12 JUNE 1852, Page 9

furtigu gut Calnial.

ERANCIL—We last week mentioned the menacing article in the Canal- tutionnel on the relations between France and Belgium. The effect of the article on Belgium was such that the Belgian Ministerdemanded explana- tions in Paris ; and he received an assurance that the article was formally disapproved or both in its sense and tone. But this official explanation was not made public till the middle of the present week, when it appeared in the Honiteur Beige ; and in the mean time, M. Granier de Cassagnac, the writer of the article, made an additional statement on Saturday, of a remarkable character.

"The Belgian journals, hostile to the Prince President, pretend to believe that the war of taiiffs, announced in our preceding article, was a mere menace, begot of our fancy, invented by our caprice, and altogether foreign to the views of the French Government ; and they add, that the Catholic party in Belgium begged of the Elys8e, and of ourselves, this comminatory manifesto, with the view of influencing the elections in their favour What serious man can believe, that, having the honour and being bound by the duty of approaching the Head of the State, we should have been so far wanting to the respect due to his person aud to his power, as to implicate his policy in matters so eminently grave and delicate, without having pre- viously consulted his intention and convenience ? It is not therefore in our own name, believe us, that we have spoken of the case in which the com- mercial relations of Belgium with France might be broken. For the rest, the Belgian Government has an Ambassador to inform it of the truth, if our words do not represent this with sufficient credit."

The Paris Moniteur of Sunday contained a paragraph "communiqué," disavowing M. Cassagnac's articles, and stating that "no organ can engage The responsibility of the Government but the Moniteur." The Conatitutionnel of Monday contained a reply to this paragraph, by Dr. Veron himself, stating the circumstances under which he inserted the Belgian articles in his paper ; and declaring that he "still firmly believed, even after the article of the Moniteur, that M. Granier de Cassagnac was completely authorized" by the President. Next day, Tuesday, the Constitutionnel bore on its front the ominous "first warning" of the Minister of Police. The warning was given be- cause that paper, "notwithstanding the insertion made in the Moniteur of June 8, 1852, of a note communicated by the Government, persisted in declaring an inexact assertion to be true." Immediately under the warning, however, followed an article by Dr. Veron, expressing his re- spectful and lively regrets, but stating some curious facts. "When the first article of M. Granier de Cassagnac on Belgium was pub- lished in the Constitutionnel, M. Mocquart ordered in writing from M. Denain, our &ant, 100 copies of the number which contained it. M. Granier de Cassagnac also asked for 400 copies of the same journal." "When, therefore, i the chef du cabinet of the President of the Republic so far ap- proved of the first article on Belgium as to purchase 100 copies, had I any reason to think that the second article, which was only written to give more authority to the first, would be contradicted, accused of exaggeration, and become the cause of warning for the Constitutionnel "

However, Dr. Veron bowed his head, and announced that it would be his painful duty "no longer to open his columns to the contributions of M. Granier de Cassagnac, since he had compromised the President of the Republic." At the same time he expressed the highest regard for the discarded contributor.

The Moniteur of Wednesday announced that a "second warning" had been addressed to the Constitutionnel for the article of Tuesday. This second warning leaves the Government the power of suspending the paper for two months without notice, and gives the President the power of sup- pressing the paper altogether by decree at the end of that two months. The President has made a swoop at the correspondents of the English Press in Paris. The correspondents of the Morning Chronicle, the Daily News, and the Morning Advertiser, were summoned to the department of

Police which regulates the press, on Sunday moraine; ssively had interviews with M. Latour Demou at which ciao of the

French Government towards the rep ntatives of the b.., , press were communicated.

M. Latour Demoulin said, that for som tOsF1'41 meat•41 had been greatly annoyed by the systema

• of the

English newspapers to the government of ?Pi•etiiielit • it had particularly remarked that the MornikiCi,kaica 3 ian o;di- narily hostile. " The Government was milieus to e as i.,m1 and as moderate as possible ; but it could not permit the English papers to pursue a system which it had prohibited in the French papers, and for which it had prohibited the several Belgian and German papers from entering France. The Government did not object to the publication of facts, or of authentic documents ; neither did it expect the English papers to be favourable to it. It would allow criticism (desappreciations) even though hostile, if conducted in a fair spirit; but it could not allow personal attacks and abuse of the Chief of the State ; it could not allow that the President should be traine daus la boue.' Yet it would not allow desappreciations in the most absolute sense of the term, for some criticism might be conducted in a way that could not be allowed. It objected particularly to rumours and &asses nouvelles,' which gave rise to false impressions abroad, aud did injury to the French Govermuent, by ,impressing foreign states with erroneous notions of its intentions." ` He expressed his regret that he had no extracts of the Morning Chro- nick to show precisely what he objected to, and, ultimately rising, he rang the bell,: directed some of the cadres containing the extracts from the Lon- don papers, and especially from the Morning Chronicle, to be brought in. Upon this a portfolio was brought in, containing voluminous translations from the Morning Chronicle; and the first which turned up was one, I think, of the 27tb. May, from which he read an extract; but it was so badly translated that it was difficult to understand it. It turned out, however, to be a pretty strong attack upon some of the recent measures of Louis Napo; leon, and in which the elect of eight millions was spoken of as an ‘assaasni. [In a metaphor he was called the assassin of the Republic.] On further examination, it was found that the article from which he was reading was not a Paris letter, but a leading article. Upon this I remarked, that, even supposing that I should be held responsible for the contents of the Paris letter—which of itself would be a hardship, since I was only one of the cor- respondents—it could hardly be said that I was also to be held responsible for the comments made by the editor, over whom 1 had no control, and whose name I perhaps did not know. M. Latour Dumoulin answered, that the French Government could draw no distinction as to who was or who was not the writer of the offensive articles. As regarded the English papers which attacked the President, it was determined that, if they did not change their tone, it would hold the Paris correspondents, on whose information the leading articles were probably written, as responsible, and expel them from France. He considered the correspondents as the representatives of the papers ; and as the Government would expel the representative of a foreign power which was hostile to it, so it would expel the representatives of the papers." Ho repeated, that "the Government was quite determined not to draw any distinction ; that the editor was beyond its jurisdiction, but the correspondent was within it; and that it was quite resolved not to permit the correspondents of journals which continued to make hostile and systematic attacks on the Government, and, more especially, personal attacks on the President, to remain in France." The correspondent of the Daily News tells the story of his interview much in the same way as the above, which was taken from the Morning Chronicle. He argued the case with a reference to the course taken by Napoleon the Great.

"The remedy of the French President lay clearly against the newspaper, which he might either prosecute in the English courts of law, or lay a di- plomatic complaint against with the English Government, which would in point of fact come to the same thing ; only in the latter case the French Go- vernment would hold the English one responsible for the prosecution of the paper, as had been recently the case in Belgium. When the Prince Presi- dent's uncle became Emperor, he was attacked with violence by the English newspapers; and he took this means of redress. He caused a criminal in- formation to be filed against the editor of the newspaper ; who was defended by Sir James Macintosh. The upshot of the affair was the condemnation of the newspaper to considerable damages." But M. Latour Demoulin refused to change the determination to act now against the correspondents who are within the reach of the French Government.

M. Latour Demoulin was very urbane and polite in his manner to all the gentlemen ; and he showed a desire to influence the papers by offers of assistance.

"He said that the Government was anxious to afford every facility to Eng- lish correspondents for sending correct news ; it would even have no objec- tion to communicate at times important documents which it could not permit to be published in France. For instance, the Count de Chambord's letter, although the independence Beige was seized for the publication of it, would have been confided without difficulty to an English newspaper."

In the course of the interview, one of the English correspondents oh served that the correspondents of the Times had not been molested. M. Latour Demoulin answered, that though the Times was not sparing in the severity of its strictures, yet it acted with impartiality by giving not merely what was unfavourable, but also what was favourable, in the form of news—"Lo Times met du blanc et du noir."

IL Emile de Girarilin reiterates in La Presse Ws assertion that in March 1848 General Changarnier proposed to Ledru-Rollin to put himself at the head of 12,000 troops to invade England, and to proclaim the Re- public. He vouches the disinterested testimony of M. Mathieu, of the Drome.

Ausnim—The Emperor left Vienna, for the Hungarian capital, and a tour through Hungary, on the 5th instant, with an immense retinue, and determined to gain popularity.