The recent and passing ag...
The Times, 1824-08-07T00:00:00

Tle recent and passing agitations of the French funds, with other causes of a niature less obvious to general obser- vation, in(luce our foreign corresponidents to conijecture that the inactive conditioni of public affairs is likely to undergo some speedy change-whethler for good or evil. Our ac- counts troln Paris ot the 3d and 4th inst. narrate circum- stances concerning the KING personally, which must be lookedl at with conisiderable interest, althouglh llot, perhaps, as affording grounds ibr such decided prognustics in rela- tion to Hlis AMajesty's life as if he hadi not been already subject to crises like that no.v describett to us. On Suu- day last, at 10 in the evening, there was some confusion at St. Cloud. The KING had been alone in his Cabinet, and 1ast asleep in an arn-chair. After waiting for halt an hour, and hearing no sort ofi noise, the attendants in the next room thou4it it right to enter the KING's apartment, where they found Louis in a violent fit, anti with a coun- tenance quite distorted. A general alarin followed. The physicians were sent for, anid the Princes apprised of the KING'S danger. But in the mean time LOUIS recovered a little; and on liearix-g that the family had been raised, became so excessively irritated, that on the Prinices hur- ryipg to the chamber-door, lie exclaimled, with all his miglit, " Do they think me dead already ?"' h'l'eir IIigh- nesses, it appears, on this hint, rant off without seeing his Majesty. The next day Louis was a little better ; but he is kept alive by constan't medicine, anti the most assidu'. ous care on the part of those about him. If he had reason to suspect how much, they say that his anger would be ungovernable. Speculations were pretty common on Tuesday, that the session then about to be closed would re-open in the course of November; for aiother experiment with the projet for reducing thc reizte:. M. VIt rLE, says report, has pledged himself to this measUive, on condition that the contractqrs shall keep up the price of stocks, and that a new batch of Peers will be created to guard agaiist another disappoint- ment. The extreme complaisance of this Minister towards Lord HARROWDY on Sunday last, at St. Cloud, is thought by the French Court-calculators, an inauspicious omnen for the solidity of his power. The session was closed on I'uesdav, and a suspicion prevailed that the censorslhip of the journals would be forthwith announced by pro- clan',ation. The pretext for' so monstrous an over- throw of the inestimable right of discussion was to be, say our correspondents, " the gravity of circumnstances." But what offensive anid odious policy this most edious of all encroachments would be destined to assist, we are not yet informed. With regard to some of its consequences, immediate and remote, there is less difficulty in judging. In the first instance, the journals are, to every good end, ex- tinguished. The censors are to be unknown-a masked executioner will stifle, unseen, the most powerful adl most useful offspring of the national intellect ; the people will believe nething that they read, and suspect far worse of public affairs than wlhat the jealousy of this secret tribunal conceals from them; klistrust and exasperation will grow up anid ripen in the midlst of the compuisory dlarkness; the Government will tremble at the awf ul silence which they have themselves enforced; tlhe imnpossibility of maintaining such a system in the actual state of France, will be onee more, after this third or fourth unsuccessful trial, made manifest; and the censorship will become, as it has already, a burnt-offering to the safety of its own selfislh atlvocates and adlvisers.