POSTSCRIPT.
_ATIBIDAY•
Considerable sensation has been created in Paris by a speech from M. Leon Faucher, to his townsmen of Limoges. As he passed on his return from the Pyrenees to Paris, the Moderate party gave him a banquet, and the ex-Minister of the Interior repaid them with a very outspoken ore- tion. He at once admits that he is not a Republican, and that he does not consider the revolution of February a glorious event on which France ought to congratulate herself.
"There are revolutions which cause the advancement of ideas, of manners, and of institutions, and which, in one word, mark a step in the march of the human mind. There are others which are a chastisement on nations, and which appear as a meteor to throw their sinister light over the pits of social order. When each as these break oat, they cause in the country a veritable chaos. That is the spectacle which the revolution of February gave at its commencement. The revolution of February has come upon us as a chastisement. It bag struck the middle classes, who are guilty of not having made a good use of the power which was confided to them daring eighteen years. For it must be avowed, if it were only to continue the expiation, that the middle classes, blinded by their egotistical prejudices, have been wanting in those gene- rous ideas which ought to be the moving power of whoever has the honour of put- ting a hand to the destinies of the country."
The chaos, he says, could not continue always ; and two stages in a return to better times were marked,—first, in the suppression of the insurrection of Jane, which put an end to the ascendant movement of disorder ; and the second, the election of the 10th of December, which consecrated the reestablishment of order in society. M. Faucher pays a marked compliment to the President of the Republic—" The elect of the nation—an elect who has fully justified the nation's- confidence—has well comprehended his great mission—a mission which has not fallen to the lot of any man since the Consulate. Louis Napoleon found France depressed and enfeebled, as at the time of the Directory. The President of the Republic has the honour and the merit of having understood the task, of which be placed a part in my hands." M. Faucher endeavoured to defend himself against the charge of having_ been actuated by party-spirit; and his defence is curious— He had not dismissed any functionaries from mere party-spirit. He had pre- served in their places all those who were honest and capable, and had only dis- missed those who were not fit for the offices they filled. He admitted, however, that he found very few of those who had been appointed by the Republican Go- vernment who were fit for the public service. He thought, therefore, that the re- proach cast upon him by the Moderates of having done little or nothing was unjust. He had dismissed about half the Prefects and Sub-Prefects in France; and if he had been left in office, it was his intention to have made still further changes. But, considering that he had been in office for only five months, he be- lieved "that he had shown some resolution and a certain degree of activity. There would have been temerity in going faster."
The evils of the system that existed under Louis Philippe have been caricatured by the Republic- " What was called under the Monarchy the abuse of influences, in place of disappearing or diminishing under the Republic, had increased to a terrible ex-
tent The Monarchy of July perished for having corrupted the middle- classes—for having developed in the ranks of its defenders the appetite of ma- terial interests, without giving it the counterpoise of duty—for having made a traffic of employments and votes. In place of suppressing the contagion, the Republic in the first instance greatly extended and aggravated it. The Republic has done in six months more evil than the Monarchy in eighteen years. It has made corruption descend even to the inferior ranks of society ; it has demoralized the working classes, which people seem to have agreed on calling the people. The Republican Government, in its sad commencement, did not limit itself with trafficking in power, and prostituting employments in the first case; but it invited besides, by loosening their bad passions, all classes and all individuals to the de- struction of the principles on which social order rests." As soon as it had been proclaimed, the Provisional Government made largesse to the labourers at the barricades; then, with a mockery of "indemnity," it confiscated the railways, canals, and insurance-offices; it took up the doctrines developed at the Luxem- bourg; at last it suspended Treasury payments, and was leading the way to a hideous bankruptcy, when the Constituent Assembly arrested its career. M. Fauoher concluded with a tirade against Socialism; which he cha- racterized as beggary, human self-idolatry, gross pantheism, barbarism, and immorality; a doctrine which raises covetousness in the humble, by throwing, as it were, California at their heads, and lighting the flame of envy in their hearts. To suppose that this doctrine will fall of itself be- cause it is absurd, is an error. Absurdity is the order of the day; and in order that reason should make its way, it must be pushed as the labourer gains his daily bread—by the labour of the band and the sweat of the brow. He therefore recommended the people of Limoges to unite in the labour together of preserving to France the rank that civilization has marked for her in Europe.
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