Paris, Sunday, June 15, 1851.

I marvel at the obliquity of vision whereby any one is enabled, standing in this metropolis, to anticipate the subversion of the Republic and the restoration of Monarchy. Such prophets must belong essentially to that school which teaches the omnipotence of paper Constitutions and dilates with bristling hair on the appalling possibility that Washington, or Hamilton, or Franklin, might not have been chosen to the Convention which framed our Federal Constitution, and that Constitution consequently have remained unperfected or unadopted. The true view I understand to be that if the Constitution had thus failed to be constructed in '87 or adopted in '88, the necessity for it would still have existed, growing daily more urgent and palpable, so that Convention after Convention would from time to time have been called, and sooner or later a Constitution would have been elaborated and adopted; and the longer this consummation was delayed the stronger and more controlling the Constitution ultimately formed would have been. So with the French Republic. It is simply an expression of the intellectual convictions and social instincts of the French People. You meet it on the Boulevards and in the cafÉs where the wealthy and luxurious most do congregate; your cabman and boot-black, though perfectly civil and attentive, let you understand, if you have eyes, that they are Republicans; while in the quarters tenanted or frequented only by the Artisan and the Laborer you meet none but devotees of "the Republic Democratic and Social." The contrast between the abject servility of the Poor in London and their manner here cannot be realized without actual observation. A hundred Princes or illustrious Dukes in Paris would not attract as much attention as any one of them would in London. Democracy triumphed in the drawing-rooms of Paris before it had erected its first barricade in the streets; and all subsequent efforts in behalf of Monarchy here have produced and can produce only a fitful, spasmodic, unnatural life. If three Revolutions within a life-time, all in the same direction, have not impressed this truth conclusively, another and another lesson will be added. The French have great faults of character which imperil the immediate fortunes of the Republic but cannot affect its ultimate ascendency. Impulsive and egotistic, they may seem willing to exchange Liberty for Tranquillity or Security, but this will be a momentary caprice, soon past and forgotten. The Nation can never more be other than Republican, though the possessors of power, controlling the Press, the Bureaux, the Assembly and the Army, may fancy that their personal interests would be promoted by a less popular system, and so be seen for a season following strange gods. This delusion and apostacy will speedily pass, leaving only their shame behind.

The immediate peril of the Republic is the Election of May, '52, in view of the arbitrary disfranchisement of nearly one-half the Democratic voters, the manacled condition of the Press, the denial to the People of the Right of Meeting for deliberation and concert, and the betrayal of all the enormous power and patronage of the State into the hands of the Aristocratic party. If the Republicans were to attempt holding a Convention to select a candidate for President, their meetings would be promptly suppressed by the Police and the Bayonet. This may distract and scatter them, though I trust it will not. Their Presidential candidate will doubtless be designated by a Legislative Caucus or meeting of Representatives in the Assembly, simply because no fairer and fuller expression of the party's preference would be tolerated. And if, passing over the mob of Generals and of Politicians by trade, the choice should fall on some modest and unambitious citizen, who has earned a character by quiet probity and his bread by honest labor, I shall hope to see his name at the head of the poll in spite of the unconstitutional overthrow of Universal Suffrage. After this, though the plurality should fall short of a majority and the Assembly proceed to elect Louis Napoleon or Changarnier, there need be no further apprehension.

I hear, as from an official source, that there are now Three Thousand Americans in Paris, most of them residing here for months, if not for years. It gives me pleasure to state that, contrary to what I have often heard of the bearing of our countrymen in Europe, a large majority of these, so far as I may judge from meeting a good many and learning the sentiments of more, are warmly and openly on the side of the Republic and opposed to the machinations of the motley host who seek its overthrow.

The conviction of Charles Hugo, and his sentence to six months' imprisonment, for simply writing a strong Editorial in the EvÉnement in condemnation of Legal Killing, is making a profound sensation here. I think it will hasten the downfall both of the Guillotine and the "party of Order" which thus assumes the championship of that venerated institution. The Times' Paris correspondent, I perceive, takes up the tale of Hugo's article having been calculated to expose the ministers of the law to popular odium, and naively protests against a line of argument by which "those who execute the law are stigmatized as executioners." I suppose we must call them executors hereafter to obviate the hardship complained of. How singular that those who glory in the deed should shrink indignantly from the name?

American attention will naturally be drawn to the recent debate in the Assembly involving the principle of the Higher Law. The subject was a bill reorganizing the National Guard, with the intent of sifting it as clean as possible of the popular element, and thus rendering it either a nullity, or an accomplice in the execution of the Monarchical conspiracies now brewing. It is but a few days since Gen. Changarnier solemnly informed the Assembly, in reply to President Bonaparte's covert menaces at Dijon, that the army could not be made to level its muskets and point its cannon at the Assembly: "Wherefore, Representatives of France, deliberate in Peace." Following logically in the same train, a "Red" saw fit to affirm that the Army could not be brought to use its bayonets against the People who should take up arms, in defense of the Republic. No stick thrown into a hornets' nest ever excited such commotion as this remark did in the camp of "Order." In the course of a violent and tumultuous debate, it came out that Gen. Baraguay d'Hilliers, a leader on the side of "Order," refused in 1848 to take the proffered command of the troops fighting on the side of Order in the deplorable street combats of June. This was excused on the ground of his being a Representative as well as a General! The Champions of "Order," having said all they wished and allowed their opponents to say very little, hastily shut down the gate, and refused to permit further discussion. No matter: the truth has been formally proclaimed from the tribune that No one has a moral right to do as a soldier that which it would be wrong for him to do as a man—that, no matter what human rulers may decree, every man owes a paramount obedience to the law of God, and cannot excuse his violation of that law by producing an order to do so from any functionary or potentate whatever. The idea is a fruitful one, and France is now pondering it.

I attended divine worship to-day at Notre Dame, which seems to me not only the finest Church but the most imposing edifice in Paris. The Pantheon may vie with it, perhaps, but it has to my eye a naked and got-up look; it lacks adequate furnishing. Beside these two, nearly all the public buildings of Paris strike me as lacking height in proportion to their superficial dimensions. The Hotel de Ville (City Hall) has a fine front, but seems no taller while more extensive than our New-York City Hall, which notoriously lacks another story. Even the Louvre, with ample space and a rare position, which most of the Paris edifices want, seems deficient in height. But Notre Dame, on the contrary, towers proudly and gracefully, and I have not seen its general effect surpassed. It reminded me of Westminster Abbey, though it is less extensive. As a place of worship it is infinitely superior to the Abbey, which has the damp air and gloom of a dungeon, in each most unlike Notre Dame. I trust no American visits Paris without seeing this noble church, and on the Sabbath if possible.

AMERICAN ART AND INDUSTRY—BRITISH JOURNALISM.

Since I left London, The Times has contained two Editorials on American contributions to the Great Exhibition, which seem to require comment. These articles are deprecatory and apologetic in their general tenor, evincing a consciousness that the previous strictures of the London Press on American Art had pushed disparagement beyond the bounds of policy, and might serve to arouse a spirit in the breasts of the people so invidiously and persistently assailed. So our countryman are now told, in substance, that they are rather clever fellows on the whole, who have only made themselves ridiculous by attempting to do and to be what Nature had forbidden. Nothing but our absurd pretensions could thus have exposed us to the world's laughter. America might be America with credit; she has broken down by undertaking to be Europe also, &c., &c.

"It is the attempt, and not the deed, confounds me."

But what are the nature and extent of this American audacity? Our countrymen have undertaken to minister to their own wants by the production of certain Wares and Fabrics which they had formerly been content either to do without or to buy from Europe. Being urgently invited to do so, they have sent over some few of these results of their art and skill to a grand exposition of the World's Industry. Even if they were as bad as they are represented, these products should be here; since the object of the Exhibition is not merely to set forth what is best but to compare it with the inferior, and so indicate the readiest mode of improving the latter. Russia, Turkey, Egypt, Barbary, Persia, have sent hither their wares and fabrics, which hundreds of thousands have examined with eager and gratified interest—an interest as real as that excited by the more perfect rival productions of Western Europe, though of a different kind from that. No one has thought of ridiculing these products of a more primitive industry; all have welcomed and been instructed by them. And so ours would have been treated had they been in fact the wretched affairs which the London Commercial press has represented them. It is precisely because they are quite otherwise that it has been deemed advisable systematically to disparage them—to declare our Pianos "gouty" structures—"mere wood and iron;" our Calicoes beneath the acceptance of a British servant-girl; our Farming Tools half a century behind their British rivals; our Hats "shocking bad," &c., &c.,—all this, in the first months of the Exhibition, while the Jurors appointed to judge and report upon the merits of rival fabrics were making the requisite investigations. Their verdict is thus substantially forestalled, and the millions who visit the Exhibition are invited to look at the American department merely to note the bad taste and incapacity therein displayed, and learn to avoid them.

But the self-constituted arbiters who thus tell the American people that Art is not their province—that they should be content to grow Corn and Cotton, looking to Europe for the satisfaction of their less urgent necessities, their secondary wants—are they impartial advisers? Are they not palpably speaking in the interest of the rival producers of Europe, alarmed by the rapid growth and extension of American Art? Would they have taken so much trouble with us if American taste and skill were really the miserable abortions they represent them?

These indications of paternal care for American Industry, in danger of being warped and misdirected, are not quite novel. An English friend lately invited me to visit him at his house in the neighborhood of Birmingham, holding out as an inducement the opportunity of inspecting the great Iron and Hardware manufactories in that neighborhood. A moment afterward he recollected himself and said, "I am not quite sure that I could procure you admittance to them, because the rule has been that Americans were not to be admitted. Gentlemen taking their friends to visit these works were asked, at the door, 'Is your friend an American?' and if the answer was affirmative, he was not allowed to enter—but I think this restriction has been generally abrogated." Here you see, was a compassionate regard for American Industry, in danger of being misled and deluded into unprofitable employments, which neither The Times nor any of its co-laborers has been able to more than humbly imitate.

To my mind, nothing can be more unjust than the intimation that, in attempting to supply her own wants (or some of them) in the domain of Art and Manufacture, America has rushed madly from her sphere and sought to be Europe. She has already taught Europe many things in the sphere of Invention, and is destined to teach her many more; and the fact that her Carriages are condemned as too light and her Pianos as too heavy, her Reaping Machines as "a cross between a treadmill and a flying chariot," &c., &c., by critics very superficially acquainted with their uses, and who have barely glanced at them in passing, proves nothing but the rashness and hostility of their contemners. From such unworthy disparagement I appeal with confidence to the awards of the various Juries appointed by the Royal Commissioners. They are competent; they have made the requisite examinations; they (though nearly all European and a majority of them British) are honorable men, and will render an impartial judgment. That judgment, I firmly believe, will demonstrate that, in proportion to the extent of its contributions, no other country has sent more articles to the Exhibition by which the whole world may be instructed and benefited than our own.