TOPICS OF THE DAY.
Vwroms at Versailles ! The very words are an epigram, stuffed with historical parallels and more historical paradoxes. They conjure up a host of dreams from the past—splendid, ghastly, heroic, gentle, wild, and wicked; dreams which warn us that the bright present may be but a prelude to a dark future, unless wis- dom itself preside even over the pageantries of state. The grand- daughter of George the Third entertained by the heir of the First Napoleon, in the mansion begun by Louis the Thirteenth and created a palace by Louis the Fourteenth !—the simple event pro- yokes many branching questions affecting not only the fate of na- tions politically, the fate of the persons there engaged, but the actual state of morals both in England and in France. How do we stand? What does it mean ? Are the conclusions which we suppose ourselves to have settled as firmly esta-
blished as we imagined last week ? The persons present at the fetes of this day challenge the comparison with those who have been before them. Where blameless Prince Albert now trod the ground, footsteps of Louis the Thirteenth had been before. Victoria enjoyed fetes prepared publicly for• her, where secretly La Iralliere had been the object of fetes prepared by Louis Qua- torze. The young Prince of Wales will draw some of his plea- santest memories from scenes where Louis the Fifteenth marked the steady decline of his race—for he was more depraved than his predecessor, more concentrated in his selfishness. The Prince= Royal might store up against future years the memory of Marie Antoinette, wooed from an Imperial house to be the wife of a husband more condemned by fate than his predecessors—for, 81V:tough not worse than they, he was weaker. And there where the gayest throng that ever mustered under the glow of a thousand ball-room lamps steed still while "God save the Queen "ushered the Royal party into the saloon, fear-stricken Royalty heard the un- 00Mely deputation of women marching up the avenue from Paris, trig " Vive Henri Quatre" in a burst of expiring loyalty. That escort waited the night, and then departed with its Royal charge, leaving the court-yards of the splendid palace to grass and silence, broken afterwards only by the hoe of the weeder. The fetes that entertained Queen Victoria on Saturday night Were too real to be disturbed by dark dreams of the past like those; and yet such thoughts must have recurred ; and in the midst of reflection, the question must have arisen to the mind of the thinker, whether, even in the show of the hour, the pictorial effect consti- tuted the truly striking element. It was something that the dia- monds were real, that the gorgeousness showed forth real wealth, that the power to command the arts which flashed lights across the sky. and shed the beauties of the rainbow upon the sleeping land- scape obeyed the command of a higher power, which can send forth the lightnings of war to vindicate, under Divine Providence, justice and the welfare of mankind. Turn it how you will, it is the genius presiding over all that distinguishes between the true and the false, the bad and the good, the transitory and the permanent. Queen Victoria might reflect without bitterness on those who had been the objects of fetes in the same scene before ; but if so, it would be that she called to mind the element of goodness in the heart of the most unhappy lady that ever was the idol of the hour to the Grande Monarque. Eugenie sat where Antoinette almost last sat before her ; the consort of the monarch coming instead of going— the wife of a parvenu instead of a departing king. But if there is anything admirable in the fate of Eugenie, it is something apart from regal accessories : strip her of diadem, jewels, imperial robes, and the most precious portion remains. Those the Prince -that wooed her gave : does he value them as that which she gave to him ? If he does, unhappy she ! unhappy he ! and the humble man who has, in some obsoure corner of this wide and wandering world the counterpart of Eugenie without diadem, diamonds, or robes, is more of a monarch than Napoleon with all his eagles and bees. But in that doubt lies the kernel of the whole question. Each man who has occupied the poet of chief ruler in France, and has passed away, whether King, Director, Em- peror, or President, has had to yield his post because he did not understand the terms of his tenure. Each accepted a special mis- sion, and was swept away because he could understand no more. Louis the Sixteenth was faithful to his duty as he understood it; but he, poor man, could not pierce with his enervated eyesight through the avenging host summoned by the sins of his fore- fathers. Robespierre understood vengeance, not the founding of re- publics; Napoleon understood campaigning, not government; Louis the Eighteenth understood the being restored, not active renova- tion ; Charles the Tenth, the past without the present; Louis Phi- lippe, trading puffs, not the duties of a responsible king; 'Ca- *algae°, the accidence of Republicanism a la Francais as studied in the miasniata of African exile "on duty," not the requirements of France in Europe ; and each passed away because his understand- ing was not enough. The Hotel de Ville has witnessed immortal alliances that are no more ; the halls of Versailles have heard the memories of fetes mocked by the hoe of the weeder in the desert court-yards : is this pageant a mockery—this alliance immortal a.. la Parisienne—thie ruler of France still ignorant of the undis- covered tenure ? Or is the round of experiments over; has the se- ries of corruptions ceased ; have these fetes of the Third Napoleon ended the cycle which with the fetes of Louis Quatorze began ?
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