The Sun.
London, England, 1858-03-10 00:00:00

t 4,Zatitan

SUN OFFICE, Six o'Clock.

THE EMPEROR NAPOLEON 111. AND

ENGLAND.

The fellowing ie a translation of the pamphlet to be
publish din Paris tiamerro se It is entitled " L'Em-
pereur Napoleon 111. et l'Aogleterre." The greatest
curiosity has been excited by the knowledge that some
such production 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 derive 3 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 reeking an impartial and
calm voice be beard amid the passions which have been for
a moment unjustly excited in Ene,Plaud. We are confident
wo shall be understood on the other side of the Channel.
We shall he sparing of observations; abavo 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, or unsympathetic to England. The Legitimists pre-
served religiously to our old enemies the historical resent-
ment. of our ancient national strifes. The Republicans
remembered Pitt leagued with Cobure against the Revolu-
tion in order to crush it. The Odeenists regretted the pro-
, tectimi which had humiliated them, all the more on account
of the abandonment they hail experienced before their fall.
Finally, the partisans of the Empire still groauect wider
the most melancholy recollection of contemporaneous
history. What was the heir of the Emperor Nalopeon 1.,
become chief of France, going to do? Was he about to
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 mitt-egret by the English press at
the moment of his election ? No 1 Exile is a school of
wisdom and of materity for those whom God destines to
reign. At that school Louis Napoleon had learnt much
and forgotten much. He only rememb red the hospitality
which had soothed the trials of his days of adversity—he
only considered the great interests which drew France and
Englatel 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 ep-ch such suso pCuilicy
roainßt Englit:l,l 4. the French Ministry, of whom M.
Odillon Berra was then a member, placed one condition
on the sending of the fleet, namely, that it should not sail
with tete 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 maiptained by
the double influence of the tribune and the press.
"Some time after, Lord Pahnerston presented an ulti-
matum to Greece which alarmed Europe. The Legislative
Assembly, which had inelited the sentiment, of the Con-
stituent -Assembly arrainst England, seized this occasion of
showing the hostility which animated it. It pressed on the
Minisrry of the President with all the weight of an opinion
fortified by a sort of popularity ; and our Ambassador, M.
Drouyn de Lhuys, warordered to quit London, When Gene-
ral de la Hate, thee Ministerof Foreign Affairs, announced
the news, a feeling of inconaiderete patriotism pervaded
the entire Assembly. The same evening all the chiefs of
parties went to the Elyeee 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 bad 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. The London journal went so far as
to give a sketch of a scene which represented the incur
gents in the act of being shot in the Champ do Mass.
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 1,60 4,000 inhabitants, to the rising of
1,50.1 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 cieilised 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-
sion% of the two nations, and professes to show that
peace was as likely to he thus disturbed as it Wag
by the vailet,e3 of the pr-ss and the tribune after
the peace of Amiens against the First Consul. It
proceeds thus :

" We now come to another phase of contemporaneous
evente. The Eastern question occurs ~ war is decided upon ;
an alliance is conclu‘ted between Francs and England
How has this I.llls/ice bees understood and practised by the
two people? It must be said to the honour of the one an
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 conficleuce under the trials which b.dh
passed through. As for our pert---and it may bo permitted
to us to be proud of it as a part of our glory —we gave our
co-operation under every form. There were not wanting
persons then who less perceived a French than an English
interest in the war iu the East. Unaffected by that ope.
nion, the Etuperer sent to the Crimea double the number
of soldiers as the Eeglish. A. good and perfect understand-
ing was one of the moat formal instructions which he gave
to the General-in-Chief That inspiration of the Sovereiga
of France became the rule for our army in its relatioes
with the English army. Defending the same cause,
exposed
to the same danger, both armies had common duties and
common inteteet ; they owed to eech 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
under n dt
terrible
theible terrible
ui nter,p pressure u
fatigues
toi
gf
ntehs eoßf
military history between even the combatants of the same
nation. At Inkernaaen we rushed at the first call of our
allies to share their dangers and to second their heroism
considerably einmnished the strengthuas:
immense losses caused by fire, cold, and sickness having
figeitnghs:j.n: i Tne4h
Ie sthr
siege,iarmy,
the
several Freuch regiments shared with them the tintiee of
their own lines; they -helped them to open routes, to trans-
port cannon and pro vieious. The English paid us back that
co-operatiou with a noble reciprocity ; they conveyed in
their ehips 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 theta the
same devotedness they bad
found with US. Their hospitals were open for our Rick,
their meeicines were at the disposal of our soldiers. This
is what passed iu Ruesia. On the battle-tield the two peo-
ple were but one; the soldiers of the two allied armies had
but one soul nutter 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. Out 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 bad effaced
by their blood, shod for the same cause, the struggles of
many centuries. Wh it a subject of surprise for our fathers,
who lived iu the hate.: ds of other times, if they could see the
English army wearing, with pride, on their breasts the
effigy tithe martyr of St. Helena; and the sons of those
who f ught at Waterloo wearing, with the same pride, the
medal on which is engtaved the image of the Queen of
Englan i !
" The a.lllence then appeared indissoluble. Soon, how-
ever, a di,sensien :4roio on the interpretation of the condi-
tioua of pence. That divergence, judged in Paris as of little
impurtauce, was out of all measure magnified in London
and adding thie time iia.ratitude to injustice, a portion of
the Englisii press,
forgetful of the recollections of the eve,
insulted the Emperor, bisects, his intentions. The Emperor
remained impassable, Nay more ; from a spirit. of /none.
ration, and for the sake of harmony, France and Russia
agreed with Englan.i. Tee points in discussion related,
moreover, to seco.idary 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 hater 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-
seribed at London as deserting the alliance. The French
Government might have just:), felt hurt at that false inter-
pretation of its conduct, which was so honest and se mode-
rate. At that moment the revolt in India broke out. If
France had been loss sincere in her sentiments, less disin-
terested in her views, the occasion was a fine one to show
herself wore reserved, more exacting, perhaps, towards her
ally. The Emperor thought and acted otherwise. The em-
barrassments which the war in Lila imposed on England
only rendered him more cone:liating at Osborne in the ques-
tion of the Prinetpaliiea. He offered even at a later period
to the English Government to pass its troops through our
territory, and he inscri eetl hts
name, with the Imperial
Guard, at the head of the subscription for the victims of
the Indian insurrection.
" We now cone to what is Most painful between the
two countries—to what woold be the most capable, without
a 'frank explanation, to affect the confidence which is the
force of their alliance. This explanatiln has become neces-
sary, not to raise comolainte, but to explain facts, and to
i.tothT ing
justify the saitineeets which are neauifested in France.
" The attempt, of the 11th 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 oatne the assassins—in what circle they had
co rceeiaedano ha g w
human in them, so
England. The crime had been
The assassins had come
from Prenered, encouraged,
paid for, poilDpg, by those societies of refugees who dis
honour thel generous h•oepit pietyof
pei.vrsethdsuagtsewheicrht, hthaei
y a free country by shol
/sting-
of ass assinetion.
, scar; stPoi r,al
),•ee-li other in Fran ce
' How ! is it thee t !at it is d ways in En4laryi that attempts
against the life of the Emperor and against society are pee-
parer i ? Is I his wh kt we ought to expect from
an alliance so
,peo therepie
very
ther y
loyally observed der ng the peace, and so gloriously ce-
mented dur g the war?
"The et,em, t of tee 14th of January was not in truth
perm
naturally'ane n t
the first which
had emanated from London. Other crimes
. less terrible, but the thought of which was as guilty, had
the same origin. They all have birth in those revolution-
ary associations,held pent)i really, which for the last six
years openly proclaim the right to kill the Emperor, which
sissy,
'lie and a it tu, which impart
elevate murder to a dean
fanaticism into the minds they have corrupted, put arms
in the bands of those they have made fanatics, send forth
assassins with their feuille de route, and then await, under
the telerance of English hospitality, the result of those, Is theproof of t • fact required ?
horrible machinations. .
in he
ljustice.
Here it is. It is iuscribee the records of unreels
" On the 20th June, 1852, the p-,
lice discovered in a
house in the Rueßlanche, near the BarriereFontainableau,
for
91. in machines, intended
a rep* manufircten