The Sun.
London, England, 1845-01-25 00:00:00

Ober/tins '2mint

LONDON, SATURDAY, JANUARY 25, 1845.

The leader of the French Opposition is an aspiring
politician, a smart orator, and probably a profound
philosopher, but he is no statesman. He is carried
away by a rage for talking, starts from one point to
another with inconceivable rapidity, hurries on with
a volubility which almost distances the most attentive
hearer, and out of the fulness of his heart his mouth
speaketh. Such old-fashioned statesmen as TALLEY-
RAND, and METTERNICH, and NEBSELRODE would
not have allowed M. TUIERS to occupy the lowest
office in their Cabinet, or see the title of a State
paper, much less copy it, or even approach any public
office where he had the slightest chance of obtaining
political information, for the best reason in the world,
because he is utterly destitute of a quality which is
indispensable in a man trusted with secrets. The
wonder now ceases that Lord PALMERSTON so clearly
divined his course of politics when he happened to
to be at the head of the French Cabinet, for if he lets
out such important secrets from the tribune, as he did
in the discussion on the Syrian expedition, and as he
has now disclosed in his speech on the Address, what
an ample insight into his foreign policy might be ob-
tained at his evening parties. By his own words was
he condemned when he attempted to justify himself
for siding with MEHEMET ALI against England,
Austria, and Prussia. His object was to obtain ad-
ditional power for France in the East to compensate
for his failure in the West. This he fully admitted,
and he has admitted with equal precision and fulness
the causes of the utter isolation of France from all
the great Powers of the Continent. He makes no
secret of his intentions. France will not rest satisfied
till the victories and glories of the Empire
are again realised, till the Rhine is the boun-
dary, and her influence is paramount in Italy,
Egypt, and Turkey. The present, of course,
is not the proper season. The party to which
he belongs is too well watched, and the feelings ar-
rayed against any extension of the French frontier
are too strong ; but he waits his time. "I am con-
vinced," says he, " that if at a later period war should
break out, we have a chance of finding different com-
binations in Europe ;" and then he draws a very sig-
nificant contrast :—" In time of peace, we must ob-
serve treaties; in time of war there is no limit to
ambition but the means of success" (En temps de
guerre, it n'y a de liinite d'arabition que le suceas).
To war, therefore, he looks, and he tells the three
great Powers of the Continent what they may ex-
pect when treaties are no longer to be observed.
The Rhine, Italy, and the East the three
darling objects of NAPOLEON still dazzle
the eyes of M. THIERS, and prevent France
from fcrming an alliance either with Rus-
sia, Austria, or Prussia. • These are his words :
" The first condition of an alliance with Russia would
be the sacrifice of our interests in the East. An
alliance with Austria would sanction for ever her rule
over Italy; and that with Prussia would be to confine
us for ever in the limits fixed by the treaties of 1815.
Are not these sacrifices ?" This candid announce-
ment of his foreign policy is important news to the
powers interested, and will make them more resolved
than ever to shun the very semblance of an alliance
with a nation that, under such guidance, would only
seek their destruction. But what must his own party
think of a leader who can thus blab out such mo-
mentous truths—truths that mark them as dangerous
neighbours, deceitful friends, and determined enemies?
England, too, knows what M. THIERS means by
alliance. He would hold with her so long as
it suited his purpose. He would not risk
the loss of Algeria, or the destruction of every
French ship in the Mediterranean by madly going to
war single-handed, but wait for " different combina-
tions," and then make the attack. Should M.Tnieas,
therefore, ever be again placed at the head of affairs,
he must be watched like a tiger. The great Powers
will be forced to maintain, what is worse than open
war, an armed peace, and spend vast revenues in
compelling France to observe treaties to which she is
solemnly engaged. But, fortunately, M. THIERS'
ability and prudence are not equal to his malignity.

The remarkable correspondence between the Earl
of ABERDEEN and the Lord RANELAGII, which the
latter has just published under the title of "Legal
Order and Constitutional Rights, as defined by the
Earl of ABERDEEN," has scarcely received from our
Contemporaries that degree of candid consideration
which they are usually by no means backward in
awarding to the merits, such as they may be, of con-
temporary polemics. Lord RANELAGII, it will be
remembered, some few years ago thought proper to
throw himself, with a degree of unquestionable en-
thusiasm, into the struggle for the succession to the
Spanish Monarchy, that was sustained with so much
sanguinary perseverance between the Carlists and
the Christinos. His Lordship served under the
banner of Absolutism against that of Constitutional
Liberty. By these designations, at any rate, the two
parties in the civil war which then raged in Spain
reciprocally distinguished one another. We have
always denounced the disastrous ambition of Don
CARLOS, and canr.ot affect, therefore, any sympathy
with the choice of a young English nobleman who
had it in his power to draw his sword, for the other
party, or the cause of what professed to be free in-
stitutions, and were largely modelled on those of his
native country. We find it difficult to imagine how
a free and enterprising spirit, such as Lord RANE-
LAGII seems to be animated by, can voluntarily have
attached himself to the desperate fortunes of an un-
popular pretender to an European Crown, and a
gloomy, bigoted vassal to a superstitious Church. We
should have presumed that all the chivalry of an
Englishman's prepossessions would have attached him
to the cause of two Queens, contending for a mo-
narchy bequeathed to the younger, by the solemnly
declared will and renewed act of her dying father,
together with the guardianship of her person to the
elder, the wife, the widow, and the mother of a
Sovereign. But we are far from impeaching the
motives, or doubting the sincerity, of Lord RANE-
LAGII'S partisanship. It is lamentable, in our view
of the matter, that he should have sided with, and
fought for, the friend and patron of the execrable
CABRERA ; but had he given his services to the other
side, we must confess with horror, that he would have
been leagued with that bloodstained monster, NINA,
or, haply, serving now with the contemptible and
unprincipled NARVAEZ. The mistake into which
Lord RANELAGII was betrayed, in the first instance,
seems to have been that which was common to so
many other of our countrymen at the same time—
namely, to believe that it could be worth while to
fight at all, and under any circumstances, for a
country and a people, and institutions social and
political, so utterly debased, disorganised, and worth-
less, as those of Spain.
With regard to the " Correspondence" we advert
to, it arises mainly out of the circumstance of Lord
RANELAGII having been charged by Don CARLos to
place in the hands of the Earl of ABERDEEN
a certain letter, authorising Lord RANELAGII
"to make certain propositions to her MAJESTY'S
Government, on the part of his Royal High-
ness, having for their object the marriage of
the Prince, his son, with the Queen of SPAIN."
The nature of this communication will be readily
collected in the extracts from the pamphlet that we
publish in another part of our paper. We are bound,
at the outset, to declare that we never rose from the
perusal of any letters with more unrningled satisfac-
tion at the dignified as well as discreet tone—the