PARIS CM-CHAT.

[FROM OUR SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT.]

London, January 7, 1863. IT was generally expected that the allocutions to be addressed by Louis Napoleon to the members of the "Corps Diplomatique," at the New Year's reception, would be of a peaceful character, and the public did not fall short of their expectation. The words uttered by the man who is suffered to dispose at pleasure of the lives of six hundred thousand soldiers thirsting for war, caused this time no throne to totter ; no nation got into a fever ; no government was put off the hinges; no mighty fortune crumbled into dust ; the Bourse remained almost immovable ; not even was one pane of glass in any of the palace windows made to shake. The Thunderer was pleased to let the world take breath. The Prussian "Chargé d'Affaires " heard with delight that the impedi- ments thrown in the, way of his master were, for the all- powerful seer of the Tuileries, a subject of fraternal solici- tude. Despite the public and unqualified endorsement of General Prim's conduct by the Spanish Prime Minister, M. Muro was kindly made acquainted with the regret her most Christian Majesty felt at seeing no Ambassador of her Catholic Majesty in Paris. Notwithstanding the rumours which had become current as to the intended recognition of the South, nothing was said to M. Dayton of a nature to grate upon his ear, and he was simply asked when and how the Ameri- can contest would cease—a rather silly question, by the bye. In fine, with the exception of the representative of Peru, who received a sort of warning, on account of the sympathy which the President of the Peruvian Republic had shown to Juarez, all the members of the "Corps Diplomatique " were addressed in milk-and-water language.

The reason is obvious. However great the taste of the Emperor for glowing adventures, he must know by this time that they do not always pay. The expedition to Mexico, for example, is a wound which will long bleed. What sort of compensation has France got for so many lives wantonly sacrificed, for so much money squandered away? The public grumble at the madness of the undertaking, not to speak of its dishonesty, and M. Fould is not probably of opinion that, on this occasion at least, " /a France eat assez riche pour payer an gloire."

Nor is this ill-starred expedition the only complication which renders it necessary to rein up. So entangled, indeed, does the situation appear to many, that a report having been circulated to the effect that there would be, at the opening of the session, no speech from the throne, no address to the throne, and, conse- quently no discussion of public affairs, there were not wanting those who readily believed it. It seemed by no means improbable that Louis Napoleon should say nothing, having nothing good to say. M. de la Gueronniere's paper, the France, took it for granted that such was to be the case, and began to remonstrate ; where- upon M. Granier de Cassagnac, in the paper of which he has just become the editor, the .Nation, flatly denied the fact, and, in his own rabid way, charged M. de is Gueronniere with assuming liberal airs at home, better to veil the meanness of his policy abroad. The fun of the thing is, that the report was at first spread by the very paper in which it is now so indignantly contradicted. As early as the 28th of December, the following passage was to be read—and was evidently not read by M. Granier de Cassagnac- in M. Granier de Cassagnac's own paper : -■-•" The approach- ing session will be, it is said, very short. If we may give credit to information emanating from persons worthy to be trusted (de personnes dignes de foi), the session will be opened, not by the Emperor, but by His Excellency the Minister of State, in the name of the Emperor. There would be then no speech from the throne, and, therefore, no address." Is not this an amusing blunder? Verily, M. Granier de Cassagnac deserves to go cheek by jowl with M. Emile de Girardin, the new editor of the Presse, who, the other day, allowed his paper to announce—with becoming bashfulness, of course—that the bust of the editor of the Presse had been crowned with flowers at Athens, in acknowledg- ment of the great services he had rendered to the Hellenic cause. How unlucky ! The blurt crowned with flowers turned out to be that of M. Saint Marc Girardiu. What's in a name ?

But, to return. There seems to be little doubt that the alarms expressed by M. de la Gueronniere were void of foundation. It is announced as certain that the Emperor will deliver a spech, as usual ; that an address to the throne will, as usual, be drawn up, and that the discussion of the address will commence in the Senate towards the close of January, and in the Corps Legislatif towards the middle of the following month.

Why not ?

No stormy resistance is likely to be met in the Corps Legislatif, composed almost exclusively of nominees, and where the Opposi- tion musters five men, two of whom are speechless members, or nearly so ; whence the expression lea trois anabaptistes, used to designate the militant part of the assembly ; and still less is any resistance to be apprehended on the part of the well paid, well fed, and well trained members of the Senate.

It is true that the senators of M. de La Rochejaquelein's stamp are apt to get into a passion, and to frown even upon Ciesar, when- ever they think the sacred cause of the Papacy in danger. At them, no doubt, was levelled Napoleon's answer to Ill. Troplong's compliments, expressing a desire that the Senate should never depart from the calm attitude that befits the first body in the State. But really there was no occasion for this piece of advice. It is not easy to discover on what grounds, as matters now stand, M. de La Rochejaquelein, M. Segnr d'Aguesseau, and tutti gaanti, would take up the cudgels. Wedded as they are to the defence of the temporal power of the Pope, they might have some reasons for attacking the Government in 1861 and 1862. But the Imperial policy has, ever since, under- gone one of those transformations which green politicians must think as wonderful as the dissolving views of the Polytechnic are declared to be by spectators fresh from school. Once more, nous avons changl tout cela. After alternately cajoling and snub- bing the Pope, Napoleon has passed under the yoke. The priests have succeeded in lording it at the Tuileries, just as they do in the humblest cottage ; they rule the Empress, and, through her, the Emperor. The speeches delivered at the New Year's recep- tions, both in Paris and in Rome, show the importance of the change. At Rome the Pope spoke of the Emperor, of the Empress, of the Prince Imperial, with a flow of tenderness which calls to mind the time when he never tired of expressing his gratitude towards the "eldest son of the Church." At Paris, the Vicar-General, who had been commissioned to introduce to the Emperor the delegates of the Metropolitan Chapter, gave utter- ance to a feeling of boundless loyalty ; and the language of the Abbe Buquet was so highly appreciated that the Moniteur, which had payed little more than common-place attention to the official eloquence of MM. Troplong, de Morny, and Baroche, took care piously to embalm in its columns each word fallen from the honeyed lips of "Monsieur l'Abbe."

There was consequently, I repeat, no occasion for exhorting the senators to be calm. Far from having to call the Empire to ac- count for any undue amount of Voltairianism, the stanch Catholics and Conservatists who form, as it were, the marrow of the Senate, will have nothing but heartfelt congratulations to shower on the protector of the Pope.

However, it remains to be seen whether Prince Napoleon will not take it into his head to set on fire by some bomb-like ejacula- tions the combustible piety of some of his colleagues—in which case they would have only the unhappy choice, either of keeping their temper, and thus failing to show that holy fierceness which so well becomes truly religious men; or of letting loose their zeal, and thus acting in disobedience to the order. The fact is that Prince Napoleon, to play his part well in the Imperial comedy, must be hard upon the clergy just in proportion to the increasing disposi- tion of his cousin to stroke them. Is it because he is fully alive to the urgency of the case, that he has favoured so publicly M. Emile Augier with his patronage, and that he has suffered the Fils de Giboyer to be performed under his auspices—a piece in which the clericals are mercilessly abused and jeered at? Perhaps so.

Be this as it may, his Imperial cousin will do well to ponder over the unavoidable consequences of too close an alliance with the clergy.

Powerful as he certainly is, to keep at the same time in his hand Turin and Rome is beyond his power. He cannot make common cause with those for whose sake so much blood was shed at Perugia, without irrevocably setting against himself those for whose sake so much blood was shed at Solferino.

But that is not all. Has he yet to learn that the temper of the , Catholic clergy is, in our day, what it has always been—un- manageable? Has he forgotten the characteristic affirmation of Cardinal Antonelli, "Never will the Church waive a particle of her influence ?'' Does he not know to whom this saying is applic- able, "Laissez leer prendre an pied chez roes, us en auront bientOt pris quatre ?" When, some years ago, the Church saw him kneel- ing down before her, prelates and priests hailed him as "the mes- senger of Heaven," and he was actually styled by the Bishop of Chalons "the man of God." The moment he stood up, they ranked him among the murderers of Christ ; the man of God became "Pontius Pilate."

And mark to what extent priestly arrogance is fed by conces- sion. The Pils de aiboyer having been performed at Nimes, the Abbe d'Alzon launches a manifesto, which runs as follows :—" Let the subvention bestowed on the theatre of Nismes be withdrawn. To hiss is not the best way to protest against the insult ; let the insulter be famished." At Beaucaire, the Protestants are denied by the Catholic clergy the right to bury their dead in a part of the cemetery, which they have made their own by purchasing it and surrounding it by a ditch. The fact of Protestants sleeping the sleep of death in the vicinity of Catholics is denounced as a scandal, a pollution, a contamination, a desecration of the home of the dead. The Municipal Council is terrified by the most horrible curses into asking whether the law is to be enforced, and the gravedigger grows pale when summoned by gendarmes to do his duty. At Rome the "Academy of the Immaculate Conception" assembles, and Cardinal Mathieu takes the chair, and calls imps of the devil any such as refuse to adopt the dogma of the "Immaculate Conception," a dogma proclaimed, he says, amid the applause of the whole world. Again, the prebendaries of the Abbey of St. Maurice en Valois address a letter to the Pope, in which all the adversaries of the temporal power are termed fire- brands from hell. The following is an extract from this charitable document :—" The Church of Satan labours to disturb minds through the freedom of thought, hearts through the liberty of conscience, families through the right of divorcing, society through the sovereignty of the people."

All this is in keeping with the doctrine propounded by M. Veuil- lot, a priest in a frock coat, a priest -without the tonsure, but a priest at heart. According to this candid, faithful, and undaunted representative of the Catholic Church, the great fault to be found with the Holy Inquisition is, that all the heretics were not burnt to a man. "Had he been called upon to manage this business, he would have sharpened a little better the sword of persecution, he would have hunted down like wild beasts, he would have destroyed like vermin all those whose opinions did not exactly square with his own religious views." The truth is that wherever Catholic priests are not martyrs, they must be masters, and wherever they are masters, they must be absolute masters. Theirs is an uncon- ditional sway. Has Napoleon made up his mind to submit to it ?

A FREEMAN.