Daily Richmond Whig

FRANCE.

The Non French ministers,
1st. M. Lafitte, Minister of Finance, and President of the Council of Ministers! Mark that! President of the Council of Ministers! So that he is to give the tone to the Cabinet, and his principles are those which are to prevail. There can be no mistake about this! Who then is M. Lafitte? A Republican! an avowed Republican! an avowed Republican of thirty years' standing!

2. The President of the Council of Ministers was born at Bayonne in 1767, and was the son of a carpenter! — is now in trade — keeps a banking house — and, oh, horrible! is, in fact, a shopkeeper! The Royalists say, that to have a shopkeeper for a Minister is enough alone to send down the Rentes five per cent. France replies, that she meddles not with the stock-jobbing politics of the Bourse, and that the Rentes go down and will go up — for the President of the Council is a Republican, an honest man. Lafitte began at an early age his commercial career. For many years he was clerk, then superintendent, and, ultimately, partner, in the banking house of Perregaux. After the death of the elder Perregaux, M. Lafitte, for ten years, conducted the house, the son of his late partner being little more than a sleeping one to the firm. By talent, industry, good sense, and straightforward conduct, he gained a good reputation, and a very large fortune. He was named successively President of the Tribunal of Commerce, and Governor of the Bank of France, the emoluments attached to which office he would not receive, although he devoted his time and talents to that great establishment. He is acquainted with his native tongue — speaks plain, good common sense — understands perfectly well how to express himself — and has even so improved himself in the art of public speaking, as to pass for a very good orator. In England you would not think him eloquent, but at least he will vie with the Duke of Wellington!! In the Chamber of Deputies, he has always supported the cause of liberty, was a devoted hater of the Bourbons — protested against a dissolution of the National Guards — and was the friend of the persecuted Manuel, who has been accused of having composed for Lafitte some of his best speeches. M. Lafitte, in 1815, after the second capitulation of Paris, when all was disorder and confusion, presented to the public Treasury £500,000 sterling, to preserve the country from ruin — and during the late Revolution of July, opened his bank to all the poor and unfortunate who applied for relief, gave them money, provisions, and arms, and urged on that Revolution, to march with which, he is now appointed President of the Council of Ministers! Besides these acts of generosity, he presented to the fund for the relief of the widows and wounded, the sum of £60,000 sterling!! M. Lafitte, on being elected for the departments of Seine and Basses Pyrennees, selected the latter as the place of his birth, and has recently been re-elected at Bayonne without opposition. To Beranger the songster of France, he was a friend in his imprisonment, and visited and cheered him in his captivity. When the Bourbons oppressed that admirable poet, and when in poverty and wretchedness he pined, Lafitte folded him in his arms, gave him in his house an asylum and delicately placed him in a bureau in his vast establishment, where there was, however, scarcely anything to do, in order that the needy but independent Beranger might not feel that he was a pensioner on the bounty of his patron. This is Lafitte. He may have commercial enemies, and banking opponents, and Stock Exchange antagonists, but he has no personal foe; and no one disputes the honesty of his conduct the integrity of his political life, or his devotedness to the cause of the people. The daughter of M. Lafitte is married to the son of Marshal Ney, the Prince of Moskwa. This marriage has been called one of ostentation, and Lafitte has been charged with a love of rank, and of splendour and titles. If this charge had been true, this Republican Minister might have been Peer of France himself in Charles the Tenth's reign, if he would only have abandoned his course of frankness — his opposition to the Bourbon dynasty. This is our President of Council and Minister of Finance. Some wish he had accepted the post of Minister of the Interior, and that a banker had not been chosen as the Chief of the Treasury. It may be that this objection is a good one — though the undoubted immense wealth of this firm and solid capitalist, added to his prudence and honour, would be sufficient guarantees against any malversation, and would secure to the renter confidence, and the Government support.

2. Marshal Marquis Maison, Minister of Foreign Affairs. The Marquis is no new man to Europe. He is well known and his mere name is a tower of strength. He was born at Epinay, in 1771, and entered in the service of the Volunteers organized in Paris, in 1792. From that period to 1814, he never ceased to serve his country as a soldier, and various were the wounds he received on the field of battle. In 1794, on the 1st of July, before Mons, at the head of a few grenadiers, he contested with 300 Austrians; and when he found himself alone in the midst of his enemies, he refused to sheathe his sword, and was left for dead on the ground. To follow him in his career, would be a long though a pleasing task. In 1800, he fought in Holland, and was wounded by a ball in his chest. At the peace of Amiens, he received the place of Commandant of the Department of Tanaro — assisted at the battle of Austerlitz, and distinguished himself in the campaign of Prussia, in 1806. He subsequently served under Victor in Spain, when he was wounded seriously in his right foot. Subsequently he served under Bernadotte, against the Walcheren expedition, & afterwards showed new proofs of courage and talent in the war against Russia. On one occasion, after having two horses killed under him, and being wounded by a ball in his shoulder, he mounted the third charger, and led on his troops to victory. In 1813, he received the command of the body of the army destined to defend the Rhine, and to cover Belgium. Defeated, however, at Antwerp, Louvain, &c., he retired to Lille, and there signed an armistice with the Allied Powers, and gave in his adhesion to the decree of the Senate which pronounced the fall of Napoleon! In 1815, he was made Peer of France, and Governor of Paris — and when Louis XVIII gave to France a Charter, the Marshal Maison was conscientiously disposed to support the King, because he believed that the Monarch gave with honest intentions, and did not intend subsequently to withdraw or alter the Charter, which he appeared freely to bestow. Since that period, Maison has distinguished himself by his opposition to the Villele faction — and to all measures not favourable to public liberty — and has been a zealous advocate of popular rights in the Chamber of Peers. Maison, is, undoubtedly, more a great Military Commander, than a Diplomatist, or Minister of State; but his acquaintance with foreign countries and Courts, the high respect in which his talents and character are held by all foreign powers, and the certainty which every one will have when they read his name, that France does not intend to submit to any system of foreign dictation or chicanery, will give great weight and importance to the new Ministry. Maison, during the time of Napoleon, never concealed his desire for a less absolute Government, and for a Charter, or a Constitution. He joined the party of Louis XVIII., when he gave the Charter, hoping that he should see France enjoy the liberal institutions which it promised; but when he found otherwise, he joined the opposition: and to him was entrusted, in August last, the task, in conjunction with Odillon Barrot and M. de Schonen, of conducting to Cherbourg, the cortege of the fallen and now exiled Bourbons. It must, however, be admitted, that the President of the Council is more republican than Maison, and that whilst all the rest belong to the Extreme Gauche, perhaps the Marquis must be classed with that portion of the Centre Gauche, which borders on the Extreme. His selection is however, judicious, and there can be no doubt that he will march with M. Lafitte, Dupont de l'Eure, Sebastiana, &c. &c.

3. The Count Montalivet, Peer of France, Minister of the Interior! What age is he? — Twenty-eight! — only twenty-eight. He was one of those who fought with the people — and for the people — and in the ranks of the people on the 27th, 28th, and 29th of July, 1830 — against the soldiers of Charles X! He is the son of the celebrated Montalivet; who was Minister of the Interior under Napoleon Bonaparte. The young Count, though a Peer of France, has not yet the right to take a deliberate part in the Chamber, on account of his age.

Of the other Ministers, it will be unnecessary for me to give you an account. The republican Dupont de l'Eure, remains Minister of Justice! The Extreme Gauche, if not republican, Sebastiani, the Minister of Marine; and General Gerard, also of the Extreme Gauche of the Chamber of Deputies, Minister of War! This is our Ministry. We have four men, and three of the former Ministry; the three who were the minority but who are now the majority. Broglie is gone! and Guizot is gone! and Mole is gone! and so are Casimir Perier, Dupin, and Bignon. They were all honest men in their way; but that was not the way of France — of the million — of the majority. We have no Administration of the people. There might have been better republicans than Maison and Gerard, but still they belong to the party of the people, and the majority in the Council is most decided. — Correspondent of the Morning Chronicle.

P. S. — The Ministry has been still farther modified since the above was written, and republicanized. Soult has come in — Gerard and Montalivet gone out.