The intelligence of the week from France contains only one
im- portant item. The Senate have determined to discuss the question of the propriety of retiring from Syria. If they decide in the negative, the position will become exceedingly serious, the British Government being evidently determined to prevent a continuance of the occupation, which ought by treaty to terminate on the 5th of June. The talk of Paris, however, has been of a pamphlet issued by the Due d'Aumale, and signed by himself, " Henri d'Orleans." It is an energetic reply to the accusations levelled at his family by the Prince Napoleon, written a little too much in the tug:toque style. The Duke recals to his mind that, but for the Revolution, Prince Jerome would hays accepted a seat in the French Chamber of Peers. He denies that a sovereign who calls himself Napoleon III. can take to himself the title of parvenu, and compares Prince Napoleon to Philippe Egalite. The most important political paragraph is, per- haps, the following: " Yon have two faces, and you daily show them both. You say to the Catholics, Do you not know me any longer? I am the Government which sent the expedition to Rome, which loaded the Pope with its sympathies before, during, and after the war, which signed the peace at Villafranca, which reinforced the garrison at Rome, while it recalled its ambassador from Turin, which alone kept its fleet before Gaeta.' You say to the extreme supporters of the Italian revolution, Why do you suspect me, and object to the presence of my troops at Rome? Have you forgotten that I originally.consented unwillingly to the Roman expedi- tion ; that I wrote the famous letter to Edgar Nosy ; that the peace of ,Villafranca has been a dead letter in my hands ; that I wished him who set out for Castel- fidardo bon voyage; that in the end I recalled my fleet from Gaeta, and that there is now neither Roman States nor a Kingdom of Naples. Finally, turning to France, and pointing out both parties caressed and deceived by turns, you ex- tract from the very confusion of your acts a last vanity ; you erect this contradic- tory conflict into a system and you say, See what complaints are brought against me; am I not moderation in person? Havel not contrived to maintain a prudent equilibrium? Am I not the juste milieu resuscitated ? Casimir Feder would be satisfied.' And it is to play apart in this comedy in the face of Europe that you have given freedom of speech to the deputies of France. You bad better have left, as you have done for ten years, the fragments of the tribune broken beneath the hands of your soldiers for a moment hesitating. When the Bons- partes threaten to shoot people their word may be relied upon. And note this, prince, that of all the promises made by you and yours, that is the only one upon which I would rely. For it must be admitted that the present French Government, all fortunate as it has been in many respects, is less successful as regards the fulfilment of promises than in other things. One man only swore to the Republican Constitution, and that man was the author of December 2. The same man said, ' The empire is peace ;' and we have had the wars of the Crimea and Lombardy. In 1859 Italy was to be free to the Adriatic; Austria is still at Verona and Venice. The temporal power of the Pope was to be respected; we know what has become of that, and the Grand-Dukes are still waiting for their restoration, which war announced by the peace of Villafranca." The pamphlet has been seized by the police, and even the English papers with extracts have been prohibited. Of course the effort to suppress it being so evident, the work is circulating rapidly iu manuscript. Prince Napoleon, it is said, has requested permission to reply, and complains of the seizure. The experimental squadron at Toulon has been ordered to com- plete its stores for three months' supplies..
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