The Sun.
London, England, 1858-11-29 00:00:00

THE 'SENTENCE ON M. MONTeiZEN-

BRXT.

(From the Examiner.)
Imagine a man of the genius and eminence of
our Lord Brougham, or Lord Macaulay-, brought
up for a political offence—a libel, or a seditious
speech--before the sitting magistrate at Bow-
street, and dealt with in the same expeditious way
that his worship deals with the night charges, and.
you have a pretty correct idea of the sort of trial
to which Louis Napoleon has subjected M. Mon-
talembert. It is enough to name the sixth cham-
ber of the Tribunal of Correctional Police, to give
our readers a conception of the independent and dig-
nified tribunal by which one of the foremost men in
France has been summarily convicted, fined, and sent
to jail. How such a proceeding will be viewed by
the French- nation time will reveal. The predic-
tions that rise to our lips we refrain from uttering,
but let no consideration prevent us from proclaim-
ing the feeling with which in England we regard
these unrighteous acts. We should be slaves
ourselves did we hesitate for a moment to protest
in the name of liberty and justice against an out-
rage as great as tyranny ever committed upon
either. Let it be known to all the world that we
are allied to the Empire without being confede-
rates in its crimes. Let the ,Patriotism of France
be again assured, in this hdur of its severest trial,
that it has still its inviolable asylum in the heart
of England. With a moral support like this, the
sympathies of every good man in France, and the
lustre of his own genius and suffering virtue round
about him, M. Montalembert in his dungeon will
sit in a brighter day than his oppressor enjoys in
his palace, and feel an inward cheer, and faith in
the future, unknown to the commander of a million
of bayonets.
It is easy to understand the low speculation of
the Imperial Government in treating a man of the
highest mark on the footing of a common pick-
pocket. It was calculated, no doubt, that the cain•
would be degraded in the person of its advocate ;
that the scorn affected to the individual would fall
upon the principles maintained and represented by
him. Here was another blunder as great as any
the Emperor has committed since he commenced
his insane career. He ought to have known that
to dishonour such a person as M. Montalembert is
a feat beyond his power. Honour is independent
of the usage it meets with in this evil world. It
" pecreth," as the poet hath it, " through the
meanest habit." Montalembert in a'inison dress
would still be the pride and ornament of ,France.
The Emperor seems to have thought that to pse a
good man infamously is to make him infamort.s
and that an obscure prosecution would involve ita
victim in the same obscurity. He has utterly, lost
his memory, or he would have recollected that the
greatest and purest fame ever achieved has been'
drawn from the very depths of contumely. And he
would also have remembered that, though deeds of
wrong. may be done in a corner, there is always an
avenging voice to proclaim them sooner or later
from the house-tops.
We are indebted to the Daily News for as much
of a report as was practicable of this memorable
state trial in a police office. The author of it tells
us that all that eloquence could do, combined with
law, in the persons of MM. Berryer and Dufaure,
was done on the part of the defence. M.
Montalembert was examined himself to prove the
inuendoes in the accusation, a practice in con
' formity with French notions of justice, though per-
fectly .at variance with ours. His answers were, •
of course, as frank and fearless as the writing he
was questioned on. He admitted the guilt of admir-
ing the institutions of England, and the aggravated
offence of regretting that France had lost them.
He acknowledged that when he spoke of a joyful
escape to this free country from "pestiferous miasma
and corrupt atmosphere," he alluded to the air that
Frenchmen are condemned to breathe under the
Empire. As to his assertion that the press of
France is gagged, his reply was that he had merely
stated a matter of fact. On the other hand, he
denied that he meant to arrogate exclusive honesty
to himself and his friends, or to brand with cowar-
dice the eight millions of Frenchmen who had
voted for the Emperor. As to kuch expressions as
that with some people " their ideas of happiness
and honour were very different," and his denun-
ciations of "flatterers and sycophants," he stood
upon his right to assert of classes what would. not
be justifiable if applied to individuals : there had
been sycophants under all Governments ; and M.
Montalembert bravely avowed his opinion that
their number had not declined under the present.
The speech of the Procureur seems to have been
as feeble as was to have been expected from an
obscure official, abashed not merely by the poverty
of his case, but by finding himself in the very
presence of such - men as Montalembert and
his counsel. He tried, however, to make up
for his deficiencies by violence of language and the
grossest liberties with truth. "Englishmen," he
said among other things, " had their good qualities
and faults, but one merit they had incontestably—
they always spoke well of their own nation." M.
Le Procureur could not possibly have said anything
of the people of this country more notoriously at
variance with the fact ; and the falsehood was the
more glaring coming immediately after the charge
against M. Montalembert, that he had maliciously
extolled England for a dishonest political purpose,
the very trick of the wretched functionary himself,
and only worthy of such an abject tool of powet.
Judging from the speech of the Em-
peror's respectable law-officer on this occa-
sion, it is evident enough that the praises of
England are the 'points that have most galled him
in the publication he had the folly to arraign. We
are told that the excited Procureur concluded with
apostrophising M. Montalembert as a man who had
lost the feelings of a Frenchman. He exclaimed,
and thrice repeated the rude exclamation, " You
have laid France prostrate at the feet of England ;
you have struck France in the face—yes, struck
her in the face, unworthily struck her in the face."
Eloquence like this enjoys an immunity from cri-
ticism. France is prostrate and stricken indeed ;
but all the world knows who are guilty and who
are innocent of her fall and her dishonour.

M. Berryer is said to have eclipsed the
best efforts of a life in which he has so often
distinguished himself as an orator and law-
Ter. Slight as the sketch of his argument
is, it contains enough to show that seventy years
have not impaired his intellect, or quenched his
fire. We shall give only two illustrations, and for
the rest refer the reader to our columns of news.
To affirm that France did not now possess liberty,
he argued, " was not an attack upon the Govern-
ment, but merely the assertion of a notorious and
undeniable fact."

Thereupon the President interrupted him ; told
him he was going too far, and repeating the very
offence with which the defendant stood charged.
We can well imagine the vehemence of the
veteran's retort.
"M. Berryer, with a gesture of eloquent astonishment,
continued—Must I then throw up my brief ? Have 1 lost
my reason and conscience ? Do I understand what the
court means ? Can it be that a counsel is to be construed
as attacking the government because he will not say that
black is white? Why, it is the boast of the government
that it has bartered liberty for order—and it has done so, it
says, with the consent of the French people ; and that lam
not here to deny. Yes, France has repudiated her own
liberty. That is a fact which some people may, and others
may not, regret; but it is not rational to hold it an offence
in any ono to state the simple fact that liberty does not now
emlst."'
With one and the Fame breath the Empire boasts
itself better than any free government, and prose-
cutes and punishes men for describing or even
naming its own wiser and happier institutions.
With monstrous inconsistency it declarei that it
stands between France and the mischiefs of liberty,
yet makes it high treason to affirm the absence of
the very liberty against which it professes to pro-
tect the nation.

Coming to the most important count in the indict-
ment, that of an attack on 'the rights of the Emperor
under the constitution and the principle of universal suf-
frage,' he would prove to demonstration that there was
no scrap of law to support it. This accusation was
entirely based upon a law of ISI9, passed to protect from
attacks and insults the constitution of the Republic,with a
President for four years. How could that law be applicable
to the empire ? Would--it, be replied, by analogy 't • This
was his answer. In 1819 a law couched in somewhat
similar language Vlac passed to protect the charter of the
restoration granted by Louis XVIII. of his sovereign will
and mere motion by virtue of ' his rights by birth.'g Louis
XVIII. swore• to maintain this charter, and he kept his
oath. (Laughter and sensation in court.) When the re-
volution of 1830 took place, it never occurred to any lawyer
or .statesman that the law of 1819, made for a charter so
granted by a King by right of birth, could be applicable to
the constitutional monarchy of the Roi des Francais, and
accordingly Louis Philippe's government passed a new law
to a similar effect. Again, in 1848, when we had a single
sovereign assembly, a law was passed for the protection of
that constitution • and when, in 1849,
.the term of govern -
went was again changed, though not in, l
any such radical
manner as it was subsequently :in 1852, another law was .
passed to meet the circumstance. If the present
theirent govern-
ment bad neglected to renew that lawown
fault ; but that was no reason why they should pc so
cwoindthealmlnlaaw;naa:dm, aecrteilnyg
bueopsoonsepuhreel ywaarsbitrobannorxiusHe
concluded principles,n
by
a brilliant and impassioned peroration, which
I wlil not attempt to quote from."

PROSECUTION OF M. DE MONTALEAIBERT.—It has
been determined in the City—a fine of 3,000 fr. having been
imposed by the disgraceful sentence just passed upon M. de
Montalcmbert—to raise that amount by a shilling sub-
scription : not that the amount itself is of importance, but
solely as a mark of English sympathy. It is believed that
all those who value, nationally, the c!evating influence of
free discussion, so completely annihilated, for a time,
throughout France, will be glad to avail themselves of the
opportunity thus offered of showing their respect for the
fearleSs, honest. and truthful eloquence of M. de Montalem-
bert: Mr. Effingham Wilson, 11, Royal Exchange, has
consented to receive subscriptions.