The Sun. — 1852-01-27 (London, England)

TUESDAY EVENING, JANUARY 27, 1852.  the faintest murmur of our reprobation be heard in the streets of Paris? If there are Napoleonist ideas, there are also Briti:h ideas. Louis Napoleon industriously aud pointedly reverts to the status quo of 1814, desires France to forget everything that has happened in the intetval, and, his uncle having committed a murder, demands to rifle the pockets of the slain. That status quo was one of aggression against the whole world, and it is vain to deny—we wish it could be denied—that aggression has actually begun. These six weeks have already reduced Belgium to dependence. The Belgian Minister receives Imperial missive?, and French police agents actually keep watch within sight of the Royal and Legislative palaces of Brussels. Why are we to wait till we are touched ourselves? It Is of small avail to do so. Sir Francis believes in developments; so do we. He says that self-government invariably leads to despotism. We say that political despotism invariably leads to international aggression. No absolute monarch in France ever was content with France, or even contented himself with extra-European conquests. By speaking out in time, and by showing that the lessons of history are not thrown away upon us, we may possibly avert the natural consequences of the French usurpation. By holding our tongues, we should be both hastening and deserving those consequences. We are no great admirers of a Republican Government, but, as the Example of the United States sufficiently proves, we have more affinity with it than with despotism. The descendants of Englishmen may become citizens, but they will never become slaves. Selfgovernment, which Sir Francis considers so fatal to order, entering largely into our own institutions, we have every reason to feel more indulgent, or rather to show more respect for the Government of February, 1848, than for that of December, 1851, for the former, in fact, with all its faults, was much more like our own. But, if the Republic has failed, whose fault is it? Sir Francis says, " Only two months ago there existed between the French and British people the most friendly relations." Under what form of government was that ? He speaks of the miserable results of that sel;-government which, since 1848, has been afflicting and desolating "all classes of the community." What conseq,et,ces does he speak O? On the whole, France has effected a censideraele improvement on the state into which, in the first instance, the revolution had plunged her. The chief disquietudes of the last twelve months, the decline of public confidence, and the mutual suspicion of classes, have arisen, not from the Republican part of the Government, but from the notorious intrigues of Louis Napoleon to overthrow that part, and to do, in fact, what he has done. To compare the troubles of the Republic with the tranquillity of the despotism is, in truth, only to compare Louis Napoleon with himself— to compare the struggle fur power with the acquisition of power. But the respect with which, as Sir Francis says, we have ever treated the Republic, shows that we have no disposition to " insult" the French people. At this moment we do not believe them to be free agents, and therefore we put them out of the question altogether. As for our insults to the army, considering that if one musket is fired in our streets the whole metropolis rings with it for a century after, and it is recordedin monuments and stigmatized by anniversaries, the French army must not take it amiss if we cannot appreciate the massacres of the Boulevards. In this respect we must own to a natural difference of tastes. As for our insults to the clergy, considering that the Church of France claims to be also the Church of England, and at least one Parisian journal enters into our theological controversies with the most delightful freedom of remark and the most amiable indifference to English sympathies, civil as well as spiritual, we really think that it is no great impertinence on our part to notice the, significant interchange of civilities and pledges between the high-minded clergy and the pious Prince President of France.