The Sun.
London, England, 1850-11-04 00:00:00

PARIS IN MARCH, 1850.
(CONTINUED ).

The French seem bent on public speaking at I.l)ni
and maintain;ng conquests abroad—both of which,
says history, are unattainable.
As to foreign conquest, Walpole, who had the
means through Mine. du Deffand of understandiniz
their national qualities, said to Pinkerton—" French
character in individuals is often excellent, but
taken in general it disgusts by its petulance
and vanity. The French have always been dissolute :
the most unpardonable offence to fathers, husbands,
brothers, and lovers. This and their petulant o-yer-
hearing conduct prevent their conquests from being
lasting; yes, I swear by the Sicilian Vespers, they
never will be of much duration." Tasso "had never
read of any army marching out of France and occu.
pying territory in England or Germany," perhaps
considering the Normans as a distinct race—if indeed
lie had ever heard of them. Racine makes the Sultan
Orosmane say—
Non, Louis contre moi ne tournera les armes.
Las Francais cunt lass de cherehor Ellioimais
Des climats que pour cur le destin n'a pa 3 faits.
The gasconade of M. Papineau in Canada, 1837,
showed that French mettle was too brittle for either
public assemblies or remote settlements.—Consider
also Brennus, Francis 1., and Napoleon, whose con-
quests were but transitory. So much for foreign
dominion.

With vegard to public speaking, the Abbe Mably,
long before the first revolution, declared that "the in-
stitution of national assemblies, which ; were coeval
with French history, had never been congenial to its
temper." Their petulance makes a decent debate im-
possible, in fact they cannot bear to sit still without
hearing the sound of their own voice. Napoleon
commended the silence and order of an English man-
of-war and said, the French seamen gabbled like a

parcel of geese. The sheet-anchor, or still better,
the ancre de ?PI isericorde of the assentidie:

legislative, is good old Philip Dupin, who was Ney's
counsel in 1815. Without him—oh word of fear :
the fauxbourgs would soon descend and give a striking
lesson to those gueux de represerdants.
Dupin and Thiers have the appearance of most
highly respectable merchants rather than courtiers or
statesmen. Thiers has the great advantage of being
short and thick. Dupin has the projecting eyebrows
which distinguished Pius VII. and Consalvi among
the Croats and Vandals in Sir T. Lawrence's gallery
of portraits—like Tierney, Canning, Fox, " men of in-
formation " collecting intelligence in the inscrutable
brow as in a pencil of rays—more anxious to under-
stand than to be understood—no synthetical a priori ;
no made-up systems octroygs to patient peoples.
Dupin treats the ripresentants like so many school-
boys. They divide themselves into bureaux to ini-
tiate propositions and there, it is to be hoped, two or
three may speak at a time. But under Dupin's eye
it is always "La Cloture! Assez! assez ! Aux
voix 1" (question.) Frequent longings for a declara-
tion de l'urgence, which dispenses with all the stages
of debate : or a fierce struggle for l'ordre du jour, so
as to change the suloect at least : still more for l'ordre
du jour motive, which at once closes a debate tedious
to all but the speakers, and enunciates a formula of
generality—mortal sin against rudiments of discussion.
L'ordre de jour is observed by the newspapers to
depend much on the jour, when the weather is fine it
is really is otivi by a ride i❑ the Bois de Bologne.
Every instant the President rings a large belll—the
members and President all address each other by tame,
hich has a disorderly effect. In April a most ludi-
crous and dangerous scene took place merely because
Dupin was replaced by a vice-president. The cry
was, to the bewildered gentleman in the chair, Couvrez-
yous ; put on your Hat, in sign of distress, pour
comble de malheur ! _ .

It is obvious that Louis Napoleon keeps a bright
look-out on the press and the theatres, which enable
him to feel the. national pulse. At the Cirque was
given a military melo-drama in tableaux, or a series
of scenes connected but slightly. Here the prestige
of Napoleon was tried on %fairly. At the Francais
great pains were taken in getting up Charlotte Corday,
to see how a reign crf terror would be likf-d.
This heroine was descended from Corneille,
greatest of Frenchmen. Another drama called
Month drew out whatever leaning there might be to
a Restoration ci l'Anglaise of the Count de Chainbord.
Till very lately, a notion prevailed that Louis Napo-
leon was acting the rhle of General Monek, who re-
stored our Charles 11. Napoleon himself by caress-
ing the nobles in the faubourg St. Germain, and by
recalling emigres, gave rise to the same idea. The
wish was father to the thought—they would feign
believe he aimed at a restoration. It was to extirpate
this notion among royalists that he shot d'Engbien—
a frightful coup cr etat, which, however, has been al-
ways misstated, and made no impression in France
till the Bourbons returned twenty years after, when
it became a cheval battaille for courtiers.

In the old Revolution, after going through all the
forms they could desire against Louis XVI., they
ended by saying that no one could reign innocently
(that is, no Frenchman). Luckily our President is
Corsico-Tascan, and partly Creole by extraction.
But besides the impossibility of any French head
resisting the dizziness of power, no two can act to-
gether, so you have neither unity nor ensemble,
neither a strong pull nor a pull together.
The police induced Chenu, Delahodde, and
Brevet, heroes of February, to witness against
themselves that no plan or rationale existed,
that all was chaos come again, and nothing certain
but enormous lying. Your triumvirate, consulate,
directory, were composed of the greatest possible
egotists without any centripetal force whatever, ex-
cept the old emigré priest and noble, Talleyrand,
Abbi Sieyes, Monk Fouche (who always retained
the appearance of a monk), and Bishop Talleyrand I
Such were the chiefs of a popular revolution or, to
change the order, three of the highest aristocrats in
Europe—Mirabeau, Lafayette, and Talleyrand again.
The latter became indispensable to every Govern-
ment, for which of course he was blamed.°

In the short space of seven years our England was
ruled by " The Long Parliament—a council of
officers—Barehones' Parliament—a council of officers
again—Protector by Instrument of Government—
Protector by Humble Petition and Advice—a third
council of officers—s third Long Parliament—a
Convention—a King." The best man would be he
who made himself necessary to each of these shapes—
whatever has but one figure perishes for that reason
Immota labescunt;
Sed qua perpetue aunt agitata, manent.
_

None of the French demagogues could exist but in some
conceited ephemeral government of their own; they
have but one shape : on whom could the mantle of
Fouquier Tinville descend ?
They frequently speak of themselves as a " nation
a malheur,' and make no secret about it. Mourons
—mourir—mourir pour la patrie—Symptomes dune
ambition rentrie. Racine had no intuition of raising
a laugh when he said :
'• Mourons, cher Onnin, moi come un Vizir, toi,
Comme le favouri d'un homme tel quo moi:
which is still more amusing when you consider that
the word Vizir means a Porter : the Sublime Porte
is strictly the sublime porter. Also, the " lady in
the case" must have been some fat young slave who

had-her choice, either to please her purchaser, or else
—the sack and the Bosphorus ! But before this
mourons they must take as many lives as possible.
They speak of 10,000 men killed in Paris in 1848 as
a simple, natural circumstance. Dans lea rivloutions,
on fait—this and that ; speaking with the " superfi-
cial decision" peculiar to France and always in
generalibus. A "few drops of Eldonine"—a little
patientia dubitandi, would do them a power of good.
The war of the Fronde during the minority of Louis
XIV. could only have taken place here.
Napoleon had his necessities, and was modified by
them. You cannot deny him the instinct of sove-
reignty, the innate desire to do
irresistible
, the strong di-
vinity of soul, the decided and vocation to
glory : still, be had his necessities, and sometimes
talked French (greatly as he preferred Ita-
lian) till he talked himself into French notions.
In this style he said that even if the invasion of
England from Boulogne failed, it would be an object
of éclat in the eyes of posterity. Besides (oh, Na-
poleon!)it would put one-half of England in
mourning for the other, which convinces me he
never meant it unless by way of diversion.
The extreme vanity of the French, and their appa-
rent contempt of death, whith Rochefoucault, draw-
ing his characters from the Fronde, decided was not
real, assimilates then to heathen Greeks and Romans.
,
potest qui mori non potest. Napoleon had less of
this feeling. " Why should he play the Roman fool,
and die ?" Nowhere out of France could such egotism
and vanity as that of Cicero and Uncle Pliny be found.
For which reason the painters, as Coypel, Poussin,
Lebrun, and especially David, show an affinity to the
ancients which is not all affectation.

* The lameness of Talleyrand, like that of Scott,
Byron, and Sir \V. Gell, not only confined him to the
library, but also gave him a stimulus to escape ridicule.

Sensibility would be a good pOrteress, if she had
but one hand; with her right she opens the door to
pleasure, but with her left to pain.—Eliza Cook's Journal.

OFFICIAL ANNOUNCEMENTS.—Patrick Burns, Esq.,
is appointed Provost-Marshal at Montserrat. Mr. Philip
Baker is appointed her Majesty's Vice-Consul at Acapulco.
We understand that the following changes are about to take
place in consequence of the decease of Mr. M'Neal, collector
of Customs at Stranraer, N.B. :—Mr. James thieve, comp-
trollor of Customs at Bridgewater, to be collector at Stran-
raer; Mr. William Deare, comptroller at Lyme, to be comp-
troller at ,Bridgewater; Mr. R. Jones, comptroller at Mary-
port, to be comptroller at Lyme. The office of comptroller
of Customs at Falmouth having become vacant by superan-
nuation, Mr. James Fayster, comptroller at Baeuinaris, will
its promoted to the former port, and will be succeeded at
Beaumaris by one of the clerks. now upon the establishment
at Portsmouth. By this arrangement an opportunity is
afforded for a reduction of the salary of the office at 1 leau-
maris, and for the 'abolition of a clerkship on the
Ports-
mouth establishment, by which a saving of 120/. per annum
will be effected.—Sunday Paper.