THE TWO FRENCH AMBASSADORS.
[FROM OIIR SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT.]
Two of our ambassadors have had the privilege this week of engrossing the public attention. The journey of M. Mercier to Richmond, and M. de Lavalette's prolonged delay at Paris, have given rise to much conjecture. If our information is to be trusted, as we have some reason to believe, the journey of M. Mercier is invested with un- questionable importance, and may be destined to prepare in a proxi- mate future the recognition of the Southern States. The object of the recent journeys of M. de Lavalette and M. de Morny to London was to plan this recognition with your Government. But it is asserted that all overtures of this nature, though favourably received by Lord Palmerston, have been pertinaciously opposed by Earl Russell.
This resistance is moreover affirmed to be the sole cause of the
delay in the otherwise fully matured designs of the Emperor. Moreover, the language held for some time of late by the officious journals on the affairs of America leave no doubt as to the intentions of the Government. The recognition of the South will be ill received in France, where every sympathy is in favour of the North. It would be surprising to see Napoleon III. flippantly and boot- lessly defying the sense of the country on this point, were it not well known how long and bitterly his grudges rankle in his mind, and how deeply he was provoked when the Comte de Paris awl :the Due de Chartres joined the Federal army. His. annoyance betrayed itself quite recently in a curious fashion during a conversation between the Emperor and the Catholic Archbishop of New York, who has just passed through Paris on his way to Rome. After a few common-places on the horrors of the civil war, pronounced in the slow and monotonous tone of voice peculiar to him, Louis Napoleon abraptly altered his manner. His glassy countenance lit up, his voice rose, and he proceeded with marked accentuation : "But who then advised your President, M. Lincoln? What induced him to receive those two youngsters (ees tleu. v jeurses gees) into his army. He might have perceived that it is not to his credit to encourage pretensions like theirs by giving them an oppor- tunity of getting themselves talked of. The cause of the Orleans is not a cause which can be avowed. I found the throne vacant. I took it. But they ! they stole the crown of their relative."
After this explosion of wrath, the imperial mask regained its stolidity, and in more gentle tones the Emperor closed the con- versation, charging his interlocutor with his compliments for the Pope and Mr. Lincoln.
You may rely upon the entire authenticity, of this anecdote. We should not return to the Goyon-Lavalette incident, were it not that both French and foreign journals persist in attributing to this incident an importance which we think wholly unfounded. It seems to have been decided that General Goyon is to leave Rome, but that M. tie Goyon should be held up as the representative of any policy whatever, or that his recal should be looked upon as the triumph of one system or the defeat of another, is to us perfectly incomprehen- sible. Neither by his character nor by his intellect is M. de Goyon equal to the lofty part attributed to him. That general officer, who has never stood fire, and whose whole military career has been spent in ministerial ante-chambers, is distinguished only by his vanity and his unbounded sycophancy. It never entered his head to promote any particular policy at Rome. He sought a proper field for military pomps, and a fine frame in which to display his vain little person, and he found what he wanted. The Pope, whatever the papers may say from opposite sides, will not regret M. de Goyon, whose habitual proceedings were constantly of a nature to jar upon the susceptibilities of the Pontifical Government, and we do not see wherein IL de Goyon's departure can benefit Victor Emanuel, by whose side he would have paraded, had such been the order of the day, as jauntily as he did at the door of Pius IX.
More weight may be attached to the very marked testimony of sympathy which the French Government has shown towards the King of Italy during his sojourn at Naples. The language held on this occasion upon the Roman question by Victor Emanuel, and the consecration which the coming visit of his son-in-law, Prince Napo- leon, will soon bring to those utterances, are manifestly symptoms not to be disregarded. There is, then, every reason to believe that the French Government is about to take one more step towards the solution of the Roman question, and we think we have good authority for believing that a project of arrangement prepared by the cabinet of the Tuileries will very shortly be proposed to the interested parties. What will be the basis of this arrangement? It is hard to say with any certainty. They talk of giving the town of Rome large muni- cipal franchises, of recognizing the political sovereignty of Victor Emanuel, and of maintaining the Pope at Rome by granting him a right of veto in respect of the government of the King, as well as in munici•al matters. -Nothing can be more chimerical, and we have
some culty in believing that it can have been seriously worked out.
However this may be, and whatever may be the success of the proposed combinations, we do not believe in any very proximate evacuation of Rome, or that the Emperor can be disposed to relin- quish the influence which the presence of his army of occupation gives him over the destinies of Italy. And for the following reasons :
None of your readers, we presume, shares the confiding trust of Mr. Cobden in the disinterestedness of the Napoleonic policy. They know how Nice and Savoy have been the price put by the Empire upon the cession of Lombardy, and the abandonment, into the bargain, of the programme of Villafranca. Is it not clear that Rome, which was not included in that firsttruck, will not be given up by Napoleon III. with- out adequate remuneration? But apart from Sardinia, which he deems a tolerably poor indemnity, and upon which, besides, England might cross his views, lie does not see what Italy could offer as the price for its new capital. Where then will he find the compensation he seeks ? Evidently only in a redistribution of the map of Europe, a scheme which for long yearn past has been the absorbing preoccupation of his thoughts, which, sooner or later, he hopes to carry into execution, and in which, of course, he would be more likely to carve his own share if he had kept Rome until then. We do not believe that he nurses any grand projects of conquest. But just as Napoleon III. has substituted for the ancient Paris, whose memories were obnoxious to him, a new city which dates from the Empire, so lie aspires to con- stitute a new Europe, well or ill equilibrated, but also dating from the Empire. This is the feeling tinder whose dominant influence he attentively watches the complications which may arise on the different points of the European compass. He waits for the inevitable resurrection of the "Question of the East" as one of the events which may give rise to transformations in the territorial organization of Europe. Of late, it is said, he has been studying with minute care the march of events in Germany. If we are to believe a very prevalent opinion, he entertains hopes of being able in course of time to carry out a com- bination which would give Prussia the small States of Germany, and France the frontier of the Rhine and the whole or part of Belgium. Offers of this nature were rejected by the King of Prussia in the interview at Compiegne. The Emperor flatters himself, it is said, that he will be more successful with the "Unitarian" party. in Ger- many, whose progress in the recent elections he notes with satis- faction.
These are assuredly very adventurous plans, and destitute of any solid foundation, but without doubt they exist, and contribute, in our opinion,.in a large measure to the prolonged occupation of Rome.
Upon home events there is little to be said. The discussions of the Legislative Body are suspended. The debates shortly to be opened upon the reform of our Penal Code, military dotations, and the budget, are looked forward to with a certain amount of curiosity. There will be a fine opportunity for the scant orators of the opposi- tion to lay bare the sores of the Empire. You have no doubt heard that the Attorney-General, M. Chair d'Est-Ange, was sent to England by the Government " to study on the spot the conditions and the guarantees of the liberty of the subject." We much fear M. Chaix d'Est-Ange will study the liberty of the subject in England much in the same way as M. de Per- signy studied the liberty of the Press. We should infinitely regret it, for a reform of our criminal laws in regard to the liberty of the individual would most assuredly be very desirable, especially if it comprised the abrogation, hitherto pleaded for in vain, of the law of general safety. We are assured that at the very moment when M. Chain d'Est-Ange was charged with the mission to England to make the studies in question, a transport ship, the Ceres, was taking twenty or thirty workmen on board for Cayenne, to be transported thither administratively under that law. At the same time, also, the public learnt that two political prisoners, MM. Miot-and Greppo, who had been arrested two months ago, had not yet been brought before a judge.
M. Chain d'Est Ange might very usefully complete his studies on the liberty of the subject by a little attention to the functions and independence of the magistracy. We have already had occasion to describe the state of that independence here.1 Now-a-days, from one end of France to the other, the magistrates prosecute and the judges acquit or condemn in affairs of any importance, only upon instructions received from the Minister of Justice. This happens not only when the offence wears a political character, but when the quality of the persons interested seems sufficient to call for the attention of the men in power. Here is a recent example which seems sufficiently interesting to quote, and for the accurate truth of which we vouch.
In one of our Southern departments, ayoung man of twenty-five, Count —, the son of a general and of an actress, managed certain coal mines which belonged to him. A few weeks ago, after a dinner with the officers of a regiment passing through the country, he stole a sum of 2000 or 3000 francs belonging to the regiment, and contained in the carpet-bag of one of the officers. The robbery was instantly discovered. The Count --- was arrested with the money on his person, and confessed to everything. The first pro- ceedings brought to light the fact that he had already committed another robbery, in consequence of which he had spent two .years in a house of correction. While the police were pursuing their inquiries the mother of the Count — wrote to M. Fould, whom she had long known, and implored his protection. Her appeal, it seems, was crowned with success, for at the end of eight days a letter from the Minister of Justice, resting upon a pretended cleptomania on the part of the young thief, of which no one up to that time had seen any signs, came to the magistrates ordering them to desist from any further inquiries, and to set Count — at liberty. The order was executed, to the great scandal of the working population, who wit- nessed all these facts, and who were astounded with reason to see certain positions in life and certain recommendations sufficiently powerful to arrest the course of justice. This is what the indepen- dence of the magistracy and the equality of the citizens before the law has come to ui France in the absence of political liberty. A FRENCHMAN.
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