TOPICS OF THE DAY.
" L'EMPIRE C'EBT LA P.AIX."
Bur half of public business is done in the face of day, the other half is done in the recesses of bureaux ; and it is impossible to tell how far the covert action redresses the balance of the overt. While two Governments appear to be gradually advanoing to- wards positive hostilities they may be arranging matters in the green-room of statesmanship in a manner altogether the reverse of the drama that is going on before the audience. Knowing this we are checked in attaching too positive a meaning to public proceedings; otherwise we might almost expect a descent of the French army upon England, preceded by a declaration of war from our Prime Minister. Already the extravagant inde- corum of the military threats published by the Moniteur has pro- voked from our very pad& Government an intimation that such aggressions may be carried a little too far—they may defeat their own object. From the manner of the retort which the English Ministerial Globe has given to the French-Imperial Moniteur, however, we are inclined to suppose that Parliament might have been invited to make some solid change in our laws —that at the demand of France the representatives of the people of England might have been asked to modify a system which has completely succeeded in preventing treasonable conspiracies, in order to as- similate it to a system that is fertile in such outrages. But the indecent demonstrations of the French legions have probably qualified the Ministerial compliance. At all events, the public of this country rings with sounds of indignation, that sufficiently express the old declaration " Nolumus leges An- glitz mutare.' Our plan is altogether different from the French. We extend our hospitality to the fugitive ; the "hospitality" mooning, not that we give him any extraordi- nary entertainment, but that we allow him to take his share of the ordinary rights of each man in the country—to be protected while he obeys the laws—to be supposed innocent until he be convicted before a court of justice. We are jealous, not lest the guilty man should escape, but lest the tribunal should become corrupt or irregular; and thus, while France is shouting for a general dispersion of political fugitives from this country lest there should be among the host one man ready to strike an Em- peror, our twelve Judges have been sitting in profound debate to ascertain whether there was the slightest irregularity in the trial of a worthless murderer. The French demand " preventive " jus- tice: we have not thought it necessary to resort to any espionage, any restraint, any " loi des suspects." Even in the ease of our Queen, we have not set detectives, policemen, dragoons, or spies, to find out any possible Oxford or Bean lurking amongst our "dangerous classes." We have thought it enough to pass the law that any. stupid Bean, upon conviction, after the fact, shall, be whipped. The French course is the very opposite: because four or say eight Italians are accused of an attack on the Emperor, all Frenchmen are to be placed under a rule scarcely short of martial law. All persons who are suspected of hostility to the present Government are to be rendered liable to exile from France; and England is threatened with war unless she will join in exiling similar classes from her own land. It looks as if Imperial de- crees were to push the French "constitutional Opposition into the sea. Discussion is to be absolutely suppressed on Political or even religious subjects. Protestants -must not meet. And if England demurs to assisting in this course of coercion, Napoleon, through his Moniteur, shows us his legions impatient to be led against us.
Whether or-not it is true that Louis Napoleon is less strong than he was and leaves more to inferior hands, there:can be no doubt that he has embarked upon a course so dangerous that there appears no end to it save his own destruction. He can scarcely go through with it. The French people will submit to many oppressions from the man who has restored to France "her eagles and her glory." They care, as Louis Napoleon has said in
his own writings, more for equality than for liberty : but to de- stroy the conversation of France, to expunge her literature, to exile all but the army or the army's slaves, are things which even the French people will not bear very long. The Protestants persevere in keeping their rights before the public, although the Moniteur suppresses their side of the ease. If Lamoriciere, over-
come by the death of his son, has condoned his quarrel with the Emperor, the sturdier Changarnier has refused to return to France. And the threat of a French invasion has effectually roused English spirit. We are not prepared to assume that because it is absurd a
French invasion would be impossible. He has lived but a short time who continues to reckon upon any man's actions ; and who can calculate the future of that strange Junius Brutus who was contemplating empire when he divided his time between Gore House and the Royal Society—who had really some stuff in him when he played those fantastic tricks at-Strasbourg and Boulogne —who -swore to maintain the Republic, and who proclaimed 4' L'Empire c'est la Pain"?
Perhaps our companions in the Crimea burn to settle the con-
troversy, which it was that could have taken Sebastopol alone— we without Pelissier at the Malakoff, or the French without our artillery in position? It is not a. debate for which we should be impatient, but it is one from which the English would never shrink: for we are not hasty to move forward, but we are quite as
slow to move backward. Should the French soldiery and their captains think the time arrived, while we are engaged in India, to ascertain whether Englishmen are degenerated or not, we may perhaps have opportunities at home of showing that the country- men of Nicholson, Neill, and Havelock, can still stand their ground.
Perhaps also we may have an opportunity of ascertaining whether the Prussian marriage has or has not cemented our al- liance in Central Europe. We may try whether Austria and Holland will stand by Prussia in maintaining the general peace. We may discover whether or not the older dynasties of the Con- tinent are prepared to join in undermining the ancient throne of England, and so to set an example in favour of novel dynasties. We may perhaps become informed whether those Italic dynasties which our synopsis of Royalty last week rather showed to be on the wane and going out of fashion than otherwise, are to make head against the German families or whether, on the contrary, the most Germanized branch of the Bourbons in the Count de Paris, might not recover its chances in France tlirough any serious miscalculations of the present occupant. These suggestions do not originate with us ; they spring out of the reflections forced upon thoughtful people by the ostentatious military advertise- ments in the official Moniteur.
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