THE THREE KINGDOMS.

OUR readers will not be surprised to learn that the decision of the Court of Exchequer, which has
declared the "HOUSEHOLD NARRATIVE OF CURRENT EVENTS" to be a legal publication, was no surprise
to us. We did not enter on our task without consideration, and for the judgment which has been given
we waited with confidence. What the Court of Exchequer has declared by that judgment, is, that the
"HOUSEHOLD NARRATIVE" belongs to the class of history rather than of news; and this exactly is the view
in which it originated, and with which, in future Numbers, it will be more carefully and completely worked
out. We desire it to be, in future, a perfectly impartial digest and record, that shall from month to month
as faithfully keep note of the changing opinions, as it records the unchanging facts, which constitute
the History of the time. Not subserving party politics, yet not excluding anything that claims to be a part
of the actual interests of the day, our hope is to make it ultimately a not unwelcome or unuseful
companion to the publication out of which it arose.

IT will hereafter be asked with some interest, what kind of reception was given by public opinion in
England to the act by which, early on the morning of the 2nd of December 1851, the elected President of
the French Republic violated his oath of allegiance to the state, dissolved by force the National Assembly,
drove through the streets at the point of the bayonet between two and three hundred representatives,
deprived of their liberty the five greatest generals of France, conveyed in felon-vans to common prisons the
most illustrious of living Frenchmen, suppressed half the newspapers throughout the country, gagged those
which were not suppressed, cannonaded for five successive days the most respectable quarters of the city of
Paris, slaughtered nearly three thousand citizens mostly of the better class, assumed such right over the
class supposed to be dangerous as to transport them by thousands to the swamps and sands of Africa, let
loose an infuriated soldiery throughout the various departments, exacted instant submission from every
public agent under peril of the loss of his personal freedom as well as of his official appointment, enlisted
as suddenly the entire confederacy of the Jesuits by hoisting a flag of duty to the Church over these
acts of perjury and treason, and, finally, by means of an election proposed to a people forced (under
pressure of half a million of bayonets) to the necessity of accepting or rejecting one name out of a
population of thirty-five millions, obtained himself to be appointed Dictator for ten years, with a ministry
irresponsible except to himself, with a Council of State and Senate nominated at his mere pleasure, and
with a legislative body devoid of all power except to invest the will of the executive with what may pass
for the forms of law. Such is the State-blow on which public opinion has just been invited everywhere
but in the country struck and still reeling under it. With no intention to take part in that opinion while
we simply record what has called for its expression, it is yet impossible to describe such an act in
anything like plain language, without appearing to give utterance at the same time to the strongest
judgment against it.

It has nevertheless elicited much approval of a certain kind in England. The morning paper possessing
the most intimate confidence of the then chief of the Foreign Office, at once pronounced in its favour; and
has since very zealously depicted its author as the selected instrument of Providence to bring about
the salvation of France. The evening paper supposed to have hardly less interest in the same
quarter, treated it as a mere act of self-defence against the National Assembly; and has continued to regard
it as "a knock down blow" delivered with such sudden cleverness and quickness in the course of a "fair
stand-up fight" as to demand rather praise than reprobation. Another evening paper professing opinions
yet more liberal than its Whig competitor, has had even less scruple in frankly espousing M. Bonaparte as
the redeemer of his country. A third evening paper, though holding him at arm's length as too much
disposed to the Jesuits, has been greatly more willing to eulogise than to censure him. Another morning
paper equally indisposed to any one favoured by the Pope, has adopted a similar tone. A third morning
paper much in vogue with thirsty politicians, has declared for him yet more strongly and with fewer
misgivings. Nor has a weekly paper which lays special claim to authoritative intercourse with the quidnuncs
of Downing Street, been behind any of these in finding explanations and excuses for the overthrow of French
liberty; while another weekly journalist in official and "economical" relations with the government has invited
sympathy and admiration to it as a "sudden, bloodless, and beneficent" revolution, executed with skill,
promptitude, and vigour; and, as a matter of course, the rank and file of weekly papers habitually
favourable to military rule on the Continent, have found it a proper subject of congratulation. Of the
Roman Catholic organs generally, now that the Pope has spoken, it is needless to speak; but it may be
said of that particular newspaper which is supposed most correctly to represent ultramontane Catholicism
in Ireland and England, that it did not hesitate, even before his holiness Pio Nono had publicly approved and
blessed M. Bonaparte's enterprise, to proclaim its hearty sympathy with it, and to declare that in the judgment of
no good Catholic had the President of the French Republic committed any perjury in overthrowing what
he had sworn to uphold, provided only he had taken his oath originally "with a safe conscience."

From this brief summary it becomes obvious that no correct historian of public opinion in England will