The Sun.
London, England, 1858-12-02 00:00:00

FRANCE AS IT IS.:

(From the _Daily News.)
This day seven years life in Paris was held up to
the observation of the world in that broad revolu-
tionary light which illustrates the social condition
of the hour to all future generations. The anniver-
sary reminds us of the ominous sights and sounds
which smote or chilled the hearts of French citizens
some years since, making men ask whether it was
not a troubled dream, and how long it would be
before the waking. The seven years are gone, and
the troubled dream drags on, like the nightmare
oppression, which seems to stretch out a pang of a
thousand years' duration. In the President's Mes-
sage, of the 4th Nov. 1851, the usual topics were
found—Socialism, the stifling of it, poverty, embar-
rassment, a state of siege here and there, and pro-
posals for great public works, which should yield
on;
nr o; fits
but that
accompaniedavmi l create
hyet s
igr,rne
jafiteearnwt works s ;
demandand s
foro
the Mstitutiou, oft iTP-T:s9l44jln'et which. meant a
coalition between the ru

ler ai

fled for politicalaction against the French nation, as
recognised in the world and in history. Dark as
were the forebodings excited by this message.
and by the change of Ministry, and by the courting
of the soldiery, even the experienced people of
Paris were taken by surprise when,, at dawn, this
day seven years, the walls of Paris were seen to be
placarded with the revolutionary decree of a Dicta-
tor who presently called himself Emperor.
We need not dwell on the incidents of that day
and the two which succeeded it. The relatives of
the innocent persons slain by hundreds will write
the story hereafter, and the memory of it will not
die meantime. The smoke, the blood, and even the
broken laws of the day might have been forgiven,
in consideration- of the promise of order, stability;
and security, but for two circumstances—the indig-
nities cast upon the legislators of the Republic, and
the acts and demeanour of the soldiery. These for-.
bade hope to many ; but a multitude of gay-hearted
Frenchmen were disposed to hope that the promised
results would arrive ; and when they had once ob-
tained order and -security for a basis, they could
erect upon them any structure of political institu-
tions that might seem good to the nation. If they
had been asked whether they were Willing to wait
seven years before beginning the construction of
their liberties, would it have damped their spirits ?
If told that in seven years they would be living
under a despotism without parallel in modern his-
tory, would they have used their last moments of
possible concert in modifying the experiment ? or
would they have let it proceed on the responsibility
of one man ? Glad as we all are to dismiss ques-
tions of this kind when they carry pain in them,
ready as we all are to comfort ourselves with the
truism that what is done cannot be helped—there
must be multitudes of Frenchmen who cannot, as
the years go round, see the 2d of December dawn
without some self-questioning as this. It may be
useless to harp upon such questions now, but it must
be right and advantageous, as each anniversary of
the coup d'etat comes round, to compare French life
as it is with what it was promised to be ; and there
can be no doubt that this kind of comparison is
going oa in every house in Paris, and in every
provincial town where anybody but the Court
and its followers are living. It is true . there
will be no sign. Men must now understand
one another without it. The police will pry and
listen in vain : such political comparisons are not
drawn in the streets, nor placarded on the houses,
like the Emperor's avowals of usurpation. But this
is the business on which the intellect and heart of
France are busy to-day.
What is it, in fact, that the coup d'etat has given
to Frenchmen, in the place of that once proud and
gay existence which we all remember, not so many
years ago ? -TECnon-politieitl inhabitanis feel the
pressure of politics in a way which seems to them
very hard. The old smoothness, regularity, and
ease of trade and daily life seem to be gone. Trade
is is bad ; credit is impaired ; and there is an amount
of hopeless destitution in by-places which weighs
upon all social transactions. Bread and meat do
not bear their natural price, for decrees have med-
dled with the cutting up of ox, and the bakers'
stocks of flour. House rent is worse • than food for
dearness ; and it is owing to the great public works
which are the resorce of despots when they have
as unmanageable poor on their hands. The children
of the household have to be taught not to ask ques-
tions, becouse the servants are not to be trusted.
Everything of interest is reserved to be told when
children and servants are in bed • and then only
after looking into the ante-chamber, to see that
nobody, is listening. It is imprudent to make re-
marks in the street, and absurd to make sure of
answers to letters.

Such are the inconveniences of insignificant
people, seven years after the coup d'etat. As for
the sort of people that the ruler spends more
thoughts on,—they have the same experience, with
some additions. There are few families in France
who could not tell of more or fewer exiles, within
their circle of acquaintance; and the nobler the
hearts of those left in their homes, the more they-
suffer on account of the deported. No one will ven-
ture to saw how largely images of Cayenne swamps,
and Algerian deserts, and fever and fetters, hunger
and the hulks, have entered into the scenery of
Frenchmen's minds since the coup d'etat. Be-
sides the victims carried away, without notice,
without trial, without even a knowledge
of their imputed offence, their are their
families at home—families hunger-struck, despair-
ing for the most part, but now and then tempted to
hope for a moment when the brooding thunder-cloud
has discharged a peal, and before it lowers again
blacker than ever. Frenchmen cannot in these days
open the liberal hand to all. They are appealed to
on behalf of the poor, but the poor whom they may
help are those who have no deported relatives.
There are always some who will find means to an-
swer every known need; and it is well known in
Paris that more or less relief does reach the gaunt
children of fathers whohave disappeared from the
shop or the office, or their walk" homewards in the
evening ; but it is not by the hands of neighbours
and fellow-citizens that the aid may arrive. Be-
sides the expense, the restraint, and the embarrass-
ment of life in the new Paris of our time, there is
the dismal novelty of its nothingness. Under the
first Empire there was interest and activity of some
sort, by which the mind was exercised and the
heart kept alive. Breezes or blasts came from all
points of the compass in turn to keep men's lungs
going, but the new doctrine of stagnation creates a
new position. Not only is the atmosphere to be
made stagnant, it is even to be exhausted, and in the
seven years the process has gone so far that the
whole world is asking how much further the ope-
rator means to carry it. Nobody believes that the
catastrophe will be national extinction, and the
commonest supposition is that Frenchmen can
learn to live in a very thin air. Time will show,
this. But, however strong the 'vitality may. be,
health is another matter; and health was promised
with the coup d'etat. The symptoms are not pro-
mising. It is of no use telling. men that they ought
to be happy with the toys of life when its substan-
tial concerns are obliterated. Literature is expunged
when liberty is deposed ; science cannot travel
without a passport ; art degenerates.
What is there in the whole round of amusements
that can compensate for privations like these?
Msreover, material prosperity is hinderedby what-
ever enfeebles society, and intellectual andspiritnal
elevation is impaired by whatever insults, disturbs,
and disheartens the mind and soul of man. Where
truth cannot be spoken, and falsehood thrives ;
where literature is dogged by the police, and
philosophy is dispersed by ill names ; where saints
and sages turn hermits, from being apostles, and
buffoons and showmen fill the stage of life with
their hobby-horses, it seems scarcely the time to
look for the uprising of new structures of political
welfare from the basis of order and security pro-
fessedly laid this day seven years. While looking
for what is promised the dues or victims of the
coup d'etat see many a sad sight among the way:
farers—many a funereal republican train—many a
conclave of able men who meet and part in silence
—many a group of young people who from being
the grace of their time are just becoming its fops,
if not its blacklegs ; but amidst the varying crowd
their compassion rests, not only on. waiting Legiti-
mists, or on indignant Orleanists, but on the inno-
cent child who is nursed in a regilize which must,
in one way or another, be totally changed before
his prospects tau be fulfilled. lo see the Prince

The following letter has been addressed to a con•
temporary :

Sir,—Will the " Archaeologist" who complains of
Mr. Scott's design being adopted, and " the noble-
men and professional gentlemen, of whose compe
tency (to award the prizes) there could be no doubt
being so cavalierly treated," by their selection being
overruled, be so good as to inform us why any
human being should have the smallest confidence
in the architectural judgment of that commission ?

He does not appear lo know that the only ',pro-
fessional" architect on the commission, Mr. Burn,
one of the most eminent professors of domestic ar-
chitecture, and the two other architectural " ;asses-
sors," whose opinions Lord Stanhope and the non-
professional gentlemen refused to record or receive,
all agreed, and agreed independently, in giving
only the sixth place to the design which the his-
torian, the painting gentlemen, and the engineer
put first.
He apparently thinks also, that it ought to go for
nothing that Mr. Scott was only precluded by a
ridiculous and arbitrary rule of these judges, dis-
approved also. by Mr. Burn, from being placed
second in the prize lists for both buildings. They
seem to have thought their business was to distri-
bute the £5,000 of prize money as widely as pos-
sible, instead of enabling the public to judge as ac-
curately as possible of the capacity of the several
architects ; and as the Saturday Renew says, the
candidate Nilo is second in two competitions is ob-
viously superior to him who is only first in one-,
unless he is facillime princepi—OirCh was not con-
tended in favour of either of the first prizemen.
If the "Archaeologist" can find any bit of evidence
before Mr. Hope's committee in support of the
Westminster-hall judgment, except the fact that it
was given' by. exactly the non-professional majority
of the acting judges and assessors, by all means let
him make the most of it. But it is a little too late,
after, Mr. Hope and Sir B. Hall have extracted alt
the secret history of the adjudication, to attempt to,
settle the question by saying that three or four
noblemen and gentlemen, who know no more
about the matter than anybody else, have taken a.
great deal e trouble in awarding the premiums,
and that nobody ought now to question. their
judgment.
As to the relative merits of the competing styles,
I think we may take for granted that the Renais-
sance style had everything said and done for it that
could be done in the committee, both by the, archi-
tects who advocated it and by the architect of one
of the most successful buildings in that style, who
was a member of the committee, and put some very
clever questions in support of it, which were not
less cleverly answered. I can hardly think you
mean, to, open your columns to that interminable
controversy, which alWays leaves the matter,juit
where it began; viz., that some persons prefi r
Italian and others Gothic as a mere question of
taste, and therefore the arguments by which they
defend either never convince anybody who has a.
preference of his own to start with.
It is, however, important to bear in mind that
I the committee reported that, in all the practical
points, on which superiority had been claimed for
the Renaissance style, such as convenience of
arrangement, lighting, ventilation, and expense..
neither style appeared to have any real advantage
over the other. I should go further in opposition
to the common prejudice. After having had the
principal management of the building of Mr..
Scott's two new churches at Doncaster, the smaller
of which has a length and an available area equal
to the longest and the largest of the Marylebone
churches, and the other is, of course, far larger, I
am convinced that a greater architectural effect
can be obtained at less cost in a Gothic building,
of the most real and massive construction, than in
any Italian one.
. .

As to the particular design, nobody supposes, or
ever supposed, that it is to be executed -without
alteration. Nothing could be more absurd (and so
it was admitted in the committee) than to pre-
clude the architect of the best design in a competi-
tion from making it better if he can. I confess
I think the recent rage for the mongrel Gothic of
the south,in preference to the English and French
Gothic, a very mischievous delusion, for which I
suPpose Mr. Ruskin is mainly responsible, as he is
for that still more mischievous one, that architec-
ture consists in ornamentation—a doctrine sure to
be in high favour with the architects, to whom it
is a good deal easier to lay on ornament wholesale
than to design buildings of which the whole and.
the parts are in such proportions as to be satisfac-
tory and beautiful, as most old ones are, either with
or without such ornamentation. If this is what
the " Archteologist" means by condemning the
Lombardic" character of Mr> Scott's design (for
the proper meaning of which word, however, I re-
commend him to consult some rudimentary book on
architecture), I agree with him. But that is a
small matter ; and though I should lop off both
that and some other extravagances (as I think
them) of the exhibited design, I should have con-
sidered it a lasting calamity to the architecture of
England if any other had bean selected by the
architectural judges and the Government —Yours
obediently,
42, Queen Anne-street, Dec. 1.

E. B. DENISON.

FAIL WAY INTELLIGENCE.

♦
The Manchester Guardian gives the following as
the principal points of the settlement between the
London and North-Western, the Great Northern,
and the Sheffield Companies, and adds that pro-
vision has been made for referring to arbitration
any case of doubt that may arise in working it out.
It would be interesting to know how much might
have been saved to the shareholders of each line if
such an agreement had been adopted in the first
instance instead of after many months of reckless
and discreditable warfare :

"Through booking arrangements for goods and
passengers to be established between the three
companies, with amicable arrangements as to
agencies, &c., in the principal towns.
" The fare between Manchester and London to
be (as announced at London-road Station yesterday)
335. first-class, and 245. second ; the third-class
being 15s. Bd., as previously. Speaking generally
we believe that these through fares will apply t
most of the other towns involved in the late d;
pute ; but from Liverpool they will be about
higher: Goods rates will be generally inerci

to a slight extent. •
" The agreement known as 'the triple agrecmen.
which did not affect, so far as the late dispute was
concerned, the Great Northern Company, and
which mainly had for its object the establishment
of rates between Liverpool and Manchester and
the Midland and Eastern Counties districtg, to be
re-established as from the date of the dispute,—viz.,
the Ist of August, 1857.
The Sheffield Company to be restored to their
original position at the London-road Station, in-
volving the employment of their own clerks and
servants for the conduct of their business in the
booking and other offices ; the latter portion taking
effect, we believe, this (Wednesday) morning.
" A new passenger station to be built at London.
road—or, as we hear from various Aources, the ex-
isting station to be essentially reconstructed and
enlarged—according to plans said to be already
preliminarily settled ; the necessary Act of Parlia-
ment to be applied for to vest such station in such
a way and upon such terms as it is believed will
avoid all possibility of future .unpleasantness.
" The companies to retire from the Chancery
suit arising out of the dispute, and from all legal
proceedings between the parties ; each paying their
own costs.

" A joint committee to be appointed for carrying
out and conducting all the arrangements."

THE INUNDATION OF THE CAE COLLIERY.—Our
readers have been informed that a dreaeful accident oc-
curred in the Cae Pit, Llanelly, Carmarthenshire, on the
3d inst., whereby ten poor fellows lost their lives. After
nearly three weeks' pumping, the bodies have all been re-
owered, and the inquest was held on Tuesday. The evi-
dence having been gone into, the jury consulted and re-
turned the folloaing Verdict : "We find a verdict of Ac-
cidental Death,' caused by the ignorance of Daniel Francis,
one of the deceased, in not using the preclutionary means
of boring, and not keeping plans of the workings of the
colliery.' The jury gave their fees to the fund for the
relief of the widows and children, the corcirn• and other
gentlemen also contributing to the same object.
[ADVERTISUMENT.]—HoIIoway's Ointment and Pills.—
Rough Skin, Cralced Lips, Chapped Hands, Pimples and
Sores.—Dreary November, always noted in England for its
inclemency, is this year less regardful of our appearance and
comfort than usual. • Skill affections are already as.general
as we commonly find them in January. So sudden and
unexpected has been the demand for Holloway's Ointment to
seothe these irritating disorders, that it became compttliory
to make fresh arrangements in the manufactory to meet the
public want. As a cosmetic this Ointment is likewise-in-
valuable. Nothing can be more harinlcis to the most deli-
cate :kin, or more effective in its operation. All desiring a
clear end blooming czar should give a fair trial to
Hollowdf§ Ointeout