The Sun.
London, England, 1829-12-24 00:00:00

PARIS CORRESPONDENCE.

E We bare been obliged to let the (ounnuni-
cations from our Correspondent stand over for

Want of room.]

" PARIS, DEC. 19.

It is generally inculcat&? on strangers, and
particularly on Englishmen, on their arrival in
France, that it is imprudent and unsafe to engage
in conversation with Frenchmen on political sub-
jects. It is to be found indeed laid down as an.
indispensible rule of conduct in all the Paris
Guides and Continental road-hooks. I do not
mean to object to its adoption as a good rule in
mixed society, For the opinions of the various
parties into which France is at present divided
are so utterly incompatible with each other, that
there is not a foot of neutral ground between
the hostile camps on which a parley can be held.
It is different, however, in the camps them-
selves ; and if you have the advantoge of a petite
or even a grande entree at a Ministerial re-
union, or at a soiree of one of the leading mem-
bers of the cote gauche, during the present pe-
riod of excitement, you will find yourself com-
pelled to lay an absolute embargo on your lips
if you still persist in -adhering to the rule ofcou-
duct you received on your arrival. It is of
course to be understood that where politics are
admissible at all as a subject of conversation, the
political creed of the master of the house must
be taken as the standard of that of his guests
and it is the fault of the guests themselvos if they
visit a house where sentiments Are entertained,
and opinions enforced, at variance with the party
to which they happen to belong.

" I have been induced to make these ob-
servations from what fell under my notice a few
evenings ago, at the soiree of a leading Deputy
of the liberal party. In lounging through the
apartments, which had been thrown open for the
reception of the company, but which, from the
early hour for the evening, were not yet full, my
attention was attracted by the loud and declama-
tory tone in which one of the gentlemen who
had dined with us .was expatiating on the su-
periority of the practical jurisprudence of Eng-
land over that of France, which arose, he said,
from the personal respectability of the members
of the English bar, and of the judicial officers in
the service of the Crown. He then opened a
point blank battery en the corresponding officers
in France, and particularly on the Procureur du
Roi, whom he stigmatized in no very gentle
terms, as capable of every species of meanness
and espionage. I was greatly, at a loss to divine
the gentleman's object in this extraordinary
piece of declamation, and having called the at.
tention of a friend to what I had observed, I in-
quired if he could afford me any clue to the
orator's motives. He answered me by pointing
out a quiet-looking little gentleman, who, with
his hat under his arm, which indicated his being
an evening visitor, was standing apart from the
group to whom the speaker was addressing him-
self, but yet was evidently lending an attentive ear
to all that wassipassing around him. That little
man, said my friend, is a Procureur du Roi ; it is
supposed that he has been sent here to report
the style of conversation which passes in this
house, and whether the gentleman who declaims
with so much vehemence in favour of the men
and the institutions of England, of which he is
known to be no great admirer at heart, may
have adopted the idea that the Procureur dry Rol
has been sent here as a spy from the enemy's
camp, or whether the speech be intended to
rnaik his disapprobation of the Procurcur's
appearance at a liberal reunion, it is very certain
that the observations which have excited your
curiosity are levelled at the stranger in question,
who, whatever may have been his motives for
coming here, will probably not soon be tempted
to renew the experiment.
" A fact like this, although not of much
intrinsic value, serves to point out the extremely
sensitive dispositions of the party at present in
power on the subject of their stability in office.
A similar degree of morbid sensibility is
ascribed to Charles the Tenth and several
members of his family, as to the durability
of the Monarchy itself. Apprehensions
are entertained on the one hand of the
democratical or revolutionary party, which
although not certainly to be despised as trifling
in numbers, or insignificant in influence, is yet,
I believe, very far from being so widely diffused
as a late writer in the Morning Chronicle
would have us to believe. On the other hand
they are in terror for the more limited party,
which consists of the personal admirers of Napo-
leon, and which in the nature of things must
now be rapidly diminishing in numbers as well
as in influence. The feeling of insecurity to
which I have alluded is, however, strongly
evinced by the numerous prosecutions which are
daily instituted against engravers and print-sel-
lers, dealers in toys and bronzes, and indeed
every profession which French ingenuity can
apply to the purpose of recalling the victories
or other popular actions of the late Emperor,
or of reminding the people of France that he
has still a representative ill the person of the
young Duke of Reichstadt. A distinction
indeed is attempted to be drawn between those
busts and portraits of the Emperor which may be
supposed to call to mind his military reputa-
tion, or those splendid achievements which
may be regarded in some degree as national pro-
perty, and what has reference merely to Napoleon
himself, in the character he assumed as the head
of a new dynasty. The necessary licence for
the sale of figures and engravings appears to be
seldom withheld from representations of the Ex-
Emperor himself, while those of his son arc
strictly prohibited, under pretence of their ex-
citing to a spirit of rebellion. A new ,Istance
of the activity of the police in the repression of
such rebellious symptoms has just occurred in
the apprehension of an actor at a provincial
theatre, for having imitated the dress and manners
of Napoleon on the stage. On the 16th instant
this actor was brought before the tribunal of
eorectional police at Chartres, on the charge of
having exhibited signs and symbols calculated to