The Sun.
London, England, 1858-07-17 00:00:00

PRINCE NAPOLEON AT LIMOGES.

The following is the speech of Prince Napoleon
on the occasion of the distribution of prizes to the
exhibitors :

" The town of Limoges and the department of the
Haute Vienne have given to the country an example
which, I hope, will not be in vain. We have seen men
clothed with purely local authority, and at their head a
Prefect acting, upon this occasion, rather as the first
citizen of the department than as an agent of the central
power—we have seen, I say, the representatives of local
authority conceive the idea of a difficult and costly en-
terprise, induce their fellow-citizens to adopt it, and
obtain success, finally, without any support other than
that of public opinion, without any financial resources
other than those of if department and a country town.
We cannot applaud too much such an effort. (Loud
applause.) Our national unity, prepared during a
long succession of centuries, and established by tha
Revolution, has nothing to fear henceforth from the
exaggeration of individualism or of a local spirit. The
danger does not lie there ; it should be found rather in
the opposite tendency, if this latter were developed in an
excessive degree. In fact, what we ought to fear is the
absorption of individual energies by collective power„
the substitution of the Government in the place of the
citizen in every act of social life, the enfeebling of all
personal initiative under the tutelage of an exaggerated
administrative centralisation. (Loud applause.) I
should wish to see individuals ceasing to count on the
intervention and the favours of the State, taking a
legitimate pride in being all-sufficing for themselves, and
founding on their own energy and on the force of public
opinion the success of their enterprises. I dart assert
that if to our political unity, the source of our power—
an object of admiration and °Len of fear to our neigh-
bours—we should know how to unite that strength
which is the offspring of the spontaneous concurrence of
individuals and of free associations, our country would
see accomplished the great destinies foreseen by the
illustrious citizens of 1789. The initiative which you
have taken in this direction, gentlemen, has been
crowned with success. The adjoining departments have
so heartily responded to your appeal, that public opinion
has justly described your undertaking in terming it the
Exhibition of Central France. Ancient souvenirs have
likewise concurred to favour an association based on
geographical and industrial affinities. When we see
flocking to Limoges'-the representatives of the central
table-land of France, and of the rich valleys adjoining it,
we call to mind that these rich distracts were formerly
the cradle of the Celtic nationality; that the old Gallic
blood has been preserved there free from almost any
mixture ; tbat, faithful to that origin, the genius of the
inhabitants has always kept a mean between the Frank-
ish tradition of the north and the Roman tradition of
the smile. A midland country, at once by its geo-
graphical position, by the temperament of its inhabi-
tants, and by the mixed character of the soil, formed of
plains and in eintains, the contra of -Franca must, in
the exhibition of its products, make its appearance
under a varied aspect. The culture of crops and
the rearing cf cattle, those two arts which Sully
called the breasts' of France, are brilliantly
represented, on the one hand, by the fine agri-
cultural machines cf Clermont and Abilly, on the
other by the magnificent specimens of the equine and
bovine laces of the Limousin. Manufacturing industry
offers results as varied as they are remarkable. The splen-
did carpets of Aubusson are displayed beside the arms
and the cutlery of Tulle, of Thiers, and of Chetellsrault,
the iron of Berry and Perigord, the steel of St. Seurin,
and the fine glass of Montlue ,n. Those great manufac-
tures haVe not diverted my attention fr)m those more
unpretending, but not loss essential, manufactures which
have for their mission the amelioration of the lot of the
poor. They hold an honourable place in your exhibition,
and figure considerably in your export trade. All those
productions are grouped with a great deal of skill and
taste round the beautiful specimens of ancient enamel
and modern pottery, which occupy in the Exhibition the
place of the master of a house in the midst of his guestr.
Tne devotedness with which your agriculturists and
your manufacturers have thronged to this
.Exhibition,
the eagerness to admire their productions evinced by
the neighbouring populations, serve to measure the force
of the fructifying impulsion given to your district. The
movement will become still more rapid according as the
not of railways will bring Limoges into closer communi-
cation with the other regions of France, especially with
the coal districts of Berry and Aveyron. In presence of
those marvellous creations which transform the soil and
modify the conditions of the existence of entire popula-
tions, I am lad back to reflections which have been fre-
quently suggested to me by the spectacle of the Print
Exhibition of 1855, over which I had the honour of pre-
siding. If industrial science, substituting machinery for
the hand of man, permits him to raise his front, bowed
down by industrious toil, it is that he may direct his
glance further and higher. May your children, gentle-
men—may those youthful generations for whose future
our fathers poured forth their blood, ba preserved by a
fortifying and liberal education from the mortal poison of
materialism ! (Sensation.) May physical well-being be
for them only a means of emancipating the mind and.
restoring it to the full measure of its liberty (Loud
applause.) Art, science, philosophy, let them hover
over that industrial world which, without them,
would make us the slaves of matter instead of its
masters. Cultivate in the minds of your artisans
that branch of their professions"; ehich:assimilates them
to artists, in your manufacturers that which assimi-
lates them to scientific men. Le; the favourites of for
tune work —let them not suffer to be weakened in
their bosoms' intellectual delights a taste for literature,
for the arts, and for those exalted speculations of thought
without which political, religious, and moral life becomes
soon extinguished in the breast of society. Under those
conditions alone shall we be able to assure the duration.
of the great creations of our age. If material delights
become the only motive of our society, this latter would
not he long in sinking into the shades of that obscurity
in which those nations which have not appreciated the
moral side of civilisation have disappeared. The annals
of your town present you, gentlemen, with a striking
example of these truths. Tho enamel manufacture, se
famous at Lituoge:, during the Middle Ages, and which
shed eo brilliant a light at the Renaissance, this'manu-
facture was founded on a secret relating to the practical
working of it, and on an artistic tradition, inspired by
a profound faith. It is to this tradition, mysteriously
preserved at Limoges, that you owe those wonderful
paintings of Leonard Limousin, and of his disciples,
which seem as though they had been detached from the
cartoons of Raphael and Michael Angelo, and affixed to
copper and enamel. Well, counting from the Renaissance
forth, the sentiment which animated those great artists
grew weaker, and changed little by little, although the
material methods employed by their successors remained
the same. Soon after, the mechanical secret was lost, in
its turn, about the end of the last century, not that
its application or transmission was really difficult, but
because, on the death of the last enamel-worker, no one
would condescend to claim the heritage of a manu-
facture which art, by abandoning it, had doomed
to impotence and condemned to oblivion. Thus matt
loses his conquests when he ceases to behold them
from the height of those serene regions where the types
of the goo-I, the beautiful, and the true are preserved.
Now that I am about to distribute the prizes which you
have merited, and thanking you for the reception I have
met with from you, I cannot forget, gentlemen, that it
is for the first time I have the honour to address my,
fello s-ci izmns since the Emperor has confided to me the
vdministraiion of Algeria and of the colonies. The
Emperor, who knows how heavy is the burden of poli-
tical responsibility, has deigned, with a kindness alto-
gether paternal, to confer on me a mission in an arena
above the struggles of party. He has given it in charge
to me to complete the glorious work commenced by our
Alerts:es army on a Nail which it has made French ill
fructifying it with its blood ; an undertaking exclusively
national, which admits and invites the concurrence of
all those who recognise the work of universal suffrage.
Thus it will be permitted to me to ask of men, not
whence they come, but whether they are going—to look
into the future, and not upon the past. (Applause.
Disengaged from every other preoccupation, I shall be
enabled to devote myself without reserve to the accom-
plishment of the designs of the Emperor respecting
Algeria, to accord to labour liberty and security, to gua-
rantee every interest, under the protection, and not
under the tutel ige of public authority, by the absolute
respect of right. (Marked sensation.) Happy shall I
our
ut
nrrinfce,7o,hutlnttncr ayntah uniteied
in
ne fh,
this
after our
work
of revolutions
pacification,and
in a coannon sentiment of devotioncWitvi-o:iichOs
hearts of all its children,"

The.above speech, pronounced in a distinct voice
by his Royal Highness, was listened to with marked
at cation by a numerous assembly. The Prince was
frequently interrupted by vehement applause: At
the trirmina4ion of his speech there was a universal
shout of " Five l'Empereur !" " Vive le Prince.'

SUICIDE OF MMUS CANNON, THE PIIGILIST.-011
Theta lay afternoon, an inquest was held at the Indian
Qtleen, Strand-upon-the Green, near IC.ew-bridge, be-
fore Mr. Wakley, coroner for West Middlesex, on
view el the body of Thomas Cannon, aged 64, the
once-celebrated pugilist, ex-champion of England (an-.
cl,r the name of the " Windsor Qannon) " who" put a
period to his,existence by shooting himself through
the head with a blunderbuss, under circumstance of
great destitution and misery. It came out from
the evidence that the deceased. was brought up at
Windsor, f•illowing the occupation of a bargeman
for many years his career as a pugilist was succesPful,
d. f a ing Josh. Hudson twice, but was beaten by Jem
Ward in ten minutes, near Warwick, in May, 1825
When advanced in years he became miserably impover-
ished. The latter years of his life he was a widower,
and his children were either dispersed or deserted him.'
At the time of his death he occupied alone a wretched
room, near the house where the inquiry was held, and
was known to be suffering from slmost actual destitu-
ti.m. Between Sunday night and Monday morning he
shot himself thrctigh the head tith a blunderbuss.
Death was instantaneous, the skull being blown to.
toms. Tie jury, after commenting upon the lamentable
nature et the ewe, returnee a verdict, of "Insanity." '