There are rumours of changes in the French Ministry. General
SEBASTIAN! has arrived at Paris ; and it is supposed that the King would gladly have him in the War Department. But he was the Dego- Iiator of the treaty for the American Indemnity, and is far from pupa- lar in the Chambers. It is therefore not improbable that he will pro- ceed on his way to this country as temporary successor to TALLEYRAND. Marshall MORTIER is restive, and anxious to get rid of the Presi- idency of the Council ; especially as the Chamber has nominated a Tiers Purti Commission, with M. PABST at its bead, to report upon the Budget. Altogether, the Ministers of Louts PHILIP, notwith- standing the acknowledged cleverness of GUIZOT and TRIERS, appear to be in a very uneasy position. They have no majority that they can rely on ifl the Chambers ; and, what is of infinitely more importance, they are bated by the masses out of doors. And they are justly un- popular,--as a retrospect of their doings since the Doctrinaire party gained the ascendancy, must convince any friend to freedom and political amelioration. The conduct of the Doctrinaires is reviewed with spirit and truth by the author of a letter on the political state of France which ap- peared this week in the Morning Advertiser, and to which our atten- tion has been directed, with an assurance that the integrity of the 'triter is equal to his abilities and his means of accurate information on French affairs.
" Let us wee how far the public acts of the Doctrinaires will hear the test of examination. Their purpose, they say, is to implant in the French soil, fur- rowed by the Revolutionary ploughshare, the principles of your English mixed Monarchy. Now, have they actually done this, since they have possessed the power and means of effecting it ? I say they have not adhered, in one single act of their public life, to these principles ; but that they have constantly violated them, and held them up to the mockery of the world. Will they be so bare- faced en to call a temperate Monarchy, that reckless power which looks for support, not from the People, but from an army of four hundred thousand men, that military despotism by which the French, are drilled into constitutional habits, and bound over to keep the peace? When we come to look into the component parts of this system of selfish rule, what do we find ? The King, in England, is the head of a free people : in France, he is the battling oppressor of a discontented nation. In England, the Monarch can do no wrong, be- cause he cannot interfere in any way with the government of the country : in France, he has the benefit of the same privilege, with unlimited power over the affairs of the State. In England, the King's Council of State—but I will not insult your Ministers, however bad they may be, with a comparison which would place them on a level with a board of registering clerks, truck- ling to that power they were sworn to control, and assuming, if not the responsibility, at least the disgrace, of all the misdeeds of their Royal Master ? " The lines we have printed in Italics state what, no doubt, was held to be constitutional doctrine in England before the dissolution of the MELBOURNE Ministry ; but now the Tories are endangering the Royal prerogative and other attributes, by bringing the Sovereign directly into contact with the Representative branch of the Government.
4, You know, Sir, there is such a thing as a French Chamber of Peers. Though alive to the importance of that most honourable House, I feel embar- rassed to give you a proper definition of it. It partakes of the nature of a po- pular assembly, and a senate of nobles, without having the generous independ- ence of the first or the natural dignity of the second. It is a motley compound of men notorious for having either served or betrayed some, if not all, the Go- vernments that have lorded it over France for the last fifty years. The French Peers, when decked out in all the ernbt oidery, stars, ribbons, epaulettes, and aigui- lettes of state, present to our view a most instructive and amusing sight, inas- much as they are the most exact and comprehensive chronological records of former times and governments. Yet this mixed assembly is looked upon by our Doctrinaires as a bright counterpart to your English House of Lords !"
The French Lords appear to have the advantage of ours in em- broidery; but in the noble power of doing mischief, the English leave them immeasurably behind.
Some of the proceedings of the Doctrinaires against the Press are !bus adverted to- " There are laws which forbid the singing of popular ballads, or the hawk- iog of newspapers in the street without a special licence. The Government has waged an incessant and merciless war upon the liberty of the press. There is not a newspaper of any note for political worth which has not been prose- ented—no political writer of a manly spirit that has not been visited with heavy fines and severe imprisonment. At the time Paris was declared ins state of siege, to crush a partial revolt, they would actually have given over the edi- tors of the Natio/ad and the Tribune to be tried by Courts-martial, had not the supreme tribunal of justice, the Court of Cassation, claimed for those writers the protection of the civil law. Another paper, of very extensive circulation, the .Bon Sens—the bold and uncompromising advocate of the rights and in- terests of the people—has been assailed, ever since it was established, with un- relenting attacks and persecutions, at the hands of the Prefet de Police, who, in affairs of this description, can only be considered as an organ of the Govern- ment of whom he is a subordinate member. -During the last four years, there have been more than six hundred indictments directed both in Paris and the departments against the daily press, for alleged attacks on the King's person or Goveminser.t."
It is indeed a mockery to talk of French liberty, while such pro- ceedings as these are permitted, by the people, and sanctioned by the Parliament of France.
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