The Sun.
London, England, 1857-11-10 00:00:00

THE PRINCE OF PRUSSIA.

Since the Prince cf Prussia has assumed the
Government, certain sections of the Press, in vari-
ous countries, have been making the most vigorous
applications of the sponge of oblivion to his ante-
cedents. They set themselves right heartily to
work in the not very easy task of whitewashing
hiufin the eyes of Europe, and bedaubing him before
men as one of the most amiable scions a Royal
House has ever blessed the world with. The
courtly journals of Germany are, of course, the
loudest in this chorus of laudation—whilst those
entertaining any opinion to the contrary, the reader
will easily understand, are condemned to silence,
or to the faintest and most innocuous expression of
their sentiments. In France, too, astonishing
efforts have been made to deceive the public as to
the character of the Prince. Foremost among
the French organs that thus endeavour to get up
a little enthusiasm to order, stands the Journal
des Debats. Under the well-known signature of
M. de &toy, it brings forth an article of such
nauseous adulation, that we on this side the
Channel have hardly the patience to peruse
the fulsome production. But, unfortunately, we
must confess with shame and regret that even our
own Press is not wholly free from this reproach
of toadyism on the Prussian Regent. At least, in
the reactionary portion of British journalism we
find suspicious pens busy manufacturing panegy-
rics for the Prince ; and the barefaced fashion in
which they assert " the thing that is not," has at-
tained so colossal a degree, that any one conversant,
with the facts must be astounded at the effrontery
with which truth is thus set aside.
What the flatterers of Prince William chiefly re-
joice to dilate upon, is the mildness of his nature,
and the cleanness of his hands from the blood of his
fellow-men. On this point the writer in the _Mats
gives edifying assurances. Fate, says he, willed
that the Prince should march, in 1849, against a
popular insurrection ; but after having succeeded
in suppressing it, he refrained from indulging in
revenge, and pacified Baden and the Palatinate
"almost without the shedding of blood." Such is
the deliberate statement of the Orleanist Gazette.
Not less formal are the assertions in our own Tory
prints. One of them, in extolling to the skies the
amenity of the Prussian Regent, congratulates his
idol on the energy he displayed in the putting c'own
of democratic attempts—" an energy," the journal
continues, " the more commendable as it was
totally free from the effusion of blood and from
those sanguinary reprisals which disgraced the vic-
tory of Austria over the rebel Hungarians !"
These statements are really too flagrant to pass
unnoticed. What would be said if a man stood up
among us, defending the Ruler of France from all
participation in the events of December, main-
taining, moreover, that a coup d'etat never had
taken place—that the whole story was a fable of the
Revolutionists—that the streets of Paris were not
red with blood on those memorable days—that not
a single Frenchman bad been shot, nor thousands
transported by court-martial ; in short, that there
was not a meeker lamb upon earth than Louis Bono-
parte, tile much-calumniated! Why, any one
prating with such flagrant nonsense would be set
down, without much ado, as a madman, if not
worse. Precisely in the same predicament stand
M. Da Sacy and his English fellow-scribes, who

propagate the monstrous story of the absence of
bloodshed in the career of the Prince. A short
review of the facts will at once decide the case.

It was in 180, when the Princes of Germany
had made up their minds to break their oaths, and
to overthrow by force institutions they had sworn
" before God and man" to maintain, that Prince
William was nominated Commander-in-Chief of
the army destined to act against the popular
movement. At that time the German Parliament
was still legally in power, Its decrees being
laughed to scorn by the perjured Monarchs, the
inhabitants of the Palatinate and Baden rose in
support of right, defending the cause of Freedom
against the treasonous plot of dynasties. This
noble attitude of the people the Prince of Prussia
was employed to overcome by the brutal agency
of his troops. In spite, however, of the free use
he made of the 'ultiemci ratio of ings, his task
proved no easy one. The entire army of Baden.
having joined the good cause, and the country
rallying to a man under the Democratic standard,
numerous battles had to be fought in the open field,
and before the fortress of Rastadt, ere despotism
became triumphant over liberty. Thousands and
thousands met an untimely death in this desperate
struggle. There remained scarcely a hearth in the
country not rendered desolate by the loss or suffer-
ings of scene of its cherished members. At last the
Prince, at the he id of some 80,000 men, over-
whelmed his opponents, who numbered but a fourth
part of that force. His victory once established, lee
initiated a system of terror, before which the crimes
of the Neapolitan despot grow pale, and the
dungeon scenes of Austria are cast into the shade.
We refrain from depicting in detail the horrors
inflicted by his hands on the vanquished population.
We content ourselves with the dry recital of facts :
they cry out loudly enough against the sanguinary
tyrant.
Baden was no sooner at the feet of the Prince
than the Court-martial began to reap its terrible
of er-harvest. The blood of the thousands who
had fallen on.thedield was not sufficient to appease
the princely appetite for slaughter. Still further
food must be found for grim Death, busy as he
had already been. For weeks the trenches were
made familiar with the ominous rattle of the mus-
ketry of the executioner. Within barely the come
pass of a month, 27 of- the best and bravest were
thus ruthlessly shot at the command of the Prince.
Thus fell Dortu, the valiant young officer of the
national ; Gen. Tiedemann, the Governor
of Rastadt ; William von Trutzschler, the eloquent
member of the German Parliament ; Elsenhans,
the Secretary of the Baden Ministry of War ; Von
Biedenfield., Colonel of the 3d Reciment of Infan-
try ; the venerable Boening, the Commander of the
Democratic Legion ; Jacobi, the courageous Major
of Artillery ; the Professors Hoefer and Neff, de-
voted friends of the people • grey-beaded Streuber,
the Communal Councillor of Mannheim • and Pre-
sident of the Neo-Catholic community; /4niewsky,
Major of the Polish Legion ; Reilly, Schade, Len-
zinger, and Bernigau, all officers ; besides a num-
ber.of other patriots, who received the deadly bullet
with equal courage. All these were sent to the
grave by the orders of the Prince whose victory
was " totally free from the effusion of blood and
from sanguinary reprisals !"
It may be conceived that, under such a rule, the
country became a wilderness truly. "He made a
desert, and then called it peace." Out of a popula-
tion of not quite one million and a-half
upwards
of 60,000 were' dtiven into exile by the humane
policy of the Prince, In describing that history
of blood and tears, the pen almost refus,-s its office.
How shall we speak of those countless executions
that took place unrecorded in the dark casemates
of Baden—of the massacre of prisoners hurled from
a church tower, to be picked up by the bayonets
Iteneath ;- a feat which the lireuz-Zeitung
felt pride in recording,—of the confiscations of
property that fell' alike on the inhabitants of
the cmtage and the mansion—of the sentences of
years of solitary imprisonment inflicted upon ten-
der women, for having per:brined their holiest
mission in ministering to the sick and wounded—
and of similar demoniacal cruelties perpetrated at

The law of marriage had , hitherto been so loose
that all kinds of hurried and clandestine unions
could be formed all over England with more facility
than they are now at Gretna green. No notice or
publication of banns was required, no licence was
looked for, and any parson might perform the cere-
mony at any time or in any place, without consent of
parents or any other preliminary conditions what-
ever ; and the worst or the most needy of the clergy
would often forward the most rash or disgraceful
marriages for the sake of the paltry fee. The great
temple of the pseudo Hymen was the Fleet Prison.
Parsons confined for debt, scoundrels fuddled with
gin and tobacco, would marry in three minutes, and
for the small charge of 2s, any couple that presented
. .
themselveS, c- In walking along the street in My
youth," says Pennant, on the side next to this pri.
son, I have often been tempted by the question: Sir,
will you be pleased to walk in and be married ?
Along this most lawless space was hung up the fre-
quent sign of a male and female hand conjoined
with " Marriages performed within," written be-
neath. A dirty fellow invited you in. The parson
was seen walking before his shop ; a squalid pro-
fligate figure, clad in a tattered pla;d night-gown,
with a fiery face. and ready to couple you for a
of gin or roll of tobacco." To put a stop to these
the
brought aiis.p
crying abusesa bill wasprepared by the judges under
icPs of Lord Chancellor Hard.wicke, and
Mn. FITZROY AND THE OMNIBUSES.—Mr. Fitzroy,lnto the Upper House. It provided that all
who distinguished biniFelf a year or two ago in connexion marmes should henceforward take place either
0
e
with the regulation of cab tares, has upon his anvil a' by banns published on three successive Sundays, or
mea,ura in refer,,nce to omnibuses and their fares, which by licence granted iu a regular manner; and that
he intends to introduce as early as he possii)ly can in the
all other marriages should be void, and the parson
next pas.ion of Parliament. The main object of the mese, that solemnised any such transported for seven
pure is an equa!isation and sys..,ini,iaLiou of fares,
will but years. —Knight's Pictorial history of England. 1
there are other portions of t:te proposed bill which
have for their olject an improvement of the vehicles ' The amount paid into the treast ry of the East India
thernselveF, with a view to increased accommodation for Company for bills on India from the 25th of October to
the public, the 9th inst. is 5,8271.

the bidding of the Prince ?
Such is the Man whom the sycophants of thrones
delight to honour. Such are the clouds of that
Prince who has pacified South-Western Germany.
" without the' shedding of blood." Truly it re-
quires no small contempt for poor truth and her
sad story, to daub over the records of history with
pigments of such servile falsehoods.—Advertiser.