THE LAST ACT OF THE MONTALEMBERT DRAMA. THE Count de
Montalenabert has been acquitted by the Court of Appeal from the charge of "attaching the rights and the au- thority which the Emperor holds from the constitution and universal suffrage " ; but found guilty of "exciting hatred and contempt against the Emperor's Government, and of attacking the respect due to the laws." The net result is that he is con- demned to the same fine as before, and to three instead of six months' imprisonment. But whether, as has been stated, he is exempt from the operation of the atrocious law of public safety appears very doubtful. In truth, however, the discussion and contest have not been one of law throughout. Power, mere brute power, has scarcely taken pains to disguise its ferocity and inso- lence throughout the whole of these proceedings. And those who suppose that there has been any serious debate with a view to a correct judicial decision, or that the attack on M. de Montalem- bert has been anything but a thinly-disguised proscription, are either interested or stupid. By such acts as these the French Government is rapidly defining its position in the face of Europe. The affair of the Charles-et-Georges dropped for a moment until the world should be more authentically in possession of the facts, is about to be resumed in public discussion. And many other incidents are forcing upon the European public that question in relation to the revived Bonaparte dynasty, which it was obliged to determine in relation to the first. It is, indeed, a striking fact, that Imperialism in its principles, and the character of the two men who in the first decade and middle of this century have re- presented it in France, should so rapidly have developed into a regime incompatible to all appearance with the peace and safety of nations. And more remarkable still, that the impassable gulf of principle, which separates England from that political system, should be equally manifested through the utterly diverse incidents of the first and second Empire. The alliance which was the glory of three short years since, has now become almost the oppro- brium of the present time, and under the pressure of the frauds, falsehood, and crimes accumulated at home and abroad by the in- fatuated Emperor, people are recurring to the fact that it stands yet written in the conventional law of Europe that the family of the Buonapartes shall never be permitted to occupy the throne of France. For the sinister attitude of provocation which the Em- peror's government has assumed throughout the whole of this year to England and other nations, necessitates an attitude of self- defence. And even the political antagonism between Austria and this country has been partially dissolved under the imminence of an apparently growing necessity. It is plain, therefore, that there are influences at work which demand from our statesmen a com- plete cessation of drivelling and insincere expressions of confidence, and that they look with urgent solicitude to every joint in the national harness. It must not be forgotten that the question upon which the -euareel of Abe early, part of .thia gear look place, is revived atuL prolonged.' in sulistifice 'ET thed trial of M. de Montalembert Nothing can be more plain than that it is the deliberate repetition of the addresses of the French colonels in a more direct, official, and authoritative shape. And it is equally plain that the crusade against freedom of thought and expression to which the Emperor has so inflexibly com- mitted himself in France, is illusory and absurd unless the English press be included in the attack. It has beta p no avail that reports of the Montalembert trial have, been rigi ly inter- dicted. to French journals, while English publications , teem with verbatim accounts, and glowingly indignant protests againit this abominable and ridiculous tyranny. Any. person who is capable of the least reflection may see that the free English press is ab, solutely incompatible with the present attitude of Iteperialiinn. And nothing but a judicial infatuation of the most calamitous and. eitraordiaary kind can prevent English statesmen and the Eng-. Esti public from understanding the antagonism of-principles which is flagrant before their eyes : assisted as their comprehension is by the plain warnings which have been accumulated bywords and deeds, scarcely without intermission, far a period of well nigh three years. For, it can never be sufficiently recollected that in this day an attack on the freedom of intellect in Europe .partakes of the nature of an attack on England. . And thai is most strikingly true when the attacking party is the Government of France. In a question of this kind there is no national element. It is altogether a cosmopolitan matter. Intellect has no frontiers. The Monarch who, in the year 1858, lays prohibitory duties upon the soid: of man already by anticipation treads with profane ins vading:hoof upon every territory where that supreme earthly power freely -Works for the light and comfort of the world. This is not a matter for compromise, . although a foreign secretary of Great Britain, to his eternal degradation, has endured, dumb and. =- Moved, to hear proposals at the Council table of the Paris Con- ference for the gagging of the Belgian press. But that statesman has been already consigned to political oblivion, is already poli- tically as he was then morally "dead while he liveth." England. will endorse no such treachery to her sacred trust. She has sworn an inviolable fidelity to the dignity of freedom which she has won in many struggles. How, then, can the friendship of the French Government be otherwise than a mockery and a mask ? The sum of the matter is, that to obviate, if at all, the calami- ties with which the coming year is big, the great and paramount necessity is to prepare, prepare, prepare. Let us act in the spirit of that bitter irony with which certain of our degraded politicians have unwittingly described this mortal friendship, when they have told us that we ought to strengthen the hands of the Emperor. to resist the impulse of France against us, by thoroughly defensive preparation. By all means. Let us so prepare as that any at- tacks on us, whether indirect or direct, may issue in that de- struction which has commonly befallen those who assault free and determined England.
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