The Sun.
London, England, 1860-05-30 00:00:00

SPEECH OF 111. FOULD.

(From the Times.)
We hope Europe is not ungrateful to the Emperor
of the French for his continual care to reassure her

and make her comfortable. It is a pleasant thing
to have not only a peaceful and candid, but also a
considerate neighbour. At once to watch and to
work is too great a strain upon the body and mind.
They who built the Temple found it hard to wear
their arms as well as wield their tools and even
the shepherd would like to unsling his long gun
while he pursues his blatant wanderers. It is kind
of the Emperor to set M. Fould to assure us that
there is nothing to fear, We should do better to
confide in him. We should not then be led away
by the feeling of uneasiness which " parties" are
strenuously endeavouring to spread. We should
then go to sleep each under his own fig tree, satis-
fied that the Emperor is too loyal a neighbour and
too faithful an ally to menace the rights of others.
His moderation in the past is a certain guarantee
for the future. So M. Fould says in his speech to
the citizens and husbandruen of Tarbos, and as M.
Fould is a Minister of State, and speaks from
authority, surely we may all go to sleep in peace.
Why should Prussia be uneasy and Belgium appre-
hensive? Why should Royal personages confide to
each other secret fears and start to find them fame ?
Why sho,ild England be silently and, we may add,
mournfully assuming an attitude of preparation for
some tremendous effort ? Why should all the popu-
lations that lie round France be at this moment
suffering every evil of war except that one evil of
bloodshed ? It is astonishing what trouble human
beings take to make themselves unhappy. Listen
to M. Fould and be composed. What if there be a
kite in the air —he means no harm. Nestle, ye
plump partridges, and ye birds of golden plumage ;
he is not hungry yet, he has not digested his last
meal; those wide sweeps and rapid swoops are
only play, his morning exercise to keep his wings
in action.

Provoke not the mighty master by your unbe-
lief. M. Fould reminds you that " the Emperor
has several times proclaimed that he only wishes
to insure to France the rank which belongs to

her." How say you, Belgium? How say —you,
Prussia? Are you not satisfied with this ? It would
seem that the phrase scarcely falls like oil upon your
ruffled plumage. Probably you are not quite sure
what that rank may be which France believes to
belong to her. Possibly you may not be able to
measure the area of the just proportions of a Napo-
leonic Empire. Some vain apprehensions may be
haunting you that such words as these may not be
inconsistent with a desire for Antwerp and a
thought of the frontier of the Rhine. Be reas-
sured ; the Emperor's Minister appeals to his mas-
ter's previous character, and bids you measure the
loyalty of the future by the moderation of the past.
.21,em0 repente fait turpissimus. No man can be-
come covetous all at once. If, indeed, he had ever

shown a desire for other people's possessions ; if he
had ever used his army for purposes other than
those of benevolence and love ; if he had ever broken
up a big State or bullied a little State, or snatched
a province from a humble friend, then indeed you
might have had some pretence for your insenate
suspicions. We see how it is. These States are
" led away by the, feeling of uneasiness which
parties are strenuously endeavouring to spread."
Somebody has been whispering in their ear the in-
famous calumny, that ' the Emperor of the French
makes war like a conspirator." They have been
insidiously reminded how Austria was broken to
pieces and Piedmont partitioned to the accompani-
ment of generous phrases and disinterested procla-
mations. By an illogical process of reasoning they
are moved towards the conclusion that what hap-
pened to others may happen to them. Germans
have naturally a smack of pedantry about them.
We should not wonder if they have been thinking
of iEneas madly rushing to arms when he saw his
neighbour's house on fire, and of those often quoted
lines,—
" Tura vero manifesta fides, Danaumque patescunt
Insidia). Jam Deiphobi dedit ampla ruinam,
" Vulcan° superante, domus ; jam proximus ardet
" ITealegon."
If it be true that there be any uneasiness among
these timorous Powers of Europe—and we have
admitted and argued upon the fact only because
M. Fould and the Moniteur insist upon it—it must
be the result of some imperfect reasoning, such as
we and M. Fould have attempted to expose.
It is scarcely to be believed, but it is neverthe-
less true, that these " parties" have been insidiously
suggesting to the Belgian and the Prussian Govern-
ments that this Emperor of the French, whose
loyalty, after the assurances he has given and the
acts be has done, it would be ashame to doubt, is at
this moment repeating in the Low Countries those
preliminary manoeuvres which preceded the disrup-
tion of Lombardy and the partition of Piedmont.
They assert that the French Government speaks
with two voices. It is declared that the French
Government has a special department in Paris for
the fabrication of newspaper articles to be slipped
into foreign newspapers. They do this great poten-
tate the wrong of asserting that he pursues a
system known to our low-class publishers and puff-
ing tradesmen, of hoaxing innocent editors by
foisting upon them bits of pretended news wherein
there is always a concealed business purpose that
escapes the eye. We have had such things cut out
and sent to us from time to time, with a history of
the authorship, origin, and secret process by which
the trap was worked. Of coarse, we have always
had too firm a confidence in the loyalty of the
French Emperor to believe a word of all this. We
know that he never speaks anonymously ; but the
rest of the world are not so assured, and are dis-
couraged accordingly. Furthermore these " parties,"
whom M. Fould so properly denounces, go so far
as to pretend that agents are now traversing the
manufacturing towns of Belgium,explaining to the
workmen and masters how much better off they
would be if they were not cribbed and confined in
that narrow kingdom, but were portion of one
great empire; and that several have already been
kicked out of workshops w hen the men had dis-
covered their object. The _Nord, we are told,
has already felt its way by a cautions article
upon the French frontiers. It is said that
the Paris press has already received instruc-
tions to assert that the Belgians are dis-
cussing the question of annexation to Francs,
and that the same impudent falsehood has been
adroitly foisted upon some of our own English
papers of the more obscure and incautious &ass.- All
these things are by M. Fould's " parties" said to
be now going on, and then they proceed to show
that this is in accordance with all former Imperial
practice, and that the plan has been first to get
up a fictitious discussion, th:.n to argue upon that
discussion, then to assert that the discussion has
terminated in favour of the annexers, then to ma-
nifest imperial sympathy for the wishes of an una-
nimous people, and then to search an overwhelm-
ing army to the desired territory. These they
describe to have been the invariable stages of the
annexation disease.
We think with M. Fould that there is no present
danger of this disease going to any fatal lengths in
Belgium unless it should unhappily first seize upon
and carry off Rhenish Prussia. Belgium and
Prussia were vaccinated against it more than fifty
years ago. A Belgian or a Prussian is as little
likely to profess a desire to become a Frenchman as
is a Kentishman or a Yorkshireman, and there are
guarantees which make those overlying coasts of
Belgium rather different to the slopes of Chablais.
We say these things entirely in corroboration of M.
Fould. Of course, so long as the present Emparor
rules we are safe in his loyal word ; but thrones
and dynasties and human life are the sport of time.
If we could compound with Fate that this loyal and
amiable and contented Emperor could reign for
ever, and always in his present mood, and that M.
Fould should always interpret his policy, we might
lay aside our apprehensions ; but, as it is, perhaps
" people" will do as well, while implicitly confid-
ing in the French Emperor's loyalty, if they criti-
cally note the signs of the day and watch how the
storm-gauge rises and falls.

(From the fforntlig Post.)

- _
The Moniteur of yesterday publishes a speech
delivered by M. Fould, the Minister of State, to
n agricultural meeting at Tarbes on the subject
of the foreign itad commercial poliCy of the French
Government. Such assurances of the Emperor's
desire for peace and prosperity as M. Fould offers
altreiniinsateeredinnForma ore than the iteration of what every
France has said, and what every journal
in that country declared since, the peace of Vit.-
lafranca. BjMa
sroead, in some of his reasonings,
handles the subjectdistinguish:eh policy with a certain
novelty which s it from the mere decla-
ration of some of hisof colleagues. He appeals sub-
stantially to the basis thet apprehension which
some other countries appear entertain for the
maintenance of their independence.
found, for the most part, in 'the. ThiS is to be.
extraordinarily
high estimate -which is formed oeff the talent and
or
if the Emperor
ability of the Emperor himself;
Charles X.,
wnio.
were a dolt, like Louis XVIII ,
one would be afraid of him. S.urerly, thew,
Fould appears to argue, if the Emperor be a states-
man of such capacity, he must at least haie the
capacity to ptovide for the interests of hie own G
co
vernment. What has the French pcyvornnacenet-
lately been about ? It has just established a m
mercial system throughout the empire which will
be prolific of 'immense prosperity if peace continue,
but which will dislocate all the commercial relations
of France, and will make the Government intole-
rably odious among all classes if war were to break
out. What is the present feeling of the French
producers ? That of utter alienation, for the present
at least, towards the Government. Their monopolies