those which appear cannot say a
word on politics or even publish any news. But this is by no means all.
The Government has stuck up a list of persons who are formed into a
"consultative commission." Its object is to induce France to believe
that the Executive is not abandoned by every man of respectability and
consideration among us. More than half the persons on this list have
refused to belong to the commission; most of them regard the insertion
of their names as dishonor. I may quote, among others, M. Leon Faucher,
M. Portalis, First President of the Court of Cassation, and the Duc de
Albufera, as those best known. Not only does the Government decline to
publish the letters in which these gentlemen refuse their consent, but
even their names are not withdrawn from the list which dishonors them.
The names are still retained in spite of their repeated remonstrances. A
day or two ago, one of them, M. Joseph Perier, driven to desperation by
this excess of tyranny, rushed into the street to strike out his own
name, with his own hands, from the public placards, taking the
passers-by to witness that it had been placed there by a lie.

Such is the state of the public journals. Let us now see the condition
of personal liberty. I say again that personal liberty is more trampled
on than ever it was in the time of the empire. A decree of the new power
gives the _prefets_ the right to arrest, in their respective
departments, whomsoever they please; and the _prefets_, in their turn,
send blank warrants of arrest, which are literally _lettres de cachet_,
to the _sobs-prefets_ under their orders. The Provisional Government of
the Republic never went so far. Human life is as little respected as
human liberty. I know that war has its dreadful necessities, but the
disturbances which have recently occurred in Paris have been put down
with a barbarity unprecedented in our civil contests; and when we
remember that this torrent of blood has been shed to consummate the
violation of all law, we cannot but think that sooner or later it will
fall back upon the heads of those who shed it. As for the appeal of the
people, to whom Louis Napoleon affects to submit his claims, never was a
more odious mockery offered to a nation. The people is called upon to
express its opinion, yet not only is public discussion suppressed, but
even the knowledge of facts. The people is asked its opinion, but the
first measure taken to obtain it is to establish milit