THE NATIONAL.
We now come to the National, founded by Carrel, Mignet, and Thiers. It was agreed between the triad that each should take the place of rédacteur en chef for a year. Thiers, as the oldest and most experienced, was the first installed, and conducted the paper with zest and spirit till the Revolution of 1830 broke out. The National set out with the idea of changing the incorrigible dynasty, and instituting Orléanism in the place of it. The refusal to pay taxes and to contribute to a budget was a proposition of the National, and it is not going too far to say, that the crisis of 1830 was hastened by this journal. It was at the office of the National that the famous protest, proclaiming the right of resistance, was composed and signed by Thiers, De Remusat, and Canchois Lemaire. On the following day the office of the journal was bombarded by the police and an armed force, when the presses were broken. Against this illegal violence the editors protested. After the Revolution, Carrel assumed the conduct of the journal, and became the firmest as well as the ablest organ of democracy. To the arbitrary and arrogant Perier, he opposed a firm and uncompromising resistance. Every one acquainted with French politics at that epoch is aware of the strenuous and stand-up fight he made for five years for his principles. He it was who opposed a bold front to military bullies, and who invented the epithet traîneurs de sabre. This is not the place to speak of the talent of Carrel. He was shot in a miserable quarrel in 1836, by Emile Girardin, then, as now, the editor of the Presse. On the death of Carrel, the shareholders of the paper assembled together to name a successor. M. Trelat, subsequently minister, was fixed upon. But as he was then a détenu at Clairvaux, Bastide and Littré filled the editorial chair during the interregnum. On the release of Trelat, it was soon discovered that he had not the peculiar talent necessary. The sceptre of authority passed into the hands of M. Bastide, named Minister of Foreign Affairs in the ending of 1848, or the beginning of 1849. M. Bastide, then a marchand de bois, divided his editorial empire with M. Armand Marrast, who had been a political prisoner and a refugee in England, and who returned to France on the amnesty granted on the marriage of the Duke of Orleans. M. Marrast, though a disagreeable, self-sufficient, and underbred person, was unquestionably a writer of point, brilliancy, and vigor. From 1837 to the Revolution of 1848 he was connected with the National, and was the author of a series of articles which have not been equalled since. Like all low, vulgar-bred, and reptile-minded persons, Marrast forgot himself completely when raised to the position of President of the Chamber of Deputies. In this position he made irreconcileable enemies of all his old colleagues, and of most persons who came into contact with him. The fact is, that your schoolmaster and pedagogue can rarely become a gentleman, or any thing like a gentleman. The writers in the National at the present moment are, M. Léopold Duras, M. Alexandre Rey, Caylus, Cochut, Forques, Littré, Paul de Musset, Colonel Charras, and several others whose names it is not necessary to mention here.