The Sun.
London, England, 1860-01-17 00:00:00

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EMPEROR NAPOLEON.

The Emperor of the French has one great ad-
vantage, for which Job, in the depth of his adver-
sity, sighed in vain—all his enemies are writing
books. More than this. Job, no doubt, when he
wished that his enemy should write a book, men-
tally included in his wish that the book which his
enemy should write might be a bad book or a very
unsatisfactory book • and Napoleon, with an
uniformity of good &tune, is indulged even in
this. The books which declare the hostility of
the Papacy to the French Emperor are exceedingly
bad books • so 'bad that, if they came forth
anonymously, we might suspect them to be writ-
ten by the Emperor's own order. In one of
our colonies tbero was, not very many years ago,
a Governor, who found his official journal carry
with it so little interest that he hit upon the
expedient of starting an opposition paper to give
liveliness and controversy to his colony, and
to form a vent through which the sulky discontent
of his people might explode. He wrote his opposi-
tion paper himself, but wrote it so well that he
found he was writing himself down, and was obliged
to hand over the task of abusing himself to the
writers of the Government Gazette. Napoleon has
evidently not committed this blunder. He has left
the work of attacking him to be done by those who
may think themselves interested in doing so; but,
if he would obtain the full advantage to be derived
from their zeal, he could not do better than encou-
rage the circulation of their brochures by every
means which his Imperial facilities afford. We
thought we had seen as weak a State paper as could
be put forward when we drew attention to the Ul-
tramontanism which came forth under the name
of Mr. Bowyer, but :M. Villemain, " Membre de
l'lnstitut," comes forward with a generous emula-
tion to challenge the pre-eininence of incapacity,
and to link the fortunes of the Orleans family with
the cause of the Pope.
"La France, ?Empire, et la Papaute—Question
do _Urea Public ;" such is the title of Villemain's
p4inplalet. Its object seems to be twofold—histo-
rical and judicial. Aa_u historian, M. Villemain
ungritikes to prove that the Empire has alwaYs
been hostile to the Papacy, and that the Popes,
although driven forth from Rome in ignominy, have
always returned in glory and power. As a jurist,
M. Villemain insists that the title ofthe Pope to his
dominions is as good as that of any reigning Sove-
reign in Europe, and that it is beyond the authority
Of any Congress to dispossess him of any part of
his dominions. The historian has transcribed
his common-place book to show how ill Napo-
leon I. treated Pius VII.; betraying, however, as
he proceeds, the secret that Pius VII. did not con--
sider himself so ill-used, but, on the contrary, de-
clared that he thought it a greater merit to have
restored religion to France than to restore a pro-
vince to the Holy See. M. Villemain quotes what
the Bishops said in the Council of Paris in 1811,
and forces our assent to the historical fact that the
same rabid nonsense was talked by those old
gentlemen in 1811 as is talked by their successors
in 1860, and amid the same universal inatten-
tion. The conclusion, we suppose, is, that as
the Empire is Anti - Papistical, the Orleans
dynasty is Pro-Papistical, and that the Ultra-
montane party, if it be in want of a representa-
tive, may range itself with confidence round M.
Villemain's friends. So much for the historian.
The jurist shows that no Congress has ever under-
taken to deprive a Sovereign of his territories;
that even in the eyes of Voltaire the title of the
Pope to his territories was a good title by prescrip-
tion ; that the Congresses of Westphalia, Aix-la-
Chapelle, Utrecht, and Nimeguen were tribunals of
accommodation, and not Courts for the deposition
of Sovereigns. M. Villemain says nothing of the
Congress of Vienna, nor of the Sovereign Princes
v*ho were there mediatised ; nor of the awkward
fact of the deprivation of the Holy See, at
that very Congress, of a portion of this very
Romagna, at the demand of Austria and under
the protest of the Pope. If we are dealing with
public law, there is nothing like a precedent,
and no precedent ever could be more apt than the
precedent of 1815, which is so appositely stated in
our Paris correspondence of-this day.
In truth, however, everything which M. Villemain
asserts or assumes may be at once granted, and yet
the question which he pretends to discuss will re-
main precisely where it was. We will admit, if he
so desire it, that all the Popes who ever were driven
out of Rome came back to Rome in triumph, and
died there in sanctity. We will generously, and at
the expense of history, throw in, if he please, all
the Popes who ever lived at Avignon and all the
Anti-Popes, utterly ignoring the deeds of Frederick
Barbarossa and the fate of all his contemporaries.
All we say in answer is; that there is not the least
intention on the part of Napoleon 111. to drive
out Pio IX. with force and violence from Rome.
On the contrary, Napoleon has by violence led the
Pope back there, and has by force kept him there.
So as to the Congress. We will, if M. Villemain
so please, grant that the great European Powers
have no right to join together to dethrone a Sove-
reign or to divide his kingdom, or to take from
him anything that he has. We will go further
than this, and allow, for the sake of argument—
and with' various Papal bulls and with Poland and
the Congress of Vienna in full recollection—that
such things have never been done. We will
confess that it would be as the Austrians say—
"robbery." But we answer that the Congress
which England, Prussia, France, and Russia were
prepared to attend never proposed any such an
object. The Congress proposed to force no one,to
despoil no one, to rob no one. It proposed to itself
simply to recognise a state of things found in netzal
existence and in strong organisation. France and
England recognise the Romagna just as England
recognised the French Republic and the Empire of
France ; just as France recognised the independence
of the United States ; just as all Europe recognised
the kingdom of Greece and the kingdom of Belgium;
just as all theworld have recognised the independence
of the revolted colonies of Spain. This weak and illo-
gical reasoner is obliged to imagine a case against
which to argue. He assumes that the Emperor is
scourging the Pope out of Rome, and is tearing
from him part of his dominions. The Emperor is
doing nothing of the sort, and, when this noto-
rious truth is once stated, the pamphlet of M.
Villemain becomes a dull impertinence—a mass of
pedantry which has not even the poor merit of
being apposite to the subject in hand. Instead of
the Emperor chasing out this poor martyr Pope
he is protecting him against others who would thus
chase him out—instead of tearing him from his
dominions he is not even restraining' him from
bringing scandal upon the Christian name by hir-
ing foreign cut-throats to murder Italian citizens ;
he is only preventing foreign civilised nations from
assisting in such butcheries. The question has been
—has the Pope alone of all mankind "a right
divine to govern wrong," and are the inhabitants
of the States of the Church alone of all mankind
so miserable as to be born to that exceptional
thraldom ? The Pope claims this right, and calls-
on all nations to do the necessary hangings, shoot-
ings, and transportings in order to uiaintaim him
in its exercise. The Emperor refuses to continue
to do this work himself or to give way and let
others do it. We cannot compliment the Pope
upon his new champion, or congratulate him on
his new allies.—Times.