FRANCE.

Lyttelton Times, Volume II, Issue 81, 24 July 1852, Page 4

FRANCE.

On sending in his resignation as Pro-cureur-General to the Court of Cassation, in consequence of the Decree respecting the proposed confiscation of the Orleans property, M. Dupin addressed the following letter to the public Journals:- — " To the President of the Republic, " I regret exceedingly that, previous to the publication of the decree which I have read in the Moniteur, you had not heard my opinion with the same kindness you have sometimes manifested towards me. I should have tried to demonstrate to you, not merely in the private interest of the children, the greater part minors, of the late King, of whom I am one of the testamentary executors, but in the interest of your own Government, that those who have suggested that measure are not acquainted with the facts; and that they have disregarded all the rules of law and equity. In fact there is an extreme exaggeration (at least to the amount of half) in the estimate made of the property of the Orleans family. In law the decree violates in its essence the very principle of property. This right of property was recognised, after a solemn discussion, in the person of the late King, by the 22nd -and 23rd clauses of the law of the 2nd March, 1832; and in the person of his children by the very acts of the Revolution of February, by the decree of the Constituent Assembly of the 25th October, 1848, and by the law of the National Assembly of the 4th February, 1850, promulgated by your Governtaent, which authorised the loan of 20,000,000 on that property by your Minister of Finance. Thus, public right, will, special laws, contracts, all have recognised in the hands of the Princes of the house of Orleans their right to the property which the decree of the 22nd January deprives them of all at once, and in a manner so absolute that the sacred rights of the tomb, the burial-ground of Dreux, are not even excepted. If the Constitution of the 15th January was in vigour, the Senate might be appealed to in virtue of the 26th article, which permits that body ' to make opposition to the promulgation of laws which are contrary to the inviolable character of property.' In the present state of things, the only resource is to appeal to you, Prince, and to invoke your wisdom and the magnanimity of your own feelings when they are again consulted and more deliberately listened to. But if these rigorous measures are to be maintained, a great scruple arises from the depth of my conscience. As' Procureur-Geueral to the Court of Cassation for nearly 22 years; as the principal organ of the law in that high branch of jurisdiction ; charged as I am by the Government to proclaim the constant respect to right, and to require the reversal and the annulling of the acts which violate the laws, or which constitute the incompetence or the excesses of the Government, — how shall I be able henceforth to exercise the same firmness if acts are introduced in our legislation which are in contradiction with those principles ? I feel myself bound, therefore, to tender you my resignation. But I pray you, Prince, and in an earnest manner, not to misunderstand my motives. The resolution I have adopted has nothing to do with politics. As President of the late Assembly I rigorously kept myself apart from parties and their fatal divisions, and limited myself to maintain, as much as I individually could, the legal and moral doctrines on which the essential order of civilized society reposes. After the coup d'etat of the 2nd December, against which it became my duty to protest, as I have done, I awaited the judgment of the people appealed to by you. After that judgment I adhered frankly to the immense powers which were the result of that appeal, considering them as the strongest guarantee that could be presented to preserve or re-establish those principles which a wild Socialism had endangered and menaced ; and, as a public functionary, my co-operation was loyally given to you. But at the present moment, and oil a question of civil right, and of private rights, of natural equity, and of all Christian notions of what is just and unjust, which I have cherished in my soul for more than 50 years as jurisconsult and as magistrate, I feel myself absolutely called on to resign my functions of ProcureurGeneral, C( Be pleased, Prince, to accept the expression of ray sentiments of respectful consideration, " Dupin."