LETTER FROM AN ESTEEMED CORRESPONDENT, ON THE STATE OF FRANCE.

TO THE EDITOR OF THE SPEC TATMI.

Si it —.Matters get on but oddly in France. We mire in •• ime hebroglio," RS c; mm Says, With a estvernmelit nomi7s1Py im piemetat:re, e e are daily denoting ninre and more from its very ce.eace and subst ince. l'hiced by the arms of the people upon the throne mf France, the Nine_ w hme DI kiv i, 11% expe- rience, habit.. and assecietions, esemed ts psorlaiin that he thorotiehly under- stood and would fulfil his ini.sion. as the tit st realy• e.m.titution 11 sovereign of this title country, secins to Ince been .iioi!t .nid- wryer:el, by the sole possession of that power which the elder hr melt of the Bow hon lee! during sixteen years so runorionsly abused :is te cause their downfal. Eeez y sincere Frenchman hoped that the very exinvph.hefare1 i s eyes. if net the inmvate sense of right aml wrong, and the lovig and mi.7.rable experienee of the first Revolu.

thin. Youhl have deterred 1.(mis Plitt ir from ire? f :l.m• v tiers of his

predec,.....rs. Yet the result shows hot tm. s • ssr: sing. by

rapid stt ;des exaetly at. the s ene poiet t7. mt:.. • • aed the l'arti widied to bring the uiti•. 1- is on!y the r. 7 1 ::70 means of etTectueting this sense!...ss prejeet e .,7.1 . :ivel l'es--

RONNET projected by means of the C117:relm_ ttm e by Royal

Ordonnanee, Lou re l'iii1.11' ZIlf..:111,' ■: •• of the Des

puties (ne whom 179 out 0: ssor) ase oss. ± ,• :1•:'i it France, e. the natien itself, which ;vines] him tm m. 10 n e dlti•etly inter- vene to cheek this career, the liberties of Franee at..1 the Ci. irer will shortly become an empty sound, a by word, and a I:lack:Ty—if indeed they be not so alresdy.

'f here was soliciting truly soblitssi in the 11 evelutien nf s I s:A. Its

,cause is-ac SO inatetestmy tn., mimil reasenable,—its x,eut:,:t so I mae-

terly, and so unstained by the crimes whieh disgraced t"..7 riv that I, amongst other iii ii, of the Ft eivel: eeoph, hoped they ImTI at lentil reacle .1 the !risen of renege. a • reward tit so many and such painful vitvritives, dir•ine t a • ;. civil and

foreign wars, of anarchy, of In:lit ivy despetieni. of i miii. .... 1 .•1. ie. 'teal strife,

and seas of blood, shisl both on the smenrohl and ie the irI. Ti.e i p oriotisin and purity evinced by all the 1...el.mrs, end eet.zi by the lo.e..st ..f the pcoele, in the unparalleled contest if the 13 irrie mdie v.feidy a.m.:p.:71sIiyi i1mr all tlic liii rums of the first tragedy, atiml restored the French ta !heir proper station in the scale of nations, for bull patrhatis.:1, tempsred j.ist:es, mercy, and humanity.

Whence, then, has it an-en, that a peeple capable of en sublime, so noble an effort, should be disappointed of its jest rewerd, of its I: it end (.771m..e.piences? that the " Chaste octress'e" of Lours the E.:an:emit, an et: L:1 Le the first

Chambers in 1,s:10, and procktimed to Iss "11.e te ml," 7,11 be daily sapped and destroyed pi. cemeal. :leder the tyrant ple mof m.e.....s:•;.• *: Al is. Sir, the secret of this wouderlid deception i5 more t V.1.1y toid dem tele it ea igittates

solely in the personal character and fai!ings of the King fan ings when in his former private statien. apart ft cm m1:1 Mu:if:rev:rejim pelvlet etivits. were neither vdiservell nor emardiel against. I shall Madly try to ex;.7.1in this cause

with its effects; and leave y7.11 yeur readers to ;edge wher!....r I a.a correct, or whether the pre-emit order of things is likely to lie durable, ameme;s: it people so full of pride, self love, hotattos and so essily exelted, as the Fre:telt. A remedy is hopeless under the present Klee. with 179 paid Deputi-s aml an elec- toral body of hattlly 260;000 in all France with a popolati,a if thirty-five millions.

'When the Duke of Ohm tees Ns was called, ie Angtot lez.."..0, from eve obscurity which the fot men system in France had intentiunaily iii ii iyea Li iii, to pre.

side over its destinies, first, as LieutenantsGenet al of the kiaedela, and next as King, I do not exaggerate when I say. that no prince ie any age or country had before him a liner, a milder field to eigna:iee his merits upon. as a constitutional sovereign, the father of his people, than Lours l'imen. Placed on the throne of empire Ivy the ;Amide. theveselses, imfer the spiendii contest of three days aastinst the Plietori m Lamb, of C:IAILLE, the Tenth, he was not laised to the throne, like the Itoniau Emperors, on the buelders of a corrupted sold:, IV, licentious, 6-rev, an ml gree iv ; kit was raised in the naked arms (if mitt iitd iii it, nstilted pv.nplet three It the b nej- e:Ides of tie- capitsl, to fill a 'eat vac vicd 1ic f-n. Itigatry. VenolaTILV, and fraud, which had just failed in the rode:IN-01r tim force ms oieu w1:1 (el :v. people

as the common law of all. Whit a pos::!'a:n h.r real of s. je mt:m..., and candour, to found a throne opon, thst shasld ste t al!, and enable hint in Insets honour to Is itteatli the s.••717ti... si me.- the

heeds of time p,...ple to hi.. children: emod ; s.. the sourse

which alone could enable him to ciTeer tl is. manifest

thou that this course has been entirely :1.,21. • Si. pursued.

Amongst the leaders in the 1.mvpu1 7.1 inevemeet

on the throne, the ever :It; '' ; 'vial were ite.:7, Leoirre, Poimoer, l'.1 ecume. ttm Si 5-.

IION I N. aid,:d by the \,`, ,.■' , ! 15.0 1 !.' : ' ,,,,1 bonen...0.1e men, meth sm. . • v.e . and casier..1 hi. hIs 1"

o:O8.1,4,1te Ci PHILIP mmml DE Is. These '•o: elected Lish ,.. 'thee s. It ia the

Monarchy surrounded with Republican institutions:" and now we behold at the head of affairs a set of men little if any thing removed from pure Royalism; of whom the inspiting genius or soul is a gentleman who went to Ghent with Loots the Eighteenth in 1815, and who exerted his talents to restore the old Prevotal Courts of feudal France, under the wgis of La Charte.

To explain these successive changes from good to bad, and flow bad to worse, in thegeneral Cabinets or Administrations which have nominally, but by no means in reality, governed France in the last six years and a half—which have in turn confounded and amazed this lively people by a regular and constant aberration from the very principle on which the throne of the Barricades was founded—but one word is necessary. It is, that the King will not only reign, but govern, by himself ! The Ministers are merely his clerks. From the very lugheat to the very lowest function of government, even to the most minute matter of detail, it is his will and pleasure to regulate every thing himself; the Itlioisters nurely taking the responsibility, and such executive drudgery as znay aasigied to hint by the same supre7me rolante, as the De'bats would call it. This 14 the whole secret ; and it proves that a really constitutional government, though nominally existent in France, is by no means understood, in our English sense of the mutter, in the high places here. Not only Lea this been openly avowed or scarcely concealed in the Parlia- mentary tribunal here, but it has further been proved, in the debates relative to CONSEIL —the man whose expulsion from Switzerland had nearly caused a breach with that Republic—that the said CONSEIL was employed as a spy and as agitator in Switzerland by the King himself, not only without the knowledge of his Ministry, but against their open and avowed policy ; for, while the man was a spy for the King, the Miniater TIIIERS was soliciting his expulsion and arrest from the Swisa Government through the French Anibassador, the Duke of MoNarria:r.o. Do you recollect the recent scene in the Chamber of Depu- ties on that subject? the silence of M. GASPARIN? the candid avowal of 'NIERS the Ex-Minister, " that though at the head of the Cabinet and Foreign Ministers, he knew nothing about it?" and the tardy avowal of MONT- ALIPET next slay after the debate, " that he was the responsible Minister for it" —though, first, it was not in his department at all ; and, secondly, though it is well known here that MONTALIVET had in reality no more to say to CONSEIL'S affair than you had ? But this is not all 'tis perfectly understood throughout France, that the public correspondence with Foreign Courts or Ministers, through the Minister of Foreign Affairs, is the smallest part of what really passes; that the correspondence which really regulates the relations of France with other countries, is that which passes only through the King's private Cabinet, and of which the ostensible Ministers have no knowledge whatever. They can safely say, therefore, in their places in the Chambers, that the honour Or dignity of France Las never been compromised by them ; while all France is fully persuadtd, that as regards the despotic powers (Russia, Austria, and Prussia) it has been and is daily compromised by somebody else. Ought such a tortuous, false system of government to last ? Can it last, in a country so susceptible as this is on the point of honour ?

It may, however, be said, that the foreign policy of the Government may be bad and degrading, and yet (though the mode of internal government may be objectionable and unconstitutional) the general measures may be good and con-

ducive to public freedom and happiness. I wish sincerely it were so ; but that you may judge, I give you a few specimens of the laws passed or recently pro-

posed, rejected, or intended, by the Government of Lours Prime, under the influence of " La Chute Veritoa" as he or his Ministers understand it.

I. The laws of September last, and the incessant persecutions exercised against the pleas. Nu allusion to royalty is permitted ; and evidence is daily afforded, that in this is included even those acts which the King is presumed to have sanctioned. How many journals have been ruined ! The seizures of papers at the post and the press are of daily occurrence. No free press exists m France: its fate is decided.

2. All political offences, or All which the Procureur-G6iaral thinks fit by any species of forced analogy to consider as anal, are sent before the Peers for trial. Thus every Frenchman is liable to be taken from his natural judges, the jury, and -emit before a packed tribunal resembling our old Star Chamber, 3. The law against the public criers. Formerly the daily press of Paris, and more especially the popular press, depended for their sale in r!. great mea- sure on the poblic criers. In the rage for persecuting the Oppolition journals, whether Carlist or Republican, not only was this poor resource of freedom mer- cilessly put down, but the penalty which before existed of selling the evening papers in the theatres was equally abolished. It is supposed the bribed press costs at least 40,000/. per annum. 4. All engravings and caricatures must be submitted to a censorship, before publication—i. e. another safety-valve of popular discontent is stopped. 5. No play, opera, or vaudeville, can be performed without a previous cen- sorship. To threw who know any thing of the French people, a more absurd or tyrannical law could not well be imagined ; but it harmonizes with the rest. 6. The Disjunction Law, or the separation of military from civil offenders in political cases, which has just happily failed, to the great surprise of all. The

speeches of GUNN, C_IIAIX D'ESTANUE, BERREElt, and TasTE, have covered the proposers with shame, and fully oliaplayed the matchless absurdity and inconsistency of a law which would send men charged with the same offence before two different tribunals. M. TrsrE, in reference to the plea of Ministers, that the law was intended "pour he salut public," vet y pithily re- marked, that COI:THOR, Si. JEST, and Ilrerita btated the very same reason for all the Draconian law-so f the first Revolution. But CRISIS D'ESTANG E and BraltYLI: carried off the laurel,' of the debate, for real force, eloquence, aid truth. Dori a was most emphatic in rebuking an insolent threat thrown out, I believe, by Count JaChERT, that any plaeernau who voted against Govern. talent would lose his place. 7. The laws now before the Chambers for the appanage of Rambouillet, &c. for the Duke nix NEMOURS, oral fur a dower of a million of francs for the Queen of the Belgians. Rambouillet, with three other forests, are valued at *Imlay million of francs. The private fortune of the Orleans family was already slimmed to be the largest in Europe : it has been increased by that of the late Duke of Bourraox-Coaor : then the King hart a civil list of twelve millionis of francs fur the support of his royal state and dignity. How true it is that 'appetite doth grow by what it feeds on !" I would recommend you to watch the debates on these subjects. Poor M. L'11FILKETTE was very scurvily treat 1, when, appealing to two articles of the law, he called for papers and inforeation to justify this extravagance, and to prove that the private domains of the Crown were sufficient to dower the King's daughter with a pahtmy 40,000/. ; or to ascertain to: real value of Rambouillet, &e. 8. The law of Nun-Revelation, which has not yet C0111C out from the Minis- terial repertoire—a last Wheleby wives, mothers, sisters, brothers, fathers, and husbands, are (it is rumoured) to be punishable as principals, for not revealing any plot against the Royal Family, which they may have heard of, or hail rea- son to suspect. I do not pro tend, for lack of memory or notes, to have given you one half of the laws or in,!aanica of this reign, which might only and fairly have been ex- pected from the last. But enoogli haa his-it said to serify the troth of the caricature I once saw here, whielo hail for it., motto, 'ea/asp!, la ',eine de chanyer," CllAttLvs the Tenth or the Doc or llonorac x could hardly have effected so much to crush the liberties of France.