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would be drawn ; " for he did not see any one in that room who was too old to carry a musket , if they were called upon to defend their hearths and homes . " ( Hear , hear , and laughter . )
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LETTERS FROM PARIS . [ From our own" Correspondent . ] Lettee LVI . Paris , January 18 , 1853 . Discoed reigns in the Bonapartist household . The swarm of parasites are stinging themselves to death : the courtiers are at daggers drawn against one another . Fould has re-opened his quarrel with Persigny ; Nieuverkerque has had a duel with Edgar Ney ; the aides-de-camp , ousted from their appointmentshave
, declared war to the knife against the chamberlains who supplant them . To crown all , Bonaparte is on bad terms { en froid ) with St . Arnaud , and there is a coolness between him and Drouyn de l'Huys . A writer employed by the police had written from Paris some articles against M . Fould , Minister of State . These articles were published in the German papers . M . Fould , indignant at the insult , which he suspected to proceed from Persigny , ordered , on his own authority , a domiciliary visit at the house of the employe .
Now , you should know that domiciliary visits are within the exclusive cognizance of the Ministry of Police . To order and cause to be executed a domiciliary visit without such cognizance , and contrary thereto , was a flagrant violation of all rules , and an audacious interference with the process of our despotic institutions . In consequence of this arbitrary act a rather lively scene occurred in the Council of State between MM . Fould and De Maupas . Persigny took advantage of the occasion to vent his spite againsb M . Fould , and to side with Maupas , in renewed invectives against M . Fould . The last-named personage , if I am correctly informed , was far from remaining silent , and without regard to the presence of his Majesty the Emperor , the two Ministers belaboured each other with all the delicacies
of the vocabulary of the fish markets . During this discussion his phlegmatic Majesty amused himself characteristically with making paper cocottes , and ranging them in a superb order of battle of his own invention . As for Nieuverkerque and Edgar Ney , the latter had accused the former of having almost killed him by his awkward shooting at Compiegne , andtheformer accused Edgar Ney of having prevented the Emperor making him a
Senator . A ' meeting * the result of these hot words , in-which Edgar Ney received a second ball in his arm . Nieuverkerque , notwithstanding the tears , the cries , the desolation of the Princess Mathilde , received an immediate order to depart into exile . Only , as in the ease of General Narvaez , his exile is disguised under a scientific mission to Greece . Whether or not his inconsolable Calypso will accompany him to Attica , I can't say .
Now , a word about the aides-de-camp and their quarrel with the chamberlains . Before the 1 st of January , the former had charge of the interior Hervice of the palace , near the person of the Emperor . An immense advantage was attached to tlie . se domestic i unctions—among others , the favour of continual access to the person of tho Emperor , and the means of entertaining him at all times with whatever might servo their oivnintereaha . This privilege insured them considerable influence . Accordingly , at certain hours they wore besieged by eager place-hunters , who , money in hand , solicited their intervention with the Emperor in favour of private ends . Tho aides-de-camp had contrived to establish a perfect cordon sanitatre round their poor
Sire , and through this rigorous and continual blockade , nothing but what- they desired could penetrate to the earn of Bonaparte . Hut tho institution of Chaniborlains made short work with all those auriferous privileges ; bo the aides-de-camp are now driven out of their fortress , and replaced by chamberlains . -Now , the first belong to the army , and boar the sword , whereas the second arts only civilians , another reason for M . leu . Aides-de-camp to despise MM . lo . s Chaniberlanns , who , if we listen to the epaulettes , are nothing but ¦ pekiiut en culotte , courts . Hereupon , insults , mutual tleiianco , six challenges ensued . At this moment the Tuileries is a menagerie of oats and dogs . All the hangers-on will end by devouring one another , and some fine morning the paloco will be completely empty .
A word about tho dissensions between Bonaparte mid certain of bis ministers . First of all , the affair of St . Arnaud , Minister of War . Another scandal of the Bourse . St . Arnaud , you remember , in a desperate gambler . Before he becainoMinisterhewus overhead and ears in disgraceful gainbling . debtH . Tho 2 iulof December paid them all oil " . As soon as ho camo into oflieo lie loft oil' playing cards , and took to dabbling iu tho Funds Tho utoady riso of Stocks that preceded tho Einpiro
enabled him to realize enormous profits . But by the sudden and continued fall ever since , he has lost still larger sums : in the space of two months he dropped about two millions and a half of francs ( 100 , OOOZ . ) of his former winnings , and a week ago he was a loser to the extent of 1 , 200 , 000 francs ( 48 , 000 J . ) M . Dubosc , his broker , having called upon him to pay up the difference , St . Arnaud refused . M . Dubosc immediately referred the case to the syndicate of stockbrokers , who , to shield the personality of M . Dubosc in the affair , enjoined him to recover the amount by all possible means . Thereupon St . Arnaud again defaulted , and
M . Dubosc , en desespoir de cause , as a last resort , addressed himself to the Emperor , who , anxious to avoid the scandal , paid the sum out of his private purse . But for all that , the scandal was not avoided . A whole syndicate of stockbrokers cannot call a meeting without some whisper of the cause getting abroad . The day after , the whole Bourse and all Paris knew of St . Arnaud defaulting ; and two days after , the Moniteur had the impudence to declare all the rumours current about St . Arnaud calumnious . This note of the Moniteur incensed all the men on Change , and they replied to the defiance of the Moniteur by a fall
in the Funds of two francs . You may conceive the displeasure of Bonaparte : Sustained as he is solely by the Bourse , he finds all the brokers turned against him . He has already determined to supersede the Minister of War : his successor is . to be General Caurobert . It only remains to gild the pill for the hero of the 2 nd of December . A good pretext is found in the expedition which is nojv preparing in Algeria . Orders have been sent to press these preparations with vigour . It will consist of 40 , 000 men . St . Arnaud will be appointed to the command of the expedition , and so got rid of . Not at all . St . Arnaud knows he is the
stronger man : having the army in his hands , that power is his safety ; he wont let it slip at any price . We may probably witness in the course of a few weeks the following singular spectacle—an omnipotent Emperor disobeyed by his Minister . The character of St . Arnaud suggests all sorts of suppositions , and lends colour to all kinds of possibilities . If Bonaparte rouses the temper of St . Arnaud too warmly , that Minister is capable of laying hands on the Emperor , sending him to Vincennes , and proclaiming Joinville King of the French ; or Henry V ., King of France ; or even Napoleon IV ., the son of Jerome , Emperor . All would
depend on the adventurer s caprice , or on the price each of the pretenders might be willing or able to give for his support . Such an event would little surprise me ; it would be consistent with the natural course of events . Despotism is nothing but the government of the sabre , and the government of the sabre is the rule of the Prostorians . Praetorians at Rome , Janissaries at Constantinople , Strelitz at Moscow : names change , but the events , the facts aro the same : it is ever the domination of the armed force over their pretended Sovereign . For a simple Yes or No , they strangle an Emperor as you would a dog . The only way Emperors have of escaping such a disagreeable entertainment is to
massacre in good time their Janissaries or their Strelitz . Such is the fatality of Bonaparte ' s position . Ho rests on tho . army alone : he looks like a formidable colossus , looming largo in all the formidable apparatus of despotism . But that army i . s resumed iu one man , and that man is a condottiere , an adventurer of a passionate and violent temper . lie has only to wave his hand , to snatch ^ Bonaparte from the midst of the Palace , and pack him off to a Fort . Bonaparte , conscious of his dependence on that man , is obliged at once to coax him and to seek to get rid of him . Hence tho falseness of his position ; hence an infallible crisis , in which St . Arnaud or Bonaparte must go to the wall .
The . difference between live lMnpovor and M . Droum do l'Huys wa 8 less grave , and of another nature M . Drouiu do l'Huys had gone to groat lengths with the Russian Ambassador in the affair of the credentials ; si > that Bonaparte ' s concession was like a disavowal , placing tho Minister iu a false position . lie . sent in his resignation , which was refused ; hut at this moment M . Walewski , Ambassador to London , is talked of us his successor .
I shall sny but littlo of tho ball at the Tuileries , to which only functionaries and foreigners were admitted . It can hardly interest you much . I shall content niynelf with infoiining you that Bonaparte , that great restaurateur of authority , Juts recently restored la culotte ( knee-breeches ) , doubtless as an emblem of this authority . * Tho prodigality of attentions heaped upon your compatriots was the object of general remark . What I admire most is the good faith , the candour , the delightful nuivelc with which your countrymen reeeivo all these cajoleries . They accept all these empty promises
for cash payment . ( Ils prennent toute cette eatt , lenite de cowr pour de Vargent comptant . ) Decidedly the Dutchmen are ' cuter than the Englanders , after all . Tho Moniteur , however , by way of a corrective , I suppose , has fulminated a new note against the English press . This note was very ill received at Paris , especially at the Bourse , where indeed it was greeted b y a further fall . Only ten days before , the Moniteur
contained a pompous eulogium on the new press law in Spain , just promulgated at Madrid by the quasi-liberal ministry . That eulogium , which went so far as to vaunt the blessings of the liberty of the press , had induced some people , with good-natured credulity , to imagine that a change of policy in a more liberal sense was in contemplation . On that vague hope the Funds had risen . But soon came the article against the licence of the English press to dissipate all illusions .
Nevertheless , one could not help asking why so sudden and so severe a passion for the liberty of the Press beyond the Pyrenees ? Many peo 2 > le fancied they had found the key in tho alleged recent re-opening of certain negotiations with Maria Christina to obtain the hand of one of her natural daughters . Qtii se ressemble , s ' assemble ( " Birds of a feather , " &c ) , says the proverb . Unfortunately , Maria Christina refused for tlie third
time . Only fhe day before yesterday , her final refusal arrived . Two other attempts had been made in Germany , one for the hand of a Princess , but the King of Prussia interposed to prevent the project ; the other at the Court of the Emperor of Austria , to obtain nothing more nor less than an Archduchess . But at Vienna , the fate of Marie Antoinette and of Marie Louise is not yet forgotten , and there was little disposition to hazard the adventure a < ram .
Great has been the disappointment of Bonaparte in his connubial enterprises . He can no longer escape the conviction , le malheureux ! that no one in Europe takes him seriously . Everybody takes him for a puppet , and treats him " as such . " Every sovereign o £ Europe tries to play him all the tricks he can . Austria broke off his engagement to the Princess Wasa ; Russia enjoyed the sport of doctoring him before sending him credentials ; Prussia takes pleasure in cheating him out of a Princess ; and so with all the rest . It is now said that in despair of obtaining a Princess , he has made up his mind to marry a simple mortal . At a recent ball , he met a certain Spanish Countess , — Mdlle . de Montijos , —and I hear he is going to marry her . Desinit hi piscem ! So ends the comedy .
In default of any real interest attaching to their hero , the police are busy in getting up a factitious interest in his Majesty . Two malefactors were lately arrested at Vaugirard . For a whole week the public was regaled with a story of two liberated convicts guilty of a horrible assassination . But as these two men defended themselves vigorously against the police agents , the police took occasion to transform them into political conspirators . For want of imaginative- power , they invented the following stupid story . Two individuals , dressed as gentlemen , were in the habit of following the Emperor far and near on horseback , in all his excursions , and seemed , to cling to him wherever he
went . The police were put on the scent , and iiftei some time discovered that these two men frequented an obscure wine-shop of the Vaugirard , where their arrest was efleeted . No doubt it was a presentiment that nobody would believe this story that induced the police to convert the accident by which Kil ^ ar Ney received a shot or two at Coinpiogno into a regular attempt on his life . All Paris knows that it v : is De Nieuverkerque that awkwardly fired the unlucky shot ; but the police is determined at all hazards to throw a halo of interest around their hero , and in default of real danger , to create some imaginary and fictitious alarm .
Otherwise , our rfifime . continues unchanged . It \ h seriously proposed to modify the jury system . According to the principle of universal suffrage , every ( iti / . cn is now qualified to lie a juryman . Jt is true fhat iu reality , on the pretence of desiring to avoid inconvenience to working men , tkei / arc never summoned . Now wo are to go back fo the truth . Tho principle of iinivor . sul suffrage is lo be cut in half , and blinded of one eye . The prefects are to nominate the three hundred most , notable persons in each arrondisseniont , out of which the corps of jurymen will be picked . One more hypocrisy unmasked !
As to the press , it has still a bard life of it . Printers are condemned , for a mere syllable , to fines of a hundred thousand francs and upwards . Clandestine j » rcflHert an ; just now the special object of the rigours of tins police , who find " clandestine presses" everywhere . A copying-machine ( jtresxe < 1 copier ) is a " clandoHthui press ; " a washerwoman ' s nianglo is a " clandestino press . " A merchant at Mun » eillos was lately sentenced to a lino of J 0 , 000 francs for having a " clandestine press . " Jt wua for copying Iuh lottern ! M
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January 22 , 1853 . ] THE LEADER . 75
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* French proverb : J'ortor fa culolto :- {! trn lo chef da m&natio—mm wo any , to " wour tho broechou . " — Hi ) . Leader .
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Leader (1850-1860), Jan. 22, 1853, page 75, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct1970/page/3/
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