20 DECEMBER 1851, Page 1

Loui. Napoleon has been promptly and cordially recognized by the

Despotic Powers. The Emperor of Russia, who has never_ yielded to or for a moment parleyed with Constitutionalism—the Emperor of Austria, who has destroyed the last shreds of constitu- tional government in his own states—the King of Prussia, who hesitates between masked and unmasked despotism, "letting I dare not' wait upon I would,' like the poor cat in the adage "- have not lost a moment in transmitting their congratulations to

Paris. Knowing the pending " " to be a farce, they have not waited to learn its results. In this they have only acted as all their predecessors since the first French Revolution did before them. The Northern Powers have ever been ready to extend the hand of amity to any and every despotism erected on the ruins of French liberty. They negotiated with the Comite de Salut ; they coquetted with the birectory ; they performed the ko-too be- fore the Emperor Napoleon. Too shortsighted to discern that the power which upheld such despotisms was the same headlong un- reasoning spirit of violence that overthrew the old institutions of the country—an all-devouring and unintermitting spirit of aggres- sion—they vainly imagined that they could make terms and truce with it; and in every instance they have been compelled to fight it. They flatter themselves now that Louis Napoleon will avert from their own dominions the Republican propagandism of France, and that the aggressive instincts of his military supporters will find ample scope in the petty states of Belgium, Switzerland, and Piedmont, already threatened by him, or in keeping down the Liberals of the states of the Church. These small morsels will be soon swallowed, if the military sway of the French Usurper be perpetuated ; and its unappeased hunger will lead to quarrels with the very Powers who arc now congratulating themselves on his success. The recent events in France are as threatening to the tranquillity of Europe at large as to that of the country in which they have occurred.