FRANCE.

Lyttelton Times, Volume II, Issue 92, 9 October 1852, Page 4

FRANCE.

The Civil Tribunal of the Seine has given judgment upon the first preliminary stage of the proceeding taken by the Orleans family to contest the validity of the confiscation of their property. The domains of Neuilly and Monceau were seized in March b}r the functionaries of the Government, the retainers of the Orleans family being ejected by force : the legal agents of the family called on the Civil Tribunal to declare that they had been expelled without right, and to order the restoration of their possession. The Prefect of the Seine, on behalf of the Government, called on the Tribunal to declare itself incompetent in the case, from want of jurisdiction ; and the legal ground taken was thus barely uncovered in the requisition of the Prefect— " Considering that the principle in virtue of which the civil tribunals are competent to decide on questions of property, even with respect to the state, cannot be applied, when, as in the present case, the law has been sovereignly regulated by the legislator himself, and that the point in dispute has been the subject of special legislative,dispositions which raise no difficulty of interpretation ; that in no case can the civil tribunals entertain an action brought, so to speak, against the law itself, and with the view of disputing a right expressly sanctioned by it; that to decide the contrary, would be to admit that they can meddle in the exercise of legislative power, and prevent or suspend the execution of its decrees, which is equally interdicted to them by the law of their organization and the nature of the powers conferred on them," &c. Great interest was manifested in the proceedings : and several eminent persons were present, including M. Dufkure, M. de Laboulie, M. Estaucelin, M. Bocher, M. Cuvillier-Henri, and M. Dupin. The advocates for the Orleans Princes were M. Paillet and 3VI. Berryer; M. Odilon Barrot and M. de Vatimesnil appearing in constume as their assisting advisers. The Procureur of li the Eepublic" appeared for the Usurpation. The arguments of M. Paillet and M. Berryer were powerful for their boldness ;M. Berryer threw aside all technical logic, and denounced the act against which he contended. " It is not a refutation of his requisitory which lain about to enter on, for that has been al- • ready powerfully and fully refuted. It is a protest which I make in the name of the gown which I wear, and of the bar to which I have belonged for 40 years; in the name of the magistrate?, the guardians of the laws, and in that of the institutions and fundamental laws of my country. Does there now exist a power placed above all laws ? Has this old country of France, after an existence of 14 centuries, no longer any 'principles ? Are we now reduced to the necessity of asking ourselves which is the judicial power in presence of the other powers ? Is there anything uncertain as to the authority of justice? Is not the independence of the judicial power consecrated by our whole political life— is it not our nationality itself?" The Procureur briefly supported the propositions, that '• the legislator' of 1852 only acted within the sphere of the attributions which had been conferred on him ;" and that " the act in question emanated from the only legislative power which then existed in France." M. Belleyme, and the eightother Judges over whom lie presided, retired to deliberate for an hour. The decision was—that the ordinary tribunals are exclusively competent to decide on questions of property, of validity of contracts, and of prescription ; that this principle) has always been applied as well with regard to the stale as to private individuals; that it thus belongs to the Tribunal alone to judge of the claims of the parties, and to apply tlifi law to the facts to which the trial may give rise: it declared the court competent; it fixed the 7th of 3fay for discussing the case on its merits ; and it condemned the Prefect of the Seine in " costs of the incident." The decision was that of eight of the nine Judges sitting. The judgment iyrs hailed by the audience with shouts. The Government received the decision as a serious check, and resolved to bring the matter before the Council of State. The case was mentioned in the Contentieux section of that 1)ody; and it is said that AT. Baroche delivered a Government speech of the most violent de-.ciiption ; but later in the week, it was discovered by the Government, " on sounding the feeiings of the judges," that they were almost unanimous in maintaining the right of-the courts

to interfere in such matters; so that there would be very little chance of reversing the judgment of the Tribunal of the Seine. The Paine has published an article on the preliminary decision of the Civil Tribunal against the Usurpation and in favour of the Orleans family, which counsels the Government to interfere and prevent the scandal of a Judicial Court throwing contempt on the mission of the President during the period of his dictatorship after the 2nd of December. The following letter has been addressed by General Changarnier to the President of the Republic in answer to the demand made upon him to take the oath of allegiance to Louis Napoleon :— " To the President of the French Republic, §-c. " Malines,May 10, 1852. " M. le. Ministre, —During 36 years I have served France with a devotion which might ba equalled, but which could not be surpassed. Under the Restoration I held a grade in the army proportional to the then obscurity of the services I had rendered. Under the Government of July the chances of war raised me rapidly to the station of Lieut, General. Twelve days after the proclamation of the Republic, M. the Due d'Aumale, whom I had just reconducted on board the Solon, honouring him with a salute ftom the artillery of the Place de la Marine, as if the King Louis Philippe still inhabited the Tuileries, left me the government of Algeria ad interim. I wrote to the Minister of the Interior that I had not wished for the proclamation of the Republic, but that it did not appear to me to change my duties towards my country, the Provisional Government did not break my sword, and on the 16th April, it had no cause to regret being able to make use of it. A short time after that day I was appointed governorgeneral of Africa. I soon left that high position, where everything was easy for me to effect, to respond to the confidence of the electors of Paris, who called me to the Constituent Assembly. General Cavaignac, charged with the Executive Government, after the days of June, IS4B, at which time I was absent, named me on the 30th June commander-in-chief of the National Guards of the Seine. On the 14th of December, of the same year, General Cavaignac having desired me to call at the hotel he occupied, Rue de Varennes, told me, in the presence of all the Ministers, that the police believed in a Bonapartist movement, prepared to profit by the ceremony of the anniversary of the translation of the remains of the Emperor to the Invalides, in order to excite the popular enthusiasm to conduct Napoleon Bonaparte to the Tuileries, and to proclaim him Emperor. General Cavaignac finished by asking my opinion on the measures to be taken; I gave it him, and finished by saying, "My dear General, I have given my hand to Louis Napoleon to make him a president—not an emperor; in a few days he will be President of the Republic ; but you may depend upon it that it is not tomorrow that he will enter the Tuileries, where you have established my quarters." These words expressed briefly, but exactly, my unshakeable determination to remain— what all my life I have been—a man of order and of the law. Louis Napoleon Bonaparte has several times attempted to make me deviate from the right line which I had traced to myself, in order to serve his ambition. He has often offered me, and made other persons offer me, not only the dignity of Marshal, which France would have soon conferred upon me without considering itself fallen, but another military dignity which since the fall of the Empire, has ceased to dominate our heirarchy. He wished to attach to that dignity enormous pecuniary advantages, which, thanks to the simplicity of my habits, I had no merit in disdaining. Having perceived, when very late, that personal interest had no influence on my conduct, he endeavoured to gain me over by pretending that he was resolved to prepare for the triumph of the cause of the monarchy, to which he supposed that I was devoted by my predilections. All these kinds of seductions were powerless. I never ceased to be, when in the command of the army of Paris and in the Assembly, ready, as I once slated during a sitting of the committee of peruiiinence, after the reviews at Satory, to defend with energy the legal powers of Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, and to give every opposition to the illegal prolongation of those powers.

It is not to you that it is necessary to tell how those powers have been established under a new form, and what iniquitous and violent acts have accompanied his installation. Persecution has not cooled my patriotism. The exile which I have undergone in solitude and silence, which now you force me to break, has not changed in my eyes my duty to France. Were it to be attacked, I would solicit with ardour the honour of fighting in its defence. The only French journal which I here see has just informed me of the decree which determines the mode of taking the oath—which is to be demanded irom all military authorities. A paragraph, evidently drawn up in order to be applied to the proscribed generals, gives them a delay of four months. I have no need of deliberating so long upon a question of duty and honour. This oath—exacted by the perjured man who has failed to corrupt me—this oath I refuse. Changarnier.