The Enquirer

NEW PILLAR OF THE IMPERIAL THRONE.

Bonaparte not contented with the power of the sword, has found a new support in the spiritual authorities of his Empire. The state has allied itself with the church; and the devout ministers of a holy God are called forth to consecrate the usurpations of a military chieftain. The old doctrine "to respect the powers that be" is revived in the liturgy of France; and a man certainly of no very divine virtues, is held up by the hypocritical adulations of a pampered priesthood as God's "image upon earth."

It is, however, a new proof of the dexterity with which Bonaparte employs every expedient to uphold his power; that the same man who was certainly at one time no very devoted lover of the church, has now revived and confirmed the religious prejudices of his people, to add new confirmation to his own authority: and that the same man, who once dishonored the sovereign pontiff by dragging him from Rome to Paris to dub him Emperor of France, is now professing so great a veneration for his name, as to employ this very consecration as a solemn tie upon the obedience of his subjects. Surely France is fast returning to the same abject superstition, which her revolution had suspended: and surely of all the sins in this sinning world, the sins of intriguing governments are the worst. It is no softening to this picture, to say, that if France is now returning to her priesthood and her kingcraft, it is because such evils have been gradually imposed upon her by the monstrous coalitions which were formed against her safety. Evils do not diminish, from the nature of their cause: and the man of an honest soul, must turn with nearly equal indignation from the following extract, whether he abhors the coalitions of Pillnitz and Pavia, or whether he altogether denies their existence.

Ed. En.