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NOTICES TO CORRESPONDENTS . The Subscription -bob . Italy . -- "We have delayed our general report on the Subscription for Italy , m order to disposoof a collateral topic connected with the personal bistory of the movement . " An Investigator" and " W . G . " next week . '_ ¦ ¦ . Histoey oi ? the SA . EACENS . —Mr . E . A . Frcnman writes to assure us that , in Iris volume on the Saracens , he acknowledges the importance of Erskine ' s work on the Lives of Tiuiourandhis Successor . " \ Vo have , and did nob express , any doubt as to the literary integrity of Mr . Freeman . « . w ^ vm-v < M-ri ^> i - inl /\ T 513 l 7 'C ! 'D /^~ WT \ WXTrnc » . . .
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OPINION IN TRANCH AND GOVERNMENT . ..: ¦ ¦ ' ¦ ; IN . ENGLAND . ; , ; \ , \ It may enable our readers to appreciate the character of the actual crisis in Prance if we present the opinions of some distinguished 3 nen who , Btanding aloof from factious intrigues , are nevertheless in a position to reflect faithfully the opinions of the most influential classes . Some men are political by habit ; others are quietists by nature , or by necessity . Even these , however , cannot be insensible to the political influences at work
around them and the value of their testimony is enhanced if they have been accustomed to avoid illusion , and to judge independently of the hopes and passions which agitate mere party leaders . The evidence is still more ¦ worth y of credit , if it be found that the statement of a professed politician is in literal harmony with that of men without any Special ' point of view' whatever . We propose tO' reproduce some of these reflections , without comment or modification .
To Frenchmen of the calmest views , then , the actual ' situation' in Paris appears to be this : —Public affairs in a detestable condition ; Public opinion in a state of profound irritation and anxiety . As to public , affairs , there is a financial crisis , a commercial crisis , a crisis in the provision market . Money is perpetually flowing to the Bourse , there to be swallowed up in a vortex of speculation , which is excited by stimulants of the most artificial and unhealthy character . Great schemes axe set afloat
withthe Government for that shelter which they had sought in vain elsewhere . The Government , endeavouring to atone for a desperate policy by a desperate benevolence , undertook to pay the rents of the most necessitous . In . one day thirty landlords received their arrears from the Mairie of Belleville . NFo doubt the workmen relieved were contented ; but what of the next settling day ? and what of the workmen who are not relieved ? It may be imagined how futile is this in-* - * + . . * - - . _ _ _ - _ .-
finitesimal remedy applied to a universal evil , this drop of consolation in an ocean of misery . France- —Paris especially— is afflicted . But le Hoi s ' amuse . Gloom , and doubt , and suffering , oppress the public mind , but it is the carnival of the Empire . After Plombieres Biarritz , after Biarritz Compiegne , after Complegne Fontainebleau . There is a masquerade in . the forest , and the Imperial pleasuTe-seekers are chasing the deer with hound and horn , in . the costume of Louis XIV ., powder , plaited wigs , silken breeclies , and soft morocco boots . The Puke of Malajchoff
capers m that degrading frippery by the side of Bosquet and Cankobekt . " Their hair is white , but not with years , " but with the powder of the seventeenth century . Two years ago , these fantastic indecencies would have passed unnoticed ; in the midst of poverty and discontent they excite
something more than shame . The Emperor , lord of the Allegro at Compiegne , finds leisure , ifc is remarked , for these ridiculous rehearsals , while Frenchmen shrug their shoulders , and give indirect utterance to their indignation . r rhe change that has come over public opinion is so remarkable that the least clear-sighted —the friends not less than the antagonists of
tlie Empire—discern it . Never has disaffection been more widely spread , never has it been more openly expressed . The xmiversal conviction is—that things as they are cannot last . This conviction , pervading all classesthe interested and the indifferent , spectators and politicians—finds utterance in a hundred forms . It is the future contemplated by those who , we repeat , are least addicted to illusion . It is the future pointed at by men who , on the morrow of the coup d ' etat , declared that the Empire would not be speedily overthrown , but would run its course .
The article in the Hfonitew , published in the midst of so much dissatisfaction and so much irony , has produced an effect which cannot but be disastrous to the Empire . It has led to a general belief in the existence of serious differences between the Allied Governments ; it has proved that Louis D ^ AroLisoN is no longer the client of the ^ English press , and the rumour has floated
vests , would have induced a politic government to adopt large measures for the public safety ; but the Empire incites the fury of speculation ; the state budget is constructed on the principle of forstalling the public resources and leaving the future to chance , yet not even the visible anxieties of the official class prevent his Majesty from amusing himself . This is the burden of the story . All goes merry at Compiegne ; all is merrily planned for Fontainebleau . Hunts , balls , banquets , theatricals— -the Empire paying what it can , and owing the rest . The real malady of the Emperor is financial .
> : Eor , it is a profound truth that revolutions do not repeat themselves . One revolutionary movement is never a copy of the last , nor is it effected by identical processes . The Trench Emperor can only govern Paris by erecting "vast barracks at every commanding point , and connecting them by strategic routes with its cincture of fortifications . ' But these will not save him . The light will penetrate even , through military walls , and the supply of pay and donations will fail . His position is too fictitious to last . Trance has not descended
intellectually , to a level with her political degradation . Lofis NapoIjEOH may still say— "I am the Statej" but he has not extirpated the free thought of the French people—a thought vyhich is treasured up by the noblest citizens , and which will one day be uttered as the signal of national deliverance . The Empire is an accident , not an institution . "When it falls , it will be regretted by paid senators , by grand chamberlains , by falconers , and flunkeys alone . Such is the Opinion of Paris , if Paris le represented by its men of intellect , and not by the gamblers of the Bourse .
With this failing Government , thus condemned by the opinions of the most moderate and intelligent classes , our own Cabinet is connected by the ties of an official alliance . What , under such circumstances , is the duty of an English minister ? To maintain an English policy , consistent with the highest interests of the English nation , or to double and drift with every variation of French diplomacy ? Lori > Palmebstok , first the patron of the Empire , then its obsequious agent , and now its jealous partner , is carrying on a game of meddling rivalry abroad . " With the several
momentous questions pending on the Danube , at Constantinople , at Naples , between Turkey and the Principalities , Russia and England , Austria and Russia , Italy , Austria , and Prance , is it not a time to regret that we are publicly represented to the world by such a Minister ? The man who has sought to abase Parliament at home , who has deceived the liberal party in every country of Europe , who has never been great in policy , but invariably a juggler and a leader of dupes , is entrusted with the task of steering England through the midst of events which tend to a European crisis . The authorities of Manchester would have us glory in a Minister who governs , not by force of intellect , but by the force of corruption .
about more persistently than ever that the lEmperor is mad . He is not mad ; but he is incapable of understanding his position . The disease of his mind is vanity . The attack on the English journals came from him , and we liave the best warrant for saying that , when it ax ^ peared , a numerous class of Frenchmen liegan to believe that the star of the Etn-¦ peror was on the wane .
out the ballast of a centime of real capital . On the other hand , the tide of pauperism rises , especially in the southern departments , and the approach of winter aggravates the disquietude of the public mind . Never , during the past five years , have so many menacing omens multiplied upon , the horizon . Throughout France the working
classes are enduring extraordinary privations , particularly in the capital , where , in addition to the ordinary sources of discontent , the difficulty of obtaining lodgings has become a formidable public question . Tho Augustus of our age has demolished almost every neighbourhood in which the ouvricr "was accustomed to live iu comfort at a low
xent , at a convenient distance from his workshop . He is therefore driven to tho extremities of Paris , and to tho baulieue , but hero ho is confronted by competing crowds from tho provinces in search of an 1 mporial employer . The workmen of Franco have been engaged for three or four years in destining their own habitations . Rents , therefore , have been raised to an enormous average . On tho 8 th of last month—the quarter day of tho faub purga—vast trains of carts arrived at tho Prefecture of Polices , Indon with the property of the houseless , who had come to petition
Parallel with these French accounts , we liave another , describing France as upon tho declivity of a commercial crisis which threatens to spread through Europe , Public securities are daily depreciated ; the market ia gorged with paper issued under the pretext of restoring commercial confidence . Instead of confidence there is gambling . Every
adventurer , intoxicated by tho hope of unlimited gain , throws his ehanco into tho thousand lotteries of Paris , all branching from that famous Lottery of tho Golden Ingot , which scattered its tickets even under the porches and sacristies of the Holy Church . Two milliards of francs spent on the war , four successivo failures of vintages and har-
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PALMERSTON IN MANCHESTER . Pai ^ merston" is unquestionably tho most stupendous man of the day . He , the War Minister , had been threatened with Manchester ; he goes down to the centre of manufactures , the head-quarters of the Peace party , and ho has a triumphal entry . He has caught the spirit of the place , and next session he can tell those who would not meel him on their own cotton-hill , that he ia more member for Manchester than they . But though neither Mr . Gibson nor Mr . Bright was present , Mr . Bazley was there the representative of both , and consequently oi tho Manchester opposition . Ifc was in the
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SATURDAY , NOTEMBER 8 , 185 G .
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. - — -- — . . There is nothing so revolutionary , because there is . nothing so unn . atu . ral and convulsive , as the strain to keep things fixed when all the "world is by the very law of its creation in eternal progress . —Dji . Aekojld .
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Novtsmber 8 , 1856 . 3 1 HI 1 LEADEB . 1 () 67 rfnk 1 ¦ i ¦ Z ~ Z ' ^ *^^*** mm ^^^ m ^ m ^^^ mM ^^ mmmmmmmmmmmm
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Leader (1850-1860), Nov. 8, 1856, page 1067, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/l/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2166/page/11/
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