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papers doubtful , as towhether the Prince was there or not—lending- to this Prince a Certain fatal , Banquolifce cloudiness of apparition ; the only distinct and seizable glimpse of the entertainment being a scene of more than convivial idolatry , not going home till morning , and singing over winecups some new Imperial version or other , " , Richard ! . O ,. mbn Hoi ! " the gardes du corps being not yet selected * and the Marie Antoinette of their frantic Bacchanalia—the Princess Mathilde , par example t In the streets a clinging , penetrating fog , assisting cuirassiers to shroud Louis the well-beloved from the eager gaze of an enthusiastic constituency . Yes ! in four acts : for did not the Prince
himself divide his life , already historical , into four epochs ? How long are the second ( which has opened ) and , the third ^ to 4 ast- ?—Tragedy-began ; shall tragedy conclude the fourth and last epoch ? Our business is the present . A despotism inore prying and vexatious than Vienna ; a terror more pitiless , more gorged with victims , than Naples ; a Minister of Finance " bulling " the market , i f not , as at Vienna , by putting policemen in the " Stocks , " at least by silencing rude * ' Bears " in the journals , and drowning their warnings by official criers in the streets : the Millennium of Mercadet ! The
people amused with games and shows , whilst the powers that be are dividing the spoils of "adjudications "; public opinion strained and filtered through the Bureau de Censure ; the provinces scoured by gendarmes , and " drawing blank , " for the prisons are full to suffocation ; the National Guards disarmed ; the French navy turned into floating Bastiles , or transporting untried journalists and representatives of the people to death
by yellow fever at Cayenne ; such , in a few words , is the inauguration of your modern Augustus What does " brother / ' M . de Moray , say ? " Providence does nothing * by halves ; " i . e ., Providence does not massacre by halves . Perhaps not ; but , if M . Louis Bonaparte be the Providence of France , it is certain that he does all , not by halves , but by half'brothers . Nothing like your official blasphemies , after all , for neatness !
But the terrorists themselves tremble : " terrent paventque , " as Tacitus would say ; not political , jso much as personal and private vengeance , of widowed husbands and childless fathers is , to be feared by the successful " Saviours of Society . " And , after nil , it seems M . L . Bonaparte is to be warming pan for Henry V . —the Prince for the King ; but may he not make it too hot for him . Or is Fusion to spring out of Confusion , and are we to go so far
back , that even Henry V . will seem a " liberator " by comparison ? We read with regret , and with a desire to think better , our intelligent correspondent's appreciation of the Legitimists in the present crisis . We have always respected , while abjuring this party , their religion , and their symbols : for right divine is a religion , and , like many others , a dead one , we believe ; but it is not without its past glories : and , even in ignoble times , it should be incapable of disgrace from a Monk or a Cadoudal .
The good example of December 2 is bearing fruit everywhere . France , in ' 51 , as in ' 48 , takes the initiative ! The Emperor of Austria has only now completed his sum of imperial perjury ; finally destroying the few remaining guarantees of the revolution , and , by the hand of Schwarzenberg , who rescinds himself , returning " beyond the flood " to Metternichian principles of Bureaucratic paternal government 1
The startling event of the week is the burning of the Amazon steamer . Out at sea , in rough weather , flames burst forth from the engine-room ; in twenty minutes the deck becomes too hot to hold a living creature , and all who can scramble into boats . Three boats are swamped a * once ; others go down , one of them full ; bthera are lost to sight ; two only have conveyed their freight to safety—37 persons out of 161 I An JEHot Warburton among the lost ] And all this , it would seem , because the owners of the steamer were impatient to { use an untried boat , and its officers impatient to speed it , with an untried engine , jn rough , adverse weather I
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LETTERS FROM PARIS . [ FftOH OUB OWN COWMWPONDBNT . ] LETTBJft II . Paris , January 8 , 1861 . \> JU Empire est fait . The name of the Republic is t ill preserved , but the Bepublican institutions are demolished one by one . We have in France the Empire of the year 1800 , minus the Emperor . New W « -day was tho inauguration of the new era We have had tho religious parody of the tag « W coronation , in the absence of tho imperial sun ( a * was
generally remarked ) to gladden the occasion . In 1804 the household of the Emperor wore a livery of green and gold ; in 1852 the lackeys of the President are attired in gold and green ; in . 1804 Marshal Key rode at the right hand of the Emperor ' s state carriage ; in 1852 Edgar Ney , ' son of the Marshal , rides at the right hand door of the carriage of the President ; in 1804 , it , the ceremony of the consecration , a choral mass of Leaueur ' s composition was chanted ; in i 852 M . Xouis Bonaparte orders the same mass by Lesueur to be chanted again . For sightseers the ceremony was magnificent . All the way from the
Eljsee to Notre Dame the army of Paris lined the streets . At half-past eleven the President , wearing , for the first time , the uniform of a general * of division , stepped into his carriage . He was preceded by a regiment of guides , by lancers , and by the nicjmteiiJ ^ publican- ^ aydTr ^ A ^ ojnadron of cuir&gsiers encompassed his carriage . The cortege was formed by a squadron of gendarmerie , and by the Seventh Regiment of Lancers . A piercing cold fog prevailed in the streets , crowded with spectators who had come out to see the show . Not a single cry , not a sign of enthusiasm . Within the Cathedral , where only a select public were admitted , cries of " Vive Napoleon " burst forth from the throats of the mayors of the departments , Who had been specially invited to the ceremony . A number of tickets had been
distributed to " the ladies . The ladies , however , were conspicuous for their absence , excepting a gallery in which figured the Princess Mathilde , daughter of King Jerome , the Princess Stephanie of Baden , and a few of the President's intimate allies : the other tribunes were empty . As soon as the President had taken his seat a chorus of three hundred , and an orchestra of two hundred musicians executed , with admirable ensemble and prodigious effect ( says the Moniteur ) y the March , the Vivat , and the Te Deum composed by Lesueur for the coronation of the Emperor . After the benediction , the clergy intoned the ancient prayer >* for the King , " which had been used as a prayer for the Republic . It has now been made a mixed prayer , at once for the Republic and for Napoleon .
After the ceremony Louis Bonaparte regained his carriage , and through a double file of soldiers repaired directly to the Tuileries ; where the customary receptions of New Year ' s-day were held . A decree inserted in the MonUeur , has since declared that the Tuileries is henceforth the residence of the President . At the receptions in the Tuileries the attendance was immense—of functionaries . Every constituted body came to present their homages to the new *? Chief of the State , " and to *? assure him of their sincere devotion " : a formula ready to the service of all successive Governments , past , present , and future . However , at the reception of the clergy , a scene occurred which is piquante enough to deserve mention , The Archbishop of Paris , who is a Republican , had more than once in his address laid a stress on the
word " Republic . The President m his reply began by assuring him that in truth he did not pretend to deny that his recent acts had not been strictly legal ; but that , nevertheless , he believed he had accomplished a duty in so acting , that he believed he had saved society from the furious assaults of the demagogy . As he pronounced this last -word , a certain priest shrugged his shoulders . Another priest , a Corsican , who happened to observe the gesture , exclaimed that it was indecent to shrug the shoulders so disrepectfully at a moment when the President was uttering words so admirable . The priest thus rudely accosted replied
that he shrugged his shoulders because he chose to do so . " 1 £ our words are like your gestures , " rejoined the Corsican ; " they are indecent , and I shall know how to make you repent of them . " " We will see about that , " replied the other . " Sir , roy name is Frose ' oli : I am a canon of the Chapter of St . Denis . " " Sir , I am simply the Abbe" Duguesnel . " Here the history of the incident ends . It does not depose whether these two gentlemen exchanged cards , and proceeded to appoint a meeting at the Bois de Boulogne . The evening of the 1 st of January was intended to be celebrated by illuminations . On the Boulevard ,
the Ministry of Foreign Affairs , and the President ' s tailor , were alone in their glory . According to the Moniteur and the Patrie it was a general illumination . On Sunday the official rejoicings continued . There was a dinner , and a ball at the H 6 tel de Ville . The prefect of the Seine entertained the mayors of the provincial towns , who had come up to the ceremony of New Year ' a-day . Generals St . Arnaud and Magnan appeared at the ball for a few moments only . Monday it was the turn of the Tuileries . A grand banquet of 400 " covers " was given in the ancient palace of Catherine de M 6 diois « M . Louis Bonaparte did the honours .
Again ( allow me to repeat ) we have the Empire . It is the imperial despotism without its glory . The press is gagged , and all freedom of thought and speech proscribed and strangled . The censure is reestablished . To the direction " do la Librairie , " at the Ministry of the Interior , a bureau of censure has been' adjoined , to -which every journal is compelled to send its proof sheets . This . '" bureau de cenauro " ia sitting all day and all night . It read *
the proof sheets of the journals , it corrects , it expurgates , it cancels , it alters them ; and they are obliged to appear sritb the corrections , additions , and suppressions inflicted by the censors . MtrA . Peyrat , one of the editors of th&Pressef ventured four days ago to offer some advice on the proper course of action to follow , . The Bureau de Censure sends word to M . Peyrat ¦ *•¦ that 4 $ us counsels are not required , and begs him to dispense with them for the future /' Hitherto the Pope was wont to deem himself the sole possessor of infallibility ; now we find M . Louis Bonaparte competing with the Holy Father for this precious article .
Speech as well as thought is under severe prohibitions . A decree has just appealed in the Moniteur , which , assimilates oral to written misdemeanours ; Only , instead of submitting fhf > g < i- « ffianir > pn tn n . jury ? the decree hands them over to the cognizance of the Correctional Police—that is to say , to the very nominees of M . Louis Bonaparte . The Ministerial
journals are not satisfied even with these measures . They demand loudly that not offences of the press merely , but in general all offences , shall be withdrawn from juries and referred immediately to the tribunals . In a word , they demand the radical suppression of trial by jury , under the pretext that it is an English institution , not in harmony with the wants , the manners , and the habits of the French
nation . In order to isolate the citizens more effectually , the Government has published another decree , which enjoins the agents of authority to close , at their discretion , any cafe , cabaret , or public establishment where citizens are in the habit of meeting . The Minister of the Interior , in writing his instructions on this decree , has been compelled to characterize it as ¦ ' arbitrary . " These are M . de Moray ' s own words in his
explanatory circular : —" The more scope a law ( he is speaking of this decree ) allows to arbitrary discretion in a question which affects public and private interests , the more are the functionaries charged with its application , accountable for the carefulness , the conscientiousness , and the devotion they are expected to manifest . " Thus as a correction to the avowed arbitrariness of a law , we shall have the arbitrary discretion of the respected functionaries of
Government . . T- . Everywhere the Government is hastening to remove from sight the last vestiges of the Republic . The Imperial Eagle replaces the Gallic Cock on the Standards and on the arms of France . This is not all : the ideal features of M . Louis Bonaparte are to replace on the coins the ideal effigy of the Republic . In the different departments , with the exception of that of the Seine , the Prefects under one pretext or another have ordered that the trees of liberty shall be cut down . Some Prefects have gone a step further , and have ordered that on all the public monuments the words Liberty , Equality , Fraternity , shall be effaced ; as the device of the Revolution . One of these fine davs these gentlemen will suppress History .
The imperial restoration is inaugurated throughout the country by thousands of arrests . In the provinces alone their number is alarming . In a letter from Moulins we read : — "NumeroHsprisoners brought from all quarters of the department are arriving every day at Moulins . The prison being gorged to suffocation , the hospital of St . Giles has been prepared for their detention . " In the Sentine' lle , of Toulon : —" Every day numbers of accused persons are brought into-this town and immediately distributed in the dungeons of Fort Lamalgue , which -will not suffice to contain the whole number of those who from the north and the east of the department are to be successively forwarded to Toulon . It is , therefore , in contemplation to fit out a few ships of the line and frigates now lying in Ordinary , and to moor them in the inner roads as provisional hulks . " I could fill sheets with similar
accounts . A thorough Terror reigns in the provinces , which are scoured in all directions by moveable columns of gendarmerie . The National Guards are disarmed wherever any pretext can be found ; and for the majority a pretext is not wanting . Not even the National Guard of peaceable Normand y is spared . A decree has just ordered -the disarmament of the department of the Lower Seine , excepting the National Guards of Rouen , Dieppe , and i vetot . The municipal councils are being dissolved , also any chambers of commerce which may happen to hold an independent opinion of the acts of Government . The Chamber of Commerce of the town of Havre has been dissolved , the Municipal Council of Lalere , and a host of others . As to the journal ' s , even Corsica is not secure from the censure . The Progreaaif of Corsica has been suppressed .,
I will now describe to you , in a few words , the exact situation of parties at the present moment . Tho Republicans are harassed , hunted down , and cast into dungeons . The Legitim . ifl . ta applaud theso persecutions ; new allies of the Government , they enencourage M . L . Bonaparte , they excite him to crush all tho heart and spirit of thfe country ; they urge him to stifle the press , to suppress the jury , to disarm the people throughout the country , to fob the nation of all its guarantees , of all its liberties , one after another . As soon as this work is done , and the life of
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26 &f > elL £ airFt % [ Saturday ;
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Citation
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Leader (1850-1860), Jan. 10, 1852, page 26, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1917/page/2/
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