The Sun.
London, England, 1829-10-19 00:00:00

SPIRIT OF THE PUBLIC JOURNAT

We publish a letter, under tysig,patursri
E., which is calculated to excite sotitetTOts;
Our readers will see that it follows up and" Con•
firms, by further and more extensive illustrations,-
our view of the effects produced in France by the
dexterous exercise of Russian - money and influ-
ence upon the prejudices of the French multi-.
tude, through the medium of certain members o.•
the Parisian press. We really had hoped, within
these very few years, that the political mind of
France had become less puerile and inconsequent
than the director of the Russian policy in the
French capital appears to have been justified in
his expectation of finding it. That any nation
of grown men should have suffered themselves
to be diverted from time means of encountering a
vast and present danger,—and diverted, too, by
the agency of the same Power from which the
peril manifestly proceeded,—to the indulgence
of old enmities which have long since lost their
object, against a neighbour from which it is
physically impossible that France or Europe
should have cause to fear the least attempt at a
disturbance of any of their existing interests,— •
would seem incredible, if it had not occurred re-
cently before our eyes. It was not from igno-
rance of the fact stated by our correspondent--
for the French journals were full of hints upon .
the subject,—nor from disbelief of what is so
characteristic of the restlessness of French ambi-
tion, that we abstained from alluding to the no-
table project for recovering the Rhenish fron- -
tier,—that is, for destroying the kingdom of tlse
Netherlands, breaking up the whole territorial
" settlement of Europe," and lighting up a war
throughout the whole continent, which has for
some-time East been bewildering the imagina-
tions of so many coteries at Paris. 13ut the
truth is, that the revival of this scheme has not
been the principal, though it has been unkiubt_
edly one hindrance to a co-operation of the
French Government with that of Wand, for
the defeat of the Russian projects, The chief '
and most effective obstacle was, that Russia had
engaged in a course of aggressions upon the
equilibrium of Europe, and which England be-
held with dissatisfaction and alarm, and which,
for that, andfor no.other, reason, it was fit and
just that Frenchmen should regard with favour.
But the mystification prepared for the French
Cabinet itself' may have been, and possibly was, •
of the nature at once iniquitous and extrava-
gant, asserted by our correspondent, when he
alludes to the ground-work of a treaty, where-
by the French Court was to have menaced
Austria by an army of observation placed upon
the eastern frontier, while Russia should thus
have elbow-room allowed her to prosecute and
finish her scheme of destruction against Turkey,
We do not mean to express surprise or indipTia-
tion at the appetite felt in France for an exten-
sion of her frontier to the Rhine ; but could any
thing exceed the bad faith, or baseness of Rus-
sia, were we to believe for one moment that she
had seriously meditated a plot for annihilating
the Belgic monarchy, for mutilating her own
sworn ally, and confiding proteoe, Prussia, and •
for breaking to pieces, within 14 years, the
work of that solemn Congress, at which the
1;oh tee any such
genius of Russia so solemnly and formally
llyriir'soi
ssitd.epd.eterNsbol,vgthhatmiesant
notto
impossible.lnol:
of Belgium and
proaysultches
to the French
Crown. Russia knows better than to strengthen .
r accessionssia n
a power already
thei lew embarrassing
pu
formidable, and when ruled
by a Govollulent in accordance with the people, •
so timssailable by Russian menaces as France •
may be considered, even with her actual frontier.
The more characteristic policy of Russia would
be, to disperse into many hands the force which
might be eventually employed against herself,
rather than to concentrate any large portion of
it under a single Government. She would be
inclined to weaken Austria, France, and Eng-
land, and to raise to a certain level the minor
states of Europe. Instead of destroyine.
gium, to strengthen it, even by a transfer of
some of the Rhenish
*provinces from Prussia;
to indemnify Prussia by the dominions of
Hanover ; to multiply the, secondary a»,1:
third rate powers ; but to have no first-rate sii„..
narchy but one. All this, whether really; medi-
tated or not by Russia, might corres with eon—
her position, and with the graspins, Views which
she develops; but the plan 'which the Paris
Liberals and Buonaparte-resnnants flattered them-
selves with seeing realized, was hinted at by
Russia, for no other end than to amuse their
vanity, and to turn the French policy out of the
debt eOgi'SC, which was to join hands cordially
with Great Britain, and to leave matters of pri.
vate interest to keep cold for an idler season, less
pressing upon the commonwealth of Europe.
If the Vroch are now duped, it will be, as it .
often has. keen, by their own oveTwening cre.
utility in those who well know how to bait the
trap for the eagerness and shallowness of tkleir
national self-love.-..-Thries‘
TO THE, EDITOR OF THE TIMES.
political article in your raper of this
morning cannot fail producing eor.isiderable sense-
tion in Paris, Its view of the R g
Russian a grandize-
Awns, and its alarming consequences, ill b e appre-
ciated in that capital, deapite of the vto • l ence of party
spirit. It will hs productive of public good, by
provoking dis-ou,sr.lon on matters which the Liberal
Journals have slightly glanced at, or perfidiously
misrepresented, in calling to their aid the anti-
X 06,11 feeling which prevails through France. The
principal cause of this animosity is not developed in
your article, and if you, Mr. Editor, are of opinion-
that my ex,phuation is of interest you will give • pub-
licit,to this letter.
It is proper to premise, that the national • •
pep-
dices had been gradually diminishing from the time
the Army of Occupation quitted the French terri-
tctry,s-_-.that during the short administration of Mr.
Canning they were succeeded by a warm desire fel;
political rapprochement, which led to 11. '•
cot mpmty
towards, individuals, but that after the death -Jf this
tatestnan, and during the remainder of the
Ministere-Vilidp this good feeling declined, or rather
became totally extinct, though, e.wi•ug to the cen,ure
and other causes, the hoc,,ttie vri:iters in the news-
papers were constrained to pr4rtial silence. It was
not before M. Martigntic and his liberal colleagues
succeeded. to M. de Vinele, that the smothered flame
haot Ibrth with almost unparalleled violence, and
that questions were publicly mooted which were
only dar!oiy 'hinted at before. Among these, tbzi
principal owe, the extension of the French territrAy,
sa irresistole for the national pride, was adrdoated
and insisted on by publicists of all partieP,,- and they
found partisans in every faction of the i2hamber and
throughout the whole population, ';:itras and liberals.
The arguments advanced in. support of this doe-
trino were, that the territozy of France was of less
j extent than in 1789; that the fortresses established
sJong the line of the Low Countries left open that
part of the 1-.lngdom to foreign invas' • that
, the
ethe Iwropean States had become more powerful ond that France c‘ould now only numbered
be amidst
the ;unions a secondary rank.
'' Aussigux Ambassador availed himself adroitl Hi this direction of ITlen's ininck, which was encouY-
rago by seveal Ministers, especially Hyde de NCI!".
Yu .11 Anti ma the time when time Muscovite armies
were wested by the elitergy of the Turks., and the