London, Monday, September...
The Times, 1824-09-27T00:00:00

'I e Etoile, having worn out the stock of briglgt sayings and Royal excellencies which it ha(l providedI for the ser- vice of a niew Sovereign, employs its retrospective faculty, and sings of a grand danger vith which the French na- tion was threatened for some time previous to the demise of Louis XVIII. Shadowy ahd mysterious are the indica- tions given as to the authors and instrum-ents of this intend- ed calamity. The Etoile descends to nlo pai tieulars-time, place, and person being in the nature of edged tools with a certain class of historians. We have it, however, darkly hinted, that the death of the late King Lours, was pre- fixed as the signal for somne extraordinary chlange in the French Government, or at all events in the person of its ruler. It is said, that there were conspirators, and that their audacity was much increased (as well it might) by the support they met with from the very functionaries of the Government, whose duty it had been to expose them-that they made " no secret" of the successor whom they had pitcied upon for Louis XVIII., and who was not the soin of the former usurper, btut *" the illegitimate vhild of a { Sovereign of tbe second rank," anid a Calvinist into the bargain ! Really, for people who are represented as rath^r glorying in their frankness, we have not often found a secret published with less approach to indiscretion ; for whlo the Calvinist, the bastard, or the second-rate Sovereign mlay be, on whose behalf such mighty things were to have been perpetrated by conspirators, partly eonsisting of " men in (,ffice," we are not much better 611tliflo'l to gucan clhal if tbe secret had never been disclosed to us. It is further affirmed, that insidious writings, circulated by others of the pahlic finetionaries, dispose(d the mindls of the people to violate the ancient lawvs of the monarchy: the course pursued in England towvartds JAMES 11.-the bills of nimitation and( exclusion, and so forth, werebandied about, we are assured, so freely, that every French shoeblack was familiar with them. lThe main point, nevertheless, in whieh the parallel failed between the Duke of YOORK and the C(omte i AaTOEs, does not happeni to be touched upon by this loyal article-writer in the E,toile-namely, that the former Prince was a Papist, among a Protestant n,ation, the latter among those who, if not Papists, are at least as much Papists as they are any thing else. " Btt "was the conspiracy accomplished ?" (asks this iniquisitive writer) ; that is to say, ,,as the direct succession to the Crown of Fran ee set aside? an(d did the illegitimate Cal- vinist-that intf.'resting unknown-aseend the clhair of St. Louis? The answer, indeed, is full of caution, for he tells us, that "of this there is still nuch reason to doubt"- to doubt the fact of the Comte d'ARTors having been ousted from his inlheritalnee; anid therefore to hope that hIe may one (lay or the otlher, under the tile of CIT 1usLES X., be acknowledged Kiing of FRANcE-a doubt anid a hope, which must needs be consolatory to the House of Bova- BON ! The gist of' the whole story we take to be this- that the Eloile is desirous to show lhow naturally all French- men, but those of its own precise party, have been disposed, whether in or out of office, to conspireagainst the BounBoN Government. We wonder where were the scissors of the Censors when so wrerchled a humnbug was presented to themn. I.O.Nn)v. MONDAY, SRPTE.AlBER 27. 1824.