1 APRIL 1865, Page 1

It is believed that Herr von Boon's singular outbreak about

the designs of Napoleon was provoked by a French circular or note to some of the German Courts suggesting a new Confederation of the Empire. Under this scheme Germany would be divided into six powers :-1. Austria as she is ; 2. Prussia with the Duchies, Mecklenburg, Anhalt, Lubeck, and Hamburg ; 3. Saxony, including Weimar, Meiningen, Coburg, Altenburg, Schwartzburg, and part of Reuss ; 4. Hanover to include Olden- burg, Brunswick, Waldeck, part of Hesse, Lippe, and Bremen ; 5. Wurtemburg, including part of Baden ; and 6. Mayence, to include Rhenish Prussia, part of Hesse Darmstadt, Manheim, Nassau, Frankfort, and Homburg. It will not do, one perceives, to make the next neighbour of France too strong. Prussia of course would resist this plan, which deprives her of her future, to the death, and it was, it is reported, with this view that Herr von Roon declared so large an army needful to guard against France.