People in this city are generally so much bored with the 
progress of liberty abroad that they almost forget minding the 
progress of servitude at home. Still, now and then, symptoms of 
returning internal life appear on the surface of the social body. 

Take for instance M. Berryer’s vigorous denunciation of the 
decay of the barreau? and of the growing servility of the French 
Courts of Justice. Another instance is the efforts made by liberals 
of every shade of opinion to rally and make a literary stand at 
least against the streams of turpitude daily poured over the 
country through the floodgates of the Decembrist press. Thus at 
Paris Messrs. d’Haussonville, Jules Simon, Barthélemy-St.-Hilaire, 
Odilon Barrot, Duvergier de Hauranne, Barni, Hauréau and 
others, are trying their best in this direction. In the department de 
la Meurthe a cluster of independent writers have started a 
periodical publication under the title of Varia with a view to 
combat the monster centralisation that envelops France in its 
deadly embrace, as the serpents did the body of Laocoon; and 
similar undertakings are set on foot in Alsace. The Courrier du 
Dimanche, however, a weekly Paris paper, now evidently takes the 
lead of the new liberal opposition. On casting a glance on its 
sheets, one becomes at once aware of the enormous difficulties its 
way is beset with, and, moreover, its writers appear more or less 
tainted with the exhalations of the corrupt medium they breathe 

a The Bar.— Ed. 

in. Still there is a great effort made to emerge and, consequently, 
I propose giving a summary of their recent strictures on the 
Bonapartist pamphlet literature.*