet, that Normandy has given to France, with
its brilliancy the brittleness of glass.
" I wish not, gentlemen, to throw a gloom over
this festivity by words of sadness; but you will pardon
me the expression of a sentiment, which is certainly
that of all men of sense and of honour. When men
who traverse the wide ocean are overtaken by the
tempest it is not sufficient to have a noble ship, well
equipped, and well furnished with an intelligent,
brave, and hardy crew ; that crew must be united ;
and the noble ship must have stout anchors—for on
these the salvatiou of all depends. Let us, gentlemen,
be firmly united ; let us know how to possess our-
selves of the strong anchors of society ; let us trust
to them together. Yea ! Heaven will deign to grant
US salvation—if we act so as to deserve it

TO THE EDITOR OF THE SUN.
&a,—vow that we have just witnessed that
triumph of modern civilization and the arts of peace,
t/r.reat Exhibition of the Works of Industry of all
Nations, we hear with deep interest, in this quarter,
a daily growing rumouru of another design of his
Royal Highness
easy of t _ Prince Consort; one far more
with no less accomplishment,-ni yet likely to be attended
portant and enduriug results. I al-
lude to the projecti of
an association for the purchase
of land, under the Incumbered Estates Commission
th
in this country, be sold
again in convenient lots to
small farmers; in other words,
peasant proprietary in a plan for creating a
Ireland.
It ja now generally admitted that the non-success
of the Irish farmer is not so mooti
h
the result of circumstances over whichishe own fault as
control. Well indeed has it been said_
Give a man
has had no
a luxuriant garden to cultivate, Without security
tenure, and it will in time become a
asele,,escu w ofte ;
give him a barren rock he can call his Own, and
dit
will ere long bloom with fertility and beauty. At
home, unfortunately, owing to the necessities of the
landlords, the Irish farmer hitherto, as a general rule, 1
has had no security for his outlay, no stimulus to in. 1
in-
dustry. Oppressed by an excessive rent, with an
insecure tenure, he has bad no encouragement to
exertion beyond what would merely enable him to
subsist. Give him bat a fair margin ; allow him an
equitable share in the of his labour, and you
Will find
no profits
valuable more industrious, more peaceful, or more
this is the membereue of society. A sufficient proof of
their own, w?rSSp of Irishmen in every country but
every year in the large sums they accumulate
thousands or Apou,,nrcrBl, and transmit in hundreds of
Sir, it is a first to
their relatives here. Yes,
of Ills wisdom who principle,,rd ordained
e.conomie science, a law
bread in the sweat of his "ea'
that man should earn
favourable circumstanobrow, that, under ordinarily
man replace by his antes, not only will an able-bodied
will moreover, in his ailer what he consumes, but he
duction, add to the genercarulations or surplus
be the case in every couotwealth. This
we pro-
find to
is sure to reap its reward. ryawhere patient industry
I No
formed by Mr. LT.ing-- may, ~,,.
e are iu.
" The land is parcelled out into
• affording a comfortable subsistence, and in estates,
degree the elegances of civilised life,
bautmoderate
more. With a plpulation of 910,00 b inhanbitthing
about the year 1819, there were 41,656 estates. IA
Norway thelaw of succession his prevented property
being accumulated in large masses. The estates of
individuals are in general small ; and the houses, fur-
niture, food, comforts, wages, and means of living