The Sun.
London, England, 1851-12-22 00:00:00

MONDAY

THE FRENCH REPUBLIC.

We have reztived the Paris journals of Saturday
and yesterday.
Saturday, the first day of the Presidential election,
passed off in Paris without the slightst appearance
of disturbance. In the morning the proclamations to
the people and to the army, issued by the PRESIDENT
of the Republic on the 2d of December, were again
placarded in all the principal streets. n the course
of the day upwards of 100,000 electors voted in the
department of the Seine. The voting was conducted
with the most perfect order. The polling places were
guarded by detachments of troops of the line and Na-
tional Guards. In the arrondissements of which the
National Guard is dissolved the troops of the line
alone were on duty. The number of electors in-
scribed in the department of the Seine amounts to
290,000.

M. DE SESMAISONS having written a letter in
which he protests against his name being published
as a member of a Consultative Commission, the lifo •
niteur of to-day announces that there never was an
idea of making him one.
The Consultative Commission is summoned to meet
on Tuesday next, for the purpose of examining the
votes on the Presidential election.
It is announced in the Constitutionne/ that the seven
Communal Councils composing the arrondissement of
St. Denis have voted an address of sympathy to
the PRESIDENT of the Republic.
It is also announced that addresses and adhesions
of Municipal Councillors, National Guards, Chambers
of Commerce, &c., have been presented from 115
places in thirty-eight departments.
The Presse and the Pays have given their formal
adhesion to the renewal of the power of Louis iN A.
POLEON.

_
The votes of the army and navy have been an-
nounced by a communication transmitted by subma-
rine telegraph from Paris on Saturday morning to be
as follows:

VOTE OF THE ARMY.

For
Against
Abstaining ...
VOTE OF THE NAVY.
For •• ... ... ...

... 243,854
... 16,384
... 845

14 675
Against ••• •.• .. 4,830
Abstaining ... 417
The decree of the Bth, respecting liberated convicts
en rupture de ban, and persons proved to belopg to
secret societies, has already produced a good effect.

It has caused Paris to be freed of the greater part o

the malefactors who had been released from the bag nes
and the central prisons—they having taken to fight
to escape transportation. A number of persons have,
however, been arrested, and amongst them several

noted convicts.
The Government has received telegraphic dis-
patches from several departments announcing that
the people were voting with the greatest eagerness.
The elections go on with order both in town and
country.
A dispatch fram Toulouse announces the arrest of
the three insurgent leaders at ALziraiel, and from
Avranches of the arrest of Colonel liouTosr.

The Debuts of Saturday has, fur the first time, a
short leader highly praising the resolution of the
Mit:ister of War to reward the gendarmes who in
the late troubles most signalised themselves by their
courage and resolution. The article is significant

of no-deep hostility to the Government.
We are told by a provincial journal that the Duo
D'AustALE has ordered all the per Eons who are
charged with the administration of his immense
private possessions to vote for Louis NAPOLEON.
The Constitutionnel, as well as the Pays and the
Presse, strenuously appeals to the country in his
behalf. They all represent the question as one be-
tween government and anarchy. The Constitu-
tionnel promises that the delegation to Louts NAPO-
LEON of the necessary powers to found a Government
shall be followed by years of peace, the interests of
the country requiring that time should be given to
repair the evils of revolutions by the revival of in-
dustry, commerce, and cultivation.
The outspoken article in the Pays says—
" Of the three forces of Government resulting from
the Republic—the Constitution, the Assrmbly, and the
President, the first two are annihilated—the President
alone remains. If the President were to-morrow to be
condemned by the majority of the country there would
remain nothing of the Republic. Revolution would
re,,ume its course without obstacle. One out of two
things would then happen. Either the army would go
to the Elyse 3 to seek Louis Napoleon Bonaparte and
take him to the Tuileries, or Demagogy would go to the
Hotel de Ville, to there prepare the Government of
Terror and of Communism. In the former case we
should have a military dictatorship; in the latter, a
revolutionary one. We prefer a legitimate and regular
government, the force of which will be right and law.
France will think with UP. I: will like better to ba
governed than oppressed. 'Yes, means a government;
No, a revolution. Between a government and a revo-
lution Franca will have to choose. She has already
chosen."

General DE CASTELLANE has, speaking in reply to
a deputation of citizens of Lyons, used these remark-
able expressions :
" You are, Alessi, urs, under great obligations to Louis
Napoleon; you may have your personal preferences, but
at such a moment as this you ought to bury thin in your
heart. We ought all to rally rouud him, for be has
saved the country. What we must now look to above
everything is order and the safety of society. Before
these last circnmstacces took place, I Teeny doubted
the greatness of the evil, and the nature of the jaquerie
which was preparing. Doubt is now no longer possible.
What we have just witnessed is assassination, pillage,
incendiarism—it is universal destruction. That which
passes under our eyes explains what I never before
had comprehended—how great peoples and great
cities have fallen into decay and disappeared from
the list of nations. Without doubt it was in follow-
ing such courses that these peoples reached annihilation.
Two years ago I feared for a moment, when I saw
of
adopteddepa r
tomp
ee
lints in eheir addresses
family and property attacked, that we were entering on
the same course, to arive at the same result. Happily,
to us better pros-
we need fear so no longer. The vigorous measures
hold similar language. The Prefect of the Oise, for in-
e
stance, says," There can be no mistake about it—the
wehcitcsh." h a
Thevjust
u prefectss t been
question is clearly put between civilization aad barbar-
ism—between order and anarchy—between property and
robbery—between religion and the most degrediug
cynime." The Protestant congregation at Strasbourg
has given in its adhesion, through its pastor,
to the measures taken by the President of the Re-
public " in the interest of Prance, put in peril by the
violent struggles of parties; and in the interests
of religious and civil society, troubled to its foundations
by menaces of anarchy." Whatever, then, may be the
future policy of the GrOverMllent, there can be no doubt
of the actual dangers of society, testified to as they are
by general cfficers, by epgistrates, by journalists of
honourable name, and by the correspondence, public and
private, addressed to foreign papers or to individuals.
The estimates made of the number of votes likely
to be given in favour of LOUIS NAPOLEON'S demand
for power to found a new Government, range between
six and eight millions.
It appears that for more than fifteen days before
the coup d. itat, Louis NeroLzort imparted his plans
to three confidents, General ST. ARNAUD, M. DE
Moltrir, and M. DE MAUPAE, the Prefect of Police.
They kept his counsel, 4nd concerted their measures
so well, that not one of the seventy•eight persons,
whom it was determined to arrest on the night of the
2d of December, escaped them.
We are indebted to the Morning Post for a con-
siderable portion of M. GRANIER DE CASSAGNAC'S
pamphlet on the events of the 23 of December. The
Paris Correspondent of our Contemporary writes as
follows
I promised to you yesterday some quotations from
the "recit complet et autltentique des evenements de Di-
cembre, 1851," by M. Granier de Cassaguac. I forward
to you the first portion of the work—at least one-third
of the whole, and by far the most interesting portion,
as the latter part of the real contains the Presidents
preclamations and half a hundred other things with
which the public are already perfectly acquainted.
I recommend the narrative to your readers' attention,
as it throws new lights on the coup d'etat, and relates
many of its most interesting details:—
THE RECIT.

The situation in which France was plated by the
systematic hostility of the Assembly, and the flagrant
conspiracies of the old monarchical parties, was in-
tolerable.
It was impossible to work or to govern. All things
suffered—agriculture, manufactures, commerce, laws,
authority, and society—all endured a common agony.
The Assembly prevented the execution of railways,
and such public works, by irceesant delays and imprac-
ticable systems.
The Assembly checked the vigorous action of the
executive, necessary for the repression of Socialism, by
refusing to pass a law which permitted the Chief of the
State to dismiss unworthy mayors.
The Assembly refused the gratitude and considera-
tion due to the services of the army, by rejecting the
modest demand which wile made, with a view to succour
the misfortunes of old soldiers.
The Assembly refused the revision of a senseless
Constitution, which delivered France, bound hand and
foot, into the hands of communism and demagogy. The
Assembly refused the revision, though it was demanded
by more than two million petitioners, by the immense
majority of the councils of arrondissement, and by eighty
, out of eighty-six councils general of the departments.

The situation, then, was intolerable. It was necessary
to put an end to it. All parties felt this. In startin' for
their departments, at the time of the prorogation of the
Assembly, a great number of Conservative repretenta-
tins, in taking leave of the President, conjured him to
dissolve the Assembly before the time of its re•as-
sembling.
At the tame period, the party which is termed that of
fusion, caused overtures to be made to the President, to
offer its aid in saving society, and to join him in the
event of its becoming Ldispensable for him to make a
coup d'etat.
A few days before the meeting of the Assembly, in
November, representatives belonging to the Red and

Socialist party proposal to the President that he should
rely on them, and should choose a Ministry from their
ranks.

Lastly, on the let of December, in the evening, a pro-
position of aid (contours) was brought to ',Juts Napo-
leon, in the name of the Logitimatist chiefs.
It may bn thus seen that all parties, without excep-
tion, considered the position to be no longer tenable; all
proposed to the President to help him to put an end to
it. But each of these parties wished the President to
rely on it alone, and Louis Napoleon refused to rely on
any party—he relied upon Franc.).

The President of the Republic, threatened by two con-
spiracies, and bound by his responsibility as Chief of
the State, had no longer any choice of conduct. The
only choice that remained to him was in what manner he
should devote him,elf to save France and Europe. _

Iu the first place, there existed a vast organization of
brigands, directed by secret societies, ranging itself
beneath the flag of what were termed Montagnard men,
who, for the most part, assuredly, were not aware of the
extent and of the nature of the abominations they
were patronising. The Government was, however,
acquainted with every mesh of this vast net. The pre-
cise and detailed reports of the various prefectures left
no doubt as to the plans of pillage and massacre which
would certainly have exploded in the month of May
next, and which, moreover, might explode under cover of
the very first crisis.
There existed, secondly, a conspiracy, batched by the
old monarchical parties, coalesced against the President
of the Republic. Their design was to overthrow him,
and substi:ute in his place the dictatorship of the As-
sembly. The projects and the plans of, and the persons
engaged in, the conspiteley were all perfectly well known
to L mis Napoleon, and when, in the Constitutionnel of
the 24th of November, we loudly denounced them, by
name, the conspirators did not dare to summon us
to the bar of the Assembly, because they supposed,
not without reason, that we should appear there with
dates, facts, and documents, and that we should have
presented an indictment instead of a defence. This con-
spiraey of the old parties was so far advanced that
amongst the papers of M. 13.1ze have been found the or-
ganic decrees of the new government, the distribution of
the principal places, and the preparations for taking
arms, grounded on the presumed aid of the tenth legion
of the National Guard of Paris.

Thus,the Constitution to which the Parliamentary men
affected to pay an hypocritical veneration, was threat-
ened by them with speedy ruin. The President, charged
with an immense responsibility, could hesitate no longer.
Why should he hesitate ? Parties were notoriously
powerless to effect the salvation of France, and their coa-
lition would not have survived their triumph. Legality
was every day aggravating the perils of society, by
weakening the Executive Power, by strengthening Coot.
munism, by lessening the jurisdiction of the rvlaiinistra-
ilea and of the law. The President was sill master of

his movements. In a fevr months it would have been too
late for him and for all.

In face of such perils, and penetrated with the confi-
denceof six millions of men who had confided their des-

tines to him, and appreciating the duty that such a con
fideneo imposed on him, ho resolved to save his coun-
try, knowing well that he was giving, as proofs of his
loyally, his head to the passions of the present, and his
memory to the judgment of the future.
It was immediately after the hostile act of the quati-
tors that the President took his resolution and his
measures for an eventuality that was evidently very
near. Three min were his confidants—M. de Saint
Arnaud, Minister if War; M.. de Morny, re presentative;
and M. de llaupas, Prefect of Police. Louis Napoleon
aplained to them the immense dangers that threatened
society, and which each day was aggravating. lie dig.
covered to them the designs he had formed for the dissi-
pation of those dangers, and ho asked them for their aid-
All three promised it. M. do Morny, as Minister of the
Interior, would ausaer for all the political responsibility;
M. do St. Arnaud fur the military operations; and M.
de Maupas for the action of the police.
During more than a fortnight, these gentlemen, in
conjunction with the President, determined on every
detail of this immense act, which the famous dix-Butt
Brumaire by no means equals, either in difficulty, in
cleverness, or in grandeur. The least things were fore-
seen, concerted on, and prepared in detail, with such
marvellous secresy, that even the safest friends and the
most necessary agents had not the least idea of what
was to happen, till the supreme moment which pre-
ceded the execution of the project.

That all the measures that were to bo taken should
be effected simultaneously was evidently the first condi-
tion of success; the principal measures were four in
number:-Ist. The arrest of guilty or dangerous persons.
2d. The publication of official decrees. 3d. The invest•
raent and occupation of the palace of the Assembly; and
4th. The distribution of troops on the necessary strate-
gic points.
Quarter-past six A.M. was the hour fixed upon for the
simultaneous execution of all these measures. _ _

The plan was not to be discovered by some one of its
parts, but was to be revealed by the action of all. At a
quarter past six, the arrests were being made; at half
past six, the troops arrived at their posts; at seven
o'clock, the decree of dissolution of the Assembly and
the other proclamations, left the Prefecture of Police, to
cover the walls of Paris. At exactly half-past six, M.
de Morny took possession of the Ministry of the Interior,
accompanied by 250 chasseurs de Vincennes, and he
placed in tho hands of M. de Thorigny a letter, in.which
the President thanked that gentleman for his servicer,
and communicated to him the decisive act ho had re-
solved on.

All that concerned the printing awl publication of the
decree dissolving the Assembly, of the proclamation to
the army, and ot the appeal to the people, had been en-
trusted to M. de Pi/itle, lieutenant-colonel attached to
the staff, and officier d'ordonnance of the President. The
necessary workmen were summoned to the National
Printing-office for an argent piece of work. The pre-
sence of the director was required at eleven o'clock pro•
cis ly under a decent pretext. As midnight struck, a
company ot gendarmerie mosilc, summoned to protect the
office from an imaginary danger, enured the court-
yard. Sentinels were immediately placed at every door,
and at every window, It was only after these precau-
tions that M. de Be rale produced the documents which
were confided to him, and %hose printing and subse-
quent delivery to the Prefecture of Police he superin-
tended in person.