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^ 3D THE X 33 A PER. [No. 336 « &Arajssp...
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TRANCE IMPERIAL. It would be the merest ...
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Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
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Programme Ov O'Donnell And Confession Oi...
On one side is the Satan of this epic , Marshal the Duke of Victoria , " the accomplice of fortune , " who has reaped the fruits of others * gallantry , who has stood by to take the spoil of popular revolt "; insinuating himself into the confidence of the Crown to destroy the monarchy . He has , moreover , the audacity to be the reverse of handsome . " The Duke of Yiotoeia , " says his Paris portraitpainter , "is of very short stature , dark in countenance , his lips pinched , never completely smiling , never looking you in the countenance , his moustache thin and cut like a brush . " In painting the embodied
principle of evil , M . HuGEiiMANsr beats Milton , Tasso , and Goethe , Michael Angelo and Retzsch ; for his sketch of a diabolical aspect adds to its repulsiveness traces of meanness . Moreover , we discover from the rest of the pamphlet that this diabolical agent of the Spanish epic had another hideous trait—he consorted with English politicians , with that foreign country whose citizens demand to be paid , . and ask for the arrears of their debt ! O'DoKifTELii is indignant for his country , and Httgelmann tells French capitalists that their aid will not be more useful to
O'Don-* tell than profitable to themselves ! On the other side of the Queen stands the saving angel , Marshal O'Donnell . " His stature is tall , his figure handsome ; his head carried high , energetic , and fair ; his lip full of authority ; the lines of his face replete with uncommon energy , and a great power
of will . " He is " an excellent father of a family , " who jumps into the saddle at the sound of danger " without moving a muscle of his countenance . " Queen Isabella is religious , O'Doitnell virtuous ; and by a powerful spell they have conjured away the hesitating , Anglicized Espabtebo , whose thin moustache is cut like a brush .
It is for French support that M . Hugelmann especially advertizes , and he has various reasons why that support should be given . In the first place , humanity . Spain has only one or two sculptors , no chemists or men of distinction in science and literature ; whereas he " knows young men in every town , who need nothing but support and aid to be firstrate in literature , art , and science . " A splendid agency has M . Hugelmann in Spain for French influence , if there be a little water poured down the well to set that agency at work ! Next , French capital is at work in
Spain already ; some has been invested in societies established there , and more might be invested with great profit . Thirdly , General O'DoNNEiiii is " the generous imitator " of "the saviour of France . " " He has played in the eyes of Spain for two years , " says HuGEiiMAim , " almost the same part which his Majesty the Emperor of the Fbenoh has played in the eyes of France . " In Spain , M . HtTGELMANN constantly heard the natives cry , " Ah ! if wo had a man who could render us the services that your Emperor has rendered to you !"—" Ah ! if wo could bo delivered from Parliamentism !"— " Ah ! if the
monarchy could seize again its right of initiative ! " O'Donnell has performed that service . He has , it is true , boon misappreciated by the press of England , Belgium , and even France ; but French , writers will bo warned by the pamphleteer , who tolls tho assailants of O'DowNELii that "if they do not daro to attac k directly the victorious saviour of
• jrrance , they have indirectly attacked him in tbe person of his generous imitator . " lhemomberspf some Sooiotodo Credit not -named are permitted by tho SpanisJi Government to establish a Spanish journalist in Madrid , as the ^ forerunner and auxiliary of tho coupd 6 tat . The same gentleman is permitted by the Wrench Government , which exorcises so Btncta surveillance over the press , to publish
as an advertisement of O'DonnelIi this strange anatomy of a coup d ' etat , preceded by a two years' conspiracy . " We are told that O'DonneiIi is the " generous imitator of the victorious saviour of France , " being in the sight of Spain the exact counterpart of Lottis Napoleon in the eyes of France . If O'Donnell is thus tacitly accepted as the accomplice of Lours Napoleon " , the programme of the Spanish adventurer is the confession of the French adventurer .
^ 3d The X 33 A Per. [No. 336 « &Arajssp...
^ 3 D THE X 33 A PER . [ No . 336 « & ArajsspA %
Trance Imperial. It Would Be The Merest ...
TRANCE IMPERIAL . It would be the merest equivocation to deny that France , for the present , accepts the Imperial Government . Every Frenchman who remains , voluntarily , within the limits of the Empire , must be supposed , at least , to tolerate its institutions . He may protest in secret , perhaps he conspires , but he does not refuse , practi < 3 fclly , to acknowledge himself , temporarily or otherwise , a subject of the December dynasty . Those who have never accorded even this reluctant recognition , this help less assent to the reigning power , are either prisoners or exiles .
These classes have their special rights and duties . It is the right of the prisoner , unjustly condemned and cruelly punished , to exclaim perpetually against his wrongs . It is the right of the exile , and even his duty , to cherish the relics of liberty , and to prohibit , as far as possible , the consecration by history of successful crime . Other politicians , however , must act on other principles .
For example , it is not for any English journalist to constitute himself exclusively the representative of a defeated party in France . Whatever may be his sympathies , his devotion to constitutional law , his detestation of public perjury and violence , it is by no means incumbent upon him incessantly to denounce an act of triumphant treason , as though the life of the world were suspended , while that treason remained unchastised .
In the presence , then , of general facts , knowing that journalism is of no value unless it deals with the rising exigencies of every successive day , perceiving the hopelessness of any immediate restoration of political vitality to France , we have not thought fit to disparage , on all occasions , and under all circumstances , the present Emperor of the Fbehoh , or his Government . w ith respect to neither is our opinion unknown . We have
always ranked Louis Napoleon among unscrupulous adventurers , and have said so . We have always regarded his Government as the representative of political degradation and immorality , and have said so , when to say it was inconvenient and unpopular . It has been tho humiliation of France ; but , after all , France herself must determine how long the reign of irony , indifference , and imbecility shall last .
This policy has been an offence to some of our ardent friends . It is , however , the office of journalism to discuss those matters which are being discussed by tho public , or to introduce matters , necessary to bo understood , which have a chance of discussion . Several timos , since the coup ( V 6 tat of December , there has been no chance of forcing a discussion of French affairs , and thero would havo been , no utility in doing so , had it boon possible . At tho same timo , wo havo never changod our tono , as they well know who havo followed us in our criticisms on tho war ,
and on tho exchange of cordialities between tho French Government and tho British Court , aristocracy , press , and people . . But now , England boing in a mood of sympathy , Pokkio appealing onco more from his dungeon , tho assassination of Uao Basst—scalped and partly flayod—at Bologna , and of CioEitUAOCHio at Ooutarina ,
exciting horror in the WeBt , and British journalists , generally , being engaged in a crusade of compassion , the exiles of Cayenne have ventured to utter a second plea for pity . We ourselves published , several months ago , an account of their sufferings , transmitted by M . Louts BiiAno . M . Louts Blanc has now secured the largest circulation for a letter , from the political detenus at Cayenne , numerously signed , complaining of their suf . ferings . We print the document in another column , as it appeared in the Times and Daily JVews , the Times starting into horror , as if at a political and geographical revelation .
Assuming that the reader has acquainted himself with its details , let us ask whether we have ever libelled the Government of Lotrcs Napoleon ? Assuming , also , that most men , imperialist or liberal , have certain generous feelings which would forbid them to commit such cruelties upon a dog , we ask whether the ruler who thus tortures honourable and innocent citizens is the less infamous because he tortures them in Guiana and not at Capri ? What does Felici Oksini tell us of the Austrian Cavaletto ? Is that more
than a counterpart of the Napoleonic stake and scourge ? What does Mr . Glad stoke tell us of the subterranean prisons in the Neapolitan kingdom ? Are they worse than the fens of the Oyaque ? It seems to us that to be flogged until the surface of the body is a pulp of blood and discoloured skin , to drag a cannon ball for hours over scorched rocks , to be imprisoned amid marshy forests for resenting an act which the legal courts had pronounced to be treason , is to suffer in an aggravated form exactly that kind of inand which has
justice which Poerio suffers , brought upon Poerio ' s oppressor the remonstrances of the British Government . Indeed , so far as we have been able to learn , the political punishments inflicted by the King of Naples are mild jn comparison with the severities of CayenjB ^ and justifiable in comparison with the mflifary murders in Austrian Italy . But we have heard of no rebukes addressed to Paris or Vienna . Yet the French and Austrian Emperors belong to the same category with the Neapolitan King—with this difference , that the N eapolitan King tortures his own subjects at home , while the Austrian Emneror shoots , flogs , and flays the
best of the Italian race ; while the French Emperor , seizing a number of French citizens , transports them , for convenience , to a distant colony , where , while he plays tho philanthropist at home , his enemies are rapidly destroyed by torture , privation , and fatigue . Mark , not only are tho original victims oi December treated iu this way . Continual accessions aro received by the miserable colony . Tho Parisian who now and then disappears , tho member , or suspected member , of the secret society who occasionally 1 a hurried away from his family by the kidnappers of the Empire—wo gavo an instance a low weeks ago—is secreted in this vast
ouhliette across tho seas . What wonder , then , that conspiracy works in Franco—that illicit combinations aro formed , and that the most deadly passions take possession of a class of ignorant men r M . Louis Blano , who has exposed tho nature of IVonch imperial revenge , has V ' ducod tho best possible justification of secret societies . At tho same time , it is a fallacy to suppose—or it is a malicious misrepresentation to say—that all Froncli liberals arc mombors of secret societies , or approve ol thoir methods of action , or recognize tho flootrinoa of tho Marinnno . M . Louis Br . AtfC ,
for example , is not , and has ncvor been , « member of a secret society . , , What wondor , oithor , that tho poonlo 01 tho Continent look with suspicion upon tno
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Aug. 30, 1856, page 14, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/cld_30081856/page/14/
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