The Sun.
London, England, 1858-08-17 00:00:00

Fetes, may now be stereotyped Vive l'Empereur,"
.` Vive l'lmperatrice," " Vive le Prince Imperial."
Here were the pure Bretons—every man of them
i peasant tilling the ground, or living by his inces-
iant toil as a fisherman, and exhibiting in their
tumultuous joy the proof that he who was now
smongst them—one of themselves—was not only
adopted from the love that was borne to his great
predecessor, but that he had himself proved worthy
4' their choice, and now fittingly occupied the posi-
tion to which their voices had elevated him :

Nobility chimed by the right of blood,
Shows chiefly that our ancestors deserv'd i
What we inherit; but that man whose actions
Purchase a real merit to himself,
And ranks him in the file of praise and honour,
Creates his own advancement."
In all the incidents of these fates that I have, as
yet, witnessed, there was not one that struck me as
showing more completely how the Emperor Napo-
leon 111. has won for himself, by his own acts, his
own merits, and his own policy, a permanent hold on

the hearts of the people.
During the entire of this day their Majesties have
been engaged in making a tour of the city—the Em-
press visiting the various schools and hospitals of
children and females. They subsequently went out
to Port Louis to see the launching of a vessel, the
Calvados, and in the evening attended a grand ball,
given in a building erected in the Place Napoleon,
and capable of containing, as I am told, 1,800 per-
sons. _ _

The proceedings of to-day I can thus but briefly
notice, as it was an utter impossibility for me to wit-
ness them, I have been so harassed and annoyed by
the blundering, the stupidity, and pettifogging malig-
nity of the police authorities.
It is not an agreeable matter to have to attend to
one's self in a letter which. should be devoted to
other more importem+ and interesting topics ; but in
tins necessity devolve. -arm me to do so,
as I have been prevented from discharging tne duty
I undertook to perform for the Morning Post.
It is, I think, one of the many profound and saga-
cious observation that are attributed to that great
genius, the father of " Tristram Shandy," that a
man's Christian name is calculated to have consider-
able influence upon his progress through life. Within
the last two days I have had some bitter experience
of the justice of that observation. My godfathers
and godmothers being very pious Christians, selected
as one of the most fitting baptismal appellations to
bestow upon me, one which is also that of a truly
illustrious saint who took an active part at a certain time
in promoting one of the Crusades of Christendom
against the ferocious, unbelieving, and persecuting
Turks. Unhappily for me, this good Christian name
has of „late years become a very bad sirname, and
amongst others it is borne by one of the persons who
at a certain time was more than suspected of having
had a preliminary knowledge of the truly infamous
and detestable Orsini-attempt upon the life of the
Emperor.
That name was, amongst others, in my passport,
when I reached Auray in the diligence, on my way
from Rennes to this place. The moment the gens
d'arme saw that terrible name, he picked a hole in
the document, as not being en regle, and I was at
once taken, bag and baggage, before the Jude de
Paix, of whom it may be said that it would be a very
bad translation to say that his title was equivalent
with that of "justice of the peace." A more obsti-
nate, self-opinionated, pig-headed old gentleman it
was never before my misfortune to encounter. He
insisted that the second of my Christian names was
my sirname, and that my sirname was something in
English which he could not understand ; but that,
he was sure was intended to disguise some great
wickedness or another, of which he had the very
worst opinion, because it was to him absolutely in-
comprehensible. It was in vain I showed him docu-
ments proving myself to be a correspondent of the
Morning Post, that I referred him to names and
circumstances to testify to my identity. With this
old gentleman every additional fact was nothing more
nor less than part of a well-arranged scheme, and,
instead of enlightening him as to my innocence of all
plots and plotters, was but a new corroboration of his
own unjust suspicions. The :olitlizufavour he would
annr.e.de to me was to 1:e P
the 'Mx
it E:
or the day after that, carrying my own cloak and
carpet-bag a distance of some seven or eight leagues
from Auray to Lorient), to go in a voiture, guarded
by two gen-d'armes. Accordingly, having paid 25
francs for a voiture, and 16 francs for the two gen-
darmes, I was removed, after a custody of nearly
four hours in the police prison, to the voiture ; and
at the end of a journey of five hours conducted be-
fore the Procureur Imperiale—a middle-aged, testy,
saucy-looking personage, who was in such a hurry,
and in such a state of excitement at that second un-
happy name in my passport, that he would scarcely
listen to any explanation on my part, he acting all
through this brief interview on the grand discovery
he had himself made out of his own head, that I was
as much a Frenchman as himself, and, if I liked it,
could speak French with the same accent—that, in
short, I was not, and could not have any claim to be
called a British subject. He condescended to take
two documents from me, and said he would see the
British Consul—who, by the way, is not an English-
man, but a Frenchman—that if he could see him
he would return in an hour, and.that if not, I must
remain a prisoner for the night.
And a prisoner for the night I did remain in the
'liaison d' Arret. Of my treatment there I make no
complaint, for I was put into a clean, tidy room, and
was served with everything I required ; so that I can
say, from my experience both of the police gaol at
Auray and of the prison at Lorient, that if all other
places of incarceration resemble them, they reflect
very great credit on the French authorities.
For full twenty-four hours I was kept a close
prisoner—so close, that in the police-office I was
refused the use of pen and ink ; and in the prison,
though allowed to write as much as I liked, I could
not despatch a letter without the certain conviction
that every line would be read by the Procureur
Imperiale, and it would depend upon his pleasure
whether or not what I had written should pass
through the Post-office.
At the end of the 24 hours my complacent and
truly good-natured gaoler came up to my room to
inform me he had received an order for my release ;
but to myself directly there was sent not one word
of explanation from the Procureur Imperia' le. I
thought, and still think, that the liberty of a British
subject is a matter of some little consequence, and
that it should not be lightly interfered with, and
therefore that he who had deprived me of it unne-
cessarily, as was proved by his putting an end to my
duresse, was bound to say something in the way of
explanation or apology. Such, however, is not the
Procureur Imperiale's notions of duty or courtesy.
He put me into a prison, and he let me out again,
and there he let the affair rest.
Whilst in prison, I amused my leisure hours by
writing, amongst other things, a protest, which I
nteuded to read in presence of the Procureur Im-
periale. That protest I delivered to the British
Consul, he fixing 11 o'clock to-day to see me, and
speak with nee about it ; but although I have called
four times at his bureau during the day, I have
never been able to see him. Let me again remark,
;he "British" Consul in Lorient is not a British sub-
ect

But let it not be supposed that with my arrest and
my imprisonment my troubles are at an end. Wish-
ing to engage a place in some yoiture or diligence
to-morrow to give an account of the proceedings
both at Auray and Vannes, I knew it was necessary
to provide myself again with my passport. I there-
fore called upon the Procureur Imperiale who had
taken it from me, and he sent me to look for it from
the Police Commissioner, who gave it back to me
with the document verifying that I was the bearer
of it. He restored me my passport, but refuted to
vise it, so as to give me permission to travel ; and
his refusal he placed upon two grounds—first, that
the seal impressed upon it was not a seal in wax or
is ink—tb§t it was av engrayed coat Owns (such? igs