The Sun.
London, England, 1832-09-26 00:00:00

LITERATURE.

SARRANS' MEMOIRS OF LAFAYETTE.
LONDON, RICHARD BENTLEY, 1832.

We are not at all surprised at the report that
this book has been suppressed by order of the
Police at Paris, for a more complete exposé of
the infamous juste milieu system, and the un-
worthy intrigues of its arch-advocate, Louis Phi-
lippe, was never yet published. The book
takes up the biography of Lafayette, the original
founder of that grand institution, the National

Guard, at the period when he enlisted as a

volunteer, under Washington, during the first
American war, and carries it down to the last
outbreak in Paris, at the funeral of General La-
marque. We have read Mr. Sarrans' Memoirs
of this illustrious man with the attention they
deserve, and though at times they are highly
coloured, and bear strong marks of the enthu-
siasm of friendship, yet the facts themselves are
quite sufficient to justify us in giving it as
our opinion, that General Lafayette furnishes us
with the purest and loftiest model of a patriot
of any man that ever existed. Twice had he the
destinies of France at his feet,—twice her Crown
within his grasp, yet on both occasions lie had the
magnanimity to resist the brilliant temptation.
His conduct throughout the last revolution
affords a striking contrast to that of Louis Phi-
lippe, who obtained power solely on the score
of pledges, not one of which he has fulfilled.—
It was Lafayette who helped him to the throne,
and stood his friend when he most needed
assistance, and it is the same Lafayette who is
now one of his most strenuous political op-
ponents. Mr. Sarrans gives us some edifying
particulars respecting the intrigues for putting
Louis Philippe on the throne, which were en-
gaged in by men who were for the most part in-
active during the three days, and shows us how
the patriots of the revolution were, owing to their
too great confidence in the Citizen King, tricked
out, one by one, of all the advantages that were
promised France. He scrutinizes also with a
curious, searching eye, the public conduct of the
Citizen King down to the present critical
period, and proves incontestably that Louis
Philippe, ever since he felt the Royal diadem
clip his brow, has had but one object in view,—the
enlisting himself among the legitimate monarchs
of Europe, and sacrificing the dearest and most
sacred interests of France to further this great
end of personal ambition. Mr. Sarrans more-
over shows us how Lafayette and the movement
party are striving to counteract this mischief, and
closes with the following significant comments on
the injuries that have occurred to France from
the juste-milieu system :
" In compensation for the loss of her recognized rights,
the system of the 13th March offers France a ruinous re-
pose, an infamous peace, projected canals, the formation
of roads, the construction of monuments. France re-
quires only liberty, honour, honest ministers, and all the
consequences of toe revolution of July, let them be popular
or monarchical.

" The system of the 13th March has destroyed trade
and commerce ; because the prosperity of trade and com-
merce is either consequent on a state of peace with a
security of its duration, or on a state of war with pre-
sumption of victories. But we have neither war nor
peace; and France cannot exist without trade and com-
merce.

" The system of the 13th March has deadened the
spring of the arts, stifled the scienc.±s, frightened away
poesy, deprived life of all its blandishments ; its cupidity
ills dried up all the sources of pleasure and happiness.
France did not fight at the harrica,fes in order to conquer
a cloister.

" The liberty of tie press is consecrated by a law of
1830 ; but the prisons gape before it—thanks to the laws
of the republic and the empire ! But France has read, in
the pages of Alontesquieu, that one of the principal tyrans
vies of Tiberius was the abuse he nude of the ancient
laws, the offspring of the civil dissensions of Rome.
France repudiates such a monstrous imitation.
" The patriots are the objects of your raillery, for hay-
-I,g flocked to the barricades under the fire of the Swiss.
They are now compelled to hide their scars, and to fly the
signals of their glory, in order to escape the police-ser-
jeants, or the clubs of their hired ruffians. France is
weary of the impunity of these hangmen this reign of
terror must also have its 9th Thermidor.
" Either France, or the system of the 13th March,
must then perish.
" France will not perish ; because she possesses for her
defence the union of all the interests of a great people,
whilst her enemies have only weakness and pride to over-
:mite her with ; and because, whilst they gain over to
their side the deputies, the electors, and the juste-milieu
of all denominations, there is left for her only the feeling
of the rightfulness of her cause, the spirit of liberty, and
the hatred of her enemies.

" To say the truth, France likes not the juste-milieu,
because she knows no juste-milieu between the ancient
and the new dynasty—between the hereditary and the non-
hereditary institution of the peerage—between the rejec-
tion and the acceptance of Belgium—between war and
peace—between the liberty and the censorship of the
press—between the freedom and the monopoly of com-
merce—between religious liberty and St. Simonianisin—
etween natural independence and the chains of the Holy
Allia:ace—between the hatted and the friendship of free-
men—between glory and shame, honour and infamy.
France thinks, in truth, that the juste milieu means
nothing when applied to questions of actual policy. The
juste-milieu round which France would have rallied, was
a popular throne, environed by republican institutions:
this has been denied her.
" The doctrinarian system, the juste-milieu, are then
condemned to perish. But must they necessarily drag
along with them, in their downfall, all that is propped up
upon their unpopularity? Ido not think so; for I state
the extreme limits of possibility. The very nature of a
representative government opens an extensive view of hap-
piness to the monarchy of the barricades; and offers the
probability that that monarch, giving way before the con-
dition of humanity, which is to change,
will avow to
France that it has been the dupe of false and interested re-
presentations ; that it has received bad councit,, committed
faults; that the term of all the usurpations whicwhichparalyzed
the revolution is arrived; and that it feels the necessity
of marching with the events, if not with the men, of July.
" France deserves to hear such language as
this, and
to recompense it by oblivion of the past and confidence in
the future.

" But if the monarchy is not inclined to reject any of
the councils it has received ; if France is condemned to
bow in silence her forehead to the dust, it should not be
forgotten that, in the event of a violation of the couotitu-

tional compact, the refusal of the taxes is the literal, the
complete interpretation, an'l, in •mne sort, the dogma in
full vigour of the representative system.
" And, then, what comes next? Ordinances ?—Coups
d'etat ?—..or, if they are not strong enough to play that
game—
" We must await the judgment of Heaven !"