The Sun.
London, England, 1851-06-11 00:00:00

LONDON WEDNESDAY EVENING 9

flietion of such punisbment, that the perusal of the

sacred Scriptures " might inspire sentiments and reli-
gious principles contrary to those of the Catholic
Roman and Apostolic religion," and this edict was is-
sued not some centuries since, in the dark ages, but in
this very year of grace 1851, not one month since.
That edict is as follows :

4' EXTRACT FRoM THE REGISTER OF THE DELIBERA-
TIONS oz THE PREFECTURE OF THE DEPARTMENT
OF FLORENCE.
" Sitting of 16th May, 1851. _ _ _

"Seeing that it is proved that on the► evening of the
7th May instant, the undernamed, Fidele Betti, Count
Peter Guicciardini, Cesar Magrini, Angiolo Guarducci,
Charles Soleini, Sabatino Bonner', and Joseph Guerra
were seized whilst sitting round a table in the house of
the said Fidel 4 ;
" Seeing that it appears from the declarations of the
accused themselves that at the moment of their arrest
Count Gui(!ciardini was reading and commenting on a
chapter in the Gospel of St. John, in the Italian trands-
_

tion, attributed to John Diodati •
" Seeing that it appears by sulEcient proofs that this
reading and this commentary could have no other
end, but to inspire sentiments and religious principles
contrary to those of the Catholic Apostolic and Roman
religion ;
" Having considered Article 2 of the Decree of the
25th April, 1851, the Court orders the imprisonment for
six months of Count Guicciardini, at Volterra; of Cesar
Magrini, at Montieri; of Angiolo Guarducci, at Ginn-
carico ; of Fidele Betti, at Orhitello; Gf Charles Solaini,
at Ciniglano; of Sabatino Borsieri, at Rocca Strada; and
of Joseph Guerra, at Piombino.
" A true copy.—For the Secretary,
" A. Seunucnr, First Commissioner."

In order properly to appreciate the bearing of this
sentence, it should be remembered that Volterra is
situated in the centre of the most deadly district of
the Maremma, that the summer months are in that
district the most fatal, and that therefore the sen-
tence of Count GuIccIARDINI is tantamount to a sen-
tence of death. If the Ecclesiastical Titles Bill pro-
posed to punish the Papal usurpers of territorial
titles with six months' imprisonment in the common
goal of Sierra Leone, such a sentence would scarcely
equal in severity the sentence passed upon Count
PETER GUICCIARDINI. Most truly did Mr.
JOHN REYNOLDS say that he as a Ro-
manist abhorred toleration—as a proof of it we ap-
peal to this sentence of the Court of Florence. What
the Romanist brawlers mean by liberty is, liberty to
persecute and to destroy all who differ from them ; as
the thief means by liberty, liberty to rob, and the
Thug, liberty to cut throats. Therefore, even as we
place the thief and the Thug under wholesome re-
straint, even as we refuse to permit children to meddle
with firearms or with fire, so it is not persecution, but
purely self-defence, to keep the physical power a little
in check of those who are so completely the slaves of
their sacerdotal masters that they literally and truly
" dare not call their souls their own."

THE FRENCH REPUBLIC.

We have received the Paris journals of yesterday.
They continue at considerable length their disqui-
sitions on the real composition of the Committee on
the Revision of the Constitutien. Since it now appears
next to a certainty that the question of a revision will
be decided negatively, the manner in which the Com-
mittee is made up is a matter of comparative indiffer-
ence.

The Ordre is very severe against the Bonapartists,
charging them with being the only section of the
party of order which wants to upset the Constitution.
It appeals to Conservatives to unite on the ground of
maintenance of law ; and advises that petitions in
favour of revision be henceforth discouraged, as calcu-
lated to mislead the people, by raising their expecta-
tions of a revision being intended, which is now found
to be impossible.
The Opinion Publique considers that the proceed-
ings which have just taken place in the bureaux, put
all hopes of a revision being carried in a legal manner
out of the question.
The Constitutionnel makes an effort at reconciling
the Legislative and Executive powers, by showing
that each had committed faults, with this difference,
that Louis NAPOLEON, always ready to recognise an
error whenever led into such, merits the consideration
due to an honest, well-intentioned man. The country
has plainly spoken in his favour—it desires the Re-
public, with Louis NAPOLEON at its head ; and all
differences, observes the Constitutionnel, ought to give
way before the general will, calmly and energetically
expressed.
.kmanifesto from the European Central Democra-

tic Committee has appeared. The document, after
declaring that the object in view is to form a holy
alliance of nations, the device of which ought to be
liberty, association, and employment; and after
stating that the committee desires neither anarchy nor
scenes of terror, proceeds thus : . _

" The mission of the Central Committee is European,
and its work is one of an international character. To
rally the efforts of the various populations to a common
source and inspiration; to represent in action the con-
joint responsibility which exists between the emancipa-
tion of each of them and that of all; to strengthen the
ranks of those combating for the holy cause of right,
wh,rever they are to be found; to prepare the ground
toe an alliance of those nations which shall gain the vic-
tory over that now in force amongst kings, for a Congress
' of nations which shall replace that of Vieena, still exist-
ing and in action; to remodel, according to the wishes
of the populations, the map of Europe; to smooth down
the obstacles which the prejudices of race, the reminis-
cences of monarchical wars, and the artifices of govern-
ments opposed to that prospect—such is the object of
our eollective labour.
" That object evidently cannot be attained unless it
takes for its starting point a common ground—viz., that
of the national sovereignty for each people, and of the
alliance, on the basis of equality of all emancipated
nations.

" No sovereignty is national which does not embrace
in its object and its expression all the elements forming
a ration—the universality of the citizens composing the
stmte. The democratical conception is then, in our
opinion, a condition inseparable from a nation.

" Democracy has only one logical form, that of the
republic; and 'he republican principle cannot be said to
be applied to a nation, it it does not embrace, by binding
them together, all the branches of human activity, all the
aspects ut life in the individual and for association. Our
work is consequently republican, democratical, and
social; and it is ior all nations that we invite the alliance
of all kinds of devotedness. The rest lies within the
duties of the national committees.

" Each of them has the right and the duty to study
and to draw out, as a preparatory work for his country,
the special solution which is called for by the moral, the
economical, and the social condition of the country; in
the same way as in every state it is the right and the
duty of every citizen to draw out and propose the solu-
tion, which he considers the best, of the problems which
are there agitated. The people—the judges in the last
appeal—will decide.
66 The European Central Committee may watch that
these solutions, by quitting the common ground, beyond
which there can be neither justice nor right, do net
throw the leaven of inequality, of discord, and of struggle
into the bosom of the alliance of peoples; it has no
power beyond that. Neither man-King nor people-King
The people, which should pretend to substitute its so-
lution for the solemn problems which present themselves
in a different manner in eeen country would be guilty
of an act of usurpation, in the same way as an individual
or a school which should pretend, by making of it
a sine qua non of co-operation, to impose its own inspi-
ration on its brethren, would be guilty of an act of ty-
ranny, and would violate the vital idea of democracy—
the dogma of collective sovereignty. Neither the one
nor the other would comprehend anything of the one
and multiple life of humanity. In order to discover, to
iabi l e
;6 ty and
t o loving,
judge, and to apply any particular formula, it is neces-
sary to exist—to live the life which ferments in all free,
Dthi
theoerwishes, pe,ohpelse, now live? t
live,?n
jeAnrceicthey
a and
their joint aspirations? Can they love and in-
crease a hundredfold in fraternal activity, their
faculties and their strength, in the midst of that atmos-
phere of corruption, of mistrust, of oppression, and of
espionnage which surrounds them? It is necessary be-
fore all to recal them to life and to action. It is mces-
sary to open to them the great roads of liberty. It is
cessary, in order that noble and great ideas should •
arise in their hearts, to efface from their foreheads the
ciisgraceWl mark of slavery. Their intelligence must be ‘,
imbued with the enthusiasm of a collective life, of joint

more willingly, seeing th At in the, hying repreqenta-
tive of the house of BONAPARTE bhe beholds a faithful
son of her soil, one who swore allegiance to her Re-
publican institutions, and who since then has preserved
that oath in its fullest integrity, despite the witcheries
of an infinite number of scarcely resistible tempta-
tions. In honesty, in justice, in truth, these things
should not be forgotten ; but above them all should
be remembered during the whole of the approaching
crisis the dearest and loftiest interests of the
Democracy.

We would direct the attention of our readers to a
letter on the subject of the Papal aggression signed a
"Tinplate Worker," which appears in another column.
The writer treats the subject admirably, and we re-
commend the GRABAY and GLADSTONE " clique" of
the House of Commons to attentively consider the
arguments of the " Tinplate Worker" and learn pru-
dence. The " Tinplate Worker" asks whether the
Roman Catholics consider that be, a Scotch Cove-
nanter, ought to have the same right to promulgate
his opinions in Rome, and in Spain, and in Austria,
as they now demand of us. In answer to this de-
mand of the Tinplate Worker we publish the edict of
a Roman Catholic court of law inflicting a
heavy punishment upon persons for reading
the Bible, and setting forth as the reason for the in-

responsibility, and of sovereign liberty. That is the first
step to take, that is the first round to be ascended on
the ladder of progressive, national, and European educa-
tion. The central committee occupies itself the more
with this as it is forgotten by others. The men who
compose it, and those who labour with them, do not
think of contemplating the solitary production of their
own intelligence; they think of stirring up the intelli•
Bence of all and calling into the arena. They do not
content themselves with thinking, they think of acting.
That ought to be now the mot d'ordre of every patriot.
(Signed) " LEDRU ReLLIN. A. DARASZ.
MAZZINI A. RIZIGE.

" London, June 1."

In consequence of some words exchanged between
M. PIERRE BONAPARTE and M. DE NIEUWERKERQUE,
Director-General of the National Museums, a hostile
meeting took place on Monday morning in the Bois
de Boulogne, the weapon agreed on being the sword.
After a combat which lasted several minutes, and in
the course of which two swords were broken, M DE
NIEUWERKERQUE received a wound in the right
thigh. The seconds then interfered, and put au end
to the combat.

The Illessager de l'Assemblie says :--" It is
affirmed that General RANDON has applied for and
obtained the Government of Algeria, in the place of
General D'HAurrouL; and that the portfolio of the
War Department is to te transferred to General
AUPICY."

The Municipal Corporation of Poictiers has voted
30,000 f. for the fetes to be given on the occasion of
the inauguration of the rail way to that town. A de-
putation is to come to Paris to invite the PRESIDENT
for the occasion.

General NARVAEX has left Paris for London, to
visit the Exhibition.

There was some business inßailroad shares transacted
at the Bourse. Government Stock was comparatively
neglected. The Five per Cents. opened at 91f. 40c.,
roe to 91f. 50c., fell subsequently to 91f. 20c., and
rtos d at 9 If. 25c. The Three per Cents, closed at
541. 70c. Orleans Railroad Shares, 838 t. 75e,; Rouen,
6251.; Havre, 2451.; Great Northern, 478 f 750,; Avig-
non, 2251. ; Vietzon, 456'. 25c.; Paris and Strasburg,
3671. 50c.; Tours and Nantes, 273 f. 75c.
61181NESS t)t Nr. IN FORElais KAILW AYS AT THE
LONDON STOCK EXCHANGE, JUNE 10.
Boulogne and Amiens, 914—Central of France (Orleans
and Vierzon), 181/s—Dutch Rhenish, 234 East Indian,
18%—Namur and Liege, 64—Northern of France, 1,4%
Orleans and Bordeaux, :al—Paris and [kitten, 25—Rouen
and Havre, 9%—Sambre and Meuse, 31—Tours and
Nantes, 7%.

6 2-3
all
9%