EUROPEAN INTELLIGENCE.

Colonist, Volume IV, Issue 359, 2 April 1861, Page 3

EUROPEAN INTELLIGENCE.

FRANCE.

(From the Daily Telegraph, January 26.) [fuom our own correspondent.] Paris, Thursday Night. The Moniteur is half filled to-day with the late treaty between France and China, and the additional articles of the convention of 1850, with the tariff attached. The position of Francis 11. becomes critical. A day or two since it was believed here that his obstinate stand at Gaeta could only be accounted for on the supposition either that the reactionary movement in the Abruzzi was proceeding successfully, or that the Neapolitans thought it was. The flourish that was made about it gave support to that view; the possession of Tagllacozza by the Bouibonites, and their march on Aquilla, weie heralded with evident delight by a large party; buj.the tables are now turned, and to-day we find, in the bulletin of the Moniieur\ an extract from a private letter from Rome, in which it is stated distinctly that the Neapolitans have been beaten at Tagllacozza; and, further, that the reactionary movement in the adjoining province of Ascoil, in the late Papal dominions, has also been suppressed.' If all this be true —and there is no reason on earth to disbelieve it; on the contrary, everyone who has watched the progress of events during the last two yea;s must have come to the conclusion that not one retrograde attempt has yet succeeded in obtaining support from the people of any part of Italy—and if the operations at Gaeta have recommenced as unfavo ably for Francis 11. as some despatches say they have, then his position is indeed critical, for his dearest friends must see that not only his Bourbonisrn hateful to every Neapolitan, but the feeling against it is so strong that all the cunning and falsehood that can be brought into"p;ay fails even to support the slightest appearance of a popular reactionary movement in any one spot in the whole Peninsula- That such is the fact is certainly unfortunate for Francis 11., and for till despots and abettors of despotism; but on the other hand, it is glorious evidence of the soundness of tbe piesent movement in Italy, and a sure presage of its success, in spite of open hostility and suspicious friendship. There does not appear, then, much chance of the struggle between the parties being maintained in the Peninsula with sufficient vigour to draw off attention from other quarters, and yet, unfortunately, there seems to be a strong desire or expectation that there will be a campaign in the spring. Coming immediately after the concessions made, by Garibald;, which are now recognised on all hands, this assertion may seem siart'ing, but it is perfectly true; the only peaceful interpretation that can be put upon it is that it is a tub thrown to the French military whale—an operation which we are accustomed to witness without much surprise. The signs that I refer to as indicating coining war, or a desire for it, are that both here and at Turin—which may be regarded as one in the matter of news, for all, or nearly all, that comes here thence is derived from French sources—precisely the same tone is taken up against Austria as was employed in 1859. Her preparations are declared to be so enormous as to be positively offensive, and we ate told that she is proceeding precisely as she did on the former occasion, thai; the present position of Venice cannot possibly be maintained,and thatweshallsee her legions invade territories of Piedmont by crossing the Po as they did die Ticino in 1859- We could laugh heartily at the assertion that she was the actual aggressor upon the latter occasion, knowing as we do the irritation find the preparations that preceded that foolish act of hers \ but the matter becomes, very grave wheq we look upon v with an eye

to the future instead of the past. Every one who has a heart in his bosom must desire to see Venetia delivered from Austria; every such man must condemn and loathe the treatment of that province; but if we are to have a repetition of the tactics of 1859, if Hapsburgh is to be goaded into furnishing another crop of French laurels, then Europe will be likely to pay too dear for her whistle. Austria will not listen to the proposals of selling. Venice; she is not to make a present of it to Victor Emmanuel; France will not support Piedmont if she attacks the province in question; but if Austria can be goaded to assume the offensive, the whole difficulty is at once cleaved away, the F/ench eagles may again rejoice in a feast of blood, and the recompense may be again amicably arranged between the diplomatists. Such is the aspect matters are now assuming, and the only hope I can suggest is, as 1 have said above, that it may possibly be a mere tub thrown to the whale, or, as it may be more aptly called, a piece of flesh held up before the eagles to keep them lively and vigorous, and make them shake themselves and sharpen their talons before an admiring world. The people of France do not desire war—they did not in 1859 ; but that matters but little, the feeling is easily aroused, and the prospect of a short and brilliant campaign, and of a few more square yards of slaughter on canvas, is not to be withstood.

We have a visitor here to-day whom we have not seen for some time, namely, the sun, and he appears with his blue mantle around him, and smiles upon us with a cheerful countenance. Last night there was a rather sharp frost again, and this morning a curious effect was produced by the sudoen Warmth of the solar rays; the small icicles and frozen rime on the trees fell off, and the ground beneath was strewed much in the same manner as it will be in a few months by the lime tree's flowers. A sad occurrence took place also at Tours, where a gentleman, who held an appointment in the Polytechnic School of Paris, threw himself from the top of the tower of the church of St. Gartlen. He. ascended in company with the bell-ringer, and requested to be left there alone to make sketches; but the man having declared that it was against the rule to leave visitors by themselves, he took off his hat and paletot and mounted on the parapet. The guide immediately seized him by the arm and tried to drag him back, but the deceased was a powerful man, and in a violent state of excitement. He gave the bellringer a severe blow, and then, with a wild shriek, flung himself into the void.. He struck the building in two places, and fell on the pavement, 200 feet-below,.a fearfully mangled object. He was evidently insane, for he had a large sum of money about him, and yet bought a dagger at a shop in Tours on credit, stating that he had no cash with him; and he had only arrived on the morning of the same day of the sad event from Paris, and had taken rooms at an hotel for ten days.

Paris, Friday Morning.

The Grande Salle of, the Institut-.was crowded to-day to hear the famous Catholic, Pere Lacordaire, ar.d the celebrated Protestant writer and *»x r Minister, Guizot. Every place where a person could be' seated, and very many where scarcely a word could be heard, were occupied. The address of the new •member1 of the Academy was certainly brilliant, and that'of M. Guizot was ingenious and telling, but those who looked for anything peculiarly piquant in a political sense were disappointed. The add ess of the former, as is the case with almost air French orations, lost much of it's value from the fact that it was a long eulogiurn from a single point of view, instead of being a full, impartial, and wellbalanced estimate; but as this is a common fault here, it must not be urged specially against the reverend orator. .

l As it was to be expected, the famous work of the deceased academician De Tocqueville, whose chair the Pere Lacordaire now occupies amongst the forty, and whose eulogiurn he pronounced, was looked at principally from a religious point of view. The "Democracy in America " and (he republic of the United States of America itself were lauded as being founded on liberty combined with religion,, whereas in the French revolutions civil freedom was united to scepticism. "The American mind is religious," says Pere Lacordaire; "it has an innate respect for the law; it esteems liberty as dearly as equulity ; it sees in civil freedom the foundation of political liberty. It was the very reverse of this which dragged rather than guided a great portion of the European democracy. "Many will question the complete accuracy of this parallel, but lione will fail to admit the truth of the following, or to recognise its application :

x " The American, devoted as he is to equa-r lity, esteems liberty n.o less, and if occasion required that he should make a choice between them, he would follow the example of the mother in the judgment of Solomon, and say to God and to the world, 'do not separate them, for their two lives make but one in my soul, and I shall die if either were killed. European democracy does not understand the matter thus, "in its eyes equality is the great and supreme law, that which overlies all others, and to which they must all be subjected. Equality in servitude appears to it preferable to liberty sustained by a hierarchy of rank.s. It prefers Tiberius cq.m.m.anding a multitude without rights and without name, to the Roman people governed by a secular patriarch, and receiving from him the impulse which makes it free, together with the check which makes it powerful." Pere Lacordaire's view c-f the fiUuie is certainly not encouwiging : '• '.' European democracy, he says,, has broken the cords which connected the past and present, built up abases on. ruins, erected here and there a'precarious liberty, agitated

the world much more by events than it has improved it by institutions, and, uncontested mistress of the future, will, if not eventually instructed and regulated, prepare for us the frightful alternative of a demagogy without foundation, or a despotism without restraint." The orator, as was to be expected, does not forget Pius IX., whom he calls the renovator of the liberty of Italy, and speaks of the occupation of Rome as the brightest jewel in the crown of the Republic oflS4B, especially as M. de Tocqueville was in the Ministry when " that double act of wisdom and power" was performed. It is quite impossible to give with effect; at a moment's notice, a worthy specimen of the more eloquent parts of the oration, and it would be unfair to render into bald language the rounded and glowing phrases in which the Pere Lacordaire, painted the character of his predecessor. M. Guizot commenced his oration by calling upon his new colleague, Pere Lacordaire, to reflect what would have happened if they hadjnet 600 years ago. "At that time, if my like had metyours, the latter would have been assailed with rage as an odious persecutor, and to inflame the conquerors against the heretics, would have cried ou,t ' Strike, strike's^.; God will know his own.' " Thus did M Guizot pay homage to the tolerance of our age. He alluded to. tfee fact that 36 years since young,Lacordaire was one ; of the hopes of the bar of Paris, but that M. Berryer recommended his friend to quit the profession of the law for the church. The advice was sound, and was speedily followed—all know with what success. M. Guizot made a personal allusion to his own career, with reference to the name of O'Connell, arid said that some friends in London gave him the opportunity of making the acquaintance of the Liberator, who said, "This meeting, sir, is singular, and does honour to our age. You, a Protestant, ambassador of the King of France, and I, a Catholic, member of the British House of Commons."

M. Guizot put the question well when he said, " That faith may be free, and liberty may be pious, is, amidst all revolutions and under all regimes, the supreme wish of France, as it was and is with M. de Tocqueville and yourself, above all your differences, the common object of your souls and of your efforts."

The ex-Minister reverts to the fact that while his own views were, he believes, identical at bottom with those of M. de Tocqueville, they where personally always in political opposition ; but he recognises in the difference between the last work of the late academician, "L'Aneien Regime et la Revolution," and his more famous ■" Democratic en Ame*rique," an approach to the practical views of government entertained by M. Guizot. In short, that when young the author of " Democracy " was an enthusist, but that when more advanced in age he partook of the wisdom of the doctrinaires!