Two small topics have during the last week served for
subjects of conversation in the society of Paris : the first is the answer of the Cardinal Archbishop of Toulouse to the Minister of Ecclesi- astical Affairs ; and the other is the seizure of BERANGER'S little book of New Songs. When the Minister sent to M. le Cardinal CLERMONT-TONIVERRE, in his quality of Archbishop of Toulouse, for official information on the subject of the ecclesiastical schools, the new regulations respecting which have so excited the hostility of the party called Jesuitical, his Grace answered by quoting the motto which Pope CALIXTUS gave to his family in the eleventh c ent cry-
" Etiamsi omnes, non ego ;"
by the sense of which, he laconically declared, he should be guided. The Archbishop has been forbidden the presence of the King; and all the journals, according to their different parties, have cen- sured or gloried in his Grace's spirit. There can be little doubt about his bad taste. It is said that the other day, when the good people of Toulouse were huzzaing his Grace with their caps in the air, one man pulled his hat over his face, crying out- " Etiamsi omnes, non ego."
The supression of BERANGER.S Songs was not to have been ex- pected from the liberality of the present Ministry : it is a step which we had thought inconsistent with their principles, or only recon- cileable with them on the supposition of great virulence or great danger in the Chansons themselves. They consist, however, of no- thing more terrible than a few tender recollections of the Empire, or a few hits at kings and priests and Jews; expressed, doubtless, with BERANGEICS felicity, but scarcely characterized by all his genius. We are very sure that the Chansons Inedites will be in- debted for a great part of their future sale to the hostility of the French Attorney-General. The late King, though much more harshly dealt with than his present Majesty, always objected to their prosecution : he said they were very pleasant—at least he thought so ; and if the Ministers suppressed one edition, it would only be to multiply others. He was right : while the process was going on, a pirated edition of three thousand copies was printed and sold ; thirty thousand were sold at Brussels, besides innu- merable other copies, under the rose, in Paris and other places.
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