The councils of the French continue to exhibit a military

if not a warlike character. A law has been submitted to the Chamber

of Deputies, which provides for the organization of a large force, to consist of the elite of the National Guard, to be denominated the "Moveable National Guard." The ordinary National Guard comprehends all citizens from sixteen to sixty. Of this force, which resembles our Local Militia, nearly a million and a half are already enrolled, and of these above half a million are armed. The Moveable National Guard, which will be little different from our standing Militia, is to consist of men aged from twenty to thirty, the preference being given to young men, widowers, and married men without children. The organization of the Moveable Guard is of so much importance, that we shall give entire the par- ticulars of the proposed law.

SECTION 1.

"Art. 1. The moveable National Guard is the auxiliary of the army for the defence of the territory,—the guard of the frontiers, to repel invasion and maintain public order in the interior. "2. The moveable National Guard is composed of citizens taken from the station- ary National Guard, and distributed into organized bodies conformably with the present law. "3. The putting into activity of the moveable National Guard cannot take place

but by virtue of a ; or, during the non-sitting of the Chambers, by Royal ordi- nance, which shall be converted into law at the next session. "4. All Frenchmen, from 20 to 30 years (included) of age, inscribed and matri- culated on the register of the stationary National Guard, whatever may be their rank in the said Guard, will be subject to be called upon to form part of the moveable National Guard.

"5. The National Guards will be arranged in the following order :—The youngest, the bachelors, the widowers without children, the married without children, the married with children, the widowers with children. "The number of children, the necessity for the National 'Guards to remain at the head of any great agricultural or mechanical work will be appreciated, as hereafter explained. S. The arrangement of the National Guards called into service will be made by the Council of Verification; and, in case of complaint, shall be decided by the Jury of Equity.

"7. The fitness for service shall be judged of by a Council of Revison, to meet in the place where the battalion is to be formed. "This Council will be formed of seven members, the President, the Prefect, or, in default of him, the Counsellor of Prefecture, selected by him.

"Three members of the Council of Verification, selected by the Prefect.

"The chief of battalion, and two captains of the said battalion' nominated by the General commanding the military subdivision, or the department.

"SECTION 2.—EXEMPTIONS AND SUBSTITUTIONS.

"The following are exempt from the service of the National Guard :-1. All those who are not of the height of 1 mitre and 57 centimetres. 2. Those whom manifest infirmities render unfit for service.

" The Recruiting Council, and in case of dispute, the Jury of Equity, will pro- nounce upon these exemptions, and upon all those which may be demanded for any cause whatever. "S. The National Guard who have obtained substitutes in the army will not be excused from the service of the moveable National Guard.

" 10. Substitutions in the moveable National Guard will not be allowed, except for reasons submitted to the judgment of the Council of Verification; and, in case of dispute, to that of the Jury of Equity. "The substitute must be approved of by the Council of Verification, and by the Council of Revision. "The party procuring a substitute will be bound to clothe, to arm, and equip the substitute at his own expense. "11. The substitutes will be taken from among men of 20 to 30 years of age, and even from those of 35 to 40, if they have been soldiers. "12. If the substitute, of less than 30 years of age, shall be called upon to serve on his own account in the moveable National Guard, the person having obtained the substitute will be bound to furnish another, or to serve himself. "13. The substitute can only be taken from the arrondissement in which the party who obtained the substitute is domiciled.

"14. The party obtaining a substitute will be responsible for him in case of de- sertion.

SECTION 80—FORMAR/ON OF THE BATTALION.

"15. The moveable National Guard will be arranged by battalions the Govern- ment may unite them into a legion.

"16. The corporals, subalterns, and sub-lieutenants, will be elected by the Na- tional Guards; the other officers will be in the nomination of the King. " 17. All the officers in the nomination of the King may be taken, without thletiOn, from the National Guard, the army, and retired soldiers.

SECTION 4.—Op DISC/PLME.

"00. When the corps of the moveable National Guard are organized, they will he subject to military discipline.

" 21. Nevertheless, whenever the National Guards refuse to obey command, or leave their corps without authority,' they shall not be punished but by imprison- ment, which imprisonment shall nut exceed five years.

SECTIOV 5.-01. THE ADMINISTHATION.

" The moveable National Guard is assimilated, in point of pay and rations, to the troops of the line.

" A Royal ordinance will determine the gross amount and the acceesories of the tt The officers, sale:Berns, and soldiers, enjoying a retiring pension, will be enabled temporarily ta increase it by their pay for active service, :ehich they will receive on account of the rank they have obtained in the moveable National Guard.

" 23. The uniform and distinguishing marks of the moveable Nato : at Guard are the same as those of the stationary National Guard.

" The Government will furnish arms and equiptnents to such of the National Guards as shall not be provided with them, or have not the means to equip and arm themselves at their own exeense.

" 24. The moveable National Guards will have the same right as the troops of the line, to the military honours and rewards. "

25. Royal ordinances will determine the organization of the battalions and com- panies, the number and rank of the officers, and the composition and installation of the Council of Administration.

Although the extraordinary military levy noticed in our last number offered no subject of real alarm to the nations of Europe, and although there is nothing in the above law—which provides

for defence merely—that threatens an interruption of' the peace

which now happily prevails, yet it is quite evident that France is determined, should any occasion call for a display of her power, not to be fbund unprepared. A depot of recruits—for it may be

truly so called—of 1,500,000 strong, must be a very formidable instrument in the hands of any people, much more of a people fond of warlike fame and well trained to the reaping- of it. As,

however, in individuals, the best way to avoid being insulted is to maintain such a bearing as must convince the rude and regardless that insult is dangerous, so doubtless in a nation, the best way to ward off attack is to show such a front as may convince neigh- bouring nations of its hopelessness. There can be no doubt, that there is not a Sovereign on the Continent of Europe that would not gladly " frush the armour" of Louis PHILIP, could he discover a loose rivet in it ; and Louts PHILIP acts wisely to offer the Sovereigns no such advantage. NICHOLAS may still hesitate to acknowledge the new order of things in France, but he will much more hesitate ere he attempt to subvert it while its moral strength is so tremendously augmented by a physical array which even NAPOLEON never boasted of.

The abolition of capital punishment—a question which had been, as we imagined, finally dropped—has been unexpectedly re- vived. The motion for the abolition was made in the Chamber of'

Deputies by M. de TRACY,' and warmly supported by KERATRY, LAFAYETTE, GIRO') de Ain, and several other deputies' and terminated by an address to the King, praying that he would he pleased to introduce a law for the purpose. The address was voted by 225 to 21. It was carried up to the King on Saturday, and re- ceived the most gracious reception from that singularly-benevolent man.

"The sentiments," said the King in reply to the Deputation, "to which you give expression, have been a long time in my heart. Witness, from my earliest years, of the frightful abuse of the punishment of death in political matters, and of all the evils which have resulted from it to France and humanity, I have constantly and warmly advocated its abolition.

The remembrance of these times of disaster, and the melancholy feelings which oppress me when I turn my thoughts to them, will afford you a sure pledge of the eagerness with which I shall hasten to lay before you a project of law conformably to your views. With respect to mine, they will never be completely fulfilled until we have entirely effaced from our code all those rigours and penalties at which humanity, and the present state of society, revolt."

This question is agitated at present for the purpose of saving the late Ministers; and while many, like LAFAYETTE, support it from principle, and from a lively recollection of the horrors of the

first Revolution—horrors which they imagine might have been mitigated, if not altogether spared, had the law now contemplated been then in existence—others do so more from love of the trai- tors than from any abhorrence of shedding blood, which, were it flowing from the leaders of the popular party, they would be the last to stanch. The nation, which is even more liberal, politically speaking, is by no means so humanely inclined as their represen- tatives. Even among the people, however, there are some striking exceptions ; as the journals of the Deputies a few days ago showed, when a petition was presented from forty of the men who had been wounded in the fight of the Three Days in support of M. DE TRACY'S motion. There can be no doubt, that if ever the punish- ment of death were due to the responsible servants of a detested government, it is due to the late Ministers of France ; for no treason was ever attended with a more profligate and more useless waste of human life. Had France been so divided on the ques- tion of constitutional law, that the ordinances had a chance of being ultimately received, there might be this excuse pleaded for POLIGIVAC and his coadjutors—that the beneficial end (beneficial in their judgments) which they proposed, blinded them to the 'infamy of the means adopted to attain it. But their capital offence was, that they hazarded great and extensive mischief, and indirectly perpetrated a thousand murders, in aiming to accomplish what all Frenchmen knew to be unattainable, even if desirable. But granting all this to be true, it still remains for considera- tion, whether some way may not be found by whichto markthe abhorrence of the French nation, and of all thinking men in every

"18. Companies of Grenadiers and Voltigeurs may he formed when the King shall think proper. " 19. There shall be atlas to every battalion of 500 men. " The Rag shall bear the name of the department which has furni,hed the bat- talion.

country, equally effectual with cutting off the heads of these great criminals. From the long-confirmed habit in England of hanging men for all offenc,es, it appears the people cannot bring their minds to contemplate any process but hanging in the light of a punishment. When the propriety a guillotining POLIGNAC and his associates is questioned, they can imagine no alternative but their acquittal. For our parts, we can imagine many severer punishments than the guillotine in the case of these men. They would go to the scaf- fold upheld by the notion that they suffered as political martyrs ; they might depend on having their memmy Ivarmly vindicated by their friends, feebly assailed by their enemies—for who wars with the dead? To such men death by the common executioner is nothing, for it offers to the imagination no more dishonour than death by the common enemy. But there are punishments which no sophistry can render respectable, and which no solace of friends or posterity — nothing but the mens conscia recti, and hardly that—can render toleraLle. To these punishments let the advisers of the weak and worthless CHARLES be condemned. Let them be sent to the galleys, cc.ndemned to the mill, he mule to labour at the public works of a country which they vhe.i le de- stroy, and which has grown great by their defeat. Let them see the work of improvemeIt'. progressing,, and be compelled to lend their legs and arms and backs in assisting its progress. This would be a punishment moch more adequate to their crimes than the vulgar, and, even were it not otherwi,v exceptionable, the anti-philosophical punishmeat, of the holler or the axe. It will be recollected, that among the pranks uf which these men were accused, the files that desolated Normandy, and alarmed all France, %vele included. On this subject, a journal cal , led La France illeridionale contains the following curious letter.

" House of Detention at Toulonse, October 1.

" Sir—Overwhelming misfortunes compelled me to become the instrument of a party, and, in fact, its principal agent, in the tires which have desolated Nor- mandy, and which would have spread through all France if I lout fuleiled the in- structions I received. But the cry of alarm raised by the journals, the pictures they drew of the deplorable eufferines of the victims, and, if I may presume to say it, my own sentiments, raised horror in my nand, aed induced me to suspend my infamous mission. I took flight, and concealed myself front the rage of those who had reckoned upon me ; and thus the course of devastations I was to have inflicted upon Languedoc, Provence, and Dimphlay, was suspended. Reduced to extreme distress from my forced state of concealment, I yielded to necessity, and rather than pursue a course of guilt so atrocious. I became culpable in another way, and was arrested at Toulouse. From the depths of my prison I venture to address you, in order that you may be informed of the discoveries I have to make as to the authors and instigators of the tires alluded to. These attempts were not, as you truly suggest, foreign to the policy of tile late Ministry ; they cannot be attrilinted to simple individuals without concert with each other ; they were all directed by a powerful hand. Had my information been listeued to somewlmt earlier, you would not have had to say that time alone would unveil these horrible mysteries. I could have furnished you with unimpeachable documents, which are iii my pos- session. I have given full details in my confession: committal them to be commu- tated to you. May they prove me worthy of some indulgence ! May they prevent the recurrence of similar calamities, for the torches are still burning ! There ere some blanks in'my declarations ; you will at once perceive ray motives, when you come to know that certain actors in the truly tragic drama of which this province was to have been the theatre are resident in this town, from whose Mil:Immo, being rich and powerful, I have everything to fear. I bare net thought it prudent to deliver up the principal part of the documents which support my declaration; one single letter which proves my affiliation with the congregation of Mount. Range, who transmitted to me the orders they received front the Prince de Polignac, was found upon me and seized. My voluminous correspondence, my written instructions, the lists of the different estates to be set tire to, and the names of the persons who weee to supply me with mare accurate informa- tion, as well as a secedes of safe conduct, signed "Prince de Pt:lige:Lc," equi- vocal, it is true, but the object of whmh may be easily gneesed from the rest of the papers ;—all these authentic evidences are still at my out command ; hut I will not deliver them up into your hands until one man among you, gentlemen, shall have given me his word that nothing shall happen to him who is the depository of them, and until I shall have received some mitigation of the penalties that may be pro- nounced against myself. I require this assurance from you, because vita have it in your power to make it good. I have resolved not tu make any further declara- tion in this city. Neither promises nor threats shall induce nte. I will not be un- grateful, and deliver up tojustice hint who has rendered me a benefit."

This letter was addressed to M. BERANGER, by a person at pre- sent in confinement at Toulouse, whom the editor of La France Meridionale states that he has seen and questioned, and whom he describes in everything as a man above his present condition, and bearing no appearance of an ordinary felon. It may be recollected that the idea of the fires in Normandy being the work of the late Ministers, or of any of the tools of Government, has always been treated—as indeed, prima facie, it seemed to merit—as an idle exaggeration of the party opposed to them. It may perhaps turn out, on close investigation, that in this instance, as in many others, —" le vrai n'est pas toujours le vraisemblable." M. ANATOLE DE MONTESQUIEU has retuined from a mission to Naples and Rome ; he is the bearer of autograph letters from the Pope and the King of Sicily, congratulating Louis PHILIPPE on his accession.