The Express. — 1852-08-02 (London, England)

LONDON. MONDAY. AUGUST 2.  THE ministerial simmeas in France invest French politics with a Dew Utmost, but whilst we see some semblance of strength given to branches of Louis HP rots:tees government by the adhesion of DEOUVM DE t'llevs and M. FOULD, we become conscious of a positive injury inflicted on it by the letter of ODILOX B tRROT to the electors of the department of the Aisne. This letter is worthy of the character of the man whose name it bears. More feeling and forgivinf than the sententious refusals of CAVAIONAC and AUeIIER to swear allegiance to the new order of things in France, it is equally unqualified in its repudiation of the worthless and shameless forgery of a free constitution. The deceptive forms of universal suffrage and of departmental elections, as it is truly said, seem only to have been preserved for the purpose of tyranny, and M. Rumor justly judges that the first and highest duty which he owes to country and to conscience is to withhold, under all circumstances, his sanction from a usurpation of power so unblushing, compassed and maintained by means so utterly beyond the pale of ordinary law. For many years, and under many changes and vicissitudes, M. BARROT had fulfilled the trust of popular representative. lie had likewise occupied the pest ot.Minister, both under the regime of Levu PHILIPPE and that of tbe Republic. By more eloquent and more energetic rivals he may have been out-shone in the cabinet and the Chamber. lint by none has he been surpassed in consistency. A genuine liberal, Onttos Humor has been at all times in favour of expansive and experimental progress as contra-distinguished from sudden and total changes. One of the earliest to resist the reactionary tendenciesof Louis PHILIPPE after the revolution of 1830, and among the last to warn that spoiled child of fortune of the fate to which those tendencies were inevitably leading him, M. II vmeor was at all times thoroughly respected and trusted by the shrewd and selfish king. It is a curious fact which, more than any of a political kind, denotes the esteem in which he was held by the chief members of the ORLEANS family, that in Madame .IDet.stne's will he was named as one of .the trustees: and how cordial was the sympathy between that remarkable princess and her royal brother need not be told. Few men of competent judgment who look back at the history of the last five years Mill hesitate to own that. had the counsels of Reamer in favour of parliamentary reform been followed at the beginning of 1848, all parties, whether that of order or that of liberalism, would now be gainers. The monarchy of the barricades might have been exposed to new trials of temper, but it would not have been overthrown. The suffrage might not have been nicknamed universal; but it would not have become aby -word and a mockery. The conservatism of M. Ottrict would doubtless have been humbled in the dust, but the spectacle of Ateliers Nationaux, terminating in the murderous conflict of June. 1848, would have been spared to France and Europe. Finally the show and semblance of a republic might not have glittered for a brief span before the eyes of a dazzled populace • but a great nation would have been saved hem the and disgrace of :finding itself in the course of a single night jockeyed out of all its oldest and dearest liberties. Again in 18.11, when the practical incoherency of the crude constitution of 184th rendered speedy but safe modifications plainly requisite,