The Sun.
London, England, 1859-08-18 00:00:00

THE SITN, LONDON, THURSDAY EVENING, AUGUST 18, 1859.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE SUN.

Sir,—ln reference to the general amnesty, announced in
the evening papers, I beg you will be kind enough to allow
space in your columns for the following remarks :
I will not stop here to inquire whether it be fit that the
offender should be the forgiver; that " crimes" should be
remitted which never were committed; and that those should
be pardoned who were so cruelly wronged, having been,
although guiltless, driven out of their country, torn from
their families and their friends, consigned to absolute ruin,
and, in fact, bereft of all they held dear on earth. Speak-
ing in my own name alone, and judging from a mere
practical point of view, I own candidly that, situated as
he is, Louis Bonaparte could now hardly do snore for
us than he has just done. But it is not the less true
that those whose hearts have been, for years, made to
bleed from innumerable wounds have a claim to some-
thing better than a contemptuous and perhaps unsafe
favour. What was due to them in the shape of justice,
cannot be paid in the shape of pardon.
But enough of this. Considerations of a higher signifi-
cance and more general import are involved in the question.
Let freedom be wholly and sincerely restored to France :
I, for one, am prepared to applaud. Our wrongs we might
forget : may we be indifferent to the wrongs of our country ?
We are permitted to return to France. So long as she
is kept in bondage why should we go ? To complete
the victory of might over right• —to render Imperial des-
potism still more absolutely unopposed—to extinguish the
few last beacons which, fed by French hands, yet loom in
the distance before the eyes of our unhappy country—in
one word, to be slaves among slaves. Better stay in the
land of unfettered thought and free speech ; better live
where to be an exile is to remain a man.

It is recorded that in the Revolution of 1789, at
the first celebrated fete du Champ de ilars, some 50 Eng-
lishmen were seen wearing on their chest a medal, on
which these words were inscribed :—" _Tiberias, ibi
Patria." Without presuming to sit in judgment upon such
of my countrymen as may take a different view of the case,
I venture to say that this should be the motto of every man
feelingly alive to the dignity of his own nature.
Not that I consider my beloved country less entitled to
claim our devotion, because temporarily shackled. No !
The very state of intellectual debasement and moral
agony in which France is now plunged, endears her
the more to us, as we know it originates in a fatal combi-
nation of uncontrollable circumstances, and is main-
tained by brute force alone. That France will,
sooner or later, be warmed ins life and be herself
again is a creed which I fondly cherish, and to which I
cling with unshakeable conviction. But so long as she is
forced into silence and darkness, I take it to be necessary
tnat some, at least, of her most faithful sons
should, by living abroad, retain the power of represent-
ing her true genius of making known her sorrows,
denouncing her wrongs, invoking her most glorious
recollections, vindicating her stifled aspirations after free-
dom, and championing in her name the eternal principles of
justice and the rights of reason.
I am, Sir, yours, &c.,
London, Aug. 17. LOUIS BLANC.