The Sun.
London, England, 1835-10-31 00:00:00

AN ARTICLE ON THE ABOLITION OF THE LIBERTY OF THE

FRENCH PRESS.

After some preliminary formalities, the article inculpated,
taken from The Sun, was read as follows :
" The French Papers just received supply us with copies of
the Bill, prepared by the minions of King Louis Phillippe, for
the extinction of political liberty in Prance. A more atrocious
Bill than that which relates to the Public Press we have never
read. It is•such a concoction of tyranny—such a monster of
ingratitude--such a daring violation of the most sacred rights
of men, as never before disgi•aced or degraded France. The
infernal Lettres de Cachet, the most despotical articles of the
Code Napoleon, were the perfection of freedom compared with
this monstrous progeny of a Citizen Sovereign. The daring
wickedness of Louis Phillippe knows no bounds. He flings
aside the mere appearances of a regard for a charter which he
solemnly swore to maintain, and not content with a personal
violation of it in the case of the prisoners of April, he now
conies forward and demands its abolition from the Representa-
tives of the French people. We now see clearly that nothing
Short of another Revolution can preserve the shadow of civil
liberty in France. The Press is now abolished ; for we know
the Chamber of Deputies too well not to feel confident that it
will comply with any wish which be may think proper to ex-
press. There is baidly a single Member of that Chamber who
is not a tool of the Government. Corruption has been busy
among the Deputies, and for the sake of France we regret
being obliged to add, never was it more successfully employed
in the cause of infamy. A majority of the Chamber is pre-
pared to vote on all measures proposed by Government, exactly
as suits the pleasure of the Minister of the Interior, and his
colleagues.
" It would be a waste of time to enter into the details of
these monstrous measures. If they are passed into laws, as
we are confident they will ; and if they are peaceably obeyed,
as we are sure they will not; . all we add is, that Frenchmen
are only fit to be slaves. If France submits to the laws which
are now proposed for her coercion, she deserves to be made
the footstool of every despot in Europe. Where now are her
patriots of July ? Where now are those chivalrous assertors
of Liberty, who registered vows in heaven for the erection of
altars to freedom wheresoever tyranny raised the standard of
oppression ? Have they, too, been found susceptible of the
taint of corruption? The National Guard—the people--are
they also indifferent to the possession of those rights, to obtain
which their fathers deluged France with the blood of her So-
vereign, her Nobles, and her Priests ? No : political freedom
ean never be abolished in France."

M. Plougoulin, Avocat-General, then rose, and insisted on
the necessity of repressing this new mode of insulting the
French Government through the English press. "Is it not
humiliating," said he, "to find that we are thus maltreated by
foreign journals, to see France itself accused of servility by
them, and the Chamber of Deputies represented as betraying
its duty ?
After the speech for the prosecution, M. Cauchois Lemaire,
editor of the Bon Sens rose and said :—" It is not without
some surprise, not without wonder indeed, that I appear at
this bar. It is so unuusual to me. For eight years now have
the Crown laws ers spared me : and- during five of these eight,
which have kept both men and the Press so busy, I have re-
mained ever at that post where personal responsibility is no fic-
tion, without having been once cited or prosecuted for a political
offence. After this long truce with a most quarrelsome parquet
(body of Crown lawyers), there comes a menace of fine
and imprisonment, which strangely refreshes and brings
back my memory to a time when I too paid my share of that
tribute, which the King's Treasury and his gaoler raised from
the liberties of the press. Years but light in number separate
me from that time, but this interval is an age in events, of
which one was a revolution. At its completion I had hoped
that my task of contributing to the emancipation of the press,
by my sufferings and my perils, was over. I may add, that
the very personage who thus, by a strange convulsion of cir-
cumstances, has become my accuser, himself thought, after the
revolution, that the day of peril was over for the public writer.
I preserve in my archives, as one of my most precious auto-
graphs, together with other letters from friends since risen to
be Ministers, one in which the present Advocate-General an-
nounced himself as the historian of my humble efforts for the
liberty of the press. The little works which accompanied the
note, spoke in favour of this liberty, and of principles which
the Hon. Gentleman now thinks it more prudent to keep at a
distance. Instead of your former eulogium, M. Advocate-
General, I have now to endure your lessons, elegant mayhap
in the form, but direly rigid, especially if the jury should think
fit, as the Advocate-General seeks, to transform his advice into
reality by sending me to prison. The words of my accuser fill
me indeed with anxiety. What ! have I been all at once guilty
of what he pleases to call an attentat, less direly punished under
the old than the present system of law ? Have I lost sight of my
long habits of prudence, and thus come as an old man under the
fangs of the law, which I had ever the prudence to avoid and
escape when young. Have I been so silly as to confound licence
with liberty, and insurrection with opposition ? The time, you
must own, is ill chosen for such a change. But no—l have not
changed. Since 1815, I have remained ever in the service of
the self-same principles. It is not I, who have changed ; and
it is wonderful to think, that I who professed, and pleaded, and
developed these principles with so much impunity under the
restoration, should now be called up for what can be no crime,
save in the requisitions of a Crown Lawyer. If I have not
changed, something else must have done so. The tolerance
of Government must have become singularly narrow, and its
force militant, its instruments singularly and increasingly op-
pressive. If my journal has not made one step towards revo-
lutionary principles, and it certainly has not, then the Go-
vernment which has prosecuted it must have retrograded far-
ther back than the restoration. One need not make use of
merely their eyes and good faith to see this. The Government
lays violent hands on the constitutional guarantee of the Press,
and of course seizes us for defending them, as, nevertheless,
the writers of a conciliatory journal. If I read you some ar-
ticles of that journal, you would be amazed at the stupid zeal
which inflames the guardians of the reigning system to prevent
a translation from the English, though side by side with other
articles proving our moderation."

M. Cauchois Lemaire here explained that he was about to
quit the place of editor. " I may abdicate the functions of
editor," he said, " but not that of a journalist. The word may
hurt, and may prejudice over-loyal cars against him who bears
it, but lam proud of the title. I have fulfilled its mission
►with delight and love, whether at liberty, or in prison, or in
exile, whether the press be free or enslaved. Yes, after a re-
volution, which opened to me other paths of ambition, I con-
tented myself with the humble profession of a journalist. It
is to me a sacred mission, the more sacred for the perils
which surround it. Like all other human things, this profes-
sion has its ills, its advantages, its false brethren, and cor-
rupt members. Where is there a trade in which rogues
do not thrive? where an army without so►he cowards? or
where, with every respect for the court, is there a band of
judges and lawyers in which a false sod venal conscience
does not lurk ? Yet still it is a noble profession, the in.
struiocut of eivilitation, 4nd the proteptor of all that is
most precious in humanity, Yes, gentlemen of the jury,
I avow myself a journalist, a
►journalist of opposition, not
one from spite, envy, or ambition—ono who has refused
the gratifications of ono, and the delusive offers of the
other, The jury, however, may answer me by adopting the
opinion of the Advocate-General, and may decide, as in 1828,
that this court is but the antiehamber to a dungeon, Be it so,
Yet it is no less strange that I should suffer under Louis Phi.
Lippe► King of France, the compliment of the penalty incurred
previously, for having saluted,' somewhat prematurely, Louis
Philippe, the Duke of Orleans, as future King. I dreamed
then of what I find realised now ; but alas ! how, and in what

spirit realised ? Surely my exclamation of disappointment
is no PrimP: Yet if yP thirth it so: gentlemen of the
jury—if ye should be' determined to send rue, along with so
many brethren of the Press, to prison, I shall not demur, but
merely ask one favour this may he shut up in the
same old cell, which I may thus oppupy twice tinder twp
reigns, which I had expected to find somewhat different from
eaelt other, There I may at least meditate with advantage
upon what is nailed
.political J.ustiee, and upon revolutions
which turn singularly into re-acttons,"
M. Bellard then spoke for the Quotidienne—and the Advo.
cote-General, again rising, adopted a very singular argument
—urging that, however the jury might be lenient upon M.
Cauchois Lemaire, on account of his interesting position, ne-
vertheless that they ought mercilessly to condemn the Quo-
lidirtine•
The Jury, however, did not see the fairness of this, and re.
turned a verdict acquitting both defendants.

RAILWAYS.—We are likely, in the widely in-
creased commerce and manufactures of our city, to find the
benefits arising from the Municipal Reform, and contem-
porary therewith, in the spirited exertions now making to
establish a railway, and improve the navigation of our noble
riven—York Courant.

A railroad from Bristol to Exeter is projected.

A meeting was held at Merthyr, Glamorganshire, on
Monday se':might, at which it was resolved, that a railroad
be formed between that place and Cardiff. The capital to
be raised is two hundred and fifty thousand pounds in shares
of one hundred pounds, of which a large portion were taken
at the meeting. The shares are already at a premium.
The ironmasters of Merthyr have lately been offered a con-
tract to supply four hundred miles of railroad in America,
a the advanced price of iron.—Shrewsbury Chronicle.

the worktnen. began to prepare the
foundationftday
or a new
church hi Vincent square, Vauxhall•
road, it will be built at the solo expense of the Dean and
Chapter of Westminster, for the accommodation of their
numerous tenants residing in that neighbourhood. 'the
dilapidated almshouses now standing in York-street, which
solong a disgrace to that neighbourhood, are to
be taken Own, 4,0 fsimiit pm new church,.
France at present contains 82 Ingseurns, if u sclionls
of the fine arts, 2,231 artists who have produced celebra-
tt4 tyoriii 9r whpse works have been hibiled; rturn-
Rf 1,90 painters, 150 epuipters. 113 engrayers,
203 are)nteeto, 409'4i74witNpii; . 4.lne cen aids 35
schools of the tine arts, 20 museums, /78 painters, 106
sculptors, 102 engravers, 195 architects, 209 draughtsmen.
Total, 1,385 artists. The five departments the most rich
in artists and museums, after that of the Seine, are the
7,5er4, rli cr'ironde, the Rhone, the Lower-Seine, and the
Seine' ati4 pige.
`llid''pri'nCipailiianufacturers in Aberdeen have ad-
vanced the wages of their weavers and hecklers from five to

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