The Sun. — 1858-11-26 (London, England)

BAROMETER-29.38. WIND, S.W. ; light, with very mild weather, and sun. shine.  The French police court has sentenced M. MoNTALEY BERT to imprisonment, with a fine, and that is all, perhaps, that the judges see in their decision. They are but the tools of the " antechamber," and of the Imperial chamber itself, and have nothing to do but to turn with the shaft that moves them. But all Europe sees a sentence passed by the moving power, intentionally on England, uninteqionally, on itself. And, of all parties sentenced, one alone is branded with everlasting disgrace. The Cautit was indicted for bringing the Empire into contempt—but it may be safely affirmed that nothing written by M. MONTALEMBERT has brought the Empire into such contempt as this prosecution, and, this sentence by a servile court. There is now no evading the disgrace. The EMPEROR might, if he were in the cue for magnanimity—one which he has not thought it worth while to assume lately—decline inflicting the imprisonment and fine ; but he can never efface from the Empire the stigma of having attempted to silence the last breathings of French genius. Our readers have seen the several counts of V. i Imperial indictment of genius ; they have probably, most of them, either read the article itself, or the passages selected for prosecution. This notable trial, though crowded into the corner of a subordinate French court, cannot be kept in a corner. The subject matter of the prosecution being now in E iglish as well as in French, lies before the whole civilised world. Every man of tolerable education can sit in judgment on the true character of M. MONTALEMBERT'S pamphlet. Is it seditims ? Does it aim at the subversion of false opinions by unfair means ? Are the attacks upon Imperial laws other than those to which any laws ought to be liable--attacks of a kind which, if laws cannot endure, they ought to be repealed ? Is there a word beyond what a professed politician might most reasonably write ? Anything, to be brief, which could be objected to for a moment by an intelligent and honest Government? Such questions have already been answered in the negative throughout educated Europe, and educated America will, as soon as she has the document before  her, give the same answer. So far as Imperial laws and the Imperial regime generally are concerned, the only king of the prosecuted expressions is their truth. The language cannot be called fierce, low, or provocative of insurrection. It is satire, no doubt, but satire so graceful, so unenvenomed that, though certain ministerial delinquents_ must feel its pungeneyfit was theirs to meet by the pen what the pen only could meet, and what it was the last infamy of cowardice to meet by imprisonments and fines. Revenge, no doubt, is sweet, but it cannot always be taken with impunity. A man may be provoked to the last degree by an irritating woman's tongue, but he had better, for his credit's sake amongst men, not seek satisfaction for the provocation by means of the superiority of masculine to feminine strength. And despotic Governments, their fists loaded with laws made for the purpose of crushing any victim they please, can beat his brains out if they like. But what have they done, after all, except to brand themselves as intellectual impotents and tyrants ? Lours NAPOLEON has not on his side—has not positively one writer who could give MONTALEMBERT satire for satire, wit for wit. It is, perhaps, no discredit to a Cabinet that •its members should be men of business rather than writers ; but humiliating, indeed, is it that any Government, professing to be the choice of the nation, should not be able to find a single pen, not even a hireling one, to answer an elegantly hostile political pamphlet—that a Government of intellectual France, the country which boasts itself of being the Athens of Europe, should be obliged to resort to brute force in its conflict with genius. All in vain ! Genius is of far too ethereal a quality to be murdered or silenced by such means. Blows like these but show its vitality. MONTALEMBERT'S dungeon and fine will give his sentiments voice  .„. : , 11'.. ~11,11:11, 1, .'s6ci.6(.o 1.!14, ~' . ~,,,,,, . .e 0 , .—....41.„c4N1.- , : ,:,:t.vi, f.. „:: ....... 411idaii •VIIIMIb.. ..., s___ \do,. ..4060,1~. , ,;74-.1;..,,...,,,„..., ~,,e' '" ~ " -,. • 10.;•.;;;•• r. .......