The Liverpool Standard and General Commercial Advertiser.
Liverpool, Merseyside, England, 1835-02-20 00:00:00

the French be for the first time desirous of trading with
us on principles of reciprocity, we can see no objections
to our exchanging our reform dramas and farces of the
last two sessions for theirs of the present and next ses-.
sion.. If they accede to this proposal, we hope that Dr.
BOWRINO, of Kilmarnock, will be sent to Paris to nego-
c late a treaty on the subject.

But to our story. A priest of the name of PAGANEL
had presented a petition to the Chamber of Deputies, in
which he accused the Archbishop of Paris of having
fraudulently appropriated to his own use a million of
francs which belonged to the government, and which had
been placed in his hands for safety during the barricade
and paving-stone war of the THREE GLORIOUS DAYS
The defence of the archbishop was, that the patriots of
Paris, at the time when they were covered with "glory,"
broke into his house and stole the money. M. LAFITTE,
who, though a beggar, is still a deputy, and several
others, took the part of the priest, and insisted that the
allegations of his petition should be inquired into. Ano-
ther deputy, however, of the name of BAUD; came for-
ward and stated—

"That he, from his official functions during and subsequent to
the revolution of July, knew for a fart, that during the 28th and
29th of July the prisons were opened with violence, and all the
worst criminals were let out, and thrown upon the capital. Even,
he added, those condemned to the galleys, and those who were
waiting for the sentence to be pronounced upon them—all of
these were thrown pell-mell upon the town, and it was, there-
fore, not it all surprising that the sum of 750,000 francs should
be, as it was, stolen by these scoundrels from the Archbishop's
palace."

This statement, made by a gentleman of unquestion-
able credibility, and who at the time to which he re-
ferred filled the office of Prefect, and was consequently
in possession of the whole facts, created a tremen-
dous sensation in the chamber. When a policeman at
the doors of a theatre calls out "Mind your pockets,"
the feeling that is produced in those who have got any-
thing to, lose is rather unpleasant. The `depiities did
not fear losing any thing, but they had some very natu-
ral misgivings lest they should in some way or other be
mixed up with the robbery. M. LAFITTE faintly at-
tempted to defend the good citizens of Paris against so
serious a charge ; but, from the moment it was made, and
the heroes of the THREE Dim were accused of theft and
were proved to be housebreakers and assassins, the scoun-
drels of the gaols, and the 'enfranchised criminals of the
galleys, all idea of inquiring into the matter was aban-
doned, the priest's petition was shuffled into the coal-box,
the robbery and charge of malversation were hushed up,
and the chamber returned to the order of the day !

A more barefaced and scandalous transaction can
hardly be conceived. The deputies had before them a
grave charge against a dignitary of the church. He is
accused by a priest of having robbed the treasury of pub-
lic money ; and, while he alone was implicated, the
chamber was willing enough to inquire; but so soon as
other parties are charged with the robbery, and these the
gaol-birds of the revolution, the thieves who placed
Louis PHILIPPE on
,the throne, the blackguards who
shouted vine la liberte ! from behind the barricades, mur-
dering by day and plundering by night--:-so soon as these
worthy patriots are implicated the honest deputies are
silent. Like the withered jades in Macbeth, each ho-
nourable member places his finger on his mouth and
vanishes.

Now we contend, that had there been a spark of honour,
or pride, or any sense of justice in the breasts of these
representatives of France, they were bound to inquire
into the case. It is true the priest PAGANEL might have
been some poor and desperate rogue utterly unworthy of
credit; but still, not for his sake, but for the sake of the
accused archbishop, they were called npon to inquire.
They were bound to extricate him if innocent from so
vile a charge, and set him right in the estimation of the
public.' They refuse to perform this act of justice—why ?
Simply because they would thereby expose the secrets of
the infamous revolution of 1830—they would neces-
sarily bring the real actors in that affair before the world
—they would show that Louts PUILIPFE is a gaol-born,
thief-made king-7-that he owes his present high station
to the galley-slaves and the scum of France—that crimi-
nals invested him with his sovereign dignities, that
assassins were his body guards, and that the_ most poi-.
futed Wretches on the face of the earth cried,

" All hail, Egalitt
Thou shalt be kinghereafter!"

But they had other reasons for refusing an act of jus-
tice to the archbishop of Paris—reasons of a stilt more
delicate nature. That the patriotic thieves of the most
demoralized city in Europe accomplished the revolution
is admitted on all hands. M. BAUDE. the Prefect, proves
it. The prisons were opened—the galley slaves unfet-
tered—the convicts in the condemned cells released and
armed—all this is proved. And it would be no charge
against the provisional government, or against the re-
volutionary party, to say, that these miscreants did rob
and plunder in all directions, because such conduct is
natural to such persons, for when they robbed the
archbishop of his money, his goods, and chattels, they
were only labouring in their vocation ; but here the im-
portant question would arise—who liberated these men ?
Who opened the prison doors, and said to the robber,
the highwayman, and the assassin—" Citizens! you are
free Y" This is the tender point. The gaols were
opened by the revolutionary party—by the enemies of
CHARLES X.—by the friends of LOUIS PHILIPPE—by the
he roes and patriots of la belle France; and hence we
must conclude that any inquiry into that subject would
have led to some very awkward disclos.ures. We do not
wonder at the subsequent silence of M. LAFITTE. He
has had experience in the ways of such people, and
therefore is naturally a cautious constable; but besides,
he is so deep in the plot, as Loins PHILIPPE well knows,
that, although he has been reduced to pauperism by the
revolution, he dares not unveil the conduct of the more
active and infamous contrivers of it. He nevertheless
has been punished severely ; but there are bankers in
England with just as much brains as poor LAFITTE, and
who are worth a great deal more money, who would,
if they could, plunge England into the same vortex of
convulsion, without having sense to perceive that they,
like LAFITTE, would be the first sacrifices to their own
popular and sanguinary measures. The intelligence of
the British people preserves these men from annihila-
tion. They are moths that would rush into the flame ;
but thanks to Providence, to a generous King under
providential guidance, and to a moral and religious peo-
ple, our revolutionary fusion has only produced smoke.
Had our GROTES, PATTISONS, LLOYDS, and others, been
Frenchmen, in 1830, they would now be living on
cha-
rity.

But what an impressive lesson does all this teach! It
may be for good and wise purposes that the vicious and
depraved—that the very criminals of a nation—are
made the instruments by which old dynasties are re-
moved and new ones set up—by which the KING of
Kings inflicts his judgments upon, and speaks in awful
words of terror to, the worms who are the petty kings of
the earth—it is no doubt for wise and good purposes
that the dust of ALEXANDER may be used to stop a bung•
hole, the pages of SOCRATES and BACON to line a trunk,
and the leaves of the sacred oracles themselves to light a
cheroot in Hindostan—all this, no doubt, is permitted,
for the spirit of OMNIPOTENCE is a spirit of sublime be-
nevolence, exalted above the feelings of human infirmity,
as the everlasting hills are above the caves of the ocean,
and as impassably separated from our grasp as eternity
is from time--all this, we say, is permitted, ordered,
wisely and well ; but we cannot help thinking that such
intermittent moral and political convulsions, throwing
up, as it were, the weeds of the depths below to the
heights above, are not intended to have any stability.
BUONAPARTE rose like -a golden vulture from the
blood-ruts and the carcass-feast of the first revolu-
tion. He was the avenger of the crimes of France.
Those of the unprincipled and glutted brood who had
escaped the guillotine perished by the sword. Those who
fanned the flame of civil war, and had distinguished
themselves in the cause of liberty by decollating their
friends, were led by the imperial general into foreign
lands, and their bones were left to bleach where their
names were unknown—their crimes being expiated where
even their infamy could not be immortalized. But Buo-
NAPARTE!—where is he ?—aye, where ? The meteor