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& / % M $ b 3 Ebk > Bition of Louis Napoieon should so i 3 teP ^ ISSS 3 lr * ave forgotten the most elementary ZX fSigmmMwtioxia of feeling and discretion as to f ^ ^^^^^^ co ^ try with S which he is in close E ^ ¥ ^ Mfiaa « £ uhy injurious comments upon its most IF Jlilikaid institutions , which deserve at least -. mMMM * $ §> ect dueto ae ' ^ * 55 i ^ M ^ m Sust he confessed that the Emperor of V ^ grja ^ pre nch has in this instance abused his own exclusive liberty of unlicensed printing .
Not a line in this famous tirade of Imperial glorification would bear a moment ' s discussion , and it is an essential condition of the boasted stability of the existing institutions in Prance that they shall not be discussed . A celebrated tragedienne , whose relations with authority are said to be peculiar , declined to undertake a new part because she would not consent to be discussed . Je ne vena plus etre discute is the motto of the great comedians ¦ who now fret their hour upon the stage of
Trance . Since the coup d ' etat it has been -the practice of the journals independent of the Government , to reproduce textually and without comment , in their columns , all official acts , reports , and manifestoes . The sole form of opposition has been this silence of all discussion . It is therefore to be noted that on this occasion the independent press has abstained altogether from reproducing the text of the Moniteur . The official journal , in spite of M . FpxriiD ' s attempt to enter the ranks of journalism , in spite of its almost nominal price ,
in spite of its compulsory circulation among the chief functionaries , has never teen able to reach 7 _ a , jpublic of more than 15 , 000 readers . The three semi-official journals ( ie Pays , Le Constitutionnel , La Patrie ) languish so-precariously that it was » decided some time since to terminate amicably the existence of one of them at least , and this resolution has only been deferred until after the approaching Exposition . The article in the Moniteur , therefore , deprived of the publicity of the
43 , 000 readers of La JPresse and the 36 , 000 of the Siecle , will not have affected the public mind very widely , unless the Government should have resorted to the Imperial method of placarding its lucubrations over France at the expense of the nation . ^ It ~ beiBome ¥ l 3 UP'duty '" tQrunalyse"witbr "' some ~ curiosity the " public spirit , " " dignity , " and the " manly patriotism , " which , according to the Moniteur , have been exhibited in favour of the Imperial throne in the course of the present war . In old-fashioned England we are accustomed to embody what is
called ""public spirit" in three forms of manifestation—Parliamentary debates , the Press , public meetings . Nothing of the kind exists m France . The press depends for its daily life on £ ne caprice of a Minister : the right of public meeting is unknown : aa to the Parliament , it is composed of a Senate of mutes , whose duty it is to register , without remark , the acts of Government , and to receive an allowance of 1200 / . per annum , for their patriotic service to the State ; and of a " Corps Legislatif , " whose members , selected by the Government , imposed upon the constituencies without even the show of an
alternative , vote in silence and incognito the measures of their master . Every now and then , indeed , they indulge in acclamations : a distinguished deputy of the corps itself once informed us that they were the " acclaiming corps . " Just now they we supposed to be " sitting . " Who knows ?—who
can say what they are doing ? The journals are permitted to publish only the summary signed by the President ; and for tho last month a single summary has appeared . Of two things , one : either they do nothing at all , or they do what is unpublishable . How , then , can ifc be said that they express and represent the public spirit of the nation ?
The Moniteur talks of the patriotism of France . No doubt there is patriotism m France ; but in what sense , and why is it forbidden to declare itself ? Whoever has visited France of late has been struck with the utter absence of that enthusiasm , ot which the Moniteur relates such marvels . Not onlv is there no enthusiasm for the war , - •;
there is almost an absence of public curiosity ; the prevailing indifference is only broken by exclamations of impatience and disgust . For example : at the very time when the national loan was so triumphantly successful , and for the reasons we have stated on a former occasion , a Patriotic Fund « ad not attained in three months the sum of 4000 J ., after every functionary of the Government and every public body had contributed then ?
" donation . " Surely in France , the classic land of war and glory , this is " a new situation in her history . " The MoniteUr is right . The Moniteur asserts that Napoleon I . " founded upon the ruins of the ancient society tHe unity of New France . " This is the very parody of history . The " unity of France " was decreed by the Constitutional Assembly in 1789 , ratified by the Constitution in 1791 , and organised by the Convention . Napoleon I ., in this as in all other respects , did but carrv out the bequests of the two great
Assemblies of the Revolution and the Kepublic . He is known to have confessed _ much in his confidential moments . He inherited the labours of the men upon whose sacrifice he rose to absolute power . The entire political and administrative organization of France is the work of the Constituent and the Convention . The'Moniteur adds that the First Empire
" conciliated a strong authority with-ii system of civil liberty the most extensive . " We believe the . First Emperor wouM-not have permitted so insolent and derisory a falsification of history to appear in his official journal . Except its victories , the First Empire was the prototype of the Second—a regime of oppression and servility . Then , as now , every free spirit , every independent mind , every susceptible conscience , all honour , probity , worth , was dumb , in prison , or frrexile . ""¦ " ~ ™ " -
The Moniteur describes the existing Constitution of France as one adapted to her manners and her wants . This Constitution is a pure and simple plagiarism of the Constitution of the year VIII . Has France not changed since 1802 , and after thirty-six years of constitutional government ? The Constitution of the year VIII . was re-established after the coup d ' etat of 1851 . It has never been discussed , not even by the Corps legislatif . How are we to be sure that it is well adapted to the manners and wants of France ? That it " leaves plenty of room for improvement" we will not pretend to deny .
The Moniteur commends the " responsibility" of the existing Government . We cannot discover this responsibility . The existing power in France is as absolute as that of the Czar , but we have yet to learn that France is Russia ; the Moniteur adds , it is true , " to the public conscience and to history . " We can easil y imagine how deeply tlie sense of responsibility must weigh upon tho authors , the abettors , the accomplices of the coup d'etat .
There is a responsibility of which the Momteur says nothing ; we mean responsibility to the Revolution , always suspended over a country that has been robbed by violence of its political rights . The Moniteur , with delightful naivete informs ua , in poor distracted England , that " the great bodies of the State give their support without a dissentient voice . " It would be strange , indeed , to find a
dissenamong men y Government itself . We are only surprised that where the unanimity is so wonderful the press should not be permitted to join its chorus of praise to the acclamations of the " great bodies of the State . " Let us see how the Moniteur arranges our English history . It was the genius , we are told , and the dictatorship of Pitt that alone enabled England to sustain the war against
France . The Moniteur would have done well to look to dates . Pitt died in January , 1806 , and yet England sustained the colossal struggle for nine years after , not only with equal energy , but with more success . The eternal refrain of the Moniteur is that enormous mystification of the 8 , 000 , 000 votes which are believed to have sanctioned the present Empire . Nothing has imposed upon public opinion in England like tho hare numbers of this double vote . The English
public is unable to conceive an election conducted at the point of the bayonet without a single guarantee of fairness or of freedom : ¦ with all the opposition in prison , or in exile , or under instant threat of Lambessa or Cayenne ; with no possibility of choice of candidates , no right of discussion , no publicity . We forget that these 8 , 000 , 000 votes are made up of some 37 , 000 communes , each of which is as completely in the handa of
an unscrupulous Government as a rotten borough in our own good old times was in the hands of the landlord . With the mayor , the cure , and the garde-chainpetre , the organization of unanimity is complete . It is not our fault thair the ¦ . Moniteur has provoked reprisals . We would have gladly abstained from these investigations—yet a little while .
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THE PAPAL MONITORY IN PIEDMONT . We have not forgotten the protest of the Jesuit Fathers , who recently assured his Neapolitan Majesty that the Order was the natural ally of despotism . True , this incautious confiteor was extorted by a threat of banishment from pliant lips accustomed to lend a religious sanction to prevarication , and to decorate falsehood withi the gentlerjiUe _ pf ;^ x § serj ^ . " _ , / £ ru _ e that , on the disappearance of the apprehended
danger , the protested obligation was explained away by no less an authority than the General of the Order himself , who lost no time in disavowing the tutelage of any form of human government , while promising a loyal and disinterested allegiance to all . We know enough of the elasticity of a certain political and moral catechism to be ready to put equal faith in the one and in the other of these contradictory and characteristic avowals . The conduct of
the Roman Church in Piedmont ^ ve may take the Order of the Jesuits as the most perfect expression of the Papal policy at the present date ) is a sufficient example of the disinterested loyalty of the Church to all forms of human government , of her compatibility with other than despotic institutions . The beloved and lamented Marie Adelaide , Queen-consort of Victor Emmanuel , died on the 20 th of January . The news of her decease reached Rome on the 21 st , and on the 22 ml His Holiness assembled the College of Cardinals
for the express purpose of threatening" eternal damnation to all who should atto < : k the ecclesiastical abuses in the Sardinian States . Nor have tho priestly prints omitted to improve , with all their wonted meekness of expression and charity of thought , the occasion of those profound domestic afflictions which have burstjiko a torrent upon tho royal house of Piedmont , and to which the vulgarest humaiiity , wo do not speak of decency and good taste , might well have accorded the respect of silence , if not of sympathy . But it is the peculiarity of these
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tient voice selected bthe ' ¦ ¦ ¦ A'i THE IiBADEB . [ Saturday , n 204 i . . __ . - - • - ¦ ¦¦ ¦ - ¦ ¦ ¦ ' ' "
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), March 3, 1855, page 204, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse2.kdl.kcl.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2080/page/12/
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