THE FRENCH PRESS.
[FILCH OUR SPECIAL COB.RESPONDENT.]
AMONG the actual papers, three compose the officious press, pro- perly so called—that is to say, the Constitutionnel, the Pattie, and the Pays. These papers are subsidized by the Government, and their editors are real Government func,tionaries, who, like all the others, have their promotions and their changes of residence. An officious writer passes from the padding (entrefilets) of the Pattie to the leaders of the Constitutionnel, exactly as a prefect, whose services are to be rewarded, exchanges the department of the Lower Pyrenees or of the Meuse for that of the Mouths of the Rhone or of the Seine-Inferieure. The editors of these sheets are subject to sudden revelations and abrupt conversions. Thus the Constitutionnel, in one night, gave up proving the benefits of protection, to rhapso- dize the wonders of free-trade.* Three independent journals courageously defend their convictions without catering to the powers that be. Two of these, the Union and the Gazette de France, are the organs of the Legitimist party; the third, the Temps, is a Liberal paper. They owe their permissive ex- istence to their limited circulation and feeble influence. If at any moment they became troublesome to the Government they would soon fall beneath the stroke of the avertissemens. Thus it is that the AssevAblie Nationale, the Revue de Paris, the Courtier de Paris, have successively died. And so also the celebrated Univers suc- cumbed, when, after a long durance of servility, it made the attempt to shake off its yoke. The rest of the Opposition press offers a melancholy and remarkable spectacle. There is not one of them but exemplifies more or less what M. Pelletan has wittily called "the independent hand-and-glove jour- nalism" (journalisme indipendant el compere). The type o' the class is the Slick the organ of the Democratic party, numbering 40,000 subscribers and a million of readers. " M. Billault was, very recently, one of the shareholders in that journal. The editor-in-chief, M. Ravin, lives on the most intimate terms with several Ministers and many high dignitaries of the present regime. This curious champion of Democracy has more than once received and accepted the marks of the Emperor's personal satisfaction, and the Government has already offered to him the decoration of the Legion d'Honneur and the official patronage for the coining elections. With the Siecle we must place the Opinion Nationale, which, in fact, forms a household appurtenance of Prince Napoleon, and the Presse, which knows how to steer within the limits of a prudent reserve in the very tempest of its Democratic onslaught. The Journal des Debate, the patriarch of the Constitu- tional press, still numbers among its editors men of honour and ability. But MM. Saint-Marc Girardin, Prevost-Paradol, Weiss, have very slight influence in the conduct of the paper. One of its editors, M. Michel Chevalier, has a seat in the Senate. One of the proprietors, M. Berlin, aspires, it is said, to the same honour. To their influence are due those truckling articles which too often grieve the Liberal readers of the Debats, and which read like extracts from one of the official journals. Shall we name among the independent papers the Monde, which owed its leave to appear to certain condi- • A specimen of the political literature to be found in the columns of the officious press may not be without interest to English readers. Here is a frag- ment of an article from the Constitutionnel of the 16th March last, which may be considered as a model of the kind: " Six years have elapsed since the imperial Prince was ushered into the world tinder the auspices of the peace which crowned a glorious war. This is a day of rejoicing for Prance, whose future rests upon this cherished and august head. Happy symptoms presage that the public hopes will not turn out in vain. . . . The Imperial Prince but yesterday completed his sixth year. This day he enters on his seventh, and already he has tasted the grave delights of learning. . . . He rides on horseback and attends reviews. When he accompanies the Emperor, the army admires his gracious and deliberate self-possession. "The Imperial Prince possesses the instinct of courage and the sense of his military dignity. Lately. a horse which he was preparing to mount began to plunge. Au equerry rushes forward: 'Your royal highness has been alarmed!' No, the Prince proudly answered, I am a corporal.'
" It is plain, that if the Empire has not found a Saint Simon, a Dangean is not wanting."
tions little compatible with an independent attitude, and the Ami de la Religion, ancient organ of the liberal Catholic section, now sold to the Government by its proprietors. The Opposition has a few journals in the departments, edited by honourable and courageous men. But their existence is daily more threatened, and we can scarcely reckon for any length of time on their services. A few days ago the editor of the Gironde, M. Laver- tujon, summoned by M. de Persigny, heard from the lips of the Minister the following discourse :
"The power on which the Emperor relies is in the people. He will not tolerate that a journal should seek to imbue the people with principles opposed to those of the Government Why do you not make a paper like that of M. Ravin? We should do nothing to disturb you If you persist in the course you have taken, we shall crush you. Do not talk of the property of the journal. You owe the existence of that property to us, since you exist only by our sufferance. And since that property is our work, it rests with us to destroy it. It is easy to see, with a little reflection on what precedes, that M. Jules Favre was not exaggerating when he said : In France, at the present day, there is but one journalist—that is the Emperor." We cannot leave the Legislative Body without saying a word on the solution of the Palikao incident. Our predictions have not been verified. The Emperor has hacked out, but, if we may use a trivial expression, he backed to take the better leap. The Legislative Body refused one dotation to one particular General : the Emperor re- quests to be invested with the power of giving as many dotations and constituting as many majorats as he shall think fit. Strange concession this to public opinion ! Is it believed that this unlimited right of creating majorats will not awaken the susceptibilities of the democratic spirit? Have they no fear, when they thus consecrate as a principle the system which makes pecuniary rewards the price of the soldier's valour, lest they should illustrate afresh the admirable words of Montesquieu : " It is a general law, that great recompenses in a monarchy or in a republic are a sign of their decay, because they prove that their principles are corrupted; that, on the one hand, honour is losing its power, and, on the other, that patriotism is on the wane. "The worst of the Roman emperors were those who have given most away ; for instance : Caligula, Claude, Nero, Otho, Vitellius, Commodus, Heliogabalus, and Caracalla. The best, like Augustus, Vespasianus, Pins Antoninus, Marcus Aurelius, and Pertinax, were thrifty. Under the good emperors, the State recovered its principles. The treasury of honour stood in the stead of all other exchequers."
The discussion of the Address brought the Italian and the financial questions in succession before the Legislative Body.
On the first of these two questions I do not wish to dwell. Let me only state that it still continues to excite in the highest degree the attention of the public. Independently of the interest which, from different points of view, the different parties attach to the affairs of Italy, every one feels that the ultimate solution must necessarily react upon our internal policy. The final stand taken by the Govern- ment in the settlement of the concerns of Italy must turn the scales of its inclination between the two policies which now seem to divide its choice. According as it shows itself favourable or opposed to the unity of Italy, hostile or friendly to the temporal power of the Papacy, it will seek support in the conservative masses, which have hitherto sustained the Empire, or in the Revolution, which stoops to an alliance with despotism. As to the Liberal school, it is needless to say that under no supposition can it have anything in common with an Imperial absolutism. What will be the solution of these grave difficulties ? What is,the actual policy adopted by the Government towards Italy ? We do not believe that any one is in a condition to answer these questions, and are inclined to think that the Emperor is striving still to postpone an ultimate solution. In spite of certain signs to the contrary, such as the late pamphlets of Baron Brenuier, our ancient ambassador at Naples, and the negotiations, which, according to certain current reports, are supposed to have been set on foot within these last few days at Rome, we do not imagine that it enters into the plans of Napoleon III. to combat, directly or indirectly, the final establishment of Italian Unity. But it seems to us probable that he will rest satisfied at present with those half measures which he deems sufficient to calm the impatience of the Italians, without exciting the alarm of French Conservatives. Such, for instance, might be the abandonment to Italian garrisons of all the remaining portions of the patrimony of the Holy Father, restricting the French occupation to the city of Rome itself. This combination seems to have been dis- cussed with tolerable precision.
At all events the Government has taken care not to bind itself to any one, and has obtained from the Senate and Legislative body a vote of unlimited confidence, which gives it full scope. This is due to the unquestionable ability of M. Billault iu the recent discussion, a result, however, which the servile docility of his audience ren- dered easy to achieve. It must be added, that this double-faced policy, which was so deeply repugnant to Baron Ricasoli, will be marvellously strengthened by the accession to power of M. Ratazzi, who, during his last residence in Paris, entered into the most ex- ! plicit engagements with the Emperor.
The question of finances is too large to be treated adequately in all its bearings in this letter. When we know M. Foald s two budgets, we shall make them the subject of special study. But we may say at once, that the financial situation is at the present day the theme of general anxiety not only in Paris, but even and more especially, in the provinces, usually so apathetic in political ques- tions properly so called. Men, whose devotion to the cause of the Empire is not doubtful, and who are not suspected of coquetting with the liberals, begin to raise their voices and to call out for other reforms than those of M. Fould, which, after all said and done, really mean nothing more than the augmentation of the budgets, and the creation of new taxes. M. Devinck's late speech in the Legislative Body deserves to be quoted on this head. M. Devinck is a rich Paris merchant, returned to the Chambers by the help of the patronage of the Government, a member of the municipal commission of Paris directly appointed by the Emperor. No man less than Devinck as- pires to upset the Empire, or to re-establish parliamentary institu- tions. And yet, in the discussion of the paragraph in the address relating to the finances, he levelled one of the severest attacks yet sustained by the Government. Not a little singular is it, and most worthy of note, that among the men of those ancient parties, whose evil disposition towards the Government is so bitterly denounced, no man painted under such gloomy colours, as did M. Fould in his manifesto, the deplorable state to which ten years of absolute rule have reduced France. And no man among those very men has so thoroughly exposed the impo- tence of the palliatives, invented by M. Fould to arrest the evil as M. Devinck has just done in his last speech.
The country may draw its own conclusions from the avowals which proceed from the mouths of men so little open to suspicion. On the day after the coup d'Etat of the 2ct of December clear- sighted persons foretold that the infant Empire would one day perish under financial embarrassments.
It is also, we are convinced, to these financial embarrassments, and to the legitimate anxieties which they raise in men's minds, that we owe, more than to anything else, the awakening of public opinion
and the resurrection of the spirit of Liberty. A FREE CHMAN.
Previous page
