The Sun.
London, England, 1858-03-11 00:00:00

THE EMPEROR NAPOLEON 111. AND
ENGLAND.

[The following appeared in our late Edition of last night.]
The following is a translation of the pamphlet to be
published in Paris to-morrow. It is entitled "L'Ems
pereur Napoleon 111, et l'Angleterre." The greatest
curiosity has been excited by the knowledge that some
such pi-eduction was shortly to appear, and this curiosity
is not the less intense that, though it is the work of an
eminent publicist, a member of the Council of State,
yet the inspiration has been derived from the very highest
source. People are anxious to know what will be said
on the question which has agitated the two countries
since the 14th of January. It begins thus :
"We believe there is a duty to be fulfilled towards
public opinion ; it consists in making an impartial and
calm voice be heard amid the passions which have been for
a moment unjustly excited in England. We are confident
we shall be understood on the other side of the Channel.
We shall be sparing of observations; above all, we shall
recall facts.
" When Louis Napoleon was elected President of the
Republic he only found about him, in the Assembly which
was to share and often embarrass his Government, parties
hostile, orunsympathetic to England. The Legitimists pre-
served religiously to our old enemies the historical resent.
ment of our ancient national strifes. Tice Republicans
remembered Pitt leagued with Coburg against the Revolu-
tion in order to crush it. The Orleanists regretted the pro-
tection which had humiliated them, all the more on account
of the abandonment they had experienced before their fall.
Finally, the partisans of the Empire still groaned under
the most melancholy recollection of contemporaneous
history. What was the heir of the Emperor Napoleon 1.,
become chief of France, going to do ? Was he about to
yield to the rancour and the prejudice of parties? Was
he to foster, by his example, the international hatreds
still alive at the recollection of? Waterloo and St. Helena?
Was he about to avenge, at least by his coldness,
his name and character outraged by the English press at
the moment of his election ? No I Exile is a school of
wisdom and of maturity for those whom God destines to
reign. At that school Louis Napoleon had learnt much
and forgotten much. He only remembered the hospitality
which had soothed the trials of his days of adversity—he
only considered the great interests which drew France and
England together in the cause of civilisation.
In 1849 the Porte was menaced by Austria on account
of the asylum it had afforded the Hungarian refugees. The
President of the Republic thought that France was not
uninterested in that affair, which seemed to touch some
grave European questions. He ordered the French fleet to
proceed towards the Dardanelles at the same time as the
English fleet, and he thus seized the first opportunity for
an active understanding between the two Governments.
There was, however, at that epoch such susceptibility
against England that the French Ministry, of whom M.
Odillon Barrot was then a member, placed one condition
on the sending of the fleet, namely, that it should not sail
with the English fleet, and that its action should be dis-
tinct, though the aim was common. There was, doubt-
less, in this reserve an excess of mistrust, but it was only
the consequence of an excess of resentment maintained by
the double influence of the tribune and the press.
"Some time after, Lord Palmerston presented an ulti-
matum to Greece which alarmed Europe. The Legislative
Assembly, which had inherited the sentiments of the Con-
stituent Assembly against England, seized this occasion of
showing the hostility which animated it. It pressed on the
Ministry of the President with all the weight of an opinion
fortified by a sort of popularity; and our Ambassador, 31.
Drouyn de Lhuys, wet/ordered to quit London. When Gene-
ral de la Hate, then Minister of Foreign Affairs, announced
the news, a feeling of inconsiderate patriotism pervaded
the entire Assembly. The same evening all the chiefs of
parties went to the Elyse° to congratulate the President.
He received them with much coldness, which proved that
he did not share their approbation of a measure the effect
of which might be to arouse the antagonism of the two
countries.
" The 2d of December came. It was an act relative to
our internal situation, which concerned no one abroad.
Nevertheless several English journals denounced the man
who had just saved the country from frightful anarchy,
and, it may be, preserved Europe from convulsion. There
was no sort of calumny which was not invented, and error
which was not spread. One London journal went so far as
to give a sketch of a scene which represented the insur-
gents in the act of being shot in the Champ do Mars.
Such things were credited—things which our manners and
habits nevertheless rendered as unlikely as they are happily
impossible. The truth is that not only was there no one
shot after the combat, but that the whole affair was con-
fined in a city of 1,600,000 inhabitants, to the rising of
1,500 demagogues, of whom 150 at most fell with arms in
their hands during the struggle. This truth was as easy
to be ascertained in England as in France. It required to
be misrepresented with so much audacity in order to excite
the animadversion against such an act which merited the
gratitude of a civilised people."
The pamphlet briefly alludes to the forbearance
of the chief of the French Government at a
moment when it was not difficult to excite the pas-
sions of the two nations, and professes to show that
peace was as likely to be thus disturbed as it was
by the violence of the press and the tribune after
the peace of Amiens against the First Consul. It
proceeds thus :
" We now come to another phase of contemporaneous
events. The Eastern question occurs ; war is decided upon ;
an alliance is concluded between France and England.
How has this alliance been understood and practised by the
two people? It must be said to the honour of the one as
of the other, that if they had been united for centuries they
could not have acted with more loyalty, more mutual de-
votedness, more of confidence under the trials which bath
passed through. As for our part---and it may be permitted
to ris to be proud of it a a part of our glory—we gai-re our
co-operation under every form. There were not wanting
persons then who less perceived a French than an English
interest in the war in the East. Unaffected by that opi-
nion, the Emperor sent to the Crimea double the number
of soldiers as the English. A good and perfect understand-
ing was one of the most formal instructions which he gave
to the General-in-Chief. That inspiration of the Sovereign
of France became the rule for our army in its relations
with the English army. Defending the same cause, exposed
to the same danger, both armies had common duties and
common interest; they owed to each other a mutual assist-
ance at every moment. For our part we gave it with an
impulse and a goodwill of which the example is rare in
military history between even the combatants of the same
nation. At inkermann we rushed at the first call of our
allies to share their dangers and to second their heroism
under the terrible pressure of the Russians. The trials of
a terrible winter, the fatigues of a gigantic siege, the
immense losses caused by fire, cold, and sickness having
considerably diminished the strength of the English army,
several French regiments shared with them the duties of
their own lines; they helped them to open routes, to trans-
port cannon and provisions. The English paid us back that
co-operation with a noble reciprocity; they conveyed is
their ships our troops to Bomarsund, and a part of those sent
to the Crimea. At a later period, when their army was reor-
ganised we found with them the same devotedness they bad
toned with us. Their hospitals were open for our sick,
their medicines were at the disposal of our soldiers. This
is what passed in Russia. On the battle-field the two peo-
ple were but one; the soldiers of the two allied armies had
but one soul under the united flags, to combat, to suffer,
to die, and to triumph together. After the peace won by
their common glory, the alliance cemented by that noble
fraternity of heroism and of combats seemed for ever after
unalterable. One would have said that we had buried our
rivalry in the same grave as our dead, under the sands of
the Crimea, and that those generous victims had effaced
by their blood, shed for the same cause, the struggles of
many centuries. What a subject of surprise for our fathers,
who lived in the hatreds of other times, if they could see the
English army wearing, with pride, on their breasts the
effigy of the martyr of St. Helena ; and the sons of those
who fought at Waterloo wearing, with the same pride, the
medal on which is engraved the image of the Queen of
England !
" The alliance then appeared indissoluble. Soon, how-
ever, a dissension arose on the interpretation of the condi-
tions of peace. That divergence, judged in Paris as of little
importance, was out of all measure magnified in London,
and adding this time ingratitude to injustice, a portion of
the English press, forgetful of the recollections of the eve,
insulted the Emperor, bisects, hisintentions. The Emperor
remained impassable. Nay more ; from a spirit of mode-
ration, and for the sake of harmony, Franco and Russia
agreed with England. The points in discussion related,
moreover, to secondary interests which affected in nothing
the guarantees stipulated in the treaty of Paris.
"The question of the Principalities next followed. At
the Congress of Paris France and England were agreed for
the union. At a later period the Cabinet of St. James's
changed its opinion, and by an estimate of affairs to be
regretted, it was the Cabinet of the Tuileries that was de-
scribed at London as deserting the alliance. The French
Government might have justly felt hurt at that false inter-
pretation of its conduct, which was so honest and so mode-
rate. At that moment the revolt in India broke out. If
France had been less sincere in her sentiments, less disin-
terested in her views, the occasion was a fine one to show
herself more reserved, more exacting, perhaps, towards her
ally. The Emperor thought and acted otherwise. The em-
barrassments which the war in India imposed on England
only rendered him more conciliating at Osborne in the ques-
tion of the Principalities. He offered even at a later period
to the English Government to pass its troops through our
territory, and he inscribed his name, with the Imperial
Guard, at the head of the subscription for the victims of
the Indian insurrection.
" We now come to what is most painful between the
two countries—to what would be the most capable, without
a frank explanation, to affect the confidence which is the
force of their alliance. This explanation has become neces-
sary, not to raise complaints, but to explain facts, and to
justify the sentiments which era manifested in France.
" The attempt of the 14th January struck Paris, France,
and all Europe with stupor. After having first returned
thanks to God, people asked, what was the origin of that
crime -whence came the assassins—in what circle they had
conceived thoughts which bad nothing human in them, so
perverse and savage were they. The assassins had come
from England. The crime had been prepared, encouraged,
paid for, perhaps, by those societies of refugees who dis•
honour the generous hospitality of a free country by shel-
tering there the permanent conspiracy of assassination.
" People very naturally say to each other in France—
' How ! is it then that it is always in England that attempts
against the life of the Emperor and against society are pre-
pared ? Is this what we ought to expect from an alliance so
loyally observed during the peace, and so gloriously ce-
mented during the war?
" The attempt of the 14th of January was not in truth
s
the first which had emanated from London. Other crimes
less terrible, but the thought of which w
" " guilty,
the same origin. They all have birth inth
foosre seerast six
revolution-
ary associations, held periodically, which
years openly proclaim the right to kill the Emhpich,imwhmicrht
elevate murder to a doctrine and a duty,w
put
arms.
fanaticism into the minds they have corrupted,
in the hands of those they have made fanatics,
await,sen under
forth
assassins with their feuille rte, and
the tolerance of English hospitality,
ofthteherfeasuct required?ltofthose
horrible machination!. Is the proof
Here it is. It is inscribed in the records of criminal justice.
" On the 29th June, 1852, the police discovered in a
house in the Rue Blanche, near the BarriereFontaineblean,
a regular manufactory of infernal machines, intended for
an attempt which was to be made in the month of August.
The instigation of this crime came from London. The
journey to that capital of one of the contumacious accused,
his relations with the refugees, the correspondence seized,
leave no doubt on that point. In January, 1853, Kelsch
was arrested in Paris, after a stout resistance, together
with Qalli and Rossi, Keischa wiles, wicked plans had