The Sun.
London, England, 1858-11-25 00:00:00

THE TRIAL AND CONVICTION OF
M. DE MONTALEJIBERT.

(From the Times.)

" The Revolution," said Vergniaud, " like
Saturn, is devouring her own children," and the
Empire is destroying the first and noblest of her
ornaments. The coup d'etat of December 2, 1851,
successful as it was over the ChaMbers and the
ConstitutiOn, utterly failed to conciliate to the
Throne of the new Emperor the support of men
who had achieved character and position under the
preceding 30 years of liberty, too lightly prized
while enjoyed to be deeply regretted when lost.
Almost alone among the class to which-he belonged,
M. de Montalembcrt at that tryirig moment stood
forward to give his moral and inte.tlequal support
to the Imperial Throne, while yet rocking from the
convulsion which established it. He did not wait
to see whether the new institutions would take ,
root in the soil of France •, he did not wait to see
whether the nation that had done and suffered so
much and s o vainly for its own liberties and the
general rights of humanity would tamely bow
beneath the iron rod of a master, but obeyed the
strong impulse of his nature, which led him to throw
himself heart and soul into the scale that bore the
Emperor and his future fortunes. We cannot now
estimate the exact value which should be attached
to such an adhesion ; but, if we are to judge by the
delight with which it was received, we should sup-
pose it to have been at the moment of no incon-
siderable importance. At any rate the Emperor
has known how fully to acquit himself of the obli-
gation.

After a week spent in the mummeries of a hunt-
ing masquerade, carried on in costumes that rec all
only too faithfally the most degraded.period of the
French Monarchy, the Imperial Court reposes from
its revels, and the serious business of lifc reclaims
the votaries of pleasure. The brilliant Crowd dis-
perses, and the attention of the nation is turned
from fantastic dresses and the vapid'imitation of
Moorish chivalry to the tame formalities in the
midst of which the last spark of her remaining free-
dom was to be trodden out. The
illustrious pri-
soner appears before the court commissioned to take
cognisance of his offence; but ,before what a tribunal
for such a defendant. Not for him was reserved a
trial before the highest judge's of his county, whose
learning, rank, and gravity might, at any rate, lend
some show of dignity.and respect for appearance
and propriety to the decision they were to pronounce.
No, the days are long past since Liberty could claim
sufficient 'respect from. a French Government to
cause it to put in motion even for her suppression
the higher powers and more deliberate agency of
the Superior Courts of justice.. The cause on which
hung not only the personal liberty of an illustrious
citizen, but the freedom of thought, speech, and
writing in the land of Mirabeau, of Constant, of
Foy, of Casimir Perrier. of Thiers, and Lamartine,
was left to be decided, like a drunken row in a wine-
shop, a petty theft, or a trifling assault, by the
agency of the Correctional Police. So feeble had
become the flame, so low did it burn in its socket,
that this slight blast from the chilling breath of
power was enough to extinguish it altogether. The
case of M. de Montalembert was too petty to require
the intervention of a jury, and the inferior magis-
trate had no duty but to listen calmly to the plead-
ings, and then to pronounce the sentence which the
code prescribes for the offence. M. de Monta-
lembert has received for his too fervent praise of
England and his the insufficient appreciation of the
merits of the Imperial system a sentence of im-
prisonment for six months and a fine of three
thousand francs. He has ventured to -praise Eng-
land, and in so doing has been considered to have
pronounced the bitterest invective against France.
It were hard indeed if England did not sympa-
thise with a man who is made by the action of his
(mil Government a sort of martyr in our cause ; but
much more deeply, though unhappily more silently,
must the French nation feel that it has lost, not
only the ablest defendcrsof its liberties, but the last
wreck of those liberl ies themselves. M. de Monta-
lembert carries with him into his cell all that is
now left of a literature which for the last three
centuries has often instructed and often delighted
mankind. The language of so many noble writers
who found means to give utterance to their free
thoughts even amid the despotism which prevailed
before the Bastille was destroyed and while the
Sovereign retained the power of issuing lettres de
cachet, is now finally undermined by a more insi-
dious foe. French may still continue the language
of business of diplomacy, and war, .but its litera-
ture is closed from this day forth until the nation
reconquer the right once more. to give utterance in
a durable form to its feelino's, its convictions, and
its aspirations. M. de Mmitalembert will be at-
tended to his prison by the sympathy and regret
of all free and honest men, and his sentence, at the
very moment while it is being executed, will be
rescinded bylhe unanimous verdict of the conscience
and intellect of Europe. By this condemnation he
will fall under the provisions of that shameful law
passed in the agony and helplessness occasioned by
the plot of Orsini, which places the liberty and
consequently the life of a person convicted of such
an offence at the absolute disposal of the Executive
Govermnent. We would not willingly add to the
danger of his situation any useless invectives and
complaints, but we at least preserve that freedom
which he has lost by attempting to exercise it, and
we should ill discharge our duty if we shrank from
inscribing this epitaph on the urn which holds the
ashes of what was once French literature.

We can understand that it may be a relief to the
Emperor for a moment thus to silence an acute and
unfriendly critic, and to exhibit one of the first men
of France as so slight a person as to be crushed
without effort beneath the smooth and easy pro-
gress of Imperial omnipotence. But we ask—and
all the more openly since no Frenchman is permit-
ted to put the question—what a fate the Emperor
imagines he is preparing for himself and his dynasty
by proceedings like the present ? Does he believe
that because he can annihilate the expression and
still the voice, he can also obliterate the thoughts
which burn for themselves a passage no tyranny
was ever able to obstruct through the breasts of a
silent but quick-witted people ? What his own
aspirations once were we have learnt from his own
published writings;—what they have now become
we learn from the prosecution of M. de Montalem-
bert. Have all the lessons of a long adversity, of a
severe imprisonment, of a protracted and dangerous
struggle with the hostile Legislature, been thrown
away, and does there remain nothing of these rude,
but we had hoped salutary lessons, except the ais-
position to inflict on those who thwart his will the
pains which he himself has endured ? When will
Sovereigns remember that nations must be educated
as well as ruled, and that he who deliberately shuts
out from his subjects the ennobling influence of free
discussion is preparing them for gross delusions,
unfounded panics. violent animosities, and furious
revenges,—in a word, for the indulgence of all those
evil passions which are best regulated and corrected
by an open heart and a well-disciplined intellect ?