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Leader (1850-1860), 11th September 1852, Edition Town of 2, Page 863

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      ¦ where , when I have beaten them in one place , they have started up in another with renewed vigour to resist me . You loyal Guernseymen , would have to do and would do likewise did the foe dare to plant his foot on your shores . Heaven grant that Englana may never have to repel an invader ! but , if she should , and I had to take part in her defence , I would not ask to lead better soldiers than you—I call you soldiers—I woul-d not ask to lead better , troops than the royal militia of Guernsey " As a matter of course the militia so handsomely comp limented roundly applauded the orator . We may now write the name of Sir Harry Smith beside that of Lord Palmerston and Mr . Disraeli , as supporters of a national army .

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      LETTERS FROM PARIS . [ Fkom oub own Correspondent . ] Letteb XXXVII . Paris , September 7 , 1852 . The Empire ( we have great reason to believe ) is to be officially proclaimed on the 2 nd of December . That day , the triple anniversary of the coronation of Napoleon le Grand , of the Battle of Austerlitz , and of the coup d ' etat of Louis Bonaparte , is considered auspicious . Bonaparte will have just returned from his progress in the South , his brow beaming with the new halo of glory that official enthusiasm will have cast around it . The Senate will have had time enough to . assemble , and to declare that the safety of the State , and the national will , demand the proclamation of the Empire ; and so Bonaparte will be Emperor !

      His journey to the South is fixed one day sooner than previous arrangements ; he is to start on the 14 th instead of the 35 th , to enable him to pass one day at Bourges , where the Prefet du Chers is preparing an ovation . Singular discussions have been taking place at the Elysee for deciding which of the Ministers should accompany the President on his tour . All the arguments advanced by each of the Ministers in turn , turned on the hypothesis of an assault on the life of their Prince . There were some who declined to accompany him from unwillingness to share his fortunes .

      Persigny alleged that his presenee was absolutely requisite in Paris to prevent mishap—to maintain the departments under the Bonapartist yoke by means of the telegraphs and the Prefects . St . Arnaud , Minister of War , stated that it would be imprudent for him to leave the central post , because the coup d ' etat havin g compromised him , together with other Generals , an accident to Bonaparte in the South would be the signal of a general revolt , which would have to be crushed at any cost ; and that as the safety of his own head

      would depend on the issue , he would rather not trust it to any other hands . General Magnan , when called before the Council , expressed the same opinion . Other Ministers , on the other hand , though for the same reasons , were anxious to accompany Bonaparte , in order to be constantly cm courant of any events that might happen , rathor than be surprised by them ; " that in the South , where the President was going , there was but one line of signal-telegraphs , so that in case of any mishap in any town in the South , if only one telegraph were destroyed , Paris would get no news for a week . "

      Great was the perplexity of both parties in the Council : at length they came to a decision that no more than two of the Ministers at a time should accompany the President : but that they should relieve one another at intervals of a week , at Marseilles , Toulouse , and Bordeaux : St . Arnaud to remain at Paris to keep the army together , and to be relieved from the duty of attendance " about the Prince , " which the rest of the Miniature arc to take in turns .

      1 'hc oflicial journuls arc full of progmmincs of the official fetes which ore to bo given to Bonaparte along his route . The authorities of Toulouse have concluded that the bent honour they can pay him is a grand military fete , representing by a . sham tight tho battle of Toulouse , won by Sou It oner Wellington in 1814 . * Tho whole of the troops quartered in the South have been concentrated upon three points , Montpellier , Toulouse , and Bordeaux , leaving only a few detachments , horse

      »> id foot , in tho intermediate towns . In case of " events , " it is intended that the troop . s shall be concentrated in strong musses : 1 . To maintain among themselves the . sentiment of duty ; 2 . To prevent them Ixunjr surrounded and invested , or seduced and won over , I ' . Y the insurgent population ; 3 . To bo midy if neeoss 'i' \ y to crush the first symptoms of revolution . Tho Knuid object is to perpetuate the military regime . If •»> naparle were to die we should have a triumvirate composed of tho three generals most compromised , viz .

      St . Arnaud , Magnan , and Castellane . These , and the field officers they have drawn with them , know well that they have staked their heads : that they have won the first throw , but that the game is still going on , and that if fortune turns against them they are irrevocably ruined . These Generals feel all the force of circumstances , and have resolved , in order to save their heads , to maintain the military regime even after the death of Bonaparte . They will set up some phantom of a Bonaparte in power , the young Lucien perhaps , as a dummy and a blind , and behind that dummy they will rule in very self-defence . Such are the eventualities the future has in store

      for us . Everybody knows it , and everybody recoils the Republicans like all the rest . It must not be forgotten that the Republican party has lost nearly a hundred thousand of its bravest combatants ; the few who remain are suspect and closely watched . The work of organization is not so far advanced as to allow this party to resist the army in civil combat from one day to another . It is this that makes men temporise ; otherwise justice would long since have been done to Bonaparte . Events , however , are often unforeseen , and in the South passion carries all before it . There are but two great parties—the parti prMre and the

      parti anti-pretre ;* the Legitimist party and the Republican party , the Catholic party and the Protestant party . Now , in these two great party sections , Bonaparte is equally detested to an extravagant degree . Nothing is impossible . The journals already report the arrest of a man at Toulouse for publicly uttering threats against Bonaparte . " The central Commissary of Police , " says the Messager du Midi , " proceeded to arrest the Sieur Loirette , draper . He was confined in the cellular prison , and placed at the disposal of the

      Procureur de la M&publique . The facts that led to his arrest are as follows : —Loirette entered a cafe in the Marche aux Fleurs yesterday , the 2 nd instant , and after having ordered something to drink , then and there , in cool blood , and without any provocation , publicly uttered insults against the Prince President of the Republic , saying , amongst other things , that ' jf he came into the south of France he should not go back again / This individual is known to entertain legitimist opinions . "

      Yoii perceive that nothing , as I have said , is impossible ; and out of this progress to the south may ( I do not say will ) spring the conflagration of the world . God help us ! At the present moment Bonaparte is suffering from an attack of pleurisy . He was shooting in the forest of Marly and caught a chill . He is scarcely permitted to leave his apartments till the 14 th inst ., the day of his departure . He is said , too , to be out of spirits . The representatives of the people exiled on the 10 th of January , and pardoned a few days since , with the exception of M . Thiers , who , I believe , was

      compelled by private and exceptional circumstances to hasten his return , and M . Chambolle , formerly editor of the Siecle , have been found very tardy in accepting the gracious boon . Bonaparte ' s clemency is wasted . But by way of playing out this comedy of " clemency , " he modified the punishment of a hundred political convicts . The sentences of transportation to Algeria he commuted into internement ( confinement within a certain district ) at home : the sentences of inter nemeut , into surveillance of tho haute police . Those objects of clemency , nevertheless , are exposed to all the severities

      of the police , debarred from resuming their occupations , and from exercising their former pursuits . Instead of thanks , Bonaparte is continually receiving letters full of insults and reproaches , demanding transportation or exile again . Indeed , all the . se pretended pardons are derisory , and in no case full and complete . It in the same with the pretended " voluntary exiles , " which a letter of M . Hetzel ( tin ; publisher , who served under the Provisional Government ) amply exposes and refutes . His letter was addressed to the Indcpindancc , Jielge , and caused the seizure of that journal at this Post in Paris .

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      Wo « lo not nl ( () r , J ) u | , Niinply italicize , thoso words , wlu < : h our correspondent ( us u Kronchmun ) writes no Jloiiht in perfect simplicit y und good faith . It is well Known that tho French chum tho Tiattlo of TouIouho iih u victory which tho Kii ^ HhIi " novor knowing when they am i . > i . Hi » Kulurly unconscious of . Wo can afford it . — J "U . JLeader .

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      " Your correspondent , " writes U . Hetzel , " makes me a refugee without having been proscribed . I left Paris on the ninth of December by order of M . de Morny , who sent me a passport signed by himself , from which the form of words—Nous prions nos agents de donner aide et protection awporteur de ce passeport , had been effaced , and these words written in their place : M . Hetzel , going into Prussia , is enjoined to

      * The -parti prCtra dot's not include the . whole of tho Church ; nor doos the parti lodi-prttro imply an absolute hostility to roligion ; but tho former moans the violent roaetionury ullriiiiiontnno party , of which tho Bishop of Chalons and M . Vouillot , of tho Uniiwrs , may bo considered exponents ; tho party that fj lorilies tho Inquisition , exalts tho anniversary of tho luiisKucro of tho Huguenots into a solemn feast , condemns tho ( 'lassies in Kducation , and blesses tho hayonots of despotism . It is to ho ( cured that in tho next revolution religion will bo identified with

      this violent liu'tion of the Romish Church , whom excesses tho bettor and wiser of that communion am the first to deprccuto and condemn . Tho Revolution of ' 4 H respeolod and exulted the Church ; tho Church betrayed tho Revolution . Wo do not understand tlio hostility of tho parti jtrdtre to Bonaparte , thoir croaturo and willing tool . Despino him , while they uso him , thoy may , and botrny him they no doubt will , when ho can sorvo their passions and thoir interests no longer . Perhaps they find it riiflicult to beliovo in him as a truo " son of tho Church . " J <] i > . ' header .

      depart out of France , and not to return . I preserve this brief autograph of M . de Morny at your disposal : it constitutes me , you see , something quite different from what your correspondent calls a ' voluntary refugee . ' Your correspondent seems to be unaware , that where a few hundreds of decrees of banishment have been published , thousands of fiats were notified secretly (« voix basse ) to all such persons as it was deemed advisable to drive across the frontier ir . silence . "

      Protests like these , published in the foreign journals , and lighting upon France in the midst of the universal darkness and silence , have a surprising echo , and arc the more dreaded by Bonaparte , who prosecutes them with unremitting jealousy . As often as a Belgian journal publishes any such communication it is seized at the frontier . In Prussia , Bonaparte has required of the Government to warn the Gazette Nationale , and the Gazette

      Constitutionnelle . The editor of the latter was summoned to the bureaux of the police , and there warned that unless he changed his tone he would be subjected to ulterior prosecution . As for England , your Government being unwilling or unable to succumb to such a disgrace , Bonaparte now contents himself with threatening articles in his own journals . The Pays declares positively " that France is not disposed to allow the Elect of her choice to be called in question , and that the nation that will not respect him must beware . " Look to yourselves , then !

      The Councils General have not voted the Empire with the unanimity and ensemble the Government had expected of them , and had announced at first . Out of the 85 Councils , thirty-one expressed a wish that the " chief power should be perpetuated in the hands of Louis Bonaparte ; " nine formally demanded the restoration of the hereditary Empire ; eighteen confined themselves to the general expression of wishes for the consolidation anil stability of power ; twenty-six simply assured the Government of their support , without making any allusion to the secret desires of Bonaparte .

      As to the municipal elections , the abstention of the electors exceeded all anticipation . At Dieppe , the first result of the votes was null . In the majority of the communes of the arrondissement of Orange , it was with great difficulty that a bare quarter of the electors were got to vote , and at Orange itself , out of 2 S 00 registered electors , more than 2000 declined to vote . At Boulogne , only 2751 , out of 8 GS 4 electors , were found to vote ; at Calais , 1542 , out of 4795 ; at . Turbos , 814 , out of 3233 . In several localities , even the candidates of the Government wore unable to imin their election .

      All these repulses are not calculated to induce tho Government to relent in its career of violence . Everybody is its enemy , and it returns the compliment . 1 have mentioned the measures taken against Belgian and German writers : the frontiers ( f should add ) an ; under the closest surveillance . Two special agents have been despatched from Paris to IJoulogno , Calais , and Tourcoing . At these points they . search every traveller , to seize any forbidden publication . Kven passports an * to bo refused , until after strict inquiry , by the French consuls in Belgium , Germany , und Kngl-. uid . A Frenchman abroad , whose passport lias expired , will find it next to impossible to procure another , to return to his country . The Channel Islands art ; especially " tainted . "

      Prosecutions of the press are unceasing : the warn ing now proceeds directly from the Ministry of Police

      By a singular mockery of chance , a journal called Im Libert / ' was the first to be struck by the new censors . M . de Girardin is the most distinguished of the recent " warnings . " \\<\ hud told Grimier de . Cassugnue , that condottiero of journalism , ( hut , ito was a liar . The Government look up the cudgels for its hired bravo , who was too grout a coward to meet bis accuser , and struck the editor of the J ' resxe with ai . second " warning . "

      Recourse is now bad to the reports of the nuxod commissions to prosecute and drive out of I'Yunee tl | u few citizens who bad boon permitted to rouiain quietly at , their business after December 2 nd . Among others , M . Medium , brother of the ox-iepresenlativo , lias just received orders to leave Paris , by virtue of a decision which is dated ho far back as last March . M . Medium bad remained utterly ignorant of l . bo sentence pronounced uguinst , him . and of which bo lias only just now received notification . In all Cafes antl cabarets , too , the strictest , surveillance ia exercised . A villaige wino-whop iu the most

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      September 11 , 1852 . ] THE LEADER . 863

  • Citation
    • Leader (1850-1860), Sept. 11, 1852, page 863, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1951/page/3/