The Sun.
London, England, 1859-11-15 00:00:00

F.RANCE AND ENGLAND.

(Front the Times.)
We cannot doubt that our readers have perused
with much interest, and that interest by no means
of an agreeable kind, the account whist' we pub-
lished on Saturday last of the statements and argu-
ments in the Revue Independante, a French periodi-
cal published in London, conducted with much

:erary ability, and with as complete a knowledge
as any one not connected with Government can
have of the present state of affairs in France. We
have no doubt that the facts which it states are
true, though we do not feel ourselves called upon
to adopt implicitly the conclusions to which they
lead. We must not forget that the writers of this
periodical would rejoice in nothing so much as in
the overthrow of the present state of things in
France, and we must be very careful not to allow
ourselves to be carried away by their eloquence and
their ability beyond the point to which calm and
dispassionate reason would lead us. Rightly to
'appreciate the existing state of things on the other
side of the British Channel is a problem of enormous
—of overwhelming, importance. We know no
family having any laim to the throne of France
from which we have anything to expect which
should render us desirous of a new dynastic revolu-
tion, and we aro only too anxious to believe, if that
belief can by any means be maintained, that the
Emperor Napoleon entertains towards this country
those sentiments of amity and goodwill which he
has so earnestly and repeatedly professed.
We think it cannot be denied that, without, so
far as we are aware, the slightest provocation on
the 'part of England, there exists in France at this
moment a very strong and very wide-spread
hostility to the Government and people of this
country. We do not lay particular stress on
any one, conversation, either at a military festival,
when the tongue is loosened by wine, or in a rail-
way carriage, where the speakers are unknown
to each other ; but from information derived
from a vast number of independent sources we
entertain no doubt that a feeling of hostility more
bitter than has existed in France since the peace of
1815 is at this moment entertained towards this
country. The French press, so guarded on all
other subjects, is on this outspoken. The moderate
and. reasonable Journal des Debats contains attacks
upon England such as never before, in moments of
the greatest irritation, have appeared in its deco-
rous columns. The Gazette de France lacks lan-
guage to express the bitterness of its detestation,
and-.the Univers is still more virulent than the organ
of Legitimists. The talk of the Army and Navy is of
revenge for victories 45 and 55 years old, and their
firm belief, as well as their ardent wish, is that in
a few months the signal will be given for the inva-
sion of this country. The inhabitants of the de-
partments from Brest to Calais experience a revival
of the hostility of 50 years since, and, strange to
say, burn with ardour for a war of which they must
bear the brunt. We believe this to 1)3 a fair repre-
sentation of the present state of feeling in France
—nay, more, we believe the Emperor Napoleon
himself would, if the question could be put to him,
admit it to be so. We believe he would tell us
that he is our only friend, and that to his interven-
tion alone we owe it that the two most powerful
States of the world are not already involved in an
exterminating conflict. The fact we state—namely,
that England is hated, and a war with her earnestly
desired by the clergy, the LegitiMists, the Army,
and the inhabitants of the Northern provinces of
France—we think we may assume as perfectly well
proved, and we do not expect that any of the jour-
nals of France will be bold enough to deny it.
The next question is, how does it happen, after a
peace of 45 years, that this should be the feeling
of France towards us ? To what cause are we to
attribute it? What provocation have we given?
What offensive claims have we put forward ? What
have we done in the last ten years to make the
France of 1859 more hostile to us than the France
of ten years ago ? We have fought and bled toge-
ther, without, as far as we are aware, any imputa-
tion on the good faith or honour of either nation.
We are even now preparing ajoint expedition, and,
so far as we are aware, there is no part of the globe
in which our interests come in direct and hostile
contact. We are utterly unconscious of having put
forward any claims or entered upon any negotia-
tions which even the most perverse ingenuity can
construe as hostile to French interests. The French
subjects whom the fortune of war has placed under
our Government are admitted precisely to the same
rights and privileges as our own people, and, as far
as hospitality goes, it has been our honour and our
pleasure to receive the representatives of every
dynasty that has occupied the throne of France
since the Revolution. There remain, certainly, the
injuries given and received during the wars of the
Revolution and-of Napoleon; but they in no degree
account for the phenomenon which we are examin-
ing—the great increase of French animosity against
England at the present moment, and a wish and
expectation in a time of what ought to be profound
peace of an almost immediate descent upon our shores.

We fear that the fact which is unfortunately so no
torious can be accounted for in no other way than by
the assumption that these evil passions have re-
ceived a powerful impulse from the French Govern-
ment itself. The time is come when it is most
friendly and most wise to speak plainly and
openly. In England the manifestation of a feel-
ing in different and remote parts of the country
is very easily accounted for. By the ag,ency of
railways and electric telegraphs all the informa-
tion that can be procured on any subject of public
interest is simultaneously laid before the nation in
the sheets of a free press, and it is not marvellous
if from the :same facts people should arrive for
themselves at the same conclusions. In France
there are but two ways in which the whole body of
the nation can be acted upon. The one is by the
press, and the other by the action of the centralised
authority, civil and military. The French press is
not exposed to censure, but the power of punishing
a newspaper in France is so summary, so complete,
and so irresistible, that the director of the journal
is forced to perform the offiee of censor himself,
under pain of the immediate and total confiscation
of the valuable property committed to his charge.
If he violates the law—and nothing is easier than
to do so without the slightest moral or political
guilt—he is liable to punishments of every degree
of severity ; and, if he does not violate the law, he
may be warned, or his journal suppressed without
warning, at the pleasure of the Government. Not
only must he insert nothing which the Govern.
ment disapproves ; he is bound to insert any article
which the Government may transmit to him as if
it had emanated from himself—a fact which has
been made laughably manifest by the appearance
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say that for so much of the present irritation of
upon
.England tho Government of France is re-
of power. An intimation they that are displeasing
to the
given. '
Government would have sufficed, and that
intimation has never been The other way
by which the opinion of France may be simulta-
neously moved is through the official hierarchy.
The Minister of the Interior in Paris wields a power
more tremendous than was ever vested in any Mi-
nister of any Government. He has but to express
a wish, and an enormous bureaucracy, whose rami-
fications extend to the smallest commune in France,
is immediately set in motion. Their advancement
depends on their diligence their power penetrates