The Sun.
London, England, 1857-06-24 00:00:00

FRENCH ELECTIONS.

(From the Daily News.)
The official statement of the result of the Paris
Elections has not yet reached us. For the exact -rt,e-
,uracy of the statement which appeared in the
treater part of our yesterday's impression we of-
course curnot vouch. It professes to be no more
than a hastily formed estimate. rapidly made and
tiurriedly collected. The sources whence it his been
obtained, however, are such as to warrant our con-
fidence that it will be found to be a pretty close
approximation to the truth. Let us, therefore,
examine what isthe nature of the first decided
symptom of the recovery of the national mind of
France from the state of suspended animation into
which it was cast by the Coup d'Etat. •

The Circular of the Minister of the Interior esti-
mates the numb?r of Registered Electors within
the ten Electoral Circumscriptions of Paris, as high
as 350,000. According to the Returns of our Cor-
respondent 206,724 of the,:e have recorded their
votes at the late Election, leaving 143,276 electors
who have abstained from voting. Of the electors
who have deposited their votes in the ballot-boxes

110,525 appear to have voted for Government can-
didates, and 96,199 for the candidates of the Op-
position. This is a very remarkable exposition of
the state of political feeling and opinion in the
Capital of France. There can be no doubt that the
most strenuous exertions were made by the agents
of Government t 3 induce the electors to come for-
w#rd in support of its candidates. The appeal in
the Emperor's Address, at the close of the session,
to the working classes in particular, was a not very
editable provocation to class prejudices ; and the
circulars, accompanied by bulletins of the Govern-
ment candidates, sent on Monday morning to
every elector who had not voted on Monday, were
an unequivocal threat of proscription. Again, the
greatest difficulties were thrown in the way of the
Opposition candidates. The intolerable treatment
experienced by the friends and agents of M. F. de
Lasteyrie, described by our correspondent, may be
taken as a fair sample of the excesses in which
the lower class of Government agents' have

indulged. Yet this unscrupulous conduct on
the part •of the Parisian authorities has
barely succeeded in hounding 110,525 voters for
the Government—less than o ne-t h i rd. f the Regis-
tered Electors of Paris—to the ballot boxes. Al'

though an unequivocal declaration had gone forth
that Government would hold all the electors who
did not declare for it to be against it, 143,276 stood
sullenly aloof, and 96,199 recorded their votes
against Government. In other words, more than
two-thirds of the electors of Paris-239,475—have
demanded the reality of Parliamentary Govern-.
ment ; and of that number 96,199 have declared
their preference for Opposition candidates.
This is a courageous, yet temperate and legal ex-
pression of public opinion which the Emperor can-
not afford to disregard. So far as the numbers who
have voted for the -different candidates enable us
to conjecture, it would appear that a majority of
the Opposition voters is composed of the Political
Republicans. Among those who have alotained
from voting, the Monarchists and the Socialist Re-
publicans may be inferred to have preponderated.
Yet these two classes are precisely those whose hos-

tility to the reigning dynasty might have been ex-
pected to be least irreconci!eable. Many of the
Monarchists are devoted rather to the principle of
Monarchy than to any individual House or Mo-
narch ; many of the Socialists regard political forma
as of comparatively secondary importance ; yet
both of these practicable classes stand obstinately
aloof from the existing Government, declaring that
they will not condescend to take part in sham elec-
tions ; while the Political Republicans brave the
anger of Government by recording their votes for
the men whom it most deeply bates and fears.
The Emperor is too clear-sighted a man not to
perceive that a national feeling so deeply-rooted, s°
fearlessly expressed, cannot be resisted. Unless his
resuscitated dynasty is to be a mere ephemeral
shadow, he must make up his mind to devise some
means of engrafting a really elective Legislature
on his Imperial system. It may, or it may Lot
be too late for this. It is clear that more than two-
thirds of Electors of the metropolis are hostile to an
irresponsible despotism ; and it is equally clear that
the distrust of his sincerity engendered by the Coq'
d' Etat has placed him in a state of moral isolation
from all the elements out of which a constitutional
Government party and a constitutional Opposition
might have been formed. But if the Emperor can-
not make the Corps Legislatif really a free expres'
sion of public opinion, he will be left without all
safety-valve to carry off popular discontent, without
any index to show when danger is at hand. Ije
can at no moment feel secure from the sudden
explosion, which may shatter to fragments the frail
edifice of the Imperial Constitution, True, many
of the industrious peace-loving citizens of France
are disposed to acquiesce in his despotism, so long
as it can ensure tranquillity - but so sbon as it
shall appear that it inadequate to this purpose, so
soon will their qualified adhesion be withdrawn. The
Empire is not the only organisation to which they
look for the discharge of the functions of Govern-
ment. That assembly, which on the day of the Co /hp
d'Etat, adjourned under protest, is still in exist-
ence, and may even, after a long interval, resume
its authori'y, as was the case in the seventeenth
century with the " Rump" of the Long Parliament
of England.

(From the Morning Advertiser.)
The result of the elections in Paris will, every'
where on the Continent, revive the drooping spirits
of the friends of freedom. Three Republicans, the
proved friends of enlightened liberty, have boll
triumphantly returned for that city. Cavaigilae/e
Carnot, and Goudchaux are the representatives et
three of the most important of the ten circumsnriPi:
tions, or electoral districts, into which the Frown.
capital is divided. And even in. several of the
other districts the Bonapartist candidates only sue"
ceeded by narrow majorities. In three case,
these majorities not being absolute, that is, nut
greater than the conjoint votes of the other V°
opposing candidates, there must be new cieT
tions. These will take place on Sunday nal
when, it is to be hoped, the public spirit an
patriotism of Paris, being quickened into 37,0.:
greater vitality and effort by the triurnPn'
achieved on Monday, will defeat the nominees er
automatons put forward by the Napoleonist Go-
vernment.
Most heartily do we congratulate France on the
public spirit thus displayed by the people of Paris)
amidst circumstances of the most discouraging kind;
If any one could have doubted before, the fitness 01
France for the freedom which representative
tutions give, no one can have doubts on the sub-
ject now. The triumphant return of three such
men as Cavaignac, Carnot, and Goudchaux, must
have produced profound consternation in the
Tuileries. Such a result of the appeal to
the ballot-urn must have made the stout heart. of
the Imperial despot tremble, and caused an un-
earthly paleneness to whiten bis dark and sinister
countenance. In the events of Monday he most
have seen the hand-writing on the wall which re-
cords the impending doom of a dynasty founded
in petj cry and blood—in the violation of solemn'
oaths taken to defend, if necessary, even with b 1
life, the Republic which gave him a political ot"
istence—and in the remorseless butchery of human
beings, to an extent which extorted tears froul
Humanity in all parts of the world, and filled ever!
part of Paris with lamentation and woe.

From this hour we may confidently look for lin'
portant events in France. The tide of Impow
alism having reached its height will ebb Wit
with a rapidity far surpassing that with which "
flowed. The grand Bonapartist inflation may 130
expected every day to burst. A crisis cannot I 3
remote. It is at the door. In what form it 'WW
come, or what consequences may ensue, are points
on which we have no disposition to speculate.
Suffice it to say, that though a fearful conjuncture
may impend, and though France may have to pass
through scenes bf suffering and of sorrow which .P,
.;
is distressing to contemplate, before she has got rid'
of her Imperial oppressors, and regained her rig!i
and liberties—yet brighter and better days are ILI
store for her. And let us cherish the hope—let 05
rather say we are profoundly impressed with the
conviction—that the degradation and misery 0119
has suffered from the reign of despotism will ail,
have the effect of making her set a higher value 01
constitutional liberty when it is once more placed
in her possession, and lead her to guard her freed 0'
firm hand 0
with a watchful eye and against 911.1
future attempts that ,
may be made upon it.

- - •
IRISH REPRESENTATIVE PEERAGE.—Viscount Mount'
morres will stand for the next vecancy in the Irit3ll
Representative Peerage, after the election of the Earl °f
Bandon.
A BURGLAR SURPRISED. At an early hour yesterdol
morning p, young man named George Wilton was a'
mitted into Westminster Hospital, in charge of the Pc;
lice, with severe injuries, the result of an attempt 5,
burglary at the house of Mr. John Jubb, the proprietc•
of the New Star and Crown, Broadway, Westminster;
Between two and three o'clock Mr. Jubb heard a ,
in his bar, and being convinced that robbers were in ti"„"
house, he hastily descended, followed by a young 11317 f
in his service, when he discovered Wilton in the act, a
rifling the till, Not knowing whether he was armed
not, and sell-preservation being the first law of natal,-
Mr. Jubb (who is a well known cricketer) seized a 100;
which was behind the bar, and gave the burglar a if„,
mendons blow across the face, which rendered him b!'re
less, and be was secured until the arrival of the pollee
he was conveyed to the station-house ; and ts,
charge being preferred he was then removed to the 110
pital, and Mr. Nayler, the house-surgeon, attended
him. His nose is completely smashed, and his o",
frightfully disfigured. Wilton is well known to til
police as an expert burglar.