The Sun.
London, England, 1858-11-19 00:00:00

THE COMTE DE MONTALE3IBEBT

Rs. ( •
Charles Forbes, Comte de Montalembert, ir33
horn in London on the 10th of March, 1810.
-13 e
is the representative of an old family of Poitee'
Ind his father was a peer of France, and Ambassa
for at Stockholm from the Court of Charles S:
His mother was an Englishwoman. At the outset
)f• his career he was an advocate of the union o.',
Catholicism and democracy, of which Lamennais
was the apostle, and was one of the editors efl
journal founded to advocate that union, called,
D'Avenir. He subsequently commenced a sort ?'
3rusade against the University, and opened 111
April, 1831, in conjunction with MM. de Coils
Ind Lacordaire, a school called the Eeele,
Libre. His opposition to the existinil
Government brought him at last before the
Police Correctionelle ;" but during the process hie
'ather died, and as M. de Montalembert then he;
-ame a Peer of France, he claimed the right ei
Being tried by the Upper Chamber, by which he
was condemned to a fine of 100 f. His defence pre'
nounced before the Chamber may be considered as
the beginning of his political career, but he 105
prevented, by his not having attained the legal age
)f 30, from taking his seat until 1840. The condo;
nation of Lamennais by the Pope greatly increased
he severity of M. de Montalc mbe orthodoxy, and'
both by writing and speaking, he made himself
thenceforward known as the great champion e.f
Catholicism. He published his famous "Life of Eh'
mbeth of Hungary" in 1836. In 1842 he strone,
opposed the educational measure of M. Villemain,:ana
n 1843 he published his " Catholic Manifesto." Ile
narried in 1843 the daughter of a Belgian Minister,
Mademoiselle de Merode, and after a short absence
from France he returned to deliver in the Chamber
of Peers his three celebrated speeches on the liberty
:)f the Church, the liberty of education, and the
liberty of the monastic orders. In 1847 he este;
blished a religious association to work in favour e"
the Sonderbund. He also made himself notorious,
for the active part he took on behalf of oppressed
nationalities, and on the 10th of February, 1848, he
had a solemn funeral service celebrated at Notre
Dame to the memory of O'Connell. After the esta"
blishment of the Republic., M. de Montalembert Iva;
elected a member of the Constituent Assembly and
there acted sometimes with one and sometimes with
another of the parties that divided the Assembly,
He was opposed to the measure for again requiring,
journalsto furnish security, to the continuance of
the state of siege, and to the admission of Loins
Bonaparte. But at the end of the session he sun;
ported M. Dufaure in a bill for the restriction a'
the press, and was loud in his approval of the
French expedition to Rome. He was re-elected
by the department of Doubs for the Legislatiye
Assembly. He there distinguished himself prln"
cipally by the part he took in preparing the lad
to restrain the suffrage within narrower limits, hi
his frequent encounters with M. Victor Hugo, his
only rival in oratory, and by his defence of the,
President. When the coup d'etat came he protested
strongly against the imprisonment of the Deputies,
hut he nevertheless was named a member
of the
Consultative Commission, a distinction he declined,
and was elected, in 1852, into the Corps Legislatif•
As a French biographer laconically, but happili,
expresses it, "il y representait presque Opr
sition." At the last election, in 1857, he was de-
feated in the Department of the Doubs bf
the Government candidate, and had since
retired from public life until this article
in the Correspondent brought him again before
the world. Of course M. de Montalembert is pat!
Liberal after an English fashion. But we cannot
doubt that years and experience have taught Ilium
something. And especially as regards England, no
one can now be a more zealous, discriminating, andfirm friend to everything that is English than N•
de Montalembert. No one, also, can doubt that he
is one of the first men in Europe both as a writer
and as a speaker; and both by his eminence and
his great interest in literature and education he ls,
among the leaders of the French Academy, of
which .he was elected a member in 1852.—Carl-
tinental Review.

COUNT ifONTALEMBERT ON ASTON PARK
THE QUEEN'S VISIT TO BIRMING.HAIL

M. de Montalembert concludes his remarkable
pamphlet by pointing out the happy result of
benevolent establishments and institutions for the
instruction of the poorer classes, and, citing the
example of the People's Park at Birmingham'
He says, the little girl of the charity school de-
posits her mite side by side with the bank-notes
of the rich manufacturer. The sum required i 5
soon collected ; the domain is purchased ix the name
of the new association ; the old mansion, care-
fully restored, is destined as a permanent exhi-
bition of the arts and manufactures of the district.
and the great park, with its trees the growth of
centuries, is transformed into a place of promenade
and recreation for the families of the working
classes. Then, but only then, when it is necessary
to inaugurate this happy conquest of an intelligent
and courageous initiative, they send their request
to the Queen ; for all these little municipal repub-
lics set the greatest importance on showing that
royalty is the keystone of the arch.
"All that great association, so proud and so sure
of itself, knows well that it has nothing to fear from
that sovereign power which is at once its erace-
ful ornament and its faithful representative, and
which in turn has nothing to dread from the active
spontaneity of its subjects ; which does not pretend,
to hinder any emancipation, any development 01
individual independence ; which does not impose
submission on energy, nor silence on contradiction;
and which, in truth, is no other than liberty wear-
ing a crown. The 15th of June, 1858, the Queen
obeyed this touching appeal. She came, and
60,000 working men hasten to meet her, issuing
in myriads from every indust‘rious hive of the
districts of the black country —that is, from
the counties of Stafford and Warwick,
where coal mines feed the great mineral works.
They offer her the affectionate homage of their
happy faces, of their free souls, and of their manlY
efforts for aggrandisement and freedom. The Queen
traverses that mighty crowd of an enthusiastic
population, and opens the new museum. She
bestows knighthood on the Mayor of Birmingham
Sir John Ratcliff, now elected by his fellow-citizens
for the third time, by touching his shoulder,
according to the ancient ceremonial, with a sword
lent to her for that purpose by the Lord-Lieutenant
of the county. She then causes to approach her
the eight working men whom their comrades had
indicated as the most usefully zealous in the
common work, and says to them, " I thank
you personally for what you have done to
preserve this ancient manor, and I hope that this
people's park will be for ever a benefit to the work-
ing classes of your city." As she was leaving,
40,000 children of the free national schools, and of
various creeds, ranged along the way as she passed
under the great oaks which had perhaps seen
Charles I. beneath them ; and they chanted to-
gether with an accent at once innocent and impas-
sioned, which drew tears from many of those who
who were present, a hymn in lines, rude perhaps,
but the burden of which was—
" Now pray we for our country,
• That England long may be
The holy and the happy.
And the gloriously free.*

REWARDS FOR SAVING LIFE AT SEA•

; Rewards for saving life at sea, recently awarded
by the Board of Trade, to the undermentioned, viz.
To S. B. Gorn, chief boatman, coast-guard sta-
tion, Fraserburgh, Malcolm Fletcher, John Good-
ridge, and John Cormack, boatmen, £1 each ; to
' William Stephen, William Noble, Andrew Noble
(pilots), and John Strachen, ship-carpenter, 10s.
each, in consideration of their services in saving
the crew of the Prussian schooner Fortuna, of
Greifewald, which was driven on shore during a
hurricane, on the beach between Fraserburgh and
Cairnbulg Head on the Bth ult.
To Richd. Corcoran, Bartholomew Mahoney, and
James Penman, commissioned boatmen, and Bar-
tholomew Leyden, boatman, coast-guard station,
'
Wexford, 30s. each • and to Thomas White, John.
Furlong, John Howlin, Thomas Delaney, Patrick
Kelly, countrymen and fishermen, 255. each, for
saving the crews of the schooner Sisters, of Milford,
and brigantine Sir Donald Campbell, of Newry,
wrecked on the coast of Wexford, Oct. 19.
To Win. Johnson, beachman, North Yarmouth,
£1 ; to James Saunders, Benjamin Bernard, and
George Rurabold, beachmen, North Yarmouth, 12s.
each ; and to James Baker, coast-guardsman, 10s. ;
for services rendered in saving four of the crew of
the schooner Queen, of Grimsby, wrecked off Yar-
mouth on the 18th lit.

The Emperor of the French has awarded a silver
medal of the first class to Messrs. John Waterson,
Thomas Harrison, Joseph Harrison, Daniel Lace,
and John Kenan, five fishermen belonging to the
Isle of Man, for having rescued the captain and
three men of the French ship Le Jeune St. Charles,
which was wrecked on the Isle of Man on the Bth
of April last.

A first-class silver medal to the tollowing per-
sons : James Callopy and Daniel Shea, coast
uardrnen of her Britannic Majesty's ship Eagle ;
John Staples, mate of the barque Providence, of
Bridgewater
; Henry Score,
Lively, of Bridgewater; and mate of the barque
Inigo Jones, fisher-
man at Porthcawll ; for having saved the crew of
the French ship Le Medias, wrecked near Porth-
cawl,