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from the mere abuse of the liberty of the press itself. This would certainly seem to be the more rational and fair interpretation. A seditious mob in every large town, with seditious publications issuing from an hundred presses to excite and justify their excesses, such as have been witnessed in England more than once, would form a crisis requiring and excusing much stronger measures than an unusual quantity of abuse, or an universal expression of dislike, against the Jesuits, or the ministry: yet, to the king's confessor, or to a tottering minister, the latter might appear equally alarming with the former, and the law permits the application of the power of imposing silence in the one as in the other. The law, however, was allowed to remain as it was, the minister of the interior assuring the Chamber that no cabinet had ever borne the attacks of the press with more patience and forbearance than that of which he was a member, and that, when they used the power which they possessed, it would not be to defend themselves, but to prevent, instead of punishing, crimes which might endanger public order. The editor of the Journal du Commerce was called to the bar, for a libel on the Chamber; and, after he had been heard by his counsel, was punished with a month's imprisonment, and a fine of an hundred francs-the minimum of penalty allowed by the law. Another member complained to the Chamber, of the editor of the Drapeau Blanc, on account of a mis-report, not of his own speech, but of that of the minister of war, who was represented to have said something insulting to him. An angry discussion followed, the liberal party insisting, with no

great indulgence for the errors of the "chartered libertine," that the reporter to the journal should, in future, be excluded from the sittings of the Chamber: but it came to no practical result.

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In the internal state of France there was scarcely any thing to occupy public attention, except occurrences arising from the conflicting efforts of different sects of religionists. Some ecclesiastical orders, particularly the Jesuits, had been gradually courting favour, and increasing in influence, and endeavouring to recover a portion of that authority which was theirs. Ecclesiastics of a different description were devoting themselves to the task of awakening among the people a spirit of fanatical piety; and men of considerable authority in the church availed themselves of their station, to try to enforce a more rigorous discipline, and to restore to superstitious rites the credit which they had long since lost. The party calling itself liberal, again, was opposed to these religionists: they dreaded the approaches of the Jesuits to power, because experience had taught too clearly how exclusive and despotic that power would be; and they disliked the rigorous austerity and debarring superstition of the others, because its direct tendency, and its great object, was, to enthrone ecclesiastical authority by absorbing the mind in theological dogmas and devotional rites. The religionists were the enemies of all popular rights; and the imprudence of some individuals among them permitted doctrines to be seen which appeared to be equally hostile to the Crown. At the end of the preceding year, the editors of two liberal journals had been tried for

and assailed the order of succession
to
throne. Of this latter

political libels, and acquitted. The the king, arising from his birth, acquittal was very displeasing to the Jesuits and their coadjutors; and the Abbé de la Mennais, in a pamphlet which he published upon the occasion indulged himself in opinions which went to subvert the fundamental rights of all governments except that of the Pope, and to raise the altar above the throne. A Declaration of the French clergy made and registered in the parliament of Paris, in 1682 forms the basis of the law of France regarding the power of the pope within the kingdom, and constitutes the record of the liberties of the Gallican church. The first proposition of this Declaration states, that St. Peter, his successors, and the church itself, have received no authority from God, except over things spiritual, and not over things temporal and civil; that kings are not subject, in things which concern temporal matters, to any ecclesiastical power; that they cannot be deposed directly or indirectly by the authority of the head of the church; and that their subjects cannot by him be exempted from the submission and obedience which they owe them, or dispensed from their oath of allegiance and by a subsequent royal edict all the king's subjects are prohibited from maintaining, writing, or printing, any thing contrary to the principles of this Declaration, or tending to renew disputes, or give rise to a difference of opinion on the subject. Mennais was brought to trial for having, in the plenitude of his zeal on behalf of his order, attacked the doctrines of the Declaration, and violated the edict, by asserting the subjection of the kingly power to the supreme authority of the church. A second count accused him of having denied the rights of

charge he was acquitted; the court holding that the passages of his publications on which it was founded, were rather a discussion of the first proposition of the Declaration, than a direct and positive attack against the dignity and birth-right of the monarch, or the order of succession, and that the known religious and monarchical opinions of the Abbé were against any presumption of his having intended to commit such an offence. On the first count, however, he was found guilty of having written several chapters directly and formally impugning the declaration of 1682, and violating the edict which had made that Declaration part of the constitutional law of the land. He was condemned to pay ork a fine of thirty francs, and his work "On Religion, considered in its Relations with Political and Civil Order,” was ordered to be seized and destroyed wherever it might be found. The court justified the smallness of the fine on the ground that the blameable passages formed only a small part of the work-that the remainder consisted of theological discussion with which they coul not interfere-that the book was one which would be read and appreciated only by the well-informed and that the abbé himself was a person of most respectable character. It is worthy of remark, as a historical coincidence, that while, in the discussions of the British parliament on the Catholic question, the friends of Emancipation maintained that the older doctrines of the Romish church regarding her supremacy over kings had been fully and finally renounced, there was in Paris a

could

member of that church, and an adherent of its most learned, most politic, and

1760, the edict of Louis XV. in 1764, the edict of Louis XVI. in

order, con Once most powerful, 1777, the law of May 1792, and the

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order, convicted and punished for openly maintaining from the press the very doctrines, which it was to have abandoned. Another measure directed against the ecclesiastical orders was the publication by a count Montlosier of a work entitled "A Denunciation" of the Jesuits, and their congregations, and addressed to the Cour Royale in which he declaimed against these religionists as enemies of the state and abusers of religion, and d formally called the Court a upon its duty, by putting in top the existing laws against them. This example of a popular right of action, by which an uninterested individual demanded the interference of a court provided with its own officers to put its powers into action, was not favour able either to public tranquillity or to the regular administration of the law but the partiality of party spirit exalted Montlosier into an idol; and a written opinion was published, signed by nearly fifty of the most respectable counsel of the French bar, bearing that the "Denunciation," as demanding the execution of the laws against the Jesuits, and the congregations, was an immense service rendered to the king and to the country. The ne Court admitted the indictment, so to speak: but the Attorneygeneral appeared, and insisted that no grounds were laid even for deliberation, and that the Court was incompetent to hear such a case. All the members of the Court in Paris, to the number of fifty-four, attended the discussion, and the Court came to the following decision. by deThey held thing cree of the parliament of Paris in

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republican decree of the 3rd Messidor in the year 12, the legislature of France had formally opposed itself to the re-establishment of the society called "The Society of Jesus," under whatever denomination it might present itself; that these edicts and decrees were founded on the acknowledged incompatibility between the principles professed by that Society and the independence of civil governments-principles still more incompatible with the constitutional 1 charter which was itself a public right. But they likewise held that to suppress of dissolve congregations or associations formed in contempt of these laws and decrees, belonged to the department of the high police alone; that any facts of a different kind mentioned in the denunciation, did not constitute any crime, misdemeanour, or contravention, which could be judged of in that Court and therefore, upon the whole matter, the Court declared itself to be incompetent, In all the judicial contests between the Jesuits and their opponents, their ancient spirit of Jansenism was distinctly manifested in the bar.

France had not as yet formally recognized any of the South American republics; but, in the course of the present year, she appointed commercial agents to reside in several of them, possessing nearly the same character which belonged to those sent out by this country in 1819. In the month of January, she concluded a treaty with the emperor of Brazil By this treaty, France expressly recognized the independence of the Brazilian empire, and the imperial dignity in the person of don Pedro

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serve as common sailors, for having to t the Morea in a French ship broken the law which prohibits the of war; and carried their wishes trade and he seriously thought, so far as even to call J that no member who had had seen a Chambers to compromise the goslave-captain thus reduced, would vernment, by voting money for the ever propose to aggravate th the use of the Greeks. In the debate enormity or the punishment of his on the king's speech, Benjamin offence. Probably M. Dudonm Constant, who, with general Sethat a detected slave-captain was bastiani was the great leader of the afraid to come home to enjoy the Philhellenes in the Chamber of fruits of his infamous traffic. The Deputies, moved the following same member asserted that the paragraph as as an addition to the slave-trade was carried on by Eng- address: --- "Finally, Sire, your land to a greater extent than by faithful subjects, deputies of the France; that British vessels took in departments, dare to supplicate their cargoes on the coast of Africa as your majesty to consult, in your usual, carried them to Madagascar, wisdom, what methods are to be Sare and evaded their law, by intro- taken to save these unhappy Chrisducing them into the British colo- tians, who fall in thousands beneath nies as old slaves imported from the sword of the infidels; and, that settlement ! Such were the above all, to prevent Frenchmen, statements gravely made in the whom their country and Europe French legislature. disavow, from seconding the ferocious enemies of the name; for, if we see indifference our eastern brethren massacred, all protestations of respect and love for that holy religion which they profess as well as We, will seem, in our mouths, a cruel and bitter derision." It was not true, in point of fact, that thousands of Christians were perishing beneath the sword of the infidels; military success had as yet been pretty fairly, and savage massacre in cold blood had as yet been equally, divided between Turks and Greeks; and what sort of policy would it be to lay it down as a rule, whenever fortune favours

The proposal of the committee on the petition was not adopted, and the Chamber got rid of the subject by passing to the order of the day; but the petition itself, as well as the admissions and opinion of the committee, were unequivocal proofs of the progress which the public mind in France was making upon this interesting question.

The French politicians, at least the opposition politicians, always contrived to mix up with the slavetrade the assistance said to be given by their government to Turkey against Greece, and which they denominated the white slave-trade. They did not confine themselves

4

with Christian

to the propriety of government Turkey in a war against Russia

maintaining a strict neutrality, but or Austria, every other nation must complained of its not preventing hasten to protect them, for the individuals from lending their pri- sake of Christianity, against the vate aid to the Turks; abused it for power of their enemy? Both good allowing ships to be built in French policy, and the real justice of the to ports for the Turkish command- cause, may often compel every good ers, and transporting the treasures statesman to wish success to the of Ibrahim Pacha from Egypt sword of the infidel." No wise go

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In the Chamber of Peers, the duke de Choiseul declared, with

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bate the eloquent expression of the
sentiments which the misfortunes
of Greece inspire, proves that it is
unanimous upon this point. They
are, in fact, unfortunate meri,
Christians, who combat with cou-
rage, not to defend a political
opinion, but to save their property,
to so
their lives, their religion. On
seeing them fall by thousands
under the sword of the Turks,
who could refuse his pity to so
much suffering-his admiration to
But the cause

the usual mixture of bad taste and so much couraged as a pretence

egregious vanity so ordinary in
French rhetoricians,
that ana-
themas were pronounced against
the enemies and oppressors of
Greece, against all who furnished

th

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of Greece has served for some men to attack the government, and the Chamber has thought, with reason, that it would not become the government to or afforded military instruc- meddle with these attacks. It has tion, to unbelievers in the cross; thought that the silence of all that Europe, led by the example of other nations would be sufficient France, was pouring forth gifts to justify the conduct of governand offerings for their brethren in ment. How, in fact, could France East, and opening a new Cru- take upon herself to light the torch sade of benefits and generosity: of discord, and throw, perhaps, all that, next to the honour of being Europe into a general war? "a French peer, was the honour of being a member of the Greek committee; that however the barbarous policy of cabinets might crush the glorious cause, his name, and those of other Greek committee-men would be consecrated by posterity for their attachment to liberty, religion, and humanity; and that the was eatest fault of the budget

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that it did not contain a vote in favour of Greece." The more sober, rational, and practical views of the ministers, as opposed to these crude ebullitions of superficiality and sentimentalism, were to be learned from the report of a committee, to whom a petition connected with the Greek cause had been referred. The report of the Committee wa was the following:

"The interest with which the Chamber has heard in a recent de

"These considerations have determined us to propose to you, not to receive a proposition, which is not the mere expression of a sentiment of pity, but which would be, if taken into consideration, the approval of a political system which presents the greatest danger."

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Specific charges of direct interference on the part of the French government to give assistance to Turkey, and thus violate the neutrality which she professed, were capable of more direct and specific answers. It was alleged that the ministers had supplied officers to Ibrahim; that, under their eyes, his vessels had been built at Marseilles, and the cannon made biaraw refused in the siege of that were Missolonghi; that they allowed agents to recruit for him openly

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